Across Africa, Obama Expands Secret Wars, Assassinations

While most of the press has focused on Obama’s military machinations in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, the administration has also been quietly expanding its secret wars and assassination programs across Africa.

Additional insight into the White House’s scheming emerged in late October, when The Intercept published a series of stories on Obama’s mass-murder programs, based largely on leaked documents, under the title “Drone Papers.” One of the articles zeroed in on a semi-secret drone base in the nation of Djibouti dubbed Chabelley Airfield. “This base is now very important because it’s a major hub for most drone operations in northwest Africa,” GlobalSecurity.org senior fellow Tim Brown, an expert on analyzing satellite imagery, was quoted as saying by The Intercept.

Indeed, The New American has been reporting for years on Obama’s various military interventions across Africa. The most obvious example was Libya, where the White House backed self-declared al-Qaeda leaders in a bloody “regime change” operation targeting the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.

Just last week, news reports said U.S. troops were in Niger training the regime’s military forces. It is part of what one unnamed Obama official referred to as a “new wave” of military support for African governments and dictators supposedly battling Boko Haram’s Islamist militants. After Niger’s military, Obama plans to train government forces in Cameroon, Nigeria, and Chad, the official, “speaking on condition of anonymity,” told the U.S. government-funded media outlet Voice of America.

Also targeted by Obama and his allies for U.S. military intervention was the Ivory Coast, where the White House helped the UN and the French government depose a Christian president after a contested election by backing Islamist militias. In Mali, meanwhile, the Obama administration intervened to help a military junta beat back a group of desert nomads who hoped to create an independent homeland for themselves.

It is time for Washington, D.C., to follow the noninterventionist advice of America’s Founders and get the U.S. military out of Africa.

By Alex Newman

CISA Passes Senate, Threatens Liberty and Privacy

On October 27, the Senate passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) by a vote of 74-21. The bill, which is a bipartisan effort sponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.), is aimed at “improv[ing] cybersecurity in the United States through enhanced sharing of information about cybersecurity threats, and for other purposes.” It’s those “other purposes” that have the tech industry and the Internet community worried. A surveillance bill by any other name is still as dangerous to liberty.

What makes the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act a surveillance bill is the fact that it creates a way for companies to share information with the federal government and its myriad three-letter agencies about cyberattacks and threats of cyberattacks. That information would also include personal data about the customers, including names, addresses, what services they use, how they use them, when they use them, and more. If the company in question is your Internet service provider or mobile service provider, that information could include your browsing history and call logs.

Experts in the field who typically enjoy spirited disagreement in everything from which smartphone or operating system is best, to the best way to back up and secure your data, are all in agreement on one thing: CISA is dangerous. It is a surveillance bill. It will not protect America’s networks, but it will provide the surveillance state an easier path to spying on Americans.

The House and Senate versions of this bill are not identical, so the differences still need to be ironed out before it can go to President Obama for his signature. There may still be hope of defeating CISA if enough Americans pressure their representatives to scuttle the committee negotiations on getting the versions of this bill together. If not, and CISA becomes law, the surveillance culture will be codified into law and gain the appearance of legitimacy. That will make it much harder to dismantle the apparatus that has been put into place to spy on all of us.

By C. Mitchell Shaw

SPLC Unhinged: Almost Everyone Is a “Conspiracy Theorist”

According to a new “intelligence report” issued by the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, practically everyone in America to the right of Obama is participating in a giant conspiracy to spread conspiracy theories. For what purpose is never explained, although apparently it is all very bad for “democracy.”

The controversial outfit railed against parents concerned about the Obama-backed Common Core education scheme, Americans alarmed about Obama’s gun-control scheming, alternative media, talk radio, cable television, politicians who give voice to the concerns of their constituents, and much more.

The report argues, essentially, that politicians and media figures expressing the concerns of their constituents is somehow bad for “democracy”: “Outlandish conspiracy theories may be great for the movies, but they’re highly destructive to our democracy — particularly when mainstream politicians and trusted media figures promote unfounded beliefs that trade knowledge for ignorance and reason for suspicion,” said Mark Potok, editor at the SPLC, in an October 27 press release.

The most vitriol was reserved for The John Birch Society, the constitutionalist organization that has chapters in all 50 states and works to educate Americans about politics, economics, and culture. The SPLC wrote, “Name a right-wing conspiracy theory of the last 60 years and chances are the John Birch Society was sitting near the front of the bandwagon,” suggesting that it believes the JBS is an integral part of the vast right-wing conspiracy to promote conspiracy theories. In the real world, the JBS deals with truth and education, and has been consistently proven accurate since it was founded in 1958.

There is indeed a real danger to American values and constitutional government from groups such as the SPLC and its allies — including the increasingly lawless Obama administration, which is now partnering with the radical group to target Christians, conservatives, dissidents, and others the SPLC hates. But if enough Americans were educated on the facts, Congress could defund the agenda, leaving the marginalized SPLC to spew its hatred and paranoid conspiracy theories harmlessly until its giant endowment runs dry or it runs out of tinfoil.

By Alex Newman