Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World

This book could have been titled a Tom Engelhardt Reader; it is a collection of revised and updated articles from TomDispatch.com."Doesn't suffer fools" is a title I jotted down when thinking about a title for the review of Tom Engelhardt's latest book. It calls up a personality type who has among its attributes seeing nonsense and hypocrisy and laying them to waste quickly and Engelhardt clearly has those qualities, but it also carries connotations of superiority and haughtiness, his work does not project that in any way.It is a clear headed insightful telling of the story of where America's government has gone in the now existing creation of National Security State; the latest and complete dystopia that has developed beyond the Peoples' control and that of their elected representatives.Those who can see what has happened are restricted from sharing the details with us for national security reasons; Engelhardt devotes a chapter to an impassioned call for insiders to breakout and do what Manning and Snowden did, reveal to the public what it needs to know about our very secrete government's actions; the legality of which is defined in secret documents we shall never be allowed to see.Here are a few of his word on our Constitutional Law (Adjunct) Professor's role as assassin: "Mr. Obama must approve any name." (The kill list.)"... thanks to such meetings--on what insiders have labeled "terror Tuesday"--assassination has been thoroughly institutionalized, normalized, and bureaucratized around the figure of the president. Without the help of or any oversight from the American people or their elected representatives, he alone is now responsible for regular killings thousands of miles away, including those of civilians and even children. On that score, his power is total and completely unchecked.""...He and he alone can decide that assassinating known individuals isn't enough and that the CIA's drones can instead strike at suspicious "patterns of behavior" on the ground in Yemen or Pakistan. He can stop any attack, any killing, but there is no one, nor any mechanism, that can stop him."Shadow Government was published before a recent investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has determined that fewer than 4 percent of drone strike casualties in Pakistan have been identified and confirmed through records as members of al-Qaeda. (http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/10/16/only-4-of-drone-victims-in-pakistan-named-as-al-qaeda-members/)`Only 704 of the 2,379 dead have been identified, and only 295 of these were reported to be members of some kind of armed group. Few corroborating details were available for those who were just described as militants. More than a third of them were not designated a rank, and almost 30% are not even linked to a specific group. Only 84 are identified as members of al Qaeda - less than 4% of the total number of people killed.These findings "demonstrate the continuing complete lack of transparency surrounding US drone operations," said Mustafa Qadri, Pakistan researcher for Amnesty International.'Engelhardt and many like him are working to try and keep the public informed of what is happening in the hope that at some point Americans may reflect that all is not as we are told by the press agents of the Survalience Security State; that we are not aimed at security but its opposite. To be able to see ourselves as others see us .... Don't miss this book.

Excellent book. Engelhardt demonstrates we have moved from a "national security state" to a "national surveillance state". He also makes clear this has little to do with protecting U.S. citizens from terrorist attacks, and everything to do with the government keeping track of EVERYONE 24/7/52. Realizing just how much the government spies on its own citizens, and how hard it endeavors to keep everyone under constant surveillance is both sad and depressing. But the ruling oligarchy, unfortunately, understands, as they keep appropriating an ever greater percentage of the nation's wealth into their insatiably greedy pockets, and the remainder of the nation sees their standard of living consistently slipping lower and lower, at some point, it is going to be more than riots in Ferguson over a police shooting of a Black man. When discontent becomes pervasive, as Americans begin to wake up and understand fully what is being done to them just so the rich can have it all, "we, the people", are likely to become even more rebellious than almost any time in our nation's history. Understanding that, the oligarchy wants to militarize the police and wants the state to be able to identify and eliminate any "trouble makers" before massive resistance can be organized. At that point, we become the fascist police state the oligarchy dreams of. The more people who read Engelhardt, and other authors such as Stiglitz (for example, The Cost of Inequality), Suskind (e.g., The Way of the World), Bacevich (e.g. Washington Rules or The Limits of Power), Kuttner (e.g. Debtors' Prison), Stuckler (e.g. The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills), Graeber (e.g. Debt: The First 5,000 Years); Klein (e.g. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism), Ravitch (e.g., Reign of Error), Blyth (e.g. Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea), the better positioned we are to recognize the lies of Republicans in general, and "Democrats" like both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Once that happens, the possibility of meaningful change, of getting OUR country back on the track to genuine economic prosperity, and a rising standard of living begins to grow. Once the power of the oligarchy is broken, the "need" for the kinds of government surveillance Engelhardt discusses will cease to exist; and intelligence agencies and the police can return to the duties and responsibilities most Americans see as protecting and serving the people in general, those for whom they are supposed to work.

I write this a lot in my reviews, but this is an important book. It covers ground no one timid would cover, names names, and pulls few punches about how far out of control our national security apparatus is. It is seldom mentioned when discussing things like the Arab Spring and our dealing with Iran, but all of those countries were dominated by their security apparatus, what is often referred to as the deep government. These people don't change with elections, only massive coups, and no nascent democracy has yet been able to dismantle them without the country falling into chaos. That may not be cause and effect, but the link is strong. I have read several times that we are a turn-key totalitarian state waiting for someone to take over with malicious intent. It wouldn't take too much for those in the shadows to usurp the authority of the three branches of government. A chump demagogue like Trump would like to, but he is too incompetent and phony to get them behind him. Puppets like Romney or Paul Ryan have the potential, but they are too obviously chumps for the general electorate to fall for them.That said, the main drawback of this book is its composition. It is edited essays compiled over time, and they repeat themselves often. It is a slim book that feels padded; I read it while at work (sometimes I am not busy) in three days and the redundancy was jarring. It worth putting up with it, as there is a lot to think and possibly despair about as our government tries to make it harder and harder to legally bring the transparency and responsibility for wrongdoing we the people deserve. Clearly most, if not all, of the money we spend on intelligence and security is wasted. The big question is if we can put the genie back in the bottle. Books like this are a start.

An important book. If you are interested in America, this is a must read.

For me this book was an eye opener to the workings of how people are securing their overall wellbeing and peace of mind In an ever changing world. I have to wonder why we have to eliminate people with drones and strike forces. Anyways the book gets me thinking and wondering if it is really legal and so on and so forth.

exellent read and downright scary !!

excellent

Excellent