Report on top U.S. threats is thinly disguised shakedown

In case you were wondering why you should hide under the covers these days (aside from the coronavirus), the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center recently released a report itemizing the top threats facing the country.

The first question we should be asking is why such a report is published at all. One shouldn’t require a report from Washington dictating what to fear. We should be able to look around on a daily basis and see what presents a threat. Typically, that would mean muggings, theft and other garden-variety domestic criminality. Government investment would then flow to local policing in a bid to curtail these crimes. The impact of the increased funding would be measurable in terms of local crime reduction.

The problem with that scenario is that military-industrial-complex shareholders wouldn’t be getting paid. The fear industry is big business for both government and its private contractors, and we can’t have beat cops getting all the funding to actually do something measurably useful.

So here comes a federal report to instruct you on what you need to fear. The report also serves as a blueprint for how to funnel cash into the pockets of federal agencies and their military-industrial cronies to keep the charade going. The government is here to tell you what poses a danger to you. Ready?

Among the countries listed as “actors targeting the United States” is Cuba. Seriously. Ay, caramba! Let’s panic like it’s 1962! The report fails to offer any specific explanation of the purported Cuban threat to America, leaving it to you to fantasize about your fate at the hands of the tiny island nation in the post-Castro era.

Next up, the Axis of Perpetual Government Spending: Iran, North Korea, Russia and China. Walk up to any 10 people at Costco as they sling trays of giant muffins into their carts and ask whether they feel that their way of life is threatened by any of these countries.

For those who aren’t convinced that nationstates on the other side of the planet represent an imminent danger, the government has also tossed in a few shadowy entities, including ISIS and al-Qaeda. Never mind that it was U.S. government support for the so-called “Syrian rebels” that strengthened ISIS and al-Qaeda in the first place. These terrorist groups, inadvertently fueled by $500 million of your tax cash, will now be defeated with another blank check written by you. That is, if the government doesn’t first use it to wipe out the jihadist mop-up crew otherwise known as Hezbollah, which is also on the National Counterintelligence and Security Center’s list of enemies.

Finally, “ideologically motivated entities” such as “public disclosure organizations” are included as a new threat to American security, including those that may not have formal ties to any foreign intelligence services. That sounds an awful lot like a description of adversarial journalism — the kind that routinely uncovers government wrongdoing, manipulation and abuse of the public trust. If not for “public disclosure organizations” and facts that the establishment considers inconvenient, America’s sons and daughters likely would have been sent to risk their lives in more pointless wars to defend little more than the economic interests of an elite few.

National security has become grossly synonymous with financial security — not for the average American, but for those who rely on the endless flow of your tax dollars.