Monday, December 29, 2014

Business International Corp. and Business Security International linked in 80s anti-Nicaragua activities By Wayne Madsen




Business International Corp. and Business Security International linked in 80s anti-Nicaragua activities

Another link has emerged between the post-graduate Central Intelligence Agency "non-official cover" or "NOC" work of Barack Obama for known CIA front Business International Corporation (BIC) and Ronald Reagan administration anti-Communist paramilitary operations. As previously reported by WMR, Obama worked as a CIA cover "journalist" for BIC after he graduated from an international relations studies program at Columbia University, the details of which remain undisclosed by the White House. While at the New York City-based BIC, Obama covered events in Latin America for the company's various newsletters. BIC admitted that it provided journalistic cover for CIA agents around the world.

It turns out that BIC was not the only CIA front company operating in Latin America at the time Obama was providing reports on such countries as Mexico and Brazil. A shadowy company with a similar-sounding name to BIC, Business Security International (BSI), was established by Langley to provide paramilitary U.S. Support for the Nicaraguan Contras at a time when the Boland Amendment expressly prohibited such assistance to the anti-Sandinista Nicaraguan guerrillas. Obama's failure to bring officials of the CIA's torture program to justice and his failure to prosecute the agency and its director, John Brennan, for spying on U.S. Senate computers likely has its roots in the CIA front companies' participation in the illegal Nicaraguan Contra support network run by Langley during Obama's employment at BIC.

BIC and BSI were popular under the CIA directorship of William Casey, an advocate of using "off-the-shelf" companies to evade Congressional and Inspector General oversight. BSI was headquartered in Annandale, Virginia. The firm's chief was Army Lt. Col. Dale Duncan, who was later convicted of fraud and was sentenced to 10 years in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Much of the transcript of Duncan's court-martial remains classified to this day. While BIC provided the CIA intelligence on the threats posed by nationalistic and left-wing governments and political parties in Latin America and elsewhere, BSI concentrated on left-wing political and guerrilla insurgency threats. the two companies made for a perfect pair for an administration that was convinced it had to re-ignite the Cold War.

Norman Wellen, BIC's chief executive officer while Obama worked for the firm, was very concerned about Central America. Wellen was concerned that the Sandinista government of Nicaragua and the leftist insurgency in El Salvador could pose a threat to U.S. business activities in those nations. Wellen, who worked for Bear Stearns after BIC was told to The Economistin 1986 and merged into its Economist Intelligence Unit, a bevvy of former British MI-6 agents, worried about "spillover" from the conflicts in Nicaragua and El Salvador on business. BIC specialized in providing intelligence on direct foreign investment in Latin America and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador were seen as threats to such investments by U.S.-based multinational corporations. Wellen's 2011 obituary in the Newark Star-Ledger described him as
 "a real Mensch."

One of Obama's co-workers at BIC's Manhattan office, Gary Springer, specifically tracked events in Nicaragua for the company, which, in turn, provided the analysis to "The Company" Langley. Springer founded the firm Strategic Eventualities, Inc. in 2001. However, curiously, his biography merely states 
that in the 1980s he was the associate editor of 
Business Latin America (now a division of the Economist Intelligence Unit) in New York City. No mention is made of BIC, which published Business Latin America. Springer is not the only ex-BIC employee to omit a reference to the firm in later writings. In his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, Obama failed to mention that the firm he went to work for in Manhattan after graduating from Columbia was, in fact, BIC. Obama only revealed that he worked for "a consulting house to multinational corporations" where he was a "research assistant" and "financial writer."
Obama's fellow BIC editor Lou Celi also concentrated on Latin American affairs. Reagan later appointed him 
as a member of the White House’s business advisory committee for Latin America. Obama's first CIA-directed coup against a democratically-elected president was overthrew Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in 2009, Obama's first year in office. That was followed by Obama authorizing destabilization and coup-making operations against the democratically-elected governments of Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay, Haiti, Suriname, Guatemala, Brazil, Panama, Argentina, and Nicaragua. Obama has been much more aggressive against Latin America than was his neo-conservative predecessor, George W. Bush, whose 2002 coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was quickly reversed. There were no reversals of the Obama coups against Zelaya and Paraguay's Fernando Lugo.
obama_cia_0421
Obama: always at home with his NOC employer.

To carry out its clandestine activities in Central America, BSI utilized a Credit Suisse bank account in Switzerland and the company operated under a classified project called Operation YELLOW FRUIT. Those Reagan administration officials with access to the Credit Suisse account included Lt. Col. Oliver North, Casey's "eyes and ears" inside the National Security Council, and Air Force General Richard Secord. Some of the money that ended up in the Swiss bank account was provided by Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar bin Sultan. BSI allegedly provided a satellite communications link between the Contras based in Honduras and CIA headquarters in Langley. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger denied any knowledge of BSI or YELLOW FRUIT and it appears that the operation was a CIA cut-out within the Army. Another classified project involving BSI was code-named SEASPRAY and it was responsible for flying reconnaissance missions for the Contras on behalf of the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA). Some of these aircraft were involved in smuggling weapons to Central America and drugs from the region into the United States. One of YELLOW FRUIT's key operatives was Drug Enforcement Administration informant Barry Seal, who was gunned down in Baton Rouge in 1986 prior to his testifying in a trial that would have implicated Vice President George H W Bush in drug and arms smuggling in the Iran-Contra scandal. BSI also reportedly provided the CIA with cover for its operations in the Middle East. Within the Pentagon and CIA, the BSI operation was known as 
"2 BSI / YELLOW FRUIT."

Young Barack Obama's entrée into the world of covert CIA operations came at a time when the Reagan administration not only flouted the will of Congress but when Casey and his clandestine operatives, who included John Brennan, relied on firms like BSI and BIC to evade oversight by Congress, auditors, Inspectors General, and the press.

Obama's reticence in holding the CIA and NSA accountable for their massive crimes against the U.S. Constitution and the American people can best be explained by what Obama said in 2008 about Ronald Reagan, the president who gave the green light for U.S. intelligence excesses after they had been curtailed following the Nixon administration and Watergate:

"I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.  He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.  I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating.  I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

Barack Hussein Obama, who, during his CIA stint was also known on his valid Indonesian passport as Barry Soetoro, and as Barry Obama in other facets, was a "company man" in the 1980s and he continues to be one to this day.
---

Sunday, December 28, 2014

THE ROVING EYE Russia, China mock divide and rule By Pepe Escobar




THE ROVING EYE
Russia, China mock divide and rule
By Pepe Escobar

ROME and BEIJING - The Roman Empire did it. The British Empire copied it in style. The Empire of Chaos has always done it. They all do it. Divide et impera. Divide and rule - or divide and conquer. It's nasty, brutish and effective. Not forever though, like diamonds, because empires do crumble.

A room with a view to the Pantheon may be a celebration of Venus - but also a glimpse on the works of Mars. I had been in Rome essentially for a symposium - Global WARning - organized by a very committed, talented group led by a former member of European Parliament, Giulietto Chiesa. Three days later, as the run on the rouble was unleashed, Chiesa was arrested and expelled from Estonia as persona non grata, yet another graphic illustration of the anti-Russia hysteria gripping the Baltic nations and the Orwellian grip NATO has on Europe's weak links. [1] Dissent is simply not allowed.

At the symposium, held in a divinely frescoed former 15th century Dominican refectory now part of the Italian parliament's library, Sergey Glazyev, on the phone from Moscow, gave a stark reading of Cold War 2.0. There's no real "government" in Kiev; the US ambassador is in charge. An anti-Russia doctrine has been hatched in Washington to foment war in Europe - and European politicians are its collaborators. Washington wants a war in Europe because it is losing the competition with China.

Glazyev addressed the sanctions dementia: Russia is trying simultaneously to reorganize the politics of the International Monetary Fund, fight capital flight and minimize the effect of banks closing credit lines for many businessmen. Yet the end result of sanctions, he says, is that Europe will be the ultimate losers economically; bureaucracy in Europe has lost economic focus as American geopoliticians have taken over.

Only three days before the run on the rouble, I asked Rosneft's Mikhail Leontyev (Press-Secretary - Director of the Information and Advertisement Department) about the growing rumors of the Russian government getting ready to apply currency controls. At the time, no one knew an attack on rouble would be so swift, and conceived as a checkmate to destroy the Russian economy. After sublime espressos at the Tazza d'Oro, right by the Pantheon, Leontyev told me that currency controls were indeed a possibility. But not yet.

What he did emphasize was this was outright financial war, helped by a fifth column in the Russian establishment. The only equal component in this asymmetrical war was nuclear forces. And yet Russia would not surrender. Leontyev characterized Europe not as a historical subject but as an object: "The European project is an American project." And "democracy" had become fiction.

The run on the rouble came and went like a devastating economic hurricane. Yet you don't threat a checkmate against a skilled chess player unless your firepower is stronger than Jupiter's lightning bolt. Moscow survived. Gazprom heeded the request of President Vladimir Putin and will sell its US dollar reserves on the domestic market. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier went on the record against the EU further "turning the screw" as in more counterproductive sanctions against Moscow. And at his annual press conference, Putin emphasized how Russia would weather the storm. Yet I was especially intrigued by what he did not say. [2]

As Mars took over, in a frenetic acceleration of history, I retreated to my Pantheon room trying to channel Seneca; from euthymia - interior serenity - to that state of imperturbability the Stoics defined as aponia. Still, it's hard to cultivate euthymia when Cold War 2.0 rages.

Show me your imperturbable missile
Russia could always deploy an economic "nuclear" option, declaring a moratorium on its foreign debt. Then, if Western banks seized Russian assets, Moscow could seize every Western investment in Russia. In any event, the Pentagon and NATO's aim of a shooting war in the European theater would not happen; unless Washington was foolish enough to start it.

Still, that remains a serious possibility, with the Empire of Chaos accusing Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) even as it prepares to force Europe in 2015 to accept the deployment of US nuclear cruise missiles.

Russia could outmaneuver Western financial markets by cutting them off from its wealth of oil and natural gas. The markets would inevitably collapse - uncontrolled chaos for the Empire of Chaos (or "controlled chaos", in Putin's own words). Imagine the crumbling of the quadrillion-plus of derivatives. It would take years for the "West" to replace Russian oil and natural gas, but the EU's economy would be instantly devastated.

Just this lightning-bolt Western attack on the rouble - and oil prices - using the crushing power of Wall Street firms had already shaken European banks exposed to Russia to the core; their credit default swaps soared. Imagine those banks collapsing in a Lehman Brothers-style house of cards if Russia decided to default - thus unleashing a chain reaction. Think about a non-nuclear MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) - in fact warless. Still, Russia is self-sufficient in all kinds of energy, mineral wealth and agriculture. Europe isn't. This could become the lethal result of war by sanctions.

Essentially, the Empire of Chaos is bluffing, using Europe as pawns. The Empire of Chaos is as lousy at chess as it is at history. What it excels in is in upping the ante to force Russia to back down. Russia won't back down.

Darkness dawns at the break of chaos 
Paraphrasing Bob Dylan in When I Paint My Masterpiece, I left Rome and landed in Beijing. Today's Marco Polos travel Air China; in 10 years, they will be zooming up in reverse, taking high-speed rail from Shanghai to Berlin. [3]

From a room in imperial Rome to a room in a peaceful hutong - a lateral reminiscence of imperial China. In Rome, the barbarians swarm inside the gates, softly pillaging the crumbs of such a rich heritage, and that includes the local Mafia. In Beijing, the barbarians are kept under strict surveillance; of course there's a Panopticon element to it, essential to assure internal social peace. The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) - ever since the earth-shattering reforms by the Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping - is perfectly conscious that its Mandate of Heaven is directly conditioned by the perfect fine-tuning of nationalism and what we could term "neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics".

In a different vein of the "soft beds of the East" seducing Marcus Aurelius, the silky splendors of chic Beijing offer a glimpse of an extremely self-assured emerging power. After all, Europe is nothing but a catalogue of multiple sclerosis and Japan is under its sixth recession in 20 years.

To top it off, in 2014 President Xi Jinping has deployed unprecedented diplomatic/geostrategic frenzy - ultimately tied to the long-term project of slowly but surely keeping on erasing US supremacy in Asia and rearranging the global chessboard. What Xi said in Shanghai in May encapsulates the project; "It's time for Asians to manage the affairs of Asia." At the APEC meeting in November, he doubled down, promoting an "Asia-Pacific dream".

Meanwhile, frenzy is the norm. Apart from the two monster, US$725 billion gas deals - Power of Siberia and Altai pipeline - and a recent New Silk Road-related offensive in Eastern Europe, [4] virtually no one in the West remembers that in September Chinese Prime Minister Li Keiqiang signed no fewer than 38 trade deals with the Russians, including a swap deal and a fiscal deal, which imply total economic interplay.

A case can be made that the geopolitical shift towards Russia-China integration is arguably the greatest strategic maneuver of the last 100 years. Xi's ultimate master plan is unambiguous: a Russia-China-Germany trade/commerce alliance. German business/industry wants it badly, although German politicians still haven't got the message. Xi - and Putin - are building a new economic reality on the Eurasian ground, crammed with crucial political, economic and strategic ramifications.

Of course, this will be an extremely rocky road. It has not leaked to Western corporate media yet, but independent-minded academics in Europe (yes, they do exist, almost like a secret society) are increasingly alarmed there is no alternative model to the chaotic, entropic hardcore neoliberalism/casino capitalism racket promoted by the Masters of the Universe.

Even if Eurasian integration prevails in the long run, and Wall Street becomes a sort of local stock exchange, the Chinese and the emerging multipolar world still seem to be locked into the existing neoliberal model.

And yet, as much as Lao Tzu, already an octogenarian, gave the young Confucius an intellectual slap on the face, the "West" could do with a wake-up call. Divide et impera? It's not working. And it's bound to fail miserably.

As it stands, what we do know is that 2015 will be a hair-raising year in myriad aspects. Because from Europe to Asia, from the ruins of the Roman empire to the re-emerging Middle Kingdom, we all still remain under the sign of a fearful, dangerous, rampantly irrational Empire of Chaos.

Notes:
1. See here.
2. What Putin is not telling us, Russia Today, December 18, 2014.
3. Eurasian Integration vs. the Empire of Chaos, TomDispatch, December 16, 2014.
4. China set to make tracks for Europe, China Daily, December 18, 2014. China's Li cements new export corridor into Europe, Channel News Asia, December 16, 2014.


Pepe Escobar's latest book, just out, is Empire of Chaos. Follow him on Facebook.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
 

Friday, December 26, 2014

CIA-linked program official advising Ukrainian police by Wayne Madsen




 CIA-linked program official advising Ukrainian police

Ron Glensor, an official of the U.S. Department of Justice's International
International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), - See more at: http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/12659#sthash.LU7PBJaj.dpuf
International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), - See more at: http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/12659#sthash.LU7PBJaj.dpuf
International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), - See more at: http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/12659#sthash.LU7PBJaj.dpuf
 Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) program and U.S. citizen, is now advising Ukrainian police with his initial posting at the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Khmelnytsky region. Glensor's appointment follows the naming of U.S. citizen Natalie Jaresko, another U.S. citizen, as Ukraine's Finance Minister. To overcome Ukrainian constitutional prohibitions against foreign nationals serving as government leaders, Jaresko was given Ukrainian citizenship by the Kiev regime.

Jaresko is currently involved in a contentious divorce with her ex-husband and ex-business partner, Ihor Figlus, over ownership of the assets of Jaresko's and Figlus's joint company, Kiev-based Horizon Capital, established 20 years ago with a $150 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Horizon Capital operated the Emerging Europe Growth Fund, a group charged with illegal insider trading of Ukrainian securities. According to court divorce documents, Horizon Capital bought Ukrainian artwork, Georgian carpets, expensive cars, and antique furniture. Jaresko also managed the USAID-financed
Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), a CIA contrivance that steered U.S. investment dollars into "pro-democracy" movements in Moldova and Belarus. WNISEF and Horizon also laundered a sizable chunk of the $5 billion in U.S. aid that helped overthrow the government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

The U.S. taxpayers not only paid for the couple's opulent life style but they helped pay the freight to embed Natalie Jaresko in a major Ukrainian government post in order to help steer Ukraine closer to the NATO and western economic orbit. As a member of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Cabinet, Jaresko was instrumental in urging the Ukrainian Rada (parliament) to end Ukraine's status as a non-aligned country and subjugate Ukraine's economy to the IMF anf World Bank.

Jaresko is not the only foreigner in Ukraine's Cabinet. She is joined by the Lithuanian-Jewish Aivaras Abromavicius, who serves as the Economy Minister, and Aleksandr Kvitashili, the Health Minister who is also a Georgian citizen. Furthermore, former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has been serving as an adviser to the Ukrainian government of President Petro Poroshenko. Abromavicius was a partner of East Capital and in 2012 he participated in the 9th Annual Yalta Meeting where a number of neocons and CIA assets in Eastern Europe were also present. The Yalta Meeting is a mini-Davos meeting, which has been sponsored annually since 2004 by Ukrainian Jewish billionaire Victor Pinchuk, a friend of Steven Spielberg and Henry Kissinger. The 2012 meeting brought together all the key players in the 2013 coup against Yanukovych, including Yatsenyuk, Poroshenko, Abromavicius, and Elena Andrianova of the Rothschild Trust Group responsible for Russia and the former Soviet Eurasian countries. Also present at Yalta were some of the habitués of George Soros-sponsored international "New World Order" symposia, including Yatsenyuk's wife and head of the Soros-financed Open Ukraine Foundation Tereziya Yatsenyuk, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, Newt Gingrich, Condoleezza Rice, Rebecca Harms of the European Parliament's Green Party bloc, Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute, Levi Matusof of the European Center for Jewish Public Affairs (Europe's version of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee-AIPAC), former World Bank president Robert Zoellick, and former International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Ukraine's new top traffic cop, Glensor, is a retired assistant chief of police of the Reno, Nevada police department and a former fellow of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) in Washington, D.C.  In 1999, the editor reported in The Progressive that "Janice Stromsen, a career employee of the Justice Department who served as ICITAP's director, resisted the program's takeover by CIA elements. In February [1999], Stromsen was relieved of her duties after complaining to the Justice Department Inspector General that ICITAP was being used by the CIA to recruit agents among foreign police officials." The Progressive article was cited by Project Censored as among the top 25 censored news stories of 1999. Stromsen died from pancreatic cancer in 2012.


ICITAP is used by the CIA to recruit foreign police officers, including in Ukraine.

Mostly outsourced to a favorite CIA contractor, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), ICITAP provided cover for the CIA to infiltrate police agencies around the world. After initiially blowing the whistle on ICITAP's intelligence-related operations, Stromsen was joined by another ICITAP employee, Martin "Mick" Andersen, who charged that agencies other than the Justice Department were engaging in “illegal activities” in Haiti. Charles Allen, who worked for the Richardson, Texas police department and was assigned to ICITAP in 1995, said that the CIA would approach foreign police students enrolled in ICITAP training programs during off hours and weekends in an attempt to recruit them to be American spies. Other CIA recruitment of foreign police officers occurred during ICITAP training sessions at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

ICITAP first began providing the CIA with "official cover" to infiltrate foreign police agencies in 1990 when it began its first operations in Panama after the U.S. military invasion. These operations were then expanded to Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Georgia, the Eastern Slavonia province of Croatia, Serbia, Armenia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Macedonia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Albania, Liberia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, South Africa, and Iraq. ICITAP and CIA operations were closely linked in counter-narcotics/insurgency operations in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Haiti, and Panama.

ICITAP grew out of a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) program started in the early 1960s that saw U.S. police officers assigned to foreign police agencies for the purpose of training. However, it soon became obvious that the CIA was using the USAID program to gain influence over foreign police agencies to combat Soviet and Chinese influence. This was particularly the case in Somalia, where the Somali National Police served as a pro-U.S. counterpart to the pro-Communist bloc Somali armed forces. The chief CIA liaison working with the Somali National Police was a police officer on loan from the Los Angeles Police Department.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

WARNING: THIS REPORT CONTAINS GRAPHIC MATERIAL. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture is "nothing" compared to the Panetta Review by Wayne Madsen



WARNING: THIS REPORT CONTAINS GRAPHIC MATERIAL. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture is "nothing" compared to the Panetta Review

The word out of Langley, Virginia is that although the Central Intelligence Agency fought hard against the Senate Intelligence Committee's release of its report on the agency's torture or "enhanced interrogation" operations against "high-value detainees," it is said to be mild compared to the internal review of such practices ordered by CIA director Leon Panetta after he assumed control of the agency in 2009. Although the CIA went as far as hacking into the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers to ascertain what information it possessed on CIA torture tactics and operations under the agency's "rendition and interrogation" program, the Panetta Review contains much more lurid details of the torture tactics employed by the CIA. Among the 870 pages removed from the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers were several containing classified information from the Panetta Review.

As shocking as were the tactics of "rectal rehydration," i.e., forcing food and water into the rectums and colons of detainees who were said to have gone on hunger strikes, and threatening to sexually mutilate the children of detainees, including crushing the testicles of young boys, the Panetta Review goes even further in describing what torture tactics were employed. The torture sessions were carried out by foreign security agencies employed by the CIA to interrogate prisoners renditioned by the agency from third countries. For example, the torture tactics employed by the security services of Syria, Kenya, and Ethiopia are, according to the Panetta Review, even worse than the tactics used by U.S. Army jailers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and the CIA tactics used at several "black sites."

The tactics, described in the Taguba Report prepared by Army General Antonio Taguba, describe prisoners being sodomized by plastic glow sticks, male guards raping female and male prisoners, prisoners being forced to roll around in human feces, and male prisoners being forced to masturbate in front of guards. WMR has learned from senior officers present at Abu Ghraib that some of this torture was not only observed but directed by Israeli intelligence personnel.

In June 2013, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Philip Goldberg sent a classified letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee warning it that disclosure of third party detention and interrogation details "could endanger American diplomats and harm foreign relations." Obviously, Goldberg was not so concerned about disclosing Syria's role in the CIA's torture program since he and other neo-cons in the administration were actively supporting Syrian rebels attempting to depose the Assad government.

In January 2014, CIA director John Brennan, an architect of the CIA rendition and interrogation program during the George W. Bush administration, warned the Senate Intelligence Committee that its staffers were believed to have "illegally" obtained copies of the Panetta Review. Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein warned Brennan to cease investigating her committee for allegedly obtaining classified information on the agency's torture program because it violated the separation of powers clause in the U.S. Constitution. Brennan ignored Feinstein and ordered his acting Inspector General, Robert Eatinger, to file a criminal report with the Department of Justice regarding the Senate's spying on the CIA!

On March 11, 2014, Feinstein accused the CIA of violating "the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the C.I.A. from conducting domestic searches or surveillance." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ordered the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms to investigate the CIA's espionage on the Intelligence Committee's computers. On July 31, 2014, Brennan, worried that the Panetta Review details might leak, admitted to the CIA's spying on the Senate committee's computers. The Department of Justice has failed to bring any of the CIA officials, including Brennan, who lied to Congress and covered up details of the agency's torture program.

WMR has reported in the past that the sexual torture and humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib; Guantanamo Bay; Afghanistan's "Salt Pit" or Detention Site COBALT, north of Kabul; Stare Kiejkuty or Detention Site BLUE in northeastern Poland; and Detention Site BLACK at the Mihail Kogalniceanu airbase in Romania were video-streamed via an encrypted link to Vice President Dick Cheney's office in the Old Executive Office Building, next to the White House, where Cheney and selected individuals amused themselves by watching live torture sessions, including sexual abuse. Some of the video-streaming of torture was, according to our sources, viewed not only by Cheney but by his close friend and confidante Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Vice Presidential chief of staff David Addington, and Vice Presidential counsel I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

A fire that broke out inside an "electrical closet" on December 19, 2007, destroyed the live streaming black boxes used to pipe the torture sessions into the Vice President's office. The fire, which was reportedly caused by arson ordered by Cheney's staff, destroyed all evidence of the video-streaming of the torture sessions.

 
Army Abu Ghraib guard Lynndie England forcing hooded prisoner to masturbate [left]. England and guard Charles Graner force naked male detainees into a human pyramid [right].
 
Further abuse of naked male prisoners at Abu Ghraib [left]. Male prisoner forced at gunpoint to masturbate [right].

A deranged Abu Ghraib detainee wanders the halls covered in human feces on December 12, 2003. MP Ivan Frederick stands behind him with a stick.
Abu Ghraib detainee covered in human feces after being forced to roll in it by U.S. Army guards.
As shocking as the revelations were in the Senate Intelligence Committee and Taguba reports about U.S. sexual and other humiliation torture practices, the Panetta Review contains details of the practices used by the security services of third countries like Syria. One of the reasons why the CIA is intent on overthrowing the Bashar al-Assad government is the techniques its security service employed against prisoners delivered for interrogation by the CIA. These include the use of ancient Arab torture methods, most notably the "Black Slave" or al 'Abd al-Aswad. The technique employs a metal chair in which the torture victim is strapped naked to a chair and a red-hot metal skewer is inserted into the anus. Another technique used the medieval "Solomon's Chair," where a torture victim is seated on a chair fitted with metal spikes.

On behalf of the CIA, Kenyan, Ugandan, Malawian, and Rwandan interrogators in their home countries employed the standard East African "three-piece tie" measure, which entails tying a detainee's arms behind his or her back until the elbows meet. The technique results in not only extreme pain but can lead to death from gangrene, rupture of the breastbone, and asphyxiation. Many of the torture sessions were carried out in interrogation facilities in Addis Ababa and Nairobi. The Ethiopians used an apartment in Addis Ababa as one torture facility.

The security services of Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Jordan were also used to torture renditioned CIA detainees. Some of the practices employed by these agencies included electric nodes placed on a victim's genitals, nipples, and feet.

WMR has learned that some of the third party torture sessions, while not video-streamed to the United States, were taped and many of the tapes were later illegally destroyed by the CIA. The tapes, said to number at least 150, included torture sessions conducted at Detention Center GREEN in Thailand. Justice Department special prosecutor John Durham, tasked with investigating the 2005 destruction of the torture tapes, declined to prosecute anyone in the CIA for their destruction. Shortly after becoming president, Barack Obama visited Langley and told as assembly of CIA employees that they need not fear any prosecutions by his administration for torture.

Although the Panetta Review is highly critical of waterboarding, which was advocated by the CIA's "Torture Queen," Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, it is the condemnation of third party torture techniques that has the agency determined to keep the review from being publicly disclosed "at all costs."

Monday, December 22, 2014

America: Cesspool of Terror by Stephen Lendman




America: Cesspool of Terror

by Stephen Lendman

It bears repeating what other articles stressed. No nation in world history caused more harm to more people over a longer duration than America. Rogue state ruthlessness by any standard.

North Korea is right calling America "a cesspool of terrorism." Its sordid history proves it. More on this below.

Pyongyang's comment came after Washington irresponsibly accused it of hacking Sony Pictures' film "The Interview." 

Negatively portraying leader Kim Jong-un. Including a plot to assassinate him. No evidence whatever links North Korea to the hacking attack.

Pyongyang categorically denies it. A government statement saying "(w)hoever is going to frame our country for a crime should present concrete evidence."

A baseless FBI accusation alone exists. Enough for media scoundrels to respond as expected. 

The New York Times like others. Irresponsibly accusing North Korea of "a destructive cyberattack on American soil."

The film is typical Hollywood trash. Movie moguls in lockstep with US policy. No plot too far-fetched omitted.

Even Tarzan was exploited decades earlier. Waging war on Nazism in "Tarzan Triumphs." Hitler was no match for the king of the jungle. 

He defeated German invaders singlehandedly. An elephant blitzkrieg helped. Reinvented history boosts profits.

"The Interview" is destabilizing US propaganda. Co-director Seth Rogen admitted collaboration with Washington's military/intelligence establishment.

Telling The New York Times: "Throughout this process, we made relationships with certain people who work in the government as consultants, who I'm convinced are in the CIA."

North Korea is one of many US targets. America's sordid history reflects it. Even The New York Times in part discussed it.

An October article saying "(t)he Central Intelligence Agency has run guns to insurgencies across the world during its 67-year history - from Angola to Nicaragua to Cuba." 

"The continuing CIA effort to train Syrian rebels is just the latest example of an American president becoming enticed by the prospect of using the spy agency to covertly arm and train rebel groups."

Washington targets all governments not in lockstep with its policy. William Blum calls "democracy" America's deadliest export.

Its imperial agenda makes the world safe for monied interests. Benefitting their bottom line priorities.

"Prevent(ing) the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model," said Blum.

(E)xtend(ing) political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible…"

"This in the name of fighting a supposed moral crusade against what cold warriors convinced themselves, and the American people, was the existence of an evil International Communist Conspiracy, which in fact never existed, evil or not."

Post-WW II, intervened against dozens of nations. Lawlessly. Advancing its imperial agenda. 

In China's 1945-49 civil war. Against communist forces aligned with America against imperial Japan.

In 1947-48, "(u)sed every trick in the book" to prevent communists from gaining power "legally and fairly," said Blum.

In 1947-49, backed Greek fascists against leftists. A reign of terror followed their ascension to power.

In 1945 -53, defeated Filipino leftist Huks. Installed fascist puppets as presidents. Notably Ferdinand Marcos. Replacing him when he fell out of favor.

In 1945-53, suppressed popular South Korean progressive forces. Backed conservative imperial Japanese collaborators. Longstanding corrupt, reactionary, brutal rule followed.

In 1949-53, Washington and Britain unsuccessfully tried toppling Albanian communists. Wanted fascists replacing them.

In the 1950s, CIA operatives conducted wide-ranging "sabotage, terrorism, dirty tricks, an psychological warfare against East Germany," said Blum.

In 1953, Washington ousted Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. The CIA's first coup.

In 1954, Washington toppled Guatemala's Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. In 1952, Truman authorized CIA action. Eisenhower followed through. 

Paramilitary subversion and psychological warfare followed. Forcing him out. Carlos Castillo Armas replaced him. 

Death squad justice followed. So did decades of genocide. Against indigenous Guatemalans.

Eisenhower doctrine said America "is prepared to use armed forces to assist " any Middle East country "requesting assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism."

Meaning America alone usurped right to regional oil. In 1956-58, twice attempted to oust Syria's government.

Landed 14,000 troops in Lebanon. Conspired to topple Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. Targeted Indonesia's Sukarno for replacement. 

CIA operatives "began throwing money into the elections, plotted Sukarno's assassination, tried to blackmail him with a phony sex film, and joined forces with dissident military officers to wage a full-scale war against the government," said Blum.

"Sukarno survived it all." Until later ousted. More on this below.

In 1953-64, British Guyana was targeted. To oust leftist Cheddi Jagan. Democratically elected three times.

Representing the threat of a good example. A successful alternative to predatory capitalism. Forced out in 1964.

US Vietnamese policy is one of its most sordid. Beginning under Truman. Continuing under Eisenhower.

No matter that Ho Chi Minh modeled his declaration of independence after America's. A generation of war followed. Millions of corpses attested to US brutality.

Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk refused to be a US client. Years of US hostility towards his government followed. Including Nixon/Kissinger's secret 1969/70 "carpet bombings."

Ousting Sihanouk in 1970. Facilitating Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's rise to power. According to Blum:

"(F)ive years of American bombing had caused Cambodia's traditional economy to vanish. The old Cambodia had been destroyed forever."

Washington supported Pol Pot. Militarily and diplomatically. Despite his reign of terror.

"In June 1960, Patrice Lumumba became Congo's first prime minister after independence from Belgium," Blum explained.

In 1961 assassinated. On orders from Eisenhower. Followed by "years of civil conflict and chaos and the rise to power of Mobutu Sese Seko."

Retained it for 30 years. At the expense of his people. Deeply impoverished. "Mobutu became a multibillionaire," said Blum.

Washington opposed Brazilian President Joao Goulart's policies. Toppled him in 1964. By military coup. With "covert American involvement," said Blum. Ruthless dictatorship followed.

In February 1963, Juan Bosch became the Dominican Republic's first democratically elected president.

Months later ousted by military coup. Supported by Washington. Nineteen months later revolt tried reinstating him. US forces crushed it.

On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro's guerrilla fores ousted US-backed fascist Fulgencio Batista.

Remained president until his February 2008 retirement. Transformed Cuba from a repressive brothel to a populist state. Defying US imperialism successfully. An exception proving the rule.

In 1965, US-backed General Suharto ousted Sukarno by military coup. A campaign The New York Times called "one of the most savage mass slaying of modern political history." Killing hundreds of thousands.

In 1967, US-supported military putschists replaced Greece's democratically elected government. 

The usual aftermath followed. State terror. Including martial law. Censorship. Mass arrests. 

Targeted killings. Torture and other abuses. Affecting thousands of victims in the regime's first month alone. A seven-year Greek nightmare followed.

On September 11, 1973, US-backed General Augusto Pinochet ousted democratically elected Salvador Allende. 

"Caravan of Death" reign of terror followed. Including mass arrests. Disappearances. Torture. Mass murder. Targeting anyone suspected of regime opposition.

In 1975, Henry Kissinger orchestrated East Timor's invasion. Suharto massacred hundreds of thousands.

From 1978- 89, Washington waged dirty war on Nicaragua's Sandinista government. Using Contra death squads. "Freedom fighters," according to Reagan.

In 1983, America ousted Grenada's Maurice Bishop government. To prevent "another Cuba." Followed by fascist governance.

Blum saying is "US-trained police force and counter-insurgency forces acquired a reputation for brutality, arbitrary arrest, and abuse of authority…"

In 1986, Washington bombed Libya. Targeting Gaddafi. Killing dozens. Wounding many more. Including Gaddafi's two young sons. His infant daughter perished. He survived.

Panama's Manuel Noreiga wasn't convenient US stooge enough. He forgot who's boss. Imprisonment in America, France and Panama followed.

At the cost of thousands of Panamanian lives. Many others wounded. Around 15,000 left homeless.

America's 1980-92 war on Salvadoran freedom took around 75,000 lives.

US supported Balkan wars raged throughout the 1990s. Balkanizing the former Yugoslavia. Seven countries replaced one.

Culminating with US-led NATO raping Yugoslavia in 1999. For 78 days. Using 600 warplanes. Flying 3,000 sorties.

Using thousands of tons of ordnance. Unprecedented up to that time. Inflicting mass slaughter and destruction. Naked aggression. Dirty war. Civilians suffered most.

Washington supported Haitian father and son Duvalier despots for 30 years. CIA operatives worked with death squads. Torturers. Drug traffickers.

Twice ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office. Haiti's first ever democratically elected president. Overwhelmingly supported. Replaced by despotic rule.

January 17, 1991 - February 28 Operation Desert Shield destroyed the cradle of civilization. 

In 2003, Bush II continued where Bush I and Clinton left off. Ousting Saddam. Nonexistent WMDs the pretext. 

Current Iraqi cauldron of violence conditions worse than ever. Obama's Iraq war III bears much responsibility.

Bush's Afghan war was planned months before launching. Continues without end. 

America's longest war. Its most expensive. Permanent occupation planned. 

Afghans are some of the world's most long-suffering people. For decades because of US imperial policy.

US-led NATO's Libyan aggression transformed Africa's most developed nation into dystopian harshness. Out-of-control violence rages.

Obama's war on Syria continues. IS is the pretext. Assad the target. Regime change the objective.

Washington wages propaganda, political, economic, social and hot wars against all sovereign independent states. State terror by any standard. 

Part of its plan for unchallenged world dominance. Risking humanity's survival. 

Rogue states operate this way. America's exceeds history's worst.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.