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Historical Title: “Democratic Institutions?” – 10 Lessons From History That Will Destroy Your Trust in the CIA This article was originally published by offGuardian. *** In the hysterical wake of the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki, President Donald Trump was roundly criticised in the media for taking the side of a hostile state over his own intelligence agencies. The Guardian referred to Mueller as a heroic marine who Trump disbelieved in favour of a Russian dictator. In the past, when Trump has criticised the FBI, CIA or NSA he has been accused of undermining faith in our institutions. Hes been blamed for a collapse of trust in the government. But was this trust ever earned? At every corner, we are urged to simply believe what we are told. Whether it is about believing Porton Down and MI6 about novichok, or believing the White Helmets about Sarin, or believing the FBI about collusion, we are presented with no facts, just assertions from authority. Those who question those assertions are deemed bots at best or traitors at worst. Well here, fellow traitors, are the Top Ten reasons to question anything and everything the CIA or any intelligence agency has ever told you. 10. OPERATION PAPERCLIP well start with an oldie but a goody. In 1945, as the allies were advancing on Berlin from both sides, American Army Intelligence (this was before the CIA were founded) were capturing (read: recruiting) over 1600 Nazi scientists and engineers. Most famous of them was Werhner von Braun
sorry, SS Sturmbannführer von Braun. Whilst Allied soldiers died in the name of defeating fascism, the CIAs predecessors were actively recruiting Nazis to come and build bombs for them. 9. OPERATION NORTHWOODS The original, and important, precedent for accusations that the CIA et al. might engage in false-flag attacks. Operation Northwoods was a joint CIA/Pentagon proposal designed around the idea of escalating a war with Cuba by stoking public anger: The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets, blaming it on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba. The idea was vetoed by President Kennedy. Fifty years later, the CIA and Pentagon still very much exist, but theres no longer a Kennedy there to veto their more psychopathic ideas. Funny how that worked out. 8. ALLENDE COUP In 1970 Salvador Allende was elected to the Chilean Presidency. A Physician and dedicated socialist, Allende was the first socialist president elected in South America. The Nixon-lead government of the United States immediately implemented economic warfare (as they do, to this day, against Cuba, Venezuela and others). The economic warfare did not work, and in 1973 Allendes socialist party increased their parliamentary majority. In response, the US assisted (read: instructed) the Chilean military in carrying out a coup. Allende allegedly shot himself, and Augusto Pinochet was placed in power as the first dictator in Chiles history. Pinochet was a fascist who executed Chilean subversives by the thousand
and was the darling of Western leaders. 7. MOSADDEGH COUP I could just copy-and-paste the above paragraph and the change the names for this entry. In 1953, the Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh, a democratic socialist wanted to audit the income of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company with an eye to limiting foreign control of Irans oil. Within a few months, a joint US/UK operation Operation Ajax had removed Mosaddeghs elected government and turned over full control of the state to the Shah. He was a brutal absolute monarch, but the question of Western control of Irans enormous oil reserves wasnt raised again under his leadership. 6. OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD A CIA operation that you could deduce existed, even if were not proven
.and it is proven. Mockingbird was the CIA project to coerce, train, control or plant CIA-friendly journalists in major news networks all across the country and in every medium. Its existence is no longer disputed, thanks to FOIA releases of internal memos. Mockingbird was allegedly shut down in 1976 just after its existence was leaked then CIA director George HW Bush claiming:
effective immediately, CIA will not enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station. If youre willing to stake anything on the word of a Bush, well, good luck with that. Its a decision that flies in the face of historical evidence. Remember this one when you hear about the need to trust the CIA from some pundit on CNN or MSNBC. 5. MASS SURVEILLANCE Its not really talked about much these days what with the vast majority of the media and huge sections of the supposedly anti-establishment progressive left marching in-step with the Deep State but the NSA spied on the whole world. The whole world. We know this to be true because an employee of the Deep State Edward Snowden leaked the information. When challenged on this issue, representatives of the NSA and CIA lied. They lied to the public, and they lied to congress. When they were proven to have lied, they carefully qualified their lies. A qualified lie is still a lie. There is no indication they have stopped this illegal surveillance, but they may have passed laws to make it legal. 4. NAYIRAH A classic of atrocity propaganda, Nayirah should be required reading material for anybody looking to hop on a pro-war bandwagon. Nayirah who originally gave only her first name was a fifteen year old girl who testified in front of the United States Congress. She claimed to be a volunteer from at a Kuwaiti hospital, and to be an eye-witness to Iraqi soldiers throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators and leaving them to die: I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital with twelve other women who wanted to help as well. I was the youngest volunteer. The other women were from twenty to thirty years old. While I was there I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor. It was horrifying. It was later revealed, not only that her full name was Nayirah al-Sabah and she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, but that she had never volunteered at a hospital and had seen no babies, soldiers or incubators. The whole thing was a fiction. A fiction paid for by the Citizens of Free Kuwait, an NGO (and obvious CIA front) set up to lobby the US to intervene in the Iraq-Kuwait war. By the time this fiction was revealed it was too late, and the US had launched Operation Desert Storm
.which was, of course, the entire point of the exercise Remember this, when you hear about Assad gassing children or bombing kittens. 3. COINTELPRO The FBIs long running (and sometimes illegal) COunter INTELligence PROgram, COINTELPRO was a series of domestic projects carried out by the FBI (with cooperation from other agencies), over decades, with the aim of surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations. These political organizations included anti-Vietnam protestors, civil rights groups (including both MLK and Malcolm X), socialists, Communist Party USA, environmental groups and feminist organizations. The brief for these disruptions came straight from J. Edgar Hoover who wanted the FBI to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise Neutralizepeople he perceived to be enemies of the state. The capital N in neutralise is no accident, as the FBI was implicated in the deaths of several Black Panther leaders, including Fred Hampton. COINTELPRO didnt just involve undermining left-wing groups, but also creating right-wing groups: The FBI also financed, armed, and controlled an extreme right-wing group of former Minutemen, transforming it into a group called the Secret Army Organization that targeted groups, activists, and leaders involved in the Anti-War Movement, using both intimidation and violent acts. Whether this was done to actually push a right-wing agenda, create a fake threat to step up police powers, or just sow division and chaos, is unclear. But it definitely happened. Much like MKUltra (below), COINTELPRO was officially shut down, not long after the public found out it existed. However, the accidental outing of undercover policeman at a rally in Oakland, and recent relaxation of the laws limiting the FBIs powers, means that COINTELPRO or a modern successor is very likely still a thing. The aim of COINTELPRO was to Neutralize anti-establishment political figures the vast majority of targets were left wingers through smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media. Remember that when you see Rand Paul called a traitor on twitter, or read about Russian collusion, or see Jeremy Corbyn branded an anti-Semite. Remember that it is proven that the Deep State our trusted intelligence agencies pay people to plant false stories and discredit political opponents. 2. PROJECT MKULTRA It might sound like something from a 70s sci-fi TV series, but it is unfortunately real. MKUltra was a series of (illegal) experiments carried out by the CIA from 1953 until it was *cough* officially halted in 1973 (just after its existence was leaked). The experiments were wide-ranging, achieved varied levels of success, but pretty uniformly brutal and unethical. They included, but were not limited too: Giving LSD to unsuspecting soldiers to see what happened. Well never know the full range of studies, or how they were carried out, because in 1973 Richard Helms, then director of the CIA, ordered all MKUltra files destroyed. Only a fraction of them survive, thanks to FOIA requests, but its reasonable to assume they destroyed the worst parts and kept the more quote-unquote innocent files. The CIA were not unique in this regard either, MKUltra was their baby but there were parallel projects in other quarters of the deep state. Army Intelligence had Edgewood Arsenal, whilst the Department of Defense had Project 112. All these projects were officially halted in the early 70s
just around the time the public found out they existed. The CIA (et al.) have strongly denied that these experiments and projects have ever been continued in any way, shape or form
but if youd asked them in 1969, they would have denied they had ever taken place at all. 1. THE IRAQ WAR This might not be the most callous, the most dangerous, the most recent, the most secret or the most insidious of the items on this list, nevertheless it is must be number one
because it is the most brazen. The war was started in the name of weapons of mass destruction that everyone everyone knew never existed. They all knew the truth, but they lied. The President lied, the vice-president lied, the secretary of defence lied, the secretary of state lied. The Prime Minister lied, the defence minister lied, the foreign minister lied. They lied to the press, the people and the UN. The CIA, the NSA, the FBI then headed by the heroic marine Robert Mueller they lied too. The press repeated these lies, without question (see: Operation Mockingbird). They werent misinformed, they werent mistaken. They lied, they lied repeatedly and provably and they did it in order to start a war, make money, take control, spread influence. One million Iraqis died. Our ruling class is peopled with psychopaths and war criminals, who have so little regard for the people they lie to they recycle the same childishly simple falsehoods to further their evil agenda again and again and again. They tried the same in Libya
it worked again. They tried again in Syria
luckily, it didnt work there. Our democratic institutions lie to start wars. Theres no reason to think they arent doing or wouldnt do the same thing about Iran, North Korea
or Russia. Thats our list, and theres really only one lesson you can take away from it: These people, agencies and institutions deserve no trust, have earned no trust and have abused every micron of trust ever placed in them. To suggest we have a duty to believe them or that they have ever done anything to serve the public good is to live in a dream world. This list is not a full catalogue of Deep State crimes, it would be 1000s of entries long if it were, but these ten are important. Theyre important because they are admitted, proven and beyond debate. They are important because they show the many facets of dishonesty, hypocrisy and abuses of power that Intelligence agencies engage in, and they are important because they form the best riposte to the disingenuous clamour for trust in our democratic institutions. Never trust the CIA, they have proved they dont deserve it.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 7.
#7. To: Deckard (#0)
Intelligence failures get enormous attention [RIGHT, Deckard?] while intelligence successes are often unsung and unappreciated. The analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency in 1967 predicted the outcome of the June war well in advance and gave President Lyndon Johnson confidence that Israel was never in jeopardy. It was an analytic triumph. When the crisis began in May 1967, the CIAs Office of Current Intelligence (OCI) had already created a task force to monitor and assess developments between Israel and its Arab neighbors because of the steady buildup of tensions earlier in the year. On the day after Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran, May 23, President Johnson asked the Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms for an immediate assessment of the likely outcome of a war. Helms presented the OCI assessment only a few hours after LBJs request. It concluded that Israel could successfully defend itself against any combination of Arab enemies if attacked simultaneously on all sides and initiate a major offensive as well. Helms assured the president and his national security team that Israel was not in danger and would win any military conflict. Israel had battlefield dominance over the Arabs, especially in the air. Two days later, the Israeli government provided its own intelligence assessment to Washington, which painted a much more alarming threat. Helms had his analysts check the Israeli military intelligence judgments. Within five hours, they came back with an appraisal concluding that the Israeli analysis was not a serious intelligence estimate but a political gambit designed to influence the American administration. Its calculations of Arab, especially Egyptian strength, were not accurate. The agency also judged that the Soviet Union would stay out of the war. It noted that the Russians had provided considerable support for Egypts five years- old war in Yemen against Saudi-backed royalist insurgents, but argued that Moscow would be much more restrained against the much more capable Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The Yemeni war, which had cost Cairo 25,000 casualties already, remained a costly diversion for Egypt from the Sinai battlefield. Indeed the disastrous performance of the Egyptian army in Yemen did much to influence the agencys analysis of the threat the Egyptian military posed to Israel. The Egyptian expeditionary force in Yemenwhich peaked at 70,000 troops had been unable to defeat the much less-equipped Royalists despite years of effort. The track record of the largest Arab army was well known to the American experts. The analysis also dismissed talk of Arab unity as fiction. No serious coordination existed between the Arab states or their military establishments. The Arab Cold War kept military cooperation non-existent. The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency produced a joint paper at the end of May that judged Israel would win any war and take the Sinai in several days. At the beginning of June, based on a meeting with the head of the Mossad, Helms told LBJ that it was his conclusion that war was imminent and would be initiated by the Israelis. He soon was proven right on both counts. When the war began, the agency was quick to tell the White House that Israel had fired the first shots with its air strikes against the Egyptians, contrary to the Israeli account. It was the OCIs high-water mark. Years later, Helms told me after his retirement that the accuracy of the agencys estimates in May and June 1967 gained him great credibility with the president. LBJ made Helms a regular lunch partner at his weekly meetings with his top national security advisers after his performance in the Middle East. The story of the success has been declassified and published by the CIAs historical office. Two months after the war, the U.S. intelligence community produced an assessment of the results. Half of Egypts 1,000 tanks were destroyed or captured and two-thirds of its air force destroyed; the Royal Jordanian Air Force was totally annihilated and two-thirds of Jordans 200 tanks were lost; and the Syrians had lost most of their air force. Israel had lost less than 100 of its 1,100 tanks and only 24 of 450 jet pilots. Arab casualties were 10 times more than Israeli ones. Of course, six years later OCIand the Israeli intelligencewas caught by surprise by the October 1973 war. The agency then relied far too heavily on the IDFs judgment that the Arabs would not make war, ignoring the overwhelming evidence that an attack was comingincluding a secret warning from Jordans King Hussein. In the ultimate bureaucratic price, OCI was reorganized out of existence, due to that failure.
#9. To: Liberator (#7)
Liberator....I didnt forget the attrition on this one. But it may happen again that I do. So, you be a good boy now and keep closely monitoring my post so you can be of help to me if I again should.
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