August 16, 2013

National Security Killings: JFK to 9/11 to Today



“I'm afraid, based on my own experience,
that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.”
― Jim Garrison

“You are dealing with national security. Anything labeled a national security issue is taken out from the system. There is no due process, no lawyers. They may do with us what they wish. 
Fear is a government's greatest weapon. With it, they can convince a people that they need to abandon their freedom. In exchange, they get safety. 
Of course you just trade one monster for another, but by the time people realize this it is too late.”

Three days prior to JFK's inauguration, then president (retired 5-star general) Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his farewell address issued a warning to "guard against acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex.. potential for disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."! Mere months after JFK assumed office, the CIA organized a failed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro, Cuban exiles who attempted to invade the island were routed in a disaster known as the 'Bay of Pigs'. Later the JCS presented a plan Operation Northwoods, calling for plane hijackings with US personnel pretending to be Cubans and killing of innocent Americans, leading to retaliation by invading Cuba. After JFK rejected their plan - later saying he would scatter the CIA to the winds, his fate was sealed!

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, those most disappointed were not the old Soviet politburo, but rather those half a world away, who understood only too well what the end of the cold war would mean for their power, prestige and most crucially, the future of the extremely lucrative war machine! Forty years after JFK rejected the plan for CIA/military operatives to commit acts of terror on US soil to justify invading Cuba, with the new Oval Office occupant fully on board, an administration packed with members of the Project for the New American Century that had called for a 'New Pearl Harbor' as the catalyst to restore global dominance, the powerful forces Eisenhower warned about succeeded in bringing terrorism to American soil to justify attacking Muslim countries and a build-up to WWIII!

Half a century ago, National Security was used to justify killing a president who was seen as a traitor by the power-brokers for rejecting Operation Northwoods and refusing to support a Cuban invasion, later killing his brother to stop a presidential run, and a popular preacher who spoke against Vietnam! On 9/11, those very forces used National Security to justify the killing of thousands in a staged attack used as a catalyst to launch a campaign of overseas wars to restore "full-spectrum global dominance". Today, National Security is used to justify placing absolute power over life or death in one individual, while thousands of mass detention camps spring up across the land with unprecedented mass spying, as massive, well-stocked underground facilities are constructed in secret and kept out of public view!

When National Security means the State can kill anyone - from president to journalist to thousands whose only crime was being in the wrong high-rise building at the wrong time; when whistleblowers like Manning and Snowden are pilloried not praised for exposing State crimes, then no one is secure! Importantly, when National Security has become a 'get-out-of-jail-free-card' to obscure wrongdoing, the terrorist you should be truly concerned about will not be found wearing a turban and white robes!

When the missile downing of a commercial airliner during naval exercises can be ordered covered up and everyone who played a role in shooting down Flight 93 can be gagged due to National Security, and a retired Major General who states “I can prove that it was not an airplane” that hit the Pentagon can be widely ignored despite his credentials as the former Head of US Army Intelligence & Security, then, whether they recognize it or not, the media has in fact 'abdicated their role as check to power'!

Like it or not, Americans now live under a National Security State - one in which every type of abuse or atrocity is justifiable in the name of the security of the State, including (as confirmed by the FBI) plots to kill peaceful protesters in the recent Occupy movement using snipers "if deemed necessary."! A growing number now find themselves placed on no-fly or other watch lists, clueless as to how they got there and with no way to be taken off - denied due process by the magic words National Security!

Perhaps foretelling today's muted support for whistleblowers Bradley Manning & Edward Snowden, Mark Twain wrote: “In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him- for then, it costs nothing to be a patriot.”!

An increasingly thin veneer of respectability still cloaks State actions pertaining to National Security - but, as the truth of these cover-ups is exposed for the broad masses a domino effect will commence, leading ultimately to the nakedness of the ruling elites being completely exposed for everyone to see!

Today, the State has succeeded in seeding the public mind with fears of every imaginable bogeyman - from drugs to terrorism to justify its immense power. Tomorrow, the public will awaken to the reality of an out-of-control monster they unwittingly created - for most, that realization will come too late!
CIA Insider Tells 911 truth.
Time to re-examine your World-view, America!


The Evil of the National-Security State

By
Future of Freedom Foundation
July 25, 2013

The two most important words in the lives of the American people for the past 60 years have been “national security.” The term has transformed American society for the worse. It has warped the morals and values of the American people. It has stultified conscience. It has altered the constitutional order. It has produced a democratically elected government that wields totalitarian powers.
We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to round up people, including citizens, and take them to concentration camps, detention centers, or military dungeons where the government can torture them, incarcerate them indefinitely, and even execute them as suspected terrorists.
We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to send its military and intelligence forces into any country anywhere in the world, kidnap people residing there, and transport them to a prison for the purpose of torture, indefinite detention, and even execution. We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to sneak and peek into people’s homes or businesses without warrants; to monitor their emails, telephone calls, and financial transactions; and to spy on the citizenry.
We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to support, with money and armaments, totalitarian regimes all over the world and to enter into partnerships with them for the purpose of torturing people whom the U.S. government has kidnapped.
We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to assassinate anyone it wants, including American citizens, anywhere in the world, including here in the United States. We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to impose sanctions and embargoes on any other nation and to severely punish the American people and foreign citizens and foreign companies who violate them.
We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to invade and occupy any country on earth, without a congressional declaration of war, for any purpose whatever, including regime change and the securing of resources.
And it’s all justified under the rubric “national security.”
Most people would concede that that’s not the kind of country that America is supposed to be. The nation was founded as a constitutional republic, one whose governmental powers were extremely limited. In fact, the whole idea of using the Constitution to bring the federal government into existence was to make clear that the government’s powers were limited to those enumerated in the Constitution itself. To make certain that everyone got the point, the American people secured the passage of the Bill of Rights, which further clarified the extreme restrictions on government power.
Four separate amendments in the Bill of Rights address the power of the federal government to take people, both Americans and foreigners, into custody and to inflict harm on them: the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. Due process of law, right to counsel, grand-jury indictments, trial by jury, search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishments, bail, speedy trial — they are all expressly addressed, reflecting how important they were to our American ancestors and to their concept of a free society.
In the age of national security, all of those protections have been rendered moot. They have all been trumped by the concept of national security.
Ironically, the term isn’t even found in the Constitution. One searches in vain for some grant of power anywhere in that document relating to “national security.” It isn’t there. Nonetheless, the government now wields omnipotent powers — powers that the greatest totalitarian dictatorships in history have wielded — under the rubric of “national security.”
With the exception of libertarians, hardly anyone questions or challenges it, including those who profess an ardent allegiance to the Constitution. Consider, for example, the Constitution’s Interstate Commerce Clause. For decades, both libertarians and conservatives have complained that the meaning of that clause has been so expanded as to transform it into a general grant of power enabling the federal government to regulate the most minute, localized aspects of economic activity.
Yet here’s a phrase — “national security” — that isn’t even found in the Constitution, which has been interpreted to grant omnipotent, totalitarian-like powers to the federal government, and conservatives have been rendered mute.
It would be one thing if there had been an amendment to the Constitution stating, “The federal government shall have the power to do whatever it deems necessary in the interests of national security.” At least then one could argue that such totalitarian measures were constitutional.
But that’s not the situation we have here. We have the government coming up with a concept known as “national security,” which it has then used to adopt powers that would otherwise violate the Constitution. It’s as if national security has been made the foundation of the nation. Everything else — the Constitution, society, the citizenry, freedom, prosperity — are then based on that foundation.
The goodness of national security
What is “national security”? No one really knows. There is certainly no precise definition of the term. It’s actually whatever the government says it is. National security is one of the most meaningless, nebulous, nonsensical terms in the English language, but, at the same time, the most important term in the lives of the American people.
All the government has to do is say “national security,” and all discussion and debate shuts down. If the government says that national security is at stake, that’s the end of the story. Federal judges will immediately dismiss lawsuits as soon as the government claims, “The case is a threat to national security, your honor.” Congress will immediately suspend investigations when the government claims that national security is at stake. The Justice Department will defer to the national-security establishment when it raises the issue of national security.
National security, a term not even in the Constitution, trumps everything. It trumps the judiciary. It trumps the legislative branch of government. It trumps federal criminal investigations. This nebulous term, whose meaning is whatever the government wants it be at any particular time, has been made the foundation of American society.
What is the national-security establishment? It is composed of several agencies, two of the main ones being the vast military-industrial establishment and the CIA. Those two entities have done more to transform American life than anything else, even more than the welfare state. They are the entities that enforce the sanctions and embargoes and engage in the invasions, occupations, regime-change operations, coups, assassinations, torture, indefinite incarcerations, renditions, partnerships with totalitarian regimes, and executions — all in the name of “national security.”
One of the most fascinating aspects of all this is how successful the government has been in convincing Americans of two things: that all this is necessary to keep them safe and, at the same time, that America has continued to be a free country notwithstanding the fact that the government has acquired and has exercised totalitarian powers in order to preserve national security.
When Americans see the governments of such countries as the Soviet Union or North Korea wield such powers, they can easily recognize them as being totalitarian in nature. When Americans read that the Soviet government rounded up its own people and sent them into the Gulag, they recoil against the exercise of such totalitarian powers. They have the same reaction when they hear that the North Korean government has tortured people within its prison system. It’s the same when Americans hear that the Chinese government has arrested and incarcerated people for years without charges or trial.
But when the U.S. government does such things or even just claims the authority to do them — in the name of national security — the mindset of the average American automatically shifts. It can’t be evil for the U.S. government to wield such powers because the agents who are wielding them are Americans, not communists. They have an American flag on their lapel. They have children in America’s public schools. They’re doing it to keep us safe. They’re on our side. We wouldn’t be free without them. They’re preserving our national security. In fact, another fascinating aspect to all this is the mindset of those within the national-security establishment itself. Even though they are wielding the same kinds of powers that are wielded by totalitarian regimes, the last thing in their minds is that they’re doing anything evil or immoral. In their mind, they’re fighting evil in order to preserve security and freedom. Sure, they have to do some unsavory things, but those things are necessary to preserve the nation. Americans are safe and free because of things they’re doing, and we’re supposed to be grateful that they’re doing them.
After all, as advocates of the national-security state often remind us, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. If measures have to be taken to preserve the nation — or the security of the nation — that are inconsistent with the Constitution, then so be it. What good would it do to adhere strictly to the Constitution if, by doing so, the nation were to fall to the terrorists or the communists?
Thus, when officials in totalitarian regimes round people up without charges, incarcerate them indefinitely, torture them, and execute them, what they are doing is evil. But when officials within the U.S. national security state do those same things — and more — they look upon themselves as good and the citizenry look upon them in the same way, simply because they are doing it to advance freedom and to preserve the national security of the United States.
And even then, things are not so clear, at least not when it comes to national security. For example, some foreign totalitarian regimes are considered evil while others are considered good. Consider, for example, Iran and North Korea. In the mindset of the U.S. national-security establishment, they are considered to be evil totalitarian regimes.
But then consider, say, Egypt, which has been ruled by a brutal military dictatorship for nearly 30 years, a totalitarian regime that wields the same kind of totalitarian powers that the U.S. government now wields. For decades, Egyptian military and intelligence forces have rounded people up, taken them to prison camps for indefinite detention, tortured them, and executed them, without formal charges and trial.
Nonetheless, the U.S. national-security establishment has long looked on the Egyptian military dictatorship as good, because of its close relationship with the U.S. national-security state. In fact, during the past several decades the U.S. government has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in money and armaments to Egypt to help fund its totalitarian military dictatorship, and there has been close cooperation between the national-security apparatuses of both nations. In fact, Egypt’s national-security state even agreed to serve as one of the U.S. empire’s rendition-torture partners, a relationship that enables U.S. officials to send a kidnapped victim to Egypt for the purpose of torture.
Good regime, bad regime
Sometimes, the nether world of national security becomes even more clouded, with some nations shifting back and forth from good to evil. Consider Iran and Iraq, for example. In 1953, Iran was considered a threat to U.S. national security. Thus, the CIA, one of the principal components of the U.S. national-security establishment, engaged in its first regime-change operation, one that succeeded in ousting Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, from power and installing the shah of Iran into power.
For the next 25 years, Iran was considered good, notwithstanding the fact that the shah’s regime was totalitarian in nature. In fact, the CIA even helped him and his national-security establishment to oppress the Iranian people. When Iranians finally revolted against the domestic tyranny that the U.S. national-security state had foisted upon them, Iran immediately became an evil regime in the eyes of the U.S. national-security establishment, notwithstanding the fact that the new regime wasn’t doing anything different than the shah’s regime had done. During the 1980s, Iraq had a brutal totalitarian regime headed by Saddam Hussein. Nonetheless, it was considered a good regime because it was friendly to the U.S. national-security state. In fact, during that time the relationship was so solid that the United States even sent Iraq biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction so that Saddam could use them to attack Iran (which was considered evil).
Later, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the U.S. national-security establishment reclassified Iraq as an evil regime. Today, Iraq is headed by a democratically elected regime that exercises the same totalitarian powers that Saddam exercised, but it’s considered to be a good regime because it’s perceived to be on the side of the U.S. national-security state. If it ultimately formally aligns itself with Iran, as many suspect it will, it will find itself back in the ranks of the evil.
How did it all come to this? How did the United States become transformed from a constitutional republic into a national-security state? How did the concept of national security become the guiding star of American life, without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment? How did the national-security establishment — the vast, permanent military-industrial complex and the CIA — come to be the foundation of American society?
More important, is a national-security state truly compatible with the principles of a free society? Did Americans delude themselves into thinking that they could retain a free and safe society with a government that wields totalitarian powers? Did Americans sacrifice their freedom, their security, their values, and their consciences on the altar of national security?
Perhaps most important, has the time come to dismantle the national-security state in order to restore a free, prosperous, peaceful, normal, and harmonious society to our land? Is it time to restore a limited-government, constitutional republic, the type of government that was clearly envisioned by the Founding Fathers?
Let’s examine those questions. Let’s start by focusing on Cuba.
One of the most demonstrable examples of the turn that America took toward empire, militarism, and the national-security state has involved Cuba. That small nation 90 miles from American shores encapsulates the effect that such a turn had on the values and principles of the American people.
Consider the economic embargo that the U.S. government has maintained against Cuba for more than half a century. It has brought untold economic suffering to the Cuban people, especially in combination with the complete socialist economic system under which they have suffered during that same time.
What has been the purpose of the embargo? The answer: the preservation of national security through regime change — the ouster of Fidel Castro and his communist regime and its replacement with a regime that would be subservient to the U.S. government.
What role was the embargo expected to play in that process? The aim was to cause massive economic suffering to the Cuban citizenry — privation, poverty, and even starvation. Then, as a result of that suffering, the idea was that Castro would be removed from power either by a citizens’ revolt, a military coup, or abdication by Castro himself.
Obviously, the plan has never succeeded, although undoubtedly U.S. officials, 50 years after the embargo was instituted, are still hoping that it will succeed.
The embargo is also a classic example of how the turn toward empire, militarism, and the national-security state has warped the values and principles of the American people. While there have been those who have objected to the embargo, even from its beginning, by and large the American people have deferred to the authority of their government. If U.S. officials believed that an embargo against Cuba was necessary to protect the “national security” of the United States, that was all that Americans needed to salve their conscience over the harm that their government was inflicting on the Cuban people.
Ironically, a few years after the Cuban embargo was instituted, the U.S. government, under the regime of Lyndon Johnson, declared its “war on poverty,” a domestic war whose purported rationale was a deep concern for the poor in society. But the Cuban people were among the poorest people in the world, and the same government that was supposedly concerned about poverty was doing its best to bring more suffering to the poor in Cuba.
The Cuban embargo demonstrated one of the core principles of the national-security state: that the end, which was the preservation of “national security,” justified whatever means were necessary to achieve it. If national security required the government to inflict great suffering on the Cuban people, then that’s just what would have to be done. Nothing could be permitted to stand in the way of protecting national security, whatever that term meant. What mattered was that the national-security establishment — i.e., the military and the CIA — knew what national security meant and had the ultimate responsibility for protecting it.
For their part, Americans were expected to remain silent. They were expected to defer to the authority of their government. National security was everything.
Conscience, the casualty
What about conscience? What if Americans, whose traditional values encompassed compassion for the poor and empathy for the suffering of others, objected to the embargo? What about the Christian principle of loving thy neighbor as thyself?
Americans were expected to ditch all that, and most did. Conscience was abandoned in favor of national security. No matter how much suffering the Cuban embargo inflicted on the Cuban people, it wasn’t something over which most Americans troubled themselves. Given that U.S. officials had determined that national security necessitated the imposition of the embargo, that was all that mattered.
Conscience wasn’t all that Americans ditched with the Cuban embargo. They also abandoned traditional American values of private property, free enterprise, and limited government.
After all, while the embargo was ostensibly an attack on the economic well-being of the Cuban people, it was, at the same time, an infringement on the economic liberty of the American people. Under the principles of economic liberty, people have a fundamental, God-given right to travel wherever they want and to dispose of their money any way they choose.
But the embargo made it a federal criminal offense to spend money in Cuba without a license from the U.S. government, which, for all practical purposes, operated as a prohibition against traveling to Cuba. If an American was caught violating the embargo — say, by traveling to Cuba as a tourist — the U.S. government would prosecute him criminally or sue him civilly or both.
The irony was that that was precisely the sort of economic control that Castro was wielding in Cuba as part of his embrace of socialism. In the attempt to oust Castro from power, U.S. officials were imposing the same kinds of socialist controls on the American people that Castro was imposing on the Cuban people.
Most Americans remained silent. All that mattered was national security. If U.S. officials determined that it was necessary to adopt socialist methods in order to protect national security, that was sufficient justification to surrender an important part of economic liberty. The end justified the means.
In fact, the American mindset throughout the Cold War was even worse than that. It wasn’t as though Americans viewed their government as adopting evil or immoral means to protect national security. Instead, the viewpoint was that whatever was being done by U.S. officials to protect national security wasn’t evil or immoral at all. Instead, the mindset, both in and out of the U.S. government, was that even if the U.S. government was employing the same methods being employed by the communists, such methods were good when employed by U.S. officials and bad when employed by the communists.
Assassination
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