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U.S. Government Claims – Just Like the Nazis – that the Truth Is Too Complicated and Dangerous to Disclose to the Public

George Washington's picture




 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FL47N3WN-D8/UHHRk3hdP7I/AAAAAAAAFbA/CMH7gW3z-Bk/s640/IT%27S+NOT+FASCISM+WHEN+WE+DO+IT.png

JUS IN BELLO Will War Criminals Ever Be Prosecuted?JUS IN BELLO 2.0 Will War Criminals Ever Be Prosecuted?2nd and 3rd Image by William Banzai 7

In the classic history of Nazi Germany, They Thought They Were Free, Milton Mayer writes:

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

 

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

Similarly, America has - little by little - gone from a nation of laws to a nation of powerful men making laws in secret.  Indeed, even Congress doesn't know half of what others are doing.

Secretive, unaccountable agencies are making life and death decisions which effect our most basic rights.  They provide "secret evidence"  to courts which cannot be checked ... and often withhold any such "evidence" even from the judges.  For example:

"I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules — a veritable Catch-22," the judge wrote. "I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret."

The government uses "secret evidence" to spy on Americans, prosecute leaking or terrorism charges (even against U.S. soldiers) and even assassinate people.

And the government goes after whistleblowers ... and reporters who say too much (and see this).

U.S. government spokesmen pretend - just as the Nazis - that:

  • The situation is so complicated that the government has to act on information which the people could not understand
  • It is so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security

As FireDogLake notes:

Like the iron fist of the Nazis ... Americans must submit to “roving surveillance” and warrantless searches, without the requirement of a Judge’s authorization. Surveillance laws are part of a larger arsenal of weapons against political dissidents and whistle blowers.

 

Most Americans don’t know the Patriot Act authorizes secret charges relying on secret evidence and secret grand jury statements. Under the Patriot Act, Americans have no right to know who has accused them of what criminal activities, or the dates of the alleged offense.

 

They’re not even told what law was broken. The government has power to lock up Americans on military bases or other prisons without a hearing or trial. We can be detained indefinitely without any rights of due process at all.

All of this happened in Germany - as in America today - because the governments whipped up so much fear of attack by demonizing the enemy and declaring an open-ended war that people became complacent and stopped thinking for themselves.

As Mayer notes about Nazi Germany, people were too apathetic or scared to stand up for others:

Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late."

The same is true in modern America.

Mayer points out:

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

 

***

 

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

The same is happening to Americans today.  Indeed, the American government appears to be following the Nazi playbook.  The U.S. government - like the SS - may label anyone who disagrees with government policy as crazy or a potential terrorist ... and is claiming more tyrannical powers that even Hitler claimed.

If you think we're exaggerating, just listen to what the prosecutors who convicted the Nazis of war crimes say ...

Benjamin Ferencz - a former chief prosecutor for the Nuremberg Trials against the Nazis - declared:

A prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity — that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.

See this, this, and this.  In addition, he said:

[A Nuremberg defendant said that he didn't feel bad for killing children and other innocent people]  "because we relied on the head of state, Hitler. He had more information than I had, and he told us that the Soviets planned to attack, so it was necessary in presumed self-defense."

 

***

 

It's very disappointing to find that my government today is prepared to do something for which we hanged Germans as war criminals.

Another Nuremberg prosecutor, Henry King, Jr., said that the Guantanamo trials violate the Nuremberg principles and Geneva Convention.

Allowing medical experimentation on prisoners certainly violates the Nuremberg principles.   And leading constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley notes that the government is violating the Nuremberg principles by failing to punish those who created our recent policy of torture.

Note 1:  Fascism also happened in Nazi Germany because the taxpayers became responsible for the debts of big corporations, and the corporate sector and authoritarian government worked hand-in-glove.  The same is happening in the U.S. right now.

Note 2: For Dems who assume that things improved after Bush, please note that a former Obama security adviser says that Obama is as "ruthless and indifferent to rule of law" as Bush. And see this.

 

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Tue, 01/15/2013 - 09:49 | 3153742 falak pema
falak pema's picture

this is original; so Nicholas II unbeknown to himself was a Bolshevik who shot himself and his family.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 14:07 | 3154553 duo
duo's picture

not what I meant.  Germany didn't have a revolution.  It became a fascist state using the leaders already in power.

Same with Obama's America.'

Nick II was hated because he was a monarch and kept Russia in WWI far too long trying to keep a family promise to defend France if attacked.

Hitler's original popularity came from his hatred of Bolsheviks.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 07:43 | 3153553 Crassus
Crassus's picture

National Socialists and Fascists know hats.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 03:38 | 3153430 dvfco
dvfco's picture

If anyone believes Obama has been a better POTUS than Bush, I'd love to hear a single thing he has done better, except maybe, maybe, not cave to BiBi.  While he has overseen the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, he has also ignoring protests of the people being slaughtered in countries already ruled by Muslim leaders.  Between his foreign policy and ongoing drone strikes, he has created 3 or 4 generations of Muslims who will be willing to martyr themselves to kill Americans the world over.

Is a drone attack not the most terrorist-like means of killing ever invented?  

Can you imagine millions of people worried that they will be the next ones struck down by Obama at a moment's notice for so much as going outside to pump some fresh water or attending a funeral?  Then, imagine that Obama is bringing all the same rules of engagement and drone technology home to a city near you! 

Bush may have parted with our Constitution in certain ways, but Obama seems to be guided in his presidency to do every single thing possible to contravene what the founding fathers intentions were for this country.  

We were given a Republic, if we could keep it.  

I don't see a single individual truly standing up to him from within the government other than mindless grandstanding. Boehner came the closest to doing anything of meaning by saying he was done negotiating with the guy because of Obama's complete absence of honesty or good faith.  

Obama must be impeached and convicted.  There are a minimum of 50 charges that could be brought against him (ignoring multiple charges for similar offenses).  They better take that other snake running the Department of Injustice before he causes more damage.  Imagine - that asshat has been impeached and he's serving a second term with Obama while everyone else goes to take millions in the private sector.  

If one does not listen to what Obama  says but only watches what he does, it would be impossible to conclude he is anything but a Muslim determined to bring our country to its knees.  I'm just waiting for him to give Iranians the drone technology so they can share it with the Chinese and then use it against every one of our bases worldwide.   Oh, wait, he's done that with both drones in Iran and our new choppers in the bin Laden raid.  Hmm.  Who side is he on?  Even his own minister (who is beginning to actually look like the true patriot in the Chicago group) stated he went to church to meet his voters, but he was raised a Muslim.  

I'd like to state the usually tongue-in-cheek "Not that there's anything wrong with it."  However, there's a hell of a lot wrong with it because his religious values are just another thing about which he's lied to us.

If we had actually elected the first proud Muslim-American, I'd have no problem with it.  It would be much in the way the people elected Kennedy.  He was the first Roman Catholic, but I believe he acted and would have always acted in the best interests of our nation while upholding the Constitution over any edicts from Rome.  Obama hides his intentions and it can only force me to realize that the false flag attacks will be coming fast and furiously from him to accomplish all his goals.  The clock will start ticking on his second term in a matter of days and I have a sick feeling Sandy Hook might have been a jump start on his 2nd term agenda.

In closing, we're fucked unless someone brings this administration to an end.  We're in a sad state and we''ll be calling The Great Depression 'The Minor Downturn' before we get rid of him.

 

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 20:53 | 3156109 Pants McPants
Pants McPants's picture

"If one does not listen to what Obama  says but only watches what he does, it would be impossible to conclude he is anything but a Muslim determined to bring our country to its knees."

....here's where you crossed over from semi-legitimate gripe to full-blown tard. 

Collectivist-minded people can think only in terms of groups.  When you get down to it, you're no different than a die-hard Obama or Bush supporter because both believe the gun is justified......so long as you and others who think like you hold said gun. 

I humbly suggest you return to square one and re-think this whole 'state' thing. 

(PS, I didn't junk you)

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 18:32 | 3155707 diogeneslaertius
diogeneslaertius's picture

you cannot impeach a standing puppet under the NWO without a People's COngress, which we do not have - and the system has been so hijacked that only a total awakening of the people can overcome the rigged logistics of the game im afraid

 

hence INFOWAR

Wed, 01/16/2013 - 07:18 | 3157012 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

NWO = New World Order - it implies an international affair, not the way one country is run. just saying

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 15:22 | 3154840 lakecity55
lakecity55's picture

+100

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 10:33 | 3153828 DosZap
DosZap's picture

, except maybe, maybe, not cave to BiBi

No, he has furthered the cause and given four countries to the Radical Islamists, wht else you  need?,under the guise of taking out BAD guys.And he is an inch away from destrying the entire BOR's.

When he he gets the guns, Expat of forever be on your knees.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 09:08 | 3153658 Colonial Intent
Colonial Intent's picture

'Between his foreign policy and ongoing drone strikes, he has created 3 or 4 generations of Muslims who will be willing to martyr themselves to kill Americans the world over.'

O'Really?

Bush created 1000,s of jihadi's where few existed before.

Obama is a lightweight compared to bush, wheres obama's patriot act, tho that ndaa ting is gonna be worse than bush's 911 psyop, just give it time....

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 13:52 | 3154518 Overfed
Overfed's picture

Bush's "Patriot Act" is O'bomb-a's "patriot act" now. He renewed it. The ongonig and escalating drone strikes are breeding massive amounts of ill will for the US every single day.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 13:27 | 3154424 koncaswatch
koncaswatch's picture

bush, smush... that psycopath is out and the new second administration psycopath is in, that is the conversation; this president, this USA.... as is where is.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 08:12 | 3153576 negative rates
negative rates's picture

Well he's black.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 13:50 | 3154504 General Decline
General Decline's picture

Actually he is not black. At least not according to my some of my aquaintences in Africa. When I told them he was our first black president, they all laughed at me.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 08:19 | 3153571 HardAssets
HardAssets's picture

its all a progression

O is worse than the dunce

and the next one will be worse than O

and the few sheep that give a damn will 'vote' for their respective demorepublicrat

thinking "change is coming if my guy wins"

and come up with all kinds of explanations why their last guy

wasnt nearly as bad as the other guy who is in there now

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 15:27 | 3154862 The Alarmist
The Alarmist's picture

Clinton is to Caligula as

Bush is to Claudius as

Obama is to Nero

 

Is it rhyming, or outright repeating?

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 02:30 | 3153384 diogeneslaertius
diogeneslaertius's picture

silly slaves, truth is for official experts only :D

any disagreement will result in forced medication

all hail glorious leader, El President Debt Brother From Planet O and Emperor Von Rumpy-Pumpy of Airstrip One

and all hail their glorious, but unseen paymasters in the NWO

 

gosh i feel free

wait... does this mean obamaney didnt sabes us?

WB7 + GW = Au

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 08:03 | 3153566 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

I take this above as example for a completely different trend I see re "...to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security..." this was Germany, 60 years ago

imo the trend of the 21st is that more and more people believe that things are much, much simpler, like:

- this prez is a dictator (while the last one a jolly good chap you could drink a beer with). Note how diogeneslaertius picks on Gollum van Rompuy as if this guy had any power at all instead of being a glorified secretary to the Council (another institution he probably does know nothing about). why bother on pesky details when you have a face to hate?

- the existence of the "unseen paymasters in the NWO". Note how this makes all the highly visible powerful figures somehow "blameless". NWO is starting to be a way to forget the Military-Industrial Complex, for example, or the "needs" of various corporations for "muscle" in the world. Interestingly, NWO stopped being a word for a world affair and has now purely domestic connotations

it's a dangerous trend ihmo, making ordinary people thinking that politics follows the same rules as their consumption-based lives, that being a citizen is the same as being a consumer, i.e. pampered and catered for

highly interesting is also this trend of thinking that what cannot be sustained ends with a big Hollywood bang, or that "standing to your principles" is historically the smart way to get out of trouble (Germany in WWI is a very good case for that), or also those changes in the vocabulary. This week's political words are "compromise" and "cave in", for example

or that you can just leave the mess to the others - "Me? Nobody asked me!" and "Why should this bother me?"

I'd say it's a progressive consumeristic infantilization of broad parts of society, with the US far more down in it, but sharply followed by the UK. some of my friends have a name for that: Jimmies. From give me, gimme, gimme...

on the left, gimme more snap cards & help. on the top, gimme more bailouts and stay out of my biz. on the right... well, just another kind of Jimmies

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 12:18 | 3154206 Flakmeister
Flakmeister's picture

Well said...

The level of any political discourse now is bordering on infantile school yard behaviour....

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 15:22 | 3154846 The Alarmist
The Alarmist's picture

It was nice to come of age during the peak of Western Civilization ... if I'm lucky, they'll drone me before it really starts going down hill.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 07:54 | 3153559 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Its Kill List Tuesday...

"President Obama, overseeing the regular Tuesday counterterrorism meeting of two dozen security officials in the White House Situation Room, took a moment to study the faces. It was Jan. 19, 2010, the end of a first year in office punctuated by terrorist plots and culminating in a brush with catastrophe over Detroit on Christmas Day, a reminder that a successful attack could derail his presidency. Yet he faced adversaries without uniforms, often indistinguishable from the civilians around them."

It was not a theoretical question: Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical. He had vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the chart, introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order, underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be.

Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=all

Lets be careful out there boppers ;-)

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 18:31 | 3155701 diogeneslaertius
diogeneslaertius's picture

kill list tuesday is good for double shots of truth

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 08:18 | 3153582 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

without wanting to defend your current prez: is this something new? assassinations of pesky political and military figures all around the world has been a common US practice for over 50 years

it's one of the powers that congress just silently gave over - the reason why we aliens talk about the "Imperial Presidency"

the biggest problem is you. you, the US citizen. you have a very nebulous concept of "out there", i.e. foreign lands

and so you have a very nebulous concept of what war is, or anything that has to do with other nations, including the previously common expectation that a war should be declared before the killing starts - not for the sake of the enemy, but for the sake of your own republic

and before you start with some blablabla on republics: I mean it in the oldest sense, i.e. "your status of things", i.e. also just "the way you look at yourselves"

and so you don't really care, and this since several generations

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 10:09 | 3153787 AnAnonymous
AnAnonymous's picture

is this something new?
_____________________

Yep, it is new. He is a negro doing it.
Even my dog noticed, he always barks at the TV when the commie in chief shows up.

Signed: an American.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 15:37 | 3154896 ebworthen
ebworthen's picture

My dog barks at Martin Yan ("Yan Can Cook") but I tell him to shut up because I like Chinese food.

Wait...I don't have a dog.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 13:02 | 3154360 Anusocracy
Anusocracy's picture

Obama is a psychopathic negro. Obama is a psychopathic liberal.

Bush is a psychopathic caucasian. Bush is a psychopathic conservative.

Ignore the adjective, focus on the nouns like a good boy. See the difference?

 

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 12:18 | 3154203 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture

is this something new?
_____________________

Nope, nothing new. Chinese citizenism taste for racism. Sorry. Racism is an instrumental key component of Chinese citizenism.

What next? That the negroes in Africa deplete their part of the african continent or something? Not possible, as Chinese citizenism blobbing up into Africa is unstoppable.

Signed: AnAnonymous

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 12:58 | 3154343 Temporalist
Temporalist's picture

AnAnonymous gets a new dog every week.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 15:21 | 3154835 The Alarmist
The Alarmist's picture

Ensures a weekly supply of fresh meat?

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 15:26 | 3154856 akak
akak's picture

More to the point, a weekly supply of roadside post-meat.

Very mattering, very crusty, very much something.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 08:24 | 3153588 nmewn
nmewn's picture

If he were a real "constitutional law professor" who believed in the rule of law that GW speaks of in the article, he could not make ridiculous statements like the killing of a US citizen was "an easy one" without due process.

He was an American citizen.

So he is either NOT a professor of law, does not believe in the rule of law or killed him to terrorize us.

Take your pick...off to work.

Ciao.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 08:36 | 3153598 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

I disagree. there is something more basic than US law (no, I'm not talking about those mythical "natural laws"). it's called custom

the constitutional right to kill enemies for political reasons - aka "war" resides in congress

congress made it customary to allow the presidents to wage war without declaration and to assassinate enemies outside the US borders

their citizenship is irrelevant. the crime starts with the omission of the declaration of war

of course this is not in your constitution because then this kind of crime would have been unthinkable

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 19:34 | 3155887 nmewn
nmewn's picture

While what you say has elements of truth Ghordius, custom and customary mean usual.

It is part of our law (customary & usual) that our citizens recieve due process, that is, the same entity cannot be the investigator, prosecutor, judge/jury and executioner. We're talking about a US citizen here, not a foreign national.

And no, I'm not so naive to think it doesn't happen from low level bureaucrats and spooks but this was a brazen in your face disregard of the rule of law by a sitting president, in my opinion.

Turning to your other point (separation of powers) just because Congress abdicates its duties (which is at the least a firing offense, at the most a criminal offense) does not mean the rule of law goes away. If it were so, anyone who broke an oath, vow or contract could point to another who did as well, as a reason (an excuse) the precedent...and thus, their defense.

Corny but true...two wrongs don't make a right.

And there is nothing mythical about Natural Law...just try and break into my house sometime...no matter where I live...lol...so I guess we do disagree.

Amicably ;-)

Wed, 01/16/2013 - 06:33 | 3156926 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

Amicably ;-) yes, thanks, as always with you - then you do have a mind and integrity I can and do respect

don't get me wrong, I'm just pointing out that even during ancient times when an army deployed for war, civil rights were exchanged for martial law, and citizens fighting with the enemy were treated as enemies, first, and citizens second

it's a huge, recognized difference still applying both in law and customs on this planet - including in the Nuerenberg Trials of the pictures above

the US Congress does not help in this because it does not recognize the current international customs and laws of war, including the proper treatment of Prisoners of War (remember Bush's enemy combatants doctrine?)

one of the biggest complaints we non-US citizens have is this misunderstanding that the US citizens have about international borders and the difference they are supposed to make in the application of law and rights

de facto the US currently treats the whole planet as an (undeclared) war zone - except inside US borders

but this is based on the common US citizen's (mis-) understanding of the world, rights and law, and war

Wed, 01/16/2013 - 20:09 | 3160352 nmewn
nmewn's picture

I did want to return and give you the courtesy of a response here Ghordius, from my perspective.

Hard to find anything to disagree with in that...but...

"one of the biggest complaints we non-US citizens have is this misunderstanding that the US citizens have about international borders and the difference they are supposed to make in the application of law and rights"

Some citizens but not all. I'm fully cognizent of and make myself familiar with their rights and laws. Which is where I was at. A US citizens right to his/her law as a citizen.

"de facto the US currently treats the whole planet as an (undeclared) war zone - except inside US borders"

Well, that may be changing.

And I don't agree with equating uniformed soldiers with un-uniformed guerrillas/terrorists/spies. Theres a very good reason for identification...to minimize civilian casualties when people go to war.

Now, I may change my mind on that one...civil war is a shade different.

Tue, 01/15/2013 - 15:22 | 3153883 Manthong
Manthong's picture

Well, at least the politicians can claim ignorance as they do not read most of what they sign off on and the people can claim ignorance because they weren’t educated well enough to discern and understand what they were actually voting for.

The US is a turkey shoot now for elite parasites and collectivists.

We are a long way from here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpmi7dBet0c

 

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