PAST EDITORIALS
UFO Secrecy and the Death of the American Republic
Part 1 of 2
by Richard M. Dolan
February 21, 2005
Copyright ©2005 by Richard M. Dolan. All rights reserved.
A Murder Mystery
Like the Agatha Christie twist in Murder on the Orient Express, there have been many killers of the American Republic.
There is of course the obvious culprit, finally and widely acknowledged these days. This is the Spirit (and reality) of Empire, which has provided a none-too-subtle knife in the back. Since the days of Rome, people have understood the incompatibility of republican institutions with the tools of conquest and empire. By the time of Caesar, for instance, Roman rule stretched throughout the Mediterranean, dominating peoples as diverse as those under American military hegemony today.
The problem back then was that the old Roman Senate, already with five centuries of history behind it, was designed for ruling Romans – in Rome. The Senate managed well enough during Rome’s conquest of Italy in the third century BC, and even during the pivotal Punic Wars with Carthage. But ruling faraway (and valuable) lands like Gaul and Egypt were not so simple. Caesar knew this as well as anyone. Solution: end of the Republic, and the creation of such offices as Dictator for Life. Then, after his assassination, Emperor. Indeed, we may wish to remember that Caesar’s successor, his nephew, the Emperor Augustus, stated that his own absolute rule was only temporary, and that he eventually intended to restore the republic.
Ultimately, republics cannot wear the armor of empire. That is because two central principles of republican philosophy – freedom and self-government – wither under its weight.
Empires mean war. Wars mean the stifling of dissent and constriction of free thought at home. This happens every time. Repeat: every time. It has happened in America today. Freedom of expression is a meaningless concept if everyone thinks the same. It is how dissenters are treated that enables us to measure how free a society is.
Empires also prevent people from governing themselves. That is because wars destroy truth. Without freedom of information from the elected and appointed leaders of our government – that is, without truth – how can ‘the people’ rule? This was a point heavily emphasized by America’s Founding Fathers. "An enlightened citizenry," wrote Jefferson, "is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic." Madison agreed: "The diffusion of knowledge is the only true guardian of liberty." But as Phillip Knightly observed in his classic study of the subject, the first casualty in war is truth. This fact is once again in evidence regarding America’s current fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The so-called War on Terror is simply the latest manifestation of the new order of things, of what we may call the Permanent Warfare State. In such a situation, the old republican virtues of freedom and self-government cannot survive.
One might argue that Empires don’t have to result in reduction of rights at home. Look at Britain, not a republic of course, but at least a "liberal" monarchy. The British Empire spread around the world, and Brits enjoyed a higher degree of freedom than many other peoples, at least during the Empire’s heyday during the 19th century. That’s true, but the other side of it is that we don’t know how free the British people would have been without Empire. And let us not forget that there was also a great deal of "unfreedom" in Britain, even during glory days of Britannia.
The American Empire
Lest you doubt that America is indeed a bona fide empire that garrisons the world, consider that according to the Pentagon itself, the U.S. military has 860 bases in 41 foreign countries. That’s twenty percent of all the nations on earth.
But this figure is certainly too low. It leaves out bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan. Chalmers Johnson, in The Sorrows of Empire, argues that the true number is probably closer to 1,000 bases in perhaps more than 50 nations. Unlike during the cold war, when it was possible to learn the specifics about American bases in foreign lands, today much of the jurisdictional information is classified, and so we sometimes don’t know matters as elementary as which nation ‘owns’ a particular base in a particular country.
Military bases are a big part of it, but not the whole story. American troops, once again according to the Pentagon, are currently being stationed in 135 nations of the world. This is seventy percent of the world’s nations. Not all these places have large numbers of troops, it’s true. But many do, and the point is, they’re there. Today, we are told this is in order to defend and advance the noble cause of globalization. This is only part of the truth. In reality, empires are taken and defended in order to win great prizes for those few who are powerful enough to make money from them. This was true with Rome, it was true with Britain, it is true with America today. Globalization is a game with winners and losers, and you can be sure that America’s policy makers (as distinct from the American people) intend to be the winners.
Since World War Two, America has pursued a grand imperial strategy to stake out the globe. Today this strategy wears the scantiest of veils, and America’s leaders now talk openly of "full spectrum dominance." That’s bureaucratese for "we’re taking over the world."
Meanwhile, a profound but silent national security revolution has transformed the country. It is silent because there is still no formal acknowledgment of any real change. As long as the external appearances are the same (e.g. President, Congress, Supreme Court, etc.) most people continue to live under the delusion that things are the same, when in fact they are entirely different.
More than three decades ago, Gil Scott-Heron sang The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. He was right. It wasn’t.
Criminal Globalization
But, as I suggested at the beginning of this article, the demands of empire are only part of the problem.
The death of the American Republic is clearly a book-length subject, so I will content myself to mention some of the other culprits more briefly before moving on to my main theme.
There is a creepy interconnection of most of these villains. There is, for instance, the unsettling confluence of the major financial institutions of the world, the major groups of organized crime, and numerous intelligence agencies from around the world, all carving up the globe in the name of privatization. Behind all this is the unsettling evidence that elite powerful interests and families do indeed exercise dominant power behind the scenes of our public institutions, and that this is being done on an international scale.
Does anyone remember, for instance, a delightful news story (which surfaced ever so briefly then died a quick death) from early 2001. This concerned the Chase Bank of New York, a man named Raul Salinas, and one hundred and fourteen million dollars. Raul Salinas was the brother of Carlos Salinas, former President of Mexico. But Raul was much more than simply a less-famous Salinas. At the time of his capture in 2001, he had been wanted for murder (buried bodies had unfortunately been found at his compound) and I’m sure other unpleasant things. He was known to be a drug dealer of apparent significant proportions. Of course, why should this surprise anyone. The thing is, in January 2001, the Chase Bank of New York had to announce that $114 million dollars belonging to Raul Salinas were intercepted while on their way to a Swiss bank account.
The spokesperson for Chase said in effect how good it was that procedures existed to identify and stop such irregular transfers of money. The press, typically, did not follow up. (And just to refresh your memory, you may be familiar with the name of the family that has dominated the Chase Bank since forever. They’re called the Rockefellers.)
But I keep asking myself: was Raul Salinas really that stupid? Didn’t anyone bother to ask why he might have thought he would be able to run $114 million through Chase to begin with? Perhaps he had a reason to think he could succeed? Perhaps he had done so before? Perhaps someone didn’t get paid off sufficiently and ratted out the operation?
For something as big as narcotics trafficking, which by most estimates is the second largest business in the world (not quite as big as the weapons industry), isn’t it obvious that to make the money "legitimate" you have to clean it up, and you can’t exactly use your local mom and pop savings and loan institution. Yes, I think it’s fairly obvious. There is so much money in this. Far, far beyond the wildest dreams of greed – for most of us, that is.
America’s Silent Coups
That’s drugs. That’s another topic for a different day. What’s worse, possibly, are the frightening implications of ‘behind the scenes’ intelligence activities in the two most publicly traumatic events of the last fifty years of American history: the Kennedy assassination and the events of September 11, 2001. Both of these are symptomatic and further cause of the demise of republican government.
Regarding Kennedy, so much time has elapsed, and the nation still cannot get truth from its government. Indeed, mainstream media has been all too happy to go to bat for the men who were behind this. In 2003, during the 40th anniversary of Kennedy’s death, I watched, awestruck, as Peter Jennings of ABC hosted a TV special explaining "why the conspiracy theories are wrong." Such a disingenuous, selective, and often misleading portrayal of facts regarding that case could not have been accidental. I can only assume that the men who killed Kennedy are still in power, and have the ability to dictate what comes out of ABC. Especially so, when you consider that the men behind the killing appear to have included some of the Cuban ex-patriots whose operations Kennedy tried to disband after the Cuban Missile Crisis. And when you consider that 30 miles off the coast of Cuba in 1961 was a small oil operation that appears to have secretly supported the infamous Bay of Pigs operation on behalf of the CIA. The company was called Zapata Oil. It was run by a man named George Herbert Walker Bush.
Sure, perhaps it’s all a big coincidence.
GHW Bush - Bay of Pigs Operative? Looks like it.
9/11, same thing. I should pause and explain something here. I am from New York City. My dad is a retired New York City police officer. For seven years, after his retirement from the force, he was employed at the World Trade Center as a fire safety director. For five years, in fact, he was posted at the observation deck at the South Tower. For his last two years there, he worked at Building 4, an administration building. He happened to have Tuesdays off; the man he shared his job with – a very nice man whom I had the pleasure of meeting – was killed that day.
For two years after the catastrophe, I was honestly too shaken to want to look into the details of the event, even though so many researchers had already begun to do so. I received emails from friends and readers, urging me to look into the circumstances surrounding 9/11. "Too busy with my other research, I’ll get to it later," was my typical reply. Frankly, I was hesitant to think there could be much credence given to the possibility of a real U.S. intelligence connection. It was just too big, too sinister, for me to want to think it was something other than what I was told. In this respect, I was just like most people, who don’t want to examine those deep fears.
But the inconsistencies of 9/11 are enormous. Absolutely enormous. In an article of this length, I cannot give a comprehensive analysis of all the problems, although David Ray Griffin has ably pointed out the direction in which research needs to go.
For now, it is at least enough to ask:
(1) Regarding the Pentagon attack, how were bodies from the Boeing 757 identified, while at the same time 60 tons of metal supposedly vaporized?
(2) Also regarding the Pentagon, how could a student pilot make a Boeing 757 jet nosedive toward the ground and then, a la Harry Potter at a quidditch match, pull up at the last moment and zoom along without radar guidance toward his target, literally inches above the ground?
(3) How did that 757 – essentially a hollow tube – pierce six reinforced walls of the Pentagon fortress? No source I have read has convincingly explained how this could have happened. Incidentally, the final hole, of which there is fortunately a photograph, is remarkably well-defined, and about 7 feet in diameter.
Photo of the sixth reinforced wall of the Pentagon.
(4) Why were at least two independent video cameras of the Pentagon attack confiscated, and why are they still unavailable to the public?
(5) Why did NORAD’s standard defense procedures -- procedures which had worked efficiently for years and years, and which were activated 70 times in the 12 months before 9/11 -- fail on that single morning?
(6) Why did Building 7 of the WTC complex -- a 47 story tall steel frame structure -- collapse as it did at 5:30 p.m. (no significant debris or aircraft hit it); and why did it sure as hell look as though it came down as a controlled demolition?
(7) What exactly did WTC landlord Larry Silverstein mean when he told PBS that he and the Fire Chief agreed at 5 p.m. to "pull" Building 7? "Pull" is construction lingo for controlled demolition. Since you can’t wire a building that quickly, ipso facto it was pre-wired. If Building 7, why not the North and South Towers? And if so, why not admit it?
(8) Along these lines, why would numerous witnesses on the ground in lower Manhattan, including several NYC fire fighters, speak of a series of explosions emanating from the South Tower during its collapse? Such explosions were of a kind that would be consistent with the theory of controlled demolition.
(9) What was the true relationship between Al Qaeda, the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, and the CIA?
(10) Why for an entire year did the President try to prevent a commission from forming to investigate the event?
(11) Why did the committee itself -- appropriately referred to by Michael Ruppert as "mobbed up" friends of the President and National Security Advisor -- egregiously and steadfastly refuse to do a real investigation? (And please do not bother citing that travesty known as the 9/11 Commission Report, which deals forthrightly with none of these questions.)
Oh, there’s more, much more, but hopefully you get the idea. I think about 9/11, and it angers me, but not in the way that most Americans get angered.
Back in 1933, Adolph Hitler came to power in Germany. He never actually received a majority of the German vote, although his party had received the largest plurality in the most recent parliamentary elections. Thus, in January of 1933, the ancient, revered, and decrepit Paul von Hindenburg, President of Germany, appointed Hitler as Chancellor. A little more than a month later, the German parliament building, known as the Reichstag, was in flames. Arson.
Hermann Goering, director of the national police and number two man in the Nazi Party, immediately proclaimed this to be the work of the Communists. An easily confused and not-very-intelligent man, a foreigner (Dutch) and Communist, who was at the scene and had been goaded into the deed by the Nazis, confessed to everything and was executed. In fact, the best evidence indicates that Goering, Joseph Goebbels, and Reinhard Heydrich planned the whole thing. The result was the infamous Enabling Act, which gave Hitler dictatorial and extreme powers – supposedly temporary to meet the current crisis. The crisis happened to last for twelve years.
What I am saying is that 9/11 appears to be America’s version of the Reichstag Fire.
The Silent Watchdog and Invisible Fascism
People who live in their little private Idaho read all this with such incredulity. "Well, why isn’t any of this in the major media?" "Wouldn’t the press just love such a scoop?"
The answer is no. Of course not. That people can still believe this about their media is something that I continue to marvel at, but – in case, dear reader, you’re still not getting it – it is time to wake up.
Americans have lived with the Patriot Act for more than three years. A few people have voiced their concerns about the loss of their Fourth Amendment right to privacy. For those who want a refresher, this is the complete amendment, which went into effect in 1791:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The 400-page Patriot Act (HR 3162) completely overturns this amendment, which has been the cornerstone of the American right to privacy for more than 200 years. The Patriot Act was rushed through Congress within weeks of 9/11. It was certainly written before 9/11, waiting in the wings, so to speak. The members of Congress rivaled the wisdom of Homer Simpson who, when once faced with a waiver to sue for damages from the dreaded Mr. Burns and his team of lawyers, stated courageously, "I’m not signing anything until I read it or somebody gives me the gist of it!"
The Patriot Act is bad, very bad. The carefully worded Section 213, for example, provides for the infamous ability to "sneak and peak." It establishes the ability to issue secret warrants for any federal crime – not just terrorism – and indeed to extend the secrecy indefinitely. Police can break in, examine and remove or alter items, and can do this without ever presenting owners with a warrant detailing what they were entitled to do.
The Patriot Act also allows authorities to examine your medical, financial, educational and even library records, whether or not they show any evidence of a crime. Credit reporting firms must also disclose to the FBI any information that agents request in connection with a terrorist investigation, without the need for a court order. In the past, this was only permitted in espionage cases. And just what constitutes terrorism, these days? Your guess is as good as mine.
It gets worse. For now we also live with the Intelligence Reform Act, passed in December 2004, an even more mammoth piece of legislation which continues the assault on the rights of American citizens.
For instance, it enables the President to select top Intelligence positions without Senate confirmation. As writer Mike Whitney put it, this is "an invitation to create his personal security apparatus without congressional interference." It also enables the new Intelligence Director to exempt his office from audits and investigations. It eliminates provisions to ensure that Congress receives timely access to intelligence. It allows the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to screen testimony before the Intelligence Director presents it to the Congress. (Thus, a president – including the current one – can stonewall or selectively present information to Congress). Whistle blower protections were removed from the bill so that federal employees cannot report on their superiors. Amazingly, it also hides the entire intelligence budget from Congressional scrutiny.
Finally, as Whitney points out, the Intelligence Director "shall have authority to direct or undertake electronic surveillance and physical search operations pursuant to FISA if authorized by statute or executive order." Yes, that’s executive order.
The U.S. major media was silent on these issues. Indeed, our major media is a crucial part of the problem. It has become the watchdog that doesn’t bark. I’ve written about this a number of times. Talk about this long enough and you begin to feel as though you’re howling into a vacuum. Which is essentially the case. Just remember the words of longtime publisher of the Washington Post, Katherine Graham in 1988: "there are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows." That’s some interesting take on the idea of democratic rule. It is also a statement that our major media have taken to heart.
Katherine Graham
A Schizophrenic Society
Years ago, I spent some time studying the German language behind the "Iron Curtain" in East Germany. Wonderful experience, wonderful people. It was 1986, and I was 24 years old. Perhaps it’s my nature, perhaps fate, but early on I befriended some of the most prominent dissidents in the country at that time. Thus, while I was studying Deutschsprache at a DDR state-sponsored language program, I was hanging out at night and on weekends with some of the wildest people I’ve ever known. In the process I gained an insight into dissident culture. I met a man who had been beaten in an East German prison for his political views. And I saw the glaring discrepancy between official East German propaganda and the things that people would talk about, often in whispers, with small groups of friends. A schizophrenic society, I thought to myself. Official truth and actual truth.
What I’ve learned since then is that all societies have such a schizophrenia; it simply varies according to the level of repression that exists. There are always official truths, and there are always quiet, real truths. Here in America, in the year 2005, the discrepancy is greater – yes, I say greater – than it was for my friends in East Germany in 1986. And we know what happened to that country within a few years.
Americans have lived on a mental autopilot for long enough. Every day, millions of children mindlessly recite a pledge of allegiance to the flag "and to the republic for which it stands." Do they know what a republic is? Do the adults who teach them know? Do you? The word once had meaning for all Americans, but those days are long gone. Today, we hear nothing about such things as republican institutions, and even less discussion about what structures of real power have actually evolved in the United States, and indeed throughout the world. I am not sure what exactly we should be calling this new government, but it isn’t a republic, nor is it particularly democratic.
One certainly hears a lot these days about "American fascism." Certain commentators like to point out that fascism was a distinct historical development that evolved from the European wreckage after World War One. Some maintain that to call what is happening in America "fascism" is a disservice to those who lived under Hitler, Mussolini, or other dictators.
It’s true that there are major differences here today with certain features of those regimes. For one, the current regime is not as in-your-face about it as, say, Hitler was. There has been no openly acknowledged coup d’etat to which one can refer. But the changes to America have yet been profound. What I believe is that the Jacobin-styled revolutionaries who run America these days have learned an important lesson from the past: that the best revolutions are silent. Manage the media, manage the other major institutions of power, and you can have your way about almost anything. You can change the structure of society at the most profound levels, as long as you keep the old appearances.
I call this silent fascism.
But my main quarry for this paper is not empire, not the covert influence of big money, not globalization, not the co-option of what was once an independent media, nor even fascism per se in America.
There is another disease eating away at America. It is something which receives nearly no attention, even from those people who think and care about such quaint issues as republican virtue and freedom.
That is that matter commonly referred to as UFOs. In the next part of this paper, I will discuss the cancerous effect of UFO secrecy on the American Republic.
End of Part One
To continue to Part Two, click here
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