Shutdown:DOMESTIC TERRORISM: The SHUTDOWN OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

If there was ever a case for recall of House of Representatives and Senators it would be any man or woman who voted for the ceasing of Government administration and delivery of services to those who cannot afford alternative private sector hospitals,schools,social service facilities,leisure and recreational facilities for the very young and elderly.
The fact that they have made 'exceptions' to the shutdown cuts no ice with me.

The essence of the vote is to ensure a cessation of Federal services to fracture the American nation and have it turn upon itself  to find scapegoats in a frenzied blame game.
This is the objective of terrorists and not of democratically elected representatives of the American people.

Above The Law
Steven Seagal once starred in a film of the same name,this, and another similar, more true to aspects of  American life than one might imagine.
This particular issue is an argument between two Americas: one of privilege and one of poverty.
Between both is a very strong, but not so vibrant as in previous centuries, middle-class base. Middle America or silent America, which is rare to include itself,in majority and actively, in the debate between the two extremes.
So this America, majority America, is largely 'invisible'- except when it gets angry and motivated.
A historical example of it (young and educated Middle America) getting angry was when the Draft was introduced during the Vietnam War-meaning that the sons of Middle America,elite America and poor America would be equally subject to dying on the battlefield-a lesson never forgotten by successor Presidents and administrations. 
Playing God With The Lives of The Weak and The Helpless
Those of privilege and wealth believe they have a right to play God with the very existence of those who hold no power, no wealth and are totally dependent, for their very existence, on the whims of the former, who also believe that the lame, crippled, blind, homeless, unemployed,elderly,single parents dependent on welfare, should just 'disappear' from the State payroll check-since they regard welfare support as the epitome of evil
in this world.
The essence of their argument is this:
If you are not prepared to work for a slave wage then you don't deserve to exist.
If you can't motivate yourself to be independent of the State you don't deserve it's support.
The role of the State is only to support you when you have proved you are independent of it.
Again readers should not think that this viewpoint represents majority America.
It is a very powerful minority of politicians within the Republican Party and of very wealthy individuals and lobby groups in Washington which bankroll them to ensure votes in favor of the shutdown of government-and who hide behind these Senators and Representatives to avoid the consequences of their actions ever appearing in the public domain.   Readers should not think that these individuals, lobby groups individuals and private corporations represent the majority of average middle and fair America.  They do not.  They are a powerful minority which, laden with explosives, have hijacked Congress, put  guns to it's head and  threatened to pull the trigger-if they don't get what they want.  I do of course speak metaphorically, but this is in essence what they are doing.      Be in no doubt, this is exactly what these minority but very powerful - and well-supported financially- Senators (a few)  and House of Representative Members (39 hard-core) are doing today.                        [Of the 39, 9-11 represent areas which are so extreme in politics, they would make Adolf  Hitler look like a moderate-and are therefore very unlikely to be subject to recall.]                                                                                                                                    The very fact that nobody will actually say this (that the media is restrained in it's fair and balanced coverage
of this issue by it's private owners) on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, NBC or CBS should not just tell you something about mainstream media in America today but also what power this hidden group wield in the background, either as corporate owners or majority shareholders of major national and local media services.

Another thing which a few of you might have missed:
On the very day of the Shutdown,Obamacare, the greatest victory for health uninsured (or uninsurable) individuals in the history of the United States, became law.
By a very cruel trick, major media networks diverted preplanned U.S. Government coverage and information about this historic service (actually booked by the Government in slots on their networks from months ago) from this issue to the news about the actual shutdown of Government.
The explanation the producers of major networks concocted for not inviting Government Public Relations Officers to explain Obamacare on to their networks was their uncertainty about 'legal issues'-since the Shutdown-on the very day Obamacare became law 'confused' the legal issue (sic. of whether they could invite public servants on air during the Shutdown.)   In actual fact the real reason was that the media was scared of the consequences of offending  powerful corporate and individual owners  by inviting government officers to inform the public how to access the new insurance and care structure.  (I do of course exclude networks which, traditionally, have a disdain for everything the Obama administration produces.)

It is really a pity that the financial bill for this terrorist act cannot be extracted from these individuals and the corporations backing them.

I hope the American people do the right thing either before or at the forthcoming (and not too distant) elections by recalling all Congressmen and Women  guilty of the betrayal of democratic trust of the people, as a whole, whose interests they swore to equally uphold and defend.  They have now broken their oath of loyalty to the American people in an act of betrayal so cruel and so lacking in mercy, that the only recourse of Middle America is to now stand up as a united front, regardless of differences, to sweep the stable clean, clear the suffocating and overwhelming stench, and start afresh.   Those elected Public Representatives and Senators should now answer to the American people as a whole.
Perhaps the new intake will end up doing the same-ultimately.  This we do not know for certain.  What we do know without a doubt is that if there is no unity by the silent majority, to judge this betrayal, then America is just steps away from a political coup by  privileged, elite, super-rich who don't care if your neck is red or black, it's hanging material if you are not one of them.
Americans are privileged to still live in  country where the people can still express their anger in the proper way, through the ballot box, and consign this form of domestic terrorism, at the highest levels, to the back pages of history.
I hope the silent majority will all work together and contain their frustrations for the proper place and time.
If they do, the will of the people will most certainly triumph as day follows night.

If you find yourself locked out of your Federal building, welfare establishment, public park, library,public zoo or other State provision main or ancillary service this morning, with  little else to do, can access the internet, and if you might want to view the legislation for the recall of Congress Members, go to

http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid='0E%2C*PL[%3A%230  %0A

The message of the Administration appears garbled in this whole debate.

The media appears to portray the shutdown as an equal argument between two sides rather than what it really is-a hijack of the Federal government - with clearly defined and stated political objectives by the hijackers.


You can find information about the effects of this hijack - and who will be affected - at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/09/30/heres-how-government-shutdown-hurts-american-people?utm_source=email&utm_medium

Are you considered a 'non-essential' Federal Officer or a recipient of Federal Services affected
by this Shutdown?  (I know that all Federal Officers are essential, but the 39 Republicans responsible for this Shutdown will only allow,what they call and consider to be 'essential' Officers to work during this Shutdown.  This is their definition, not mine.)
If you are a 'non-essential' or 'essential' Federal Officer,w hy not let the White House know how the Shutdown has affected your life?
You can do so at:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/shutdown-story?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=email243-text1&utm_campaign=shutdown#content_top


God Bless America!


Patrick Emek
October 2013

9/11 Revisited

                                         9/11 Revisited

                          (A Terrible Beauty Is Born)

Many people remember exactly what they were doing at certain monumental times.   I can recall the day I heard that The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, where exactly I was when I heard that Robert Kennedy has died from mortal wounds.   I even remember the tabloid 'In Memoriam' supplements which the media had produced following the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and which my Mom had hung on the wall in the kitchen, near to the picture of Pope John  XXIII.        So too with 9/11.                                                                     It was something after 2 in the afternoon.  I  was doing my mundane household chores of laying a carpet in the rooms my Mom and Aunt occupied.   My mobile phone rang.   It was R, a Scientific Adviser to a Government Department who kept me regularly up to date on many issues.    R has now sadly passed away but I must thank him for alerting me to a multiple of possible terrorist scenarios well in advance of 9/11.     I cannot recall that we ever discussed this particular one - but we did discuss other possibilities and the need for continuing vigilance.     At one point, in the 1990s, R invited me to visit a security-vulnerable installation so that I could grasp the enormity of the problems first hand.    R told me that there was a terrorist attack in progress on the Twin Towers in New York.    As we were good friends and always joking at first I thought he was just kidding - and I laughed it off with a rhetorical joke.   After a few seconds it was clear that this was no joke and something monumental was in progress.    Like many people I was transfixed by the events unfolding.    It seemed almost like a dream.     Something surreal which surely could not really be happening.      I would wake up any minute and realize it was all a dream.    I simply found it difficult to believe the events unfolding before my very eyes.  I was stunned.    Feeling quite helpless with a world of sympathy for those who would rather take a leap of fate than be consumed to cinders in the ensuing inferno and thinking how merciful God had been to those who were erased in an instant.    That evening I had prearranged a get together with friends I had not seen for several years,staying over for the week.    It was meant to be a happy occasion but beneath all the smiles and laughter we could all sense each others nervousness and premonitions of fear and uncertainty for the future.    There was a lot of speculation but no answers.     I had previously been on the Advisory Board of The European Review with, amongst others, Dr. Anthony Verrier, (Through the Looking Glass: British Foreign Policy in an Age) who was at that time also a Senior Adviser at St. Anthony's College, Oxford.     I looked at back copy issues  of The Review, at the many interviews the journal had published with, for example, the (then) Director of The CIA, George Tenet,'Security Threats To the U.S.';an interview with the then Director of the FBI, Louis J. Freeh; a rather reassuring article by Richard N. Haass entitled 'The Biggest Islamic Threat isn't Terrorism' and others, just to try to make some sense of what was happening and possibly gauge exactly what direction we should be focused on to understand the fateful distorted events.    I felt I had to keep our despondent spirits high, whatever the cost to good taste.   Fortunately they were Welsh and of Irish stock so they understood what I was saying, no offense meant nor taken with my jocular interjections.    I did get a despairing utterance (in laughter) of  'shut the f*** up will you Pat!' from one who had already found all the answers at the bottom of Paddy's Single Malt.    But apart from that, there was a glum silence all around.     I think that, with hindsight, my sense of humor at such an awkward moment just might well have taken us all through that sinister evening.   What I do remember was that outside in the warmth of that September evening, there was an unusual silence.    Many people who would have their back kitchen lights on, were switched off.      It was eerily dark.     There was a deathly silence coming from the garden and all the neighboring gardens.     It screamed a pregnant pause, before something, something unknown, but momentous and ominous, had crossed over from the dark side and cometh this way.    Little did any of us appreciate, at that moment in time, that things had changed, changed utterly, and a terrible, terrible beauty was about to be born.

 

 

Patrick Emek

 

September 2013

          Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff Tells It As It Is?                                  

          ( United Nations General Assembly  2013 )

                             

In a speech delivered a few hours ago President Rousseff blasts the U.S. for it's 'spying' activities.

This is very rich coming from the President of a a country where  99.9% of it's 75%+  (Black) Brazilian-African population are economically disenfranchised and hold absolutely no economic power in big business,trade,commerce and industry.   Not to mention the fact that more African- Brazilians die at the hands of Police 'death squads' each year than all the deaths in police custody (White and Black) in the United States.

                   A Few Little Known Facts About Brazil

Did you know.......................most Black Brazilians cannot get to University because of racial discrimination in the School system and by the Universities themselves...............

Did you know.......there have even been Black Brazilian student protests against apartheid inside Universities and against University boards decisions to exclude Black Brazilians............on racial grounds.......The University Admission Boards citing other reasons for exclusions of course................Brazil is not an advancing civilization where,as with J.F.K., the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy and even more so by their successor,President Lyndon B. Johnson (born at Stonewall,Texas) ,the U.S. National Guard is sent into States to enforce desegregation.  In Brazil the Police and army are sent in to enforce segregation and support the segregators - using prejudicial violence while breaking up these peaceful student protests with the pro-apartheid media services (press,television,radio) quite willingly suppressing these stories (or as Bob Dylan might have said-if Brazil had a Bob Dylan and a counterculture -which it doesn't - the media services 'going along for the ride.')                   These civil rights stories are only covered by (usually minority) sections of the foreign media. 

 ........Did you know...............The Government does not encourage it's Black Brazilian population to learn the English Language.................. I  wonder why? ......what will they learn through the medium of  English civilization and democracy,civil rights struggles and civil society not available in the Portuguese nor Hispanic worlds?.................................................

 Did you know...........more (native) Brazilian journalists have been murdered in Brazil by (contract) death squads in recent years....for telling the truth and investigative reporting..... than any other country in South America......the highest in the world at one point within the last 6 years....and  95% of all these political murders are unsolved...............

...............Did you know.......if you are Black in Brazil it's impossible to get a bank loan to start up a business or buy realty?.............................Banks simply don't lend to African-Brazilians to set up enterprises..........................

Did you know...that.....at the same time......The Brazilian Government actually encourages wealthy African-Americans to invest in Brazil saying (privately) that their own African-Brazilians are simply not motivated to start up businesses................................strange..........as most came originally from Nigeria,Senegal,the Gambia and Ghana........ cultures renowned in West Africa for enterprising self-motivated individuals...........................

.............You didn't know that at least 75 % of Brazil's population is African-Brazilian?  The government stopped keeping (honest) statistics on ethncicity some 10-20 years ago for fear of revolution if the glaring disparity was evidenced in Government statistics.                                     Lets face it....  if you don't have the stats you don't require any action...........................

You didn't know these facts?;..................perhaps YOU outta get better informed with  alternative media sources?......................

Perhaps President Rousseff might wish to address her forthcoming tsunamis of social, political and economic revolutions at home (against apartheid and economic disenfranchisement) before putting President Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States, in his place and be grateful for the fact that She has a place at the table in a real democratic forum;one which 75% of her fellow-citizens are denied back home?

( ...............Watch out for protests at the Brazilian Olympics as the dispossessed poor and underclasses show the world they are not just available for singing and dancing displays at Carnival time....................................)

 

Patrick Emek

 

September 25th  2013

Afghanistan-A Bleak Future As The Past Repeats Itself

Jack Devine Former CIA Deputy Director of Operations and Chief of the CIA Afghan Task Force (1986-87) and  Whitney Kassel  former Foreign Affairs Specialist for Counter-terrorism Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and who has also worked in Pakistan and Afghanistan, have just published probably the best analysis you will get anywhere about where Afghanistan is heading.
The article is entitled 'Afghanistan:Withdrawal Issues'.
So as not to ruin their hard work and complex analysis, which, in my opinion, is spot on, I will just add several observations they have allured to in this article.
(What I say below about the direction of U.S.-Saudi-Pakistan foreign policy are entirely subjective and in no way do I ascribe them to the article 'Afghanistan,Withdrawal Issues'.  I draw on this article to speculate the motives of allowing Salafists,Wahhabists, Jihadi extremists and other fanatics, all affiliated to Saudi Arabia, to run riot in the Arab Muslim world destroying progressive secular Muslim societies in the supposed name of Islam.)

President Hamid Karzai is already a spent force.  He has (already) been 'discounted' as the civil war between the non-Pashtun security apparatus and the (Sunni) Pashtun-Taliban (Salafist)-Al Qaeda (Salafist/Wahhabist Jihadi fanatics)  alliance  will intensify as U.S. withdrawal draws closer.   The victor will of course be the Pakistani-backed Taliban-hence Pakistan.  So the emphasis must be in forging yet another alliance with a dubious ally.   Perhaps I should now refer to the Saudi-U.S.-Pakistan axis as that which I consider similar to the failed  Munich Agreement between Chamberlain and Hitler and Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.
This axis cannot succeed for several reasons:
An assumption has already been made that Saudi Arabia can 'export' it's religious ideology to control the Muslim world, on our behalf.  To put it plainly, the Middle-East Muslim world becomes a rigid totalitarian Caliphate 'block' where the ignorant,tribal,uneducated and superstitious are ruled in fear of the Imams-and they all 'report' to Jeddah.    The argument is that the Muslim world is so diverse, so undemocratic (indeed nobody is really interested in Western democracy only their own tribal and ethnic group democracy) so steeped in religion and tribalism that someone has to take control and bring a sense of order and discipline into a chaotic environment.   At a time where the Muslim world yearns for leadership and direction Saudi Arabia is the only model which can provide both religious and social cohesion to so diverse a region.
I totally disagree with this analysis.  It's totally insane and the product of too much comparative analysis
and insight based on mirror-like comparisons with the psychology and technologies of societal control in Greek-based democratic societies (i.e. Western societies.)  Historians can no doubt demonstrate how totalitarianism can 'work' for hundreds if not thousands of years-offsetting 'popular' representation so that it need only evolve over centuries rather than decades.

Such developments, if they come to pass, will also 'encourage' Christian societies to likewise prepare 'for battle' with (perceived)  'fanatical' Islam-as our own citizens are as equally ill-informed as their uneducated counterparts in the Middle-East Muslim world.
I do not believe that Saudi Arabia will be able to contain the forces of religious ignorance which it will unleash in it's 'quest' to Islamize or Caliphanize the Arab Muslim world.
The essence of the Devine-Kassel argument,cutting a deal with Pakistan, is not in doubt.
What I question is the willingness of Pakistan to bring,for example (and I quote the article) the Haqqani Network to task simply by throwing money at Pakistan's military apparatus and offering a few deals on trade and investment.   Nobody doubts the Government of Pakistan has a terrible dilemma with so volatile borders at Kashmir, India and Afghanistan.  But many of their problems are of their own making - furthering terrorism in India to gain leverage in Kashmir, destabilizing  (or at least weakening) Afghanistan to rule this region by proxy.

While I disagree with the conclusions, the article itself shows that there are at least elements of commonsense providing decision makers with material for debate.
As to whether Senators and Representatives take any heed-or indeed argue the issues point by point to avoid yet another failed state - only time will reveal.  (For my part, I doubt if many but a handful of the literate and semi-literate will even bother to read the article.)


Patrick Emek
September 24th 2013

Critique of article entitled 'Afghanistan:Withdrawal Issues',by
 Jack Devine and Whitney Kassel, from the Fall Issue of  World Policy Journal: 'Secrecy + Security', published by The World Policy Institute.
http://www.worldpolicy.org/

Why The Denial of Airspace To Heads of State Is Never A Good Idea

 A recent decision by the United States to deny airspace to the President of Venezuela on his trip to China should again raise serious concerns about the direction of U.S. foreign policy.  Actions which start out as one-sided often end up spinning wildly out of control.   What happens, for example, if a Head of State's plane on a U.S. 'blacklist' flying through a neutral corridor should veer significantly off-course because of instrument failure or bad weather?  What will happen if, because of communications failure, it fails to heed requests of U.S. intercept fighter planes?; will it be shot down?; what will be the profound implications of such an act-in the eyes of world public opinion-despite any excuses or denials of involvement by the United States?; what will be the implications if a Head of State's 'blacklist' plane is forced down and he or she is 'arrested' or 'taken' into U.S. custody?; or how will the world perceive the United States if, for example, China or Russia should publicly announce decisions to provide military fighter 'cover' to certain visiting dignitaries on the U.S. airspace blacklist as their planes fly through neutral corridors?(actually, China does not currently have logistical long-haul capability nor expertise but certainly Russia does); how will the world perceive this and will other countries react with their own airspace blacklists?; how will this affect ordinary Americans traveling abroad? (the very few who bother to travel abroad these days); are they too likely, through no fault of their own, to find themselves by virtue of their passport, on a country's retaliatory blacklist?; in the reverse,what happens if a plane carrying U.S. dignitaries (diplomatic or other senior representatives or senior executives on some countries 'blacklist') should veer off course for the same reasons given above?  These measures can start off as punitive and end up as something quite different - for the whole world.   I often think that today U.S. foreign policy is being made on the hoof with no depth of thought being given to long-term implications.   Policies appear to be very short-sighted with no discernible goal-orientated objective-other than, in this example, being punitive.     The President of Venezuela, for example, is not charismatic as was his predecessor, Hugo Chavez.   He is weak politically and more than likely will be replaced in the natural course of democratic process by a party which is favorable to U.S. foreign policy interests.   An incident like this, if Nicolás Maduro milks it, will only likely prolong his stay in Office as Venezuelans will see such action as an affront to their national sovereignty and anyone supporting the opposition branded as 'enemies' of the Venezuelan people.  Again there appears to be a thinking within the State Department that they have no 'rights' to 'national emotional feelings' of their own.   What I am saying is that policy makers are failing to perceive the world in anything other than short-termism - and through their own perceptions with no thought for anything other than very narrow very short-term and very selfish interests.   As with the recent cancellation of The President of Brazil's State visit to the United States (canceled by Brazil, for entirely different reasons), such denial of airspace to Venezuela will only deepen and intensify relations between opposition forces in Latin America and intensify their campaigns against American interests in the region.   This at a time when most socialist models are proving to be monumental failures in Latin America - with only time itself required before their total democratic collapse - no push required in any way from Washington - they will collapse of their own volition.   Brazil is the best example of this.   It is wrongly hailed as a resounding economic success by such business networks as CNN,CNBC.   None will dare to tell you that Brazil has been hovering on the brink of revolution and social chaos for a very long time (as was South Africa under apartheid) - as 99.9% of it's Black Brazilians (who form over 75%, perhaps much more of the population, as African-Brazilian race origin statistics ceased to be honestly documented for over two decades for fear of revolution) are economically disenfranchised and outrageously impoverished, reminiscent of South Africa under apartheid-but in a more subtle and glaringly dishonest manner.   Brazil is rife for revolution - it has been for a very long time.   When it happens, it will be on a monumental scale (ironically predicted for South Africa-but which never happened thanks to the then wisdom of British-U.S. foreign policy and lawmakers.)     Anybody who tells you Brazil or Venezuela or Ecuador are stable democracies is either being highly selective with information or are themselves ill-informed.      What actions like denying airspace will do will be to enable anti-democratic forces within these countries to capitalize on this unexpected 'political lifeline' thrown to them, inadvertently, by Washington.  

People often ask 'is there intelligent life in Outer Space?'; I now ask, 'is there intelligent life anywhere in the U.S. State Department? '       Perhaps we can ask the NSA to direct their much-talented listening operations towards Washington, for signs of intelligent life?

 

Patrick Emek

September 20th 2013

 

 

Cyprus - EU: Gold Deposits Held For The Russian Federation

(How to Get Your Gold Out Of Cyprus Before The S**t  Hits The Fan If You Are The Russian Government)                                                                                                                                                                                                  or

How Not To Be Ripped Off By The EU If You Are The Russian Government                                                                                                                                                    

............................................................................................................................................

1.Send in 2 Antonovs,after sunset,with testing equipment, and
special forces armed for security.
2.Collect gold as prearranged.
3.Review checklist and sign off.
4.Fly out before sunrise.
.....................................Mission Accomplished...............................................


..................(Fact Is Often Much Stranger than Fiction)..................................

It Could Only Happen In The United Kingdom

Someone I new from his/her childhood told me this story decades ago.

 

Now seems as good a time as ever to tell it.

When he/she grew up, he/she ended up working in the Diplomatic Protection

Branch of the Police.

Now this person was of Greek-Cypriot origin.

The President of Turkey was on a State visit to The UK.

5 of the Officers assigned to protect him were of Greek/Cypriot origin;

that is to say, their parents or grandparents came to the UK as immigrants

from Greece or Cyprus.

Now they had a dilemma:

Some felt very strongly about the situation in Cyprus and they debated how to reconcile

their duty with their emotional,cultural and historical links.

In the end they took a vote on it.  3 voted to go ahead with their duties and 2 voted against.

They made their views known to the Commanding Officer and the 2 who felt too emotional

to reconcile were excused from the personal protection duties for this particular State visit.  

None ever suffered professionally because of this matter.

The Presidential State visit was regarded as a  resounding success by both Britain and Turkey.

I dread to contemplate what fate would have awaited them if they had been serving officers
in another country in the world.
I can think of many where doing the patriotic duty of taking a matter of conscience to a
senior officer or representative, as allowed in law, would have most certainly resulted in witch-hunts,dismissals and abandonment by the very system which should have offered support, confidence and protection and immunity from victimization.

I can't think of another country in the world where the outcome from such an incident would have been favorable to all parties.

Patrick Emek

September 15th 2013

Syria: One Week To Disarm-The Cost of Warfare

At first glance giving Syria one week to disarm is totally ludicrous.
No doubt there is urgency in Syria's accession to the U.N. Chemical Weapons Ban
Treaty - but a week is just not viable.
There are a number of factors at work here.
One of them is the sheer cost of keeping U.S. forces in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf in a state
of readiness for a prolonged period of time.
It should be appreciated that there is a considerable cost to 'hi-gearing' resources and assets for imminent
action.   Military preparedness degrades over a prolonged period of inactivity as all other schedules (combat training, shore leave, etc etc) have been cancelled prior to imminent war and the military-industrial complex supporting a particular brief (from the 'shop floor' to 'systems delivery') have been re-positioned and readied to supply the mission tasks.
In view of this fact alone, significant progress must be verifiable or at least be evident to facilitate a stand down to a lower level of alertness.   It's effectively the equivalent of 'mission creep' if too long a period of
'inactivity' operates.
With significant progress and combat alert in decline, hopefully the diplomats can be given the space to do their jobs and bring about a favorable outcome for the world.

I often hear comments of eminent specialists who talk about the logic of what the Syrian rebels (Al Qaeda) will do in the interests of 'realpolitik'.   Sadly few (appear to have) any experience of dealing with religious fanatics and are simply looking at matters through the looking glass of their practical training and experience of the 'normal' world of political banter and compromise.
What they fail to appreciate is that in the 21st century, in some parts of the world,there are religious idealists
(such as Al Qaeda) who do not see the world through our prism.
You really must put yourself into a framework of medieval-or pre-medieval  thought-where Infidels are put to the sword for the glory of Allah or indeed for the glory of God, The Trinity and the prize of re-taking Jerusalem for Christendom) where unspeakable crimes against humanity are perfectly acceptable-as a matter of course-and will be forgiven (by Allah or God)-if it is to further Islam/Christianity in a 'Holy War'; where the sacking and putting to the sword (and I am talking May Lai Massacre and Pol Pot scale-big time-not just as 'one-off' actions of a disturbed captain or colonel or private but wholesale and as 'the norm') is perfectly justifiable and Allah will forgive as it is all done to further His cause (that of spreading the Koran/Bible by 'fire and the sword' to overcome the 'Infidels'.)
I often wonder if our politically correct versions of sanitized history, religious teachings, and other areas of curricula teachings in schools and colleges are producing generations of  wussies with no real appreciation of the past-thereby ensuring that yesterdays mistakes will be repeated tomorrow.
The general public and indeed  educated professionals  appears to have no real understanding of the mindset
of religious fanatics, who cannot simply be overcome with dialectical (discourse) alone but also with more rudimentary methods which will bring them 'down to earth'.
Let me give just one example.  This is a little know story dating back to the early days of the Lebanese Civil War.  It was a time when Western diplomats were being kidnapped and murdered with frightening regularity.
A faction of a terrorist group (with religious-political ideologies) decided to kidnap Russian diplomats.  The response was, through 'friendly' (pro-Soviet) assets within the terrorist organization, to identify the faction responsible for the kidnappings.   Russian special forces (already present) were deployed to work with friendly locals. The role of local (grass-roots) assets was absolutely critical and without them identification of the terrorist cell would have been extremely difficult.  They promptly kidnapped relatives of the kidnappers and started to send (surgically removed, on ice blocks) 'body parts' of the relatives to the kidnappers-with the message that if the Russian diplomats were not released, more vital parts and organs would follow shortly.)  The kidnappers promptly released their victims and the relatives of the kidnappers were also released, none the worse for wear and tear.   There were no more Russian diplomats kidnapped in Lebanon during the Civil War.

In the politically correct world we inhabit it is assumed that all logic follows the same route.
Not so.
Religious fanatics will often only talk turkey when you have something they regard of  precious value to sell to them.
The Russian 'initiative' did not of course bring about an end to the Lebanese Civil War-but it secured their own position and that of their diplomats.

So with U.S. military intervention temporarily on hold, lets hope that the work of diplomacy will at least marginalize the extremists, for the time being.


Patrick Emek
14th September  2013

Disaffection In the American Armed Forces

Should President Obama continue with his plan to deploy U.S. troops to fight alongside Al Qaeda he risks serious disaffection in branches of the services.

(At this moment a vigorous internal hunt is taking place to try to identify those whom, I would call patriots, who will, more likely, not follow orders to side with America's enemies.)

 This policy of engagement in Syria is ill-conceived,not thought through and the only beneficiaries will be Saudi Arabia and Islamic extremists.

 What Has Led To Disaffection Amongst Rank-and-File Personnel?

U.S. forces are amongst the most highly trained,professional and  reliable in the world.   U.S. Special Forces are,as I have said in BBC World TV interviews after 9/11, the best in the world.  They are noted for their unfaltering loyalty, whatever the situation of personal disapproval.   None, however, joined the armed services to serve nor fight alongside Al Qaeda, the sworn enemies of America, everything American and the Christian world as a whole.

President Obama's foreign policy has been a complete shambles from the beginning.  He switched from supporting friendly pro-West secular Muslim regimes,as dictatorial, undemocratic and oppressive as most were, to supporting religious fanatics.

All the above should not detract from the enormous foreign policy blunder he is about to engage in.

Syria is not Libya,nor Iraq nor Afghanistan.

President Obama is opening a can of worms which will engulf the entire region into decades of conflict and strife.              (Perhaps that's the objective?;again if it was, I will be the last person in the world to be told.)

Hezbollah is the most effective fighting force in that entire region of the Muslim world.  Technology notwithstanding, they can hold their own against the IDF and Special Forces-which they have shown on many occasions.   IDF personnel will tell you that the one force they do not desire to encounter, is Hezbollah.   They are a well-disciplined, seasoned, fighting force which have earned the respect-even of their enemies.

Taking on Syria is effectively taking on Hezbollah.  Once Hezbollah is fully committed in the Syrian civil war, so too is Iran.  So the fight over the future of Iran will take place in Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and Turkey with jihadi fanatics from the four corners of the Islamic world being beckoned to join in this 'Holy War'.                                     

A military coup in Turkey is also a not too remote possibility - so unpopular amongst the Turkish population as a whole - is the current (U.S. backed) Sunni (pro Salafist) leadership and their stance in the Syrian civil war.

The Turks,despite their partial and temporary truce with the PKK, will not be able to contain the spillover of this new conflict which will engulf their Kurdish borders. 

As a guest of the Turkish Ambassador in London I once had the opportunity (on a river trip) just after the PKK leader was captured, to urge moderation and suggest clemency from a possible death sentence for Mr Ocalan.   My reasoning was that he might be useful someday.  Thank goodness at that time a moderate secular (Atatürk) Turkish government was in power-and taking rational decisions.   I do not profess to have had one iota of influence but realpolitik was, at that time, in Turkey, the order of the day.   Today the religious fanatics have taken power in Turkey - by stealth.  Secular rationalism is today, in Turkey, secondary, to religious priorities.

Throw God and Allah into that arena of the Syrian conflict and you have an unholy mess.

Syria will not stand by and take 90 days of 'punishment' from the United States Congress.   There will be a response.

90 days from zero we may yet again see the President telling us why American (or a Turkish-Gulf coalition,NATO-backed) forces must now be committed to deal with Syria's 'response' to it's 'punishment'.  Neither do a significant number of U.S. serving troops want to see this scenario-because such will involve propping up Al Qaeda, the sworn enemy of everything American, to enable them to seize power from Assad,the secular President of Syria.

For Israel to take sides in this civil strife in Syria is a big mistake.  It will have to live with it's neighbors forever (notwithstanding ability to move the entire territory to Manhattan or Key West.) 

Only extremism can triumph in the current circumstances.

 

Patrick Emek

September 4th 2013

1st Anniversary of The Torture and Murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, by Saudi-backed Salafists:

A lot of effort has been made in the past year,through selective media leaks,by persons unknown, to portray Ambassador Stevens as 'an idealist' and someone who 'went off the reservation' ...the classic setup before justification for abandonment.
Ambassadors,even of Superpowers, are expendable.
Their blood is not as thick as oil.

We already know, from media open-sourced interviews, that unreleased documents of the Obama administration will show Ambassador Stevens could have been saved......but he was expendable.....the First Representative of the President of the most powerful country on earth.....was expendable...think about that.   The next time you and your family take up appointment in some God-forsaken outpost, remember the unsolved cold-blooded torture and murder of Ambassador Stevens ........and reflect......

Patrick Emek
September 3rd 2013
updated September 4th 2013

Sochi-To Boycott Or Not?

Sochi:

To Boycott Or Not?
The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics is the Russian Federation's showpiece.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in it's success
by the Kremlin but,like the Olympics of 1936,it's meant to
be a showpiece only for Russian excellence in sports.
With Gays and Blacks being regularly beaten and attacked on the streets
of St Petersburg for even venturing to be present in the city,it is
no wonder that Sochi is being compared to the 1936 Nazi Summer Olympics held
in Berlin,Germany, under the Third Reich.
Just to remind younger readers, before and during the 1936 Olympics
held in Berlin, Jews were being beaten up across Germany by Nazi
thugs and the process of excluding Jewish children from
public and private schools had already begun as well as their parents'
exclusion from all the professions and government jobs
(The Anti-Semitic Legislation-1933-1939) throughout Germany,
a prelude to Kristallnacht on 9th and 10 November 1938 and the
concentration camps for Jews,Gypsies,Communists,Jehovah
Witnesses and anybody else opposing Hitler.
Now there is no comparing President Putin to Hitler but the
intolerance of racial minorities (not to mention Gays and Lesbians)
and the artificial creation of an 'honorary' Gay zone and
'honorary' facilities at Sochi for Gays and Lesbians-which are
'honorary'Gay-friendly for the duration of the Sochi Winter Olympics,
is eerily reminiscent of a hybrid between Apartheid South African and
Nazi Germany -where the legendary Jesse Owens and other African
American athletes were 'honorary White' guests-during the Berlin
1936 Olympics.
You cannot compare the Qatar 2020 Summer Olympics with Sochi
because the Qatar 2020 Olympics, to be held in Doha, will have
no 'honorary' athletes, only equal competitors.
There is no part of Qatar or Bahrain or Oman or indeed
any Gulf nation where 'White' Russians
are afraid to walk the streets in fear of their lives.
The same cannot be said of Qataris,Omanis,Bahrainis
or people of dark skin throughout many parts of the Russian
Federation where racial discrimination is rife and
institutionalised and,as in Apartheid South Africa, the
Police throughout the Russian Federation are the 'enforcers'
of the'Apartheid'code.
So the comparison between the forthcoming Qatar Olympics
has no bearing on the issues in hand.
Likewise the comparison between President Vladimir Putin and
Adolf Hitler is ridiculous.
The Russian Parliament is simply introducing Anti-Gay laws
they know will appeal to a neo-fascist and ultra-nationalist
Russian Orthodox Church - which exercises the same unbridled
powers inherited from it's Communist predecessor.
Is a boycott of Sochi justified?
The apologists for Apartheid South Africa used to say that the
Blacks will suffer more if South Africa was boycotted economically
politically and culturally.
We now know that the boycott helped White Apartheid South Africans
understand that their policies of institutional discrimination
were not acceptable to most of the civilised world and gave
heart to those struggling against oppression in the knowledge that
the world did care about their plight and was prepared to send
a visible signal to the oppressors and the oppressed.
The United States was the leader of the free world's ecomomic
and cultural isolation of South Africa at that time-whilst equally
maintaining it's stance that terrorism was not the way to end
the Apartheid regime.
If Sochi is boycotted by nations will the Russian people
(influenced by the Russian Orthodox Church) blame
Gays and Lesbians and extreme nationalists take revenge
against them?  Of course they will-in the same was as Neo-Nazis
would take revenge against Jews whether or not the 1936 Olympics
had or had not been boycotted.
Personally I am not in favour of a boycott by the West of Sochi-
but for different reasons.
The presence of the world at the Sochi 2014 Olympics should
provide an ample platform for the civilised world to demonstrate
it's opposition to institutional discrimination based on race,
colour,ethnicity,disabilities or sexual orientation.
Indeed I believe it is the duty of every non-Russian Federation
competitor at Sochi from the developed world to show visible
support for their beleaguered Gay and Lesbian colleagues
in Russia and to remember that the civilised world can show
no greater antitheses than introducing laws which promote equality
and justice for all before the law.

Patrick Emek
August 9th 2013

Edward Snowden,Julian Assange,Coproral Bradley Manning

Edward Snowden,Julian Assange,Coproral Bradley Manning:

Drawing A Line In The Sand
I recently watched an interview with someone who motivated
the youth of his day to the highest ideals in journalism,
Daniel Ellsberg.
His view is that all the whistleblowers-Bradley Manning,Edward Snowden
and Julian Assange, are one and the same and should all be
equally supported because not to do so is an abrogation of civic
duty with regard to defending the 4th Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution and that, in effect,what they are all exposing for
public scrutiny is Official wrongdoing,sanctioned at the highest
levels of government and indeed all such activities
are illegal.
I beleive the nation is divided on this issue.
The majority may well support Professor Ellsberg's
position on such issues.
The problem I have is this question:
where do we draw a line in the sand?;where is the balance between
freedom and liberty and state security?
I'd actually go further: Every country in the developed world is
competing economically-even against allies.  Without a myriad of
intelligence sources its impossible to gain competitive advantages
over rivals.
Of course in the social,political and economic utopia (which
incidentally more people would like to see evolve than might be
imagined) one would not need competitive advantage because
the world would be trading using parameters where everybody
would benefit.  Unfortunately until we arrive at this Nirvana
we're stuck with the next best thing!;and I don't see these
current issues as milestones on that evolutionary path.
The next argument could well be that I don't 'understand the issues'.
That branches of the military and intelligence continually lie
to Congressional Oversight Committees-with the full knowledge
and blessing of Congressmen and Congresswomen who would
prefer not to be burdened with the fine details about what's
happening at the coalface and in the bowels of the earth.
So,this argument would say, the entire system is 'broken'.
The accountability and transparency spectrums have been
totally compromised leaving (we) the people unprotected against
all wrongdoing by those in high office.
If the NSA were to be completely dismantled tomorrow, this
would only mean it's place would be taken by a more
'efficient' predator-survival of the fittest-if you believe
in the Darwinian theory of evolution.
So would coming under China or Russia's ultra secret surveillance
systems-or perhaps even Iran's or North Korea's be any
improvement?  Of course I have taken the latter two as worst
examples to illustrate a point.
The retort might well be that what Americans require is honest
government and, above all, honest oversight, which is
genuinely accountable to the electorate or,at least, honest
representatives of the people.
With that in mind, I'd like to move on to my last thought
on this matter:
Who listens to planet Earth?
Be assured Russia and China monitor everything going in and out of
their vast empires-but nobody questions their lack of transparency
-perhaps
because their chains of command are so firewalled behind Iron Curtains
so as to make it impossible for intelligence whistleblowers to
ever break surface (alive) - other than through pre-arranged defections
to the West.
I believe that in the near future defectors will 'blow the cover'
on the vast spying edifices China and Russia use to monitor and
control their populations and their use of space technology
to eavesdrop the planet.
When such occurs undoubtly many respected individuals such as
Professor Ellsberg and Professor Noam Chomsky will dismiss
the revelations as irrelevant to the United States on the
grounds that it is up to the Russian or Chinese judicial
systems to deal with such wrongdoing whereas the 'wrongdoings''
committed by the U.S. Government against it's own people are
clearly criminal as they are in violation of the American
Constitution, or, to be more specific,the 4th Amendment.
I believe there is a difference in an open society between the
revelations a journalist and researcher such as Mr Julian Assange
makes and those made by dissatisfied military and intelligence
officers who find it impossible to reconcile their 'orders' with
their personal (or ethical) beliefs.
In third world countries coups are the order of the day when
military and other disaffected officers on tribal, religious,
political, ethical or just sheer greed decide they want to
take it upon themselves to determine the future direction of
the country,independent of the peoples democratically
elected representatives.
The duty of journalists and independent researchers in an open
society is the public interest-this is to whom they are ultimately
and solely accountable. Of course,historically, there always have
been times where the public's 'right to know' has been 'put on hold'
to facilitate diplomacy.
There always has and, in my opinion, always will be a
case for this.
I can think of many instances, historically, where the right of the
public for instant information is not in the national interest, even
if it is the 'scoop of the century'.
Indeed we constantly remind individuals not to blindly follow
orders they believe to be morally and ethically wrong-and the
U.S. system provides ways and means for such grievances to be taken
forward-without fear.
The problem here is that after taking government, intelligence,
military wrongdoing through the system these aggrieved individuals
expect to go back and work for the same system they have become
disillusioned with as if nothing happened-and herein lies the dilemma:
you cannot wish the broken mirror to become unbroken again.
These (now) high-profile individuals cannot now expect to 'pick-up'
their lives and careers exactly where they left off and which,
on grounds of conscience, they have decided to forsake
in the interests of the general public.
They may get a 'thanks' from the general public-who will then,
quite rightly in my view, move on to the next story or scandal
and forget about this one after a relatively short period,
 the broken system having been repaired.
Unfortunately the 'eternal' gratitude of the general public will
only last until the next scandal hits the news.
One would be naive to expect a 'red carpet' to  be laid out by that
same system for the returning 'prodigal' son or daughter anxious
to resume their professional career in government,armed services
or agencies.
'And why in heaven's name not!' I hear many howl in agast.
Because,in,my opinion, a line in the sand has been crossed.
It's not punishment.  It is that their future careers are better
served where they will not have to confront more ethical issues
in a less than perfect official government system where, undoubtedly,
other employees in future times will face the same dilemmas of faith
and belief and decide for themselves which path of accountability
to utilise-the peoples representaives with responsibility
for oversight, or the general public.
Patrick Emek
2nd August
2.30pm

revised 12th August 2013

Why Edward Snowden Decided On Asylum In Russia

With it's abysmal human rights record and levels of transparency both equating almost to
those of China,Edward Snowden nonetheless decided to request asylum in Russia.

The reasons are quite obvious.
Changes in political fortunes in Venezuela and Bolivia would mean certain extradition to
the United States.
In Nicaragua he is easily 'renderable' to the United States.

So what will Russia demand of it's new (and only, to the best of my knowledge) Western
political refugee fleeing 'persecution' for releasing 'classified' (Top Secret) documents whose confidentiality he was sworn under Government oath and by signature to protect?
Assuming political asylum is granted,no doubt, for some time,he will be a celebrity then like most traitors (and this is how the Kremlin will ultimately see him) he will be 'filed away'-'pensioned' off to an obscure non-sensitive job somewhere within the Russian Federation.
I am not sure if this individual has really thought out any of his plans-beyond his release
of his sensitive (former) workload.  I very much doubt it.
In view of this, I believe the State Department should show compassion for someone who is quite clearly confused and trapped-in a predicament of his own choice and making.
 If there was ever a case to 'do a deal' through an intermediary (a family member) now might be the time.
The whole situation is a fiasco-with one precipitous irrational action after another being taken to close the stable after this horse has bolted. 
Now is the time to end it-with some common sense.
With all the twists and turns in this debacle, it's certainly not the epilog-yet!


Patrick Emek

12.07.2013

15.30 

Denial Of Airspace To The President of Bolivia & The Likelihood of Profound Implications For The European Union

Profound implications will most certainly follow the collective decisions of EU member nations to actively deny clearance authority to land to the private Government plane carrying the President of the South American country of Bolivia, President Evo Morales.
Apart from actively endangering the life of the President of a country,which is recognised by the United Nations as a sovereign independent nation,this  incredible decision, also taken without consideration of the profound implications to the entire  EU 'Bloc' will first resonate on the South American continent then gradually filter worldwide as sovereign leaders in Third World countries individually ponder their own fate, should they possibly, at any future time step 'out of line' with the European Union.  
I automatically conjure up the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and the flight of a Cardinal Josef Mindszenty to sanctuary inside the U.S. embassy and where he had to remain for the next 15 years because of Soviet tanks at the gates of the embassy.
I also (for some reason) reminisce the fate of Alexander Dubcek who bravely (initially) stood up to the Soviet invasion of his country during the Prague Spring-and paid the ultimate penalty.
It's effects are likely to be most dramatic on the South American continent.
The first effect could well be asking the EU to close offices' in Latin America.
Secondly, in Bolivia in particular, it could result in EU countries primarily responsible
to being asked to withdraw their Ambassadors.
Again, because of the arrogance and high-handedness of technocratic and bureaucratic
EU mandarins, retaliatory punitive economic and diplomatic sanctions will be imposed on this fairly small and undeveloped independent sovereign nation in South America.
This will resonate across the Latin American continent to no end and ensure Bolivia is
supported 99% (at least) in the Organisation of American States by South American nations-with the U.S. Mexico, Panama, Belize and likely English-speaking Caribbean nations abstaining from any controversial votes-or at least consulting with Her Majesty's Senior Representative before deciding which way to vote.
It's a mess. 
It confirms my theory about how 'remote' politicians are becoming from those they govern-especially in the European Union.
I have only visited the EU Parliament on four occasions in my life.
Three times in an official capacity (as an invited guest) and once as a guest of an MEP, shadowing him in his work routine for a short period of time
The first time, I can now say, as it was some time ago, was as a Fellow of The Atlantic Council of The United Kingdom (NATO) when invited as part of a British delegation  visiting SHAPE Headquarters where we were, over a number of years, regular guests for military briefings on an annual basis.
I was always looking forward to the actual few days break (and nightlife) in Brussels and secondly to the excellent and very warm reception and briefings afforded to us, which were immensely instructive and always very candid, by our military hosts and the British Representative and Staff at NATO headquarters.
At one informal meeting, I put forward a point of view (then contrary) to NATO policy.  I think it was did we ever see a time when the The Russian Federation would become a member of NATO?  The U.S. Representative heading this particular briefing Panel was actually aghast that anyone would have the temerity to put such a viewpoint. I must say his answer was openly cordial and diplomatic but the frosty freeze-out I later experienced by this individual  suggested that I had outstayed my welcome at his particular briefing.
This was only one of many matters over the years which seemed to confirm my perceptions of 'one fit for all sizes' frame of thinking ('you can have any color of car-as long as it's red!') and a failure to confront realities thrust upon them rather than ones they shape which governs a particular 'clique' mindset and politicians today.
(I was never not invited back for briefings and I personally never saw this particular individual again and on future visits.)
It was also during the Balkans War and when I dutifully (and I still believe to this day, quite correctly) spoke in support of NATO's campaign offensive in Kosovo to prevent the ethnic slaughter of Muslims, at University College London (UCL) against a prominent Guardian journalist, Jonathan Freedland, and won the debate, I might add(!), that I drew on years of training and social experience,being absolutely focused during times of intense debate and avoiding any rash and hasty decisions and  rash statements I would likely (unfortunately!) live to regret.
I had geared myself up to speak (at the invitation of ALW) at several university debates about NATOs role in the Balkans conflict.  Fortunately the conflict ended before I could further take up the mantle.
About 15 years earlier,and long before the Good Friday Agreement which ended conflict in Northern Ireland, I said to Alan Lee Williams, whose intellect and savvy I always admired, over drinks and a chat at U.S. Naval headquarters, and who was a member of the Atlantic Council (NATO) Parliament, 'never end up on the wrong side of history'.  His answer was quite spontaneous :'but what IS the right side of history Patrick?'  my equally spontaneous reply was 'it's the side which has righteousness, justice and the lesser of evils we can contemplate for the future of humankind as one humanity on it's side.'
This decision to deny air clearance to the President of a sovereign, developmentally poor, tiny nation, Bolivia should never have been left to bureaucrats but taken at Presidential levels throughout the EU - if quick (instant) consultation and decisions were of essence because of time constraints. (I will be amazed to learn if such was the case.  I might be wrong and if I am I will be absolutely shocked.)
A new 'nomenclatura' is running the European Union.
It's one which is toatlly remote from the realities of life of ordinary people-hence the ease with which decisions like this can be made-only deferring to power and not to common-sense nor wisdom nor even the norms of international diplomatic protocol.
What is about to happen will be the first of many 'wake-up' calls for the mandarins and technocrats who silently direct EU policy oblivious to it's effects and the sufferings of the masses they rule-because of their lack of empathy.
They remind me of the experiments I read about whilst a student at University where individuals were invited to electrically 'shock' experimental subjects with the promise of rewards, promotion and praise for the 'most efficient' 'torturers'.
Whether one wake-up call for the EU 'bloc' technocrats and nomenclatura is enough to effect any profound and lasting change I really am in serious doubt because of the nature of 'the beast'.
It took almost 100 years for Communism to finally collapse in Eastern Europe.
I am putting no bets on how long the EU monetary union-let alone the EU as a single 'Bloc' will last.
What I will say is that this incredible decision to actively endanger (at least) slap across the face (at most) the President of Bolivia returning from an international Gas Forum hosted in Moscow by Russian President Putin, is also, indirectly, a slap across the face for President Putin and a signal from the EU of his 'inability' to 'protect' the 'safe passage' (diplomatically) of any world leader, unfavourable to the EU (or whom the EU suspects of any 'infringement' or 'slight' not to it's liking) and who might venture to a conference hosted in Russia and has the misfortune to cross EU territorial airspace in the process.   It's a mess.
(Interestingly, concepts of 'Safe Passage' and 'Diplomatic Protocol' for Dignitaries go back to the Mongols-The Great Khan-and the Arabs.)
I don't blame Edward Snowden for this particular debacle-but it confirms my suspicions of the irrational decisions taken in haste surrounding this matter which will have long-resounding and resonating effects on the conduct of world affairs.
I have coined it a 'remoteness' in my article 'Edward Snowden Is Not A Hero' - perhaps I better refine what I am trying to say as a 'sociopathic remoteness' of the rulers and technocrats from those they govern in the developed world-as indeed in many parts of the Third World (or developing world) today.

Because nobody represents me in Brussels, I would like, as an ordinary citizen and as one very ashamed ordinary folk (and as one of the 'peasants' so to speak) to offer my sincere apologies, to President Morales and I believe that if we had a voice, at least one hundred million of us ordinary folk who are not represented in the EU, would concur with such an unreserved apology for such a terrible breach of international protocol and wish President Morales Godspeed, protection and safe passage for his future travels.


Patrick Emek
July 3rd 2.00 am

Edward Snowden Is Not A Hero

It appears that the U.S. media has again gone into convulsion behaving more like the traditional lynching mob-reminiscent of the days of slavery-than the independent free-thinking press of the 1970s and 1980s.
CNN, fuming in rage and foaming at the mouth at having been made literally a laughing stock, see's it's reporter dash in panic for the next flight out of Cuba rather than enjoy a day or two's rest in Havana and screeching at rather puzzled individuals in the transit cafe 'anyone seen Edward Snowden?',without even greeting them,explaining who he is or even bothering to check if they speak English, let alone, if indeed, they are even remotely interested in or had heard about this U.S. debacle.
This same fury is displayed by U.S. politicians calling for  the death penalty specifically for Snowden and more generally for journalists and whistleblowers whilst warning Russia and China to hand over Snowden or face unspecified consequences.
I believe that Edward Snowden genuinely acted in good faith.
He believes,as do many educated Americans, that civil liberties are under threat from a super-state which reserves for itself the moral authority to invade and monitor the privacy of it's citizens and as much of the world as it can control, on the grounds of national 'security' be it economic, political and military, or all three.
On a strategic basis, America has decided that, in a world of global communications on an unprecedented scale, he who controls the technology and the information, rules the world. This principle has not been lost to our economic rival-China- also eager to achieve the same cyberspace objective as the world dominant superpower. 
Edward Snowden is an educated man, so what would motivate him to run for his life to a territory which has never experienced a modicum of democracy under British administration and one in which all spontaneous demonstrators turning out in their masses to sheepishly support him against the 'evil' Obama are only permitted to so do at the behest of their Chinese masters in Beijing?  Try demonstrating for independence from mainland China in Hong Kong and see how swiftly all of these naive and malleable supporters of Edward Snowden would be imprisoned for a very long time-or just 'disappear'. or probably be shot or hanged for treason after a kangaroo court trial in Beijing.
So what motivated him?  It's absolutely clear from what I can make out that his decision to flee to Hong Kong was a hasty one.  Perhaps it was taken because the FBI were homing in on an intelligence leak or security compromise.
He could certainly have found an easier way to 'disappear' without running half way around the world (to a Chinese 'territory') if his 'flight' to 'freedom'  had been properly prepared in advance.
So anyone with a degree of common sense can see that this is not the flight of a traitor who has agreed to sell state secrets to an identified interested party, ready and waiting to provide a safe haven, but someone desperate for a way out of a situation he personally believed, on grounds of conscience, to be intolerable and one he could no longer support-the betrayal of the constitutional rights of the US citizen unblemished since the days of the founding fathers and evolved to support and strengthen civil rights and justice-rather than suppress them.
So what should we make of Snowden's decision to exit Russia for Ecuador-a country
with less human and indigenous rights (for it's minorities) than the one he forsake?
Will he be able to speak freely about human rights and civil rights in Ecuador, or Brazil, or any other Latin American country?  I think not.
As Bob Dylan said ( and this can be said today for the Arab world and South America today,especially Brazil and Ecuador) - their 'road is rapidly agein' and  'the times they are a changin'.
One of the conditions of his asylum,if ever granted in Ecuador, will be an undertaking to confine his 'revelations' to those of the 'evil empire' (sic. the U.S.) and avoid human rights issues in Latin America-be it Ecuador or Brasil, or (Hitler's favourites) Argentina, Colombia Uruguay and Paraguay.
On this ground alone Edward Snowden is already a suffocated idealist and my guess is that he will, when he appreciates the horrors of media restrictions in Ecuador, ultimately return to the United States to, as it were, face his critics.
Sadly,nobody has inherited the Kennedy mantel nor the 'Tip' O'Neill flair for balance,wisdom, political compromise and moderation on Capitol Hill today.
Understanding Motive Is A Key Requisite
So why all the trouble knowing the fate which would befall him?
There is no reason, in my view,to doubt the sincerity of his beliefs but there is a question as to why someone with such passionate beliefs would sign an Official Secrets or National Security or Homeland Security pledge of non-disclosure knowing full-well what he would be likely letting himself in for.
Even allowing for him being innocent at recruitment, a further question would arise as to why he continued to take a handsome salary from a government he intended to betray.
Lets be clear about what Edward Snowden was: a sub-contracted U.S. Government employee, not a journalist nor researcher, dealing with highly sensitive data which he had pledged in writing to keep secret.
I know about such undertakings, I signed them myself before I retired as a civil servant.
They are not presented to employees for no reason-and even if you are unaware of exactly what you will be dealing with, the most obvious course of action is to resign if it becomes clear there is a conflict between belief and faith. It might be a philosophical argument but it is not to be dismissed lightly.
Was there a need to go public (nay,universal) when there are still many avenues in the U.S. to ultimately bring such issues under political scrutiny and accountability?
Is there a difference between Watergate and Prismgate?
Should Obama be impeached for bugging the nation,nay, the world, like Richard Nixon was for bugging the offices of political rivals?
There is certainly a difference.
That fundamental difference is 9/11,the War on Terror and The Patriot Act.
Incredibly Remote
Most movies and documentaries about the events surrounding that fateful morning are rabidly partisan,conspiracist, racist or just anti-Muslim so I don't have much time for them.
'Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close' by Jonathan Safran Foer is the exception to the rule.  It is a fictional account of one American family's suffering in the aftermath of 9/11.
If you don't have time to read the book, watch the movie.
What has a soppy fiction book about 9/11 got to do with Edward Snowden?
What about the close to two million Muslim lives which have been either lost,displaced or afflicted in Iraq,Syria and Afghanistan since 9/11? 
What about the suffering indigenous Christians in Arab lands (with the exceptions of The Arab Muslim Gulf States) today?; driven from their homes in a new genocide, a Christian Hegira from Arab lands in the Middle East, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and North Africa today and one the media quite deliberately and consciously ignores-and which all Christian politicians in Europe and the United States would also prefer to keep silent about. The treatment of Christian Syrians (in flight for their lives) by Greek Police and Customs -who send them back out to sea in boats in the hope the boats will drift away from Greek waters (or sink) is reminiscent to me of the bestial cruelty of the Ottoman Turks who placed  men, women and children onto boats and capsized them in the Black Sea during the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923.
Surely we all need to be incredibly deaf and extremely remote to ignore the pain of these innocent victims?; you may very well, and rightly, demand.
What all of the above have in common with the events unfolding is remoteness.
The remoteness of the killers from their victims, the remoteness of so-called professing Christians (specifically Greek Orthodox) from the tenets of Christianity-with regard to the plight of fellow Christians fleeing from persecution today in Syria and North Africa.
(Shame on all the Christian world which turns away Christians fleeing persecution in Muslim lands in these turbulent times and seeking sanctuary from fellow-Christians in America, Europe and elsewhere.
Even in historical battles and rivalry during the Dark or Middle-Ages, Muslims showed more mercy to Christians than Christians are showing for fellow-Christians in today's historical exodus from Muslim lands.)
The 9/11 hijackers were as remote from the lives they touched, the pain and suffering they caused to communities worldwide, the flames and burning eternal hatred they stoked as the cruise missiles and RPV bombs and remote command center operators are about the lives they blow away-as if each one was never born,never was a child with a family,never went to school, never loved nor was loved by someone. 
It's that 'matter-of-fact' remoteness that is chilling to the bone.
Politicians display that same remoteness-be it the Japanese politician who said that elderly people should commit suicide to save their government the financial cost of their maintenance or the House of Representative member who called for the execution of Edward Snowden.
Edward Snowden himself has shown that same remoteness when applied to the country whose secrets he pledged to safeguard.  For personal reasons, with little thought to the consequences on security,vulnerability and penetration which rival superpowers such as China would not miss to access every computer and household in the United States-should an opportunity present itself- he decided, without malice but certainly also, I believe, without forethought of the hundreds of millions of lives which could be affected in the U.S. to release everything he was entrusted with the responsibility for safeguarding.
It's this common theme of remoteness which collectively permeates and fuels conflict in the world today.
Snowden is the product of a society, or to be more precise, a civil society, which has by stealth,thrown away protection of the right to privacy on-line. It could have been done openly.    Neither Congress nor The Senate ever debated whether Verizon, Google, Facebook and the rest of them would be openly requested to hand over the nation's browsing and communications profiles. Instead, a section of The Patriot Act was invoked to literally go on a 'fishing' expedition to net the entire American public.
Quite rightly Snowden saw his own freedoms being thrown in the dustbin together with those of his fellow Americans.  Wrongly, in my opinion, he then decided to betray that confidence with which he was entrusted rather than do the honorable thing-just resign from his post and find another pathway to take his grievance forward to the American public.
I have no doubt that there are many organizations and intellectuals in the U.S. powerful enough to support such grievances and take them to the public arena through less turbulent and tragic scenarios as the one currently unfolding.
As if these mistakes are not bad enough, politicians,the U.S. media in general, without shame nor conscience, jump on the band wagon and commit to the death penalty for all whistleblowers, journalists, indeed anyone exposing anything which can be contrived as 'terrorist' under the (one day to be significantly amended) 'Patriot Act' whose scope and breadth go far beyond protecting America against external threats and subjectively ensnare every aspect of civil disobedience and dissent as, potentially, aiding and abetting terrorism.
Every time I look at the U.S. media today I see fear-fear to oppose the status quo, fear of special interests, fear of power, fear of government, fear of politicians, (and politicians equally fearful of the masses of ordinary folk preferring instead to create gated and secure ivory towers for themselves and the special interest groups who finance them); a willingness of the mass media to focus on exploited workers overseas rather than being prepared to take a stand against exploitation at home. Conformity and silence is always the easier course of action.
In conclusion I cannot agree with what Edward Snowden did nor can I find any justification for his actions.
Neither, in my opinion, is there justification for his depiction as a national traitor to be made stateless and hounded to the ends of the earth.
This will not frighten the next generation of whistleblowers-on the contrary it will only embolden them to even greater revelations using  more subtle and subversive tactics, regardless of the consequences.
The greatest tragedy to come out of this fiasco is that so uneducated are the peoples representatives today, they cannot understand why this will be the case-and will press for even more absurdly draconian punishments for future 'Snowdens' on sacrificial altars in their vain Canute-like hope of turning back the tide.


Patrick Emek
28th June 2013

Paradise Lost

The butchery of an off-duty soldier, Drummer  Lee Rigby, just several hundred feet away from his military barracks, in Woolwich, London, raises a number of questions which could well apply to a small number of Muslim alienated young men across the continent of Europe.

From what it appears, the murderer (or both, yet to be convicted in a court of law) proud to confess the deed to every passer-by transfixed with horror by their poise - and who might care to indulge the espoused  convoluted  ideology which, in their minds, sanctions ritual murder or human sacrifice,was, onetime, a well-educated, articulate young man with a promising career ahead of him.  He appears to have found total salvation through Islam sometime either at or just before University.  Having found salvation he embraced his faith with the passion of a disciple-spreading the good news to the people of Woolwich and Greenwich.  His passion then took him to East Africa on a ‘Holy Quest’ in defence of Islam.  (Where he went is not very relevant as I am sure he would have found some ‘unjust’ cause to take up somewhere in the world-Kenya and Somalia happened to be on the radar, just in the right place at the right time for him to embrace.)

Somewhere along the line he appears to have been contacted by the Security Service who would naturally have an interest in someone with contacts in a part of the world where it is extremely difficult to get ‘feet on the ground at grass roots level’ and up to date intelligence about individuals and their activities are at a paucity.

he seems to have taken the (what appear to be) reasonable approaches from MI5 as a hostile challenge to his faith.

One of the problems here is that we quickly forget the lessons of history.

During the 1970s and 1980s and 90s there were various ‘cults’ in London which brainwashed individuals to an extent that they became totally alienated from their friends, families coming under the control of the ‘sect’ or an individual, or they just became totally unbalanced and required long-term psychiatric help and re-orienteering

far away from the influence and reach of the cult leader and it's members.

The brainwashing was quite unique and very well-planned.

One of the less destructive sects I encountered was Hare Krishna.

I would like to relate a true experience which was a sharp learning curve for myself as to how an aspect of brainwashing works-and one which I have never spoken about up until now.

I recall a Sunday in the 1970s when myself and a friend John, from our squat in Tolmers Square, visited the Hare Krishna Temple at the side of Soho Square on a Sunday afternoon.  I recall it was a sunny Sunday and I think it might have been during July or August.  Perhaps it was later-I cannot quite remember.

No, I’m pretty sure it was July or August.

I recall we went into a hall, had to stand and chant for several hours.  Endless chants which seemed to go on and on forever-it was at least 3 hours-worse than any  High Mass.!   After the sermon we were treated to ‘free’ food.

No sooner had we eaten-having been starved and ‘programmed’ in ’stress’ positions for several hours, the food took its effect.

I felt totally elated whilst eating.  Almost the equivalent of a psychedelic 'high’.
The food had no effect on John, other than quenching his appetite . 
The effect was entirely personal.  I did however correctly recognize it immediately for what it was.   A  ‘high’ from a combination of apparently harmless perfectly legal  ingredients.  Obviously The Hare Krishna movement knew far more about this phenomenon than I could ever appreciate.

So, for me, the event had a positive outcome.  I never returned to another sermon however-as I could not literally stand another 3 hours of brainwashing-even for the free food.

There were other contacts with sects across London during the 70s,80s and early 90s-many entirely coincidental and unplanned as my former school colleague had the more inquiring interest.

One of the more interesting unplanned encounter was when I was looking for a portable computer in, I think, Loot-or it’s equivalent at that time.  I met with the individual having replied to the ‘for sale’ advert.  We had a cup of coffee in a Café near Warren Street Tube Station.  (I never actually bought his computer but I did buy some software,Word Perfect amongst others I think.)

 He told me he was off to the U.S. to join with friends preparing for, yes, the end of existence.  Apparently a comet, Hale Bopp, was due to pass by the earth.  It was not really a comet, he said,  but a spacecraft disguised as a comet which would take the faithful to ‘Heaven’.

The sect was, as I learned much later on through news reports, Heaven's Gate.

I don’t know whether this individual was one of the deceased or one of the disciples left on earth to ‘preach’ the ‘good news’ and advise converts how to ritually prepare for the return of the spacecraft, as my sole interest at that time  was in negotiating a good deal for the computer advertised and I was taking only a very polite but rather (probably visibly) bored interest in his enthusiasm for preaching ‘the good news’ (of the coming of salvation.)  He, however, as I later recalled, was taking the matter  very very seriously.  On reflection, I guess he probably had sold (or was in the process of) selling everything as worldly possessions would be of no use to him where he believed he was eventually going.

Not too many years ago someone I knew ‘appeared’ to have ‘discovered’ Islam. I do of course slightly err as the individual was born a Muslim.

At University (a very prestigious and internationally known university) the individual got involved with the Schools' Islamic Society which convinced him he was not a ‘true’ Muslim.   The way of course to be a true Muslim, according to his indoctrinator(s), was to reject all of the values of this ‘Kafir’ civilization - amongst whom he had the misfortune to be born (as he was so informed) - and return to the true path of Islam.

I also suspect he was suggested a number of religious ‘tasks’ by the indoctrinator  to ‘prove’ himself a ‘true’ Muslim.  (This is just speculation and should not be taken as fact as I have no proof that such was the case.)

What this individual I thought I knew (up until the time he ‘found’ Islam) has in common with the (apparently self-confessed) perpetrators of the Woolwich butchery  was the fact that they are all highly educated and articulate but because of their alienation from society and need for acceptance or quest for salvation, all  appear to have found this in religion.

One, someone I knew, by a rigid adherence to Islamic principles. 

The others, whom I only know through the pages of newspapers and television reports, chose human sacrifice-murder by ritual butchery.

When I knew this individual  (now a successful University graduate) before he was 'turned' (indoctrinated)  I had absolutely no indication that he was ‘susceptible’ to brainwashing.  Indeed I would have thought that, because he was exceptionally brilliant, academically, he would have been the last person to be vulnerable to falling as a prey to predators in this regard.

It’s  remarkable how many members of sects susceptible to brainwashing are exceptionally brilliant (academically and professionally) individuals and have (or had) the potential to achieve and offer society a bountiful of talent and skills, but for the wrong path taken.  Whether they just fell through a mental chasm into an abyss at a time in their lives when there was nobody within sight nor sound to hear the desperate lonely cries for help or whether there was just always a mental dam waiting to burst when the wrong buttons were pushed,only a deep understanding of mind, reason and motivation can reveal. If the latter is the case then that vulnerability is universal, given the wrong conditions.

(I have never classed myself as exceptionally academically brilliant, but about average, and this may be one reason I was never easily susceptible to being ‘programmed’.)

The point here is that I make a connection between the brainwashing by cults in the 1970s,80s and 90s  and the brainwashing of the ‘lost’ youth of today-to both political and religious extremism.

When you add in factors such as ‘Holy War’ it’s the equivalent of saying, in the 13th century, either support The Pope or be an Excommunicated leper throughout Christendom where nobody, by Papal decree, could offer you shelter nor sustenance on the pain of Excommunication for themselves and their own families-the medieval equivalent of an Islamic ‘Fatawa’ or 'Jihad' pronounced by an Ayatollah,Imam or prominent Islamic cleric in our present modern time, the 21st century.

Other than the Witchfinder and the Inquisition, nothing was more feared throughout Christendom than being cast beyond  eternal salvation and removed from the protection of the Holy Father in Rome.
But for the Reformation across Europe, we would still exist in that world of darkness, uniformity and ignorance today.

Indeed even in Ireland, up until the 1960s, Excommunication was worse than death itself-for some individuals.

Let me relate another issue.

As a Catholic child in Ireland I went to church every Sunday with my Mum and Aunt.

As a child, I took it as a matter of fact that both the Priest-and all of us in the congregation-ate the body of Christ and drank his blood.  ‘This is my body and this is my blood’ the Priest would say turning to all of us and inviting us to share the body and blood of Christ.

So, in effect,I reasoned, we all went to church every Sunday to cannibalize Christ.

There was not an inkling of a thought of eating anyone else in the congregation nor drinking their blood-only that of Jesus.

We all ate His flesh and drank His blood-and this still happens every Sunday in Catholic Churches throughout the world.
This was a great source of pride for me until my boastful comments to Jewish and Protestant childhood friends when comparing our rituals drew such looks of horror (not to mention the very stern rebukes from my Mum, a devout Catholic) that I just dropped the subject.

Have we moved away from the ‘true’ ritual?  Are cannibals more ‘in touch’ with the purity and essence of sacrifice than us ‘heretics’?   Will ‘God’ look more kindly upon them for not ‘deviating’ from the true ritual on the Day of Judgement?  Will it be them who are saved and us who are cast into the fires of eternal damnation?  Whose view of the ‘real’ world is an illusion?
This is the confusion which sets some individuals ripe for indoctrination with a charismatic individual presenting entirely logical reasons why only one path is the road to salvation.  It is always, of course, the indoctrinators path.
More oft than not it turns, not onto a path of redemption, but onto the road to hell.

I recall many years ago when I was in Madagascar and as a very special sign of respect (I had saved a life) I was invited to have the rare privilege of having evening meal with the ‘ancestors’.

This involved sitting down with disinterred corpses (especially dug up and whose skeletal remains were seated at the table) as we ate a meal.

(I later found out that this was indeed a very rare privilege for a foreigner and reserved for the very few.)

Whose view of reality is the right one?

The Priest and congregation ritually eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ or supping a ritual thanksgiving Elders meal with disinterred corpses?

Which will be redeemed and who will be eternally damned? The murderer with blood on his hands in the name of Allah or the serial blood-drinking and flesh-eating congregation of ritualistic cannibals going along for the ride?  Somewhere between the Priest, the Imam or Indoctrinator offering tickets to paradise and absolution for all crimes, however heinous and evil, committed in this world if carried out in the name of Allah or another deity, my hosts in Madagascar and tribal Papua Guinea, lies the truth.  

It’s not a very pleasant sight to behold.  But here we all are with all our rites and rituals, prostrate before our Creator, seeking eternal salvation and damning all unbelievers to the eternal fires of hell.
We live in a ‘knee-jerk’ society where instant justice is demanded by a vengeful public-and the politicians and courts are only too happy to oblige to serve their own ends.

Other than the satisfaction of revenge, no problem is solved with this solution.

Apart from anything else, for so long as unbalanced individuals are in the state of ‘brainwash’, as far as he or she or they are concerned, this ‘punishment’ (of whatever nature) is simply yet another ‘test’ of faith at the end of which will be eternal salvation and paradise for the true and faithful.   So not one iota of the problem is solved by solely incarcerating these individuals without the psychiatric help and observation which may save other lives at some other time. 
There may be some satisfaction in making the general public ‘feel’ safer-in that a ‘danger to society’ has been ‘removed’.  But none of the underlying key issues have been addressed.

The matter, at a basic level, is very simple:you cannot fight Allah, God, Jesus or Buddha.  Their ‘armies’ are in the minds of the faithful.  Their victories on earth are only symbolic of the paradise to come.  Their defeat on earth, if it results in their demise, opens the gate to their heaven and eternal salvation.  As far as they are concerned, any act on behalf of their ‘God’ is redeemable and will be forgiven as it is, in their mind (or justification) carried out as a ‘soldier’ of Allah or ‘Christ’.   Their ‘paradise’ is not of this world-so what happens to the body is irrelevant.  The more important issue is eternal salvation at the right hand of The Father.   This is for me all too reminiscent of the disciples waiting for the comet  to pass by earth.   Most of the (chosen) Heaven’s Gate Sect disciples willingly committed mass suicide-since  the shell (the body) is not required where they were headed.   From their point of view this is perfectly understandable.  What’s  more difficult to fathom is how very highly intelligent and well-educated individuals decide that absolutely everything  in this world (including their children) require ‘sacrificing’ for eternal salvation and that, somehow, their God or Allah or Supreme Being is demanding of and will be happy with such human sacrifice (or as they might say, ‘offering’) as they make their way as 'beamed up' passengers on the journey 'home' through Heaven’s Gate.

Will we ever fathom the logic of butchery in the name of religion,a scientific ideology, self-sacrifice or ritual blood-letting for a political, religious or philosophical reasons?  I think not.  Will society feel safer by incarcerating such individuals?  I think so.  Will that belief in safety be justified?  I think not.  
So after these individuals, who committed a terrible offense in Woolwich against any God of love, peace, goodness and understanding they purport to believe in, are summarily dealt with by the courts and public ‘confidence’  in ‘civil’ society restored, people will again resume their normal lives content in the belief that justice has finally prevailed with the triumph of good over evil.

If only matters of Heaven and Hell were so easy to resolve.

Patrick Emek

28th May 2013

12.00 noon