The Enemy Within: America’s Security Services

They are coming for you (Source: here)

Perhaps more than any other nation, the United States hero-worships the men and women serving in its security and armed services. The glorification of police, security & intelligence services, and the military is almost ubiquitous; you see the admiration reflected in the media and in popular entertainment, at sports events, through the R.O.T.C. scheme in schools, whenever you board airlines and soldiers are given priority to board first, and in the constant bleating of “thank you for your service” at the mere sight of anyone in uniform.

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The love for those in uniform goes a long way towards explaining America's enormous spending on security and the military; the US literally spends three times as much as the next-biggest defence spender, China (see here).

For most Americans, having a large security and military establishment is undoubtedly reassuring, perhaps even a source of pride. For many others, the military and other security services offer a steady job and a reliable source of income.

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Yet, for many non-Americans the worship of US security and armed services borders on nauseating. Foreigners have such sharply differing views, because non-Americans understand, often from bitter experience, how US armed services have wrecked more death and destruction across world since World War II than any other armed group in the world. Indeed, the number of people killed in US-instigated coups and wars around the globe since 1946 exceeds 20 million (see here). At least half of the casualties have been innocent civilians (see here).

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Most Americans are blissfully ignorant of these shocking statistics, because they simply do not know very much about the rest of the world. Very few American schools offer geography and world history is usually taught in a cursory – and highly US centric – fashion. Ignorance about the rest of the world enables the US State Department, the CIA, and the US military to carry out bloody adventures abroad with almost no backlash at home.

And, until very recently, the US armed and security services have generally not behaved that way within the United States.

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This is now changing. In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump’s Administration has employed - within the US - some of the shocking practices hitherto reserved only for foreigners overseas. Many Americans have been given their first taste of what the rest of the world has had to bear for decades.

The big headline has obviously been Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was erroneously deported to a hell-hole concentration camp in El Salvador. However, Garcia is by no means a stand-alone case. The Trump regime appears to be on a mission to rid the United States of ‘undesirables’, which means anyone who does not share the Administration’s values.

American citizens should not feel complacent. The only reason Trump has so far only aimed his attacks at immigrants and those with resident status is that they are weaker and more vulnerable. As Trump racks up more easy victories, he grows stronger and then he will broaden his purges to also include American citizens.

He let the cat out of the bag in a recent meeting with El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele in the White House, when Trump told Bukele live on television that he wanted to send ‘home-grown criminals’ to El Salvador’s concentration camps,

“Homegrown criminals are next,” Trump said to Bukele. “I said homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You’ve got to build about five more places” (see here).

So far, Trump’s other big target has been institutions, which is logical, because controlling institutions confers a lot of power. Trump first attacked weak government departments tasked with protecting the vulnerable, such as USAID and the Department of Education, then he set his sights on American private universities. They are now being instructed to surrender their independence and relinquish their constitutional rights, or risk losing federal funding. Many universities have already fallen into line, because federal funding is critical to their survival, though not all. Harvard Univerity and MIT have been notable exceptions, but they have huge endowments, so they can manage without government funding.

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While these worrying developments have been covered adequately by the press, one issue, which has so far not received very much attention is the role played by ordinary Americans as facilitators of Trump’s fascist agenda. Perhaps the subject is too sensitive and divisive. After all, most of Trump’s dirty work is being carried out by people serving in America’s beloved armed and security services.

Ask yourself these questions: Who picked up Garcia? Who are picking up hundreds of others like him, including small children? Who are the people, sometimes plain-clothed and masked, who abduct people off the street?

Answer: They are government officers from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, ICE. These are not exceptional people trained in the dark arts of counter-insurgency. Rather, they are conventional civil servants, normal Americans, who are increasingly doing very abnormal things.

These officers incarcerate people without charge. They isolate them and deny them access to legal assistance. They interrogate them in horrific conditions. In some cases, like with Garcia, they deport them to concentration camps abroad without due process.

Because ICE officers often refuse to identify themselves, there has been a spate of attacks on vulnerable people by random sociopaths, who impersonate ICE agents (see here).

It is not just ICE officers, who willingly implement Trump’s Exectuive Orders in preference to respecting the US Constitution and serving the people. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently agreed to surrender private data to ICE to help expedite deportations. IRS’s data contains enough personal information to enable the security services to target many other groups in addition to immigrants. Those who continue to work for IRS - which is thousands of ordinary civil servants - are now playing along with Trump’s tyranny (for a list of those at risk of Trump persecution see here) .

Dozens of major US law firms have also chosen not to represent victims of Trump’s purges for fear of becoming victims themselves or losing out on US government fee income.

The most recent development is that the US military itself is being roped into domestic law enforcement on American soil, something which is explicitly prohibited under federal law. Trump has re-designated land along the US-Mexico border as a military base and turned it over to the Department of Defence, which can now pick up migrants on the pretext that they trespass on military property (see here).

It is really important to see the big picture here. With the willing collaboration of perfectly normal Americans, the US armed and security services are being re-oriented from doing foreign duty to doing domestic duty, from serving the US Constitution to serving Trump. These institutions are garudally being cajoled into becoming part of Trump’s personal power structure.

Do the members of America’s armed and security services understand that Trump’s ultimate objective is to suppress all opposition, including opposition from the Supreme Court? Maybe some do. Many undoubtedly agree with Trump and enjoy the new powers, just like hundreds of thousands of German civil servants agreed with Hitler. Whatever the reason, many thousands of perfectly ordinary Americans are allowing fascism to happen.

That is why it is urgent this issue is discussed.

As an aside, I wrote a piece on why many people choose submission rather than flight or fight when faced with tyranny, see here.  

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Americans need to wake up! Their erstwhile heroes in the security and armed services, including officers from customs and immigration, the military, police, and other services, are now actively doing Gestapo work for a fascist leader. This makes them no different from the stereotypical shady tinpot dictatorship security officials from the movies, guys in hats and trench coats with collars turned up, who pick people up on the street and torture and disappear them.

Americans must realise – as foreigners have realised many decades ago – that merely belonging to a branch of the armed or security services does not automatically qualify a person for respect and admiration. In fact, in many cases it is the opposite. America has become more complex and Americans need to grow up and see this.

Members of America's security and armed services live among the people, in their thousands. Many are friends, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts. One day, one of them will kick down your door and take you away. Now is the time to stand up to these people and demand that they uphold their oath to the Constituion. Always question the motives and action of people in possession of lethal force. Demand they follow the rule of law. Expose them, fight them if they don't.

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