Yes, we must have a Defense Department which should help to protect the interests of "We, the People." I’m not saying otherwise. Our fighting men and women are important and necessary. 

Our levels of freedom and security are not “free.” 

Warriors, and others like us, are often under-appreciated, taken for granted and misunderstood. I will always love, respect and stand by my brothers and sisters who, like me, came from the bottom of this society and who served in uniform beside me in dangerous places.

I don’t claim in any way, shape or form to be any different than any other veteran who went overseas and did his or her duty as we were trained for and understood our duty to be at the time. I don’t claim to speak for any other veteran. I can only speak for myself. I can only speak to what I learned on a deep, personal level from my experience in Iraq. 

This experience made me feel somewhat alienated and separated from many of my countrymen upon returning home, meaning those countrymen caught up in the external aspects of life here, who didn't seem to know a war was going on, or even care. But the experience of being overseas also brought me much closer to all of the world’s people, and helped open my eyes fully to the truth that we are all brothers and sisters, no matter what we look like or what culture we come from. 

In reality, what happens to one person in any part of the world happens to all people all over the world.

What I came to understand through the Iraq War and through everything else in my life is quite different from the so-called “national conversation,” myths, fairy tales and outright lies that far too many of our countrymen blindly believe in and accept without questioning deeply enough. Where is the real national debate? Where is the discussion, the conversation? Why is everyone hiding their heads in the sand and moving along with their lives as if nothing is happening that's undermining "We, the People" completely?

Over time, what I’ve learned is a far cry from what most of us were taught in public school. It’s also quite different from the grand illusion of the so-called “two-party system,” or the rigid ideologies that purport to answer every one of life’s questions. Many of these same folks, still believing they are “free,” build ideological houses with no doors and no windows. They believe only in their beliefs. And what is worse, they put all their faith into a person, or one man, or a group of people. They join "cults of personality," putting pictures of politicians they've never met on their refrigerators beside photos of their family. But it is extremely dangerous to put all of your hope and faith into false "messiahs" and the promises of the State. Belief in belief is dangerous.

Better to fight for and suffer for a wider knowledge and understanding and pay the true price. No true cost can truly be passed on to others in reality. 

• Too many are also far too afraid and far too willing to hand over everything our fighting men and women have fought for to the State, meaning a few people at the top who are controlling the State and using the State to advance only their interests at the expense of everyone else. The interests of the State are in fact NOT the interests of “We, the People,” but are the interests of whichever group of gangsters, thieves and terrorists which has hijacked the State. 
  
• Every society has such a group and no society is "exceptional" in this regard. It is the group at the top which the State actually serves, the aristocracy, often its the thugs, gangsters, thieves and criminals at the top of the corruption. In our "system," the group which has managed to strong arm its way to the top are those falsely “profiting” from so-called “bail outs,” financial tyranny and the blood of our brothers and sisters in arms. 
  
• The State often does not serve “We, the People.” The State and "We, the People" are two different things. 
  
• The Bill of Rights is intended to protect the private sphere and the rights of the people. If one right, such as "We, the People's" fundamental human right NOT to be watched by the State, goes by the wayside, then all of our rights go by the wayside. Too many people falsely believe that "freedom is free" and take for granted the level of rights that our World War II veterans and others have helped us to achieve. 
• We're lost in wishful thinking and put false faith into human-manufactured constructs such as the current State. We have lost sight of "self-evident" truths and are lost as a nation. 

Can we find ourselves? Can we, as a people, find our True North?

(Note: Share this post! This is the third of a series of posts by author and Iraq War veteran Theodore Webb concerning questions about security and the true nature of the State. For a full description of the great dangers of the surveillance-police State, read my novel, "The STARLING Connection.")

Katrina vanden Heuvel is spot on when she writes in the Washington Post, "We cannot accept a paternal pat on the head, with Americans and the Congress told to leave this to the professionals. At stake is the very heart of the Constitution and the democracy."

Check out her full piece, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-the-nsa-state-of-secrecy-must-end/2013/06/18/98240ea4-d77f-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html

I was checking out some of the officials speaking on national television about the spy programs thwarting certain terrorist attacks. But what I find extreme and disingenuous in the statements of these officials is the complete lack of recognition that there is in fact more than one kind of death. The current officialdom conveniently (and in a corrupt self-serving manner) fails to admit that the massive surveillance-police State prison-never-ending warfare-industrial complex REPRESENTS A WORSE KIND OF WIDESPREAD DEATH OF WHO WE CAN BE AS A PEOPLE THAN THE RELATIVELY SMALL CHANCE OF BEING KILLED IN A TERRORIST ATTACK.

Given the free choice, I will take my chances of being killed in a terrorist attack than hand over all my liberty to the world's greatest terrorists, gangsters and thugs, the hijackers of the State. I will say this again and again, the most ruthless few, at the top armed with the world's most advanced weaponry and spy apparatus, represent the greater danger to "We, the People."

The surveillance-police State is nothing more than a mask, a massive failure to solve deeper problems. It is important for all citizens to examine the true nature of the State and what it will take in reality to bring long-term, enduring security to our people.

I don’t regret the knowledge I earned through my youthful and good faith enlistment in the U.S. Army, believing that doing so would protect and serve the best interests our country.

But would I enlist again knowing what I know now, knowing how far we are from where we could be? The answer, unfortunately, is no.

This experience of being involved in the Iraq War taught me hard truths, which are now my duty to share with my fellow countrymen, those who are also interested in human rights and human liberty. 

This is also an important message to those who have been fooled by "give us all your liberty and we will give you security" propaganda and those who confuse the surveillance-police State with a representative Republic or with long-term, enduring security. 

I served in uniform in Iraq. Our unit, the soldiers I served with whom I will forever respect, love and support, purified water in the combat zone in the areas surrounding Babylon. Being near Babylon, and visiting the ruins of this ancient city, I had the opportunity to think about Babylon in all its forms, where mankind is and where we may be going.

Do not choose to get me wrong. The world is a dangerous, violent place. One group of ruthless men will be determined to rule the world, no matter what the consequences. We, as a country, are better off on the top than on the bottom. We are better off maintaining our liberty to the full extent possible.

But it is important to recognize first and foremost that such ruthless men and petty dictators live not only in other countries, but also live within our own borders. The old phrase, "wolves in sheep's clothing," applies to those at the top, those who hijack the State to serve their interests, who do not respect the great responsibility that comes with their position. To these ruthless people, the blood of our brothers and sisters is nothing more than another money-making, power-grabbing opportunity.

What one has today one may not have tomorrow. If you are on the top, it is easy to lose what you have through corruption, losing accountability, believing in your own myths, wishful thinking and putting all of your faith into false gods.

There is much more to being on the top and much more to long-term security than any advocate of the surveillance-police State would have people believe. 

Like any man who has climbed to the top, any State which has managed to become the world’s most powerful State is also in a particularly dangerous situation and must be that much more careful, wise, accountable and responsible than other States, if it can have a reasonable expectation of maintaining its position. The misuse and abuse of power means the loss of power.

Today 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars, meaning that countless people on the bottom are imprisoned under false "law" for false "crimes" within a massive prison-industrial complex involving billions of dollars. As this is happening, the few on the top responsible for the most heinous and widespread acts of violence, those who have broken the most basic and fundamental law known to man, such as the law against theft and murder, are not being held accountable for their crimes. 

Defense of our families is paramount, but here we are speaking of TRUE defense, meaning defense which serves the interests of the people as a whole.

We are not talking about an aristocracy’s version of "security," which is arbitrary and artificial. The surveillance-police State's version of "security" is much more about rule of power, about hijacking the State and its security apparatus to benefit an aristocracy and not the people. When an aristocracy rules the State, what should be the people's Defense Department becomes the aristocracy's Offense Department, for example.

Likewise, it is important for everyone to understand that to the people at the top, "Homeland Security" only means one thing: Protecting only their homes and their lands, meaning their gated-community estates, gold, and so on, even as the people lose their homes, jobs that pay living wages, retirements and more under a massive corrupt system in which the deck is stacked completely against working people from the day we are born until the day we die. 

The King's spies protect the King and his barons, not the people. Yet even a child can see the "Emperor wears no clothes."

The fake version of "security" manifested in the surveillance-police State is actually no true security at all, quite the opposite. The growth of the surveillance-police State also means the growth of the most violent crime perpetrated by those at the top and the growth of instability.

(Note: Share this post! This is the second of a series of posts by author and Iraq War veteran Theodore Webb concerning questions about security and the true nature of the State. For a full description of the great dangers of the surveillance-police State, read my novel, "The STARLING Connection.")

(Photo information: Barbed wire net in Tuol Sleng prison, Cambodia. Author Dudva. This file is used according to the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.)

No surveillance-police State in world history has made its citizens safe.

On the contrary, abundant evidence points to the opposite: 

Surveillance-police States are totalitarian self-fulfilling prophecies which manufacture ever greater insecurity and instability through the big-money industry of fear-mongering. 

This fear serves the interests of those at the top, not the interests of “We, the People.”

From the “Tsarist” (then Soviet) surveillance-police State to Mao's "China," history shows repeatedly these "all power to the State/deck stacked against the people" situations do not end well. 

Do not believe foolish ostriches who deny or downplay the dangers of the surveillance-police State. 

In fact, there is TREMENDOUS DANGER lurking like a cobra within the surveillance-police State, FAR GREATER DANGER than the dangers the surveillance-police State promises to "solve."

Far from providing any level of REAL security, surveillance-police states are manifestations of enormously destructive power imbalances no different than any domestic violence situation. 

• With the surveillance-police State, it is the people who are being beaten to the end of the rope.
  
• Constant surveillance actually serves to further destabilize society and the world by further concentrating power, wealth and privilege in the corrupt hands of those at the top. 
  
• Surveillance-police States are manifestations of enormous corruption that inevitably result in higher levels of widespread murder, suffering and exploitation. 
  

The power of constant surveillance of every man, woman and child from birth to death is FAR TOO MUCH POWER for ANY State to hand itself.

These powers are not representative of truly representative government. These kinds of powers are way over the line of appropriate governing.

Theodore Webb is the author of "The STARLING Connection," a novel-series about a near-future drone-filled Dystopia in which a group of teenage "hackers" fight for their privacy and freedom to speak. Webb is the author of several short stories, including "Desperate Engine" and "Family Hour." His electronic books and stories are available on Amazon.com and Smashwords.com. Webb regularly blogs at http://www.theodorewebb.com. "Like" his Facebook author page, http://www.facebook.com/theodorewebbauthor and follow him on Twitter at Theodore Webb @ STARLINGCONNECT.

Share this post on Facebook, Twitter, etc. This is the first of a series of posts by author/Iraq War veteran Theodore Webb concerning questions about security and the true nature of the State. 

Photo information: The Killing Fields: Choeung Ek, near Phnom Penh, Cambodia. These are the bones of 
young children who were killed by Khmer Rouge soldiers. Photographer: Oliver Spalt. This file is used according to the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.