Written by Leonard R. Jaffee   

The Obama administration has been humiliated & discredited, severely, by exposures of its massive electronic surveillances of U.S. citizens & of government offices of other nations, even agencies & officials of our close allies of the EU.

Every few days, a new surveillance scandal breaks wind.

So, to try to deflect attention from its unconstitutional, largely illegal, and diplomatically embarrassing mass surveillances, the Obama administration has invented an Al Qaeda plan of attacking widely in a area totaling about a fifth of Earth's land mass.

The invention is smart — especially because of the gullibility of the U.S. citizenry & the behaviors of Congress & the mainstream press.

The game: If an attack occurs, label it Al Qaeda terrorism & use it as "proof" of need of the government's outrageous mass surveillance — despite the mass surveillance did not suggest the attack might occur & despite the attack was not related to anything the mass surveillance uncovered & despite the mass surveillance did not prevent the attack. If no attack occurs, use the attack-absence as "proof" that the outrageous surveillance saved many nations & many millions of people from grave harm.

But facts trash the invention & its purpose.

Often during the past year or longer, the Obama administration has claimed that its illegal adventures have reduced Al Qaeda to impotence. If so, then whence (& how possible) the alleged massive & grave Al Qaeda threat?

The "threat" was invented much with an assertion that government operatives heard a phone talk of two high-ranking Al Qaeda, al-Zawahiri & al-Wuhayshi, who, according to the Obama administration, suggested an Al Qaeda plan of committing terrorism.

But the alleged tapped al-Zawahiri/al-Wuhayshi phone-talk was NOT placed or received in the U.S. (if it occurred anywhere). It did NOT involve a U.S. citizen, even in a remote way or in any even minute, intangible respect — or an agency or official of an EU state, or even of China (against whose computer systems the Obama administration commits espionage).

The alleged al-Zawahiri/al-Wuhayshi phone-talk eavesdropping was NOT part of the massive drag-net surveillances conducted by the NSA, FBI, and (we learned recently) the DEA.

One must wonder whether the phone talk actually occurred (especially since the government has done little except lie respecting its surveillance & "anti-terrorist" activities). One must wonder whether, if the phone talk did occur, it evidenced a design of physical terrorism: Likely al-Zawahiri & al-Wuhayshi would not talk by means that could be tapped — unless they intended to spread disinformation designed to create a false scare that would render its own form of psychological, economic, and other non-physically-violent harms.

Partly, if not mostly, the "new terrorism" alarm results from presumed (not proven or even evidenced) terrorism-threat "implications" of a few recent Al Qaeda-"linked" prison escapes of Al Qaeda members or Taliban or both.

But such presumed terrorism-threat premises — the escapes — were made blatant merely by their happening. They would have been blatant even if the U.S. government had never wrought mass surveillance of any kind directed at any person, persons, groups, populations, or other governments. And how could the escapees perpetrate terrorist acts so soon & within the huge geographic region the Obama administration says is the likely field of attacks?

Still, per courtesy of Congress & the mainstream press, the Obama administration will win its game: If an attack occurs, it is "proof" of need of the Obama administration's mass surveillance — despite the mass surveillance did not suggest the attack might occur & despite the attack was not related to anything the mass surveillance uncovered & despite the mass surveillance did not prevent the attack. If no attack occurs, the attack-absence is "proof" that the Obama administration's mass surveillance saved many nations & many millions of people from grave harm.