Americans Made a Pact With the Devil After 9/11/01

The pact with the devil occurred in the fall of 2001, when then President George W. Bush and Congress decided that they would use the machinery of the federal government to secure safety, rather than liberty. So, the Bush-inspired Patriot Act permits federal agents to write their own search warrants, and the Bush-inspired new FISA statutes permit search warrants of some Americans’ phone calls without a showing of probable cause as the Constitution requires, and the Bush-era intimidation of telephone service providers permitted our overseas spies to snoop on our domestic phone calls. None of this has enhanced safety, and all of it has diminished liberty. In the Obama administration, the devil has demanded more. In the past five years, we have seen federal spies capturing the keystrokes on our computers, local police using federal dollars to install cameras and microphones on nearly every street corner, and, the latest lamentable phenomenon, the use of false emergencies to undermine freedom. http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano97.1.html

Rand Paul vs. the ‘Forever War’

Rand Paul’s concerns echo an older, wiser tradition in American conservatism. In 1967, Russell Kirk praised the late Sen. Robert A. Taft for insisting that war had to be a last resort, threatening as it did to “make the American President a virtual dictator, diminish the constitutional powers of Congress, contract civil liberties, injure the habitual self-reliance and self-government of the American people, distort the economy, sink the federal government in debt, [and erode] public morality.” Does any of that sound familiar? Sen. Paul has done Republicans — and the Republic — a great service by reminding us that there’s nothing conservative about perpetual war. http://washingtonexaminer.com/gene-healy-rand-paul-vs.-the-forever-war/article/2523944

Obama’s Failed State

Obama’s State of the Union address didn’t surprise. It reflected rogue leadership. It was beginning-to-end demagogic boilerplate. Defending the indefensible took center stage. Rhetoric substituted for progressive policies. Bombast assured business as usual. Priorities include waging war on humanity, force-fed austerity, ignoring public needs, institutionalizing a repressive police state apparatus, and cracking down hard on non-believers. Doing so assures growing despotism, lawlessness, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, and deprivation. http://www.globalresearch.ca/obamas-failed-state/5322840

The U.S. War Machine

Throughout American history we see many precursors for U.S. warmaking. Ever since World War I, the United States has maintained an active role in global affairs, at the cost of many thousands of American lives and many domestic freedoms. Yet much more recently than any of those antecedents to the modern war machine, a major shift took place. And that was World War II, the “Good War,” the last clear-cut and most widely celebrated military victory enjoyed by the United States, the one to which liberals unfavorably compare Bush’s adventures, and conservatives invoke as precedents for their own preferred war policies. It was in World War II that the U.S. warfare state blossomed into its modern form. http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/book-review-the-u-s-war-machine/

The True Costs of Empire

Mars? Venus? Earth-like bodies elsewhere in the galaxy? Who knows? But here, at least, no great power, no superpower, no hyperpower, not the Romans, nor imperial China, nor the British, nor the Soviet Union has ever garrisoned the globe quite the way we have: Asia to Latin America, Europe to the Greater Middle East, and increasingly Africa as well. Build we must. If someday Washington took to the couch for therapy, the shrink would undoubtedly categorize what we’ve done as a compulsion, the base-building equivalent of a hoarding disorder. And you know what else is unprecedented? Hundreds of thousands of Americans cycle annually through our various global garrisons, ranging from small American towns with all the attendant amenities, including fast-food joints, PXes, and Internet cafes to the most spartan of forward outposts, and yet our “Baseworld,” as the late Chalmers Johnson used to call it, is hardly noticed in this country and seldom considered worthy of attention. http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/12/11/the-true-costs-of-empire/

Expanding Covert Warfare Makes Us Less Safe

In 2010, I said in a speech that there had been a CIA coup in this country. The CIA runs the military, the drone program, and they are in drug trafficking. The CIA is a secretive government all on its own. With this new expanded Defense Intelligence Agency presence overseas it will be even worse. Because the DIA is operationally under control of the Pentagon, direct Congressional oversight of the program will be more difficult. Perhaps this is as intended. The CIA will be training the DIA in its facilities to conduct operations overseas. Much of this will include developing targeting data for the president’s expanding drone warfare program. http://lewrockwell.com/paul/paul836.html

Sumptuous Counterterrorism Spending Must End

More than 11 years after the 9/11 attacks, the American public is still barraged with sensational media coverage of the occasional uncovering of a terrorist plot. Many of these are so-called sting operations, which, rather than saving America from significant destruction from terror attacks, have the primary effect of showing off to the public how the security agencies are providing protection in the wake of 9/11, thus justifying larger budgets for those organizations. The security agencies typically find a lone young person of radical Islamist views and essentially turn him into an active terrorist so they can stage a very public arrest. They often use undercover government operatives to suggest targets to plot against and even offer what the duped militant thinks are real weapons to carry out the plan. Security agencies are essentially helping along people who might not otherwise commit crimes. Prohibitions exist on entrapment of citizens by law enforcement, but the courts usually side with the authorities against a designation of entrapment. Because the 9/11 attacks had a rare high casualty rate and because these spectacular high-profile sting cases appear every so often in the media, the American people have a much exaggerated view of terrorism as a lethal problem. John Mueller, a professor at Ohio State University, has calculated that the average person worldwide has a one in 80,000 chance of ever being killed by an international terrorist in his or her lifetime. These odds are about the same as those of being hit by an asteroid or comet. http://original.antiwar.com/eland/2012/10/30/sumptuous-counterterrorism-spending-must-end/

Obsessed With the Undead

On Halloween, an army of the undead will be unleashed upon Mission Bay off the coast of San Diego. U.S. soldiers, Marines, special forces, police and emergency responders will face the challenge of a lifetime as the flesh-eating scourge threatens to devour their ranks — literally. Of course it’s not real. This is a five-day “counterterrorism summit,” but we’ll just refer to it as yet another — albeit extremely creative — government boondoggle. Starting this week, more than 1,000 people participating on the taxpayers’ dime will get to break away for five days from the daily grind and the Xbox 360 to play Resident Evil zombie hunter on a 44-acre reserve (luxury resort) blown out with “immersive Hollywood sets” that feature everything from authentic looking villages to “pirate havens” and hospitals soon to be filled with ill-fated good guys suffering from ersatz bite wounds. Move over, George Romero. No one can recreate the over-the-top zombie apocalypse like a private security firm (in this case, Halo Corporation, a beltway bandit operation formed by ex-special operations and intelligence agents) flush with government contracts and corporate sponsorships, and access to the best weaponry, surveillance gear and other technological wizardry the post-9/11 paranoid domestic security state can buy. http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2012/10/29/obsessed-with-the-undead/

A Failed Formula for Worldwide War

In one way or another, the U.S. military is now involved with most of the nations on Earth. Its soldiers, commandos, trainers, base builders, drone jockeys, spies, and arms dealers, as well as associated hired guns and corporate contractors, can now be found just about everywhere on the planet. The sun never sets on American troops conducting operations, training allies, arming surrogates, schooling its own personnel, purchasing new weapons and equipment, developing fresh doctrine, implementing novel tactics, and refining their martial arts. The U.S. has submarines trolling the briny deep and aircraft carrier task forces traversing the oceans and seas, robotic drones flying constant missions and manned aircraft patrolling the skies, while above them, spy satellites circle, peering down on friend and foe alike. Since 2001, the U.S. military has thrown everything in its arsenal, short of nuclear weapons, including untold billions of dollars in weaponry, technology, bribes, you name it, at a remarkably weak set of enemies — relatively small groups of poorly-armed fighters in impoverished nations like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen — while decisively defeating none of them. With its deep pockets and long reach, its technology and training acumen, as well as the devastatingly destructive power at its command, the U.S. military should have the planet on lockdown. It should, by all rights, dominate the world just as the neoconservative dreamers of the early Bush years assumed it would. Yet after more than a decade of war, it has failed to eliminate a rag-tag Afghan insurgency with limited popular support. http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/10/25/a-failed-formula-for-worldwide-war/

The Politics of Fear in America: A Nation at War With Itself

Turn on the TV or flip open the newspaper on any given day, and you will find yourself accosted by reports of government corruption, corporate malfeasance, militarized police and marauding SWAT teams. America is entering a new phase, one in which children are arrested in schools, military veterans are forcibly detained by government agents because of the content of their Facebook posts, and law-abiding Americans are being subjected to the latest in government spy technology. These threats to our freedoms are not to be underestimated. Yet even more dangerous than these violations of our basic rights is the language they are couched in—the language of fear. It is a language spoken effectively by politicians on both sides of the aisle, shouted by media pundits from their cable TV pulpits, marketed by corporations, and codified into bureaucratic laws that do little to make our lives safer or more secure. http://us4.forward-to-friend.com/forward/show?u=f6eb78f457b7b82887b643445&id=eee624c22a

Monopolizing War? What Washington Knows How to do Best

Think of it another way: in the post-2001 era, along with two disastrous wars on the Eurasian mainland, we’ve been regularly sending in the Marines or special operations forces, as well as naval, air, and robotic power. Such acts are, by now, so ordinary that they are seldom considered worthy of much discussion here, even though no other country acts (or even has the capacity to act) this way. This is simply what Washington’s National Security Complex does for a living. At the moment, it seems, a historical circle is being closed with the Marines once again heading back into Latin America as the “drug war” Washington proclaimed years ago becomes an actual drug war. It’s a demonstration that, these days, when Washington sees a problem anywhere on the planet, its version of a “foreign policy” is most likely to call on the U.S. military. Force is increasingly not our option of last resort, but our first choice. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32437.htm

‘Can Americans Trust Mitt Romney to Decide Which American Citizens to Kill?’

We were kind of disappointed that Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement — the deployment of secret flying assassination platforms empowered to liquidate American citizens based on an unaccountable and highly classified selection process that is entirely internal to the White Hous — got short shrift this week. So we threw a softball at some DNC bigwigs, including Cory Booker and Chuck Schumer, offering a giant opening to praise Obama’s stone-cold murdering power: Can Americans really trust Mitt Romney to decide which citizens get extrajudicially assassinated in drone strikes? http://dailybail.com/home/must-see-gawker-asks-the-dnc-can-americans-trust-mitt-romney.html

Bulgaria, the Arab Swede ‘Terrorist’ and Israel’s Call to Bomb Iran

It has been my thesis for years that the USA is a war based economy, which is cracking economically for need of a super war. The U.S. is much like the British Empire was a century ago when its citizens got tired of fighting needless serial wars and forced a temporary peace upon their government, and, subsequently the war debts of past adventures destroyed its world reserve currency, the venerable Pound Sterling. This is how Americans succeeded the British as world financial power, our money was firm(er). Warmaking is how we are losing that position, today. The giant Lockheed company recently flashed a public threat of massive lay offs if it does not get more war business before the fall election. Lockheed says, give us more and better war or we will give you unemployment. http://charlesecarlson.com/bulgaria-the-arab-swede-terrorist-and-israels-call-to-bomb-iran/

Is ‘Al Qaeda’ the Modern Incarnation of ‘Emmanuel Goldstein’?

Does terror achieve their ends or obtain the results they want? Or isn’t it obvious that the acts of terror are actually achieving the objectives of those who claim to be the victims of the terror, to gain them sympathy and political alliances? History is full of rulers who used fake terror on their own populations to create consent for their policies. The US is known to have actually planned fake terror to create support for an invasion of Cuba. And, it is now well established that FDR not only allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor to happen, but goaded the Japanese into it to get a reluctant US into WWII. http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/goldstein.html

Your Security’s a Joke (and You’re the Butt of It)

The official figure for documents classified by the U.S. government last year is — hold your hats on this one — 92,064,862. And as WikiLeaks managed to release hundreds of thousands of them online a couple of years ago, that’s meant a bonanza of even more money for yet more rigorous protection. You have to feel at least some dollop of pity for protection bureaucrats like Fitzgerald. While back in 1995 the U.S. government classified a mere 5,685,462 documents — in those days, we were practically a secret-less nation — today, of those 92 million sequestered documents, 26,058,678 were given a “top secret” classification. There are today almost five times as many “top secret” documents as total classified documents back then. Here’s another kind of inflation (disguised as deflation): in 1996, the government declassified 196 million pages of documents. In 2011, that figure was 26.7 million. In other words, these days what becomes secret remains ever more inflatedly secret. That’s what qualifies as “transparency, participation, and collaboration” inside the Complex and in an administration that came into office proclaiming “sunshine” policies. (All of the above info thanks to another of those ISOO reports.) And keep in mind that the National Security Complex is proud of such figures! http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/07/19/that-makes-no-sense/

Information Overload: Driving a Stake Through the National Security State

While the degree of surveillance of our activities here in Obama’s America may be much more far-reaching — thanks to today’s vastly more advanced computer technology — than under East Germany’s notorious Stasi (for Staatssicherheit), who reportedly had one in every three of that country’s citizens spying on the other two, the U.S. is nowhere near as repressive as any of those police states I’ve witnessed. We are not being hauled off to Guantanamo or Leavenworth simply because of what we say or write — at least not yet. But we can learn from those repressive states and from the resistance forces that have worked against them. http://www.nationofchange.org/information-overload-driving-stake-through-national-security-state-1342186946

Washington’s Alliance With al-Qaeda

When I read Imperial Hubris, by Michael Scheuer – a former top CIA official and head of their bin Laden unit — I was floored by his opening paragraph: “As I complete this book, U.S., British, and other coalition forces are trying to govern apparently ungovernable postwar states in Afghanistan and Iraq, while simultaneously fighting growing Islamist insurgencies in each – a state of affairs our leaders call victory. In conducting these activities, and the conventional military campaigns preceding them, U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it fair to conclude that the United States of America remains bin Laden’s only indispensable ally.” It seemed incredible – at least in the way he phrased it — but Scheuer made an entirely plausible case: through its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, he argued, the U.S. was creating a deep pool of recruits for al-Qaeda, giving credibility to Osama bin Laden’s view that the U.S. was embarked on a campaign to eradicate Islam. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/07/12/washingtons-alliance-with-al-qaeda/

War is a Racket

A speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm

Predator Nation

Ever since the Puritan minister John Winthrop first used the phrase in a sermon on shipboard on the way to North America, “a city upon a hill” has caught something of at least one American-style dream — a sense that this country’s fate was to be a blessed paragon for the rest of the world, an exception to every norm. In the last century, it became “a shining city upon a hill” and was regularly cited in presidential addresses. Whatever that “city,” that dream, was once imagined to be, it has undergone a largely unnoticed metamorphosis in the 21st century. It has become — even in our dreams — an up-armored garrison encampment, just as Washington itself has become the heavily fortified bureaucratic heartland of a war state. So when Brennan spoke, what he offered was a new version of American exceptionalism: the first “shining drone upon a hill” speech, which also qualifies as an instant classic of self-congratulation. Never, according to him, has a country with such an advanced weapon system as the drone used it quite so judiciously, quite so — if not peacefully — at least with the sagacity and skill usually reserved for the gods. American drone strikes, he assured his listeners, are “ethical and just,” “wise,” and “surgically precise” — exactly what you’d expect from a country he refers to, quoting the president, as the preeminent “standard bearer in the conduct of war.” http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/05/13/predator-nation/

Get Ready for the Crackdowns

The show of paramilitary force at the national party conventions held since the 9/11 attacks has been nothing less than shocking, though the vast majority of America doesn’t know it because they weren’t there, or they simply don’t care. Still, since the Occupy movement has brought on new and creative crackdowns on Constitutionally-protected protest activity in towns and cities all over the country, you can bet that when it comes to security at this summer’s Republican and Democratic Party confabs, you ain’t seen nothing yet. http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2012/03/26/get-ready-for-the-crackdowns/

The Police State vs. Occupy Wall Street: This Is Not Going To End Well for Any of Us

If Occupy Wall Street protesters want to take things to “the next level”, they should not underestimate the resolve of the police state. Over the past decade, the homeland security apparatus of the federal government has been slowly but surely turning this country into a “Big Brother” police state. Today, our law enforcement authorities are obsessed with watching us, listening to us, tracking us, recording us, and gathering information on all of us. We are constantly reminded that we live in a prison grid (just think about what they do to you before you are allowed on an airplane) and they are not about to put up with anyone challenging their authority or their control. Have you even known parents that constantly feel the need to prove that they are “the boss” of their children? Well, that is essentially what the homeland security apparatus in this country has become. All over the United States, law enforcement personnel are taught that every American is a potential terrorist and they are actually trained to “act tough”, to bark orders at us and to not let anyone question their authority. http://lewrockwell.com/rep2/police-state-vs-occupy-wall-street.html

Surveillance Skeptics/Debunkers Get Rude Awakening

Not long ago, factions on both sides of the political aisle — from Republican Senator Charles Grassley in 1994, to liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer in 2008 — viewed allegations of massive prying by government agencies, which purportedly tracked the personal information and activities of private citizens, as lunatic-fringe alarmism. But in the aftermath of United States v. Jones last week, even former skeptics are worried that the proverbial boat has sailed. http://www.thenewamerican.com/opinion/972-beverly-k-eakman/9790-surveillance-skepticsdebunkers-get-rude-awakening

Ex-CIA Agents Says Washington’s Enemy ‘Doesn’t Exist’

­Historian Michael Scheuer, an author of “Through our enemies’ eyes”, who worked for the agency for over 20 years till 2004 and at one time was the chief of the CIA’s ‘Bin Laden unit’, says America’s greatest enemy – radical Islam – never existed: neither when Bin Laden was alive, nor now. Actually, “it is America’s relationship with Israel that is causing this war [on Islam]”, and until Americans accept this, “we are not going to defeat this enemy,” the author says. http://rt.com/news/us-muslim-policy-sheuer-895/

This is What Defeat Looks Like

How about a moment of silence for the passing of the American Dream? M.R.I.C. (May it rest in carnage.) No, I’m not talking about the old dream of opportunity that involved home ownership, a better job than your parents had, a decent pension, and all the rest of the package that’s so yesterday, so underwater, so OWS. I’m talking about a far more recent dream, a truly audacious one that’s similarly gone with the wind. I’m talking about George W. Bush’s American Dream. If people here remember the invasion of Iraq — and most Americans would undoubtedly prefer to forget it — what’s recalled is kited intelligence, Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent nuclear arsenal, dumb and even dumber decisions, a bloody civil war, dead Americans, crony corporations, a trillion or more taxpayer dollars flushed down the toilet … well, you know the story. What few care to remember was that original dream — call it The Dream — and boy, was it a beaut! http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/11/08/this-is-what-defeat-looks-like/

Is the National Security Complex Too Big to Fail?

The dimensions of the National Security Complex now beggar the imagination. In fact, everything about it should make it the global yardstick for “too big to fail.” The Pentagon budget is, for instance, about 50% higher today than the Cold War average and accounts for nearly half of all military expenditures globally. And yet it has kept right on growing; and if bailed-out bankers continue to take home their bonuses as thanks for practically sinking the country, top Pentagon types continue to take home their golden pensions with future revolving-door opportunities in the military-industrial complex always available. If you really want to grasp the enormity of the National Security Complex, just consider this stat: today, 4.2 million federal workers and employees of private contractors have security clearances — about, that is, the population of New Zealand or Lebanon. http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/10/20/is-the-national-security-complex-too-big-to-fail/

FBI Plot to Blow Up Pentagon and Capitol With Model Planes

Ferdaus is another dupe in a long line of FBI patsies tricked into participating in absurd terror attacks cooked up by the federal government in order to propagandize a “homegrown” terror threat. It does this because there is virtually no homegrown terror in the United States, even though the feds tell us there is and they hold hearings to scare us into supporting spending billions on Homeland Security and its tireless efforts to bring intrusive sexual molestation pat-downs to the local football stadium and mall. http://www.infowars.com/fbi-plot-to-blow-up-pentagon-and-capitol-with-model-plane/

Robo-Death: Made in the USA

As in the glory days of the Bush administration, the Obamas preach legality while violating every international norm. As the missiles rain down on Pakistan, the Times article dryly notes that the “legal authority to attack militants who are battling U.S. forces in adjoining Afghanistan is not disputed inside the administration” (my emphasis). The precise legal framework being discussed is apparently the work of Defense Department lawyers who are “trying to maintain maximum theoretical flexibility.” The article concedes that the maximum-flexibility doctrine could well lead to an unconstrained and unending global war, but it views that possibility as an unfortunate detail that has to be worked out by the Pentagon planners. Congress, for its part, appears to be prepared to provide its own imprimatur on the process by including in the impending defense bill a clause authorizing military action anywhere against al-Qaeda and “its associates” as a condition of what amounts to a permanent state of emergency. Even the bill’s supporters admit that “associates” can be interpreted to mean almost anyone who objects to Washington’s imperial agenda. http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2011/09/28/robo-death-made-in-the-usa/

War On Terror Or War On Freedom?

So, what has this trillion-dollar “war on terror” accomplished? If it’s not making us more secure, what is it doing? Well, for one thing, it has created a stupendous surveillance society. Virtually every piece of public communication is now captured and stored by the federal government. Surveillance cameras are now ubiquitous throughout the United States. We have a gargantuan federal police department (which is anathema to the US Constitution): the Department of Homeland Security. We have thousands of Orwellian laws, most of which were spawned by the Patriot Act. And more and more often, law enforcement agencies are demonizing US citizens for their religious and political beliefs and statements–even categorizing them as potential domestic terrorists based simply on those religious and political beliefs. http://www.vdare.com/articles/war-on-terror-or-war-on-freedom

For Officials, 9/11 Means Gushing About Wars and Demanding Continued Funding

President Obama raised more than a few eyebrows with his declaration yesterday that 9/11 made the US “stronger,” but officials past and present seem to have all fallen in line with the general narrative of 9/11 as the start of a glorious new period of American history, defined exclusively by endless wars and runaway military spending. Admiral Michael Mullen, the outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, cheered the past decade as “America’s military ventured forth as the long arm and clenched fist of an angry nation at war,” celebrating the “vengeance” visited upon assorted enemies over that period. The “all’s well and ends well” sentiment was shared by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who declared that the terrorist attacks had changed America “mostly in good ways.” For those hoping to look past the gushing, the various self-congratulatory interviews also afforded ample time to shill for more wars going forward, with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisting a terrorist attack was “imminent” if Congress dared to cut the record military budget, which dwarfs even the massive budgets Rumsfeld had to work with. http://news.antiwar.com/2011/09/11/for-officials-911-means-gushing-about-wars-and-demanding-continued-funding/

Three Cheers for Decline

Of course, the United States still possesses greater military strength than any other country in the world. But what good has being the world’s policeman done for Americans? Wielding that might meant the United States saw more combat deaths overseas last year than any other country, according to data from Uppsala University. Beyond the blood is the treasure: U.S. military spending increased 81 percent between 2001 and 2010 and now accounts for 43 percent of the global total — six times its nearest rival, China. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28844.htm

Lowering America’s War Ceiling? Imperial Psychosis On Display

On July 25th, for instance, while John Boehner raced around the Capitol desperately pressing Republican House members for votes on a debt-ceiling bill that Harry Reid was calling dead-on-arrival in the Senate, America’s new ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, took his oath of office in distant Kabul. According to the New York Times, he then gave a short speech “warning” that “Western powers needed to ‘proceed carefully’” and emphasized that when it came to the war, there would “be no rush for the exits.” If, in Washington, people were rushing for those exits, no chance of that in Kabul almost a decade into America’s second Afghan War. There, the air strikes, night raids, assassinations, roadside bombs, and soldier and civilian deaths, we are assured, will continue to 2014 and beyond. In a war in which every gallon of gas used by a fuel-guzzling U.S. military costs $400 to $800 to import, time is no object and — despite the panic in Washington over debt payments — neither evidently is cost. In Iraq, meanwhile, in year eight of America’s armed involvement, U.S. officials are still wangling to keep significant numbers of American troops stationed there beyond an agreed end-of-2011 withdrawal date. And the State Department is preparing to hire a small army of 5,000-odd armed mercenaries (with their own mini-air force) to keep the American “mission” in that country humming along to the tune of billions of dollars. In Libya, the American/NATO war effort, once imagined as a brief spasm of shock-‘n’-awe firepower that would oust autocrat Muammar Gaddafi in a nanosecond, is now in its fifth month with neither an end nor a serious reassessment in sight. http://www.countercurrents.org/engelhardt020811.htm

The Debt Ceiling and the Warfare State

Although the ticking time bomb scenario is most conducive to the realm of foreign affairs – where bombs, and other ticking devices, are largely to be found, along with a host of enemies ready to set them off – we hear variations of it on the home front as well. The current debate over the debt ceiling is a perfect example, with the Obama administration and its media shills claiming that if Congress doesn’t raise it, an economic apocalypse is imminent. This is a very clever way of shifting blame for the ongoing financial crisis, one which may very well come to a head as Congress votes. Never mind that the more immediate cause of another lurch into the vale of depression is likely to be economic chaos imported from the Eurozone – American narcissism, a national malady, deludes us into thinking it’s all about us. The fate of the world must always rest on our shoulders. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/07/12/the-debt-ceiling-and-the-warfare-state/

The Great Generational Threat

In just the past two months alone (all subsequent to the killing of Osama bin Laden), the U.S. Government has taken the following steps in the name of battling the Terrorist menace: extended the Patriot Act by four years without a single reform; begun a new CIA drone attack campaign in Yemen; launched drone attacks in Somalia; slaughtered more civilians in Pakistan; attempted to assassinate U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki far from any battlefield and without a whiff of due process; invoked secrecy doctrines to conceal legal memos setting forth its views of its own domestic warrantless surveillance powers; announced a “withdrawal”plan for Afghanistan that entails double the number of troops in that country as were there when Obama was inaugurated; and invoked a very expansive view of its detention powers under the 2001 AUMF by detaining an alleged member of al-Shabab on a floating prison, without charges, Miranda warnings, or access to a lawyer. That’s all independent of a whole slew of drastically expanded surveillance powers seized over the past two years in the name of the same threat. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/07/09/terrorism/index.html

Militarism is Not Patriotism

Americans glorify their military now, but this would have been frowned on by an anti-militaristic founding generation that was suspicious of standing armies and alliances with foreign nations. For example, George Washington warned the country to stay out of “permanent alliances,” and Thomas Jefferson talked of the dangers of “entangling alliances.” In fact, one of the reasons that the framers of the Constitution gave most of the war powers to Congress (they have since migrated extra-constitutionally to the executive branch) was a reaction to European monarchs leading their countries into wars of self-aggrandizement, with the costs in blood and treasure falling on the common citizen. Thus, the United States was founded on principles of anti-militarism. This seems strange nowadays, but if you examine the writings of early foreign observers of America — including the famous Alexis de Tocqueville in the early 1800s — they remarked on Americans’ lack militarism and their preoccupation instead with commerce. America acquired its globe girdling military empire only after World War II, complete with hundreds of military bases, scores of unequal foreign alliances, and scads of questionable military interventions. And all this just when the advent of nuclear weapons added to the nation’s remote location to further enhance its already formidable security — making all of these added measures unnecessary. http://original.antiwar.com/eland/2011/07/05/militarism-is-not-patriotism/

Overextended U.S. Empire is Coming Down

So sayeth Pat Buchanan. http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/06/pat_buchanan_overextended_us_empire_is_coming_down.html

Nine War Words That Define Our World: ‘Victory’ Is the Verbal Equivalent of a Yeti

Now that Washington has at least six wars cooking (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and more generally, the global war on terror), Americans find themselves in a new world of war. If, however, you haven’t joined the all-volunteer military, any of our 17 intelligence outfits, the Pentagon, the weapons companies and hire-a-gun corporations associated with it, or some other part of the National Security Complex, America’s distant wars go on largely without you (at least until the bills come due). War has a way of turning almost anything upside down, including language. But with lost jobs, foreclosed homes, crumbling infrastructure, and weird weather, who even notices? This undoubtedly means that you’re using a set of antediluvian war words or definitions from your father’s day. It’s time to catch up. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/23-4

Strange Definitions of War and Peace

by Ron Paul. Last week I joined six Republican and three Democrat colleagues to file a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its illegal war against Libya. Now that more than 90 days have passed since the president began bombing Libya, no one can seriously claim that the administration has complied with the clear requirements of the 1973 War Powers Resolution. In a remarkable act of chutzpah, the administration sent to Congress its response to the growing concern over its abuse of war powers. Its argument, in a nutshell, is that the War Powers Resolution is not relevant because US armed forces are not actually engaged in hostilities because Libya is so militarily weak it cannot fight back! This explanation would be laughable if not so horrific. The administration wants us to believe that there is no real violence because the victim cannot fight back? Imagine if this standard was applied to criminal law in the United States! I am sure Libyans on the receiving end of US and NATO bombs feel hostilities are quite definitely taking place. http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1878:strange-definitions-of-war-and-peace&catid=62:texas-straight-talk&Itemid=69

America’s Addiction — Waging Illegal Wars

With regard to war, international and constitutional laws are clear. Under the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, only Congress may declare war, not the president. That, in fact, last happened on December 8, 1941 after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. As a result, all subsequent U.S. wars have been illegal, including Obama’s against Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya. http://rense.com/general94/ameradd.htm

The Patriot Act Extension and Our Dying Liberties

Like the iron fist of the Nazis and Communists, Americans must submit to “roving surveillance” and warrantless searches, without the requirement of a Judge’s authorization. Surveillance laws are part of a larger arsenal of weapons against political dissidents and whistle blowers. Most Americans don’t know the Patriot Act authorizes secret charges relying on secret evidence and secret grand jury statements. Under the Patriot Act, Americans have no right to know who has accused them of what criminal activities, or the dates of the alleged offense. They’re not even told what law was broken. The government has power to lock up Americans on military bases or other prisons without a hearing or trial. We can be detained indefinitely without any rights of due process at all. http://theintelhub.com/2011/06/02/susan-lindauer-warning-this-message-contains-democracy/

Congress Backs America’s ‘Eternal Worldwide War’

Let me provide a little more background on the Forever War law. Obama has publicly opposed it through an Office of Management and Budget statement, but the popular belief that he has threatened to veto the whole bill if Section 1034 remains is quite a stretch. If this madness cannot be stopped in the House or Senate we should demand a veto, but we should not expect one. The Republicans are trying to crown Obama king. This is the worst legislation ever. http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24994

Renewing the PATRIOT Act: Who Will Protect Us From Our Government?

Those who founded this country knew quite well that every citizen must remain vigilant or freedom would be lost. This is the true nature of a patriot—one who sounds the clarion call when the Constitution is under attack. If, on the other hand, the people become sheep-like, it will lead to a government of wolves. This is what we are faced with today as Congress marches in lockstep with the White House to renew the USA PATRIOT Act. The PATRIOT Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, violating at least six of the ten original amendments—the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments—and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well. The PATRIOT Act also redefined terrorism so broadly that many nonterrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations, and civil disobedience were considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state. http://original.antiwar.com/jwhitehead/2011/05/18/renewing-the-patriot-act/

Got Bin Laden (Allegedly) and USA ‘Freaks Out’ on Fear, False Alarms, and 911 Style Forfiture of Liberties

So much for the John Wayne, or even Bruce Wayne style, “Cowboy Up” tough American settler myth/street smart Caped crusader myth. Post-Osama America suffers deja vu all over again as government officials, and bureaucracies fan the flames of fear, and discuss further potential clamp downs on transportation, and public events in a way that could even make George Bush blush. http://theintelhub.com/2011/05/09/got-bin-laden-allegedly-and-usa-%E2%80%9Cfreaks-out%E2%80%9D-on-fear-false-alarms-and-911-style-forfiture-of-liberties/

War of Terror is a Reichstag Fire False Flag Operation

By now, you are probably worn out from all the speculation about the actual events in Pakistan that claim the death of the public enemy No 1. No photos of a dead Osama bin Laden, burial at sea, instant DNA results and changing versions with every new news report gets old quickly. The claim that a treasure chest of intelligence was secured during the raid, conflicts with killing the main man who knows where all the buried are buried. Capturing him alive for interrogation would maximize the intelligence quest, if that were the real goal. If any significance should be assigned to this account, now is the time to re-evaluate the entire nature of the War on Terror that has destroyed America more in the last ten years than any attack on home soil. http://www.batr.org/wrack/050811.html

The Propaganda Of War And Foreign Policy

Any conservative with an IQ above 80 should vigorously oppose Washington’s endless warmongering policies. http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=14854

Staged Al Qaeda Rail Attack Plot To Be Used To Further Implement TSA At ‘Soft’ Spots Nationwide?

Just days after the staged media spectacle of the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, the corporate media and the Department of Homeland Security have released intelligence that claims that Al Qaeda is considering attacking U.S. railroads on the 10th anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks. http://theintelhub.com/2011/05/05/staged-al-qaeda-rail-attack-plot-to-be-used-to-further-implement-tsa-at-soft-spots-nationwide/

1994: Army War College Paper Proposes Use of Computer Generated Insurgents

In 2008, Old-Thinker News reported on a 1994 strategic paper published by the U.S. Army War College titled “Revolution In Military Affairs And Conflict Short Of War,” written by Dr. Steven Metz (who works for the RAND Corporation) and James Kievit. Recent events have made this paper even more precient than ever. The document outlines an eerily familiar scenario in which a group of revolutionaries within government hijack control of the levers of power and begin a program of pre-emptive war, psychological operations at home and abroad, and false flag attacks blamed on “…computer generated insurgent leader[s]“. http://www.oldthinkernews.com/?p=1272

Washington’s Endless War Shuffle

Someday, when historians look back, they will undoubtedly be struck by the utter inanity, not to say collective insanity, of the United States fighting what our president has called a “war of necessity,” now in its tenth year, in Afghanistan, as well as a “covert” war in the Pakistani tribal borderlands. It will undoubtedly look like a classic case of a declining empire overextending itself, squandering its treasury, and then, in its moment of crisis, extending itself yet further. After all, the date to get U.S. “combat troops” out of Afghanistan has already been officially put off to the end of 2014, more than three years away, and that doesn’t even include U.S. trainers and other supposedly noncombat troops, possibly numbering in the tens of thousands, who may remain for years more. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/04-1

The Agendas Behind the Bin Laden News Event

The U.S. government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48 hours before being fundamentally altered. Indeed, the new story put out on Tuesday by White House press secretary Jay Carney bears little resemblance to the original Sunday evening story. The fierce firefight did not occur. Osama bin Laden did not hide behind a woman. Indeed, bin Laden, Carney said, “was not armed.” The firefight story was instantly suspicious as not a single SEAL got a scratch, despite being up against al Qaeda, described by former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld as “the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.” Every original story detail has been changed. It wasn’t bin Laden’s wife who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but the wife of an aide. It wasn’t bin Laden’s son, Khalid, who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but son Hamza. http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts304.html

From Waco to Libya: 18 Years of Humanitarian Mass Murder

“The Davidian cult in Waco was dealt with by armored vehicles,” remarked Muammar Gaddafi in February, defending his own crackdowns in light of the U.S. government’s. April 19 marks eighteen years since the end of the Waco siege and exactly one month since Obama began bombing Libya. Now that the federal government is again shedding blood in the name of humanitarianism, we might reflect on how it obtains legitimacy for its most brazen acts of violence. Long ago, when governments slaughtered the enemy merely for being different and thus subhuman or for occupying desired territory, such crude rationales satisfied the states’ agents and subjects. The modern democratic state, however, employs more sophisticated propaganda when it burns, gasses, shoots, and bombs people including civilians. There is always the excuse of security: the targeted people pose a threat. When this argument seems tenuous, it is well complemented by that most insidious of pretenses: The killing is done for the good of others. It is an act of kindness. The American empire, like the Roman and British before it, inflicts violence to civilize and rescue those in need. http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory210.html

A Policy Chasing Its Tail

All of which leads me to fear Nietzsche was right: that we do, indeed, live in a nightmare world of eternal recurrence, a universe where U.S. troops are always “withdrawing” from Iraq, only to change course at the last moment. Where the Egyptian military invades Tahrir in perpetuity, and repeatedly drags bloggers away in chains. Where the Libyan rebels are in jeopardy unending, always on the cusp of defeat – and the U.S. and its allies are permanently poised to plant boots on the ground to save them from certain annihilation. Which means the neocons will be eternally calling for a U.S. invasion of somewhere-or-other – and that there will always be neocons. This last is bad news indeed: it’s like a cancer diagnosis, except there’s no relief in the form of death. Just pain that goes on … forever. If I’ve painted a dreary picture, well then there’s no sense blaming the messenger: this is our lot, and we just have to learn to live with it. It is, in short, the human condition, which seems mostly to be a condition of forgetfulness, a kind of historical Alzheimer’s in which we have no recollection of our past errors – and, indeed, no memory of historical events beyond the last presidential election. Americans wake up every day tabula rasa, with no more knowledge of the lessons of history – especially their own – than a newborn babe. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/04/12/a-policy-chasing-its-tail/

Unholy Alliance

According to historian Thomas E. Woods, during the debate at the Constitutional Convention over the War Powers clause, only a single delegate – Pierce Butler, of South Carolina — rose to argue in favor of giving the President the power to make war without congressional consent. He was answered by Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, who declared he “never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the Executive alone to declare war.” The rest of the Founders, to a man, concurred. That this is now reversed, and Gerry’s views are considered “crackpot” in official Washington, is yet more evidence that we are no longer a republic, alas, but a monstrously bloated empire headed for a fall. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/04/07/unholy-alliance-2/

Never Again: On Not ‘Going In’ in the First Place

Talking about secretaries of defense. Oh, we weren’t? Well, let’s. After all, they’re in the news. Take former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who, on leaving government service — and I hope you don’t mind if I mangle a quote from General Douglas MacArthur here — refused to die, or even fade away. Instead, he penned Known and Unknown, a memoir almost as big as his ego and almost as long — 832 pages — as the occupation of Iraq, which promptly hit the bestseller lists (making the American reader a Known Unknown). Now, Mr. Known Knowns, etc., is duking it out on Facebook, Sarah-Palin-style, with “the chief gossip-monger of the governing class,” the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward. Amusingly enough, Woodward has just savaged Rumsfeld for pulling a Woodward in his memoir by playing fast and loose with reality. He posted his review at the Best Defense (as in, you know, a good offense), the war fightin’ blog of former Washington Post reporter and bestselling author Tom Ricks. Small world down there in Washington! It’s enough to make you nostalgic for… well, I have no idea what. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/07

The Immorality of Empire

As I watch the popular uprisings unfold against brutal dictatorships supported by my own government, I cannot help but reflect upon the moral implications of my participation in the American empire. My crimes began almost before I can remember, but I will address only the most immediately pertinent of them here. I am a citizen of the United States of America; I pay local, state, and federal taxes; and I vote. http://original.antiwar.com/nkramer/2011/02/27/the-immorality-of-empire/

Unmasking of the Authoritarians

Thanks in large measure to an overwhelming propaganda campaign by the neocon controlled corporatist media, an onslaught of manipulation upon the American populace has resulted in the acceptance of authoritarian tendencies in a large segment of the citizenry. In present day American media, neocon anchors, reporters, talking heads and stenographers are allowed to parade uninterrupted and unobstructed, day after day, parroting neocon talking points and propaganda, stirring fear and insecurity and hatred and anger, hiding truth and disseminating fictions, all systemically done to condition the people into accepting Machiavellian-style governance. For in the neocon ideology, democracy is but a hindrance, an obstacle to be eliminated, for the will of the people interferes with the decisions of those in power. Democracy, therefore, must become a charade, an illusion designed to convey in the masses the feeling that their votes count, that their voice is heard. http://valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com/2007/05/unmasking-of-authoritarians.html

The Tea Party Crashes

I confess that since November I’ve been holding my breath, watching the clock for how long Tea Party newcomers could hold out against the entrenched Republican elite on Capitol Hill. Collapse was inevitable, however I admit to feeling bitterly surprised at how rapidly they have thrown in the towel. For the record, most of the Tea Party quit their principles of liberty on February 14, 2011—20 days into the new Congress—when Tea Party leaders abruptly abandoned their opposition to the Patriot Act and voted to extend intrusive domestic surveillance, wire tapping and warrantless searches of American citizens. In so doing, they exposed the fraud of their soaring campaign promises to defend the liberty of ordinary Americans, and fight government intrusions on freedom. All those wide eyed speeches that flowed with such thrilling devotions, all of it proved to be self-aggrandizing lies. http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/02/15/susan-lindauer-the-tea-party-crashes/

The Empire’s Out of Control ‘Defense’ Budget May Increase Yet Again

Despite calls on Capitol Hill for major defense budget cuts, the Pentagon next week will unveil the largest budget in its history — driven by an expanding list of what defines national security. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said his proposed $553 billion budget “represents, in my view, the minimum level of defense spending that is necessary, given the complex and unpredictable array of security challenges the United States faces around the globe.” Those challenges now include pandemic diseases, piracy, human trafficking, rising oceans, national debt, education, cyber warfare, the wars on terrorism and traditional state-to-state threats. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/10/v-print/108449/pentagon-budget-multiplies-as.html

Homegrown Spy Agencies: A Threat to Us All

Too many of us still think that Homeland Security exists to protect the nation from foreign terrorists. The truth is, this behemoth agency exists to protect the federal government and all its agencies, agents, operatives and federal officials from …you! Across the country, fusion centers methodically gather data of all kinds on everyday American citizens. http://www.activistpost.com/2011/02/homegrown-spy-agencies-threat-to-us-all.html

Renewing the Patriot Act While America Sleeps

The Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, violating at least six of the ten original amendments – the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments – and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well. The Patriot Act also redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience were considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state. The Patriot Act justified broader domestic surveillance, the logic being that if government agents knew more about each American, they could distinguish the terrorists from law-abiding citizens – no doubt an earnest impulse shared by small-town police and federal agents alike. According to Washington Post reporter Robert O’Harrow, Jr., this was a fantasy that had “been brewing in the law enforcement world for a long time.” And 9/11 provided the government with the perfect excuse for conducting far-reaching surveillance and collecting mountains of information on even the most law-abiding citizen. http://www.lewrockwell.com/whitehead/whitehead25.1.html

‘U.S. Wars to Continue Until Its Economy Busts’

Roughly 48,000 American troops are still based in Iraq seven years after the start of the war, according to the Washington Post. Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, 4,435 U.S. troops have been killed and more than 31,827 wounded in Iraq, according to the media. The total cost of the Iraq war has been estimated to be over $3 trillion. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27313.htm

Even Lost Wars Make Corporations Rich

Iraq, despite the brutality of Saddam Hussein, was a prosperous country with a highly educated middle class before the war. Its infrastructure was modern and efficient. Iraqis enjoyed a high standard of living. The country did not lack modern conveniences. Things worked. And being in Iraq, as I often was when I covered the Middle East for The New York Times, while unnerving because of state repression, was never a hardship. Since our occupation the country has tumbled into dysfunction. Factories, hospitals, power plants, phone service, sewage systems and electrical grids do not work. Iraqis, if they are lucky, get three hours of electricity a day. Try this in 110-degree heat. Poverty is endemic. More than a million Iraqi civilians have been killed. Nearly 5 million have been displaced from their homes or are refugees. The Mercer Quality of Living survey last year ranked Baghdad last among cities—the least livable on the planet. Iraq, which once controlled its own oil, has been forced to turn its oil concessions over to foreign corporations. That is what we have bequeathed to Iraq—violence, misery and theft. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27242.htm

From War Profiteer to For-Profit War

If one giant outfit gives for-profit war-making (rather than war profiteering) its full modern meaning, it’s Lockheed Martin. If you don’t believe me, just check out William Hartung’s latest piece “Is Lockheed Martin Shadowing You?” The giant for-profit war-making corporations are to this century what the robber barons were to the nineteenth century. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/12

11 Reasons Why The Threat From Al-Qaeda is Not Real

The United States government has repeatedly stated that the treat from Al-Qaeda against America is very real, and that all action is being taken to eliminate that threat. Nobody in their right mind would question such a serious assessment about a sensitive national security matter from the world’s leading democracy. But the truth is that over the past fifty years America’s democratic institutions like the press have been weakened, and an elitist National Security State has risen, and taken control over all aspects of government. Since World War II U.S. leaders have consistently lied to the American people about foreign threats in order to feed the military machine’s appetite for war. http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com/2010/12/11-reasons-why-threat-from-al-qaeda-is.html

War Is A Drug — The Urge to Surge

In Central and South Asia, we could now be heading for the end of the age of American surges, which in practical terms have manifested themselves as the urge to destabilize. Geopolitically, little could be uglier or riskier on our planet at the moment than destabilizing Pakistan — or the United States. Three decades after the American urge to surge in Afghanistan helped destabilize one imperial superpower, the Soviet Union, the present plans, whatever they may turn out to be, could belatedly destabilize the other superpower of the Cold War era. And what our preeminent group of surgers welcomed as an “unprecedented strategic opportunity” as this century dawned may, in its later stages, be seen as an unprecedented act of strategic desperation. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27193.htm

From the Pentagon to the Private Sector

In large numbers, and with few rules, retiring generals are taking lucrative defense-firm jobs. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/26

Osama bin Dead Awhile

Oh, by the way, in case you’ve just joined us? Osama bin Laden is dead. He died in the Tora Bora Mountains of Afghanistan on December 13, 2001. He was buried in an unmarked grave within 24 hours of his death. Case closed. But don’t just take my word for it. Top terror experts, intelligence analysts, academics, government officials, and even major political figures around the globe tend to agree that, “All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.” I know this is old news to most of you, but I think it’s important to reiterate this fact. Why? Because Christmas season is upon us, and you know what that means: Terrorism! http://revoltoftheplebs.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/osama-bin-deadawhile/

The Real Terrorists are Upping Their Chatter

Remember the buzzword chatter? When our criminal government kept the sheeple on the razor’s edge of fear because they’d say that chatter levels coming from Al-Qaeda were increasing? Well, today, in this article, I’m going to openly fear monger to you, because the chatter by the real terrorists, the ruling elite, is getting louder and more urgent — prompting me to warn you that it seems like a terror attack is coming soon. http://theintelhub.com/2010/12/21/beware-the-real-terrorists-are-upping-their-chatter/

Christmas Time Terror Rhetoric Right On Schedule

CBS News and The Associated Press are reporting that these terror threats are unfortunately keeping Americans on edge.What is clear is that the government and these media outlets WANT Americans to be on the edge so they can continue their illegal TSA measures and police state tactics used in the name of fighting terror. http://theintelhub.com/2010/12/16/christmas-time-terror-rhetoric-right-on-schedule/

Homeland Security Recruiting Neighborhood Busybodies as Informants

There were the infamous Gestapo, Stazi and Red Guard. They all sought and maintained civilian armies of snitches to help their rogue governments maintain absolute power. These government thugs wanted any information they could use against the victims they selectively targeted. Today we have the Department of Homeland Security that is quickly stepping into this role in the United States. They are massively expanding their authority, reach and budget to smash dissent, and any resistance to government repression and violation of our Civil Rights. http://www.crimefilenews.com/2010/12/homeland-security-recruiting.html

11 Reasons Why The Threat From Al-Qaeda is Not Real

The United States government has repeatedly stated that the threat from Al-Qaeda against America is very real, and that all action is being taken to eliminate that threat. Nobody in their right mind would question such a serious assessment about a sensitive national security matter from the world’s leading democracy. But the truth is that over the past fifty years America’s democratic institutions like the press have been weakened, and an elitist National Security State has risen, and taken control over all aspects of government. Since World War II U.S. leaders have consistently lied to the American people about foreign threats in order to feed the military machine’s appetite for war. All of these wars are unjust and unwarranted but that does not stop the self-interested criminals who control U.S. foreign policy. A recent example of a lie they told was their assertion that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. That episode revealed to many people the true nature of the American government. Simply put, it does not care about the truth, or the American people, or the members of the military. http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com/2010/12/11-reasons-why-threat-from-al-qaeda-is.html

Afghanistan is About Perpetual War

The war in Afghanistan is about perpetual war, not Afghanistan. It’s about preventing democracy in the United States, not bringing it to Southwest Asia. And it is the tombstone of the Obama Presidency. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m72248&hd=&size=1&l=e

Imperial War Without End: 30 to 40 Years of Occupation in Afghanistan Ahead

The foreign policy bait-and-switch continues. First, President Barack Obama declared the end of combat in Iraq, withdrawing some U.S. troops but leaving many others behind, possibly for decades, and redefining their role as “advise and assist” — whereupon they continued engaging in combat. Now, with Obama having publicly stated his intent to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next July, both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus are arguing for a long-term, if not permanent, U.S. presence in Afghanistan. On top of that, British Defense Chief Gen. Sir David Richards, echoing their sentiments, has stated that “Nato now needs to plan for a 30 or 40 year role to help the Afghan armed forces hold their country against the militants,” according to the Daily Mail, though he “stuck to the government’s plans to withdraw combat troops by 2014 but made clear that thousands of troops will be needed long after that date.” http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/europe-mainmenu-35/5229-british-defense-chief-30-to-40-years-of-afghanistan-occupation-ahead

Are ‘Terrorists’ More Dangerous Than How We React to Them?

The ‘terrorists’ have just made every shopping facility in America a no go area. The greatest hit to a consumer economy ever! Why, if the terrorist threat is so real, are soft targets like shopping malls not blowing up every week? A true terrorist would simply bypass flying and blow up soft civilian targets. If Al Qaida are so prevalent, and the war on terror is real, then why are Al Qaida wasting their time smuggling bombs onto airplanes? There are so many soft targets that could do far more economic damage. Why are they not happening? http://wartard.blogspot.com/2010/11/terrorist-fail.html

Morning Again in America – For Islamophobes

Right now, all the news chatter is about domestic policy (health care, tax cuts, etc.), but count on the Republicans — Rand Paul aside — to light out after the president sooner or later at least as hawkishly on foreign policy as they have domestically. Already, Senator John McCain and others are preparing the ground to launch what’s likely to become a jihad against Obama’s civilization-busting “mistake” in announcing a vaguely “conditions-based” drawdown of vague numbers of U.S. troops in Afghanistan for July 2011. And that’s just a start. On a whole host of issues from the Iraq and Afghan wars to Israel, Iran, and North Korea, buckle your seatbelts and hold onto your hats. The critical weather in Congress, especially in the House, is going to get fiercer, and a president with a most un-Harry-Truman-ish tendency to placate is unlikely to stake his fighting future on foreign policy. So expect war drums and alarums to the horizon (i.e. 2012) from congressional Republicans. And when it comes to the famous Republican urge to cut every budget in sight, be assured of one thing: our wars, the Pentagon budget, and the industrial part of the military-industrial complex — in other words, our next generation weaponry, however ill-conceived — will surely be removed from the “table” where “all options” are always placed. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/09

Slaughter as ‘Stimulus’

With the current depression growing deeper and nastier, the Obama administration and the banking cartel controlling it have run just about every option in the Keynesian playbook, save one: The “Hail, Ares!” play Broder suggests. All that’s necessary to make this happen is the arrival of a Congress under the influence of the most militaristic element of the GOP. It’s quite likely that those nostalgic for the reign of FDR’s nation-breaking war commissars will soon have reason to erupt in a chorus of “Happy Days Are Here Again.” http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w177.html

Military Strategists Have Known for 2,500 Years That Prolonged Wars Are Disastrous

2,500 hundred years ago, one of the greatest military strategists ever – Sun Tzu – said: “What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations.” “No nation has ever benefited from a prolonged war.” http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/11/military-strategists-have-known-for.html

FBI Raids Seen as Political Retribution

Recent raids by federal agents on the homes and offices of peace activists are being viewed by civil libertarians and civil society groups as further proof that the U.S. is morphing into a “surveillance state” where the right to privacy and other constitutional protections are being quietly whittled away. http://original.antiwar.com/fisher/2010/09/27/fbi-raids-seen-as-political-retribution/

Free Kenny: An Open Letter from a Federal Prison

Kenny asked that this open letter written from prison be made public. Please feel free to republish.

Dear Folk and Family,

Greetings from my somber tomb. In two weeks I reach 6 months if incarceration. Half a year of my life lost due to a network of cowards and saboteurs. The Government has shown and demonstrated pure malevolence towards me while leaving my life asunder. They will not stop my ascension back up to living and leading a productive life once again. No matter what, my fealty shall never be abated.

I would like to thank everyone right now for demonstrating Pure and True benevolence. From those who continue to write me letters and keep me

http://freekenny.wordpress.com/

Pennsylvania’s Homeland Security Chief Goes Into Hiding

The former Special Forces colonel who has headed the state Office of Homeland Security for four years and who now finds himself at the center of a firestorm over an anti-terrorism contract is missing in action. James F. Powers Jr. has basically gone underground since Tuesday, when Gov. Ed Rendell denounced a $103,000 no-bid contract that Mr. Powers had given to the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, which has offices in Philadelphia and Israel. Mr. Powers, who makes $106,602 a year, hasn’t been returning phone calls from the news media this week and was said to be out of his office when a reporter stopped in on Wednesday. He did not return a call to his home and his office turned down a request to interview him. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10260/1088164-454.stm

The American Way of War Quiz

Yes, it would be funny if it weren’t so grim. After all, when it comes to squandering money and resources in strange and distant places (or even here at home), you can count on the practitioners of American-style war to be wildly over the top. Oh, those madcap Pentagon bureaucrats and the zany horde of generals and admirals who go with them! Give them credit: no one on Earth knows how to throw a war like they do – and they never go home. In fact, when it comes to linking “profligate” to “war,” with all the lies, manipulations, and cost overruns that give it that proverbial pizazz, Americans should stand tall. We are absolutely #1! http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2010/09/14/the-american-way-of-war-quiz/

Dictatorship Watch: ‘Appalled’ Pennsylvania Governor Shuts Down Reports on Protests

Sleazy Ed Rendell

Information about an anti-BP candlelight vigil, a gay and lesbian festival and other peaceful gatherings became the subject of anti-terrorism bulletins being distributed by Pennsylvania’s homeland security office, an apologetic Gov. Ed Rendell admitted. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/nation/appalled-pa-gov-shuts-down-reports-on-protests-915717.html