The U.S. continues to generate the threat that justifies its National Security and Surveillance State

glenn...

In just the past two months alone (all subsequent to the kihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflling of Osama bin Laden), the U.S. Government has taken the following steps in the name of battling the Terrorist menace: extended the Patriot Act by four years without a single reform; begun a new CIA drone attack campaign in Yemen; launched drone attacks in Somalia; slaughtered more civilians in Pakistan; attempted to assassinate U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki far from any battlefield and without a whiff of due process; invoked secrecy doctrines to conceal legal memos setting forth its views of its own domestic warrantless surveillance powers; announced a "withdrawal"plan for Afghanistan that entails double the number of troops in that country as were there when Obama was inaugurated; and invoked a very expansive view of its detention powers under the 2001 AUMF by detaining an alleged member of al-Shabab on a floating prison, without charges, Miranda warnings, or access to due process. That's all independent of a whole slew of drastically expanded surveillance powers seized over the past two years in the name of the same threat.

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I long believed that the most patently irrational American policy -- the one that would cause future generations to look back in baffled disgust -- was the Drug War: imprisoning huge numbers of citizens for years and years for nothing more than possessing or selling banned substances to consenting adults. But now I think it's this: that the U.S. Government is able to persuade the populace to continue to support and pay for blood-spilling and liberty-destroying policies in the name of Terrorism when nothing sustains and exacerbates the threat of Terrorism more than those very policies. Just like the FBI continues to manufacture its own Terrorist plots that it then flamboyantly boasts of thwarting, the U.S. continues to generate the threat that justifies its National Security and Surveillance State.

ok, so, ya gotta ask... who benefits...? that's not a hard one to answer... since our super-rich elites profit hugely from the defense industry and all the industries associated with the national security and surveillance states and the death and destruction that ensues, why wouldn't they be heavily invested in making sure that absolutely no stone is left unturned in terms of keeping the endless wars going and adding to them whenever and wherever possible...? how do they keep them going...? that's an easy one too... they buy elected officials to do their bidding... those elected officials make a pretense of representing their constituents, but we all know who makes up their real constituency -- and it ain't us...

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