BY GREG ROSENBERG
The White House and Congress have launched a bipartisan drive to expand domestic spying operations and probe the possibilities of narrowing democratic rights in the wake of the April 19 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

While politicians and the big-business media have toned down the anti-Arab, anti-Islamic barrage they initiated moments after the blast ripped through the facility, Clinton administration officials and members of Congress have raised the pitch against the "threat of terrorism."

Three of the four main suspects in the blast are U.S.-born white men. At press time, the fourth, dubbed "John Doe no. 2," remains at large.

The White House insists it will demand the death penalty for those convicted of setting the blast. At press time, the death toll was approaching 100 - a number expected to rise - and more than 400 men, women, and children were injured.

"I was treated like dirt, like a dog," said Abrahim Ahmad, who happened to be flying to Europe several hours after the bomb went off. Ahmad, a U.S. citizen born in Jordan, was seized, questioned, and harassed by British cops, who handed him over to Washington for more interrogation. He was released two days after being detained. "I was pronounced guilty by the media," said Ahmad, who also reported that people poured trash on the lawn of his Oklahoma City home and spit on his wife.

The anti-Arab, anti-Islamic chauvinism whipped up by the press and politicians resulted in a spate of police intimidation, bomb threats, harassing phone calls, physical assaults, and vandalism against Muslim organizations, mosques, and people of Arab descent in the United States and other countries.

While the White House in recent days has tried to disassociate itself from the most virulent anti-Arab attacks, it was Secretary of State Warren Christopher who, only hours after the bombing, declared he had sent Arabic interpreters to aid the federal investigation in Oklahoma. Former representative Dave McCurdy declared there was "very clear evidence" of the involvement of "fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups." CNN news had reported that agents were looking for three men "of Middle Eastern descent" driving around town in a truck.

An April 20 Wall Street Journal item about terrorism used some variation of the term "Muslim extremists" no less than 13 times in a 15 paragraph article.

Thugs broke the windows of the Oklahoma City home of Suhair Al Mosawi, a 26-year-old Iraqi immigrant on April 20. As a result of the shock, she miscarried her seven-month pregnancy.

Muslims were denied participation in the platform of speakers and clergy assembled for a memorial service led by President Bill Clinton and Billy Graham in Oklahoma City April 23.

"To speak of people with dark Middle East complexions as authors of the terror even as the FBI was issuing warrants for the arrests of white Americans is an act of terror, too," said Abdelbari Atwan, editor of Al Quds, an Arab daily in London.

"No one in the Arab community supports these atrocities," said a statement released by the Arab American Institute regarding the bombing. "But unlike most Americans, we have had to take time from grief and outrage to defend ourselves from media `experts' who quickly implicated our community in this heinous act."

Even after "two white males" were identified as the main suspects, Weldon Kennedy, the FBI agent in charge of the Oklahoma City investigation, was still smearing "Muslim fundamentalists." Asked if the description of the men as "white males" precluded them being of Middle Eastern origin, Kennedy shot back, "Certainly not."

Detroit organizations speak out
On April 25, Detroit-area Muslim leaders were joined by the president of the local NAACP chapter at a press conference protesting the anti-Islamic hysteria and Clinton's proposals to expand FBI powers.

"Do not let this tragedy rush us into an anti-terrorist law that would take away the civil liberties of minority groups of which Muslims are the most prominently targeted," said Imam Abdullah El-Amin, chairman of the Detroit Muslim Center.

Wendell Anthony, the city's NAACP president, said the so- called anti-terrorist laws would be applied selectively. "We know that this will not be applied equitably or fairly. Can you imagine a group of Black men running around Detroit calling themselves the Detroit Militia, dressed in fatigues, carrying AK47s?" he asked. "They would be rounded up by the FBI, the CIA, the Secret Service, the Army, and the Marine Corps - yesterday."

Clinton wants to expand spy powers
On April 23, the White House announced it will seek expanded powers for the FBI and other police agencies to tap telephones and scour the personal records of those deemed "suspected terrorists." Credit, hotel, travel, and other records of such individuals would be subject to police snooping. And Clinton wants phone companies to assure easier access for police bugging of telephones. He proposed establishing a new "counterterrorism center."

The president tried to pretty-up his proposal by comparing these measures with the introduction of metal detectors at airports. While the proposal is short on details, the New York Times noted FBI operations would take place "sometimes on the basis of less concrete evidence than has been previously required." The FBI already maintains files on thousands of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals - at a minimum.

The proposal to expand the powers of the secret police to meddle in the affairs of individuals and organizations deemed offensive by the U.S. government dovetails with the proposed Omnibus Counterterrorism Act. (See article page 14.) Democratic and Republican members of Congress leapt to profess their support for the anti-democratic measures amid the Oklahoma terror hysteria. Presidential hopeful and Senate Majority leader Robert Dole said Congress would work with Clinton "to pass the toughest and most effective antiterrorist bill at the earliest possible time."

The Senate unanimously passed a resolution April 25 calling for the use of the death penalty against those convicted in the bombing. The first calls for execution were made by Clinton and U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. In an April 21 editorial, the Wall Street Journal said that the only thing most people want to know "is how we can catch and try and kill them."

The New York Times editors, mindful of the exposures of FBI "Cointelpro" spying and harassment on antiwar, labor, Black, women's, socialist, and other organizations in the 1970s, cautioned against moving too quickly. The FBI, it stated, "has a weak history of curbing its own excesses."

Prominent opinion columnists such as the Times's A.M. Rosenthal are singing a different tune. He warned his readers they would have "to change some of our convictions about the absolute primacy of our rights above our survival," in support of Clinton's proposal.

Right-wingers accused
Federal agents are holding former Army sergeant Timothy McVeigh, a 26-year-old right-winger as the main suspect in the blast; along with James Nichols, a farmer in Michigan, and Terry Nichols, his brother, who are being held on conspiracy charges. A fourth man, dubbed "John Doe no. 2," remains at large.

McVeigh is said to have links with the Michigan Militia, a rightist paramilitary outfit, and other right-wing organizations. A fake driver's license he carried had the date of issue as April 19, 1993 - the same day the FBI and other federal cops burned the Branch Davidians compound in Waco, Texas, to the ground, incinerating more than 80 people. April 19 was also the date of the Oklahoma blast. Various rightist outfits claim affinity with the Branch Davidians, seeing the murderous police action in Waco as being a government assault on the right to bear arms.

Rightist organizations such as the Militia - often heavily infiltrated by police agents - promote conspiracy theories, and campaign against taxes and gun control laws. The outfits are generally white-supremacist, racist, and promote Jew- hatred.  
 
 
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