SPY V SPY

I was not going to write anything about Snowden and the NSA because I assumed that everything that could be said had been in the hundreds (thousands?) of blogs about the situation.  However, I have not seen anyone who thinks that he is anything but a hero, an opportunist or a spy with an agenda. To me, the last comes closest to the truth. The difference between my theory and others I have read is that his agenda may not be the Machiavellian plot these conspiracy theorists assume it to be. Instead, it could be the best reason to hope that the firestorm Snowden ignited will actually shake things up in a way that no other whistleblower has.

 Look at the facts: He was with the CIA much longer than with the NSA. He clearly went into the job as an NSA consultant with a plan to acquire as much critical data as he could, and he managed to collect an amazing amount of key information in a short time.  To many (myself included), it seems clear that he is still working for the CIA, but what does that mean?  The theories I have seen all assume that he is either working for a foreign power such as Israel, engaged in interagency rivalry to embarrass the NSA, working for Israel to embarrass the US government, or even representing the interests of remnants of the Third Reich or Soviet Empire. At one point, a blogger suggested confidently that Snowden had been given the assignment of frightening Americans with the idea that “the government will get you” if you dare to tell the truth, as if they hadn’t already made the point with the witch hunt against whistleblowers that began during the Bush administration and that has mushroomed under Obama.  

I think we can rule out the last one. Snowden has made a mockery of the US ability to capture one lone leaker despite extraordinary efforts. How did he do it? Did I mention he has friends in the CIA?  It is important to recognize that the CIA as a whole does not work for the President to the extent that he challenges the corporate interest. If it did, Kennedy would have USSR and Cuba and we might not be facing the prospect of living through the creation of what could become a permanent fascist New World Order. However, those who pull the strings in the White House by virtue of their control of intelligence agencies and the military do not control every individual in either. If that were true, we would never have heard of Bradley Manning, Coleen Rowley, Sibel Edmonds, John Kiriakou and all the other whistleblowers who have risked their careers and even their lives to alert us to the dangers we face.

For each one of these brave men and women, there must be many others in the military and intelligence agencies who understand as they do that there is a difference between loyalty to the government and loyalty to the nation. Those who do surely recognize that blind obedience to the corrupt and out-of-control US government amounts to treason. How many are just waiting for a chance to make a difference, unwilling to sacrifice themselves until they believe they can?  Perhaps there are cells within the CIA and other intelligence agencies of patriots who told Snowden what information to take, what to do with it and how to evade capture. If so, that is the best possible news that those of us struggling to expose what is going on behind our backs in an increasingly secretive government, one that is openly curtailing our civil liberties while conducting wars and proxy wars against nations that do not submit to domination by the international corporations that dictate US foreign policy.

This obvious fact seems to have made little impression on a divided American citizenry who has yet to even realize that the two major parties are playing for the same team: the corporatocracy. It is no wonder that those of us who see the problem have developed a habit of expecting the worst, when things seem so hopeless. However, if my theory is right, it could be that the rules of the game have changed. For once, that works in our favor.  It looks like this case is not going away. People are genuinely angry that they are being spied upon in every electronic communication. The anger is not just in America, but throughout Europe and other allied nations. The fact that Europeans in general and Germans in particular are not going to let the matter go away is helping keep the issue in American consciousness.

Resistance is also growing in Congress. I am not the first one to point out that the vote to restrict NSA surveillance was bipartisan and very close, which is a major shift from the reflexive bipartisan support for every outrageous act committed by the government in the “War on Terror.” Looking at who voted against it is a very easy way to tell who is on our side and who is either too dimwitted to realize that it is just a smokescreen for a worldwide war on democracy and that America is part of the battlefield. Of course, some will say that view is too charitable, arguing that many if not most of those who continue to support NDAA, unlimited surveillance with no oversight and war without end are quite consciously choosing to support the explosive growth in power of those who profit from the military-industrial-government complex (as Eisenhower termed it before his advisors got to him). Either way, if we can keep the issue in the public mind until 2014, we may just be able to get rid of many of those who stand with the globalists who now control Congress and the White House and replace them with men and women who will begin to rein in a government that has become dangerous to its own people.

If it is true that members of the US government and military are beginning to organize to resist from within, it becomes apparent that what many have considered to be a pipe dream of taking control of their own government is possible. I would argue that it is only possible when such organizing takes place. I am sure that to these men and women, the lesson of what happened to those who resisted the growing police state in Nazi Germany is not lost. If they are organizing, they are not going to announce it. They will merely begin to act. I am convinced that even if this is not an example, such actions will not be long in coming. The more we encourage this, the more will feel emboldened to organize and act.

Obama promised us "the most transparent government in US history." Instead, we have seen a massive expansion of the use of the state secrets privilege, to the point of opting not to declassify thousands of sealed documents on the Kennedy assassination 50 years after the fact. The significance of this cannot be overestimated, given that even after the House Select Committee on Assassinations declared his death the result of a conspiracy, no serious government investigation has been done. In an effort to quiet those who would reveal evidence of ongoing crimes, Obama has invoked the Espionage Act eight times. The “Justice” Department is intimidating investigative journalists with mass surveillance while the Supreme Court strips them of immunity for refusing to reveal sources. Yes, I would agree that this is in fact the most transparent government in history, at least in terms of making no effort to conceal what it is doing. Those paying attention do not like what they see and for once, liberals and conservatives agree, at least those who are not blinded by loyalty to either of the corrupt members of the Duopoly.

At the risk of being accused of naiveté, I am still withholding judgment on Obama. Only someone blinded by rage could fail to see that if he seriously challenged the interests of the globalists who are pulling the strings of their puppets in Congress, the military and the intelligence agencies, it would be a simple matter to use the JFK solution, blaming the unfortunate tragedy on some lone racist nut. It is easy to say that if he were a real patriot, he would sacrifice himself, but I challenge those who hold this view to ask themselves if they would really willingly give up their lives to try to awaken citizens so easily manipulated. Americans are not only failing to rise in the streets in massive protest despite the examples of Egypt, Brazil, Turkey and elsewhere, but angrily decry those who do. For Obama to stick his neck out despite the obvious risk could be seen as being as desperate and ultimately futile as setting oneself on fire in a market in Tunisia, only to spark a revolution that in the end did nothing to relieve the conditions that led to such desperation.  He needs to know that we will be behind him and that a critical mass of key individuals in the government and military will stand beside him.

The government is made up of human beings. Most of them want to serve the People, even elected officials who have resigned themselves to fighting a defensive battle against fascism by at best, slowing its progression with occasional partial victories. It not only does no good to demonize them. This only reinforces their belief that they have to put the opinions of an easily manipulated public before what is right, or risk losing their office and the chance to continue the fight. They convince themselves that somehow they can still make a difference, even though this amounts to giving in to corporate interests every time they conflict with those of the public. This delusion is the result of the mindset that they can only do what is “politically possible,” and is characteristic of the Beltway mentality that refuses to admit that no one can serve two masters. It ignores the fact that what is possible in the current system is not enough. The system itself must be radically changed if we are ever to know democracy.

Fundamental change is possible. I would argue that it begins with a constitutional amendment that would reform campaign finance by establishing that money is not speech while abolishing corporate personhood, making it clear that corporations are not people and so have no constitutional rights. In fact, campaign finance reform might be sufficient. I realize this is heresy to many of the dedicated activists in Move to Amend, but I believe the only way to pass any amendment is to make it a litmus test for anyone who wants to serve in Congress. If we can elect a Congress willing to pass an amendment that effectively reforms campaign finance, it seems certain it would be willing to systematically address the other ways the corporatocracy has used to corrupt it.

Candidates willing to make a pledge to support such an amendment should challenge incumbents who voted to continue unrestricted spying on Americans, the NDAA and other repressive measures. They are certain to find support from voters across the ideological spectrum who are beginning to realize that we have to make establishing democracy our first priority. After all, nearly 80 percent of both self-identified conservatives and liberals are opposed to Citizens United, and many already agree that an amendment is needed to address it, If we can agree this is the first step in doing so, then we have a way to make our votes count. With this type of unanimity, election results cannot be manipulated and attempts at voter suppression become irrelevant. In agreeing to support only candidates who support an amendment, we free ourselves from the Hobson’s choice offered by the two corporate parties and can vote third party with no reservations in elections where they only give us a choice between two corporate candidates.

If the Pledge to Amend approach leads to campaign finance reform, we will finally have a chance to influence who our choices are to represent us not only in Congress, but the White House. While it is not likely that we will win a significant number of seats in Congress in 2014 through this strategy, a single victory against an entrenched incumbent using this strategy would prove the validity of the approach and encourage other candidates to run on the issue in future elections. It would also prove to the President that some of us were listening to him when he repeatedly told us that we have to be the change, because a man in his position sure as hell can’t do it without us.

A PEACEFUL GLOBAL UPRISING

Those of us who long ago realized that human civilization itself is on the brink of collapse should take note of the mass protests in Brazil, Turkey and Egypt that are actually having an effect on governments. Having begun to make progress in gaining liberty and economic justice within living memory, they value them more deeply and are prepared to fight for the right to continue to create more just nations.  This willingness to combat forces many would have viewed as undefeatable before the Arab Spring and the global Occupy movement gave them hope, they are showing the peoples of nations around the planet that a new world is possible.

Citizens of Western nations are failing to respond adequately to the threat to the economic, social and environmental destruction that will devastate human civilization. They have not yet realized the urgency of finding a way to use the power of our vastly superior numbers to seize power from the few who would enslave the many in a cycle of endless war, increasing economic inequality, mass starvation, pandemic, loss of basic human freedom and dignity and ultimately, the destruction of the environment that sustains us all. The protests in Greece, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and Canada among others have not produced real change, leading many to conclude that the grip on the power over government held by the global elite is too strong to be broken, so have given up trying. If we feel any sense of responsibility to our children, we must reject this self-defeating attitude and do all that we can to end the enslavement of the vast majority of Mankind in what is rapidly becoming a fascist New World Order. Resistance is not futile. We can crush the corporatocracy, but the world revolution will begin only when we accept that it is not only possible but imperative.

Whenever the subject of mass revolt is brought up in the United States, one hears a chorus of familiar excuses for why it cannot be done. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy that has led to the US going from having the highest standard of living in the world to being a nation with economic inequality greater than the United Kingdom, from which the people who created the US separated so that they might not be subjugated by a nation long corrupted by the depredations of an economic aristocracy. If Americans can awaken to their collective power they can take back America for the People and create a democracy that will then spread naturally throughout the world. Only when injustice is resisted everywhere will it be possible anywhere. The task may seem unattainable, but the difference between the impossible and the merely improbable is the will to do the hard work that makes the improbable possible.

Though few realize it, poverty in the US is at record numbers. Americans remain ignorant of the fact because it is obscured behind government statistics that few understand. The majority who get the information that is the basis for their political thinking from a media that has become presstitutes for the government and the plutocrats it represents. The official poverty line is $11,000 for an individual and $23,000 for a family of four. Using the more realistic figure of $17,000 as the poverty line for individuals, fully one third of Americans are poor, more than half of them children. It is clear that the Puppets in Washington have decided that the era of shared prosperity for Americans is over.  It is up to average Americans, with the support of others who are suffering from the actions of their corporate-controlled government, to show that we demand a new era of social and economic justice.

The Puppetmasters of Washington have made clear they have no intention of tolerating the sharing of their wealth produced by workers and expropriated by them. The mass of Americans are falling into poverty as the American economy descends into a self-destructive spiral must organize and united to force them to relinquish the power over us that we have given them, despite decades of growing complacency and ignorance born of affluence. Today’s economy is built on financial transactions that amount to a rigged game of Monopoly, where the .1 percent are gaining not only at the expense of the poor, but even the 1 percent. After all, there is only one winner in that game. Of the 90% of wealth that has gone to the top one percent in the last 10 years, the vast majority has gone to those at the very top who are the real rulers of America, through their ability to pick who Americans are allowed to represent them in Congress and the White House. With the right message, it is possible that we may even get the support of the majority of the one percent who do not yet realize the true nature of their self-interest.

Americans are well aware that millions of Greeks, Spaniards and Italians have taken to the streets, if only sporadically. They realize they are protesting austerity measures designed to destroy the welfare states that protected average Europeans from the worst excesses of capitalism and assured a decent standard of living for every one willing to work and those who could not do so. They were shocked to learn about 25% unemployment rates in Spain and 50% of youth unemployment, never realizing that the real rate of unemployment in the US is over 40%. That statistic is masked by Obama’s triumphant proclamation that the official rate has dropped to “only” 7.5%. Even though most know that figure does not include those who have given up seeking jobs in the new economy, few realize that the shrinking middle class has created a lower class that is growing in numbers and potential power. One of the advantages of knowing that you have no hope for employment is that it frees time to join in mass protest, as Occupy showed. The problem is that Occupiers stubbornly resisted prioritizing objectives. Anyone with military experience would realize that we cannot win this class war without a strategy that leads to clear objectives. Brilliant tactics are meaningless if not based on objectives developed with a clear strategy in mind.

The greatest virtue of Occupy is that it raised the consciousness of Americans that the only real democracy is direct democracy. The greatest danger it presented is that in failing to lead to a growing, sustained movement, most will conclude that democracy is not possible. The truth is that it is possible if Americans can learn to understand that there is more to democracy than the ability to speak and vote on collective decisions. However, it will take a new willingness to listen to those who are focused on a strategy to peacefully overthrow the existing political and economic order by creating a mass movement, one that is international is scope, organization and strategy. It must include those in other nations who have already taken up the struggle for freedom. They need the support of Americans willing to put pressure on their government to act in the interests of all rather than the few on whose behalf they feel they owe their positions of power and privilege. If they realize that their real interest is served only in working on behalf of average Americans, we will have at least a Republic, one in which government represents the People.  Such a government would stop wasting national resources on wars that serve only the corporate interests. The entire world would then be free to reorganize itself into a stable society.

The task then in creating an international front against fascism and war will most importantly depend on a change in the collective consciousness of Americans. While only part of a general global awakening to the fact that we need not submit to slavery if we can work together to end it, it is the most critical component. Americans, and to a lesser extent those in other highly developed nations, have to awaken to their collective power and the urgent need to exercise it. It is citizens of these nations whose representatives in government are the chief builders of a New World Order. That structure is designed to accommodate the whims of the global economic elite who are its architects.

The citizens of NATO nations that have known only relative prosperity for generations have the most to learn about the reality of deprivation. When the majority come to understand the need to consider the good of all if democracy is ever to be more than an illusion promulgated by the rich to keep the rest of them complacent, democracy will be possible. As long as they play defense within the existing political order, they are bound to be defeated. It is only in becoming part of a movement that stretches beyond international borders to fight for liberty and justice for all that they will become responsible citizens of a planet fit to pass on to their children.

THE OBAMA DOCTRINE

                                                                                  

A few months ago I heard a “progressive” talk radio host claim we were in “a historically peaceful time.” I wondered if he is one of those Democrats who think America is only at war if US boots are on the ground. He credited President Obama for taking most of the troops out of Iraq and promising to do the same in Afghanistan. We haven’t actually left either nation, of course. As long as US allies like Iraq’s Maliki and Afghanistan’s Karzai are in office, they are nominally in charge of running the countries we have devastated in wars we are told are to “fight terror.”  If things start to fall apart, as they appear to be doing in Iraq, we can always reinforce the troops still there. That is the nice thing about having a military so powerful that no nation will attack you and few can defend against you. We can afford to be magnanimous.  However, it would be nice if after nearly 12 years someone would define what “winning the war on terror” would mean.  As the President said, we cannot stay on a war footing forever. Or can we?

In fairness, the commentator spoke before Obama authorized arms for largely foreign “rebels” in Syria, but it was after it was revealed that arms were being funneled by the CIA from Benghazi, resulting in the death of Ambassador White.  His death was a small part of the price we pay for backing jihadists to deal with nations that do not submit to US foreign policy demands. Anyone who didn’t look beyond the foolish partisan argument over the comments made after the Embassy attack missed the real lesson: It was made by “rebels” who we were helping to take down a popular sovereign government and who were among those dealing with the US in its clandestine arms trade in Libya.  The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a designated Al Qaeda affiliate, was central in this proxy war for NATO.  It could not have succeeded against loyalist resistance without brutal air attacks in which the US military, under Obama’s command, helped kill thousands of innocent civilians and left Libya a failed state.

Now that Americans have forgotten what little they thought they understood about what happened in Libya, the President is pushing for another “humanitarian” intervention in Syria. Once again, we are told we have a moral responsibility to ignore international law by attacking a sovereign nation. Just because American troops are not doing the killing does not mean we are not responsible for the carnage in Syria.

Since 2011, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been waging a proxy war using jihadists who fought in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, at times against Americans and at others against its designated enemies du jour, with full American knowledge.  Now Obama wants to supply arms to mercenaries who evidence and common sense suggest are responsible for most of the deaths of over 90,000 Syrians, media and government claims to the contrary. To add insult to our intelligence to the injury to our national reputation, he justifies this with the spurious claim that Assad killed 150 of these citizens with sarin, when the deaths occurred in areas of civilian resistance to rebels and a UN investigator concluded it was most likely used by FSA terrorists led by Al Qaeda- affiliated Al Nusra, an official member of the US terrorist watch list.

There is a pattern here.  It’s not just making phony claims of WMDs to justify preemptively attacking sovereign nations.  After all, “preemptive” war is not a new idea. While Bush got all the credit, it was Hitler who first tried to use this justification for violating centuries-old law in modern times. In using our erstwhile enemies to do what US citizens no longer have the stomach to send their military in to do, Obama has taken the so-called Bush Doctrine a step further.  Let’s call it The Obama Doctrine, keeping in mind that the idea is no more his than was using 9/11 to launch a global war of corporate conquest under the guise of “fighting terror” the idea of an intellectual vacuum like Bush.

The continuity in policies under the two administrations is ample evidence that US foreign policy was long ago hijacked by those who identify “US interests” as identical to those of the international corporations that profit so very handsomely from war. Those who dictate US foreign policy are of course among the global elite who have the kind of money to determine who Americans can choose from to represent them on the world stage.  In other words, the partisan framework within which both establishment “liberals” and “conservatives” couch foreign policy debate masks the fact that neither side represents the traditional values of either conservatism or liberalism.

With this in mind, it should be clear that I am criticizing President Obama’s policies, not his character. He seems much less enthusiastic about getting wars than his predecessor, despite the tremendous pressure exerted by wealthy Party donors who profit richly from wars of choice. Despite jumping into the war on Libya without good justification, he has done an admirable job at delaying a kinetic war with Iran (though the sanctions amount to an act of war). Until recently, he seemed to have sense enough to stay out of Syria despite the hype for intervention in the corporate media. However, if he continues to fund terrorist coups, it doesn’t matter whether he is just going along with a foreign policy that neither he nor Bush authored. He if the Decider now and will be judged responsible, along with all his supporters who stay silent in the face of naked aggression, unwilling to say “The Empire has no clothes.”

WE ARE ALL TURKS NOW

From the vantage point of Americans who can see that their government is the greatest threat to peace and freedom in world history, it is agonizing to see how ignorant most of their fellow citizens are to what is blindingly obvious to the rest of the world. It is a great relief to see that recent events are opening the eyes of citizens in the US and around the world to an internationalist perspective. We must use the massive democratic protests in Turkey to help enlighten westerners who tend to accept far too much of what they are told by the corporate media.

The protests in Turkey are too large to ignore. With varying degrees of accuracy, mainstream media are carrying the story. Its inane commentators cannot hide the fact that the demonstrators are demanding democracy in a nation that the US government has held up as a model of a secular Islamic society. This should raise questions for any American who gives the news a moment’s thought. If Turkey is a democracy, what is the fuss all about? If it is not, then why is it being praised by the United States government as the West’s great ally in the struggle against Bashir Assad of Syria?  A basic understanding of Turkish political history is helpful in understanding the situation in Turkey today and its implications for the coming world order.

Turkish independence in 1923 was a triumph of secularism after a hard-fought victory for national self-determination. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI, the Allies occupied what is now Turkey with the intent of dividing it among them as the rest of the fallen empire was torn apart. Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal (later known as Ataturk, or Father of the Turks) organized resistance and headed the new government formed after the British occupiers dissolved the last Parliament under the Ottomans. The new Grand National Assembly raised a military force sufficient to compel the withdrawal of the British and defeat Greek, Armenian and Italian forces that attempted to seize parts of the Anatolia region by force.

The nation that Ataturk shaped was very different than the Empire that preceded it. Under his leadership, a modern state was forged on the principle of equality between members of all ethnic and religious groups. Imperialist expansion based on ethnic links of the Turkic people was explicitly discouraged, reflecting lessons learned from the long history of the rise, corruption and fall of the Ottoman Empire. A government was formed that espoused the ideals of a government of, by and for the People and made many reforms that moved the country toward that ideal, from free compulsory education to women’s suffrage.

One of the more controversial reforms was separation of religion and state. It was not until 1937 that the constitution was changed to strike the article stating that Islam was the “established religion” of Turkey, although public education had been secular since its inception. More controversial still was the banning of head scarves for women in public, which gave credence to accusations that Turkish secularism was in fact anti-Muslim, though the stated intent was to oppose Islamism, or the re-establishment of an Islamic government where religious authorities controlled political affairs. The tension between Islamists and the government were never completely resolved and is central to understanding the current turmoil in Turkey.

Prime Minister Erdogan is the head of the Justice and Development Party (AKP in Turkish), which was founded by Islamists. Despite protestations to the contrary, it has a clear agenda of reversing the long history of secularism in Turkey. As in the US, this unspoken agenda appears to be one of the bases for the popularity of the conservative agenda and is a major factor in the deep divisions between the left and right. Erdogan was banned from holding office for years for his promotion of Islamism, but growing support for the idea has led to increasing support for him and the AKP since 2002, when the party first won a majority in Parliament.  Even as his popularity grew, millions marched in protest in 2007 when he was announced as a possible presidential candidate. Although the party again swept to victory in the elections that year, in 2008, the party and 71 of its leaders were nearly banned for promoting Islamism. Party leaders now refer to the episode as a “failed coup.”

Religion is not the only issue dividing Turkish citizens. The AKP was deeply divided in 2003 when the government proposed giving permission to the US to Turkey as a staging ground for the illegal occupation of Iraq.  The party survived this and Abdullah Gul, the Prime Minister at the time, is now serving as President.  The AKP continues to be very pro-western and is a key supporter of the attempted NATO coup in Syria, further inflaming emotions among secular nationalists in Turkey and especially the youth, who recognize that Erdogan’s goal is the establishment of an Islamist government in Turkey and that the fall of Syria’s secular government with his support would be a major step in that direction.

The anniversary of Turkish independence on October 29, 2012 was a turning point in Turkish history. Erdogan imperiously banned a major rally in Istanbul, claiming that “subversives” were planning on using the event to undermine national security. Leaders of opposition parties on the left rallied with thousands of supporters in defiance of the dictate, many of them protesting the recent vote of Parliament authorizing troops in neighboring Syria. This act was analogous to the US Senate’s Authorization of Force that gave Bush and now Obama carte-blanche to conduct wars for corporate Empire in the guise of fighting terror.  At the same time, the Turkish military was already bombarding Syrian troops across the border they were trying to secure after it was destabilized by Turkish-protected and NATO-supported terrorists of the FSA. Needless to say, this aspect of the protests was ignored by the western media.

Fast forward to the present, with hundreds of thousands of mostly young Turks around the country protesting for weeks, for reasons that are unclear only to readers of the western corporate media. The protests were touched off by the news that the government variously planned to erect a replica of Ottoman-era military barracks, a shopping mall and mosque in Taksim Square, where Istanbul’s last green space is located in Gezi Park. Because mall construction would destroy the green space, the protesters were described as “environmentalists” long after that issue was eclipsed by more fundamental issues regarding the the relationship of its government to society. Young Turks see the fundamental character of the nation threatened by the growing strength of the Islamist movement. These concerns are derided by the government and some western media as a desire to preserve the right to drink alcohol, but of course the real issues are much more significant.

Taksim Square is an iconic location for Turks, the scene of major protests in past decades and of national celebrations in better times. Originally the site of an actual operating military barracks during the Ottoman era, reconstructing them as a museum is taken by some as at best incongruous with its history as a symbol of democracy and at worst as a step toward refurbishing the reputation of the former Islamist government. Building a mosque in the immediate vicinity is seen by some as further evidence that the idea is driven by Islamist ideology rather than national pride. One has to wonder if proposing to turn the last green space in Istanbul into a shopping mall does not offend the sensibilities of conservative Turks disgusted by western materialism as much as it does environmentalists who want to preserve the trees in Gezi Park.



Turkey is at a crossroads. Like the US, it was created by patriots willing to die for freedom. Similarly, prosperity eventually followed but with progress came a backlash against paying the price of modernity that comes with individual freedom. At this point in history, both freedom and prosperity are threatened in both nations and in the world by powerful global elites who find it advantageous to promote Islamism over secularism and democracy around the Mideast. The consequences however are more immediate for Turkey.

Those who are backing Erdogan's bid to create an Islamist government in Turkey are the same corporate elites behind the coup in Libya and the attempted coup in Syria. They have armed and set loose fundamentalists promoting Islamism by fighting against secular governments that have dared to challenge those of the Empire being constructed by the US, NATO, Israel and the Gulf monarchies. The interests of these governments are defined as synonymous with the international corporate terrorists who control them. Erdogan and the DPK are key conspirators in the effort to destabilize the Mideast in preparation for a New World Order in which, if successfully implemented, no one will be free.

Turks must continue to stand up for the democratic principles on which the nation was founded, despite violence and oppression by the government. Should the people choose to give in and let Erdogan and the AKP have their way, Turkish self-determination may become collateral damage in the War of Terror that is a smokescreen for global domination. Once Erdogan and the Turkish military have served their purpose to the Empire, there is no reason to expect it to show loyalty to the nation, let alone its people. Should Turks prove resistant to being complicit in the murder of tens of thousands of their Syrian neighbors, the corporatocracy may back up the government or promote violent resistance to it, knowing full well the chaos this would create. As events in Libya and Syria show, the global elite who are behind the Obama doctrine of using terrorists to fight proxy wars have no fear of the possible consequences of destabilizing the region.

Turkish protestors have already spoken up in support of besieged Syrians. They clearly recognize that their cause is the same. Citizens of the US and other NATO governments likewise have a duty to support Turks, Syrians, Libyans and the peoples of all nations threatened by a corporate Empire that is poised to control the planet. Their governments too have been hijacked by the global elite, and their only hope for freedom is to work toward building a united international front against fascism and war.

At a rally in New York recently, Turks and Greeks stood side-by-side behind a banner that read “We are all Greeks now,” a symbol of unity with Greeks struggling against the economic depredations of the global elite who are in the end part of the same corporate Empire bent on military domination of the Mideast. As Turks stand against the Empire’s attempts to divide them and the nation against Syria, I would add that we are all Turks, too.

SPEAKING THE UNSPEAKABLE

“…know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  -John 8:32

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It is time that we honored his sacrifice by demanding that the truth be told about the circumstances of his death. There are important questions that have not been answered by the Warren Commission or the government. Knowing who killed Kennedy and why he was killed are two of the two most important questions to answer if Americans are ever going to trust their government again. The others are regard the extent of foreknowledge of 9/11 by US government and exactly how it used this inside information to launch its war of terror. This has served to hide from average Americans the fact that it is nothing but a war for corporate Empire. Knowing the answers to questions about Kennedy’s murder will go a long way toward answering questions about how and why 9/11 was used by the corporatocracy to advance the aims of Project for a New American Century’s plan for world domination. Until Americans understand this, they will continue to be ignorant of why it is critical to unite to take back their government.

It is disgraceful that 50 years after the fact, the Obama administration refused to release an estimated 50,000 pages of remaining documents regarding its investigation into what could rightly be called the crime of the century. Unanswered questions about the murder of an American president are still sneeringly dismissed by the corporate media and politicians despite the fact that the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1978 that JFK was likely killed as the result of a conspiracy, one that neither the FBI nor the Warren Commission ever seriously considered. Fortunately, enough documents have been released and witnesses identified that the basic outlines of the conspiracy are clear, including the central role of the CIA.

For those who want to understand how Kennedy was killed, there are any number of books that present the evidence for various theories to explain the many aspects of the murder that were ignored or inadequately addressed by both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. For those who want to know why he was killed, they cannot do better than to read the meticulously documented JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass. He does a good job of highlighting some of the most important evidence. However, it is in his examination of the reasons that Kennedy was killed that he excels. His may prove to be one of the most important books in history, if its lessons are widely noted and heeded.

Thomas Merton defined “the unspeakable” is as “…an evil whose depth and deceit (seem) to go beyond the capacity of words to describe.” In particular, the unspeakable is truth that “too few are willing to see” because most of us are “eager to be reconciled with the world at any price” He argues that the price of turning from the truth of what Kennedy’s assassination means is a loss of the national soul and with it, any prospect for world peace. As persuasively argued in JFK and the Unspeakable and in a speech by Douglass outlining the argument, it was this quest for peace that led to JFK’s murder by those who profited most from a growing military-industrial complex that was already out of control by 1963.

Douglass traces the origins of the unspeakable to a 1948 National Security Council Directive authorizing the CIA to commit illegal actions under the doctrine of “denial plausibility,” or without leaving evidence of American involvement. This is what gives the CIA the ability to operate with little congressional scrutiny and to conceal information from or lie to the President, the press and the American people. He argues that by 1963, the CIA had assets in every branch of government, the military and corporations that formed the industrial part of the military-industrial-government complex. The CIA role in the Kennedy assassination is suggested by Truman’s remarks shortly after: “For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government . . . There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.”

The guiding principle of CIA operation is that what is good for the transnational corporations that profit from military and economic conquests of resource-rich nations is in “American” interests. This has always been the case in American foreign policy, but never before had an agency of government been given so much power with so much autonomy. It was bound to lead to conflicts with any President who dared challenge the conventional wisdom of the Cold war or those who profited from it. After the CIA lied to him in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy spoke of wanting to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind.” This was the opening salvo in what became a covert war between Kennedy and every element of the military industrial complex from the CIA and military to the industrialists, bankers and politicians whose interests they served.

JFK and the Unspeakable counters the myth that as an unrepentant Cold Warrior, Kennedy could not have been the passionate idealist for peace that some have described him. This has been a useful lie, serving to divert attention from the real motivation for JFK’s murder and who carried it out and covered it up. The evidence now available clearly documents Kennedy’s change after the Cuban missile crisis. After facing the prospect of being responsible for a nuclear war that could have ended human civilization as we know it, he was transformed from Cold Warrior to Soldier For Peace, posing a direct threat to an established order that was based on endless expansion of corporate Empire. Douglass documents the profound transformation he underwent 

After staring down generals who had called for a preemptive nuclear strike during the missile crisis, JFK established continuing back door communication with Kruschev, negotiating the first ABM missile treaty and even proposing a joint US-Soviet space project that would have ended the space race that was a cover for the dangerous escalation of nuclear weapons. With Kruschev’s help began setting up a line of communication with Castro seeking normalization of relations that continued until the day of his assassination. He ordered plans for the evacuation of American troops from Vietnam, but military leadership stalled him until his death, after which LBJ cancelled these plans and escalated the war. In addition to these moves toward peace he challenged price fixing in the steel industry, converted the US to a silver standard to reduce the power of the Fed and seriously challenged Mafia power. Since the Mafia was an important source of CIA assets and the international banks controlled the corporations that profit from war, these too can be seen as part of his concerted effort to work for world peace. 

Finally, less than six months before his murder, Kennedy gave a little-remembered speech at American University in which he called for an end to the Cold War. Speaking about the common humanity of Americans, Russians, Cubans, Vietnamese and all people of the Earth, his speech was widely hailed in Russia, where it was front page news and a cause for rejoicing while being virtually ignored in the US media. 

JFK risked all in the pursuit of peace and was silenced as a result. He will not have died in vain if we keep his dream alive. It starts with believing peace is possible, even while acknowledging the tremendous forces that make it seem otherwise. Understanding the real story of his murder is an essential first step in creating a truly transparent government answerable to the People. The next step is to make other Americans understand it as well. We owe as much to Kennedy and the millions who have died in senseless wars in the belief that they were defending liberty. Most of all, we owe it to our children and generations to come to assure that the dream of liberty and justice for all does not perish from the Earth.

WE ARE ALL SYRIANS NOW

                                                                         

Note to reader: This article contains a lot of information put together from multiple sources. If you are unfamiliar with the sources of any of the claims highlighted here, it is highly recommended that you check out the links provided.

With conflicts raging from Libya to Mali in the aftermath of the widely misunderstood “Arab Spring,” it is not surprising that few commentators seem to realize the special significance of the battle for Syria. The outcome may determine the success or failure of the effort to create a global corporate Empire nominally directed by the government of the United States and backed by the power of the US military. It is critical that westerners understand this because once such a New World Order is fully established, resistance in the US and elsewhere can only be violent. That could only serve to provide the perfect excuse to use the powers of the police state that is being constructed all around us.

Those who only follow the news in the mainstream media have enough clues to piece the story together, though the truth is to be found in plain sight through the alternative media. To appreciate the real danger humanity faces, we must look at the available information with open eyes, a justified skepticism of government claims and an understanding of the realities of how the global game of Risk is played today. We won’t get this perspective from the political pundits whose analyses are premised on an uncritical acceptance of the need for a “war on terror.” Anyone who understands the goals of Strategy for Rebuilding America’s Defenses (SAD), the white paper put out by Project for a New American Century in 2000, knows that the America’s war of terror is a smokescreen for the creation of what amounts to a permanent fascist New World Order.

PNAC laid out its plans for world domination in this seminal document, published one year before the attack on the World Trade Center provided the opportunity to put the strategy into action. PNAC was founded on the assumption that the US had the right and duty to assure a Pax Americana would endure for at least a century, established and maintained through American military superiority in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. SAD described a plan to destabilize any nation whose leaders dared challenge “American interests.” In context, the term can only be assumed to mean the interests of international corporations whose executives have dictated foreign policy to the US government at least since the 1954s, when the CIA staged the Guatemalan coup on behalf of the United Fruit Company.

Among nations specifically identified as potential threats in SAD were Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran. It may seem surprising that Afghanistan was not on the list, given that negotiations for an American pipeline had broken down in 1998, but perhaps by 2000 the invasion was already a foregone conclusion. After all, General Wesley Clark has reported being informed of a classified memo on or about September 20, 2001 that laid out plans to take down these governments along with Sudan, Lebanon and Somalia. For those who haven’t been paying attention, oil-rich southern Sudan seceded in July of 2011, Hezbollah has recently been accused of masterminding a terror attack against Israelis in Macedon, leading to the EU considering putting them on its terrorist list, and the CIA is still busy trying to gain control in Somalia through drones, private contractors and covert means.  The claim that Hezbollah was behind the Macedon attack is at best suspicious, pointing to a deliberate effort to implicate a key ally of Syria and Iran.

The timing of the CIA and MI-6 based coup in Libya may have been related to Gaddafi’s renewed threat to create a gold-backed dinar to challenge the supremacy of the petrodollar. There had been threats to take out Gaddafi at least since Reagan was in office. In 1996, two MI-5 whistleblowers  revealed that one was approached by an agent of MI-6 about illegally funneling money to foreign mercenaries to finance a coup. Gaddafi’s socialist government and his efforts to promote Pan-African unity and independence were threats to NATO’s vision of an American-led New World Order. When the time came to take him out, NATO used the same means proposed in 1996. Mercenaries backed by the US and its Gulf partners infiltrated the Benghazi region and gained the support of a few malcontents to give themselves a veneer of legitimacy. NATO then sought UN cover in the form of a no-fly zone authorization, which was used as a pretext to eliminate loyalist civilians and the Libyan military through massive air strikes, allowing the terrorist army to murder Gaddafi and take control of the country.

Many wondered why Russia and China did not veto the UN decision on the no-fly zone. After all, they stand to be the biggest losers in the winner-take-all game of global Monopoly in which average citizens of the planet are merely token players. What they did was abstain. By tradition though not law, this is taken to mean that a measure passes in the Security Council. However, when NATO exceeded the mandate of the resolution and murdered an estimated 10,000 loyal Libyan civilians under the doctrine of “responsibility to Protect,” both nations decided it was in their interests to not allow the same thing to happen in Syria. This is probably the main reason the Assad government remains in power.

Syria is the key line of defense against US/NATO/Gulf Cooperation Council/Israeli domination of the world’s oil supplies exclusive of Latin America and Russia. Its citizens increasingly realize that the survival of sovereignty in Syria may be the last hope of stopping a small band of bankers and their minions from controlling the world. From a larger perspective, the quest to achieve dominance over the rest of the planet in the interest of perpetuating a carbon fuels-based world economy threatens the survival of human civilization as we know it. As long as geopolitics is centered on the conflict over oil and natural gas, the threat of global climate change grows and becomes ever more immediate.

Here is how the dominoes line up: If Syria falls and Hezbollah is named a terrorist organization by the EU, Iran and Russia will stand virtually alone against the powerful alliance of western “democracies,”  Israel, the Gulf monarchies, the Qatar-backed governments dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist groups backed by Saudi Arabia, the CIA, MI6 and Mossad. US policy has since 2007 has been to back cooperative “moderate” Sunni monarchies over “radical” Shia governments and groups and their secular allies in Syria and pre-invasion Iraq. This is essential to understanding the US plan to carry out its program of regime destabilization. The Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas, seems committed to securing its place in what they seem to assume will be a permanent fascist New World Order.  If Iran is destabilized through economic sanctions or eventually attacked by NATO forces with the implicit or explicit blessing of citizens of EU nations, Russia will be essentially isolated and economically devastated by the loss of access for its oil and natural gas to European, Chinese and Indian markets. China in turn will find itself virtually alone in the fight against a worldwide western corporate Empire.

China is heavily dependent on oil from Iran, Myanmar and other regions that have been targeted by NATO, which is seeking to absorb SEATO (the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization). Australia and Japan are going along with the plan to establish NATO economic and military dominance over Asia. Meanwhile, drone bases are being set up in Africa, throughout Asia and in the Americas. Everything is in place to allow the international corporate terrorists who control the US government, military and intelligence agencies to take over the world militarily in areas where it cannot yet dominate economically. In the face of a dollar that is increasingly seen as endangered, the impetus to move rapidly toward a final solution to the problem of democracy is compelling.

With all this happening in front of their eyes, a clueless American public dithers over the economic consequences of having unwittingly allowed corporations to take control of their government, without recognizing that is the problem. Most of those who have not given up on politics altogether engage in endless debate over whether Democrats or Republicans have allowed this to happen when clearly both are responsible. As an example of the lunacy of the state of American politics, supporters of right wing politicians are so fearful of a “socialist” takeover that they have made gun rights a central issue in the political dialogue, joined in support by left wingers who have also concluded that violent revolution is unavoidable.

What would be left in this corporate-controlled New World Order is a China under increasing pressure by the Anglo-American Empire, an economically crippled Russia, a Mideast dominated by overseers of the slave owners of the corporatocracy, a recolonized Africa and Asia and a defenseless and demoralized world citizenry, unable to fight back effectively because any effort to resist would simply increase support for a police state by those remaining in the middle class who are fearful of a mob rule formerly known as “democracy.”

Is there any hope to change the tide of history? In a word, yes. That will be the topic of the next essay in Soldiers For Peace International.

For a more detailed discussion of the outline of the plan for global domination, listen to this podcast from SFPI Radio, the voice of Soldiers For Peace International on the worldwide web.

GUNS AND THE COMING REVOLUTION

I swore I was not going to write about the gun debate that has followed the latest mass murder. It seemed an exercise in futility. Trying to convince people that they are wrong on gun control is like trying to influence their views on abortion. Attitudes and opinions are fixed on the issue. There is little chance that one more opinion will change them. Recently, the conversation took an interesting turn, one that is new to the ongoing debate on gun control. The idea that we have to have personal weapons to fight our own government went from being a fringe idea to a mainstream argument, defended by conservatives and many pro-second amendment liberals.

It has been obvious to every thinking American for some time that something is terribly wrong with our current government. If we could agree in what that was we might be able to fight it without resort to guns. The nation is nearly evenly divided between those who fear a socialist takeover and those who believe that the problem is growing corporate dominance of government to the extent that it is leading to fascism, if it has not already arrived. If we do not come to a common understanding of what has gone wrong with the US system of government, it is likely that the incidence of political violence will continue to increase until we are subject to a violent crackdown by the very police state that so many of us fear.

The argument that America is being taken over by socialists is laughable on its face. With the social safety net under attack and a bailout of the medical insurance industry being passed off as “near-universal health care,” nothing could be further from the truth. Funneling taxpayer dollars to corporations that ship jobs overseas, those that profit from denying needed health care and those that manufacture weapons for insanely expensive wars for corporate Empire is in fact a form of corporate welfare serving the interests of the rich over those of the American taxpayer. That is worth fighting a revolution over, but one that can only succeed if it is done so through nonviolent, democratic action. That is impossible if we cannot come to a consensus on how democracy works and how best to achieve it.

It is easy to define democracy. The word translates literally as “government of the People.” That means government of, by and for the People. Not some people, but all people in the United States. If we cannot achieve consensus on what is best for all the people, we cannot create a government of the People. Instead, those who wield power over the government will continue to divide us until they ultimately conquer us. Those calling for revolution understand that it is our inalienable right and responsibility to resist a government that has become tyrannical. A government that is not for the People but for corporations and the wealthy individuals that control it cannot be said to be democratic.

Who then is the tyrant who dares challenge democracy in the US and the world? Many claim it is President Obama. On one side the radical Right argues that he intends to impose a socialist government that will dictate to the People. On the Left, the claim is made that there is no difference between Obama and George Bush in the arena of foreign policy and that he has been far too willing to sacrifice the interests of the People for the corporate interest that in fact wields control over both parties by virtue of controlling the corporate media and thereby the nature of political discourse. In fact, the blame lies squarely with a Congress that has abdicated its authority to an imperial Presidency, regardless of who is the figurehead in the White House in matters of war and peace. 

If we truly want a democratic revolution, the Left and Right must first agree on goals, lest the US become another failed state, at best degenerating into a power struggle between the leaders of the revolution but far more likely to result in the consolidation of power by those who control the police state. As the response to Occupy has shown, these are the powerful banking and oil industries that colluded with agents of the police state in infiltrating and undermining this popular movement. The only way to overcome the power of those who control the levers of government is to united around the idea that together we can create a government of, by and for the People only by ending the power of corporations and the rich to choose who we have to pick from to represent us in Congress. 

There is evidence that there will be a mass movement to hold candidates for Congress accountable to the People by making them declare whether they will support a constitutional amendment to ban corporate campaign expenditures and limit individual donations to influence the outcome of elections. There is a parallel movement to accomplish the same by legislative changes to address corruption ofgovernment by monied interests, though many doubt that such an effort can succeed. Even if it does succeed in the short run, there is always the risk that a future Congress can be corrupted by the influence of the rich and powerful, while a constitutional amendment will ensure that future Congresses will not be able to hand the US government back to corporate interests.

Those who argue that we cannot reform government by working with politicians are missing the point: If we make support for a constitutional amendment the litmus test for candidates for Congress, we can and will elect a Congress that will put the interests of the People over those of the corporate interests that currently control it. This is the first step to electing a Congress that will work for peace through cutting the strings of those who manipulate US policy to wage endless war for corporate Empire while subjugating a population that is becoming increasingly aware of the threat this poses to its own freedom. 

If we keep in mind that 80% of both self-identified conservatives and liberals are opposed to Citizens United, citizens can unite to take back America for the People. The Pledge to Amend campaign is the way to join the Left and Right in the common cause of finally achieving democracy in America and the world. If we succeed the last, best hope for Mankind shall not perish from the Earth. Recent history has shown that democracy cannot be imposed at the point of a gun. If we come to understand that, there is yet hope that we can create it through the will of the People, using the democratic process that is at the heart of the freedoms for which so many have died.