Paul Craig Roberts

If good fails in its battle with Washington’s evil, our
future is a boot stamping on the human face forever...

“V For Vendetta,” a film that portrays evil in a futuristic England as a proxy for the evil that exists today in America, ends with the defeat of evil. But this is a movie in which the hero has super powers. If you have not seen this film, you should watch it. It might wake you up and give you courage. The excerpts below show that, at least among some filmmakers, the desire for liberty still exists.

Whether the desire for liberty exists in America remains to be seen. If Americans can overcome their gullibility, their lifelong brainwashing, their propensity to believe every lie that “their” government tells them, and if Americans can escape the Matrix in which they live, they can reestablish the morality, justice, peace, freedom, and liberty that “their” government has taken from them. It is not impossible for Americans to again stand with uplifted heads. They only have to recognize that “their” government is the enemy of truth, justice, human rights and life itself.

Can mere ordinary Americans triumph over the evil that is “their” government without the aid of a superhero? If ideas are strong enough and Americans can comprehend them, good can prevail over the evil that is concentrated in Washington. What stands between the American people and their comprehension of evil is their gullibility.

If good fails in its battle with Washington’s evil, our future is a boot stamping on the human face forever. If you, an American, living in superpower America lack the courage to stand up to the evil that is “your” government, perhaps the courage of Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and tiny Ecuador will give you heart.

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Stephen Lendman

It's time to call the NSA's mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal.

Long before 9/11, unprecedented domestic & world-wide spying began. It did so extrajudicially. It continues under Obama. It's institutionalized. It's warrantless. It's unconstitutional. And it's lawless.

It's sweeping and all-embracing. It prioritizes everyone Washington wants monitored. Phone calls, emails, web sites visited, and other personal information is routinely collected.

Doing so reflects police state lawlessness writ large. It's official US policy. Constitutional protections don't matter. Government by diktats supersede them. Alleged national security priorities don't wash. They're fabricated to justify policy.

On June 27, London's Guardian headlined "NSA collected US email records in bulk for more than two years under Obama," saying NSA "collect(ed) vast amounts of records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian."

They reveal lawless Bush administration domestic spying. NSA codenamed it Stellar Wind. It continues under Obama. An unnamed senior administration official said it ended in 2011. He lied. It continues. It's secret. It's more sweeping now than ever. And it's done with technological ease.

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Bill Van Auken

US President Barack Obama met with the president of Senegal, Macky Sall, and judges and lawyers of the country’s supreme court Thursday at the start of a three-nation, week-long African tour aimed at promoting US strategic and profit interests on the continent. A key goal is to counter China in what amounts to a new scramble for markets and the substantial energy, mineral and other resources of the continent.

The tour marks the first time that Obama has set foot in Africa since a 20-hour stopover in Ghana en route back to the US from a summit conference in Europe four years ago. Then, the new president declared, “I have the blood of Africa within me.”

This rhetorical flourish made explicit the central importance to US imperialism of Obama’s presidency: to present a new face to the world, while pursuing the same predatory and criminal policies that had provoked international anger and hatred under his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Four years later, the novelty of the first African-American US president has substantially faded, and, according to media reports from Africa, there is widespread cynicism about Obama’s attempts to use his family history to claim some special affinity for the continent. In point of fact, US aid to Africa has declined under Obama, falling from $8.24 billion during the last year of the Bush presidency to less than $7 billion today.

His own presidency is even more deeply mired in international criminality than that of Bush, from drone assassinations to the massive NSA spying on the people of the US and the world and the manhunt being mounted against Edward Snowden for exposing this crime. These issues have followed Obama to Africa, rendering a key stated theme of his trip—the promotion of “democracy”—absurd and hypocritical.

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Stephen Lendman

Voice of America reflects raw imperial power. It broadcasts US propaganda globally. On June 26, it said Obama "arrived in Senegal, the first stop of a three-nation African trip, focused on supporting democratic progress, and increasing US trade and investment."

It's his second African trip. He visited earlier as a freshman Illinois senator. He told Kenyans, "I want you all to know that as your ally, your friend and your brother, I will be there in every way I can." He lied. He's a serial liar. Democracy is verboten. Washington tolerates none at home or abroad. America comes to exploit. At issue is controlling Africa's rich resources.

Obama's visiting Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. He'll return July 3. Why these countries? More on this below.

Controversy accompanies Obama. His one-week trip costs an estimated $100 million. At the same time, force-fed austerity harms growing millions at home. Poverty, high unemployment, hunger, and homelessness go unaddressed. Obamanomics enriches corporate favorites and wealthy elites. Popular needs go begging to do so. Obama demands sacrifice. It's forced on America's most disadvantaged, unwanted and uncared for.

Foreign travel costs plenty. Hundreds of secret service, staff and others accompany Obama. Travel, accommodations, security and other costs are enormous. Military cargo planes brought 56 vehicles. They include 14 limousines and three trucks. They're specially built for security. Bulletproof glass will replace hotel windows where Obama and his family stay. Entire floors are needed to accommodate security and staff traveling with him. US fighter jets provide round-the-clock air cover. In 2011, estimated White House expenses were around $1.4 billion. They include staff, housing, travel, entertainment and perks.

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Trevor Paglen

By exposing NSA programs like PRISM and Boundless Informant, Edward Snowden has revealed that we are not moving toward a surveillance state: we live in the heart of one. The 30-year-old whistleblower told The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald that the NSA’s data collection created the possibility of a “turnkey tyranny,” whereby a malevolent future government could create an authoritarian state with the flick of a switch. The truth is actually worse. Within the context of current economic, political and environmental trends, the existence of a surveillance state doesn’t just create a theoretical possibility of tyranny with the turn of a key—it virtually guarantees it.

For more than a decade, we’ve seen the rise of what we might call a “Terror State,” of which the NSA’s surveillance capabilities represent just one part. Its rise occurs at a historical moment when state agencies and programs designed to enable social mobility, provide economic security and enhance civic life have been targeted for significant cuts. The last three decades, in fact, have seen serious and consistent attacks on social security, food assistance programs, unemployment benefits and education and health programs. As the social safety net has shrunk, the prison system has grown. The United States now imprisons its own citizens at a higher rate than any other country in the world.

While civic parts of the state have been in retreat, institutions of the Terror State have grown dramatically. In the name of an amorphous and never-ending “war on terror,” the Department of Homeland Security was created, while institutions such as the CIA, FBI and NSA, and darker parts of the military like the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) have expanded considerably in size and political influence.

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Stephen Lendman

America is a rogue terror state. It is ruthlessly out-of-control. It spurns rule of law principles. It mocks democratic rights. It honors its worst. It persecutes its best. It acts unconscionably. It threatens freedom. It menaces world peace. It endangers humanity. It is guilty of worldwide espionage on a massive, unprecedented scale.

Edward Snowden revealed it. Everyone needs to know. He did it heroically. He accepted great risks. He acted responsibly. He did so because it matters. He's a role model for others. Hopefully he'll embolden others to come forward.

Political Washington vilified him. He's excoriated for doing the right thing. Media scoundrels piled on. They're unprincipled. They're vicious. They're unrelenting. They front for power. They support America's worst crimes. They mock legitimate journalism doing so.

Snowden has millions of world supporters. Important nations respect him. His legitimate rights matter. Russia, China, Ecuador, Venezuela, and other countries stand tall. They've done so in his behalf. Hopefully they'll keep doing it. Perhaps others will join them.

Snowden flew to Moscow. He's in Sheremetyevo Airport's transit area. He hasn't crossed Russia's border. Doing so requires clearing customs. Moscow has no extradition treaty with Washington.

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John W. Whitehead

“How far does a man have to go to be thought so dangerous that he needs to be locked away, physically separated from the rest of the world, behind stone walls and iron bars? Clearly, it is a last resort.”
— Joe, Land of the Blind

In the Wachowskis’ iconic 1999 film, The Matrix, the protagonist Neo is wakened from a lifelong slumber by Morpheus, a freedom fighter seeking to liberate humans from virtual slavery—a lifelong hibernation state—imposed by hyper-advanced artificial intelligence machines. With their minds plugged into a perfectly crafted virtual reality, few humans ever realize they are living in a dream world to such an extent that most are willing to give their lives in order to preserve the system that enslaves them.

Sound familiar? It should, because as I make clear in my new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State (available on Amazon.com and in stores), we too are living in a fantasy world carefully crafted to resemble a representative democracy, while in reality we are little more than slaves in thrall to an authoritarian regime, with its constant surveillance, manufactured media spectacles, secret courts, inverted justice, and violent repression of dissent.

And for the few who dare to challenge the status quo such as Edward Snowden, they are assured of being branded either as conspiratorialists, alarmists, lunatics or outright traitors.

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William T. Hathaway

The US Special Forces is a bizarrely gendered world, as I found out when I joined it to write a book about war. This all-male bastion is sexualized in a truly perverted way, particularly in its methods for turning young men into killers on command.

Being the epitome of patriarchy, the military creates soldiers by forcing them into the role of the lowliest creatures in patriarchy: women. The recruits' sense of personal power is stripped away, and they are required to obey commands from the men higher in the hierarchy and do the military's "housework": scrubbing and waxing floors, dusting windowsills, washing dishes, cleaning toilets to meet the standards of the commanders. They are forced to be obsessed with their appearance and to stand passively at attention while the older, more powerful men inspect them from a few inches away about how closely they've shaved, how neat their hair looks, how correctly they are dressed, often insulting them, calling them pussies and queers. This intimate domination stirs homosexual feelings and at the same time represses them, creating psychological conflicts that are then channeled into aggression. A confused inner rage is generated in the young men, then given an outlet: the enemy.

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William Blum

"Keep mum - the world has ears" - Poster for Thirteenth Naval
District, United States Navy, showing a woman talking on the
telephone and a globe with ears eavesdropping. It's the other
way around: The world has better keep mum - the U.S. has ears.

Edward Snowden - In the course of his professional life in the world of national security Edward Snowden must have gone through numerous probing interviews, lie detector examinations, and exceedingly detailed background checks, as well as filling out endless forms carefully designed to catch any kind of falsehood or inconsistency. The Washington Post (June 10) reported that “several officials said the CIA will now undoubtedly begin reviewing the process by which Snowden may have been hired, seeking to determine whether there were any missed signs that he might one day betray national secrets.”

Yes, there was a sign they missed – Edward Snowden had something inside him shaped like a conscience, just waiting for a cause.

It was the same with me. I went to work at the State Department, planning to become a Foreign Service Officer, with the best – the most patriotic – of intentions, going to do my best to slay the beast of the International Communist Conspiracy. But then the horror, on a daily basis, of what the United States was doing to the people of Vietnam was brought home to me in every form of media; it was making me sick at heart. My conscience had found its cause, and nothing that I could have been asked in a pre-employment interview would have alerted my interrogators of the possible danger I posed because I didn’t know of the danger myself. No questioning of my friends and relatives could have turned up the slightest hint of the radical anti-war activist I was to become. My friends and relatives were to be as surprised as I was to be. There was simply no way for the State Department security office to know that I should not be hired and given a Secret Clearance.[1]

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Arthur Silber

You may at first think the following is a bad joke, but I assure you it is not a joke at all. At the very end of this NYT story about Booz Allen and the complex interconnections between nominally "private" business and the national intelligence community, we read:

But the legal warnings at the end of its financial report offered a caution that the company could be hurt by “any issue that compromises our relationships with the U.S. government or damages our professional reputation." By Friday, shares of Booz Allen had slid nearly 6 percent since the revelations. And a new job posting appeared on its Web site for a systems administrator in Hawaii, “secret clearance required.”

Yes, that appears to be Edward Snowden's old job.

Crappy spy fiction doesn't look quite so crappy now, does it? In many respects -- in fact, I would argue in every critical respect -- the spy business is actually that dumb.

In an earlier post about surveillance stories, I discussed the profoundly offensive elitism involved in the argument that "special" people in both government and journalism, people endowed with understanding and judgment that is the envy of the gods and forever denied to all us ordinary schlubs, should decide what information will be provided to the motley mass of humans who merely pay for all of it, and for whose benefit all this godlike work is supposedly undertaken. Talk about idiocies: "We're doing all this for you! You're too stupid to be told most of what we're doing!" Put it on a bumper sticker, baby, so we can throw rotten eggs at it.

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Paul Craig Roberts

It is hard to understand the fuss that Washington and its media whores are making over Edward Snowden. We have known for a long time that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying for years without warrants on the communications of Americans and people throughout the world. Photographs of the massive NSA building in Utah built for the purpose of storing the intercepted communications of the world have been published many times.

It is not clear to an ordinary person what Snowden has revealed that William Binney and other whistleblowers have not already revealed. Perhaps the difference is that Snowden has provided documents that prove it, thereby negating Washington’s ability to deny the facts with its usual lies.

Whatever the reason for Washington’s blather, it certainly is not doing the US government any good. Far more interesting than Snowden’s revelations is the decision by governments of other countries to protect a truth-teller from the Stasi in Washington. Hong Kong kept Snowden’s whereabouts secret so that an amerikan black-op strike or a drone could not be sent to murder him. Hong Kong told Washington that its extradition papers for Snowden were not in order and permitted Snowden to leave for Moscow. The Chinese government did not interfere with Snowden’s departure. The Russian government says it has no objection to Snowden having a connecting flight in Moscow. Ecuador says the traitor is Washington, not Snowden. Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino responded to Washington’s threats with a statement that the Ecuadorian government puts human rights above Washington’s interests. Foreign Minister Patino said that Snowden served humanity by revealing that the Washington Stasi was violating the rights of “every citizen in the world.” Snowden merely betrayed “some elites that are in power in a certain country,” whereas Washington betrayed the entire world.

With Hong Kong, China, Russia, Ecuador, and Cuba refusing to obey the Stasi’s orders, Washington is flailing around making a total fool of itself and its media prostitutes.

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Finian Cunningham

“Since the [US] government unchained itself from the constitution after 9/11, it has been eating our democracy alive from the inside out.” ~ Thomas Drake, Former NSA employee

What the disclosures of former CIA contractor Edward Snowden show perhaps above all else is just how petrified the leaders of the United States have become - of ordinary citizens both in the US and around the world. When we say “leaders” we mean the ruling elite - the top one percent of the financial-corporate-military-industrial complex and its bought- and paid-for politicians.

The international manhunt by the US authorities for Snowden, which has accelerated with his flight to Moscow to evade extradition from Hong Kong, is indicative of the desperation in Washington’s elitist establishment to quash him and what he is revealing about their despotic rule.

Today, the US has evolved into a dystopia, not a democracy, where obscene wealth and privilege stand in the face of massive poverty and misery. One indicator of this abysmal inequality is the fact that the 400 richest Americans have more material wealth than 155 million of their fellow citizens combined. Another datum: some 50 million Americans - a sixth of the population - are surviving on food handouts. Unemployment, homelessness, suicide rates, prescription drug addiction, rampant gun crime all speak in different ways of social meltdown.

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Stephen Lendman

Cold-blooded barbarity reflects US policy. Democracy's more illusion than reality. Rule of law principles don't matter. They're systematically spurned. Dissent's increasingly targeted. Freedom's imperiled. Obama's ruthless. He exceeds the worst of George Bush. He's waging war on truth-tellers. He targeted more whistleblowers than all his predecessors combined.

Merrian-Webster calls a police state "a political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures." The Oxford dictionary calls it "a totalitarian state controlled by a political police force that secretly supervises the citizens' activities."

America raised the stakes higher. It did so with technological ease. It mass-spies everywhere all the time on everyone. It does so lawlessly. Core constitutional principles are violated. Foreign country statutes are defied. Washington prioritizes state terrorism. It commits global espionage. It does so on an unprecedented scale. It's lawless and unprincipled. It targets federal employees exposing wrongdoing. Acting responsibly is criminalized.

Whistleblowers reflect duty above and beyond the call. Legions more like them are necessary. Sunshine's our best defense. Washington demands darkness. US-style realpolitik reflects New World Order harshness.

Edward Snowden's more than an American hero. His revelations help everyone. He fled security and prosperity for safety. He took temporary refuge in Hong Kong. On Sunday, he flew to Moscow. Ecuador's Russian ambassador Patricio Chavez and other embassy staff met him. They did so at Sheremetyevo Airport. He requested asylum.

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Pepe Escobar

Obama and spy supremo Keith Alexander swear that the Orwellian privatized intelligence-corporate-industrial complex is essential to prevent terrorism. It is not. This is a monumental lie - and Obama is complicit.

HONG KONG - So it's going to be Our Man in Quito. The narrative may not be as elegant as Graham Greene's, but the plot certainly beats the Bourne trilogy - because it's happening live, in real time, right in front of our eyes.

It takes a former CIA asset to beat US "intelligence" - more like intel deprivation. The story of Edward Snowden's escape from Hong Kong is textbook. This correspondent, at dim sum on Sunday, was alerted by a source; "Get ready for something big; he's leaving soon." That was about 12:30 pm Hong Kong time. In fact Snowden had already flown from Chek Lap Kok on SU 213 bound for Moscow at 11:00 am. But nobody knew it yet. Hong Kong was still digesting the front page of the South China Morning Post displaying yet more devastating evidence of US cyber-spying of China.

By 2:00 pm there was a first, one-line alert from the South China Morning Post; he was on a plane to Moscow. I talked to RT in Moscow; they were stunned and sprang into action. Still total silence from Western corporate media. Then the Post confirmed the breaking news with more detail. Yet it took ages for Reuters to release its first short dispatch - as I had commented on my Facebook page. When the "international community" started to learn about it Snowden was already five hours into his flight.

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Stephen Lendman

"Friends of Syria": A rogue's gallery of scoundrels

So-called "Friends of Syria" are their worst enemies. They're a rogue's gallery of scoundrels. They're complicit with Washington's imperium. They violate core international law principles. They're no friends of peace, stability and freedom. Umbrella group members America, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, and Qatar met in Doha.

They agreed on "secret" escalating measures. They hope to tip the military balance. They're desperate to counter Assad's impressive victories. He's routing insurgents convincingly. They're no match against Syria's military strength. Qatar Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani said "force may be the only way to enforce righteousness and supplying weapons to the opposition may be the only way to reach peace in Syria." "(M)ost countries, except for two, are agreed on how to provide assistance to the rebels through the military council," Al Thani added.

Western-sponsored death squads terrorized Syrians since conflict began. Al Thani urges escalated violence. Most Syrian enemies agree. They're responsible for mass killing and destruction. They're in lockstep with Washington's imperial plans. They want much more barbarity than already. They want Syria entirely ravaged and destroyed. They risk cross-border violence threatening their own governments.

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