US intelligence chief: World capitalist crisis poses greatest threat by Bill Van Auken

Dandelion Salad

by Bill Van Auken
http://www.wsws.org
14 February 2009

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Intelligence Thursday, Washington’s new director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, warned that the deepening world capitalist crisis posed the paramount threat to US national security and warned that its continuation could trigger a return to the “violent extremism” of the 1920s and 1930s.

This frank assessment, contained in the unclassified version of the “annual threat assessment” presented by Blair on behalf of 16 separate US intelligence agencies, represented a striking departure from earlier years, in which a supposedly ubiquitous threat from Al Qaeda terrorism and the two wars launched under the Bush administration topped the list of concerns.

Clearly underlying his remarks are fears within the massive US intelligence apparatus as well as among more conscious layers of the American ruling elite that a protracted economic crisis accompanied by rising unemployment and reduced social spending will trigger a global eruption of the class struggle and the threat of social revolution.

[…]

In other words, a sharp intensification of the unfolding capitalist crisis accompanied by an eruption of class struggle and the threat of social revolution in the US itself could force the Pentagon to call back its expeditionary armies from Iraq and Afghanistan for use against American workers.

The document continues: “Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD [the Department of Defense] would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance.” The phrase—”an essential enabling hub for continuity of authority”—is a euphemism for military dictatorship.

[…]

via US intelligence chief: World capitalist crisis poses greatest threat.

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