Obama Moves to make the War on Terror permanent

Glenn Greenwald wrote an amazing piece about this that was posted over at the Guardian today. This is absolutely frightening.

Here is the link for the article

Complete with a newly coined, creepy Orwellian euphemism – 'disposition matrix' – the administration institutionalizes the most extremist powers a government can claim

A primary reason for opposing the acquisition of abusive powers and civil liberties erosions is that they virtually always become permanent, vested not only in current leaders one may love and trust but also future officials who seem more menacing and less benign.

The Washington Post has a crucial and disturbing story this morning by Greg Miller about the concerted efforts by the Obama administration to fully institutionalize – to make officially permanent – the most extremist powers it has exercised in the name of the war on terror.

Based on interviews with "current and former officials from the White House and the Pentagon, as well as intelligence and counterterrorism agencies", Miller reports that as "the United States' conventional wars are winding down", the Obama administration "expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years" (the "capture" part of that list is little more than symbolic, as the US focus is overwhelmingly on the "kill" part). Specifically, "among senior Obama administration officials, there is broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade." As Miller puts it: "That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism."

Dude, it's all good as long as the guy doing it is either:

A) A Democrat
B) Barack Obama

reply to post by justinsweatt


Its kind of hard to make it permanent when President Obama and his administration refuses to use the word terror, even when its obvious.

The war on terror is the worst mistake the US has ever made.

It i also the biggest money-maker for defense contractors since the cold war. It's a war that can never be won. It's a war that can be reignited with a car bomb.

(beezzer is so damned tired of war. )

Sad to see a thought provoking thread go unseen.

Hey! People!

This reminds me of something....."War on Drugs"

I hope this campaign is more effective then the last symbolic gesture of war.

Targeted killing is now so routine that the Obama administration has spent much of the past year codifying and streamlining the processes that sustain it.

That doesnt sound very democratic

Originally posted by MDDoxs
This reminds me of something....."War on Drugs"

I hope this campaign is more effective then the last symbolic gesture of war.

Targeted killing is now so routine that the Obama administration has spent much of the past year codifying and streamlining the processes that sustain it.

That doesnt sound very democratic

The taking of a human life should be done only in the direst of circumstances.

Not something to be discussed over tea and coffeein the oval office.

reply to post by beezzer


So true!

I find everything the majority of issues touched in this topic quite distrubing. Talk about implimenting policies that go against not only your political plateform, but the overall morality of your culture.

I also found this excerpt interesting:

"It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people."

Though i do not see Obama as a war monger, i do some people in power positions demanding this of his administration.

reply to post by MDDoxs


I see the president (any president) just as culpable as his staff.

Where do you plant the flag when you win the "war on terror"?

Probably on your own grave.

(waxing poetic)

War on terror is already permanent. We will be in the middle east for the rest of this century.

People need to be told this to see it?

What part of War on Terrorism do they think have a winner?

Originally posted by beezzer
The war on terror is the worst mistake the US has ever made.

It i also the biggest money-maker for defense contractors since the cold war. It's a war that can never be won. It's a war that can be reignited with a car bomb.

(beezzer is so damned tired of war.

)

Its not a mistake. It was planned long before 9/11 by the neocons. There is official documents talking about how they needed another pearl harbor to start the war. There really is no excuse to think they made a mistake.

This is the plan.
It was always the plan.
Its being rolled out.
No mistake.

We are tired of war in the west? Watching it on the TV? Hearing about it on the news?

We have no idea. We really dont.

Originally posted by Bodhi911
People need to be told this to see it?

What part of War on Terrorism do they think have a winner?

Originally posted by beezzer
The war on terror is the worst mistake the US has ever made.

It i also the biggest money-maker for defense contractors since the cold war. It's a war that can never be won. It's a war that can be reignited with a car bomb.

(beezzer is so damned tired of war.

)

Its not a mistake. It was planned long before 9/11 by the neocons. There is official documents talking about how they needed another pearl harbor to start the war. There really is no excuse to think they made a mistake.

This is the plan.
It was always the plan.
Its being rolled out.
No mistake.

We are tired of war in the west? Watching it on the TV? Hearing about it on the news?

We have no idea. We really dont.

NeoCons? 9/11 was planned by people more powerful than the NeoCons.

This was posted in another thread and attempts to recapitulate one of the main reasons for the "war on terror" and American aggression in the Middle East and beyond and the growth of the "Security State" at home. That reason is the mechanistic compulsion to growth in corporations and in this particular case the corporations involved in the Military Industrial Complex.

These corporations are like bodybuilders who can't stop and who will do anything to get their growth hormones.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by ipsedixit
The major problem in American politics since the administration of George W. Bush is the introduction of an entirely fabricated world historical narrative line, into which, Americans have been told, the country has been thrust. This fabricated story is the story of America accosted and injured by outside forces, terrorist groups from the Islamic world who hate American values.

The visual illustrating this story would be something like a 250 pound football linebacker being pushed into the street by a 95 pound Arab and dragged around by his ear until very reluctantly the linebacker is forced to murder everyone on the block.

This obviously rediculous and fraudulent story line, of an accosted and injured America, forced to defend itself, disguises the real story line, which is the need for corporate entities that cannot profit by activities within the borders of the United States, to provoke a demand for their services overseas, by fabricating an attack on America from outside the country.

Corporations in the Military Industrial Complex have had the green light from Congress and largely from the American people to expand their activities in the Middle East and at home where security hardware, drones, etc., are being employed for the first time in American history.

This is like the mold on your cottage cheese turning back on itself and getting thicker. This process, the turning back, the investment of the American homeland itself, with paraphernalia and modalities of a militarily occupied state will lead to the removal of all individual rights in the country.

Left unchecked, this modality will produce a totalitarian military dictatorship in North America, in the most powerful country in the world. This country has already had its "Reichstag Fire". That fact alone and the human casualties involved should tell you what you are dealing with.

The American people simply must regain control of their own political processes.

When the Military Industrial Complex has, like the mold, eaten all the cottage cheese in the fridge, absorbed all the resources of the republic that it can absorb and still stay alive, it will break out into the world. It has already spilled out into the world and stumbled and recoiled upon itself, upon the American people themselves.

However, left unchecked, this mechanistic compulsion to growth and profitability, will eventually provoke WW3.

America's foreign policy postures and actions since 9/11 have been frenzied and irrational from every standpoint but that of physical addiction. American actions, seen as the actions of a desperate drug addict, make sense.

One has a moment of illumination. One knows that a segment of the fabric of American life has a desperate craving that could only be satisfied in this way. Otherwise American actions since 9/11 make no sense at any point.

This is how powerful and dangerous the Military Industrial Complex is. This is what they are capable of perpetrating to get what they need.

They are like a disease or virus or fungus or mold that will continue to grow until it kills its host and itself.

Neither Presidential candidate has a realistic approach to this problem. Romney wants to drive the world over a cliff at a hundred miles an hour and Obama wants to drive it over a cliff at sixty miles an hour, but sixty miles an hour at least gives people more time to try to change the direction of the vehicle.

There is a giant tumor on the American economy and that tumor is the budget item for the Department of Defence and Homeland Security. That tumor is killing American society and killing millions of people around the world. It has absolutely no security utility as it stands now and no reason to increase.

America spends more than the next ten military spenders in the world combined and the kicker is that five of those other big spenders are allies of America bound to her in joint security arrangements!!!

I don't think anyone has done the math on that one. The bar graph on that one would explode Chris Farley out of his grave.

All of this rigamarole is in aid of one thing only, profitability in the "defence" sector of the economy. It has nothing whatsoever to do with security.

reply to post by justinsweatt


Excellent post!!! Everyone needs to read this article.

One of the many more disturbing parts of this is how this new "disposition matrix" is to be ran by the National Counterterrorism Center. As the article explains, this is the same group that is in charge of storing all of the data about American citizens.

Why would the same group that is responsible for spying on American citizens be given the power to determine who should be killed? I think the answers obvious.

Heres a quote from the article,

And yet what the Post is describing, what we have had for years, is a system of government that – without hyperbole – is the very antithesis of that liberty. It is literally impossible to imagine a more violent repudiation of the basic blueprint of the republic than the development of a secretive, totally unaccountable executive branch agency that simultaneously collects information about all citizens and then applies a "disposition matrix" to determine what punishment should be meted out.

reply to post by justinsweatt

How can you moderate Islamist extremism by blowing the living # out of them for 20 years? I don't get it.

Why not recruit, train and send out an army of 100,000 Islamic scholars to bring about a transformation from within instead of trying to kill them until the end of time?

reply to post by justinsweatt




This is great for buisness!
Kinda like the "war on drugs".

It is unwinnable and generates so much more money for the power elite.

This is a country where almost anything can be used to label you as a terrorist and when they lock you up indefinately...... Your neighbors will be thankful and relieved!!
"Ohh my goodness Ethel, I never knew Bob was a terrorist! He was always so quiet. Now that I think of it, he did have somewhat of an accent. Thank God they caught him before he was able to kill anyone"

This country is a joke.
It has become a parody of its self.
At this point, it is just funny.
I don't get angry anymore.
I can honestly say, we deserve every bit of what's comming.

reply to post by justinsweatt

Had a chance to read the article...

That's just sickening, everything that's been justified under the 9/11 catalyzed war on terror. It's a total disgrace. Not a good legacy for Obama who immersed himself in this when he lost Congress as the one area where he could excercise executive power and authority.

Does he know that 9/11 was largely an inside job perpetrated by the CIA and Mossad? Sure he does.. so from where then does he get his authority in the real world?

I've generally been an Obama supporter, but after reviewing this information, I have to say that it's slipping away fast.

I don't find the data mining components of this story remotely surprising, sadly. This goes all the way back to DARPA's office of information awareness in the 90s, in my opinion.

2002: Total Information Awareness and TIPS.
2003: Congress dismantled TIA and killed the notion of a National ID program.
2003: MATRIX program essentially continues the data mining efforts despite TIA's dismantling.
2004: States begin to pull out of the now controversial MATRIX program.

And now we have the "disposition matrix" and the NCTC. Same process, different name, different organizational structure. There has been a long, long standing effort to create a massive national data mining system, preferably in conjunction with a national identification system incorporating RFID or some other machine-readable technology.

This is one of many agendas that seems to persist from administration to administration, regardless of party or platform.

Just some musings. Peace.

. . . . Well, we should all ask ourselves what WE could be doing to change the world, if we want a revolution SOMEONE has to start it, instead of just making threads about it on ats and waiting for something to ignite revolt.

Oh and also, i know this guy who believes most of the same stuff as me and everyone else on ats, but he's sooooo vocal about it, he dresses up in all black and spikes and zips and dreadlocks and lives at a ''peace'' camp, but heres something funny, whenever he comes to talk to me at work (my dads coffee shop, small, family run, part of the community) his outrageous dress and such, end up scaring people away, right into tesco to get their papers and things, so by his sheer passion against the western world of corporate oligarchy, he ends up scaring people away from a small family run business and right into the hands of a big corporation.

Something he always says is: f**k it! fight fire with fire!! I'll go head to head with the police, I'll fight all of
them!!!!

But if you fight fire with fire YOU GET BURNED... DUH...

You fight fire with WATER!!!

So by revolution I mean a revolution of love, they want us to walk about suspicious of everyone we see, hating each other for stupid egotistical reasons, and by doing so become blinded to the truth, so a revolution doesnt need to be violence and uprising and all that, just a realisation of what REALLY matters in life.

And also that obama and his cronies around the world literally CANNOT tell us what to do, we need to get the sheeple to go outside, pick some soil up from the earth of america or britain and think about the sheer absurdity of actually trying to say that ANYTHING owns that soil, no one owns it, even though obama might say 'my country' its not, itsd not his country or anyones, the soil and the trees and plants and animals, own themselves, just the same as we do, we own OURSELVES, and no one NO ONE has the right to order us about.

I mean the drug laws for instance, whether drugs are good or bad is an entirely different question from whether the government actually has the RIGHT to tell you what you can put in your body.

I mean some people are lactose intolerant, but its up to them to make sure they dont have an intake of lactose, i mean they arent just going to make milk illegal are they, just because a few people cant have milk, imagine the news story:

''uhh we have evidence that some deaths have been linked to milk, but we cant verify it or find out why because as a result of those deaths we are now not even allowed to research milk scientifically, even though it actually might have some very positive effects for most of the human race''

White House counterterrorism adviser John O Brennan is seeking to codify the administration's approach to generating capture/kill lists,

A killing machine on autopilot