Surveillance Makes Us Safe

Drones, "minimization procedures," "targeting procedures," "metadata" "US persons" "non-US persons…."

It's okay: we're only "targeting" non-US persons abroad; if we've mistakenly targeted a US person and there is indication of a crime, that's also okay. So, surveillance not only stops terrorism in its tracks--NY subway bombing plot, etc.--it also fights crime--at home and abroad.

No wonder, neither Hong Kong, nor Russia are jumping through US police-state hoops! Moscow doesn't "know'" where Edward Snowden is. The crimes the US accuses of Snowden reveal the extent of crimes the US commits against people in Russia--and everywhere else--the "legal" targets are non-US persons on "foreign territory." We accuse Putin's government of authoritarian practices, but we're listening in on all those non-US persons in Russia. So, why should the Russian or Hong-Kong governments cooperate with the US? Why should Ecuador, or Iceland?

Talk about a widening gulf! It's between everyone else vs official Washington, which thinks the surveillance of virtually everyone--except US persons--is easily justified because the US has to stop terrorists. After all, even Brits and Canadians aren't "US-persons."

Even an American resident or citizen can be tracked if there is evidence of a crime. How do the authorities establish evidence of a crime? 'Accidental' surveillance?

There have been at least two high profile politicians/public figures recently, who were caught because of such accidental surveillance: Elliot Spitzer and General Petraeus. The former was caught through a bank alert for suspicious money transfers, and then phone surveillance in 2008, the latter in 2012, when the FBI traced harassing emails from Petraeus' biographer, Paula Broadwell, to a woman she feared was competing with her for Petraeus' affections.

Cases like those may have prepared the American public for Snowden's revelations. They may explain the shrug, accompanied by: "we knew they were doing it all along," reaction of so many--instead of outrage.

Why no outrage? Turks and Brazilians are rioting against their governments because of specific accusations--authoritarianism, or corruption and misplaced priorities--the US has its share of similar abuses and they may actually be worse. The vast extent of American surveillance exceeds anything Russia or China can mount.

Which makes it okay?

The NY Times, the Guardian, et al; were the entities that published the leaks, i.e. made them public--so that even al Qaeda can read them! Why aren't they prosecuted for treason, too?

The real treason--betrayal of American and international civil liberties--is perpetrated by the accusers: the US Government (including Obama), and the Congress and Courts permitting it.

The US, in its decline, has the potential to become more authoritarian than the Roman Empire. Surveillance gives the tools to crush all opposition. Even Stalin's powers were puny compared to these! A President elected with our contemporary Roman Senators' support wouldn't bother to assure us (as Obama has) that he wouldn't use these powers to crush opposition. He/she would use them to maintain control.

Pot and Big Brother

There seems to be a push, at least in the leftish media, to promote the inevitability of legal marijuana.

At the same time, we have the revelations of Edward Snowden: the US is massively watching all of us, through virtually all our communications except face to face. In Orwell's 1984, Big Brother could do even that. Scared yet?

But maybe marijuana is a plot, of the liberal/socialist government under the tyrant Obama…. Hold that thought.

The commercial possibilities of legal marijuana, already being experienced in the two states that made it legal as a recreational as well as medical drug--Washington and Colorado--seems very attractive, especially to cash-strapped state and local governments. Huffpo published a piece on how much money could be realized in taxes and reduced prison costs, would cut the price of pot dramatically, and yet increase legal employment and taxes collected, all based on those two states' early experiences.

I could attest to other advantages: anyone with a small plot of ground, or a closet, could grow their own! Wine and liquor stores might notice a falling off of demand for their drug of choice, however. That's where opposition to legalization may come from.

But think, for a moment, how the widespread availability of marijuana might affect the nation as a whole. Marijuana rarely causes violence; alcohol does, but marijuana does have an influence on how people think: most become more reflective, or passive and introspective, or creative, according to Bill Maher. You've seen giggling potheads? That's about the closest potheads get to violence, as far as I've seen--admittedly a small sample.

There's a precedent for the political use of drugs. The Inca used coca leaves to dull rebellious impulses among its subject peoples. They chewed and worked harder. After the Conquest, Spaniards used it to quiet rebellion and induce hard work by the subject Quechua. The USSR and so many other nations had cheap vodka, or gin, or….instead of rebellion.

So: would legal marijuana be a boon to the State, not just as a revenue raiser, and cost-cutter (as in prisons not needed), but also as a social control? The Feds can know where you are, whom you talk to and for how long, even if they don't eavesdrop, but marijuana might induce people not to care, i.e. be more easily controlled.

I'm no subscriber to the tyrant-socialist-Obama school, nor to conspiracy theory. But I do think there are powerful people, who want to be sure government does have control. They know, perhaps unconsciously, that the .001% holding so much wealth are vulnerable to popular outrage and worse--Emperor Maximus, the wealthiest Senator to wear the diadem, was literally ripped apart by the mob in 455.

So, marijuana might be seen by the super-elite as another way to "mellow out" the opposition, the way lotteries give the millions just a little hope. It bears thinking about.

F**k 'Em All!

So saith my soulmate, upon hearing that we might intervene militarily, again, on one side of an ancient Muslim sectarian dispute.

The Syrian civil war is increasingly a war between Shia, including Alawites, and the Sunni majority. The Sunni powers, the Saudis and the Emirates, are supporting the rebels, including al Qaeda affiliates; the Shiite powers, Iran and Hezbollah, and behind them, Russia, are supporting Assad's Alawite-dominated government.

So, since Russia is heavily arming Syria and Hezbollah, shouldn't the US jump in to support the rebels, along with its long-time 'democratic friends,' the Sunni-dominated monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf? Shiite-controlled Iraq, on which the US squandered almost a trillion dollars, is permitting passage of Russian and Iranian weaponry to Assad and Hezbollah.

So, the US should do it again, in Syria, not just offer small arms? It should go in with massive equipment and training for the rebels, or more, even though prominent numbers of the rebels claim sympathy with, or allegiance to, al Qaeda?

The US helped create al Qaeda, back when Americans were seeking allies to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. The US supported and trained Osama bin Laden. Don't Americans ever learn? The US's second adventure in Afghanistan turned out so well that a majority of the US House of Representatives (including conservative Republicans) just demanded the US leave Afghanistan by the end of 2013!

Not only has hot-head McCain insisted America intervene in Syria, on the rebel side, but he was publicly seconded by Bill Clinton, who warned Obama would be a "wuss," if he didn't act forcefully on Syria.

It's true the Syrian rebellion started out as a peaceful, secular protest demanding democracy, and the Assad regime attempted violent suppression. Assad had no compunction attacking Syrian civilians with his military: in 1982, his father, Hafez, murdered at least 10,000 Syrians in Hama, alone. But this time, Sunnis rallied and the protest turned into a rebellion, fueled by money and arms from the Sunni Persian Gulf oil monarchies. Hence, Syrians now fight both civil war and sectarian war.

The US will support the Sunni side, along with al Qaeda, why?

Sunni and Shia have been battling since 661 CE (1,352 years), over who should succeed the Prophet. Why should the US have anything to do with either? Especially, why, since it has already failed twice in its Mideast interventions--Iraq and Afghanistan--and the outcome of its third, Libya, is still uncertain.

The US loses, if it intervenes. As horrendous as the carnage in Syria, the US would make it worse. But Empire is so seductive, especially to the Defense industry. Americans could be bankrupted as the Romans were, but unlike Huns, or Germanic barbarians, US 'enemies' do not threaten America's existence, only each others'.

Let them kill each other until they're exhausted--they will anyway. Or see reason. Let the UN pick up the pieces.

Treason?

The judge in Bradley Manning's trial has stated that it is enough for the prosecution to show that al-Qaeda, like the rest of the world, reads WikiLeaks.

So, Bradley Manning is an enemy of the people, because he's made public the war crimes committed in the name of the American People. Since terrorist groups focus their attention on the US and what it does, of course the lead group, al Qaeda, our publicly declared enemy number one, has sought out the Wikileaks documents made possible by Manning's document release. So has anyone who reads the New York Times, Washington Post and other mainstream newspapers.

The judge, in this carefully controlled show trial, didn't allow Manning to show his intent: to reveal war crimes in order to stop them. He isn't allowed, either, to demonstrate that nothing he revealed did anything but publicize war crimes, manipulation and cynical deception on the part of the US and many of its allies. He is not allowed to show that his document dumps harmed no one.

The mass media portrays the Manning trial, if it portrays it at all, as the trial of someone who disclosed sensitive documents to al Qaeda, a traitor and "weirdo," and obviously either misguided or evil. This is the line taken by the prosecution: now the MSM has become spokesmen for the government's side in a court case!

If we follow the prosecution's logic, not only the Washington Post and the New York Times should be prosecuted. In addition, any paper, website, radio broadcaster, online article writer (including me), could be prosecuted on the same grounds: making information public about possible US war crimes--as long as al Qaeda, or some other terrorist organization--might have an interest in it, or might have downloaded the material(s) onto their computers.

That's the kind of logic that the USSR used to classify most maps of their empire as secret; it's the kind of logic that made information about Krushchev's New Lands program classified, so that no one, including the Kremlin, knew that it was a horrendous failure: wheat can't successfully grow in an arid climate like Kazakhstan.

It's the kind of logic that the Roman Empire used to ban any information except by the Church, or in the mouths of panegyrists, whose business it was to extol the virtues of the sitting Emperor and to condemn all opponents as devils.

It's the logic of an authoritarian government terrified that the public will find out what horrible things it is doing in their name. The first Bradley Manning release by Wikileaks was a perfect example: the video of a helicopter gunship gunning down civilians on a Baghdad street, including the disturbing chatter of the American crew while shooting.

Manning shouldn't go to prison; he should get the Nobel Peace Prize, instead. Perhaps Manning and Edward Snowden, the former CIA who leaked information on Prism and Government seizure of Verizon "metadata," should both be nominated.

Keep Guantanamo Open!

In response to GOP Congressional insistence on including a $200 million Defense appropriation to build new barracks at Guantanamo, after Obama declares he'll try again to close it:

Anything that boosts Defense Appropriations is a good thing, obviously.

It's estimated that 3-8% of released Guantanamo detainees may have returned to terrorism. Even if a third of detainees returned to terrorism--largely in their own countries--would their actions cost more than the loss of credibility the US expends by keeping Guantanamo open? Guantanamo continues to imprison 86 men convicted of no crime, and cleared for release three years ago.

It's about the money. Defense contractors favor their friends: Republicans continue to be their loudest and most effective supporters.

The Guantanamo appropriation is symptomatic of the whole Defense complex. It makes you wonder: who really controls?

Noam Chomsky suggested in a recent article, "Humanity Imperiled," that the US has consistently opted for policies that increase tensions not reduce them. Examples included: JFK not agreeing to a public compromise to the Cuban Missile Crisis, risking nuclear war to achieve a secret deal that appeared as if only Krushchev backed down.

In '73 Kissinger risked nuclear war, calling a high nuclear alert, to warn the USSR not to interfere in the Arab-Israel war; in 1983, Reagan ordered SAC bombers to penetrate Soviet airspace to test their responses--risking nuclear war, again. Last year, Obama rejected meeting multilaterally with Iran to consider a nuclear ban in the Middle East.

A decade earlier, Clinton quashed an Israeli-North Korean agreement that would have stopped North Korean exports of nuclear and missile technology in return for Israel's recognition. Agreements with North Korea by Clinton and later, Bush, were sabotaged by the latter, when he reneged on the agreement and intensified sanctions. Obama just oversaw a US-South Korea military exercise that had mock bombing runs up to North Korea's borders. Each incident elicited a predictably bellicose North Korean response.

The US invaded Afghanistan claiming it was responsible for 911 (most of the 911 terrorists were Saudis, the planning was done in Germany and the US), and then invaded Iraq--Bush's personal vendetta--and upended the Middle East. Now the US is engaged in sub-rosa wars: in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and probably in more places we don't know about.

Is there a pattern here? Regardless of the President, ever since Eisenhower warned against the growing power of the "defense-industrial complex," US policy has favored an increasingly militaristic foreign policy. The military, and/or the industries that batten from it, push the US toward aggression: they profit from it.

Everyone else, worldwide, is impoverished and endangered, including the American Empire. Its overreach, and the selfishness of our Senatorial class, is bankrupting us and helping to destroy the planet, much as Rome despoiled Europe and the Mediterranean, then bankrupted itself through endless wars and the rapacity of the Senatorial class.