The Public Debt: A Menace to Society? - GD Part 4.2

In the wake of the Financial Crisis, the Private Sector struggled to regain its losses, while the US government sought to stimulate recovery with an array of efforts: 
Quantitative Easing, the Stimulus Package, TARP, extending the length of Unemployment Insurance coverage, extending the Bush Tax Cuts and instituting a Payroll Tax holiday, among other tactics.

But since the Great Recession that followed the Financial Crisis also created a reduction in income for the people, it consequently caused a revenue reduction for the government. This has led to massive government spending and growing deficits.

Is the United States going broke? 


Public Debt vs. Private Debt

Let's look at a graph of US Public Debt (AKA the National Debt or the Federal Debt) and Private Debt. The graph is plotted with the most recent data (2012) on the left, with data from each past year heading to the right. Dollar amounts are in billions, and the figures are adjusted for inflation (2011 dollars). The data was compiled from various documents available through the US Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve websites.

2012 figures for each category in the above graph:

Federal Government (US National Debt): $16.022 trillion
Domestic Financial Sectors: $13.855 trillion
State and Local Governments: $3.003 trillion
Non-Financial Business: $12.008 trillion
Households (Individuals): $12.945 trillion

Private Debt totals $38.808 trillion.
The total of all debt in the United States- both Public and Private- is $57.833 trillion.

Debt in the United States is a growing concern- both in the Public Sector and in the Private Sector of the economy. But is it a crisis? This is a big topic, so I'd like to split it up into smaller chunks.

With the “sequester” looming overhead and the constant battle in Washington, D.C. over spending and deficits, there is much talk about the National Debt (or the Federal Debt/Public Debt). This piece will concentrate on what the debt is, how it works, and if it really is a crisis-- or if it's just political grandstanding.

Federal Debt

While the Federal debt is the largest single category of the total debt in the United States, it's important to point out that about one-third of it ($4.85 trillion) is owed between different departments of the government- the Treasury Dept. calls these "Intra-Government Holdings" - of the remaining $11.6 trillion, more than half (about $6.1 trillion) is owed to US citizens and businesses or other domestic private interests who have bought Treasury Bills and US Bonds. The rest ($5.5 trillion) is owed to foreign countries. However, foreign governments owe the US government approximately $0.89 for every $1.00 of debt the US has borrowed from other nations.

So if the whole world were to decide to settle all international debt outstanding, the United States would be paying out about $5.5 trillion to foreign governments, but would be paid back around $4.8 trillion. The difference is then about $700 billion, or roughly the amount that the US spent on the Department of Defense in 2011.


Debt Growth

The growth rate of the debt is very concerning, especially when depicted this way:

When depicted in raw dollar amounts, not adjusted for inflation, the National Debt looks quite daunting.

However, it's not really relevant to depict the National Debt in non-inflation adjusted raw dollar terms. A better way to judge, both for historical context and in terms of the US's ability to pay, would be as a percent of GDP.

Note: this next graph is plotted in the opposite direction.

As you can see, in terms of debt as a percent of GDP, the US was in a similar situation following World War II. 

Read from 1929 (far right) to 2012 (far left), the above graph depicts Federal Debt (the National Debt) relative to the size of the US economy. That big spike on the right-hand side is the result of World War II spending.

Following World War II, the US had a drastically expanded industrial sector and a labor force specifically trained to work in it. The US was uniquely positioned to become the greatest economic power in the world in terms of manufacturing and finance. 

The rest of the industrialized world was more or less in shambles, and the United States was able to swap debt around as it funded the reconstruction of Japan and large swaths of Europe.

The above graph kind of puts a different spin on the Reagan campaign leading up to the 1980 Presidential Election. Reagan criticized Carter for being a "big spender"- increasing the budget deficit and National Debt- which seemed like a big deal since the US was in the middle of a recession. Yet since 1932, the National Debt had been lower as a percent of the GDP only twice before- in 1979 and in 1974. Ironically, Reagan then went on to triple the National Debt in the subsequent eight years.

Today, much of the US's manufacturing has moved overseas and the government's fiscal gains from the economic boom of 1950's-1970's were virtually erased by what is known as the Reagan Buildup. 

While headway in reducing the debt was begun by the government during the late 1990's, the US soon had a series of economic and political crises. 

The 2000's brought them on relentlessly: the Dot-Com Bubble bust, followed by the September 11th Attacks, more than a decade of conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Financial Crisis of 2007, TARP & other subsequent government bailouts, large perennial expenses like the War on Terror, the newly created Department of Homeland Security, and now the Great Recession-- which seems to be dragging on and on despite everyone's best efforts.

From a purely capitalist perspective, the main focus for a recovery for both the economy as a whole and the National Debt (if it really is a problem at all) should be to rebuild the US manufacturing base and to implement policies that encourage banks to lend, employers to hire, and individuals to spend their money. However, the two major capitalist political parties in the US differ significantly in what those specific policies actually are, which is why the US is facing the greatest partisan gridlock in Washington D.C. since the end of World War II.

US Federal Government Budgets

Quickly, so everyone's clear:

Revenue is how much money the government takes in each year from taxes, tariffs, and other payments. 

Expenditures are what the government spends.

The Deficit is roughly the amount a government has to borrow (usually by issuing bonds) to cover expenditures that exceed revenues each year. There are other financial reasons why a government may issue bonds and borrow money, but we're not going to discuss those now.

The National Debt (the Public/Federal Debt) is the running total of how much debt the government has outstanding/unpaid. The only time the US ever fully paid-off its debt was in 1835. It began borrowing again within a year.

The short bars on the graph between 1976 & 1977 correspond to a period known as "TQ," or Transition Quarter- and this represents a time when the beginning of the Federal Fiscal Year was moved from July 1 to October 1.

In the above graph, which is adjusted for inflation (billions of 2011 dollars), the blue bars represent Revenue (how much the government collected in taxes and other sources), the green bars represent expenditure, and the downward-facing yellow bars are the deficit for each year (yellow upward facing bars signify surpluses). 

The moderate yellow streaks on the far right are WWII spending. The huge yellow bars on the left represent deficit spending after the 2007 Financial Collapse. 

It looks pretty bad until you draw the same data as a percent of GDP:

So now we can see that the recent deficit spending, while immense, is not really on par with deficit spending during World War II. As long as the government can get a handle on its revenue/spending balance within a few years, the US will likely recover, as it has a vastly increased ability to pay compared to the post-WWII era debt-to-GDP ratio.

Wage Stagnation & Federal Revenues

The government gets its money primarily from the people. US citizens finance the government through taxes and the purchase of US Bonds and other instruments. Thus, if the people have less money, the government will very likely have reduced revenue as well.

Here is a graph depicting GDP per Household and Median Income from 1967 to 2011:

GDP per Household has nearly doubled, while Median Income has increased only about 19% since 1967.

We can see above that the blue line (GDP per Household) has been increasing at a higher rate than the green line (Median Income) over this period.

This seems to indicate that the total dollar value of goods and services the US produces has increased more rapidly than the earnings workers take home.

The above shows GDP per capita (the blue line) and Federal Budget Revenue (green bars), again running from 1929 on the right, to 2012 on the  left.

There are actually two axes on this graph, since the GDP is actually much larger than the entire Federal Budget, I had to scale these so we can see the direct correlation between GDP and Federal Revenue. 

Let's have a closer look at just the last 35 years:

What exactly is happening? Mainly, since wages haven't increased with inflation and top income tax rates were slashed by both Reagan and George W. Bush, there have been long-term reductions in Federal Revenue, even though there has been an increase in GDP. 

The only point after 1984 in which the correlation between Federal Revenue and GDP returned to normal was between 1998 and 2001, when unemployment was very low and tax rates were moderately higher.

In FY2011, the government instituted a Payroll Tax holiday, reducing rates temporarily from 6.2% to 4.2%. The Payroll Tax accounts for all funds deducted from a wage-earner's paycheck for Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment Insurance. 

This was a great relief for many wage earners who got to take a larger portion of their income home, and was meant to stimulate spending. There is disagreement over whether it had the desired effect or not. The tax holiday expired in 2013.

Together with the Bush Tax Cuts, the Payroll Tax holiday, increased defense spending (since FY2000 the Defense Department's budget nearly tripled) and the Financial Meltdown/Great Recession, the US government has experienced a rapid increase in annual expenditures but a large net reduction in revenue.

In FY2000 expenditures were $2.3 trillion while revenues were $2.6 trillion-- and the budget ran a $300 billion surplus (in 2011 dollars). Expenditures in FY2010 were $3.5 trillion, while revenue had sunk to $2.16 trillion.

The net reduction in revenue by 2010 was over $500 billion while expenditures increased by $1.2 trillion, leaving a $1.4 trillion deficit. The next year, FY2011, was only slightly better:

US Federal Budget expenditures enacted for FY2011 were $3.63 trillion, but revenues totaled only about $2.3 trillion, leaving a deficit of $1.3 trillion.

Seemingly, the key to making the US Federal budget balance without significantly raising taxes is to somehow encourage wages to rise at pace with GDP-- or at least with inflation. That way, the bulk of the population would pay the same rate in taxes but ultimately provide more revenue for the government while reducing government expenditures.

Discretionary Spending amounts to about half of total Federal expenditures each year. FY2013 is expected to run a deficit under $1 trillion, for the first time since the Financial Crisis.

Does China Own the United States?

I hear a lot about China from pundits and fanatics. China does not "own" the US. They have lent the US government around $1.2 trillion- the largest amount of any single foreign government (although Japan is a very close second, at $1.1 trillion), and it would be crippling for the US to have to pay it all back at once, but:

#1- The debt to China is not a significant amount of the total US National Debt to begin with (only about 7%), and;

#2- That's not how it works. China owns a significant amount in US Bonds and Treasury Bills, which must mature to their term. The only thing the US has to worry about is issuing the annual interest on the bonds. They cannot be paid-out on demand. If China was interested in "cashing them in," they could be sold to other nations or investors. 

Sources: 
http://treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt

In the aftermath of World War II the US dollar became the number one global reserve currency. Countries all over the world use the dollar to pay debts to each other, most commodities are priced and traded in dollars internationally, and the value of many foreign currencies are pinned to the US dollar. 

It does not serve the interests of any nation to allow the United States to fail or to otherwise default on its debts. Nobody wants that-- especially not China; we're their biggest customer. If the US were to fall into financial ruin, it would likely ruin the Chinese economy as well.


The Federal Debt: A Menace to Society?


Despite the whining and grandstanding in Washington D.C., the US government is not about to go broke. Is it heading down an unsustainable path? Absolutely. But it's not simply all about spending, it's how the government spends the money, coupled with an insufficient revenue stream; the budget gap needs to be closed. In terms of international finances, however, it's doing alright for now. 

It could be a disaster if the US's credit rating was downgraded (like it was following the Debt Ceiling debacle last year), if the international community lost faith in the dollar, and/or if the US was otherwise forced to borrow at progressively higher and higher interest rates.


Further, and this may seem reckless, but as a last resort the government can always print more money. On the one hand, inflation is bad because it can stagnate wages while raising consumer prices- but on the other hand, if interest rates on government bonds are low enough (and they've been just about as low as they can get for ten years), inflation can outpace the interest on the government's debt, essentially amounting to negative interest.

However, in the case of the most recent Financial Crisis (as with the Great Depression), the issue of concern has been to avoid massive deflation. The US government has responded to this crisis by buying up large quantities of financial assets from banks, which can shore up the banks' short-term position and spur lending while indirectly increasing the money supply without affecting interest rates. See: Quantitative Easing.

Sadly, the US Federal Budget continues to grow, no matter who is president, no matter what party is in office, no matter who is sitting in Congressional seats-- at a rate usually between 3% and 7% per year. Statements claiming otherwise are just political posturing.

In fact, the only year since FY1965 that the US Federal Budget shrank from one year to the next was FY2010, and that was mostly because TARP (read as: an extra $700 billion) appeared on the FY2009 budget.

The United States government's deficit spending is a concern, but it is not yet a crisis. In times of economic turmoil, deficit spending can ease the woes of wage earners and stimulate economic growth by contributing directly to the GDP through contracts to defense companies, providing social insurance benefits that ensure consumers spend money into the economy (even if they're still unemployed), and infrastructure development that includes big payouts to private contractors. 

All of these government actions create a multiplier effect in which the economic output is greater than the total dollar amount of input. Government spending causes growth in the economy (especially through infrastructure projects), which generally causes companies to hire more employees, who earn more money (increasing Federal Revenue) and then spend most of it, increasing economic activity, which prompts businesses to hire more employees... and so forth.

Further down the road, if the US can make some policy changes that further economic development (including encouraging wage growth that at least keeps up with inflation) and if the government can increase its tax revenues without burdening the Middle Class and lower classes, there is a good chance that the current substantial deficit spending and the National Debt in general will not be a problem at all.

Exactly how to do all of these things is another matter-- it is a complicated macro-economic problem, and we'll get back to it later. Meanwhile, here's a great video on the topic of government debt by John Green of the vlogbrothers.

Did Government Policy Cause the Subprime Mortgage Crisis? - Global Dynamics Part 4.11

Pundits and market fundamentalists often cite the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and other government initiatives as the cause of the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis. But is this accurate?

A report from the Federal Reserve says no. Here is the abstract, and a link to the report:

Abstract:

A growing literature suggests that housing policy, embodied by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and the affordable housing goals of the government sponsored enterprises, may have caused the subprime crisis. The conclusions drawn in this literature, for the most part, have been based on associations between aggregated national trends. In this paper we examine more directly whether these programs were associated with worse outcomes in the mortgage market, including delinquency rates and measures of loan quality.
We rely on two empirical approaches. In the first approach, which focuses on the CRA, we conjecture that historical legacies create significant variations in the lenders that serve otherwise comparable neighborhoods. Because not all lenders are subject to the CRA, this creates a quasi-natural experiment of the CRA's effect. We test this conjecture by examining whether neighborhoods that have been disproportionally served by CRA-covered institutions historically experienced worse outcomes. The second approach takes advantage of the fact that both the CRA and GSE goals rely on clearly defined geographic areas to determine which loans are favored by the regulations. Using a regression discontinuity approach, our tests compare the marginal areas just above and below the thresholds that define eligibility, where any effect of the CRA or GSE goals should be clearest.
We find little evidence that either the CRA or the GSE goals played a significant role in the subprime crisis. Our lender tests indicate that areas disproportionately served by lenders covered by the CRA experienced lower delinquency rates and less risky lending. Similarly, the threshold tests show no evidence that either program had a significantly negative effect on outcomes.

Link: The Subprime Crisis: Is Government Housing Policy to Blame?

The Global Economic Collapse - GD Part 4.1

The Financial Collapse of 2007-08 affected everyone- globally. It has exposed inherent flaws in our globalized world- our banking and monetary systems are interconnected today to a degree that never existed before. Economists since the 1990s have been talking of "contagion;" financial turmoil in one part of the world can now easily spread throughout the entire global financial system and crush economies, bankrupt entire nations, or merely cause recessions.

The scale of the disaster is not yet known. As of right now, the US seems to believe the emergency has passed, at least if you ask officials publicly-- but high-level officials are still scrambling to fight the spread of the turmoil. That is why Europe's problems are still front-and-center in the news, and partly why it would be disastrous if any country in the Eurozone defaulted on its debt- it would begin a domino effect in Europe which could easily spread to other parts of the world.

Many economists and news sources compare the financial meltdown of 2007-08 to the Great Depression. Indeed, there are many similarities. However, the response has differed on many levels, and the result is that "the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression" still doesn't quite match the scale of the devastation wrought in those years. Yet, there still is danger on the horizon, and the experience is not quite finished.


Causes of the Collapse

Beginning in the United States and then spreading to the rest of the world due to our globalized finance system, the financial meltdown was a case of reckless investing, fraud, and regulatory neglect. What a lot of Americans don't realize is that it was a direct result of the 1999 removal of vital legislation (the Glass-Steagal Act) that was enacted in the United States following the 1929 Crash that led to the Great Depression. The Glass-Steagal Act of 1933 was designed to prevent the very type of incident that wound up happening in 2008.

In a nutshell, Glass-Steagal prevented commercial banks (banks that make loans and hold your money) from being the same institutions that buy/sell/make investments. This basically kept the banks that hold your money and loans from gambling in the stock market or reinvesting their assets and liabilities in risky financial instruments. Among several other pieces of Depression Era legislation, Federal Deposit Insurance agencies were set up to ensure that the deposits of customers at these banking institutions were protected in the case that their money was somehow lost (due to robbery, physical destruction of bank notes, bank failure, etc.). 

The repeal of these laws led to a dangerous entanglement of financial institutions- commercial banks, investment banks, securities handlers/private investment insurers and hedge funds were hopelessly interrelated with no firewall in place in case of calamity or market failure. Worse yet, in some cases they were insured by both private and federal agencies. 

Even more troubling, in a bid to make big profits even bigger, major banking institutions began leveraging their assets as high as 40:1 and investing in securities, derivatives and hedge funds to distribute the risk. American institutions were the inventors of these practices during the 1990s, but banking instituions in the rest of the world were so impressed with the profits being made, they soon began engaging in these same risky practices. What had been created was an illusion. There was a promise of well-distributed risk, but in reality the risks were mounting higher and higher while infecting every corner of the global financial system.

When the bottom dropped out of the Mortgage-backed Securities market and CDOs, banks and insurers both began to fail at an alarming rate. These institutions had just gone through a rapid merger and consolidation process throughout the 1990s and 2000s, leading to the creation of institutions that were so large their failures were a systemic risk to the economy of the entire world-- not just the US economy.

This 11-minute video explains what happened with the CDOs and Mortgage-backed Securities rather succinctly:

"The Crisis of Credit Visualized" by Jonathan Jarvis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx_LWm6_6tA

Since the scale of the collapse was so immense, the government of the United States was faced with a rather ludicrous paradox to its capitalist system: we now had to resort to a form of socialism in order to prevent the collapse of capitalism. The banks got bailed out, through several means. 


Flawed Responses

Overtly, TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) was administered by the Bush and Obama administrations, followed by several economic stimulus programs at an ever-increasing price tag of over $3 trillion (subsidized, of course, by the American taxpayer). 

Covertly-- mainly to secure confidence in the system-- the Federal Reserve also implemented "secret" loans to some of the largest banking institutions in the world (not just American banks). These loans were delivered as short-term loans at what is known at the Fed as the "discount window" in which interest rates are at or close to zero. 

Page 131 of the GAO's Report. Dollar amounts are in billions.

The main idea behind this was to save these institutions from total collapse while encouraging lending between banks and (hopefully) to consumers in general. The Federal Reserve handed out loans to major banks worldwide (but mainly US & European banks) valuing a total of $16 trillion. It worked- but only halfway. The institutions stayed open, but credit was not freed up. This prevented a total economic collapse, but failed to stop the global Great Recession.

Aside from this arrangement, the Fed also secured a currency-swap with the Central Banks of the EU, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, and Japan, in which the Fed lent $10 trillion USD in exchange for the currencies of these countries (secured at the cost of dollars/unit of currency of the day, with no appreciation or depreciation). 


Total price tag of the Federal Reserve's efforts was $26 trillion USD. Read the GAO's report on the Federal Reserve's Activities during the bailout here: 
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GAO%20Fed%20Investigation.pdf

Page 131 again, with emphasis added. These loans were administered without the knowledge or consent of the US Congress.

This information only came to light due to the first-and-only audit of the US Federal Reserve since its creation. The audit was administered by the Government Accountability Office and only investigated the activity surrounding the financial collapse and emergency relief funds extended to banks during the aftermath. As it turns out, the loans were largely repaid. Only about $1 trillion remained outstanding at the time of the audit. Banks mostly were able to afford this because of two things: they didn't extend credit like they were supposed to, and they levied interest and fee increases on their customers.

So in other words, the people paid for this crisis twice (or three times, depending on how you count): Once in lost assets, once in tax money administered by the government bailouts in all forms, and then once again in fee increases imposed upon banks' customers.

No wonder the economy was in such a shambles! The money at the Federal Reserve is "printed" at our expense; the banks financed their repayment of the debt to the Fed on fees imposed on you & me, and the banks still refused to resume lending. You may remember that at the time during & following the bailout, credit card companies began charging ridiculous interest rates on new and at-risk customers-- rates far beyond what used to be called "usury" -- up to 75%.

Meanwhile, homeowners- even ones in good standing- began to experience the loss of their biggest investment. House prices fell so rapidly that many homeowners suddenly realized they were paying on mortgages that far outmatched the present value of their homes (we call these "underwater mortgages").

Foreclosure rates not seen since the Great Depression ensued, and unemployment skyrocketed (While it's important to be sure the scale of today's problems aren't understated, it's worthwhile noting that the home foreclosure and unemployment rates never really came close to the rates of foreclosures and unemployment during the Great Depression). We had entered the Great Recession.

Socialism For the Rich, Capitalism for Everyone Else

What followed these events led to the eruption of populist uprisings like Occupy Wall Street (OWS). The average American was outraged that, not only had the government bailed-out these irresponsible banks, but they refused to institute effective regulation of these institutions. The OWS battle cry became, "Banks got bailed out; we got sold out!" the core concepts of capitalism seemed to be torn asunder. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) said of the bailouts, "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."

For the banks, this institutionalized a concept called "moral hazard" in which the banks know they are too big to fail, and that if they are on their way down, the government must step in to save them, or risk the collapse of the entire system and contagion to the rest of the Global Economy, thus incentivizing systemic risk if the potential short-term gains are high.

Countries in the European Union are still reeling from this disaster, and while it cannot be said that it was the only cause of their woes, the financial collapse was the catalyst that caused countries like Spain, Greece, Ireland and Italy to slip toward bankruptcy.

The Federal Reserve Bank continues to treat the problem by "Quantitative Easing" (inflating the money supply domestically) and by sending trillions of dollars to the EU, to prop up their Central Bank. Normally, this would cause inflation rates to soar, but the problem we could be facing in absence of this tactic would be massive deflation.

To be clear: there are many details and inner workings of the real economy that complicate and exacerbate the situation of frozen credit markets; large corporations often borrow money to cover R&D, new acquisitions and, yes, even employee payroll. Thus, the reason for rampant unemployment: if companies can't get easy credit, they can't expand as easily, nor can they afford to hire American workers.

My opinion is that the bailouts, while repugnant to the core principles of capitalism, were utterly necessary to prevent a second Great Depression. Where the US government's response failed was at three points:

1. The bailouts weren't big enough to solve the credit crisis, and banks remained leery of loaning money, even to each other.

2. U.S. banking institutions should have been dismantled to pre-1999 sizes, separating commercial banks from investment banks, and should have been led through government-managed bankruptcy proceedings as a condition of accepting federal funds.

3. Homeowners whose mortgages were threatened by falling home prices and frozen credit should have had their debts forgiven by failing banks. At least then there would have been an equitable extension of "socialism" for all and a suitable punishment for the banks and financial institutions that caused the crisis, while freeing up what little liquidity there still was in the private economy.

The real betrayal happened in more recent days, however. While the US is still facing high unemployment, the stock market has regained almost all of its losses, the GDP of the US is higher than ever (albeit at a slightly reduced rate of growth) and corporate profits after taxes are at record highs. While many common folk seemed to (bafflingly) blame the government for this predicament, the onus falls squarely on bankers and the directors of large corporations.

Yet, the "solutions" proposed by this group of the richest people in the world are the same exact reckless philosophies that led to the crisis in the first place. They are demanding reduced regulations in banking and lower corporate, individual and Capital Gains taxes.

The question at the root of all of this is whether or not to support what some economists call "Market Fundamentalism" in which a free, unregulated market allegedly functions perfectly and makes "natural" corrections, or to return to what is known as Keynesian Economics, in which the government allows a certain amount of economic freedom in a pre-determined market, while controlling liquidity and interest rates through a government-supervised Central Bank. 

I personally think the concept of "Market Fundamentalism" (an extreme view of neo-liberal economic policies) is more akin to "Economic Anarchy." Think of it on a social scale: if there were no laws, there would be no police and no judicial system. Would that eliminate crime? Would society "correct itself" and regulate itself? I'd hate to see the brutal Darwinist world that would emerge from such a policy, just as I'd like to avoid the emergence of a Darwinist economic anarchy of a "truly free" market as these fundamentalists envision. What would inevitably emerge would be giant corporations and megalithic monopolies that would steamroll over small business and crush workers. We may as well submit to feudalism.

We've already seen the consequences of loosening regulations. I don't need any more proof. Do you? 

For additional information on this topic, I highly recommend "Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy" by the Nobel Prize-winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz.

You can find an excellent film called "Inside Job" on this topic at Netflix.com or at your local video rental location.

For additional historical perspective on this topic and how it relates to Globalism and Free Trade Agreements, please watch this PBS series, "Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy."

What is the Self?

What is the Self?

Are we just cogs in a social machine? Are we just independent particles floating in an endless ocean? Are we each insignificant specks of dust in an emotionless Universe? Or are we fundamentally connected?

Science now knows our bodies are made of trillions of separate organisms- viruses, bacteria, as well as your own body cells- and we cannot live without this interspecies collaboration that exists within our skin. Each of us is our own biosphere. Nature is made of the same type of interdependence, and the boundary of our Earthling biosphere is a fuzzy border. Where does "Nature" end? Not at the highest layer of our atmosphere-- not at the edge of the Moon's orbit, not beyond our Sun.

Western culture loves to apply a Cartesian dualism to each of its studies-- but we're quickly learning this is not accurate. We are not separate. Want empirical proof? You can study the interdependence of beings in any ecosystem, you can look to the smallest pieces of observable matter in quantum physics, or you can study the effects of gravitation on the Earth's tide, Solar winds and cosmic rays emanating from space and their affect on life on Earth. Everything is connected and interdependent.

For more information on the makers of the above video, go to:
http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/

Global Dynamics: What is this all about?

The Global Dynamics series is an interdisciplinary examination of the limiting factors and inherent problems posed by sustained growth of consumption in the world today, and the non-linear relationships between different realms or aspects of our Human world.

We live in a finite world with finite resources; it is not possible to continue increasing our consumption, our expenditures, or our production forever. The problems that face us as we move through the next century are dependent on many factors- population, economics, political policy, culture, international law, individual behavior, natural processes, industrialization, and war. None of these problems exist within a vacuum-- every single one is intertwined with another, and as we move forward in analyzing the major categories of challenges, we will understand to what extent these are interrelated.

The largest factors in the equation are growth in consumption and growth of population, as they will tend to influence all other areas within our Human world. We must understand growth in order to understand where we stand today and where we are certainly headed for tomorrow.

Here are two videos on the subject that I highly recommend watching:

One is by Dr. Albert Bartlett, from the University of Colorado:

Another is called "There is No Tomorrow," which I think is an entirely unfortunate title. However, this video concisely sums up many of the issues I will be addressing in more detail throughout the Global Dynamics series:

As Global Dynamics progresses, I will be bringing the discussion back to a 1971 book by Prof. Jay W. Forrester, of MIT, called "World Dynamics," after which I have named this series (you can find that on Amazon.com or through inter-library loan). His book studies the effects of reaching the limits of consumption and growth-- and addresses the consequences.

I would like to point out one more detail, and I hope that I can get this across effectively: Our Human world does not exist within a vacuum. We share our planet with countless other species, our world is part of a system of bodies that revolve around our sun, and our sun is influenced by the motion of our galaxy-- which in turn is influenced by the universe itself. None of the events that happen here on Earth, whether in our Human world, within the physical confines of the planet, or at any point in outer space, are entirely closed systems.

Quantum physics has shown us that particles created under similar conditions can become "entangled" and affect each others' behavior over great distances in "no time"-- and this provides a fantastic allegory for understanding the world-- and even the universe-- at large.

Quantum physics is the study of laws of particles-- these govern processes that cause the phenomenon we call "chemistry" to operate. Chemistry is a driving force of biology, behavior and physics are major influences on chemistry and biology, biology and what we call "history" determine the behavior of people around the world, the environment influences our lifestyle and our culture, which influences our political processes, our economics, and the shape of our future. Ultimately we influence the environment, the chemical processes that govern the Earth, and these processes will influence the individual behaviors (and very existence) of all individual organisms on the planet.

Seemingly unrelated factors in the world are "entangled" to an extent that we are only in the earliest stages of beginning to understand, and the Earth is guided by cosmic (and sometimes intergalactic) forces that we have not yet even imagined.

Up until this point in Human history, we could write off our destructive tendencies to our ignorance or our more animal impulses. But we now have the cause and opportunity to create a world that is governed by rules that are both Ethical and Rational. Up until now, the Human race has failed quite stupendously in doing this.

We can do better.

The War on Terror - Historical Overview (GD Part 3)

For the Record,

My statement as a citizen of the United States is as follows:

The United States is in a state of distress. Our way of life is under attack and the very fundamentals of our republican democracy are threatened. If We, The People, do not act quickly and decisively, we risk losing the core values that truly make this nation great.

Our nation is in peril, not because of the actions of hijackers or jihadists, but because of the US government's unilateral move toward ceaseless revenge and the stripping away of protections guaranteed to citizens by the US Constitution.

The US government response to the events of September 11, 2001 was flawed and disproportionate. Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war and divisive foreign policy has created an aura of hostility and distrust, both at home and internationally-- and has put our soldiers in unnecessary harm by engaging in conflicts which were illogical, immoral, and illegal.

The US government has established an undeclared and never-ending war of aggression, with neither a clear battleground, nor a clear enemy- an illegal engagement with any person, nation or organization (anywhere!) that chooses to engage our nation with violence or the [perceived] threat of violence. This conflict continues to be waged under the current President.

The US government's heavy-handed military reaction to the events on September 11, 2001 has created far more terrorists and dissidents than ever had existed before, and continues to create more every day.

The War on Terror must end.


A Rapid Transformation

Things happened very quickly in the days and weeks following September 11th. First, Congress passed The Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40), which continues to authorize any current US President to use military force against any person, nation or organizations that he determines planned, carried out, or harbors/supports terrorists, or otherwise participated in the attacks of September 11, 2001. This law is still in effect today, has no expiration date, and has been applied more and more broadly as time has progressed. It has led to an undeclared war with neither clear boundaries, nor specific enemies. It can be fought anytime, anywhere, and against anyone.

Second, George W. Bush penned an Executive Order for the purposes of freezing and seizing assets of persons or organizations suspected of ties to terrorist organizations. The selection is an apt (and official) description of terrorist activity:

Executive Order 13224 (September 23, 2001):
“Sec. 3. For purposes of this order:
...
(d) the term "terrorism" means an activity that --
(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and
(ii) appears to be intended --
(A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.”.

George W. Bush at the ruins of the World Trade Center.
"...and the people who knocked these buildings down
will hear all of us soon..."

Third, George W. Bush threatened the government of Afghanistan with the use of military force to unseat them from power, unless they handed Osama bin Laden and any members of his organization dubbed al-Qaeda over to the US immediately. US intelligence agencies thought these suspects were hiding in the notoriously difficult terrain along the Pakistani-Afghan border, which would have made even locating these suspects nearly impossible.

Bush was convinced that the Afghan government (the Taliban regime) was harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. He decided to influence the policy of the government of Afghanistan through intimidation and coercion, and gave them a next-to-impossible deadline. When that failed to produce the specific results desired, Bush used violent acts dangerous to human life, property and infrastructure intended to intimidate and coerce a civilian population and influence the policy and conduct of the Afghan government- tactics he had personally described as "acts of terrorism" only a few weeks before- and informed the entire world that these were the types of tactics that he would also be using on other nations if they didn't cooperate.

After the bombing began, the Taliban claimed they could deliver bin Laden to Saudi Arabia for detention, given evidence of his involvement in the terrorist acts of 9/11. Bush refused. We all know what happened after that. It's been over 10 years.

Fourth, the USA PATRIOT Act (Public Law 107-56) was passed by Congress giving government, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and the military broad sweeping powers (which were originally designed to expire) to investigate and apprehend anyone it suspected of being a terrorist or otherwise tied to designated terrorist groups. Civil rights advocate groups insist that the USA PATRIOT Act infringes on and erodes the protections guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. This law has been re-authorized several times by both the Bush and Obama administrations and now has several new parts and additional legislation based upon it.

While all of this was happening, most Americans were still in a state of disbelief and shock. Some were outraged by the events on 9/11, and rightly so. However, it primed the population to accept the terms presented by the government. Citizens permitted them to pass unconstitutional laws and to take away their liberties. Those Americans who objected were branded "cowards," "terrorist sympathizers," "anti-American," or- my personal favorite- "Communists."

When confronted with the fact that these laws were dangerous, unconstitutional and anti-American themselves, the most common response was, "Why should I care-- I'm not a terrorist!" I personally had this conversation many times and was called any number of foul epithets for questioning my government's actions and motives.

Fifth, the US government began "arresting" persons they suspected of terrorist activities and hiding them in secret prisons. The US military installation at Guantanamo Bay was begun to be used as a major holding location for "enemy combatants," which was the term used by the Bush administration (and later by Obama) to avoid having to adhere to procedures and preconditions set forth both by United States criminal law and by the Geneva Convention's International Law regarding the treatment of Prisoners of War.

Sixth, a number of scandals erupted regarding the US government's operations in apprehending and detaining these enemy combatants, including widespread incidents of warrantless secret searches/wiretapping, entrapment and torture. Several US law enforcement agencies including the FBI and the DHS have been accused of using the "tools" provided to them under the USA PATRIOT Act to obtain information for investigations that are not related to terrorism. Many of these have not officially come to light since there is a "Patriot Act gag order" that makes it a federal offense and a breach of national security to discuss them in detail.


Roots of the Conflict

As is nearly always the case in history, the conflict did not begin with a single episode. September 11, 2001 was not the beginning of this particular string of events, any more than it was the end of it. The roots of the conflict emerged during and following the Cold War.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
-Albert Einstein

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, US policymakers felt that a hard-won victory had been achieved. The US had engaged in conflicts with the Soviets indirectly (by proxy), most notably during the US-Vietnam Conflict and during the USSR-Afghanistan Conflict.

Both sides of the Cold War had engaged in relentless covert operations: psy-ops, influencing elections, funding and training armies, assassinations, hostage-taking, selective missile strikes, sanctions and economic embargoes.

While it seemed prudent to engage each other indirectly throughout the Cold War, these tactics sculpted an increasingly dangerous world. Nations (mostly in the "Third World") were used as pawns, abandoned- often in a state of ruin- at the end of their usefulness, leaving power vacuums presiding over undereducated and tormented populations. They often became breeding grounds for fundamentalism of all kinds.

The CIA has done a lot of things you don't know about. If you are motivated enough to spend the rest of your life reading declassified CIA documents filed by date of creation, go to http://www.foia.cia.gov/  for more details.

History will show that while the US had the chance to decisively win the Cold War, there really was no winner. The US failed at the most critical stage. It didn't help rebuild the world that fifty years of Cold War had ravaged; it didn't even try.

While many assumed an era of peace and prosperity would be ushered in by globalization, what many nations experienced was a new wave of imperialism and domination at the hand of western nations- economic imperialism.

Having installed and/or supported dictatorships and warlords all over the world based merely on the fact that they were not Communists, the US began experiencing what the intelligence community calls "blowback," which is a kind of secularized euphamism for "karma."

The people (and sometimes the governments) of the nations who had been used as proxies in the fight against Communism all over the world were left with a rather bad taste in their mouths. They had been manipulated and discarded. In some cases, people had no recollection of how it happened or why, but remembered that the US had a hand in causing their trauma.

As the US came to see itself as a beacon of hope and a liberator of the world, others came to see it as a great evil that had tormented them during the Cold War and now was attempting to "own them" in the aftermath.

The US government was careless, and in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, the US virtually abandoned or ignored everyone it had used or abused- claiming victory. In a sense, it was the arrogance of US policy-makers and their faith in neo-liberal economics that created the world we lived in on September 11, 2001.


Pax Americana

When George W. Bush announced his cabinet members, it was clear that the administration would follow a fairly predictable agenda. Most of his senior staff were members of a group of neoconservatives engaged in a foreign policy think tank called The Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

***PLEASE NOTE***
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has been disbanded, and all of these links are now dead.
There is currently a movement of denialists who attempt to denounce & discredit anyone who even mentions PNAC as some kind of "conspiracy theorist" and attempts to shut-down any argument that follows on that basis.
If you are interested in reading primary sources, you can search for them-- many have been reposted on separate websites.
PNAC was a legitimate neo-conservative think tank, and many prominent Republicans drafted letters & missives-- or at least signed them.
What follows is a non-"tinfoil hat" account of what that organization's objectives & concerns were, and a quick look at the members who "happened to be" also members of the Bush administration:

This group seemed fixated on punishing Iraq- most notably Saddam Hussein- and harshly criticized President Bill Clinton for not doing more to dispose of this madman and to control Iraq. They also put forth their theory that Iraq had been coordinating with terrorists in an article by Gary Schmitt in The Weekly Standard (a conservative political magazine edited by PNAC member William Kristol) in November 2000. Among other concerns were the objective of building a missile defense shield that was a direct violation of the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty, and establishing a period of peace relying on unquestioned American military superiority- Pax Americana.

They argued that the Cold War world was a bipolar world, where there were two superpowers keeping the world in line, but that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US government had the opportunity- nay, the duty- to create a unipolar power structure, with the US as the unchecked guardian of peace and the sole military superpower. They even went so far as to suggest that the only viable strategy was to also prevent any other government or coalition of governments to rise to a status that would threaten this position. In short, they were talking about an implicit American Empire that would more or less rule the world. You know, since Americans are the "good guys."

The Project for the New American Century published a paper called Rebuilding America's Defenses in September 2000, one month before election day and one year before 9/11, which argued strongly in favor of permanent American military preeminence and stated that due to the lack of popularity of defense expenditure,

"...the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor," (Thomas Donnelly, Rebuilding America's Defenses, Sept. 2000, pg. 51).

It added,

"A sensible plan would add $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually through the Future Years Defense Program; this would result in a defense “topline” increase of $75 billion to $100 billion over that period, a small percentage of the $700 billion onbudget surplus now projected for that same period. We believe that the new president should commit his administration to a plan to achieve that level of spending within four years." (Donnelly, pg. 75)

President Clinton had drawn down US Defense spending to around $250 billion. Members of The Project for the New American Century thought it was reckless to spend any less on defense than the entire rest of the world combined.

George W. Bush did this in only two years, and over the next eight years he doubled spending, from around $250 billion to over $525 billion... Not included in this figure is the cost of creating and maintaining an entirely new cabinet-level governmental department that seems a bit redundant, unless you're establishing a police state: The Department of Homeland Security (also not included in the Defense budget: Iraq and Afghanistan).

For perspective, here is the United States' defense expenditure compared to the rest of the world:

The questions nobody seemed to ask, as the foreign policy of the nation was hijacked by neoconservative extremists, were:

1. Does the US have the right or the authority to preside over its own specific brand of "peace" or "freedom," anywhere in the world outside its own borders?

2. Does the US have the right or authority to dictate the terms of government or economic conditions in sovereign nations?

3. Does spending more money on the military actually translate to a state of peace? Or does it cause more opportunity for war?

4. Isn't it both Ethical and Rational to solve the problems that cause violence, rather than answering violence with more violence?

5. Does it advantage anyone to remain locked in a cycle of violence?

I believe that the members of the Bush administration manipulated Congress and the American public into this War on Terror and used 9/11 as a springboard to achieve their agenda.

Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq

When the Bush administration turned their sights on Iraq, they claimed that Saddam Hussein was collaborating with the terrorist group al-Qaeda, that he had weapons of mass destruction including chemical and biological weapons, that he was "very close" to building a nuclear weapon and that he was "an imminent threat to national security." None of the evidence turned out to be true. So why did the administration use these specific reasons to justify an invasion? Because Congress would only authorize (and fund) such an operation if all of these things were a concern.

Further, such funding & authorization was subject to review every 60-90 days under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which is why the Iraq invasion and occupation was never included in the Defense budget, and why Bush had to go before Congress and ask for money piecemeal- $60 billion here, $80 billion there.

The administration sought international approval and Secretary of State Colin Powell was sent to deliver a very misleading testimony to the United Nations. The UN was wholly unconvinced of Iraq's threat to the US and Kofi Annan (the UN Secretary General at the time), said in 2004 that the invasion, "...was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal." The Bush administration ignored these allegations and proceeded with the operation even though the international community was against it.

Once again, Bush used threats of military force to influence and coerce the civilian population and the government of Iraq. Following the threats, the invasion began. It was an unprovoked act of aggression, employing violent acts dangerous to human life, property or infrastructure and appeared to be intended --

"(A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.” [ http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/terror.pdf ].

Reading between the lines, the message put forth by the US government appears to be, "It's not terrorism when we do it."

The entire way through, from conception to execution, Operation Iraqi Freedom was so poorly managed it's hard to believe it was merely due to incompetence:

1. All of the "reasons" for invading were false-- some were cherry picked, some delivered out-of-context, and some were intentionally fabricated.

2. The invasion began with "Shock and Awe," in which thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed- "collateral damage"- by US missiles aimed at about 1,000 military and infrastructure targets. Electricity and water systems were damaged. Seven years later, Iraqi civilians were still subject to complete power outages/rolling blackouts, lack of drinking water and waste management, a broken roadway & transit network, and limited access to medical care.

Bush delivered his "Mission Accomplished" speech on May 1, 2003,
 after landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier in his own fighter jet.

3. There was no plan for occupation or for reconstruction, as administration officials believed the US would be welcomed as liberators and that Iraqi oil would fund the reconstruction. When US officials were sent to implement reconstruction, they were under-funded, under staffed, had a paucity of resources- including limited access to desks, chairs, phones, telephone directories, translators, and had revolving staff members that were frequently pulled out of Baghdad after six month stints, never to return. Some staff members were described as "fresh out of college" and had little to no experience. Most staff members spoke none of the local dialects. Their superiors- those making policy (most notably L. Paul Bremer "Governor of Iraq" under Bush, and a PNAC member)- did not speak the language, had little grasp of the culture and spent very little time in the country overall. Persons involved in the reconstruction effort said these factors crippled their potency and caused them to waste time and effort continually searching for new leadership contacts within the community.

4. There was no exit strategy.

5. Bush asked insurgents and terrorists to engage our troops in Iraq. One could say he even taunted them to do so by saying, "Bring 'em on," during a televised press briefing.

6. The administration had little to no knowledge of or concern over the sectarian tensions that existed in Iraq, and thus, no plan for dealing with them.

7. Operations by US officials and private contractors (mercenaries AKA "private military contractors" and corporations) were notoriously under-managed and ran amok, typically running wildly over budget while delivering shoddy, substandard services. The activities of several such companies have been described as "fraudulent" and "criminal."

8. The Defense Department mismanaged funds and "lost" billions of dollars on several occasions.

9. US troop levels were insufficient to adequately secure Iraqi Army weapons and ammunition dumps, markets, museums and cultural centers, but not the oil fields.

10. The administration decided to "fire" the Iraqi Army in May 2003 and the Iraqi National Guard late in 2004, leaving over 250,000 angry men unemployed, but well armed.

11. Terrorists and insurgents from elsewhere began migrating to Iraq to engage the US military, as Bush had suggested. Iraq became an on-the-job training program for anti-American terrorists and militants.

12. Many of these factors contributed to an unconscionable amount of civilian casualties. There are no official accounts of how many, to date, as the Army claimed they "don't do body counts." Media outlets disagree on the specific amount of civilian casualties, but civilian deaths due to the conflict are known to be somewhere between 100,000 to 120,000. It depends on who you ask. Some surveys estimate as many as 500,000 civilian deaths. Most of those numbers are based on reports from Iraqi morgues and reports by international journalists. These figures do not include persons who died non-violent deaths that may be related to the invasion, such as lack of access to food, medical care or clean water.

Suicides outnumbered combat fatalities in 2010. 
US military suicides were at 30-year highs in '09 and'10.

13. In contrast, a 2007 estimate of terrorists and/or insurgents killed in the conflict was around 19,000. According to Wikipedia's 2011 estimate, that number may be as high as 26,000.

14. There is a high incidence of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) among American troops coming home from Iraq, and GI suicides have been at unprecedented rates for several years.

President Obama promised to bring the troops home and in December of 2011, after almost nine years of occupation he made good on that promise, beginning the withdrawal. However, he did intend to leave a small number of troops in place, but the Iraqi government "refused to grant American troops immunity from prosecution under local laws," so he withdrew all troops who were not assigned to the US Embassy security team.


Indefinite Detention

A deceased prisoner at Abu Ghraib, Iraq.

Once the US had engaged in acts of torture and mishandling of terrorism suspects and "enemy combatants," it had little choice but to keep these suspects out of the US criminal justice system. After all, the methods used in apprehending, detaining and interrogating many of the suspects would mandate their release under traditional US criminal laws; i.e., they would be set free "on a technicality," and therefore could not be tried in criminal courts. Additionally, many of the detainees had been captured in countries over which the US has no legal jurisdiction, unlawfully transported internationally, and had been held without charges in secret facilities-- a court might ask whether the suspect was arrested or if he was actually a victim of kidnapping.

Map of some secret prison facilities used by the CIA and other US government agencies

Terrorism suspects at a military detention center.
(No official explanation as to why their pants are pulled down)

In December of 2011, Congress passed the NDAA of 2012 with some notes on detention of terror suspects. It was now legal for the US to hold suspects "without trial, until the end of hostilities under the law of war," which basically means that these suspects will never be released. If they ever do see trial, it will be before a US military tribunal.

The law, inserted into a routine defense spending bill, has been cited by civil rights groups as being an unconstitutional attack on civil liberties. It would be an effective tool of oppression in the wrong hands, and like the Authorization for Use of Military Force, it has no specific expiration date. As careful read-through implies there is no requirement of military detention for US citizens or legal resident aliens, but it does not specifically prohibit military detention without trial for US citizens/legal resident aliens accused of terrorism. President Obama signed this into law on December 31, 2011, despite having serious reservations about Sec. 1021. Since a major campaign promise of Obama's was to close "Gitmo," the actual reasons for drafting this bill and the political maneuvering surrounding it may have had less to do specifically with the War on Terror than to inconvenience and discredit a president who was disliked by certain members of Congress.

Jose Padilla, a US citizen, was held in military custody
as an "enemy combatant" for three and a half years.

Senators Joe Lieberman and Scott Brown have co-sponsored a bill aimed at stripping citizenship from terror suspects, whether they are natural-born or naturalized US citizens, to remove those pesky Constitutional Rights altogether. The net result would be that if a government agency believes a US citizen is a terror suspect (if they are engaged in acts of terrorism directly or indirectly, or if they materially support/harbor known terrorists, directly or indirectly, whether they know or should know that they have done so), they could be held in a military prison without trial until the end of the War on Terror (perpetually)-- without the burden of proof and without providing any of the legal rights guaranteed to US citizens.


Drone Warfare

Given the problematic state of fighting global terrorism with ground troops or extradition treaties, the Obama administration has turned to using drone aircraft to assassinate individuals the President determines are involved in terrorist activity. Drone strikes have been used to eliminate targets in several countries. This is entirely of presidential discretion. No authorization from Congress is necessary.

A Predator drone fires a missile.

Bill Clinton used "surgical missile strikes" to assassinate individuals and influence the policy of other governments throughout his presidency, so it's not unheard of, but Obama has taken this a bit further-- some of his targets were US citizens. Attorney General Eric Holder insists that "due process is not the same as judicial process," and therefore the administration is justified in killing terrorism suspects wherever they may be in the world- even if they are US citizens. What exactly does he think "due process" means?

Disturbingly, these drone aircraft are often piloted from within the US- bringing the battlefield home. Now, the bases from which these aircraft are piloted remotely are legitimate military targets. That means that the War on Terror is officially being waged from inside the United States.

While using drones may ensure the relative safety of our military personnel, these assassinations are still bombings that kill innocent bystanders and have been used to assassinate US citizens. Innocent bystanders and children are often killed along with suspected militants.

What do you think the response would be from the US government, if a nation sent drone aircraft into US airspace to perform a missile strike on their perceived enemies? What if that missile strike killed even one innocent civilian child? Why does the United States government believe the rules do not apply in their case?


Entrapment

The FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and several other government agencies have been using aggressive means to identify and apprehend terrorism suspects. Translation: entrapment. The FBI was involved in several counter-terrorism cases in which they approached persons who they identified as "radicals" or "extremists" undercover, and provided them with encouragement to commit acts of terrorism-- including supplying weapons and/or explosives, specific targets, and a plan for executing the attack. In the case of Amine El Khalifi, a 29 year-old Moroccan  immigrant who was targeted by the entrapment program, the weapons and explosives provided had reportedly been "rendered harmless" by FBI agents.

"In the wake of 9/11, it no longer is enough for law enforcement officers to solve crimes after their commission. Investigative activity that preempts crimes, particularly terrorism in a post-9/11 world, has become commonplace. To help ensure a successful prosecution, law enforcement officers need to recognize the risks associated with proactive investigations and anticipate affirmative defenses, such as entrapment, as they initiate undercover operations. With proper planning and execution, law enforcement officers can use all available tools to prevent another terrorist attack and to help effectively overcome an entrapment defense."  

- Avoiding the Entrapment Defense in a Post-9/11 World, By David J. Gottfried, J.D.  
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/january-2012/avoiding-the-entrapment-defense-in-a-post-9-11-world

Entrapment, aside from being an extremely unethical and illegal method in law enforcement, can also have other more terrible consequences. For example, the ATF implemented a program (created by the Obama administration's Justice Dept.) called "Fast and Furious" in which they supplied guns to weapons traffickers in Mexico using undercover agents posing as gun runners. Apparently the plan was to be able to keep track of the weapons and expose every step in the trafficking process to ATF agents who could then make arrests in connection to drug cartels. Unfortunately, the ATF lost the ability to track the guns-- many have been found to be related to miscellaneous cases-- and one turned up later as the murder weapon during the investigation of the death of a US Border Patrol agent.

What if the FBI, the JTTF or the Dept. of Homeland Security "loses" their terrorism suspect, whom they have incited, trained and armed? What if that person is able to pull off an attack?


A Never-Ending State of Emergency

The powers granted to the executive branch of the US government with which to engage the "emergency" of terrorism are broad and sweeping. These are powers that are marginally constitutional-- and are meant to be temporary. The very terms by which the US has conducted the War on Terror, paradoxically, imperils national security at every step. The result is that unless the United States chooses a more Ethical and Rational path, it cannot return to a state of peace.

There are several reasons why the War on Terror will never be over, much less ever be won:

1. Terrorism is a CRIME that is politically motivated. It is NOT an act of war. When terrorism occurs in a war zone (whether perpetrated by soldiers or other agents), it is a War Crime.

2. The US government picks and chooses which groups, agents and/or individuals are considered terrorists- depending on what government or agency is being attacked. More important than that, the United States itself has (and continues to be) engaged in activities which can be interpreted as acts of terrorism by an outside observer.

3. The US's attacks of aggression and disregard for the protection of innocents continues to manufacture terrorists and extremists all over the world, as well as within the United States.

This is a never-ending, un-winnable war, with no borders or boundaries; one that compromises both national security and the "inalienable rights" of US citizens. The War on Terror must be stopped at any cost.