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Part VII focusses on the history and central role of Al Qaeda as a US intelligence asset. Since the Soviet-Afghan war, US intelligence has supported the formation of various jihadist organizations. An understanding of this history is crucial in refuting the official 9/11 narrative which claims that Al Qaeda, was behind the attacks. Part VIII centers on the life and death of 9/11 “Terror Mastermind” Osama bin Laden, who was recruited by the CIA in the heyday of the Soviet Afghan war. This section also includes an analysis of the mysterious death of Osama bin Laden, allegedly executed by US Navy Seals in a suburb of Islamabad in May 2011. Part  IX  focusses on “False Flags” and the Pentagon’s “Second 9/11″. Part X examines the issue of “Deep Events” with contributions by renowned scholars Peter Dale Scott and Daniele Ganser. Part XI  examines the structure of 9/11 propaganda which consists in “creating” as well “perpetuating” a  “9/11 Legend”. How is this achieved? Incessantly, on a daily basis, Al Qaeda, the alleged 9/11 Mastermind is referred to by the Western media, government officials, members of the US Congress, Wall Street analysts, etc. as an underlying cause of numerous World events. Part XII focusses on the practice of 9/11 Justice directed against the alleged culprits of the 9/11 attacks. The legitimacy of 9/11 propaganda requires fabricating “convincing evidence” and “proof” that those who are accused actually carried out the attacks. Sentencing of Muslims detained in Guantanamo is part of war propaganda. It depicts innocent men who are accused of the 9/11 attacks, based on confessions acquired through systematic torture throughout their detention. Part  XIII focusses on 9/11 Truth.  The objective of 9/11 Truth is to ultimately dismantle the propaganda apparatus which is manipulating the human mindset. The 9/11 Reader concludes with a retrospective view of 9/11 ten years later.

PART  I Timeline: What Happened on the Morning of September 11, 2001 Nothing Urgent: The Curious Lack of Military Action on the Morning of September. 11, 2001 - by George Szamuely – 2012-08-12 Political Deception: The Missing Link behind 9-11 - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2002-06-20 On the morning of September 11, Pakistan’s Chief Spy General Mahmoud Ahmad, the alleged “money-man” behind the 9-11 hijackers, was at a breakfast meeting on Capitol Hill hosted by Senator Bob Graham and Rep. Porter Goss, the chairmen of the Senate and House Intelligence committees. 9/11 Contradictions: Bush in the Classroom - by Dr. David Ray Griffin – 2008-04-04 9/11 Contradictions: When Did Cheney Enter the Underground Bunker? - by David Ray Griffin – 2008-04-24 VIDEO: Pilots For 9/11 Truth: Intercepted Don’t miss this important documentary, now on GRTV - 2012-05-16

PART II What Happened on the Planes “United 93″: What Happened on the Planes? - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2006-05-01   Phone Calls from the 9/11 Airliners Response to Questions Evoked by My Fifth Estate Interview - by Prof David Ray Griffin – 2010-01-12 Given the cell phone technology available in 2001, cell phone calls from airliners at altitudes of more than a few thousand feet, were virtually impossible Ted Olson’s Report of Phone Calls from Barbara Olson on 9/11: Three Official Denials - by David Ray Griffin – 2008-04-01 Ted Olson’s report was very important. It provided apparent “evidence” that American 77 had struck the Pentagon.

PART III What Caused the Collapse of The WTC Buildings and the Pentagon? The Destruction of the World Trade Center: Why the Official Account Cannot Be True - by Dr. David Ray Griffin – 2006-01-29 The official theory about the Twin Towers says that they collapsed because of the combined effect of the impact of the airplanes and the resulting fires Evidence Refutes the Official 9/11 Investigation: The Scientific Forensic Facts - by Richard Gage, Gregg Roberts – 2010-10-13 VIDEO: Controlled Demolitions Caused the Collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings on September 11, 2001 - by Richard Gage – 2009-09-20 VIDEO: 9/11: The Myth and The Reality Now on GRTV - by Prof. David Ray Griffin – 2011-08-30 Undisputed Facts Point to the Controlled Demolition of WTC 7 - by Richard Gage – 2008-03-28 VIDEO: 9/11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out See the trailer for this ground-breaking film on GRTV - 2011-08-03 9/11: “Honest Mistake” or BBC Foreknowledge of Collapse of WTC 7? Jane Standley Breaks Her Silence - by James Higham – 2011-08-18 The Collapse of WTC Building Seven. Interview. Comment by Elizabeth Woodworth - by David Ray Griffin – 2009-10-17   Building What? How SCADs Can Be Hidden in Plain Sight: The 9/11 “Official Story” and the Collapse of WTC Building Seven - by Prof David Ray Griffin – 2010-05-30 Besides omitting and otherwise falsifying evidence, NIST also committed the type of scientific fraud called fabrication, which means simply “making up results.” VIDEO; Firefighters’ Analysis of the 9/11 Attacks Refutes the Official Report - by Erik Lawyer – 2012-08-27 VIDEO: Pentagon Admits More 9/11 Remains Dumped in Landfill - by James Corbett – 2012-03-01 The Pentagon revealed that some of the unidentifiable remains from victims at the Pentagon and Shanksville sites on September 11, 2001 were disposed of in a landfill. 9/11: The Attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 The Official Version Amounts to an Enormous Lie - by Thierry Meyssan – 2012-08-16

PART IV Lies and Fabrications: The 9/11 Commission Report A National Disgrace: A Review of the 9/11 Commission Report - by David Ray Griffin – 2005-03-24 The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571 Page Lie - by Dr. David Ray Griffin – 2005-09-08 September 11, 2001: 21 Reasons to Question the Official Story about 9/11 - by David Ray Griffin – 2008-09-11 911 “Conspiracy Theorists” Vindicated: Pentagon deliberately misled Public Opinion Military officials made false statements to Congress and to the 911 Commission - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2006-08-02 The 9/11 Commission’s Incredible Tales Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93 - by Prof. David Ray Griffin – 2005-12-13 9/11 and the War on Terror: Polls Show What People Think 10 Years Later - by Washington’s Blog – 2011-09-10

PART  V Foreknowledge of 9/11   VIDEO: The SECRET SERVICE ON 9/11: What did the Government Know? Learn more on this week’s GRTV Feature Interview - by Kevin Ryan, James Corbett – 2012-04-10 9/11 Foreknowledge and “Intelligence Failures”: “Revealing the Lies” on 9/11 Perpetuates the “Big Lie” - by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-09-14 “Foreknowledge” and “Failure to act” upholds the notion that the terrorist attacks (“act of war”) “waged by Muslims against America” are real, when all the facts and findings point towards coverup and complicity at the highest levels of the US government. Foreknowledge of 9/11 by Western Intelligence Agencies - by Michael C. Ruppert – 2012-08-21

PART VI Insider Trading and the 9/11 Financial Bonanza 9/11 Attacks: Criminal Foreknowledge and Insider Trading lead directly to the CIA’s Highest Ranks CIA Executive Director “Buzzy” Krongard managed Firm that handled “Put” Options on UAL - by Michael C. Ruppert – 2012-08-13 The 9/11 Attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC): Unspoken Financial Bonanza - by Prof Michel Chossudovsky – 2012-04-27 SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: Insider Trading 9/11 … the Facts Laid Bare - by Lars Schall – 2012-03-20 Osama Bin Laden and The 911 Illusion: The 9/11 Short-Selling Financial Scam - by Dean Henderson – 2011-05-09

PART VII 9/11 and the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) Political Deception: The Missing Link behind 9-11 - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2002-06-20 On the morning of September 11, Pakistan’s Chief Spy General Mahmoud Ahmad, the alleged “money-man” behind the 9-11 hijackers, was at a breakfast meeting on Capitol Hill hosted by Senator Bob Graham and Rep. Porter Goss, the chairmen of the Senate and House Intelligence committees. 9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001 - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2010-09-09 Osama bin Laden was recruited by the CIA in 1979. The US spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings.     The Central Role of Al Qaeda in Bush’s National Security Doctrine “Revealing the Lies” on 9/11 Perpetuates the “Big Lie” - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2007-07-12 September 11, 2001: America and NATO Declare War on Afghanistan NATO’s Doctrine of Collective Security - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2009-12-21   America’s Holy Crusade against the Muslim World. - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2010-08-30 What is now unfolding is a generalized process of demonization of an entire population group

Osamagate - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2001-10-09 The main justification for waging this war has been totally fabricated. The American people have been deliberately and consciously misled by their government into supporting a major military adventure which affects our collective future. The “Demonization” of Muslims and the Battle for Oil - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2007-01-04 Muslim countries possess three quarters of the World’s oil reserves. In contrast, the United States of America has barely 2 percent of total oil reserves.   Was America Attacked by Muslims on 9/11? - by David Ray Griffin – 2008-09-10 Much of US foreign policy since 9/11 has been based on the assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11.   New Documents Detail America’s Strategic Response to 9/11 Rumsfeld’s War Aim: “Significantly Change the World’s Political Map” - by National Security Archive – 2011-09-12

PART VIII The Alleged 9/11 Mastermind: The Life and Death of  Osama bin Laden Who Is Osama Bin Laden? - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2001-09-12   VIDEO: The Last Word on Osama Bin Laden - by James Corbett – 2011-05-24 Osama bin Laden: A Creation of the CIA - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-05-03 Interview with Osama bin Laden. Denies his Involvement in 9/11 Full text of Pakistani paper’s Sept 01 “exclusive” interview - 2011-05-09 Where was Osama on September 11, 2001? - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2008-09-11 On September 10. 2001, Osama was in a Pakistan military hospital in Rawalpindi, courtesy of America’s indefectible ally Pakistan Osama bin Laden, among the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives”: Why was he never indicted for his alleged role in 9/11? - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2006-09-17 Osama bin Laden: Already Dead… Evidence that Bin Laden has been Dead for Several Years - by Prof. David Ray Griffin – 2011-05-02 The Mysterious Death of Osama bin Laden: Creating Evidence Where There Is None - by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – 2011-08-04 The Assassination of Osama bin Laden: Glaring Anomalies in the Official Narrative Osama was Left Handed… - by Felicity Arbuthnot – 2011-05-11 The Assassination of Osama Bin Laden - by Fidel Castro Ruz – 2011-05-07 Dancing on the Grave of 9/11. Osama and “The Big Lie” - by Larry Chin – 2011-05-05

PART  IX  ”False Flags”: The Pentagon’s Second 9/11 The Pentagon’s “Second 911″ “Another [9/11] attack could create both a justification and an opportunity to retaliate against some known targets” - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2006-08-10 The presumption of this military document, is that a Second 911 attack “which is lacking today” would usefully create both a “justification and an opportunity” to wage war on “some known targets Crying Wolf: Terror Alerts based on Fabricated Intelligence - by Michel Chossudovsky – 2006-08-20 This is not the first time that brash and unsubstantiated statements have been made regarding an impending terror attack, which have proven to be based on “faulty intelligence”.

PART X “Deep Events” and State Violence The Doomsday Project and Deep Events: JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11 - by Prof. Peter Dale Scott – 2011-11-22 The Doomsday Project is the Pentagon’s name for the emergency planning “to keep the White House and Pentagon running during and after a nuclear war or some other major crisis.” JFK and 9/11 Insights Gained from Studying Both - by Dr. Peter Dale Scott – 2006-12-20 In both 9/11 and the JFK assassination, the US government and the media immediately established a guilty party. Eventually, in both cases a commission was set up to validate the official narrative. Able Danger adds twist to 9/11 9/11 Ringleader connected to secret Pentagon operation - by Dr. Daniele Ganser – 2005-08-27 Atta was connected to a secret operation of the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in the US. A top secret Pentagon project code-named Able Danger identified Atta and 3 other 9/11 hijackers as members of an al-Qaida cell more than a year before the attacks. 9/11, Deep State Violence and the Hope of Internet Politics - by Prof. Peter Dale Scott – 2008-06-11 The unthinkable – that elements inside the state would conspire with criminals to kill innocent civilians – has become thinkable… Al Qaeda: The Database. - by Pierre-Henri Bunel – 2011-05-12

PART XI Propaganda: Creating and Perpetuating the 9/11 Legend September 11, 2001: The Propaganda Preparation for 9/11: Creating the Osama bin Laden “Legend” - by Chaim Kupferberg – 2011-09-11 THE 9/11 MYTH: State Propaganda, Historical Revisionism, and the Perpetuation of the 9/11 Myth - by Prof. James F. Tracy – 2012-05-06   Al Qaeda and Human Consciousness: Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda…. An Incessant and Repetitive Public Discourse - by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky – 2012-03-24 9/11 Truth, Inner Consciousness and the “Public Mind” - by James F. Tracy – 2012-03-18

PART XII Post 9/11 “Justice” IRAN ACCUSED OF BEING BEHIND 9/11 ATTACKS. U.S. Court Judgment, December 2011 (Havlish v. Iran) - by Julie Lévesque – 2012-05-11 U.S. Court Judgment, December 2011 (Havlish v. Iran) “American Justice”: The Targeted Assassination of Osama Bin Laden Extrajudicial executions are unlawful - by Prof. Marjorie Cohn – 2011-05-10 ALLEGED “MASTERMIND” OF 9/11 ON TRIAL IN GUANTANAMO: Military Tribunals proceed Despite Evidence of Torture - by Tom Carter – 2012-05-30 U.S. Military Drugged Detainees to Obtain FALSE Confessions Self-confessed 9/11 “mastermind” falsely confessed to crimes he didn’t commit - by Washington’s Blog – 2012-07-15 911 MILITARY TRIAL: Pentagon Clears Way for Military Trial of Five charged in 9/11 Attacks - by Bill Van Auken – 2012-04-06 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial will convict us all - by Paul Craig Roberts – 2009-11-25

PART XIII 9/11 Truth Revealing the Lies,  Commemorating the 9/11 Tragedy VIDEO: Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 - by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-09-01 VIDEO: AFTER 9/11: TEN YEARS OF WAR Special GRTV Feature Production - by James Corbett – 2011-09-08

In addition to analyzing the content of their internet activities, the NSA also examined the targets' contact lists. The NSA accuses two of the targets of promoting al Qaeda propaganda, but states that surveillance of the three English-speakers’ communications revealed that they have "minimal terrorist contacts." In particular, “only seven (1 percent) of the contacts in the study of the three English-speaking radicalizers were characterized in SIGINT as affiliated with an extremist group or a Pakistani militant group. An earlier communications profile of [one of the targets] reveals that 3 of the 213 distinct individuals he was in contact with between 4 August and 2 November 2010 were known or suspected of being associated with terrorism," the document reads. The document contends that the three Arabic-speaking targets have more contacts with affiliates of extremist groups, but does not suggest they themselves are involved in any terror plots. Instead, the NSA believes the targeted individuals radicalize people through the expression of controversial ideas via YouTube, Facebook and other social media websites. Their audience, both English and Arabic speakers, "includes individuals who do not yet hold extremist views but who are susceptible to the extremist message,” the document states. The NSA says the speeches and writings of the six individuals resonate most in countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Kenya, Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia.

The NSA possesses embarrassing sexually explicit information about at least two of the targets by virtue of electronic surveillance of their online activity. The report states that some of the data was gleaned through FBI surveillance programs carried out under the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act. The document adds, "Information herein is based largely on Sunni extremist communications." It further states that "the SIGINT information is from primary sources with direct access and is generally considered reliable." According to the document, the NSA believes that exploiting electronic surveillance to publicly reveal online sexual activities can make it harder for these “radicalizers” to maintain their credibility. "Focusing on access reveals potential vulnerabilities that could be even more effectively exploited when used in combination with vulnerabilities of character or credibility, or both, of the message in order to shape the perception of the messenger as well as that of his followers," the document argues. An attached appendix lists the "argument" each surveillance target has made that the NSA says constitutes radicalism, as well the personal "vulnerabilities" the agency believes would leave the targets "open to credibility challenges" if exposed.

One target's offending argument is that "Non-Muslims are a threat to Islam," and a vulnerability listed against him is "online promiscuity." Another target, a foreign citizen the NSA describes as a "respected academic," holds the offending view that "offensive jihad is justified," and his vulnerabilities are listed as "online promiscuity" and "publishes articles without checking facts." A third targeted radical is described as a "well-known media celebrity" based in the Middle East who argues that "the U.S perpetrated the 9/11 attack." Under vulnerabilities, he is said to lead "a glamorous lifestyle." A fourth target, who argues that "the U.S. brought the 9/11 attacks on itself" is said to be vulnerable to accusations of “deceitful use of funds." The document expresses the hope that revealing damaging information about the individuals could undermine their perceived "devotion to the jihadist cause." The Huffington Post is withholding the names and locations of the six targeted individuals; the allegations made by the NSA about their online activities in this document cannot be verified. The document does not indicate whether the NSA carried out its plan to discredit these six individuals, either by communicating with them privately about the acquired information or leaking it publicly. There is also no discussion in the document of any legal or ethical constraints on exploiting electronic surveillance in this manner.

While Baker and others support using surveillance to tarnish the reputation of people the NSA considers "radicalizers," U.S. officials have in the past used similar tactics against civil rights leaders, labor movement activists and others. Under J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI harassed activists and compiled secret files on political leaders, most notably Martin Luther King, Jr. The extent of the FBI's surveillance of political figures is still being revealed to this day, as the bureau releases the long dossiers it compiled on certain people in response to Freedom of Information Act requests following their deaths. The information collected by the FBI often centered on sex -- homosexuality was an ongoing obsession on Hoover's watch -- and information about extramarital affairs was reportedly used to blackmail politicians into fulfilling the bureau's needs. Current FBI Director James Comey recently ordered new FBI agents to visit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington to understand "the dangers in becoming untethered to oversight and accountability."

James Bamford, a journalist who has been covering the NSA since the early 1980s, said the use of surveillance to exploit embarrassing private behavior is precisely what led to past U.S. surveillance scandals. "The NSA's operation is eerily similar to the FBI's operations under J. Edgar Hoover in the 1960s where the bureau used wiretapping to discover vulnerabilities, such as sexual activity, to 'neutralize' their targets," he said. "Back then, the idea was developed by the longest serving FBI chief in U.S. history, today it was suggested by the longest serving NSA chief in U.S. history." That controversy, Bamford said, also involved the NSA. "And back then, the NSA was also used to do the eavesdropping on King and others through its Operation Minaret. A later review declared the NSA’s program 'disreputable if not outright illegal,'" he said. Baker said that until there is evidence the tactic is being abused, the NSA should be trusted to use its discretion. "The abuses that involved Martin Luther King occurred before Edward Snowden was born," he said. "I think we can describe them as historical rather than current scandals. Before I say, 'Yeah, we've gotta worry about that,' I'd like to see evidence of that happening, or is even contemplated today, and I don't see it."

Jaffer, however, warned that the lessons of history ought to compel serious concern that a "president will ask the NSA to use the fruits of surveillance to discredit a political opponent, journalist or human rights activist." "The NSA has used its power that way in the past and it would be naïve to think it couldn't use its power that way in the future," he said.

But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.

But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst.

One document notes that this is because "strong selection [search by email address] itself gives us only a very limited capability" because "a large amount of time spent on the web is performing actions that are anonymous."

One document, a top secret 2010 guide describing the training received by NSA analysts for general surveillance under the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, explains that analysts can begin surveillance on anyone by clicking a few simple pull-down menus designed to provide both legal and targeting justifications.

An NSA tool called DNI Presenter, used to read the content of stored emails, also enables an analyst using XKeyscore to read the content of Facebook chats or private messages.

William Binney, a former NSA mathematician, said last year that the agency had "assembled on the order of 20tn transactions about US citizens with other US citizens", an estimate, he said, that "only was involving phone calls and emails". A 2010 Washington Post article reported that "every day, collection systems at the [NSA] intercept and store 1.7bn emails, phone calls and other type of communications."

The Nation: Every president—and this seems to be confirmed by history—will seek to maximize his or her power, and will see modern-day surveillance as part of that power. Who is going to restrain presidential power in this regard? Snowden: That’s why we have separate and co-equal branches. Maybe it will be Congress, maybe not. Might be the courts, might not. But the idea is that, over time, one of these will get the courage to do so. One of the saddest and most damaging legacies of the Bush administration is the increased assertion of the “state secrets” privilege, which kept organizations like the ACLU—which had cases of people who had actually been tortured and held in indefinite detention—from getting their day in court. The courts were afraid to challenge executive declarations of what would happen. Now, over the last year, we have seen—in almost every single court that has had this sort of national-security case—that they have become markedly more skeptical. People at civil-liberties organizations say it’s a sea change, and that it’s very clear judges have begun to question more critically assertions made by the executive. Even though it seems so obvious now, it is extraordinary in the context of the last decade, because courts had simply said they were not the best branch to adjudicate these claims—which is completely wrong, because they are the only nonpolitical branch. They are the branch that is specifically charged with deciding issues that cannot be impartially decided by politicians. The power of the presidency is important, but it is not determinative. Presidents should not be exempted from the same standards of reason and evidence and justification that any other citizen or civil movement should be held to.

Since the revelations, we have seen a massive sea change in the technological basis and makeup of the Internet. One story revealed that the NSA was unlawfully collecting data from the data centers of Google and Yahoo. They were intercepting the transactions of data centers of American companies, which should not be allowed in the first place because American companies are considered US persons, sort of, under our surveillance authorities. They say, “Well, we were doing it overseas,” but that falls under a different Reagan-era authority: EO 12333, an executive order for foreign-intelligence collection, as opposed to the ones we now use domestically. So this one isn’t even authorized by law. It’s just an old-ass piece of paper with Reagan’s signature on it, which has been updated a couple times since then. So what happened was that all of a sudden these massive, behemoth companies realized their data centers—sending hundreds of millions of people’s communications back and forth every day—were completely unprotected, electronically naked. GCHQ, the British spy agency, was listening in, and the NSA was getting the data and everything like that, because they could dodge the encryption that was typically used. Basically, the way it worked technically, you go from your phone to Facebook.com, let’s say—that link is encrypted. So if the NSA is trying to watch it here, they can’t understand it. But what these agencies discovered was, the Facebook site that your phone is connected to is just the front end of a larger corporate network—that’s not actually where the data comes from. When you ask for your Facebook page, you hit this part and it’s protected, but it has to go on this long bounce around the world to actually get what you’re asking for and go back. So what they did was just get out of the protected part and they went onto the back network. They went into the private network of these companies.

The Nation: The companies knew this? Snowden: Companies did not know it. They said, “Well, we gave the NSA the front door; we gave you the PRISM program. You could get anything you wanted from our companies anyway—all you had to do was ask us and we’re gonna give it to you.” So the companies couldn’t have imagined that the intelligence communities would break in the back door, too—but they did, because they didn’t have to deal with the same legal process as when they went through the front door. When this was published by Barton Gellman in The Washington Post and the companies were exposed, Gellman printed a great anecdote: he showed two Google engineers a slide that showed how the NSA was doing this, and the engineers “exploded in profanity.” Another example—one document I revealed was the classified inspector general’s report on a Bush surveillance operation, Stellar Wind, which basically showed that the authorities knew it was unlawful at the time. There was no statutory basis; it was happening basically on the president’s say-so and a secret authorization that no one was allowed to see. When the DOJ said, “We’re not gonna reauthorize this because it is not lawful,” Cheney—or one of Cheney’s advisers—went to Michael Hayden, director of the NSA, and said, “There is no lawful basis for this program. DOJ is not going to reauthorize it, and we don’t know what we’re going to do. Will you continue it anyway on the president’s say-so?” Hayden said yes, even though he knew it was unlawful and the DOJ was against it. Nobody has read this document because it’s like twenty-eight pages long, even though it’s incredibly important.

The big tech companies understood that the government had not only damaged American principles, it had hurt their businesses. They thought, “No one trusts our products anymore.” So they decided to fix these security flaws to secure their phones. The new iPhone has encryption that protects the contents of the phone. This means if someone steals your phone—if a hacker or something images your phone—they can’t read what’s on the phone itself, they can’t look at your pictures, they can’t see the text messages you send, and so forth. But it does not stop law enforcement from tracking your movements via geolocation on the phone if they think you are involved in a kidnapping case, for example. It does not stop law enforcement from requesting copies of your texts from the providers via warrant. It does not stop them from accessing copies of your pictures or whatever that are uploaded to, for example, Apple’s cloud service, which are still legally accessible because those are not encrypted. It only protects what’s physically on the phone. This is purely a security feature that protects against the kind of abuse that can happen with all these things being out there undetected. In response, the attorney general and the FBI director jumped on a soap box and said, “You are putting our children at risk.”

The Nation: Is there a potential conflict between massive encryption and the lawful investigation of crimes? Snowden: This is the controversy that the attorney general and the FBI director were trying to create. They were suggesting, “We have to be able to have lawful access to these devices with a warrant, but that is technically not possible on a secure device. The only way that is possible is if you compromise the security of the device by leaving a back door.” We’ve known that these back doors are not secure. I talk to cryptographers, some of the leading technologists in the world, all the time about how we can deal with these issues. It is not possible to create a back door that is only accessible, for example, to the FBI. And even if it were, you run into the same problem with international commerce: if you create a device that is famous for compromised security and it has an American back door, nobody is gonna buy it. Anyway, it’s not true that the authorities cannot access the content of the phone even if there is no back door. When I was at the NSA, we did this every single day, even on Sundays. I believe that encryption is a civic responsibility, a civic duty.

The Nation: You really think that if you could go home tomorrow with complete immunity, there wouldn’t be irresistible pressure on you to become a spokesperson, even an activist, on behalf of our rights and liberties? Indeed, wouldn’t that now be your duty? Snowden: But the idea for me now—because I’m not a politician, and I do not think I am as effective in this way as people who actually prepare for it—is to focus on technical reform, because I speak the language of technology. I spoke with Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who invented the World Wide Web. We agree on the necessity for this generation to create what he calls the Magna Carta for the Internet. We want to say what “digital rights” should be. What values should we be protecting, and how do we assert them? What I can do—because I am a technologist, and because I actually understand how this stuff works under the hood—is to help create the new systems that reflect our values. Of course I want to see political reform in the United States. But we could pass the best surveillance reforms, the best privacy protections in the history of the world, in the United States, and it would have zero impact internationally. Zero impact in China and in every other country, because of their national laws—they won’t recognize our reforms; they’ll continue doing their own thing. But if someone creates a reformed technical system today—technical standards must be identical around the world for them to function together.

The Nation: Creating a new system may be your transition, but it’s also a political act. Snowden: In case you haven’t noticed, I have a somewhat sneaky way of effecting political change. I don’t want to directly confront great powers, which we cannot defeat on their terms. They have more money, more clout, more airtime. We cannot be effective without a mass movement, and the American people today are too comfortable to adapt to a mass movement. But as inequality grows, the basic bonds of social fraternity are fraying—as we discussed in regard to Occupy Wall Street. As tensions increase, people will become more willing to engage in protest. But that moment is not now.

The Nation: Some years ago, The Nation did a special issue on patriotism. We asked about a hundred people how they define it. How do you define patriotism? And related to that, you’re probably the world’s most famous whistleblower, though you don’t like that term. What characterization of your role do you prefer? Snowden: What defines patriotism, for me, is the idea that one rises to act on behalf of one’s country. As I said before, that’s distinct from acting to benefit the government—a distinction that’s increasingly lost today. You’re not patriotic just because you back whoever’s in power today or their policies. You’re patriotic when you work to improve the lives of the people of your country, your community and your family. Sometimes that means making hard choices, choices that go against your personal interest. People sometimes say I broke an oath of secrecy—one of the early charges leveled against me. But it’s a fundamental misunderstanding, because there is no oath of secrecy for people who work in the intelligence community. You are asked to sign a civil agreement, called a Standard Form 312, which basically says if you disclose classified information, they can sue you; they can do this, that and the other. And you risk going to jail. But you are also asked to take an oath, and that’s the oath of service. The oath of service is not to secrecy, but to the Constitution—to protect it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That’s the oath that I kept, that James Clapper and former NSA director Keith Alexander did not. You raise your hand and you take the oath in your class when you are on board. All government officials are made to do it who work for the intelligence agencies—at least, that’s where I took the oath.

As for labeling someone a whistleblower, I think it does them—it does all of us—a disservice, because it “otherizes” us. Using the language of heroism, calling Daniel Ellsberg a hero, and calling the other people who made great sacrifices heroes—even though what they have done is heroic—is to distinguish them from the civic duty they performed, and excuses the rest of us from the same civic duty to speak out when we see something wrong, when we witness our government engaging in serious crimes, abusing power, engaging in massive historic violations of the Constitution of the United States. We have to speak out or we are party to that bad action.

The Nation: Considering your personal experience—the risks you took, and now your fate here in Moscow—do you think other young men or women will be inspired or discouraged from doing what you did? Snowden: Chelsea Manning got thirty-five years in prison, while I’m still free. I talk to people in the ACLU office in New York all the time. I’m able to participate in the debate and to campaign for reform. I’m just the first to come forward in the manner that I did and succeed. When governments go too far to punish people for actions that are dissent rather than a real threat to the nation, they risk delegitimizing not just their systems of justice, but the legitimacy of the government itself. Because when they bring political charges against people for acts that were clearly at least intended to work in the public interest, they deny them the opportunity to mount a public-interest defense. The charges they brought against me, for example, explicitly denied my ability to make a public-interest defense. There were no whistleblower protections that would’ve protected me—and that’s known to everybody in the intelligence community. There are no proper channels for making this information available when the system fails comprehensively.

The government would assert that individuals who are aware of serious wrongdoing in the intelligence community should bring their concerns to the people most responsible for that wrongdoing, and rely on those people to correct the problems that those people themselves authorized. Going all the way back to Daniel Ellsberg, it is clear that the government is not concerned with damage to national security, because in none of these cases was there damage. At the trial of Chelsea Manning, the government could point to no case of specific damage that had been caused by the massive revelation of classified information. The charges are a reaction to the government’s embarrassment more than genuine concern about these activities, or they would substantiate what harms were done. We’re now more than a year since my NSA revelations, and despite numerous hours of testimony before Congress, despite tons of off-the-record quotes from anonymous officials who have an ax to grind, not a single US official, not a single representative of the United States government, has ever pointed to a single case of individualized harm caused by these revelations. This, despite the fact that former NSA director Keith Alexander said this would cause grave and irrevocable harm to the nation. Some months after he made that statement, the new director of the NSA, Michael Rogers, said that, in fact, he doesn’t see the sky falling. It’s not so serious after all.

The Nation: We have a sense, or certainly the hope, we’ll be seeing you in America soon—perhaps sometime after this Ukrainian crisis ends. Snowden: I would love to think that, but we’ve gone all the way up the chain at all the levels, and things like that. A political decision has been made not to irritate the intelligence community. The spy agencies are really embarrassed, they’re really sore—the revelations really hurt their mystique. The last ten years, they were getting the Zero Dark Thirty treatment—they’re the heroes. The surveillance revelations bring them back to Big Brother kind of narratives, and they don’t like that at all. The Obama administration almost appears as though it is afraid of the intelligence community. They’re afraid of death by a thousand cuts—you know, leaks and things like that.

The Nation: You also remind us of [Manhattan Project physicist] Robert Oppenheimer—what he created and then worried about. Snowden: Someone recently talked about mass surveillance and the NSA revelations as being the atomic moment for computer scientists. The atomic bomb was the moral moment for physicists. Mass surveillance is the same moment for computer scientists, when they realize that the things they produce can be used to harm a tremendous number of people. It is interesting that so many people who become disenchanted, who protest against their own organizations, are people who contributed something to them and then saw how it was misused. When I was working in Japan, I created a system for ensuring that intelligence data was globally recoverable in the event of a disaster. I was not aware of the scope of mass surveillance. I came across some legal questions when I was creating it. My superiors pushed back and were like, “Well, how are we going to deal with this data?” And I was like, “I didn’t even know it existed.” Later, when I found out that we were collecting more information on American communications than we were on Russian communications, for example, I was like, “Holy shit.” Being confronted with the realization that work you intended to benefit people is being used against them has a radicalizing effect.

The Nation: You’ve given us a lot of time, and we are very grateful, as will be The Nation’s and other readers. But before we end, any more thoughts about your future? Snowden: If I had to guess what the future’s going to look like for me—assuming it’s not an orange jumpsuit in a hole—I think I’m going to alternate between tech and policy. I think we need that. I think that’s actually what’s missing from government, for the most part. We’ve got a lot of policy people, but we have no technologists, even though technology is such a big part of our lives. It’s just amazing, because even these big Silicon Valley companies, the masters of the universe or whatever, haven’t engaged with Washington until recently. They’re still playing catch-up. As for my personal politics, some people seem to think I’m some kind of archlibertarian, a hyper-conservative. But when it comes to social policies, I believe women have the right to make their own choices, and inequality is a really important issue. As a technologist, I see the trends, and I see that automation inevitably is going to mean fewer and fewer jobs. And if we do not find a way to provide a basic income for people who have no work, or no meaningful work, we’re going to have social unrest that could get people killed. When we have increasing production—year after year after year—some of that needs to be reinvested in society. It doesn’t need to be consistently concentrated in these venture-capital funds and things like that. I’m not a communist, a socialist or a radical. But these issues have to be 
addressed.

Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer early this year saw a rapidly closing window to increase pressure on Mr. Obama before a key deadline at the end of March, Israeli officials said. Using levers of political influence unique to Israel, Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer calculated that a lobbying campaign in Congress before an announcement was made would improve the chances of killing or reshaping any deal. They knew the intervention would damage relations with the White House, Israeli officials said, but decided that was an acceptable cost. The campaign may not have worked as well as hoped, Israeli officials now say, because it ended up alienating many congressional Democrats whose support Israel was counting on to block a deal. Obama administration officials, departing from their usual description of the unbreakable bond between the U.S. and Israel, have voiced sharp criticism of Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer to describe how the relationship has changed.

“People feel personally sold out,” a senior administration official said. “That’s where the Israelis really better be careful because a lot of these people will not only be around for this administration but possibly the next one as well.” This account of the Israeli campaign is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. and Israeli diplomats, intelligence officials, policy makers and lawmakers. Weakened ties Distrust between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Obama had been growing for years but worsened when Mr. Obama launched secret talks with Iran in 2012. The president didn’t tell Mr. Netanyahu because of concerns about leaks, helping set the stage for the current standoff, according to current and former U.S. and Israeli officials. U.S. officials said Israel has long topped the list of countries that aggressively spy on the U.S., along with China, Russia and France. The U.S. expends more counterintelligence resources fending off Israeli spy operations than any other close ally, U.S. officials said.

A senior official in the prime minister’s office said Monday: “These allegations are utterly false. The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies. The false allegations are clearly intended to undermine the strong ties between the United States and Israel and the security and intelligence relationship we share.” Current and former Israeli officials said their intelligence agencies scaled back their targeting of U.S. officials after the jailing nearly 30 years ago of American Jonathan Pollard for passing secrets to Israel. While U.S. officials may not be direct targets, current and former officials said, Israeli intelligence agencies sweep up communications between U.S. officials and parties targeted by the Israelis, including Iran. Americans shouldn’t be surprised, said a person familiar with the Israeli practice, since U.S. intelligence agencies helped the Israelis build a system to listen in on high-level Iranian communications.

As secret talks with Iran progressed into 2013, U.S. intelligence agencies monitored Israel’s communications to see if the country knew of the negotiations. Mr. Obama didn’t tell Mr. Netanyahu until September 2013. Israeli officials, who said they had already learned about the talks through their own channels, told their U.S. counterparts they were upset about being excluded. “ ‘Did the administration really believe we wouldn’t find out?’ ” Israeli officials said, according to a former U.S. official.

The episode cemented Mr. Netanyahu’s concern that Mr. Obama was bent on clinching a deal with Iran whether or not it served Israel’s best interests, Israeli officials said. Obama administration officials said the president was committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Mr. Dermer started lobbying U.S. lawmakers just before the U.S. and other powers signed an interim agreement with Iran in November 2013. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Dermer went to Congress after seeing they had little influence on the White House. Before the interim deal was made public, Mr. Dermer gave lawmakers Israel’s analysis: The U.S. offer would dramatically undermine economic sanctions on Iran, according to congressional officials who took part. After learning about the briefings, the White House dispatched senior officials to counter Mr. Dermer. The officials told lawmakers that Israel’s analysis exaggerated the sanctions relief by as much as 10 times, meeting participants said.

When the next round of negotiations with Iran started in Switzerland last year, U.S. counterintelligence agents told members of the U.S. negotiating team that Israel would likely try to penetrate their communications, a senior Obama administration official said. The U.S. routinely shares information with its European counterparts and others to coordinate negotiating positions. While U.S. intelligence officials believe secured U.S. communications are relatively safe from the Israelis, they say European communications are vulnerable. Mr. Netanyahu and his top advisers received confidential updates on the Geneva talks from Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and other U.S. officials, who knew at the time that Israeli intelligence was working to fill in any gaps. The White House eventually curtailed the briefings, U.S. officials said, withholding sensitive information for fear of leaks. Current and former Israeli officials said their intelligence agencies can get much of the information they seek by targeting Iranians and others in the region who are communicating with countries in the talks. In November, the Israelis learned the contents of a proposed deal offered by the U.S. but ultimately rejected by Iran, U.S. and Israeli officials said. Israeli officials told their U.S. counterparts the terms offered insufficient protections.

U.S. officials urged the Israelis to give the negotiations a chance. But Mr. Netanyahu’s top advisers concluded the emerging deal was unacceptable. The White House was making too many concessions, Israeli officials said, while the Iranians were holding firm. Obama administration officials reject that view, saying Israel was making impossible demands that Iran would never accept. “The president has made clear time and again that no deal is better than a bad deal,” a senior administration official said. In January, Mr. Netanyahu told the White House his government intended to oppose the Iran deal but didn’t explain how, U.S. and Israeli officials said. On Jan. 21, House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) announced Mr. Netanyahu would address a joint meeting of Congress. That same day, Mr. Dermer and other Israeli officials visited Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers and aides, seeking a bipartisan coalition large enough to block or amend any deal. Most Republicans were already prepared to challenge the White House on the negotiations, so Mr. Dermer focused on Democrats. “This deal is bad,” he said in one briefing, according to participants.

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington, Aaron Sagui, said Mr. Dermer didn’t launch a special campaign on Jan 21. Mr. Dermer, the spokesperson said, has “consistently briefed both Republican and Democrats, senators and congressmen, on Israel’s concerns regarding the Iran negotiations for over a year.” Mr. Dermer and other Israeli officials over the following weeks gave lawmakers and their aides information the White House was trying to keep secret, including how the emerging deal could allow Iran to operate around 6,500 centrifuges, devices used to process nuclear material, said congressional officials who attended the briefings. The Israeli officials told lawmakers that Iran would also be permitted to deploy advanced IR-4 centrifuges that could process fuel on a larger scale, meeting participants and administration officials said. Israeli officials said such fuel, which under the emerging deal would be intended for energy plants, could be used to one day build nuclear bombs. The information in the briefings, Israeli officials said, was widely known among the countries participating in the negotiations. When asked in February during one briefing where Israel got its inside information, the Israeli officials said their sources included the French and British governments, as well as their own intelligence, according to people there.

“Ambassador Dermer never shared confidential intelligence information with members of Congress,” Mr. Sagui said. “His briefings did not include specific details from the negotiations, including the length of the agreement or the number of centrifuges Iran would be able to keep.” Current and former U.S. officials confirmed that the number and type of centrifuges cited in the briefings were part of the discussions. But they said the briefings were misleading because Israeli officials didn’t disclose concessions asked of Iran. Those included giving up stockpiles of nuclear material, as well as modifying the advanced centrifuges to slow output, these officials said. The administration didn’t brief lawmakers on the centrifuge numbers and other details at the time because the information was classified and the details were still in flux, current and former U.S. officials said. Unexpected reaction The congressional briefings and Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to address a joint meeting of Congress on the emerging deal sparked a backlash among many Democratic lawmakers, congressional aides said.

On Feb. 3, Mr. Dermer huddled with Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, who said he told Mr. Dermer it was a breach of protocol for Mr. Netanyahu to accept an invitation from Mr. Boehner without going through the White House. Mr. Manchin said he told Mr. Dermer he would attend the prime minister’s speech to Congress, but he was noncommittal about supporting any move by Congress to block a deal. Mr. Dermer spent the following day doing damage control with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, congressional aides said. Two days later, Mr. Dermer met with Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the SenateIntelligence Committee, at her Washington, D.C., home. He pressed for her support because he knew that she, too, was angry about Mr. Netanyahu’s planned appearance. Ms. Feinstein said afterward she would oppose legislation allowing Congress to vote down an agreement.

Congressional aides and Israeli officials now say Israel’s coalition in Congress is short the votes needed to pass legislation that could overcome a presidential veto, although that could change. In response, Israeli officials said, Mr. Netanyahu was pursuing other ways to pressure the White House. This week, Mr. Netanyahu sent a delegation to France, which has been more closely aligned with Israel on the nuclear talks and which could throw obstacles in Mr. Obama’s way before a deal is signed. The Obama administration, meanwhile, is stepping up its outreach to Paris to blunt the Israeli push. “If you’re wondering whether something serious has shifted here, the answer is yes,” a senior U.S. official said. “These things leave scars.”

Investigative reporter Kenneth R. Timmerman as author of a new forthcoming book entitled ‘Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi’ states: We know that orders were issued, then recalled, to deploy a 50-man Special Forces unit from Croatia that could have reached Benghazi within hours.Timmerman concludes that to date no documents revealing the person who ordered that unit to stand down have yet to surface.

Within hours of the general’s testimony came rebukes from both the senior Republican and Democrat on the powerful House Armed Services Committee making claims backing the administration’s that the military was incapable of responding in time to assist the ill-fated Americans in Benghazi. Because they represent the military in Congress that had already drawn the conclusion that nothing tactically could have been done to save the four Americans, they were quick to rebut the general’s testimony. Yet the day before 9/11 every year since 9/11/01 including on 9/10/11, the president meets with top military and security personnel to ensure that US embassies around the globe are bolstered with much needed extra security for 9/11 readiness. Yet the Benghazi compound was so insecure despite repeated requests, both Obama and the military apparently failed to have any military units on standby that could reach Benghazi to be of service on the night of 9/11/12. And this comes after intelligence sources have been reporting insufficient security at the Benghazi embassy compound.

Another disclosure at last Thursday’s House Oversight Committee hearing further damaging the credibility and actions of the Obama administration came from retired Air Force General Robert Lovell who at the time of Benghazi was in Germany serving as the senior African Command deputy director for intelligence. Lovell testified, “We should have sent help,” adding that the White House decision not to attempt military assistance due to the time factor was unacceptable. Lovell also stated unequivocally that the military knew that the Benghazi attack had nothing to do with the video falsely used by the administration to explain away the tragedy. The ex-general felt his military should have intervened and was waiting all night long for the call that never came from his bosses in Washington. Clearly he feels a sense of remorse and regret over the passivity imposed on him by his commander-in-chief Obama and State Department head Clinton.

Meanwhile, last week in a heated exchange with ABC correspondent Jon Karl a visibly agitated White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted that Rhodes’ email was not related to Benghazi at all but referred to the Moslem protests generally taking place in the region in response to the video. The next day Fox reporter Ed Henry engaged Carney on the same issue, eliciting the same haranguing reaction. All this appears to be yet more desperate lies in a feeble attempt to cover his bosses’ Obama and Hillary’s asses called criminal guilt, and by so doing committing his own. Carney had been among the original recipients of Rhodes’ email. Carney further explained that the same Rhodes talking points echoed those delivered earlier to Congress and the White House by deputy CIA director Mike Morell who a month ago claimed he received no pressure or influence from anyone in the Obama administration in coming up with his version of what most likely transpired on 9/11/12 based on all CIA intelligence sources available at the time. Yet on his own Morell admitted to toning down the intelligence reports leading up to the Benghazi attack purposely so as to not appear to be an “I told you so” gesture that would offend Hillary and her State Department. That said, Hillary’s underling and rising star Victoria Nuland (the later promoted to profanity-speaking Assistant Secretary of State who played such a key role in the recent US backed fascist Ukrainan coup) objected to Morell’s talking points that in her mind leaned too heavily toward blaming her boss and their State Department for insufficient security at the Benghazi compound. Her words:

Why do we want Hill to start fingering Ansar Al Sharia [the known al Qaeda affiliated attackers that murdered the four Americans], when we aren’t doing that ourselves until we have the investigation results…and the penultimate point could be abused by Members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings so why do we want to feed that?… Concerned.Observe how the exclusive focus of all post-Benghazi interdepartmental correspondence from Rhodes’ to Morell’s to Nuland’s all center on appearance and potential perception to avoid CYA blame. Furthest down on their priority list is honest and truthful disclosure and self-accountability. Again, the name of the game in the world of politics is passing the buck whenever possible to minimize potential heat that comes with looking bad and maximizing looking good by any means or lies necessary. Benghazi perfectly illustrates all of this.

Based on the information finally coming to light all last week, last Friday House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) called for a special select committee not unlike the one for Watergate to further investigate Benghazi. Representative Trey Gowdy (SC-R) has already been selected as its lead investigator. This grandstanding ploy seems a bit superfluous and redundant since the House Oversight Committee has ostensibly been trying to get to the bottom of Benghazi for nearly a year and a half, albeit thus far ineffective in its results, no help from the State Department’s prior email omissions. Not only is Benghazi the hot topic buzzing here in America, on that same day last Friday, more bullets was buzzing in Benghazi as well. Nine police security soldiers were gunned down by, you guessed it, the same murderers still remaining at large that were behind the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack – the militant group the US has for years labeled an al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organization Ansar al-Sharia. After massacring 31 peaceful demonstrators protesting outside the militants’ headquarters last June, last week’s massacre is a powerful statement showing that the terrorists are still in charge in Benghazi and immune from any accountability from the US installed puppet government either in Tripoli or Washington. They remain free men at large despite Obama’s promise to hunt them down and bring them to justice.

The senior Democratic House Intel Committee Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) typifies the partisan Obama-Hillary politics games of each side racing to the media to point fingers at each other in their same old, same old blame game. On Sunday Schiff stated he does not want any Democrats to participate in the newly forming select committee that the Republican House Speaker Boehner has just recently called for, already naming its GOP chair. That is simply a game the Dems will refuse to play. Why? Because Republicans cannot make them. Sound familiar? Perhaps your 7-year old child might employ this same game strategy. Insider Dems like former White House advisor turned ABC analyst (and another original recipient of Rhodes’ infamous email) David Plouffe conveniently took to ABC’s Sunday morning On This Week with George Stephanopoulos crying foul even louder with their familiar “conspiracy” chant they customarily use to discredit any criticism leveled at the Obama administration. His cries reaching desperation this week accuse a “very loud, delusional minority” of Republicans of an obsessive politics game over Benghazi. Another all too familiar grade school tactic, whatever misbehavior you are accused of, simply accuse your enemy of the same offense, an old early childhood trick that you never need outgrow in the world of politics.

Still another indignant reaction hardcore defenders of Hillary and Obama are now quick to cite are the thirteen embassy attacks that occurred as so called “Benghazi’s on Bush’s watch” when not a peep was ever heard from the press. This straw house strategy is designed to show how Republicans and Fox News are hypocritical in their obsession to find dirt on Benghazi where they deny any exists. Yet this accusation seems to omit one very significant fact. Not one of those embassy attacks during the Bush regime resulted in any murdered Americans, much less four of them and one being a US Ambassador, something that has not happened in the last 32 years before Benghazi. The media circus demonizing partisan politics players on both sides epitomizes why the US government is so utterly broken, horribly dysfunctional, morally bankrupt and totally ineffective in addressing any and all of the most pressing problems facing America and the world today. The blame game is all they know. Yet in all their exaggeration, lies, name calling and finger pointing, not one of them is even addressing the pink elephant in the room.

Obama, Hillary and then CIA Director retired General Betrayus Petraeus were/are international gun running criminal outlaws of the worst kind, working with the very same al Qaeda terrorist bunch that murdered those four nearly forgotten Americans. US tax dollars were/are going into the pockets of Ansar al-Sharia and al Qaeda mercenaries that looted Muammar Kaddafi’s gold cache and enormous weapon arsenal that included chemical weapons as well as surface to air missiles. And Obama, Petraeus and 2016 presidential heir apparent Hillary were in deep over their heads under Hillary and Stevens’ State Department cover, shipping them from Benghazi through Turkey to Syria to covertly fight a war by proxy against Assad’s government forces. After more than three bloody years, to this day the US is still bent on destroying another sovereign nation posing absolutely no security threat to America. These are the war crimes constantly being committed by Obama, Petraeus and Hillary and their lies upon lies are unraveling at an accelerated clip with each passing month. Thus, expect to see more desperate acts of aggression from desperate despots who know that their jig is up. Yet desperate despots do not care how many humans they will take down with them. But justice for these longtime perpetrators of multiple crimes against humanity will be served in the end.