Jim Garrison, President, Wisdom University; Author, ‘America as Empire'
The Huffington Post, 21 March 2012
President Obama's National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order of March 16 does to the country as a whole what the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act did to the Constitution in particular — completely eviscerates any due process or judicial oversight for any action by the Government deemed in the interest of “national security.” Like the NDAA, the new Executive Order puts the government completely above the law, which, in a democracy, is never supposed to happen. The United States is essentially now under martial law without the exigencies of a national emergency.
The government is out of control as well as local prosecutors trying to make a name for themselves.
Phi Beta Iota: At the federal level, “illegal everything” is directly tied to incentivizing special interests that get 6-20 return on investment for campaign contributions. At local levels it seems to represent a fragmentation of society and an end of generic citizenship.
Naïve, young college student or disloyal American ready to spy for the People’s Republic of China (PRC)? Glenn Duffie Shriver, aka Du Fei, was a student at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in 2001 when he decided to attend a study abroad program known as “China Summer School” in Shanghai, China. He enjoyed his time in this country so much, he spent his junior year studying at East China Normal University in Shanghai, where he developed a strong interest in Chinese culture and became proficient speaking Mandarin Chinese. After graduating from GVSU in 2004 with a degree in International Relations, Shriver returned to Shanghai to continue his language studies and to seek employment. Desperate for money, he responded to an advertisement to write a political paper on U.S.-China relations regarding North Korea and Taiwan. He met with his contact, Amanda, several times and was paid $120 for his paper. Amanda praised Shriver for his work, offered to introduce him to friends of hers by the name of Mr. Wu and Mr. Tang, and encouraged him to build a close relationship with them.
Shriver has admitted that he realized his new “friends” were PRC intelligence officers, and that he understood when they asked him to apply for positions in the U.S. government or law enforcement that they were expressly interested in classified material.
So in April 2005, Shriver applied for a job as a foreign service officer for the U.S. State Department as suggested by his “friends.” He took the Foreign Service Exam in Shanghai, and although he did not pass, PRC intelligence officers paid him $10,000 for his efforts and his “friendship.” One year later, Shriver made a second attempt at passing the Foreign Service Exam, but again failed. However, this attempt earned him a shocking $20,000.
Phi Beta Iota: One wonders why he was not doubled back, since US clandestine efforts in China are virtually non-existent. This is interesting at multiple levels. With 22.4% unemployment in the USA (not the false statistic the government offers of under 9%) and with both young graduates and senior professionals at closer to 40% unemployment, the question has to be asked: what part of our failure to provide for the general welfare, as called for in the preamble to the US Constitution, combined with the complete lack of civic duty instruction and practice across 24 years of study, can be blamed for this young man's vulnerability?
11 years after 9/11, scientists from America’s weapons labs will be releasing conclusive data on the types of weapons used to destroy the World Trade Center.
The outlet will be through Jeff Prager, we will carry as much of the material, it is volumes, as possible, but the original source is both official, highly classified and less “unauthorized” than believed.
Word is, that, based on lack of any movement toward investigation, the White House has set a “leak anything you want” policy, especially during this election year and based on what is a fear that anything not disclosed now will provide a reason to silence President Obama prior to a very probable second term.
A bit of background and we will move on. During closed hearings of the 9/11 Commission, information was requested of the Department of Energy about the possibility that nuclear weapons “may have been on the planes,” to quote what I am not supposed to be able to quote. Remember, this was their line of questioning, not my own.
The DOE responded by saying that the smallest weapon in their arsenal was over 300 pounds and would fit inside a “steamer trunk.”
The photo below is of a second generation fission weapon first tested in 1959:
By now, you’d think we’d be entering the end of the 9/11 era. One war over in the Greater Middle East, another hurtling disastrously to its end, and the threat of al-Qaida so diminished that it should hardly move the needle on the national worry meter. You might think, in fact, that the moment had arrived to turn the American gaze back to first principles: the Constitution and its protections of rights and liberties.
Yet warning signs abound that 2012 will be another year in which, in the name of national security, those rights and liberties are only further Guantanamo-ized and abridged. Most notably, for example, despite the fact that genuinely dangerous enemies continue to exist abroad, there is now a new enemy in our sights: namely, American oppositional types and whistleblowers who are charged as little short of traitors for revealing the workings of our government to journalists and others.
Here and elsewhere, it looks like we can expect the Obama administration to continue to barrel down the path that has already taken us far from the country we used to be. And by next year, if a different president is in the Oval Office, expect him to lead us even further astray. With that in mind, here are five categories in the sphere of national security where 2012 is likely to prove even grimmer than 2011.
1. Ever More Punitive(Ever Less Fair-minded).
2. Ever More Legal Limbo (Ever Less Confidence in the Constitution).
3. Ever More Secrecy(Ever Less Transparency)
4. Ever More Distrust (Ever Less Privacy)
5. Ever More Killing(Ever Less Peace)
Karen J. Greenberg is the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University Law School and author of “The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days.”More Karen Greenberg
Dick Cheney Opts for House Arrest Rather Than Face the Ire of Canada’s Citizen Jurists Who Insist That Domestic and International Laws Prohibiting Torture, Genocide, Aggressive Warfare, and 9/11 Fraud Must be Enforced on One of the World’s Most Notorious Criminals
Earlier this week former US Vice-President Dick Cheney, the dominant, hands-on operative in the two-term presidency of George W. Bush, cancelled a speaking engagement in Toronto on April 24. Through a spokesperson Cheney indicated he was frightened to return to Canada after his experience last September 26 at the Vancouver Club. After promoting his book to a small local audience Cheney spent several hours hiding out in the posh venue trying to outwait several hundred citizen jurists, some of whom were planning to attempt a citizens’ arrest of the credibly-accused war criminal right on the spot.
I am proud to have played an active role in the fascinating teach-in last September of those of us who deputized ourselves at the Vancouver Club. Our goal in assembling outside one of British Columbia’s oldest and most notorious sites of political cronyism was to attempt to defend Canadian sovereignty and the rule of law in Canada against the criminal contempt of government officials for the Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (2000). This sneering contempt for a law passed in the name of preventing Canada from becoming a haven for war criminals finds its most ardent embodiment in Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the thoroughly politicized Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP’s leadership backed the Conservative Party in a previous successful election campaign.
