Lauren McCauley ~ Pentagon ‘Rewrites Constitution’ Affirming Endless War

Common Dreams May 16 2013

Senate hearing on the Authorization for Use of Military Force confirms congressional war powers rendered ‘null and void’

A seemingly timeless MoveOn.org bumper sticker. (Photo: Alex Poldavo / Flickr)

The United States is truly engaged in an endless war.

In a hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Forces Thursday morning entitled Oversight: The Law of Armed Conflict, the Use of Military Force, and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, Pentagon officials argued that the wide-ranging counter-terrorism laws implemented after 9/11 will continue to be the law of the land until “hostilities with al-Qaeda,” or any individuals potentially associated with the group, come to an end.

During the hearing, lawmakers questioned the panel on the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and weighed further actions. It was the first Senate hearing on the potential rewriting of the AUMF.

The rule empowers the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

This widespread directive has enabled the Commander in Chief to oversee everything from the rendition, transfer and indefinite detention of “suspects,” to the authorization of lethal drone strikes.

Further, Pentagon officials argued Thursday that under the AUMF troops could be sent to Syria, Yemen and the Congo without new congressional authorization.

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Sartre ~ Defense Cuts and the Global Empire

BATR February 18 2013

The fundamental distinction between a legitimate national defense and an aggressive global garrison imperium, escapes the political elites. The War Party’s entrenched power and control of their egocentric internationalist foreign policy, endangers the country. Military expenditures have increased substantially this century with little regard to The Real Threat to National Security. The “War on Terror” is a tired excuse that keeps precision smart weapon dominance deployed, which shells suspect bombers with impunity. The technologists that develop and refine methods for more efficient killing machinery hardly earn the honor – defenders of the nation.

The mere suggestion that armed services cutbacks are unpatriotic or places the homeland in peril is an invented euphemism to disguise the true nature of the coercive global empire that has replaced our Constitutional Republic. The Economics of Sequestration points out that, “while many auditors would agree that the bloated expenditures within the military-industrial-complex has much to do with an adventurist foreign policy, the architects of sequestration refused to do a straight across the board reductions in all budgets.”

For a detailed report on sequestration, download the GovWin analysis.

  • Defense hit hard, but small elements of major accounts have been shielded
  • Agencies’ working capital funds are largely protected
  • Fund accounts with economic implications are largely exempted
  • Senate and House member compensation is exempt
  • Contractors and government employees will take hits, but how hard?
  • States, and other grant holders, will be impacted

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The Hypnotic State Of Mass Validation

ZenGardner | January 20 2013

I’m sick of hearing how we can influence mainstream news and media. Stop the damned grovelling! When will people wake the hell up that personal conscious awareness has nothing to do with what has been accepted in the approved mainstream slurry of popular thought?

F*ck, it’s idiotic!

Is everyone under a goddamned spell? Does nothing become manifest until the media mantra endorses it? Think about it! What really becomes real to most people before they get the mainstream word on it? Be honest. Is it a drug? A crime story? A flu outbreak?

People depend on the mainstream story, made up statistics, spin, illusions and omissions like it’s their life! Until they get that signal they’re not sure what to think. It’s absolute mass insanity!

The Masses are Living in a Hypnotic State

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Julian Assange ~ WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, Cypherpunks, Surveillance State [Video]

Democracy Now | November 28 2012 | Thanks, Minty

In his most extended interview in months, Julian Assange speaks to Democracy Now! from inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has been holed up for nearly six months.

Assange vowed WikiLeaks would persevere despite attacks against it.

On Tuesday, the European Commission announced that the credit card company Visa did not break the European Union’s antitrust rules by blocking donations to WikiLeaks.

“Since the blockade was erected in December 2010, WikiLeaks has lost 95 percent of the donations that were attempted to be transferred to us over that period. … Our rightful and natural growth, our ability to publish as much as we would like, our ability to defend ourselves and our sources, has been diminished by that blockade.”

Assange also speaks about his new book, “Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet.”

“The mass surveillance and mass interception that is occurring to all of us now who use the internet is also a mass transfer of power from individuals into extremely sophisticated state and private intelligence organizations and their cronies,” he says.

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The Spectacle of Terror and Its Vested Interests

spectacle of terrorNaomi Wolf – The news stories, which quickly surface, long enough to cause scary headlines, then vanish before people can learn how often the cases are thrown out. These are stories about “bumbling fantasists”, hapless druggies, the aimless, even the virtually homeless and mentally ill, and other marginal characters with not the strongest grip on reality, who have been lured into discourses about violence against America only after assiduous courting, and in some cases outright payment, by undercover FBI or police informants.

They have become a litany in recent years. The terrifying 2003-2004 national news stories that a Detroit “sleeper cell” had sent Muslim terrorists to blow up Disneyland and other landmarks, including in Las Vegas, was later thrown out of court, with accusations of prosecutorial misconduct, to almost no press attention – the same cycle of hype and failed convictions that have characterized many such stories. Continue reading