Dave Hodges

Killed by the police: Miriam Carey was a 34-year old dental
hygienist from Stamford, Connecticut. She had her 1-year old
daughter in the car with her. The early reports were that she
had fired shots at police. Later, it was discovered that all the
shots were fired by the police. Carey herself was unarmed.

Many people have noticed that several of the local police officers, particularly the younger ones are more gruff, rude and even abusive as compared to the past. Many veteran officers attribute the shift towards DHS’ training of local police which focuses on teaching the police that the public is their enemy as opposed to the traditional view that teaches that the local population and the police are partners in keeping the community safe.

Whatever happened to the friendly neighborhood cop who walked a beat, was well-known and respected by the local residents and was seen as the protector of the neighborhood? Far too often, that cop has been replaced by thugs wearing camouflage, bank robber type black ski masks who are armed with automatic weapons and sometimes even break down the doors of people who are innocent.

A Long-Term Trend Towards the Militarization of the Local Police

Americans have long maintained that a man’s home is his castle and that he has the right to stand his ground in defending his property from dangerous interlopers.

Unfortunately, the right to defend one’s own home may be disappearing. America has become SWAT team happy. America has seen a disturbing trend towards militarization of its local civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and very disturbing rise in the use of paramilitary police units being used for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home. However, anyone can be SWAT-teamed, even those who default on their student loans have been SWAT-teamed.

Since 9/11, and the subsequent militarization of the police by the Department of Homeland Security, about 5,000 Americans have been killed by US police officers. The civilian death rate is nearly equal to the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq. In fact, you are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist.

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Felicity Arbuthnot

"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists."
- J. Edgar Hoover, 1895-1972.

Since the fairy tale about weapons of mass destruction that can be launched against Western targets "within forty five minutes" is well past it's sell by date, the trans-Atlantic hasbara industry has dreamed up a new Grim Reaper for Syria, their latest quarry: chemical weapons.

Stephen Zunes succinct quote that: "U.S. policy regarding chemical weapons has been so inconsistent and politicized that the United States is in no position to take leadership in response to any use of such weaponry by Syria" [1] hits the chemical warhead on the nose cone.

Never mind Israel's lethal stockpiles, for ever, seemingly, blind eye territory, as apparently is the United States 5,449 metric tons chemical weapons arsenal, which cannot be disposed of until at least 2021 due to the hazards involved (Japan Times, 12th September 2013.).

However the storm troopers of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) joined the other insurgents in Syria and in under a month: " ... completed the functional destruction of critical equipment for all of its declared chemical weapons production facilities and mixing/filling plants, rendering them inoperable."[2]

President Assad, his country, this year alone, being five times an illegal target of Israel's fearsome destructive power from just across the Golan Heights[3] stated that his weapons were purely defensive - to use the cold war adage, a balance of terror.

All nations have the legal right to self-defence - unless they are majority Muslim, it would seem.

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James Petras

Introduction: Revelations about the long-term global, intrusive spying by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other allied intelligence apparatuses have provoked widespread protests and indignation and threatened ties between erstwhile imperial allies.

Allied regimes have uniformly condemned NSA espionage as a violation of trust and sovereignty, a threat to their national and economic security and to their citizens’ privacy.

In contrast, the Washington has responded in a contradictory manner: on the one hand, US officials and intelligence chiefs have acknowledged ‘some excesses and mistakes’, on the other hand, they defend the entire surveillance program as necessary for US national security.

Interpretations vary about the US global spy apparatus – how it was built and why it was launched against hundreds of millions of people. ‘Subjective’ and ‘objective’ explanations abound, evoking psychological, social, economic, strategic and political considerations.

A multi-factorial explanation is required.

The Integrated Hypothesis of the Global Police State

One of the essential components of a police state is an all-pervasive spy apparatus operating independently of any legal or constitutional constraints. Spy operations include: 1) massive surveillance over text, video and audio communications and 2) the capacity to secretly record, store and use information secretly collected. This information strengthens political and economic leaders who, in turn, appoint and direct the spy chiefs. The political and economic rulers control the spy-lords by setting the goals, means and targets of the surveillance state. The US global spy apparatus is neither ‘self-starting nor self-perpetuating’. It did not arise in a vacuum and it has virtually no strategic autonomy. While there may be intra-bureaucratic conflicts and rivalries, the institutions and groups function within the overall ‘paradigm’ established and directed by the political and economic elite.

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