Chris Hedges was recently on Glenn Greenwald’s System Update offering a wide-ranging analysis of current events. I copied the following excerpts concerning the U.S. Security State and the disturbing transformation of the DNC:
G. Greenwald: Anyone covering foreign policy and covering wars as you did for so long, obviously has to deal with, in all sorts of ways, the U.S. security state, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and sort of how it influences a lot of these policies. There’s no way to understand one without the other. After 9/11, we saw this series of whistleblowers from within the U.S. Security State, and people like William Binney, Thomas Drake, and, of course, culminating with Edward Snowden, all have the same grievance, namely, that the whole foundation of this secret part of our government that would act without democratic accountability and outside of any transparency would be the one taboo would ever be turning their power inward to manipulate the American population and domestic population. And a lot of that came forward primarily based on their grievance, that that was the thing that they thought would never happen. And they were seeing that more and more and more and more, that almost as much as these agencies were focused on foreign governments, they were focused on our domestic politics as well. I know there’s been a lot of that since the creation of the U.S. Security State, but do you agree that that has gotten worse and more dire, more evident – the idea that the U.S. Security State now plays a bigger role than ever before in our domestic politics?
Chris Hedges: Yeah, it’s completely unaccountable and you can’t control it. That’s the problem. And Arnold Toynbee when he writes about the decline of the Empire, talks about these rogue intelligence, military complexes, institutions that essentially can no longer be regulated, can no longer be constrained. All of the people who led us into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya, you know, there should be accountability there. Not only is there no accountability, but the same people are leading us into the disasters in Ukraine and funneling weapons to sustain the genocide in Gaza. And that’s very dangerous because, at the beginning of an empire, empires are very judicious, usually about the use of force. What characterizes declining dying empires is military adventurism, where they seek to gain a diminishing or a loss to Germany through a military fiasco. And I think we can start with Vietnam and go basically right through just one military debacle after another. What we’ve done in the Middle East is probably the greatest strategic blunder, you know, in American history.
G. Greenwald: You talk about Iraq.
Chris Hedges: I’m talking about Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and Libya. And that has had ramifications not only throughout the Muslim world but through the Global South. The Global South is reacting the way it is to what’s happening in Gaza because they understand that countries like Israel or countries like the United States are perfectly happy, especially as we talk about mass migration and failed states from climate, the climate crisis, and everything else to use genocide as a weapon. So yeah. You know, there was a moment I’m sure you remember when Feinstein did the Torture Report. Remember that? Not my favorite senator, but nevertheless… And then she came out of action and the CIA had hacked the computers and she gave this very chilling press conference that basically said you can’t confront these people or they’ll destroy you. And that’s where we are. These people perpetuate, they perpetuate war, they perpetuate surveillance. I mean, I covered the Stasi state, in East Germany. In the end, I covered the collapse and we got to this absurdist point where they, the Stasi, were sending informants into retirees’ stamp clubs to see if somebody ever made a joke about the dictator, Erich Honecker. I mean, that’s the point that you get. But it calcifies the entire country and atrophies the entire country, not just the press, but any form of freedom of expression, any capacity for democratic participation. We don’t have democratic participation. Look at the DNC. I mean, it was a choreographed burlesque show. So, it’s a symptom of the late empire. And it’s very, very dangerous. . . .
Chris Hedges: Well, let’s be clear. The Democratic Party in Europe would be a far-right party. What’s happened in the United States is that – and this was largely done by Clinton and Biden – they transformed the Democratic Party into the traditional Republican Party and they pushed the Republican Party so far to the right, that it became insane. And what you’ve seen with the rise of a figure like Trump and there’s a cultish quality, obviously, to the Republican Party around Trump, is that that ruling establishment party has become one party. And that’s why they embrace figures like Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney should be in prison. Of course, if Dick Cheney endorses anyone, that’s a good reason not to vote for them. So, what you’ve seen is the establishment turn on Trump. Why? Well, it’s not because he isn’t going to give Goldman Sachs everything they want. You know, we have this insane system both under Biden and Trump, where the Pentagon submits a budget and then they give the Pentagon even more than they ask for… But he’s impulsive. He is ignorant. He doesn’t play the game. He’s an embarrassment. And so that’s why…
And now we’re on the cusp of a potential war with Hezbollah in Lebanon and this is also a failure on the part of the United States. Look, the genocide in Gaza could halt, would be halted tomorrow, if we imposed an arms embargo. I think it’s 68%, roughly, of the munitions that Israel uses now come from the United States. We have the power to do it, but we don’t have the political will to do it because AIPAC owns the U.S. Congress. These congresspeople can leap to their feet fast enough to cheer somebody who’s being investigated as a war criminal, I think is a war criminal and is carrying out actively in real time a genocide. So yeah, it’s convenient to forget history. . . .
