Have Americans - Especially Their Government - Learned Anything From 9/11?

“Americans are apt to scoff at the idea that a military coup in the U.S, as so often happens in Latin American countries, could ever replace our government. But that is an idea that has grounds for consideration.”  Lee Harvey Oswald, from his July 27, 1963 talk given at  The Jesuit House of Studies, Spring Hill College, Mobile AL.

“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises the germ of every other. As the parent of armies, war encourages debts and taxes, the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few”-        James Madison

Is it possible that one of the things that may have signed Lee Oswald's death warrant - was his little known talk at the Jesuit House of Studies at Spring Hill College, Mobile? James Douglass in his stirring book, JFK and the Unspeakable, certainly put that out there to consider (p. 331) though he also does acknowledge that Lee may never have actually verbalized outwardly the content in his notes. But does it matter? If indeed the CIA was in the process of sheepdipping him, as noted by John Newman ('Oswald and the CIA') then whether he actually said the key words may be immaterial. He had disclosed himself as a threat that had to be eliminated - preferably after his arrest for a murder he didn't commit.

This is a critical observation because many deep politics observers believe that the country rapidly mutated into a military -security state in the wake of Kennedy's assassination. (For a plausible scenario of how it could have transpired via conspiracy, rent or buy the excellent 1973 movie, Executive Action.)


In his American University speech, JFK noted:

“Our primary long-range interest is general and complete disarmament- designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms”.


This could not have pleased the warmongers, especially among his Joint Chiefs - who had already been appalled at his failure to bomb and invade Cuba during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis some eight months earlier.

Anyway, the point of this post is that the U.S. not only emerged as a hyper-militant state (empire)  after Kennedy's death, aggressively launching an illegal war in Vietnam - but a national security state as well. The two in concert incepted a toxic policy paranoia that has generated blowback over more than three decades.  In the case of Vietnam, the security state propelled LBJ's retraction of  JFK's National Security Memorandum 263 ( which would have evacuated all personnel). Worse, LBJ  used a security -state developed bogus ploy:  the alleged North Vietnamese firing on the Maddox and Turner Joy in Aug, 1964 to justify a full scale war which led to 58,000 Americans killed.  Vietnam also launched the weasel ploy of  congress "authorizing" further military actions - when actual wars would have been declared, as per the Constitution. All of this in concert, together with how and where the U.S. has stuck its nose in other nations' business (when Kennedy rejected any 'Pax Americana') makes one wonder if American leaders even grasp the concept of 'blowback'.

In a September 13, 2001 interview with the magazine In These Times, Chalmers Johnson (the author of ‘Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire’) was said to “have seen the September 11 catastrophe coming”.  Johnson’s 2000 book argued that U.S. interventionist foreign policy and military overextension would lead to unintended and unpredictable consequences. A year later, his warning seemed eerily prescient. Though JFK wasn’t so prescient in a specific context, his American University Pax Americana  speech, he generically prefigured the horrific consequences if the U.S. insisted on being the policeman of the world, enforcing peace with American weapons of war.    Also, holding the rest of the world up to standards it didn't follow itself!

This speech probably set the foundation for Kennedy’s plan (under NSAM-263) to pull out of Vietnam (after the 1964 elections,  when political repercussions would be minimal). He could likely see that if, indeed, the U.S. remained in Vietnam, the perils of a much wider war, along with consolidation of the military-industrial-oil complex,  would be unavoidable.


Back to Chalmers Johnson and some of the answers to questions he gave in his In These Times interview:

Q1. Is what happened on September 11 an example of blowback?


Of course it is. That's exactly what my book was written for: It was a warning to my fellow Americans, a year ago, that our foreign policy was going to produce something like this. It's important to stress, contrary to what people in Washington and the media are saying, that this was not an attack on the United States: This was an attack on American foreign policy. It was an example of the strategies of the weak against the overwhelmingly powerful.


Q2. Osama bin Laden has been named the primary suspect in these attacks. In the first chapter of Blowback, you talk about earlier American attacks on Osama bin Laden as an example of "a spiral of destructive behavior."


I heard Sen. John McCain say this morning that the people of Afghanistan have nothing to worry about if they would just turn over Osama bin Laden and cooperate with us. ... Where was he during the '80s, when we and the Soviet Union were destroying Afghanistan? Our efforts were to hire people like bin Laden to come from Saudi Arabia and help give the Soviet Union a Vietnam-like experience.


Don't get me wrong. Everyone understands that the people of New York, the people of Washington, the people on the airplanes were innocent bystanders—and that is the nature of this kind of warfare. Our Department of Defense invented the phrase "collateral damage" to deal with the dead Iraqis and the dead Serbs as a result of our bombings of their countries. ... I know it sounds cruel to say, but the people of New York were collateral damage of American foreign policy. It was inevitable that something like this would come back.
 
Q.3 You implied that this type of terrorist warfare seems to be the warfare of the future. I assume that you would expect to see more?


No nation can hope to beat the United States on American terms. Therefore you must devise a strategy that essentially makes our overwhelming military capability worthless. I think they have managed to do so.

People in Washington are continually talking about declaring war—but declaring war on whom? They don't know. If they are going to go out and attack Afghanistan, it will simply produce a further cycle of blowback and retaliation. In the meantime, it will also even further inflame the entire Middle East.


Q.4 If not military force, then what could be effective against this type of terrorist warfare?

What we need to find out is: what are we doing that is provoking this? Is there any flexibility in our policy? Couldn't we alter our policies somewhat? Couldn't we make it our business to try to stay out of fratricidal and hate-laden conflicts? And then, to the extent that we are still the victim of terrorism (which we always will be) then we need a much greater analytic effort to defend ourselves, and that should not be impossible to craft.

Clearly, what happened on September 11 was an almost catastrophic failure of intelligence by extremely expensive agencies that do not do anything. And so far, the American reaction seems to be to target the Bill of Rights more than anything else. Retaliation is not the answer. It hasn't worked for Israel it has only exacerbated the situation. It won't work for us.


Q.5 Is it possible that blowback may take place internally as well as externally?


The greatest danger we have now is militarism in America. We have this huge, overpowering, unbelievably expensive military establishment. It is something from the days of Washington's farewell address to Eisenhower's invention of the phrase "military-industrial complex" that seasoned U.S. leaders have warned against—the threat of a huge military establishment to the liberty of our citizens.

I fear that from this we are going to get even more militarism. That is, more and more functions—including domestic police functions—will be transferred from civilian institutions to the military, and the military will have ever greater authority in our society. We know how that will end based on history, especially of the Roman and British Empires. We're talking here about military overstretch, and the attendant weaknesses of the imperial structure (including continuous financing) that will ultimately lead to total collapse.
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Of course, Johnson’s prediction that we’re going to “get even more militarism” has come to pass, what with the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq (violating Article VI of the Nuremberg laws) and now the drums beating ever louder for an attack on Syria - which will really let loose the dogs of blowback if Chalmers Johnson's answers are to be believed - and I do believe them whole heartedly.

Fortunately, the Russians and Vladimir Putin have proposed a way out of the Syria mess, which requires the Syrian regime to declare all stockpiles of chemical weapons, and ultimately subject them to capture or destruction. There would then be a basis for UN inspectors to get on the ground in Syria and do assays and inspections. Of course, this will take time and so the Amerikkan Empire purveyors and blowback inceptors are already huffing and puffing that "it's all a ploy". This because Russia retracted a resolution regarding inspections yesterday. But what none of the pundits said, except Chris Hayes, is that the Russians (rightfully) want NO resolutions done with a U.S. "gun" pointed to anyone's head, whether Russia's or Syria's. Do the resolution, sure, but not under threat that if such and such markers aren't met and 'x' hoops aren't jumped through in 'y' time, an attack will ensue,

The question then is have American leaders learned the lessons of blowback from their policies, which led directly to 9/11? (In that case the establishment of American bases in Saudi Arabia, left from the Gulf War.))

The answer will hinge on what we see Obama and his bunch do now, given the Russian Syrian proposal. Wifey - who watched his speech- told me he was accepting of the deal, and very humble. He actually acknowledged that the U.S. "cannot be the policeman of the world."  This at least discloses Obama might have partially learned the lessons of 9/11 but I need to see more than words. I want to see a firm leash put on the military dogs preventing them from being unleashed after Assad or Syria, if certain artificial time limits or conditions aren't met. (And again, bear in mind I already made the case the U.S. has no moral authority to be bossing around anyone, "punishing" or anything else, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-us-lacks-moral-authority-to-launch.html

Will we see more 9/11s? Will we see an increased consolidation of the military -surveillance state even beyond what exists now, which as David Lindorff put it in one blog - surpasses even the excesses depicted in Orwell's '1984'?

That depends on how this Syrian crisis plays out.

The whole world is watching, and all American citizens ought to stay tuned as well!

See also: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/51567/a-people-s-victory-over-syrian-attack-plan-in-historic-first-american-empire-is-blocked-at-the-starti

Why Russians Hate Neoliberal Imperialists - And Americans Should Too! (2)

"At the heart of neoliberal narratives are ideologies, modes of governance, and policies that embrace a pathological individualism, a distorted notion of freedom, and a willingness both to employ state violence to suppress dissent and abandon those suffering from a collection of social problems ranging from dire poverty and joblessness to homelessness" - Henry Giroux, 'The Politics of Cruelty - America's Descent Into Madness' (smirkingchimp.com)

In the previous installment I examined how Russia was brought to its economic knees using the "shock doctrine" of the Neoliberal capitalist imperialists, documented in excruciating detail in Naomi Klein's book,  'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism' (2007).    But as Klein describes, the shock doctrine's basis of "disaster capitalism" was to deliberately use assorted confected crises - whether military  or economic- to justify subverting the will of many other nations and their citizens to make the world "safe" for global capital. In one chapter where Klein coins the term "disaster capitalism" she analogizes it to the electric shocks delivered via certain tortures, say to a person's head & genitals. The shocked victims became so mentally incoherent, terrified -  that they were ready to accept just about anything demanded of them.


In the aftermath of what the Neoliberals did to Russia, it perhaps wasn't surprising they'd turn their eyes to the U.S. itself. But how to do it? Capitalism in a way was already entrenched, at least in terms of a mixed economy, i.e. which also had aspects of mild socialism (for example, inherent in social insurance). But the Neoliberals and their military shock troops ensconced in a de facto shadow government (exposed in Kathryn Olmstead's Challenging the Secret Government, Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1996) needed a way to: a) keep citizens hostage to the Neoliberal imperative, which demanded ever increasing removal of economic security - especially in "entitlements", and b) demanded an ever expanded military  -surveillance structure to halt  anti-capitalist protests in the country, as well as establish global capital beach heads in others. This meant dramatically inflating the military-  surveillance budget. The problem was how to do it, given the old enemies had been brought to heel.

The ideal way to instill shock (in an already market-hostage consumer nation) if one wished to ramp up surveillance and defense budgets (at the cost of entitlements),  would be an attack on American soil - which would then be milked for all it was worth as justification for increased security-defense spending. The attack would be such that 99% of Americans would be so traumatized that they'd be prepared to give up anything (except maybe shopping), even long established rights- liberties, just to be protected from further attacks. If the attack was large enough or spread out, the putative security state could exploit it to instill more fear, paranoia by subsequent use of color coded "alerts". The media would help by replaying the images which would then permeate every neuron of every sentient citizen in every state - much the same way the public slaughter of John F. Kennedy has been emblazoned in the minds and eyes of later presidents to make them understand they aren't the real heads of state, only puppets. If the enemy was also demonized enough, it might rival the Cold War boogeyman of "Reds under the bed" confected by the McCarthyites and their latter-day  clones.

Whether one is a "9/11 Truther"  or shares a milder perspective (like me, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-responsible-was-bush-for-911.html) it is indisputable that the Bushite regime - shoehorned into power by five Supremes - benefited enormously by the 9/11 attacks. Not only did Bush's approval rating soar from the toilet (35%)  to over 90% in days, but within barely five years the defense budget had doubled, from 2.4% of GDP to 4.9% while the surveillance budget had exploded even more - thanks to the provisions in the "the Patriot Act" which most of our dutiful reps didn't even bother to read before they signed it into law.

Worse, these reprobates rolled over like beaten whelps as the Bushites pumped the false basis for invading Iraq - seeking to validate a nearly 10 -year long invasion that would suck our own nation dry in its domestic resources, as it ramped up deficits - which of course, was the plan. It was part of the shock doctrine to generate monstrous debt,  the better to justify cutting those nasty entitlements as the Neoliberals demanded.

Thankfully, at least one true patriot and courageous citizen, Joe Wilson, had the guts to expose the Bushie's "yellowcake- Niger" fakery (part of what they claimed was the reason to attack Saddam, since otherwise we'd all be incinerated in a nuclear cloud). However, his wife Valerie Plame paid the price by being outed by the Bushies as a CIA agent. Talk about treason! But some Americans- who now blather about Ed Snowden - seem lost at sea as to who are true traitors and who are patriots.

Amidst all this changes were being made in terms of mass surveillance. Though the Bushies were caught red-handed illegally going around the 1978 FISA law to get illegal wiretaps - of those terrible 'terrists,  at least suspects- a wimp congress looked the other way and actually approved the illegal wiretaps by CHANGING the law! Never in the history of these United States has a bigger consortium of treasonous rats been exposed. And to make it even worse, a subsequent congress actually approved the extension of the bastardized law several years later.

The seeds of the shock doctrine applied to the U.S.. were already well in hand. In her Chapter 15 ('The Corporate State') Naomi Klein describes in detail how the U.S. was transferred into a massive corporate state with the security apparatus to back it up. (Red flags about too many energetic citizen protests to globalization had already appeared with the anti-WTO Seattle protests in 1999, made famous in the movie, 'The Battle of Seattle'). So the privatization forces (who also at the time were making a full court press to privatize Social Security based on the Bush Texas plan)  needed mass surveillance to identify would-be trouble makers, and they also needed something more: a martial law fallback position to lock up anyone they deemed too 'activist".

Thus does Klein, in the opening paragraphs of Chapter 15, introduce us to the continuity of government (COG) program I'd blogged on earlier, i.e. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/between-skeleton-key-and-cog-how-close.html

She writes (p. 390):

"In the heat of the mid-term elections of 2006, three weeks before announcing Donald Rumsfeld's resignation, George W. Bush signed the Defense Authorization Act in a private Oval Office ceremony. Tucked into its 1400 pages was a rider that went almost completely unnoticed at the time. It gave the president the power to declare martial law and 'employ the armed forces' - including the National Guard - overriding the wishes of state governors in the event of a 'public emergency' in order to 'restore public order' and 'suppress disorder'"

Klein added that the declared emergency could  'be almost anything' including "mass protests".  Obviously, the Seattle 1999 anti-World Trade Organization protests had given the Neoliberal imperialists a wake up call and they weren't about to take it any more. Hence also, the way they bore down on Occupy Wall Street in 2011, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/national-security-state-spied-on-occupy.html  to the extent of even aiming sniper rifles at them in Houston.

Klein notes that before Bush's treachery martial law could only be enacted in a time of actual insurrection. Worse, deploying military on American soil violated the Posse Comitatus law.

As time went on, the corporate gangster war-surveillance state was consolidated in multiple ways. But like the proverb about the frog who jumps from boiling water when dumped into it, but is boiled alive while immersed if the water temperature is increase only 1 degree at a time , Americans (most) were oblivious as their nation was slowly transformed into a fascist police state. Or maybe they were still too shocked from the events of 9/11 to do anything, especially with the Bushies manipulating them with a series of yellow, orange and other "alerts".

Because in 2006, right under their noses, the Military Commissions Act was passed which effectively removed the age old right of habeas corpus. Not long after the National Defense Authorization Act (of 2011, then 2012, then 2013, and soon 2014) which codified the indefinite military detention of American citizens without requiring they be charged with a specific crime or given a trial. (See also: http://truth-out.org/news/item/17070-indefinite-surveillance-say-hello-to-the-national-defense-authorization-act-of-2014

In Klein's examination we also learn that the Bush martial law insertion via hidden rider to implement continuity of gov't could be traced back to John Foster Dulles who defined a two -pronged priority for the country: 1) defeating communism, especially as manifested in Russia, and 2) protecting multi-national corporations - through whatever means necessary including coups staged in non-cooperative nations, who refused to allow resources to be exploited. Thus, the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala using the CIA to protect the profits of United Fruit.

Dulles made it clear that "coups and military interventions were the means to the end" of corporate hegemony- to thereby arrive at stable environments for business to prosper. Translation: make every country with ripe resources plum for the taking and be prepared to put down any nation or its government that got too uppity. Oh, and kill any upstarts!


But why worry? After all, we now know actual American citizens can be killed at the will or discretion of the executive.  Anyone paying attention? Maybe the shock doctrine has indeed worked because it has imposed shocks that benumb the populace into ceding everything away as they mutate into consumers - away from citizens.

Interested readers may then ponder the 14 characteristics of fascism, noting in particular: Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -because of fear of enemies and the need for security, Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - people rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe, Supremacy of the Military (Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding);  and Obsession with National Security -- Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

See more at: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/10/14-characteristics-of-fascism.html

Bloodhound Gang, Lady Gaga & Madonna Would Be Punished In BARBADOS TOO!

The U.S. corporate, Neoliberal media gets more sickening, reprehensible and vile by the day. Their latest news blasts (aimed at dolts and gullibles)  - strangely timed not long after Russia granted Edward Snowden temporary asylum - is to paint Russia as so lacking civil liberties they will go after a 'Murican Band (Blood Hound Gang) and two pop stars - Lady Gaga and Madonna.  Usually left out, or given four seconds of short shrift, is what they did to deserve the sanctions.

In fact, Blood Hound Gang, performing in the Ukraine, saw one of its members take the Russian flag and stuff it down his pants to the cheers of the gathered, drunken twits. For that they were banned from Russia, and that is the Russians' right to do - never mind U.S. corporate nabobs who can't even get their basic facts right (or don't want to) on the Kennedy assassination.

Make no mistake though. had this unwashed bunch of troglodytes tried that stunt in Barbados, say using the flag of Bim (broken Trident) they'd not only have been banned but have spent about a year in Glendairy Prison, keeping company with the rats. Had they tried the stunt in a neighboring island, and the news reached Bim, they'd also be banned - just like the Russians did.

Believe it or not, many other nations don't distort "free speech" rights like the hypocrites in the U.S. do.In Germany and Austria, for example, if you're so fucking stupid as to deny the holocaust and go about writing or speechifying on it, you will spend time in the clink.  This isn't being "tyrannical" but it is a sober and practical recognition that the past of these nations, if not managed stringently, could come back to bite them in unseemly ways, see e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/what-are-new-german-nazis-really-up-to.html

Thus, there are practical limits imposed on speech if it doesn't redound to the common welfare of the countries involved. And please, the U.S. has such checks as well though they may not be formal or under the aegis of gov't! Recall the fate of one former Univ. of Colorado prof, Ward Churchill, who lost his job after some little termite with nothing better to do dug up an old essay of his written in the aftermath of 9/11 ('"On the Justice of Roosting Chickens") then circulated  (fax-blasted) it to dozens of news sources.

When it came to the attention of the President and regents at the Univ. of Colorado, they immediately instigated an academic witch hunt, on HIM - no one else, and investigated all his past research ultimately arriving at a finding of "plagiarism" for which he was officially fired. (Unofficially, "plagiarism" was the cover employed to fire him for his provocative essay.)  Churchill's lawyers claimed the university violated the provision of equal rights under the law, since their investigations focused only on him and no one else. Hence, it was clearly designed to operate like a fishing expedition to expel Churchill. Other serious academics also protested, because of course they were smart enough to recognize an attack on free speech when they saw it, and found it violated university tenure protections as well. They feared, with good reason, the same could be done to them if a reason was found and as one prof put it: "Hell, if they looked hard and long enough they'd find plagiarism in just about everyone's portfolios of past papers, research - or what might be perceived by some as such."

So, the U.S. does impose limits on speech, it just doesn't always do it formally - though the recent attacks on whistle blowers could be viewed as formal gov't proscriptions. But my point is that with so many hypocrites in this country, it's easy to depict double standards, or ...that we are the goody two shoes nation while the others are baddies because they won't do what we do.

As for Madonna and Lady Gaga, most corporate news media sources just portray the ladies as victims of Russian heavy -handedness because they appeared on stage in Russia to defend the band 'Pussy Riot' and to plump for gay rights. The subtext conveyed is embodied in the question:  "How can anyone seriously defend Snowden going to Russia for asylum after this?"

In fact, only one media outlet I've seen - on CBS this morning - noted that neither Gaga nor Madonna had visas to enter the country. DUH! Don't these ladies know that entry without visas is illegal in any country that demands them?  If they pulled that stunt in B'dos they'd also spend time - in the women's sector of Glendairy- keeping company with somewhat smaller rats.

Instead of wasting their time and "talents" on the "persecution" of U.S. rock stars, the corporate Neoliberal media would do better to focus on substantial matters such as the actual cabal of gangsters and national security forces that killed John F. Kennedy and how our medical system is so distorted that people needing surgery have to travel to India, Mexico or Belgium to get it - saving vast sums of money even when air fare is factored in.

But see, the job of the U.S. media isn't to be invested in keeping citizens properly informed but to keep them brainwashed, or terrified....i.e. from the latest "terror alert" warnings.  And after all, we have 9/11 coming up so it's time to keep that meme alive!  Can't have the NSA losing its funding after all, or for congress critters to finally grow a pair and place limits on surveillance. Oh no. Better to cut Social Security and Medicare - as well as Medicaid for the poor- so the rich can live high off the hog while we blow more trillions on military and security BS.

Stay tuned!

See also:   http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/04/3542743/embassy-closings-travel-warning.html