Understanding the U.S. - Israel Alliance

See this article online:http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/Understanding_the_U.S.-Israel_Alliance.asp

by Dore Gold
An Israeli response to the Walt-Mearsheimer claim.
On December 27, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy hosted the Foreign Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, in Palm Beach, Florida, for a heart-to-heart review of U.S.-Israel relations, Kennedy's language was unprecedented. According to a secret memorandum drafted by the attending representative of the State Department, Kennedy told his Israeli guest: "The United States has a special relationship with Israel in the Middle East really comparable only to what it has with Britain over a wide range of world affairs."1
According to an article prepared by two leading American political scientists, Professor John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago and Professor Stephen Walt from the Kennedy School at Harvard University, which appeared in the March 2006 edition of the London Review of Books, "neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America's support for Israel." 2 The primary explanation for U.S. backing of Israel, according to these academics, is the "unmatched power of the Israel lobby." 3 Their report is not grounded in any careful investigation of declassified U.S. documents from the Departments of State or Defense, or other military or intelligence sources. Nevertheless, their thesis has now been expanded into a book entitled The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (Farar, Straus, and Giroux), to be released in September 2007.
What led Kennedy to declare in 1962 that the U.S.-Israel relationship was even comparable to America's alliance with the British? Since the early 1950s, the U.S. defense establishment has understood Israel's potential importance to the Western Alliance. Thus, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar Bradley, assessed in 1952 that only Britain, Turkey, and Israel could help the U.S. with their air forces in the event of a Soviet attack in the Middle East. 4
Back in the early 1950s, the U.S. had a hands-off relationship with Israel as Washington focused primarily on building new Cold War alliances with the Arab states, as with the Baghdad Pact. Against whatever Israel could tangibly offer the U.S., there was always a need to politically juggle America's ties with Israel and its efforts to create strategic relations with the Arab states.
The first limited U.S. arms supply to Israel actually preceded Kennedy. During the Eisenhower years, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' plans for a Baghdad Pact collapsed with the 1958 overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, the U.S. began to upgrade its defense ties with Israel. The first direct U.S. arms sale to Israel involved 100 recoilless rifles in 1958.
Kennedy started his presidency by trying to build a new relationship with Egypt's president, Gamal Abdul Nasser. But by 1962, Nasser had intervened with large forces in Yemen, bombed Saudi border towns, and threatened to expand into the oil-producing areas of the Persian Gulf. To balance large Soviet arms sales to Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, the U.S. consented to selling Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel in 1962. When the Israel Defense Forces completely defeated the Egyptian Army in the 1967 Six-Day War, Nasser was forced to withdraw his expeditionary army from Yemen, which removed the Egyptian threat to Saudi Arabia and to the rest of the Arab oil-producers.
It was in the period of the Six-Day War that the Mediterranean Sea became a special focal point for U.S. interests in a much wider global context. Beginning in 1964, the Soviet Union started to maintain a constant naval presence with the arrival of the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron; Moscow sought airbases in the Arab states to expand its influence. President Lyndon Johnson would note: "The expanded Soviet presence in this strategic region threatened our position in Europe." 5 Soviet expansion in this area was thwarted by a combination of Israel's strength and skillful U.S. diplomacy in the years that followed.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship expanded greatly. It was President Ronald Reagan who first described Israel as a "strategic asset." In 1981, the U.S. and Israel signed their first Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which was later suspended due to political differences between the two countries; strategic cooperation was then fully resumed in 1983 after the Lebanon War. Reagan initially imposed U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation on a reluctant Pentagon led by Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, who actually opposed the new relationship. But over time, its greatest advocates became middle level U.S. officers, like Admiral Jack Darby who would later become the head of U.S. submarine forces in the Pacific. They saw the practical advantages of enhanced strategic cooperation for the U.S. military.
Defense ties between the two countries mushroomed with the first visit of a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John W. Vessey, Jr., in early 1984. 6 Joint air and naval exercises between the two countries became increasingly frequent. The U.S. Marine Corps engaged in live-fire exercises and practiced beach assaults in Israel as well. 7 By 1989, Israel's Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin would reveal that the U.S. and Israel had conducted 27 or 28 combined exercises, and that U.S. Marine Corps exercises were being held at the battalion level. 8
Israeli Actions That Served U.S. Interests
During the Cold War, the U.S. and Israel had a joint strategic interest in defeating aggressors in the Middle East seeking to invade their neighbors and disrupt the status quo, especially if they had Moscow's backing. This became the essence of the U.S.-Israel alliance in the Middle East. As already noted, this issue first came to the forefront with the Egyptian intervention in the Arabian Peninsula in 1962. It would repeat itself in 1970 when Syria invaded Jordan. Given the huge U.S. military commitment in Southeast Asia at the time, it was only the mobilization of Israeli strength that provided the external backing needed to support the embattled regime of King Hussein. 9
In 1981, Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, severely reducing Iraqi military strength. Ten years later, after a U.S.-led coalition had to liberate Kuwait following Iraq's occupation of that oil-producing mini-state, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney thanked Israel for its "bold and dramatic action" a decade earlier. Indeed, Cheney would add in an October 1991 address: "strategic cooperation with Israel remains a cornerstone of U.S. defense policy."
Israel had become one of the main forces obstructing the spread of Soviet military power in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1970 Israeli Phantoms downed Soviet-piloted MiG fighters over the Suez Canal, proving the ineffectiveness of the military umbrella Moscow provided its Middle Eastern clients in exchange for Soviet basing arrangements. When in the 1980s the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron made the Syrian port of Tartus its main submarine base, Israel offered Haifa to the U.S. Sixth Fleet, which had begun to provide port services for U.S. ships in 1977.
U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements in the 1980s over arms deployments in Central Europe increased the importance of NATO's flanks - including its southern flank - in the overall balance of power between the superpowers. The Eastern Mediterranean proved to be a particularly vulnerable point for NATO forces in those years because of its relative proximity to Soviet naval aviation bases in the southern USSR and in several Arab states. The Soviets had a specialized naval air arm that operated from land bases against adversarial navies, like the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This provided the wider strategic context for U.S.-Israeli cooperation.
By 1992, the number of U.S. Navy ship visits to Haifa had reached 50 per year. Admiral Carl Trost, the former Chief of Naval Operations, commented that with the end of the Cold War and the shifting American interest in power projection to the Middle East, the Sixth Fleet's need for facilities in the Eastern Mediterranean had actually increased. There were emerging threats that cemented U.S.-Israel ties. Six years later in 1998, the U.S. and Israel specifically added the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and intermediate-range missiles to their security agenda in a new U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding.
In 1985, the Reagan administration invited its NATO allies, along with South Korea, Japan, and Australia, to take part in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), in order to develop an effective defensive shield against ballistic missiles. Israel was invited as well. Eventually, Britain, Germany, and Israel emerged as the largest foreign participants in the program. 10 But only Israel developed the first land-based missile defense system in the world, utilizing the Arrow anti-missile system, whose development came out of this joint program. Today the Arrow is fully operational. Along the way, Israeli technological breakthroughs in missile defense were fully shared with the U.S., which was developing its own missile defense programs.
Still, critics nonetheless argue that U.S. support for Israel was disproportional, exceeding its actual strategic value. But as Professor A.F.K. Organski of the University of Michigan has demonstrated, during the Cold War years, U.S. aid to Israel was proportionally lower than aid to key allies in other regions: U.S. aid to West Germany was 17 times the assistance to Israel, while South Vietnam received about 10 times the aid Israel obtained. 11
Limitations on the U.S.-Israel Relationship
Do U.S. and Israeli interests sometimes diverge? During the Cold War, Israel needed U.S. security ties in order to increase its own capabilities to deal with hostile Arab states, but it did not seek to become a target of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, Israel signed an MOU with the U.S. in 1981 which singled out the USSR as a joint adversary of both countries. The MOU underscored that "the parties recognize the need to enhance strategic cooperation to deter all threats from the Soviet Union to the region." 12
At the time of the 2003 Iraq War, most Israeli military leaders identified Iran as the greater threat to the Middle East, which is perhaps one of the reasons Israel stood outside the political battle in Washington over whether to invade Iraq, claims to the contrary notwithstanding. Nonetheless, Israel certainly did not oppose the efforts of the U.S.-led coalition to topple Saddam Hussein, although it was recognized that a U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 could result in Iraqi retaliation against Israel, as occurred in 1991. 13
Israel itself has insisted on certain constraints in the U.S.-Israel defense relationship as a result of its firm commitment to the doctrine of self-reliance. Carl Ford, the Principal Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Bush (41) administration, confided to a Senate caucus in October 1991: "Another limitation, of course, is the longstanding view on the part of Israel, one which I think most of us share the viewpoint on...that not one ounce of American blood should be spilled in the defense of Israel." He suggested that changes needed to be introduced to make "our operations and interactions with Israel the same as they are with Great Britain and Germany."
Detractors of the U.S.-Israel relationship like to insinuate that Israel seeks to get America to fight its wars for it. The truth is completely the opposite: while U.S. forces have been stationed on the soil of Germany, South Korea, and Japan to provide for the defense of those countries in the event of an attack, Israel has always insisted on defending itself by itself. If Israel today seeks "defensible borders," this is because it wants to deploy the Israel Defense Forces and not the U.S. Army in the strategically sensitive Jordan Valley.
During the Cold War years, one of the limitations on the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship was the possible reaction of the Arab states. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the U.S. Department of Defense sought facilities' access arrangements in and near the Arab states of the Persian Gulf for the newly-created Rapid Deployment Force. Overt cooperation with Israel, it was judged, would have made obtaining those agreements more difficult. (Walt and Mearsheimer incorrectly assert that the Rapid Deployment Force was established in response to the Iranian Revolution, rather than the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and their greater proximity to the Straits of Hormuz.)
Thus, when the U.S. converted the Rapid Deployment Force in 1983 into a new, unified command for the Middle East, called the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), Israel was retained as the charge of the older U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) - along with Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon - and was thus separated, from the standpoint of U.S. planning, from the rest of the Middle East region. In other words, the U.S. found a way to separate its military ties with Israel from its Arab partners by managing them through completely different command structures.
Walt and Mearsheimer argue that since the U.S. did not rely on Israeli bases during the 1991 Gulf War, but rather sidelined the Jewish state from the anti-Saddam coalition, it was clear that Israel was actually a "strategic burden" to the U.S. But, as just demonstrated, U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation was not directed to Persian Gulf scenarios, which were the responsibility of USCENTCOM. U.S.-Israel defense ties were focused on the Eastern Mediterranean instead. Major General (res.) Avraham "Abrasha" Tamir, who served as the National Security Advisor to Israel's Minister of Defense in the early 1980s, has revealed that both countries were focused on Soviet military moves into Syria and Libya and an Israeli "air umbrella" to protect U.S. troop movements that would seek to counter this scenario. 14
Moreover, Israel's exclusion from the Gulf War coalition did not detract from its role as a key ally of last resort - or insurance policy - in the event that the U.S. military effort in Iraq faced unexpected opposition from Saddam Hussein's forces or from its regional supporters: Israel could have contributed emergency medical services or even air support if necessary. And there was nothing prohibiting the use of U.S. weapons stockpiles that had been pre-positioned in Israel during the 1990s for Gulf contingencies if the need arose. The fact that an asset of last resort is not used, in a particular scenario, does not detract from its value. (Indeed, the U.S. successfully relied on nuclear weapons for deterrence against the Soviet Union during the Cold War and, luckily, did not have to use them, which did not detract from their value.)
In any case, the Arab state reaction to the establishment of formal U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation in 1983 was characterized by one observer as "muted." 15 The Arab states appeared to accept U.S.-Israel defense ties as "a fact of life." 16 As a result, the U.S. eventually proved it could have strong military ties with Israel and with Arab states, like Saudi Arabia, at the same time. Still, Washington kept many aspects of U.S.-Israel military ties secret in order not to place unnecessary strains on its Arab allies.
After the Cold War
In the last few years, the U.S. has been far more ready to publicize joint military exercises, such as when the U.S. Air Force joined the Israeli Air Force in 2001 and held their first-ever joint maneuvers in the Negev involving mid-air refueling, dog fighting, and air-to-ground attacks. 17
The political context of U.S.-Israel cooperation has also evolved due to the readiness of NATO to expand ties with Israel; joint naval exercises were held in 2005 that included German, Greek, Spanish, and Turkish vessels as well. 18 Seeking to expand these multilateral defense relations, NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Dr. Patrick Hardouin, stated in 2006: "The ups and downs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must not limit Israel-NATO cooperation." 19
Moreover, as Iran emerges as a mutual threat to both Israel and the Sunni Arab states, it becomes difficult for Arab leaders to argue against U.S.-Israel cooperation that might also serve their security interests as well. For example, Lebanese Hizbullah has been active in Iraq training Shiite militias that attack both coalition forces and Iraqi Sunnis. Thus, an Israeli blow to Hizbullah is in the interests of the U.S., Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.
Walt and Mearsheimer do not seem aware of the evolution of attitudes in the Middle East. They are fixated on the canard that "the U.S. has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel." 20
Walt and Mearsheimer ignore the fact that al-Qaeda was not born in 1948, 1967, 1973, or in 1982 - in response to an Arab-Israeli war - but rather in 1989, following the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. Bernard Lewis and other Middle Eastern scholars have established that the Palestinian issue was, at best, a tertiary concern for Osama bin Laden, whose jihadi efforts were more focused on Chechnya, the Balkans, Kashmir, and Saudi Arabia. 21
Despite their assertions, Israel's ongoing strategic value to the U.S. today was recently underlined by the commander of USEUCOM, General Bantz J. Craddock, who told the House Armed Services Committee on March 15, 2007: "In the Middle East, Israel is the U.S.'s closest ally that consistently and directly supports our interests through security cooperation and understanding of U.S. policy in the region." He added: "Israel is a critical military partner in the difficult seam of the Middle East." 22 U.S. Ambassador to Israel Richard H. Jones told a conference on U.S.-Israel relations on May 21, 2007, that Israeli technologies were being used by the U.S. armed forces in Iraq to protect American troops from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have been responsible for most of the U.S. casualties in the Iraq War. 23
Much of the Relationship Is Classified
Much of the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship is classified, particularly in the area of intelligence sharing. There are two direct consequences from this situation. First, most aspects of U.S.-Israel defense ties are decided on the basis of the professional security considerations of those involved. Lobbying efforts in Congress cannot force a U.S. security agency to work with Israel.
And the intelligence cooperation between the two countries has been considerable; much of it preceded the solidification of the U.S.-Israel defense relationship in the 1980s. It was Israeli intelligence which obtained the exact text of the secret February 1956 speech by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party, in which he denounced the past policies of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin. The Israelis passed Khrushchev's address on to the CIA. 24
In August 1966, the Mossad succeeded in recruiting an Iraqi pilot who defected and flew a Soviet MiG 21 to Israel, which shared its intelligence on the new Soviet aircraft, about which little was previously known, with the U.S. The information obtained about the MiG 21 not only helped the Israeli Air Force less than a year later in the 1967 Six-Day War, but would be extremely valuable to the U.S., as well, since the MiG 21 became the workhorse of the North Vietnamese Air Force in the years ahead. Indeed, it became common practice for Israel to furnish whole Soviet weapons systems - like 122 and 130-mm artillery and a T-72 tank - to the U.S. for evaluation and testing, influencing the development of U.S. weapons systems and battlefield tactics during the Cold War. 25
The value of this intelligence for the U.S has been enormous. General George F. Keegan, a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence chief, told Wolf Blitzer in 1986 that he could not have obtained the same intelligence "with five CIAs." 26 He went further: "The ability of the U.S. Air Force in particular, and the Army in general, to defend whatever position it has in NATO owes more to the Israeli intelligence input than it does to any single source of intelligence, be it satellite reconnaissance, be it technology intercept, or what have you." 27
Because many elements of the U.S.-Israel security relationship are normally kept secret, it is difficult for academics, commentators, and pundits to provide a thorough net assessment of the true value of U.S.-Israel ties. Thus, Israel is left working shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S., even while finding itself caricatured by outside commentators as a worthless ally whose status is only sustained by a domestic lobby.
Israel cannot refute these claims by leaking sensitive aspects of intelligence cooperation with the U.S. to the New York Times; it might score points by doing so in American public opinion, but it would undermine the trust that the defense establishments of both countries have developed over the years.
Ask About the Saudi Lobby and U.S. Dependence on Middle East Oil
Does Israel have supporters in the U.S. that back a strong relationship between the two countries? Clearly, networks of such support exist, as they do for U.S. ties with Britain, Greece, Turkey, and India. There are also states like Saudi Arabia that have tried to tilt U.S. policy using a vast array of powerful PR firms, former diplomats, and well-connected officials. The results of those efforts have America still overly dependent on Middle Eastern oil with few energy alternatives. Given the ultimate destination of those petrodollars in recent years (the global propagation of Islamic extremism and terrorism), a serious investigation of those lobbying efforts appears to be far more appropriate than focusing on relations between the U.S. and Israel.
Indeed, Saudi Arabia is really in conflict with vital U.S. interests. Bush administration officials admit privately that of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month to fight U.S. and coalition forces, roughly half come from Saudi Arabia. 28 In August 2003, Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage admitted that funds from private Saudi charities were funding insurgents in Iraq. 29 Senior officials hint that such connections continue to this day. There is a striking irony in the way that Walt and Mearsheimer complain about the influence of pro-Israel groups in Washington, and yet both academics were prepared to appear at the National Press Club in August 2006, at the invitation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that has received financial support from Saudi and other foreign benefactors abroad and lobbies on behalf of various Middle Eastern causes throughout the United States. 30
Some Saudi benefactors still have very problematic connections. One of the largest Saudi charities, the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), had two branches in Indonesia and the Philippines which were designated by the U.S. Treasury Department on August 3, 2006, as entities that were "bankrolling [the] Al Qaida network." 31 IIRO was not a private charity nor an NGO, but was part of the Muslim World League, that had official Saudi governmental involvement. Today, massive U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia are being proposed in Washington while the U.S. Treasury Department is complaining that the Saudis are "not holding people responsible for sending money abroad for jihad." 32 Walt and Mearsheimer did not probe Saudi influence in Washington the way they went after pro-Israel lobbying.
Those who question the U.S.-Israel relationship at this time seem to overlook changes in the global threat environment that have radically altered U.S. national security interests. During the last century, the main threats to the continental U.S. came from the European continent (World War I, World War II, and the Cold War). After 1945, Americans came to accept the long-term deployment of U.S. forces in Germany and the rest of Europe as necessary for assuring the future stability of the continent and serving the American interest in containing the spread of Soviet power.
Yet in the last two decades, Americans are finding that the strategic focal point of their military activism is increasingly in the Middle East, particularly with the pacification of Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union (the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, notwithstanding). This shift from Europe to the Middle East is understandable given the fact that the main global threats to American security - al-Qaeda terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as well as missile delivery systems - now emanate from the Middle East region.
Still, many analysts are perplexed by the rising military importance of the Middle East for the U.S., and hence try to find alternative explanations. The 2003 Iraq War has made this confusion all the more acute, driving some pundits to conclude, falsely, that the only plausible explanation for the U.S. decision to remove Saddam Hussein was because of Israel. Indeed, The Economist suggested on March 17, 2007, that "The Iraq debacle has produced a fierce backlash" affecting the standing of groups supportive of Israel in Washington. This leads to the assertion that the Bush administration launched the Iraq War in response to insidious behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts made by pro-Israel organizations in Washington. No such efforts were in fact undertaken.
Walt and Mearsheimer have joined the chorus of those blaming Israel and its supporters for the decision to launch the Iraq War: "Pressure from Israel and the lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure [emphasis added]." 33
Bob Woodward of the Washington Post has written one of the most thorough journalistic accounts of the Iraq War. He describes a "top secret" Bush administration memo entitled "Iraq: Goals, Objectives and Strategy," which specifically states that one "key goal" was "to minimize disruption in international oil markets." Woodward details a conversation between Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, and President Bush in which Bandar seeks to get Bush to finish off the historic step begun by his father in 1991, by getting rid of Saddam. A letter from Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah was delivered at the same meeting with the same request. 34
Moreover, Richard A. Clarke, a subsequent Bush administration critic who was exposed to internal White House thinking about the Iraq War until March 2003, has concluded that most of the rationales for the decision to go to war reflected "a concern with the long-term stability of the House of Saud." 35 This Saudi angle has not been probed at all in public discourse. Blaming Israel for the Iraq War is easy and perhaps satisfies a need by some to explain away one of the most difficult military engagements that the U.S. has ever undertaken in its history, but it does not stand up to any rigorous standards of evidence that would be expected in the academic world.
Courtesy of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Notes
This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/Understanding_the_U.S.-Israel_Alliance.asp
Click here to receive more inspiring articles like thisAuthor Biography:Dr. Dore Gold, Israel's ambassador to the UN in 1997-99, is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and author of The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City (Regnery, 2007).





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Martial Law in The United States of America

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Saturday, 19 May 2007
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Bush Moves Toward Martial Law


Written by Frank Morales
Thursday, 26 October 2006
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.
Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law."Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." Section 333, "Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of ("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining public order, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy."For the current President, "enforcement of the laws to restore public order" means to commandeer guardsmen from any state, over the objections of local governmental, military and local police entities; ship them off to another state; conscript them in a law enforcement mode; and set them loose against "disorderly" citizenry - protesters, possibly, or those who object to forced vaccinations and quarantines in the event of a bio-terror event.The law also facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention of protesters, so called "illegal aliens," "potential terrorists" and other "undesirables" for detention in facilities already contracted for and under construction by Halliburton. That's right. Under the cover of a trumped-up "immigration emergency" and the frenzied militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration.An article on "recent contract awards" in a recent issue of the slick, insider "Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International" reported that "global engineering and technical services powerhouse KBR [Kellog, Brown & Root] announced in January 2006 that its Government and Infrastructure division was awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event of an emergency." "With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five year term," the report notes, "the contract is to be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers," "for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) - in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs." The report points out that "KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton." (3) So, in addition to authorizing another $532.8 billion for the Pentagon, including a $70-billion "supplemental provision" which covers the cost of the ongoing, mad military maneuvers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places, the new law, signed by the president in a private White House ceremony, further collapses the historic divide between the police and the military: a tell-tale sign of a rapidly consolidating police state in America, all accomplished amidst ongoing U.S. imperial pretensions of global domination, sold to an "emergency managed" and seemingly willfully gullible public as a "global war on terrorism."Make no mistake about it: the de-facto repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) is an ominous assault on American democratic tradition and jurisprudence. The 1878 Act, which reads, "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both," is the only U.S. criminal statute that outlaws military operations directed against the American people under the cover of 'law enforcement.' As such, it has been the best protection we've had against the power-hungry intentions of an unscrupulous and reckless executive, an executive intent on using force to enforce its will.Unfortunately, this past week, the president dealt posse comitatus, along with American democracy, a near fatal blow. Consequently, it will take an aroused citizenry to undo the damage wrought by this horrendous act, part and parcel, as we have seen, of a long train of abuses and outrages perpetrated by this authoritarian administration.Despite the unprecedented and shocking nature of this act, there has been no outcry in the American media, and little reaction from our elected officials in Congress. On September 19th, a lone Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) noted that 2007's Defense Authorization Act contained a "widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use the military to restore domestic order WITHOUT the consent of the nation's governors."Senator Leahy went on to stress that, "we certainly do not need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law. Invoking the Insurrection Act and using the military for law enforcement activities goes against some of the central tenets of our democracy. One can easily envision governors and mayors in charge of an emergency having to constantly look over their shoulders while someone who has never visited their communities gives the orders."A few weeks later, on the 29th of September, Leahy entered into the Congressional Record that he had "grave reservations about certain provisions of the fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill Conference Report," the language of which, he said, "subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military's involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law." This had been "slipped in," Leahy said, "as a rider with little study," while "other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals."In a telling bit of understatement, the Senator from Vermont noted that "the implications of changing the (Posse Comitatus) Act are enormous". "There is good reason," he said, "for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy. We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the States, when we make it easier for the President to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty."Senator Leahy's final ruminations: "Since hearing word a couple of weeks ago that this outcome was likely, I have wondered how Congress could have gotten to this point. It seems the changes to the Insurrection Act have survived the Conference because the Pentagon and the White House want it."The historic and ominous re-writing of the Insurrection Act, accomplished in the dead of night, which gives Bush the legal authority to declare martial law, is now an accomplished fact.The Pentagon, as one might expect, plays an even more direct role in martial law operations. Title XIV of the new law, entitled, "Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Legislative Provisions," authorizes "the Secretary of Defense to create a Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Consortium to improve the effectiveness of the Department of Defense (DOD) processes for identifying and deploying relevant DOD technology to federal, State, and local first responders."In other words, the law facilitates the "transfer" of the newest in so-called "crowd control" technology and other weaponry designed to suppress dissent from the Pentagon to local militarized police units. The new law builds on and further codifies earlier "technology transfer" agreements, specifically the 1995 DOD-Justice Department memorandum of agreement achieved back during the Clinton-Reno regime.(4)It has become clear in recent months that a critical mass of the American people have seen through the lies of the Bush administration; with the president's polls at an historic low, growing resistance to the war Iraq, and the Democrats likely to take back the Congress in mid-term elections, the Bush administration is on the ropes. And so it is particularly worrying that President Bush has seen fit, at this juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator.
Source: (1) http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/091906a.html and http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html See also, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, "The Use of Federal Troops for Disaster Assistance: Legal Issues," by Jennifer K. Elsea, Legislative Attorney, August 14, 2006
(2) http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill+h109-5122(3) Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International, "Recent Contract Awards", Summer 2006, Vol.12, No.2, pg.8; See also, Peter Dale Scott, "Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps," New American Media, January 31, 2006.(4) "Technology Transfer from defense: Concealed Weapons Detection", National Institute of Justice Journal, No 229, August, 1995, pp.42-43.
Photo source: http://sandiego.indymedia.org/images/2005/08/110478.jpg
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The United States of America Corporation

The United States Isn't a Country — It's a Corporation!
by Lisa Guliani
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." — Preamble of the original "organic" Constitution
"We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." — Excerpted from the Declaration of Independence of the original thirteen united states of America, July 4, 1776
Fourth of July 2002 has come and gone, and Americans honored the holiday with a renewed patriotic fervor that reminded me of the Bicentennial celebrations of 1976. As is customary, traditional fireworks displays took center stage and scores of people turned out to witness the dazzling show in the summer sky. With mixed feelings, I sat with friends on a crowded Pennsylvania sidewalk beneath a glittering, mesmerizing explosion of color, pondering the keen sense of sadness and betrayal that overwhelmed my spirit. Looking around at the huge crowds gathered for the annual events, I thought silently, "We are not free." In truth, we have not been a free people for a very long time.
We celebrate this day in honor of our "independence". We call ourselves a free people in a land of liberty. Our anthems proudly sing the praises of this nation, and we raise our voices, wave our flags and join in song — but how many Americans realize they are not free? This is a myth perpetuated by the powers-that-be in order to avoid any major civil unrest, and to keep us all living under the thumb of a militaristic corporate Big Brother within the illusions that have been created for us. The truth of the matter is this: what freedom has not been stolen from us, we have surrendered willingly through our silence and ignorance. As Americans, most of us have no idea how our freedoms are maintained — or lost. Apparently, our ancestors didn't have a good grasp of this either. It is sad, but it is also very true.
Don't point to that beloved parchment, the Constitution, as a symbol of your enduring freedom. It is representative of a form of government which seemingly no longer exists in this country today. The Constitution has been thrown out the window, the Republic shoved aside and replaced with a democracy. The thing is; most people in this country remain unaware that this is so because they simply do not know the truth — what lies beyond the myths. Your so-called government is not going to tell you, either.
To even begin to understand what has happened to the Republic, we must look backward in time to the period following the Civil War. We must go back to the year 1871, which was the beginning of the decline of the Republic. When we examine what happened during that time in our history, we begin to piece together this troubling, perplexing puzzle that is "America" — only then should we answer as to whether we are indeed a "free" people or not.
So, let's roll backward into the past for a moment. It is time we learned what they didn't teach us in school. It is far more interesting than what they DID tell us. I think you'll stay awake for this lesson.
The date is February 21, 1871 and the Forty-First Congress is in session. I refer you to the "Acts of the Forty-First Congress," Section 34, Session III, chapters 61 and 62. On this date in the history of our nation, Congress passed an Act titled: "An Act To Provide A Government for the District of Columbia." This is also known as the "Act of 1871." What does this mean? Well, it means that Congress, under no constitutional authority to do so, created a separate form of government for the District of Columbia, which is a ten mile square parcel of land.
What??? How could they do that? Moreover, WHY would they do that? To explain, let's look at the circumstances of those days. The Act of 1871 was passed at a vulnerable time in America. Our nation was essentially bankrupt — weakened and financially depleted in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Civil War itself was nothing more than a calculated "front" for some pretty fancy footwork by corporate backroom players. It was a strategic maneuver by European interests (the international bankers) who were intent upon gaining a stranglehold on the neck (and the coffers) of America.
The Congress realized our country was in dire financial straits, so they cut a deal with the international bankers — (in those days, the Rothschilds of London were dipping their fingers into everyone's pie) thereby incurring a DEBT to said bankers. If we think about banks, we know they do not just lend us money out of the goodness of their hearts. A bank will not do anything for you unless it is entirely in their best interest to do so. There has to be some sort of collateral or some string attached which puts you and me (the borrower) into a subservient position. This was true back in 1871 as well. The conniving international bankers were not about to lend our floundering nation any money without some serious stipulations. So, they devised a brilliant way of getting their foot in the door of the United States (a prize they had coveted for some time, but had been unable to grasp thanks to our Founding Fathers, who despised them and held them in check), and thus, the Act of 1871 was passed.
In essence, this Act formed the corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. Note the capitalization, because it is important. This corporation, owned by foreign interests, moved right in and shoved the original "organic" version of the Constitution into a dusty corner. With the "Act of 1871," our Constitution was defaced in the sense that the title was block-capitalized and the word "for" was changed to the word "of" in the title. The original Constitution drafted by the Founding Fathers, was written in this manner:
"The Constitution for the united states of America".
The altered version reads: "THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA". It is the corporate constitution. It is NOT the same document you might think it is. The corporate constitution operates in an economic capacity and has been used to fool the People into thinking it is the same parchment that governs the Republic. It absolutely is not.
Capitalization — an insignificant change? Not when one is referring to the context of a legal document, it isn't. Such minor alterations have had major impacts on each subsequent generation born in this country. What the Congress did with the passage of the Act of 1871 was create an entirely new document, a constitution for the government of the District of Columbia. The kind of government THEY created was a corporation. The new, altered Constitution serves as the constitution of the corporation, and not that of America. Think about that for a moment.
Incidentally, this corporate constitution does not benefit the Republic. It serves only to benefit the corporation. It does nothing good for you or me — and it operates outside of the original Constitution. Instead of absolute rights guaranteed under the "organic" Constitution, we now have "relative" rights or privileges. One example of this is the Sovereign's right to travel, which has been transformed under corporate government policy into a "privilege" which we must be licensed to engage in. This operates outside of the original Constitution.
So, Congress committed TREASON against the People, who were considered Sovereign under the Declaration of Independence and the organic Constitution. When we consider the word "Sovereign," we must think about what the word means.
According to Webster's Dictionary, "sovereign" is defined as: 1. chief or highest; supreme. 2. Supreme in power, superior in position to all others. 3. Independent of, and unlimited by, any other, possessing or entitled to, original and independent authority or jurisdiction.
In other words, our government was created by and for "sovereigns" — the free citizens who were deemed the highest authority. Only the People can be sovereign — remember that. Government cannot be sovereign. We can also look to the Declaration of Independence, where we read: "government is subject to the consent of the governed" — that's supposed to be us, the sovereigns. Do you feel like a sovereign nowadays? I don't.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist or a constitutional historian to figure out that this is not what is happening in our country today. Government in these times is NOT subject to the consent of the governed. Rather, the governed are subject to the whim and greed of the corporation, which has stretched its tentacles beyond the ten-mile-square parcel of land known as the District of Columbia — encroaching into every state of the Republic. Mind you, the corporation has NO jurisdiction outside of the District of Columbia. THEY just want you to think it does.
You see, you are presumed to know the law. This is ironic because as a people, we are taught basically nothing about the law in school. We are made to memorize obscure factoids and paragraphs here and there, such as the Preamble, and they gloss over the Bill of Rights. But we are not told about the law. Nor do our corporate government schools delve into the Constitution in any great depth. After all, they were put into place to indoctrinate and dumb down the masses — not to teach us anything. We were not told that we were sold-out to foreign interests and made beneficiaries of the debt incurred by Congress to the international bankers. For generations, American citizens have had the bulk of their earnings confiscated to pay on a massive debt that they, as a People, did not incur. There are many, many things the People have not been told. How do you feel about being made a beneficiary of somebody else's massive debt without your knowledge or consent? Are we gonna keep going along with this??
When you hear some individuals say that the Constitution is null and void, think about how our government has transformed over time from a municipal or service-oriented entity to a corporate or profit-oriented entity. We are living under the myth that this is lawful, but it is not. We are being ruled by a "de facto," or unlawful, form of government — the corporate body of the death-mongers — The Controllers.
With the passage of the Act of 1871, a series of subtle and overt deceptions were set in motion — all in conjunction and collusion with the Congress, who knowingly and deliberately sold the People down the river. Did they tell you this in government school? I doubt it. They were too busy drumming the fictional version of history into your brain — and mine. By failing to disclose what THEY did to the American People, the people became ignorant of what was happening. Over time, the Republic took it on the chin to the point of a knockdown. With the surrender of their gold in 1933, the People essentially surrendered their law. I don't suppose you were taught THAT in school either. That's because our REAL history is hidden from us. This is the way Roman Civil Law works — and our form of governance today is based upon Roman Civil Law and Admiralty/Maritime Law — better known as the "Divine Right of Kings" and "Law of the Seas", respectively. This explains a lot. Roman Civil Law was fully established in the original colonies even before our nation began and is also known as private international law.
The government which was created for the District of Columbia via the Act of 1871 operates under Private International Law, and not Common Law, which was the law of the Constitutional Republic. This is very important to note since it impacts all Americans in concrete ways. You must recognize that private international law is only applicable within the District of Columbia and NOT in the other states of the Union. The various arms of the corporation are known as "departments" such as the Judiciary, Justice and Treasury. You recognize those names? Yes, you do! But they are not what you assume them to be. These "departments" all belong to the corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. They do NOT belong to you and me under the corporate constitution and its various amendments that operate outside of the Constitutional Republic.
I refer you to the UNITED STATES CODE (note the capitalization, indicating the corporation, not the Republic) Title 28 3002 (15) (A) (B) (C). It is stated unequivocally that the UNITED STATES is a corporation. Realize, too, that the corporation is not a separate and distinct entity from the government. It IS the government. YOUR government. This is extremely important. I refer to this as the "corporate empire of the UNITED STATES," which operates under Roman Civil Law outside of the Constitution. How do you like being ruled by a cheesy, sleazy corporation? You'll ask your Congressperson about this, you say? HA!!
Congress is fully aware of this deception. You must be made aware that the members of Congress do NOT work for you and me. Rather, they work for the Corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. Is this really any surprise to you? This is why we can't get them to do anything on our behalf or to answer to us — as in the case with the illegal income tax — among many other things. Contrary to popular belief, they are NOT our civil servants. They do NOT work for us. They are the servants of the corporate government and carry out its bidding. Period.
The great number of committees and sub-committees that the Congress has created all work together like a multi-headed monster to oversee the various corporate "departments." And, you should know that every single one of these that operates outside the District of Columbia is in violation of the law. The corporate government of the UNITED STATES has no jurisdiction or authority in ANY state of the Republic beyond the District of Columbia. Let this sink into your brain for a minute. Ask yourself, "Could this deception REALLY have occurred without the full knowledge and complicity of the Congress?" Do you think it happened by accident? You are deceiving yourself if you do. There are no accidents or coincidences. It is time to confront the truth and awaken from ignorance.
Your legislators will not apprise you of this information. You are presumed to know the law. THEY know you don't know the law, or your history for that matter, because this information has not been taught to you. No concerted effort has been made to inform you. As a Sovereign, you are entitled to full disclosure of the facts. As a slave, you are entitled to nothing other than what the corporation decides to "give" you — at a price. Be wary of accepting so-called "benefits" of the corporation of the UNITED STATES. Aren't you enslaved enough already?
I said (above) that you are presumed to know the law. Still, it matters not if you don't in the eyes of the corporation. Ignorance of the law is not considered an excuse. It is your responsibility and your obligation as an American to learn about the law and how it applies to you. THEY count on the fact that most people are too uninterested or distracted or lazy to do so. The People have been mentally conditioned to allow the alleged government to do their thinking for them. We need to turn that around if we are to save our Republic before it is too late.
The UNITED STATES government is basically a corporate instrument of the international bankers. This means YOU are owned by the corporation from birth to death. The corporate UNITED STATES also holds ownership of all your assets, your property, and even your children. Does this sound untrue? Think long and hard about all those bills you pay, all those various taxes and fines and licenses you must pay for. Yes, they've got you by the pockets. Actually, they've had you by the ass for as long as you've been alive. In your heart, you know it's true. Don't believe any of this? Read up on the 14th Amendment. Check out how "free" you really are.
With the Act of 1871 and subsequent legislation such as the purportedly ratified 14th Amendment, our once-great nation of Sovereigns has been subverted from a Republic to a democracy. As is the case under Roman Civil Law, our ignorance of the facts has led to our silence. Our silence has been construed as our consent to become beneficiaries of a debt we did not incur. The Sovereign People have been deceived for hundreds of years into thinking they remain free and independent, when in actuality we continue to be slaves and servants of the corporation.
Treason was committed against the People in 1871 by the Congress. This could have been corrected through the decades by some honest men (assuming there were some), but it was not, mainly due to lust for money and power. Nothing new there. Are we to forgive and justify this crime against the People? You have lost more freedom than you may realize due to corporate infiltration of the so-called government. We will lose more unless we turn away from a democracy that is the direct road to disaster — and restore our Constitutional Republic.
In an upcoming article, we'll take a closer look at the purportedly ratified 14th Amendment and how we became "property" of the corporation and enslaved by our silence.
I am saddened to think about the brave men and women who were killed in all the wars and conflicts instigated by the Controllers. These courageous souls fought for the preservation of ideals they believed to be true — not for the likes of a corporation. Do you believe that any one of the individuals who have been killed as a result of war would have willingly fought if they knew the full truth? Do you think one person would have laid down his life for a corporation? I think not. If the People had known long ago to what extent their trust had been betrayed, I wonder how long it would have taken for another Revolution. What we need is a Revolution in THOUGHT. We change our thinking and we change our world.
Will we ever restore the Republic? That is a question I cannot answer yet. I hope, and most of all — pray — that WE, the Sovereign People, will work together in a spirit of cooperation to make it happen in this lifetime. I know I will give it my best shot — come what may. Our children deserve their rightful legacy — the liberty our ancestors fought so hard to give to us. Will we remain silent telling ourselves we are free, and perpetuate the MYTH? Or, do we stand as One Sovereign People, and take back what has been stolen from the house of our Republic?
Something to think about — it's called freedom.

The Big Lie

Thomas Paine's Corner
Thomas Paine's Corner is a site dedicated to fostering socioeconomic justice and supporting the cause of all oppressed and exploited sentient beings on our Earth.
Thursday, April 05, 2007

The Big Lie

The United States of America vs. THE UNITED STATESBy Dhane Blue4/5/07The date is February 21, 1871 and the Forty-First Congress is in session. On this date in the history of our nation, Congress passed an Act titled: "An Act To Provide A Government for the District of Columbia." This is also known as the "Act of 1871." In essence, this Act formed the corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. The government which was created for the District of Columbia via the Act of 1871 operates under Private International Law, and not Common Law, which was the law of the Constitutional Republic. The UNITED STATES government is basically a corporate instrument of the international bankers. This means YOU are owned by the corporation from birth to death. The corporate UNITED STATES also holds ownership of all your assets, your property, and even your children. With the Act of 1871 and subsequent legislation such as the purportedly ratified 14th Amendment, our once-great nation of Sovereigns has been subverted from a Republic to a democracy. The Sovereign People have been deceived for hundreds of years into thinking they remain free and independent, when in actuality we continue to be slaves and servants of the corporation. The United States Isn't a Country - It's a Corporation by Lisa Guliana (www.serendipity.li)IntroductionThe United States of America was once described as the perfect example of a free society, or at least the 'seed' of one. Yet, not all of the world's peoples would agree with this statement at present. Many of THE UNITED STATES' flag-waving super-patriots would be surprised to learn that their behavior, seen from a perspective outside of their own 'blinkered' vision, is considered delusional at best and genocidal at worst. In fact, THE UNITED STATES is a crypto-fascist state with a secret government hidden from the People of the United States of America. This 'secret' government is a pathological corporate entity that has defrauded American people of their natural birth rights in the same way that European colonialists once robbed the original inhabitants of America of their very lives. A nation born in and drenched in the blood of a genocide enforced upon a 'truly' democratic native society deserves no better. What do THE UNITED STATES' super-patriots believe?The greatest of all illusions is the idea that a patriot exists to defend his Country. Whoever defines the word 'Country' can easily usurp the power of a patriot's dedicated loyalty and turn them to ends that a true patriot would cry out against in horror. Note the attitude of many in America during times of war, or during the present post-9/11 silliness. Many are willing to lend their life energies to the genocide THE UNITED STATES has been perpetrating in the Middle East for the past 15 years simply because the shared mental image of 'Country' has been perceived to be attacked. Even worse, we are ready to do the same harm to ourselves once the opportunistic rulers give the command to do so. A true patriot defends the country in which he immediately lives and works in. This country is spelled with a little "c", as in countryside. Taking care of one's friends, families, and neighbors, as well as the land they all share that supports them, is the highest of all patriot duties. If the land area that you live on is free, happy and prosperous, then you have done your duty to the world, and no more is required of you. True Patriots by Patrick Mooney (www.unlearning.org)If the land area that you live on is free, happy and prosperous, then you have done your duty to the world, and no more is required of you. I find fault even with this definition of 'patriot'. Someone is still using words to define property rights - I disagree. The planet Earth belongs to ALL the People living here. It is the ONLY resource we ALL share. No one individual of the world's population or any 'elitist group' of the world's population has the right to more than an equal share of this finite resource. It is in the idea that someone does - in the idea of survival of the fittest and a Darwinian paradigm -- that people become delusional. They buy into the idea that our planet has scarce resources and that they should be fought over. The planet Earth is about COOPERATION - this is the law of survival here! THE UNITED STATES is The Big Lie sold to the people of America who believe THEIR survival is dependent on the Darwinian delusion of reality. How do people discover this planet's Truth and become free of The Big Lie? Well, that's what we're ALL here for, to learn 'cooperation' instead of 'competition'.Truth and FreedomFreedom is a natural state of being for humanity. It has been part of life on this planet from the beginning of time. The force of freedom and liberty is part and parcel of life itself. It does not require a law to protect it nor a piece of paper to prove it. It is self-evident to people who experience it in their hearts and minds. If we burn a piece of paper that espouses freedom, does the experience of freedom disappear? Unfortunately, freedom of mind has become a rare quantity in THE UNITED STATES - it already has excised the human heart from its corporate body. What good is 'freedom of speech' when 'freedom of thought' is no longer exercised in American society? What has this society become? I would hypothesize it is nothing more than a corporate mind-controlled zombie - a modern day Frankenstein.When society is itself the tyrant -- society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it -- its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs (to be) protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (www.serendipity.li)Many people believe that the idea of freedom was a new thought until recently. They believe it slowly grew over time, and was secured with pieces of paper, contracts between people who agreed to be bound by their rules and principles. People point to these contracts as proof of freedom in the world - the Magna Carta of 1215, the Declaration of Independence of 1776, the U.S. Constitution of 1789, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 that guides the doctrine of the United Nations. We should note that all the contracts were written by white people under heavy Masonic influence. These are the people who created the United States of America as an experiment in social engineering. They used the words of Orwellian 'double-speak' to hypnotize the masses of the emergent American society into accepting a contract that is null and void in Common Law. The people of the United States of America are still in a system of servitude and don't even recognize it. This 'servitude' is a virtual Hell on Earth. The people of the United States of America were once Sovereign. Now, by their acceptance of The Big Lie -- the 'behavior' they have been indoctrinated into - they have lost the experience of freedom to governmental mind control.As a people we will never taste liberation, or live in a genuinely democratic society, until we free our minds (from governmental mind control). The open mind is not a conditioned (brainwashed) one. So long as we believe in the conditioning supplied to us by the institutions of our day, we will never achieve our full potential as human beings. That vast potential is no less than genius. As a species we use less than 10% of our mental capacities, and perhaps even less of our spiritual abilities, because of the faulty, culturally imposed beliefs we teach our children to revere. Our felt lack is learned (Pavlovian) behavior Restoring Power to the People by Matthew Webb (www.eoni.com/~visionquest)If the fraudulent contracts of THE UNITED STATES and the words constituting them are to be taken seriously, we, the People of the United States of America need to burn them. The paper and ink they are made of are worthless except as toilet paper because they don't represent true self-government by the People. How can we, the People of the United States of America, let ourselves be reduced to something less than the Sovereigns we once were? In the same fashion, THE UNITED STATES is simply a legal fiction, a corporation - NOT a living being - put in place to control American society. How can we, the People of the United States of America, consent to partnership with such a a life-denying artifice, The Big Lie, that has taken over our society? The People of the United States of America need de-programmers to awaken from the cultural trance they've been placed into by The Big Lie. This is an internal revolution -- an implosion. For those People awakened to this Truth, they only need to learn to live in freedom without governmental controllers. A return to self-governance at the local level of family and community means a return to communion within a 'collective human soul'. It is an organic re-Constitution of a sane society.The First ScamDuring the era of feudalism throughout Europe there were three recognized 'elites' - the church hierarchy, the landed aristocracy or nobility, and the royal families. Society was run by these three 'elitist' powers, with competition amongst themselves, but there was never any illusion of democracy or freedom. For those 'elitists', freedom meant 'Empire'. They considered it their natural right to play at the game of 'Empire-building'. War was the sport of kings. The common people of that era, the serfs, had no say whatsoever over how their lives were governed. As feudalism ended, a fourth 'elitist' power slowly arose in European society - wealthy business people. They were interested in freedom for commercialism -- freedom from the interference and control of the other three 'elitist' powers. By the time that Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense, the common people were being sold the potential for a partnership with this fourth 'elitist' power.Common Sense created in the popular Western mind, for the first time, perhaps, since the early Roman republic, the notion that government arises from the consent of the governed - that the People are the state. Paine was popularizing - and expanding the scope of - some of the radical ideas that had been developed by Enlightenment thinkers generally. He was concerned with promoting personal freedom, popular sovereignty, and - most particularly - creating an ironclad case for the legitimacy of a government based on the will of the People rather than on divine right or inherited dominion America and the New World Order by Richard K. Moore (www.cyberjournal.org)Of course, the first scam is the idea that the People need government to have freedom. Even the emerging business elites were scammed --- they saw republics (contractual government) as a better environment for capitalism. It was their new promise of freedom to play at Empire-building. Was their contract for freedom a play at being the Devil's advocate - a dialectic with the Catholic Church? The American Revolution was their grab for power as these new elites offered the People a partnership in a new regime. The People were the manpower for the apparent overthrow of the old elites and were led on by the promises of liberty, equality, and a fraternity with the new elites. Thus, the American War of Independence was fought for the goal of Freedom - but, this word had two different shades of meaning - one for each class of people. The common populace thought it meant, primarily, personal freedom and popular democratic sovereignty. The business elites thought it meant commercial freedom to pursue capital investment uncontrolled by royal or divine authority. And, at the first Continental Congress of 1774, the business elites acted on that thought - as the members of this Congress were chosen from the ablest and wealthiest Americans, the upper class. These people definitely believed that the People who owned the country should govern it. Of course, everyone wants to own planet Earth - don't they? But, who shall the ultimate 'stewards' be?The American Revolution was a 'kind of revolution' (NOT a true revolution from the bottom up). Although there was some of the 'rabble' effect of the common people, as in the English Civil War, the American Revolution was obviously a revolt of American elites, as shown by the names that signed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution giving full citizens' rights to white, land-owning men, and the fact that the oligarchy tried managing the 'rabble' from the beginnings of the American Revolution, and quickly took over the American political system. American Empire by Wade Frazier (www.ahealedplanet.net)America's small farmers and artisans - the common people -- resisted this vision of a 'commercial empire' dreamed up by the business elites. They had a taste of freedom and didn't want to lose it. The common people's vision of government was based upon their encounters with America's original inhabitants - native Indians. A very rare minority of these common people were the brave pioneers who went 'native' and were exterminated by the 'corporate' European colonists for their choice. From 1781 to 1789, the United States of America was governed by the Congress delineated in the original Articles of Confederation. It was a government modeled after the Iroquois Great Law of Peace and the Iroquois Confederation. This Native American confederation was more democratic than any political system ever devised by the West (or the East). A decentralized system of government, it made decisions by consensus and very little power was ever invested in any one individual. The original Congress of the United States of America was the only branch of government. There was no separate Senate, no Supreme Court, and no President. There was no way to coerce individual states into agreement with the business elites nor was there a way to use force to put down rebellions - not hardly a prescription for play at Empire-building. American history, ever since this early period, has been a 'see-saw' battle for control between the common people and the business elites - both just pawns on a larger playing board. It didn't take long for the business elites to serve a so-called 'higher authority' and implement The Big Lie. The big question here is who or what did they serve? The country's first president, George Washington, was one of U.S. history's most successful criminals. While school children are still led to believe the silly story about a youthful George Washington chopping down a cherry tree, and proclaiming -- I cannot tell a lie. I did it. -- his entire career as President was a blatant negation of this familiar cultural myth. In 1782, as the dust was settling on America's successful elite revolt (although the poor were drafted to fight in it); Washington presented a plan to the Continental Congress to defraud the Native Americans. It was a blueprint for theft and genocide. His plan was to compel Native Americans to sell their land by treaty. Then, (as apparently with ALL of THE UNITED STATES' treaties since then) the treaty was not worth the paper it was printed on, and the tribes would be coerced to 'sell' their treaty-provided land and be forced ever westward. Of more than 370 treaties forced onto the native tribes by the United States during the succeeding century, historians cannot find even one that the United States honored. Washington was the architect of America's Final Solution to the Indian Problem. Hitler later was deceived into adopting a similar German Final Solution to the Jewish Problem, partly, because he admired the American model.Is it possible for a class which exterminates the native peoples of the Americas, replaces them by raping Africa for humans it then denigrates and dehumanizes as slaves, while cheapening and degrading its own working class - is it possible for such a class to create democracy, equality, and to advance the cause of human 'freedom'? The implicit answer is, No. Of course not. Towards an American Revolution by Jerry Fresia (www.cyberjournal.org)The truth is that America's Founding Fathers were racist slave owners who committed genocide upon America's original inhabitants to expand their 'commercial empire'. They had been sold the freedom of playing at Empire-building and were the 'new kids on the block'. Did they stop to read the fine print in their contract with the Devil? Is it any surprise that they defrauded we, the People, of the United States of America, at the first opportunity they had - the Constitutional Convention of 1789? The so-called original Constitution of the U.S.A. had no Bill of Rights. We, the People, had to fight the business elites for it. This elite-drafted Constitution was NOT written with the full blessings of we, the People. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1789 had agreed to secrecy because the majority of American people were against this new Constitution - they still identified with the original Articles of Confederation. They had no idea that the Constitutional Convention of 1789 meant to completely restructure their local form of self-government. There was wide agreement among the lower and middle classes that political power should be as close to the local level as possible. The original Congress established by the Articles of Confederation was only meant to settle disputes between states, where true local government was located. However, the business elites had decided to take over the government and make it serve their interests, not the People's. The business elites were dependent on interstate and international markets. The game of 'Empire-building' was their freedom - NOT the freedom of family and community values opposed to their deal with the Devil of 'Money as God Mammon'. The 'Mammon worshipers' wanted a strong military to force others to act in their - the business elites' - interests. The Constitutional Convention of 1789 was the business elites' first opportunity to stab the American people in the back. The business elites thought people of humble origins with parochial interests - family, faith and community - had too much power. These people had even used their local form of self-government to curb the business elites' economic power and further expansion of their commercial empire. With the restructuring of the government by the business elites, they now had the power to rule over we, the People, of the United States of America. It was The First Scam.Ours is a government which rests on the assumption that 'the People', especially when they become politically excited, interested, and alive, are thought of as subversive. But, we seem to prefer to protect our moral high-mindedness by permitting elites, virtually at every chance they get, to persist in the (Big) lie that it is 'we the People' and not 'we the largest property owners' who govern this country. Ideological managers would have us forget that the phrase 'we the People' borrowed from the Iroquois by the Framers (of the U.S. Constitution), and exploited, ('We, the People, to form a union, to establish peace, equity and order ...'), was taken from the Iroquois Treaty of 1520. (The greatest irony is that the Framers of the Constitution were committing genocide upon these same people, the Iroquois). Towards an American Revolution by Jerry Fresia (www.cyberjournal.org)The Second ScamIn the aftermath of the American Civil War, the U.S.A. was bankrupt. With the assassination of Lincoln and the eradication of his government-printed money, the 'would-be' new royalist elites in the form of the international bankers moved in. These elites wanted to gain a stranglehold on America's neck and institute their newest scam on we, the People, of the United States of America. It was their turn - the international bankers, this time --- to take over the government. Congress had borrowed money from these international bankers - the Rothschilds -- but had no collateral for the loan. So, they made a deal with the Devil of 'Money', literally selling the collective soul of America in exchange for relative continued wealth and power for members of this treasonous Congress. This was achieved in the Act of 1871 that formed the corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. Owned by foreign interests, it was limited to the confines of the District of Columbia. This corporation acts in an economic capacity and its constitution, or legal definition of itself, was an entirely new document for the government of the District of Columbia. It has no authority except in private international law, not applicable in the states of America. How this new federal government stripped the states of America of their Sovereign powers is another essay. It is sufficient to surmise that The Second Scam succeeded. Members of Congress from that time onwards have worked for this corporation. They are NOT, we, the People's, civil servants. All departments of this government outside of the District of Columbia are violating Common Law, the law of we, the People, of the United States of America. This scam, or fraud, has been given legs because there has been no full disclosure of facts to American citizens. The constitution of this corporation doesn't benefit the United States of America as it operates outside of their original Constitution. It has taken the idea of government to a whole new level - that of the corporation as state. Instead of absolute rights of Sovereigns stipulated in the original Constitution, we, the People, of today, have been given relative rights and privileges if we want to participate in the pathological mindset of the corporate state. Our government, now a corporation, is no longer subject to the consent of the governed populace. How did the elites achieve this Act of 1871 without disclosure of the facts? Well, their contract was with the Devil of 'Money', not the People of the United States of America.(We, the People) are presumed to know the law (of the Pharisees). (But), as a people, we are taught basically nothing about the law in school. Nor do our corporate government schools delve into the Constitution in any great depth. (We, the People) were not told that we were sold out to foreign interests and made beneficiaries of the debt incurred by Congress to the international bankers. For generations, American citizens have had the bulk of their earnings confiscated to pay on a massive debt that they, as a People, did not incur. The United States Isn't a Country - It's a Corporation by Lisa Guliani (www.serendipity.li)In the United States, we, the People, have let ourselves become ruled by a 'de facto' unlawful form of government, a corporate body that 'exists' only in private international law. Despite the rhetoric and propaganda, a ruthless and authoritarian federal government has come to trample on the natural rights of the People, and many citizens, especially those that do not belong to the racial majority or do not fit into the corporate-capitalist model of society, are imprisoned for victim-less 'crimes' and lose both liberty and property. Far from being a model for the world of a government of a free people, the government of THE UNITED STATES is in effect a fascist dictatorship, such as the world has not seen openly since the 1930's.Ironically, it is the average American today who would denounce revolutionary patriotism as radical and dangerous. It is the average American who now doesn't wish to be bothered by activism or talk of freedom, civil liberties or justice, because they are too busy making or maintaining their own empire of money. Most of our 'patriotic' citizens only value their own personal business, far more than they do such 'radical' causes as revolution or civil rights. These things they say, are better left to those 'fringe' and psychotic groups or individuals, who deserve to be arrested and imprisoned for threatening the safety of the status quo (American society's Devil of 'Money' worshipers). Who truly cares about these issues today? Almost no one. Why? Because we no longer value, as a culture, the qualities of freedom and sovereignty which literally defined our nation. Let's face it, the issues and values of the (We, the People, of the United States of America), just don't compete with those of greedy consumerism and egotism, which fully permeate the modern world. What could be more important, after all, then making that next car payment or getting that new credit card? As a people we have become programmed to 'consume', obey and accept sheepishly, rather than to be bothered by independent thought or action. Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death by Matthew Webb (www.ahealedplanet.net)Modern America believes that the people exist to obey and serve government. This attitude is due to the efforts of corporate propaganda and pseudo-education, based upon the elites' desire for profit and mass-control. It is a symptom of greedy corruption based in anti-democracy. The fact of the matter is, government exists as an extension of the will of the People. When it does otherwise, it is no longer a government that should remain in place, for it has proven itself unworthy to represent we, the People, of the United States of America. In essence, America has exchanged the tyranny of kings for the tyranny of corporate C.E.O.'s. The faces and titles have changed, but not the same old issues of inequality and non-representation. As a matter of fact, there are extremely few people who would not literally jump at the chance to change places with the rich, even if this meant betraying family, friends and the cause of civil liberties to do so. From corporate president to peasant farmer or cashier, American society has become permeated with the rot of materialistic values, over and above those of freedom and human excellence. Until these values of worshiping Money as God (Devil) are changed, THE UNITED STATES' citizens will remain the very oppressors and con artists for hire, whom were fought against by the Native Americans in the 18th century.Rebirth of the United States of America The author of this essay has become a spiritual anarchist and is an American ex-patriate. This essay only addresses two of the many scams perpetrated upon the American People. I don't want to belittle American culture and write about a 'strike three' for America. Even if it were to be so, that would only be an 'out' for one player on the American team. I no longer consider myself as a 'pawn' upon the playing board of the 'Empire-builders'. For those readers interested in learning more about the eternal struggle for freedom, this author reminds them that the 'Kingdom of Heaven' lies within - remember that implosion and not the explosions of 9-11.
Posted by Jason Miller at 12:42 PM

The Hidden Government

As you know far too well, a government that is not watched and checked by the powers given it by the people in the Constitution, that goes unchecked and unguarded, can evolve into a runaway train of power that can prove to be very difficult to slow down, much less to stop. The Constitution, a copy of which I keep on my desk for quick reference, has arranged for a system of checks and balances of all branches of government, but when the judicial and legislative branches kowtow to the executive branch, giving the executive branch a free pass, going unchecked, unlimited powers can become institutionalized in the executive branch, given to the executive branch by itself. A case in point follows:

George W. Bush Signs Law Which May Impose Martial Law
Capitol Hill Blue is a not-for-profit, non-commercial experiment in on-line journalism published as an information resource for our readers. All material is © 2006 Capitol Hill Blue. For more information, please check out our FAQ. We take your privacy seriously at Capitol Hill Blue.Home / The Rant / ReaderRantThe RantBush could seize absolute control of U.S. government DOUG THOMPSON Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue Jan. 13, 2006, 07:42 Email this article Printer friendly page President George W. Bush has signed executive orders giving him sole authority to impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus and ignore the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits deployment of U.S. troops on American streets. This would give him absolute dictatorial power over the government with no checks and balances. Bush discussed imposing martial law on American streets in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by activating “national security initiatives” put in place by Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. These “national security initiatives," hatched in 1982 by controversial Marine Colonel Oliver North, later one of the key players in the Iran-Contra Scandal, charged the Federal Emergency Management Agency with administering executive orders that allowed suspension of the Constitution, implementation of martial law, establishment of internment camps, and the turning the government over to the President. John Brinkerhoff, deputy director of FEMA, developed the martial law implementation plan, following a template originally developed by former FEMA director Louis Guiffrida to battle a “national uprising of black militants.” Gifuffrida’s implementation of martial law called for jailing at least 21 million African Americans in “relocation camps.” Brinkerhoff later admitted in an interview with the Miami Herald that President Reagan signed off on the initiatives and they remained in place, dormant, until George W. Bush took office.Brinkerhoff moved on the Anser Institute for Homeland Security and, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, provided the Bush White House and the Pentagon with talking points supporting revised “national security initiatives” that would could allow imposition of martial law and suspension of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the law that is supposed to forbid use of troops for domestic law enforcement.Brinkerhoff wrote that intentions of Posse Comitatus are “misunderstood and misapplied” and that the U.S. has in times of national emergency the “full and absolute authority” to send troops into American streets to “enforce order and maintain the peace.” Bush used parts of the plan to send troops into the streets of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. In addition, FEMA hired former special forces personnel from the mercenary firm Blackwater USA to “enforce security.” Blackwater USA, in its promotional materials, describes itself as “the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world,” adding that “we have established a global presence and provide training and operational solutions for the 21st century in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere.” Blackwater is also a major U.S. contractor in Iraq and has a contract with the Bush White House to provide additional security work “on an as-needed basis.”The Department of Homeland Security established the “Northern Command for National Defense,” a wide-ranging program that includes FEMA, the Pentagon, the FBI and the National Security Agency. Executive orders already signed by Bush allow the Northern Command to send troops into American streets, seize control of radio and television stations and networks and impose martial law “in times of national emergency.”The authority to declare what is or is not a national emergency rests entirely with Bush who does not have to either consult or seek the approval of Congress for permission to assume absolute control over the government of the United States. The White House press office would neither confirm nor deny existence of Bush’s executive orders or the existence of the Northern Command for National Defense. Neither would the Department of Homeland Security.But my sources within the White House and DHS tell me the plans are in place, ready for implementation when the command comes from the man who keeps telling the American public that he is a “war time president” who will “do anything in my power” to impose his will on the people of the United States.And he has made sure that power will be absolute when he chooses to use it. © Copyright 2006 by Capitol Hill BlueWe welcome reader comments: Discuss this story or other issues in ReaderRant.
As you remember, President Reagan's health was beginning to fail him while he was in office and George Bush, Sr. took on more and more power within the executive branch of government, far more than any other sitting vice-president. It seemed at the time to many people during the Iran-Contra scandal that a Lieutenant-Colonel by the name of Oliver North could hold so much power all by himself-controlling the flow of arms and large sums of maoney to the contra rebels in Nicuragua, without the knowledge of someone higher up. Later it came out that Oliver North acted directly under the control of the White House, and since President Reagan was (let us say-not himself), the Vice- President, George Bush called many of the shots. He has after all run the CIA for many years and set up all sorts of dummy organizations and corporations in order to carry out the Administrations goals around the world.
This sitting Presidents' Administrations goals are not his own- they are but the next level of the re-ordering of society that the first Bush wanted to achieve with his idea of a "New World Order". Today, April 25, 2007, the blue chip industrials went over 13,000 on Wall Street for the first time in history. The course of the American economy was said to be on track to rise over 6% this year with durable goods gaining an unprecedented 3.2% and yet, the dollar, as stated by the Bush Administration lost ground to the Euro! Fascinating! All the economic projections for the year are solid and rising, yet the dollar is said to be losing goround to the Euro. This goes against all economic lessons I ever studied in college. When the economic picture for the economy is this strong, and the value of gold is remaining constant, the dollar should remain strong, unless, the Administration is trying to make a case for creating a currency to rival that of our European world neighbors, namely the Amero. I would not be surprised to see this President use the power he gave himself to instigate a crisis and call for "Martial Law" at some point in the final months of his term of office, thus relagating to himself the power of absolute dictator, or "KING", which he has said he wouldn't mind being at all. I am not trying to sound like some sort of conspiracy theorist, but those are the words that President Bush's own acting press secretary used today to describe the desires of the demacratic Congress and their desire to place some checks and balances on his unchecked grasp of power for the last six years with a republican led Congress, when she stated that what they are doing is looking for some conspiracy theory that doesn't exist. I quote the question and her response here, "Q Dana, continuing on the political discourse, Rahm Emanuel is going to have a speech today in which he's going to say that Bush is more corrupt than Nixon in Watergate, and that the government has become a step-child, his words, of the Republican Party.
MS. PERINO: That's really surprising, given the messenger, that this is the speech that he's going to be giving. I heard yesterday, too, that he's going to be calling it part of a grand conspiracy, which I think is the recurring nightmare. But the nightmare we thought we had woken up from is recurring. We thought that the vast right-wing conspiracy was over, and I think that some of the comments that, at least were described to me yesterday from a reporter who had seen the prepared remarks, it sounded a little more like something you would see in the National Enquirer, not at a prestigious American think tank.
And I do think that when you're 100-hour plan is faltering, maybe the best thing to fall back on is a conspiracy theory. But they're usually a little bit better than this one." Yet, the President's Attorney General couldn't seem to "recall" or remember anything that had transpired during the time that the congressional committee was asking him to describe. Also, the Congress is having to subpoena the Secretary of State to appear before them and explain her actions that led to this war. Unbelievable! The Secretary of State refusing to come before Congress when asked! This administration is not above the law and it is quite ironic that a woman named 'Monica' Goodling, now that she has immunity from prosecution which was given to her after she refused to testify before Congress without using her fifth ammendmant rights, could be instrumental in bringing down this corrupt administration and its' architect, Karl Rove; not unlike the previous president who was nearly brought down by his own actions involving another 'Monica'. Truth is often more ironic and strange than facts. I am writing this because I believe that we have the moral obligation to provide words that will prevail much longer than our mortal bodies will survive.
Charles V. White, III