Category: News

From the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence:

Courage, like cowardice, often comes in individual, incremental pieces building toward something great and honorable, or small and dishonorable. The resignation of Brandon Toy from General Dynamics fits into the former category and is so honored by an organization of former intelligence officials.

We, the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII), salute Brandon Toy, who chose to walk away from his job with a U.S. defense contractor to protest the U.S. government’s violation of human and civil rights. Mr. Toy properly followed the dictates of his conscience. His very public renunciation (see below) of misdeeds by the U.S. military-industrial-surveillance complex is an act of protest that, we hope, will inspire others to hold their own governments to account.

Secrecy is a tool states use most commonly in order to mask unethical, unconstitutional, criminal and foolish behavior. Brandon Toy’s informed rejection of a system that is violating the basic rights of its own citizens depends on whistleblowers, who in turn rely on courageous, professional journalists to inform the public.

As committed truth-tellers and whistleblowers from several countries, members of SAAII placed our careers, livelihoods, and, in some cases, our personal freedom on the line so that people like Mr. Toy would have the needed information to weigh career against moral duty.

Continue reading “Brandon Toy’s Act of Conscience”

Nearly 12 years after the 9/11 attack, virtually every single element of national security policy – from the occupation of Afghanistan, to the drone war, to a massive NSA surveillance apparatus, to a defense budget that outpaces the rest of the world combined – is justified by citing terrorism as a threat. Together these policies amount to trillions of dollars, the decay of the rule of law, rampant government criminality, and the evisceration of the the constitutional rights of millions of Americans.

What does this terrorist threat really amount to though?

According to the State Department a mere 10 Americans were killed by terrorism in 2012. None of them in the U.S.

U.S. citizens worldwide killed as a result of incidents of terrorism: 10
U.S. citizens worldwide injured as a result of incidents of terrorism: 2
U.S. citizens worldwide kidnapped as a result of incidents of terrorism: 3

Nine out of 10 of those killed were in Afghanistan, the remaining one in Iraq. One of the injured was in Afghanistan, the other in Iraq. The three instances of a single person being kidnapped occurred in Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen.

Instead of tormenting Afghans in a military occupation that costs more than $120 billion per year; instead of empowering the NSA to snuff out the Fourth Amendment and collect and store the communications of all Americans; instead of wasting almost $1 trillion annually on defense spending mostly as a wealth transfer to rent-seeking corporations; instead of granting the president the kingly power to assassinate anyone, anywhere, at any time – maybe we just shouldn’t go to the above-mentioned countries. Then our terrorism casualty rate will be zero.

Secretary of State John Kerry has now gone to Israel-Palestine six times in five months in an attempt to restart negotiations between the two parties. One wonders what in the world he is saying in these private, one-on-one meetings.

As Kerry shuttles back and forth, so far unable to get the parties to agree to meet, a great misconception about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is bolstered. Many Americans don’t have a clue about the details of the situation (a poll last year found that up to 58 percent “are unsure or have no opinion on most issues” having to do with the conflict) and many can’t even accurately describe the broad outlines of the matter.

In this ignorance, the apparent inability to resolve the longstanding conflict has led many Americans to believe it is just so complicated it can’t be solved equitably. But it isn’t complicated, and even if it were, that isn’t what has impeded progress. Really, it has been America’s one-sided support for Israel that has blocked a political settlement for all these years.

Large majorities of Palestinians support a two state solution based on the 1967 borders. The problem is that successive Israeli governments have rejected such a resolution in favor of continued military occupation of the West Bank (and Gaza until 2005, and since in the form of an economic blockade and frequent bombing campaigns) and continued building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, in a process of systematic dispossession of their land which the whole world agrees is criminal under international law.

Indeed, the European Union just this week barred any funding of Israeli settlement projects through any of its agencies, to the dissatisfaction of Israel, who expects to continue receiving foreign aid no matter how cruel and illegal its policies are.

In the meantime, Jewish settlers in the West Bank systematically harass and attack the Palestinian population in a phenomenon described by the speaker of the Israeli Knesset as “Jewish terrorism.” Property vandalism, rock throwing, and destruction of Palestinian crops and olive groves (their only livelihood) are most common.

A recent report from the European Union warned that, “if current trends are not stopped and reversed, the establishment of a viable Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders seem more remote than ever.”

The EU report explained how “a combination of house and farm building demolitions; a prohibitive planning regime; relentless settlement expansion; the military’s separation barrier; obstacles to free movement; and denial of access to vital natural resources, including land and water, is eroding Palestinian tenure of the large tract of the West Bank on which hopes of a contiguous Palestinian state depend.”

There is no reason for the settlements except expansion of Israeli state territory. The charter of the current political party in power in Israel states explicitly that Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza is “the realization of Zionist values” and describes the whole of the West Bank and Jerusalem as belonging to Israel.

Israeli occupation policy hasn’t changed very much since Israeli military leader and politician Moshhe Dayan said after the Six Day War: “We don’t have a solution, and you will continue living like dogs, and whoever wants will go, and will see how this procedure will work out.” Or, perhaps more accurately, it follows what Lara Friedman and Daniel Seidemann in Foreign Policy called the “everybody knows fallacy,” namely that Israel’s gradual and continuous expansion onto Palestinian land is premised “on the grounds that ‘everybody knows’ these areas will always be part of Israel.”

As such, Israeli policy opposes a settlement. Kerry can go back and forth all he wants. But unless America stops supporting Israeli expansion and, thus, the dissolution of Palestine, no settlement is possible.

Why have Edward Snowden’s actions resonated so powerfully for so many people?

The huge political impacts of the leaked NSA documents account for just part of the explanation. Snowden’s choice was ultimately personal. He decided to take big risks on behalf of big truths; he showed how easy and hazardous such a step can be. He blew the whistle not only on the NSA’s Big Brother surveillance but also on the fear, constantly in our midst, that routinely induces conformity.

Like Bradley Manning and other whistleblowers before him, Snowden has massively undermined the standard rationales for obedience to illegitimate authority. Few of us may be in a position to have such enormous impacts by opting for courage over fear and truth over secrecy—but we know that we could be doing more, taking more risks for good reasons—if only we were willing, if only fear of reprisals and other consequences didn’t clear the way for the bandwagon of the military-industrial-surveillance state.

Near the end of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, the man in a parable spends many years sitting outside an open door till, near death, after becoming too weak to possibly enter, he’s told by the doorkeeper: “Nobody else could have got in this way, as this entrance was meant only for you. Now I’ll go and close it.”

That’s what Martin Luther King Jr. was driving at when he said, in his first high-risk speech denouncing the Vietnam War: “In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity.”

Edward Snowden was not too late. He refused to allow opportunity to be lost. He walked through the entrance meant only for him.

When people say “I am Bradley Manning,” or “I am Edward Snowden,” it can be more than an expression of solidarity. It can also be a statement of aspiration—to take ideals for democracy more seriously and to act on them with more courage.

The artist Robert Shetterly has combined his compelling new portrait of Edward Snowden with words from Snowden that are at the heart of what’s at stake: “The public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the ‘consent of the governed’ is meaningless. . . The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.” Like the painting of Snowden, the quote conveys a deep mix of idealism, vulnerability and determination.

Edward Snowden has taken idealism seriously enough to risk the rest of his life, a choice that is to his eternal credit and to the world’s vast benefit. His decision to resist any and all cynicism is gripping and unsettling. It tells us, personally and politically, to raise our standards, lift our eyes and go higher into our better possibilities.

Getting to the top of a Congressional committee with foreign policy implications is reserved mostly for the lunatic hawks, and Congressmen who are reasonable are usually anonymous.

But maybe a little less anonymous today, after 118 members of the House of Representatives signed a letter calling for talks with incoming Iranian President Hassan Rohani.

That’s not going to sit well with the Israel Lobby, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already made it clear that the he wants the US to treat Rohani with hostility, and the Obama Administration has already suggested that’s the path they’re going with.

Making a deal is easy, and under Ahmadinejad, the US had a ready-made excuse to not make good deals with Iran, one that they exercised repeatedly when deals seemed close. With Rohani taking over and 118 members of Congress on board, not making a deal will be all the more difficult.