America besieged by Michael Parenti

Author:Michael Parenti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Elite (Social sciences), Political participation, Großindustrie, Politik, Einflussnahme
Publisher: San Francisco, CA : City Lights Books
Published: 1998-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

A DANGEROUS STATE

THE NATIONAL INSECURITY STATE

Within the government there exists what some have called "the national security state." It consists of the president, the secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and numerous intelligence agencies. The national security state often operates like an unaccountable sovereign power of its own. Its primary function is to defeat political forces that seek alternatives to capitalism at home or abroad or that try to introduce any seriously reformist economic policies, even within the existing capitalist framework.

Making the world safe for free-market capitalism is a massive enterprise. Security agencies expend an estimated $35 billion yearly on operations at home and abroad, if we are to accept the figure bandied about in the press in recent years. Congress has no exact idea how much it allocates for intelligence operations because the total figure is a secret, hidden away under other budget items — in violation of Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, which reads: "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time."

Of the various agencies of the national security state, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the most widely known, probably because of its extensive covert actions throughout the world. In addition, there is the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, which deals with military espionage and counterintelligence; the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research; and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Within the Pentagon itself, every echelon—be it the office of the Secretary of Defense, the Army, Navy, or Air Force, or the regional commands around the globe—has its own intelligence service with its own security, communications, and support systems.

While supposedly protecting us from foreign threats, the various intelligence agencies spend a good deal of time policing the U.S. public. They have admitted to maintaining surveillance on members of Congress, the White House, the Treasury and Commerce Departments, and vast numbers of private citizens. They have planted stories in the U.S. media to support their Cold War and counterinsurgency view of the world, secretly enlisting the cooperation of newspaper owners, media network bosses, and hundreds of journalists and editors.

The CIA alone has subsidized the publication of hundreds of books and has owned outright "more than 200 wire services, newspapers, magazines, and book publishing complexes," according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report. The agency has recruited over 5,000 academicians from across the country as spies and researchers, secretly financing and censoring their work. CIA agents participate in academic conferences and the agency conducts its own resident-scholar programs. It offers internships and tuition assistance to undergraduate and graduate students while they are still attending school.

Intelligence agencies have infiltrated and financed student, labor, scientific, and peace groups. The CIA has financed research on mind-control drugs, sometimes on unsuspecting persons, and was responsible for the death of at least one government employee who was driven to suicide after unknowingly being subjected to mind-altering drugs.

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