by GDN01 » Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:27 am
When <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/29/bush.intel/">CNN</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> reported the formation of the National Security Service, it sounded quite different than this <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9483.htm">analysis</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>by Mike Whitney, titled "Genesis of an American Gestapo".<br><br>Besides raising these concerns about the NSS:<br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em><br>The freshly minted National Security Service, which has been dubbed the New SS, will operate under the authority of former ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, whose involvement in overseeing the terrorist activities of death squads in Nicaragua will provide him with the necessary experience for his new task. Negroponte, the new Intelligence czar, will report directly to the President, who in turn will carefully monitor the violations of civil liberties that will naturally evolve from unsupervised investigations.<br><br>...<br><br>The National Security Service will have unlimited power to conduct the apocryphal war on terror anyway it sees fit. The agency will operate independent of congressional oversight and beyond the bothersome glare of America's permanently embedded media. It will provide the requisite muscle for maintaining America's one-party system; spying, harassing and intimidating those dissident elements who dare to challenge the status quo. We should expect to see an up tick in dirty tricks, coerced-censorship and "disappeared" persons in the wake of the new changes. </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Whitney also points out:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The creation of the National Security Service comes on the heels of other developments that are equally ominous. Homeland Security's Michael Chertoff announced this week that the 180,000 public employees in the government's largest agency would be further corralled under the central authority of the president. Invoking the pretext of "national security", Chertoff plans to appoint a few new agency chieftains (Bush loyalists) who will be tasked at consolidating the disparate groups under a model of corporate rule. The changes represent even more power for the president. <br><br>Similarly, the release of a 40 page document from the Defense Dept. states the intention of the Pentagon to "expand military activity" within the United States; a practice that has been banned since 1878 under the provisions of the Posse Comitatus Act. American's would be surprised to know that the administration is maneuvering to sidestep the existing law and deploy troops inside the country on the president's orders. Consider, for a moment, the potential for disaster if Bush is allowed to use the military as his own private resource; dispatching protestors, patrolling cities and supervising elections as happens in third world nations. The Pentagon document clearly "asserts the president's authority to deploy combat forces on US territory to intercept and defeat threats." (Washington Post) </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>And concludes with this:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The message to citizens is clear; all of the institutions upon which democratic societies depend (the executive, the Congress, the Judiciary, the media, the military, and law enforcement) have withered beneath the Bush onslaught and been reduced to rubble. The entire system has been corrupted from top to bottom. America is a gaunt, skeletal figure; rattling around in its cage, ready to be blown over by the first brisk wind. Democracy is dead. <br><br>Now, will someone please tell the American people?</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>And people have asked me why I have lost hope in bringing about change in this country.... <p></p><i></i>
