The NSA and the Undermining of Democracy

Dear Mr. President,

Yet another revelation of the NSA’s illegal activities in today’s NYT (“N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens” p. A1). The latest Snowden documents reveal that since November 2010, the NSA has been analyzing all Americans’ phone call and email logs without checking for a foreign connection. This shift from requiring a foreign connection “was made in secret, without review by the nation’s intelligence court or any public debate.” The documents also reveal that the agency uses “enrichment” data—bank, insurance and Facebook information, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls, tax data, property records and GPS locations from cellphones to “develop a portrait of an individual, one that is perhaps more complete and predictive of behavior than could be obtained by listening to phone conversations or reading e-mails, experts say.” On Thursday during a congressional hearing by the NSA protectors and defenders—the Senate Intelligence Committee—Gen. Keith Alexander, asked if “the agency ever collected or planned to collect bulk records about Americans’ locations based on cellphone tower data,” replied they were “not doing so as part of the call log program authorized by the Patriot Act, but… a fuller response would be classified.” More deception and misleading testimony we’ve come to expect from Clapper and Alexander. In spite of their bald-faced lies and contempt of Congress, they remain in their positions, leaders of an outlaw agency, their budgets, empire and influence continuing to grow, eating up more and more taxpayer dollars that should be used to better American lives. Feinstein is a true believer, the NSA’s main apologist in Congress. She has abused her position as Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, enabling this agency to run amok, just as you have fostered it and defended it, calling it legal, transparent and necessary for national security, You are both guilty of undermining the Constitution and democracy. You have both broken your oaths of office and should be impeached. I keep thinking of what Dilma Rousseff said at the UN last week: “In the absence of privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore, no effective democracy. In the absence of respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for a relationship among nations.” Dilma Rousseff could teach you a thing or two about constitutional law. She could also teach people like Sen. Feinstein a thing or two about democracy.

How to Turn Ploughshares Into Swords

Dear Mr. President,

What’s wrong with this picture? The Pentagon plans to spend more than $1 billion to upgrade Camp Lemmonier in Djibouti (Washington Post, “U.S. moves drone fleet from Camp Lemonnier to ease Djibouti’s safety concerns,” September 24) but Detroit has to go begging to charities and scrounging for government grants to scrape up $300 million to pay firefighters and cops, keep the streetlights on and the buses running (today’s NYT, “$300 Million in Detroit Aid, But No Bailout” p. A1). The NYT characterizes the $300 million as “the fiscal equivalent of looking under sofa cushions for spare change.” Meanwhile, Camp Lemonnier will be upgraded to serve as a regional hub for Special Forces in Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian Ocean. The base is in the capital, Djibouti (pop. 567,000) next to the single-runway international airport which is jammed with military fighter jets, cargo planes and commercial flights. (Putting military installations in populated areas has always been decried when countries like Syria, Libya and Iraq do it.) Until this month, Lemonnier also housed drones which flew over Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere in the region but after the fifth crash in the past 2½ years, the latest near a neighborhood in the capital, their government asked the U.S. to move the drones to Chabelley Airfield in the desert, so the Pentagon asked Congress for an emergency $13 million to build temporary facilities there. $13 million for a drone base in Djibouti? No problem. $1 billion for Special Forces in Djibouti? No problem. Detroit needs help? Sorry, Charley. Detroit’s not part of the Global War on Terror. Go look under the couch cushions. Bailouts for Wall Street? No problem. Bailouts for Banksters and corporate moguls? No problem. But Americans whose pensions have been gutted or children whose health programs have been cut or families who depend on food stamps or underwater homeowners and those whose homes have been foreclosed on—legally or illegally by the very banks the government bailed out—sorry, not part of the War on Terror. These days the business of America is War and nothing but war. This is insane, Mr. President, self-destructive, soul-destroying national insanity and you’ve fostered it. The hawks in Congress—including my own representatives, Pelosi, Feinstein and Boxer—are complicit for going along with it, but it’s your legacy: the Nobel Peace Prize winning president who turned ploughshares into swords and humanity suffers for it.

Obama's State of the World Address to the UN

Dear Mr. President,

I listened to your speech at the UN yesterday. No question you’re a good speechifier. They always sound so good, make so much sense—and you’re so sincere. Until one ponders what you said—phrases, sentences, words that shift meaning to paint a different interpretation of reality, the distortions, critical omissions, outright lies. Like the part about the UN’s successful humanitarian mission in Libya—no mention of its descent into chaos and the regional instability that followed. Or the military coup in Egypt which “shows movement toward democratic reforms”—no mention that the coup overthrew a democratically elected government and has reverted to the Mubarak era’s repression and brutality. But what really caught my attention were a few lines about the Middle East and North Africa. You are prepared to “use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure our core interests in the region,” you said. Our core interests, it turns out, is “the free flow of energy from the region to the world.” Can’t get clearer than that. It’s all about the oil. Always has been, always will be. (You also said that a nation “cannot covet resources of other nations.” Maybe “free flow” differs from taking by force like we tried to do in Iraq, but it’s a subtle distinction.) It was an aggressive militant, threatening speech that promises more war: we’ll keep using drones, you said, targeting only known imminent threats where capture is not possible and civilian casualties will be minimal; you threatened to use military force in Syria if Assad does not cooperate, declared he must step down, and challenged the UN to “mean what it says” and use force to ensure compliance with international law. Our global surveillance program that has so enraged the world was only mentioned briefly; we are reviewing it, no acknowledgement of the scathing denunciation by Brazil’s Roussaff who said. “Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and an affront to the principles that must guide relations among them… The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another… In the absence of privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore, no effective democracy. In the absence of respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for a relationship among nations.” Dilma Rousseff understands democracy, Mr. President. Listen to her.

Daniel Somers: A Casualty of War

Dear Mr. President,

On June 10 Daniel Somers put a gun to his head and killed himself. He was one of 22 veterans who committed suicide that day. He was 30 and suffered from PTSD and traumatic brain injury, a result of his 2004 deployment to Iraq. He wrote that he was unable to even approximate “the number of civilian deaths in which I may be complicit” (http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-23/politics/41440993_1_veterans-affairs-ptsd-veterans-and-troops). After returning from Iraq, he studied Arabic and volunteered to deploy again to make amends; to save lives. Assigned to a military intelligence unit as a senior analyst, he interviewed Iraqi civilians, insurgents, politicians and suspected terrorists, but it was futile: “new lives saved do not replace those who were murdered,” he wrote in a farewell letter to his family (http://gawker.com/i-am-sorry-that-it-has-come-to-this-a-soldiers-last-534538357). In 2008, still tormented by the war, he applied to the VA for help, an exercise in frustration, incompetence and indifference and his final letter is a glimpse into a morally injured mind and soul. He was “Too trapped in a war to be at peace, too damaged to be at war,” he wrote. “There are some things that a person can simply not come back from.” Most of the stories about Daniel Somers focus on the inadequacy of the VA and the tragedy of his death but I think his note was not just about that; it went much deeper, to the heart of what war is, the insanity and immorality of it and the hypocrisy of politicians who send people off to kill and die for no reason other than their “religious lunacy” or their “ever growing fortune.” It goes to why we war, the lies and propaganda that make it possible, the myths we are raised on—to follow one’s leaders right or wrong, the necessity of loyalty, the necessity of war, that war is honorable and just, that warriors are heroes and that the noblest sacrifice of all is to die for one’s country. How is it that “we” always fight for freedom and liberty while “they” always fight for tyranny and oppression? I have never known peace; my life has spanned constant war from WW II to the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, the War on Terror, Iraq, Afghanistan… we have never stopped warring and we have never made an attempt to understand why or to understand who our real enemies are. It’s time to change that, Mr. President. Stop making war and start making peace. In honor of Daniel Somers and all the other casualties of war.

Daniel Somers: A Casualty of War

Dear Mr. President Shares His Views on Iran With Me

Dear Mr. President,

Your September 18 letter about Iran arrived yesterday, a masterpiece of spin and hypocrisy. I’ve never written a letter on Iran—maybe mentioned it in passing—but here’s your response to my “perspective” on Iran anyway. Right off, you talk about how Iran “failed to live up to its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.” The next paragraph is devoted to your “comprehensive action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, including…the strongest sanctions against Iran in history.” No outrage or concern over Israel’s nuclear weapons or Pakistan’s or India’s, none of whom signed the treaty. But they’re allies, not part of the Axis of Evil and none have the 4^th largest reserves of oil on the planet. No mention either of Iran’s new president, Rouhani, reaching out to you, offering to talk, a chance for diplomacy. Do you have to be forced and shamed into diplomacy here too? As for sanctions forcing Iran to give up its nuclear program, another political fantasy. Sanctions impose misery on the people, not their leaders. More than half a million children died as a result of our sanctions on Iraq which did nothing to topple Hussein. It’s always the children who suffer most from sanctions. And then there’s the blatant hypocrisy: “My administration is also pressuring Iran to end its policies of supporting terrorist groups abroad, pursuing destabilitzing activities throughout the region, propping up a dictator in Damascus, and suppressing the rights of its own people.” We support terrorist groups too, Mr. President—from the jihadists fighting Russians in Afghanistan to rebels fighting Qaddafi in Libya, and now rebels in Syria associated with Al Qaeda. (I contend that U.S. Special Forces and the CIA are also terrorist groups.) As for supporting dictators, we have a long history, from the Shah of Iran to Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, Hussein in Iraq and Mubarak (and now Gen., el-Sisi) in Egypt. And how can you accuse Iran of destabilizing the region when everywhere we go, chaos, mayhem and instability follows in our wake from Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya, Pakistan and Yemen? But my main question is this: Why is U.S. foreign policy based on violence and force rather than negotiation and diplomacy? Why must we always beat the drums of war rather than practice peace? Why can’t we see others as fellow human beings and respect the differences rather than try to obliterate them? Only that will bring us real security.

Gen. Keith Alexander: The Banality of Evil

Dear Mr. President,

Until this week, Gen. Keith Alexander was a blank to me. I knew he headed the NSA and that he lied to Congress but little more. Bland and nondescript, he’d go unnoticed in a crowd. Then I read a post by Glenn Greenwald (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/15/nsa-mind-keith-alexander-star-trek) about an article in the journal, Foreign Policy, that described Alexander’s “all-out, barely-legal drive to build the ultimate spy machine…willing to play fast and loose with legal limits.” What caught my eye, however, was that he hired a Hollywood set designer to redesign his “Information Dominance Center” as an exact replica of the bridge of the starship Enterprise complete with whooshing doors and the captain’s chair commanding the room. I thought, this guy’s a clown, but a few days later I ran across an article in the July Wired magazine called “The Silent War” by James Bamford which went into detail about Gen. Alexander and I changed my mind: this guy may be a clown but he’s a scary clown. His obsession with “information dominance”—the collection and analysis of all data, the constant search for plots—reminded me of Ahab’s megalomania in pursuit of the White Whale. Alexander’s organizing skills and ability to fund his ever-expanding empire—despite sequestration—are amazing. (An NSA official said, “We jokingly refer to him as Emperor Alexander, because whatever Keith wants, Keith gets.”) The article documents his work with the CIA on Stuxnet, the computer worm designed to destroy Iran’s centrifuges; his warrantless wiretapping under Bush and deceptions to Congress; his persecution of Thomas Drake, an NSA whistle blower; his command of military intelligence teams responsible for abuses at Abu Ghraib; and his relentless push to “get it all”—every electronic click and call by everyone everywhere. What came to mind now was Hannah Arendt’s “the banality of evil” from her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem. She characterized Eichmann as “a mediocre bureaucrat…‘not a monster’ but ‘a clown.’” Today, in the September 23 New Yorker (“Unholy Alliances,” Pankaj Mishra) I read another Arendt observation, this time of the U.S. in 1971. In her introduction to the Pentagon Papers, she asserted that “American machismo had weirdly supplanted all strategic and military aims and interests. The U.S. had to behave like the greatest power on earth for no other reason than to convince the world of it.” The past is present and evil remains banal even in America.

 

The War on Terror is a War on Ourselves

Dear Mr. President,

You must be really frustrated. Your call to punish Assad never got off the ground—the coalition of the willing was one—our friends are wary, our enemies laughing up their sleeves (in a Surveillance State there are no real friends; just frenemies). And hard as you tried you couldn’t get your mitts on Snowden or his documents so the leaks keep coming like Chinese water torture. How can it be that a “29-year-old hacker” (your words) foiled the great Caesars of Surveillance? How could we go from America the Omniscient to America the Despised so quickly? Guess what, Mr. President, people don’t like to be spied on; not in Europe or Asia or the Americas, Today’s NYT reports that Dilma Rouseff of Brazil canceled a state visit because of it (“Brazil’s Leader Postpones Visit to Washington Over Spying” p. A4). According to the article, Biden called her, Kerry visited her and you spent 20 minutes on the phone with her Monday, but no luck, still a firm no. It’s called blowback, Mr. President, and here’s some more: the European Parliament just nominated Edward Snowden for the top human rights award, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought (NYT “Snowden Among Nominees for a European Human Rights Prize” p. A4). The image of America as the beacon of freedom and justice no longer works. We are a nation of snoops, spies, assassins and terrorists, our double standards and blatant hypocrisy as exposed as the NSA’s secrets. We have given up freedom for a false sense of security; we are ruled by secret laws and secret courts; our police deal their own brand of street justice and our president calls for punishing Assad for the slaughter of innocent civilians in Syria but ignores our own slaughter of innocent civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan. The War on Terror is a war against phantoms and it has become a war not just on perceived enemies but on friends as well, a war against ourselves really, and a war we are clearly losing. It is a war that cannot be won no matter how much we spend, no matter how much we spy, no matter how many we kill, no matter how many we lock up. The Dream of Empire is a fantasy, Pax Americana an illusion. The neocons thought it within their grasp in 2001 and 2003 but the dream was a nightmare that continues under you. Either you too, were a true believer from the beginning or you were seduced by it—the seduction of power—but either way, it has been a disaster for America, a disaster for the world and there’s no end in sight.