http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00022.htm INTRODUCTION..
Dear DU...
In Internet alternative writing terms MALCONTENTX is an enigmatic and very important figure. He was seminal in the beginning of the 911 Truth Movement. So far as I am aware he hasn't written anything for a couple of years - at least not as MALCONTENTX. I urge those who take their examination of issues around the intelligence/military industrial complex/bush admin/Iraq war interfaces to read this compelling and illuminating essay.
It is long... but
it is also pure spun golden truth at its most explicit and most revealing... it is worth savouring and sharing. If you like it reccommend it, blog it and tell others about it.
Kia Kaha
Althecat...
Distribution via the Unanswered Questions Wire
http://www.unansweredquestions.org/
The PlameGate Affair is A Smokescreen...
by MalcontentX
Nov, 2005
Limited Hangout.
Distraction.
Facade.
Magnetic manna for hypocrites and toadies.
A soothing piece of political candy for those with a taste for solutions convenient.Ever get the feeling like you're the only person in the world who really understands what's going down? -I mean, with respect to a particular situation?
Yeah, not an accurate (or pleasant) feeling to have; for, if one's objective analysis is basically sound, then surely there are others who understand; yet in the midst of the grand social dialogue, its cascade of concepts flowing back and forth, when one hears the essential component of a story so-consistently misplaced, one feels alone, and saddened for the state of our collective understanding.
Yet perhaps I'm wrong; or perhaps this may be an opportunity for a breakthrough of sorts.
Perhaps.
******* # # # ********Take the case of "outed" CIA agent Valerie Plame-Wilson, and the "crime" for which some senior members of the Bush Administration may be facing jail time.
Of all the thoughtful observers I routinely scan across the internet, I have found only two that come close to the heart of the matter. One is a rather brief reflection from a somewhat anonymous observer
(1) (who has nevertheless proven his/herself to be consistently astute). The other comes from investigators Ralph Schoenmann and Mya Schoen
(2) , who have provided a meticulous and well-documented analysis (in audio format) upon which I will be relying somewhat for my analysis here.
******* # # # ********Now, the source of the confusion seems to arise around the desire by many to do something to stop the war in Iraq, and to see that those who lied... to get us into it, are held accountable.
An admirable goal.
The war in Iraq constitutes a grotesque violation of human rights, international law, and ethical government. Many know this. Many are speaking out. Yet into this mix are slithering a whole slew of questionable characters, slowly but surely shifting the ground of the dialogue away from the real architects of the war; and many are the well-meaning yet short-sighted observers, it seems, who are unconsciously allowing this to happen.
******* # # # ********Let's look at this a little more closely.
Bush, Cheney, and their
entire administration repeatedly lied to get us into this war.
Virtually the entire Congress and Senate bought the lies and voted to give Bush the power to invade.
Virtually the entire mainstream press bought the lies, and dutifully documented the details of the invasion from the inside of a tank -in this, the latest expression of the so-called "war on terror."
All this is a matter of record.
Well yes, now is the time for a great hand-wringing amongst the press and politicians: 'yes,' they say, 'we hate to admit it but... we were duped,' fooled, misled.
And we know this is udder
(3) nonsense. We know that any conscientious citizen could have gone on the internet within hours of Bush's or Powell's speech and exposed them for the juvenile frauds they were; yet with all the budgetary powers the press and politicians have to investigate the facts, they somehow "missed" the reality.
Let's be clear about this: they "missed" it because they WANTED to miss it.
They wanted to miss it because their integrity is thoroughly compromised to the military-industrial complex upon which they feed.... and which wanted the war to proceed.
******* # # # ********Yet somehow the
intelligence bureaucracy, (it seems, we are being told) is different; it appears as if the CIA and co. was trying to tell the truth about the WMD/yellowcake claims, but were somehow manipulated or prevented from doing their job.
But wait: of all the elements within the military-industrial-complex, is not the
intelligence bureaucracy among the most firmly committed to the manufacture of war -and the lies necessary to achieve it? Have not its agents consistently proven themselves to be the bastions of deception and intrigue?
The "Valerie Plame indictment" is unravelling within the context of an assertion that the intelligence community is an entity standing somewhat at odds or even independent of the political games going on in Washington.
Is this true?
Were the analysts prevented from doing their job?
Or does "the company" merely want it to
appear that way?
******* # # # ********Let's look at the political context.
Broadly-speaking, why did we go to war? Why did top officials systematically lie to get us into Iraq? The immediate reason is obvious: oil. The longer-term reason is geo-political strategy: the control of the world's resources, beginning with the middle-east, and the usurpation of the former Soviet Republics in order to contain China; and the deeper, fundamental reason is that the American Empire is bankrupt from the inside out... entirely addicted
(4) to the expansion of its war machine for the continuation of its economic life.
The war-machine must grow, or the entire house of cards will begin to fall.
(If you don't know that, dear reader, then you need to do your homework; or, simply try to follow the logic here with an open mind).
******* # # # ********Central to the war-machine is the element of secrecy.
Let's remember that, within any class society, any society dominated by a powerful few, there is always the danger that elected officials (and those whom they appoint) may cease to serve the interests of all -and instead, use the apparatus of government to further the interests of the few, in secrecy (to some degree).
This is nothing new: it's built into the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, The Bill of Rights. The different branches of the Federal Government, split into the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, were specifically designed to mitigate against the collection of power in any one area.
Even as some of the "founding fathers" were speaking of the necessity for the "eternal vigilance" of an awakened citizenry, most of them constituted the very economic elite (at the time) that posed the greatest danger to government "for, by, and of the people"; and, throughout American history
(5) , there has been an ongoing struggle for the control of the government, (at all levels) between the various economic elites and the grass-roots organizations of the common people.
Through numerous bloody wars, violent oppression, civil unrest, it's not difficult to see that the elite few have generally had the run of things. And today, in the era of the multinational corporation, with over half the world's wealth concentrated in the hands of 1% of the global population, it's quite clear that the power of the few is more-concentrated than ever, that the checks and balances have been overwhelmed, and that its primarily the corporate interest that government serves today.
Now, in a nominally-democratic society such as ours, the nature of this unethical allegiance is that it must be carried out
in secret; that is, the compromised politicians and bureaucrats must
put on a show of allegiance to "the people," so that we, the people, do not rebel.
Alas, by virtue of the bald-faced belligerence of some Republican hawks these days, and the apathetic response this seems to get from the general public, some may assume that this "show" is not all that significant; but this would be a grave mistake.
We must not confuse
the effect of the Elite propaganda machine with the reality it is trying to control; that is, the very
effectiveness of the media con job causes many to believe that it doesn't matter, that "we, the people" don't care, (precisely what the Elite want us to believe).
In reality, the political establishment goes to enormous expense to massage the public mind, (because they have to
(5b) ) and the colonic-collusion of the corporate press makes this manipulation seem almost
natural.Strategists in the corridors of power are certainly not unaware of the need to maintain the facade; so let us keep this element of secrecy clearly in our mind.
******* # # # ********Even more so than the secret allegiances of individual politicians, we must be most-concerned here with
organized secrecy: that is, networks of people, united in the commitment to carrying those decisions out.
In corporate America
(6) , for example, people are paid to lie and swindle. There's a profit to be had in exploiting others; and so, in the interest of furthering the common need/greed, people
follow orders.
It is within this institutional culture where "following orders" prevails that
secrecy is able to expand its reach most-fully.
In government, this becomes expressed in the corruption of the political parties as a whole; yet of all our public institutions, it has traditionally been the
military which has most-clearly been governed by the principle of "following orders."
As we all know, in times of war: what residues of fair-play, civil liberty and common sense that exist in civil society often go flying out the window in the name of necessity, "patriotism," "honour," "helping our boys," etc.
Here,
secrecy and
don't ask questions is the norm; whereas, with the elected (and other bureaucratic) branches of government, there is often at least a paper trail showing the decisions that were made; and, the elected officials can be voted out of office.
What has traditionally kept the military
somewhat (and only periodically) in check has been the difficulty -the sheer enormity- of getting the apparatus of government into a position to declare war, along with the cultural conditions necessary to convince the public to accept it.
This has kept the American military (at least partially) in a place where it, (and its code of secrecy) continued to act
in service to the public, rather than as ruler
(7) .
For all those with the eyes to see, the military is now moving close to the time when it will be so integrated with the powers of the federal government as to become the lead agency
(8) in the promotion/enforcement of public policy.
There's no question but that we are moving towards a police state -where the essence of secrecy contained within the "private tyranny" of the corporation, (formerly held in check by the various separation of powers) is "coming out" to the public in the form of a uniformed, armed guard on Main Street America.
Yet the key element which is making all this possible is another reservoir of
secrecy, operating at a whole other level of subtlety and sophistication... which has developed steadily (and massively) over the last sixty years, serving as a "plausibly deniable" bridge between the agenda of the military and the administrative levers of civilian government.
Principally with the creation of the CIA in 1947, you have a (largely invisible)
intelligence bureaucracy which has increasingly come to have more and more influence over the Executive branch of office, (National Security Council, Daily Intelligence Brief, etc.) while simultaneously using its Executive position to access funds, resources (and positions within other areas of both, government and civilian life) to further an un-written agenda... all under the rubric of "don't ask questions... national security."
The power of the CIA (and the various "intelligence" gathering agencies) goes WAY BEYOND the thirty-billion/year that we are told they are allotted by Congress. The true power of "The Company" lies not in its administrative/clerical (i.e. "public") side, it lies in the realm of covert operations, by which it has penetrated into the core of the stock-market, banking and finance, the media, the arms trade, illicit drugs, and so on.
It is absolutely essential for every thinking American to grasp the significance of this. To do so requires some study. There are numerous good books
(9) on the subject. In particular, I recommend the vantage-point of someone who was there
(10) from its inception, who saw it grow and change the face of the political landscape... and who has chronicled that development in exhaustive detail.
******* # # # ********So the existence of this
intelligence bureaucracy takes the element of
secrecy within government to a whole other level of sophistication.
Imagine, for a moment, beyond the usual rank of influence-peddling, (i.e. The White House/Pentagon offering access to only those reporters who say the right things, or Republican Party money helping to finance publications and programs that appear on Fox news) that there's another, unnamed layer of organization that can withhold or "leak" classified information at will, stage events, plant stories, to which the compromised or unaware press, politicians, and public must then respond. The power of this bureaucracy is not absolute; but because it is, by its very nature, a hidden power
(10) , it has a flexibility to influence events that no other institution has, while
appearing to be
un-involved..... MUCH MUCH MORE....
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00022.htm
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