In the era of the long war on terror, Thursday, June 2nd, 2016, was a tough day for the U.S. military. Two modern jet fighters, a Navy F-18 Hornet and an Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon, flown by two of America's most capable pilots, went down, with one pilot killed. In a war that has featured total dominance of the skies by America's intrepid aviators and robotic drones, the loss of two finely tuned fighter jets was a remarkable occurrence.

As it happened, though, those planes weren't lost in combat. Enemy ground fire or missiles never touched them nor were they taken out in a dogfight with enemy planes (of which, of course, the Islamic State, the Taliban, and similar U.S. enemies have none). Each was part of an elite aerial demonstration team, the Navy's Blue Angels and the Air Force's Thunderbirds, respectively. Both were lost to the cause of morale-boosting air shows.

Each briefly grabbed the headlines, only to be quickly forgotten. Americans moved on, content in the knowledge that accidents happen in risky pursuits.

If you believe that the Brexit vote is going to kill the idea of a "United States of Europe", you might want to think again. In fact, it appears that the decision by the British people to leave the European Union is only going to accelerate the process of creating an EU superstate.

As you will see below, one of the largest newspapers in the UK is reporting that the foreign ministers of France and Germany have drafted "a blueprint to effectively do away with individual member states".

So even though men like George Soros are warning that the eventual dissolution of the European Union is "practically irreversible" after the Brexit vote, the truth is that the globalists are not about to give up so easily.

For a very long time, advocates of increased European integration have dreamed of going all the way and creating a true "United States of Europe", but Britain was always one of the stumbling blocks that stood in the way.

But now that Britain is out and there is great fear that the entire European project may be in jeopardy, there seems to be a rush to go for broke and try to complete the job of European integration. The Express is one of the biggest news organizations in the UK, and they are reporting that the foreign ministers of France and Germany already have a blueprint "to effectively do away with individual member states"...

The foreign ministers of France and Germany are due to reveal a blueprint to effectively do away with individual member states in what is being described as an "ultimatum".

Under the radical proposals EU countries will lose the right to have their own army, criminal law, taxation system or central bank, with all those powers being transferred to Brussels.

Controversially member states would also lose what few controls they have left over their own borders, including the procedure for admitting and relocating refugees.

When I read that earlier today I was absolutely stunned.

Did they come up with this blueprint before the Brexit vote or after?

And do they plan to allow the citizens of individual nations to vote on any of this?

Most of the violence occurring between extremist groups in the US is "planned" by FBI informants to "manipulate public opinion" on the upcoming US elections, geopolitical analyst Patrick Henningsen told RT.

"The FBI has infiltrated all major and mid-major activist and movements in the United States over the last 60 years. Every single one whether a right-wing or a left-wing," Henningsen said, adding that many of the groups have had "FBI informants in the top positions".

"If you look at the history [of] the FBI from the 1950s till the present [they] have infiltrated hundreds of groups - from civil rights groups to...the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)... The FBI has a history of gangs and counter gangs where they infiltrate and [foment] violence on both the right and left and then...arrests will be made and this will be politicized."

What is more, almost none of the trials in the US that come following the arrests happen without intelligence service involvement, he maintained. "If you go to any trial... normally half the cases on the prosecution are basically comprised of FBI informants testimonies...including the terrorist cases in the United States," he said. The latest violent scuffles in Sacramento, ahead of the Republican National Convention, are no exception and were also organized to "manipulate public opinion" on the US elections, Henningsen believes.

In 1985 and 1986, in the backrooms of Margaret Thatcher's government, a young adviser stuck his neck out for a policy he believed in, one he insisted could work despite widespread doubts.

That man was Oliver Letwin, according to Cabinet Office papers released in 2014, and that policy was the so-called "poll tax," rioting over which ultimately contributed to Thatcher's downfall.

On Monday, Letwin, now the U.K.'s minister for government policy, was placed in charge of preparations for Britain's forthcoming EU exit negotiations, leading a special cross-government unit set up by outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron. It is leading many to look back over a chequered career.

"Our carceral state banishes American citizens to a gray wasteland far beyond the promises and protections the government grants its other citizens... When the doors finally close and one finds oneself facing banishment to the carceral state—the years, the walls, the rules, the guards, the inmates—reactions vary. Some experience an intense sickening feeling. Others, a strong desire to sleep. Visions of suicide. A deep shame. A rage directed toward guards and other inmates. Utter disbelief.

The incarcerated attempt to hold on to family and old social ties through phone calls and visitations. At first, friends and family do their best to keep up. But phone calls to prison are expensive, and many prisons are located far from one's hometown... As the visits and phone calls diminish, the incarcerated begins to adjust to the fact that he or she is, indeed, a prisoner. New social ties are cultivated. New rules must be understood."—Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic

In a carceral state—a.k.a. a prison state or a police state—there is no Fourth Amendment to protect you from the overreaches, abuses, searches and probing eyes of government overlords.

In a carceral state, there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite.

In a carceral state, there are only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.
With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, "we the people"—the prisoners of the American police state—are being pushed that much further into a corner, our backs against the prison wall.

This concept of a carceral state in which we possess no rights except for that which the government grants on an as-needed basis is the only way I can begin to comprehend, let alone articulate, the irrational, surreal, topsy-turvy, through-the-looking-glass state of affairs that is being imposed upon us in America today.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we who pretend we are free are no different from those who spend their lives behind bars.

Indeed, we are experiencing much the same phenomenon that journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates ascribes to those who are banished to a "gray wasteland far beyond the promises and protections the government grants its other citizens" : a sickening feeling, a desire to sleep, hopelessness, shame, rage, disbelief, clinginess to the past and that which is familiar, and then eventually resignation and acceptance of our new "normal."

All that we are experiencing—the sense of dread at what is coming down the pike, the desperation, the apathy about government corruption, the deeply divided partisanship, the carnivalesque political spectacles, the public displays of violence, the nostalgia for the past—are part of the dying refrain of an America that is fading fast.

No longer must the government obey the law.

Likewise, "we the people" are no longer shielded by the rule of law.

Neocons want a new Cold War - all the better to pick the U.S. taxpayers' pockets - but this reckless talk and war profiteering could spark a nuclear war and leave the world to the cockroaches, writes Robert Parry.

If the human species extinguishes itself in a flash of thermonuclear craziness and the surviving cockroaches later develop the intellect to assess why humans committed this mass suicide, the cockroach historians may conclude that it was our failure to hold the neoconservatives accountable in the first two decades of the Twenty-first Century that led to our demise.

After the disastrous U.S.-led invasion of Iraq - an aggressive war justified under false premises - there rightly should have been a mass purging of the people responsible for the death, destruction and lies. Instead the culprits were largely left in place, indeed they were allowed to consolidate their control of the major Western news media and the foreign-policy establishments of the United States and its key allies.

Despite the Iraq catastrophe which destabilized the Middle East and eventually Europe, the neocons and their liberal interventionist chums still filled the opinion columns of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and virtually every other mainstream outlet. Across the American and European political systems and "think tanks," the neocons and the liberal hawks stayed dominant, too, continuing to spin their war plans while facing no significant peace movement.

House Republicans have released their committee's investigation into the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans. The report says the Obama administration dragged its feet for political reasons instead of properly responding.

The Benghazi Select Committee released its report on Tuesday morning, shedding new light on the inadequate response of the US government in the face a rapidly deteriorating security situation ahead of the September 11, 2012 attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his colleagues.

Democrats, many of whom opposed even creating the investigatory committee, have maintained that no military forces could have possibly responded in time about an imminent attack on the diplomatic consulate.

In this week's episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges goes inside Israel and the Occupied Territories with Amira Hass. Hass is the Haaretz Correspondent for the Occupied Territories and author of "Drinking the Sea at Gaza". RT Correspondent Anya Parampil joins the show with a report on the public manifestations of racism in Israeli society.

International Military Review - Syria, June 28

What is likely an unfortunate design fail is nonetheless disconcerting in the wake of the military coalition's major buildup along the Russian border, led by German troops.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) caused a stir in recent weeks with the announcement of its newly constructed headquarters "for you and for future generations." The building features a design pattern eerily reminiscent of the Nazi "SS" lightning bolts.

The Nazi imagery comes in the footsteps of Germany leading the massive Anaconda War Games. Involving over 30,000 NATO troops, the drills will take place in Poland on the 75th anniversary of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

The provocation is the single largest buildup of foreign troops in Poland since World War II, and is also the first time German soldiers have been stationed in the Eastern European nation since the fall of the Nazi regime.