Terror rides 121509

History remembers the German GESTAPO and Soviet KGB as terrorist organizations. They were in fact police organization that evolved into political police, which freely used terror against their respective populations. Both services resorted to torture, domestic spying and citizen networks of informants to for some perceived greater good to the State. Just who defined the greater good became obscured by organizational self-interest. Ultimately the objective became protection of governing by total subjugation of the governed.

Today both organizations are condemned for their activities. Their methods however continue to be widely studied and adapted by other governments intent on retaining power. In the post war years many countries attempted to gain independence and freedom from the past. A democratic government in Iran exiled the autocratic Shah and attempted to gain a fair share of Iran’s oil wealth for social reforms. At the urging of the British, America staged a coup and returned the Shah to power. To retain the Shah as an anti-Soviet ally the Americans established and trained an Iranian secret police, SAVAK. The brutality of SAVAK contributed to his second overthrow and the establishment of a theocratic order. The new rulers discovered value in SAVAK and retained its agents under the names of SAVAMA>MOIS>VEVAK. Even religion needs to keep its flock in line.

America did not see that far down the line however, and established the School of the Americas (SOA) out of view in Panama. The SOA trained Latin American dictatorships in the methodologies of population control in the name a greater good of anti-communism. Latin secret police “disappeared” people and death squads freely roamed the streets. There were no trials and few official records of secret police activities. Ultimately the countries revolted over the oppression and today are still trying to determine the full scope of the abuse of powers.

The lessons of establishing secret police societies are that eventually they will resort to terrorism to support private agendas. The purpose of terror is not acquisition of information, but rather to terrorize, create fear and suppress popular dissent. The greater good becomes sustaining the powerful rather than protection of the peoples. Lessons ignored or embraced by the polmil?

The polmil is sending an intelligence battalion to train Iraqi security forces in the black arts of spying on Iraqi people. The polmil has also announced that it intends to take over internal investigations in Afghanistan while establishing and training another police force that will track domestic activities. Both of these efforts are not only violations of respective sovereignty of independent states, but also are aimed at suppression of democratic political dissent.

The final lesson is that secret police tactics inevitably leads to resistance movements, revolts and lingering animosity toward the foreign sponsors of corrupted regimes.