Todd M. Siebert: America waging despicable war on whistleblowers

The Zenger Trial in the early 1700s led some colonials to ponder the greater public good in terms of the freedom to think, speak and write freely – especially in regard to criticizing public officials

“Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.” – from the Biden-Obama Plan

In the early decades of the 1700s, a brave colonial printer (and German immigrant) named John Peter Zenger stood up to the British crown over the issue of press freedom and the ability to criticize, take on and take down immoral “leaders.” Through his trial, Zenger set alight the kindling that turned into the firestorm of 1776 and the birth of the United States of America. In 2016, the rise of the national security state, the so-called “War on Whistleblowers” and the buying off of lapdog “presstitute” journalists in bed with the government once again calls to mind Zenger’s ordeal.

Saint Augustine might well be the patron saint of journalists, for he once said, “The truth is like a lion. The lion doesn’t need to be defended. Set the lion free and the lion will defend itself.” Yet Zenger might be next in line for a papal sainthood regarding the Fourth Estate. You can read more about Zenger’s impact on freedom of the press here. History aficionados should check out this salient work.

Zenger printed the New York Weekly Journal and was critical of the ruling governor, William Cosby. (No relation to “America’s Father,” Bill Cosby of alleged sexual predator fame.) Zenger was bound as an apprentice for eight years, and he also served eight months in jail during this long ordeal. Zenger was eventually found innocent.

“Unexpected Verdict: The Trial of John Peter Zenger“:

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While Zenger and Saint Augustine might appear at first glance to be faint echoes of bygone eras, that is simply not the case in regard to the current jihad vis-à-vis whistleblowers. Did you know that the Obama administration, despite its grandiose promises, has done more to prosecute American whistleblowers than every other administration put together dating back to Woodrow Wilson and World War I?

The verdict of the Zenger Trial stunned American colonialists

Perhaps the underlining problem is a culture of failure that requires the covering up of so many misdeeds. Simply put, no lie occurs in a vacuum. Many lies exist merely to cover up other lies. The definite example of this is paradigm is the broad architecture of failure behind America’s foreign policy in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. This policy has become the focal point of real politick, globalization and transnational relations in the 21stcentury. These wasteful campaigns have often been shrouded in secrecy, which in turn has unleashed a mushrooming cloud of scandals, as ardent whistleblowers seek to shed light on various alleged wrongdoings. The number of scandals ranges from Edward Snowden and his “intelligence Armageddon” via “Wikileaks,” to Hillary Clinton’s “wipe the server with a cloth” controversial emails, to Iraq to Syria to Yemen to Libya and Afghanistan.

It would take several sets of encyclopedias to fully document such matters. However, the culture of secrecy and subsequent war on whistleblowers can be more readily addressed. While some journalists have courageously exposed wrongdoing, far too many journalists have acted like cheerleaders on the government’s payroll. This has served to undermine our strongest check on rogue leadership archetypes. Many of us were taught to memorize the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution when were very young children. The war on whistleblowers has weakened the Bill of Rights and hurt the general welfare.

There is much that needs to be said about the aforementioned failed wars and policies. This will require the painting of some very broad strokes. There are, on the surface, the all-too-familiar debacles. Soldiers like Robert Bales running off the rails in Afghanistan. The steady stream of soldier-suicides. The U.K. Guardian has researched the latter. The murder of the de facto American ambassador to Libya. The fate of the late Arizona State, NFL and Army Ranger icon Pat Tillman.

Many billions of hard-earned taxpayers’ dollars were outright stolen and wasted in Iraq. In fact, the Los Angeles Times reported that the $6.6 billion stolen in Iraq was, “the largest theft of funds in national history.” It would take a tome to investigate the monies wasted in Afghanistan. USA Today published one such report here. The CIA’s fake polio vaccination program in Pakistan became a source of international outrage and national disgrace that almost defies human comprehension. More recently, Russia has been making inroads in Syria, this while America is pushed around like a helpless, pathetic giant. How could all of these things have happened to the greatest military power on Earth?

We could cite tangential scandals on Wall Street through bogus subprime mortgages, the financial chicanery of Bernie Madoff and other boondoggles. Why not waste trillions and steal billions while rewarding yourself with a $50-million bonus? One must not forget how a top U.S. general and former leader of the CIA was caught seducing his married female biographer. Apparently this affair centered around to-and-from emails written and saved in the draft folders of their respective email accounts and never actually sent over the Internet. What ever happened to the days when generals conquered and vanquished enemy armies and occupied their capital cities?

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The bravery exhibited by ordinary Americans who “blow the whistle” on government wrongdoing provides an important check against the abuse of power. The question of what constitutes patriotism and what constitutes treason is a divisive, perplexing issue for many Americans.

The ongoing Saudi–U.S.–U.K. war in Yemen has unleashed famine and hell in that poor nation

A chilling, epic and deleted scene from Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” film depicts the late president busy confronting the former head of the CIA over the limits of American presidential power, the level of autonomy of the CIA, Cuba, China, the former Soviet Union, and the direction of the Cold War. “What rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem waiting to be born?” are the words uttered by the then-head of the CIA, quoting the famous poem by William Butler Yeats. How ironic that in 2016, Richard Nixon’s penchant for secretly recording the conversations of others while violating the Bill of Rights would become standard practice for the U.S. government in the post-9/11 world.

The missing 28 pages from the official 9/11 report are also the subject of great speculation, and the leading stakeholder seeking to do some whistleblowing is a former Democratic Party U.S. senator from Florida. On one hand, there are stakeholders on either side of this singular issue who either wish to bring Saudi Arabia’s alleged involvement into the light, and those who wish the keep the whole matter out of the public conscience altogether.

The president, Senate, Congress, the courts and various professional lobbyists are all weighing in on America’s dealings with Saudi Arabia. It’s obvious that Saudi Arabia has lobbying muscle in the United States, but does it have a monopoly on the truth? While we live in a world of fake paper and digital money, fake food, fake democracy and perhaps even fake false-flag events, it should be noted that many people still value truth and honesty. Millions of citizens in the United States and around the world strive for heroism every single day. There is a great potential counterweight to the war on whistleblowers through personal morality, dignity, integrity and the power of the Internet.

That said, the renewal of the so-called Patriot Act and the brand spanking new $1.7-billion super surveillance center in Utah are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg in terms of the future of Big Data and the Bill of Rights. Is this level of government intrusion consistent with the vision of America’s Founding Fathers? Can new generations such as the millennials get in touch with that original vision, or will the Founder Fathers now and forever be viewed as extremists and racists?

Children and babies are starving to death in Yemen in a war enabled by the postmodern American Empire, the erstwhile British Empire and Saudi Arabia.

Truth as a revolutionary act

“How Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen has made al-Qaida stronger – and richer,” by Yara Bayoumy, Noah Browning and Mohammed Ghobari, seems like an informative Reuters article that’s nothing out of the ordinary – until you get to the very bottom.

It is only then that the reader will learn, “A regional diplomat who follows Yemen says that if al Qaeda manages to successfully root itself as a political and economic organization, it could become a more resilient threat, much like al Shabaab in nearby Somalia.

“‘We may be facing a more complicated al Qaeda,’ the diplomat said, ‘not just a terrorist organization but a movement controlling territory with happy people inside it.’”

This factoid could easily lead concerned people around the world to view America’s foreign policy, and that of her allies, as a disaster ripe to begin organically releasing more whistleblowers than a Donna Summer video. One can only wonder if the modern war on whistleblowers is the natural consequence of the failure to shed light on the failures of the national security state. We might be tempted to point to the fiasco over the little known Operation Tiger, when thousands of G.I.s perished off the coast of the U.K. in a mock practice run for D-Day. We could even go back to the Whiskey Rebellion, when George Washington ordered 13,000 troops to put quell an incipient insurrection centered on liquor taxes. It is true that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Former NATO Gen. Wesley Clark shocked the world with his revelations

Though we see through a glass darkly, somehow we can understand that events in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, the Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Egypt and similar nations are all part of a broad strategic architecture that has failed to materialize effectively. It’s World War III one nation at a time. Official and quasi-American entities seeking to promote democracy abroad are sometimes perceived as rogue and even dangerous elements – for the United States, the American people and citizens of foreign nations.

Oliver Stone’s film “W.” offered a powerfully compelling scene in which America’s elites seek to set up an oil and energy empire centered in the Middle East. We are told, “there is no exit strategy” from Iraq. One might be tempted to reach for this nugget from the film much in the same way a drunk reaches for a park bench – for support rather than illumination. What really happened behind the scenes within the State Department, CIA, DIA, NSA, the Pentagon, various think tanks, transnational corporations and other stakeholders?

Richard Dreyfuss, playing the role of Dick Cheney, explains precisely how America is not going to get out of Iraq:

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Another real life clip, this one involving former NATO General Wesley Clark, is perhaps one of the more shocking pieces of whistleblowing ever mistakenly released to the general public.

Former NATO General Wesley Clark speaks on a memorandum he came across stating how many nations the United States was going to take out:

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As such, one might wonder about the real reasons behind the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Was it to break up Iraq into three little states that would be unable to challenge America and her allies in the region? Was all of this simply the workings of the Project for a New American Century, AIPAC, the Council on Foreign Relations or some other group?

Whistleblowers tell us that more than 650,000 Iraqis are dead (some may dispute this number), all because we felt the need to get rid of a murderer and dictator we trained, financed and armed. Saddam had no connection to 9/11, yet some still wonder if he did have weapons of mass destruction that were moved to the Sudan, Syria or perhaps even Belarus. The U.S. Congress held hearings about Saddam’s massive involvement with his army in Sudan. WND sent this writer overseas to report on it. All these years into the future, we still have more questions than answers. Consider the strange plight of Joseph Wilson and his blonde wife, Valerie Plame, who wound up star-crossed over Niger yellowcake supposedly headed for Saddam’s nuclear weapons program, as well as to other rogue states such as North Korea.

Whistleblowers lead us to consider that American soldiers (many of whom are probably Christians, Catholics and evangelicals) were deployed in a way that ultimately led to most Iraqis being driven out of their own nation. Young Iraqi Christian girls were then sold off at a sex market inside Syria, many of them to Saudi nationals. This story was broadcast in prime time by Brian Williams on NBC.

The loss of face, loss of money, inability to train effective fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the looting of great works of antiquity in Iraq, anti-Baathist crusade and other foibles must have astounded many within the U.S. State Department, the CIA, DIA, Pentagon and the Rand Corporation. What good is a brand of democracy that brings Hamas, Hezbollah, the Shiites in Iraq and the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt? We were told this push came after George W. Bush read a book about democracy written by Soviet refusinik Natan Sharansky. One can now wonder in retrospect if the younger Bush had read a book about Gumby, would everyone in the Middle East now be riding around on an orange horse?

Whistleblowers told us that back in 2003, vices like liquor and prostitution were almost immediately legalized by the American powers that be of inside Iraq. This probably alienated many Muslims. Islam is a genuine religious faith many respect due to its stance against the murder of children through abortion, resistance to pornography and other wickedness such as illegal narcotics. Granted nations like Iran, which are Islamic, also have their own heroin problem as the scourge of drugs knows no boundaries. The main point is, what was done in the name of the American people without our expressed or even implied consent?

In Ancient Greece, Plato issued many salient notions which still ring true in postmodern times

Scores of Iraqi doctors and professors were murdered on an almost daily basis. Trick or Treat at Abu Ghraib was beyond disgusting and has forever damaged the image of America. Throwing food and the Quran into the toilet and forcing inmates into homosexual acts were wrong in every single way something can be wrong. Why did we have to learn of such things only through the whistleblowing provided by social media?

In the micro, the rape of the 14-year-old Iraqi girl named Abeer Hamza (probably because she was pretty), her subsequent murder and the murder of her family to conceal this deranged ritual was beyond disgusting. The New York Times published a strong summary of the case here. It took one brave American soldier to bring the fake of Abeer Hamza to light. In the macro, depleted uranium sets forth a depopulation regimen for many nations in the Middle East.

What about Iraq’s oil, which was supposed to finance the occupation? How about America’s MTV culture trying to turn Allah McBeal into Ally McBeal? What about the U.S. declaring victory in Afghanistan not when bin Laden was captured, nor the Taliban defeated (they are now busy retaking the country), but rather when “women were liberated from the Taliban.” The death of victory culture in the American mindset has continued to grow since the end of World War II.

What about the idea of building an energy pipeline across Afghanistan? And what about the proposed fresh water pipeline slated to run from Iraq to Turkey? Some years ago, Tony Blair was caught trying to broker a fresh water pipeline from Kurdistan to North Cyprus and then to Israel. The New York Post recently ran a story about “burn pits” in the Middle East and how this is making U.S. soldiers very sick. We only know about these things because somebody blew the whistle.

Is there a way for Whistleblowers to be protected? Of course the legal realm can offer help and guidance. This is vital in a world so corrupt that more than a few major banks have had to pay fines for allegedly laundering money for transnational drug cartels. It is a world where refugees, especially children, are preyed upon because of their lack of official papers. They are probably sold off for their organs, for occult rituals, and to satisfy the twisted lusts of sexual predators. Such issues require whistleblowers. Thankfully, there are journalists brave enough to stand up for those willing to risk it all and blow the whistle. Filmmakers are following suit.

There are many issues which journalists and whistleblowers can focus their attention. One might mention again what has happened to Iraqi Christian girls sold into sexual slavery in Saudi Arabia via meat markets in Syria. Brian Williams could return from journalism exile to file a follow up report from inside Saudi Arabia. What about China’s state-of-the-art submarine fleet on patrol in the Arctic and off the West Coast of the United States? How many nuclear armed missiles are on each submarine? How strong are the protocols within the Chinese navy to guard against a rogue launch? The Wall Street Journal fired an opening salvo here. What about the problems and expense of the Joint Strike Fighter? What’s going on with the F-22 and F-35? One may still be prone to wonder if Americans learned anything from the O-Ring scandal that led to the Space Shutting blowing up — despite the ardent warnings of a whistleblower.