by Stephen Lendman

Dick Cheney is an unindicted war criminal. He's guilty of genocidal high crimes against peace.

He predicts another mass casualty event on US soil. Much worse than 9/11. More on what he said below.

Fear-mongering is a longstanding US tactic. False flags are an American tradition.

Both schemes usually precede premeditated war plans. They're used to wage war on freedom.

Quash human rights. Eliminate civil liberties. Replace them with police state harshness.

Post-9/11 National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 51 established coup d'etat authority. It masquerades as so-called "continuity of government (COG)."

Under catastrophic emergency conditions, defined as:

"any incident (real or contrived), regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the US population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

COG is defined as:

"a coordinated effort within the Federal Government's executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency."

At stake is giving presidents and Homeland Security officials unprecedented police state powers.

Permitting suspension of constitutional law. Declaring martial law without congressional approval.

Authorizing war and other preemptive measures. Doing so against nonexistent security threats.

Establishing tyranny in America. Doing it with public support. With popular willingness to sacrifice freedoms for so-called security.

Mindless that doing so loses both. Forty-five days post-9/11, Patriot Act authority was established.

With provisions ruthless despots would love. Granting presidents unprecedented powers. Smashing civil liberties in the process.

Including Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. First Amendment free expression.

Fourth Amendment freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Authority to target individuals associated with so-called "undesirable group(s)." Establishing the crime of "domestic terrorism" for the first time.

Applying it to US citizens as well as aliens. Defining criminal violations as actions aimed to "influence (government policy) by intimidation or coercion…"

Targeting a civilian population the same way. Anti-war/global justice/environmental activist/legitimate civil disobedience and dissent in any form may be called "domestic terrorism."

Homeland Security Act anti-terrorism authority followed Patriot Act excess. Both initiatives were planned long before 9/11.

HSA established DHS. It combined 22 previously separate government agencies. Including FEMA, Immigration and Naturalization Service, US Coast Guard, US Customs Service and US Secret Service.

Unprecedented authority was established to prepare for, prevent and respond to so-called domestic emergencies.

Giving government officials broad new powers. Extrajudicial ones. Protecting America from nonexistent internal and external threats.

Fabricated terrorist or criminal ones. Destroying civil liberties at the same time.

Making America a police state. Intending full-blown tyranny to follow.

The late Nobel laureate Harold Pinter once said "US foreign policy can be defined as follows: kiss my arse or I'll kick your head in." Domestic policy is no different.

America "quite simply doesn't give a damn about the UN, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant," Pinter added.

In its November/December 2003 edition, Cigar Aficionado interviewed General Tommy Franks. His comments were detailed and wide-ranging.

He called his mood "(s)omber. Serious." He warned that constitutional suspension and martial law would follow another mass-casualty attack on US soil. Replaced by "a military form of government."

"(T)he Western world, the free world, (would lose) what it cherishes most," he said. (Its) freedom and liberty." America's "grand (democratic) experiment" would end.

He elaborated further on a potential "weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world…"

Perhaps "in the United States of America - that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event."

"Which, in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important."

Looking ahead he was pessimistic, saying:

"It’s not in the history of civilization for peace ever to reign. Never has in the history of man."

"I doubt that we'll ever have a time when the world will actually be at peace." Nearly 11 years after his interview, none whatever exists.

The late Chalmers Johnson warned about losing America's way of life. Militarism and pursuit of empire threaten it, he said.

Establishing a state within a state. Explaining what history teaches. A choice between democracy and empire.

America's behavior bodes ill, he believed. It "will inevitably undercut our domestic democracy and…produce a military dictatorship or its civilian equivalent," he said.

We're perilously close already, he stressed. Hyper-reactionary US policy hijacked government. It's heading America toward tyranny and ruin, he warned.

Evidence proved him right. A permanent state of war exists. Peace is a convenient illusion.

Secret gulag torture prisons operate worldwide. They do so unaccountably. At home and abroad.

Filled with thousands of political prisoners. And America's unwanted and disadvantaged. Guilt by accusation is official policy.

Government more than ever is secretive, intrusive, repressive and lawless. Rule of law principles don't matter. Democratic values are pure fantasy.

Social decay erodes the homeland. Monied interests run things. Corporatism is omnipotent. An unprecedented wealth disparity exists.

Years ago, former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned:

"We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

De facto one-party authority runs things. With two wings replicating each other on issues mattering most. Presidents extrajudicially use diktat powers.

Checks and balances are absent. Separation of powers doesn't matter. Big Brother watches everyone. There's no place to hide.

America's resources go for war-making, bailing out Wall Street and other corporate handouts. Popular needs go begging.

Washington's criminal class is bipartisan. Public and private corruption are unprecedented. Over-the-top. Out-of-control. Government of, by and for everyone is pure fantasy.

Corporate-controlled media serve as thought-control police. They comprise a collective quasi-state ministry of information and propaganda.

Glorifying wars in the name of peace. Ignoring lost human and civil rights. Defending the indefensible.

An omnipotent military/industrial killing machine threatens world peace. It hangs by a thread.

So do fundamental freedoms. They're disappearing in real time. In plain sight. With virtual no public opposition.

Bread and circuses matter more. During the most perilous time in world history. When possible global war threatens.

Post-9/11, Dick Cheney warned of wars not ending in our lifetime. He called it "a new normalcy."

"We're going to have to take steps, and are taking steps, that'll become a permanent part of the way we live," he said.

Things won't be the same. Few understood to what extent at the time. The worst perhaps to come. Humanity may not survive what follows.

Neocon Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol interviewed Cheney. They discussed current threats.

"(W)e're in a very dangerous period," said Cheney. "I think it's more threatening than the period before 9/11."

"I think 9/11 will turn out to be not nearly as bad as the next mass casualty attack against the United States, which if and when it comes will be something far more deadlier than airline tickets and box cutters."

Months before 9/11, he was asked about major threats facing America. Only invented ones he didn't explain.

He "talked about the possibility of a terrorist attack with terrorists using something deadlier, a weapon of mass destruction, for example."

"When we got down to 9/11…we saw what they were able to do with that in terms of taking down the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and killing 3,000 of our people."

9/11 is the mother of all Big Lies. Thirteen years of well-planned premeditated imperial wars followed. They continue without end.

Targeting one country after another. Ravaging, destroying, colonizing, exploiting and controlling them reflect official US policy.

Hegemons operate this way. Cheney helped initiate what's ongoing. He stopped short of explaining his involvement. America's dirty game.

He defended the indefensible. He still does. He expects another mass-casualty event much worse than 9/11.

He was involved earlier. Perhaps he knows what's forthcoming.

"I think (things are) more threatening (now) than the period before 9/11," he said.

He claims "the dramatic spread of terrorist organizations" in recent years. "Proliferation" in areas providing safe havens.

Throughout the Middle East, parts of Africa to Southeast Asia, he claims. He's unapologetic about lawless Bush administration policy.

He'd do the same things today as earlier. He wants America's dominant footprint in place everywhere. So-called threats he claims don't exist.

US state terror matters most. Its drive for world hegemony. Its permanent war policy. Its domestic police state repression.

Its war on humanity threatening world peace. America has a choice. Either end wars or they'll end us.

There's no in between. Don't expect Cheney to explain. He's an unindicted war criminal.

He remains unapologetic for high crimes against peace. Perhaps he knows more than he told. The worst appears yet to come.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

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