Guantanamo Detainee Files Hint at Psychological Research

by, Jeffrey Kaye/TruthOut - Posting #141

The release by WikiLeaks of the secret assessments of hundreds of detainees by the Joint Interrogation Force at Guantanamo, spanning the period 2002 to 2009, provide little in the way of evidence of the tor­ture and abuse suffered by the supposed "enemy com­batants." While retelling the many pieces of gossip, infor­mant's tales and evidence of torture that are mixed in with any hard evidence of terrorist ties, the reports indicate in a number of instances "areas of potential exploitation" that go beyond that of mere intelligence gathering.

The listing of such "areas" appears to be limited to reports originating in 2006 and later.

Even when the aim of the "exploitation" areas are ostensibly re­lated to intelligence gathering, they often seek further informa­tion on al-Qaeda-related matters or individuals even after de­tainees have denied any connections to al-Qaeda or other extrem­ist groups, or have recanted such ties as were announced original­ly under tortured duress. It often appears the government is con­tinuing to hold prisoners, if not torture them, until the prisoner gives them the story they want to hear.

Indeed, that was the case with British resident Binyam Mohamed and supposed al-Qaeda "mastermind" Abu Zubaydah, both of whom were tortured by the CIA or allied forces in early 2002 to produce confessions of supposed plots that were later discredited, such as the "dirty bomb" plot purportedly cooked up by Mohamed and US citizen Jose Padilla.

As an example, the report on torture victim Mohamed al-Qahtani, called Maad al-Qahtani in his October 2008 report, still lists the "dirty bomb" and "attempts to acquire WMD" among its "areas of potential exploitation." Al-Qahtani was famously tor­tured in an early instance of the implementation of a new harsh interrogation regime approved by then-Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld in the late summer of 2002. Logs recording his torture appeared in Time Magazine in June 2005.

While the "areas of potential exploitation" often included pre­sumed areas of further intelligence seeking, based upon supposed links of the detainee to the area under consideration, others areas of proposed "exploitation" are vaguer, or seem to imply research into prisoner psychology, or even possible status as an informant or intelligence asset after release.

For instance, the March 2008 JTF-GTMO Detainee Assessment for Mahmud al-Mujahid (Internment Serial Number [ISN] US9YM-000031DP) lists as an area of possible exploitation "De­tails of other bodyguards, fighters and al-Qaeda members, includ­ing those currently detained at JTF-GTMO." It also lists "Terror­ist biographical and psychological information."

The report on Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj (ISN PK9YM-0001457DP) is of extra interest, since, as Andy Worthington reported in April 2010, al-Hajj, along with detainee Sanad Yislam Ali al-Kazimi, were named by Judge Henry H. Ken­nedy Jr. in his decision granting the habeas corpus petition of Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman. According to Worthington, Kennedy noted, "The Court will not rely on the statements of Hajj or Kazimi because there is unrebutted evid­ence in the record that, at the time of the interrogations at which they made the statements, both men had recently been tor­tured."

Worthington also quoted a Human Rights Watch report in which al-Hajj, rendered to Jordan in 2002 and then later transferred to the CIA's "Dark Prison" near Kabul, before being sent to Guan­tanamo, described his torture:

"I was being interrogated all the time, in the evening and in the day. I was shown thousands of photos and I really mean thousands, I am not exaggerating ... And in between all this you have the torture, the abuse, the cursing, humiliation. They had threatened me with being sexually abused and electrocuted. I was told that if I wanted to leave with permanent disability both mental and physical, that that could be arranged. They said they had all the facilities of Jordan to achieve that. I was told that I had to talk, I had to tell them everything."

None of this is mentioned in al-Hajj's 2008 assessment. Instead, without further elaboration, he is mentioned as a possible subject of "exploitation" regarding "Terrorist biographical and psycholog­ical information," "Radicalization factors," "Other JTF-GTMO de­tainees" and "Detainee's intentions after released from US cus­tody."

Some of the detainees have listed as desirable the "exploitation" of knowledge of other detainees, which appears to be something close to acting as an informant, or at least snitching on other prisoners. In addition to the examples above, the report for Syrian prisoner Abd Al Rahim Abd Al Razzaq Janko (ISN US9SY-000489DP), states that besides further exploitation "of his own background information," another goal is "Other extrem­ists [sic] associates to include detainees in custody at JTF-GTMO."

Of further interest are the reports describing detainees known to be cooperating with US officials. According to a March 2010 ar­ticle by Peter Finn at The Washington Post, Tariq al-Sawah was one of "two of the most significant informants ever to be held at Guantanamo." Indeed his JTF-GTMO assessment records that he is "a highly prolific source" who "has provided invaluable intel­ligence." Al-Sawah and another detainee, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, are said in the Post article to "live a life of relative privilege - gar­dening, writing and painting - separated from other detainees in a cocoon designed to reward and protect. "

While approved for release, al-Sawah is still held at Guantanamo, while his assessment notes he is unlikely to "reestablish extrem­ist associations ... as his cooperation with the US government may serve to identify detainee as a target for revenge by those as­sociates."

Yet, Al-Sawah's assessment report, dated September 30, 2008, has a long list of possible "exploitation" possibilities, despite the supposed recommendation for his release, including "knowledge of extremist chemical and biological weapons, as well as their re­search and development by al-Qaida and other terrorist organiza­tions worldwide," "Terrorist biographical and psychological infor­mation" and "Radicalization factors of terrorism."

In addition, while al-Sawah has been held in US custody since early 2002, one possible source of "exploitation" mentioned in his 2008 assessment is "Possible ongoing terrorist operations in the U.S."

In a March 22 story at Truthout, Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye revealed that the torture program used at Guantanamo and by the CIA was developed from a course at the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) school meant to protect US personnel against "exploitation" by foreign captors, including tor­ture in captivity to produce false confessions, propaganda activity and recruitment of informers. This course, known as SV-91, or "Psychological Aspects of Detention," provided the material for re­verse engineering an offensive "exploitation" torture program for the United States.

According to the Truthout article, "Jessen wrote that cooperation is the 'end goal' of the detainer, who wants the detainee 'to see that [the detainer] has "total" control of you because you are com­pletely dependent on him and thus you must comply with his wis­hes. Therefore, it is absolutely inevitable that you must co­operate with him in some way (propaganda, special favors, con­fession, etc.).'"

Air Force psychologist Bruce Jessen and Air Force survival school personnel Michael Kearns and Roger Aldrich developed the origin­al course. Jessen went on to become a CIA contract interrogator after 9/11 and is largely credited with transforming the use of the former SERE material into a torture program. Aldrich later be­came a "governing member" of Jessen's contracting company, Mitchell-Jessen and Associates. Captain (ret.) Kearns was never involved in interrogations and turned the Jessen materials over to Truthout.

In 2002, the US military instituted Behavioral Science Consulta­tion Groups at Guantanamo and later in Iraq and Afghanistan, which utilized psychologists and psychiatrists in the construction of detention policies as well as collaborating on interrogation plans with intelligence officials. Reports of behavioral and other kinds of experiments upon detainees have been discussed over the years, but no hard evidence of such experiments has come to light.

Nevertheless, Department of Defense (DoD) regulations concern­ing human subjects' protections were significantly changed in early 2002, allowing for suspension of human subjects protec­tions on DoD subjects, unless study subjects were prisoners of war. The US declared the Guantanamo prisoners as "unlawful enemy combatants," and denied them prisoner of war status al­most as soon as Guantanamo was opened.

It is difficult to conceive how "terrorist biographical and psyc­hological information" and "radicalization factors" come under traditional intelligence operations. Instead, they hint at study of individual detainees for psychological purposes, for possible uses in later interrogations, profiling, or constructing plausible though false narratives for prisoners, who then would be coerced into con­fession.

What accounts for radicalization was a matter of dispute in the re­cent military commissions trial of Omar Khadr, with a prosecu­tion forensic psychiatrist, Michael Welner, drawing upon the work of a controversial Danish psychologist, Nicolai Sennels, to paint a picture of the former child prisoner Khadr as someone who was too dangerous to release. The study of such "radicaliza­tion factors" has been a favorite topic of racist opponents to im­migration from countries that have Islamic populations.

No matter what kind of psychological information is being sought, the construction of psychological knowledge from supposed ter­rorist prisoners at Guantanamo, based upon what most news re­ports admit are large numbers of innocent individuals, will fail to construct a psychology of terrorism or "radicalization."

Instead, what we have is circumstantial evidence of ongoing illeg­al experimentation on prisoners, even in these sanitized and large­ly unreliable DoD reports on the Guantanamo detainees.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References: Update: 05.05.2011: The Doctors At The Guantanamo Torture Center

Evidence Is the First Step Toward Justice

The Behavior Of Psychopaths

Tempus Omnia Revelat

The Ominous Parallels Cover Letter

The Ominous Parallels Report

Scalar Wars - Psychoenergetics - TIs Heads Up!

By Bibliotecapleyades - Scalar Wars - Posting #140

Mental entrainment, inducing hypnogogic trance, mind control, broadcasting thoughts and feelings, the Ant World, education via EM [LW] mental download, the "Feelies," revolution in spirituality, "enlightenment machine?" Scalar churches?

Psychoenergetics is simply using the scalar interferometers to manipulate and engineer the human psyche. To me it is the most mind-boggling and frightening aspect of longitudinal wave engineering.

The mind is electromagnetic in nature, and itself of the time-domain. It is not observable in 3-space. There is nothing you can point to that is the mind. As Bearden says, "The mind is time-like."

The longitudinal scalar EM waves are also of the time-domain. By overlaying certain infolded patterns (oscillations in time) on the longitudinal waves, a thought or feeling may be made to arise in a person or persons who are in the interference zone (where the wave beams cross).

The person will not notice anything, feeling that this thought or idea is his or her own idea. The longitudinal wave pattern might be a wave of panic or fear that spontaneously sweeps over you, perhaps inexplicably. It could even be in the form of a sudden intense patriotism. It could be explicit words and phrases, which everyone would think they had thought of by themselves. Or it could be rage and hatred, angry and violent. On the other hand It could also be a continuous sense of docility and placidity. This is the brave new world of psychoenergetics and the coming "Mind Wars."

Scalar Psychoenergetics in its most primitive form simply "entrains" all minds in the target area into a deep hypnogogic trance. In this state of mind people would be suddenly extremely suggestible, and would likely believe anything they are told, and would obey any orders given. Talk about winning the hearts and minds of the American People!

Tom Bearden makes me think of Paul Revere, who heroically conveyed important warnings for the sake of the new nation. But the words of the famous phrase have now strangely and curiously mutated into the once-inconceivable: "One if by land, Two if by mind."

Indeed one strategy in a Mind War would be to simply take over the minds of the "leaders" of the enemy nation. The targeted leader would not be aware that anything was amiss, although he might begin to make unexpected changes in policy.

And are, in fact, any of our "leaders" already having secret thoughts that are not their own? Who knows? Frighteningly, we can no longer be sure.

The new sciences of scalar electromagnetics and psychoenergetics are even now plunging humanity into a sudden science-fiction-like world beyond anything in humanity’s previous imaginings.

"The Russians reached the point in the mid 1990s that they could take over control of a person’s mind, with modified longitudinal EM waves including some time-polarized EM waves, and with a team of specialists (estimate 25-30 per transmitter, and one transmitter and team per controlled person)."

Bearden: http://www.cheniere.org/misc/time.htm

Bearden illustrates how a Scalar War would involve a psychoenergetics attack on the operators of the enemy scalar installation, entraining their minds into hypnogogic trance and getting them to shut down their systems. And ultimately psychoenergetic warfare goes to the very heart of human identity itself.

For if my thoughts might no longer be "mine,"

* Then who and what am I?
* Can my very sense of being "me" be hijacked by some nefarious psychoenergetic scheme?
* Will the "secret government" eventually dictate directly into your mind how you feel?
* Or what you think you are?
* Or what you should do?

How Does Longitudinal EM Mind Control Work?

The physics of scalar psychoenergetics as expounded by Col. Bearden seems even more arcane and over-my-head than that of extracting energy from the vacuum. I can’t understand it, but I look through it anyway. Each time another tiny understanding might occur, or a term might fall into place. I know the mathematics is forever beyond me.

One paper to begin with is Mind Control and EM Wave Polarization Transductions. This is such serious stuff that Bearden includes a strong warning about misuse of this knowledge.

Psychoenergetics weapons can mentally maim and physically kill.

Warning! (From "Mind Control and EM Wave Polarization Transductions")

"This article refers to experimental research techniques which can be detrimental or lethal in the hands of any but highly skilled, qualified experimental scientists proceeding under proper laboratory safety procedures. The purpose of this article is strictly for information to properly qualified and authorized scientists in certified laboratories.

We do not propose or condone any use of these procedures for non-approved practice of medicine without a license. Neither the publisher nor the author are responsible for accidents or outcomes in the use of these experimental procedures and techniques. Any researcher who performs these procedures and experiments is acting on his or her own volition, and is solely responsible for insuring safety, qualifications, and legality of the acts and their results.

We neither suggest nor condone unauthorized experimentation on human subjects. Such is a criminal violation of the constitutional rights of the subject under Federal and State laws, and is both illegal and immoral."

After the serious warning comes the description of the paper. This is heady stuff for the layman.

"Calling full attention to the special note above, in this paper we present a high-level overview of the novel electromagnetic nature of mind operations, mind and body coupling, and intent - the induction of physical 3-space EM energy changes into the brain and nervous system, and into every cell of the body, from the mind’s time-like coherent operations.

We summarize the time-polarized electrodynamics used to engineer and affect mind operations and the mind-body coupling loop. Transaction mechanisms whereby differing EM wave polarization s can be transformed one-into-the-other are presented."

I will leave it to the technically astute to try to understand the mechanisms of operation which are described in scientific language. But there are tidbits for the layman.

Here he speaks of the difficulty Western scientists have in opening up to the "immaterial" (longitudinal wave) nature of the human mind.

Western Science Remains Largely Materialistic

"Ironically, most Western scientists are materialists and consider "mind" as a mystical and nonscientific concept. They tend to consider mind operations and functions either to be simply "meat computer" operations and functions, or at best to be very weak ordinary transverse-wave EM operations and functions in the brain and nervous system. This serious self-limitation exists because in the body we measure only weak TW [transverse wave] EM operations and functions correlated to biological behavior and brain operations. We simply do not know how to measure "mind operations" directly.

"With no mind measurements possible and no instruments, it is understandable that Western science considers only the physical side of the mind-matter interface.

"Presently our scientists do not measure the longitudinally-polarized EM wave operations and functions in the body and around it in nature. Few of them are aware that a maelstrom of such LW [longitudinal wave] functions exist in the body and in all of nature in general."

Bearden: http://www.cheniere.org/explore articles/mind control1/p05.htm

Western methods of influencing the mind with EM waves have only used transverse waves, not the longitudinal waves of the vacuum.

If only transverse waves are used one pretty well has to hit the target mind with a sledgehammer of waves.

Western Science knows only transverse EM waves

Brute Forcing Time Functions versus Fine Control Methods

"Ironically, Western mind control researchers using transverse EM waves for mind control research, are using a brute force method of evoking and using vacuum engines (spacetime curvature engines) and a special form of general relativity, although they do not appear to
realize it.

"While KGB scientists also use TW EM "brute force", TW waves when necessary, they do "imprint" or "activate" those waves with the desired internal LW and time-polarized EM wave and photon structures required to directly perform the mind engineering desired...Bearden

"These "fitted brute-force models" certainly can be very powerful, and certainly can produce the exact results shown in the experimental verifications of the fittings. However, they do not of themselves allow sophisticated design for example of the necessary time-polarized wave assemblies for engineering the entire human collective unconscious simultaneously, or for engineering the entire collective unconscious of all species on Earth (i.e., Gaia's collective unconscious), or even for precisely engineering the memory and knowledge base of an individual.

Bearden: http://www.cheniere.org/explore articles/mind control1/p09.htm

The seemingly magical operations of psychoenergetics, sometimes called "psychotronics," cannot be achieved with ordinary transverse EM wave energy. But they are possible with longitudinal scalar waves because the mind itself is scalar in nature.

"We note that all mind operations are time-like, i.e., they are comprised as scalar EM photon functions and scalar EM wave functions. Thus the mind is a very special kind of electromagnetic system, existing in the time domain..."

Bearden: http://www.cheniere.org/explore articles/mind control1/p08.htm

The engineering of the mind can only be accomplished with the waves of time.

The course of psychoenergetics development necessitates the building of a vast database of settings and patterns which bring about given mental and/or emotional states.

A kind of "gnome" of the psyche. Bearden describes the process of the decoding of this "gnome."

"Now the scientists would perform many phenomenology experiments, making one little change at a time and profusely recording the data. Each time, they would establish the physical change(s) that occur in the body and/or the mental and emotional changes that occur in the mind for each spectral reinsertion back through the "ship’s portholes". They would simply but painstakingly (over some years) build up an extensive database of those individual correlates.

"In these experiments, the experimenters will eventually be able to provoke any body or mind change they wish. Strong emotion. Intense pain. Intense pleasure. Painful thoughts. Images. Memories. Perceptions. Dreams. Visions. Memory losses. Memory changes. Personality changes. Etc. The "delta" in the emission spectrum (the changes from zero reference spectrum) represent the precise totality of all mental, physical, organic, chemical, etc. changes and interactions."

Bearden: http://www.cheniere.org/explore articles/mind control3/p01.htm

"A second stage in the research would be to test the correlates and porthole insertions upon a statistically significant cross section of ordinary people, and/or specialized populations (such as toughened soldiers). The program would evolve a highly complex, very effective, ever-improving science and technology of mind and behavior control and engineering mechanisms, complete with finished database and developed applications equipment."

Bearden: http://www.cheniere.org/explore articles/mind control3/p02.htm

Summing up his paper Bearden speculates on what the actual situation the science of psychoenergetics probably is.

The intense secrecy with which this knowledge has been kept from the public has led to the current farce of the "government" pretending it all does not exist, and this secrecy may have now put us at great risk.

"The implication is that in the West one or more highly classified, sustained, heavily funded developments in advanced mind control programs, probably exists and probably has existed for some time. Due to loose formation of rogue groups inside such programs, they may have dual or triple purposes, may not operate under very much legitimate government control at all, and may operate specifically for the purposes of the rogue group or groups that have gained control.

"In a nutshell, that’s what may be going on in the clandestine mind control projects in several Western governments. The involvement of at least some rogue groups, some being "cowboys" who operate well outside all laws and ethics, could also result in such things as assassinations, clandestine testing on individuals without their consent, etc. In short, it could account for what seems to be actually occurring. As also is "usual" in such a mess, one or more of the rogue groups eventually may become very powerful because their secret weapons are very powerful. They may become confident, thinking they have the "best in the world." They may actually believe they are ahead of the Russians..."

"Remember that, in every large and powerful human organization, the basis for rogue groups is power and secrecy. They are always seeking to increase their power, control, influence, prestige, etc. Nothing else. Patriotism and mission are to rogue groups often just idle words. They have their own agendas. And being rogue groups, they may well bring in unethical, immoral tricks: assassination, bribery, entrapment, disinformation, plausible deniability, etc. A certain percentage of a highly secret rogue group will wind up using all these things and more. It’s a human characteristic, the old primate dominance game. Only now disguised and hidden under deep classification."

"The Russians, with their additional knowledge of the actual mechanisms in the transforms, will be much more advanced than the West, because their fundamental psychoenergetics science is far more advanced, so long as we continue to use the old U (l) electrodynamics. Further, the Russians have decades of use of longitudinal interferometry beams to reach right through the earth and ocean and produce stringent EM effects at a distance. So they will also be able to do the same things here in "mind control" with LW [longitudinal wave] interferometers, through intervening mass."

Bearden: http://www.cheniere.org/explore articles/mind control3/p05.htm

Bearden cites two examples where he believes the Russian KGB tested the psychoenergetics capabilities of their scalar interferometers.

One was the case of Captain Button in his A-10 "Warthog" aircraft on April 2, 1997.

Another was the case of Captain Amy Svoboda night training mission on May 27, 1997.

"Over Arizona, Captain Button was thrown into a hypnogogic state, and his perceptions instantly altered and controlled. In his instant "dream-waking" state, everything seemed perfectly normal. His sense of direction was altered a bit more than 90 degrees, so he simply corrected and turned and "flew toward the range", actually flying off course by more than 90 degrees and ignoring radio contacts. He flew right on out of Arizona."

"At one point he circled, probably thinking he was over the range, and he probably dropped his ordnance there. Then he "flew on back toward home," as he thought in his waking dream state, until his fuel ran out and he crashed and died in the explosion dream-thinking until he died that everything was normal. All the while, his sense of the passage of time was altered. To him, in his dream-thinking, dream-acting state, everything was normal and nothing untoward had happened. So the distant KGB transmitters and associated psychoenergetics team controlled him for over an hour.

"Indeed, that was the exact purpose of the test: demonstrate control (at a great distance) of a skilled person performing highly skilled tasks."

Bearden: http://www.cheniere.org/explore articles/mind control3/p06.htm

The paper Mind Control and EM Wave Polarization Transductions ends with the most chilling and frightening possibility of all: the psychoenergetic engineering of the human species as a whole......continued.

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References: Hypnotic Mindcontrol Workshop

The Ant World

Psychoenergetics

U.S. Rogue Groups ...... TIs...Pay Attention

Scalar Electromagnetics

The Tom Bearden Website

More about "The Ant World"

The Secret Shadow Government

Time Polarization - Significance and Weaponization

Mind Control and EM Wave Polarization Transductions - Part I, II & III

America's 5th Column, The "Deep State" Behind U.S. Democracy

By VoltaireNet - Posting #139

In his book The Road to 9/11, now available in French, Professor Peter Dale Scott traces back the history of the "Deep State" in the United States, that is to say the secret structure that steers defense and foreign policy behind the facade of democracy. His analysis lifts the veil on the group that organised the September 11 attacks and which finances itself through international trafficking networks.

Regarded as a reference book, The Road to 9/11 already features as recommended reading at military-diplomatic academies. This interview is a follow-up to the article " Afghanistan: Opium, the CIA and the Karzai Administration", by Peter Dale Scott, Voltaire Network, 13 December 2010.

VoltaireNet: Professor Scott, as your work is not as widely known as it ought to be in French-speaking countries, could you please start by defining what “Deep politics” is, and explain the distinction between what you call the “Deep state” and the “Public state”?

Peter Dale Scott: The term “Deep state” comes from Turkey. They invented it after the wreck of a speeding Mercedes in 1996 in which the passengers were a Member of Parliament, a beauty queen, a local senior police captain, and an important drug trafficker in Turkey who was also the head of a criminal paramilitary organization – the Grey Wolves – that went around killing people. And it became very obvious in Turkey that there were a covert relationship between the police who officially were looking for this man – even though a policeman was there with him in the car – and these people who committed crimes on behalf of the state. The state that you commit crimes for is not a state that can show its hand to the people, it’s a hidden state, a covert structure. In Turkey, they called it the Deep state, [1] and I had been talking about deep politics for a long time so I used the term in The Road to 9/11. This is why I have defined deep politics as all those political practices and arrangements, deliberate or not, which are usually repressed rather than acknowledged. So the term “Deep state” – coming from Turkey – is not mine.

It refers to a parallel secret government, organized by the intelligence and security apparatus, financed by drugs, and engaging in illicit violence, to protect the status and interests of the military against threats from intellectuals, religious groups, and occasionally the constitutional government. In this book, I adapt the term somewhat to refer to the wider interface in America between the public, the constitutionally established state, and the deep forces behind it of wealth, power, and violence outside the government. You might call it the back door of the Public state, giving access to dark forces outside the law. The analogy with Turkey is not perfect, because what we see today in America is less a parallel structure than a wide zone or milieu of interaction between the public state and unseen dark forces, as I expound in my latest book The American War Machine. But this interaction is significant, and we need a name, such as Deep state, to describe it.

VoltaireNet: Your critically acclaimed book, The Road to 9/11, was published in 2007 under the Bush regime in the United States. In November 2010, you have published your latest body of work, The American War Machine, two years after Obama’s electoral victory; in your opinion, did the influence of the Deep state decrease in favor of the Public state after Mr. Obama’s election, or did it stay the same or even increase?

Peter Dale Scott: After almost two years of the Obama presidency, I have to conclude, regretfully, that the influence of the deep state, or more accurately what in my new book I call the American war machine, has continued to increase, just as it has under every US president since Kennedy. A key sign is the extent to which Obama, despite his campaign rhetoric, has continued to expand the scope of secrecy in US government, and especially to punish whistle-blowers: his campaign against Wikileaks and Julian Assange, who has not been charged yet with any crime, is without precedent in US history. I suspect that Washington’s fear of publicity is related to its awareness that US war policies are increasingly at odds with reality. In Afghanistan Obama appears to have capitulated to the efforts of General Petraeus and other generals to ensure that US troops do not begin to withdraw from combat in 2011, as originally foreseen when in 2009 Obama authorized a troop increase. Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, reports that during that protracted administration debate over whether to escalate in Afghanistan, CIA Director Leon Panetta advised Obama that “no Democratic president can go against military advice… So just do it. Do what they say.” Obama recently told US troops in Afghanistan that “you’re achieving your objectives, you will succeed in your mission.” This echo of earlier, fatuously optimistic statements from Petraeus explains why there were no realistic appraisal of the war’s progress inside the White House in December 2010, as was originally mandated.

Like Johnson before him, the president is now trapped in a quagmire war he dare not lose, and which threatens to spread to both Pakistan and Yemen, if not further. I suspect that the deep forces dominating both political parties are now so powerful, so affluent, and above all so invested in the profits from war-making, that a president is farther than ever from challenging this power – even as it becomes more and more clear that America’s era of world dominance, like Britain’s before it, is drawing to a close.

In addition Obama, without debate or review, has extended the domestic state of emergency proclaimed after 9/11, with its drastic limitations of civil rights (see below). In September 2010 the FBI raided the homes or offices of nonviolent human rights workers in Minneapolis and Chicago, citing a recent Supreme Court ruling that nonviolent first amendment speech and advocacy was a crime if "coordinated with" or "under the direction of" a foreign group designated as "terrorist." It is worth noting that, in nine years, Congress has not once met to discuss the State of Emergency declared by George W. Bush in response to 9/11, a State of Emergency that remains in effect today. Former Congressman Dan Hamburg and I appealed publicly in 2009, both to President Obama to terminate the emergency, and to Congress to hold the hearings required of them by statute. But Obama, without discussion, extended the 9/11 Emergency again on September 2009, and again a year later. Meanwhile Congress has continued to ignore its statutory obligations....continued.

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"

WAKE UP AMERICA....ITs OUR COUNTRY!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don

References:

Obama's War

The Road To 9/11

The American War Machine