What we've learned from the war on terror in the last ten years is that the biggest threat to public security comes not from isolated terrorists but extremists and radicals with hidden agendas within governments, security/military complexes, and intelligence services. In America, securocrats in the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and other agencies exaggerate the threat of terrorism as well as other national security threats in order to keep the public in a perpetual state of fear and anxiety so that they give up their liberties, and unquestioningly follow their self-serving policies. In most cases, they make up stories about terrorists from scratch.
The "national security" fraud that's being played on the American people is not new, countless corrupt governments have played the same fraud before in history, but the scale of the fraud in America is unlike anything recorded in history. Once you get rid of the false notion about the morality of U.S. leaders, it is pretty easy to understand the fraud:
1) Extremists and charlatans take over the government through a coup, a stolen election, bribery, or deception, or a combination of these. In this case, the extremists and charlatans are the neocons, senior members of the Bush administration, and the leaders of the U.S. national security state.
2) Once in power, the government extremists and professional charlatans stage terror attacks against their own people.
3) The people react with horror, demanding security from their leaders, and revenge for the attacks on their fellow citizens.
4) New large-scale security programs that benefit the charlatans and securocrats are rolled out without a hitch, civil liberties are suspended, the constitution is destroyed, scapegoats are identified for the attacks, and massive military, political, and economic resources are dedicated to war.
The key element in the "national security" fraud is fear. If the people are not constantly kept afraid then they might start thinking things over, and question the basic claims made by their rulers about why they are at war, and why they must give up their liberties. When distractions and disinformation fail to numb the people, terror is used as a weapon against them, because, as Albert Camus wrote in his article The Century of Fear, "terror does not create a climate conducive to thinking," (Camus at "Combat", pg. 259).
In America, government charlatans and securocrats artificially created a state of terror and a state of tension to get the American people fearful, paranoid, warlike, and totally dependent on them for their safety. It is a sick con, but we can't say that nobody saw it coming. Former CIA officer John Stockwell made speeches in the 1980's with the message that the U.S. national security establishment - military-industrial complex would find a new enemy to fight if one day communism was no longer part of the global political picture.
His warning was 100% accurate. Once communism collapsed in 1989, charlatans in the U.S. war machine came up with a new enemy, "international terrorism," and passionately wrote about the new menace in academic journals and government policy papers in the 1990s. Then came 9/11, which brought the American people into the fold, and sucked them into a manufactured paradigm. The gullible public's acceptance of the official 9/11 myth guaranteed hundreds of billions of dollars for a new wide-ranging ideological war against "terrorism," and allowed the charlatans in power to suspend the U.S. constitution.
Journalist I.F. Stone, who died in 1989, also warned that America's military-industrial complex would do whatever it takes to stay in business. In a speech he gave in 1965 at Berkeley, California Stone said:
One of the reasons for all the trouble our country is in around the world, I think, is that we possess so huge a military establishment. If a country doesn’t have soldiers, it takes a slight and makes a protest, and that’s the end of it. But when it has an enormous military apparatus like ours, the tendency is to try to solve all kinds of political and economic questions by military means, a process that’s something like trying to repair a watch with a sledgehammer. And conversely, as long as we have a large military establishment, it’s going to be looking for work to do to maintain its appropriations, to get its promotions, to prove its usefulness, and to avoid technological unemployment. And all this miasma about wars of liberation that is so central to what is happening today in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic is really a reflection of the military’s desire to find work to do. The “war of liberation” neurosis is made to order for the military.It is impossible to end the wars in the Middle East as long as the basic premises of the war on terrorism are not refuted, and exposed as lies by journalists and the public. The fraud will go on unless the foundations of the fraud are attacked with facts.
The legitimacy of America's securocracy is in question here, as well as its counterparts in England, Canada, Australia, Israel, and other so-called democratic countries. Annie Machon, a MI5 intelligence officer turned whistleblower, is leading the charge in the debate about intelligence agencies and the role they play in a democracy. In this blog post she links to an article by Alana Wheeler in the Trinidad Express that covers this topic extremely well. Wheeler writes:
Intelligence services play a vital role in any democracy as they shield the country from dangerous threats. The intelligence community is therefore for the public interest and, in any democratic society, is accountable to the public. However, while the very nature of the industry demands secrecy, a lack of effective accountability and oversight can lead to an abuse or misuse of power, inefficiencies and politicisation.The current system of checks and balances in America and other democratic countries is totally broken, but the problems can be fixed once they are recognized and thoughtfully addressed. New global institutions are not needed to restore justice and the rule of law because there is nothing inherently flawed in America's constitutional system, or other Western democracies. The fault lies in the people who fail to see obvious truths, and corrupt leaders who view the people as sheep who deserve to be lied to, terrorized, ruled, and slaughtered.
Intelligence agencies need to find the right balance between the need for secrecy and protection of the rule of law and civil rights, that is, between security and liberty. A sound system of checks and balances is vital, with the responsibility shared among the executive, the legislative and the judiciary.
