[Fighting888]

For those of you who are interested in politics, here's an interesting article which discusses America's shadow government, operating behind the scenes. It was written by Mike Lofgren, a former congressional staff member who served on both the House and Senate budget committees.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy...eep-state/

Read it all if you have the time.

Here are some interesting excerpts:

Quote:

There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power. [1]

Quote:

Despite this apparent impotence, President Obama can liquidate American citizens without due processes, detain prisoners indefinitely without charge, conduct dragnet surveillance on the American people without judicial warrant and engage in unprecedented — at least since the McCarthy era — witch hunts against federal employees (the so-called “Insider Threat Program”). Within the United States, this power is characterized by massive displays of intimidating force by militarized federal, state and local law enforcement. Abroad, President Obama can start wars at will and engage in virtually any other activity whatsoever without so much as a by-your-leave from Congress, such as arranging the forced landing of a plane carrying a sovereign head of state over foreign territory. Despite the habitual cant of congressional Republicans about executive overreach by Obama, the would-be dictator, we have until recently heard very little from them about these actions — with the minor exception of comments from gadfly Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Democrats, save a few mavericks such as Ron Wyden of Oregon, are not unduly troubled, either — even to the extent of permitting seemingly perjured congressional testimony under oath by executive branch officials on the subject of illegal surveillance.

Quote:

These are not isolated instances of a contradiction; they have been so pervasive that they tend to be disregarded as background noise. During the time in 2011 when political warfare over the debt ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United States government somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi’s regime in Libya, and, when the instability created by that coup spilled over into Mali, provide overt and covert assistance to French intervention there. At a time when there was heated debate about continuing meat inspections and civilian air traffic control because of the budget crisis, our government was somehow able to commit $115 million to keeping a civil war going in Syria and to pay at least £100m to the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters to buy influence over and access to that country’s intelligence. Since 2007, two bridges carrying interstate highways have collapsed due to inadequate maintenance of infrastructure, one killing 13 people. During that same period of time, the government spent $1.7 billion constructing a building in Utah that is the size of 17 football fields. This mammoth structure is intended to allow the National Security Agency to store a yottabyte of information, the largest numerical designator computer scientists have coined. A yottabyte is equal to 500 quintillion pages of text. They need that much storage to archive every single trace of your electronic life.

Quote:

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.” All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State’s protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude. [2]

Quote:

The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street. All these agencies are coordinated by the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council. Certain key areas of the judiciary belong to the Deep State, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose actions are mysterious even to most members of Congress. Also included are a handful of vital federal trial courts, such as the Eastern District of Virginia and the Southern District of Manhattan, where sensitive proceedings in national security cases are conducted. The final government component (and possibly last in precedence among the formal branches of government established by the Constitution) is a kind of rump Congress consisting of the congressional leadership and some (but not all) of the members of the defense and intelligence committees. The rest of Congress, normally so fractious and partisan, is mostly only intermittently aware of the Deep State and when required usually submits to a few well-chosen words from the State’s emissaries.

I saw this submissiveness on many occasions. One memorable incident was passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008. This legislation retroactively legalized the Bush administration’s illegal and unconstitutional surveillance first revealed by The New York Times in 2005 and indemnified the telecommunications companies for their cooperation in these acts. The bill passed easily: All that was required was the invocation of the word “terrorism” and most members of Congress responded like iron filings obeying a magnet. One who responded in that fashion was Senator Barack Obama, soon to be coronated as the presidential nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. He had already won the most delegates by campaigning to the left of his main opponent, Hillary Clinton, on the excesses of the global war on terror and the erosion of constitutional liberties.

Quote:

Washington is the most important node of the Deep State that has taken over America, but it is not the only one. Invisible threads of money and ambition connect the town to other nodes. One is Wall Street, which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating as a diversionary marionette theater. Should the politicians forget their lines and threaten the status quo, Wall Street floods the town with cash and lawyers to help the hired hands remember their own best interests. The executives of the financial giants even have de facto criminal immunity. On March 6, 2013, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder stated the following: “I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.” This, from the chief law enforcement officer of a justice system that has practically abolished the constitutional right to trial for poorer defendants charged with certain crimes. It is not too much to say that Wall Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative beyond the dreams of avarice — certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee. [3]

The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well trodden highway for the personalities we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street: Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and many others. Not all the traffic involves persons connected with the purely financial operations of the government: In 2013, General David Petraeus joined KKR (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) of 9 West 57th Street, New York, a private equity firm with $62.3 billion in assets. KKR specializes in management buyouts and leveraged finance. General Petraeus’ expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however, is a known and valued commodity. Unlike Cincinnatus, the military commanders of the Deep State do not take up the plow once they lay down the sword. Petraeus also obtained a sinecure as a non-resident senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course, the preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy. [4]

Quote:

Petraeus and most of the avatars of the Deep State — the White House advisers who urged Obama not to impose compensation limits on Wall Street CEOs, the contractor-connected think tank experts who besought us to “stay the course” in Iraq, the economic gurus who perpetually demonstrate that globalization and deregulation are a blessing that makes us all better off in the long run — are careful to pretend that they have no ideology. Their preferred pose is that of the politically neutral technocrat offering well considered advice based on profound expertise. That is nonsense. They are deeply dyed in the hue of the official ideology of the governing class, an ideology that is neither specifically Democrat nor Republican. Domestically, whatever they might privately believe about essentially diversionary social issues such as abortion or gay marriage, they almost invariably believe in the “Washington Consensus”: financialization, outsourcing, privatization, deregulation and the commodifying of labor. Internationally, they espouse 21st-century “American Exceptionalism”: the right and duty of the United States to meddle in every region of the world with coercive diplomacy and boots on the ground and to ignore painfully won international norms of civilized behavior. To paraphrase what Sir John Harrington said more than 400 years ago about treason, now that the ideology of the Deep State has prospered, none dare call it ideology. [5] That is why describing torture with the word “torture” on broadcast television is treated less as political heresy than as an inexcusable lapse of Washington etiquette: Like smoking a cigarette on camera, these days it is simply “not done.”

Quote:

After Edward Snowden’s revelations about the extent and depth of surveillance by the National Security Agency, it has become publicly evident that Silicon Valley is a vital node of the Deep State as well. Unlike military and intelligence contractors, Silicon Valley overwhelmingly sells to the private market, but its business is so important to the government that a strange relationship has emerged. While the government could simply dragoon the high technology companies to do the NSA’s bidding, it would prefer cooperation with so important an engine of the nation’s economy, perhaps with an implied quid pro quo. Perhaps this explains the extraordinary indulgence the government shows the Valley in intellectual property matters. If an American “jailbreaks” his smartphone (i.e., modifies it so that it can use a service provider other than the one dictated by the manufacturer), he could receive a fine of up to $500,000 and several years in prison; so much for a citizen’s vaunted property rights to what he purchases. The libertarian pose of the Silicon Valley moguls, so carefully cultivated in their public relations, has always been a sham. Silicon Valley has long been tracking for commercial purposes the activities of every person who uses an electronic device, so it is hardly surprising that the Deep State should emulate the Valley and do the same for its own purposes. Nor is it surprising that it should conscript the Valley’s assistance.

Quote:

The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction. Washington is the headquarters of the Deep State, and its time in the sun as a rival to Rome, Constantinople or London may be term-limited by its overweening sense of self-importance and its habit, as Winwood Reade said of Rome, to “live upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face.” “Living upon its principal,” in this case, means that the Deep State has been extracting value from the American people in vampire-like fashion.

We are faced with two disagreeable implications. First, that the Deep State is so heavily entrenched, so well protected by surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that it is almost impervious to change. Second, that just as in so many previous empires, the Deep State is populated with those whose instinctive reaction to the failure of their policies is to double down on those very policies in the future. Iraq was a failure briefly camouflaged by the wholly propagandistic success of the so-called surge; this legerdemain allowed for the surge in Afghanistan, which equally came to naught. Undeterred by that failure, the functionaries of the Deep State plunged into Libya; the smoking rubble of the Benghazi consulate, rather than discouraging further misadventure, seemed merely to incite the itch to bomb Syria. Will the Deep State ride on the back of the American people from failure to failure until the country itself, despite its huge reserves of human and material capital, is slowly exhausted? The dusty road of empire is strewn with the bones of former great powers that exhausted themselves in like manner.

Quote:

[7] Obama’s abrupt about-face suggests he may have been skeptical of military intervention in Syria all along, but only dropped that policy once Congress and Putin gave him the running room to do so. In 2009, he went ahead with the Afghanistan “surge” partly because General Petraeus’ public relations campaign and back-channel lobbying on the Hill for implementation of his pet military strategy pre-empted other options. These incidents raise the disturbing question of how much the democratically elected president — or any president — sets the policy of the national security state and how much the policy is set for him by the professional operatives of that state who engineer faits accomplis that force his hand.

[El Chinito loco]

What is this horse shit?

The thing that conspiracy theorists don't get is that the politicians don't really need to go to extraordinary lengths. They can pilfer, lie, and cheat the average U.S. citizen in the open with bailouts, reduction of rights, etc.. because your average citizen is too dumb and helpless to do anything about it.

[Fighting888]

Not sure why you'd call this article "horse shit" when it's written by a Congressional staffer and posted on widely visited credible new sites.

You're also wrong about one thing. Starting a war with Libya or Iraq, doing a $1 trillion bailout for Wall Street, etc. are "extraordinary." Hence the "Deep State."

.....and I wouldn't call it a conspiracy "theory." This is a reality based upon his observations made while working in Washington DC.

(07-22-2014 07:01 PM)El Chinito loco Wrote:  

average citizen is too dumb and helpless to do anything about it.

Partly true. Americans aren't so much dumb as they are immature and distracted by pop culture. The average American, especially under 35, takes more interest in reality tv, celebrities, and sports than any real understanding of the world around them. Despite the corruption evident in our political establishment and the squeezing of our middle class into dust, I hardly know anyone my age who really gives a damn or even knows what's happening in Washington DC.

[KorbenDallas]

^^^^

Progressives never give a competing perspective or tackle the substantive writing of people they disagree with.

It's always "disqualify disqualify disqualify". As if "What is this horseshit provides valuable insight to others. No...it just tells everyone you disagree with the authors point of view and that you have no respect for people who hold different views of the world.

It was a well written piece and serves as a good starting point for people to learn about how the USA government really works. Thanks for sharing.

[Dr. Howard]

I think the tone of the article is very 'conspiracy and ufos' but it is somewhat true. Its true because senior staff in government agencies are there for their entire careers and elected officials and their appointed secretaries for each agency come and go. The people at the top of the agencies that are not connected to elected officials are the real ones that control them, elected officials are like auditors that throw a wrench into those plans every so often or golden tickets that can fast forward their plans. The agency I worked for could have been spending money on video games and beer and it would have been easy to hide and we weren't even law enforcement, those guys have an even free-er hand with spending and classified information.

[El Chinito loco]

(07-22-2014 07:16 PM)KorbenDallas Wrote:  

^^^^

Progressives never give a competing perspective or tackle the substantive writing of people they disagree with.

If you're referring to me as a "progressive" you are so off the mark that it's not even funny.


The reason I called this horseshit because it's couched in conspiratorial sinister tones when it's just referring to typical lobbying and back channelling that's been going on forever. There's no grand conspiracy because there doesn't need to be. This is the type of stuff that goes on in nearly every government around the world. The elite which includes corporate interests will abuse and stretch power beyond the reins of its base constituency if the people allow them to.

[Fighting888]

Quote:

It was a well written piece and serves as a good starting point for people to learn about how the USA government really works.

My thoughts exactly.

[El Chinito loco]

(07-22-2014 07:11 PM)Fighting888 Wrote:  

You're also wrong about one thing. Starting a war with Libya or Iraq, doing a $1 trillion bailout for Wall Street, etc. are "extraordinary." Hence the "Deep State."

These aren't extraordinary events at all. It's been the modus operandi of foreign policy for decades now. "Containment" policies and police actions have been going on long before Libya or Iraq. This is just a continuation of a series of long standing blunders.

Quote:

Partly true. Americans aren't so much dumb as they are immature and distracted by pop culture. The average American, especially under 35, takes more interest in reality tv, celebrities, and sports than any real understanding of the world around them. Despite the corruption evident in our political establishment and the squeezing of our middle class into dust, I hardly know anyone my age who really gives a damn or even knows what's happening in Washington DC.

I would interpret this lack of awareness as being "dumb" which goes back to my point that America is in terminal decline. All these things you see are just symptoms of a broader cultural and social malaise.

[Fighting888]

(07-22-2014 07:22 PM)El Chinito loco Wrote:  

(07-22-2014 07:16 PM)KorbenDallas Wrote:  

^^^^

Progressives never give a competing perspective or tackle the substantive writing of people they disagree with.

If you're referring to me as a "progressive" you are so off the mark that it's not even funny.


The reason I called this horseshit because it's couched in conspiratorial sinister tones when it's just referring to typical lobbying and back channelling that's been going on forever. There's no grand conspiracy because there doesn't need to be. This is the type of stuff that goes on in nearly every government around the world. The elite which includes corporate interests will abuse and stretch power beyond the reins of its base constituency if the people allow them to.

If you read through the article, you'll read this observation by the author:

Quote:

In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched.

Though I don't see why it's wrong to see the US govt as sinister. Wages, employment, and net worth for Americans has fallen alarmingly in the last few years. Our country seems engaged in nonstop, nonsensical wars which are exhausting and bankrupting this country. While our workers and soldiers suffer, a parasitical Wall Street-Financial-Corporate elite loot our country with impunity. At the same time, millions of legal and illegal immigrants flood our labor market, driving our American workers. The government does nothing about this and in fact encourages this.

Is that sinister? Yes. Dismissing this as "stuff that goes on everywhere" trivializes recent events and trends.

When you say there's no "grand conspiracy theory", then please explain the Iraq War.

[Only One Man]

Isn't that just another term for the Military Industrial Complex?

[El Chinito loco]

(07-22-2014 07:36 PM)Fighting888 Wrote:  

Though I don't see why it's wrong to see the US govt as sinister. Wages, employment, and net worth for Americans has fallen alarmingly in the last few years. Our country seems engaged in nonstop, nonsensical wars which are exhausting and bankrupting this country. While our workers and soldiers suffer, a parasitical Wall Street-Financial-Corporate elite loot our country with impunity. At the same time, millions of legal and illegal immigrants flood our labor market, driving our American workers. The government does nothing about this and in fact encourages this.

We're more or less on the same page here because I agree that all these things are happening and i've pretty much pointed these things out in other posts. What I disagree with is rolling this into some sort of grand conspiracy. It actually does a tremendous disservice in understanding the deeper root causes. Blaming it solely on the government is overly simplistic. It's actually a complete systemic erosion of government and the economy that's been going on since the late 60's. It's much more complex than some kind of shadow conspiracy.

Quote:

When you say there's no "grand conspiracy theory", then please explain the Iraq War.

Read about PNAC (project for a new american century) this isn't exactly a hidden conspiracy if it's all written out in plan form.

[Fighting888]

(07-22-2014 07:31 PM)El Chinito loco Wrote:  

These aren't extraordinary events at all. It's been the modus operandi of foreign policy for decades now. "Containment" policies and police actions have been going on long before Libya or Iraq. This is just a continuation of a series of long standing blunders.

In the case of Iraq, the country was contained. It posed no threat, but 5000 soldiers and $3-5 trilllion have been sacrificed. For what reason?

In the past, at least our wars (Korea, Vietnam, Cold War) made some amount of sense. Communism was a threat, while Iraq was not.

When you combine foreign policy blunders with domestic policy blunders, then everything can be viewed in an ominous light. It's even worse because our leaders are never held accountable. In the past scandals happened (S&L financial scandal of the 1980s, Watergate), but people got held accountable. That doesn't happen anymore. Politicians can lie and abuse their power to extreme lengths, Wall Streeters can commit extreme ffraud.......... and no one ever goes to jail ever.

America has changed, for the worse. Not to say everything was perfect before, but the system is rotting to the core.

Quote:

I would interpret this lack of awareness as being "dumb" which goes back to my point that America is in terminal decline. All these things you see are just symptoms of a broader cultural and social malaise.

I wouldn't argue with that. America is a society of "bread and circuses", like the late Roman empire. People used to be civic minded enough to hold their leaders accountable, but now people are obsessed with frivolity.
Guys like Roosh and Heartiste/Roissy have skewered modern American culture with their insightful posts.

[Fighting888]

(07-22-2014 07:36 PM)Only One Man Wrote:  

Isn't that just another term for the Military Industrial Complex?

Sorta.

Though you could call it more like the military-industrial-bueracratic-political-judicial-corporate-media-academic complex. Same idea though.

The ruling establishment.

[Suits]

This article basically glorifies information that we all already know and accept with a bunch of catch phrases.

Yes, government leaders sometimes have secrets and conduct secret operations.

How is this a surprise?

[Fighting888]

(07-22-2014 07:45 PM)El Chinito loco Wrote:  

(07-22-2014 07:36 PM)Fighting888 Wrote:  

Though I don't see why it's wrong to see the US govt as sinister. Wages, employment, and net worth for Americans has fallen alarmingly in the last few years. Our country seems engaged in nonstop, nonsensical wars which are exhausting and bankrupting this country. While our workers and soldiers suffer, a parasitical Wall Street-Financial-Corporate elite loot our country with impunity. At the same time, millions of legal and illegal immigrants flood our labor market, driving our American workers. The government does nothing about this and in fact encourages this.

We're more or less on the same page here because I agree that all these things are happening and i've pretty much pointed these things out in other posts. What I disagree with is rolling this into some sort of grand conspiracy. It actually does a tremendous disservice in understanding the deeper root causes. Blaming it solely on the government is overly simplistic. It's actually a complete systemic erosion of government and the economy that's been going on since the late 60's. It's much more complex than some kind of shadow conspiracy.

I think cultural factors matter as well.

For example, the American public is much more disengaged today than it has ever been before, which allows the American govt to get away with stuff it couldn't have done 25 years ago.

My point is this: Cultural rot allows the government to grow increasingly parasitical and dictatorial. When the Roman empire's public got addicted to the bread and circuses, the politicians looted their society, to the point that it was hollowed out. Hollowed out so much so that foreign invaders destroyed it with ease.

Governments always conspire against the people, but it's easier in an attention-deficit society like ours where people care more about Kim Kardashian's divorce than Wall Street collusion.

Quote:

When you say there's no "grand conspiracy theory", then please explain the Iraq War.

Read about PNAC (project for a new american century) this isn't exactly a hidden conspiracy if it's all written out in plan form.
[/quote]

Right, it's not always hidden. As the author says, quite a bit of the "Deep State" is out in view.

Though you could argue that when the American public are so illiterate about public policy and the media is so negligent in its duties that a lot of important information is hidden. Such as PNAC. What percent of the population knows about that anyway? Probably like 0.1 percent.

You don't need to really hide conspiracy theories anymore, as a politician. You can count on the media to do that and can count on reality tv to distract the public.

[Fighting888]

(07-22-2014 07:53 PM)Suits Wrote:  

This article basically glorifies information that we all already know and accept with a bunch of catch phrases.

Yes, government leaders sometimes have secrets and conduct secret operations.

How is this a surprise?

I think it coalesces a lot of this information into one place and comes up with broader understanding of what's happening.

Though as I argued above, the government is less accountable to people today than in the past. The secret operations are increasing to extreme lengths and no one can stop it. In the past, there was some accountability, now almost none.

That sucks for the general public when the govt decides to spend the public treasury to the point of bankruptcy, while allowing corporate/financial looting on a grand scale.

[Fighting888]

Read this below:

Quote:

A more aggressive response followed the savings and loan crisis of the ’80s and early ’90s, when more than 1,000 bankers were convicted by the Justice Department. Among those jailed were Charles Keating Jr., whose Lincoln Savings and Loan cost taxpayers $3.4 billion, and David Paul, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his role in the $1.7 billion collapse of Centrust Bank.

One key tool used during the S&L crisis was criminal referrals from regulators to government prosecutors, explained William Black, who served as the government’s point man for litigation in the S&L crisis. Such referrals “are absolutely essential,” said Black, because they provide a road map for a Justice Department already short-staffed in the area of white-collar crime. According to Black, criminal referrals have been missing in the response to the 2008 crisis.

Black, now a professor of law at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, said the Federal Home Loan Bank Board — the predecessor to the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) — passed along thousands of referrals to prosecutors. “Flash forward in the current crisis, the same agency made zero,” he said.

[TigerMandingo]

(07-22-2014 07:59 PM)Fighting888 Wrote:  

That sucks for the general public when the govt decides to spend the public treasury to the point of bankruptcy, while allowing corporate/financial looting on a grand scale.

There's this myth out there that the American public has been "duped" or "fucked over" during the previous decades by its government. I disagree. I would argue that Americans are willing participants in their own undoing.

They are very easily swayed by propaganda, more than even the Russians during the Soviet period. They basically get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

It hasn't been a "rape"; it has been a long, slow seduction.

[El Chinito loco]

(07-22-2014 07:45 PM)Fighting888 Wrote:  

In the case of Iraq, the country was contained. It posed no threat, but 5000 soldiers and $3-5 trilllion have been sacrificed. For what reason?

In the past, at least our wars (Korea, Vietnam, Cold War) made some amount of sense. Communism was a threat, while Iraq was not.

I don't know how far your reading of history goes but there's literally nothing new under the sun here. Also, Einsenhower talked about the M.I.C. long before it became a popular topic. Every single president the U.S. has had since WW2 has involved itself in some sort of foreign conflict. These proxy wars are supposed to "secure" geopolitical interests in flash point countries. Korea, Vietnam, and Reagan's iran-contra adventures were just part of the same policy of containment too. What we're seeing in the current era of history is part II of those policies.

It could be said that the "cold war" never actually ended. The difference is that it's not defined as such anymore for diplomatic reasons but the rival countries are really the same (China and Russia) as they always have been post WW2. It's not difficult to figure out why the middle east is important in the bigger picture. The problem is that the implementation of these policies has been incompetent, wasteful, and completely short sighted.

Iraq itself was just part of the broader plan outlined by PNAC to "stabilize" the middle east (Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan) under western geopolitical influence. This was all written about long ago by Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Grand Chessboard too. The short version of U.S. policy for securing the middle east is to put boundaries on resources and to protect Israel. The long version is to keep it out of the hands of Russia and China who have important strategic interests in the region as well.

[DarkTriad]

(07-22-2014 08:13 PM)Cunnilinguist Wrote:  

(07-22-2014 07:59 PM)Fighting888 Wrote:  

That sucks for the general public when the govt decides to spend the public treasury to the point of bankruptcy, while allowing corporate/financial looting on a grand scale.

There's this myth out there that the American public has been "duped" or "fucked over" during the previous decades by its government. I disagree. I would argue that Americans are willing participants in their own undoing.

They are very easily swayed by propaganda, more than even the Russians during the Soviet period. They basically get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

It hasn't been a "rape"; it has been a long, slow seduction.

Our society has developed the most sophisticated system of propaganda in history. a CGI level of "I know they're trying to fool me and I believe it's real anyway".

[DarkTriad]

(07-22-2014 07:36 PM)Only One Man Wrote:  

Isn't that just another term for the Military Industrial Complex?

It's more than Military Industrial, and some of it quite banal. We need to improve American diets, and the new President comes up with a plan that's going to hurt McDonalds. McDonalds WILL find a way (through their billion dollar business and legions of lobbyists and lawyers) to make sure they come out alright. You get a thousand other influential interests and businesses doing whatever it takes to make sure they come out OK, and it start to look like someone's just pulling the strings. They kind of are, but it's more organic than "Illuminati Conspiracy". Just a thousand different assholes with different (and sometimes coinciding agendas) trying to tell everyone else how think or live so they make their little slice of the pie bigger or safer.

[Vacancier Permanent]

Someone once said that both the White House and CIA are run from Jerusalem and the headquarters of the Mossad...

Is that true?

[Fighting888]

(07-22-2014 08:24 PM)El Chinito loco Wrote:  

(07-22-2014 07:45 PM)Fighting888 Wrote:  

In the case of Iraq, the country was contained. It posed no threat, but 5000 soldiers and $3-5 trilllion have been sacrificed. For what reason?

In the past, at least our wars (Korea, Vietnam, Cold War) made some amount of sense. Communism was a threat, while Iraq was not.

I don't know how far your reading of history goes but there's literally nothing new under the sun here. Also, Einsenhower talked about the M.I.C. long before it became a popular topic. Every single president the U.S. has had since WW2 has involved itself in some sort of foreign conflict. These proxy wars are supposed to "secure" geopolitical interests in flash point countries. Korea, Vietnam, and Reagan's iran-contra adventures were just part of the same policy of containment too. What we're seeing in the current era of history is part II of those policies.

It could be said that the "cold war" never actually ended. The difference is that it's not defined as such anymore for diplomatic reasons but the rival countries are really the same (China and Russia) as they always have been post WW2. It's not difficult to figure out why the middle east is important in the bigger picture. The problem is that the implementation of these policies has been incompetent, wasteful, and completely short sighted.

Iraq itself was just part of the broader plan outlined by PNAC to "stabilize" the middle east (Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan) under western geopolitical influence. This was all written about long ago by Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Grand Chessboard too. The short version of U.S. policy for securing the middle east is to put boundaries on resources and to protect Israel. The long version is to keep it out of the hands of Russia and China who have important strategic interests in the region as well.

I think the military-industrial complex was in its infancy back then. It's really grown in strength tremendously. Sure it suffered a setback due to the end of the Cold War, but 9/11 has allowed it grow to unreasonable size and jurisdiction.

Korea, Vietnam, and Reagan's Contra War had their advocates and detractors...... but at least there was some reasoning behind these wars. Communism was on the march and there was at least a case to be made for aiding anti-Communist forces.

With Iraq, there was no reasoning. Iraq was always innocent of 9/11, but got blamed for the 9/11 attacks. The media and political establishment never called out the Bush administration on all the lying they were doing to sell the Iraq-9/11 connection; rather the media/political elites aided the Bush team in their widespread propaganda campaign.

Iraq was the most nonsensical war ever. Way worse than anything that ever came before.

I agree that much of Middle East policy consists of oil politics, keeping out Russia and China, and securing Israel............ but there's another factor to consider. The influence of the Saudi government. The Saudis have a very strong financial relationship with many figures in our ruling establishment, especially the Bush family. The relationship was so close that Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia was Bush's political mentor who tutored him before his 2000 presidential run.

It's curious that after 9/11, 15 of the 19 hijackers were discovered to be Saudis. Bin Laden is Saudi. Al-Qaeda was discovered to have gotten significant funding from Saudi Arabia. Despite all that, Saudi Arabia was never held accountable for 9/11. Iraq was. Why is that? The financial influence of the Saudi government over our politicians, especially the Bushes.

[Fighting888]

(07-22-2014 09:04 PM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:  

Someone once said that both the White House and CIA are run from Jerusalem and the headquarters of the Mossad...

Is that true?

That's exaggerated, but obviously foreign lobbies are very powerful in Washington DC.

Israel and Saudi Arabia are the two most powerful foreign lobbies. While the influence of the Israelis is well known, the Saudis are a far more secretive and far more sinister force. One that hasn't been covered much in depth.

http://www.amazon.com/House-Bush-Saud-Re...0743253396

If you want to understand how Saudi Arabia could fund Bin Laden and escape the consequences of its actions, read this book.

[Fighting888]