How many presidents have been in office since 1945? Fourteen. How many have been in power? Zero. Heads of state in the US serve a necessary purpose and it has little to do with power. Mostly a focal point for Americans to rally around when it comes to natural disasters, school shootings or war. But the real center of power lies elsewhere — in the intelligence agencies (in sixty years the number of such secret agencies has doubled from 9 in 1964 to 18 in 2024) and in the military and their partners in the military industrial complex. Add to that the masters of the universe in business and finance, and a carefully selected group of think tank heavies and even a number of billionaires who bankroll both the republican and democratic parties.
Today we call it the deep state (aka the blob) a neocon-led gangster enterprise which promotes the fiction of US hegemony in a unipolar world. A staple of the deep state is an aggressive foreign policy that has been instrumental in the placement of at least 750 U.S. military bases in 85 countries, in transforming NATO from a defensive alliance formed in 1949 at the start of the cold war into an offensive one making and losing wars all over the world.
Where does the president fit in? His (or maybe hers after the November election) role in the deep state is to be a cheerleader for the corporate and financial interests that are vital to the longevity of the deep state. He is also a reliable mouthpiece for promoting the US empire as the global hegemon.
But what if he (or she) steps out of line? A big mistake as Chuck Schumer head poo-bah of the US Senate declared proudly in 2019. No doubt he meant it as a warning to then-President Trump —“You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” Even the non-conspiracy-minded took note after the ham-handed CIA response to the attempt on Trump’s life in July. Could it be the deep state’s reaction to the idea of a second Trump administration? Even CNN, a fervent supporter of the war hawks and neoconservatives that make up the deep state, expressed some skepticism about the handling of the assassination attempt—”Secret Service faces serious questions about security footprint and rooftop access at Trump event”
Let’s be clear about one thing. Trump’s unpredictability, his habit of saying the quiet part out loud unnerves the warmongers and those who profit from wars. After the US invaded Syria, another violation of international law this time on Obama’s watch, Trump officials tried to put a happy face on it. Trump’s defense secretary, a factotum of the deep state, took the usual way out — he lied: “Our mission is the enduring defeat of Isis.” Trump was the truthteller that day: “We’re keeping the oil. We have the oil. The oil is secure. We left troops behind only for the oil.” Who knows what a second term of that unpredictability might mean for the deep state.
The deep state’s enforcement arm might also be concerned about Trump’s proclivity to accuse NATO members of “ripping us [the U.S.] off. In 2023, the U.S. paid 68% of NATO’s defense budget, close to $1 trillion. As NATO is essential to US plans for future wars, another Trump presidency strikes “fear and loathing” in the hearts and minds of war hawks who control the deep state.
President John F. Kennedy was another president who forgot his place in the ruling class food chain. After the 1961 CIA-run Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba turned into a “shit show” (phrase used by President Obama to describe another CIA misadventure this time in Libya), President Kennedy, who had actually authorized the plan, spoke openly about “splinter[ing] the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter[ing] it into the winds.” Piling one blunder on another, he also fired the devious, yet powerful CIA director Allen Dulles. Two years later, on November 22, he was assassinated in Texas. Three decades later, the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 was passed authorizing the review and release of all records related to the assassination by 2017. In a rare display of bipartisanship, both Trump and Biden have declined to release the 4,700 documents still sealed. Their refusal has “deep state” written all over it.
When it comes to the U.S. government, the question of “Who’s in charge?” can be answered in three words: the deep state. Running shotgun for this group of power-mad capitalists is the CIA. Operating outside of constitutional checks and balances, its highest priority is shredding the constitution, particularly the first amendment. It is allowed to operate any way it chooses because a little-known law, the Central Intelligence Act of 1949, exempts the CIA from all federal laws requiring the disclosure of the “functions, names, official titles, salaries or numbers of personnel employed by the agency” and gives it the power to spend money “without regard to the provisions of law and regulations relating to the expenditure of government funds.”
The CIA has virtually limitless power to invade or interfere in the affairs of other countries on the made-up excuse of restoring order, thwarting “aggression” or fighting terrorism. Have the results of their operations strengthened the U.S. militarily, economically or socially? History provides the answer. After 38,000 young Americans died in the undeclared Korean war back in 1953, the U.S. emerged empty-handed, with only an armistice to show for the appalling loss of both Korean and American lives. The U.S. was not so lucky in subsequent wars, it took fifteen years to hightail it out of Vietnam, ten years to lose in Iraq and twenty years before it gave up the ghost in Afghanistan. Another debacle is waiting in the wings as the U.S. continues its military and financial support of Ukraine’s failing proxy war with Russia. Trying to destroy Russia’s economy, the U.S. and its allies have slapped massive sanctions on it. Far from hurting the Russian economy the sanctions have reinvigorated it. Sanctions are never the answer as those targeting Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and China have also been a bust.
With failure on the battlefield the norm, who or what is keeping the deep state in business? The rich folks and their criminogenic enterprises, particularly arms manufacturers like Raytheon and Boeing, tech firms like Apple, Goggle and Meta, financial asset firms like Blackrock and Vanguard, and the biggest, most powerful U.S. financial institutions. U.S. officials brazenly admit that the deep state is designed to make the world safe for corporate profiteering anywhere in the world.
The deep state’s MO is to set the world on fire by interfering in the affairs of sovereign countries and deposing their leaders (Iraq, Libya) and when all else fails launching endless war (Vietnam, Afghanistan). Strange how the US marks its territory. One of their all-time favs is labeling countries authoritarian which in US parlance makes them a legitimate target for invasion or deposing their leaders. Countries like Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Russia, and Libya have been so “blessed.” Funny thing they just happen to possess 50% of the world’s oil. Coincidence?
A few vignettes will tell you all you need to know about the power of the deep state. In 2008, William Burns was the US ambassador to Russia. Fearing the signals he was getting of U.S. moves against Russia, he sent a cable “Nyet means Nyet”’ to the foreign policy team in Washington predicting Russia’s response if the U.S. and NATO followed through with their plans to enlarge NATO up to Russia’s borders — “Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.” [“Nyet Means Nyet,” William Burns]
What a difference a big, fat promotion makes. In 2021, Biden appointed Burns CIA director, making him the virtual head of the deep state. Notice how his tune (and tone) changed: —”Putin is a bully and is going to continue saber-rattling from time to time… the Kursk offensive [Ukraine invades Russia in a failed offensive] is a significant tactical achievement. It’s not only been a boost in Ukrainian morale. It has exposed some of the vulnerabilities of Putin’s Russia and of his military… the United States has provided massive support for Ukraine throughout this war and we will continue to… [It is generally conceded even by the Pentagon that Ukraine is losing badly which Bill Burns undoubtedly knows but is afraid he will lose his job among other losses if he comes clean]
Maybe he’s just proficient at reading the historical tea leaves. Once upon a time way back in 1973, William Colby was appointed CIA director. He was the perfect choice as his career in the CIA marked him as the perfect American intelligence agent — a ruthless killer willing to go the max to accomplish whatever task his superiors ordered. In 1963, he oversaw the coup that murdered South Vietnamese President Diem when the U.S. determined it was time to get rid of him. From 1967 to 1972, he ran the Phoenix program which was an attempt to identify and destroy North Vietnamese soldiers and anyone the U.S. thought might be a sympathizer. Before it was discontinued, the Phoenix program killed 20,000 civilians many of them innocent peasants, using a variety of gruesome methods.
Maybe he had an epiphany but in 1975, he testified before the Church Committee, a Senate Select Committee, that was investigating abuses in Vietnam by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA. Colby made public a set of internal reports known as the “family jewels,” describing the CIA’s illegal activities including assassination plots and other dirty dealings. In 1976, a horrified President Ford fired him. To be clear, horrified not for the “dirty deeds” but for spilling the beans. Having committed the unpardonable sin of shining a light on some of the darkest corners of U.S. activities, he was ostracized from the intelligence community.
Based on what you’ve already learned about the CIA’s MO, the unfortunate end of ex-CIA director William Colby can be chalked up to business as usual. His body was found nine days after he was reported missing. Days earlier his canoe had also been found. According to the police, Colby had an irresistible impulse to go boating in the pitch dark while his half-eaten dinner was still on the table.
Murder and mayhem by American “patriots” aside, where do we go from here? The deep state still has its murderous fingers in many pies — whether in the Middle East, where the US is complicit in Israeli violations of international law, including but not limited to genocide, assassinations and ethnic cleansing or in Europe where taunting Russia risks all-out war between two nuclear-armed countries. The neocons who control the deep state whom President George H.W. Bush once described as “the crazies in the basement” are running amuck leaving wastelands where there used to be thriving countries, millions of displaced people where there used to be families and garrison states where there used to be sovereign nations.
For the U.S. the road ahead presents a surfeit of challenges. Once a creditor nation now the largest debtor nation in world history with a national debt of $35 trillion, the U.S. survives on the dollar being the world’s reserve currency. How long will that last? The U.S. is rapidly losing friends around the world for its arrogance in becoming the world’s cop, for the wars it has started all over the world and for imposing sanctions on a multitude of countries. Not exactly sure-fire ways to win friends.
As if that isn’t enough, the U.S. has frozen Russian and Venezuelan money deposited in U.S. and European banks. Another name for this practice is stealing.
Where does that leave the US, a declining empire that has gone from the most admired and respected country in the world to one of the most despised. Perhaps the US will suffer the same fate as other failing empires “leaving behind a mountain of squandered dollars and an ocean of blood.” [“The Madness of Antony Blinken” Joe Lauria, Consortium News, September 24, 2024]
