Tag Archives: CIA

The Information-Industrial Complex, by James Corbett

Posted on December 23, 2017 | Leave a comment

If you liked “The Friendly Faces of Fascism” you’ll love this article. From James Corbett at corbettreport.com:

Half a century ago, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower coined the term “military-industrial complex” to describe the fascistic collusion between the Pentagon and America’s burgeoning armaments industry. But in our day and age we are witnessing the rise of a new collusion, one between the Pentagon and the tech industry that it helped to seed, that is committed to waging a covert war against people the world over. Now, in the 21st century, it is time to give this new threat a name: the information-industrial complex.

TRANSCRIPT

When WWII ended and the American deep state welded the national security establishment into place with the National Security Act, the world entered into a new era: the era of the military-industrial complex. But when the Cold War ended and the “Clash of Civilizations” became the new existential threat, the deep state found an opening for another paradigm shift. As the all-pervasive threat of terrorism became the carte blanche for total surveillance, the powers-that-shouldn’t-be found the organizing principal of our age would not be military hardware, but data itself. Welcome to the age of the information-industrial complex.

This is The Corbett Report.

Of all the things that President Dwight D. Eisenhower did during his years in office, it is for a single phrase from his farewell address that he is best remembered today: “the military-industrial complex.”

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

It is not difficult to see why these words passed so quickly into the political lexicon. Think of their explanatory power.

Why did the US use inflated estimates of Russian missile capabilities to justify stockpiling a nuclear arsenal that was more than sufficient to destroy the planet several times over?

The military-industrial complex.

Why did America send 50,000 of its own to fight and die in the jungles of Vietnam, killing untold millions of Vietnamese (not to mention Cambodians)?

The military-industrial complex.

Why did the US use the public’s fear and anger over 9/11 and a phony panic over non-existent weapons of mass destruction to justify the illegal invasion and trillion-dollar occupation of Iraq?

The military-industrial complex.

Why did Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama expand the fictitious “war on terror” into Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia, refuse to close Guantanamo despite his earlier promises to the contrary, commit US forces to “kinetic military action” in Libya without so much as seeking Congressional approval, and launch a new era of covert drone warfare?

The military-industrial complex.

To continue reading the transcript: The Information-Industrial Complex

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Crime, Cronyism, Government, Intelligence, Law, Surveillance

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In From The Cold: CIA Gesture Indicates Thawing US-Russia Ties, by M.K. Bhadrakumar

Posted on December 20, 2017 | Leave a comment

Is the CIA, fresh from its dubious role in the Russiagate failure, moving towards a more constructive stance with Russia? From M.K. Bhadrakumar at atimes.com:

In the annals of Russian-American relations, it is difficult to recall a precedent for the Kremlin leader calling his White House counterpart to convey his personal gratitude and appreciation for the profound contribution made by the US’ Central Intelligence Agency and its director to Russian national security.

The great irony is that the incumbent Kremlin boss is a former KGB officer. Vladimir Putin never ceases to surprise.

The Kremlin readout of Putin’s phone call to US President Donald Trump on Sunday should be an eye-opener to anyone who bought the US propaganda that Putin is a demon preparing to devour the West – or Russian propaganda that encourages an impression to be formed among the naïve and the gullible that the world is carved into two neat halves, namely the good and the evil.

Countries like Turkey, Iran and Egypt – and Venezuela and North Korea – should take particular note that the world situation and the emerging international order are a lot more complicated than some among them would like to think. What prompted Putin to make such an extraordinary move?

For a start, the Kremlin senses that the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the US election last November is meandering aimlessly and may have to be wound up sooner rather than later. That being the case, a future is conceivable in which the tidal wave of Russophobia in the US recedes, leaving behind much devastation and debris but also the opportunity to begin rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Most certainly, Putin understood the great symbolism and meaning behind the gesture by the CIA to pass on crucial intelligence relating to the security of his hometown, the city of his heart’s desires, and the pride of all Russian people.

To continue reading: In From The Cold: CIA Gesture Indicates Thawing US-Russia Ties

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Weapons Went From The CIA To ISIS In Less Than Two Months, by Tyler Durden

Posted on December 15, 2017 | 2 comments

What’s been clear for years—that the US and it’s allies were arming ISIS and other al Qaeda offshoots—is starting to dribble into the mainstream media. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

  • Mainstream media in 2013: “Conspiracy Theorists!” 
  • Mainstream media in 2017: “ISIS Got a Powerful Missile the CIA Bought!” 

Years late to the party, mainstream media outlets like USA Today, Reuters, and Buzzfeed are just out with “breaking” and “exclusive” stories detailing how a vast arsenal of weapons sent to Syria by the CIA in cooperation with US allies fuelled the rapid growth of ISIS. Buzzfeed’s story entitled, Blowback: ISIS Got A Powerful Missile The CIA Secretly Bought In Bulgaria, begins by referencing “a new report on how ISIS built its arsenal highlights how the US purchased munitions, intended for Syrian rebels, that ended up in the hands of the terrorist group.”

The original study that Buzzfeed and other media are referencing comes from a UK-based independent weapons research organization called Conflict Armament Research (CAR) which has had a team of weapons and munitions experts on the ground in the Middle East for years examining arms and equipment recovered from ISIS and other terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. Using serial numbers, crate shipping markings, and all available forensics data, the CAR experts began finding that as early as 2013 to 2014 much of the Islamic State’s advanced weapons systems as well as small arms were clearly sourced to the United States and the West.

“Supplies of materiel into the Syrian conflict from foreign parties – notably the United States and Saudi Arabia – have indirectly allowed IS to obtain substantial quantities of anti-armor ammunition,” states the CAR report. “These weapons include anti-tank guided weapons and several varieties of rocket with tandem warheads, which are designed to defeat modern reactive armor.”


Image source: Conflict Armament Research


A PG-9 missile modified to fit a Model 2 recoilless launcher system. Produced in 2016 in Romania, exported to the United States and documented in Mosul in September 2017. Source: Conflict Armament Research

The study further reveals that in one notable instance, a weapons shipment of advanced missile systems switched hands from US intelligence to “moderate” Syrian groups to ISIS in only a two month time period. Though the report is now evoking shock and confusion among pundits, the same weapons research group has actually published similar findings and conclusions going years back into the Syrian conflict.

To continue reading: Weapons Went From The CIA To ISIS In Less Than Two Months

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Intelligence, Military, War

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Is #TheResistance a CIA Front? by Justin Raimondo

Posted on November 27, 2017 | Leave a comment

The title question is not facetious. Anyone who knows anything of the history of the CIA knows the possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand. From Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com:

In George Orwell’s classic dystopia 1984, the mutability of the past is a lethal weapon in the arsenal of tyranny: if history can be molded into whatever shape is required, all the better to serve the Party and Big Brother. Quite a feat, believable perhaps only as fiction, and yet this is surpassed by what our “liberals” have accomplished in real life: the abolition of history, at least in their own minds. As writer Yasha Levine shows here, the editors of Mother Jones – a magazine that has published the most “out there” “Russia-gate” tall tales – have completely forgotten their own history as the victim of Russia-hating anti-“subversive” government witch-hunters:

“[O]f all the liberal media, Mother Jones should be most ashamed for fueling the moral panic about Russian ‘disinformation.’ It wasn’t too long ago that the Reagan Right attacked Mother Jones for spreading ‘Kremlin disinformation’ and subverting America. There were threats and leaks to the media about a possible Senate investigation into Mother Jones serving as a Kremlin disinformation dupe, a threat that hung over the magazine throughout the early Reagan years. A new Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism (SST for short) was set up in 1981 to investigate Kremlin ‘disinformation’ and ‘active measures’ in America, and the American ‘dupes’ who helped Moscow subvert our way of life. That subcommittee was created to harass and repress leftist anti-imperial dissent in America, using ‘terrorism’ as the main threat, and ‘disinformation’ as terrorism’s fellow traveler. The way the SST committee put it, ‘terrorism’ and ‘Kremlin disinformation’ were one and the same, a meta-conspiracy run out of Moscow to weaken America.

“And Mother Jones was one of the first American media outlets in the SST committee’s sights.”

As Levine points out, Adam Hochschild, the founder of Mother Jones, “responded publicly to the threats coming out of the Senate” by pointing out that the accusations were short on facts, but long on the implication that anyone who criticizes our military buildup or US foreign policy was a Kremlin agent. The same thing is happening today – with the difference being that Mother Jones is now in the role of accuser.

To continue reading: Is #TheResistance a CIA Front?

 

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Thanksgiving for JFK, by Edward Curtin

Posted on November 22, 2017 | Leave a comment

Today is the 54th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. It is impossible to understand the 20th century without understanding the real story of JFK’s murder. Edward Curtin mentions James W. Douglass’s book JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. I’m currently reading it and it’s living up to it’s title. Curtin also mentions The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government. I’ve read that one, and it’s an outstanding examination of Allen Dulles, an understanding of whom is also essential for understanding the 20th century. From Edward Curtin at lewrockwell.com:

If he had lived, President John F. Kennedy would have been 100 years old this year.  At Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, his family would be raising a glass in his honor.

But as we all know, he was murdered in Dallas, Texas on this date – November 22nd – in 1963.  A true war hero twice over, he risked his life to save his men in World War II, and then, after a radical turn toward peace-making in the last year of his life, he died in his own country at the hands of his domestic enemies as a soldier in a non-violent struggle for peace and reconciliation for all people across the world.

But we can still celebrate, mourn, and offer thanksgiving for his courageous witness.  When we gather tomorrow to give thanks, we should remember today – the profound significance of the date – and the absent presence of a man whose death, dark and bloody as it was, is a sign of hope in these dark times. For if John Kennedy had not had the spiritual conscience to secretly carry-on a back channel letter correspondence with Nikita Khrushchev, facilitated by Pope John XXIII, we very well might not be here, having been incinerated in a nuclear holocaust.

Hope?  Not because he was assassinated, but why he was assassinated.

While there is much media focus on the release of more of the JFK files, they are beside the point.  They were withheld all these years to dribble out the clock on an endless pseudo-debate about who killed President Kennedy.  We know who killed him: the national security state, led by the CIA, killed him, not Lee Harvey Oswald.  It was a coup d’état purposely conducted in plain sight to send a message that every president since has heeded: Your job is to make war and threaten nuclear annihilation for the Deep State elites.  Follow orders or else.  They have followed.

If you find my assertion about the CIA audacious and absurd, first read James Douglass’s JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, a book widely regarded as the best book on the assassination and its meaning.  Read it very closely and slowly.  Check all his sources, read his endnotes, and analyze his logic.  Approach his meticulous research as if you agreed with Gandhi’s saying that truth is God and God is truth. Try to refute Douglass. You will be stymied. Then read David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government for further clarification. You will come away from these two books profoundly shaken to your core.  Be a truth-seeker, if you are not one already.

To continue reading: Thanksgiving for JFK

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Amazon Announces “AWS Secret” Service For The CIA, US Intelligence, by Tyler Durden

Posted on November 22, 2017 | Leave a comment

As noted in “The Friendly Faces of Fascism,” the technology giants are in bed with the government, perhaps none more so than Amazon. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Shortly after Wired first profiled the NSA’s new super spycenter in Bluffdale, Utah (one year before Snowden confirmed that much of the agency’s activity involved spying on US citizens and soon to be presidents), speculation emerged as to how much data storage capacity this brand new US spy hub would have. According to a then-estimate by Forbes, the storage capacity at the Bluffdale facility was between 3 and 12 exabytes ( 1 exabyte is 1 billion gigabytes) based on analysis of unclassified blueprints, although some had vastly greater estimates ranging from yottabytes (in Wired) to 5 zettabytes (on NPR), a.k.a. words that most probably can’t pronounce but translate to ‘a lot.‘

And, in retrospect, it appears to not have been enough, because on Monday, Amazon Web Services announced it was now offering a commercial cloud service to the US Intelligence Community (i.e. spies on both foreign targets and US presidential campaigns) called, directly enough “Secret Region” that can operate workloads up to the Secret U.S. security classification level.

“Today we mark an important milestone as we launch the AWS Secret Region,” said Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Amazon Web Services Worldwide Public Sector. “AWS now provides the U.S. Intelligence Community a commercial cloud capability across all classification levels: Unclassified, Sensitive, Secret, and Top Secret. The U.S. Intelligence Community can now execute their missions with a common set of tools, a constant flow of the latest technology and the flexibility to rapidly scale with the mission. The AWS Top Secret Region was launched three years ago as the first air-gapped commercial cloud and customers across the U.S. Intelligence Community have made it a resounding success. Ultimately, this capability allows more agency collaboration, helps get critical information to decision makers faster, and enables an increase in our Nation’s Security.”

To continue reading: Amazon Announces “AWS Secret” Service For The CIA, US Intelligence

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The Deep State’s JFK Triumph Over Trump, by Ray McGovern

Posted on October 30, 2017 | Leave a comment

The intelligence agencies have been calling the shots on the Kennedy assassination since the day it happened, and according to ex-CIA agent Ray McGovern, nothing has changed. From McGovern at consortiumnews.com:

Exclusive: Fifty-four years after President Kennedy’s assassination, the CIA and FBI demanded more time to decide what secrets to keep hiding – and a chastened President Trump bowed to their power, observes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

By Ray McGovern

It was summer 1963 when a senior official of CIA’s operations directorate treated our Junior Officer Trainee (JOT) class to an unbridled rant against President John F. Kennedy. He accused JFK, among other things, of rank cowardice in refusing to send U.S. armed forces to bail out Cuban rebels pinned down during the CIA-launched invasion at the Bay of Pigs, blowing the chance to drive Cuba’s Communist leader Fidel Castro from power.

President John F. Kennedy in the motorcade through Dallas shortly before his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. (Photo credit: Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News)

It seemed beyond odd that a CIA official would voice such scathing criticism of a sitting President at a training course for those selected to be CIA’s future leaders. I remember thinking to myself, “This guy is unhinged; he would kill Kennedy, given the chance.”

Our special guest lecturer looked a lot like E. Howard Hunt, but more than a half-century later, I cannot be sure it was he. Our notes from such training/indoctrination were classified and kept under lock and key.

At the end of our JOT orientation, we budding Agency leaders had to make a basic choice between joining the directorate for substantive analysis or the operations directorate where case officers run spies and organize regime changes (in those days, we just called the process overthrowing governments).

I chose the analysis directorate and, once ensconced in the brand new headquarters building in Langley, Virginia, I found it strange that subway-style turnstiles prevented analysts from going to the “operations side of the house,” and vice versa. Truth be told, we were never one happy family.

To continue reading: The Deep State’s JFK Triumph Over Trump

 

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