Living in the Shadows: A World of Black Ops and Cyber Wars

The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. — John F. Kennedy

Dees Illustration

John Galt
Activist Post

A shadow has descended on freedom worldwide:  Congress is in the dark; sovereign foreign nations are in the dark; and the average American can’t imagine that a world of espionage, black ops, psy ops, and the apparatus of a surveillance-industrial complex run by globalists has them in the crosshairs.

When exiting CIA director, Leon Panetta, openly admitted that shadow wars and black ops should be a strategy employed through direct military control by the CIA, it marked a new Dark Age. 

‘(It’s) appropriate for the head of such department or agency [read: CIA] to direct the operations of the element providing that military support while working with the Secretary of Defense.’ A ‘significant advantage of doing so,’ he continued, ‘is that it permits the robust operational capability of the U.S. Armed Forces to be applied when needed.’

That’s contentious: it would put the military in the territory of performing operations that the government can legally deny all knowledge of ordering… (Source)

A later response by Panetta to a question by Sen. McCain literally empowers Barack Obama to become a dictator, within a military dictatorship framework, as it heralds a philosophy of extralegal measures taken by the president “when needed” by the military:

‘Senator, I believe very strongly that the president has the constitutional power as commander in chief to take steps that he believes are necessary to protect this country and protect our national interests,’ said Panetta. ‘And obviously, I think it’s important for presidents to consult, to have the advice of Congress. But in the end, I believe he has the constitutional power to do what he has to do to protect this country.’ (Source)

This statement is telling, as it refers to Congress as a place where a president should seek advice, not approval.  This assertion is the precise difference between a constitutional republic and an authoritarian dictatorship. 

Shadow wars and black ops have been conducted for decades, so only the naive could believe this is really something new.  In fact, the black budget of the Pentagon has grown into more like a black hole, and is estimated to be well over $50 billion per year, “more than the combined budgets of the Food and Drug Administration, the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.” (Source) 

What is new, however, is enshrining these methods as part of open U.S. strategy and a re-definition of the country itself.  And rather than something suspected to be on the horizon, we can see current U.S. behavior as indicative of non-accountable shadow operations having been embraced wholeheartedly.  There are currently five wars taking place simultaneously, with Libya and Yemen having bypassed Congress altogether.   Syria is surely coming soon, as military reports confirm a ground invasion is set for an October timeframe.

Each of the ongoing wars are run as though they are black ops missions:  secret prisons, torture centers, citizen surveillance, the fomenting of coups, and CIA-directed drones peppering the military theater and beyond. 

Simultaneously, as wars rage on in the real world, behind the scenes the U.S. government is funding a “shadow” Internet to help dissidents abroad circumvent government censorship through covert networks inside foreign countries.  This dovetails perfectly with think-tank documents such as Which Path to Persia? that admits to the tactics of funding and creating false revolutions to destabilize non-cooperative sovereign regimes and subsume them into the larger tyranny of democracy that they seek.  All of this is occurring amid a backdrop of high-profile corporate and governmental systems hacks that ultimately could lead to the freedoms of “non-combatants” becoming collateral damage in yet another shadow war. 

As Jen Soriano stated in an excellent article about the social fallout from shadow endeavors:

Shadow wars assault life, liberty and privacy under a fog of state deception.  Like the shape-shifting U.S. military, they do their dirty work in many ways…

Shadow wars smother human rights beneath the empire’s ‘rights’ to spy, torture and kill with impunity. The Orwellian specter of ‘national security’ is the untouchable excuse. (Source)

This mentality has allowed for targeted killings of American citizens, as well as the war on whistleblowers; a growing catalog of people compelled to expose the framework of lies and deceptions inherent in the shadow system who are now worthy of harassment, imprisonment, and torture.  

The shadow wars/black ops mentality has now quickly come home to roost, as it always must.  In just one example among a growing number of human rights abuses against peaceful activists, former FBI agent, now National Security Policy Council for the ACLU, Mike German, details the case of Scott Crow who has been surveilled for years without suspicion of any wrongdoing.  His 440-page file is indicative of a new American justice system being run by an intelligence agency mentality both abroad and at home that defines its mission by “assessments” of suspects and potential informants.

There is mounting evidence that the overseas shadow wars and the shadow wars in America are both being used to usurp the essential sovereignty of nations and the people who inhabit them.  The  overarching agenda of destabilization and imposition of a new world order is fast coalescing into manufactured terror threats real and virtual — leading to wars real and virtual — that are inhabited by a world of ghosts.

As we reflect upon John F. Kennedy’s definition of an America of time past (real or just wished for), we must ask ourselves if we really want to live in a shadow world that grows darker by the day, or if we are courageous enough to turn on the lights and wake up from this nightmare.