The battle raging in the Deep State isn't
just a bureaucratic battle - it's a war for the soul, identity and direction of
the [US] nation.
By Charles Hugh Smith: When do the unlimited powers of the Intelligence/Security
agencies threaten America's domestic and global national interests? The
CIA and its political enablers claim the agency's essentially unlimited powers,
partially revealed by Wikileak's Vault 7, pose no threat to America's
interests, since they are intended to "defend" American interests.
This is the rationale presented by neocon CIA allies in both political parties: the CIA can't possibly threaten America's interests because the CIA defines America's interests.
This is the wormhole down which civil liberties and democracy have drained. It is an extraordinarily defining moment in American history when the director of the FBI publicly declares that there is no such thing as "absolute privacy" in the U.S.
In effect, privacy is now contingent on the level of interest the Security State has in the private conversation/data.
If
we read the U.S. Constitution, we do not find such contingencies: civil
liberties are absolute. Post-1790 presidents have temporarily mooted civil
liberties in time of war, and the CIA-led camp of the Deep State has justified
its unlimited powers by effectively declared "a state of war is now
permanent and enduring."
This is the rationale presented by neocon CIA allies in both political parties: the CIA can't possibly threaten America's interests because the CIA defines America's interests.
This is the wormhole down which civil liberties and democracy have drained. It is an extraordinarily defining moment in American history when the director of the FBI publicly declares that there is no such thing as "absolute privacy" in the U.S.
In effect, privacy is now contingent on the level of interest the Security State has in the private conversation/data.
So what's left to defend if America has
become the enemy of civil liberties and democracy, i.e. become a
totalitarian state ruled by Security Services and their political henchmen and
apologists?
I have long suggested that the tectonic
plates of the Deep State are shifting as the ruling consensus has eroded. Some
elements of the Deep State--what I call the progressive wing, which is
(ironically to some) anchored in the military services-- now view the
neocon-CIA (Security State)-Wall Street elements as profoundly dangerous to
America's long-term interests, both domestically and globally.
Is the Deep
State Fracturing into Disunity? (March 14, 2014)
I have suggested that this "rogue Deep
State" quietly aided Donald Trump (by subtly undermining Hillary Clinton's
campaign) as the last best chance to save the nation from the neocon's
over-reach that the Establishment's Wall Street-funded leadership (Bush,
Clinton, Obama, et al.) has overseen--including granting the CIA and its allies
virtually unlimited powers unhindered by any effective oversight.
Does a Rogue
Deep State Have Trump's Back? (January 18, 2017)
This profound split in the Deep State has
now broken into open warfare. The first salvo was the absurd propaganda
campaign led by Establishment mouthpieces The New York Times and The
Washington Post claiming Russian agents had "hacked" the U.S.
election to favor Trump.
This fact-free propaganda campaign failed--having
no evidence didn't work quite as well as the NYT and Wapo expected-- and
so the propaganda machine launched the second salvo, accusing Trump of being a
Russian patsy.
The evidence for this claim was equally
laughable, and that campaign has only made the Establishment, its propaganda
mouthpieces and the neocon Deep State look desperate and foolish on the global
and domestic stages.
The desperate neocon Deep State and its
Democratic Party allies went to absurd lengths to undermine Trump via the
"Boris ad Natasha" strategy of accusing Trump of collaborating with
the Evil Russkies, even going so far as to briefly exhume former President G.W.
Bush from deep-freeze to make a fool of himself, saying the Trump-Evil Russkies
connection should be "investigated."
Now the rogue elements have launched a
counterstrike--Vault 7. Here is one example of how quickly the CIA's
over-reach has been absorbed by the body politic:
I highly recommend reading Wikileak's
summary of Vault 7: Vault 7: CIA
Hacking Tools Revealed.
We now know that the CIA maintained a
special program (UMBRAGE) to mimic Russia-based hackers and create false trails
back to fictitious "Russian hackers." A number of highly
experienced analysts who reviewed the supposed "Russian hacks" had
suggested the "evidence" smelled of false trails-- not just bread
crumbs, but bread crumbs heavy-handedly stenciled "this is Russian
malware."
The body count from Vault 7 has not yet
been tallied, but it wouldn't surprise me if former President Obama and his
team eventually end up as political casualties. Non-partisan observers are
noting all this over-reach occurred on Obama's watch, and it hasn't gone
unnoticed that one of Obama's last executive orders stripped away the last
shreds of oversight of what could be "shared" (or invented) between
the Security Agencies.
Indeed, the entire leadership of the
Democratic Party seems to have placed all their chips on the increasingly
unviable claim that the CIA is the squeaky clean defender of America.
Vault 7 is not just political theater--it
highlights the core questions facing the nation: what is left to defend if
civil liberties and democratically elected oversight have been reduced to
Potemkin-village travesties?
If there are no limits on CIA powers and
surveillance, then what is left of civil liberties and democracy? Answer:
nothing.
The battle raging in the Deep State isn't
just a bureaucratic battle--it's a war for the soul, identity and direction of
the nation. Citizens who define America's interests as civil liberties and
democracy should be deeply troubled by the Establishment's surrender of these
in favor of a National Security State with essentially no limits.
Americans tasked with defending America's
"interests" globally should be asking if a CIA/NSA et al. with
unlimited power is detrimental to America's soft and hard power globally, and
toxic to its influence.
The answer is obvious: a CIA with unlimited
power and the backing of a corrupt Establishment and media is more than
detrimental to America's soft and hard power globally--it is disastrous and
potentially fatal to America's interests, standing and influence.
Those of us on the sidelines can only hope
that the progressive wing of the Deep State, the rogue elements who see the
terrible danger of an unlimited National Security State, will succeed in undermining
the powerful political support for this toxic totalitarian regime.
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