Citizens - Regarded As Too Dumb Or Dangerous To Read Full CIA Torture Report

Douglas Rushkoff, in Chapter Four ('Individually Wrapped').  of his  book, Life Inc. - How Corporations Conquered the World and How We Can Take It Back, singles out the arena of public relations (PR)  and its perverse uses to bamboozle citizens. The essential thesis is that properly applied, PR divides each citizen from every other - each accepting his or her own version of political and economic truth.  The outcome is that the citizenry is disarmed from opposing the excesses of the state or corporations, because they are instead fighting each other.

Rushkoff singles out the immediate era after Edward Bernays - the author of 'Propaganda' - signed on with the corporate state, to promote fascism. As he observes (p. 109):

"American corporatists saw in fascism a counterbalance to FDR's strong-handed tactics and aggressive social welfare programs.....Henry Luce, a co-founder of TIME magazine, put Mussolini on the cover five times and traveled the country arguing that corporations - not government - were really in charge of America.  Luce convinced many business people that fascism might be corporatism's best hope for organizing and influencing people."

Rushkoff goes on to note that by the end of World War II fascism had revealed itself as "ruthlessly dehumanizing" so  American industry had to take a different tack known as "Americanism. This approach used advertising PR to turn citizens into consumers - driven by spending on all manner of fluff and nonsense- to take their minds off serious politics and economic issues. Combined with this the media empire developed to the point it was able to frame issues, events, ideas to shape the minds of the masses.   This followed Edward Bernays' PR description in his work, 'Propaganda':

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country."

If then this power is wielded to split consumers into "brand" factions along with their political affiliations and beliefs, the effect is polarizing and also dissolves any united citizens' front, i.e. to hold the Deep State or corporations to account.  It additionally is designed to keep citizens at the infantile level of "consumers" who shy away from examining what their government is up to. If a person then refuses to venture outside this compromised matrix of PR he remains a mental invalid and automaton run by the Deep State. Believing whatever it spouts, or what its talking heads blab, or distort.

It is no accident that Bernays' use of the term 'invisible government'  equates to 'the true ruling power of the country'.  Today, this ruling power inheres in a military-corporate- security state nexus called the  Deep State, and it requires deep politics - not its superficial media counterpart-  to plumb its depths. This is irrespective of  examining the Ukraine crisis, the JFK assassination, the yen for pretext "wars" as in Iraq, the related monstrous Pentagon budget, or the growing inequality in the country.

It also pertains to the examination of the CIA torture program which went on for years, and which report - of 6,300 pages- will now likely never be seen by the American people. As a Senate committee moves to declassify a landmark report about the Central Intelligence Agency’s descent into torture, among the only certainties is that the public won’t see the vast majority of it. Instead we will be told by PR talking  media heads what they want us to think about it, and only dribbles released concerning what we can actually  be allowed to know.

True,  the Senate select committee on intelligence has waged an unprecedented and acrimonious public battle with the CIA over the secret 6,300-page investigation  known as the "Panetta Report", concluding torture  is an ineffective intelligence-gathering technique and that the CIA lied about its value. But now they ought to release it in full to citizens wanting to know - so we can at least see what the spook degenerates did in our name. Instead, we're told to expect a similar micro-managing of files as was done  previously with the  HSCA Investigation of the JFK assassination back in 1978. So the Senate  vote has allowed only  a slice of the CIA Torture report to be made public. Worse,  the CIA will have a significant degree of influence over how large and how public that slice will be. Of course, this is reminiscent of the perverse manner in which information was controlled with the files released by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, once the CIA got control of it, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-jfk_19.html

 

Thus, the committee is not going to release the 6,300-page report. Its chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein of California, said on the Senate floor three weeks ago that only the “findings, conclusions and the executive summary of the report” were the subject of the committee’s declassification efforts. The vast majority of the Senate report – effectively, an alternative post-9/11 history detailing of years’ worth of CIA torture and cover-up – will remain shielded from public view.

So what gives? Why prevent us from accessing a report we paid for with our tax dollars?  The short answer is that part of the Deep State's PR conditioning process - to dissuade any remaining citizens (who haven't mutated into totally infantilized consumers) from pressing the national security state to back off - is framing and omission.  Both techniques were first noted by Michael Parenti in his 'Dirty Truths', to do with how the media manipulates the public mind.  Omission here serves the same purpose it does with the National Archives refusing to release all the files on the JFK assassination. If we are then prevented from knowing the dark aspects of our history, and the extent of our own government's complicity in it-  i.e. in having Kennedy assassinated- then we can't break out of the realm of false tropes and American goody-goody exceptionalism. Hence, it dovetails precisely with the post-WWII corporatists embrace of "Americanism" as a practical substitute for fascism.

 

The problem with that is that it's still leading us down a path of fascism, which in its most fundamental definition means the control of a nation's destiny by the wealthiest using corporate power. It is also a feature of fascism that it extols expanded military power - because for every dollar wasted in unprovoked conflicts or insinuating American power where it doesn't belong, there is less available for the public commons or the general welfare. It's a 'win-win' for the Deep State because with military expansionism more money is pumped into pockets of defense contractors, corporations while more is taken out of struggling citizens' hides. Thus, everything from the dramatic increase in student college debt to our crumbling infrastructure and the stagnation of middle class wages can be laid at the door of creeping fascism.

 

Meanwhile, Steven Aftergood, an intelligence policy analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, considers the CIA's  role in managing the Torture Report file release a conflict of interest.  He stated in an interview with the UK Guardian:

 

" They functionally control the declassification process, and they have an interest in how they as an agency are portrayed in the final product.  They’re not an impartial party, and that’s a flaw in the process.”

 

Of course, neither were they an "impartial party" in the case of the JFK assassination files released by the HSCA.  In the latter case, none other than CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator  Jim Lawderman – on July 27, 1977- wrote out the terms of the CIA’s control of  HSCA head Robert Blakey’s investigation. (Mellen, J., ‘Farewell to Justice’, p. 345).  One of the terms cited was (ibid.):

 

“ Certain areas relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should be entirely disregarded based upon our contention they are without merit or corroboration” (ibid.)

 

Thus, the CIA was effectively judging the evidence even before there was any. This statement in many ways is as glaring and outrageous as the terms of the document NSC-68 paving the way for perpetual war.

 

In this way  practical citizenship can be kept at bay in the Deep State, and citizens (actually mostly consumers) can be set against each other because each will have different purviews of knowledge, media exposure and extent of research into what's really going on.  The Deep State has nothing, nada to worry itself over, since those of us who DO this digging into its nefarious backgrounds will often be dismissed as "tin foil hats" or "conspiracy theorists" or some such misbegotten term. Each of which betrays the inner fear the infantilized citizen has for facing the unsavory truth. That he really inhabits a gangster corporate-militarist state which doesn't have his best interests at heart.

 

The refusal of the Senate committee to release the full CIA Torture report is in line with all of the above and Feinstein et al regard their decision as justified because  they see American citizens are either too dumb or dangerous to place the full report in their hands.   Thus, we will likely never know the extent to which we, as citizens, supported a horrific policy of torture done in our name.

 

Welcome to Americanism V. 2.0 and the Deep State!

 

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/medea-benjamin/55186/the-cia-whistleblower-and-the-torture-report

 

and:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bob-burnett/54660/the-war-on-democracy-the-deep-state

 

NSA Snooping Now Pisses Off Germans - As Former Snowden Detractor Recants

Edward Snowden after receiving WhistleBlower's Award in Moscow.

Well, by the day it get ever more interesting. Now it turns out the Germans are livid about the never ending, no limits, indiscriminate NSA snooping by an "exceptionalist"  country that fancies itself cop of the world and snoop too. Angela Merkel complained to President Barack Obama on Wednesday after receiving information her cellphone may have been monitored, as well as the communications of millions of other Germans.

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador John B. Emerson has been summoned to meet with Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle today - and he will “spell out the position of the German government.” From what I have learned and understood about Germans, given many German friends, it will basically boil down to: "Keep your fucking, snooping eyes and ears out of Deutschland!"

Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere told German ARD television the alleged surveillance would be “really bad” if confirmed. “The Americans are and remain our best friends, but this is absolutely not right,” he said. The problem with that line is that "best friends" don't open and read the mail of their friends. They respect their privacy instead of pissing all over it. Did the U.S. and NSA really believe they could get away with this shit? Probably, up until Edward Snowden revealed the extent of NSA mass snooping, when all the Neolib pro-market, war & security whores went batshit crazy - castigating Snowden as a "traitor" when he was fulfilling his duty as a righteous citizen protecting his fellow citizens' 4th amendment rights - which our gov't no longer seems to believe in.

But,  interestingly, a former Snowden detractor, WaPo columnist Richard Cohen - as reported several days ago- has now changed his tune, calling Snowden a legitimate whistle blower, as opposed to the epithet "traitor" when the leaks first appeared. He now understands, like most perceptive and intelligent people, that if it were not for Snowden we wouldn't even be aware of the extent of the snoops' reach or how they violated the most sacred core of our Constitution.

Make no mistake that Germans take intrusive snooping, including by companies, very seriously. They have some of the stiffest laws on the planet as opposed to the laissez-faire,  business suck-up U.S. which allows companies to collect any and everything, including access to Social Security numbers and bank accounts. To give an idea how strict the German are regarding protection of their citizens' privacy they won't allow Google to show homes in assorted cities without blurring the image out. Thus, no clear view is afforded.

All of this latest kerfuffle comes in the wake of other exposures of NSA spying into other leaders' affairs- emails, etc.  Earlier, for example, we learned about NSA phone taps applied to Mexico's Enrique Peña Nieto. The other humiliating phone call of the week was on Monday with François Hollande, whose phone was not bugged as far as he knew, but who demanded an explanation for the revelation – once more from the Snowden files – that the NSA had been recording tens of millions of French phone calls a month. The White House was forced to admit that the evidence raised "legitimate questions for our friends and allies".

Before that, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff went on the warpath. Unlike assorted Neoliberal, anti-4th amendment twerps in the U.S., President Rousseff didn't play games blaming Edward Snowden - but rather the dissembling culprits his revelations exposed: the NSA.

She said:

"Without respect for a nation's sovereignty, there is no basis for proper relations among nations,"

Rousseff added that: "Brazil knows how to protect itself. Brazil ... does not provide shelter to terrorist groups. We are a democratic country."

The Brazilian president, had been so outraged at American spying-  both on her country and on her personal emails and her personal life- that she canceled a state dinner with President Obama. Good for her. She isn't two-faced but consistent. Her privacy was seriously violated, as U.S. citizens' privacy has been, so why should she be seen to be accepting of it, by agreeing to a state dinner - for simple pompous display?

Rousseff addresses the UN and gives the U.S. a piece of her mind on NSA spying

She went on to pointedly note:

"Without the right of privacy, there is no real freedom of speech or freedom of opinion, and so there is no actual democracy."

In other words, people denied this right - by NSA intrusiveness - via XKeyscore, PRISM or whatever, are inhabiting a Potemkin democracy. They have no true freedom of speech because they can't know how their (spied and mass-grabbed) speech is being used against them, or collected and stored for later exploitation. Perhaps even criminalization.

This ought to be a no-brainer. Because to spy on another country (especially one purportedly a "friend") is to display malignant and even paranoid distrust of the spied -on nation. It therefore undermines polity, as well as civility, and in the process destroys any potential for normal relations or mutual respect. I would advance the same regarding the relation between a state and its citizens. If the former intrudes and spies on its people, then it mistrusts them at the core, and the citizen - knowing this - has no choice but to mistrust the state.

What is most puzzling is why it is Obama can't get control of these arrogant NSA troglodytes. As wifey, a firm Obama supporter even asked (after the German revelations broke): 'What is this, the tail wagging the dog? He needs to get them under control!'  Indeed.  So either Mr. Obama is a President who himself calls the shots, or a Puppet. Which is it? By his deeds we shall know the answers, never mind the rhetoric- talk is cheap.

Perhaps Mr. Obama would do well to pay attention to President Rousseff's  global rallying cry against what she portrayed as the overweening power of the US security apparatus, in her same  UN address:

 "Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and is an affront of the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations. A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country."


I again trace the malignancy and desecration of international law of which she speaks to the false belief in American exceptionalism.  It is only such exceptionalism which feeds the insane meme that one country is superior somehow to all other nations, and can therefore do whatever the hell it wants - and follow no international norms.

So, maybe Obama will finally change - and cease blaming Snowden, who he ought to really give another medal to - when he finally ditches the useless exceptionalist meme. It no longer serves any constructive purpose, if it ever did, and is only liable to lead our nation into ever more follies - and a lot more hubris.)

Oh, speaking of hubris, that has emerged in spades following the excuse of an NSA-defender -huckster simpleton (taking the rest of us for simpletons) that "they do it too!". In other words, we need to look the other way because all these other Euro governments are also doing their own snooping on us. But anyone who buys this codswallop is a certified idiot. It's about as dumb as buying into Netanyahu's hand wringing about Iran getting one friggin' nuke when Israel already has 150. Enough to blow the entire Middle East to Armageddon 15 times over. Or the NSA complaining about the Frenchies maybe spying on 10 U.S. emails when the NSA pulls in 70 million from the French! It's the same false equivalence bullshit raised to the power of 10 we've seen in other Neolib PR arenas. As Natasha Lennard has noted on salon.com ('You DO it TOO! A Pathetic Defense of NSA Spying' )

"The logic is profoundly flawed, but it’s worth noting, tacitly pervades the ideology undergirding U.S. imperialism. The U.S. has kidnapped, tortured, indefinitely detained and extrajudicially killed individuals around the world under the auspices that there are groups out there who would do the same to Americans if given the chance. And in this time of borderless wars, ill-defined enemy threats, and highly politicized business interests, strict Straussian goodie/baddie lines are hard to apply. “The enemy” could be anywhere, and the “we” that needs protecting is an equally vague referent in current political rhetoric: NSA dragnets evidence that we’re all treated as potential threats by virtue of communicating. )

International diplomacy is, of course, rife with hypocrisy and finger pointing. That supporters of NSA surveillance activities are relying on this as a public defense is illustration of the scant regard given to very legitimate public concerns (in the U.S. and abroad) about the operations of the surveillance state."

Are Afghan Lives = American Lives? The Lessons of Vietnam - Why They Remain Unlearned.

My Lai, with some of the hundreds of villagers slain, in 1968 by Lt. William Calley and his troops. Will Americans ever learn the lessons of Vietnam, or remain in denial – providing an excuse for our leaders to start more wars?

The NBC News lead story last night noted the death of a 25-year old U.S. diplomat, her life cut short by a roadside bomb attack. Yes, she was yet another casualty of the odious overlong U.S. occupation of Afghanistan – still continuing even after al Qaeda has been chased out of the country and its putative leader, Osama bin Laden, killed. Less mentioned by our corpora-media was that 10 innocent Afghan villagers, including toddlers and women, were slain in a misguided NATO attack.

Let me spell this out in black and white so that even an idiot ignoramus like my youngest bro can compute it: If you kill more ‘friendlies’ than you do bad guys, you are not going to win the hearts and minds of the people you are supposedly fighting for, and you won’t win any claimed “war”. All the beleagured people will do, as they did in Vietnam, is collaborate with the enemy to rid themselves of the vicious invaders. This stuff isn’t rocket science, and it is but one more reason Obama, in his budget Wednesday, ought to be announcing an additional saving of $600b by pulling out of Afghanistan immediately! (Another $400b would be saved in having less materiel to send back after this farce is finished)

The Russians learned their lesson in Afghanistan, but too late. That involvement essentially laid waste to the USSR, and bankrupted their nation as it’s doing to us. A superpower was reduced to an ordinary power with lots of nukes. Meanwhile,  our politicos are so wedded to the tits of the military- industrial bloodsuckers (including their lobbyist defense contractors) and parasites they can’t or won’t see that. Hence, they refuse to act, though they insist the "deficits matter". Bull pockey!

According to a recent article in The Washington Spectator (Vol.39, No.4, p.6) by Nick Turse, the U.S. still hasn’t learned and applied the lessons of the Vietnam debacle. Because like it or not, our involvement in dozens of conflicts since Vietnam is underwritten by our failure to grasp the lessons of Vietnam. This, as Turse, notes, is because we display a “collective failure to reckon honestly with the reality of the Vietnam War”.

He goes on to add (ibid.):

“The reason that the conflict rises again and again like a B-movie monster is because the United States has long refused to truly acknowledge , let alone take responsibility for, the bombs and artillery shells, grenades and rockets, mines and bullets, incendiary weapons and chemical defoliants that ravaged the land, made refugees of more than 1.1 million, killed an estimated 2 million and wounded 5 million more.”


Why such waste of lives? FOREIGN lives? My personal theory is because this nation, exceptionalist that it is, doesn’t grant the same value to foreign lives (especially of those it seeks to ‘save’) as its own. Hence, it repeatedly gets involved on these ‘Pax Americana’ missions in which more  lives are wasted, destroyed than the putative ‘enemy’ would have done. Because we are so detached from reality in our exceptionalist blindness, we don’t see lives we have taken as wasted but write them off as “collateral damage”.

As if that stupid canard justifies further warmongering and ‘all is well’! (See also the book, 'Collateral Language' and how they are making our language a casualty as well, to mindfuck most of us not paying attention.)

Anyway, Turse goes on:

“Never having come to grips with what this country actually did during this war, we see its ghost arise anew with each successful military intervention. Was Iraq the new Vietnam? Or was that Afghanistan? Do we see the light at the end of the tunnel? Are we ‘winning hearts and minds’? Are we applying the lessons of Vietnam? What are those lessons anyway?”


At least one lesson ought to have been to remove the blinders and cease with the hindsight war mythology, e.g. “Vietnam was a conflict nobly fought by responsible commanders and good American boys who should not be tainted by the occasional mistake of a few bad apples in their midst”.


All of which is balderdash. The truth is Vietnam was a war of choice, initiated under false pretense, fought at the behest of banksters (Wall Street), oil men and defense contractors (who needed to try out new weapons developed since the Korean conflict) and by a manipulative president who nullified the previous National Security Action Memorandum of his predecessor to pull out by 1965.

Its commanders were mostly craven, untested egomaniacs who stayed at the rear while they ordered pizza deliveries and brewskies, as they sent green horn grunts out on ‘search and destroy’ missions. Those grunts were mostly only able to function by taking daily tokes on their weed or other drugs, and if they got pissed at a fellow grunt, or more often an officer, would as soon “frag” him as look at him. Moreover, given the demand for the daily “body count” – innocent villagers such as slain at My Lai, were way more common than generally believed.

But this is a truth that exceptionalist Americans- raised on the codswallop of Pentagon PR and modern “history” books- refuse to accept. However, until they do, we are bound to enter into ever more “wars” at the cost of even more blood and treasure.