First Thoughts on L'Affaire Snowden

I sincerely hope that one of the lasting consequences of Edward Snowden's decision to blow the whistle is to lay bare the reality of how deeply American society is held captive by the intelligence state. During the Cold War Americans were told that the only way to defeat the Soviets was to become like them, and so the US government underwent a radical transformation. The excuse was that it would only be temporary, until the Soviet threat was vanquished, and then things would return to normal. But after 45 years of existence, the massive security apparatus built to counter the Soviets was not about to let go. In fact, the US had become just like the Soviet Union, where the key to wealth was to latch onto the intelligence apparatus and its accomplices.

How many rich Russians have pasts with the KGB? And how many of Russia's largest firms are full of executives with KGB backgrounds? Of course we can't forget the once and current Russian President, Vladimir Putin, who himself was a KGB agent. Yet for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the US over these facts, Americans seem to forget that the former head of the US intelligence services was himself president from 1989-1993, and that his son served as president from 2001-2009. I don't know whether American arguments against Putin's KGB past are merely from ignorance or from hypocrisy, but they hold no water with me. Because the fact is that the US is likely infiltrated by elements of the intelligence-industrial complex to the same extent that Russia is.

Some articles in the early days of the Snowden controversy highlighted the deep ties between Booz Allen and the intelligence agencies. The fact that Booz Allen is owned by the Carlyle Group, whose current and former board members and employees read like a Who's Who of the Washington foreign policy, defense-industrial, and intelligence-industrial complexes, and that Booz Allen, one of the DC area's largest and best-known names, is so heavily involved in intelligence contracting for the US government, is an indicator of where much of the money is to be made in government. I have yet to read Confessions of an Economic Hitman, but I have no reason to believe that it's not factual. That the CIA and its cronies attempt to place talented people in Fortune 500 companies, use them as sources of information, and attempt to profit or enable others to profit from the information they acquire from their espionage is a fact that I don't believe can be denied any longer.

The US economy is the goose that lays the golden egg, and the Stasi types who have infiltrated corporate America realize the extent to which they can take advantage of that goose. But I fear that we may be past the point of no return and not even know it. The intelligence-industrial complex is so embedded into so many areas of American society today that it risks strangling the lifeblood of the economy. At some point, some higher ups will demand total control, and the turn-key authoritarian state that Snowden warned about will spring to life. Spies won't be running things behind the scenes anymore; now their control will be out in the open.

I fear that Snowden's revelations have only scratched the surface of what the NSA, CIA, and their ilk are up to. I can only hope that the full extent of their shenanigans is ultimately revealed as a result of this affair and that it can be combated and overcome. If the fact that intelligence bigwigs are using their knowledge and connections to enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of the American people isn't enough to get people off the couch and motivated to change the direction the US is headed in, then there's probably not much hope left for this country.