May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Skepticism and critical thinking is not panacea, but can help to understand the world better
The problem of control of intelligence services in democratic societies
There is a deep analogy between financial services and intelligence services. Both have access to
funds that can be channel of acquiring political control. Both try to escape from
the control of democratic society. BTW Allen Dulles was recruited from Wall Street law form.
The key question is: Can democratic state ensure that intelligence
services remained under control of elected officials?
Looks like the answer is: No. As JFK
assassination had shown that tail soon start wagging the dog. In 1974 Seymour Hersh published
a front-page article in The New York Times headlined "Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in
U.S. Against Anti-War Forces." Hersh's article alleged that the Agency had been engaged in massive
domestic spying activities.
1 His charges stunned the White House and Congress. In 1975 Gerald ford tried to
recover some of lost influence of executive branch (see
U.S. President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States - Files ).
On 27 January 1975, the US Senate established the Senate Select Committee to Study Government
Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities (the Church Committee). On 19 February 1975, the
House voted to create a House Select Intelligence Committee (
The Pike Committee Investigations and the CIA — Central Intelligence Agency):
The investigations of the Pike Committee, headed by Democratic Representative Otis Pike of New
York, paralleled those of the Church Committee, led by Idaho Senator Frank Church, also a
Democrat. While the Church Committee centered its attention on the more sensational charges of
illegal activities by the CIA and other components of the IC, the Pike Committee set about
examining the CIA's effectiveness and its costs to taxpayers. Unfortunately, Representative Pike,
the committee, and its staff never developed a cooperative working relationship with the Agency
or the Ford administration.
Gerald K. Haines is the Agency Historian at CIA. He also heads CIA's History
Staff.
The same development happened in the USSR. At the end of existence of the USSR it was not clear
whether the Communist Party controlled KGB, or vice versa. Andropov was the first the Secretary of
the CPSU who previously was the head of KGB, but on the level Politburo members that process
probably was in place since 60th. That was probably the reasons why conversion of
neoliberalism in the USSR was so quick and smooth: it was approved and facilitated by KGB brass.
They simply switched sides.
How can democratic societies ensure that intelligence services are able to operate
effectively while complying with democratic norms and standards? This book chapter
from the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces examines the
control and oversight of intelligence services in democratic states. It argues
that security and intelligence agencies have special features that make effective
control and oversight particularly challenging. Democratic oversight and
accountability of intelligence services requires constant vigilance from the
executive, legislature, judiciary and civil society.
The challenges of effective
control and oversight of intelligence are significant and daunting, particularly in
environments where perceptions of threats to security are heightened. The paradox of
striving for transparency in an inherently secretive area and the degree of
professional discretion that effective intelligence requires are central issues.
Nevertheless, the values and norms which are fundamental to democratic systems
require that intelligence agencies are accountable and subject to internal control
and external oversight.
Horizontal accountability refers to the accountability of state institutions to
other state institutions. Vertical accountability refers to accountability within the
hierarchy of state institutions and of state institutions to the public. The ‘third
dimension’ of accountability refers to the role of international actors in holding
state institutions to account. These three forms of accountability highlight the
importance for ensuring democratic oversight and accountability of intelligence
services of various actors, including:
The executive – Ministers exercise control of intelligence through
directives and policy guidelines. Governments and intelligence agencies should not
have too close a relationship to avoid politicisation of intelligence and
weakening of oversight.
Intelligence agencies themselves – Directors and senior management
can enforce accountability within institutions. Channels for reporting illegal
action, together with a commitment to professional ethics and standards, can
contribute to accountability.
Civil society and the media – Lobbying and advocacy by civil society
organisations can influence intelligence policies and hold intelligence agencies
and their political masters to account.
The legislature – Legislatures can review reports from the
intelligence services submitted to parliament and scrutinise intelligence services
through specialised committees.
The judiciary – Courts can review intelligence service powers and
government actions to ensure that they do not violate citizens’ rights.
International actors – Donor governments and international
organisations can seek to influence state actors on issues such as human rights
and democracy.
Control of intelligence services confronts a number of structural problems.
Secrecy, the discretionary authority granted to intelligence practitioners, the
principle of ‘plausible denial’ and claims of national security all pose challenges
for control of intelligence. Oversight and control of intelligence also faces a
number of paradoxes:
The dependence of oversight committees on the intelligence community versus
independence. Oversight committees are highly dependent on the intelligence
services for information. Without this information, however, they cannot be
effective.
The adversary versus advocacy issue. An antagonistic relationship between
overseers and intelligence agencies can prevent the sharing of information. A
cooperative relationship, however, can lead to the overseer’s loss of
independence.
Functional versus institutional oversight. Oversight bodies are often
established for specific institutions. However, as intelligence becomes the
responsibility of various institutions, some may escape oversight.
Secrecy and the public interest. Secrecy is vital to many intelligence
activities. However, overly stringent restrictions on information are likely to
hinder public debate and scrutiny of security agencies and activities.
"... Former FBI Director James Comey has been under investigation for misleading President Trump - telling him in private that he wasn't the target of an ongoing FBI probe, while refusing to admit to this in public. ..."
"... Comey was essentially "running a covert operation" against Trump - which began with a private "defensive briefing" shortly after the inauguration. RCI 's sources say that Horowitz has pored over text messages between the FBI's former top-brass and other communications suggesting that Comey was in fact conducting a "counterintelligence assessment" of the president during their January 2017 meeting in New York. ..."
"... What's more, the FBI couldn't treat Trump as a suspect - formally, as they didn't have the legal grounds to do so according to former FBI counterintelligence lawyer Mark Wauck. " They had no probable cause against Trump himself for 'collusion' or espionage ," he said, adding "They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found nothing." ..."
"... According to House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Comey and the rest of the FBI's top team (including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) were attempting to "stop" Trump's presidency for political reasons. ..."
"... "You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information" to the MSM, said Nunes in a recent interview. ..."
"... Comey is just the political class operative who they brought in to save Scooter Libby's butt in the Valerie Flame leak. Then he got a seven figure job as a reward at a hedge fund (with no prior experience in the financial industry). Then, they took him off the bench to be FBI director. ..."
"... The larger problem is that the "five eyes" system is broken in favor of British surveillance and interference in our elections, and, the Patriot Act practice of "masking" is a complete violation of the fourth amendment and a fraud. From a fourth amendment analysis, it's like letting the police search everyone's house every day as long as they don't look at the name on the address. ..."
"... This investigation would explain why Comey, Brennan, and other members of Barry Obama's regime are very quiet, while Congressional Democrats are freaking out. ..."
"... Does the DOJ investigate British agents? Serious question. ..."
Former FBI Director James Comey has been under investigation for misleading President
Trump - telling him in private that he wasn't the target of an ongoing FBI probe, while
refusing to admit to this in public.
According to
RealClearInvestigations ' Paul Sperry, "Justice Department Inspector General Michael
Horowitz will file a report in September which contains evidence that Comey was misleading the
president " while conducting an active investigation against him.
Even as he repeatedly assured Trump that he was not a target, the former director was
secretly trying to build a conspiracy case against the president, while at times acting as an
investigative agent . -
RCI
According to two US officials familiar with Horowitz's upcoming report on FBI misconduct,
Comey was essentially "running a covert operation" against Trump - which began with a
private "defensive briefing" shortly after the inauguration. RCI 's sources say that Horowitz
has pored over text messages between the FBI's former top-brass and other communications
suggesting that Comey was in fact conducting a "counterintelligence assessment" of the
president during their January 2017 meeting in New York.
What's more, Comey had an FBI agent in the White House who reported the activities of Trump
and his aides, according to 'other officials familiar with the matter.'
The agent, Anthony Ferrante, who specialized in cyber crime, left the White House around
the same time Comey was fired and soon joined a security consulting firm, where he contracted
with BuzzFeed to lead the news site's efforts to verify the Steele dossier, in connection
with a defamation lawsuit. -RCI
According to the report, Horowitz and his team have examined over 1 million documents and
conducted over 100 interviews - including sit-downs with Comey and other current and former FBI
and DOJ employees. "The period covering Comey's activities is believed to run from early
January 2017 to early May 2017, when Comey was fired and his deputy Andrew McCabe, as the
acting FBI director, formally
opened full counterintelligence and obstruction investigations of the president."
McCabe's deputy, Lisa Page, appeared to dissemble last year when asked in closed-door
testimony before the House Judiciary Committee if Comey and other FBI brass discussed opening
an obstruction case against Trump prior to his firing in May 2017. Initially, she flatly
denied it , swearing: "Obstruction of justice was not a topic of conversation during the time
frame you have described." But then, after conferring with her FBI-assigned lawyer, she
announced: " I need to take back my prior statement ." Page later conceded that there could
have been at least "discussions about potential criminal activity" involving the president .
-RCI
Comey coordination
Sperry notes that Comey wasn't working in isolation on the Trump effort. In particular,
Horowitz has looked at the January 6, 2017 briefing on the infamous 'Steele Dossier' - a
meeting which was used by BuzzFeed, CNN and others to legitimize reporting on the dossier's
salacious and unsubstantiated claims .
Comey's meeting with Trump took place one day after the FBI director met in the Oval
Office with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to discuss how to brief Trump -- a
meeting attended by National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh
Johnson, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and National Intelligence Director James
Clapper, who would soon go to work for CNN. -RCI
While Comey claims in his book, "A Higher Loyalty" that he didn't have "a
counterintelligence case file open on [Trump]," former federal prosecutor and National Review
columnist Andrew McCarthy notes that just because Trump's name wasn't on a formal file or
surveillance warrant doesn't mean that he wasn't under investigation.
"They were hoping to surveil him incidentally, and they were trying to make a case on him,"
said McCarthy. " The real reason Comey did not want to repeat publicly the assurances he made
to Trump privately is that these assurances were misleading . The FBI strung Trump along,
telling him he was not a suspect while structuring the investigation in accordance with the
reality that Trump was the main subject ."
What's more, the FBI couldn't treat Trump as a suspect - formally, as they didn't have
the legal grounds to do so according to former FBI counterintelligence lawyer Mark Wauck. "
They had no probable cause against Trump himself for 'collusion' or espionage ," he said,
adding "They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found
nothing."
What remains unclear is why Comey would take such extraordinary steps against a sitting
president . The Mueller report concluded there was no basis for the Trump-Russia collusion
conspiracy theories. Comey himself was an early skeptic of the Steele dossier -- the
opposition research memos paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign that were the road map of
collusion theories -- which he dismissed as "salacious and unverified." -RCI
According to House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Comey and
the rest of the FBI's top team (including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) were attempting to "stop"
Trump's presidency for political reasons.
"You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying
on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information"
to the MSM, said Nunes in a recent interview.
They will whitewash Comey. The deep state is alive and well, the DoJ and the FBI are as
corrupt as they were the day before Trump took office.
Why do I say this? Well, the canary hasn't fallen off her perch yet. Hillary Clinton is
still singing her song, and even making noises like she's going to run again, and she's not
in prison. They have her solid on over a hundred felony counts of mishandling classified
documents and they've not touched her. Proof of life that the Deep State is still in
power.
So, was the Steele dossier the ex post facto excuse for illegally spying on Trump, or was
it the ex post facto diversion for ALL of Obama's spying on politically powerful people,
which we know included spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee, spying on reporters, and
spying on Trump. I'll bet Obama hopes the investigation doesn't get into all of his spying
activities, and I wouldn't be surprised government officials in charge of the spying
equipment are keeping it covered up because they don't want to lose their jobs (for either
allowing such to happen, or because they fear the spying apparatus will be eliminated).
Did Obama also spy on SCOTUS justices, Congressmen, other Senators and other rich and
powerful people? I'll bet he did, because we haven't seen all the unmasking documentation,
and Obama took it to his library so no one can see it (at least so he thinks). Further, look
at the way Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Rice are disparaging Trump (they protest too much).
And look at how all the allegations about Trump are blowing right back into the faces of the
Democrats who've shown their MO is to accuse their political opponents, of the illegal
activity in which the Democrats are engaged.
They need to go to jail, for a long time, if not be executed for treason.
Did Obama spy on SCOTUS justices, et al? - Yes. Look up project HAMR or "Hammer". MI5/6
was spying on all Americans comms to circumvent legal frameworks (5 eyes). Google is now
fully Chinese intelligence - TREASON. It's coming and it's gonna blow most people's
minds.
It started a very long time ago. 1913 was a notable date, so was JFK's assassination. So
was 9/11. So was Operation Paperclip. These monsters have been slithering around a while. Now
it's time for them to go bye-bye. Dark to Light. Execute.
Comey is just the political class operative who they brought in to save Scooter
Libby's butt in the Valerie Flame leak. Then he got a seven figure job as a reward at a hedge
fund (with no prior experience in the financial industry). Then, they took him off the bench
to be FBI director.
The larger problem is that the "five eyes" system is broken in favor of British
surveillance and interference in our elections, and, the Patriot Act practice of "masking" is
a complete violation of the fourth amendment and a fraud. From a fourth amendment analysis,
it's like letting the police search everyone's house every day as long as they don't look at
the name on the address.
That our broken secrecy system effectively legalized Watergate under Obama and the "five
eyes" is the real problem that needs fixing.
This investigation would explain why Comey, Brennan, and other members of Barry Obama's
regime are very quiet, while Congressional Democrats are freaking out. The end of the Deep
State is starting.
"... If the answer is yes, then the IG must provide the House and Senate Armed Services committees with a report on the experiments' scope and "whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment design." The amendment is an attempt to confirm or deny reports that Pentagon researchers -- at places such as Fort Detrick in Maryland and Plum Island in New York -- implanted diseases into insects to learn about the effects of biological weapons and also looked into using such insects to disseminate biological agents. ..."
"... A book called "Bitten," published this year, makes the case that the Defense Department research occurred and hints at a possible connection between the experiments and the spread of maladies such as Lyme disease, which is borne by ticks. ..."
"... Between 300,000 and 427,000 new cases of Lyme disease occur each year, with further growth expected in the years ahead, said Smith, a founding co-chairman of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus, which advocates for greater awareness of the disease and for more funding for research into a cure. ..."
"... Pat Smith, president of the Lyme Disease Association, said in an interview Monday that she is hopeful the IG report could provide information that could save lives. ..."
"... "We need to find out: is there anything in this research that was supposedly done that can help us to find information that is germane to patient health and combating the spread of the disease," she said. ..."
The House quietly voted last week to require the Pentagon inspector general to tell Congress whether the department experimented
with weaponizing disease-carrying insects and whether they were released into the public realm -- either accidentally or on purpose.
The unusual proposal took the form of an amendment that was adopted by
voice vote July 11 during House
debate on the fiscal 2020 defense authorization bill, which lawmakers passed the following day.
The amendment, by New Jersey Republican
Christopher H. Smith
, says the inspector general "shall conduct a review of whether the Department of Defense experimented with ticks and other insects
regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950 and 1975."
If the answer is yes, then the IG must provide the House and Senate Armed Services committees with a report on the experiments'
scope and "whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment
design." The amendment is an attempt to confirm or deny reports that Pentagon researchers -- at places such as Fort Detrick in Maryland
and Plum Island in New York -- implanted diseases into insects to learn about the effects of biological weapons and also looked into
using such insects to disseminate biological agents.
President Richard Nixon banned U.S. government research into biological weapons in 1969, but research into protecting U.S. military
personnel from such agents may have continued, Smith said in an interview Monday.
A book called "Bitten," published this year, makes the case that the Defense Department research occurred and hints at a possible
connection between the experiments and the spread of maladies such as Lyme disease, which is borne by ticks.
To Smith and other advocates of the Pentagon IG report, studying the past may provide data that can help stem the spread of Lyme
disease in the future.
Between 300,000 and 427,000 new cases of Lyme disease occur each year, with further growth expected in the years ahead, said
Smith, a founding co-chairman of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus, which advocates for greater awareness of the disease and
for more funding for research into a cure.
"We need answers and we need them now," Smith said.
Smith's amendment was co-sponsored by Minnesota Democrat
Collin C. Peterson
, who is the House caucus's other leader, and by Maryland Republican
Andy Harris .
Pat Smith, president of the Lyme Disease Association, said in an interview Monday that she is hopeful the IG report could
provide information that could save lives.
"We need to find out: is there anything in this research that was supposedly done that can help us to find information that
is germane to patient health and combating the spread of the disease," she said.
It remains to be seen whether Congress will send President Donald Trump a defense authorization bill with the weaponized ticks
amendment. The Senate has passed its version without any similar provision, and now House and Senate negotiators must reconcile the
two bills.
"... Moreover, if, as the memorandum asserted, 'British officials' were also aware that the 'most reliable intelligence' exonerated the Syrian government, rather fundamental questions arose as to how the JIC had felt able to claim precisely the reverse in support of David Cameron's unsuccessful attempt on 29 August to win Commons' support for British participation in air strikes. ..."
"... At the time, the Director General, Defence and Intelligence at the FCO was one Robert Hannigan, who in April 2014 would be appointed as Director of GCHQ. The National Security Adviser was a certain Sir Kim Darroch, whose appointment as Ambassador to the U.S. would be announced in August 2015. Both have been in the news, in relation to 'Russiagate.' ..."
"... Obviously, the same question arises about both of them as about Brennan: are they 'Gleiwitz types', who were actively complicit in preparing a murderous 'false flag', or were they simply part of a rather stupid Anglo-American 'dog', whom the 'tail', in the shape of the jihadists and their Turkish, Saudi and Qatari backers, could 'wag', as they chose? ..."
"... From the articles which Seymour Hersh published in the 'London Review of Books', and other materials, it became evident that the Defense Intelligence Agency, then headed by General Flynn, had been aware of the likelihood of fresh 'false flags' -- after the small scale incidents in spring 2013. ..."
"... An argument that 'Sundance' has repeatedly made is that a lot of what was happening in mid-2016, including the dossier attributed to Steele, had to do with the need to find justifications for these questionable surveillance operations. ..."
"... While I think there is something in this, I have long thought that the discovery that a mass of material exfiltrated from the DNC, and was going to be published by 'WikiLeaks', and the subsequent murder of Seth Rich, are likely to have been critically important triggers. ..."
"... panic-stricken improvisation found alike in the dossier, and the claims about the 'digital forensics' made by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'CrowdStrike', and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait. ..."
"... A week later, Butowsky filed a new action, in which the suggestion of a very-wide ranging conspiracy to suppress the truth about both the DNC leaks and Rich's murder was turned into a catalogue of defamation claims against a long list of people, including, as well as a variety of lawyers involved, CNN, the'Nw York Times', Vox, and the DNC. ..."
"... 'That Seth Rich was wacked because he stole the DNC emails and transferred them to Wikileaks is a conspiracy theory. It is possible and even plausible, but there is no evidence to confirm it. Many people seem to believe it because it makes more sense than the competing conspiracy theory, that Russia hacked the DNC and handed the emails to Wikileaks. Isikoff's claim, that Russia planted the Rich conspiracy theory, has no sound base. That theory existed before anything "Russian" mentioned it.' ..."
"... Reading the full text of Ms. Craven's report, I can see quite how well justified was Larry's suggestion in his post that Folkenflik and NPR were on a very sticky wicket indeed (as we say in England.) ..."
"... However, 'fools rush in', as the saying goes, so Isikoff decided to conspire with Deborah Sines, apparently the former U.S. assistant attorney in charge of investigating Seth Rich's murder, to suggest that suggestions that the victim had been the source of the material from the DNC published by 'WikiLeaks' originated as just another Russian plot. ..."
"... It appears that prior to the publication of his 'report', Isikoff talked to Butowsky, who in his efforts to dissuade him explained that his involvement in the whole affair began when Ellen Ratner, a news analyst with Fox, and sister of the late Michael Ratner, who had been an attorney for Assange, contacted him in Fall 2016 about a meeting she had with her that figure. ..."
"... And then, not particularly surprisingly, Butowsky and Clevenger abandoned their inhibitions about identifying Ellen Ratner as a source, and filled in a lot of 'blanks' in their 'narrative' about how Seth Rich lived and died. ..."
"... Among the many problems for Brennan and his co-conspirators -- among whom, on the British side, Hannigan and Darroch, and also Sedwill, are very important -- one relates to the way that the capabilities of 'scientific forensics', in all kinds of areas, have increased by leaps and bounds in recent years. ..."
"... This has meant that they have had little option but to corrupt the processes of investigation. The ludicrous claims by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait, which nobody but a fool -- congenital 'useful idiot' one might say -- or a knave would dare to defend in public, are only one of many cases in point. ..."
One does not like to admit to having been one of John Brennan's 'useful idiots' -- I had
thought I could see through any of the 'active measures' which he and his co-conspirators, on
both sides of the Atlantic, could dream up. But I had swallowed whole the notion that Michael
Flynn had been stupid enough knowingly to get involved in Erdoğan's feud with
Gülen.
In fairness, however, I do think that when dealing with spiders like the former head of
the CIA, a prudent fly needs to be sure he, or she, gets competent legal advice at the
outset.
It may perhaps be interesting to put your account together with a post by 'Sundance' on
the 'Conservative Treehouse' site on 14 July, headlined 'Devin Nunes Discusses Upcoming
Mueller Testimony '
This takes up the issue, on which its author has commented extensively, of illegitimate
access by contractors to the databases of NSA intercepts -- an issue which is clearly bound
up with that of the use of such material to create the 'web' in which Flynn found himself
hopelessly entangled.
The post by 'Sundance' suggests, just as you do, that the driving force behind what has
happened was actually John Brennan. The April 2017 ruling by FISA Court Presiding Judge
Rosemary Collyer does not definitely establish that the illegitimate access of contractors
started in 2012, but it definitely strongly suggests that it did.
Reading the 6 September 'Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity' memorandum to
Obama, entitled 'Is Syria a Trap?', whose signatories included both you and Colonel Lang, it
seemed overwhelmingly likely to some of us who were familiar with both your writings that
Brennan had to have been involved in a conspiracy with the Turks, Saudis, and Qataris.
One relevant question related to whether the role of the Americans involved in this
conspiracy was simply 'ex post facto' exploitation of the patent 'false flag' sarin atrocity
at Ghouta the previous 21 August to attempt to inveigle the United States into toppling
Assad, or whether there was 'ex ante' complicity.
Moreover, if, as the memorandum asserted, 'British officials' were also aware that the
'most reliable intelligence' exonerated the Syrian government, rather fundamental questions
arose as to how the JIC had felt able to claim precisely the reverse in support of David
Cameron's unsuccessful attempt on 29 August to win Commons' support for British participation
in air strikes.
At the time, the Director General, Defence and Intelligence at the FCO was one Robert
Hannigan, who in April 2014 would be appointed as Director of GCHQ. The National Security
Adviser was a certain Sir Kim Darroch, whose appointment as Ambassador to the U.S. would be
announced in August 2015. Both have been in the news, in relation to 'Russiagate.'
Obviously, the same question arises about both of them as about Brennan: are they
'Gleiwitz types', who were actively complicit in preparing a murderous 'false flag', or were
they simply part of a rather stupid Anglo-American 'dog', whom the 'tail', in the shape of
the jihadists and their Turkish, Saudi and Qatari backers, could 'wag', as they chose?
From the articles which Seymour Hersh published in the 'London Review of Books', and other
materials, it became evident that the Defense Intelligence Agency, then headed by General
Flynn, had been aware of the likelihood of fresh 'false flags' -- after the small scale
incidents in spring 2013.
And it was clear enough, if one bothered to study the 'open source' material at all
carefully, that the DIA had been a key locus of opposition to the strategies being pursued by
Brennan, together with his British co-conspirators.
Accordingly, the fact that an 'interagency memorandum of understanding', which according
to Collyer's judgement looks as though it may well date from 2012 -- the year Brennan was
appointed to head the CIA -- appears to have led, in that year, to the granting of access to
the material, through the FBI, to outside contractors, looks somewhat interesting. (This is
well covered by 'Sundance'.)
So, I find myself asking whether in fact this gross abuse of the role of the NSA was not
linked at the outset to the divisions within the American intelligence apparatus and military
about policy towards the Middle East, and also whether this may not be relevant to assessing
the role of Robert Mueller, who was FBI Director through until September 2013.
An argument that 'Sundance' has repeatedly made is that a lot of what was happening in
mid-2016, including the dossier attributed to Steele, had to do with the need to find
justifications for these questionable surveillance operations.
While I think there is something in this, I have long thought that the discovery that a
mass of material exfiltrated from the DNC, and was going to be published by 'WikiLeaks', and
the subsequent murder of Seth Rich, are likely to have been critically important
triggers.
Among other things, I do not think that the version given by 'Sundance' can explain the
air of panic-stricken improvisation found alike in the dossier, and the claims about the
'digital forensics' made by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'CrowdStrike', and the former GCHQ person
Matt Tait.
I see that there has now been a dramatic escalation in the legal battles which began when
Ed Butowsky bought his initial action against David Folkenflik and his 'NPR' colleagues in
June 2018. The discovery process in that action was followed by an 'Amended Complaint' on 5
March this year.
A week later, Butowsky filed a new action, in which the suggestion of a very-wide ranging
conspiracy to suppress the truth about both the DNC leaks and Rich's murder was turned into a
catalogue of defamation claims against a long list of people, including, as well as a variety
of lawyers involved, CNN, the'Nw York Times', Vox, and the DNC.
On 9 July, Michael Isikoff published a story alleging that the claims about Rich and his
murder were the result of a Russian 'active measures' operation -- to use a favourite phrase
of TTG's.
'That Seth Rich was wacked because he stole the DNC emails and transferred them to
Wikileaks is a conspiracy theory. It is possible and even plausible, but there is no evidence
to confirm it. Many people seem to believe it because it makes more sense than the competing
conspiracy theory, that Russia hacked the DNC and handed the emails to Wikileaks. Isikoff's
claim, that Russia planted the Rich conspiracy theory, has no sound base. That theory existed
before anything "Russian" mentioned it.'
As it happens, Butowsky and his lawyer, Ty Clevenger, obviously decided it was time to, as
it were, 'unmask their batteries', and provide some of the evidence they have been
accumulating.
There is another useful post by 'Sundance', which in turn links to a very interesting post
on the Gateway Pundit' site. From there, you can access both Clevenger's blog post, and the
text of the 'Amended Complaint.'
It seems likely that Butowsky and Clevenger were pushed into acting a bit sooner than they
had intended. The fact that the name of Ellen Ratner, clearly a pivotal participant, was
misspellled 'Rattner' in the 'Amended Complaint', is likely to be an indication of this.
However, I also think that Clevenger, who seems to me a first-class 'ferret', could do
with the services of an old-style secretary, who checked his productions before they went
out.
As I have previously mentioned, I testified several times in Collyer's Washington district
court on non-FISA matters. My impression was that she is a very ambitious woman who wishes
always to do DoJ's bidding.
Your recollections of Collyer had, unfortunately, slipped my mind when I posted my comment
above. So, unfortunately, had Larry's post on Judge Caroline M. Craven's denial in her report
dated 17 April 2019 of the Motion to Dismiss filed by David Folkenflik and his NPR colleagues
in the defamation case brought against them by Ed Butowsky.
At the time of his post, the full text of the judgement was only available on PACER, which
requires a subscription. However, looking at the 'Court Listener' site, I now see that both
it and some other key documents in the case are freely available.
Reading the full text of Ms. Craven's report, I can see quite how well justified was
Larry's suggestion in his post that Folkenflik and NPR were on a very sticky wicket indeed
(as we say in England.)
And I can also see more clearly why, following the judgement, Butowsky and Ty Clevenger
felt they were in a position to launch an action both against some of the major legal players
in the cover-up of the fact that the materials published by the DNC were leaked by Seth Rich,
not hacked by the Russians, and also key disseminators of the cover-up, CNN, the NYT, and
Vox.
What looks to have happened subsequently is a natural enough process of escalation.
Among those who rather actively promoted the hogwash attributed to Christopher Steele was
Michael Isikoff, who is, apparently, chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News. In
April, he was reported in 'Vanity Fair' conceding that 'I think it's fair to say that all of
us should have approached this, in retrospect, with more skepticism'.
Any 'investigative reporter' worth his or her salt would have done elementary checks on
the dossier immediately, and not touched it with a bargepole -- again, as we used to say in
England. Also, even among the incompetent and corrupt, common prudence might have suggested
caution.
However, 'fools rush in', as the saying goes, so Isikoff decided to conspire with
Deborah Sines, apparently the former U.S. assistant attorney in charge of investigating Seth
Rich's murder, to suggest that suggestions that the victim had been the source of the
material from the DNC published by 'WikiLeaks' originated as just another Russian
plot.
It appears that prior to the publication of his 'report', Isikoff talked to Butowsky,
who in his efforts to dissuade him explained that his involvement in the whole affair began
when Ellen Ratner, a news analyst with Fox, and sister of the late Michael Ratner, who had
been an attorney for Assange, contacted him in Fall 2016 about a meeting she had with her
that figure.
Although Butowsky intended the conversation to be 'off the record', and the idea was
emphatically not that Isikoff would contact Ellen Ratner, he did. It seems that -- not
particularly surprisingly, in the current climate -- she lied to him, and he was stupid
enough to think that this meant he could get away with publishing his story.
And then, not particularly surprisingly, Butowsky and Clevenger abandoned their
inhibitions about identifying Ellen Ratner as a source, and filled in a lot of 'blanks' in
their 'narrative' about how Seth Rich lived and died.
I am still in the process of digesting the new information. However, a couple of
preliminary observations about the implications may be worth making.
Among the many problems for Brennan and his co-conspirators -- among whom, on the
British side, Hannigan and Darroch, and also Sedwill, are very important -- one relates to
the way that the capabilities of 'scientific forensics', in all kinds of areas, have
increased by leaps and bounds in recent years.
This has meant that they have had little option but to corrupt the processes of
investigation. The ludicrous claims by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'Crowdstrike' and the former
GCHQ person Matt Tait, which nobody but a fool -- congenital 'useful idiot' one might say --
or a knave would dare to defend in public, are only one of many cases in point.
What is really dangerous for the conspirators, however, is when the problems they have in
contesting rational arguments about the 'scientific forensics' come together with problems
relating to more 'old-fashioned' kinds of evidence: crucially, 'witness testimony'.
This, I think, may now be happening.
It also seems to me quite likely that some of those 'in the know' -- including perhaps
Rosemary Collyer -- had seen what was liable to happen a good while ago, and decided that a
prudent 'rat' keeps its options open.
"... This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of ..."
"... Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at ..."
"... War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate ..."
his
Wikipedia biography , he has -- or he had -- "a sterling reputation" both among Republicans
and Democrats. That changed when Barr announced his ongoing investigation into the origins of
Russiagate, a vital subject
I, too, have explored .
As Barr explained , "What we're looking at is: What was the predicate for conducting a
counterintelligence investigation on the Trump campaign. How did the bogus narrative begin that
Trump was essentially in cahoots with Russia to interfere with the U.S. election?" Still more,
Barr, who is empowered to declassify highly sensitive documents, made clear that his primary
focus was not the hapless FBI under James Comey but the CIA under John Brennan. Evidently this
was too much for leading Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who assailed Barr for having "just
destroyed the scintilla of credibility that he had left." Not known for a sense of irony,
Schumer accused Barr of using "the words of conspiracy theorists," as though Russiagate
itself is not among the most malign and consequential conspiracy theories in American political
history.
More indicative is the reaction of the generally liberal pro-Democratic New York
Times and Washington Post , the country's two most important political
newspapers, to Barr's investigation. Leaning heavily on the "expert" opinion of former
intelligence officials and McCarthy-echoing members of Congress such as Adam Schiff, both
papers went into outrage mode.
The Times bemoaned Barr's "drastic escalation of [Trump's] yearslong assault on
the intelligence community" while rejecting "the president's unfounded claims that his campaign
had been spied on," even though some forms of FBI and CIA infiltration and surveillance of the
2016 Trump campaign are now well documented. (See, for example,
Lee Smith's reporting .)
Unconcerned by the activities of either agency, the papers
warned ominously that Barr's probe "effectively strips [the CIA] of its most critical
power: choosing which secrets it shares and which remain hidden." It "could be tremendously
damaging to the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies." Not surprisingly, given the
Times ' three-year role in promulgating Russiagate allegations, it preempted Barr's
investigation
by declaring that US intelligence agencies' covert actions were part of "a lawful
investigation aimed at understanding a foreign power's efforts to manipulate an American
election." Considering what is now known, this generalization seems a whitewash both of the
Times ' coverage and the agencies' conduct. (In the Post , see coverage by
Toluse Olorunnipa and
Shane Harris .)
Hillary Clinton, also not surprisingly, agreed. As paraphrased by Matt Stevens
in the Times on May 3 , she accused Barr of diverting attention "from what the
real story is. The real story is the Russian interference in our election." According to the
defeated Democratic candidate, "the Russians were successful in sowing 'discord and
divisiveness' in the country, and helping Mr. Trump." But who has actually sowed more "discord
and divisiveness" in America -- the Russians or Mrs. Clinton and her supporters, by still
refusing to accept the legitimacy of her electoral loss and Trump's victory?
Unfortunately, but predictably, Barr's investigation has become polarizing, with Fox News,
for example, bannering each new unsavory Russiagate revelation and the Times and the
Post mostly ignoring them altogether. In particular, the Democratic Party, once
traditionally skeptical of intelligence agencies, is becoming the party of an intel cult and
thus of the new US-Russian Cold War. Only a few of the party's leaders, notably presidential
candidate Tulsi Gabbard, demur from this dangerous folly. (Might Democratic reticence also be
due to the circumstance that the intelligence chiefs now under investigation were appointees of
former President Obama, who has been remarkably silent about the entire Russiagate saga? What,
as I have asked previously, did Obama know, when did he know it, and what did he do?)
Everyone who cares about the quality of American political life, no matter what they think
about Trump, should encourage Barr's probe. To resort to a familiar cliché, Russiagate
allegations have become a spreading cancer in American politics, with Democratic congressional
candidates raising funds by promising, despite the exculpatory findings of Robert Mueller
regarding "collusion," to fight evil "Trump-Putin" forces in Washington. Meanwhile, some
Republicans, despite ample contrary evidence, preposterously blame Russia itself -- for the
infamous Steele Dossier, for example. (By the way, for more irony, Trump is regularly accused
in the above-cited news accounts of "siding with" Russian President Vladimir Putin in denying
that any "collusion" determined the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, a conclusion
also reached by Mueller, thereby putting Trump, Putin, and Mueller on the same
"side.")
Ideally, we would have an investigation of the intelligence agencies entirely independent of
the White House and headed by an eminent political figure who is not a presidential appointee,
as was the 1975 Senate Church Committee. For now, we have only Trump's attorney general,
William Barr. Nonetheless, we should support him, however conditionally. Rogue intelligence
agencies subvert democracy, and the next candidate they target -- as they did Trump -- may be
yours.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host ofThe John Batchelor
Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are atTheNation.com .William Barr, a
two-time attorney general who served at the CIA in the 1970s, would seem to be an ultimate
Washington insider. According to his Wikipedia biography , he has -- or he had
-- "a sterling reputation" both among Republicans and Democrats. That changed when Barr
announced his ongoing investigation into the origins of Russiagate, a vital subject I, too, have
explored .
As Barr
explained , "What we're looking at is: What was the predicate for conducting a
counterintelligence investigation on the Trump campaign. How did the bogus narrative begin that
Trump was essentially in cahoots with Russia to interfere with the U.S. election?" Still more,
Barr, who is empowered to declassify highly sensitive documents, made clear that his primary
focus was not the hapless FBI under James Comey but the CIA under John Brennan. Evidently this
was too much for leading Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who assailed Barr for having "just
destroyed the scintilla of credibility that he had left." Not known for a sense of irony,
Schumer accused Barr of using "the words of conspiracy theorists," as though Russiagate
itself is not among the most malign and consequential conspiracy theories in American political
history.
More indicative is the reaction of the generally liberal pro-Democratic New York
Times and Washington Post , the country's two most important political
newspapers, to Barr's investigation. Leaning heavily on the "expert" opinion of former
intelligence officials and McCarthy-echoing members of congress such as Adam Schiff, both
papers went into outrage mode. The
Times bemoaned Barr's "drastic escalation of [Trump's] yearslong assault on the
intelligence community" while rejecting "the president's unfounded claims that his campaign had
been spied on," even though some forms of FBI and CIA infiltration and surveillance of the 2016
Trump campaign are now well documented. (See, for example,
Lee Smith's reporting .)
Support Progressive Journalism
If you like this article, please give today to help fund The Nation 's work.
Unconcerned by the activities of either agency, the papers warned
ominously that Barr's probe "effectively strips [the CIA] of its most critical power:
choosing which secrets it shares and which remain hidden." It "could be tremendously damaging
to the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies." Not surprisingly, given the Times '
three-year role in promulgating Russiagate allegations, it preempted Barr's investigation by
declaring
that US intelligence agencies' covert actions were part of "a lawful investigation aimed at
understanding a foreign power's efforts to manipulate an American election." Considering what
is now known, this generalization seems a whitewash both of the Times ' coverage and
the agencies' conduct. (Writing for the Post , see coverage
by Toluse Olorunnipa and
Shane Harris .)
Hillary Clinton, also not surprisingly, agreed. As paraphrased by Matt Stevens in the
Times on May 3 , she accused Barr of diverting attention "from what the real story
is. The real story is the Russian interference in our election." According to the defeated
Democratic candidate, "the Russians were successful in sowing 'discord and divisiveness' in the
country, and helping Mr. Trump." But who has actually sowed more "discord and divisiveness" in
America -- the Russians or Mrs. Clinton and her supporters, by still refusing to accept the
legitimacy of her electoral loss and Trump's victory?
Unfortunately, but predictably, Barr's investigation has become polarizing, with Fox News,
for example, bannering each new unsavory Russiagate revelation and the Times and
Post mostly ignoring them altogether. In particular, the Democratic Party, once
traditionally skeptical of intelligence agencies, is becoming the party of an intel cult and
thus of the new US-Russian Cold War. Only a few of the party's leaders, notably presidential
candidate Tulsi Gabbard, demur from this dangerous folly. (Might Democratic reticence also be
due to the circumstance that the intelligence chiefs now under investigation were appointees of
former President Obama, who has been remarkably silent about the entire Russiagate saga? What,
as I have asked previously, did Obama know, when did he know it, and what did he do?)
Everyone who cares about the quality of American political life, no matter what they think
about Trump, should encourage Barr's probe. To resort to a familiar cliché, Russiagate
allegations have become a spreading cancer in American politics, with Democratic congressional
candidates fund-raising by promising, despite the exculpatory findings of Robert Mueller
regarding "collusion," to fight evil "Trump-Putin" forces in Washington. Meanwhile, some
Republicans, despite ample contrary evidence, preposterously blame Russia itself -- for the
infamous Steele Dossier, for example. (By the way, for more irony, Trump is regularly accused
in the above-cited news accounts of "siding with" Russian President Vladimir Putin in denying
that any "collusion" determined the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, a conclusion
also reached by Mueller, thereby putting Trump, Putin, and Mueller on the same "side.")
Ideally, we would have an investigation of the intelligence agencies entirely independent of
the White House headed by an eminent political figure who is not a presidential appointee, as
was the 1975 Senate Church Committee. For now, we have only Trump's attorney general, William
Barr. Nonetheless, we should support him, however conditionally. Rogue intelligence agencies
subvert democracy, and the next candidate they target -- as they did Trump -- may be yours.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host of The John Batchelor Show .
Now in their sixth year, previous installments are atTheNation.com . Ad PolicyStephen F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a
professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton
University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin
& Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook
edition.
"... Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?" Acosta had been asked. Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he'd had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He'd cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein's attorneys because he had "been told" to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ..."
"... "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone," he told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and went ahead and hired Acosta. (The Labor Department had no comment when asked about this.) ..."
Epstein's name, I was told, had been raised by the Trump transition team when Alexander
Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami who'd infamously cut Epstein a non-prosecution plea
deal back in 2007, was being interviewed for the job of labor secretary. The plea deal put a
hard stop to a separate federal investigation of alleged sex crimes with minors and
trafficking.
" Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?" Acosta
had been asked. Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he'd had
just one meeting on the Epstein case. He'd cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein's
attorneys because he had "been told" to back off, that Epstein was above his pay
grade.
"I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone," he told his
interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and
went ahead and hired Acosta. (The Labor Department had no comment when asked about
this.)
'Belongs to intelligence' makes a lot of sense. The question is to which one. A lot of
people will says "Mossad" but I don't believe that to be the (full) truth.
We do not know why Epstein resurfaced, there was no need to re-open the case unless 'they'
wanted it to be reopened. Thus, there is definitely a deeper political purpose behind this.
As I know the higher ups in both Democrat and Republican Party are in one way or another
involved in this (both Clinton and Trump visited his island and I am sure many more prominent
high ranking US career politicians), this could indeed be equally dangerous for either
political party.
However, I don't think Trump needs convincing with regard to Iran he has been all in on
that from day 1 of his presidency and never hesitated a moment to tear up the JCPOA. Bibi was
right when he said there was never a US president as friendly towards Israel than Donald
Trump. His actions have spoken louder than words. So for this case, we will just have to wait
and see what pieces of information they allow the MSM to publish and we will know who they
are after or what bigger political goal is at play.
Something does not smell right about this.
It's not like Epstein was some obscure issue or that Trump was uninformed about the case.
Who would allow a person with such baggage on the team?
And the issue was raised so no possibility it was over-looked.
Congress (including the now concerned repubs) had their shot at him, where was the
indignation?
Looks like people were told to disregard the issue, until now.
Now like good soldiers they are all barking alert.
Looks like this guy was a plant, an insurance policy maybe.
Now that policy has been triggered - has Trump failed in playing his role?
Trumps ex-pal Epstein linked to intelligence. Makes sense given he has Robert Maxwell's
daughter doing the procuring. His was likely a black mail operation run by the intelligence
agency
Trumps other ex-pal (partner) was also linked to intelligence. Bayrocks Felix Sater. I
imagine some of their business practices could have landed Trump in jail unless like Felix he
cooperated
Could Trump himself be a an intelligent asset? Perhaps under duress through his activities
with Jeffrey and Felix.
If so, indeed the question is if its Israels or the US agency, or is there any difference
now.
I don't pretend to know the answers.
Whats the end game?. Comeys daughter is one of the NY prosecutors.Dershowitz is an Israeli
puppet and was behind getting the sealed files opened. Is Clinton and the Dems the target or
is it meant to pressure Trump to go hard on Iran or risk something coming out? Something
else?
I cant help but wonder why nobody choses to remind us about the case filed against Trump
in 2016, where a woman claimed rape at age 13 at Epstein's apartment. Is wasn't covered much
at the time either. Apparently silently withdrawn. Curious no? Not even the so called Deep
State Media that everyone believes was against Trump. Theydon't seem to want to touch it now
either. Maybe its just BS.
Of course, maybe just more distraction as they continue fleecing the bottom 90%
Billionaire, $6 B, Les Wexner, L Brands, Victoria's Secret.
from Wiki
Wexner had a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who managed Wexner's financial
assets. Wexner and Epstein parted when Epstein went to prison.[25] Wexner was believed to be
the primary source of Epstein's wealth. [26]
I am trying to link Wexner with the Bronfman's (Seagrams Liquor Family) via a source other
than the Mega Group (which may not be credible, IDK).Clare Bronfman and NEXIVM.
Looks like Epstein was running a high powered honey trap to ensnare Politicians, Lawyers,
Government employees for the express purpose of promoting the "Greater Israel Project".
@fastfreddy - While I hesitate to engage in the ubiquitous Israel is at the root of all
debacles conjecture, I think you might be onto something there. Sure would be interesting
(now or when whatever shakes out of this) to compare the record on votes of importance to
Israeli interests of any politician who gets implicated or indicted with who doesn't.
Protecting Epstein and his clients is secondary. The main goal is to protect his
billionaire, Jewish, sponsors and whatever state sponsored him. The pleabs cannot know that
their gov is corrupt but the bigger secret that must be kept is who is pulling the strings
and how they are doing it.
Regarding questions on Acosta by Jared at #27, here's a 2017 article showing that the
facts were out about Acosta when the Senate confirmed him: "Did Trump Labor Pick Protect
Trump, Rich Rapists, Tax Cheats, Crooked Bankers? Do We Find Out Wednesday?" March 14, 2017.
http://ow.ly/hk8b309Uerm
Regarding MSM reluctance to mention rape of 12 and 13 year olds by Trump, as several
commentators noted, here's a January 2017 wrap up of those matters with leading to other
links: "Welcome To Waterbury: The city that holds secrets that could bring down Trump," Jan.
9, 2018.
http://www.justice-integrity.org/1445-welcome-to-waterbury-the-city-that-holds-secrets-that-could-bring-down-trump.
My colleague Wayne Madsen and I filed a FOIA action today at the U.S. Justice Department
seeking further records.
Our view is that this is an intelligence / foreign policy operation and it's likely that
Epstein's time has run out, an occupational hazard in that field. Further, Madsen and I have
written separate books years ago documenting that all U.S. presidents after Carter -- but not
yet Trump as proven -- have been covert assets of the CIA or FBI before -- stress that --
they entered politics. That's the way it is, and helps explain a lot of the complaints in
comments above. Trump is in his own category of a corrupt stooge -- that's not necessarily
better.
Can recommend excellent 2008 book "Flat Earth News" by longtime UK journalist Nick Davies
that describes the deeply flawed nature of MSM from his perspective as a Guardian and other
UK journalist, who aptly describes why lies and quarter-truths get printed. That's a longer
story but the gist is what many here are suggesting.
After years of study and many many books I believe the Mossad and CIA are one and the
same. The Mossad is very useful when leaving sovereign footprints is verboten--and vice
versa.
"...'Belongs to intelligence' makes a lot of sense. The question is to which one. A lot
of people will says "Mossad" but I don't believe that to be the (full) truth ..."
At the level that Jeffrey Epstein is operating, he is loyal primarily to himself but
happily takes his reward from whichever intel agency at any time offers him the most or whose
interests might prove the most lucrative for him.
And the interests of American, British, Israeli and other nations' intelligence agencies
are surely so entwined that picking them apart is impossible. One thing for sure though: none
of them serve the interests of the nations they supposedly work for.
The function of the CIA/Mossad is to make sure the agenda and the narrative of the Deep
State gets served. In that case one could truly blame Epstein's actions on individuals, or
groups of individuals who dictate orders to the Mossad/CIA.
Epstein reminds me of the Bill Browder affair. And the statement: To know who are the
rulers not which are the ones you are not permitted to criticize. Or somethinh like that.
If indeed they are after Trump as he failed them on 'Iran', then it makes absolute sense that
Dershowitz and Cernovich had the records unsealed as both are strong, strong Zionists and
supporters of Israel. Getting a judge do the thing they need is just a formality. I agree
with some writer above who asked, why the publicity if pressure can be applied in secret
without the media being involved? But this may be the stated goal to bring Trump either
completely in line now or publicly topple his presidency.
I get why @94 Really? and others would be sceptical at this stage but I know strong
powers in the Zionist/Neo-con deep state want a direct confrontation with Iran for myriad
number of reasons (stop the BRI, deal a blow to Syria and Hizbollah, take out Israel's No 1
enemy etc, shore up the Petrodollar), and Trump was still the most likely candidate to follow
through with this, given his proximity to Zionism. So far he also has dully followed through
with everything imaginable, except for actually attacking Iran.
Interesting development indeed. B. Clinton could be collateral damage, at this stage their
power is overestimated in my opinion.
Okay, An "intelligence op," but which one? The Epstein/Mueller link was made several
months ago. I don't see any irregularities in the court judgement to order the unsealing as
it's been ongoing for almost 2.5 years and involves odd bedfellows. Was Mueller even aware of
the attempt to unseal Epstein's case? So many questions!
Arnon Milchan? He was Israeli. Should he be punished, absolutely. But you know who should
be hung? Robert DeNiro. He knew Arnon Milchan was a spy and kept his mouth shut for decades.
He is a POS of epic proportions.
Insofar as Epstein is concerned. It is all about timing. Mueller is set to testify and
probably has skeletons in his closet with regards to Epstein's case. He is likely being told
implicitly via the Epstein arrest to be on his best behavior by Barr, and Barr at this age
probably can care less that Epstein is being sacrificed so he can make his point,
particularly since Barr is probably the 2nd most powerful person in the USA right now.
Epstein was extremely likely an Israeli asset. The Israelis have through political power
and force convinced many in the US IC that their ship is sailing in the same direction, and
that they should be allowed to serve as the US's dog on a leash, and once in a while be
unleashed to do what the US won't. So while he was an Israeli asset, his resources (that is
compromising material) was often made available to the CIA, and thus Acosta was told that he
is an intelligence asset.
The fireworks will start to fly if and when Epstein realizes he is being hung out to dry
and won't be saved. But like almost every other case involving such rich and powerful people,
don't hold your breath for justice to be served in the US.
What does protecting adolescent teenagers from predatory adults have to do with
puritanism? Am I understanding this correctly that you advocate sex with minors as long as
they have reached biological puberty? Never mind their mental maturity? So sexual relations
involving young women is ok what about sexual relations with young men? This has nothing to
do with a false pretentious morality but with the fact that teenagers have not yet reached
the level of mental maturity that protects them from sexual exploitation that will haunt them
for the rest of their lives, never mind their biological functions and ability to conceive or
sire children. It is really puzzling that I even need to make these elaborations in here!
In many ways this thread is as sickening as the subject it discusses. All sorts of types left
and right competing to show that they have the most insight into the forces behind the anal
rape of a 12 year old girl See Andrew Kreig's excellent piece which does consider the horror
of the acts, rather than just whether or not it plays into the particular vision of 'power
politics' each poster invokes). In no instance does anyone express disgust at the actions of
these low life scum other than for the corruption of the pols such as Acosta.
The glee which so many have displayed jumping into this horror story because it can be
twisted and forced into their own particular theory about "how the world really works" while
totally ignoring that these humans who were abducted at age eleven or twelve & then sold
like cattle, now inhabit the netherworld of 'the great society' living in the fringes of
prosperous cities in a ramshackle 'double wide', reveals a psychic corruption not a million
miles away from that of the rapists.
This story is those young boys & girls, anyone who claims to want to use it to force
the greedy rapists and warmongering grubs to face justice, will not succeed as long as they
waste time speculating who works for who and who is really in control.
Prince Andrew still bludges off taxpayers despite being photographed with his arm around
one of his victims, if you're english & really care about stopping this scum, instead of
speculating on which shadowy 'palace spokesman suggested that the
Daily Mail include the line "There is no suggestion that the duke had any sexual contact
at the house, or knew what was allegedly going on there" you will find out how the at the
time 17 y.o. Virginia Roberts feels about her public destruction now (A child the Mail
described as an erotic masseuse - presumably to reduce the horror a normal human reacts to
that pic whilst ensuring the victim is so humiliated she causes no further problem for "the
royal family's" number one arms salesman). This victim first hung out with the andrew sleaze
when she was 17 at the pimp's Florida hell hole where the age of consent is 18.
Concentrating on the effect on victims while protecting them from further harm will bring
the creeps undone - nothing else will. It was only once people began to see past the priests
claims that "the victims led me on" and considered the huge power imbalance that the catholic
church came unstuck.
Most of all without humanity, there is no difference between any of us and the scum we
criticise.
Now, to be on topic, why the insistence that Epstein finally getting outed for real is
some mysterious intel op? The CIA has been screwing up left, right and center for years, so
is it any surprise that one of their major kompromat operations is getting exposed? Their
foolproof plan to install their tool Clinton in the White House in 2016 failed spectacularly
and blew up in their faces, so tell me again how great they are at running covert ops? The
CIA's own version of James Bond gets snuffed by the CIA's own death squads in Benghazi, but
people still think the CIA has a clue what they're doing? The CIA's operatives in multiple
embassies are being incapacitated by freakin' crickets and people think these clowns
still somehow maintain some vestigial link to reality?
No, this is simply another massive screw-up by the establishment. This blind-sided the
Deep State and so much took them by surprise that they were too late to get it clamped down
in the mass media. If Epstein dies before the real dirt starts getting exposed then it proves
me right and proves wrong all those who worship at the alter of the omnipotent Deep
State.
"... As Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA. ..."
"... "The media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous thought going that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy with Russia against his own country." ..."
"... Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). ..."
"... Mr. McGovern you are right in your analysis. Obama is in this up to his neck, however there will be a limited investigation at best because the Jews and Israel don't want this. They are involved and a real investigation would show what control they have over the FBI and CIA. ..."
"... The world is controlled by the Corporate Fascist Military-Intelligence Police State in which governments are nothing more than Proxies with Intelligence Agencies who work against the average citizen and for the Corporations. Politicians like Trump are nothing more than figureheads who must "Toe the Line" or else. ..."
As Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees
prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being
drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top
Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic
public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA.
"There is no doubt to me there was severe, serious abuses that were carried out in the FBI
and, I believe, top levels of the CIA against the President of the United States or, at that
time, presidential candidate Donald Trump," according to The Hill.
King (image on the right), a senior congressman specializing in national security, twice
chaired the House Homeland Security Committee and currently heads its Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He also served for several years on the House Intelligence
Committee.
He asserted:
"There was no legal basis at all for them to begin this investigation of his campaign
– and the way they carried it forward, and the way information was leaked. All of this
is going to come out. It's going to show the bias. It's going to show the baselessness of the
investigation and I would say the same thing if this were done to Hillary Clinton or Bernie
Sanders It's just wrong."
The Long Island Republican added a well aimed swipe at what passes for the media today:
"The media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous
thought going that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy
with Russia against his own country."
According to King, the Justice Department's review, ordered by Attorney General William Barr
, would prove that former officials acted improperly. He was alluding to the investigation led
by John Durham , U.S. Attorney in Connecticut. Sounds nice. But waiting for Durham to complete
his investigation at a typically lawyerly pace would, I fear, be much like the experience of
waiting for Mueller to finish his; that is, like waiting for Godot. What about now?
So Where is the IG Report on FISA?
That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his
report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan , former FBI Director
James Comey , former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe , former Deputy Attorneys General Sally
Yates and Rod Rosenstein , and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA
applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at
last report, he is FBI General Counsel!).
The DOJ inspector General's investigation, launched in March 2018, has centered on whether
the FBI and DOJ filing of four FISA applications and renewals beginning in October 2016 to
surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page amounted to abuse of the FISA process.
(Fortunately for the IG, Obama's top intelligence and law enforcement officials were so sure
that Hillary Clinton would win that they did not do much to hide their tracks.)
The Washington Examiner
reported last Tuesday, "The Justice Department inspector general's investigation of
potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is complete, a Republican
congressman said, though a report on its findings might not be released for a month." The
report continued:
"House Judiciary Committee member John Ratcliffe (R, Texas) said Monday he'd met with DOJ
watchdog Michael Horowitz last week about his FISA abuse report. In a media interview,
Ratcliffe said they'd discussed the timing, but not the content of his report and Horowitz
'related that his team's investigative work is complete and they're now in the process of
drafting that report. Ratcliffe said he was doubtful that Horowitz's report would be made
available to the public or the Congress anytime soon. 'He [Horowitz] did relay that as much
as 20% of his report is going to include classified information, so that draft report will
have to undergo a classification review at the FBI and at the Department of Justice,'
Ratcliffe said. 'So, while I'm hopeful that we members of Congress might see it before the
August recess, I'm not too certain about that.'"
Earlier, Horowitz had predicted that his report would be ready in May or June but there may,
in fact, be good reason for some delay. Fox News reported Friday that "key
witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz
(image on the left) early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have
come forward at the 11th hour." According to Fox's sources, at least one witness outside the
Justice Department and FBI has started cooperating -- a breakthrough that came after Durham was
assigned to lead a separate investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia case that
led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe.
"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie
investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or
reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge.
Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all
they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former
colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 ,
prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information).
It is far from clear that DOJ IG Horowitz and Attorney General Barr will prevail in the end,
even though President Trump has given Barr nominal authority to declassify as necessary. Why
are the the stakes so extraordinarily high?
What Did Obama Know, and When Did He Know It?
Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of
counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI
Director McCabe, Lisa Page , wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president
"wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that
the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark
about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire
to provide him with "plausible denial."
It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about
the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that
Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort
to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him.
Moreover, one should not rule out seeing in the coming months an "Obama-made-us-do-it"
defense -- whether grounded in fact or not -- by Brennan and perhaps the rest of the gang.
Brennan may even have a piece of paper recording the President's "approval" for this or that --
or could readily have his former subordinates prepare one that appears authentic.
Reining in Devin Nunes
That the Deep State retains formidable power can be seen in the repeated
Lucy-holding-then-withdrawing-the-football-for-Charlie Brown treatment experienced by House
Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, Devin Nunes (R-CA, image on the right). On April 5,
2019, in the apparent belief he had a green light to go on the offensive, Nunes
wrote that committee Republicans "will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous
individuals involved in the abuse of intelligence for political purposes. These people must be
held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future."
On April 7, Nunes was even more specific, telling Fox News that he was preparing to send
eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice "this week," concerning alleged
misconduct during the Trump-Russia investigation, including leaks of "highly classified
material" and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the FISA court. It seemed to be
no-holds-barred for Nunes, who had begun to
talk publicly about prison time for those who might be brought to trial.
Except for Fox, the corporate media ignored Nunes's explosive comments. The media seemed
smugly convinced that Nunes's talk of "referrals" could be safely ignored -- even though a new
sheriff, Barr, had come to town. And sure enough, now, three months later, where are the
criminal referrals?
There is ample evidence that President Trump is afraid to run afoul of the Deep State
functionaries he inherited. And the Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr
leans hard on the president to unfetter Nunes, IG Horowitz, Durham and like-minded
investigators, all hell may break lose, because the evidence against those who took serious
liberties with the law is staring them all in the face.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to
follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and
prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Mr. McGovern you are right in your analysis. Obama is in this up to his neck, however
there will be a limited investigation at best because the Jews and Israel don't want this.
They are involved and a real investigation would show what control they have over the FBI and
CIA.
Trump by now realizes these agencies can make anything up and the Jewish owned and
controlled media will do their bidding. I have to assume that Trump has come to the
conclusion that he wasn't suppose to win and that the NWO wasn't happy with that because he
stands in their way especially on World Trade and Immigration.
The world is controlled by the Corporate Fascist Military-Intelligence Police State in
which governments are nothing more than Proxies with Intelligence Agencies who work against
the average citizen and for the Corporations. Politicians like Trump are nothing more than
figureheads who must "Toe the Line" or else.
I believe Trump knows he could be assassinated at any time. Obama the "God King" did his
part for NWO and that's why he gets a King's Ransom for his speeches for reading a
teleprompter and banging on his chest and saying, "I did that." What he is really saying is I
did that for you -- now where's my check!
"... US gives Israel billions each year. Israel gives some of that money to Epstein for a hedge fund front. Epstein buys island, planes, mansions, power and influence. Hires attractive under age girls for sexual acts with elites. Tapes the sexual acts. Sends tapes back to Mossad. Blackmails elites for money and favors. Sends money and favors back to Mossad. Epstein keeps the vig. Elites just **** their pants. Elites suicide rate increases dramatically over the next six months. ..."
"... Yes, the blackmailing would not just be for money but foreign policy actions too. And it isn't just the US, it's the UK too. Hence both suckers are trying to start a war with Iran. ..."
"... CCI has the goods on a third of congress and the whole msm. ..."
"... I am not holding my breath for your prediction xbkrisback. Appointing Comey's daughter as the chief prosecutor tells a sorry tale. And Comey and Mueller are best buds. ..."
"... Epstein will not give up the big names. Bubba took 26 trips to Pedo Island on the Lolita Express to refresh his tan. ..."
"... The power structure runs on pedophilia. And the horror of it is that pedophilia is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the abuse of children. Where is Carlos Danger's laptop with Huma's huge "life insurance" file on it? You know, the one that made grizzled NYPD detectives puke when they opened it. ..."
"... Epstein outdoes Berlusconi ..."
"... Have another look at Tony Podesta's art collection. http://ibankcoin.com/zeropointnow/2016/11/26/sick-lets-revisit-the-podesta-penchant-for-pedophilic-cannibalistic-and-satanic-art/#sthash.6jj0GpQo.dpbs ..."
"... I never understood why people claimed Podesta had child abuse links until I read that article. It is enough to make even a hardened Podesta supporter cringe. ..."
"... Coulter's take on this sounds very plausible, because there certainly was evidence gathering by Epstein. ..."
"... By the way, that was the favorite tactic of the old pervert that ran the FBI ... J. Edgar Hoover. He would gather evidence, then have a couple of his agents pay the offender a visit, warning them to be careful, while delivering the clear message that the Director has the goods on you. ..."
"... If Epstein goes to prison (a real prison) for any length of time, that would negate the idea of state sponsorship, would it not? Conversely, if he gets another sweetheart deal, that would confirm it. ..."
I think I figured this scam out. US gives Israel billions each year. Israel gives some of that money to Epstein for a
hedge fund front. Epstein buys island, planes, mansions, power and influence. Hires attractive under age girls for sexual acts
with elites. Tapes the sexual acts. Sends tapes back to Mossad. Blackmails elites for money and favors. Sends money and favors
back to Mossad. Epstein keeps the vig. Elites just **** their pants. Elites suicide rate increases dramatically over the next
six months.
smacker , 1 hour ago
Yes, the blackmailing would not just be for money but foreign policy actions too. And it isn't just the US, it's the UK too.
Hence both suckers are trying to start a war with Iran.
cayman , 46 minutes ago
CCI has the goods on a third of congress and the whole msm. It's why elections haven't mattered in decades. It's why congress
can have a 9% approval rating and yet nothing changes. CIA has so many offshore sources of revenue now, it is sovereign now.
RoyalDraco , 17 minutes ago
I am not holding my breath for your prediction xbkrisback. Appointing Comey's daughter as the chief prosecutor tells a sorry
tale. And Comey and Mueller are best buds.
Epstein will not give up the big names. Bubba took 26 trips to Pedo Island on the
Lolita Express to refresh his tan.
5 years at Club Fed and a list of names no one ever heard of. The power structure runs on
pedophilia. And the horror of it is that pedophilia is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the abuse of children. Where is
Carlos Danger's laptop with Huma's huge "life insurance" file on it? You know, the one that made grizzled NYPD detectives puke
when they opened it.
HideTheWeenie , 1 hour ago
Epstein outdoes Berlusconi ... Takes bunga bunga parties to the next level - and on the road - in the air - island hopping
Coulter is right ... Nobody in financial circles ever bumped into Epstein. Nobody, nobody knows the guy outside of the teenage
***** connection.
I never understood why people claimed Podesta had child abuse links until I read that article. It is enough to make even
a hardened Podesta supporter cringe.
I need some mind bleach after reading that.
RayUSA , 1 hour ago
Obviously, the more powerful people that are involved, the less chance this has of going anywhere.
Coulter's take on this sounds very plausible, because there certainly was evidence gathering by Epstein.
There would be no reason for that unless it was going to be used in the future for black mail.
By the way, that was the favorite tactic of the old pervert that ran the FBI ... J. Edgar Hoover. He would gather evidence,
then have a couple of his agents pay the offender a visit, warning them to be careful, while delivering the clear message that
the Director has the goods on you.
herbivore , 2 hours ago
If Epstein goes to prison (a real prison) for any length of time, that would negate the idea of state sponsorship, would
it not? Conversely, if he gets another sweetheart deal, that would confirm it.
"... The Epstein case has all the earmarks of CIA protection of an asset. ..."
"... Successful entry into politics requires candidates to first "tag themselves" with a "corrupted and venerable" "CAV" badge? ..."
"... Is the CAV Badge the weapon that has corrupted the intelligence services and stable of politicians in nearly every nation in the world? Did Colin Powell flash a CAV badge as he spoke to UN focus about the most likely presence of non existent WMDs that led to w__ in Iraq? ..."
Journalism. =>has disclosed the tunnel, and a few of its investigators are exploring
its contents, expecting to find at the end of this tunnel Successful entry into politics
requires candidates to first "tag themselves" with a "corrupted and venerable" "CAV"
badge?
Wonder if this has traction in the persons involved in Grace I, the failure of JCPOA.
Is the CAV badge the weapon that has corrupted nearly every nation state in the western
world?
Politicians make promises, and then within hours for unexplained reasons, reverse
them..Hmmm?
Is the CAV Badge the weapon that has corrupted the intelligence services and stable of
politicians in nearly every nation in the world? Did Colin Powell flash a CAV badge as he
spoke to UN focus about the most likely presence of non existent WMDs that led to w__ in
Iraq?
How can CAV badge victims be identified and isolated from politics?
The CAV badge could explain so many USA positive, American negative events?
"... There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange. ..."
"... Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of evidence on fundamental questions. ..."
"... the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking. ..."
"... John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate. Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump. ..."
Most of the material in this article will be familiar to regular readers of SST because I
wrote about it first. Here are the key conclusions:
The report uses qualified and vague language to describe key events, indicating that
Mueller and his investigators do not actually know for certain whether Russian intelligence
officers stole Democratic Party emails, or how those emails were transferred to
WikiLeaks.
The report's timeline of events appears to defy logic. According to its narrative,
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of Democratic Party emails not
only before he received the documents but before he even communicated with the source that
provided them.
There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout
called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange.
Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims
Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of
evidence on fundamental questions.
U.S. intelligence officials cannot make definitive conclusions about the hacking of the
Democratic National Committee computer servers because they did not analyze those servers
themselves. Instead, they relied on the forensics of CrowdStrike, a private contractor for
the DNC that was not a neutral party, much as "Russian dossier" compiler Christopher Steele,
also a DNC contractor, was not a neutral party. This puts two Democrat-hired contractors
squarely behind underlying allegations in the affair – a key circumstance that Mueller
ignores.
Further, the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel
to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be
revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking.
Mueller's report conspicuously does not allege that the Russian government carried out
the social media campaign. Instead it blames, as Mueller said in his closing remarks, "a
private Russian entity" known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
Mueller also falls far short of proving that the Russian social campaign was
sophisticated, or even more than minimally related to the 2016 election. As with the
collusion and Russian hacking allegations, Democratic officials had a central and overlooked
hand in generating the alarm about Russian social media activity.
John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all
facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial
collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment
that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate.
Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral
party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump.
I encourage you to read the piece. It is well written and provides an excellent overview of
critical events in the flawed investigation.
"... "Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge. ..."
"... Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 , prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information). ..."
"... Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI Director McCabe, Lisa Page, wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president "wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire to provide him with "plausible denial." ..."
"... It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him. ..."
"... "That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at last report, he is FBI General Counsel!)." ..."
"... It will be a very interesting 2020 campaign if the Democratic candidate has to run with the ripe stinking dead albatross of Russiagate around her neck. ..."
"... The only outcome that could be more bizarre than the last go-round would be to see Trump favored by all the smart money and then lose to the latest corporate Democrat to shamelessly sell out the middle class in broad daylight. ..."
"... The Grabber in Chief vs Willie Brown's mistress – wonderful. ..."
"... Forgive my cynicism but the US government is so corrupt, has wielded illegitimate power for so long, and has covered the tracks of countless functionaries who have not upheld the constitution that I doubt this will go anywhere. I have been quoting Ben Franklin for some time "you have a republic, if you can keep it." I don't think we can. A reading of "A History of Venice" by John J. Norris would be appropriate here. The most serene republic lasted for essentially 1,000 years from roughly 800 to not quite 1800, first as a democracy, later as an oligarchy. Much like us, including having the most feared secret service in Europe at the time, Venice kept its power through trade but at least we don't hoist the new president up on a chair so that he can throw golden Ducats to the crowd on Wall Street the way that a new Doge would. ..."
"... I don't suppose anything will happen to anybody important about this. After all, nothing happened to anybody when they were caught mass spying on any and all american citizens, even before they made it legal. ..."
"... Unfortunately Webb and Parry exposed much of these gangster criminal "intel" savages for running guns and drugs to Central American pseudo fascist mercenary sadists throughout much of the late 1970s through the '80s. I say unfortunately b/c nothing much ever came along by way of true justice, by way of the criminal players rotting in maximum security jail cells for years on end, not unlike the crack or heroin addict who steals a $400 television. ..."
"... This has been one long crime against the American people. King should read what he knows into the Congressional Record. I have no sympathy for Trump's fear of the deep state. He has sent people to die knowing full well that his actions were based on lies, lies that would result in the deaths of civilians as well as our own military. If he is going to do that, then he should have the courage to face the deep state. That's partial penance for all the deaths he has caused. ..."
"... I also don't care about Trump's personal issue about being surveilled. He personally supports that against everyone else. That is why I feel this is a crime against our people as a whole. Our constitution has been stripped bare. We don't have the rule of law. Mass surveillance covering the globe is current reality. It is dangerous. It is wrong. It is lawless. It is a disaster. ..."
"... Further, Russiagate was used to keep real opposition away from Trump. His supporters doubled down on "liking" Trump because he appeared to be a victim of these lies. Democrats meanwhile learned to further worship the IC. They ignored Trump's actual unlawful behavior, and, in the case of war crimes, still support Trump on every war/regime change action etc. recommended to them by their IC "resistance" "leaders". ..."
"... This has been one of the most effective propaganda tools I have ever seen against our populace. It has created a divided, unthinking populace who is ripe for the picking by evil men and women. I am truly hoping that once this is exposed people will stop this madness and pull together for a common good. But I'm quite worried that, like most cults, when the leader is shown to be wrong, people cling to them even more. ..."
"... there have always been nefarious agents in one government or another for one gangster interest or another, whether was Milner's roundtable or Dulles's Gladio werewolves, these are nefarious individuals there is no gray area in that, however they may conduct themselves and their personal lives, it is not sloppy journalism, is to call something what it is, a this shadow government working in many instances against the direct interest of the American people ..."
"... It's the propaganda, the United States is one of the most heavily propagandize societies in the world, we make the Soviets look like children. No one wants you to have sympathy for Donald Trump, you do not have to agree or like a person to see that the cartel seeking to damage him is also simultaneously against your interests and they are against your interests whether you're from the left or the right because they do not have an ideology just it will to power. ..."
"... So reminiscent of the darker days of the Cold War. A stark education has just played out to this point. ..."
The Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr leans hard on Trump to
unfetter investigators, all hell may break lose, says Ray McGovern.
A s Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees
prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being
drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top
Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic
public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA.
King
told a radio audience: "There is no doubt to me there was severe, serious abuses that were
carried out in the FBI and, I believe, top levels of the CIA against the President of the
United States or, at that time, presidential candidate Donald Trump," according to The
Hill.
King, a senior congressman specializing in national security, twice chaired the House
Homeland Security Committee and currently heads its Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and
Intelligence. He also served for several years on the House Intelligence Committee.
He asserted:
"There was no legal basis at all for them to begin this investigation of his campaign
– and the way they carried it forward, and the way information was leaked. All of this
is going to come out. It's going to show the bias. It's going to show the baselessness of the
investigation and I would say the same thing if this were done to Hillary Clinton or Bernie
Sanders It's just wrong."
The Long Island Republican added a well aimed swipe at what passes for the media today: "The
media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous thought going
that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy with Russia
against his own country."
King: Lashes out.
According to King, the Justice Department's review, ordered by Attorney General William
Barr, would prove that former officials acted improperly. He was alluding to the investigation
led by John Durham, U.S. Attorney in Connecticut. Sounds nice. But waiting for Durham to
complete his investigation at a typically lawyerly pace would, I fear, be much like the
experience of waiting for Mueller to finish his; that is, like waiting for Godot. What about
now?
So Where is the IG Report on FISA?
That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his
report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James
Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates
and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA
applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at
last report, he is FBI General Counsel!).
The DOJ inspector General's investigation, launched in March 2018, has centered on whether
the FBI and DOJ filing of four FISA applications and renewals beginning in October 2016 to
surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page amounted to abuse of the FISA process.
(Fortunately for the IG, Obama's top intelligence and law enforcement officials were so sure
that Hillary Clinton would win that they did not do much to hide their tracks.)
The Washington Examiner
reported last Tuesday, "The Justice Department inspector general's investigation of
potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is complete, a Republican
congressman said, though a report on its findings might not be released for a month." The
report continued:
"House Judiciary Committee member John Ratcliffe (R, Texas) said Monday he'd met with DOJ
watchdog Michael Horowitz last week about his FISA abuse report. In a media interview,
Ratcliffe said they'd discussed the timing, but not the content of his report and Horowitz
'related that his team's investigative work is complete and they're now in the process of
drafting that report. Ratcliffe said he was doubtful that Horowitz's report would be made
available to the public or the Congress anytime soon. 'He [Horowitz] did relay that as much
as 20% of his report is going to include classified information, so that draft report will
have to undergo a classification review at the FBI and at the Department of Justice,'
Ratcliffe said. 'So, while I'm hopeful that we members of Congress might see it before the
August recess, I'm not too certain about that.'"
Horowitz: Still waiting for his report
Earlier, Horowitz had predicted that his report would be ready in May or June but there may,
in fact, be good reason for some delay. Fox News reported Friday that "key
witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz
early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have come forward at the
11th hour." According to Fox's sources, at least one witness outside the Justice Department and
FBI has started cooperating -- a breakthrough that came after Durham was assigned to lead a
separate investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia case that led to Special
Counsel Robert Mueller's probe.
"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie
investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or
reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge.
Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all
they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former
colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 ,
prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information).
It is far from clear that DOJ IG Horowitz and Attorney General Barr will prevail in the end,
even though President Trump has given Barr nominal authority to declassify as necessary. Why
are the the stakes so extraordinarily high?
What Did Obama Know, and When Did He Know It?
Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of
counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI
Director McCabe, Lisa Page, wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president
"wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that
the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark
about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire
to provide him with "plausible denial."
It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about
the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that
Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort
to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him.
Moreover, one should not rule out seeing in the coming months an "Obama-made-us-do-it"
defense -- whether grounded in fact or not -- by Brennan and perhaps the rest of the gang.
Brennan may even have a piece of paper recording the President's "approval" for this or that --
or could readily have his former subordinates prepare one that appears authentic.
Reining in Devin Nunes
That the Deep State retains formidable power can be seen in the repeated
Lucy-holding-then-withdrawing-the-football-for-Charlie Brown treatment experienced by House
Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, Devin Nunes (R-CA). On April 5, 2019, in the apparent
belief he had a green light to go on the offensive, Nunes
wrote that committee Republicans "will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous
individuals involved in the abuse of intelligence for political purposes. These people must be
held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future."
On April 7, Nunes was even more specific, telling Fox News that he was preparing to send
eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice "this week," concerning alleged
misconduct during the Trump-Russia investigation, including leaks of "highly classified
material" and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the FISA court. It seemed to be
no-holds-barred for Nunes, who had begun to
talk publicly about prison time for those who might be brought to trial.
Except for Fox, the corporate media ignored Nunes's explosive comments. The media seemed
smugly convinced that Nunes's talk of "referrals" could be safely ignored -- even though a new
sheriff, Barr, had come to town. And sure enough, now, three months later, where are the
criminal referrals?
There is ample evidence that President Trump is afraid to run afoul of the Deep State
functionaries he inherited. And the Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr
leans hard on the president to unfetter Nunes, IG Horowitz, Durham and like-minded
investigators, all hell may break lose, because the evidence against those who took serious
liberties with the law is staring them all in the face.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to
follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and
prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
If you enjoyed this original article, please considermaking a donationto Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
Joe T Wallace , July 8, 2019 at 20:24
I'm a great admirer of Ray McGovern's reporting. He exposes much that is never revealed by
the mainstream media. That said, I do have one quibble about this article. In the seventh
paragraph, just below the heading "So Where is the IG Report on FISA?" he writes:
"That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his
report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director
James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally
Yates and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant
FISA applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI
library; at last report, he is FBI General Counsel!)."
My immediate reaction was: Who is Horowitz? It was confusing not to know. Further down in
the article, I learned that Ray was referring to Michael Horowitz, a DOJ watchdog who is
preparing an IG report about FISA abuse, but readers should have been informed who he was
earlier in the article.
John , July 8, 2019 at 17:10
Peter King? Devin Nunes?
At one point the article says little effort was made to cover tracks because of certainty
that HRC would win but later that the FBI et al were planting land mines to either defeat
Trump or blow up his presidency. Seemed contradictory to me.
Perhaps you have the skinny on these machinations, if indeed there were machinations by
one person or group or another for this purpose or that.
But Peter King and Devin Nunes? If either ever was credible, their track record condemns
them to be received, if at all, with extreme skepticism.
Realist , July 8, 2019 at 16:59
It will be a very interesting 2020 campaign if the Democratic candidate has to run with
the ripe stinking dead albatross of Russiagate around her neck. Or will she be expected to
repudiate the Hitlery-run DNC? Where does the money and the ground game originate if the
latter?
The only outcome that could be more bizarre than the last go-round would be to see Trump
favored by all the smart money and then lose to the latest corporate Democrat to shamelessly
sell out the middle class in broad daylight. I won't like it, but I can see Trump Derangement
Syndrome pulling out the chestnuts for the Dems, what with all their celebrity spokespeople
constantly running and ranting like their hair is on fire underneath those pussy hats. My
poor gullible sister from Cali embraces that whole ball of wax as revealed truth holier than
the total dry weight of all the Abrahamic scriptures rolled into one big bale for the
recycling center. Kamala Harris seems to be emerging as the new messiah anointed to lead this
country back to Obamian gridlock and more prestidigitation like mandated insurance to ensure
the health of the insurance companies. Again, it will only be the illusion of "free
stuff."
The only way such a scenario won't cause four more years of turmoil for this country
(rinse and repeat in 2024) is if the victor is Gabbard and she ends all the illegal and
unconstitutional wars by edict, telling all the sure-to-be pissing and moaning Deep State
functionaries to pick up their severance pay and go pound sand. Then shut the world-wide
spider web of military bases and bring home the troops while we can still afford the carfare.
That would be "morning in America," and Gabbard would be the most heroic chief exec since
Lincoln and FDR made their marks in the history books, though such fantasies never play out
in the real world. More likely all the criminal evidence of treason remains classified, most
Americans pop the blue pill, the actual rabbit hole continues to grow ever deeper but the
masses are contentedly oblivious to it all, satisfied to blame select scapegoats from
Russia, China and other "malign" countries for our viewing entertainment.
Deniz , July 8, 2019 at 17:50
The Grabber in Chief vs Willie Brown's mistress – wonderful.
ML , July 8, 2019 at 20:12
You are really something, Realist. I love the way you flourish that pen of yours. Thank
you.
Rob Roy , July 8, 2019 at 20:13
Realist, well said, per usual. To add a bit the Dems probably gave Trump the gift of a
lifetime the next election. Wasting three years on Russiagate instead of hammering out a
decent platform for the party was beyond dumb. That reminds me. the Dems's next dumbest idea
choosing Joe Biden as their next candidate. Just like Hillary, he can't beat Trump. The
duopoly is dead, they just don't know it.
As for Tulsi, she's got my vote.
John Earls , July 8, 2019 at 16:55
Looks like Barry Eisler's John Rain (expert in "death by natural causes") will have a lot
of work in front of him if the investigation builds and a whole lot of "material witnesses"
begin to testify.
ricardo2000 , July 8, 2019 at 16:33
I'm supposed to feel sorry for the surveillance of a right-wing creep? OH PLEASE.
No one in government, or the right wing ReThugs, has ever suffered the intrusive, lying,
speculative 'investigations' that social justice, environmental, or human rights activists
have over the past 70 years.
When these buttheads suffer what MLK and Malcolm X have suffered then I might just wipe
away a few tears, after I stop roaring with laughter and get off the floor.
Realist , July 8, 2019 at 17:08
You prefer a race to the bottom of the cesspool?
You never win when you adopt the methods you claim to revile. The opponent who introduced
the tactics you condemn wins if you embrace them as your own. You didn't beat him, you joined
him.
LibertyBonBon , July 8, 2019 at 18:12
Must be nice to think the justice system should revolve around your particular emotions,
rather than equality and objectivity. Safe and easy.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 20:41
ricardo2000, nothing personal, I get the revulsion to Trump and entourage not to mention a
large portion of the Maga crowd but this right and left thing is really just an illusion, the
people doing the persecuting here regardless of how disgusting Trump is are the same ones
doing the persecuting to a large degree of everyone else from Assange to the Iranians, that
is this government deep state in combination with all of the various American alphabet soup
agencies as well as foreign deep states have cornered the market in State power, hate Trump
but don't confuse this with a good thing.
Thank you, Ray McGovern. You are a good man, Charlie Brown!
Thing is, all of this was predictable from the beginning. Many of us saw it coming.
No one really wanted an incompetent baboon running things – the song about Monkey
and the Engineer comes to mind – so Obama tried to hamstring Trump with this
investigation. I mean, Obama couldn't very well have not completed the transfer of power
because it is the most valuable thing about democracy. There is no ten year bloody hellified
civil war every time the crown changes hands from one inbred to the next.
So Obama did the next best thing on his way out the Oval Office doors, he put Brennan and
the boys on it. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I'm sure. But it backfired because he
couldn't call the dogs off once he was no longer president. Not Brennan, not anyone could
call them off after the snowball really got rolling because the spooks believed their own
story and the media made too much money off selling the mythology:
Only question left to answer now is whether or not Trump the carnival barker can milk his
opportunist Armageddon into a second term of fleecing the rubes.
This is a very serious Constitutional Law issue and MUST be pursued–and it makes no
difference the political party denomination of those breaking the law! The Current
Oligarchy–Deep State–is the adversary of the vast majority of US citizens and
humanity. With Epstein's arrest and the developments McGovern relates, some progress appears
to be happening.
Lydia , July 8, 2019 at 14:51
You summed it up perfectly, Jill.
Pablo Diablo , July 8, 2019 at 14:42
"the effort to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him." says
it all. Trump is a loose cannon. The so called "Deep State" has been "controlling" our
Presidents since at least the Dulles Brothers. Truman even admitted giving them power was a
BIG mistake. Still question the Kennedy Assassination.
In the 70's, the FBI mailed me a box of drugs, which I refused to take from a very
incompetent fake Mail Man, and three minutes later they showed up with a search warrant for
my house that listed all the drugs in the failed mailed box signed by a Federal Judge. So
much for FISA. The bullshit continues. I could reveal more if necessary.
robert e williamson jr , July 8, 2019 at 14:32
Sam F. whether you realize it or not you got it pretty much on the nose. Except for
this.
The judiciary has been compromised by the congresses refusal to hold CIA et. al.
accountable for their actions. Why? Those in congress remember what happened to JFK.
The number one reason is because the deep state ensures that if anyone goes after CIA
officials or designees that the persons career and life are ruined. Which is something else
that needs to be investigated. Something that if explored may very well put a stop to CIA's
B.S. of lying about everything and getting away with it.
Currently no deterrent exists. None.
Anytime some one or entity gets close the Deep State ends up with their guy as AG. See the
Bill Barr story.
Barr may get his chance to prove me right and at the same time prove "Lady Justice" has
little to do with the DOJ! I think he is a cowardly blowhard. Justice would be Trump and Barr
going to jail .
Justice in this country for the true scoundrels in government or billionaires is non-
existent at this point in time. Putting Epstein in prison for life is called for and if he is
threatened with that maybe his jaw will loosen up.
Until DOJ can become a deterrent to bad actors in government, all government the country
will be controlled by the Deep State. The SWETS, super wealthy elitists.
@ "Justice would be Trump and Barr going to jail ."
Are you suggesting that *any* of their living predecessors don't deserve the same? If so,
which do not and why?
Jay , July 8, 2019 at 14:18
Bif:
I agree something very suspect occurred.
And it's very likely the Obama White House knew that either the NSA or the FBI was tapping
into the communications of some of Trump's campaign team BEFORE Hillary lost in Nov.
2016.
However the xenophobic, lying, terrorist (IRA) supporting, Peter King is not a credible
messenger. (Right, Rep Steve King of Iowa is even worse than King of Long Island.)
Peter Dyer , July 8, 2019 at 14:09
Thanks, Ray.
DH Fabian , July 8, 2019 at 13:59
Actually, that deep split among the masses, and certainly within the Dem voting base, was
achieved in the 1990s -- middle class vs. poor, workers vs. those left jobless, further split
by race. The Obama years confirmed that this split is permanent. Russia had nothing to do
with the Democrats' 2016 defeat, nor will it be the reason for their 2020 defeat. Democrats
maintain their resistance against acknowledging the consequences of dividing and conquering
their own voting base.
EuGene Miller , July 9, 2019 at 00:24
DH, that's an interesting assessment. However, I doubt that any House or Senate Democrat
sought an advantage by "splitting their base". The elected Dems do not control the narrative.
So, who benefits by splitting the masses into rival factions?
Perhaps the narrative of social and political discourse is defined by the owners, boards,
and foundations that control the main-stream media and pop-culture.
Robert Reich wrote that an oligarchy divides-and-conquers the rest of us. I suspect that
controlling the narrative is not simply a propaganda tool; it is the basis of
divide-and-conquer strategy.
Is it possible that the DOJ, see the Sec. of Labor's problems developing with the Espstein
case, is about to have it's gloriously corrupt underbelly rolled over into the sunlight? (you
must roll the snake over to see its belly)
Please Ray tell me this is where we might be heading or instead will we end up with the
courts truncating investigation because they say it will be best for the country not to have
all this filthy laundry dragged out into the sunlight or someones bull shit sources and
methods might be exposed. The DOJ has become a really bad joke!
I'm hoping you know something I don't because Barr's past history pretty much speaks for
itself I'd say after be made sure he pardoned all of Bush 41 henchmen!
At this point I certainly do not have much faith in the DOJ doing the right thing. What
Acosta did in Florida with Epstein was hardly the right thing to do.
They all need to be locked up.
Eric32 , July 8, 2019 at 13:33
Very little "punishment" will occur, and no deep change cleanup will occur.
The US govt. is controlled by money and blackmail – not "voting" or public outrage.
So many high level people have so much dirt on other high level people that nothing major
will be done.
A series of very big events, including the JFK murder and the 9/11 charade went unexposed and
undealt with – there is no reason to think that this medium size event will wind up
making a big difference.
What will happen is that US "democracy" will continue on its downward course, but maybe
with a better facade.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 20:59
I personally believe that the empire will crash when it hits maximum overreach it will
also simultaneously go broke at the same time, as the money interests at that point Will
probably move east, this will partially be due to both the feds tendency to over inflate in
order to cover military acquisitions as well as the decline of swift and the ascendancy of
China in the rest. I actually think that this is what some American factions desire, it is
potentially good for all of us if we can regain a republic but it will mean the end of
American hegemony.
Gary Weglarz , July 8, 2019 at 13:22
This is the same "deep state" that assassinated a sitting president, then proceeded to
assassinate the next three most important and influential progressive leaders in the country
all over a five year period. Problem solved. And just when you thought Allen Dulles didn't
know what to do with all those oh so experienced Nazi war criminals he'd recruited to the
CIA.
When Congress investigated the CIA in the mid-1970's (before Congress became completely
"owned" by the deep state) right on cue witnesses began to "commit suicide" just before they
would be scheduled to testify. Problem solved. Hardly a raised eyebrow from the always
complicit MSM through all of this. Expecting anything more than a massive coverup of this
latest deep state corruption and abuse is beyond my abilities to even effectively fantasize
about.
herbert davis , July 8, 2019 at 14:12
Justice in the USA?
John Drake , July 8, 2019 at 13:20
The corporate Democrats strike out again. They run a corrupt, violent(war monger)
candidate, who loses to a buffoon-an election which was hers to lose. Meanwhile trying to
hedge their bets they play sleazeball with the investigative arm's authority in order to
sabotage said buffoon; which as it is revealed gives ammunition and the advantage to their
target. i.e. "They were illegally picking on me"
If Trump is smart-a very long stretch, but some advisor might suggest this- he will expose
all this slime closer to the election for maximum effect. What a distressing thought. All the
more reason to run a progressive Presidential candidate that can disavow the DNC clowns and
their corruption.
geeyp , July 8, 2019 at 12:37
It's past time for the Deep State to come up from the deep state of hell in which they
reside. At least to purgatory for some fresh air and a wee ray of light. I couldn't let the
Schumer warning keep me from giving the go ahead on this. If my coconut is shattered, someone
somewhere (not our current media) would have a clue as to what happened to me. Sic 'em,
President Trump and A.G. and Devin Nunes!
Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 12:14
The US needs to solve the underlying problem of corruption of secret agencies and
judiciary, otherwise the political wrongdoing of one faction will only be matched by that of
its opponents, regardless of a few prosecutions. I know from experience the extreme
corruption of the Repubs, and little doubt that the Dems do such things at least when
desperate.
The solution includes:
1. All secrets meaningfully shared among multiparty committees;
2. All politicians and top officials monitored for corrupt influence;
3. Entire federal judiciary fired, replaced, and monitored like the politicians; and
4. Amendments to protect elections and mass media from control by money power.
Until then all government acts are tribal gangsterism and little more.
Guy , July 8, 2019 at 13:50
You forgot about dual citizenship members of the senate and congress . Elected as a
representative for the country of the US should mean just that and not another country . And
while we are at it , major reform on monetary contributions to candidates running for
re-election . There is something terribly wrong with needing millions if not billions of
dollars to run the electoral races.There is much more that needs to be done but this would be
a good start .
Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:32
Yes, the proposed Amendments would restrict funding of mass media and elections to
registered individual contributions (some prefer government funding) limited to the average
day's pay annually (for example), with full reporting by candidates and all intermediaries.
We all can see the destruction of democracy that was caused by economic power controlling
elections, mass media, the judiciary, etc.
But of course we cannot get those amendments because those tools of democracy now belong
to the rich, etc. History suggests that we are in for generations of severe decline before
the people are hurting enough to turn off the tube and do something, and generations more
before they can re-establish democracy.
Ray McGovern writes:"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite
tactics to stymie investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious
embarrassment or reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge"
On the matter of government reform classification there is a great need of public
discussion and radical reform. Why? Because the government is playing with an essential
right, the right to know. All the red herrings needed to be thrown in the trash and the
burden placed on the classifiers to justify why the public does not have a right to know.
Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:24
Yes, the facts and their significance (especially about false flags and scandals) need to
be publicly debated, as well as policy goals, and the policies derived from facts and goals.
We have far too many government secrets to sustain a democracy.
I suggest limiting secrets to ongoing investigations (with a time limit), defensive
military plans and operations (not alleged provocations or aggressive war schemes), and
personal IDs of those at risk. Beyond that secrets disguise tyranny.
Ida G Millman , July 8, 2019 at 16:02
Another path towards a solution to government corruption could be term limits for all
federal representatives. Limiting the number of terms would curtail the opportunities for
forming the uninterrupted years of long coalitions between public servants and government
officials that result in the abuses of power that have damaged the interests of ordinary less
wealthy citizens, in favor of corporate and military interests.
In the matter of the original intentions of the men who wrote our founding documents, we
should consider one of the enormous differences that technology has made between us: that our
representatives can travel between DC and their homes with enough ease that they can continue
reasonably, or nearly reasonably, satisfactory family lives – something that could not
be done in the 18th century. The forefathers did not foresee that being a member of
government would become a career for a lifetime. They assumed, I believe, that members of
government would always be citizens who would give our country a few years of their lives and
then return to private life to share their experience and knowledge with their neighbors.
Such a change would not magically reform government corruption. There will always be those
who will find a way – but it could slow things down and it would certainly engage an
increasing number of citizens who would participate in governing, as well as the circles of
people surrounding each of them whose interest in and understanding of government would
increase because everyone would know more of their representatives. Got that, kids?
L&B&L
Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:37
Term limits are useful and we should enact more. There seems to be a sufficient supply of
puppets for the rich/WallSt/Mic/zionists to ensure that all new candidates represent only
those interests, unless we go further and control funding of mass media and elections,
monitoring of politicians and judges for life, etc.
Rob Roy , July 8, 2019 at 20:28
Ida,
Term limits wouldn't be necessary if money were out of elections and all elections were
publicly funded. Next, a law should be passed to prevent retired congress people from
lobbying for any private company of any kind. Then people wouldn't have to spend all their
time in congress lining up money for the next election, nor would they owe favors to
anyone.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 21:19
Sam F, all of those goals seem very nice but it would probably be better if we just
dissolved back into 50 states save for an interstate system and a very small navy for common
defense, maybe four nuclear submarines total, the American people will be best off without a
government completely working it out for themselves, if some of them work it out in
completely different ways without hurting each other so be it. Besides even a libertarians
would have to acknowledge democracy best works for smaller populations. We may never be able
to curb the will to power of evil men but we can diminish their abilities to fleece the
public if we are not subject to them.
Jay , July 8, 2019 at 11:42
Peter King?
Really now.
Not a credible source, no matter how invention filled Russia-gate is. And no matter how
clear it is that in 2016 the FBI was poking around campaign Trump and likely telling the
White House what it found.
Bif Webster , July 8, 2019 at 13:28
I agree that King isn't the best of messengers, but we can also go to others who are not
right-wing to see something fishy went on.
Those text messages convinced me something was going on. And that was before all the other
stuff came to light.
I think this will be about who has more dirt on the other side you know, leverage?
Jeff Harrison , July 8, 2019 at 11:41
Thank you, Ray. Forgive my cynicism but the US government is so corrupt, has wielded
illegitimate power for so long, and has covered the tracks of countless functionaries who
have not upheld the constitution that I doubt this will go anywhere. I have been quoting Ben
Franklin for some time "you have a republic, if you can keep it." I don't think we can. A
reading of "A History of Venice" by John J. Norris would be appropriate here. The most serene
republic lasted for essentially 1,000 years from roughly 800 to not quite 1800, first as a
democracy, later as an oligarchy. Much like us, including having the most feared secret
service in Europe at the time, Venice kept its power through trade but at least we don't
hoist the new president up on a chair so that he can throw golden Ducats to the crowd on Wall
Street the way that a new Doge would.
I don't see that as necessarily much of a plus.
Steven Berge , July 8, 2019 at 11:40
I don't suppose anything will happen to anybody important about this. After all, nothing
happened to anybody when they were caught mass spying on any and all american citizens, even
before they made it legal.
Drew Hunkins , July 8, 2019 at 11:32
Unfortunately Webb and Parry exposed much of these gangster criminal "intel" savages for
running guns and drugs to Central American pseudo fascist mercenary sadists throughout much
of the late 1970s through the '80s. I say unfortunately b/c nothing much ever came along by
way of true justice, by way of the criminal players rotting in maximum security jail cells
for years on end, not unlike the crack or heroin addict who steals a $400 television.
Jill , July 8, 2019 at 11:15
This has been one long crime against the American people. King should read what he knows
into the Congressional Record. I have no sympathy for Trump's fear of the deep state. He has
sent people to die knowing full well that his actions were based on lies, lies that would
result in the deaths of civilians as well as our own military. If he is going to do that,
then he should have the courage to face the deep state. That's partial penance for all the
deaths he has caused.
I also don't care about Trump's personal issue about being surveilled. He personally
supports that against everyone else. That is why I feel this is a crime against our people as
a whole. Our constitution has been stripped bare. We don't have the rule of law. Mass
surveillance covering the globe is current reality. It is dangerous. It is wrong. It is
lawless. It is a disaster.
Further, Russiagate was used to keep real opposition away from Trump. His supporters
doubled down on "liking" Trump because he appeared to be a victim of these lies. Democrats
meanwhile learned to further worship the IC. They ignored Trump's actual unlawful behavior,
and, in the case of war crimes, still support Trump on every war/regime change action etc.
recommended to them by their IC "resistance" "leaders".
People won't speak to one another because of this division, all based on lies. Democrats
want Assange put to death because he exposed truthful information about Clinton. Neighbor has
turned against neighbor over this. We have stopped talking and stopped thinking about whether
claims make sense or have evidence behind them. Political parties have become cults with cult
leaders. Meanwhile, many who think it was wrong to use surveillance against Trump, accept
mass surveillance against everyone else, including themselves.
This has been one of the most effective propaganda tools I have ever seen against our
populace. It has created a divided, unthinking populace who is ripe for the picking by evil
men and women. I am truly hoping that once this is exposed people will stop this madness and
pull together for a common good. But I'm quite worried that, like most cults, when the leader
is shown to be wrong, people cling to them even more.
I cannot believe what Russiagate has done to our own people. I am terrified at the wars it
has/may yet cause and the cruelty against others, both foreign and domestic, which it has
wrought.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 21:51
What else would you call it, there have always been nefarious agents in one government or
another for one gangster interest or another, whether was Milner's roundtable or Dulles's Gladio werewolves, these are nefarious individuals there is no gray area in that, however
they may conduct themselves and their personal lives, it is not sloppy journalism, is to call
something what it is, a this shadow government working in many instances against the direct
interest of the American people, I'm not trying to be you over the head with this but Mr.
McGovern was once upon a Time swimming in the same waters and he knows what he is talking
about. The deep state maybe several different factions but all of it at least so far is
fairly I'm Accountable, this thing must be named.
AnneR , July 8, 2019 at 14:18
First the Disclaimer: I'm not a supporter of either side of the one party two headed
monster political machine, not of either HRC or DT, both, and their "parties," making me want
to puke.
I am curious about the following: "He [DT] has sent people to die knowing full well that
his actions were based on lies, lies that would result in the deaths of civilians as well as
our own military. If he is going to do that, then he should have the courage to face the deep
state. That's partial penance for all the deaths he has caused."
While I have no doubt that DT has been responsible for civilian deaths (I am far less
concerned about military deaths – join the military and you cannot expect not to have
to chance it, particularly in a warmongering nation state; if the recruit doesn't recognize
this reality, then they need to do some reading), *most* such deaths in those countries we
(the US and its vassal states and proxies) have been happily bombing, shelling, destroying
one way or another, even since the late 1980s (not therefore including the appalling and
illegal warring on Vietnam et al) are down, not to DT, but rather to presidents: BC, GHB,
GWB, BO. Pretty evenly divided betwixt the two heads, wouldn't you say?
That's not to excuse DT (and I wouldn't excuse HRC either – think Libya; as bad as
MA, if with different forms of warfare; but then they're buddies, like attracting like).
We – the US – need to stop killing other peoples (let's cry for the war-making
profiteers), stop destroying other countries (and for our corporate-capitalists who plunder
them); need to mind our own "shop" and business. And stop pretending that we're such a
wonderful, white-hatted, "good" nation.
Jill , July 8, 2019 at 15:15
AnneR,
We have had war criminal presidents from the legacy parties, period. Barr is a party to
war crimes so I share other's doubts that he will do anything about actual justice. He may be
in on the current winning side of the IC and they may be purging some enemies at this time.
That is the only thing I see Barr being involved in.
Speaking as someone who has done counter-recruitment in schools, I will just give you my
experience. Students are tracked from grade school. A file is kept on them with over a
thousand data points. These files are taken by recruiters and used to "pitch" the military to
young people. I don't know if you were sophisticated at 16. I was a little bit but not much.
So here's an example–they told one young woman who had a single mother that if she went
in the military she would not be a burden on her mother any longer. They understood the
family had few resources and they played on this young woman's "guilt" over being a financial
"drain" on her mother. No, recruiters do not tell the truth to those they meet. They lie and
they lie very well because they have excellent information to help them tell the correct
lies. That girl is dead and I mourn her death.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 22:05
AnneR, you have so much anger, I understand, it is terrible what our nation has done and
is continuing to do, it has gone on so long that many of the people currently perpetrating
the crimes against foreign populations are themselves of descendents of peoples the US has
victimized. It's the propaganda, the United States is one of the most heavily propagandize
societies in the world, we make the Soviets look like children. No one wants you to have
sympathy for Donald Trump, you do not have to agree or like a person to see that the cartel
seeking to damage him is also simultaneously against your interests and they are against your
interests whether you're from the left or the right because they do not have an ideology just
it will to power.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 22:09
Jill that was an incredibly cogent description of the mess we are currently in,
congratulations on such clarity, peace out.
David Otness , July 9, 2019 at 00:18
With you on all that you state, Jill. It's really exposed the U.S. population for what we
unfortunately are, if not what we've become. So reminiscent of the darker days of the Cold
War. A stark education has just played out to this point. I wonder how many have learned anything at all from it?
With all due respect Mr. Smith things have really gone down hill after Bush Sr. I'm talking
about direct attacks on the rights of American citizens. Bush Sr. (R) with his CIA drug dealing
with the help of Noriega. He purchased weapons with the proceeds to arm terrorist guerrilla
groups in Nicaragua. Bill Clinton (D) helped Bush Sr. as governor of Arkansas by covering up
any investigation targeting the operation and laundering their money through a state owned
bank. Bush Jr. (R) secured lands in Afghanistan in order to restart athe heroine trade by
growing poppy fields to process and ship back to the US. Obama (R) made sure the Mexican drug
cartels were well armed in order to launch a drug war that supported the Merida Initiative,
which allowed armed DEA, CIA and Mercenaries into Mexican territory. Trump (R) will be the
clean up hitter that will usher in the dollar collapse.
Mr. Smith do you really believe it is a coincidence that Rep 8 yrs, Dem 8yrs, Rep 8yrs, Dem
8yrs, Rep 3 yrs are voted in? Please sir, don't fool yourself because in the next election I
will bet money the orange fool will be president for another 4 years unless the owners don't
want him there. But we can safely say that history tells us he will. All I'm saying that people
like you, waiting for someone to throw you a rope because you've fallen into deep water are
waiting on a rescue boat that doesn't care if you drown.
Your best bet for change was thrown away when Dr. Ron Paul failed to be nominated. Us dumb
asses in Mexico didn't need another election fraud this time around! The people started YouTube
channels that reported the "real" news (Chapucero – Quesadillas de Verdades –
Charro Politico – Sin Censura, etc.). Those channels made a big difference, countering
the negative reporting by Mexican and US MSM that the Presidential Candidate for MORENA as
"Leftist", "Communist", "Socialist", "Like Hugo Chavez", "Dangerous", etc.
With all of the US propaganda, Mexican propaganda, the negative MSM and Elite financing,
Mexicans knew they had to get out and vote in record numbers and they did! Otherwise a close
election was seen as another loss and the end of Mexico as a country. People were ready to
fight and die if necessary. They had seen the Energy Reforms forced down our throat by the
corrupt PRI/PAN parties (Mex version o DEM/REP), with the help of Hillary Clinton and the US
State Department. They drafting the changes needed to the Mexican Constitution to allow a vote.
Totally against the Law in Mexico and I'm sure the laws of the US.
There is a saying that goes something like, "If you're not ready to die for Freedom, take it
out of your Vocabulary"!
1984, Brave New World, and Idiocracy look more and more like Documentaries now.
Notable quotes:
"... Describing the protagonist Winston Smith's frugal London flat, he mentions an instrument called a 'telescreen', which sounds strikingly similar to the handheld 'smartphone' that is enthusiastically used by billions of people around the world today. ..."
"... At the same time, the denizens of 1984 were never allowed to forget they were living in a totalitarian surveillance state, under the control of the much-feared Thought Police. Massive posters with the slogan 'Big Brother is Watching You' were as prevalent as our modern-day advertising billboards. Today, however, such polite warnings about surveillance would seem redundant, as reports of unauthorized spying still gets the occasional lazy nod in the media now and then. ..."
"... In fact, just in time for 1984's anniversary, it has been reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) has once again been illicitly collecting records on telephone calls and text messages placed by US citizens. ..."
"... Another method of control alluded to in 1984 fell under a system of speech known as 'Newspeak', which attempted to reduce the language to 'doublethink', with the ulterior motive of controlling ideas and thoughts. ..."
"... Another Newspeak term, known as 'facecrime', provides yet another striking parallel to our modern situation. Defined as "to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense." It would be difficult for the modern reader to hear the term 'facecrime' and not connect it with 'Facebook', the social media platform that regularly censors content creators for expressing thoughts it finds 'hateful' or inappropriate. ..."
"... 'Hate speech' is precisely one of those delightfully vague, subjective terms with no real meaning that one would expect to find in the Newspeak style guide. Short of threatening the life of a person or persons, individuals should be free to criticize others without fear of reprisal, least of all from the state, which should be in the business of protecting free speech at all cost. ..."
"... Another modern phenomenon that would be right at home in Orwell's Oceania is the obsession with political correctness, which is defined as "the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against." But since so many people today identify with some marginalized group, this has made the intelligent discussion of controversial ideas – not least of all on US college campuses , of all places – exceedingly difficult, if not downright dangerous. Orwell must be looking down on all of this madness with much surprise, since he provided the world with the best possible warning to prevent it. ..."
70 years ago, the British writer George Orwell captured the essence of technology in its ability to shape our destinies in his
seminal work, 1984. The tragedy of our times is that we have failed to heed his warning.
No matter how many times I read 1984, the feeling of total helplessness and despair that weaves itself throughout Orwell's masterpiece
never fails to take me by surprise. Although usually referred to as a 'dystopian futuristic novel', it is actually a horror story
on a scale far greater than anything that has emerged from the minds of prolific writers like Stephen King or Dean Koontz. The reason
is simple. The nightmare world that the protagonist Winston Smith inhabits, a place called Oceania, is all too easily imaginable.
Man, as opposed to some imaginary clown or demon, is the evil monster.
In the very first pages of the book, Orwell demonstrates an uncanny ability to foresee future trends in technology. Describing
the protagonist Winston Smith's frugal London flat, he mentions an instrument called a 'telescreen', which sounds strikingly similar
to the handheld 'smartphone' that is enthusiastically used by billions of people around the world today.
Orwell describes the ubiquitous device as an "oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror" affixed to the wall that "could be dimmed,
but there was no way of shutting it off completely." Sound familiar?
It is through this gadget that the rulers of Oceania are able
to monitor the actions of its citizens every minute of every day.
At the same time, the denizens of 1984 were never allowed to forget
they were living in a totalitarian surveillance state, under the control of the much-feared Thought Police. Massive posters with
the slogan 'Big Brother is Watching You' were as prevalent as our modern-day advertising billboards. Today, however, such polite
warnings about surveillance would seem redundant, as reports of unauthorized spying still gets the occasional lazy nod in the media
now and then.
In fact, just in time for 1984's anniversary, it has been
reported that the National Security
Agency (NSA) has once again been illicitly collecting records on telephone calls and text messages placed by US citizens. This latest
invasion
of privacy has been casually dismissed as an "error" after an unnamed telecommunications firm handed over call records the NSA
allegedly "hadn't requested" and "weren't approved" by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In 2013, former CIA employee
Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA's intrusive surveillance operations, yet somehow the government agency is able to continue
– with the help of the corporate sector – vacuuming up the private information of regular citizens.
Another method of control alluded to in 1984 fell under a system of speech known as 'Newspeak', which attempted to reduce the
language to 'doublethink', with the ulterior motive of controlling ideas and thoughts. For example, the term 'joycamp', a truncated
term every bit as euphemistic as the 'PATRIOT Act', was used to describe a forced labor camp, whereas a 'doubleplusgood duckspeaker'
was used to praise an orator who 'quacked' correctly with regards to the political situation.
Another Newspeak term, known as 'facecrime', provides yet another striking parallel to our modern situation. Defined as "to wear
an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense."
It would be difficult for the modern reader to hear the term 'facecrime' and not connect it with 'Facebook', the social media platform
that regularly censors content creators
for expressing thoughts it finds 'hateful' or inappropriate. What social media users need is an Orwellian lesson in 'crimestop',
which Orwell defined as "the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought." Those
so-called unacceptable 'dangerous thoughts' were determined not by the will of the people, of course, but by their rulers.
And yes, it gets worse. Just this week, Mark Zuckerberg's 'private company'
agreed to give French authorities the "identification
data" of Facebook users suspected of spreading 'hate speech' on the platform, in what would be an unprecedented move on the part
of Silicon Valley.
'Hate speech' is precisely one of those delightfully vague, subjective terms with no real meaning that one would expect to find
in the Newspeak style guide. Short of threatening the life of a person or persons, individuals should be free to criticize others
without fear of reprisal, least of all from the state, which should be in the business of protecting free speech at all cost.
Another modern phenomenon that would be right at home in Orwell's Oceania is the obsession with political correctness, which is
defined as "the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people
who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against." But since so many people today identify with some marginalized group, this
has made the intelligent discussion of controversial ideas – not least of all on US college
campuses , of all places – exceedingly difficult,
if not downright dangerous. Orwell must be looking down on all of this madness with much surprise, since he provided the world with
the best possible warning to prevent it.
For anyone who entertains expectations for a happy ending in 1984, be prepared for serious disappointment (spoiler alert, for
the few who have somehow not read this book). Although Winston Smith manages to finally experience love, the brief romance – like
a delicate flower that was able to take root amid a field of asphalt – is crushed by the authorities with shocking brutality. Not
satisfied with merely destroying the relationship, however, Smith is forced to betray his 'Julia' after undergoing the worst imaginable
torture at the 'Ministry of Love'.
The book ends with the words, "He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." Will we too declare, like Winston Smith,
our love for 'Big Brother' above all else, or will we emerge victorious against the forces of a technological tyranny that appears
to be just over the horizon? Or is Orwell's 1984 just really good fiction and not the instruction manual for tyrants many have come
to fear it is?
An awful lot is riding on our answers to those questions, and time is running out.
You have probably seen the bumper sticker that says: "Shit Happens." Some people are just
lucky, I suppose, and odd coincidences mark their lives.
When he was just out of Columbia College and working for a reputed CIA front company,
Business International Corporation, Barack Obama had a chance encounter with a young woman,
Genevieve Cook, with whom he had a 1-2 year relationship.
Like Obama and at about the same
time, Cook just happened to have lived in Indonesia with her father, Michael Cook, who just
happened to become Australia's top spook, the director-general of the Office of National
Assessments, and also the Ambassador to Washington.
Of course, Obama's mother, as is well-known, just happened to be living in Indonesia with
Barack and Obama's step-father, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian military officer, who had been
called back to Indonesia by the CIA supported General Suharto three months before the CIA coup
against President Sukarno. Suharto subsequently slaughtered over a million Indonesian
Communists and Indonesian-Chinese.
As is also well-known, it just so happened that Obama's
mother, Ann Dunham, trained in the Russian language, after teaching English in the US Embassy
in Jakarta that housed one of the largest CIA stations in Asia, did her "anthropological" work
in Indonesia and Southeast Asia financed by the well-known CIA conduits, USAID and the Ford
Foundation.
Then there is Cook's stepfather, Philip C. Jessup, who just happened to be in
Indonesia at the same time, doing nickel-mining deals with the genocidal Suharto
government.
Anyway, "shit happens." You never know whom you might meet along the way of life.
The banal, 1967 hit song, "San Francisco" (Be sure to wear flowers in your hair), which was
influential in enticing young people to come to San Francisco for the Summer of Love, was
written by "Papa" John Philips, who attended the US Naval Academy at Annapolis and whose father
was a Marine Corps Captain. "Papa" John's wife had worked at the Pentagon and her father was
involved in covert intelligence work in Vietnam. His neighbor and Laurel Canyon (Los Angeles)
buddy was Jim Morrison of Doors fame, whose father US Navy Admiral George Morrison commanded
U.S. warships in Vietnam's Tonkin Gulf during the "Tonkin Gulf Incident."
Frank Zappa, the father figure of Laurel Canyon's many musicians who just happened to
converge in one place at the same time where a covert military film studio operated, had a
father who was a chemical warfare specialist at Edgewood Arsenal.
Stephen Stills, David Crosby and many other soon to be famous musicians all came from
military and intelligence backgrounds and frolicked in Laurel Canyon. Although they were draft
age, none of them was drafted as they played music, dropped acid, and created the folk-rock
movement whose music was catchy but innocuous and posed no threat to the establishment. But
"shit happens."
In his disturbing book, Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon , David McGowan raises the
question: "what if the musicians themselves (and various other leaders and founders of the
'movement') were every bit as much a part of the intelligence community as the people who were
supposedly harassing them?
What if, in other words, the entire youth culture of the 1960s was created not as a
grass-roots challenge to the status quo, but as a cynical exercise in discrediting and
marginalizing the budding anti-war movement and creating a fake opposition that could be easily
controlled and led astray . What if, in reality, they were pretty much all playing on the same
team?"
"... To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program, and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Assassinations and torture were central to his approach. ..."
"... What is germane to his post at the Iran Mission Center is that D'Andrea is close to the Gulf Arabs, a former CIA analyst told me. The Gulf Arabs have been pushing hard for action against Iran, a view shared by D'Andrea and parts of his team. For his hard-nosed attitude toward Iran, D'Andrea is known -- ironically -- as "Ayatollah Mike." ..."
"... D'Andrea and people like Bolton are part of an ecosystem of men who have a visceral hatred for Iran and who are close to the worldview of the Saudi royal family . These are men who are reckless with violence, willing to do anything if it means provoking a war against Iran. Nothing should be put past them. ..."
"... D'Andrea's twin outside the White House is Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire who set up two groups that are blindingly for regime change in Iran. The two groups are United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and Counter Extremism Project. There is nothing subtle here. These groups -- and Kaplan himself -- promote an agenda of great disparagement of Muslims in general and of Iran in particular. ..."
"... It is fitting that Kaplan's anti-Iran groups bring together the CIA and money. The head of UANI is Mark Wallace, who is the chief executive of Kaplan's Tigris Financial Group, a financial firm with investments -- which it admits -- would benefit from "instability in the Middle East." Working with UANI and the Counter Extremism Project is Norman Roule, a former national intelligence manager for Iran in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ..."
"... These men -- Kaplan and Bolton, D'Andrea and Shihabi -- are eager to use the full force of the U.S. military to further the dangerous goals of the Gulf Arab royals (of both Saudi Arabia and of the UAE). When Pompeo walked before cameras, he carried their water for them. These are men on a mission. They want war against Iran. ..."
In 2017, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) created a special unit -- the Iran Mission Center -- to focus attention on
the U.S. plans against Iran . The initiative for this unit came from CIA director John Brennan, who left his post as the Trump administration
came into office. Brennan believed that the CIA needed to focus attention on what the United States sees as problem areas -- North
Korea and Iran, for instance. This predated the Trump administration.
Brennan's successor -- Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director for just over a year (until he was appointed U.S. Secretary of State)
-- continued this policy. The CIA's Iran-related activity had been conducted in the Iran Operations Division (Persia House). This
was a section with Iran specialists who built up knowledge about political and economic developments inside Iran and in the Iranian
diaspora.
It bothered the hawks in Washington -- as one official told me -- that Persia House was filled with Iran specialists who had no
special focus on regime change in Iran. Some of them, due to their long concentration on Iran, had developed sensitivity to the country.
Trump's people wanted a much more focused and belligerent group that would provide the kind of intelligence that tickled the fancy
of his National Security Adviser John Bolton .
To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program,
and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Assassinations and torture were central to his approach.
It was D'Andrea who expanded the CIA's drone strike program, in particular the signature strike. The signature strike is a particularly
controversial instrument. The CIA was given the allowance to kill anyone who fit a certain profile -- a man of a certain age, for
instance, with a phone that had been used to call someone on a list. The dark arts of the CIA are precisely those of D'Andrea.
What is germane to his post at the Iran Mission Center is that D'Andrea is close to the Gulf Arabs, a former CIA analyst told
me. The Gulf Arabs have been pushing hard for action against Iran, a view shared by D'Andrea and parts of his team. For his hard-nosed
attitude toward Iran, D'Andrea is known -- ironically -- as "Ayatollah Mike."
D'Andrea and people like Bolton are part of an ecosystem of men who have a visceral hatred for Iran and who are close to the
worldview of the Saudi royal family . These are men who are reckless with violence, willing to do anything if it means provoking
a war against Iran. Nothing should be put past them.
D'Andrea and the hawks edged out several Iran experts from the Iran Mission Center, people like Margaret Stromecki -- who had
been head of analysis. Others who want to offer an alternative to the Pompeo-Bolton view of things either have also moved on or remain
silent. There is no space in the Trump administration, a former official told me, for dissent on the Iran policy.
Saudi Arabia's War
D'Andrea's twin outside the White House is Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire who set up two groups that are blindingly for regime
change in Iran. The two groups are United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and Counter Extremism Project. There is nothing subtle here.
These groups -- and Kaplan himself -- promote an agenda of great disparagement of Muslims in general and of Iran in particular.
Kaplan blamed Iran for the creation of ISIS, for it was Iran -- Kaplan said -- that "used a terrible Sunni movement" to expand
its reach from "Persia to the Mediterranean." Such absurdity followed from a fundamental misreading of Shia concepts such as taqiya,
which means prudence and not -- as Kaplan and others argue -- deceit. Kaplan, bizarrely, shares more with ISIS than Iran does with
that group -- since both Kaplan and ISIS are driven by their hatred of those who follow the Shia traditions of Islam.
It is fitting that Kaplan's anti-Iran groups bring together the CIA and money. The head of UANI is Mark Wallace, who is the
chief executive of Kaplan's Tigris Financial Group, a financial firm with investments -- which it admits -- would benefit from "instability
in the Middle East." Working with UANI and the Counter Extremism Project is Norman Roule, a former national intelligence manager
for Iran in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Roule has offered his support to the efforts of the Arabia Foundation, run by Ali Shihabi -- a man with close links to the Saudi
monarchy. The Arabia Foundation was set up to do more effective public relations work for the Saudis than the Saudi diplomats are
capable of doing. Shihabi is the son of one of Saudi Arabia's most well-regarded diplomats, Samir al-Shihabi, who played an important
role as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Pakistan during the war that created al-Qaeda.
These men -- Kaplan and Bolton, D'Andrea and Shihabi -- are eager to use the full force of the U.S. military to further the
dangerous goals of the Gulf Arab royals (of both Saudi Arabia and of the UAE). When Pompeo walked before cameras, he carried their
water for them. These are men on a mission. They want war against Iran.
Evidence, reason. None of this is important to them. They will not stop until the U.S. bombers deposit their deadly payload on
Tehran and Qom, Isfahan and Shiraz. They will do anything to make that our terrible reality.
This article was produced by Globetrotter ,
a project of the Independent Media Institute.
I don't know either. But it's been the main stream party line for a while now. "Bernie
should drop out because he's old, white, male, and his opinions are not unique. He's not even
a real Democrat. And he doesn't support the party. So why is he running for president as a
Democrat and picking fights with Biden/Warren/Beto?"
The one that gets me is Bernie the Bomber. Somehow when the pundit class talks about
Bernie and Tulsi, it's only to mention how they coddle dictators.
Coddle (the wrong) dictators. Real Dems coddle our CIA approved dictators. Bernie and
Tulsi coddle those filthy democratically elected "dictators" that want to retain natural
resources for the benefit of their own nations and not for the enrichment of multinationals.
They're monsters!
Seriously though, only the Dems would have a superstar like Bernie and put all their
efforts into sabotaging him. Even the RNC and right wing media was willing to suck it up and
get behind Trump when it was clear he was going to win and had a huge base of support. But,
as is said often now, "the Dems would rather lose to a Republican than win with a
progressive".
Is the CIA's purpose to protect national security or financial security? They seem
confused at times on their purpose and if they were disbanded would the country notice?
Doesn't the Defense Intelligence Agency do most of the heavy security lifting?
Looking at the CIA actions from the Dulles Brothers onwards, I would say that it is to
protect and support all members of the Oligarchy of Money from the 1% to Big Oil to Big
Finance from that pesky Democratic Government and the troublesome Rule of Law.
Actually protecting the United States and never mind Americans themselves is like #47 on
its to-do list.
Did you notice the shift in Bernie's message tonight? He said they needed to have the guts
to take on Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex, and Big Pharma. I didn't hear him
complain about big banks. I think he's been compromised!
Western News Agencies Mistranslate Iran's President Speech - It Is Not The First Time
Such 'Error' HappensJOHN CHUCKMAN , Jun 26, 2019 2:10:12
PM |
23
Yesterday the news agencies Associated Press and Reuters mistranslated a
speech by Iran's President Hassan Rouhani. They made it sound as if Rouhani insulted U.S.
President Donald Trump as 'mentally retarded'. Rouhani never said that.
Iran's conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Wednesday that Israel must be
"wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians would destroy it, the ISNA press
agency reported.
...
Referring to comments by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution,
Ahmadinejad said, "As the imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map."
Ever since he spoke at an anti-Zionism conference in Tehran last October, President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad of Iran has been known for one statement above all. As translated by news
agencies at the time, it was that Israel "should be wiped off the map." Iran's nuclear
program and sponsorship of militant Muslim groups are rarely mentioned without reference to
the infamous map remark.
Here, for example, is R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political
affairs, recently: "Given the radical nature of Iran under Ahmadinejad and its stated wish
to wipe Israel off the map of the world, it is entirely unconvincing that we could or
should live with a nuclear Iran."
"Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom
exists in Persian," remarked Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of
Michigan and critic of American policy who has argued that the Iranian president was
misquoted. "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying
Jerusalem, would collapse." Since Iran has not "attacked another country aggressively for
over a century," he said in an e-mail exchange, "I smell the whiff of war propaganda."
Jonathan Steele, a columnist for the left-leaning Guardian newspaper in London, recently
laid out the case this way: "The Iranian president was quoting an ancient statement by
Iran's first Islamist leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that 'this regime occupying
Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,' just as the Shah's regime in Iran had
vanished. He was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupation
of Jerusalem at some point in the future. The 'page of time' phrase suggests he did not
expect it to happen soon."
Despite the above
and other explanations the false "wipe Israel off the map" translation never died. Years
later it still reappeared in Guardian pieces which required it to issuemultiple
corrections and clarifications.
Now, as the Trump administration is pushing for war on Iran, a similar mistranslation
miraculously happened. It were again 'western' news agencies who lightened the fire:
A lot of Western media is reporting that Iranian President Rouhani called Trump
"mentally retarded." This is inaccurate.
Regarding Trump, he just said "no wise person would take such an action [the new sanctions
imposed]."
Absolutely incorrect. There is a word for "retarded" in Persian & Rouhani didn't use
it. Prior to him saying "mental disability" he even prefaced his comment by saying "mental
weakness." Those who speak Persian can listen & judge for themselves. Here is a video
clip of Rouhani's comment: link
Iran leadership doesn't understand the words "nice" or "compassion," they never have.
Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power, and the USA is by far the most
powerful Military Force in the world, with 1.5 Trillion Dollars invested over the last two
years alone..
....The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their
leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The U.S. has not
forgotten Iran's use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded
many more...
.... Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement , put out today, only shows that they
do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great
and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John
Kerry & Obama!
Reuters , which also peddled the mistranslation, gleefully
connected the dots :
This follows in the footsteps of a rich history of mistranslating and obfuscating which is
rarely, if ever, corrected by our Guardians of Truth. I will not hold my breath for AP to
pull its tweet out issue any sort of correction. The war machine is revving up, truth be
damned.
To add a few obfuscations to the list of mistranslations: the Palestinian intifada. Sounds
scary, no? Violence against the benevolent Israelis. Because what does intifada actually
mean? Uprising, which by its nature suggests oppression, something which just 'can't' be
happening in Palestine, hence the need for intifada.
Or take jihad, 'a pillor' of Islam. Again, very scary, as jihad 'means' suicide bombs and
killing infidels. What the Guardians of Truth never mention is that jihad in Islam is a very,
very broad term that includes such things as helping the poor or less fortunate, educating
oneself, quiet reflection, and prayer. Jihad as meaning 'holy war' was a sense meaning
derived much later than the founding of the religion, as a reaction to very real threats to
believers of the time, the Crusades and Mongol invasions. That this specific sense meaning
was essentially confined to history afterward, only to be revived by Wahhabists and takfiris,
and one not believed in by the vast majority of Muslims, is never explained. 'Cause all them
crazy Muslims believe in jihad!
In all cases where the boogeyman of the day needs concocting, rest assured the
'mainstream' press, with AP in the lead, will be there to build a gleaming edifice mistruths,
omissions, and lies.
In approximately 17 months, the american public can make strides to fix this mess.
I guess that is a long time for the iranians, but still maybe best option.
Just in case there is any doubt in American minds here is the Israeli Ambassador to the UN.
He thinks the sanctions are working well. Iran is panicking.
They mistranslate Trump all the time, or they spin what he says. It is amazing to watch.
For instance, at the Helsinki meeting, where he met with Putin and they discussed multiple
topics, but the press ignored any topic but demanding that Trump denounce Putin and "admit"
that Putin helped him steal the election, and that he was therefore not the legitimate
president.
Obviously, Trump was not going to say that, so he said that he was the legitimate
president, and the mockingbird media spun that into "the president is a traitor to America
because he said that 17 national intelligence agencies are lying".
.....The ministers lie, the professors lie, the television lies,
the priests lie .
These lies mean that the country wants to die.
Lie after lie starts out into the prairie grass,
like enormous caravans of Conestoga wagons .
And a long desire for death flows out, guiding the
enormous caravans from beneath,
stringing together the vague and foolish words.
It is a desire to eat death,
to gobble it down,
to rush on it like a cobra with mouth open
It's a desire to take death inside,
to feel it burning inside, pushing out velvety hairs,
like a clothes brush in the intestines --
This is the thrill that leads the President on to lie....
Robert Bly, The Teeth Mother Naked at Last, originally published by City Lights books
1970
Maybe the translation is inacurate but the message had the expected reaction from Trump:
Tweet furor.
It is good that Trump realizes that he does not have the monopole of insulting leaders.
The USA is a country that since WWII has never won any war. How could it give a lesson to
Iran who won a 8 years war against Iraq despite the support that the USA, the Gulf countries
and Western countries gave to Iraq.
Loud noise and indecisive actions: The disaster of the USA foreign policy
I remember watching CNN translate Khamenei's "Nuclear Power" to "Nuclear Weapons" right on
live TV in 2013. This is not new.
/div> Virgile "The USA is a country that since WWII has never won any war".
The US won a war against Grenada [population 95,000] I would go so far as to say they whupped
ass. True there were only 64 Cuban soldiers there [security guards] All members of the US armed
forces were involved and 5,000 medals were given out. Ra Ra USA.
Posted by: Harry Law , Jun 26, 2019 5:29:37 PM |
50
Virgile "The USA is a country that since WWII has never won any war". The US won a war
against Grenada [population 95,000] I would go so far as to say they whupped ass. True there
were only 64 Cuban soldiers there [security guards] All members of the US armed forces were
involved and 5,000 medals were given out. Ra Ra USA.
Posted by: Harry Law | Jun 26, 2019 5:29:37 PM |
50
b-
I am a Persian speaker and is true that president Rouhani never said Trump is retarded, we
now have way passed the point that insults can matte. Nevertheless it was better if President
Rouhani would have called Trump and the rest of the ruling US regime like what the whole
world has now come to understand, a true and unique collection of retards on a shining hill.
Reminds me of when Nikita Khruschev attempted to explain in 1956 his view that that
capitalism would destroy itself from within by quoting Marx: "What the bourgeoisie therefore
produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers." This was notoriously
mistranslated into English as "We will bury you", as if the Soviets were out to kill all
westerners themselves. Of course this mistranslated was quoted time and time again in western
media, fueling Cold War paranoia for years to come.
blue @ 19 The news media are wedded to the state which is wedded to the banking system which
are all subsidiaries of global capitalism. They don't need to correct themselves. They may
have the occasional family feud, but they're all on the same team. They will admit to
"mistakes" being made, but only long after it makes no difference.
We have a FREE PRESS in America-Pravda on the Potomac, Izvestia on the Hudson.
Have a look sometime at the Venn Diagrams that portray the overlapping/interlocking
memberships of the regulatory/financial/corporate leadership class.
But more than that, whatever the idea of a free press once meant, with the rise of digital
corporate networking "platforms", not subject to any accountability, the barriers to entry of
any competing narratives to the mainstream discourse are nearly insurmountable. Except maybe
through subversion?
What is missing is a true public 'Marketplace of Ideas'
The deliberate mis-translations of non-english speaking "adversaries" of the US is common in
the msm. Putin is frequently and deliberately mis-translated to make him appear dictatorial
and aggressive.
I listened to Rohani's speech. He said that if JCPOA is bad, it is bad for all parties; and
if it is good, it is good for all parties. They cannot expect for JCPOA to be bad for them
and good for us. They withdrew from the JCPOA and expect us to stay with the agreement. This
is what he meant when he said: White house has been affected by mental inability and mental
disability.
ADKC
Iran is at war. US and gang are trying to destroy Iran as a nation. The biggest asset in
times of war is deception. Used by both the attacker and the attacked.
Khamenei
has Tweeted a series of tweets, and his scribe has posted what he tweeted along with
other words
at his website in English so there's no mistranslation. Here's one of the series of 6:
"The graceful Iranian nation has been accused & insulted by world's most vicious
regime, the U.S., which is a source of wars, conflicts & plunder. Iranian nation won't
give up over such insults. Iranians have been wronged by oppressive sanctions but not
weakened & remain powerful."
They were made 14+ hours ago, yet I'm the first to post notice of them here?!
The USA government excels at propaganda. It always has. Doesn't matter if it babies and
incubators, mistranslated leaders of targeted countries, or supposed mass graves. BTW... what
ever happened to all those mass graves in Iraq? HRW was going to dig them all up and document
them. Hundreds of thousands. Most Americans I talk to still believe in this. Was it true?
Saddam himself had claimed it wasn't true. That it was Kurdish propaganda to gain sympathy.
He claimed the Anfal campaign was only to push the Kurds off the border so he could control
arms smuggling and that casualties were minimal. Looking into the search. They are graves
with a few hundred here and there but where are the rest of the bodies? If you google Iraq
mass graves there are more articles about ISIS mass graves than the Anfal campaign. There
were people killed in the South during the Shia uprising after the first gulf war than there
was for the Anfal campaign. Was that a lie too? Nearly every American believes it still.
PM admits graves claim 'untrue'
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that
'400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses
have so far been uncovered.
The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were given widespread credence,
quoted by MPs and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet
on Iraq's mass graves.
In that publication - Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves produced by USAID, the US
government aid distribution agency, Blair is quoted from 20 November last year: 'We've
already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.'
Anyone who can undestand Farsi ( Persian language) can litsen Rouhani's speech. He did not
name "Trump", he said " White House".
I have been watching CNN news channel who said that Rouhani made a personal attack on Trump!
That was not true.
There was no personal attack on Rouhani's speech.
Importantly, the context of the speech and conclusion is diffent from western media reports
and western translations.
I would like give few links of some Iranian news agencies, reporting Rouhani's speech for
International use, as reference here:
1) FrasNews Agency
Rouhani said:
"These days, we see the White House in confusion and we are witnessing undue and
ridiculous words and adoption of a scandalous policy,"
..."The US sanctions are crime against humanity. The US recent measures indicate their
ultimate failure. The new US measures are the result of their frustration and confusion over
Iran. The White House has mental disability,"
Le président iranien, affirmant que les États-Unis, malgré de
nombreuses tentatives de pression exercées par divers leviers sur l'Iran, ont
échoué dans leurs objectifs, a poursuivi : "Une étrange frustration et
une grande confusion règnent au sein du Corps dirigeant de la Maison Blanche. Ils se
sentent déçus car ils n'ont obtenu aucun résultat, ils s'attendaient
à voir l'Iran brisé dans l'espace de quelques mois, mais ils ont fini par
constater que les Iraniens agissent de plus en plus fermement, de manière plus
créative que jamais ".
The president also decried the new US sanctions against Iran, saying the White House has
been thrown into confusion as its officials are making "inappropriate and ridiculous"
comments and adopting the policy of disgrace.
Wow that's amazing! Probably the best known Khrushchev 'quote', presented as evidence of
his boorish nature, is an intentional mistranslation. And the Marx quote is not exactly
obscure, it's from Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto for eff sake! At least it makes a
change from the 'lets just make things up' cottage industry of Lenin & Stalin
'quotes'.
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its
shoes."
Mark Twain (or some other student of wisdom)
... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/books/famous-misquotations.html
Apr 26, 2017 - Mark Twain is one of many who gets credit for famous quotations he never wrote
or said. ... credited with saying "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth
is still putting on its shoes" ... Proverbial wisdom, in which a quotation is elevated to the
status of a proverb because its source is unknown;.
Circe , Jun 27, 2019 10:19:52 AM |
136Noirette , Jun 27, 2019 10:50:17 AM |
137
Mistranslations are a classical cheap n easy way to sway opinion.
Interesting that the examples b quotes, and most of those promoted currently by the
US-uk-eu, afaik, understand, are intended to project into the voice of Iranians, Russians,
Syrians, utterances, declarations, to be labelled insults, slander, threats, impropriety,
even rage, coming from these parties, as
there is nothing much else to display!
(Spanish is too comprehensible > does not apply to Mexico, Cuba, S. America.)
Often cultural matters play a role, but are ignored. Ahmadinejad was endlessly vilified
and mocked by the W-MSM for saying what was translated as there are no homosexuals in
Iran (no idea what the original formulation was) - which 'obviously' can't be 'true.'
Besides homosexuality being unacceptable in conservative rule-books, Iran is, or was (to
2010) above (or with) Thailand the no. 1. practitioner / destination for sex change
operations. Iran had super educated docs, great hospitals, etc.
Ahmadinejad was relying on a kind of fundamentalist principle where the 'soul' or the
'essential quality' of a person is what is tantamount, what counts above all. The physical
manifestation, here the human body, can be transformed to be in harmony with the deep-felt or
'innately' ascribed orientation or 'spirit.' So, no homosexuals in Iran, or only a few who
are in 'transition.' (Not denying real suffering of gays in Iran, other story.)
The W, in first place the US, is doing precisely the same with its 'gender change'
promotion, as applied to children and young teens. Here too, 'feelings' and 'identity'
override 'nature' : the physical can be overturned, overcome, fixed.
Such cultural issues play a role in mis-translations, deliberate or not. It may appear
that I wandered far off topic, I just picked a topical comprehensible ex. Sharia law is more
complex..
"... Harding's avowed contact with Steele may also have contributed to another high profile blunder in April this year. In the immediate wake of the apparent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, the UK government issued a D(SMA) notice , blocking mention of Pablo Miller -- Skripal's MI6 recruiter -- in the media. ..."
On September 21, The Guardian ran an absolutely sensational exclusive, based on disclosures made by "multiple" anonymous sources
to Luke Harding, one of the paper's leading journalists - in 2017, Russian diplomats allegedly held secret talks in London with associates
of Assange, in an attempt to assist in the Wikileaks founder's escape from the UK.
The dastardly conspiracy would've entailed Assange being smuggled out of the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge under cover
of Christmas Eve in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to Russia, where he'd be safe from extradition to the US, ending his eight-years
of effective arbitrary detention in the process.
In any event, the audacious plot was eventually aborted after being deemed "too
risky" -- even for the reckless daredevils of Moscow -- mere days before its planned execution date.
Rommy Vallejo, head of Ecuador's
intelligence agency, is said to have travelled to the UK around December 15 to supervise the operation, and left when it was called
off.
'Extraordinary, Deliberate Lies'
The Russian Embassy in London
was quick to condemn the
article on Twitter, calling the claims "another example of disinformation and fake news" in the UK mainstream media, and noting the
paper violated national media standards by failing to ask the Russian side for a comment prior to the report's release. "This publication
has nothing to do with the reality. The Embassy has never engaged with Ecuadorian colleagues, or with anyone else, in discussions
of any kind on Russia's participation in ending Assange's stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador.
We're puzzled by the sensational
attitude of the authors. As recently as September 18, Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright called for increased efforts to combat media
and online disinformation. [The] Guardian piece is a brilliant example of the kind of journalism British reader should be protected
from," a spokesperson added in an official statement.
In a subsequent statement
, the Russian Foreign Ministry slammed the article for containing a "whole series of similar anti-Russia innuendos, and once again
made clear Russian diplomats did not contact staff of the Ecuadoran Embassy in London or Assange's associates in order to assist
in his escape from the UK.
However,
a
far more damning indictment of the article's extraordinary, evidence-free claims was provided by Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador
to Uzbekistan, who denounced the "quite extraordinary set of deliberate lies" in a September 23 blog post. In doing so, he revealed
he and Fidel Narvaez -- a close confidant of Assange fingered as the key point of contact between the Ecuadorian embassy and Moscow
in the article -- had engaged in discussions with Assange in 2017 regarding a possible departure from the UK capital, and debated
possible future destinations for the embattled Wikileaks founder.
"It's not only the case Russia didn't figure in those plans, Julian directly ruled out the possibility of going to Russia. I know
100% for certain the entire story is a complete and utter fabrication. I cannot find words enough to express the depth of my contempt
for Harding and [Editor] Katherine Viner, who've betrayed completely the values of journalism. The aim of the piece is evidently
to add a further layer to the fake news of Wikileaks' non-existent relationship to Russia as part of the "Hillary didn't really lose"
narrative. I am, frankly, rather shocked," Murray
wrote
.
Friends in Spooky Places
The identities of Harding's alleged anonymous sources aren't even hinted at in the article, but Murray made a striking suggestion
-- he "strongly suspect[ed]" that "MI6 tool" Harding's informants were the UK security services. If true, this would make the article
"entirely black propaganda" produced by British spies. Whether MI6 agents are the source of the story or not, it's certainly true
Harding enjoys a very close relationship indeed with British intelligence services -- a bond he has frequently, openly and proudly
advertised in articles and books.
For instance, in his highly controversial 2017 book Collusion, Harding argued Donald Trump
had a relationship with the Russian 'deep state' dating back to the 1980s, and colluded with the Kremlin to subvert US democracy.
To support this conclusion, he frequently cited claims fed to him directly by Christopher Steele, the ex-MI6 spy turned 'business
intelligence' professional, who authored the utterly discredited 'Trump-Russia' dossier for Fusion GPS.
When challenged to provide any evidence whatsoever for his book's assertions by Aaron Mate of The Real News, Harding was left mumbling
and stuttering -- he was also unable to defend
his claim that an individual's use of an emoji was proof they were working for Russian intelligence, and terminated the interview
prematurely.
Harding's avowed contact with Steele may also have contributed to another high profile blunder in April this year. In the immediate
wake of the apparent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, the UK government
issued a D(SMA) notice , blocking mention of Pablo
Miller -- Skripal's MI6 recruiter -- in the media. Individuals who conducted internet searches for Miller afterwards quickly found
his LinkedIn profile, which identified him as a 'Senior Analyst' at Orbis Intelligence -- Steele's corporate espionage company.-
It is true, or was. As I say, this 2017 forum thread, which links to Pablo Miller's LinkedIn profile, states Orbis is listed on
Miller's CV -- https://t.co/Fx0vu1qorJ . Stop regurgitating anonymous claims
by your spook pals and do some research, Luke -- Kit Klarenberg (@KitKlarenberg)
March 12, 2018
Miller's page was quickly deleted though, and Harding took to Twitter to issue firm denials of a connection between Miller and the
firm, going so far as to suggest "someone" was using search engine optimization techniques to dishonestly associate Miller and Orbis.
However, enterprising Sputnik journalist Kit Klarenberg quickly and easily found an online forum thread dating from 2017 clearly
identifying Miller as an Orbis employee -- as of September, Harding is yet to respond, or retract his claims.
"... Risen detailed how his editors had been "quite willing to cooperate with the government." In fact, a top CIA official even told Risen that his rule of thumb for approving a covert operation was, "How will this look on the front page of the New York Times?" ..."
"... Bernstein obtained CIA documents that revealed that more than 400 American journalists in the previous 25 years had "secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency." ..."
"... Virtually all major US media outlets cooperated with the CIA, Bernstein revealed, including ABC, NBC, the AP, UPI, Reuters, Newsweek, Hearst newspapers, the Miami Herald, the Saturday Evening Post, and the New York Herald‑Tribune. ..."
"... However, he added, "By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc." ..."
"... These layers of state manipulation, censorship, and even direct crafting of the news media show that, as much as they claim to be independent, The New York Times and other outlets effectively serve as de facto spokespeople for the government -- or at least for the US national security state. ..."
The New York Times casually acknowledged that it sends major scoops to the US government
before publication, to make sure "national security officials" have "no concerns."
By Ben Norton
June 25, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - The New York
Times has publicly acknowledged that it sends some of its stories to the US government for
approval from "national security officials" before publication.
This confirms what veteran New York Times correspondents like James Risen have said: The
American newspaper of record regularly collaborates with the US government, suppressing
reporting that top officials don't want made public.
On June 15, the Times reported that the US government is escalating its cyber
attacks on Russia's power grid . According to the article, "the Trump administration is
using new authorities to deploy cybertools more aggressively," as part of a larger "digital
Cold War between Washington and Moscow."
In response to the report, Donald Trump attacked the
Times on Twitter, calling the article "a virtual act of Treason."
The New York Times PR office replied to Trump from its official Twitter account, defending
the story and noting that it had, in fact, been cleared with the US government before being
printed.
"Accusing the press of treason is dangerous," the Times communications team said. "We
described the article to the government before publication."
"As our story notes, President Trump's own national security officials said there were no
concerns," the Times added.
NY Times editors 'quite willing to cooperate with
the government'
The symbiotic relationship between the US corporate media and the government has been known
for some time. American intelligence agencies play the press like a musical instrument, using
it it to selectively leak information at opportune moments to push US soft power and advance
Washington's interests.
But rarely is this symbiotic relationship so casually and publicly acknowledged.
In 2018, former New York Times reporter James Risen published a 15,000-word article in
The Intercept providing further insight into how this unspoken alliance operates.
Risen
detailed how his editors had been "quite willing to cooperate with the government." In fact, a
top CIA official even told Risen that his rule of thumb for approving a covert operation was,
"How will this look on the front page of the New York Times?"
There is an "informal arrangement" between the state and the press, Risen explained, where
US government officials "regularly engaged in quiet negotiations with the press to try to stop
the publication of sensitive national security stories."
"At the time, I usually went along with these negotiations," the former New York Times
reported said. He recalled an example of a story he was writing on Afghanistan just prior to
the September 11, 2001 attacks. Then-CIA Director George Tenet called Risen personally and
asked him to kill the story.
"He told me the disclosure would threaten the safety of the CIA officers in Afghanistan,"
Risen said. "I agreed."
Risen said he later questioned whether or not this was the right decision. "If I had
reported the story before 9/11, the CIA would have been angry, but it might have led to a
public debate about whether the United States was doing enough to capture or kill bin Laden,"
he wrote. "That public debate might have forced the CIA to take the effort to get bin Laden
more seriously."
This dilemma led Risen to reconsider responding to US government requests to censor stories.
"And that ultimately set me on a collision course with the editors at the New York Times," he
said.
"After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration began asking the press to kill stories more
frequently," Risen continued. "They did it so often that I became convinced the administration
was invoking national security to quash stories that were merely politically embarrassing." In
the lead-up to the Iraq War, Risen frequently "clashed" with Times editors because he raised
questions about the US government's lies. But his stories "stories raising questions about the
intelligence, particularly the administration's claims of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda,
were being cut, buried, or held out of the paper altogether."
The Times' executive editor Howell Raines "was believed by many at the paper to prefer
stories that supported the case for war," Risen said.
In another anecdote, the former Times journalist recalled a scoop he had uncovered on a
botched CIA plot. The Bush administration got wind of it and called him to the White House,
where then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice ordered the Times to bury the story.
Risen said Rice told him "to forget about the story, destroy my notes, and never make
another phone call to discuss the matter with anyone."
"The Bush administration was successfully convincing the press to hold or kill national
security stories," Risen wrote. And the Barack Obama administration subsequently accelerated
the "war on the press."
CIA media infiltration and manufacturing consent
In their renowned study of US media, "
Manufacturing Consent : The Political Economy of the Mass Media," Edward S. Herman and
Chomsky articulated a "propaganda model," showing how "the media serve, and propagandize on
behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them," through "the
selection of right-thinking personnel and by the editors' and working journalists'
internalization of priorities and definitions of newsworthiness that conform to the
institution's policy."
But in some cases, the relationship between US intelligence agencies and the corporate media
is not just one of mere ideological policing, indirect pressure, or friendship, but rather one
of employment.
In the 1950s, the CIA launched a covert operation called Project Mockingbird, in which it
surveilled, influenced, and manipulated American journalists and media coverage, explicitly in
order to direct public opinion against the Soviet Union, China, and the growing international
communist movement.
Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein, a former Washington Post reporter who helped uncover
the Watergate scandal, published a major cover story for Rolling Stone in 1977 titled "
The CIA and
the Media : How America's Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central
Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up."
Bernstein obtained CIA documents that revealed that more than 400 American journalists in
the previous 25 years had "secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence
Agency."
Bernstein wrote:
"Some of these journalists' relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit.
There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of
clandestine services -- from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go‑betweens with
spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared
their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who
considered themselves ambassadors without‑portfolio for their country. Most were less
exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their
work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested in the derring‑do of the spy
business as in filing articles; and, the smallest category, full‑time CIA employees
masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were
engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America's leading
news organizations."
Virtually all major US media outlets cooperated with the CIA, Bernstein revealed, including
ABC, NBC, the AP, UPI, Reuters, Newsweek, Hearst newspapers, the Miami Herald, the Saturday
Evening Post, and the New York Herald‑Tribune.
However, he added, "By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA
officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc."
These layers of state
manipulation, censorship, and even direct crafting of the news media show that, as much as they
claim to be independent, The New York Times and other outlets effectively serve as de facto
spokespeople for the government -- or at least for the US national security state.
Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone, and the producer
of the Moderate Rebels podcast,
which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com , and he tweets at @ BenjaminNorton .
This article was originally published by " Grayzone
"
"You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard,
and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
Who could have predicted that 70 years after Orwell typed the final words to his dystopian novel, "He loved Big Brother," we would
fail to heed his warning and come to love Big Brother.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone
-- to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the
age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink -- greetings!"
-- George Orwell
1984 portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree
with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven
society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. People are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes.
The government, or "Party," is headed by Big Brother who appears on posters everywhere with the words: "Big Brother is watching you."
We have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by not only Orwell but also such fiction writers
as Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood and Philip K. Dick.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
―George Orwell
Much like Orwell's Big Brother in 1984 , the government and its corporate spies now watch our every move. Much like Huxley's
A Brave New World , we are churning out a society of watchers who "have their liberties taken away from them, but rather enjoy
it, because they [are] distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing." Much like Atwood's
The Handmaid's Tale , the
populace is now taught to "know their place and their duties, to understand that they have no real rights but will be protected up
to a point if they conform, and to think so poorly of themselves that
they will
accept their assigned fate and not rebel or run away ."
And in keeping with Philip K. Dick's darkly prophetic vision of a dystopian police state -- which became the basis for
Steven
Spielberg's futuristic thriller Minority Report -- we are now trapped in a world in which the government is all-seeing,
all-knowing and all-powerful, and if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams and pre-crime units will crack a few
skulls to bring the populace under control.
What once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.
Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike -- facial recognition,
iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on -- are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network
aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, the
dystopian visions of past writers is fast becoming
our reality .
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
―George Orwell
The courts have
shredded the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, SWAT teams battering down doors
without search warrants and FBI agents acting as a secret police that investigate dissenting citizens are common occurrences in contemporary
America. And bodily privacy and integrity have been utterly eviscerated by a prevailing view that Americans have no rights over what
happens to their bodies during an encounter with government officials, who are allowed to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe,
pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible
to say which was which."
We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state.
What many fail to realize is that the government is not operating alone. It cannot. The government requires an accomplice. Thus,
the increasingly complex security needs of the massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data
management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds
the growth of governmental overreach.
In fact, Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother, and we are now ruled by the Corporate Elite whose tentacles
have spread worldwide. For example, USA Today reports that five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the homeland security
business was booming to such an extent that it
eclipsed mature
enterprises like movie-making and the music industry in annual revenue. This security spending to private corporations such as
Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others is
forecast to exceed
$1 trillion in the near future.
The government now has at its disposal technological arsenals so sophisticated and invasive as to render any constitutional protections
null and void. Spearheaded by the NSA, which has shown itself to care little to nothing for constitutional limits or privacy, the
"security/industrial complex" -- a marriage of government, military and corporate interests aimed at keeping Americans under constant
surveillance -- has come to dominate the government and our lives. At three times the size of the CIA, constituting one third of
the intelligence budget and with its own global spy network to boot, the NSA has a long history of spying on Americans, whether or
not it has always had the authorization to do so.
Money, power, control. There is no shortage of motives fueling the convergence of mega-corporations and government. But who is
paying the price? The American people, of course.
Orwell understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan flag-waving, are still struggling to come to terms with: that
there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people. Even the best intentions among those in government inevitably
give way to the desire to maintain power and control over the citizenry at all costs. As Orwell explains:
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power,
pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know
what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian
Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended,
perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there
lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention
of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture
is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.
"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it."
― George Orwell
How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.
In totalitarian regimes -- a.k.a. police states -- where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the
government dictates what words can and cannot be used. In countries where the police state hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises
itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.
Dystopian literature shows what happens when the populace is transformed into mindless automatons. In
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
, reading is banned and books are burned in order to suppress dissenting ideas, while televised entertainment is used to anesthetize
the populace and render them easily pacified, distracted and controlled.
In Huxley's Brave New World
, serious literature, scientific thinking and experimentation are banned as subversive, while critical thinking is discouraged through
the use of conditioning, social taboos and inferior education. Likewise, expressions of individuality, independence and morality
are viewed as vulgar and abnormal.
And in Orwell's 1984
, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history
and punish "thoughtcrimes." In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother,
while the Ministry of Peace deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation),
the Ministry of Love deals with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment,
education and art (propaganda). The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
All three -- Bradbury, Huxley and Orwell -- had an uncanny knack for realizing the future, yet it is Orwell who best understood
the power of language to manipulate the masses. Orwell's Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such
words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary. To give a
single example, as psychologist Erich Fromm illustrates in his afterword to 1984 :
The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or
"This field is free from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political
and intellectual freedom no longer existed as concepts .
Where we stand now is at the juncture of OldSpeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where
only that which is "safe" and "accepted" by the majority is permitted). The power elite has made their intentions clear: they will
pursue and prosecute any and all words, thoughts and expressions that challenge their authority.
This is the final link in the police state chain.
"Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
-- George Orwell
Americans have been
conditioned to accept routine incursions on their privacy rights . In fact, the addiction to screen devices -- especially cell
phones -- has created a hive effect where the populace not only watched but is controlled by AI bots. However, at one time, the idea
of a total surveillance state tracking one's every move would have been abhorrent to most Americans. That all changed with the 9/11
attacks. As professor Jeffrey Rosen observes, "Before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives
under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and
stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable,
a dystopian fantasy of a society that
had surrendered privacy and anonymity ."
Having been reduced to a cowering citizenry -- mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the
face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield,
and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all -- we have nowhere left to go.
We have, so to speak, gone from being a nation where privacy is king to one where nothing is safe from the prying eyes of government.
In search of so-called terrorists and extremists hiding amongst us -- the proverbial "needle in a haystack," as one official termed
it -- the Corporate State has taken to monitoring all aspects of our lives, from cell phone calls and emails to Internet activity
and credit card transactions. Much of this data is being fed through
fusion centers across the
country, which work with the Department of Homeland Security to make threat assessments on every citizen, including school children.
These are state and regional intelligence centers that collect data on you.
"Big Brother is Watching You."
―George Orwell
Wherever you go and whatever you do, you are now being watched, especially if you leave behind an electronic footprint. When you
use your cell phone, you leave a record of when the call was placed, who you called, how long it lasted and even where you were at
the time. When you use your ATM card, you leave a record of where and when you used the card. There is even a video camera at most
locations equipped with facial recognition software. When you use a cell phone or drive a car enabled with GPS, you can be tracked
by satellite. Such information is shared with government agents, including local police. And all of this once-private information
about your consumer habits, your whereabouts and your activities is now being fed to the U.S. government.
The government has nearly inexhaustible resources when it comes to tracking our movements, from electronic wiretapping devices,
traffic cameras and biometrics to radio-frequency identification cards, satellites and Internet surveillance.
Speech recognition technology now makes it possible for the government to carry out massive eavesdropping by way of sophisticated
computer systems. Phone calls can be monitored, the audio converted to text files and stored in computer databases indefinitely.
And if any "threatening" words are detected -- no matter how inane or silly -- the record can be flagged and assigned to a government
agent for further investigation. Federal and state governments, again working with private corporations, monitor your Internet content.
Users are profiled and tracked in order to identify, target and even prosecute them.
In such a climate, everyone is a suspect. And you're guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. To underscore this shift in
how the government now views its citizens, the FBI uses its wide-ranging authority to investigate individuals or groups, regardless
of whether they are suspected of criminal activity.
"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull."
― George Orwell
Here's what a lot of people fail to understand, however: it's not just what you say or do that is being monitored, but how you
think that is being tracked and targeted. We've already seen this play out on the state and federal level with hate crime
legislation that cracks down on so-called "hateful" thoughts and expression, encourages self-censoring and reduces free debate on
various subject matter.
Total Internet surveillance by the Corporate State, as omnipresent as God, is used by the government to predict and, more importantly,
control the populace, and it's not as far-fetched as you might think. For example, the NSA is now designing an artificial intelligence
system that is designed to anticipate your every move. In a nutshell, the NSA will feed vast amounts of the information it collects
to a computer system known as Aquaint (the acronym
stands for Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence), which the computer can then use to detect patterns and predict behavior.
No information is sacred or spared.
Everything from cell phone recordings and logs, to emails, to text messages, to personal information posted on social networking
sites, to credit card statements, to library circulation records, to credit card histories, etc., is collected by the NSA and shared
freely with its agents in crime: the CIA, FBI and DHS. One NSA researcher actually quit the Aquaint program, "citing concerns over
the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability."
Thus, what we are witnessing, in the so-called name of security and efficiency, is the creation of a new class system comprised
of the watched (average Americans such as you and me) and the watchers (government bureaucrats, technicians and private corporations).
Clearly, the age of privacy in America is at an end.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever."
-- Orwell
So where does that leave us?
We now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed and controlled by our technology, which answers not
to us but to our government and corporate rulers. This is the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction lesson that is being pounded into us
on a daily basis.
It won't be long before we find ourselves looking back on the past with longing, back to an age where we could speak to whom we
wanted, buy what we wanted, think what we wanted without those thoughts, words and activities being tracked, processed and stored
by corporate giants such as Google, sold to government agencies such as the NSA and CIA, and used against us by militarized police
with their army of futuristic technologies.
To be an individual today, to not conform, to have even a shred of privacy, and to live beyond the reach of the government's roaming
eyes and technological spies, one must not only be a rebel but rebel.
Even when you rebel and take your stand, there is rarely a happy ending awaiting you. You are rendered an outlaw.
So how do you survive in the American surveillance state?
We're running out of options.
As I make clear in my book
Battlefield
America: The War on the American People , we'll soon have to choose between self-indulgence (the bread-and-circus distractions
offered up by the news media, politicians, sports conglomerates, entertainment industry, etc.) and self-preservation in the form
of renewed vigilance about threats to our freedoms and active engagement in self-governance.
Yet as Aldous Huxley acknowledged in
Brave New World Revisited
: "Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern
themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot,
not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology
and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it."
"... The internet, as Yasha Levine showed us in an admirable and unfortunately neglected book last year, was always envisioned by the military industrial complex responsible for its creation as a tool for surveillance. ..."
"... It should come as no surprise that neoliberal capitalism, the only system with even more global reach than the American armed forces (with which big tech is increasingly allied anyway), would turn it to the very purpose for which it was designed. There was never going to be another way. ..."
"... We can insist on disclosure, but nobody is ever going to read through those terms of service documents. We can also attempt to limit the relationship between digital advertising and free social media services, but the latter could not exist without the former. Nor could the unlimited amount of "content" produced by wage slaves or unpaid amateurs. ..."
"... The fact that hundreds of companies know virtually everything about me because I use technologies that are all but unavoidable for anyone who participates in modern life is terrifying. ..."
"... I wonder how many other people now think that the old arrangement -- in which we took photos with real cameras and paid people at department stores to make prints of them and shared them in the privacy of our homes with people we really love, and had beautifully clear conversations on reliable pieces of hardware, and paid for newspapers that offered good wages to their writers and editors thanks to the existence of classified ads -- was so bad. ..."
Nothing in our conversations about the pros and cons of the modern internet seems to me more
naïve than our complaints about privacy.
... ... ...
The problem is that Facebook is not really a bookstore in this analogy -- at least not in
any straightforward sense. To understand what they do you have to imagine a chain for whom
selling books is not really the point; the books, which are rather enticingly free, are only
there to give the store's owners a sense of what you might be interested in, information that
they then sell to other companies that will in turn try to hawk everything from clothing to
medicine to political candidates. If you think the neat blue website pays engineers hundreds of
millions of dollars to let you share dog scrapbooks and spy on your old high-school classmates
out of the goodness of its founders' hearts, you're delusional.
But the issues go well beyond any single platform or website. The internet, as Yasha
Levine showed us in an admirable and unfortunately neglected book last year, was always envisioned by the
military industrial complex responsible for its creation as a tool for surveillance.
It should come as no surprise that neoliberal capitalism, the only system with even more
global reach than the American armed forces (with which big tech is increasingly allied
anyway), would turn it to the very purpose for which it was designed. There was never going to
be another way.
This doesn't necessarily mean that we have to live with the status quo. It is possible to
imagine a future in which the moral hazard of putting all the information available from search
engines and email use into the hands of private corporations disappeared. Instead of Google and
Gmail we could have a massive Library of Congress search engine and a free -- with paid
upgrades available for those who need additional storage -- Postal Service email platform. I
for one would not mind entrusting Uncle Sam with the knowledge that the phrase beginning with
"M" I am most likely to search for information about is "Michigan football recruiting."
The sad truth, though, is that these things have already been tried . Very few people remember now
that the post office once attempted to get into the email business and made various attempts to
keep digital commerce within the purview of the government rather than in the hands of private
corporations. These efforts failed time and again, often due to Silicon Valley lobbying
efforts. (Internal incompetence was also an issue: imagine paying $1.70 per email
in 2002.)
This problem might be solved easily enough if those corporations had no say in the matter,
like the coal companies under the post-war Labour government in Britain. But even if forcibly
nationalizing search, email, and other basic internet services now seems like the ideal
solution, it would involve the most radical use of government power since the New Deal. I doubt
there is a single member of Congress who would even entertain the idea. What does that leave
with us? A box of Band-Aids for some gaping wounds. We can insist on disclosure, but nobody
is ever going to read through those terms of service documents. We can also attempt to limit
the relationship between digital advertising and free social media services, but the latter
could not exist without the former. Nor could the unlimited amount of "content" produced by
wage slaves or unpaid amateurs.
I don't mean to sound unduly cynical. The fact that hundreds of companies know virtually
everything about me because I use technologies that are all but unavoidable for anyone who
participates in modern life is terrifying.
I wonder how many other people now think that the old arrangement -- in which we took
photos with real cameras and paid people at department stores to make prints of them and shared
them in the privacy of our homes with people we really love, and had beautifully clear
conversations on reliable pieces of hardware, and paid for newspapers that offered good wages
to their writers and editors thanks to the existence of classified ads -- was so bad.
In the future we should be more mindful of the power of technology to destroy things we
value. But how many of those things are still left?
"... Early in any psychology course, students are taught to be very cautious about accepting people's reports. A simple trick is to stage some sort of interruption to the lecture by confederates, and later ask the students to write down what they witnessed. Typically, they will misremember the events, sequences and even the number of people who staged the tableaux. Don't trust witnesses, is the message. ..."
"... The three assumptions -- lack of rationality, stubbornness, and costs -- imply that there is slim chance that people can ever learn or be educated out of their biases; ..."
"... So, are we as hopeless as some psychologists claim we are? In fact, probably not. Not all the initial claims have been substantiated. For example, it seems we are not as loss averse as previously claimed. Does our susceptibility to printed visual illusions show that we lack judgement in real life? ..."
"... Well the sad fact is that there's nobody in the position to protect "governments" from their own biases, and "scientists" from theirs ..."
"... Long ago a lawyer acquaintance, referring to a specific judge, told me that the judge seemed to "make shit up as he was going along". I have long held psychiatry fits that statement very well. ..."
"... Here we have a real scientist fighting the nonsense spreading from (neoclassical) economics into other realms of science/academia. ..."
"... Behavioral economics is a sideline by-product of neoclassical micro-economic theory. It tries to cope with experimental data that is inconsistent with that theory. ..."
"... Everything in neoclassical economics is a travesty. "Rational choice theory" and its application in "micro economics" is false from the ground up. It basically assumes that people are gobbling up resources without plan, meaning or relevant circumstances. Neoclassical micro economic theory is so false and illogical that I would not know where to start in a comment, so I should like to refer to a whole book about it: Keen, Steve: "Debunking economics". ..."
"... As the theory is totally wrong it is really not surprising that countless experiments show that people do not behave the way neoclassical theory predicts. How do economists react to this? Of course they assume that people are "irrational" because they do not behave according to their studied theory. (Why would you ever change your basic theory because of some tedious facts?) ..."
"... The title of the 1st ed. of Keen's book was "Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences" which was simply a perfect title. ..."
Early in any psychology course, students are taught to be very cautious about accepting people's reports. A simple trick is
to stage some sort of interruption to the lecture by confederates, and later ask the students to write down what they witnessed.
Typically, they will misremember the events, sequences and even the number of people who staged the tableaux. Don't trust witnesses,
is the message.
Another approach is to show visual illusions, such as getting estimates of line lengths in the Muller-Lyer illusion, or studying
simple line lengths under social pressure, as in the Asch experiment, or trying to solve the Peter Wason logic problems, or the puzzles
set by Kahneman and Tversky. All these appear to show severe limitations of human judgment. Psychology is full of cautionary tales
about the foibles of common folk.
As a consequence of this softening up, psychology students come to regard themselves and most people as fallible, malleable, unreliable,
biased and generally irrational. No wonder psychologists feel superior to the average citizen, since they understand human limitations
and, with their superior training, hope to rise above such lowly superstitions.
However, society still functions, people overcome errors and many things work well most of the time. Have psychologists, for one
reason or another, misunderstood people, and been too quick to assume that they are incapable of rational thought?
He is particularly interested in the economic consequences of apparent irrationality, and whether our presumed biases really result
in us making bad economic decisions. If so, some argue we need a benign force, say a government, to protect us from our lack of capacity.
Perhaps we need a tattoo on our forehead: Diminished Responsibility.
The argument leading from cognitive biases to governmental paternalism -- in short, the irrationality argument -- consists
of three assumptions and one conclusion:
1. Lack of rationality. Experiments have shown that people's intuitions are systematically biased.
2. Stubbornness. Like visual illusions, biases are persistent and hardly corrigible by education.
3. Substantial costs. Biases may incur substantial welfare-relevant costs such as lower wealth, health, or happiness.
4. Biases justify governmental paternalism. To protect people from theirbiases, governments should "nudge" the public
toward better behavior.
The three assumptions -- lack of rationality, stubbornness, and costs -- imply that there is slim chance that people can ever
learn or be educated out of their biases; instead governments need to step in with a policy called libertarian paternalism (Thaler
and Sunstein, 2003).
So, are we as hopeless as some psychologists claim we are? In fact, probably not. Not all the initial claims have been substantiated.
For example, it seems we are not as loss averse as previously claimed. Does our susceptibility to printed visual illusions show that
we lack judgement in real life?
In Shepard's (1990) words, "to fool a visual system that has a full binocular and freely mobile view of a well-illuminated scene
is next to impossible" (p. 122). Thus, in psychology, the visual system is seen more as a genius than a fool in making intelligent
inferences, and inferences, after all, are necessary for making sense of the images on the retina.
Most crucially, can people make probability judgements? Let us see. Try solving this one:
A disease has a base rate of .1, and a test is performed that has a hit rate of .9 (the conditional probability of a positive
test given disease) and a false positive rate of .1 (the conditional probability of a positive test given no disease). What is
the probability that a random person with a positive test result actually has the disease?
Most people fail this test, including 79% of gynaecologists giving breast screening tests. Some researchers have drawn the conclusion
that people are fundamentally unable to deal with conditional probabilities. On the contrary, there is a way of laying out the problem
such that most people have no difficulty with it. Watch what it looks like when presented as natural frequencies:
Among every 100 people, 10 are expected to have a disease. Among those 10, nine are expected to correctly test positive. Among
the 90 people without the disease, nine are expected to falsely test positive. What proportion of those who test positive actually
have the disease?
In this format the positive test result gives us 9 people with the disease and 9 people without the disease, so the chance that
a positive test result shows a real disease is 50/50. Only 13% of gynaecologists fail this presentation.
Summing up the virtues of natural frequencies, Gigerenzer says:
When college students were given a 2-hour course in natural frequencies, the number of correct Bayesian inferences increased
from 10% to 90%; most important, this 90% rate was maintained 3 months after training (Sedlmeier and Gigerenzer, 2001). Meta-analyses
have also documented the "de-biasing" effect, and natural frequencies are now a technical term in evidence-based medicine (Akiet
al., 2011; McDowell and Jacobs, 2017). These results are consistent with a long literature on techniques for successfully teaching
statistical reasoning (e.g., Fonget al., 1986). In sum, humans can learn Bayesian inference quickly if the information is presented
in natural frequencies.
If the problem is set out in a simple format, almost all of us can all do conditional probabilities.
I taught my medical students about the base rate screening problem in the late 1970s, based on: Robyn Dawes (1962) "A note on
base rates and psychometric efficiency". Decades later, alarmed by the positive scan detection of an unexplained mass, I confided
my fears to a psychiatrist friend. He did a quick differential diagnosis on bowel cancer, showing I had no relevant symptoms, and
reminded me I had lectured him as a student on base rates decades before, so I ought to relax. Indeed, it was false positive.
Here are the relevant figures, set out in terms of natural frequencies
Every test has a false positive rate (every step is being taken to reduce these), and when screening is used for entire populations
many patients have to undergo further investigations, sometimes including surgery.
Setting out frequencies in a logical sequence can often prevent misunderstandings. Say a man on trial for having murdered his
spouse has previously physically abused her. Should his previous history of abuse not be raised in Court because only 1 woman in
2500 cases of abuse is murdered by her abuser? Of course, whatever a defence lawyer may argue and a Court may accept, this is back
to front. OJ Simpson was not on trial for spousal abuse, but for the murder of his former partner. The relevant question is: what
is the probability that a man murdered his partner, given that she has been murdered and that he previously battered her.
Accepting the figures used by the defence lawyer, if 1 in 2500 women are murdered every year by their abusive male partners, how
many women are murdered by men who did not previously abuse them? Using government figures that 5 women in 100,000 are murdered every
year then putting everything onto the same 100,000 population, the frequencies look like this:
So, 40 to 5, it is 8 times more probable that abused women are murdered by their abuser. A relevant issue to raise in Court about
the past history of an accused man.
Are people's presumed biases costly, in the sense of making them vulnerable to exploitation, such that they can be turned into
a money pump, or is it a case of "once bitten, twice shy"? In fact, there is no evidence that these apparently persistent logical
errors actually result in people continually making costly errors. That presumption turns out to be a bias bias.
Gigerenzer goes on to show that people are in fact correct in their understanding of the randomness of short sequences of coin
tosses, and Kahneman and Tversky wrong. Elegantly, he also shows that the "hot hand" of successful players in basketball is a real
phenomenon, and not a stubborn illusion as claimed.
With equal elegance he disposes of a result I had depended upon since Slovic (1982), which is that people over-estimate the frequency
of rare risks and under-estimate the frequency of common risks. This finding has led to the belief that people are no good at estimating
risk. Who could doubt that a TV series about Chernobyl will lead citizens to have an exaggerated fear of nuclear power stations?
The original Slovic study was based on 39 college students, not exactly a fair sample of humanity. The conceit of psychologists
knows no bounds. Gigerenzer looks at the data and shows that it is yet another example of regression to the mean. This is an apparent
effect which arises whenever the predictor is less than perfect (the most common case), an unsystematic error effect, which is already
evident when you calculate the correlation coefficient. Parental height and their children's heights are positively but not perfectly
correlated at about r = 0.5. Predictions made in either direction will under-predict in either direction, simply because they are
not perfect, and do not capture all the variation. Try drawing out the correlation as an ellipse to see the effect of regression,
compared to the perfect case of the straight line of r= 1.0
What diminishes in the presence of noise is the variability of the estimates, both the estimates of the height of the sons based
on that of their fathers, and vice versa. Regression toward the mean is a result of unsystematic, not systematic error (Stigler,1999).
Gigerenzer also looks at the supposed finding that people are over-confidence in predictions, and finds that it is another regression
to the mean problem.
Gigerenzer then goes on to consider that old favourite, that most people think they are better than average, which supposedly
cannot be the case, because average people are average.
Consider the finding that most drivers think they drive better than average. If better driving is interpreted as meaning fewer
accidents, then most drivers' beliefs are actually true. The number of accidents per person has a skewed distribution, and an
analysis of U.S. accident statistics showed that some 80% of drivers have fewer accidents than the average number of accidents
(Mousavi and Gigerenzer, 2011)
Then he looks at the classical demonstration of framing, that is to say, the way people appear to be easily swayed by how the
same facts are "framed" or presented to the person who has to make a decision.
A patient suffering from a serious heart disease considers high-risk surgery and asks a doctor about its prospects.
The doctor can frame the answer in two ways:
Positive Frame: Five years after surgery, 90% of patients are alive.
Negative Frame: Five years after surgery, 10% of patients are dead.
Should the patient listen to how the doctor frames the answer? Behavioral economists say no because both frames are logically
equivalent (Kahneman, 2011). Nevertheless, people do listen. More are willing to agree to a medical procedure if the doctor uses
positive framing (90% alive) than if negative framing is used (10% dead) (Moxeyet al., 2003). Framing effects challenge the assumption
of stable preferences, leading to preference reversals. Thaler and Sunstein (2008) who presented the above surgery problem, concluded
that "framing works because people tend to be somewhat mindless, passive decisionmakers" (p. 40)
Gigerenzer points out that in this particular example, subjects are having to make their judgements without knowing a key fact:
how many survive without surgery. If you know that you have a datum which is more influential. These are the sorts of questions patients
will often ask about, and discuss with other patients, or with several doctors. Furthermore, you don't have to spin a statistic.
You could simply say: "Five years after surgery, 90% of patients are alive and 10% are dead".
Gigerenzer gives an explanation which is very relevant to current discussions about the meaning of intelligence, and about the
power of intelligence tests:
In sum, the principle of logical equivalence or "description invariance" is a poor guide to understanding how human intelligence
deals with an uncertain world where not everything is stated explicitly. It misses the very nature of intelligence, the ability
to go beyond the information given (Bruner, 1973)
The key is to take uncertainty seriously, take heuristics seriously, and beware of the bias bias.
One important conclusion I draw from this entire paper is that the logical puzzles enjoyed by Kahneman, Tversky, Stanovich and
others are rightly rejected by psychometricians as usually being poor indicators of real ability. They fail because they are designed
to lead people up the garden path, and depend on idiosyncratic interpretations.
Critics of examinations of either intellectual ability or scholastic attainment are fond of claiming that the items are "arbitrary".
Not really. Scholastic tests have to be close to the curriculum in question, but still need to a have question forms which are simple
to understand so that the stress lies in how students formulate the answer, not in how they decipher the structure of the question.
Intellectual tests have to avoid particular curricula and restrict themselves to the common ground of what most people in a community
understand. Questions have to be super-simple, so that the correct answer follows easily from the question, with minimal ambiguity.
Furthermore, in the case of national scholastic tests, and particularly in the case of intelligence tests, legal authorities will
pore over the test, looking at each item for suspected biases of a sexual, racial or socio-economic nature. Designing an intelligence
test is a difficult and expensive matter. Many putative new tests of intelligence never even get to the legal hurdle, because they
flounder on matters of reliability and validity, and reveal themselves to be little better than the current range of assessments.
In conclusion, both in psychology and behavioural economics, some researchers have probably been too keen to allege bias in cases
where there are unsystematic errors, or no errors at all. The corrective is to learn about base rates, and to use natural frequencies
as a guide to good decision-making.
Don't bother boosting your IQ. Boost your understanding of natural frequencies.
Good concrete advice. Perhaps even more useful for those who need to explain things like this to others than for those seeking
to understand for themselves.
"intelligence deals with an uncertain world where not everything is stated explicitly. It misses the very nature of intelligence,
the ability to go beyond the information given (Bruner, 1973)"
"The key is to take uncertainty seriously, take heuristics seriously, and beware of the bias bias."
Actually I think this is an example of an increasingly common genre of malapropism, where the writer gropes for the right word,
finds one that is similar, and settles for that. The worst of it is that readers intuitively understand what was intended, and
then adopt the marginally incorrect usage themselves. That's perhaps how the world and his dog came to say "literally" when they
mean "figuratively". Maybe a topic for a future article?
In 2009 Google finished engineering a reverse search engine to find out what kind of searches people did most often. Seth Davidowitz
and Steven Pinker wrote a very fascinating/entertaining book using the tool called Everybody Lies
Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics
to sports to race to sex, gender, and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn't vote
for Barack Obama because he's black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly
favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie
about our sex lives, and who's more self-conscious about sex, men or women?
Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand
ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating
and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking
to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential – revealing biases deeply embedded
within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we're afraid to ask that might be essential to our
health – both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data every day, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody
Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.
I shall treat this posting (for which many thanks, doc) as an invitation to sing a much-loved song: everybody should read Gigerenzer's
Reckoning with Risk. With great clarity it teaches what everyone ought to know about probability.
(It could also serve as a model for writing in English about technical subjects. Americans and Britons should study the English
of this German – he knows how, you know.)
Inspired by "The original Slovic study was based on 39 college students" I shall also sing another favorite song. Much of Psychology
is based on what small numbers of American undergraduates report they think they think.
" Gigerenzer points out that in this particular example, subjects are having to make their judgements without knowing a key fact:
how many survive without surgery. "
This one reminds of the false dichotomy. The patient has additional options! Like changing diet, and behaviours such as exercise,
elimination of occupational stress , etc.
The statistical outcomes for a person change when the person changes their circumstances/conditions.
@Tom
Welsh A disposition (conveyance) of an awkwardly shaped chunk out of a vast estate contained reference to "the slither of
ground bounded on or towards the north east and extending two hundred and twenty four meters or thereby along a chain link fence "
Not poor clients (either side) nor cheap lawyers. And who never erred?
Better than deliberately inserting "errors" to guarantee a stream of tidy up work (not unknown in the "professional" world)
in future.
Good article. 79% of gynaecologists fail a simple conditional probability test?! Many if not most medical research papers use
advanced statistics. Medical doctors must read these papers to fully understand their field. So, if medical doctors don't fully
understand them, they are not properly doing their job. Those papers use mathematical expressions, not English. Converting them
to another form of English, instead of using the mathematical expressions isn't a solution.
Regarding witnesses: When that jet crashed into Rockaway several years ago, a high percentage of witnesses said that they saw
smoke before the crash. But there was actually no smoke. The witnesses were adjusting what they saw to conform to their past experience
of seeing movie and newsreel footage of planes smoking in the air before a crash. Children actually make very good witnesses.
Regarding the chart. Missing, up there in the vicinity of cancer and heart disease. The third-leading cause of death. 250,000
per year, according to a 2016 Hopkins study. Medical negligence.
1. Lack of rationality. Experiments have shown that people's intuitions are systematically biased.
2. Stubbornness. Like visual illusions, biases are persistent and hardly corrigible by education.
3. Substantial costs. Biases may incur substantial welfare-relevant costs such as lower wealth, health, or happiness.
4. Biases justify governmental paternalism. To protect people from theirbiases, governments should "nudge" the public toward
better behavior.
Well the sad fact is that there's nobody in the position to protect "governments" from their own biases, and "scientists"
from theirs.
So, behind the smoke of all words and rationalisations, the law is unchanged: everyone strives to gain and exert as much power
as possible over as many others as possible. Most do that without writing papers to say it is right, others write papers,
others books. Anyway, the fundamental law would stay as it is even if all this writing labour was spared, wouldn't it?
But then another fundamental law, the law of framing all one's drives as moral and beneffective comes into play the papers
and the books are useful, after all.
An interesting article. However, I think that the only thing we have to know about how illogical psychiatry is this:
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) asked all members attending its convention to vote on whether they believed
homosexuality to be a mental disorder. 5,854 psychiatrists voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, and 3,810 to retain
it.
The APA then compromised, removing homosexuality from the DSM but replacing it, in effect, with "sexual orientation disturbance"
for people "in conflict with" their sexual orientation. Not until 1987 did homosexuality completely fall out of the DSM.
The article makes no mention of the fact that no "new science" was brought to support the resolution.
It appears that the psychiatrists were voting based on feelings rather than science. Since that time, the now 50+ genders have
been accepted as "normal" by the APA. My family has had members in multiple generations suffering from mental illness. None were
"cured". I know others with the same circumstances.
How does one conclude that being repulsed by the prime directive of every
living organism – reproduce yourself – is "normal"? That is not to say these people are horrible or evil, just not normal. How
can someone, who thinks (s)he is a cat be mentally ill, but a grown man thinking he is a female child is not?
Long ago a lawyer acquaintance, referring to a specific judge, told me that the judge seemed to "make shit up as he was going
along". I have long held psychiatry fits that statement very well.
Thank you for this article. I find the information about the interpretation of statistical data very interesting. My take on the
background of the article is this:
Here we have a real scientist fighting the nonsense spreading from (neoclassical) economics into other realms of science/academia.
Behavioral economics is a sideline by-product of neoclassical micro-economic theory. It tries to cope with experimental
data that is inconsistent with that theory.
Everything in neoclassical economics is a travesty. "Rational choice theory" and its application in "micro economics" is
false from the ground up. It basically assumes that people are gobbling up resources without plan, meaning or relevant circumstances.
Neoclassical micro economic theory is so false and illogical that I would not know where to start in a comment, so I should like
to refer to a whole book about it:
Keen, Steve: "Debunking economics".
As the theory is totally wrong it is really not surprising that countless experiments show that people do not behave the
way neoclassical theory predicts. How do economists react to this? Of course they assume that people are "irrational" because
they do not behave according to their studied theory. (Why would you ever change your basic theory because of some tedious facts?)
We live in a strange world in which such people have control over university faculties, journals, famous prizes. But at least
we have some scientists who defend their area of knowledge against the spreading nonsense produced by economists.
The title of the 1st ed. of Keen's book was "Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences" which was simply
a perfect title.
"... So perhaps the DNC was hacked by the CIA and it was blamed on the Russians. ..."
"... How can we trust any investigation when the investigation can be doctored to scapegoat Russia? This is embarrassing. ..."
"... Clapper is a known perjurer. ..."
"... Of course it was the Obama CIA, pros like the Russians or Chinese, never leave behind "fingerprints" they are smart enough to cover their tracks. As a cyber analyst I can tell you that when you see "fingerprints or breadcrumbs" leading to a source, it's usually deceptive and intentional. Let that sink in! ..."
With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution
by leaving behind the "fingerprints" of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from.
UMBRAGE components cover keyloggers, password collection, webcam capture, data destruction, persistence, privilege escalation,
stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance and survey techniques.
So the CIA obtained FISA Warrants for the millions of devices hacked? Guess we now know how Trump Tower was wiretapped when
DNI Clapper said there was no such order given.
So! It now becomes clear what Obama and the Democrats were planning for the Trump Administration. They could hack away at anything
and everything and leave Russian "fingerprints" to make it appear that the Russians did it. It's really no telling what is already
planted. Thst's why some Democrat's seem so supremely confident that Trump will be impeached.
I don't think that it's really sunk in for most people that this was a plan for World Domination by a force more evil than
the average person could ever imagine. We're still in grave danger but thank Heaven for Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Not only
have they saved America but perhaps the whole world from domination that heretofore couldn't even be imagined except in science
fiction.
Our problem will now be how to build enough gallows to accomodate the traitors and seditionists who have participated in this
dark plan.
Hysteria in Oceania. The same goons blaming Russia for robbing the local candy store (without producing evidence) are robbing
the candy factory 24/7. All of a sudden, the MSM has found issues and terms like `non-verified documents` and `non-verifiable,
anonymous sources` to be of the utmost importance, in contrast to when they were copy-pasting the ` information` about Russian
hacking. I wonder how much time it takes for the Ministries of Information and their docile press-clowns to (again) turn the story
around and blame WikiLeaks for being a `Russian tool` to discard their own obvious crimes.
They wiretapped the entire Trump team thinking they would come up with an October surprise...and found NOTHING. If they had
ANYTHING, it would have been used prior to the election. And, since Hillary was supposed to win, the illegal wire taps would never
have been disclosed.
Now Trump has exposed the Obama admin and democrats are hyperventilating over Russia to deflect from the crimes they committed.
We always knew that, were told we were crazy, now we have proof. The MSM has been gas-lighting us. I wonder how many red pills
you have to swallow to get to the other side of this Rabbit Hole?
Well BO moved to Washington so it will be easy for the Press to shout these questions at him at his home or a restaurant or
a ballgame. We need answers BO, and right now. No BS. anymore. Or go back to Indonesia and hide out.
It's really not fun. The intelligence agencies are unaccountable and cloak their criminality with the secrecy of national security.
They're not going to back down. They're ruthless. And they kill people for sport. This will not end well unless the military is
called in to round them up, which has huge risks of its own...
TGFD here.
As far as I'm concerned. death becomes anyone in the effing CIA. Same goes for their parasitic family members. Death's image would
look good on them.
There is NO secret in the CIA that I would not expose if I could.
I never heard of the term, "Deep State" prior to 2 months ago, and I don't like what I hear, either. I pray that somehow, God
will enable TRUMP to vanquish all the filth in the deep state.
I knew it - the documents I looked over, the IP addresses I checked, the supposed "malware" that the US said "was the same
as we know Russia had used" and more - and it just did not add up.
Now to be sure the American population is dumb when it comes to technology - and they usually blindly believe what the CIA,
and media, tells them. But me - being in IT for some decades and having worked with Russian people for 6 years (in an electronics
engineering company founded by a Russian immigrant to the U.S.) and being a network security administrator for a small government
agency, something smelled odd.
The IP addresses - hahaha - really? Try again - up until the spring of 2016 American company Verizon routed 1 million stolen
IP addresses - used by cyber-criminals in the USA........ so guess where some of those IP addresses REALLY belonged. Further,
the "CIA" and other spooks included - honestly? TOR exit node addresses. If you use TOR browser, you will find some of those same
addresses in your own logs (unless you are smart and either purge or don't log, etc.)
So try again, U.S. spooks - the malware? HAHA - what a JOKE. Really. I mean older software that John Q. Public can download for
FREE? Sorry, Russians are far far smarter and they'd not use OLD software that works on WordPress based on PHP servers when the
target isn't based on blogging software.
Sorry, silly Americans - including and especially McCain and others in our congress who are, say what? members of INTELLIGENCE
committees? Really?
You help guide the intelligence and security operations of a major country and you fall for the BS that was presented to you?
Did you not ask questions? I did - I did my own research and I guess that proves I'm as smart or smarter than any member of and
house or Senate intelligence committee. Do these people even know where the power button is on their computer? Smart - they hire
unvetted IT people to take care of congressional computers....... and some of the equipment ends up missing, and these people
have full free access as admins to computers used by congressional members of armed services committees and more!
That's how smart our U.S. congress is. Hire your brother-in-laws IT geek, give 'em full admin access, let them come and go
freely........... and fall for intelligence reports about Russian hacking...... all the while our own CIA is doing MORE and WORSE.
While this topic is still fresh (thanks to the Democrats) - election interference - Election or campaign interference scores
according to political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University: Russia - 36 times, U.S.A - 81 times
The USA's score number doesn't include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S.
didn't like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such
as election monitoring.
So who exactly is it that interferes or "Helps" with elections? Yeah, I thought so.
President Vladimir Putin must go home each night shaking his head in disbelief at how gullible we are here.
By the way - Podesta was NOT HACKED. He fell for a simple phishing scam. Yes, the email wasn't even very well done. It appeared
more like it came out of Nigeria than any professional group, it was lame, didn't even look real, didn't sound real and the URL
or link was so obvious, geesh, a fool could have seen it was phishing. Oh, wait, we're talking Podesta here. The man gave away
his password (which for a while was indeed 'password'. Worse - he used what for his campaign work? Did you say GMAIL? You have
to be kidding! A free consumer email, based in the cloud, and not only that, at least 3 others had account access to his Gmail.
He kept documents, calendar, task lists and more in it. The phishing scammer got access to his Gmail inbox, sent items, attachments,
calendar, Google Drive, Google Docs, you name it! No hacking needed since this is CLOUD BASED. No one had to touch his computer
or iPad.
I really laughed when I found in those emails the admin credentials for his Wi-Fi, and even more funny - the admin credentials
for his building security system. Yes, all that in his cloud-based Gmail account. As Bugs Bunny would say- what a maroon!
No wonder he's mad and trying to blame everyone else. He has to know he was scammed and he fell for it and it was all HIS FAULT,
no one else but him. Using Gmail for such important work is STUPID as it is - but then to fall for phishing. He got what he deserved,
and if it was Russians, tell those teenagers congratulations! That's all it took to phish Podesta - the skill set of KIDS in their
early teens.
I could go on about the stupidity involved in all of this, but won't (I hear a collective sigh of relief!)
So, did the Russians hack the election? Or did the Obama CIA hack the election and just did a pizz-poor job of it? Or perhaps
Obama really did not want Hillary to win.
This might make those congressional investigations into the alleged hacking of the election by Russians a lot more interesting.
That is, of course, assuming that the investigations are really about finding the truth.
Obama Hates Hillary but could not openly control her. With Trump elected he could work openly to damage his administration,
and with the help of MSM demonize him, and make him look like a tool of the Russians as well as his appointees. Notice, there
was no talk of Russian hacking prior to the election. The "intelligence" agencies waited for the election results to come out
with their charges.
Use delaying tactics to prevent approval of appointees, attack and possibly remove approved appointees eroding confidence in
the current government. With the help of RINOs delay legislation. Pay protestors to protest everything Trump does using labels
such as sexist, racist, Nazi, etc.
Obama's and DNC's goal: Prevent any progress till the mid term elections and try and overturn the balance in Congress to get
the liberal agenda back on track. Get poised for the 2020 election and run a more palatable candidate than Hillary.
"Obama's and DNC's goal: Prevent any progress till the mid term elections and try and overturn the balance in Congress to get
the liberal agenda back on track. Get poised for the 2020 election and run a more palatable candidate than Hillary."
Let's unpack this. All those rumors about the Obama's hating the Clinton's? TRUE BUT, he couldn't let DOJ go through with indictment
so instead gets Clapper, Brennan and the boys to use Russian fingerprints to hack and then sits back and watches the chaos unfold.
When you go back to how he got his start in Chicago its exactly how he operates.
I am furious. I read the original re CIA attempting to influence French elections. But this is CLEAR TREASON by Obama Administration.
I NEVER trusted Brennen. violation for CIA to operate inside US.
Looks like this is an example of Obama/CIA preparation for Treason?
The thing that really pisses me off is that the factual basis for all of this criminal and treasonous activity by the Obama
Administration, that is being exposed today, remains covered-up by everyone in a position of responsibility to expose it. That
factual basis is that every identification document Obama has presented to prove he is a citizen of the USA is a forgery. Based
upon the totality of his record as president he is an agent of foreign Islamic allegiance and everything he has done in the Middle
East always ends up in favor of radical Islam and refuses to even acknowledge radical Islamic terrorism exists. The same goes
for his refusal to acknowledge domestic Islamic terrorism exists.
Factual answers for these three questions will clear up why we are having this treasonous activity. (1) Why does Obama have
and need a forged birth certificate as he posted on his POTUS website? (2) Why does Obama's first officially issued copy of his
Selective Service Registration Card have a forged 2 digit postal stamp? (3) Why is Obama using a SS# that was first issued to
someone else? These three questions must be answered by Congress as the researched information verifying forgery is readily available
and will expose the basis of this treason.
Let's not forget that logging into an email server because of a weak password and getting a copy of emails does not scream
CIA. Also John Podesta's email password was extremely weak. So it did not take a covert CIA hacking program to initiate. We keep
hearing Russia hacked our election. Yet have ZERO proof! First the majority of election machines are decentralized and not connected
to internet. There was not a single instance where vote the count was effected. This was also immediately stated by Obamas DNI.
Claiming they ran a propaganda attack on Hillary Clinton is pathetic. They are claiming the American people did not see who Hillary
Clinton truly was. The opposite is true.
Hillary Clinton had made her own propaganda against herself. She is who the American people see. Not what the Russians programmed
Us to see. The American people made a choice based on her actions no one else's. The liberals continually attacking someone with
false claims without proof is a standard Liberal / Alyinsky strategy. It requires no proof if all liberal extremist continually
repeat the same attack which is then amplified by the Liberal propaganda media (CNN, MSNBC, CBS, The New York Times, The Washington
Post, BBC, etc)
The Russian collusion claim is the exact same scenario. Make the claim which we already knew the Trump campaign speaks with
Russian diplomats. Most people in politics interact with all countries diplomat and ambassadors. So instantly the claim is impossible
to debunk. The Liberal party has become a party willing to use any and all tactics to avoid listening to the American people.
This whole Russian drama is created to go against what the American people voted for. The democrat party is as much a threat to
The United States as Communism ever was. It has been said if fascism ever comes back to the United States it will come in the
form of liberalism. So the American people have a choice.
Use common sense and stop the liberal extremist party from destroying our democracy or deal with the consequences of America
becoming ineffective and divided. The majority of the Democrat party and it's supporters have become so ideologically perverted
they have lost sight of morality and what America stands for.
The Russians have not hypnotized Americans to vote for Donald Trump. It wasn't possible for the Russians to manipulate voter
data and yes the Trump campaign speaks with Russian diplomats.
But it was the same Russian ambassador that Obama left in the country while expelling all others. The same Russian ambassador
Obama scheduled meetings with for Jeff sessions. The same rushing ambassador that all Democrat spend time with. Make a claim that's
true then find a way to turn it negative.
Typical Saul Alinsky. Everyone needs to remember anything the Liberals attack someone for the opposite is true.
And now you know that the CIA (via Obama's orders or tacit approval) was the one that created the ruse of Trump emailing a
Russian bank as a pretext to persuade FISA judges to sign off on the warrants to keep surveillance on him and his contacts.
If I were Obama I'd be seeking the nearest airport and fly to any country offering asylum... it's good night, good riddance
for him and the rest of the Deep State Globalists.
Kind of funny where this started. Remember Hillary stole a server from the government secure server facility and set it up
in her basement without proper security software and monitoring for hacking. Proven. And she had idiots in her staff so stupid
they used passwords like "p@ssword". Proven. So any 11 year old computer expert could have hacked that server.
And she lied about the content of the messages being transferred. Top secret and classified info was lost due to her illegal
actions. But Comey gave the pig a pass.
Of course it was the Obama CIA, pros like the Russians or Chinese, never leave behind "fingerprints" they are smart enough
to cover their tracks. As a cyber analyst I can tell you that when you see "fingerprints or breadcrumbs" leading to a source,
it's usually deceptive and intentional. Let that sink in!
Declassified documents show President John Kennedy in 1963 warned Israeli Prime Minister
Levi Eshkol that U.S. support for the young country would be "seriously jeopardized" if Israel
did not allow the United States periodic inspections of Israel's nuclear reactor to make sure
Israel was not manufacturing weapons-grade nuclear material
:
A telegram from Kennedy dated July 4, 1963, congratulates Eshkol on assuming the prime
ministership after Ben Gurion's resignation and recounts talks between Kennedy and Ben Gurion
about inspections at the reactor in Dimona.
"As I wrote Mr. Ben Gurion, this government's commitment to and support of Israel could be
seriously jeopardized if it should be thought that we were unable to obtain reliable
information on a subject as vital to peace as Israel's effort in the nuclear field," the
telegram said.
The telegram was declassified in the 1990s but was not widely available until last week
when the National Security Archives, a project affiliated with George Washington University,
posted it on its website.
Kennedy who was otherwise close to Israel was furious with its ostensible nuclear weapons
program, fearing that the Soviet Union could use it as leverage to maintain its influence in
the Middle East.
Eshkol, caught off guard by the tone of the telegram, took seven weeks to assent, and the
twice-yearly inspections continued until 1969 when President Richard Nixon ended them.
Also revealed in the trove of documents the NSA posted is the origin of Israel's
oft-repeated credo that it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons -- a
deliberately ambiguous statement that left Israel room to develop the weapons, but not arm
them.
Shimon Peres, then the deputy defense minister who later would lead the country as prime
minister for two stints and then become president, improvised the statement when he was
surprised by Kennedy during a meeting Peres had scheduled with Kennedy's adviser, Myer
Feldman, who also functioned as the administration's liaison to Israel and the U.S. Jewish
community . Unbeknownst to Peres, Kennedy and Feldman had planned the "surprise"
encounter.
According to a Hebrew-language Foreign Ministry of Israel account of the April 2 meeting,
Kennedy asked Peres into the Oval Office for 30 minutes and questioned him on Israel's
nuclear capacity.
"You know that we follow very closely the discovery of any nuclear development in the
region," Kennedy said. "This could create a very dangerous situation. For this reason, we
monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell me about this?"
Peres improvised, "I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons
to the region, and certainly we will not be the first."
"... For the United States, as for all warlike nations, military power has traditionally been the decisive factor determining whether it wins or loses its campaigns to capture or subdue other countries. World War II was the climax of that bloody history. ..."
"... It was not only the Dulles brothers, however, who brought the United States into the regime-change era in the early 1950s. Eisenhower himself was a fervent advocate of covert action. Officially his defense and security policy, which he called the "New Look," rested on two foundations, a smaller army and an increased nuclear arsenal. In reality, the "New Look" had a third foundation: covert action. Eisenhower may have been the last president to believe that no one would ever discover what he sent the CIA to do. With a soldier's commitment to keeping secrets, he never admitted that he had ordered covert regime-change operations, much less explained why he favored them. ..."
For most of history, seizing another country or territory was a straightforward proposition.
You assembled an army and ordered it to invade. Combat determined the victor. The toll in death
and suffering was usually horrific, but it was all done in the open. That is how Alexander
overran Persia and how countless conquerors since have bent weaker nations to their will.
Invasion is the old-fashioned way.
When the United States joined the race for empire at the end of the 19th century, that was
the tactic it used. It sent a large expeditionary force to the Philippines to crush an
independence movement, ultimately killing some 200,000 Filipinos. At the other end of the
carnage spectrum, it seized Guam without the loss of a single life and Puerto Rico with few
casualties. Every time, though, U.S. victory was the result of superior military power. In the
few cases when the United States failed, as in its attempt to defend a client regime by
suppressing Augusto Cesar Sandino's nationalist rebellion in Nicaragua during the 1920s and
30s, the failure was also the product of military confrontation. For the United States, as for
all warlike nations, military power has traditionally been the decisive factor determining
whether it wins or loses its campaigns to capture or subdue other countries. World War II was
the climax of that bloody history.
After that war, however, something important changed. The United States no longer felt free
to land troops on every foreign shore that was ruled by a government it disliked or considered
threatening. Suddenly there was a new constraint: the Red Army. If American troops invaded a
country and overthrew its government, the Soviets might respond in kind. Combat between
American and Soviet forces could easily escalate into nuclear holocaust, so it had to be
avoided at all costs. Yet during the Cold War, the United States remained determined to shape
the world according to its liking -- perhaps more determined than ever. The United States
needed a new weapon. The search led to covert action.
A news agency
During World War II the United States used a covert agency, the Office of Strategic
Services, to carry out clandestine actions across Europe and Asia. As soon as the war ended, to
the shock of many OSS agents, Harry Truman abolished it. He believed there was no need for such
an agency during peacetime. In 1947 he changed his mind and signed the National Security Act,
under which the Central Intelligence Agency was established. That marked the beginning of a new
era. Covert action replaced overt action as the principal means of projecting American power
around the world.
Truman later insisted that he had intended the CIA to serve as a kind of private global news
service. "It was not intended as a 'Cloak & Dagger Outfit!'" he wrote. "It was intended
merely as a center for keeping the President informed on what was going on in the world [not]
to act as a spy organization. That was never the intention when it was organized." Nonetheless
he did not hesitate to use the new CIA for covert action. Its first major campaign, aimed at
influencing the 1948 Italian election to ensure that pro-American Christian Democrats would
defeat their Communist rivals, was vast in scale and ultimately successful -- setting the
pattern for CIA intervention in every Italian election for the next two decades. Yet Truman
drew the line at covert action to overthrow governments.
The CIA's covert-action chief, Allen Dulles, twice proposed such projects. In both cases,
the target he chose was a government that had inflicted harm on corporations that he and his
brother, John Foster Dulles, had represented during their years as partners at the globally
powerful Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. In 1952 he proposed that the CIA
overthrow President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, whose government was carrying out land reform
that affected the interests of United Fruit. By one account, State Department officials "hit
the roof" when they heard his proposal, and the diplomat David Bruce told him that the
Department "disapproves of the entire deal." Then Dulles proposed an operation to overthrow
Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, who had nationalized his country's oil industry.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson flatly rejected it.
White House resistance to covert regime-change operations dissolved when Dwight Eisenhower
succeeded Truman at the beginning of 1953. Part of the new administration's enthusiasm came
from Allen Dulles, Washington's most relentless advocate of such operations, whom Eisenhower
named to head the CIA. The fact that he named Dulles's brother as secretary of State ensured
that covert operations would have all the necessary diplomatic cover from the State Department.
During the Dulles brothers' long careers at Sullivan & Cromwell, they had not only learned
the techniques of covert regime change but practiced them. They were masters at marshaling
hidden power in the service of their corporate clients overseas. Now they could do the same
with all the worldwide resources of the CIA.
It was not only the Dulles brothers, however, who brought the United States into the regime-change era in the early
1950s. Eisenhower himself was a fervent advocate of covert action. Officially his defense and security policy, which he called
the "New Look," rested on two foundations, a smaller army and an increased nuclear arsenal. In reality, the "New Look" had a
third foundation: covert action. Eisenhower may have been the last president to believe that no one would ever discover what he
sent the CIA to do. With a soldier's commitment to keeping secrets, he never admitted that he had ordered covert regime-change
operations, much less explained why he favored them. He would, however, have had at least two reasons.
Since Eisenhower had commanded Allied forces in Europe during World War II, he was aware of
the role that covert operations such as breaking Nazi codes had played in the war victory --
something few other people knew at the time. That would have given him an appreciation for how
important and effective such operations could be. His second reason was even more powerful. In
Europe he had had the grim responsibility of sending thousands of young men out to die. That
must have weighed on him. He saw covert action as a kind of peace project. After all, if the
CIA could overthrow a government with the loss of just a few lives, wasn't that preferable to
war? Like most Americans, Eisenhower saw a world of threats. He also understood that the threat
of nuclear war made overt invasions all but unthinkable. Covert action was his answer. Within a
year and a half of his inauguration, the CIA had deposed the governments of both Guatemala and
Iran. It went on to other regime-change operations from Albania to Cuba to Indonesia.
Successive presidents followed his lead.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was once again free to launch
direct military invasions. When it found a leader it didn't like -- such as Saddam Hussein or
Muammar Qaddafi -- it deposed him not through covert action, but by returning to the approach
it had used before World War II: the force of arms. Covert efforts to overthrow governments
have hardly ceased, as any Iranian or Venezuelan could attest. The era when covert action was
America's principal weapon in world affairs, however, is over. That makes this a good time to
look back.
Metrics for covert action
Books about the Cold War heyday of covert action era are a mini-genre. Lindsey A. O'Rourke's
contribution is especially valuable. Unlike many other books built around accounts of CIA
plots, Covert Regime Change takes a scholarly and quantitative approach. It provides
charts, graphs, and data sets. Meticulous analysis makes this not the quickest read of any book
on the subject, but certainly one of the best informed. Chapters on the disastrous effort to
overthrow communist rule in Eastern Europe, which cost the lives of hundreds of deceived
partisans, and on the covert-action aspects of America's doomed campaign in Vietnam are
especially trenchant.
O'Rourke identifies three kinds of covert operations that are aimed at securing perceived
friends in power and keeping perceived enemies out: offensive operations to overthrow
governments, preventive operations aimed at preserving the status quo, and hegemonic operations
aimed at keeping a foreign nation subservient. From 1947 to 1989, by her count, the United
States launched 64 covert regime-change operations, while using the overt tool -- war -- just
six times. She traces the motivations behind these operations, the means by which they were
carried out, and their effects. Her text is based on meticulous analysis of individual
operations. Some other books about covert action are rip-roaring yarns. This one injects a dose
of
rigorous analysis into a debate that is often based on emotion. That rigor lends credence to
her conclusions:
When policymakers want to conduct an operation that they know violates international
norms, they simply conduct it covertly to hide their involvement.
Covert missions typically have lower potential costs than their overt counterparts, but
they are also less likely to succeed.
Can interveners acquire reliable allies by covertly overthrowing foreign governments?
Overall, I find the answer is no. Covert regime changes seldom worked out as intended.
The new leader's opponents often accused him of being a U.S. puppet and, in some cases,
even took up arms against the regime. In fact, approximately half of the governments that
came to power in a U.S.-backed covert regime change during the Cold War were later violently
removed from power.
States targeted in a covert regime-change operation appear less likely to be democratic
afterward and more likely to experience civil war, adverse regime changes, or human-rights
abuses
Covert regime changes can have disastrous consequences for civilians within the target
states. Countries that were targeted by the United States for a covert regime change during
the Cold War were more likely to experience a civil war or an episode of mass killing
afterward.
Even nominally successful covert regime changes -- where U.S.-backed forces came to power
-- seldom delivered on their promise to improve interstate relations.
Although these conclusions are not new, they have rarely if ever been presented as the
result of such persuasive statistical evidence. Yet even this evidence seems unlikely to force
a reassessment of covert action as a way to influence or depose governments. It is an American
"addiction." The reasons are many and varied, but one of the simplest is that covert action
seems so easy. Changing an unfriendly country's behavior through diplomacy is a long, complex,
multi-faceted project. It takes careful thought and planning. Often it requires compromise.
Sending the CIA to overthrow a "bad guy" is far more tempting. It's the cheap and easy way out.
History shows that it often produces terrible results for both the target country and the
United States. To a military and security elite as contemptuous of history as America's,
however, that is no obstacle.
Although covert regime-change operations remain a major part of American foreign policy,
they are not as effective as they once were. The first victims of CIA overthrows, Prime
Minister Mossadegh and President Arbenz, did not understand the tools the CIA had at its
disposal and so were easy targets. They were also democratic, meaning that they allowed open
societies in which the press, political parties, and civic groups functioned freely -- making
them easy for the CIA to penetrate. Later generations of leaders learned from their ignorance.
They paid closer attention to their own security, and imposed tightly controlled regimes in
which there were few independent power centers that the CIA could manipulate.
If Eisenhower could come back to life, he would see the havoc that his regime-change
operations wreaked. After his overthrow of Mossadegh, Iran fell under royal dictatorship that
lasted a quarter-century and was followed by decades of rule by repressive mullahs who have
worked relentlessly to undermine American interests around the world. The operation he ordered
in Guatemala led to a civil war that killed 200,000 people, turning a promising young democracy
into a charnel house and inflicting a blow on Central America from which it has never
recovered. His campaign against Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, which included the
fabrication of a poison kit in a CIA laboratory, helped turn that country into one of the most
violent places on Earth.
How would Eisenhower respond to the long-term disasters that followed his covert action
victories? He might well have come up with a highly convincing way to excuse himself. It's now
clear, he could argue, that covert action to overthrow governments usually has terrible
long-term results -- but that was not clear in the 1950s. Eisenhower had no way of knowing that
even covert regime-change operations that seem successful at the time could have devastating
results decades later.
We today, however, do know that. The careful analysis that is at the center of Covert
Regime Change makes clearer than ever that when America sets out to change the world
covertly, it usually does more harm than good -- to itself as well as others. O'Rourke
contributes to the growing body of literature that clearly explains this sad fact of
geopolitics. The intellectual leadership for a national movement against regime-change
operations -- overt or covert -- is coalescing. The next step is to take this growing body of
knowledge into the political arena. Washington remains the province of those who believe not
only that the United States should try to reconfigure the world into an immense American sphere
of influence, but that that is an achievable goal. In the Beltway morass of pro-intervention
think tanks, members of Congress, and op-ed columnists, America's role in the world is usually
not up for debate. Now, as a presidential campaign unfolds and intriguing new currents surge
through the American body politic, is an ideal moment for that debate to re-emerge. If it does,
we may be surprised to see how many voters are ready to abandon the dogma of regime change and
wonder, with George Washington, "Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?"
This article was originally published in the June 2019 edition ofFuture of Freedom .
This post was written by: Stephen Kinzer Stephen Kinzer is an author and
newspaper reporter. He is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more
than 50 countries on five continents. His books include "Overthrow" and "All the Shah's Men".
DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct?
FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony?
AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers.
DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports?
AGENT: (cough) . (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI.
DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where
the server was examined?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: No? No what? These contractors don't run the FBI Laboratories?
AGENT: No. The laboratories are staffed by FBI personnel.
DEF ATT: Well I don't understand. Why would contractors be writing reports about computers that are forensically examined in
FBI laboratories?
AGENT: Well, the servers were not examined in the FBI laboratory.
(silence)
DEF ATT: Oh, so the FBI examined the servers on site to determine who had hacked them and what was taken?
AGENT: Uh .. no.
DEF ATT: They didn't examine them on site?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, where did they examine them?
AGENT: Well, uh .. the FBI did not examine them.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: The FBI did not directly examine the servers.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, the FBI has presented to the Grand Jury and to this court and SWORN AS FACT that the Russians hacked
the DNC computers. You are basing your SWORN testimony on a report given to you by a contractor, while the FBI has NEVER actually
examined the computer hardware?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, who prepared the analysis reports that the FBI relied on to give this sworn testimony?
AGENT: Crowdstrike, Inc.
DEF ATT: So, which Crowdstrike employee gave you the report?
AGENT: We didn't receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: We did not receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Well, where did you find this report?
AGENT: It was given to us by the people who hired Crowdstrike to examine and secure their computer network and hardware.
DEF ATT: Oh, so the report was given to you by the technical employees for the company that hired Crowdstrike to examine their
servers?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, who gave you the report?
AGENT: Legal counsel for the company that hired Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Why would legal counsel be the ones giving you the report?
AGENT: I don't know.
DEF ATT: Well, what company hired Crowdstrike?
AGENT: The Democratic National Committee.
DEF ATT: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You are giving SWORN testimony to this court that Russia hacked the servers
of the Democratic National Committee. And you are basing that testimony on a report given to you by the LAWYERS for the Democratic
National Committee. And you, the FBI, never actually saw or examined the computer servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Well, can you provide a copy of the technical report produced by Crowdstrike for the Democratic National Committee?
AGENT: No, I cannot.
DEF ATT: Well, can you go back to your office and get a copy of the report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why? Are you locked out of your office?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: I don't understand. Why can you not provide a copy of this report?
AGENT: Because I do not have a copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Did you lose it?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why do you not have a copy of the report?
AGENT: Because we were never given a final copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, if you didn't get a copy of the report, upon what information are you basing your testimony?
AGENT: On a draft copy of the report.
DEF ATT: A draft copy?
AGENT: Yes.
DEF ATT: Was a final report ever delivered to the FBI?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, did you get to read the entire report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why not?
AGENT: Because large portions were redacted.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, let me get this straight. The FBI is claiming that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. But the FBI never
actually saw the computer hardware, nor examined it? Is that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And the FBI never actually examined the log files or computer email or any aspect of the data from the servers? Is
that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And you are basing your testimony on the word of Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the people who provided
you with a REDACTED copy of a DRAFT report, not on the actual technical personnel who supposedly examined the servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Your honor, I have a few motions I would like to make at this time.
PRESIDING JUDGE: I'm sure you do, Counselor. (as he turns toward the prosecutors) And I feel like I am in a mood to grant them.
Brilliant! that sums it up nicely. of course, if the servers were not hacked and were instead "thumbnailed" that leads to a
whole pile of other questions (including asking wiileaks for their source and about the murder of seth rich).
Articles like this are what make Ray McGovern sound like the limited-hangout artist of the
century, this era's Ellsberg.
You've got Barr, who functioned as DCI Bush's mob lip ever since Iran/Contra, who calls in
Durham, renowned for CIA's CAT-illegal torture whitewash. No sane professional expects
anything but a moist and well-consolidated sigmoid coil of exculpation. Ray is not nearly
stupid enough to believe this is for real. Ray himself has said there are two CIAs. These
guys are from the criminal one, and Ray knows it.
Russiagate is not the fever dream of lone bad apple Brennan. Russiagate is an
institutional initiative of CIA. Current DCI Gina Haspel was in London marshalling the
foreign intelligence cutouts for the anti-Russian war propaganda that got repackaged for
publication as Dem oppo research.
Ray has brass balls. But wake me up when he goes up against the CIA DO like he went up
against DoS or Israeli navy pussies.
hetro , June 13, 2019 at 20:23
Yeah but this flagrant in your face we're-going-to-fuck-with-you people (again), and now
with this particular fantasy, is rapidly un-entangling for all to see (and who can resist the
naked lady in the sky?):
they used their intelligence assets to frame the whole thing, starting with Brennan's
fixation on the juicy Steele thing. And why? A little more on why? What's beyond their
repugnance for Trump, in the money angle? Is that coming out too?
Imagery of these people in prison garb behind bars sends a shiver through me.
David Otness , June 13, 2019 at 17:36
"Our long national nightmare is finally over ?"
For those too young, that was for Nixon finally having abdicated after a quite similar in
national intrigue episode, his own imperial Presidency caught up short in impeachment. The
difference being here, albeit from a scenario contrived for impeachment, it is the
prosecutors of a sitting President who are in the spotlight, if not the crosshairs, for
having contrived the plot to impeach.
The image of a meddling foreign power, the ultimate "other" as manifested in the
decades-now-long demonizing of anything Putin from the CIA -- his Slavic-Asian features, a
'thug,' 'his oligarchs,' (versus our billionaire and quite as lawless 'tycoon/plutocrats')
and the ludicrous Russian 'territorial expansion ambitions' (that from the by-far world's
largest country and "Pssst, you're thinking of Israel) makes this transition back into the
land of approximate reality of 2019 a different kettle of fish.
Meaning the U.S./CIA's easily ginned-up exploitable Cold War 2.0 recidivism is going to be
a tenacious monkey to shake from the country's collective back. It's been drilled in --
intentionally -- hard and deep. And that isolates and nullifies the Dem true-believers who
won't let go of it. And they continue to show they don't want to.
They are likely the leading edge of the Biden-Believers too; stuck in an unimaginative world
that craves the Obama era even as its worse (liberal-approved) elements come back to haunt
with these brooding personages like Brennan and the predatory Clapper-Thing foremost. Why
does that matter? Because they both committed public perjury under oath. And walked.
Unscathed. What does that say about the rule of law? And what does that say about those who
lionize them, all the while knowing of that perjury?
Most people in the U.S. despised Nixon in 1974, and the D and R political parties had not
reached the unconscionable and corrupt nadir at which we now find them in the pig-sty they
have wrought for themselves and drug us into. And despising Trump is something most find easy
enough, but his defenders are in the right on this if Brennan is exposed for such infamy.
"And such a beautiful fantasy Rachel Maddow had woven for us. Why did it ever have to end
?"
If Dems had been honest with themselves, had critically-thought for themselves, had not
fallen for the cheapest of tricks and been lucid-enough to see they were but foils in a mass
psy-op they'd be well assured of regaining the Presidency almost by default.
But, as Mark Twain rightfully observed: "It's much easer to fool people than to convince them
they've been fooled."
To have observed so many 'leftish' Dems claiming-to-be-progressives lionizing the likes of
Brennan, Comey, and Clapper in their televised role-playing as saviors was hard enough to
take, but then we come to the specter of Mueller who kept up the act in the face of knowing
he had nothing from the get-go, but did his best to obfuscate for 2 years; likely all the
while knowing this was Brennan's Brains' 'love child.'
Now even as the msm/House aspersions and egging-on continue post-Mueller report, these
same plotters have only further-enfurled themselves in the flag and beckon for the Dem party
faithful to drench themselves in further delusions; anything but confront the fact they've
been so thoroughly used and abused already by Clinton Inc and its wholly-owned DNC. Silly
humans. Mendacious masochists too.
And what of the nation as it spirals ever-downward to the drain ?
Bush would tell you to go shopping.
Obama would lay one of his patented "folks" on you. And tell you to never forget how
"exceptional" you really are. It's your 'participation' trophy, mah fellow Americans. You
swept the Apathy and Complacency divisions! Congratulations!
Jeff B , June 13, 2019 at 17:09
What the government (Deep State) values more than the truth or global stability is faith
in government. They cannot afford to have the reality of this attempted coup come to light
because normal, everyday citizens will be more appalled that this could happen more than it
was revealed. The investigation may reach the grass roots reality of what transpired but I
doubt the public will ever know. Even the hint of a conniving, dishonest Deep State will
cause ripples even the media can gloss over. (Have you seen any of the network news programs
do any story on the fabrication of WMD intelligence?)
Abe , June 13, 2019 at 17:00
"John Brennan has always been a failure as an intelligence officer even as he successfully
climbed the promotion ladder. He was the CIA's Chief of Station (COS) in Saudi Arabia when
the Khobar Towers were bombed, killing 19 Americans, a disaster which he incorrectly blamed
on the Iranians. He was deputy executive director on 9/11 and was complicit in that
intelligence failure. He subsequently served as CIA chief of staff when his boss George Tenet
concocted phony stories about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He also approved of the
Agency torture and rendition programs and was complicit in the destruction of Libya as well
as the attempt to do the same to Syria.
"Barack Obama wanted Brennan to be his CIA Director but his record with the Agency torture
and rendition programs made approval by the Senate problematical. Instead, he became the
president's homeland security advisor and deputy national security advisor for
counterterrorism, where he did even more damage, expanding the parameters of the death by
drone operations and sitting down with the POTUS for the Tuesday morning counterterrorism
sessions spent refining the kill list of American citizens.
"After Obama was re-elected in 2012, he was able to overcome objections and appoint
Brennan CIA Director. Conniving as ever, Brennan then ordered the Agency to read the
communications of the congressional committee then engaged in investigating CIA torture, the
very program that he had been complicit in. Brennan then denied to Congress under oath that
any such intramural spying had occurred, afterwards apologizing when the truth came out."
"... Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Government agents listen in on our telephone calls and read our emails. Political correctness -- a philosophy that discourages diversity -- has become a guiding principle of modern society. ..."
"... We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state. ..."
"... What many fail to realize is that the government is not operating alone. It cannot. The government requires an accomplice. Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of the massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds the growth of governmental overreach. ..."
"... In fact, Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother, and we are now ruled by the Corporate Elite whose tentacles have spread worldwide. For example, USA Today reports that five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the homeland security business was booming to such an extent that it eclipsed mature enterprises like movie-making and the music industry in annual revenue. This security spending to private corporations such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others is forecast to exceed $1 trillion in the near future. ..."
"... Everything from cell phone recordings and logs, to emails, to text messages, to personal information posted on social networking sites, to credit card statements, to library circulation records, to credit card histories, etc., is collected by the NSA and shared freely with its agents in crime: the CIA, FBI and DHS. One NSA researcher actually quit the Aquaint program, "citing concerns over the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability." ..."
"You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard,
and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." -- George Orwell, 1984
Who could have predicted that 70 years after Orwell typed the final words to his dystopian novel, "He loved Big Brother," we would
fail to heed his warning and come to love Big Brother.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone
-- to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the
age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink -- greetings!" -- George Orwell
1984 portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree
with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven
society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. People are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes.
The government, or "Party," is headed by Big Brother who appears on posters everywhere with the words: "Big Brother is watching
you."
We have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by not only Orwell but also such fiction writers
as Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood and Philip K. Dick.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."―George Orwell
Much like Orwell's Big Brother in 1984 , the government and its corporate spies now watch our every move. Much like Huxley's
A Brave New World , we are churning out a society of watchers who "have their liberties taken away from them, but rather enjoy
it, because they [are] distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing." Much like Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
, the populace is now taught to "know their place and their duties, to understand that they have no real rights but will be protected
up to a point if they conform, and to think so poorly of themselves that
they will
accept their assigned fate and not rebel or run away ."
And in keeping with Philip K. Dick's darkly prophetic vision of a dystopian police state -- which became the basis for
Steven
Spielberg's futuristic thriller Minority Report -- we are now trapped in a world in which the government is all-seeing,
all-knowing and all-powerful, and if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams and pre-crime units will crack a few
skulls to bring the populace under control.
What once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.
Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike -- facial recognition,
iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on -- are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network
aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, the
dystopian visions of past writers is fast becoming
our reality .
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."―George
Orwell
The courts have
shredded the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, SWAT teams battering down doors
without search warrants and FBI agents acting as a secret police that investigate dissenting citizens are common occurrences in contemporary
America. And bodily privacy and integrity have been utterly eviscerated by a prevailing view that Americans have no rights over what
happens to their bodies during an encounter with government officials, who are allowed to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe,
pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible
to say which was which."―George Orwell, Animal Farm
We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state.
What many fail to realize is that the government is not operating alone. It cannot. The government requires an accomplice.
Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of the massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance
and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on
and feeds the growth of governmental overreach.
In fact, Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother, and we are now ruled by the Corporate Elite whose tentacles
have spread worldwide. For example, USA Today reports that five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the homeland security
business was booming to such an extent that it
eclipsed mature
enterprises like movie-making and the music industry in annual revenue. This security spending to private corporations such as
Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others is
forecast to exceed
$1 trillion in the near future.
The government now has at its disposal technological arsenals so sophisticated and invasive as to render any constitutional protections
null and void. Spearheaded by the NSA, which has shown itself to care little to nothing for constitutional limits or privacy, the
"security/industrial complex" -- a marriage of government, military and corporate interests aimed at keeping Americans under constant
surveillance -- has come to dominate the government and our lives. At three times the size of the CIA, constituting one third of
the intelligence budget and with its own global spy network to boot, the NSA has a long history of spying on Americans, whether or
not it has always had the authorization to do so.
Money, power, control. There is no shortage of motives fueling the convergence of mega-corporations and government. But who is
paying the price? The American people, of course.
Orwell understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan flag-waving, are still struggling to come to terms with: that
there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people. Even the best intentions among those in government inevitably
give way to the desire to maintain power and control over the citizenry at all costs. As Orwell explains:
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power,
pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know
what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian
Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended,
perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there
lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention
of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;
one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture
is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.
"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." ― George Orwell
How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.
In totalitarian regimes -- a.k.a. police states -- where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the
government dictates what words can and cannot be used. In countries where the police state hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises
itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.
Dystopian literature shows what happens when the populace is transformed into mindless automatons. In
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 , reading is banned
and books are burned in order to suppress dissenting ideas, while televised entertainment is used to anesthetize the populace and
render them easily pacified, distracted and controlled.
In Huxley's Brave New World , serious literature,
scientific thinking and experimentation are banned as subversive, while critical thinking is discouraged through the use of conditioning,
social taboos and inferior education. Likewise, expressions of individuality, independence and morality are viewed as vulgar and
abnormal.
And in Orwell's 1984 , Big Brother does
away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish "thoughtcrimes."
In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the Ministry of Peace
deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation), the Ministry of Love deals
with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda).
The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
All three -- Bradbury, Huxley and Orwell -- had an uncanny knack for realizing the future, yet it is Orwell who best understood
the power of language to manipulate the masses. Orwell's Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such
words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary. To give a
single example, as psychologist Erich Fromm illustrates in his afterword to 1984 :
The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or
"This field is free from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political
and intellectual freedom no longer existed as concepts .
Where we stand now is at the juncture of OldSpeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where
only that which is "safe" and "accepted" by the majority is permitted). The power elite has made their intentions clear: they will
pursue and prosecute any and all words, thoughts and expressions that challenge their authority.
This is the final link in the police state chain.
"Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." --
George Orwell
Americans have been
conditioned to accept routine incursions on their privacy rights . In fact, the addiction to screen devices -- especially cell
phones -- has created a hive effect where the populace not only watched but is controlled by AI bots. However, at one time, the idea
of a total surveillance state tracking one's every move would have been abhorrent to most Americans. That all changed with the 9/11
attacks. As professor Jeffrey Rosen observes, "Before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives
under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and
stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable,
a dystopian fantasy of a society that
had surrendered privacy and anonymity ."
Having been reduced to a cowering citizenry -- mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the
face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield,
and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all -- we have nowhere left to go.
We have, so to speak, gone from being a nation where privacy is king to one where nothing is safe from the prying eyes of government.
In search of so-called terrorists and extremists hiding amongst us -- the proverbial "needle in a haystack," as one official termed
it -- the Corporate State has taken to monitoring all aspects of our lives, from cell phone calls and emails to Internet activity
and credit card transactions. Much of this data is being fed through
fusion centers across the
country, which work with the Department of Homeland Security to make threat assessments on every citizen, including school children.
These are state and regional intelligence centers that collect data on you.
"Big Brother is Watching You."―George Orwell
Wherever you go and whatever you do, you are now being watched, especially if you leave behind an electronic footprint. When you
use your cell phone, you leave a record of when the call was placed, who you called, how long it lasted and even where you were at
the time. When you use your ATM card, you leave a record of where and when you used the card. There is even a video camera at most
locations equipped with facial recognition software. When you use a cell phone or drive a car enabled with GPS, you can be tracked
by satellite. Such information is shared with government agents, including local police. And all of this once-private information
about your consumer habits, your whereabouts and your activities is now being fed to the U.S. government.
The government has nearly inexhaustible resources when it comes to tracking our movements, from electronic wiretapping devices,
traffic cameras and biometrics to radio-frequency identification cards, satellites and Internet surveillance.
Speech recognition technology now makes it possible for the government to carry out massive eavesdropping by way of sophisticated
computer systems. Phone calls can be monitored, the audio converted to text files and stored in computer databases indefinitely.
And if any "threatening" words are detected -- no matter how inane or silly -- the record can be flagged and assigned to a government
agent for further investigation. Federal and state governments, again working with private corporations, monitor your Internet content.
Users are profiled and tracked in order to identify, target and even prosecute them.
In such a climate, everyone is a suspect. And you're guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. To underscore this shift in
how the government now views its citizens, the FBI uses its wide-ranging authority to investigate individuals or groups, regardless
of whether they are suspected of criminal activity.
"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull." ― George Orwell
Here's what a lot of people fail to understand, however: it's not just what you say or do that is being monitored, but how you
think that is being tracked and targeted. We've already seen this play out on the state and federal level with hate crime
legislation that cracks down on so-called "hateful" thoughts and expression, encourages self-censoring and reduces free debate on
various subject matter.
Total Internet surveillance by the Corporate State, as omnipresent as God, is used by the government to predict and, more importantly,
control the populace, and it's not as far-fetched as you might think. For example, the NSA is now designing an artificial intelligence
system that is designed to anticipate your every move. In a nutshell, the NSA will feed vast amounts of the information it collects
to a computer system known as Aquaint (the acronym
stands for Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence), which the computer can then use to detect patterns and predict behavior.
No information is sacred or spared.
Everything from cell phone recordings and logs, to emails, to text messages, to personal information posted on social networking
sites, to credit card statements, to library circulation records, to credit card histories, etc., is collected by the NSA and shared
freely with its agents in crime: the CIA, FBI and DHS. One NSA researcher actually quit the Aquaint program, "citing concerns over
the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability."
Thus, what we are witnessing, in the so-called name of security and efficiency, is the creation of a new class system comprised
of the watched (average Americans such as you and me) and the watchers (government bureaucrats, technicians and private corporations).
Clearly, the age of privacy in America is at an end.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever." -- Orwell
So where does that leave us?
We now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed and controlled by our technology, which answers not
to us but to our government and corporate rulers. This is the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction lesson that is being pounded into us
on a daily basis.
It won't be long before we find ourselves looking back on the past with longing, back to an age where we could speak to whom we
wanted, buy what we wanted, think what we wanted without those thoughts, words and activities being tracked, processed and stored
by corporate giants such as Google, sold to government agencies such as the NSA and CIA, and used against us by militarized police
with their army of futuristic technologies.
To be an individual today, to not conform, to have even a shred of privacy, and to live beyond the reach of the government's roaming
eyes and technological spies, one must not only be a rebel but rebel.
Even when you rebel and take your stand, there is rarely a happy ending awaiting you. You are rendered an outlaw.
So how do you survive in the American surveillance state?
We're running out of options
As I make clear in my book
Battlefield America: The
War on the American People , we'll soon have to choose between self-indulgence (the bread-and-circus distractions offered
up by the news media, politicians, sports conglomerates, entertainment industry, etc.) and self-preservation in the form of renewed
vigilance about threats to our freedoms and active engagement in self-governance.
Yet as Aldous Huxley acknowledged in Brave New World Revisited : "Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only
those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society,
most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere
else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist
the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it."
-----------------------------------------------------
The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media
does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please
keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn - PO Box 1520
Every hour taxpayers in the United States are paying $32,077,626 for
Total Cost of Wars Since 2001.
I'm going through a Department of Defense background check right now and it's not so bad. The thing is they already know everything
damn there is to know about me. How do I know this ? Because I can pull up on their computers what they already know. It's to
help guys like me pass or at least that's what they say.
They got us by the balls now . How can you fight something like this Unless you take down the whole electric grid. Only God knows
the horror that would bring.
"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." – Orwell
Galatians 4:16 KJB "Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" – Paul
Boat Guy
It is serious concern the move from a free republic to a corporate state with armed government badge wearing just doing my
job minions existing in comfort thanks to the confiscatory tax and asset forfeiture programs in play by the circle jerk of Wall
Street to K-Street to Capitol Street .
Sadly the people of honor and integrity that could initiate a Nuremberg style justice system upon those in power and control will
quickly be stricken down by minions unaccountable thanks to nonsense like the patriot act and FISA courts . So much for the bill
of Rights that is supposed to be the impenetrable shield protecting Americans from government . Our alleged honor and oath bound
representatives have been able to turn it into Swiss cheese !
Refuse & Resist , Forget Me Not !
I think it is oversimplification. It was the intelligence agencies that controlled Hillary,
not vise versa. The interests of intelligence agencies and Hillary campaign coincided, that's why
she got as much support form CIA and FBI: Trump represented a central danger to flow of funds to
"national security parasites" so their reaction was predictable reaction of any large bureaucracy
of the possibility of losing power -- they circle the wagons.
Notable quotes:
"... But Steele's first overture on July 5, 2016, failed to capture the FBI's imagination. So the Clinton machine escalated. Steele, a British national, went to senior Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr -- whose wife, Nellie, also worked for Fusion -- to push his Trump dirt to the top of the FBI. ..."
"... Nellie Ohr likewise sent some of her own anti-Trump research augmenting Steele's dossier to the FBI through her husband. Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann used his connection to former FBI general counsel James Baker to dump Trump dirt at the FBI, too. ..."
"... In short, the Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure -- and bad intel -- until an investigation of Trump was started. The bureau and its hapless sheriff at the time, James Comey, eventually acquiesced with the help of such Clinton fans as then-FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. ..."
"... The Clinton team's dirty trick was as diabolical as it was brilliant. It literally used house money and a large part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to carry out its political hit job on Trump. ..."
"... After two years of American discomfort, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, it's time for the house to call in its IOU. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton owes us answers -- lots of them. So far, she has ducked them, even while doing many high-profile media interviews. ..."
"... Longtime Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen said Friday night on Fox News that it's time for Clinton to answer what she knew and when she knew it. ..."
"... John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports . ..."
During the combined two decades she served as a U.S. senator and secretary of State,
Hillary Clinton 's
patrons regularly donated to her family charity when they had official business pending before
America's most powerful political woman.
The pattern of political IOUs paid to the Clinton Foundation was so pernicious that the
State Department even tried to execute a special
agreement with the charity to avoid the overt appearance of "pay-to-play" policy.
Still, the money continued to flow by the millions of dollars, from foreigners and Americans
alike who were perceived to be indebted to the Clinton machine or in need of its help.
It's time for the American public to call in their own IOU on political transparency.
The reason? Never before -- until 2016 -- had the apparatus of a U.S. presidential candidate
managed to sic the weight of the FBI and U.S. intelligence community on a rival nominee during
an election, and by using a foreign-fed, uncorroborated political opposition research
document.
But Clinton's campaign, in concert with the Democratic Party and through their shared law
firm, funded Christopher Steele's unverified
dossier which, it turns out, falsely portrayed Republican Donald Trump as a treasonous asset colluding with
Russian President Vladimir Putin to hijack the U.S. election.
Steele went to the FBI to get an investigation started and then leaked the existence of the
investigation, with the hope of sinking Trump's presidential aspirations.
On its face, it is arguably the most devious political dirty trick in American history and
one of the most overt intrusions of a foreigner into a U.S. election.
It appears the Clinton machine knew that what it was doing was controversial. That's why it
did backflips to disguise the operation from Congress and the public, and in its Federal
Election Commission (FEC) spending reports.
Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)
used the law firm of Perkins Coie to hire Glenn Simpson's research firm, Fusion GPS, which
then hired Steele -- several layers that obfuscated transparency, kept the operation off the
campaign's public FEC reports and gave the Clintons plausible deniability.
But Steele's first overture on July 5, 2016, failed to capture the FBI's imagination. So
the Clinton machine escalated. Steele, a British national, went to senior Department of Justice
official Bruce Ohr -- whose wife, Nellie, also worked for Fusion -- to push his Trump dirt to
the top of the FBI.
Nellie Ohr likewise sent some of her own anti-Trump research augmenting Steele's dossier
to the FBI through her husband. Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann
used his connection to former FBI general counsel James Baker to dump Trump dirt at the
FBI, too.
In short, the Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure -- and bad intel -- until an
investigation of Trump was started. The bureau and its hapless sheriff at the time, James
Comey, eventually acquiesced with the help of such Clinton fans as then-FBI employees Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page.
To finish the mission, Simpson and Steele leaked the existence of the FBI investigation to
the news media to ensure it would hurt Trump politically. Simpson even
called the leaks a "hail Mary" that failed.
Trump won, however. And now, thanks to special counsel Robert Mueller, we know the
Russia-collusion allegations relentlessly peddled by Team Clinton were bogus. But not before
the FBI used the Clinton-funded, foreign-created research to get a total of four warrants to
spy on the Trump campaign , transition and presidency from October 2016 through the
following autumn.
The Clinton team's dirty trick was as diabolical as it was brilliant. It literally used
house money and a large part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to carry out its political hit
job on Trump.
After two years of American discomfort, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent,
it's time for the house to call in its IOU.
Hillary Clinton owes us answers -- lots of them. So far, she has ducked them, even while
doing many high-profile media interviews.
I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Longtime Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen said
Friday night on Fox News that it's time for Clinton to answer what she knew and when she knew
it.
Here are 10 essential questions:
Please identify each person in your campaign, including Perkins Coie lawyers, who were
aware that Steele provided information to the FBI or State Department, and when they learned
it.
Describe any information you and your campaign staff received, or were briefed on, before
Election Day that was derived from the work of Simpson, Steele, Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr or
Perkins Coie and that tried to connect Trump, his campaign or his business empire with
Russia.
Did you or any senior members of your campaign, including lawyers such as Michael
Sussmann, have any contact with the CIA, its former Director John Brennan, current Director
Gina Haspel, James Baker, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page or former FBI Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe?
Describe all
contacts your campaign had with Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal concerning Trump,
Russia and Ukraine.
Describe all contacts you and your campaign had
with DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa, the Ukraine government, the Ukraine Embassy in the
United States or the U.S. Embassy in Kiev concerning Trump, Russia or former Trump campaign
chairman Paul Manafort.
Why did your campaign and the Democratic Party make a concerted effort to portray Trump as
a Russian asset?
Given that investigations by a House committee, a Senate committee and a special
prosecutor all have concluded there isn't evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, do you regret
the actions by your campaign and by Steele, Simpson and Sussmann to inject these unfounded
allegations into the FBI, the U.S. intelligence community and the news media?
Hillary Clinton owes us answers to each of these questions. She should skip the lawyer-speak
and answer them with the candor worthy of an elder American stateswoman.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has
exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists'
misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political
corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at
The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports .
"... Despite special counsel Robert Mueller clearing Trump of collusion with Russia in 2016, Brennan still maintains the counterintelligence operation against the Republican nominee's campaign was more than justified. ..."
"... "I was there in the summer of '16 and it was very well predicated," the former intelligence official told MSNBC's Deadline host Nicole Wallace last month. "To launch this counterintelligence investigation about what the Russians were doing to interfere in our election and how among American citizens might have been working with them." ..."
"... Eventually 0bama will be asked when he authorized the spying on the 2012 election, and you can bet 0bama will toss Brennan under that proverbial bus. 0bama will have to answer the question, because there is a massive paper trail of evidence. ..."
"... President Trump weathered the Russia-Russia-Russia hoax storm. Those slow-moving wheels of real justice are finally starting to turn. ..."
Former CIA Director John Brennan has once against spoken out against President Donald
Trump, describing him in a recent interview as a "pathological deceiver" who "rankles" him "to
no end."
Speaking to the Irish Times over the weekend, Brennan discussed what he claims is the root of his
harsh and repeated criticism of President Trump. The longtime Deep Stater's attacks, he claims,
aren't driven as much by president's policy prescriptions but by his character.
"So my beef with Donald Trump is not because he has done some very foolish things –
like reneging on the Iran nuclear deal, or how he has handled the North Korea situation –
I find that many of his policies are deeply flawed and are purely tactical to give him a
political bounce," he
told interviewer Suzanne Lynch, the Times' Washington Correspondent.
"But if that was the only problem I had with him, I would be silent. What really just
rankles me to no end is his dishonesty, his lack of ethics and principles and character, the
way he demeans and degrades and denigrates individuals or institutions of government, what he
has done and said about the FBI and CIA and the former leadership, the fact that he wilfully
misleads not just the American people but the world," the former Obama spy chief
continued .
Brennan concluded his thoughts on Trump by
stating : "He is a pathological deceiver and that lack of ethical, principled behaviour is
something that I never thought I would see in the president of the United States who is the
most powerful person in the world, who should serve as a role model to all Americans.
Brennan's remarks come as his conduct during the U.S. government's Russia investigation is
under review by the Department of Justice. Last month, President Trump directed several federal
departments and agencies to cooperate with Attorney General William Barr's examination of the
Russia probe's origins, as well as the declassification of intelligence related to it.
Despite special counsel Robert Mueller clearing Trump of collusion with Russia in 2016,
Brennan still maintains the counterintelligence operation against the Republican nominee's
campaign was more than justified.
"I was there in the summer of '16 and it was very well predicated," the former
intelligence official
told MSNBC's Deadline host Nicole Wallace last month. "To launch this counterintelligence
investigation about what the Russians were doing to interfere in our election and how among
American citizens might have been working with them."
Brennan is worried about what President Trump is doing with the metric-tons of
#Spygate & #Obamagate evidence.
Eventually 0bama will be asked when he authorized the spying on the 2012 election, and you
can bet 0bama will toss Brennan under that proverbial bus. 0bama will have to answer the
question, because there is a massive paper trail of evidence.
They never thought Hillary could lose. Mueller's special counsel, was only a temporary
cover-up. President Trump weathered the Russia-Russia-Russia hoax storm. Those slow-moving
wheels of real justice are finally starting to turn.
Scandal?
JFK went against the flow of the good old boys and their networks.
'Bay of Pigs' was a disaster but did JFK really have that much input into the planning of
that mess?
He stopped it, eventually, probably because he thought it might escalate into a full blown
war with Russia.
He did some amazing stuff during the Cuban crises.
He kept his rabid war hawks at bay until a resolution was worked out with Russia.
Khrushchev did should be thanked too by keeping his military maniacs leashed too.
What's with the tea baggers redefining history?
You guys have started burning books over there yet? and
"... Other than it is against the law for CIA to spy in the US. It is FBI's job. And Brennan lied to Congress under oath, a crime for which Clinton was impeached. And the fact that if they are coneding this crime, they must've been caught on something even bigger. ..."
"... They are way out of control. They need to take a step back and reevaluate their reason for being and their goals. You can't protect the people if you see them as the enemy. ..."
"... The intelligence agencies are civil servants who need to be reigned in whenever they exceed the instructions given to them by their civilian bosses. ..."
"... And the CIA torture? ..."
"... Who ever was over the hacking of the Senator's computer and the Senator's staffers computers should be invited to leave. If that extends all the way up to Brennan, so be it. ..."
"... Unfortunately, that corrective action has to come from those who are perpetrating these crimes in order for it to be legal. It's the classic Catch-22 of political corruption. ..."
"... "They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretences, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace." ― Tacitus (AD56 to after AD117) The Agricola and the Germania ..."
"... The problem with political power is that it proves to be a magnet to those with sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies and they are easily corrupted. ..."
"... Back in the day, the people of Russia knew that what they were being fed was propaganda, in the US and the UK we thought it was news. ..."
"... Intelligence Agencies have their own Agenda. The CIA spy on everyone including the Senate it seems. Meanwhile the Israeli Intelligence Agencies spy on many people Including the USA,the very people who give them the money... ..."
"... If the CIA are Spying on the Senate you have to ask the Question who are they working for ? ..."
There should be no discussion about this! However just like Mockingbird, National Students Ass., Tailwind, PBSUCCESS,and so many
others, they will stall until they get it dropped from the media and we will forget again.
John Brennan's next job should be in a orange jump suit earning pennies and hour.
But we all know that this will never happen. Brennan is the right hand of the commander and chief of death, destruction and torture.
and has been for a long time. This is the work of evil, plain and simple.
How can you have any faith or trust in a government like this? It's one damn thing after another. The Executive branch, the Congress,
the high courts, the Justice Dept. are all corrupt. Laws are broken, constitutional protections are laughed at, we are constantly
being spied on. No charges are brought. Nobody goes to jail.
A minor detail?
The CIA and security services have every right to know who is who on all and every politician and their staff.
That's why we are safe. :-)
Other than it is against the law for CIA to spy in the US. It is FBI's job.
And Brennan lied to Congress under oath, a crime for which Clinton was impeached. And the fact that if they are coneding this
crime, they must've been caught on something even bigger.
Sure, everything else is just fine. As far as we know, that is.
They are way out of control. They need to take a step back and reevaluate their reason for being and their goals.
You can't protect the people if you see them as the enemy.
So it appears that some in Congress will get upset if a Executive agency misuses its powers? Are these the same folks who seem
to be okay with the IRS focus on Conservative 501(c)(3) applicants?
Who ever was over the hacking of the Senator's computer and the Senator's staffers computers should be invited to leave. If that
extends all the way up to Brennan, so be it.
Unfortunately, that corrective action has to come from those who are perpetrating these crimes in order for it to be legal. It's
the classic Catch-22 of political corruption.
Don't fire Brennan. Arrest him and charge him violating the prohibition against domestic surveillance, lying under oath and,
arguably, treason. Maybe there is space in Guantanamo for him to reflect upon the meaning of the Constitution and the rule of
law.
And the reason that we never hear of these supposed 'facts' is what? That we're all too dumb to know? Dumbing down America is
getting mighty costly of late, n'est-pas?
Just because they say you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Remember: America is not a democracy. That's a
sideshow. It's an oligarchy and don't you forget it.
You can always trust some govts/agencies/people to always take the wrong path/back door. It would simply never occur to them to
take the right one. This is who they are.
Staffs carry out directives. I'm not buying that staff had cause to go looking otherwise.
Feinstein has problems with being spied on, yet heads the Intelligence Committee who for several years has been authorizing
spying on - well, everybody.
Feinstein shouldn't worry about spying, unless she's doing something wrong. Isn't that the proposition?
So why is it scandalous for public officials in our supposed western liberal democracies to spy on officials in other agencies,
and deserving of an apology, but it's Okay for officials to spy on fellow citizens?
What might a government of the people that does not trust the people it governs be properly called?
I would like to point out that beyond what is touted in the press as "the story" the nature of these sorts of things can remain
hidden for many years. Recent events in Germany and in Washington, if viewed from a different perspective may be connected. In
the past when such revelations come to light it is resultant from security issues that are of such magnitude that those tasked
with intelligence responsibilities remain in power because they are simply doing their job and are doing so at the command of
elected officials, who when made aware of covert matters go all quiet and allow the chips to fall as they may. Seldom does the
public ever hear of the actual facts in a timely way, and by the time that does happens they have long since moved on to more
pressing matters.
Has any politician asked them to explain why they spied, in terms of their motivations ? It seems the 'why' is surely more damaging
than the act of spying itself?
What else is new!...Corruption / deceit / fraud / theft, at the highest level of tax payers money is being conducted..War criminals
being sponsored by their own corrupt government ministers / agencies, to create carnage, by divide & rule tactics...Its a fatal
backfiring failure / disaster which is causing their downfall.
Not surprising...All these out of control "rogue agencies" I.E. CIA / NSA / MI5 / MI6 / GCHG / MOSAD, must be brought to book
for their corrupt / deceitful / fraudulent workings...Their most senior officers are involved in a worldwide cover up into illegal
involvement of creating criminal wars around the world, by using spying techniques upon government institutions & citizens...The
recent scandal of phone tapping / voice mail / email interception, goes to show the lengths they are prepared to conduct / cover
up their own war criminality acts. They are the REAL terrorists !!
"They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by
ambition, if poor They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretences, and all of this they hail as the construction of
empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace."
― Tacitus (AD56 to after AD117) The Agricola and the Germania
They'll even eat their own... How this behaviour doesn't equate to criminal actions is part of the disgrace. The US government
have morphed in to a dystopian movement.
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA by Webster Griffin Tarpley (ISBN: 9780930852375) another good read and makes a plausible case
for a coup carried out on America.
In the reign of Elizabeth 1st a blacksmith was executed for treason because he was overhead saying that he believed the uncrowned
King Edward V was still alive.
A quick search on Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's Secretary of State will reveal for just how long and how sophisticated
state spying on state has been.
Yes, they don't like others to be in a position to know of their venality, their sexual deviances and assorted other human failings.
Else that knowledge be used to control them...............
The problem of how the rest of the world views the actions of the US is exacerbated by the seeming inability or disinterest of
its citizens in doing anything about it.
Admittedly, a frustration shared by many citizens/subjects in Western countries, that pretend to be functioning democracies but
are in fact anything but.
The problem with political power is that it proves to be a magnet to those with sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies and they
are easily corrupted.
We are politically and economically very poorly educated and are daily fed propaganda and mind filling mush by media that are
'on message'.
The media ownership needs to be broken up but politicians, corporations and the media are one self serving body and would resist
that and have the power to do so.
Back in the day, the people of Russia knew that what they were being fed was propaganda, in the US and the UK we thought it
was news.
Intelligence Agencies have their own Agenda.
The CIA spy on everyone including the Senate it seems.
Meanwhile the Israeli Intelligence Agencies spy on many people Including the USA,the very people who give them the money...
(Out of Control is the thought that springs to mind)
If the CIA are Spying on the Senate you have to ask the Question who are they working for ? Is it the American Government ? Is
it the American Military? Is it The American Citizen ? Or are we seeing the henchmen of the illuminati in action here !
Their fingers seem to be in every pie and no one seems to be able to control them .
"... A sincere question: who is running the CIA and on whose behalf? ..."
"... They consider us the people, their enemy. We are the 'enemy within', because as we become increasingly aware of our politicians' criminality any action we take may threaten the status quo. ..."
"... Just because Americans don't tend to care about anything that happens beyond their own borders doesn't mean the rest of the world can live with the same blissful ignorance. ..."
"... The NSA scandal has made us realize that the US regards us as second-rated citizens who are nondeserving of the 'special protections' that Anglo-speaking countries do. ..."
"... This is extremely telling about Obama's continued failure to discern good character in his aides and cabinet. His administration has been a shambles largely due to his inability to surround himself with good people. ..."
"... I guess so, as we all know that the CIA always tried to silent war opponents. This had been largely documented about Vietnam opponents to the War on US soil. ..."
"... The CIA is now a discredited organization run by proven liars. When will Congress do something about it? Answer -- never. They are all being blackmailed. ..."
"... The CIA is completely out of control. This begs the question, as to why do, or should, American citizen vote for candidates when those candidates are effectively being 'managed' and spied on by people in the CIA. Senators in both houses are not making 'decisions' the CIA is. ..."
"... Yes and the only politician who has called for the abolition of the CIA is Ron Paul. ..."
"... The NSA isn't hindering your movements as you are not a danger to the status quo. You can keep getting blasted at your BBQ's and coming online to defend the indefensible, you're not a threat. But it's not about you. It's about the people who are in a position to challenge the system. This can include anti-war activists, judges, politicians and journalists. ..."
They consider us the people, their enemy. We are the 'enemy within', because as we become increasingly aware of our politicians'
criminality any action we take may threaten the status quo.
leaders haven't been voted into office for a while now - they're rigged into office - from the lowly dog catcher to the president
- and its happening all over the world.
If you take the easy way now, you will take the easy way in the future. This not a sandlot baseball game here. These are high-
powered people , who are responsible for matters extremely operant to the people of our country, and it must be admitted, the
world.
To simply brush off these serious breaches of Government procedure (law) would serve to perpetuate the Executive Branch intrusions
into the business of the Legislative Branch.
Separation of the powers is a time-honored method of setting up a government that has kept us 'moving along' for quite
awhile now. Most of its problems stem from the populace placing too much trust in their elected officials .
It is everyone's responsibility to collectively maintain our government. It was never the intention of our founders that our
leaders become reclusive despots: from today's vantage point, we can see this. It is a short walk to realize where the blame should
be laid. Up and on your way to no future.
Just because Americans don't tend to care about anything that happens beyond their own borders doesn't mean the rest of the
world can live with the same blissful ignorance.
The NSA scandal has made us realize that the US regards us as second-rated citizens who are nondeserving of the 'special
protections' that Anglo-speaking countries do.
I find it absolutely shocking that this guy's dismissal is still debatable. Should be a no-brainer is any democracy
In the UK and USA these spooks backed by politicians and civil servants are getting way out of hand. Having the technology to
do things doesn't provide the need or right to do such things. They are getting to the point where they are "protecting" us from
the very people and system they have become.
although the White House indicated its support for a man who has been one of Barack Obama's most trusted security aides.
This is extremely telling about Obama's continued failure to discern good character in his aides and cabinet. His administration
has been a shambles largely due to his inability to surround himself with good people.
I guess so, as we all know that the CIA always tried to silent war opponents. This had been largely documented about Vietnam
opponents to the War on US soil.
They're all fuc@#$g rogue. Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Who polices the police? No one apparently. They
and all their UK counterparts will walk away from this unscathed. If the heat gets a little too warm just play your joker, 'Terrorism'.
The CIA is now a discredited organization run by proven liars. When will Congress do something about it? Answer -- never.
They are all being blackmailed.
Your state can imprison anyone it wants, for as long as it wants, without having to justify it in any way... hell they are not
even required to let relatives know. That is a police state. The US is operating what effectively are concentration camps all
over the place, Guantanamo being the flagship.
The CIA is completely out of control. This begs the question, as to why do, or should, American citizen vote for candidates when
those candidates are effectively being 'managed' and spied on by people in the CIA. Senators in both houses are not making 'decisions'
the CIA is.
Quite how the CIA, White House or any other government body think that they have any credibility regarding any matter, is amazing.
I JUST PUT A LIST OF QUESTIONS ON MY TIME LINE THIS SHOULD KEEP THE SPY NETWORK BUSY FOR A WHILE ! BUT THEY NEVER DO ANYTHING
THAT MAKES SENSE ANYWAY ; THEY ONLY HAVE A 30 BILLION DOLLAR BUDGET ; BUT CANNOT TELL US WHAT HAPPENED TO MH370 MALAYSIAN AIRPLANE
! WOW ! SOME SPY NETWORK ! IT 'S EASY FOR THEM TO SCREW WITH US ; BECAUSE WE ARE EVERYDAY MARKS !
If the United States government doesn't even govern by popular mandate, it certainly won't give a fuck about anyone's respect,
dear fellow internet commentator.
The penalties for lying under oath are quite strict and can include up to 5 years of prison time. But nobody is willing to go
after these guys, they have too much information on too many people. The day the US congress voted for the patriot act was the
last day of their democracy.
What exactly does a CIA member have to do to get arrested, prosecuted and convicted for an action inside the USA?
It is not spying on Congress. It it spying on the Supreme court, or killing a Senator? Do they walk away free after assassinating
their own president? Do they need to do more?
The NSA isn't hindering your movements as you are not a danger to the status quo. You can keep getting blasted at your BBQ's and
coming online to defend the indefensible, you're not a threat. But it's not about you. It's about the people who are in a position
to challenge the system. This can include anti-war activists, judges, politicians and journalists.
Everyone who matters can be
kept inline with blackmail and for public figures it can be the smallest thing. Recently, during a primary, a candidate lost as
questions were raised about the fact he had checked in the a mental care facility. He probably had a breakdown and needed to be
observed for a couple of days. This piece of information would be easy to pick up with the various NSA programmes.
If this candidate
had the same views as you, this little fact would not have been released but I believe he was a defender of your constitution
and that could cause problems for the criminal regime you now live under.
Snooping is poison in a democracy. Your system was built so that it had self correction and could hence adapt to new situations
and constantly improve. This served Americans well for many years, but it has ended.
Feinstein and the word "hope" do not belong in one and the same sentence. She along with her fellow conspirators in the intelligence
committee are the ones that have been green-lighting this fascism for years. It's like expecting John McCain to repeal the Patriot
Act.
People like Feinstein are chosen to oversee mass surveillance for the simple reason that they are old, completely technologically
illiterates who can be easily fooled or if need be blackmailed through their extensive business empires
.
Yeah and let's take a look at the CIA's backing for Operation Gladio in post WW2 Europe. Yeah, you Americans were there but you
certainly weren't saving lives or making the aftermath bearable for the victims.
Notable quotes:
"... Don't fire Brennan. Arrest him and charge him violating the prohibition against domestic surveillance, lying under oath and, arguably, treason. Maybe there is space in Guantanamo for him to reflect upon the meaning of the Constitution and the rule of law. ..."
"... "What might a government of the people that does not trust the people it governs be properly called?" ..."
There should be no discussion about this! However just like Mockingbird, National Students Ass., Tailwind, PBSUCCESS,and so many
others, they will stall until they get it dropped from the media and we will forget again.
Get Smart Amarica
How can you have any faith or trust in a government like this? It's one damn thing after another. The Executive branch, the Congress,
the high courts, the Justice Dept. are all corrupt. Laws are broken, constitutional protections are laughed at, we are constantly
being spied on. No charges are brought. Nobody goes to jail. But Snowden is a traitor for revealing the truth.
A minor detail? The CIA and security services have every right to know who is who on all and every politician and their
staff.
That's why we are safe. :-)
Other than it is against the law for CIA to spy in the US. It is FBI's job. And Brennan lied to Congress under oath, a crime for
which Clinton was impeached. And the fact that if they are coneding this crime, they must've been caught on something even bigger.
Sure, everything else is just fine. As far as we know, that is.
They are way out of control. They need to take a step back and reevaluate their reason for being and their goals. You can't protect
the people if you see them as the enemy.
So it appears that some in Congress will get upset if a Executive agency misuses its powers? Are these the same folks who seem
to be okay with the IRS focus on Conservative 501(c)(3) applicants?
Um, no, Trevor Alfred, "the REAL terrorists" are still the folks who deliberately bomb civilians in areas where peace is supposed
to exist. The intelligence agencies are civil servants who need to be reigned in whenever they exceed the instructions given to
them by their civilian bosses.
Who ever was over the hacking of the Senator's computer and the Senator's staffers computers should be invited to leave. If that
extends all the way up to Brennan, so be it.
Unfortunately, that corrective action has to come from those who are perpetrating these crimes in order for it to be legal. It's
the classic Catch-22 of political corruption.
Don't fire Brennan. Arrest him and charge him violating the prohibition against domestic surveillance, lying under oath and,
arguably, treason. Maybe there is space in Guantanamo for him to reflect upon the meaning of the Constitution and the rule of
law.
And the reason that we never hear of these supposed 'facts' is what? That we're all too dumb to know? Dumbing down America is
getting mighty costly of late, n'est-pas?
Just because they say you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Remember: America is not a democracy. That's a
sideshow. It's an oligarchy and don't you forget it.
You can always trust some govts/agencies/people to always take the wrong path/back door. It would simply never occur to them to
take the right one. This is who they are.
Staffs carry out directives. I'm not buying that staff had cause to go looking otherwise.
Feinstein has problems with being spied on, yet heads the Intelligence Committee who for several years has been authorizing
spying on - well, everybody.
Feinstein shouldn't worry about spying, unless she's doing something wrong. Isn't that the proposition?
So why is it scandalous for public officials in our supposed western liberal democracies to spy on officials in other agencies,
and deserving of an apology, but it's Okay for officials to spy on fellow citizens?
What might a government of the people that does not trust the people it governs be properly called?
I would like to point out that beyond what is touted in the press as "the story" the nature of these sorts of things can remain
hidden for many years. Recent events in Germany and in Washington, if viewed from a different perspective may be connected. In
the past when such revelations come to light it is resultant from security issues that are of such magnitude that those tasked
with intelligence responsibilities remain in power because they are simply doing their job and are doing so at the command of
elected officials, who when made aware of covert matters go all quiet and allow the chips to fall as they may. Seldom does the
public ever hear of the actual facts in a timely way, and by the time that does happens they have long since moved on to more
pressing matters.
Has any politician asked them to explain why they spied, in terms of their motivations ? It seems the 'why' is surely more damaging
than the act of spying itself?
What else is new!...Corruption / deceit / fraud / theft, at the highest level of tax payers money is being conducted..War criminals
being sponsored by their own corrupt government ministers / agencies, to create carnage, by divide & rule tactics...Its a fatal
backfiring failure / disaster which is causing their downfall.
Not surprising...All these out of control "rogue agencies" I.E. CIA / NSA / MI5 / MI6 / GCHG / MOSAD, must be brought to book
for their corrupt / deceitful / fraudulent workings...Their most senior officers are involved in a worldwide cover up into illegal
involvement of creating criminal wars around the world, by using spying techniques upon government institutions & citizens...The
recent scandal of phone tapping / voice mail / email interception, goes to show the lengths they are prepared to conduct / cover
up their own war criminality acts. They are the REAL terrorists !!
"They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by
ambition, if poor They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretences, and all of this they hail as the construction of
empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace."
― Tacitus (AD56 to after AD117) The Agricola and the Germania
They'll even eat their own... How this behaviour doesn't equate to criminal actions is part of the disgrace. The US government
have morphed in to a dystopian movement.
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA by Webster Griffin Tarpley (ISBN: 9780930852375) another good read and makes a plausible case
for a coup carried out on America.
In the reign of Elizabeth 1st a blacksmith was executed for treason because he was overhead saying that he believed the uncrowned
King Edward V was still alive.
A quick search on Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's Secretary of State will reveal for just how long and how sophisticated
state spying on state has been.
The problem of how the rest of the world views the actions of the US is exacerbated by the seeming inability or disinterest of
its citizens in doing anything about it. Admittedly, a frustration shared by many citizens/subjects in Western countries,
that pretend to be functioning democracies but are in fact anything but.
The problem with political power is that it proves to be a magnet to those with sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies and they
are easily corrupted.
We are politically and economically very poorly educated and are daily fed propaganda and mind filling mush by media that are
'on message'.
The media ownership needs to be broken up but politicians, corporations and the media are one self serving body and would resist
that and have the power to do so.
Back in the day, the people of Russia knew that what they were being fed was propaganda, in the US and the UK we thought it
was news.
Intelligence Agencies have their own Agenda. The CIA spy on everyone including the Senate it seems. Meanwhile the
Israeli Intelligence Agencies spy on many people Including the USA, the very people who give them the money... (Out of Control
is the thought that springs to mind)
If the CIA are Spying on the Senate you have to ask the Question who are they working for ? Is it the American Government ? Is
it the American Military? Is it The American Citizen ? Or are we seeing the henchmen of the illuminati in action here !
Their fingers seem to be in every pie and no one seems to be able to control them .
"... The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issued an extraordinary apology to leaders of the US Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, conceding that the agency employees spied on committee staff and reversing months of furious and public denials. ..."
"... Brennan acknowledged that an internal investigation had found agency security personnel transgressed a firewall set up on a CIA network, which allowed Senate committee investigators to review agency documents for their landmark inquiry into CIA torture. ..."
"... CIA spokesman Dean Boyd acknowledged that agency staff had improperly monitored the computers of committee staff members, who were using a network the agency had set up, called RDINet. "Some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding reached between [the committee] and the CIA in 2009 regarding access to the RDINet," he said. ..."
"... If its considered 'extraordinary' that a man apologize for his actions, then that man is either a sociopath, a criminal, or both. ..."
"... The CIA has now clearly suborned the executive. Obama now works for the CIA. He's spineless, Obama. He is craven, before the very same intelligence agencies that are supposed to work for him. ..."
"... You people are so deluded. You think it matter who you vote for. Newsflash - the CIA killed JFK. The CIA runs America. ..."
"... American foreign policy is the same no matter which party is in power. They are all screwing you six ways from Sunday. ..."
"... If America was a just state, that would happen. But America is a neo-fascist - or more properly, corporatist - state. ..."
"... The NSA/CIA in recent hearings forcefully explained to the Judiciary Committee in Congress that they only spy on foreigners and not US citizens. I guess Congressmen/women are not US citizens and must be terrorists. ..."
"... 'The CIA spying on the people supposedly in charge of the CIA' sounds as if they are reaping what they sowed... ..."
CIA director apologises for improper conduct of agency staff One senator calls on John Brennan to resign in wake of scandal
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issued an extraordinary apology to leaders of the US Senate
intelligence committee on Thursday, conceding that the agency employees spied on committee staff and reversing months of furious
and public denials.
Brennan acknowledged that an internal investigation had found agency security personnel transgressed a firewall set up on
a CIA network, which allowed Senate committee investigators to review agency documents for their landmark inquiry into CIA torture.
Among other things, it was revealed that agency officials conducted keyword searches and email searches on committee staff while
they used the network.
The admission brings Brennan's already rocky tenure at the head of the CIA under renewed question. One senator on the panel said
he had lost confidence in the director, although the White House indicated its support for a man who has been one of Barack Obama's
most trusted security aides.
CIA spokesman Dean Boyd acknowledged that agency staff had improperly monitored the computers of committee staff members,
who were using a network the agency had set up, called RDINet. "Some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common
understanding reached between [the committee] and the CIA in 2009 regarding access to the RDINet," he said.
Asked if Brennan had or would offer his resignation, a different CIA spokesman, Ryan Trapani, replied: "No."
Feinstein said the vindication, from CIA inspector general David Buckley, and Brennan's apology were "positive first steps," suggesting
that the director had further work to do before she would consider the matter closed.
She stopped short of calling for Brennan's resignation. But her committee colleague, Democrat Mark Udall of Colorado, said Brennan
should go. "I have no choice but to call for the resignation of CIA director John Brennan," Udall said after a briefing on the inspector
general's findings.
"The CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into Senate intelligence committee computers. This grave misconduct is
not only illegal, but it violates the US constitution's requirement of separation of powers. These offenses, along with other errors
in judgment by some at the CIA, demonstrate a tremendous failure of leadership, and there must be consequences.
Mark Udall (@MarkUdall)
. @CIA IG rprt shows John Brennan misled public, whose interests I have
championed. I will fight for change at the CIA: http://t.co/uQVsvV43nB
Boyd, the CIA spokesman, said Brennan has asked a former committee member, Evan Bayh, a former Indiana Democratic senator, to
lead an "accountability board" reviewing Buckley's report and to advise Brennan on next steps.
That advice, Boyd said, "could include potential disciplinary measures and/or steps to address systemic issues."
Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, a longtime observer of the CIA, called its Thursday statement a "conciliatory
gesture" to the committee's leaders. "If Senator Feinstein is satisfied with the apology then the affair is effectively over. If
she contends there was a fundamental breach that cannot be corrected with a mere apology then some further action might be needed,"
Aftergood said.
Feinstein, in her dramatic speech on the Senate floor in March, said the agency breached the firewall to obstruct the committee's
investigation of the agency's torture of post-9/11 terrorism detainees, a years-long effort expected to be partially declassified
in the coming days or weeks. That investigation was itself prompted by a different coverup: the destruction of videotapes of brutal
interrogations by a senior official, Jose Rodriguez.
"In March, the committee chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, accused the agency of violating constitutional boundaries
by spying on the Senate."
Aahahahhahhhhahaaa. What a hypocrite hag. She must have something to hide if she doesn't like being spied on. I think that
there should be a full investigation into what Dianne...if that is even her real name, has been hiding and bring it to the light
of day.
Good point, but wrong way round imho. The CIA has now clearly suborned the executive. Obama now works for the CIA. He's spineless, Obama. He is craven, before the very same intelligence agencies that are supposed to work for him.
Just imagine how the laugh at him, speak about him, behind his back. No wonder Putin treats him like a fool.
It is time to put all the DemPublicanCFR basterds in prison for life. From the BUSH II (The torturer) to bill clinton who initiated
the covert torture operation. The clearest signal that we are not living in a self governing democracy is that; excluding Watergate,
the DemPublicanCFR ruling elite do not go to prison, there is rarely any real investigation of their crimes; as in the recent
largest public swindle in human history....the DemPublicanCFR, Wall st/Rating Company Swindle that was orchestrated by the "boys"
from the bohemian grove.The level of corruption in this Country exceeds that of ancient Rome.The best way to combat "terrorism"
is to get the hell out of other peoples countries.and imprison the DemPublicanCFR members who intentionally mislead this Country
into a fossil fuel War in Iraq. George Bush II ( the coward draft dodger) is a moron on an epic scale comparable to the Roman
Emperor who named his horse a general. We are confronted with a monumental environmental emergency and these idiot myopic assholes
debate carbon emission controls instead of leading the way to a fossil fuel nuclear free world.by initiating the largest public
works program in human history....a massive energy conversion program funded by cutting the military budget in half.The conversion
program will also be funded by the profits made by all the fossil fuel and nuclear power companies. Just imagine all the AMERICAN
JOBS WILL BE CREATED. We need leaders who put the interests of the Americam people first and who do not march to the drumb beat
of the Rockefucker internationalist DemPublicanCFR elite. It is time to send David Rockyfucker to Iran to stand trial for the
crimes he has committed against the Iranian people....We are living in a state of environmental crisis and it is time for true
American patriots to rise and confront our Enemy within who, thanks to the great American patriot Edward Snowden, we now know
for certain has all or electronic communications under 24 hour surveillance. The DemPublicanCFR ruling elite must be held to pay
for their crimes or I fear the planet that our childen, grand children and great grandchildren will be living in is doomed to
cataclysmic events that we have yet to even imagine...
Boy, once you spy on a Democrat it becomes an issue. Lying seems to be what Obama and his appointees due best as there are no
consequences for lying, even under oath as Eric Holder has done several times. So let's just move along here as this is just another
day under Obama.
Agency security personnel had transgressed? And just what is that some kind of creepy code for? We, the bigwigs, did it, but we
have language that allows us to blame it on our innocent underlings...of course. This is the height of mental illness and corruption!
Just a simple excuse used to placate a supposedly mind dead public already hypnotized by their main stream media and under their
almost absolute control. That's you and I, of course...sound familiar? Well, I will be totally under their control when they come
and kill me, and not before that! "Agency staff had improperly monitored the computers of committee staff members", well who in
the hell is agency staff if not Brennan? Considering how far Obama has fallen since he stated how good he was at killing, I do
not see how any of us in a sound state of mind can see Mr. Brennan as anything other than a criminal and a traitor to the American
people. Same as our present president, supreme court, congress, and many more.
As long as you persist in your long held delusion that there are differences between democrats and republicans - differences that
matter - nothing will change.
Open you eyes. American foreign policy is the same no matter which party is in power. They are all screwing you six ways from
Sunday.
If America was a just state, that would happen. But America is a neo-fascist - or more properly, corporatist - state.
Democrats and republicans are two sides of the same coin. Political theater for the plebs to fight over while the real power
brokers hide in the shadows.
The free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip
on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse
has begun its rapid slide into despotism.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
The NSA/CIA in recent hearings forcefully explained to the Judiciary Committee in Congress that they only spy on foreigners and
not US citizens. I guess Congressmen/women are not US citizens and must be terrorists.
Nothing will change in America until someone actually starts losing their job, being forced to resign or go to jail - both politicians
and so called "leaders" in the agencies committing these horrific crimes.
You've won the HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD award.
But you did forget the DHS who also has a Prius type
program for surveillance. The name starts with a C
but I cannot remember off the top of my head. I do
recall that Boeing's employees were involved in doing
training of technicians.
Things are "out of hand". I fear the US government will
be using contracted mercenaries to keep us in line before
too much longer. Those guys will be coming home and
taking jobs in our local police departments.
Follow the Blackwater money. Erik Prince, and cohorts.
Names may change many times, but it is still all there.
It does not seem to be doing the US any good. Their army would seem to be a complete failure. Their so called intelligence seems
to know nothing about anything that matters. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan many trillions of dollars and abject failure and we see
a nation that brakes every law of decency.
Example,
The CIA agent who shot in the back 2 Pakistani men, and then
after reloading once, he fired 10 times. This occurred during the
day on a busy street in Lahore, Pakistan. He claimed first to be
a US Embassy Staff Member. He was ransomed by Kerry, who
was not yet Secretary of State, but was sent by Obama to do so.
2 other CIA agents, the killer's roommates, who the killer had called
for help, ran over a Pakistani bystander with their jeep on the way
to aid the killer, and killed the poor man. They were immediately airlifted out of Pakistan and returned to the United States,
never to
be heard of since, nor reported by the media.
But, this CIA killer just couldn't stop there. He has been arrested by Sheriff's Deputies, inside a Colorado bar for being
involved in a knife fight. This CIA killer and his wife own a United States contracted spy agency in Las Vegas.
These are the Agents who represent our United States of America.
Who can forget Obama's Secret Servicemen, one of which, while
a guest of a South American city, tried to rip off a Whore by short-
changing her. That hit the newspapers around the world.
These are the Agents who represent our United States of America.
Don't forget this is the same agency that enabled the capture and imprisonment of Mandela, and that only scratches the surface
of some of the stuff they've been up to.
The CIA is beyond reform now, it's no longer a matter of changing who heads it.
There are places in the world where these people would
be put on a wall and quickly dispensed with.
Spies and Surveillers hide the truth from us all, and the
United States Congress pays them to do so.
Voters need to Turn Out the Incumbents. Everyone of them.
Along with their Staffers. 100,000 lobbyists need to be
stripped of their licenses, and their political connections.
It is long past time for revolution or revolt.
It is time to clean house.
Susan, thank you. Seeing is believing.
In the US Intelligence Agencies, including the Military,
there are 850,000 men and women employees who
hold Top Secret clearances and more. That is a lot of
Secrets to hide. Only a few come freely forward to report
corruption to the public at large. Only a couple have had
the guts to paper the world with these corrupt agency's
offal.
Cut off the heads, and the tails.
The United States Intelligence Agencies are corrupted.
They are killers of innocent human beings.
Will Erik Holder send any of them to Prison? He did not prosecute
any of the people responsible for our nation's debacle. Not a one of
them went to prison. He and his boss Obama are also corrupted.
They both are killers of innocent human beings.
Every man of integrity who works for the United States government
should, when he sees corruption, report it to the media 1st, and to
his superior officers 2nd. Not to do so, is a criminal act itself.
We have to wonder if there are any besides Edward Snowden, who
work for the United States government, and have the guts to let us
know when they see corruption.
Great to see truth coming out in the wash.. Also brilliant to hear on the radio,whistleblowers in the UK are going to be protected,
there's progress now....
It seems to appear the spying business is a new democratic industry where money, power, and control are prime. Words like decency
and morality are flying out the windows. The head of a spy ring can retire to form a new enterprise to charge half million to
one million dollars for spy protection...
Flagrant Violations of U.S. Constitution & International Law Continue Unabated as CIA/Feinstein Row Over Senate Spying Lands on
Front Page and Elite Politely Decline to Prosecute Peers' Crimes
I don't know if the 9/11 panic has caused the relaxation of the LAW
The law was relaxed as soon as the Church Committee wrapped up. The CIA was offended at the very idea of having to obey the
law, and their allies in Congress, and the White House after Reagan was elected, obliged them.
Who cares about what they admit to that we all already suspected. Who is getting charged and going to jail? Of course the answer
is nobody because they are either all complicit or congress is intimidated by what other information they may know about them.
Time to purge the whole system.
one has to wonder how many politicians across the Five Eyes nations (US, UK, Canada, Australia and Canada), are being blackmailed,
co-erced and manipulated, by big business/government.
Many of the decisions (and statements from some politicians) that I witness in first world government, make no sense.
for example, is there even one investigatory committee in Westminster or Washington, that has/is not been hacked and controlled
by outsiders (big business often in cahoots with senior govt/intelligence people).
look at the antics of the disgraced News of the Wooorld, deliberately targetting members of the sub-committee investigating
their hacking.
For all the abuses by powerful men in history there are those, including American Presidents, who have demonstrated both leadership
and courage in the face of obstruction, opposition.
But hey, thanks for adding bluster and hot air to the debate. I guess you'd have us all pack up and go home.
The CIA spying on the people supposedly in charge of the CIA has nothing to do with fighting 'terrorism' and everything to do
with the CIA protecting itself from any such namby-pamby libtard delusions such as integrity, accountability, congressional oversight,
responsibility, and other such pesky nuisances.
But isn't spying what the CIA is supposed to do? And isn't this what we supported for so many years during the Cold War because
of "the threat of communism"?
There are certainly still threats out there (Al Queda and Boko Haram come to mind) but is the CIA geared to handle intelligence
in terrorist organizations or are they still fighting the Communists? Revamp the Agency to make it more adapted to the new reality
of terrorist threats world wide but don't fault somebody if they're just trying to do their job. Give them some direction or don't
complain when things go awry. Maybe they're just looking for something to do. Let's be sure to keep them busy fighting terrorists
not the US Senate.
Former CIA Director John Brennan warned Republicans who support President Trump that they
are on a sinking ship, in an appearance Wednesday morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"I'm waiting for the Republicans to realize that the Trump ship is a sinking one," he
said.
"There are still rats on that ship, and there are individuals who are not going to separate
themselves from Trump. They do so at their own peril. They need to fulfill their obligations,
irrespective of their political affiliations. This is now the presidency and institutions of
government we rely on to keep us safe and secure."
MIKE BARNICLE: Last week, there was another continued swipe ordered by the president of the
United States, who whatever he says is a megaphone and resonates throughout the country
because of the way it is carried, in which he basically said that people like you and several
other people in the intelligence community were responsible for trying to participate in a
coup, to undermine the presidency of the United States and to remove the president of the
United States. What does it do -- nevermind to you personally -- what does it do to
institutions like the NSA, the CIA, the FBI.
JOHN BRENNAN: It continues to show Mr. Trump's disdain for the intelligence and law
enforcement communities, who are trying to do their jobs irrespective of political winds that
might be blowing in Washington. It really is demoralizing for Mr. Trump to continue to say
there is this "deep state" that tried to launch a coup, and that he is trying to "clean the
swamp," while in fact, it is those professionals within the intelligence community, law
enforcement community, who are trying to carry out their duties and responsibilities to the
American people. Mr. Trump just continues to go down this road. I think it is having a very
damaging impact.
WILLIE GEIST: What do you think, Director Brennan, happens from here? I think people
watching want to know. They say, okay, Mueller didn't like how the report was characterized
by the attorney general. Fine, on the issue of obstruction of justice. Now, what? Is it
Mueller sitting before the Senate and answering specific questions about what is inside the
report? What is the outcome of this?
JOHN BRENNAN: Barr has to be interrogated.
WILLIE GEIST: That starts this morning at 10:00.
JOHN BRENNAN: And then Bob Mueller has to get in front of Congress, then Congress has to
do its job.
And I'm still waiting for the Republicans to realize that the Trump ship is a sinking one.
There are still rats on that ship, and there are individuals who are not going to separate
themselves from Trump. But they do so at their own peril. And they need to fulfill their
obligations, irrespective of their political affiliations. And to do it now rather than to
allow this continued sinking of not just the presidency, but of these institutions of
government that we rely on to keep us safe and secure.
If Barr represent different faction of CIA then Brennan, Brannan might pay with his head for his artistic inventions in
fomenting Russiagate color revolution and Steele dossier. Not very likely, though...
They spied on Trump because they thought it was a guaranteed win and Hillary could cover
it up. They started the witch hunt to make it look like it was a legit investigation.
"Surveillance". Would you buy a used car from Jim Comey?. Time for issuing a number of
orange jumpsuits and for the ones at the top?. A sharp drop and a sudden stop.
They spied on Trump because they thought it was a guaranteed win and Hillary could cover
it up. They started the witch hunt to make it look like it was a legit investigation.
"Surveillance". Would you buy a used car from Jim Comey?. Time for issuing a number of
orange jumpsuits and for the ones at the top?. A sharp drop and a sudden stop.
Spying Work for a government or other organization by secretly collecting information
about enemies or competitors. investigating Carry out a systematic or formal inquiry to
discover and examine the facts of (an incident, allegation, etc.) so as to establish the
truth. What a bunch of idiots
If you have to make up reasons to investigate, it becomes spying. With this logic, we can
investigate anyone! As long as we make sure to cover our tracks in lies! Perfect!
That's Judicial Watch's definition of the Deep State! It's not just a few politicians and
judges, it's almost all of Washington and many in government around the country. The Deep
State will just take its time, put it off, forget about it, make mistakes implementing it,
and so on and so forth.
"... Julian E. Barnes is obviously a long-term intelligence asset and his stories are not based on independent research but are just a repetition of the yarn that the CIA want to spin. Julian E. Barnes and the CIA obviously think Americans and other westerners are DAF. ..."
"... And should we be surprised that such false information about Gina Haspel and Donald Trump puts Trump in a bad light and somehow humanises a CIA director with a reputation for torturing prisoners? ..."
"... A week or 3 ago, a Barnes co-reported "article" flat out stated that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. This was done by pretending to quote someone in the the US Defense establishment as saying "we believe Iran will redouble its work on nuclear weapons". ..."
"... Julian Barnes is a well established liar. Sort of akin to Judith Miller and Michael Gordon. ..."
"... Now the Washington post's narrative is quite colorful too. So Trump really was concerned how many Russians Germany or France expelled? Why was he angry? The vassals did not follow his example as they should have? ..."
"... The CIA and MI6 boys must have blanked out to let this one slip through the cracks. We pay them billions to run false flag and cover-up operations. This makes those of us that believe their lying narratives look stupid. I guess we need to add more billions to their annual budgets. ..."
"... More believable that Julian Barnes performs no cross-referencing and zero research. Investigative reporting (or asking questions) is not the job of the modern MSM stenographer. His job - pushing the war machine agenda. He simply writes that which he is instructed to write. Probably emails all of his articles to his CIA liason for approval prior to publication. ..."
"... In the Skripnal psyop one can readily assess that the only truly "dead ducks" are the MSM journalists and the Western politicians who peddled this incredible slapstick nonsense story in order to further the "demonization of Russia" narrative of Western oligarchy. That these same media "dead ducks" appear to have not even the very slightest interest whatsoever in the current whereabouts or safety of said Skripnals speaks volumes about the true nature of this intelligence operation. ..."
"... both versions of the story expose Gina as a untrustworthy ratfucker ..."
"... At the moment the UK is run by MI6 which sees itself as the real political directorate of the CIA and the Deep State in the US. It seriously believes that it is on the verge of establishing global hegemony. ..."
"... Please note, everyone, that not all of these sad excuses for "journalists" are on the CIA payroll. In fact, very few of them are. Most work with the CIA out of warped senses of patriotism and duty to the empire. Most would never think of themselves as intelligence agency assets, and no small number of them probably think their relationships with the CIA are unique. They think that they are special and that their contacts on the inside at the CIA are unusual. Few would guess that they are just another propaganda mule in the CIA's stable, and that friendly guy who "leaks" to them is actually their handler; their "operator" in spook-speak. ..."
"... CIA did not control many of the Vietnam era journalists that had their pieces printed in mainstream media of the day. Not many left now and perhaps since the nineties they could no longer get their articles published. Regan brought in perception management which eventually brought all MSM 100% under US -CIA control. ..."
"... If you're a CIA guy, you get the editor and the ombudsman on the payroll and he will make certain that the desired propaganda gets published. If he's a Zionist, he's on the same page from the start, anyway. ..."
"... What a strange construction. Doesn't the CIA have PR staff? A decent PR team would review every item referencing their boss and issue clarifications and/or demand corrections immediately. There should have been no need for Julian E. Barnes to figure anything out as the CIA should have pointed out his mistake very quickly. This explanation/exculpation is utter bullshit! ..."
"... I doubt that Trump asked questions about how those ducks and kids were doing. More likely that MI5 was annoyed that they were exposed as the providers of the duck snuff pictures, and put pressure on the NY Times. ..."
"... Those who advocated the strong response to Russia are the intellectual authors of "Russia Gate" to thwart detente with Russia. ..."
A piece in the New York Times showed how in March 2018 Trump was manipulated by the
CIA and MI6 into expelling 60 Russian diplomats. Eight weeks after it was published the New
York Times 'corrects' that narrative and exculpates the CIA and MI6 of that manipulation.
Its explanation for the correction makes little sense.
On April 16 the New York Times published a report by Julian E. Barnes and Adam
Goldman about the relation between CIA Director Gina Haspal and President Donald Trump.
The piece described a scene in the White House shortly after the
contentious Skripal/Novichok incident in Britain. It originally said (emphasis added):
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She
outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the
president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the
only victims of Russia's attack.
Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children
hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She
then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by
the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.
The 60 Russian diplomats were
expelled on March 26 2018. Other countries only expelled a handful of diplomats over the
Skripal incident. On April 15 2018 the Washington Post
reported that Trump was furious about this:
The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials said. To
his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian officials --
far fewer than the 60 his administration had decided on. The President, who seemed to believe
that other individual countries would largely equal the United States, was furious that his
administration was being portrayed in the media as taking by far the toughest stance on
Russia.
...
Growing angrier, Trump insisted that his aides had misled him about the magnitude of the
expulsions. 'There were curse words,' the official said, 'a lot of curse words.
In that context the 2019 NYT report about Haspel showing Trump dead duck pictures
provided by the Brits made sense. Trump was, as he himself claimed, manipulated into the large
expulsion.
The NYT report created some waves. On April 18 2019 the Guardian
headlined:
The report of the dead duck pictures in the New York Times was a problem for the CIA
and the British government. Not only did it say that they manipulated Trump by providing him
with false pictures, but the non-dead ducks also demonstrated that the official narrative of
the allegedly poisoning of the Skripals has some huge holes. As Rob Slane of the
BlogMirenoted
:
In addition to the extraordinary nature of this revelation, there is also a huge irony
here. Along with many others, I have long felt that the duck feed is one of the many achilles
heels of the whole story we've been presented with about what happened in Salisbury on 4th
March 2018. And the reason for this is precisely because if it were true, there would
indeed have been dead ducks and sick children .
According to the official story, Mr Skripal and his daughter became contaminated with
"Novichok" by touching the handle of his front door at some point between 13:00 and 13:30
that afternoon. A few minutes later (13:45), they were filmed on CCTV camera feeding
ducks, and handing bread to three local boys, one of whom ate a piece . After this they
went to Zizzis, where they apparently so contaminated the table they sat at, that it had to
be incinerated.
You see the problem? According to the official story, ducks should have died. According to
the official story children should have become contaminated and ended up in hospital. Yet as
it happens, no ducks died, and no boys got sick (all that happened was that the boys' parents
were contacted two weeks later by police, the boys were sent for tests, and they were given
the all clear).
After the NYT story was published the CIA and the British government had to remove
the problematic narrative from the record. Yesterday they finally succeeded. Nearly eight weeks
after the original publishing of the White House scene the NYT recanted and issued
a correction
(emphasis. added):
Correction: June 5, 2019
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the photos that Gina Haspel
showed to President Trump during a discussion about responding to the nerve agent attack in
Britain on a former Russian intelligence officer. Ms. Haspel displayed pictures illustrating
the consequences of nerve agent attacks, not images specific to the chemical attack in
Britain. This correction was delayed because of the time needed for research.
The original paragraphs quoted above were changed into this:
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She
outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the
president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel tried to demonstrate the dangers of using a nerve agent like Novichok in
a populated area. Ms. Haspel showed pictures from other nerve agent attacks that showed their
effects on people.
The British government had told Trump administration officials about early intelligence
reports that said children were sickened and ducks were inadvertently killed by the sloppy
work of the Russian operatives.
The information was based on early reporting, and Trump administration officials had
requested more details about the children and ducks, a person familiar with the intelligence
said, though Ms. Haspel did not present that information to the president. After this article
was published, local health officials in Britain said that no children were harmed.
So instead of pictures of dead ducks in Salisbury the CIA director showed pictures of some
random dead ducks or hospitalized children or whatever to illustrate the effects consequences
of nerve agent incidents?
That the children were taken to hospital but unharmed was already reported in Britishmedia on
March 24 2018, before the Russian diplomats were expelled, not only after the NYT piece
was published in April 2019.
Yesterday the author of the NYT piece, Julian E. Barnes, turned to Twitter to
issue a lengthy 'apology':
I made a significant error in my April 16 profile of Gina Haspel. It took a while to
figure out where I went wrong. Here is the correction: 1/9
[...]
The intelligence about the ducks and children were based on an early intelligence report,
according to people familiar with the matter. The intelligence was presented to the US in an
effort to share all that was known, not to deceive the Trump administration. 7/9
This correction was delayed because conducting the research to figure out what I got
wrong, how I got it wrong and what was the correct information took time. 8/9
I regret the error and offer my apology. I strive to get information right the first time.
That is what subscribers pay for. But when I get something wrong, I fix it. 9/9
Barnes covers national security and intelligence issues for the Times Washington
bureau. His job depends on good access to 'sources' in those circles.
It is remarkable that the CIA spokesperson never came out to deny the original NYT
report. There was zero visible push back against its narrative. It is also remarkable that the
correction comes just as Trump is on a state visit in Britain.
The original report was sourced on 'people briefed on the conversation'. The
corrected version is also based on 'people briefed on the conversation' but adds 'a
person familiar with the intelligence'. Do the originally cited 'people' now tell a different
story? Are we to trust a single 'person familiar with the intelligence' more than those
multiple 'people'? What kind of 'research' did the reporter do to correct what he then and now
claims was told to him by 'people'? Why did this 'research' take eight weeks?
That the 'paper of the record' now corrects said 'record' solves a big problem for Gina
Haspel, the CIA/MI6 and the British government. They can no longer be accused of manipulating
Trump (even as we can be quite sure that such manipulations happen all the time).
In the end it is for the reader to decide if the original report makes more sense than the
corrected one.
---
This is a Moon of Alabama fundraising week. Please consider to support
our work .
Posted by b on June 6, 2019 at 06:12 AM |
Permalink
Julian E. Barnes is obviously a long-term intelligence asset and his stories are not based on
independent research but are just a repetition of the yarn that the CIA want to spin. Julian
E. Barnes and the CIA obviously think Americans and other westerners are DAF.
Surely the time and effort Julian Barnes needed to check what information he had got wrong
and how he got it wrong should not have been as major as he makes out. Animals dying and
children falling sick to a toxin that could have killed them are incidents that should have
stuck out like sore thumbs and warranted careful checks with different and independent
sources before reporting that Gina Haspel apparently showed the US President pictures of dead
ducks and sick boys in Salisbury.
No wonder Barnes got such a roasting on Twitter after making his abject apology.
And should we be surprised that such false information about Gina Haspel and Donald Trump
puts Trump in a bad light and somehow humanises a CIA director with a reputation for
torturing prisoners?
During years I researched articles published in @nytimes we fact-checked BEFORE publication. Here it comes
AFTER bloggers, officials et al point out fatal flaws. That no children were poisoned, and no
ducks killed, by #novichok
in #Salisbury + was known
in Spring 2018. #propaganda
A week or 3 ago, a Barnes co-reported "article" flat out stated that Iran has a nuclear
weapons program. This was done by pretending to quote someone in the the US Defense
establishment as saying "we believe Iran will redouble its work on nuclear weapons".
Except in the Barnes construction it wasn't a quotation, or anything like a phrasing that
made clear that the Pentagon source was guessing, not stating, that Iran has a nuclear
weapons program.
This was NOT corrected.
Eric Schmitt was the other NY Times "reporter" who signed the article.
And here's what the two liars reported, pretending that an Iranian nuclear weapons program is
a real thing, first paragraph:
"Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said."
So Julian Barnes is a well established liar. Sort of akin to Judith Miller and Michael
Gordon.
Barnes provides the truth then provides a lie about the truth....par for the course at
NYT.
(Remember Judith Miller?) A fake news organization spreading fake news with revised fake
news.
can't really get excited by the fact that not everything in this type of creative writing is
taken serious. Did anyone expect otherwise?
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr.
Trump. She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and
told the president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the
only victims of Russia's attack.
It's pretty obvious that his/their narrative necessarily must be cobbled together by a lot
of sources. Some by phone. Those may not even share the same idea what image of the president
or Haspel they should convey. I always wonder with this type of newspaper reporting. Maybe
both writers should write novels.
Now the Washington post's narrative is quite colorful too. So Trump really was concerned
how many Russians Germany or France expelled? Why was he angry? The vassals did not follow
his example as they should have?
Superb analysis! Been coming here for 11 years now, and I just have to say that "b" is the
best propaganda analyst in the English language. He is the sturdiest anchor in these stormy
seas:)
The CIA and MI6 boys must have blanked out to let this one slip through the cracks. We pay
them billions to run false flag and cover-up operations. This makes those of us that believe
their lying narratives look stupid. I guess we need to add more billions to their annual
budgets.
Sarcasm is just about the last pleasure one can get from watching the horrific antics of
these morons.
More believable that Julian Barnes performs no cross-referencing and zero research.
Investigative reporting (or asking questions) is not the job of the modern MSM stenographer.
His job - pushing the war machine agenda.
He simply writes that which he is instructed to write. Probably emails all of his articles
to his CIA liason for approval prior to publication.
Perhaps, the liason can see what this fool types in real time. Who knows?
As the story of the dead ducks and sick children unraveled and fell apart, a sloppy patch
up had to be made. Now its fixed. Like a Boeing 737 MAX.
BoTh vErSioNs of the story (I checked with the "Wayback Machine") still include this
paragraph (6th paragraph of story):
Unusually for a president, Mr. Trump has publicly rejected not
only intelligence agencies' analysis, but also the facts they have gathered.
And that has created a perilous situation for the C.I.A.
As usual for the NYT, they did not publicly reject the intelligence agencies'
analysis,
but also the facts they had gathered.
That, of course, would have created a perilous situation for the NYT.
As the saying goes: "if it looks like a false-flag, walks like a false-flag, and talks like a
false-flag, it just might be a "duck."
In the Skripnal psyop one can readily assess that the only truly "dead ducks" are the MSM
journalists and the Western politicians who peddled this incredible slapstick nonsense story
in order to further the "demonization of Russia" narrative of Western oligarchy. That these
same media "dead ducks" appear to have not even the very slightest interest whatsoever in the
current whereabouts or safety of said Skripnals speaks volumes about the true nature of this
intelligence operation.
"I made a significant error in my April 16 profile of Gina Haspel. It took a while to figure
out where I went wrong".
It was only when I found the horses head next to me in bed when I woke up, that I realized
what a stupid mistake I had made.
Gina Haspel has to be as dumb and incompetent as I suspected: someone is paying good money to
make her look like an ordinary sociopath, not a depraved tart who sucked cock to climb to the
head of the organisation.
Slane is ++ on the Skirpals. One 'fact' that emerged early on, made public by Slane, is that
the proposed 'official' time-line ( > press, Gvmt between the lines) of the Skripal
movements - trivial as in a town, drinkies, lunch, feeding ducks, etc. -- was never reported
correctly, obfuscated.
Idk the reasons, but it is a vital point.
___________________________________
Trump, we see, is treated like the zombie public, flashed random photos, sold tearful
narratives about babies, children, recall incubator babies, horrific bio-weapons
threats...
The PTB loathes him, Pres. are supposed to be complicit like Obama - or at least keep
their resistance toned down, be ready to compromise. .. Obama objected to, and refused to act
on, at least two engineered / fake Syria chem. 'attacks.' (Just looked on Goog and can't find
links to support.)
The only EU figure who stated there is no evidence that the Russkies novichoked
Sergei and Yulia was Macron, afaik. He didn't get the memo in time (the Elysée is
inefficient, lots of screw-ups there) but soon caught up! and expelled the minimum. -- I have
heard, hush hush, one in F was a receptionist - gofer (an excellent + extremely highly paid
position) who is now at the Emb. in Washington! Most likely merely emblematic story (see
telephone game) .. but telling.
I like this story. It makes Trump look like a naif which wouldn't bother President Teflon in
the least. On the other hand, both versions of the story expose Gina as a untrustworthy ratfucker.
I'm hoping she said "cross my heart and hope to die" when he queried her advice...
I'm glad I checked to see if anyone had mentioned this hack's article about Russia
restarting nuclear testing. Using his name as one search item I tried a number of current
issues. Like the fellows at local intersections holding up signs "will work for money",
Barnes might as well have a tattoo saying "I'll write anything if the price is right.
That it took so long to come up with a half-assed "explanation" shows he's not the brightest
bulb in the lamp. I suppose people whose jobs consist of slightly re-writing Deep State
dictation don't have to be especially clever.
That "apology" by Barnes is completely nonsensical. How would you know that there was
something wrong with your story, that there was an error in it, without knowing what it was?
If the CIA, various bloggers, commenters, etc., alerted him to the errors, it's unlikely they
would say, "There's something wrong in this story but I'm not going to say what it is. You'll
have to re-research they whole thing to figure it out." I don't think that's how people
usually point out errors.
"Which narrative is unraveling and which is gathering momentum?"psychohistorian@19
One thing that seems to be unravelling is the tight political cartel that controls Foreign
Policy in the UK.
If it does unravel and Labour turns to an independent foreign policy while it reverses the
disaster of 'austerity' and neo-liberalism, cases such as that of Assange and the Skripal
affair, both products of extremists within the Establishment who regard themselves as
privileged members of the DC Beltway, are going to be re-opened.
At the moment the UK is run by MI6 which sees itself as the real political directorate of the
CIA and the Deep State in the US. It seriously believes that it is on the verge of
establishing global hegemony. And this at a time when the UK is falling apart and its
population teeters on the brink of economic disaster. It has fallen into this delusion over
the years as it has been able to offer the CIA services which it is afraid to initiate
itself. Hence, most recently, the entire Russiagate nonsense which has British fingerprints
all over it. Hence too the new aggressiveness in DC towards Assange. Hence the disappearance,
without explanation, of the Skripals.
Julian Barnes is like Winston Smith without the intellectual curiosity. He quote happily goes
about his work. lol. What is the matter with you people? You are supposed to embrace the new
narrative!
From wikidpeida... A memory hole is any mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of
inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts or other records, such as
from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression
that something never happened.[1][2] The concept was first popularized by George Orwell's
dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Party's Ministry of Truth systematically
re-created all potentially embarrassing historical documents, in effect, re-writing all of
history to match the often-changing state propaganda. These changes were complete and
undetectable.
@37 bevin... maybe they will do with assange what they have done with the skripals... the uk
is more then pathetic at this point in time.. craig murray had more to say on the assange
case yesterday - A
Swedish Court Injects Some Sense
Julian E. Barnes' humble confession (a self-incrimination) sounds like one made in a Gulag.
failure of imaginati , Jun 6, 2019 2:23:10 PM |
35
Further down the memory hole is the side tale of the daughter of Brutish Army Chief Nurse
helping Skirpals and getting an award without contaminating the news. Was the girl's father
Pablo Miller,(of Orbis Dossier MFG) and a pal of Skirpal? There's debunk in their poor
narrative. The public has a photogenic memory.
There are 2 Julian Barneses (at the very least!), one is an English writer, the other has
mostly been writing for the WSJ ( https://www.wsj.com/news/author/julian-e.-barnes)
but since recently again for the NYTimes .
Trump is a drug-addled, brain-damaged, hollowed-out shell of the dull con man he once
was.
But, he perceives himself to be a brilliant mastermind - a stable genius. So, he might
indeed, be prone to making inquiries (generally these would induce the toadies around him to
stifle their laughter).
It makes sense that he might ask, while in GB, about the Skirpal incident, since he pulled
60 people from their posts and he remembered the fantasy he was lead to believe about sick
children and dead ducks.
The fact that he overreacted without sufficient evidence, may have inspired a tiny amount
of self-reflection simply because it may have embarrassed him to have been caught on his back
foot. He was lead to believe that his contemporaries intended to react in equal measure. They
did not. Therefore - he was "fooled" or tricked.
This is the only way to embarrass the buffoon. That is to have someone fool him
personally. And to make him look stupid.
He doesn't mind that he is a fat oaf, a greed head and a pig, but that is the stuff of his
own doing. He is comfortable in this. Money is the end-all, etc.
He bought Mar A Lago, making it his own club, because the Palm Beach Club and its elite
snobs would not let him join.
Trump was betrayed by Gina Haskell, the CIA and the NYT.
All of Western media has been compromised by the CIA and friends since at least the 50s.
Remember what late CIA director William Casey said in 1981; "We'll know our disinformation
program is complete when everything the US public believes is false".
They 'CIA' controls every talking head you can name. Believe no one. Sad isn't it.
Please note, everyone, that not all of these sad excuses for "journalists" are on the
CIA payroll. In fact, very few of them are. Most work with the CIA out of warped senses of
patriotism and duty to the empire. Most would never think of themselves as intelligence
agency assets, and no small number of them probably think their relationships with the CIA
are unique. They think that they are special and that their contacts on the inside at
the CIA are unusual. Few would guess that they are just another propaganda mule in the CIA's
stable, and that friendly guy who "leaks" to them is actually their handler; their
"operator" in spook-speak.
Of course, there is also the incentive provided by just having to take the story their CIA
"friend" gives them, edit it a little to fit their employer's style guidelines, and
then submit it as their own. A whole day's worth of work and they can have it finished in
half an hour. What's not to like about that?
CIA did not control many of the Vietnam era journalists that had their pieces printed in
mainstream media of the day. Not many left now and perhaps since the nineties they could no
longer get their articles published. Regan brought in perception management which eventually
brought all MSM 100% under US -CIA control.
If you're a CIA guy, you get the editor and the ombudsman on the payroll and he will make
certain that the desired propaganda gets published. If he's a Zionist, he's on the same page from the start, anyway.
The self-important "journalists" are controlled and in fact, they are flattered by their
special relationships with informants and the owner/managers. After one has sucked his or her way to the upper level, kissing up and kicking down... Laziness is a bonus.
I made a significant error in my April 16 profile of Gina Haspel. It took a while to figure
out where I went wrong.
What a strange construction. Doesn't the CIA have PR staff? A decent PR team would review
every item referencing their boss and issue clarifications and/or demand corrections
immediately. There should have been no need for Julian E. Barnes to figure anything out as
the CIA should have pointed out his mistake very quickly. This explanation/exculpation is
utter bullshit!
Every day when I turn on my computer, I am enticed with offers to "see how the Brady Bunch
kids look today" or "what do the stars of the 80s look like today?".
Apparently, there is quite a demand for updates on celebrities and their current well
being.
So why would Julian Barnes do an article about the Skirpals without showing us how they look
today? And just where are they living? Enquiring minds want to know!
I doubt that Trump asked questions about how those ducks and kids were doing. More likely
that MI5 was annoyed that they were exposed as the providers of the duck snuff pictures, and
put pressure on the NY Times.
Using ducks is easier. Gina Haspel could always ask one of the bottom-feeding subordinates
to nip down the road to one of those Chinese BBQ shops and
photograph the display of roast ducks hanging in the shop window . The photos can be
uploaded and altered to remove the background of the chef and the cashier and then the actual
ducks can be altered or colored appropriately before the pictures are sent to Haspel. Anyone
looking at the altered pictures would never guess their actual provenance.
:-)
I'm not sure where Haspel can find hippos or any other large animals that might topple on
top of someone (with dire consequences) were s/he to apply a whiff of nerve agent.
Thanks b for a good laugh at Barnes and Goldman's expense. I note Goldman is silent and I
guess that is because he would likely get his apology wrong and contradict Barnes BS.
Here's my profile of Gina Haspal: war criminal
Here's my profile of Julian Barnes: Fwit and BShitter
Here's my profile of Adam Goldman: Fwit and BShitter.
"... In reality intelligence agencies control the nomination. ..."
"... Russiagate and the DNC hacking scandal were the attempts to reverse the presidential election. Essentially Russiagate was created to tame Trump, although I am not sure that such drastic measures were needed and I might be wrong. He betrayed his election promises with such an ease that Russiagate now looks like a paranoid overreaction of the USA intelligence agencies (and former FBI director Mueller of 9/11 and anthrax investigation fame) Which figuratively speaking moved tanks to capture the unnamed native village. ..."
"... Due to the nature of intelligence agencies work and the aura of secrecy control of intelligence agencies in democratic societies is a difficult undertaking as the entity you want to control is in many ways more politically powerful and more ruthless in keeping its privileges then controllers. And if the society preaches militarism it is outright impossible: any politician deviation from militaristic policies will be met with the counterattack of intelligence agencies which are intimately interested in maintaining the status quo. ..."
In reality intelligence agencies control the nomination.
Pics or it didn't happen.
I am very sorry and sincerely apologize. Please view this as a plausible hypothesis ;-)
Some considerations (neoliberals and neocons usually interpret those facts differently so this is a view from paleoconservative
universe; you are warned):
1. Exoneration of Hillary deprived Sanders of chances to lead Democratic ticket in 2016. This is as close to the proven fact as
we can get.
2. Russiagate and the DNC hacking scandal were the attempts to reverse the presidential election. Essentially Russiagate was created
to tame Trump, although I am not sure that such drastic measures were needed and I might be wrong. He betrayed his election promises
with such an ease that Russiagate now looks like a paranoid overreaction of the USA intelligence agencies (and former FBI director
Mueller of 9/11 and anthrax investigation fame) Which figuratively speaking moved tanks to capture the unnamed native village.
3. JFK and then Robert Kennedy assassination. The key role of the CIA in the JFK assassination now is broadly accepted in the
USA.
3. Obama connection to CIA was subject of many articles, especially in the alt-right press. He definitely was raised in a family
of CIA operatives.
4. Brennan spied on Congress and was not fired, which means that the CIA hieratically is above the Congress. Proven fact.
In short, nothing in the power structure of democratic societies prevents intelligence agencies from becoming key political actors,
the Pretorian guard which selects the Presidents by keeping dirt on politicians and controls the press (see Church commission). They
have both motivation (preservation and enhancement of their status as any large bureaucracy), means (weakly controlled, oversized
budget; access to shadow funds from arms and narcotics trading) and skills (covert operations, disinformation, sabotage. This triad
is inherent in their status as the legalized mafia which operates above the law. As Pompeo recently said in a recent speech at Texas
A&M University CIA operatives lie and cheat and steal.
When intelligence agencies control MSM that alone gives them considerable power to influence the political process. For example,
in the case of Russiagate, we saw well organized and timed series of leaks. So, in fact, they can be viewed as the "Inner Party"
in terms of Orwell dystopia 1984.
And the fact of media control is a proven fact. And not only via Church commission. Dr. Ulfkotte went on public television stating
that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, also adding that noncompliance with these orders
would result in him losing his job.
Due to the nature of intelligence agencies work and the aura of secrecy control of intelligence agencies in democratic societies
is a difficult undertaking as the entity you want to control is in many ways more politically powerful and more ruthless in keeping
its privileges then controllers. And if the society preaches militarism it is outright impossible: any politician deviation from
militaristic policies will be met with the counterattack of intelligence agencies which are intimately interested in maintaining
the status quo.
In any case, the problem of "the tail wagging the dog" is a problem for any country, not only for the USA. The fact that both
Brennan and Clapper become 'talking heads' after retirement tells something about the trend. Such things would be impossible 20 years
ago.
Some insights into the problem can be obtained by reading the article about the politicization of intelligence agencies in other
countries. For example:
Ultimately, making the intelligence agencies accountable amounts to a broader reevaluation of the larger framework of civil-military
relations. As a result, not only is intelligence reform an almost intractable political issue, but it also requires a complete
change of mentality for the actors involved. Reigning in the intelligence agencies is a problem of a deeper political culture,
one that requires a systemic change in the psychology of the organizations.
the lack of civilian oversight of intelligence agencies is a byproduct of the political imbalance between civilian and military
actors, a power structure that favors the latter.
As long as the military can get its way through seemingly constitutional means, the importance of the intelligence agencies
will remain relatively limited. Their role, however, becomes essential whenever the military meets some resistance
the military's domestic political power "has always derived from [its] ability to mediate confrontations among feuding political
leaders, parties or state institutions, invariably presented as threats to the political order and stability. The military [is]
of course the only institution empowered to judge whether such threats existed based on the assumption that a polity in turmoil
cannot sustain a professional military" (Rizvi 1998: 100). Yet whenever necessary, the military has not hesitated to generate
problems itself if it believes its institutional interests would be better served by a weak and divided polity. This is where
the intelligence agencies come into play.
the link between journalists and the intelligence agencies is a complex one, and cannot be reduced to a simple power dynamic
in which the journalists are merely the victim. Journalists need information, and thus have an interest in maintaining a good
relationship with intelligence agencies. In return, journalists are often asked to provide information themselves to intelligence
agencies.
"... Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. ..."
"... The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies. ..."
"... It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did. ..."
"... Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war. ..."
"... In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown. ..."
"... You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient. ..."
"... Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them. ..."
"... People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place. ..."
"... How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy? ..."
"... These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation. ..."
"... Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI. ..."
"... It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers. ..."
"... It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control. ..."
"... It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case. ..."
"... And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism ..."
"... The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance. ..."
"... Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA. ..."
"... Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants. ..."
"... John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves. ..."
"... A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror. ..."
"... Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses. ..."
"... Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments. ..."
"... While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it. ..."
Conspiratorially-minded writers envisaged the Shadow World Government as a board of evil sages surrounded by the financiers and
cinema moguls. That would be bad enough; in infinitely worse reality, our world is run by the Junior Ganymede that went berserk.
It is not a government, but a network, like freemasonry of old, and it consists chiefly of treacherous spies and pens-for-hire, two
kinds of service personnel, that collected a lot of data and tools of influence, and instead of serving their masters loyally, had
decided to lead the world in the direction they prefer.
German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the last head of the Abwehr, Hitler's Military Intelligence, had been such a spy with political
ambitions. He supported Hitler as the mighty enemy of Communism; on a certain stage he came to conclusion that the US will do the
job better and switched to the Anglo-American side. He was uncovered and executed for treason. His colleague General Reinhard Gehlen
also betrayed his Führer and had switched to the American side. After the war, he continued his war against Soviet Russia, this time
for CIA instead of Abwehr.
The spies are treacherous by their nature. They contact people who betrayed their countries; they work under cover, pretending
to be somebody else; for them the switch of loyalty is as usual and normal as the gender change operation for a Moroccan doctor who
is doing that 8 to 5 every day. They mix with foreign spies, they kill people with impunity; they break every law, human or divine.
They are extremely dangerous if they do it for their own country. They are infinitely more dangerous if they work for themselves
and still keep their institutional capabilities and international network.
Recently we had a painful reminding of their treacherous nature. Venezuela's top spy, the former director of the Bolivarian National
Intelligence Service (Sebin), Manuel Cristopher Figuera , had switched sides during the last coup attempt and escaped abroad
as the coup failed. He discovered that his membership on the Junior Ganymede of the spooks is more important for him than his duty
to his country and its constitution.
Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though
they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike
Whitney and Philip Giraldi described
the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. In
the conspiracy, foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, played an important role. As by law, these spies aren't
allowed to operate on their home ground, they go into you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back routine. The CIA spies in England
and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to
unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies.
It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal
to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is
good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the
Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians
and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did.
Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of
JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq
war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war.
Russian spooks are in a special relations mode with the global network – for many years. In Russia, persistent rumours claim the
perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982)
Yuri Andropov . He and his appointees
dismantled the socialist state and prepared the takeover of 1991 in the interests of the One World project.
Andropov (who had stepped into Brezhnev's shoes in 1982 and died in 1984) had advanced Gorbachev and his architect of glasnost,
Alexander Yakovlev . Andropov
also promoted the arch-traitor KGB General Oleg Kalugin
to head its counter-intelligence. Later, Kalugin betrayed his country, escaped to the US and delivered all Russian spies he knew
of to the FBI hands.
In late 1980s-early 1990s, the KGB, originally the guarding dog of the Russian working class, had betrayed its Communist masters
and switched to work for the Network. But for their betrayal, Gorbachev would not be able to destroy his country so fast: the KGB
neutralised or misinformed the Communist leadership.
They allowed Chernobyl to explode; they permitted a German pilot to land on the Red Square – this was used by Gorbachev as an
excuse to sack the whole lot of patriotic generals. The KGB people were active in subverting other socialist states, too. They executed
the Romanian leader Ceausescu and his wife; they brought down the GDR, the socialist Germany; they plotted with Yeltsin against Gorbachev
and with Gorbachev against Romanov. As the result of their plotting, the USSR fell apart.
The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened
calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play
the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards. Years later, Vladimir
Putin came to power in Russia with the blessing of the world spooks and bankers, but being too independent a man to submit, he took
his country into its present nationalist course, trying to regain some lost ground. The dissatisfied spooks supported him.
Only recently Putin began to trim the wild growth of his own intelligence service, the FSB. It is possible the cautious president
had been alerted by the surprising insistence of the Western media that the alleged attempt on Skripal and other visible cases had
been attributed to the GRU, the relatively small Russian Military Intelligence, while the much bigger FSB had been forgotten. The
head of
FSB cybercrime department had been arrested and sentenced for lengthy term of imprisonment, and two FSB colonels had been arrested
as the search of their premises revealed immense
amounts of cash , both Russian and foreign currency. Such piles of roubles and dollars could be assembled only for an attempt
to change the regime, as it was demanded by the Network.
In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych.
They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad.
The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support
of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown.
In the US, the spooks allowed Donald Trump to become the leading Republican candidate, for they thought he would certainly lose
to Mme Clinton. Surprisingly, he had won, and since then, this man who was advanced as an easy prey, as a buffoon, had bee
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