Brazilian Prez Tells It Like It Is Re: NSA Spying- and American 'Above the Law' Exceptionalism

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


Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, speaking this morning at the United Nations,  delivered a merciless indictment of spying by the NSA on behalf of the United States.  Unlike assorted Neoliberal, anti-4th amendment twerps in the U.S., President Roussef 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,"

This ought to be a no-brainer. Because to spy on another country is to display malignant 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.

Dilma 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, has been so outraged at American spying- both on her country and on her personal emails and her personal life, 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?

Alas, too many dumb Americans - brainwashed by the corporate media - will perceive this simply as a tiff or rift between Brazil and the U.S., missing the larger point - that THEY are having their heads pissed on by the NSA  too, and ought to be equally outraged as Dilma Rousseff. Indeed, President Rousseff highlighted this very thing when she said:

"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.  I also noted this in a previous blog on the 4th amendment, after quoting it:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”


In other words, the NSA MASS-grabbing of data violates directly the 4th amendment, and yeah, I'm as much a stickler about the 4th as the gun people are about the 2nd.

As I noted, "secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. A fundamental right to privacy, meanwhile, insists there exist bona fide entities that one can uniquely own, e.g. papers, effects – including photos or what not- that are private. Without this fundamental right, then, “personal papers, effects” has no meaning hence the 4th amendment is meaningless.

This is exactly what President Rousseff's point was, but it likely sailed over most Americans' heads - if they heard or saw it at all- and was met with smirking cynicism by our own pols. (Who probably still have a hard- on to put Snowden in chains for revealing the criminal acts of the state spy system) As The Guardian also noted:

"Rousseff's angry speech was a direct challenge to President Barack Obama, who was waiting in the wings to deliver his own address to the UN general assembly, and represented the most serious diplomatic fallout to date from the revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden."

In a global rallying cry against what she portrayed as the overweening power of the US security apparatus, Rousseff went on to say (ibid.):

"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.

It's the same irrational delusion that fuels the conviction the U.S. is some kind of global policeman - entitled to flog any "misbehaving" nation with a 'Pax Americana' drone or cruise missile attack based on whatever pretext it wants, or none. Because it views itself as "exceptional" - meaning above the law- then it has no need to obey any laws other than those it creates itself out of its false beliefs of hegemony and imperialism.

Needless to say, Washington's efforts to soothe Brazil have all been for naught. Why be soothed if you know in advance nothing will change and the spying will continue? It's a waste of time. Rousseff then went on to aver (ibid.):

"Friendly governments and societies that seek to build a true strategic partnership, as in our case, cannot allow recurring illegal actions to take place as if they were normal. They are unacceptable.

The arguments that the illegal interception of information and data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained. Brazil, Mr President, knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbor terrorist groups,"

She then called on the UN to develop "a new global  system" to govern the internet. This is all well and good, but so long as a superpower with too much heft and hubris is around that believes its warrant is global control, not even that will protect against incursions.   The only thing that might work is a powerful countervailing force to offset U.S. exceptionalist hegemony- and, unless aliens land from Tau Ceti, I see nothing on the horizon to rein in American imperialists.

Why Do We Have An Isolated Military Enclave?

"War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. "- George Orwell

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." -Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Even now as the fumes of war rhetoric circulate concerning a possible attack on Iran's nuclear sites, and a Russian Defense Minister two days ago warned of the possibility of nuclear war, the United States appears unable or unwilling to control its rampant war meme. On the one hand, we understand that this war meme is part economic, given defense now claims 58 cents of every federal dollar. Hence, there will always be a vested interest in sustaining and even expanding it. No surprise then, that since 9-11 the military-defense budget has effectively doubled to nearly $790 billion a year. This has been over a period while our roads, bridges, sewer and water mains have approached third world standards for collapse.

Do we get it? We seem not to! Indeed, we appear hell bent on preserving empire status which is - to be truthful - not sustainable either socially or fiscally. Consolidating the impetus to Empire was the document NSC-68, prepared by Paul Nitze (of the National Security Council) and completed by 1950. The document essentially contained the blueprint for unending strife and undeclared wars, all of which would be invoked on the basis of a zero tolerance threshold for foreigners’ misbehavior.

The putative basis? To enable U.S. agitation, overthrow (or assassination) of democratically-elected leaders, and large and small occupations (ranging from the few thousand troops in the Dominican Republic in 1965, to more than 200,000 in Iraq by 2006.)

The motivating force of the document was clear in this regard:

“a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere”

In other words, any place the U.S. even remotely sense what it construed as “defeat of free institutions” gave it license to intervene at will. This critical aspect is described thusly by Morris Berman (Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire, W.W. Norton, page 118):

"Nitze emphasized the importance of perception, arguing that how we were seen was as crucial as how militarily secure we actually were. This rapidly expanded the number of interests deemed relevant to national security”

In other words, it provided the formula for unending war, and the building of Empire. That Empire now oversees 2.4 million in arms scattered over seven continents.

What we also know about emerging or sustained empires is that they tend to evolve hard core military enclaves, especially when there is no shared basis for conducting campaigns of war. For example, the Roman armies were largely sequestered from the people of Rome up to the Empire's collapse arising from military overstretch. In effect, Roman warriors felt apart from the Roman commonweal and didn't think twice abot robbing or raping the peasants, say to gain sustenance or satisfy themselves. The Empire itself saw no evil in draining the peasants, farmers of their crops for tax purposes to support the widespread armies stretching from Britain to Judea.

Now we see, from the recent TIME magazine (Nov. 21, 'An Army Apart', and story on page 34 'The Other 1%') that the U.S. has also developed such an isolated enclave, though to be sure they haven't yet embarked on any domestic raids or whatever. Why should they? According to TIME (p. 39 graphic) their average pay and benefits now amounts to some $86,000 a year. Compare this to about $38,000 for the average American. Then these guys wonder why the country doesn't give them the attention they believe they merit? How the hell can it when most people are trying to hang onto homes, keep their kids clothed and fed and unable to find decent paying jobs - say that pay even half in benefits or pay of what these personnel are receiving?

But there are other more pernicious reasons for the polarization of a 1% military enclave relative to the civvie populace. I touched on a number of aspects in a previous blog:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/10/monstrous-divide-between-military.html

Therein I noted the reason for the tiny 1 % of the population serving is no mystery because today's warriors operate as a volunteer force. This is radically different from the 1960s, 70s when the draft called young men from all walks of life. Many studies conducted since the military ditched the draft show the main reason for joining is not patriotic but rather economic. Further, the region most represented is now the South - the former Confederacy - which also is the most religious region and the most politically conservative. No surprise then that while 23% of the general American public votes Repub, up to 36% of vets do! Also, more than half of military now serving regard themselves as "conservative".

Thus, a regional and political polarity is already afoot in setting the military population apart from the civilian.

But why do so many military vets returning find themselves strangers in a strange land? Indeed, their own families express amazement and scorn that virtually no national media regularly follow the war zones or events. They have to learn about it via tweets or emails from the troops themselves.

This is not surprising because in the wake of 9/11, instead of marshalling a "we're all in this together" mentality, and using an expanded taxation to realize and underscore it, we were all told to "go shopping" - while multi-trillion dollar tax CUTS were implemented, and which are still being propagated by our dimwit pols while they yelp about "deficits".

By contrast, every manjack citizen knew from the get-go he would have to sacrifice during World War II including via gas and assorted meat rationing and higher taxes- and not one person complained! Nor did people bitch in the immediate post-war period when the high taxes helped to finance the Marshall Plan - to help pay for the reconstruction of Europe. People were smart enough then to grasp that Europe's stability meant their own - and if they paid NOW (in higher taxes) they would be less likely to pay later in another war.

Thus, the template for separation of causes, and agendas was set by our own leaders very early on, so if the military personnel want to blame anyone for their being treated as strangers or aliens in our midst, they need to lay the finger on Bushie boy and his Texas cabal. Thus, not only was no shared sacrifice demanded, but no other calls to duty were invoked, say even to control gasoline use (since oil purchases have been what fund the terror states).

In their essay, the TIME authors note:

"Under the U.S. Constitution, only Congress can declare war. But the U.S. has put troops in harm's way hundreds of times since 1941, the last time Congress approved such a resolution. And the rest of us - so long as our kin aren't involved - have gone along."

Which is unfortunately true, but also understandable, since no one in his right mind wishes to be called a "traitor" for arguing too strenuously against the paper patriots. But I already have noted the basis for the most egregious war spending which is based on the 9-11 meme, and why we must get rid of it once and for all, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/09/its-past-time-to-ditch-911-meme.html


One thing we can't afford at this stage, and Occupy Wall Street needs to put this strongly on its radar too - is more defense funding! All that will accomplish is to justify more excuses to meddle in other nations' affairs, polarizing our military population even more from the civilian, and possibly lead to a serious altercation with the Russians or Chinese or both. The Pentagon's credit card must be taken away and even if automatic budget cuts of $600b go through, we can't allow them to squeal liek stuck pigs to avoid reductions in weapons expenditures etc.

Though JFK wasn’t so prescient in a specific context, his American University 'Pax Americana' speech did generically prefigure the horrific consequences if the U.S. insisted on being the policeman of the world, enforcing peace with American weapons of war. This speech probably set the foundation for Kennedy’s plan (under National Security Action Memorandum-263) to pull out of Vietnam (after the 1964 elections when political blowback would be minimal).

What we need now is to politically push for the withdrawal of all troops from the Afghan theater. If that is done, there will not be any site or place for the country to continue to situate troops and render them even more at odds with the civilian populace. As I said before, this nation is already at the precipice of backsliding into a third world redoubt where only the wealthiest can survive. We ought to have learned our lesson from the British and Russians, in their own occupations, that Afghanistan is the graveyard of nations. Or at least once relatively stable and prosperous ones.