Winner of America's Dick Award Announced

The votes have been counted. The people have spoken. America's Dick for 2014 is Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada!

Stephen Harper, pictured at rear, is winner
 of the 2014 America's Dick Awards.

And by a landslide. Stephen Harper received 190 votes, or 45% of the total--just over twice as many votes as runner-up David Cameron, the Prime Minister of Britain. Our poll closed the day before the British leader raised the UK terror alert to "severe" and gave the strongest fear-speech of his career.

Aussie leader Tony Abbott came in third place with 12% of votes. The Australian prime minister performed well considering his short time in office, besting veteran Dick-Award-worthy leaders like Turkey's Recep Erdoğan (8%), Germany's Angela Merkel (6%), Japan's Shinzō Abe (5%), and Sweden's Fredrik Reinfeldt (1%).

America's Dick is the leader who people say would be most likely to screw his own people for us. You can read about the nominees' achievements and our nomination criteria here.

Bruce Heyman, the Goldman Sachs managing director presently serving as U.S. Ambassador to Canada, will personally present the award to Mr. Harper next week in Ottawa.

Thanks to Stephen Harper, Canadians are more fearful than would seem reasonable given their longstanding rejection of statehood and far-north location thousands of miles away from the world's hot spots.

The Secretary of Fear told Fox News, "Stephen Harper is an exemplary ally.  He's created new opportunities for our corporate partners to feed at the Canadian trough. He's toughened sentencing to fill prisons. He's integrated border security. He's militarized Canadian police forces. He's used police to violently crush protests. He's censored government scientists. He's gutted Canada's environmental laws. He's carbon-friendly."

SecFear continued, "Before Harper, Canada had an unfortunate reputation as a peace-loving country. The country was admired internationally for its relatively independent foreign policy in spite of its proximity to us. Today Canada supports our policy of using violence to solve the problems we have created in the Middle East.  Harper is the first to cheer when our Israeli partners build a new settlement or bomb Palestinians.  For the first time in their history, Canadians have reason to fear being disliked."

CNN Interviews Professor of Homeland Security

Our Spin on How the Mideast Spiraled into War

Cable news networks are not supposed to provide background to current events. Poorly informed audiences are easier to frighten. As a rule, our media partners try not to provide perspective.

However, sometimes a superficial attempt to put events into context is better than none.  Case in point: the present unrest in the Middle East. Having lit the match, like any good arsonist, we want to distance ourselves from the fire. Mideast Spiraling in War and Terror, a recent CNN article, hides our tracks through charred forests.

First stop: Libya.

Gaddafi was overthrown by our NATO partners. Although they now have the run of the country, the jihadists played only a supporting role in toppling Gaddafi.  For the Department, Libya is a fiasco rivalled only by Iraq. Thoughtfully, CNN has completely written us out of Libya's history.

Next stop: Syria.

The armed opposition to Assad is largely comprised of hard-line Islamist groups including al-Nusra, ISIS and al-Qaeda. Moderates represent only a fraction of the firepower arrayed against Assad.  CNN says "rebels want to end the rule of al-Assad." Of course for extremist rebels, the endgame is Islamic rule. 

The video accompanying the article includes a map in which Syria and Iraq have been disappeared:

By showing Islamic State in control of all of Syria and Iraq, CNN makes the situation in the Middle East look bleaker than it really is. This wild distortion isn't fully qualified by correspondent Jim Sciutto in his narration of the video. Although Sciutto says IS/ISIS has "taken over more than a third" of Iraq, concerning ISIS in Syria, Sciutto says, "it was one of several rebel groups that was fighting the regime of Bashar al Assad." Of course, ISIS continues to fight the Syrian government.  The map, paired with Sciutto's narrative, wildly exaggerates IS successes. It overlooks Syria's role as the region's strongest bulwark against Islamic State.  Should we ever decide to attack Syria, CNN's audience won't think we're out of our minds.

CNN knows better than to let facts get in the way of a promising new narrative. In the video Jim Sciutto says, "When you look at these crisis, each one has brought a different policy response: in Syria, no intervention..." No intervention? Of course, in June we publicly admitted that we're aiding jihadists groups fighting the Syrian government.  Our continued support for various jihadist groups in Syria protects ISIS by diverting Assad's forces.  

How does CNN explain what happened in Iraq? 

Since spilling into Iraq from Syria...  No need to explain how that happened. No need to point out that we supported the efforts of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to train and arm thousands of Syria-bound jihadists; that we ourselves supplied jihadists fighting in Syria with aid, training and weapons. No need to explain that these policies wrecked Syria's ability to secure its territory and thereby created sufficient instability in Syria for ISIS to grow roots and now "spill into Iraq."  

Is CNN effective? We think so. Readers reacted as we might have hoped to this rewriting of Mideast history. Instead of blaming the Department for bombing otherwise stable nations like Libya and aiding jihadists from Tripoli to Aleppo, CNN's audience is learning--through reports like this one--to blame the locals. 

Readers of the CNN article said they liked this comment best: 

Mission accomplished.

CNN's Smokin Coverage of Ferguson Curfew

Department staff monitored CNN's coverage of the first night of the curfew in Ferguson, Missouri.

American's Dick Awards: Nominees

Update:  The results are in.

Named in honor of Richard Cheney, the America's Dick Award recognizes contributions of foreign leaders to our mission. America's Dick is a foreign leader who has gone the extra mile to advanced the agenda of the U.S. Department of Fear and its corporate partners.  He (or she) embodies our values in the day-to-day conduct of their office. While all of this year's nominees gladly put our agenda before the needs of their own citizens, America's Dick is the leader who people say would be most likely to screw them for us.

This year's nominees are: Shinzō Abe (PM of Japan), Tony Abbott (PM of Australia), David Cameron (PM of UK), Recep Erdoğan (PM of Turkey), Stephen Harper (PM of Canada), Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) and Fredrik Reinfeldt (PM of Sweden).

Some leaders aren't eligible.  For example, Israeli PM Netanyahu is a dick, but he's not our dick.  Also, since they don't have a choice about tagging along, little pricks from insolvent client states like Ukraine, Ireland or Greece aren't eligible.

After reviewing the nominees, cast your vote at the top of the page (http://feardepartment.com). You can only vote for one leader.  The poll closes on August 21, 2014.  

Ferguson photo op

Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post shot this photo of a staff member
just before we arrested him. (AP Photo/WaPo/Wesley Lowery).

The golden arches, symbol of our largest fast food industry partner, are believed to have been inspired by the St. Louis landmark. During the recent protests in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson, staff could often be found eating at McDonalds.

The other day, two journalists from the Washington Post and Huffington Post came into our McDonalds.

When the reporters pointed their video cameras at us, we had them arrested and roughed up a bit.

To commemorate arresting 2 journalists in a #Ferguson McDonalds, had staff photo taken in front of golden arches: pic.twitter.com/KAqkfmlh9V
— U.S. Dept. of Fear (@FearDept) August 14, 2014

@FearDept We all used to laugh at that stupid Red Dawn movie, then it came true pic.twitter.com/VMYE91kxnc
— Julia Wilson (@Unirregardless) August 15, 2014