The Most Innovative Plot Ever to Put us Back on the Map as the Super-est
I ask people to name the agency responsible for collecting all communication Intel in China, and they draw a blank. I quiz people on the Russian facility specifically in charge of communication data gathering (not the main FSB), and I draw more blanks. However, I suspect that today if you were to ask the entire adult population of the planet earth to name the intelligence facility in the United States where the entire US and world communication data is gathered you would receive a quick and accurate answer: NSA. Is this really ‘bad’ for the US image? Is this truly bad for the NSA?
Everyone agrees that this is the information age. Everyone will tell you that information is power today. It is uniformly agreed that those with the power to collect the most information are those with the most power. All true. Thus, the Super Global Power is the one with the best capability to collect the most information. And the world unanimously recognizes the United States of America as the Super-est Global Power with the most ominous agency-facility capable of collecting everyone’s every data every minute of every hour. We have the US government, Edward Snowden, and the mainstream media to thank for this.
Image is everything. It’s perception- not the real facts- that matter. Once upon a time it was the Arms Race. We went through decades of muscle flexing: who had the biggest and most powerful bombs, who had the most ominous delivery system for the biggest and most powerful bombs, who had the fastest and greatest rockets to reach the moon-Mars or hell, and who had the highest number of bases. Of course we, the Americans, aced every one of those criteria. Didn’t we? Even with the Missile Gap trickery and later revelations and all; we flexed our steroid-filled muscles everywhere. It really didn’t matter how many billions of people around the world actually hated us. We burned and murdered millions of people in Vietnam, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Laos and Cambodia. Ugly? Yes. But didn’t it establish our superiority when it came to nuclear weapons capabilities, chemical weapons mastery, and all the state-of-the-art machinery to deliver our killing agents and murder in mass? There: ugly or not, hated or not, we flexed our super-power muscles. We became known as a superpower-the only thing that mattered.
Who wouldn’t want to be perceived as the most powerful and ominous even if butt ugly? China does. Russia does. Iran does. Pakistan does… and we do. Please don’t let anyone fool you: when we talk about our world image we don’t give a damn about looking good or being perceived as good. No. It is about being the most powerful, being the most ominous when it comes to using power. Period. Think of our power footprint in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya. Think about our power shown through our black sites, Bagram, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Powerful, yes. Ominous yes. Good? Are you kidding me? But who cares!
As a nation so addicted to being known and perceived as a superpower, when we see ourselves in situations like this we feel devastated:
In 15 of 22 nations surveyed, the balance of opinion is that China either will replace or already has replaced the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower. This view is especially widespread in Western Europe, where at least six-in-ten people in France (72%), Spain (67%), Britain (65%) and Germany (61%) see China overtaking the U.S.
As a nation who has had the privilege of being perceived as the most ominous, when we face situations like this we are heartbroken:
For the first time in surveys dating back nearly 40 years, a majority (53%) says the United States plays a less important and powerful role as a world leader than it did a decade ago. The share saying the U.S. is less powerful has increased 12 points since 2009 and has more than doubled – from just 20% – since 2004.
So what if we are still the world’s super-est power when it comes to WMD and related military machinery. Obviously that doesn’t count nearly as much today in the eyes of the world. Our economy has been way too screwed up to even be considered as a vehicle to establish super-ness. Thus, we have to find something that is considered real super in this age and time: the Information Age & Information Warfare Era. So bring in and pump some steroids into some information muscle, flex it big time, and make sure it is enormously publicized: Thank you NSA, Edward Snowden and the Government PR media.
Those damn Chinese may have the economy on their side, but let’s flex our steroid-filled NSA muscles and show those dudes how pathetic they are when it comes to sucking information: Snowden: US Spies On China’s Universities and Mobile Firms I tell you, even the NSA is directly pumping up Snowden’s narrative on how we put the Chinese under our surveillance microscope: NSA fears Snowden saw details of China spying
Look at the darn Chinese scrambling to protect themselves from our mighty info sucking monster-the NSA: Can China Protect Itself from NSA Spying?
How about those awful Russians, ey? Let’s show them too: Sweden has been spying on Russian leaders for the NSA, Snowden documents show That’s right. They better watch out. We are vacuuming up all their information: NSA leak reveals: US and Britain spied on Russians and other countries Hey, mate, look how desperate they are in the face of our mighty NSA sucker-uppers: Russia’s solution to NSA spying? Typewriters!!!
Even those pest-y little high-tech Japanese are getting nervous, seeing how they have lost their techie edge: Japan Must Safeguard Data from ‘Superpower in Decline’ Decline or not, who cares! It attaches that musical and beautiful adjective back to our nation’s name: Superpower.
Haven’t government researchers such as RAND been pounding our government for years on pumping and flexing its information gathering muscles? Information is an instrument of national and global power. As such, control over its use, its protection, and its manipulation, are national and global security issues. Well, here we are, doing exactly that: showing our people and the entire world that we are capable of sucking every single piece of information from every person in every nation every single second of every single hour of every single day.
Thank you NSA, Edward Snowden and the government PR machine. Thank you for restoring our superpower status here at home and abroad. Thank you for showing our super-ness in something: Snooping & Surveillance of everyone everywhere all the time. Thank you for expanding and putting back the fear of government into our people’s psyche. Thank you for putting the weariness and fear of our mightiness back into the world. Thank you for plotting and executing one of the most innovative plots ever to put us back on the map as a super-est power in something; no matter how stinky or ugly. Thank you NSA, Snowden and the mainstream media. Thank you all.
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Sibel Edmonds is the Publisher & Editor of Boiling Frogs Post and the author of the Memoir Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story. She is the recipient of the 2006 PEN Newman’s Own First Amendment Award for her “commitment to preserving the free flow of information in the United States in a time of growing international isolation and increasing government secrecy” Ms. Edmonds has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University.
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