Torturers R’ Us: Moral Hazard Pardoned

In response to the devastating Senate Report on Torture, President Obama stated, I’m paraphrasing, “litigating the past will do us no good. We must look to the future.” At first glance this approach may sound reasonable enough, however, this course, a guiding principle of Obama’s administration, is fraught with thinking errors and inconsistent with our supposed legal ethos. Imagine prisoners serving time in prison grappling with such impotent language? “The government certainly litigated my past. I wasn’t convicted of future crimes, but rather, those committed in the so-called past.” Two other issues are evident in this injurious way of thinking: By not prosecuting the crimes, the American people assume the practices were necessary. By not prosecuting the crimes, moral hazard is vacated, assuring a repeat of the same crimes by future administrations.

Along comes President Elect Donald Trump. A man who stated, and I quote, “we’re gonna bring back waterboarding and a whole lot worse.” He actually campaigned on a promise to break the law, going so far as to suggest he’d place former CIA agent Jose Rodriguez in charge of the agency. The same Rodriguez who birthed the practices then burned the video cassettes containing contemporaneous visual evidence of the monstrosities. If you want to blame someone for the future practices of a Trump Administration look no further than Barrack Obama.

I’m not writing this in a political sense. This is important to me because I was on the front lines of this fight while serving in the army during the Bush years. I can barely live with the fact that I bear my own responsibility for prosecuting these policies, unwittingly or not. The men I served with did not torture or abuse those we detained. I did not know the extent to which our policies supported these brutalities. I’m also not sure what I would have, or could have done had I known? Our unit was commanded by officers who stressed the rules of war and the mission to protect and support civilians caught up in between those we sought and our mission to protect the man on either side of you in battle. Brutality was not completely absent, nevertheless, it was acknowledged and addressed in its aftermath.

The things I’ve learned since leaving the Army from excellent journalism and reports like the Senate’s report on torture are as astonishing as they are abhorrent. The treatment many of these detainees were subjected to can only be described as felonious and un-American. That these practices were not only encouraged, but US government official policy, seems the definition of criminal. Just because your lawyer says a law is no longer justified, doesn’t make it legal. Just because you believe the Geneva Conventions are “quaint,” doesn’t mean you can table the agreed upon rules of war. Remember, Nixon once said, “if the President does it, it’s not illegal.” That’s the language of an autocrat. That’s not the Constitutional principles we ascribe to as American’s. The fate of Richard Nixon and most of his henchmen bears this truth out.

What does any of this mean for the ordinary veteran, or for that matter, the ordinary American? It’s impossible to say or even predict. In a binary world, the choice between Trump or Clinton feels a bit pathetic. Our country faces a moral crises overtly under Trump just as it would have quietly under Clinton.

My own struggle with the wars we continue to fight goes on regardless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Do I Miss About the Time Before Fear? #IAVA #Iraq

This isn’t going to be an essay on the possible horrors, or successes of the coming Trump administration. Speculating on such matters is pointless and worn out. My writing here is focused on love and war, or war and love, as it were. These pages are like my practice court, shooting free throws. A safe place to improve my sophomoric writing skills, develop my critical thought, and disseminate onto paper, my inner conflicts and personal demons. More about feelings than thoughts, emotion rather than analysis.

This is how I feel tonight…

The generation that survived World War II grows smaller each year. It seems fair to say that these American’s were the last to experience and suffer through an era that truly represented an existential crisis for the US, that could have radically altered our freedom and liberty. When FDR spoke of fear -“the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself-” at the height of the Great Depression, his message was true…and almost antithetical to the messages we hear today from many of our political leaders and elite. Their message is closer to: “we should be afraid.” Of what exactly? Terrorism? China? Putin? Trump? Socialism? All of the above? If my Grandparents were alive today, they would scoff at such things.

We should be aware of those spreading fear, not to shut them up, but not to follow them either. And understand their motivations.

After 9/11 I enlisted in the Army to be a grunt, to do my small part for a country that I believed in. It wasn’t out of fear that I offered myself up, to the contrary, it was a sense of duty that one should feel living such a privileged life on the shoulders of the selfless that stood before. Did I believe Osama bin Laden was an existential threat to America? No. Did I believe we had a collective duty to apply justice and do our best to prevent further damage? Yes, of course.

Sadly, for the country and the world, our leaders and government quickly lost sight of our ideals and their own duty, eventually and slowly, modifying our ethos, our “American myth of exceptionalism,” for reasons such as greed, pride and fear. The shift was profound and pervasive to degrees increasing today.

As we surged into south into Iraq in 2003, there was excitement, trepidation, fear and uncertainty among the professional soldiers within my small unit. There are always a few of the “hoorah, freedom and America is the best-est” soldiers who believed the United States could do no wrong, but more so, we privately questioned our mission and morality. We weren’t ruthless killers or immovably immoral and robotic. It was fucked up from the start, and all the way through to Mosul, our final stop before shipping back stateside 11 months later.

Unlike Afghanistan at the time, where we had relatively clear rules of engagement and substantive missions, in Iraq the mission shifted from day-to-day, with new directives from time to time that seemed intentionally sadistic. Like the folks running the war actually wanted chaos and strife to erupt? To this day you cannot tell me there wasn’t some of this intentional rub taking place for whatever reason. Period.

There is no bottom to my sorrow when it comes to my feelings about Iraq and that war I participated in. Even though I knew it wasn’t right, almost from the beginning, I was too cowardly to make a stand and refuse my orders. Of the 30 or so soldiers I worked with daily and trusted, there is at least 8 others who today feel the same. Sadly, 2 others took their own lives following their military service. Undoubtedly, they were haunted by the same ghosts I meet each day.

It just hits me like a lightening bolt, bringing this shit to the surface. I’m not ready. It feels still, smells somehow? The stench of a battlefield, the human smells mixed with the earth and fuel and steel and gunpowder, is a sense that permeates the memory and stains my devilish hands. There is no washing it away, this mark of evil, like the devils piss.

Is Trump our best hope to rescind these wars of fear and misplaced, misunderstood anger? Not likely, in fact, his nature portends escalation and compounded misery, holding no empathy close, a position somehow greater in disdain than Obama and Bush. Bomb the hell out of them. “I’ll bring back waterboarding, and a whole lot worse.”

Chart a return to that course Mister President Elect and our people, our culture, our society and any mythical exceptionalism left is lost for good…if not already gone. There is the blurry vision of our dispassionate citizenry still believing in our character, but it is largely delusional? I will reserve final judgement for now, lest I be the hypocrite for today.

I’m afraid of the devil. Is there a hell? Something tells me in the end we simply return to the dirt, but I cannot be sure. I’ve punished myself for the sins of war. There has to be a greater atonement?

My eyes are brimming with so many tears. Not for that idealized vision of America I was taught, even believed, as a young man, but for all the souls sacrificed so senselessly. Was it ever really true? At least the question was rhetorical once, unlike our possible future and the answers to come.

A rapid descent into the flames of human nature. Who will stand up to the monster if not us; we’ve met him, he looks just like a reflection.

Does any of this matter? I’ll still wake up alone tomorrow, wishing I could forget you until the moment passes and I open my eyes.

I’m crying from my eyes, but the body is dead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#WARCRIMES & THE RECKONING

How many people have been negatively impacted by the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq? How many have been killed, both civilian and military, throughout the greater Middle East, Europe, Central and Eastern Asia, Australasia, even the United States, by both direct and indirect result of George W. Bush’s decision to topple the Baathist Saddam Hussein regime that had ruled Iraq for nearly 30 years? As a thought experiment, let’s attempt to balance out those incredible ongoing losses with the benefits of Iraq’s supposed liberation. For one, “the evil dictator Saddam Hussein…Hitler revisited” was deposed along with his porous army and political party. I suppose the “War Dogs” that corpratized warfare in Iraq and the larger War on Terror made, and continue to rake in, massive profits? I’m sure some of the largest businesses in the energy field have done well privatizing the 2nd largest oil reserves in the entire world? As far as I can tell the entire mission can only be judged a failure of epic proportions that will no doubt be recorded in history for the massive human toll it has, and still is, exacting upon the world.

But this is little more than my humble opinion, right? I mean, take a listen around the media in America and try to find any serious voices that agree with my assessment. It’s just down right un-American to judge the war and a living President so harshly, despite how apple-pie American it is to “tell it like it is.” About as close as you’ll get to a US corporate journalist denigrated the Bush Administration so poignantly is commentary along the lines of: “Saddam was evil, so that was a good thing but,…you know, Iran, Syria, Libya, the Arab Spring, al-Qaeda in Iraq, WMD’s, etc ad infinitum.”

This is not to say that true scholars such as Andrew Bacevich haven’t echoed my assessment, -or mine theirs- of the 2003 Iraq War. Or professional journalists like Jeremy Scahill at The Intercept, it’s just these voices, when rarely heard in the mainstream, are typically mocked by some counter-pundit like Paul Wolfiwitz while simultaneously undercut by a partisan ideologue who cannot go so far as to say they were utterly and completely wrong back in 2002-03. It’s going to be hard as hell to face up to the total mess of this war, however, like it or not, a reckoning will come. An epic failure such as it is will no doubt push back.

As a participant in the initial invasion in March 2003, I bear my own responsibility and suffer my own lifelong scars. When I deployed to Afghanistan in 2002, I held a deep belief that our mission to destroy al-Qaeda was a righteous one that was worth the sacrifice. I can say now without pause that the day I learned we would be refitted for Iraq while continued operations to hunt al-Qaeda in the AfPak weren’t fully realized, was the day I began to drift from righteous to dismayed. I was not alone in my early frustrations, yet complete dissent went against almost everything the Army. In retrospect, it’s easy to put it simple: We left Afghanistan and the hunt for those involved in 9/11 to topple a sovereign government, firing its massive military, thus birthing a well-armed, well-trained, bored, angry militia we named “The Insurgency,” that now calls itself the Islamic State or ISIL.

So yeah, we couldn’t have fucked it up any worse if we had wanted to. And to put it all rather bluntly, the ultimate responsibility for this modern-day fiasco falls upon President George W. Bush. Unless there was a secret coup d’etat that controlled foreign policy in 2003, then George W. Bush is the person most responsible for this disaster. Just on the orbit of US foreign policy, has there ever been an US President so culpable for such destruction and mayhem? Sure, WWII led the US President’s FDR and Harry Truman to order massive destruction upon Germany and the Empire of Japan. The difference in terms of culpable morality is stark.

Take stock in the Bush Administration’s initial term; 2001-05. It’s a fair argument to claim Bush shouldn’t be held accountable for the 9/11 attacks, despite the certainty of guilt laid at the feet of Obama had the enormous terrorist attack happened during his Presidency. Bush cannot be absolved the crimes associated with his torture/rendition policy or the unprovoked attack upon Iraq, a sovereign nation and member of the United Nations. At minimum, these calculated operations must not be ignored or go unpunished, if we intend to continue thinking of ourselves as a nation of laws, “the indispensable nation.” To simply claim “this was war, bad things happen in war,” only muddies the future of a reasonable world order. The United States has hanged many who made that claim, or that they were “just following orders.” Our credibility will be bankrupt until our government addresses these hypocrisies. Keeping our heads buried in the sand, so to speak, will only prolong the inevitable reckoning. History proves over and over this fundamental truth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#AFGHANISTAN #IRAQ & #ISIS or #ISIL

In 2011, 10 years after we invaded Afghanistan in search of al Qeada, there were more than 110,000 US troops deployed in country, in addition to several thousand NATO coillition troops. The build up of troop levels following the election of Barrack Obama signaled to me the continued hold of influence the Pentagon had over the Executive. This surge in troop level seemed, and still seems out of character with the Obama Administration’s more intillectual based foreign policy? This was a strategy familiar to the National Security State: Leak information selectivly to the public via a cooperative media intended to put political pressure on a President to move policy in their direction.

“Like a bandaid over a bullet hole” is how military leaders on the ground, to this day, describe the NATO mission in that country. Let me make this clear for anyone not fully up to speed with Afghanistan or our 15 year current history there: No matter what we do in the short term, when we eventually pull out -as we most certainly will eventually- the country will quickly fall completely back into the hands of the Taliban or some other closely related Islamic group. 90% of the country, that which is beyond Kabul, are not, and will never be, in favor of Democracy as we understand it. I’ve been there, seen it first hand, and am telling you a truth our government seems incapable of admitting.

I try not to use the Vietnam War as an example of related cause, but the similarities are striking. After WWII the French decided to take back ownership of Vietnam only to find a nation with a new sense of independence, leaders, and purpose. Eventually France was humbled despite much assistance by the United States. In the wake of the French defeat, the United States decided to take a crack at installing our own, “suitable” political structure. No matter what we did or wanted to do, Vietnam would have eventually won its autonomy. What happened to finally end our struggle against the unstoppable force of a native people fighting for their independence? Congress turned off the tap, denying Ford’s request for an additional billion dollars to continue the fight.

Eventually Congress will shut off the tap in regards to Afghanistan. Either that, or other matters will force our hand. Afghanistan is not Korea. It’s not West Germany. It’s little more than a burning hole in the ground that we throw our cash into for incineration. We go there to die for a people who’d rather kill us. It’s the definition of a quagmire.

More on Iraq and ISIS later.

 

 

 

 

2 TRILLION GALAXIES

A new study using the Hubble Space Telescope has increased estimates of galaxies in the known Universe ten fold…at least. It was previously estimated that there was 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe. I’m not even sure what that means; the difference between 100 billion and 2 trillion; both representing unimaginably large numbers? I mean that not in a literal sense as I majored in Physics, but in the sense of comprehension. Many people will read a headline like that and say, “wow, that’s a lot,” without really grasping the enormity of it all. You find it with many folks if discussing evolution over great spans of time. Like what does it really mean when you say something like “a million years?” Only through time of this magnitude would the Polar Bear basically breed out all but the white furred version of the bear as it is the best adapted to hunt from the ice-packs covered in snow.

Read the story from space.com here.

Just thinking about this discovery tonight fills me with a familiar, exciting sort of dread. My former self, prior to the forces of combat on my psyche, would have enjoyed flipping the new information over in my head, considering the expanded possibilities of it all and what it might me in a larger, fundamental context. Today the vastness it represents, the insignificance it lights our race, the human race, in, sends pulses of anxiety up and down my spine. Do I matter? Does any of this matter? What are we? Where are we? There was a time that I enjoyed the numbing frailty of our certain insignificance. Now, all it offers is a darkened window the looks out upon forever.

Will I ever redeem that curiosity? Maybe that’s not it, maybe I am still curious, however, I cannot get a solid grip on the possible answers? What if I’ve wasted a tremendous gift in this time, at this place, worrying about morality when I shouldn’t get stuck in the guilt, but simply appreciate the conscience? What if, in all this space, through all this time, being a speck, on a speck, on a speck, on a speck, on a speck where the ostensibly and incontestably smallest of chances smashed together this one time to create me, us? To waste that is indefensible. It’s this kind of pressure I could have handled before the war. Today, tonight though, it’s releasing from places like a horrible acne. I look in the mirror of my black computer screen and see the past with zero hope for the future.

2 trillion galaxies X 200 billion stars X 10 planets divided by…. the mathematics of the possible.

 

 

 

 

 

ONE LAST CIGARETTE

Here I am in the local Barnes & Noble coffee cafe trying to relax, write, and enjoy a lazy Friday night. Too bad the man closest to my corner table is having some sort of episode? Speaking to himself, swearing, moving fast enough to force the rancid, stale alcohol smelling stench through my space again and again. Should I leave? Should I temporarily walk away, browse the shelves, with hopes he either leaves or finds the missing item so important it’s causing this electric shitstorm? What I really want to do is plant my fist right through his face every time he inches nearer my personal space on his way to the trashcan. I probably wouldn’t notice the screaming child across the room if it weren’t for his sporadic gibberish, nevertheless, tonight the poor child is only amplifying my frayed nerves. It’s like I am stuck in the worst coach trans Atlantic middle seat. No escaping this hell, albeit temporary and voluntary. Do I on some sick level actually enjoy the abuse? Why else would I continue with this Starbucks-Boarding though unshackled, my Machination bond posted in full? I’ll sweat it out this time. The pounding in my head out of sync with the irregular thumping in my chest. He’s still at it. I look around to catch a friendly glance and a knowing smirk. He looks at me though and says..”sounds like that damn kid is mad?” I smirk and get up for a cigarette.

War for Peace? #ISIS #SYRIA #IRAQ

Let’s get one thing out of the way regarding ISIS: There would be no ISIS if we -United States- didn’t invade, occupy and remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq in 2003. Period. Furthermore, if we -NATO- hadn’t intervened in Libya, helping overthrow the Qaddafi regime, containing and combating ISIS would be far simpler. Period. Again, and I will type slowly if anyone is having trouble keeping up: No 2003 Iraq War, No ISIS.

With that caveat out of the way, I’d like to expand upon the impressive PBS Frontline special last night regarding ISIS. I think there is great irony in the fact no single name for the group can be agreed upon. ISIS, ISIL, Islamic State, the Caliphate, “so-called” Islamic State, and Daesh are a sampling of the monikers, a lack of coherence emblematic of the ongoing engagement with the terror state. For the purposes of this discussion I will use the term I feel best informs: IS, short for Islamic State.

The Frontline piece did an outstanding job laying bare the convoluted nature of the operation to “degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL.” Letting its viewers take a peek behind the bureaucratic curtain for a moment where the propaganda machine churns, eventually spitting out the aforementioned “taste tested” language so important in a battle of such epic proportions as this. I’m joking, obviously. But it is such a good example of PR officials hard at work to win the war of words, as if that actually matters beyond the political front? Alas, once the language is loaded in the prompter, it’s time to get this “arsenal of democracy” in gear; “let’s roll merica!”

As a strategy isn’t it obvious that we should reach back in our illustrious past for winning game like say, Vietnam, Cuba, Iran or Honduras? Yea chief, you see, we’ll bomb the shit out of them, train up some moderate jihadists, and finally put these sand castles back in the win column! Sounds great General, how’s 500 million, a couple Aircraft Carrier groups and a few hundred armed robot drones to get this party started? Roger that Barry, bring on those moderate Muslims.

It’d be a funny movie if it weren’t an accurate, albeit simplified version of a portrayal of events, only days following the murder -beheading- of a brave American journalist and aid workers kidnapped in Syria. Take a guess how this master stroke of Cold War flavor vomit turned out, in a tactical or political sense? As a former grunt who served in the Middle East within a not dissimilar clusterfuck for a mission, it comes as no shock that a bunch of chair-borne, twiddle-dees & tweedle-dumbs hatched this plan from some moldy bunker within The Pentagon, ultimately selling it to the White House for action. Neither does it shock me that the Obama Administration set-forth with the bloody charade. What I do find puzzling is the country’s and Congresses’ feigned shock at its utter failure?

Sometimes I think I can look into the President’s mind and understand his decision making process? With most propositions he’s offered, it seems his larger question is always: “what happens next?” A quality of reasoning the predeceasing administration lacked to its own glorious demise. For instance, a no fly zone? So what happens when Russia violates that no-fly zone? Or, take al-Assad out of power? Who fills the void if not IS? The human suffering in the region is on a level rarely seen since WWII. Something must be done to mitigate the damage, but what?

Let’s say our bombing campaign costs us roughly a billion dollars a week roughly? How would the country, the world and/or Congress react if we paused the bombing for a month and instead, use the 4 billion dollars to increase the health and safety for the millions of refugee’s living in camps, from Jordan to Egypt to Turkey and Iraq? That would be bold. That would shake things up and possibly even reduce a little of the shade the United States has earned from citizens all over the Greater Middle East. Call it: Killing them with kindness? Yeah right? The reaction from Congress and the Pentagon would be fierce and overwhelming.

And so…we get to the point I’ve been trying to make for years. The evidence seems clear and unassailable; on some level, oozing up through the cracks, chaos is what we want in the Middle East, not stability. War is a business. Homeland security is a business. Espionage is a business. War is a racket, and America is the Gordon Gecko of Weapons Street. There is compassion in food, water and medical supplies. There’s no money in it though, sadly.

These terrible policies that perpetuate conflict and empirically have never worked as advertised are implemented intentionally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WELCOME TO THE SHOW

The 2016 Election just went from Plum, to Batshit cRAZY. Fresh audio of Donald Trump circa 2005 speaking with Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush bragging, “being a celebrity you can do anything….anything; grab a girls pussy..anything.” There’s some kind of humorous irony in the fact that it was with a Bush…Billy “Bush,” but yeah, so what? It’s not a religious test to qualify for citizenship that’ll supposedly sink The Donald, but some off the record banter that could’ve been hurled from the mouth of almost any dickhead, reality TV douche. But seriously, the shocked indignation from NPR to CNN -who actually bleeps out “pussy,” describing the word as “between a woman’s legs starting with a, I shit you not: P” after playing the clip. It’s the sort of wimpy, cringe-worthy reporting that only tends to buttress my belief in the doom of our Democracy. I would never vote for Donald Trump as President of the United States, nevertheless, his candidacy has done more to expose the corrupt, incestuous, media/government marriage than anyone or anything since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In a distant 3rd place among the headlines today, behind the latest Trump gaff and the Hurricane threatening the Southeastern US, was the governments assertion that Russia has been meddling in our electoral system by hacking political organizations and then dumping the data by way of Wikileaks and Julian Assange. The latest of which reveals a trove of Clinton associate emails discussing, among many other things, the substance of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs and Wall Street.

If Hillary Clinton were facing almost any other GOP candidate she’d be toast. I’d say, concerning these fresh leaks involving both candidates, that they only shed a kind of credibility to what we already know about them. Anyone acting truly surprised that The Donald used language like this concerning women is either lying or willfully ignorant. And likewise, if you believe Hillary Clinton truly intends on reigning in the corrupt practices of Wall Street and Corporate America, you’re just incredibly gullible or too young to have experienced the shady character of establishment Democrats.

The election is a month out now. There’s still time for the GOP to try to dump Trump for their authentic choice, Mike Pence. Count on the media to direct the narrative in this direction. They cannot wrap their heads around Donald Trump surviving the establishment until November and will begin pushing hard to have him step down. It’s a scenario like this playing out that excites me as a spectator. Imagine the blowback from Trump diehards throughout middle America? The GOP leadership might talk themselves into the notion that Pence is a “true” conservative, thus softening the blow from the anti-establishment, Trump crowd, but it wont. That’s the part of this that The Beltway cannot get their heads wrapped around. They see Mike Pence as just another Washington insider, which he actually is. Trump, above all other reasoning, is their “fuck you” to DC. If he is somehow convinced to step down, or even the impression is left that he is left out to dry, the GOP is probably finished?

As for Russia? I guess I was wrong back in June in making the case that the Russian State wouldn’t be behind these leaks? It could still be a red herring from the DCCC and the Obama Administration to lessen the damage, but that is becoming less likely. Still though, most of the media is focusing primarily on the Russian connection to the material, the substance of the leaks less importantly. In any other cycle, considering her penchant for security and her private server which exposed classified material in a grossly negligent -I say clearly illegal- manner, these tidbits revealing her true identity would be catastrophic. Luckily for her and unlucky for the country, her main opponent has disparaged parents of a Veteran killed in action, has called for a religious test to be American, hasn’t paid taxes for +/- 20 years, has called Mexican’s rapists, has called for punishing women choosing to have a legal abortion, on and on and on. Oh yeah, has a 65% dislikability score to her…eh hum, 55% unlikability.

So what does all this mean for the future? Probably very little besides excellent television ratings. As I’ve believed for years now, especially after serving in the US Army in both Afghanistan and Iraq, is that most Presidents are not strong enough in character to bend the will of established government bureaucrats in the Nation Security institutions and The Pentagon. Sure, Presidents have power, nevertheless, they typically modify their positions once sworn in to the preconceived paths of the Deep State. They talk about change, transparency and the rule of law, however, as best exemplified by Barack Obama, these positions are little more than “lip service.” Two examples off the top of my head are his intention to close Guantanamo Bay Cuba Detention Center and his wanting to clean up the so-called Enhanced Interrogation Techniques – Extraordinary Rendition – Black-sites programs. To say he didn’t have the authority to close GITMO within months as Commander-in-Chief is ridiculous. It’s exactly the sort of thing he could do as the Executive, but didn’t and wont because the Deep State opposes the action. To the torture regime, he could and should have directed his Attorney General to criminally prosecute those within the CIA and NSA that administrated that mess, but didn’t. Why? The simple fact that many of those involved continued to serve his administration, some even today, tells you almost everything you need to know. That the Deep State has power, if only implicitly, greater than that of a weak President.

Finally, the corruption endemic to Wall Street and high finance plays out even today without criminal ramifications of any kind. That is by choice, not by accident. Why? Weakness. Period. With Clinton and Trump you have two birds of the same feather, only myth and flock distinguish them from each other. In practice however, they both represent weakness and status quo. All the static we hear, all the sparks we see, they are little more than political showbiz. It’s all just one big game.

May the odds forever be in your favor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

#WellsFargo vs. John Q. Public

The biggest blight on the Obama administration has to be its reticence to prosecute crimes within the financial industry, as well as those committed under the auspices of National Security, specifically both Wall Street and the CIA. The failure to act in both realms will undoubtedly lead to future crimes and further weaken the foundation of our legal system. Society will grow accustomed to ideas like “too big to fail” and “bad things happen in war,” thereby codifying injurious precedents, emboldening future criminal behavior by those in power while concurrently amplifying the meeting out of justice upon the poor, less fortunate and powerless across society.

For example, the current investigation into nefarious practices at Wells Fargo Bank, obviously criminal in nature, revealing heavy consequences -though not criminal consequences?- to low-level employees, while execs, shareholders and Wall Street reap significant financial rewards. In a sane and healthy legal environment, the executives and upper management who promoted, permitted and were financially rewarded for these fraudulent practices would not only face forfeiture of profits, additionally, they would face prosecution. The current environment in banking is absurd and will eventually lead to cataclysmic failure, once again leading to great suffering by a public too uninformed to demand appropriate change, resetting the mad cycle once again, until some point, like a financial “event horizon,” after which the entire system imploded.

But what really infuriates me is the lacking sense of incredibility by the mainstream media in reporting these crimes. Sure, programs like PBS Frontline and newspapers like the New York Times continue to do impeccable work exposing the corruption, nevertheless, John Q Public generally requires a more loquacious accounting. Nightly news programs for instance, should produce condensed versions of the stories including, most importantly, how the malfeasance and/or criminal behavior will, or has, affected their lives. It’s not that most American’s are lacking the intelligence to consume an hour of Frontline, rather, in most cases, American’s most affected don’t have the time with all the external pressures modern life continues to exert.

When it comes to corruption in government, from the Executive Branch interpreting law to increase its power, the Deep State covertly making a mockery of our 4th Amendment rights or the CIA extra-judiciously operating “Black Site” prisons within which they can operate far from Constitutional Law, using so-called Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, otherwise known as medieval torture, not dissimilar to a petty criminal who evades prosecution, these powerful agencies and the employees within, will reengaged in these despicable practices without fear of reprisal upon the next emergency, value or not. The cost to the general public goes unnoticed for a time. Eventually though, the bill comes due in the form of “blowback,” to which the public cannot ascribe cause and effect. Examples include the death of American Diplomats in Benghazi Libya, to suicide bombings killing hundreds of Marines in Beirut, to the mass shooting at Ft. Hood, to the Boston Bombings, to even the 9/11 attacks themselves, all the result of “blowback” [payback] for United States foreign policy that in many cases included torture, rendition, or occupying sovereign lands, not to mention support validating Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people. These policies, some deemed legal, many not, whether you agree or not, are carried out in the name of all American’s.

My point being: How much and for how long will the greater American public continue to accept the indemnified behavior and actions by Wall Street bankers and public servants operating within the National Security State before we/they have had enough? Will it take a “Great Depression,” a wider war requiring the reconstituting of the Military Draft, or some other epic event to awaken the masses to the wanton criminality that caused it?

There has always been 2 Americas. It’s been a long time, however, since the gulf in the divide has been so wide, or so deep. How far will it stretch before finally fracturing and snapping back together?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POST #JUSTICE #SOCIETY

Before I dig into the outrageous matter that is our never-ending 15 year state of war, I’d like to ask a simple question…Is there no limit to the lawlessness permeating the elite stratus of post 20th Century America?  From Wall Street to Washington DC, it’s become a simple rule of fact that the rich and powerful among us ascribe to a separate book of laws; invisible, classified or secret laws that shield those with wealth and status from criminal indictment and prosecution, and if the law is brought to bear at all, civil judgments are rendered as tax deductable fines, without admission of guilt. Look no further than the Hillary Clinton private server investigation. With regular folk, they’d make you prove your innocense rather than the other way around. Don’t believe me? Look into the Bill Binny case and the NSA. All they found was a single page on his personal computer that was classified AFTER he left the agency and was charged because they thought he was leaking to the press. Binny, although a dutiful long term employee and Veteran never got the due dillegence Clinton received. Or when Trump is looking at a major lawsuit in Florida, the case is not picked up after an illegal contribution to the AG’s campaign comittee. No problem on either front I guess? Over the course of 15 years, admitted war crimes such as torture and massive financial crimes that continue today, are somehow blanketed in indemnity by those in power without even the slightest sense of caution for precedent and the future it portends. If no punishment results from blatant criminality, the chances of repeated behavior is compulsory. There was a time in this country when there was at least the illusion of justice. Today what we see is a nation that punishes the poor and indigent to the extreme while simultaneously kissing the ring of those “too big to fail -jail-.” How long can this charade go on before the peasants recall their ante? How long can the mystical illusion of freedom and equality keep hold of the masses? In my opinion, the levee will breach the moment those who considered themselves part of the middle class, deserved of the “American Dream,” discover that they too have been swallowed by the invisible power. The dam will break the day white privilege no longer has the strength to compete with those who own the state. That time when those who looked upon the ghetto’s and inner city populations realize that they’ve been manipulated into their own newer, modern, yet similar ghetto, stripped of the rights we all take for granted. We’re accustomed to the plight of minorities in the justice system. A system that treats you better if you are guilty and wealthy than it does if you’re poor and innocent. Bit by bit, Democracy in the United States is being neutered by the influence of dark money in massive quantities.

You may think I am some kind of nut-job after reading this? That I’m making a mountain out of a molehill? I just ask you to think about what I’m saying. Think about the 2008 financial crisis and the complete lack of accountability involved. Something like 14 trillion dollars all told and not even a single Wall Street banker was indicted, let alone go to jail. How is this the case unless they have become bigger than the law? And if that is the case, indeed, we have no rule of law. This isn’t conspiracy, secret squirrel stuff. It’s the facts only.

We have a prison without any due process on an island country that doesn’t recognize our claim to the land. In this prison we’ve “tortured some folks,” not to mention the many secret prisons we ran around the globe where torture was a regular tool used despite many, many laws and treaties that make these actions criminal. Period. In addition, we invaded a sovereign nation on the grounds of preemptive war. A move that’s been rightly deemed criminal throughout history by us and others until we decided to do so. I could go on, but my point is this: In the face of these facts, not one person has been held accountable, either criminally or otherwise, set aside some low ranking enlisted soldiers who were “just following orders.”

We are in a post justice world. How long will us “regular folk” accept these conditions? There will be a time, an event horizon if you will. Two simple ideas are slowing tearing us apart. 1) The rich can plunder and steal with impunity as long as they don’t steal from other rich people. 2) When our government bombs or “tortures some folks,” it is done in each and every citizens name.