Yves Smith — Tom Engelhardt: Edward Snowden vs. Robert Seldon Lady Shows How Our One-Superpower World Works

Yves here. Tom Engelhardt’s latest piece discusses how, as he puts it in his setup:

Retired CIA agent Robert Seldon Lady, convicted in absentia in Italy for a rendition/kidnapping operation, is picked up in Panama on an Interpol warrant, hits the news for a day, and then is allowed to fly back to the U.S. where he disappears — and despite the Edward Snowden case, the Washington media doesn’t even blink.

Astonishingly, not only did this story come and go with remarkable speed, but there has been nada in the way of follow-up. Until now, where Engelhardt’s piece delves into how and why Lady has been disappeared in order to escape from justice in Italy.

Double-standard and Orwellian double-speak. The US government is shown up as an imperial regime bent on maintaining global hegemony through superpower status. Now there is not longer any pretense about it. There goes US soft power. RIP.

Naked Capitalism

Tom Engelhardt: Edward Snowden vs. Robert Seldon Lady Shows How Our One-Superpower World Works
Yves Smith

Max Blumenthal — Shocking 'Extermination' Fantasies By the People Running America's Empire on Full Display at Aspen Summit

A close up look at the scary people in charge. Well-intentioned but severely misguided about civil rights, human rights, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, law, and democracy.

The military mind at work in the context of empire — the end justifies all means regardless of unintended and unforeseen consequences that the CIA calls "blowback." Frighteningly short-sighted and crass.

This is a big reason that there is civilian control of the military and separation of military and domestic security forces. The lines are now extremely blurred, and the wall of secrecy is so thick that it is difficult for the public to know what is going on or what their fate is.

AlterNet
Shocking 'Extermination' Fantasies By the People Running America's Empire on Full Display at Aspen Summit

Max Blumenthal