The entire United States is now a war zone: S.1867 passes the Senate with massive support
By Madison Ruppert
End the Lie
December 2, 2011
This is one of the most tragic events I have written about since establishing End the Lie over eight months ago: the horrendous bill that would turn all of America into a battlefield and subject American citizens to indefinite military detention without charge or trial has passed the Senate.
To make matters even worse, only seven of our so-called representatives voted against the bill, proving once and for all (if anyone had any doubt remaining) that our government does not work for us in any way, shape, or form.
S.1867, or the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year of 2012, passed with a resounding 93-7 vote.
That’s right, 93 of our Senators voted to literally eviscerate what little rights were still protected after the PATRIOT Act was hastily pushed in the wake of the tragic events of September 11th, 2001.
The NDAA cuts Pentagon spending by $43 billion from last year’s budget, a number so insignificant when compared to the $662 billion still (officially) allocated, it is almost laughable.
The bill also contained an amendment which enacts strict new sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and any entities that do business with it, a move which will likely have brutal repercussions for the Iranian people – just like the sanctions on Iraq did.
Not a single Senator voted against this amendment, which was voted on soon before the entirety of S.1867 was passed, despite the hollow threats of a veto from the Obama White House.
Based simply on historical precedent, I trust Obama’s promises as much as I trust the homeless man who told me he was John F. Kennedy.
I wish that I could believe that the Obama administration would strike down this horrific bill but I would be quite ignorant and naïve if I did so.
Furthermore, the White House’s official statement doesn’t even say that they will veto the bill. In fact, it says, “the President’s senior advisers [will] recommend a veto.”
As Glenn Greenwald points out, the objection isn’t even about opposing the detention of accused terrorists without a trial, instead it is the contention that, “whether an accused Terrorist is put in military detention rather than civilian custody is for the President alone to decide.”
Obama’s opposition has nothing to do with the rule of law or protecting Americans, in fact, Senator Levin disclosed and Dave Kopel reported that, “it was the Obama administration which told Congress to remove the language in the original bill which exempted American citizens and lawful residents from the detention power”.
As I have detailed in two past articles entitled Do not be deceived: S.1867 is the most dangerous bill since the PATRIOT Act and S.1253 will allow indefinite military detention of American civilians without charge or trial, the assurances that this will not be used on American citizens are hollow, evidenced by the fact that the Feinstein amendment to S.1867, amendment number 1126, which, according to the official Senate Democrats page, was an attempt at “prohibiting military authority to indefinitely detain US citizens” was rejected with a 45-55 vote.
Let’s examine some of the attempts to convince the American people that this will not change anything and that we will still be protected under law.
Florida’s Republican Senator Marco Antonio said, “In particular, some folks are concerned about the language in section 1031 that says that this includes ‘any person committing a belligerent act or directly supported such hostilities of such enemy forces.’ This language clearly and unequivocally refers back to al-Qaida, the Taliban, or its affiliates. Thus, not only would any person in question need to be involved with al-Qaida, the Taliban, or its surrogates, but that person must also engage in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror in order to be detained under this provision.”
While this might sound reassuring to some, one must realize that the government can interpret just about anything as engaging “in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror”.
Consider the fact that the Homeland Security Police Institute’s report published earlier this year partly focused on combating the “spread of the [terrorist] entity’s narrative” which sets the stage for the government being able to declare that spreading the narrative amounts to “a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror”.
At the time I wrote:
Part of these domestic efforts highlighted in the report is combating the “spread of the [terrorist] entity’s narrative” but never addressed is why exactly extremist groups have the ability to spread their narrative.
A frightening conclusion that can be drawn from the focus on the “spread of the entity’s narrative” is that such claims could be used to justify limiting the American right to free speech.
It would be very easy to justify eliminating free speech if much of the United States was convinced of the danger of spreading terrorist narrative.
The report doesn’t specifically explain what the narrative is or why it is so dangerous, but one could assume that any anti-government, anti-war, anti-corporatist and pro-human rights speech could be squeezed under this umbrella. Essentially, anything that criticizes or questions the United States could easily be demonized because it is allegedly spreading “the entity’s narrative”.
This raises an important question: could my work and the work of others devoted to exposing the fraud that is the “war on terror” and the intimate links between our government and the terrorist entities they are supposedly fighting be considered to be supporting these entities?
Unfortunately, the only conclusion I can come to is that it is possible for the following reasons:
1) The Department of Defense actually put a question on an examination saying that protests are an act of “low-level terrorism” (which they later deleted after the ACLU sent a letter demanding it be removed).
2) Anti-war activists and websites are deemed worthy of being treated as terrorists and being listed on terrorist watchlists.
3) We likely will never even be told how exactly the government is interpreting S.1867.
In the case of the PATRIOT Act (which is overwhelmingly used in cases that are unrelated to terrorism in every way), there is in fact a secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, as revealed by Senator Ron Wyden back in May.
In October, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit (read the PDF here) in an attempt to force the government to reveal the details of the secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act.
As of now, we still do not know how the PATRIOT Act is interpreted by the government, meaning that we have no idea how it is actually being used.
I do not believe that it would be reasonable to make the assumption that S.1867 would be interpreted in a straightforward manner, meaning that all of the assurances being made by Senators are worthless.
Glenn Greenwald verifies this in writing the following as an update to the post previously quoted in this article, “Any doubt about whether this bill permits the military detention of U.S. citizens was dispelled entirely today when an amendment offered by Dianne Feinstein — to confine military detention to those apprehended “abroad,” i.e., off U.S. soil — failed by a vote of 45-55.”
Furthermore, as I detailed in my previous coverage of S.1867, Senator Lindsey Graham clearly said, in absolutely no uncertain terms whatsoever, “In summary here, [section] 1032, the military custody provision, which has waivers and a lot of flexibility doesn’t apply to American citizens. [Section] 1031, the statement of authority to detain does apply to American citizens, and it designates the world as the battlefield including the homeland.”
The fact that the establishment media continues to peddle the blatant lie that is the claim that S.1867 will not be used on American citizens is beyond me.
This is especially true when one considers the fact that lawyers for the Obama administrations reaffirmed that American citizens “are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida,” although we all know that no proof or trial is required to make that assertion.
As evidenced by the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, no trial is needed for our illegitimate government to assassinate an American citizen.
We can only assume that it is just a matter of time until American citizens are declared to be supporting al Qaeda and killed on American soil without so much as a single court hearing.
CNN claims, “Senators ultimately reached an agreement to amend the bill to make clear it’s not the bill’s intent to allow for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens and others legally residing in the country.”
Yet, of course, they fail to cite the amendment, and quote Senator Feinstein in saying, “It supports present law,” even though Feinstein’s amendment was not passed.
The Associated Press reported, “Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., repeatedly pointed out that the June 2004 Supreme Court decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld said U.S. citizens can be detained indefinitely.”
Yet they still quoted senior legislative counsel for the ACLU Christopher Anders who said, “Since the bill puts military detention authority on steroids and makes it permanent, American citizens and others are at greater risk of being locked away by the military without charge or trial if this bill becomes law.”
The fact that the corporate-controlled establishment media is barely covering this – if at all – is just another piece amongst the mountains of evidence showing that they are complicit in the criminal conspiracy that is dominating our government.
Every single Senator that voted for this amendment is a traitor. It’s that simple. 97 of our so-called representatives, which you can see listed in full here, are actively working against the American people.
They are turning the United States into such a hellish police state that the world’s most infamous dictators would be green with envy.
Unsurprisingly, the top stories on Google News makes no mention of the atrocious attack on everything that America was built upon that is embodied by S.1867.
This legislation is clearly being minimized and marginalized in the press, as if it is some minor bill that will never be invoked in order to detain Americans indefinitely without charge or trial.
That is patently absurd and to assume such would be nothing short of ignorant to an extreme degree, given that the American government utilizes every single possible method to exploit, oppress and assault Americans who stand up for their rights.
Furthermore, the Senators who voted against S.Amdt.1126, the amendment to S.1867 which would have limited “the authority of the Armed Forces to detain citizens of the United States under section 1031” should be considered traitorous criminals of the highest order, not to say that all 97 of those who voted for S.1867 are any better.
These Senators are not only defying their oath of office in waging war on the Constitution, they are also fighting to destroy the most critical rights we have in this country and in doing so are desecrating everything that our forefathers gave up their lives for.
Instead of British troops patrolling the streets in their red coats, it will be American soldiers who have the authority to detain you forever without a shred of evidence if they decide you’re a terrorist or supporting any organization affiliated with al Qaeda.
How they define that is anyone’s guess, but given that the entire interpretation of the PATRIOT Act is regarded as a state secret, we can assume that we will never even get to know.
Moreover, the fact that no charges or trial are needed under S.1867, the government needs no proof of supporting, planning, or committing terrorism whatsoever.
Since no evidence will ever be presented given that no trial or charges will ever be filed, they need not worry about that pesky thing called habeus corpus or anything resembling evidence of any kind.
All they need to do is declare that you’re an enemy combatant and suddenly you’re eligible to be snatched up by military thugs and locked away never to see the light of day again.
As far as I have seen, there are no detailed requirements set forth in the bill which have to be met before the military can indefinitely detain, and torture (or conduct “enhanced interrogation” if you’d prefer the government’s semantic work-around), Americans and people around the world.
What is stopping them from creating accounts for Americans who are actively resisting the fascistic police state corporatocracy which our once free nation has become on some jihadi website and using it has justification to claim these individuals are involved with terrorists?
What is stopping them from manufacturing any flimsy piece of evidence they can point to, even though they never actually have to present it or have it questioned in a court of law, in order to round up American dissidents?
The grim answer to these disturbing questions is: nothing. I regret having to say such a disheartening thing about the United States of America, a country I once thought was the freest nation in the world, but it is true.
I must emphasize once again that our government considers even ideology and protest to be a low level act of terrorism, so if you’re anti-war, pro-peace, pro-human rights, pro-justice, anti-corruption, or even worse, if you’re like me and expose the criminal government in Washington that supports terrorism while criminalizing American citizens, you very well might be labeled a terrorist.
Keep in mind that the House sister bill, H.R.1540, was passed with a 322-96 vote on May 26th, now all that is stopping this ludicrous from utterly eliminating the Bill of Rights is resolving the differences which will be done by the following appointed conferees: Levin; Lieberman; Reed; Akaka; Nelson NE; Webb; McCaskill; Udall CO; Hagan; Begich; Manchin; Shaheen; Gillibrand; Blumenthal; McCain; Inhofe; Sessions; Chambliss; Wicker; Brown MA; Portman; Ayotte; Collins; Graham; Cornyn; Vitter.
Unsurprisingly, not a single person who voted against S.1867 is included in that list.
I do not hesitate in saying that what our so-called representatives have done is an act of treason that represents the single most dangerous move ever made by our government.
Every single square inch of the United States is now a war zone and you or I could easily be declared soldiers on the wrong side of the war and treated as such.
No proof, no charges, and no trial are required. They do not even have to draw spurious links to terrorist organizations in order to indefinitely detain you as they could easily declare the evidence critical to national security and thus withhold it for as long as they please.
I will continue to hope that Obama decides to go against every single thing he has done after being sworn in but I think the chances are so slim that it is almost delusional to believe that he will do this.
After all, the only reason his administration is opposing it is because it doesn’t give the executive enough power, not because it strips away every legal protection we have.
If this is not the most laughably illegitimate reason to oppose the attack on all Americans that is S.1867, I don’t know what is.
The most important question that remains unanswered, for which I am not sure that I have a viable solution, is: how do we stop this? Is there any way we can bring down a criminal government packed to the brim with traitorous co-conspirators in a just, peaceful manner?
After all, if the American people resort to violence, we are no better than those bloodthirsty members of our armed forces and law enforcement who kill and beat human beings around our nation and the world with impunity.
However, if our military and police forces realize that at any moment they too could be deemed enemy combatants and treated like subhuman scum and thus decide to refuse all unlawful orders and arrest the real terrorists in Washington, we might be able to reinstate the rule of law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights which once defined our nation.
Please do not hesitate to contact me with your ideas, comments and information for future articles on this subject and any other issue for that matter. You can get in touch with me directly at Admin@EndtheLie.com and hopefully I will be able to read and respond if I’m not deemed an enemy combatant and shipped off to a CIA black site to be tortured into confessing to killing the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914.
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Stewart Rhodes: Senate Bill Declares War On Americans (video)
TheAlexJonesChannel
December 1, 2011
Guest Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, joins Alex to discuss the implications of indefinite detention and torture for American citizens under the looming National Defense Authorization Act.
Canada and Mexico to Join U.S. in NAFTA of the Pacific
By Dana Gabriel
BE YOUR OWN LEADER
November 28, 2011
At the recent APEC meetings, Canada and Mexico announced their interest in joining the U.S., along with other countries already engaged in negotiations to establish what has been referred to as the NAFTA of the Pacific.
The leaders of the nine countries that are part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) met at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Hawaii and agreed on the broad outlines of a free trade agreement. The current members include the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Peru and Chile. The TPP has been hailed as a, “landmark, 21st-century trade agreement, setting a new standard for global trade and incorporating next-generation issues.” Key features of the TPP are that it would provide comprehensive market access and be a fully regional agreement designed to facilitate the development of production and supply chains. Various working groups have been discussing issues such as financial services, government procurement, intellectual property, investment, rules of origin, telecommunications and trade remedies. The next round of talks will take place in December and there are hopes of concluding negotiations before the end of 2012. Apart from Canada and Mexico, Japan has also expressed interest in being part of the TPP. The door is also open for other countries to join which is why many consider it to be a building block for an Asia-Pacific free trade zone.
Following the APEC forum, President Barack Obama held a bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Originally, it was scheduled to be a North American Leaders Summit, but Mexican President Felipe Calderon could not attend due to the death of Interior Minister Francisco Blake Mora. According to a Readout by the Press Secretary, the leaders look forward to a rescheduled trilateral summit. During his meeting with Prime Minister Harper, President Obama, “noted the important progress being made on the Beyond the Border and Regulatory Cooperation initiatives.” He invited Harper to Washington in early December where an action plan that would work towards a North American security perimeter could finally be released. Both leaders also discussed the announcement by the State Department to seek additional information regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline project. A final ruling on the pipeline which would carry oil from western Canada to the gulf coast of Texas will not be made until after the November 2012 presidential election. The move has prompted Canada to further diversify its trade ties and shift its focus on the Asia-Pacific region.
Chossudovsky: Al Qaeda and the Global War on Terrorism (audio)
Global Research TV
December 1, 2011
“Al Qaeda and the Global War on Terrorism” with Michel Chossudovsky. The broad consequences of 9/11 with regard to US military doctrine, and more broadly the pretext and justification which the lies surrounding 9/11 have given to waging a war of conquest under the banner of what we call the Global War on Terrorism; Libya, Syria; Q and A.
“Guns & Butter” investigates the relationships among capitalism, militarism and politics. Maintaining a radical perspective in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, “Guns & Butter: The Economics of Politics” reports on who wins and who loses when the economic resources of civil society are diverted toward global corporatization, war, and the furtherance of a national security state.
Produced and hosted by Bonnie Faulkner.
Originally aired on KPFA, November 30, 2011
Chavez brings first shipment of gold to Venezuela from foreign vaults as global economy slides
By Madison Ruppert
End the Lie
November 26, 2011
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on the left
In August Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez announced that he would be repatriating the foreign-held gold reserves in American and European banks and they received the first shipment of gold from European countries on Friday.
The Venezuelan central bank reports that about $300 million in gold was brought in to Caracas by plane and they plan to bring 160 tons held abroad back to Venezuela.
The president of the central bank, Nelson Merentes said that the first shipment came from “various European countries” by way of France and called the arrival of the gold bullion a “historic” moment for his country, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Hugo Chavez said, “Now [the gold] will go to a place from which it should have never left: the central bank vaults [in Caracas]; not those in London or in Europe, but our own land.”
This is likely quite a good move as Western banks are becoming increasingly exposed to massive amounts of derivatives and sovereign debt crises that are wracking several economies.
These crises very well might be engineered by central banks and their “too big to fail” cronies just as the crash in 2008 was, and Chavez might preempting a possible gold run by demanding physical delivery of his gold now before there is no gold to deliver.
While Merentes would not give the specific number of tons of gold brought shipped to Venezuela on Friday, he said that the shipment was worth roughly $300 million.
This comes as U.S. stocks see the worst Thanksgiving drop since 1932 and all indicators show the European sovereign debt crisis continuing to worsen.
Chavez’s repatriation of gold reserves is part of his initiative to nationalize the Venezuelan gold sector, something which the Wall Street Journal says “puzzled economists.”
The Wall Street Journal published speculation that it could have to do with internal arbitration cases involving nationalizations and Venezuela seeking to prevent having their assets seized abroad.
They claim that it reduces transparency and would “raise more questions over the central bank’s declining reserves.”
How exactly they know the status of the reserves is not said, and Venezuelan figures posit a much more logical explanation for the move.
Venezuelan officials said that they were seeking to minimize exposure to the overly indebted Western economies of the United States and Europe, while leveraging the high price of gold that only seems to be rising.
They also said that they were seeking to invest in developing allies like Russia and China which have also been investing in the Venezuelan economy and continue to grow at rates not seen in the West.
There has also been a steady attack on Chavez coming from the United States and the West in general so his choice to demand his gold now prevents Western nations from seizing his assets held abroad as they did to Gaddafi.
The Wall Street Journal does seem to be able to pin down a number of how much gold Venezuela actually has.
First they say that before Friday, Venezuela held nearly $11 billion worth of gold, or 211 tons, out of 365 tons of reserves stored in banks in the United States, Canada and Europe.
According to the World Gold Council, Venezuela holds the 15th-largest gold reserves and Chavez said, “It’s the economic reserve for our kids. It’s growing, and it’s going to keep growing, both gold and economic reserves.”
Unfortunately you’ll never hear Bernanke or one of the countless criminal Western banksters saying such things, all they care about is robbing us blind and making sure we are enslaved by debt for generations to come.
That is not to say that Chavez is a saint, but the fact that a leader would even talk about working for the well being of his people is something wholly foreign to someone like myself in the United States.
“Venezuela is going to become an economic power, not for the bourgeois or capitalism, but for the Venezuelan people,” Chavez added.
Later, they say that the Central Bank of Venezuela holds 154 tons of gold bullion domestically, a number considerably different from the 211 tons cited earlier in the article.
Regardless, the Venezuelans seem to see the writing on the wall, with American stocks seeing the worst loss during the Thanksgiving week since 1932, Belgium getting its credit rating slashed and reports saying Greece is telling bondholders they will have to accept larger losses.
This fueled the pervasive concern that the European debt crisis is worsening and treasuries fell in response.
The S&P 500 continued to slump for the seventh straight day in a row, marking a weekly drop of 4.7% and a daily loss of 0.3%.
The euro declined as well, losing 0.9% along with the S&P GSCI commodity index dropping 0.3% with Bloomberg reporting, “The Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe Index of credit- default swaps on 15 governments lingered near a record, up 6 basis points at 386.”
The signs are not looking good and Chavez demanding physical delivery of his gold just reflects the global awareness that something is seriously wrong with the world economy and it is not getting better any time soon.
Clash Between NATO and Pakistani Forces Defused
by Rod Norland
New York Times
Dec 1, 2011
KABUL – A cross-border incident involving NATO and Pakistani forces was quickly defused early on Wednesday with no loss of life, according to Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, the spokesman for the American-led international coalition here.
Few details of the incident were immediately available but it apparently involved heavy artillery fire across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in Afghanistan’s Paktika province.
The firing broke out at a time of Pakistani anger over the killing of 24 of its soldiers in a United States air strike on Saturday. Pakistan closed its border to NATO supply convoys and pulled out of an international conference on Afghanistan next week in Bonn in protest at the killings.
Separately, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed regret at Pakistan’s decision to stay away from the Bonn conference.
FULL ARTICLE HERE…
(hat tip: Infowars)
Gen. Hamid Gul: The Sum of All Fears (video)
The Alex Jones Show
November 30, 2011
On the Wednesday November 30 edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex talks with retired Pakistani Army three-star general Hamid Gul about the situation in Pakistan following NATO airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan has also issued a demand that the U.S. stop running drone strikes out of the Shamsi airbase located in the Balochistan province. Gul served as the Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
