The
Conflict Within the Deep State Just Broke into Open
Warfare
By Charles Hugh Smith
The
battle raging in the Deep State isn't just a
bureaucratic battle--it's a war for the
soul, identity and direction of the nation.
March 10,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
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When do the unlimited powers of
the Intelligence/Security agencies threaten
America's domestic and global national
interests? The CIA
and its political enablers claim the agency's
essentially unlimited powers, partially revealed
by Wikileak's Vault
7, pose no threat to America's interests,
since they are intended to "defend" American
interests.
This is the rationale presented
by neocon CIA allies in both political parties: the
CIA can't possibly threaten America's interests
because the CIA defines America's interests.
This is the wormhole down which
civil liberties and democracy have drained. It
is an extraordinarily defining moment in
American history when the director of the FBI
publicly declares that there is no such thing as
"absolute privacy" in the U.S.
In effect, privacy is now
contingent on the level of interest the Security
State has in the private conversation/data. If
we read the U.S. Constitution, we do not find
such contingencies: civil liberties are
absolute. Post-1790 presidents have temporarily
mooted civil liberties in time of war, and the
CIA-led camp of the Deep State has justified its
unlimited powers by effectively declared "a
state of war is now permanent and enduring."
So what's left to defend if
America has become the
enemy of civil liberties and democracy, i.e.
become a totalitarian state ruled by Security
Services and their political henchmen and
apologists?
I have long suggested that the
tectonic plates of the Deep State are shifting
as the ruling consensus has eroded. Some
elements of the Deep State--what I call the
progressive wing, which is (ironically to some)
anchored in the military services-- now view the
neocon-CIA (Security State)-Wall Street elements
as profoundly dangerous to America's long-term
interests, both domestically and globally.
I have
suggested that this "rogue Deep State" quietly
aided Donald Trump (by subtly undermining
Hillary Clinton's campaign) as the last best
chance to save the nation from the neocon's
over-reach that the Establishment's Wall
Street-funded leadership (Bush, Clinton, Obama,
et al.) has overseen--including granting the CIA
and its allies virtually unlimited powers
unhindered by any effective oversight.
This profound split in the Deep
State has now broken into open warfare. The
first salvo was the absurd propaganda campaign
led by Establishment mouthpieces The
New York Times and The
Washington Post claiming Russian agents had
"hacked" the U.S. election to favor Trump.
This fact-free propaganda
campaign failed--having
no evidence didn't work quite as well as the NYT
and Wapo expected-- and
so the propaganda machine launched the second
salvo, accusing Trump of being a Russian
patsy.
The
evidence for this claim was equally laughable,
and that campaign has only made the
Establishment, its propaganda mouthpieces and
the neocon Deep State look desperate and foolish
on the global and domestic stages.
The
desperate neocon Deep State and its Democratic
Party allies went to absurd lengths to undermine
Trump via the "Boris ad Natasha" strategy of
accusing Trump of collaborating with the Evil
Russkies, even going so far as to briefly exhume
former President G.W. Bush from deep-freeze to
make a fool of himself, saying the Trump-Evil
Russkies connection should be "investigated."
Now the rogue elements have
launched a counterstrike--Vault 7. Here
is one example of how quickly the CIA's
over-reach has been absorbed by the body
politic:
We now know that the CIA
maintained a special program (UMBRAGE) to mimic
Russia-based hackers and create false trails
back to fictitious "Russian hackers." A
number of highly experienced analysts who
reviewed the supposed "Russian hacks" had
suggested the "evidence" smelled of false
trails-- not just bread crumbs, but bread crumbs
heavy-handedly stenciled "this is Russian
malware."
The body count from Vault 7 has
not yet been tallied, but it wouldn't surprise
me if former President Obama and his team
eventually end up as political casualties. Non-partisan
observers are noting all this over-reach
occurred on Obama's watch, and it hasn't gone
unnoticed that one of Obama's last executive
orders stripped away the last shreds of
oversight of what could be "shared" (or
invented) between the Security Agencies.
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Indeed,
the entire leadership of the Democratic Party
seems to have placed all their chips on the
increasingly unviable claim that the CIA is the
squeaky clean defender of America.
Vault 7 is not just political
theater--it highlights the core questions facing
the nation: what is
left to defend if civil liberties and
democratically elected oversight have been
reduced to Potemkin-village travesties?
If there
are no limits on CIA powers and surveillance,
then what is left of civil liberties and
democracy? Answer: nothing.
The battle raging in the Deep
State isn't just a bureaucratic battle--it's a
war for the soul, identity and direction of the
nation. Citizens who
define America's interests as civil liberties
and democracy should be deeply troubled by the
Establishment's surrender of these in favor of a
National Security State with essentially no
limits.
Americans
tasked with defending America's "interests"
globally should be asking if a CIA/NSA et al.
with unlimited power is detrimental to America's
soft and hard power globally, and toxic to its
influence.
The answer is obvious: a CIA with
unlimited power and the backing of a corrupt
Establishment and media is more than detrimental
to America's soft and hard power globally--it
is disastrous and potentially fatal to America's
interests, standing and influence.
Those of
us on the sidelines can only hope that the
progressive wing of the Deep State, the rogue
elements who see the terrible danger of an
unlimited National Security State, will succeed
in undermining the powerful political support
for this toxic totalitarian regime.
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The
views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing
House.
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