Twenty-five percent of the people in this country are now functionally illiterate. Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the U.S. military machine to turn. They know that people die by the thousands in these activities, but claim that they are nevertheless necessary to maintain U.S. security and the U.S. standard of living. The owners of the Washington Post long ago acknowledged that the Post is the government's voice to the people. The major function of secrecy in Washington is to keep the U.S. people and U.S. Congress from knowing what the nation's leaders are doing.
Secrecy is power.
Secrecy is license. Secrecy covers up mistakes. Secrecy covers up corruption. Throughout its history, it has organized secret wars that killed millions of people in the Third World who had no capability of doing physical harm to the United States. The Third World is the new enemy, effectively replacing the Cold War rationales for militarism.