Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: notorious terrorist or American agent?

MAR 26, 2024

Zarqawi, once a petty criminal turned Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq and the US posterchild for takfiri terrorism, served as a US intelligence asset tasked with quelling Iraq’s resistance to occupation and fanning sectarian hate for the benefit of both Tel Aviv and Washington.

(Photo Credit: The Cradle)

William Van Wagenen

Ranked second only to Osama bin Laden, the US’s most notorious declared enemy during the so-called War on Terror was Jordanian jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

But a closer examination of Zarqawi’s life and his impact on events in Iraq shows that he was likely a product and tool of US intelligence.

Neoconservative strategists within the administration of George W. Bush utilized Zarqawi as a pawn to justify the illegal US invasion of Iraq in 2003 to the American public.

Moreover, he was instrumental in fomenting internal discord within Iraqi resistance groups opposing the US occupation, ultimately instigating a sectarian civil war between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia communities.

Israel’s plan unfolds in Iraq 

This deliberate strategy of tension in Iraq advanced Tel Aviv’s goal of perpetuating the country’s vulnerabilities, dividing populations along sectarian lines, and weakening its army’s ability to challenge Israel in the region.

It has long been known that the CIA created Al-Qaeda as part of its covert war on the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan in the 1980s and supported Al-Qaeda elements in various wars, including in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Chechnya in the 1990s.

Additionally, evidence points to CIA support for Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups during the clandestine war in Syria launched in 2011 amid the so-called Arab Spring. 

Despite this history, western journalists, analysts, and historians still take at face value that Zarqawi and AQI were sworn enemies of the US. 

Without understanding Zarqawi’s role as a US intelligence asset, it is impossible to understand the destructive role the US (and Israel) played in the bloodshed inflicted on Iraq, not only during the initial 2003 invasion but in launching the subsequent sectarian strife as well.

It is also essential to understand the importance of current Iraqi efforts to expel US forces and rid the country of US influence moving forward. 

Who was Zarqawi?

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was born Ahmed Fadhil Nazar al-Khalaylah but later changed his name to reflect his birthplace, Zarqa, an industrial area near Amman, Jordan. In and out of prison in his youth, he would become radicalized during his time behind bars. 

Zarqawi traveled to Afghanistan to fight with the CIA-backed mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. Upon his return to Jordan, he helped start a local Islamic militant group called Jund al-Sham and was imprisoned in 1992.

After his release from prison following a general amnesty, Zarqawi returned to Afghanistan in 1999. The Atlantic notes that he first met Osama bin Laden at this time, who suspected that Zarqawi’s group had been infiltrated by Jordanian intelligence while in prison, which accounted for his early release.

Zarqawi then fled Afghanistan to the pro-US Kurdistan region of northern Iraq and established a training camp for his fighters in the fateful year of 2001.

The missing link

Eager to implicate Iraq in the 9/11 attacks, it wasn’t long before the Bush administration officials soon used Zarqawi’s presence to shroud Washington’s geopolitical agendas there. 

In February 2003, at the UN Security Council, US Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed that Zarqawi’s presence in Iraq proved Saddam was harboring a terrorist network, necessitating a US invasion.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, “This assertion was later disproved, but it irreversibly thrust Zarqawi’s name into the international spotlight.”

Powell made the claim even though the Kurdish region of Iraq, where Zarqawi established his base, was effectively under US control. The US air force imposed a no-fly zone on the region after the 1991 Gulf War. Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, was also known to have a presence there, a reality that Iran actively acknowledges and remains vigilant about.

Curiously, despite Zarqawi’s base being nestled within the confines of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Bush administration opted for inaction when presented with a golden opportunity to neutralize him.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon drew up detailed plans in June 2002 to strike Zarqawi’s training camp but that “the raid on Mr Zarqawi didn’t take place. Months passed with no approval of the plan from the White House.” 

Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, justified the inaction by claiming “the camp was of interest only because it was believed to be producing chemical weapons,” even though the threat of chemical and biological weapons falling into the hands of terrorists was supposedly the most important reason for toppling Saddam Hussein’s government. 

In contrast, General John M. Keane, the US Army’s vice chief of staff at the time, explained that the intelligence on Zarqawi’s presence in the camp was “sound,” the risk of collateral damage was low, and that the camp was “one of the best targets we ever had.” 

The Bush administration firmly refused to approve the strikes, despite US General Tommy Franks pointing to Zarqawi’s camp as among the “examples of the terrorist ‘harbors’ that President Bush had vowed to crush.” 

As soon as Zarqawi’s presence in Iraq had accomplished its initial purpose of selling the war on Iraq to the US public, and after the March 2003 invasion was already underway, the White House finally approved targeting his camp with airstrikes. But by then, the Wall Street Journal adds, Zarqawi had already fled the area.

Singling out Shiites 

Then, in January 2004, the key pillar of the Bush administration’s justification for war unraveled. David Kay, the weapons inspector tasked with finding Iraq’s WMDs, publicly declared, “I don’t think they exist,” after nine months of searching. 

The Guardian reported that the failure to locate any WMDs was such a devastating blow to the rationale for invading Iraq that now “even Bush was rewriting the reasons for going to war.”

On 9 February, as the WMD embarrassment mounted, Secretary of State Powell again claimed that before the invasion, Zarqawi “was active in Iraq and doing things that should have been known to the Iraqis. And we’re still looking for those connections and to prove those connections.”

Two weeks before, US intelligence had conveniently made public a 17-page letter it claimed Zarqawi had written. Its author claimed responsibility for multiple terror attacks, argued that fighting Iraq’s Shia was more important than fighting the occupying US army, and vowed to spark a civil war between the country’s Sunni and Shia communities. 

In subsequent months, US officials attributed a series of brutal bombings targeting Iraq’s Shia to Zarqawi without providing evidence of his involvement. 

In March 2004, suicide attacks on Shia shrines in Karbala and the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad killed 200 worshippers commemorating Ashura. In April, car bombings in the Shia-majority city of Basra in southern Iraq killed at least 50.

Regarding the Karbala and Kadhimiya attacks, Al-Qaeda issued a statement through Al-Jazeera strongly denying any involvement, but Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) head Paul Bremer insisted Zarqawi was involved.

Zarqawi’s alleged attacks on Iraq’s Shia helped drive a wedge between the Sunni and Shia resistance to the US occupation and sowed the seeds of a future sectarian war.

This proved helpful to the US army, which was trying to prevent Sunni and Shia factions from joining forces in resistance to the occupation.

‘Dividing our enemies’

In April 2004, President Bush ordered a full-scale invasion to take control of Fallujah, a city in Anbar province that had become the epicenter of the Sunni resistance. 

Vowing to “pacify” the city, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt launched the attack using helicopter gunships, unmanned surveillance drones, and F-15 warplanes. 

The attack became controversial as the Marines killed many civilians, destroyed large numbers of homes and buildings, and displaced the majority of the city’s residents.

Eventually, due to widespread public pressure, President Bush was forced to call off the assault, and Fallujah became a ‘no-go’ zone for US forces.

The failure to maintain troops on the ground in Fallujah had US planners turning back to their Zarqawi card to weaken the Sunni resistance from within. In June, a senior Pentagon official claimed that “fresh information” had come to light showing Zarqawi “may be hiding in the Sunni stronghold city of Fallujah.”

The Pentagon official “cautioned, however, that the information is not specific enough to allow a military operation to be launched to try to find al-Zarqawi.”

The sudden appearance of Zarqawi and other Jihadists in Fallujah at this time was not an accident. 

In a report written for the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) entitled “Dividing our enemies,” Thomas Henriksen explained that the US military used Zarqawi to exploit differences among its enemies in Fallujah and elsewhere.

He writes that the US military maintained the goal of “fomenting enemy-on-enemy deadly encounters” so that America’s “enemies eliminate each other,” adding that “When divisions were absent, American operators instigated them.”

The Fallujah Case Study

Henriksen then cites events in Fallujah in the fall of 2004 as “a case study” that “showcased the clever machinations required to set insurgents battling insurgents.” 

He explained that the takfiri–Salafi views of Zarqawi and his fellow jihadis caused tension with local insurgents who were nationalists and embraced a Sufi religious outlook. Local insurgents also opposed Zarqawi’s tactics, which included kidnapping foreign journalists, killing civilians through indiscriminate bombings, and sabotaging the country’s oil and electricity infrastructure. 

Henriksen further explained that US psychological operations, which took “advantage of and deepened the intra-insurgent forces” in Fallujah, led to “nightly gun battles not involving coalition forces.”

These divisions soon extended to the other Sunni resistance strongholds of Ramadi in Anbar province and the Adhamiya district of Baghdad.

The divisions instigated by US intelligence through Zarqawi in Fallujah paved the way for another US invasion of the restive city in November 2004, days after Bush secured re-election.

BBC journalist Mark Urban reported that 2,000 bodies were recovered after the battle, including hundreds of civilians.

Conveniently, “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was not among the dead,” having slipped through the US cordon around the city before the assault began, Urban added.

Domestic consumption 

US military intelligence later acknowledged using psychological operations to promote Zarqawi’s role in the Sunni insurgency fighting against the US occupation. 

The Washington Post reported in April 2006 that “The US military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq,” which helped “the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the 11 September 2001 attacks.”

The Post quotes US Colonel Derek Harvey as explaining, “Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will – made him more important than he really is.”

As the Post reports further, the internal documents detailing the psychological operation campaign “explicitly list the ‘US Home Audience’ as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.”

The campaign to promote Zarqawi also proved helpful to President Bush during his re-election campaign in October 2004. When Democratic challenger John Kerry called the war in Iraq a diversion from the so-called War on Terror in Afghanistan, President Bush responded by claiming:

“The case of one terrorist shows how wrong [Kerry’s] thinking is. The terrorist leader we face in Iraq today, the one responsible for planting car bombs and beheading Americans, is a man named Zarqawi.”

Who killed Nick Berg?

Nick Berg, a US contractor in Iraq, was allegedly beheaded by Zarqawi. In May 2004, western news outlets published a video showing Berg, dressed in an orange Guantanamo-style jumpsuit, being beheaded by a group of masked men.

A masked man claiming to be Zarqawi stated in the video that Berg’s killing was in response to the US torture of detainees in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

Berg was in Iraq trying to win reconstruction contracts and disappeared just days after he spent a month in US detention in Mosul, where he was interrogated multiple times by the FBI.

On 8 May, a month after his disappearance, the US military claimed they found his decapitated body on the side of a road near Baghdad.

But US claims that Zarqawi killed Berg are not credible. As the Sydney Morning Herald reported at the time, there is evidence the beheading video was staged and included footage from Berg’s FBI interrogation. It was uploaded to the internet not from Iraq but from London and remained online just long enough for CNN and Fox News to download it. 

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt also lied about Berg having been in US military custody, claiming instead he had only been held by the Iraqi police in Mosul.

But the video cemented in the minds of the American public that Zarqawi and Al-Qaeda were major terror threats. 

Such was the impact in the US, that following the video’s release, the terms ‘Nick Berg’ and ‘Iraq war’ temporarily replaced pornography and celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears as the internet’s main searches.

Sectarianism, a key US–Israeli goal

Large-scale sectarian war erupted following the February 2006 bombing of the Shia Al-Askari Shrine in the Sunni city of Samarra in central Iraq, although the full extent was mitigated thanks to religious guidance issued by the highest and most influential Shia authority in the land, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Al-Qaeda did not take credit for the attack, but President Bush later claimed that “the bombing of the shrine was an Al-Qaeda plot, all intending to create sectarian violence.”

Zarqawi was finally killed in a US airstrike a few months later, on 7 June 2006. An Iraqi legislator, Wael Abdul-Latif, said Zarqawi had the phone numbers of senior Iraqi officials stored in his cell phone at the time of his death, further showing Zarqawi was being used by elements within the US-backed Iraqi government.

By the time of Zarqawi’s death, the neoconservative agenda to divide and weaken Iraq through instigating chaos and sectarian conflict had reached its pinnacle. This goal was further exacerbated by the emergence of a successor group to AQI – ISIS – which played an outsized role a few years later in destabilizing neighboring Syria, igniting sectarian tensions there, and providing the justification for the renewal of a US military mandate in Iraq.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

Houthis Set Oil Tanker Ablaze While Biden Tries to Woo China

JANUARY 27, 2024

Source

MIKE WHITNEY 

On Friday, Houthi militants fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from mainland Yemen striking a British oil tanker and setting it ablaze. “US Central Command said the Marlin Luanda had issued a distress call and reported damage” but no casualties were reported. The attack represents a significant escalation in the deepening conflict between the US-led coalition and the Yemen-based Houthis.

Here’s the question that every American should be asking himself: Is Israel’s war in Gaza strengthening or weakening America’s position in the world?

If there is some material benefit for the United States, then there might be a reasonable argument for continuing to support the policy. But if there is no benefit whatsoever, then the policy should changed.

So, the real question is whether the US gains something from flouting international law and being an active participant in acts of barbarity against a civilian population?

How does America benefit from that?

It doesn’t, in fact, the present arrangement only benefits America’s rivals, like China and Russia, who have steadily grown stronger due to Washington’s erratic and violent behavior. The administration’s blanket support for Israel, has merely accelerated the pace at which nations in the global south and around the world are realigning with Moscow and Beijing. This isn’t a choice that foreign leaders want to make, it’s a choice they are compelled to make in order to guarantee their own security. That’s the bottom line. The idea that a population of 2 million people can be impulsively erased because of the offenses of a small group of militants, terrifies people. And what terrifies them even more is the fact that international law provides no enforceable protection for the people that are getting clobbered.

This is particularly extraordinary in the current case because—as we all know—the population that is being bombed to smithereens is all of a particular ethnicity and religion, (Arab, Muslim) which means they are being targeted for things over which they have no control. Of the two million people that are presently being herded to the Egyptian border, none of them are Jews. That is not a coincidence. That’s discrimination on a scale that should horrify everyone. Imagine if Biden got tired of the daily shootings in Chicago’s South Side and decided to gather all the black people in the country and drive them to the Mexican border where they would rot in tent cities without food, water or medicine. Would that be an acceptable solution?

And, yet, that’s what’s taking place right now in Gaza. Netanyahu says he won’t let up until “Hamas is defeated”. but what does that mean?

It means he is going to continue doing what he’s been doing for the last 110 days.

But, on what basis does he justify these actions. Let me explain what I mean by using a hypothetical:

Let’s say a terrorist organization bombs the Capital building in Washington DC. And, immediately following the bombing, the FBI discovers ironclad proof that the group has been operating out of terrorist cells located in downtown New York City. Now, normally, the FBI would follow certain protocols and methods for apprehending as many of the terrorists as possible while trying to minimize the “collateral damage.” But, this time, the FBI decides to invoke the Israeli method of fighting terrorism by carpet-bombing lower Manhattan with Tomahawk missiles and Daisy Cutters forcing millions of terrified New Yorkers to flee across the border into New Jersey.

Is that a reasonable way of dealing with terrorism? More importantly, can the existence of terrorist cells ever be used as a justification for reducing an entire city to smoldering rubble?

Of course, not. It’s ridiculous, and yet, that’s what Israel is doing. They are flattening all of Gaza in the name of “defeating Hamas.” Who could have imagined that the extermination of an entire civilization could rest on such a flimsy pretext?

One last thing:

It’s not enough that the Biden administration is providing lethal weapons and logistical support to Israel. Now, Biden has decided to wage war against on Houthis, as well. The President objects to the fact that the Houthis have imposed a blockade on Israeli-linked commercial ships in the Red Sea (in order to pressure Israel to end its blockade of food and medicine to the Palestinians.) So, the US and UK have been launching multiple missile strikes on cities and infrastructure in Yemen. The US attacks are intended to persuade the Houthis to abandon their blockade but, so far, there are no signs that they are degrading the Houthis offensive capability at all. In contrast, The Houthi blockade is having significant impact on Israel’s economy while their attacks on commercial ships have steadily intensified. In short, the Houthis appear to be winning.

On Wednesday, the Houthis fired three anti-ship ballistic missiles from the mainland at two container ships transiting the Gulf of Aden. According to a report from CENTCOM two of the missiles were intercepted by a US warship while one landed in the water. According to antiwar.com:

“Later in the day, the Houthis said their forces engaged in a two-hour battle with several US warships. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea claimed the confrontation resulted in a Houthi missile “directly hitting an American warship, but so far, the US has not confirmed the account.”

Bottom line: The Houthi attacks forced the two commercial ships (the Maersk Detroit and the Maersk Chesapeake) to turn-around and beat a hasty retreat. In other words, the Houthi blockade held-up despite the presence of a state-of-the-art AEGIS destroyer (the USS Gravely) that was escorting the ships through the waterway. This is a clear victory for the Houthis and further proof that US naval convoys will not be able to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

But will that nudge Biden towards the bargaining table?

Of course, not. Biden’s not going to throw in the towel. He’s going to up-the-ante like US presidents always do. So, things are going to get progressively worse. Bet on it.

Here’s more from Sal Mercogliano, host of You Tube’s “What’s going On With Shipping”. Mercogliano is a former merchant mariner and teaches courses in maritime history. This is a blurb from Thursday’s show:

The Houthis have done something unheard of…. They have interdicted 11% of world trade and they are forcing it to go around Africa. You’ve got to go back to the world wars to find a naval power to emerge that makes trade lanes bend and interdict supplies. That’s what the Houthis have done. And they are doing it with Iranian hand-me-down missiles duct-taped together and being launched and hitting (their targets) The only savings grace, is that the missiles are so crappy, that they don’t blow up like they’re supposed to.

Understand, this won’t last long, because once there is the realization that the Houthis are not damaging the ships enough, then you’ll see a resumption of trade and the Houthi will ramp it up again. and they will try to sink and kill crew members. Understand, I don’t think they are doing this consciously right now, it’s just that the missiles just aren’t that great. If, they see the potential here, then they will do it. Understand, this is a targeted attack against the United States of America. This is what led to our entry into World War 1.

Houthi Attack 2 US Containerships – Maersk Detroit and Maersk Chesapeake, You Tube; Minute 15:30

Once again, is this going to escalate?

Of course, it’s going to escalate. Because now it’s a matter of national pride. The US cannot allow itself to seen as caving in to a ragtag militia that has essentially seized control of one of the world’s most critical transit corridors. That cannot stand! Which is why the US launched its ninth massive missile attack on Yemen on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, the Houthis responded tit-for-tat by firing on British oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden. Here’s a recap from CNN:

An oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden is on fire after a missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi militants, in the latest incident linked to the Iran-backed group in the key shipping route.

The operator of the British oil tanker Marlin Luanda said Friday the vessel had been “struck by a missile in the Gulf of Aden after transiting the Red Sea,” and that “firefighting equipment on board is being deployed to suppress and control the fire caused in one cargo tank on the starboard side.”

The Iran-backed militants claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement that they had fired on the tanker in response to the “American–British aggression against our country [Yemen]” and in support of the Palestinian people. Oil tanker on fire in Gulf of Aden after Houthi missile attack, CNN

So, now an oil tanker has been hit which means the stakes keep getting higher all the time. Is this what Biden had in mind when he deployed his flotilla to the Red Sea? Did he really want another war 8 thousand miles away from America’s shores?

And who is winning this war: The United States or the Houthis?

If you are in doubt about that question, just take a look at this clip from the Wall Street Journal:

“Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser of the USA, is on his way to Thailand – where he will meet with Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China, in an attempt to pressure him to influence the Houthis to stop the attacks in the Red Sea”

WTF? So, Biden wants China to pressure the Houthis to ease the blockade? Is that what’s going on?

No, not exactly. It’s actually much worse than that. Here’s the story from Reuters:

The United States has asked China to urge Tehran to rein in the Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea but has seen little sign of help from Beijing, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing U.S. officials.

The U.S. has repeatedly raised the matter with top Chinese officials in the past three months, the report said. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Jon Finer, discussed the issue in meetings this month in Washington with Liu Jianchao, head of the International Liaison Department of China’s Communist Party, the newspaper said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also raised the issue with his Chinese counterpart, the report said, adding U.S. officials believe there was little evidence that China had put any pressure on Iran to restrain the Houthis beyond a mild statement Beijing issued last week… US asks China to urge Iran to curb Red Sea attacks by Houthis -FT, Reuters

Let me get this straight: The United States wants China to urge Tehran to rein in the Iranian-aligned Houthis?

Really? But didn’t Biden designate China as America’s Enemy Number 1 in his 2022 National Security Strategy? And hasn’t Biden been trying to enlist more and more nations into his anti-China coalition? And hasn’t Biden deployed the Navy multiple times to hector and harass China in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait? But now he’s sent his envoys to beg for a favor?

What gall!

But—despite what you read in the western media—China isn’t ‘falling for it’, mainly because China has had the right policy from the very beginning. So, there’s no reason to change a thing. China opposed Houthi attacks on commercial vessels from the onset. That hasn’t changed. By the same token, they oppose US military intervention and think that the US deliberately misled the Security Council to get a resolution that they used as a pretext for attacking Yemen. China opposes that, too, and they always have.

But, most important is that China’s leaders do not accept that the troubles in the Red Sea are divorced from Israel’s rampage in Gaza. They see them as the unavoidable spillover from the Israel-Palestine crisis which must be addressed directly. Check out this excerpt from an editorial at the Global Times:

Western media recently reported that the US has asked China to urge Tehran to rein in the pro-Iran Houthi militants, which are attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea… Since the outbreak of the Red Sea crisis, China has maintained close communication with all parties involved to ease tensions and has made proactive efforts. China has consistently called for an end to the attacks on civilian vessels and urged relevant parties to avoid exacerbating the tense situation in the Red Sea, in order to jointly safeguard the security of the Red Sea waterway….

Since the recent escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict, US officials have repeatedly asked China to leverage this relationship and exert “influence” on Iran…

The recent US airstrikes against Houthi forces have not yielded the expected results, and attacks on commercial ships have not diminished. Several Western media outlets have commented that military strikes will only backfire. Pentagon officials also admitted that the military campaign against the Houthi forces is not working….

It is not surprising that the US finds itself in such a situation because it either fails or refuses to recognize the root cause of the Red Sea crisis. While Houthi forces are responsible for harassing civilian ships, the crisis stems from the overflow of the Gaza conflict. All parties need to return to the core issue of achieving an immediate ceasefire and implementing the “two-state solution” for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If the US does not grasp this point and continues to intensify military strikes against the Red Sea stakeholders, the result will only be to perpetuate a cycle of escalating violence. Moreover, concerning the core issue of the Gaza conflict, the US has yet to demonstrate a sincere stance toward peace and dialogue, contributing to the escalating tensions in the Red Sea region…. If US Needs China in the Red Sea, It Should Talk to China Nicely, The Global Times

China is not “playing sides” or “picking winners”. It is simply stating the obvious; that the fracas in the Red Sea can’t be separated from the Israel-Palestine crisis; they are one-and-the-same. The United States needs to recommit to the remedy that has already been approved many times over, and which the vast majority of countries still support; the “two-state solution”. That has been standard US policy for 75 years, and Biden’s crazed effort to abandon that policy has created the catastrophe we see today.

TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL’S COVERT AGENDA: A PAWN IN WESTERN INTELLIGENCE’S GAME

SEPTEMBER 7TH, 2023

Source

Kit Klarenberg

On July 24, it was revealed that Transparency International’s New Zealand wing had enlisted the specialist advice of some of the country’s biggest, most notorious lobbying firms on improving ethical standards in the political and corporate lobbying industry. A local businessman, who’d independently offered to assist TINZ in cleaning up the sector, blew the whistle.

Expressing “astonishment,” they compared TINZ’s consultation of high-ranking lobbyists on how to clean up their own industry as akin to “police recruiting gang members to determine new rules on pursuit of fleeing drivers.” Yet, anyone familiar with Transparency International’s history would hardly be surprised.

Founded by World Bank apparatchiks in 1993, Transparency International (TI) has relentlessly exposed public sector corruption in the Global South while leaving government-enabled criminality in rich nations unexamined. In other words, it is a means of perpetuating privatization overseas for the benefit of Western investors. Accordingly, the organization is financed by a welter of major corporations, including firms implicated in industrial-scale corruption and tax evasion, such as Google, Microsoft, and Siemens.

The mainstream media never subject Transparency International or its dubious annual Global Corruption Barometer and Corruption Perceptions Index to critical scrutiny, invariably giving prominent billing to the organization’s regular publications and pronouncements. Nonetheless, a report on the TINZ controversy by New Zealand public radio contained a remarkable disclosure. The division was noted to receive sizable funding from several local government sources, including Canberra’s equivalents of the CIA and NSA, the Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau.

TINZ’s CEO defended this sponsorship, arguing spying agencies “have a strong interest in fighting corruption – that is one of their primary issues, the things that they do.” Western intelligence services have indeed been heavily focused on “fighting corruption” in recent years. As we shall see, though, the objective is to weaponize the issue in order to demonize and destabilize “enemy” governments and perhaps even foment regime change. Frequently too, Transparency International has played a starring role in these efforts.

Transparency International’s branding belies its nefarious goals

‘COMPLEX AND CONTROVERSIAL’

In 2013, TI published its first Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index, measuring levels of alleged corruption in the defense sectors and militaries of 82 countries. Many of the governments that ranked poorly criticized the findings, and report methodology, under which 77 “technical questions” were posed to local state officials and representatives of think tanks and universities.

As Mark Pyman, then-head of TI UK’s Defence and Security Programme, explained in response, simply not answering these questions was sufficient to bag a country a negative rating. These queries ranged from frivolous – such as whether a country’s defense chiefs “publicly commit” to fighting corruption – to intensive interrogation of military operations and procurement. It’s quite understandable government officials in, for example, Venezuela – among the Index’s worst performers that year – would be very wary of such approaches.

Those anxieties would no doubt be maximized by TI’s Defence and Security program being at that time funded by NATO and a number of Western governments. Since then, despite not generating much in the way of press coverage, it has become a standalone division of TI, with its own website, issuing a steady stream of reports on corruption issues in the international defense sector.

These publications deploy lofty rhetoric and frequently identify very serious issues and problems. But their recommendations are typically concerned with making the art of invasion and killing more efficient, ensuring that NATO state weaponry, technology and skills can’t be accessed by the “wrong” governments, and encouraging slightly enhanced state oversight of certain areas, such as private military companies. And only then because Western governments might lose money, and risks could be posed to their “foreign policy interests.”

Transparency International’s corruption risk index focuses heavily on mitigating risks to “foreign policy interests”

‘NON-LETHAL ENGAGEMENT’

This background is vital to consider, as TI UK’s Defence and Security Programme has a formal, albeit largely concealed, relationship with 77th Brigade, the British Army’s psychological warfare division. The Winter 2017 edition of Corruption Cable, TI UK’s quarterly newsletter, has a dedicated section on this suspect bond, through which members of the shadowy and highly controversial military unit are regularly seconded to the Programme for a year.

A 77th Brigade secondee was quoted at length praising the Programme, which provides “opportunities [that] extend beyond relating to the Army-related work.” This included producing material for “case studies, reports and teaching packages”:

“All of this will eventually benefit the Army, as I take the knowledge I have gained back with me and the value of being surrounded by knowledgeable and passionate people cannot be underestimated!”

Transparency International’s 2017 “corruption cable” heavily lauds Britain’s controversial 77th Brigade

This sounds wholesome enough, although as the secondee openly stated, the 77th Brigade’s core components include the foremost media and psychological operations divisions of British military intelligence. As such, they added, the unit is concerned “with using non-lethal engagement and non-military levers to adapt behaviours of opposing forces and adversaries.”

As was revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic, these “forces and adversaries” include average social media the world over, whose perceptions and behavior the unit seeks to “adapt” through propaganda, manipulation and informational subterfuge. It seems all but inevitable that knowledge 77th Brigade operatives gain while seconded to TI – which may include the answers to Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index questions provided by foreign defense officials – is exploited for psychological warfare purposes.

This analysis is reinforced by a series of leaked documents related to the internal workings of Integrity Initiative, a British intelligence black propaganda unit. Among the papers is a proposal for a government-funded program exposing state corruption in the West Balkans, which names none other than Mark Pyman alongside a British Army Brigadier who founded TI’s Defence and Security division, and two 77th Brigade veterans, including its founder-and-chief Alex Aiken, as potential project staff.

Aiken’s accompanying biography notes that he was personally responsible for “forming the strategic relationship with Transparency International,” a clear indication of how valuable and significant the secondment program was considered at the highest levels of the British Army and 77th Brigade. Integrity Initiative operative Euan Grant was also proposed for the project. Other leaked files indicate he concocted a variety of wide-ranging plans for “information operations,” exposing purported Russian state and corporate corruption.

Source | UK Army

One scheme entailed sourcing damaging intelligence on Russian organized crime activities from major financial institutions, then publicizing the yield via a number of sources, such as journalists at major publications and the producers of the hit TV show McMafia, but “especially” the 77th Brigade. One of Grant’s proposed information sources was HSBC, a major British bank linked to every form of corruption and malfeasance imaginable globally. Coincidentally, his contacts there included former high-ranking MI5 and MI6 officials.

BOYS FROM BRAZIL

One might argue that even if corruption by governments, businesses, organizations, and individuals is exposed via intelligence agency “information operations,” the ends justify the means. After all, corruption is a serious crime for which the perpetrators should always be held accountable to the full extent of the law but rarely ever are.

Yet, the public and media appetite for righteous defenestrations of corrupt officials can easily be exploited for malign ends. This is precisely why Western intelligence agencies have so determinedly sought to foment such an appetite over many years.

In November 2009, the Brazilian Federal Police Agents Association’s fourth congress was convened. Among the speakers was Judge Sergio Moro, a minor celebrity for his recent role in busting a major money laundering operation, who led a panel on “Fighting Corruption and Organized Crime” He argued for changes in the law and more judicial autonomy to facilitate the prosecution of white-collar crime in the country.

Also present was American prosecutor Karine Moreno-Taxman, who was then based in the U.S. Embassy in Brazil. She led a panel advocating for Brazilian authorities to maintain an informal system of collaboration with their American counterparts, circumventing formal cooperation structures as set out in international treaties. Along the way, she stressed the need for manipulating public opinion in prosecutions of high-profile figures to engender loathing of those being investigated:

“Society needs to feel that that person really abused the job and demand that he be convicted. If you can’t bring this person down, don’t do the investigation.”

Five years later, Moro and Moreno-Taxman were key figures in Operation Lava Jato. Publicly presented as a crusading anti-corruption effort heralding a new dawn in Brazil, in which democracy and the rule of law reigned supreme, in reality, it was a fraud directed by the CIA, FBI, and U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). The objective was to destroy the country’s most profitable companies and prevent the left from retaking power.

For years, Lava Jato prosecutors – all graduates of FBI and DoJ training programs – along with Moro, who oversaw the effort, were hailed by Western journalists and officials. Moro was even named one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” in 2016. In December of that year, TI gifted the Lava Jato team its annual “Anti-Corruption Award,” which “honours remarkable individuals and organisations worldwide…who expose and fight corruption.”

Neither “Time” nor TI acknowledged that months earlier, local media revealed Moro illegally wiretapped former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s defense team. This was one of many egregious criminal tactics in which the judge, and Lava Jato prosecutors, routinely engaged. In fact, TI Brazil ignored a great many damaging disclosures about investigators, instead giving the Operation blanket, fawning coverage, and documenting and praising their crusading efforts every step of the way.

Following Moreno-Taxman’s prescription that “society needs to feel that that person really abused the job and demand that he be convicted” to the letter, Lava Jato prosecutors went to enormous lengths to demonize Lula. In regular press conferences, prosecutors presented laughable PowerPoints depicting him at the epicenter of a grand, labyrinthine regional and international corruption conspiracy through which the former President was intimately implicated in every serious crime imaginable.

In July 2017, TI welcomed Lula’s conviction on corruption charges as “a significant sign the rule of law is working in Brazil and that there is no impunity, even for the powerful.” It added that prosecutors and judges involved in the probe were “facing attacks from all sides…proof corruption does not distinguish between ideologies or political parties.”

‘DEMOCRATIC CREDENTIALS’

Yet, Lava Jato did have a heavily partisan bias. Investigations by “The Intercept,” based on the hacked communications of investigators, starkly exposed from June 2019 onwards the Operation’s fraudulent nature and intimate ties to U.S. intelligence. One prosecutor dubbed Lula’s incarceration, which disqualified him from the race and laid the foundations for far-right Jair Bolsonaro’s resultant victory, “a gift from the CIA.”

In response to these bombshell revelations, TI quickly issued a statement claiming to be “closely following the reporting.” Strikingly though, rather than condemning how Lava Jato unlawfully weaponized corruption for malign ends, the organization instead primarily praised the Operation. It had claimed TI “revealed criminal schemes” and “challenged powerful politicians and businesspeople” while “bolstering a positive anti-corruption dynamic in Latin America, which has produced significant results in several countries.”

While TI conceded Lava Jato prosecutors needed to explain “alleged irregularities and violations of the principles of equality of arms and impartiality” revealed by “The Intercept,” it considered “rigorous investigation of the violation of private communications” to be “equally crucial.” A cynic might suggest TI was concerned subsequent disclosures would directly implicate the organization in Lava Jato’s malign machinations, which they did.

Hacked communications show TI Brazil director Bruno Brandão enjoyed a very warm relationship with lead Lava Jato prosecutor Delton Dallagnol, and he was a member of several messaging app groups in which various connivances were formulated and discussed. Furthermore, Brandão personally helped produce a TI Brazil-approved list of candidates in the 2018 election who avowedly shared Lava Jato’s ethos, along with a ranking of politicians according to their legal problems and purported commitments to democracy.

Brandão has since attempted to distance himself from Lava Jato, claiming he and TI had simply made a mistake “in believing that the leaders of Lava Jato had democratic credentials.” Yet, in April 2022, Brazil’s Federal Auditing Court and Public Prosecutors Office sought to open an investigation into TI Brazil for having illegally collaborated with prosecutors. There are suggestions the organization may have stood to benefit financially from that relationship.

Questions can only abound as to whether Brandão – and by extension TI Brazil – was in on the con all along. In 2016, he made dozens of appearances in national and international media, denying that a coup was in swing after Dilma Rousseff was improperly deposed due to bogus corruption allegations. Immediately after she left office, Brasilia started auctioning off its offshore oil reserves to foreign buyers. Two of the largest beneficiaries were Shell and ExxonMobil, both donors to Transparency International.

This was just one of many examples of Lava Jato’s economic destruction. The Operation created a climate in which even vague insinuations of impropriety could damage major companies if not entire industries. It paralyzed construction, while millions of jobs and tax revenues were lost, causing the country’s GDP to contract by at least 3.6%. For the CIA, which wanted to reduce Brazil to its impoverished, authoritarian, and easily exploitable Cold War status, this was precisely the point.

America’s most wanted: How anti-Muslim bigotry led to the wrongful conviction of Mohammed Hamoud

JUL 17, 2023

Source

In an exclusive interview with The Cradle, Hamoud reveals details of the 27 years he spent inside US jails under trumped-up charges, and why he was listed among the world’s most dangerous terrorists.

Esteban Carrillo Lopez

In 2000, Mohammed Yousef Hamoud – one of the most wanted ‘terrorists’ in the United States – was arrested while living in Charlotte, North Carolina, based on allegations that he sent a $3,500 check to the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, an allegation for which no actual evidence was presented. 

Based on testimony from a single questionable witness, an American prosecutor accused Hamoud of leading a Hezbollah cell in Charlotte, and declared him to be one of the most dangerous ‘terrorists’ in the world.

The prosecutor, Ken Bell, who acknowledged that a successful prosecution of Hamoud would be the “case of a lifetime” for advancing his own career, successfully garnered a sentence of 155 years in prison for Hamoud. The jury voted to convict Hamoud amid the anti-Muslim bigotry and paranoia that swept through the United States following the September 11 attacks.

Years later, the sentence was reduced to 30 years, and Hamoud was finally released 3 years early and allowed to return to his family and friends in Lebanon. 

Now 49, Hamoud was forced to spend more than half his life in prison without cause. But defying all odds, he obtained degrees in business management and psychology while also studying law to provide advice to his fellow inmates.

Below is an interview conducted by The Cradle with Mohammed Yousef Hamoud, after he was released from a US maximum security prison two months ago from serving a 27-year sentence on charges of providing “material support” to a terrorist organization. The interview took place at his brother’s home in the southern Lebanese town of Srebbine, originally Hamoud’s hometown.

A full video of Hammoud’s interview can be found at the end of this article.

The Cradle: As you were growing up in Lebanon, what were your political views?

Hamoud: Just like everyone growing up here, I was with the resistance and against occupation. I was pro-liberation and against poverty, and mainly the people with those views were Hezbollah, so I was supporting Hezbollah basically.

The Cradle: You said in a previous interview that you were the first Muslim to be convicted in the United States following the September 11 attacks. Do you feel this influenced the sentence that was issued against you?

Hamoud: Absolutely. I was the first Muslim after September 11 to go to trial. And I was the first Muslim in United States history to be tried under the law [passed in 1996] regarding providing material support [to a terrorist group]. Prior to me there was no blueprint on how to prosecute someone under that law. I was the first one, and the judge acknowledged those two things in his decision when he released me. 

The Cradle: Of all the charges leveled against you, do you maintain your innocence against all of them? 

Hamoud: No, actually. I did admit in court that from 1996 to 1998, I did sell cigarettes, and I did not pay the federal taxes during those years. And I did not fight those charges in court. I said am guilty of those, but as I said, the federal government acknowledged if it wasn’t for [the charges regarding] Hezbollah, I wouldn’t be there. The government was misinformed apparently, because [even though] the prosecutor had given a press conference announcing that he had arrested a Hezbollah cell in North Carolina, and I was its leader, years later, he did not find a single piece of evidence to show I sent money to Hezbollah. 

But he wasn’t about to back off and lose his career because they spent millions of dollars [on prosecuting me]. So, they got this guy named Said Harb [to testify against me]. This guy had a lot of incentive to lie. He was facing decades of time in prison, and the government knew he was desperate to bring his family to the United States. He spent tens of thousands of dollars to bring his family and his dream was about to be fulfilled. So when they gave him that offer to testify against me, Said was the happiest person on earth, you know? So, he was granted his freedom, and he brought 12 members of his family to the United States using American taxpayers’ money. 

The Cradle: Did you know Said Harb before he testified against you?

Hamoud: I did. He was one of the [Lebanese] guys who used to live in Charlotte, and from time to time, we used to meet and play soccer together, but he was not my good friend, which is how the government portrayed him. In fact, from 1999 to 2000, as he also admitted to the FBI, he said he was not associating with us. Said’s life went in a completely different direction than my life, and we barely saw each other. I was building my gas station and going to college, and he was doing whatever he was doing for his home, so from 1998 to 1999, we did not see each other much. 

The Cradle: Do you feel that where you are from, and your religion, was a factor during your trial?

Hamoud: Definitely. At the time, most of the American people did not know the difference between Muslims. They did not know the difference between Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda. To them, my name is Mohammad, and I am from the Middle East [West Asia], so I’ve got to be a follower of Bin Laden. 

And the prosecutor did a great job insinuating to the jury, although indirectly, that I was guilty. The way he structured security in the court, and the way he brought me from the jail to the court, no one could think of me as an innocent person. The government was spending millions of dollars in security. I was transported along with my brother in a motorcade, in an armored truck. The area around the court was like a battlefield. Marshalls [federal police] were everywhere. 

To terrify the jury, they were taking them to a secret place, taking them secretly to the court, and giving them numbers. So, if you are a juror in the court, would you think that person is innocent if the government is doing all of this? They closed off downtown streets just because of my case. They put extra metal detectors in the courthouse just because of my case, just to scare and terrify the people and make them think that I was a really serious [dangerous] guy.

The Cradle: At one point you were considered one of the most wanted ‘terrorists’ in the United States. 

Hamoud: Yes, that’s the way one of the magazines, Reader’s Digest, described me, as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. Before going through this ordeal, my impression of the American media was it was the most honest in the world. But I found out it’s fake, I mean some stuff they exaggerated so much just to portray me as a real terrorist who deserved to spend his entire life in prison.

The Cradle: While the media was writing this way about you, did they ever approach you and try to speak with you directly?

Hamoud: No, they were just reporting from the government’s perspective. The only one that approached me was Fox News, but the prison would not allow them to come. So my voice was never heard in the American media. 

The Cradle: You said that the only piece of evidence they had against you was that you sent $1,300 to the office of Sayyed Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, who is known as the spiritual mentor of Hezbollah. (Fadlallah was a spiritual mentor of millions of Shia around the world, not to Hezbollah members, who generally follow the guidance of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei). You say that money was for your family?

I did send that check in 1995, but at the time, it was not illegal to send money to Sayyed Fadlallah. But I was convicted for allegedly sending a check for $3,500 to Hezbollah in 1999. You would imagine a check in 1999 would be much easier to find. Because that guy who said I sent $3,500 to Hezbollah, he said I sent an official check. So here is the irony, why would they find a check in 1995 to Sayyid Fadlallah, but they would not find a $3,500 check in 1999? The answer is very simple, because that check did not exist. The government subpoenaed all my bank documents, all my credit cards, everything. They had thousands and thousands of documents and they could not find this check and yet I was convicted for that check. 

Its very interesting what the judge in the 1st District appellate court said in that regard. He said Said Harb was the sole witness against me on that count, and Said Harb was described throughout the trial as a manipulator and a liar who would do anything for his own interest. Those are not my words, those are the words of Judge Gregory of the appellate court. Yes, I was given 155 years based on one person’s word. No evidence, no checks, nothing whatsoever. 

The Cradle: So why do you think they targeted you?

Hamoud: That’s interesting. Look, I came from Lebanon during the war, and I never hid my feeling towards Hezbollah and the Islamic resistance in Lebanon. And as I mentioned earlier, I really did believe there was freedom in the United States. So I was more active in speaking about the resistance. I was born in Bourj al-Barajneh, and I grew up there, so all my friends and people I interacted with were from that area and were pro-resistance. But I spoke about it more than anyone else, and I ended up with those charges. 

The Cradle: You were sentenced to 155 years in prison. When you heard that sentence, what went through your mind? 

Hamoud: The first thing that came to my mind was my mother, because she really struggled so much and cried so much so that she could have me in a peaceful place [away from the war in Lebanon]. And now I was thinking, “Look what happened to me. I left the war, I left everything to live in peace, and now I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison.” But God always gave me hope in my heart, and that kept me alive. 

The Cradle: So, how old were you when you were sentenced? 

Hamoud: I was arrested when I was 26, so I was sentenced when I was 28. 

The Cradle: Today, you are 49, so you spent half of your life in prison. Where were you held?

Hamoud: I went through several prisons but spent most of the time at a prison called CMU (Communication Management Unit), which was built specifically for people who were convicted of things perceived as dealing with national security. CMU breaks basically every single rule that the United States claims to uphold. It has all the violations that no one would imagine a prison in the United States would have. There is no recreation yard. We were limited with phone calls, unlike other prisons that gave 500 minutes. We had only 2 calls a week. We had to preschedule them, and if for any reason the prison got locked down, we were not allowed to make them. Mainly there was nothing to do at that place except to sit down and wait for your time. 

The Cradle: You are Shia Muslim, and they put you with Al-Qaeda members [who view the Shia as their enemies]. Did you ever protest this decision?

Hamoud: Of course. And that is the hypocrisy of the system. They would not put two rival gangs in the same prison, let alone in the same unit, because they know they’re going to harm each other. Yet they did not care about my safety, they did not care about my life. They put me with people who they know view killing Shia as permissible and sometimes as their duty. So, they [prison authorities] did not care. I protested that, I filed petitions complaining that they were putting my life in jeopardy with people that perceive me as an enemy. I was afraid if Hezbollah killed an ISIS leader, those people would retaliate and kill me. And what’s important too, one ISIS guy killed an older prisoner and tried to cut off his head. He tried to do what ISIS does on the TV, but the guards saw what was happening before he finished with the head and they took him. 

The Cradle: How were you treated by prison authorities and the guards?

Hamoud: They claim they treat people the same and they don’t care about peoples’ charges, but in reality, of course, they are human, and they were told I was a terrorist, so they looked at me like a terrorist and some of them would try to not give me my rights. For example, I had a medical skin condition, and they did not treat me for three years, and so I feel I was tortured. I complained to officials all the way to Washington, and nobody cared. 

The Cradle: How did the other prisoners treat you? Since you were being treated in the media as one of the world’s most dangerous men?

Hamoud: Well, thanks to the fabricated media in the United States, which portrayed me as a dangerous person that is well connected, that gave me respect from the prisoners because no one tried to mess with me, and they were scared of me. With the guards, it depended on the guards. Some of them gave me respect, knowing what my charges were, while some of them hated Muslims, and they would try to annoy me, feeling it was their duty. 

The Cradle: You were released about two months ago. When did you find out you were going to be released?

Hamoud: When the judge granted a hearing after we filed for a compassionate release based on the disparity between my sentence and the sentences of defendants who had a similar situation to mine. I was optimistic that something good was going to come because usually, the judge always ruled against me, but for the judge to now grant me a hearing was something special, so I was waiting for it. 

I was in the recreation yard working out when the case manager called me. When she told me I had to go to her office, I immediately knew I would get good news, and indeed it was. She told me to pack my stuff because I would be leaving. That was November 30, 2022. I then went to immigration detention for almost six months before finally coming home to Lebanon.

The Cradle: Do you think your release was politically motivated? Recently the US and Iran have been involved in nuclear talks and have discussed prisoner releases. 

Hamoud: It has nothing to do with politics. The judge only reduced my sentence by three years because I have time for good conduct. It has nothing to do with politics, it was a judge’s opinion after all those years, he decided to do the right thing. If you look at the judge’s decision when he released me compared to the one he issued when he gave me 30 years, you would think he is speaking about two totally different people. When he ordered my release, he described me as a peaceful person, versus the last time I went to see him, he said I should spend more time in prison because I am still dangerous to US national security. 

The Cradle: While you were in prison, were you approached with offers to reduce your sentence in exchange for something?

Hamoud: Before my trial, I was approached, but the prosecutor insisted I had to give him names of Hezbollah operatives in the United States. I told him I don’t know anyone. Either he did not believe me, or he did not want to believe me. My lawyer told me, “Look, he will never give you a settlement or a good plea deal unless you give him a name, because he wants to show the media that he got something.” I told my lawyer, “I left Lebanon when I was 18, do you really believe Hezbollah is going to trust me with information about the United States?” So, the prosecutor sent me a message through my attorney that if I don’t have anything for him, I will never see the streets again. And that was his word, and he tried hard to make that happen in the trial.

The Cradle: If today, someone you know tells you they want to emigrate to the United States, what would you tell them? 

Hamoud: I would tell them, if you want to go there, don’t imagine you are living in freedom. Imagine yourself in a country that persecutes people. So, if you go there, just behave. Yes, you have the freedom to go with girls and party, but when it comes to politics and your religion, you’re going to be under surveillance just because of your belief, especially if you are Muslim.

The Cradle: During the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, how were you following it?

Hamoud: I was reading the newspaper and following events on CNN. Of course, it was a very hard time because all of my family live in Beirut, and Israel was bombing everywhere. So, I was in a very bad situation, trying to make phone calls, and the calls were very expensive, each minute cost a dollar, but I got through it. 

The Cradle: What are your plans now?

Hamoud: I am working now on my memoir, which I’m almost finished with. Hopefully, I’ll be able to publish it soon in English. After that I’ll see, I haven’t decided what to do. 

The Cradle: Are you with Hezbollah now?

Hamoud: I am still not a member of Hezbollah, but as I said, I do support Hezbollah. These are basically my people, you know. I would love to support Hezbollah with everything that I could because, as I said you know, I believe in their cause, I believe they are heroes. They liberated my country. If it wasn’t for them, we probably couldn’t have this interview because ISIS or Israel would be here [in Lebanon]. 

The Cradle: While you were in prison, how was your family? Did Hezbollah ever approach them since you were in jail for allegedly being connected to them?

Hamoud: As far as I know, Hezbollah declared from the first day that I was not a member, just like I did. When I first left Lebanon, Hezbollah did not know I was leaving. Because I felt embarrassed to leave Lebanon when people who were my age were going to support my country and defend my country. So I felt like I was betraying everything I believed in. But I was in a tough situation because, on the one hand, my mother was crying all the time and wanted me to be away from Lebanon, and on the other hand, I believed in my cause and that I should defend my country. In the end, I said I can go to the United States. I can support the poor and orphans, I can support my people instead of carrying arms. 

The Cradle: So you believed you could support the cause by sending money home? Because this is common among emigrants. 

Hamoud: I do not believe that Hezbollah needs my $100, because, according to the CIA, Hezbollah receives over $500 million dollars a year. So to me, I would just send it to my mom, and just tell her, to give it to people who are around you, who are poor or orphans, to anyone who needs it, but not to Hezbollah.

Finally, I would like to mention my attorney, because after all those years in prison, I saw two faces of the justice system. One face was presented by the prosecutor, Ken Bell, who did everything to make a name for himself at the expense of me and my family, despite claiming to be seeking justice, because, as a prosecutor, he’s supposed to seek justice, not just convictions. He didn’t care about everything he swore to uphold, he just cared about getting a conviction so he could destroy my life and make a name for himself. 

And another face I saw presented in the United States justice system was of a person named Jim McLaughlin, who represented me through all those years and who helped me with everything I needed, and treated me very kindly. He volunteered to work on my case, and we keep in touch still. He is one of the great American people. So now, when I think about the United States, I like to think about Jim McLaughlin, not Ken Bell, the person who oppressed me and prosecuted me just because he could.

Watch the full interview here:

Interview transcribed by William Van Wagenen.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

It’s the Class War, Stupid: An Evening with Noam Chomsky

APRIL 28, 2023

Photo by Kayle Kaupanger

BY ANTHONY DIMAGGIO – RAIHAN ALAM

In mid-April, we hosted renowned linguist, political analyst, and activist Noam Chomsky for a speaking and Q&A event at Lehigh University as part of the Douglas Dialogues forum. The event was attended by hundreds of students, faculty, and staff, and provided the Lehigh University community an opportunity to engage in contemporary political issues with Professor Chomsky, as related to the rise of global and domestic extremism. This reflection looks at some of Chomsky’s insights, and what they tell us about the state of democracy in America today.

It’s been over two years since the January 6th insurrection, where thousands of far-right rioters stormed our nation’s Capitol in an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of executive power. FBI director Christopher Wray referred to the insurrection as an act of “domestic terrorism,” and reports suggest that far-right extremists have killed more people in our country than have domestic Islamist fundamentalists since 9/11. In this political environment, Chomsky exposes the causes of rising rightwing extremism, and spent much of his time with the Lehigh community discussing this issue of growing concern.

When asked what he thinks of the rise of the right in U.S. politics today, Chomsky points out that this isn’t simply an American, but an international phenomenon. Citing the rising popularity of rightwing ethno-nationalists across the world from Nigel Farage in the UK and Marine LePen in France to the AFD Party in Germany, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and religious nationalists in Israel, Chomsky recognizes that, while each nation has its own unique flavor of rightwing nationalism, rising extremism is happening all over the world.

Chomsky emphasizes the role of neoliberalism as a force that fuels rightwing, authoritarian, and fascistic politics. He points to rising inequality and worker insecurity across the globe in the last 40 to 45 years, highlighting a “bitter, savage class war” that’s being fought by both major U.S. political parties, on behalf of plutocratic elites, and against the large majority of Americans who have seen their economic positions stagnate or decline during this period. In the U.S., a corporate elite has imposed a political-economic system that institutionalizes stagnant wages and household incomes, pressures workers to increase productivity, fuels an assault on labor unions, does nothing to stop spiraling health care costs and rising mortality, and that has grown the incarceration state, as the profits hoarded from these practices accrue to the top one percent of wealthy Americans who own and control the economy.

Chomsky cites a report from the Rand Corporation, which finds that U.S. business elites have siphoned off an incredible $50 trillion in additional wealth over the last three decades, at the expense of working, middle class, and poor Americans. The Rand report uses polite academic language, talking about rising economic inequality from 1975 to 2018, in which income and wealth growth have “not been evenly shared,” and with inequality having “increased substantially by most measures” to the tune of an additional $47 trillion captured by the wealthiest Americans, at the expense of the bottom 90 percent of income earners.

Chomsky is more direct and blunt in his language. He talks about how this class war has “opened the doors for the sheer robbery of the American public” on behalf of plutocratic elites. Chomsky argues that the intensifying class war is a perfect environment for an authoritarian demagogue to rise to power, playing on the fears and anxieties of an increasingly insecure citizenry. This demagogue – Chomsky cites Trump as exhibit A – tells his supporters that he loves them, while stabbing them in the back by further intensifying neoliberal policies such as business deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy, which fuel not only rising inequality, but the global environmental crisis that springs from a lack of regulations on the fossil fuel industry. In classic Chomskyian style, he points to the incredible power of propaganda, with the fossil fuel industry playing the role of “merchants of doubt,” muddying the waters of public discourse on whether climate change is even real, thereby blunting potential government action on this mounting crisis. Trumpian-style demagoguery, Chomsky argues, is instrumental to direct public attention away from an elite driven class war, with public anger being stoked via the shameless exploitation of hot button culture war issues. Among them Chomsky includes anti-vaxxerism – which he points out “has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.” Another diversionary tactic is the mainstreaming of “great replacement” propaganda within the GOP and in rightwing media, which depicts white working-class Americans as under assault due to the immigration of non-white peoples, who threaten to make white people a minority. Finally, Chomsky talks about an authoritarian effort on the American right to demonize any group with expertise that might challenge the GOP, its deceptions, and its plutocratic supporters. These much-maligned experts include journalists, scientists, and medical professionals, among others with technical skills who may not echo GOP propaganda. As Chomsky argues, the message that’s delivered in this war on intellectualism is that “it’s not the corporate sector that is guilty” of shafting the American people, but rather “the liberal elites” and other technocrats, who are supposed appendages of the Democratic Party and working against normal Americans. Understandably, Chomsky finds this rising anti-intellectualism to be extremely disturbing, as it foments distrust, alienation, paranoid delusion, and isolation, which have undermined efforts to form progressive democratic social movements that might fight back against plutocracy in America.

One of the most important lessons Chomsky left his audience with is that the rise of extremism and plutocracy are not inevitable. If we want a more just society, we must organize and fight for one. It won’t just fall into our laps. Social movements have created change before, and they can do it again. But it’s up to us to make that dream a reality.

One of the first questions Chomsky was asked during the student Q&A was, “What do you see the future holding as tensions rise and class warfare becomes more pronounced?” He answered, “It’s up to you…. If only one side is engaged in class war, you know the outcome. If both sides are engaged, it’s quite different.”

Chomsky highlighted cycles of change in the 20th century. He described how labor unions were decimated by President Woodrow Wilson’s Red Scare and associated crackdowns from corporations in the 1920s. The decline of labor unions preceded the Gilded Age, a time of abject poverty and massive wealth inequality. Yet, the Gilded Age was met with an intense reaction from social movements. Labor unions and organizations like the AFL-CIO began to organize industrial actions and disruptive sit-down strikes. Such pressure, alongside a sympathetic White House under Franklin Roosevelt, led to the passage of the New Deal, which created the groundwork for social democratic institutions, including the welfare state, regulation of business, and worker protections. Take for example Social Security, which provides benefits to tens of millions of Americans today and is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in U.S. history.

Yet, we don’t have to go back a century for examples of democratic movement successes. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests of 2020 were one of the largest, if not the largest, protests in U.S. history. As many as 26 million people reportedly participated in the protests. This was about 10 percent of the adult population. The protests preceded Executive Order 14074, which changed federal agency use-of-force policies. BLM also made significant changes to public awareness, and forced local police departments to confront their troubled histories of racism, racial profiling and police brutality. Research shows that the BLM protests shifted public discourse toward anti-racism. Analyses of social media searches and the news show an increased interest in terms like “mass incarceration,” “white supremacy,” and “systemic racism.” Such an interest was sustained even beyond the height of the protests during the summer of 2020. Other evidence suggests that the BLM movement increased perceptions of discrimination against Black people, and this prompted some vote switching from Donald Trump and third party candidates to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

A second major lesson from Chomsky’s talk is that violence is not the answer to fighting back against rising inequality and the assault on democracy. Chomsky was asked during the Q&A: “Is the threat of violence the only mechanism that we have to either establish peace or progressive revolution?” He answered, “Would violence help overcome these problems? There’s no reason to believe that. Resorting to violence is moving into the arena where the enemy has the power. If you’re a tactician, you don’t move into the arena where the opponent is powerful, you move into the arena where the opponent is weak.” The “enemy” in this reference would seemingly refer to a plutocratic political-economic elite, which Chomsky targeted throughout his talk as the primary threat to American democracy.

Chomsky discussed how those in political power use protest-related violence to justify their opposition to social movements. He used the BLM protests of summer 2020 as an example, pointing to how, despite BLM being overwhelmingly non-violent, a fringe of protestors, and in some cases agitators, rioted, looting stores and destroying property. This played right into the hands of media outlets like Fox News, whose pundits loved the riots because they gave them a chance to demonize the movement. As numerous studies documented (see here and here), Fox News consistently tied rioting to BLM to tarnish the movement and its social justice objectives. Even though the vast majority of BLM protests have been peaceful, examples of violent protests were used to increase perceptions of the criminality and violence of BLM. Such perceptions diminish support for BLM and their goals for police reform.

Chomsky referred to violence as “a gift to the enemy.” Instead, change must come from “active organization and activism.” As he reminded the audience, it was the peaceful protests of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement that led to the passage of the Civils Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr. was inspired by Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi’s advocacy for nonviolence, and used it as the organizing principle for the Civil Rights Movement. In the Social Organization of Nonviolence (1959), MLK criticized violence, describing it as an unattractive social force, and argued that only self-defense is morally justified and able to gain popular sympathy. Yet, MLK did not advocate for passive resistance or resignation. He advocated for “militant nonviolence,” the consistent pressure of civil protest in the form of mass marches, boycotts, sit-ins, and strikes. Reinforcing Chomsky’s and MLK’s point, contemporary research shows that civil resistance campaigns have been twice as successful as violent campaigns in achieving political change.

We believe that Chomsky makes a provocative and compelling argument about the vitality of social movements and nonviolence to change. He is also right to identify how wealthy elites are engaged in a class war that utilizes culture war propaganda. When party officials rile up their base by drawing on transphobia, cultivating fear about critical race theory, stoking fear about an assault on Second Amendment rights, and mainstreaming “great replacement” propaganda, the party’s base becomes increasingly radicalized. The GOP base falls into this culture war messaging, despite being the victims of an elite class war. As we have found in our own national polling data out of Lehigh University’s Marcon Institute, only about 1 percent of people identifying as Republican also identify as upper-class, and only 11 percent identify as either upper-class or upper-middle class, meaning they hail from professional backgrounds that are likely to be part of the corporate-business class, or the group of white collar professionals on the periphery of the corporate upper class. Fifty-four percent of Republican Americans identify as middle-class, with another 26 and 9 percent respectively identifying as lower-middle or lower class. This means that the lion’s share of the 89 percent of Republicans who identify outside the upper class are the sorts of people who are likely to have been hurt by rising worker insecurity and intensifying inequality in the neoliberal era. Yet, these individuals embrace the GOP’s culture war, which directs attention away from the party’s active assault on its own base.

But there’s more to this story. Our work at Lehigh’s Marcon Institute documents how white supremacy is a social force that exercises ideological power over the public. It has always been a power in its own right in a country that historically idealized and practiced slavery, and later Jim Crow segregation, and continues to indulge in ethno-nationalist rhetoric that elevates whites to a dominant status.  White supremacy has been constant, in various forms, throughout American history, and we shouldn’t relegate this factor to secondary status in explaining continued inequality in America today. Chomsky is right that racism is utilized as a weapon to reinforce classism among modern operatives of the plutocracy within the GOP. But racism also operates independently to reinforce white privilege and power at a time when the population is rapidly diversifying demographically away from a Caucasian white-identifying majority. We are talking today about a population in which – depending on the survey question asked – a third to half of Americans, and most republicans now embrace a mainstreamed version of white supremacy that accepts Great Replacement propaganda, celebrates confederate iconography, and elevates white identity to a national ideal. These are terrifying trends.

Yes, GOP elites are intensifying these reactionary social values by selling culture war propaganda as they kick their base – the vast majority of which are not wealthy – in the teeth on economic issues. But this is such a brutally effective method of control precisely because of the long-standing history of xenophobia and white supremacy that defines American political culture.

Noam Chomsky is an inspiration in the fight against propaganda. Throughout the discussion, he encouraged students to ask questions about how and where we get our information, to think about power relationships, how events are framed, who is doing the framing, and what they stand to gain. Through this intentional and reflective process, we become critically educated. Chomsky’s critical insights provide an invaluable guide for helping to develop consciousness about the inequities in our world, their causes, and what we can collectively do about them.

Anthony DiMaggio is Associate Professor of Political Science at Lehigh University. He is the author of Rising Fascism in America: It Can Happen Here (Routledge, 2022), in addition to Rebellion in America (Routledge, 2020), and Unequal America (Routledge, 2021). He can be reached at: anthonydimaggio612@gmail.com. A digital copy of Rebellion in America can be read for free here. Raihan Alam is an incoming PhD student in Management at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management. He will be graduating from Lehigh University in May 2023 with a B.A. in psychology and political science and a minor in philosophy. He studies the psychological factors that contribute to intergroup conflict and political extremism and ways to combat them.

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Why was British ISIS member ‘Jihadi George’ tried in a US court?

February 02 2023

Photo Credit: The Cradle

The decision to try one of the so-called “Beatles” ISIS members in the US was to conceal his previous links to British intelligence and his role in their regime-change efforts in Syria.

ByWilliam Van Wagenen

In January 2023, reports emerged that Alexanda Kotey, known as “Jihadi George” and one of the four British ISIS members collectively known as the “Beatles,” had disappeared from the custody of the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

In 2022, Kotey was convicted in a US court and sentenced to life in prison for the abduction and detention of multiple western hostages in Syria between 2012 and 2015, including journalists James Foley, John Cantlie, and Steven Sotloff, and aid workers Kayla Jean Mueller, Peter Kassig, David Haines, and Alan Henning, most of whom were later executed by ISIS.

A BOP spokesperson refused to provide details of Kotey’s whereabouts or why he had been moved, stating only that only that there are “several reasons” why an inmate may be referred to as “not in BOP custody,” including for “court hearings, medical treatment or for other reasons. We do not provide specific information on the status of inmates who are not in the custody of the BOP for safety, security, or privacy reasons.”

Kotey’s links with British intelligence

The refusal of BOP officials to provide details of Kotey’s whereabouts raises fears that Kotey may be able to escape facing justice for his crimes. This is due to Kotey’s previous links to British intelligence, which sought to use UK-based Islamist extremists such as Kotey as proxies in the 2011 US-led regime-change war against the Syrian government.

Kotey’s links to British intelligence are evidenced by the convoluted effort to prosecute him after his 2018 detention by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Although Kotey held UK citizenship like three of his alleged victims, Haines, Henning, and Cantlie, British officials insisted that Kotey and fellow Beatle Elshafee Elsheikh be tried in US rather than UK courts.

A review of events surrounding Kotey’s case reveals that prosecuting the West Londoner in the US was necessary to avoid revealing his and fellow Beatles’ links to British intelligence.

Laying the foundations for ISIS

Kotey traveled to Syria in August 2012 with fellow Beatle Muhammad Emzawi, known as “Jihadi John,” as part of a “terror-funnel” established by British intelligence. Upon arrival in Syria, Kotey and Emzawi immediately joined an armed group fighting against the Syrian government known as Katibat al-Muhajireen.

In November 2012, Emzawi participated in the abduction of American journalist James Foley and British journalist John Cantlie near the town of Binnish in northwestern Syria.

Kotey, Emzawi, and Elsheikh then served as prison guards for Foley, Cantlie, and other western hostages. Many members of Katibat al-Muhajireen – including the trio – then helped lay the foundation for the rise of ISIS by joining the terror group when it was established in April 2013.

Foley was brutally murdered by Emzawi in August 2014. In a video recording of the murder, a black-clad and masked Emzawi beheaded Foley, who was kneeling in the desert sand in an orange Guantanamo-style prisoner’s jumpsuit. Sotloff, Haines, Hennig, and Kassig were murdered subsequently, while Cantlie’s whereabouts are still unknown.

Terrorism researcher Raffaello Pantucci reports that Kotey and Elsheikh, “were longstanding figures of concern to the security services. Involved in a West London network that has long fed young British men to jihadi battlefields and created terrorist cells back in the UK.”

The Times reports that according to court papers filed in Kotey’s case, he first tried to travel to Syria with three other Britons via the Channel tunnel in February 2012 but was denied entry at the Turkish border and deported.

A month later, Kotey tried again but failed to reach Syria by flying from Barcelona. He returned to London through St Pancras station, where police arrested him for carrying a “lock-blade knife.”

The Times reported further that, “In August 2012 Kotey tried for a third time to make it to Syria by travelling overland across Europe with Emwazi. He has disclosed that the pair were detained at least twice during the two-month journey, although it is unclear in which countries. Each time, it seems, they were allowed to continue on their way.”

A spokesman for the SDF claimed that Kotey entered Turkey in 2012 “even though the Turkish intelligence had his jihadi record. He gained two months’ residence in Turkey and then he was allowed to go to Syria and he entered Syrian soil through the border crossing at Bab al Hawa.”

After years of fighting for Katibat al-Muhajireen and then ISIS, Kotey and Elsheikh were detained by the SDF in 2018 as the Caliphate faced defeat by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies on the one hand, and US and SDF forces on the other, during the race to control Syria’s northeastern oil and grain producing regions. Emzawi had already been killed in a US airstrike in 2015.

Trial in the US instead of UK

By the time of Kotey’s detention in 2018, British police had long been collecting evidence of Kotey’s terrorist activities. As a result, the Guardian reported that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had charged Kotey with five counts of murder and eight counts of hostage-taking in February 2016, and issued warrants for his arrest.

However, once Kotey was in SDF custody, British officials took extraordinary legal measures to ensure he would not be brought back to the UK for trial, insisting instead that Kotey be tried in a US court.

The British Home Office then revoked Kotey’s British citizenship, making it more difficult to prosecute him in the UK. According to Ken Macdonald, a former UK director of public prosecutions, stripping Kotey of his citizenship appeared to be an attempt by the government “to duck responsibility for bringing this Briton to justice.”

The Guardian reports that UK Security Minister Ben Wallace claimed to parliament in July 2018 that the UK did not have enough evidence to try Kotey and a US trial was the only option. However, a legal source with knowledge of the case claimed that the “British families of those murdered by ‘the Beatles’ were misled by UK government officials” and told that “if these men are not sent to the US, we won’t be able to prosecute them.”

The Telegraph reported in 2018 that according to a leaked letter from British Home Secretary Sajid Javid, the Metropolitan Police and FBI had been investigating Kotey’s activities in Syria for the past four years, “collecting more than 600 witness statements in a criminal inquiry involving 14 other countries,” and that there was “intelligence” implicating Kotey in the “kidnap and murder” of two Britons and three Americans.

Britain’s support of terrorists in Syria

UK officials were correct, however, in saying to the victims’ families that if Kotey and Elsheikh were not sent to the US, they could not be prosecuted. This was because British intelligence had been directly supporting Katibat al-Muhajireen, the armed group Kotey, Elsheikh, and Emzawi initially fought for during the time they participated in the abduction and captivity of numerous western hostages.

Two previous efforts to convict British citizens on terrorism charges for their involvement with Katibat al-Muhajireen had fallen apart for this specific reason, illustrating British intelligence support for the armed group.

The first was the 2015 terror trial of Swedish citizen Bherlin Gildo, who according to the Daily Mail fought for Katibat al-Muhajireen and later for the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front.

The Guardian reports that after Gildo abandoned the conflict, he was detained while transiting through Heathrow Airport. He was accused by British authorities of attending a terrorist training camp and receiving weapons training between 31 August, 2012, and 1 March, 2013, as well as possessing information likely to be useful to a terrorist.

However, the terror trial collapsed “after fears of deep embarrassment” to the British security services. This was because, as Gildo’s lawyer explained, “British intelligence agencies were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he [Gildo] was.”

Another example is former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg, who was also tried on terror charges for assisting Katibat al-Muhajireen. Begg traveled to Syria several times in 2012 and provided physical training to foreign fighters from the group in Aleppo, as reported by Foreign Policy. Begg made his latest trip to Syria in December 2012.

As a result, Begg was detained by UK authorities in 2014 and accused of attending a terrorist training camp. The Guardian reported, however, that Begg was freed after British intelligence officials from MI5, “belatedly gave police and prosecutors a series of documents that detailed the agency’s extensive contacts with him before and after his trips to Syria,” and which showed that MI5 told Begg he could continue his work for the so-called opposition in Syria “unhindered.”

It was therefore clear that any terror trial of Kotey and Elsheikh in the UK would collapse for the same reasons as the previous cases, leaving UK officials no choice but to have them tried in the US instead.

In the letter leaked to the Telegraph, former Home Secretary Sajid Javid explained that “the UK does not currently intend to request, nor actively encourage, the transfer of Kotey and El-sheikh to the UK to support future UK-based prosecution.” Showing that he was under pressure as a result of this decision, Javid wrote further to the letter’s addressee, “I do understand your frustration on this subject.”

The Telegraph notes further that, “despite repeated ministerial assurances that British jihadists traveling to Syria would be held to account in British courts, the Home Secretary’s letter discloses concerns that laws in this country may not be robust enough to ensure successful prosecution. He believes American terrorism laws are more effective.”

In other words, British law was not robust enough to convict someone on terrorism charges for fighting with a terrorist group the UK intelligence services themselves supported.

The capital punishment loophole

Despite claims that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Kotey in the UK, any successful conviction in the US would have relied on evidence collected by UK prosecutors, which would have to be shared with their US counterparts.

This was problematic, however, because US officials had not provided assurances that Kotey would not face the death penalty if convicted. Because the death penalty is banned in the UK, it was contrary to long standing UK policy to provide evidence that could contribute to a death sentence.

Home Secretary Javid nevertheless approved providing evidence against Kotey and Elsheikh to US prosecutors after the pair were transferred from SDF to US custody.

House of Lords member Alex Carlile, a former reviewer of terrorism legislation, described Javid’s willingness to approve this as “a dramatic change of policy by a minister, secretly, without any discussion in parliament,” and that “Britain has always said that it will pass information and intelligence, in appropriate cases, provided there is no death penalty. That is a decades-old policy and it is not for the home secretary to change that policy.”

This led Elsheikh’s mother to sue the British government, fearing that if her son and Kotey were convicted in a US court, they would be executed. The case eventually went to the British Supreme Court, which according to the New York Times, “unanimously ruled that the British home secretary’s decision to transfer personal data to law enforcement authorities abroad for use in capital criminal proceedings without any safeguards violated a data protection law passed in 2018.”

As a result, US Attorney General William Barr belatedly gave the assurance in August 2020 that Kotey and Elsheikh would not face the death penalty, allowing the sharing of evidence and the prosecution to move forward.

A testimony of the west’s support of ISIS

In 2022, Kotey and Elsheikh were finally convicted and sentenced to life in prison. At the time, the Washington Post explained that the successful prosecution of Elsheikh and Kotey had been unlikely, given that at time of their capture, it was “unclear whether an American trial would happen at all. A federal prosecution was met with opposition at the highest levels of government on two continents.”

While the reason for Kotey’s recent disappearance from US Bureau of Prisons custody is unclear, the insistence of UK officials to have him and fellow Beatle Elsheikh prosecuted in a US rather than UK court, and the reluctance of both governments to try the two ISIS militants at all, indicates that British planners wished to hide their previous support for extremists who helped lay the foundation for ISIS.

While ISIS is widely understood to have emerged in Iraq, evidence continues to emerge showing that officials in London and Washington played the crucial role in the rise of the notorious terror group as part of a broader effort to topple the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

Cuba’s hero, American spy: Ana Belen Montes

13 Jan 2023

Source: Al Mayadeen English

By Rachel Hamdoun 

The recently freed Puerto Rican-American will be remembered as Castro’s “exceptional person” and Cuba’s “respect and admiration” for infiltrating the Pentagon to prevent the US from destroying Cuba.

Puerto Rican-American spy Ana Belen Montes

The US calls her the “Queen of Cuba,” but the intention to brand her as a notorious figure of evil nature is something Western-entrenched to be avoided in this article. To say her name, Ana Belen Montes, is for her to be remembered for saving Cuba and its people so many times that so many innocent deaths of Cubans were avoided.

She is not a queen, nor a terrorist as the Americans describe her. She is a hero who singlehandedly saved lives by giving Cuba information about possible attacks by the US at a time when the US was carrying out a colonial campaign against Central America, due to fear of communist presence in the region.

Sibling rivalries at the FBI

Ana Belen Montes was born in Nuremberg in what was then West Germany on February 28, 1957, on a US Army base where her father was stationed. After moving to the US, she received a Bachelor’s from the University of Virginia in International Affairs and was hired by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1985 before acquiring a Master’s degree in the same specialty from Johns Hopkins in 1988. 
 
With her intelligence and hard work, she excelled and constantly got promoted until she was finally hired by the Pentagon in 1992 as an analyst specializing in Cuban matters. That was the door for her to gain access to files and documents related to Cuba by the CIA, FBI, and the National Security Agency (NSA). Of her three siblings, two were employed with the FBI: her brother Tito served as an FBI special agent and her sister, Lucy, also worked as a Spanish-language FBI agent who would later do the exact opposite of what Ana set out to do. 
 
During her position, Montes traveled to Cuba in 1993 on a “fact-finding” mission to study the Cuban military for intelligence study paid for by the CIA. She would later go on to have many more of these trips. She planned to achieve her goal during the time of Fidel Castro as Cuba’s leader and revolutionary hero, alongside Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and during Bill Clinton’s time as US President. 

Communication between Montes and Cuban officials was done via numeric messages transmitted over shortwave radio with the use of codes, and with Montes’ access to files and sensitive information, she was able to memorize everything at work and type them out at home to facilitate communication.

The cheat sheet used by Montes for communication (FBI Archives)

On February 23, 1996, American Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll visited Cuba as part of an American campaign to gradually control the island. The Cuban Ministry of Defense warned the US not to allow the “Brothers to the Rescue” planes to fly over Cuba as planned. The “Brothers to the Rescue” refers to the group formed by five Cuban exiles who were an anti-Castro opposition established in 1991 and protected by the US due to common interests naturally.

However, the US decided to continue poking the bear and let two of the planes fly over Havana the next day, which were then shot down. It was found that Montes was the one who arranged Admiral Carroll’s travel to Cuba and when asked about it, she stated that she chose that specific date because it was a free date available on the Admiral’s schedule – with the help of the Wasp Network, known as La Red Avispa in Spanish.  
 
The “Brothers to the Rescue” was infiltrated by the Wasp Network, and five of the activists pertaining to the Network were caught by the US in 1998 and charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. They were caught with the help and treachery of Montes’ sister, Lucy, who was responsible for translating the wiretapped conversations. 

Snitch with a ‘gut feeling’ 

As a result of suspicion by a colleague in her department, she was subjected to two polygraphy tests, informally known as lie detector tests that check a suspect’s heart rate and respiration to determine if they committed a crime or not through lying. She passed both tests. Her colleague and DIA employee, Scott Carmichael, became a pest for the FBI after he built a whole file on Montes due to his ‘gut feeling’ and finally came through to lead agent Steve McCoy who opened the investigation against her. According to the Washington Post, FBI agents waited for her to leave town with her boyfriend to break into her apartment and came across the infamous Toshiba laptop. The hard drives containing all the sensitive information were confiscated, and the laptop was left as it was. 
 
In 1999, the NSA caught and deflected a Cuban communication message which revealed a top official associated with the DIA’s SAFE software system – indicating that the official was most likely an employee of the DIA. Not only so, but the official was discovered to have traveled to Guantanamo Bay back in 1996 and used a Toshiba laptop – Montes matched all the above. Montes was arrested in September 2001 at Bolling Airbase in Washington, D.C., and was convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage.
 
The moment she was captured, FBI agents had a nurse, oxygen tanks, and a wheelchair prepared, because they expected her to collapse and “be a wreck,” retired FBI special agent Pete Lapp said, as he added, “And I think she could have just carried both of us out on her back. She walked out that calm — I won’t say ‘proud’ — but with that kind of composure.”

She was sentenced to 25 years at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas. At Carswell, she was placed in a special unit meant for offenders with mental and psychiatric problems, but it was never clarified as to why. During her trial 21 years ago, she stated that the US government’s policies against Cuba are very harsh, speaking out that she behaved according to her conscience rather than the law. She added, “I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it.”

She suffered inhumane imprisonment conditions in Carswell as she was not allowed to contact other inmates, receive external letters, read newspapers and magazines, or watch TV. Her basic and constitutional rights were violated at the prison.

Back home

In 2002, a year after her imprisonment, Fidel Castro was asked at the University of Informatic Sciences in Havana about her arrest by an American journalist. He responded by saying that a noble American who is against such an injustice and against a blockade of over 40 years, who was able to act in the manner that she did, is an exceptional person…. who “deserves respect and admiration.”

On January 7, a day before her release, Cuban-American Florida Senator, Marco Rubio, said, “[H]er treason against the US accomplished nothing for the Cuban people. On the contrary, by helping the criminal Castro regime, Montes strengthened the Cuban people’s worst enemy,” making it seem as if he is entitled to speak on behalf of the Cuban people who, according to him, prefer Cuba to remain silent while the US carries on its colonial endeavors. 
 
On January 8, Ana Belen Montes was released. Her lawyer, Linda Backiel, confirmed that she has reached her homeland Puerto Rico and relayed Montes’ letter to the public on her behalf.

“I am more than happy to touch Puerto Rican soil again. After two rather exhausting decades and faced with the need to earn a living again, I would like to dedicate myself to a quiet and private existence. Therefore, I will not participate in any media activities…. I encourage those who wish to focus on me to focus instead on important issues, such as the serious problems facing the Puerto Rican people or the US economic embargo against Cuba. February will mark the 61st anniversary of the economic embargo against Cuba, enacted by President John F. Kennedy and later tightened by the US Congress.” 

We contacted Ms. Backiel through email to find out more about Montes’ imprisonment conditions but have not received any comment yet. 

In a letter written by her sister Lucy and addressed to her in prison, she wrote, “You betrayed your family, you betrayed all your friends. Everyone who loves you was betrayed by you,” adding, “You betrayed your co-workers and your employer, and you betrayed your nation. You worked for an evil megalomaniac who shares or sells our secrets to our enemies.”

Her family has cut contact with her since her arrest and imprisonment over 20 years ago, given the fact that both her siblings and their spouses were all FBI agents. 

Ana Belen Montes should be a lesson to demonstrate how vulnerable and cowardly the US is, in the face of those who stand and fight against injustices toward innocent people through attacks, embargoes, and murders. Ana Belen Montes will be one for the books and a symbol of hope for the activist in everyone. 

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CALL OF DUTY IS A GOVERNMENT PSYOP: THESE DOCUMENTS PROVE IT

NOVEMBER 18TH, 2022

ALAN MACLEOD

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II has been available for less than three weeks, but it is already making waves. Breaking records, within ten days, the first-person military shooter video game earned more than $1 billion in revenue. Yet it has also been shrouded in controversy, not least because missions include assassinating an Iranian general clearly based on Qassem Soleimani, a statesman and military leader slain by the Trump administration in 2020, and a level where players must shoot “drug traffickers” attempting to cross the U.S./Mexico border.

The Call of Duty franchise is an entertainment juggernaut, having sold close to half a billion games since it was launched in 2003. Its publisher, Activision Blizzard, is a giant in the industry, behind titles games as the Guitar Hero, Warcraft, Starcraft, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Crash Bandicoot and Candy Crush Saga series.

Yet a closer inspection of Activision Blizzard’s key staff and their connections to state power, as well as details gleaned from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Call of Duty is not a neutral first-person shooter, but a carefully constructed piece of military propaganda, designed to advance the interests of the U.S. national security state.

In the first five minutes the new Call of Duty has you pilot the missile that kills Soleimani lol

— eye contact through the gap in the bathroom stall (@websiteidi0t) October 20, 2022

MILITARY-ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX

It has long been a matter of public record that American spies have targeted and penetrated Activision Blizzard games. Documents released by Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA, CIA, FBI and Department of Defense infiltrated the vast online realms such as World of Warcraft, creating make-believe characters to monitor potential illegal activity and recruit informers. Indeed, at one point, there were so many U.S. spies in one video game that they had to create a “deconfliction” group as they were wasting time unwittingly surveilling each other. Virtual games, the NSA wrote, were an “opportunity” and a “target-rich communication network”.

However, documents obtained legally under the Freedom of Information Act by journalist and researcher Tom Secker and shared with MintPress News show that the connections between the national security state and the video game industry go far beyond this, and into active collaboration.

In September 2018, for example, the United States Air Force flew a group of entertainment executives – including Call of Duty/Activision Blizzard producer Coco Francini – to their headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Florida. The explicit reason for doing so, they wrote, was to “showcase” their hardware and to make the entertainment industry more “credible advocates” for the U.S. war machine.

“We’ve got a bunch of people working on future blockbusters (think Marvel, Call of Duty, etc.) stoked about this trip!” wrote one Air Force officer. Another email notes that the point of the visit was to provide “heavy-hitter” producers with “AFSOC [Air Force Special Operations Command] immersion focused on Special Tactics Airmen and air-to-ground capabilities.”

“This is a great opportunity to educate this community and make them more credible advocates for us in the production of any future movies/television productions on the Air Force and our Special Tactics community,” wrote the AFSOC community relations chief.

Francini and others were shown CV-22 helicopters and AC-130 planes in action, both of which feature heavily in Call of Duty games.

Yet Call of Duty collaboration with the military goes back much further. The documents show that the United States Marine Corps (USMC) was involved in the production of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Call of Duty 5. The games’ producers approached the USMC at the 2010 E3 entertainment convention in Los Angeles, requesting access to hovercrafts (vehicles which later appeared in the game). Call of Duty 5 executives also asked for use of a hovercraft, a tank and a C-130 aircraft.

This collaboration continued in 2012 with the release of Modern Warfare 4, where producers requested access to all manner of air and ground vehicles.

Secker told MintPress that, by collaborating with the gaming industry, the military ensures a positive portrayal that can help it reach recruitment targets, stating that,

For certain demographics of gamers it’s a recruitment portal, some first-person shooters have embedded adverts within the games themselves…Even without this sort of explicit recruitment effort, games like Call of Duty make warfare seem fun, exciting, an escape from the drudgery of their normal lives.”

Secker’s documentary, “Theaters of War: How the Pentagon and CIA Took Hollywood” was released earlier this year.

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The military clearly held considerable influence over the direction of Call of Duty games. In 2010, its producers approached the Department of Defense (DoD) for help on a game set in 2075. However, the DoD liaison “expressed concern that [the] scenario being considered involves future war with China.” As a result, Activision Blizzard began “looking at other possible conflicts to design the game around.” In the end, due in part to military objections, the game was permanently abandoned.

FROM WAR ON TERROR TO FIRST-PERSON SHOOTERS

Not only does Activision Blizzard work with the U.S. military to shape its products, but its leadership board is also full of former high state officials. Chief amongst these is Frances Townsend, Activision Blizzard’s senior counsel, and, until September, its chief compliance officer and executive vice president for corporate affairs.

Prior to joining Activision Blizzard, Townsend spent her life working her way up the rungs of the national security state. Previously serving as head of intelligence for the Coast Guard and as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s counterterrorism deputy, in 2004, President Bush appointed her to his Intelligence Advisory Board.

As the White House’s most senior advisor on terrorism and homeland security, Townsend worked closely with Bush and Rice, and became one of the faces of the administration’s War on Terror. One of her principal achievements was to whip the American public into a constant state of fear about the supposed threat of more Al-Qaeda attacks (which never came).

Before she joined Activision Blizzard, Frances Townsend worked in Homeland Security and Counterterrorism for the Bush White House. Ron Edmonds | AP

As part of her job, Townsend helped popularize the term “enhanced interrogation techniques” – a Bush-era euphemism for torturing detainees. Worse still, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the officer in charge of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, alleged that Townsend put pressure on him to ramp up the torture program, reminding him “many, many times” that he needed to improve the intelligence output from the Iraqi jail.

Townsend has denied these allegations. She also later condemned the “handcuff[ing]” and “humiliation” surrounding Abu Ghraib. She was not referring to the prisoners, however. In an interview with CNN, she lamented that “these career professionals” – CIA torturers – had been subject to “humiliation and opprobrium” after details of their actions were made public, meaning that future administrations would be “handcuffed” by the fear of bad publicity, while the intelligence community would become more “risk-averse”.

During the Trump administration, Townsend was hotly tipped to become the Director of National Intelligence or the Secretary of Homeland Security. President Trump also approached her for the role of director of the FBI. Instead, however, Townsend took a seemingly incongruous career detour to become an executive at a video games company.

ENTER THE WAR PLANNERS

In addition to this role, Townsend is a director of the NATO offshoot, the Atlantic Council, a director at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a trustee of the hawkish think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a group MintPress News has previously covered in detail.

Funded by weapons companies, NATO and the U.S. government, the Atlantic Council serves as the military alliance’s brain trust, devising strategies on how best to manage the world. Also on its board of directors are high statespersons like Henry Kissinger and Conzoleezza Rice, virtually every retired U.S. general of note, and no fewer than seven former directors of the CIA. As such, the Atlantic Council represents the collective opinion of the national security state.

Two more key Call of Duty staff also work for the Atlantic Council. Chance Glasco, a co-founder of Infinity Ward developers who oversaw the game franchise’s rapid rise, is the council’s nonresident senior fellow, advising top generals and political leaders on the latest developments in tech.

A New US Air Force Video Game Lets You Drone Bomb Iraqis and Afghans

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Game designer and producer Dave Anthony, crucial to Call of Duty’s success, is also an Atlantic Council employee, joining the group in 2014. There, he advises them on what the future of warfare will look like, and devises strategies for NATO to fight in upcoming conflicts.

Anthony has made no secret that he collaborated with the U.S. national security state while making the Call of Duty franchise. “My greatest honor was to consult with Lieut. Col. Oliver North on the story of Black Ops 2,” he stated publicly, adding, There are so many small details we could never have known about if it wasn’t for his involvement.”

Oliver North is a high government official gained worldwide infamy after being convicted for his role in the Iran-Contra Affair, whereby his team secretly sold weapons to the government of Iran, using the money to arm and train fascist death squads in Central America – groups who attempted to overthrow the government of Nicaragua and carried out waves of massacres and ethnic cleansing in the process.

REPUBLICANS FOR HIRE

Another eyebrow-raising hire is Activision Blizzard’s chief administration officer, Brian Bulatao. A former Army captain and consultant for McKinsey & Company, until 2018, he was chief operating officer for the CIA, placing him third in command of the agency. When CIA Director Mike Pompeo moved over to the State Department, becoming Trump’s Secretary of State, Bulatao went with him, and was appointed Under Secretary of State for Management.

There, by some accounts, he served as Pompeo’s personal “attack dog,” with former colleagues describing him as a “bully” who brought a “cloud of intimidation” over the workplace, repeatedly pressing them to ignore potential illegalities happening at the department. Thus, it is unclear if Bulatao is the man to improve Activision Blizzard’s notoriously “toxic” workplace environment that caused dozens of employees to walk out en masse last summer.

After the Trump administration’s electoral defeat, Bulatao went straight from the State Department into the highest echelons of Activision Blizzard, despite no experience in the entertainment industry.

Trump stands with then-CIA Chief Operations Officer Brian Bulatao at CIA Headquarters, May 21, 2018, in Langley, Va. Evan Vucci | AP

The third senior Republican official Activision Blizzard has recruited to its upper ranks is Grant Dixton. Between 2003 and 2006, Dixton served as associate counsel to President Bush, advising him on many of his administration’s most controversial legal activities (such as torture and the rapid expansion of the surveillance state). A lawyer by trade, he later went on to work for weapons manufacturer Boeing, rising to become its senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. In June 2021, he left Boeing to join Activision Blizzard as its chief legal officer.

Other Activision Blizzard executives with backgrounds in national security include senior vice president and chief information security officer Brett Wahlin, who was a U.S. Army counterintelligence agent, and chief of staff, Angela Alvarez, who, until 2016, was an Army chemical operations specialist.

That the same government that was infiltrating games 10-15 years ago now has so many former officials controlling the very game companies raises serious questions around privacy and state control over media, and mirrors the national security state penetration of social media that has occurred over the same timeframe.

WAR GAMES

These deep connections to the U.S. national security state can perhaps help partly explain why, for years, many have complained about the blatant pro-U.S. propaganda apparent throughout the games.

The latest installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, is no exception. In the game’s first mission, players must carry out a drone strike against a character named

The latest installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, is no exception. In the game’s first mission, players must carry out a drone strike against a character named General Ghorbrani. The mission is obviously a recreation of the Trump administration’s illegal 2020 drone strike against Iranian General Qassem Soleimani – the in game general even bears a striking resemblance to Soleimani.

The latest Call of Duty game has players assassinate a General Ghorbrani, a nebulous reference to Iranian General Qassem Solemani, pictured right

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II ludicrously presents the general as under Russia’s thumb and claims that Ghorbrani is “supplying terrorists” with aid. In reality, Soleimani was the key force in defeating ISIS terror across the Middle East – actions for which even Western media declared him a “hero”. U.S.-run polls found that Soleimani was perhaps the most popular leader in the Middle East, with over 80% of Iranians holding a positive opinion of him.

Straight after the assassination, Pompeo’s State Department floated the falsehood that the reason they killed Soleimani was that he was on the verge of carrying out a terror attack against Americans. In reality, Soleimani was in Baghdad, Iraq, for peace talks with Saudi Arabia.

These negotiations could have led to peace between the two nations, something that the U.S. government is dead against. Then-Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi revealed that he had personally asked President Trump for permission to invite Soleimani. Trump agreed, then used the opportunity to carry out the killing.

Therefore,, just as Activision Blizzard is recruiting top State Department officials to its upper ranks, its games are celebrating the same State Department’s most controversial assassinations.

This is far from the first time Call of Duty has instructed impressionable young gamers to kill foreign leaders, however. In Call of Duty Black Ops (2010), players must complete a mission to murder Cuban leader Fidel Castro. If they manage to shoot him in the head, they are rewarded with an extra gory slow motion scene and obtain a bronze “Death to Dictators” trophy. Thus, players are forced to carry out digitally what Washington failed to do on over 600 occasions.

A mission from “Call of Duty: Black Ops” has players assassinate a hostage-taking Fidel Castro

Likewise, Call of Duty: Ghosts is set in Venezuela, where players fight against General Almagro, a socialist military leader clearly modelled on former president Hugo Chavez. Like Chavez, Almagro wears a red beret and uses Venezuela’s oil wealth to forge an alliance of independent Latin American nations against the U.S. Washington attempted to overthrow Chavez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, multiple times. During the sixth mission of the game, players must shoot and kill Almagro from close range.

The anti-Russian propaganda is also turned up to 11 in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). One mission recreates the infamous Highway of Death incident. During the First Iraq War, U.S.-led forces trapped fleeing Iraqi troops on Highway 80. What followed was what then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell described as “wanton killing” and “slaughter for slaughter’s sake” as U.S. troops and their allies pummeled the Iraqi convoy for hours, killing hundreds and destroying thousands of vehicles. U.S. forces also reportedly shot hundreds of Iraqi civilians and surrendered soldiers in their care.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare recreates this scene for dramatic effect. However, in their version, it is not the U.S.-led forces doing the killing, but Russia, thereby whitewashing a war crime by pinning the blame on official enemies.

A mission in “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” has players recreate the infamous highway of death

“Call of Duty, in particular, has been flagged up for recreating real events as game missions and manipulating them for geopolitical purposes,” Secker told MintPress, referring to the Highway of Death, adding,

In a culture where most people’s exposure to games (and films, TV shows and so on) is far greater than their knowledge of historical and current events, these manipulations help frame the gamers’ emotional, intellectual and political reactions. This helps them turn into more general advocates for militarism, even if they don’t sign up in any formal way.”

Secker’s latest book, “Superheroes, Movies and the State: How the U.S. Government Shapes Cinematic Universes,” was published earlier this year.

GAME OVER

In today’s digitized era, the worlds of war and video games increasingly resemble one another. Many have commented on the similarities between piloting drones in real life and in games such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Prince Harry, who was a helicopter gunner in Afghanistan, described his “joy” at firing missiles at enemies. “I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I’m probably quite useful,” he said. “If there’s people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game,” he added, explicitly comparing the two activities. U.S. forces even control drones with Xbox controllers, blurring the lines between war games and war games even further.

The military has also directly produced video games as promotional and recruitment tools. One is a U.S. Air Force game called Airman Challenge. Featuring 16 missions to complete, interspersed with facts and recruitment information about how to become a drone operator yourself. In its latest attempts to market active service to young people, players move through missions escorting U.S. vehicles through countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, serving up death from above to all those designated “insurgents” by the game.

Players earn medals and achievements for most effectively destroying moving targets. All the while, there is a prominent “apply now” button on screen if players feel like enlisting and conducting real drone strikes on the Middle East.

U.S. Armed Forces use the popularity of video games to recruit heavily among young people, sponsoring gaming tournaments, fielding their own U.S. Army Esports team, and directly trying to recruit teens on streaming sites such as Twitch. The Amazon-owned platform eventually had to clamp down on the practice after the military used fake prize giveaways that lured impressionable young viewers onto recruitment websites.

Video games are a massive business and a huge center of soft power and ideology. The medium makes for particularly persuasive propaganda because children and adolescents consume them, often for weeks or months on end, and because they are light entertainment. Because of this, users do not have their guards up like if they were listening to a politician speaking. Their power is often overlooked by scholars and journalists because of the supposed frivolity of the medium. But it is the very notion that these are unimportant sources of fun that makes their message all the more potent.

The Call of Duty franchise is particularly egregious, not only in its messaging, but because who the messengers are. Increasingly, the games appear to be little more than American propaganda masquerading as fun first-person shooters. For gamers, the point is to enjoy its fast-paced entertainment. But for those involved in their production, the goal is not just making money; it is about serving the imperial war machine.

Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Mixed Bag June 22

June 22, 2022

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Blinken claims US will “follow facts” on Shireen Abu Akleh murder

June 8 2022

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English 

The US Secretary of State claims the US is looking for an independent and credible investigation for the murder of Palestinian-US journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed Tuesday that the US will pursue accountability over the murder of Palestinian-US journalist Shireen Abu Akleh wherever facts lead.

Appearing at a forum for student journalists on the sidelines of a Latin America summit in Los Angeles, Blinken was confronted by a question on why there have been “absolutely no repercussions” for the Israeli occupation.

“I’m sorry, with respect, they have not yet been established,” Blinken said of the facts behind the case.

“We are looking for an independent, credible investigation. When that investigation happens, we will follow the facts, wherever they lead. It’s as straightforward as that,” he claimed.

The US Secretary of State said, “I deplore the loss of Shireen. She was a remarkable journalist, an American citizen.”

It is noteworthy that Palestine’s Attorney General Akram Al-Khatib had announced that an Israeli soldier shot and hit Abu Akleh, clarifying that the bullet hit her directly in the head.

A CNN report, quoting witnesses, also said that the Palestinian-US journalist appeared to have been killed in a targeted attack by Israeli occupation forces.

In the same context, Yousef Jamal Al-Rantisi, a forensic expert and manager of the Gaza Center for Human Rights, released a forensic analysis of the evidence related to Abu Akleh’s murder, which concludes that she was deliberately shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces.

The Israeli occupation has angrily denied murdering Abu Akleh while asking the Palestinians to take part in a joint probe.

Dozens of lawmakers from Blinken’s Democratic Party have called on the FBI to lead an investigation to seek an impartial finding into the journalist’s murder.

Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs filed a report to the International Criminal Court regarding the brutal murder of Abu Akleh.

The American Spring by American Spies: Fake News II

29 Mar 2022

Osama Eltrabolsi 

Source: Al Mayadeen Net

With some reading, eventually, you will see how they utilize big tech algorithms, fake news, and US spies who are good at lying even to their own citizens. 

The American Spring by American Spies: Fake News II

It’s amazing how fast the news cycles are in the USA. It seems as though telling the journalistic truth these days has become akin to the days of the prophets. How ironic it is that the great USA whose thumbprint is power is filled with people who are clueless and unaware of their inner spies… I described this strangeness in my first article. And for credibility sake and journalistic standards, I hold myself to the high standards of always telling the truth. If you practice this, it means that eventually the patterns, cycles, and people emerge from the unknown war machine with names, faces, and religions across the spectrums but all have one common goal: Money and Power.

Writing about the Democrats’ fake Russian Reset, I highlighted how Michael Sussman was exposed by the Americans in a government-authorized investigation. The Durham Report, which is currently in process, proved that Hillary Clinton paid for tech information while accusing Trump of espionage.

Durham’s filing says university researchers mined internet data to establish “an inference” and a “narrative” tying Trump to Russia and that they “were seeking to please certain ‘VIPs’.” Durham identified these VIPs as individuals at Sussmann’s law firm called Perkins Coie, where Sussman was a partner. The Clinton campaign was on that VIP list. Durham’s filing alleged that Trump’s residences and the White House were spied on by a tech executive aligned with the Democratic Party…”

What this implies is that, according to the West itself, there is a wide range of political schemes happening even to the American people, and those schemes look like the Arab Spring. How big a claim but only through a steady dose of truth-filled journalism can one begin to see. As a lawyer and independent journalist, with some reading and following these articles, eventually, you will see how they utilize big tech algorithms, fake news, and American spies who are good at lying even to their citizens. 

WHY IT MATTERS TO US

It matters to us because a masterful strategic identity game is played in American politics, and like a torch in an Olympic game being handed over to a teammate, these American decision-makers hand over revolutions and wars. It is important to know about the American Spring and to understand their hostile powers, their military, and their intelligence capabilities, as well as what their latest scandal affords in the chess game of politics. Did Biden forfeit a massive war machine or did he hand it to the Taliban? These consistently destructive failures have devastating consequences and what we see with US mass media, now including social media, is in direct collusion with who they claim is a terrorist. 

It means the media is flagrantly and sinister in their deflection. But In order to understand, one has to first understand this is a network of closely linked individuals who share a common goal: personal power at the expense of the whole.

In an American Spring, one would see nothing less than the complete destruction of American culture and influence. This has long happened since the days of Obama whose shady Presidency succumbed to a future promising president Hillary Clinton or President Donald J. Trump. Trump won in 2020 as a result of this decaying American influence. It sounds shocking and unbelievable, but essentially Hillary, Obama, and their allies have been positioning themselves to be the Lenin and Stalin of our time. They adopted the principles of their former enemies and have years of contradictions to prove it. How do principles change with such flexibility? They don’t. News cycles change, not values. 

This American Spring is two-fold: the subversion of American culture and its replacement with socialist values, and soon we will be seeing a weaponization of Takfirists Islamic groups again to create instability, division, and ultimately regime changes. 

The Americans are either too unaware of the dirty politics or their media are too proud to admit this. You heard the name Sussman from my writing and later confirmed by the Durham Report. However, Durham is a Special Counsel assigned to investigate the truth about the Russian Democrat-led disinformation campaign which means he is an exception and the US intelligence is no longer credible. Who are they and how do they sleep at night?

To prove my point that the intelligence apparatus of the US has failed, I digress with a NY Post article that calls a list of 51 names of intelligence officers and media pundits spies who lie: 51 ‘intelligence’ experts refuse to apologize for discrediting true Hunter Biden story. These experts chose to cover for Hunter Biden, who lost a computer which has been dubbed as the laptop from hell in which he sold “introductions to his father for 10 million dollars.” The same current news cycle and its major components are happening as we speak but in multiple areas of criminal political activity. 

Let’s look at how this intelligence scandal of the 51 is no different from what we see around the world where the US invokes regime changes and how it relates to us specifically.

Front and Center Left, John Brennan 

Remember that US officials are rotated and cycled through various government institutions distancing them from suspicion or conflicts of interest. Brennan​ in 2010 stated, “And during a 25-year career in government, I was privileged to serve in positions across the Middle East — as a political officer with the State Department and as a CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, I saw how our Saudi partners fulfilled their duty as custodians of the two holy mosques of Mecca and Medina. I marveled at the majesty of the Hajj and the devotion of those who fulfilled their duty as Muslims by making that privilege — that pilgrimage.” 

This tells us two things we need to know. As he claimed:

1) Brennan admits to being a ‘political officer’ with the State Dept while simultaneously the Jeddah Station chief. The second thing here to note is 

2) Brennan has an affection and admitted pro-Islamic bias. As a political officer for the Dept of State, Brennan would be granted authority to issue visas from his CIA station.

In the West, Brennan has always been questionable by his opponents even so far as rumors claiming that Brennan converted to Islam​. It’s similar to Lawrence of Arabia, but without the charm.

As a journalist, I know what it means for a laptop to be discredited by 51 lying spies and then proven to be true, which calls the spies’ integrity into question.

The American Spring continues under the strange leadership of Biden after a very long history of race-baiting and war-mongering. The laptop being denied isn’t the main story, rather it is what is on the laptop which is the true story, and here again, we see the same characters.

The same John Brennan who was located in Pakistan with Brezinsky, Obama’s university professor, and Carter’s CIA director, who would become a main face in the Arab Spring, is now again here before us. 

History is in fact repeating itself because, despite their promises to avoid history’s mistakes, they continue to commit them. 

Front and Center Right, James Clapper 

Remember that US officials are rotated and cycled through various government institutions distancing them from suspicion or conflicts of interest. The New York Post is asking Clapper to renounce the accusation that was undergirded by fake news and American Spies as they call them. 

President Bill Clinton created a task force to study the Khobar Towers bombing and assess all threats. The Assessment Task Force was led by General Downing, and a retired Air Force Lieutenant named General James Clapper served as the head of the intelligence assessment team. The task force was not asked to do a criminal investigation but only to report instances of malfeasance to the chain of command. 

Downing reported​ that the chain of command “did not provide adequate guidance and support to the commander” who “was ill-served by the intelligence arrangement within his command…” 

Not ironically, from 1999 to 2000, he was the Chief of Staff to then-CIA Director George Tenet. 

Could the whole Russian Hoax have been to protect these people from being exposed for all their ‘malfeasance’ through their appointed careers? With Trump promising to end endless wars, this could be the only path forward. All Biden had to do was win what Hillary lost: Power & Control. Yet, as Obama warned his Democratic accomplices, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to F*** things up.” 

If it’s an American Spring, Trump would now have to be seen as heroic as the Left made Zelenski, no different than how the Egyptians see Sisi.

This American Spring very well may be interrupted if the Americans realize they do have spies amongst them and Biden’s seat of power squeaks with rust as it is upheld by them. 

The Past

To understand the Middle East today, we must know some history. The intelligence scene is very much the fuel behind these conflicts, so consider another person of question. Louis Freeh

George H.W. Bush appointed him a judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in 91. Two years later, he answered a call from President Bill Clinton, and he became the fifth director of the FBI in 93.

Freeh was the FBI Director during the Khobar Towers, the Unabomber, the Centennial Olympic bombing, Ruby Ridge, and Waco investigations. The Oklahoma City bombing happened under his watch.

He served from September 1993 to June 25, 2001, and was succeeded by Robert Mueller who reappears from the past to investigate Trump with the wasteful 3-year sham investigation which led to minimal prosecution compared to what was promised: Espionage. 

As it relates to the Russian Hoax, Freeh is connected to the Russian-owned money laundering firm ‘Prevazon’. Prevazon hired Louis Freeh to help settle a major money-laundering case with the US government for roughly $5.9 million. 

Prevazon is also represented by Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with top Trump campaign officials in June 2016 at Trump Tower to lobby for repealing the 2012 Magnitsky Act. This would be the meeting that was planned and orchestrated against Trump. 

Louis Freeh wasn’t used by the Democrats to ensnare Trump but is an intelligence officer with a past that Trump threatened to expose and end. 

With official charges and Trump being acquitted over and over, the loser is the American people because although no charges were brought, this infamous Trump Tower meeting “with Russians” solidified the fake narrative of unproven espionage. Did Freeh have anything to be concerned about? 

Leading us to another worthy note: Natalia Veselnitskaya was indicted for her connection to Kremlin- tied Prevazon, and American mainstream media still has no interest in correcting their false lies regarding the fake and obviously orchestrated Trump Tower meeting. Join me next week as we explore how these men have impacted the Middle East and our lives. And since the Western Media cannot expose it, I invite you to journey as we get to know who the American Spies are and how they have meticulously organized in a stealthy manner what will soon be known in the history books as the American Spring.

The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

Related

• Fake news & refugees: Democrats recruiting mercenaries
• Who’s fighting whom & who’s cheating?
• Russian Reset

Retired US generals have warned of the possibility of a coup during the 2024 election.

January 10, 2022

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen net

Retired US generals have warned of the possibility of a coup during the 2024 election.

A three percenter patch is worn over a US military outfit (AFP)

Experts are concerned that the emergence of right-wing extremism in the US military would endanger democracy in the US. The Department of Defense is implementing new procedures to combat extremism inside its forces; however, experts are concerned that the measures will not go far enough, making the next election vulnerable to assault. Retired US generals have warned of the possibility of a coup during the 2024 election.

Paul Eaton, a retired US army major general and senior advisor to the non-profit VoteVets, said, “We’re behind the ball on what we know about domestic terrorists in the United States.”

In an interview, Eaton said the US military and law enforcement have a history of underestimating the threat posed from the far right. Referring to the 1995 Oklahoma city bombing perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh that killed 168 people and injured over 650, Eaton said, “It’s the Timothy McVeigh problem: what did we know about McVeigh and what were we doing about it?”

He adds that the cyber age and social media have helped to boost the threat of the far-right, considering that the “McVeighs of the world are still there, we had about 4,500 of them crawling all over the nation’s Capitol.”

Eaton warns that there is a recruiting effort ongoing and that extremism infiltrating the police force is a concern that needs to be monitored.

The FBI has accused over 700 Donald Trump supporters of taking part in the siege of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. 81 of them had ties to the military and 5 were on duty at the time.

Neo-Nazi attacks attempted

Last year, army private Ethan Phelan Melzer confessed to organizing an attack against his fellow troops with a neo-Nazi group to ensure the “deaths of as many of his fellow service members as possible.”

In 2018, after attacking people in the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” demonstrations, marine lance corporal Vasillios Pistolis was found to be a member of the neo-Nazi group Aomwaffen.

354 people with military backgrounds have committed criminal acts motivated by political or religious goals, according to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland.

From 1990-2010, the number of cases a year has tripled.

Stand down

Lloyd Austin, the Defense Secretary, authorized a 60-day “stand down” early last year to devise regulations to combat extremism throughout the military’s many branches. 

The Pentagon’s new guidelines, enacted last month, state that military officers are barred from engaging in extremist activities and may face disciplinary action even for “liking” terrorist information on social media.

Additionally, officers cannot be “indifferent” and must hold military personnel who engage in extremist activity accountable. 

An AP investigation found that the Pentagon’s efforts may fall short, as the new guidelines don’t prohibit membership in extremist organizations, as long as they are not “actively participating”.

Kristofer Goldsmith, an Iraq veteran and researcher, says white supremacist and fascist movements target veterans because they are an “economically efficient target for campaigns because if you get one, they often bring their immediate social circle with them.”

Goldsmith says, “we saw a violent insurrection, we did not experience a peaceful transfer of power. It was an attempted coup. Every failed coup is just practice for the next one.”

‘Media Bears a Responsibility’ – Protesters Demand Justice for Survivors amid Maxwell Trial

December 08th, 2021

By Dan Cohen

Source

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Thurghood Marshall Courthouse in New York City, where Ghislaine Maxwell is on trial for her role in Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long sex trafficking operation invovling numerous elite figures. Dan Cohen reports from the demonstration.

NEW YORK – On December 4, protesters and survivors of sex trafficking gathered outside the Thurghood Marshall Courthouse in New York City to demand justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, whose trial is ongoing.

“Epstein and Maxwell trafficked children for 25 years and Maxwell is only charged with one count of child trafficking,” investigative journalist Nick Bryant told the crowd.

“Testimonies indicate that Epstein demanded sexual acts from women and girls up to three times a day,” explained Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking In Women, adding:

If true, that would be 1,032 acts of sexual violence a year. And with at least 3 decades of Epestin’s reported patterns of sexual abuse, that is over 32,000 instances of rape and sexual assault by Epstein alone. And 30, 40 years later, there are four survivors in that courtroom that are accusing Maxwell of pimping. Four!”

While the legal system has leveled a mere six charges against Maxwell, mass media from Google and Wikipedia to television networks uniformly describe her as a “socialite.”

Both Google and Wikipedia characterize Maxwell as a “socialite”

It’s a stark contrast to the media treatment of Alisha Owen – a survivor of a similar pedophilia ring involving powerful businessmen, political and intelligences figures – who spoke at the rally.

“I am no longer going to just be a survivor. I am going to be a warrior,” she told the cheering crowd. “On the front page of the Omaha World Herald, they called me short, fat and ugly. ‘This couldn’t possibly happen to her, she’s short, fat and ugly….’ It was so brutal. So I think the media bears a responsibility,” Owen remarked to MintPress News.

On top of being smeared by her local newspaper, Owen says she was pressured by the FBI to recant her testimony. “Between 50 and 100 times, the FBI was, ‘You’re gonna change. You know, you’re gonna recant. You’re gonna say you’re a liar…’ The FBI told me, ‘You’re gonna be an old woman.’ I was supposed to be in [for] 250 years.”

But no outlet has given such an explicit display of sympathy as Bloomberg News, which asked if Ghislaine Maxwell is a victim in the affair.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial is set to be one of the biggest of the #MeToo era. But the jury may have to grapple with a unique question: is Maxwell herself a victim? https://t.co/vPRayRUB43

— Bloomberg (@business) November 29, 2021

It’s no surprise, given that the owner of the outlet, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, is tied to Maxwell and Epstein. Photos from 2013 show Bloomberg and Maxwell together:

Another photo of Ghislaine Maxwell with vertically challenged Democrat/Independent former Mayor of NYC Michael Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/wLJ0viEQHY

— Ghislaine Maxwell Trial Updates (@MaxwellTrial) November 27, 2021

And Epstein’s infamous Little Black Book contains five different phone numbers for Bloomberg.

Also curiously missing from most mainstream reporting on Epstein and Maxwell are questions about their ties to U.S. and Israeli intelligence.

Jeffrey Epstein was an FBI informant, and former Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, who in 2008 was the U.S. attorney in Miami, cut a plea deal with Epstein after he was told Epstein “belonged to intelligence.” Ghislaine Maxwell’s late father, Robert Maxwell, is reported to have been a Mossad operative.

What became of the Epstein dirt?

With Epstein dead in what many suspect was a covered-up murder, and Maxwell facing only a handful of charges, the elite figures who visited Epstein’s mansions – from Bill Clinton and Donald Trump to Bill Gates and Ehud Barak – are not under investigation. As journalist Chris Hedges explained:

The videos that Epstein apparently collected of his guests engaged in sexual escapades with teenage and underage girls from the cameras he had installed in his opulent residences and his private island have mystersously disappeared, most probably into the crucial hole of the FBI along with other evidence.”

With the system that allowed Epstein and Maxwell to commit their crimes intact, the protesters vow to carry on their struggle for justice.

Another Look at 9/11: Ask Not ‘What Happened?’ but ‘Who Did It?’

Philip Giraldi

September 16, 202

The evidence of Israeli involvement is substantial, based on the level of the Jewish state’s espionage operations in the U.S., Phil Giraldi writes.

The twentieth anniversary of 9/11 last Saturday has raised many of the usual issues about what actually happened on that day. Were hijacked airliners actually crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or was the damage in New York City attributable to explosives or even some kind of nuclear device? These are fundamental questions and the so-called “Truthers” who raise them have been inspired by their reading of the 585 page 9/11 Report, which is most charitably described as incomplete, though many would reasonably call it a government cover-up.

I have long believed that unless one actually sees or experiences something first hand the description of any event is no better than hearsay. The closest I came to “seeing” 9/11 was the panicked evacuation of a CIA office building, where I was working at the time. Another related bit of 9/11 narrative also came from two close friends who were driving into work at the Pentagon when they each independently observed what appeared to be a large plane passing over their cars and striking the building. I consider the sources credible but was it an airplane or a missile? And I was not there to see it with my own eyes, so I am reluctant to claim that my friends actually saw something that in retrospect might have been misconstrued.

Critics of the physical and engineering aspects of the accepted narrative certainly have a great deal of expert evidence that supports their case. The way the towers fell as well as the collapse of Building 7 nearby are suggestive of something other than the impact of an airliner near the top of the structure, but I am no expert in the science of the matter and have avoided expressing a view regarding it.

Apart from what happened, I have always been more intrigued by “Who done it?” I found the 9/11 Report to be conspicuously lacking in its failure to cover possible foreign involvement, to include the Saudis, Pakistanis and the Israelis. Indeed, President Joe Biden has taken steps that have resulted in the declassification and release of 16 pages of the notorious 28-page redaction of documents relating to any possible Saudi role. The document consists of interviews with Saudi student Omar al-Bayoumi, who reportedly helped support several hijackers.

The Saudis are being sued by 9/11 survivors, but it is unlikely that anything really sensitive will ever be exposed, as explained by investigative journalist Jim Bovard. Indeed, the documents released last Saturday did not demonstrate that the Saudi government itself played any direct role in 9/11, though it is clear that wealthy Saudis and even members of the Royal Family had been supporting and funding al-Qaeda. It is also known that that Saudi Embassy and Consulate employees in the U.S. had funded the alleged hijackers.

Friends who were in CIA’s Counterterrorism Center at the time of 9/11 tend to believe that the Saudis were indeed supporting their fellow citizens while in the U.S. but were likely not knowledgeable regarding any terrorist plot. They observed, however, that there was considerable evidence that Israel knew in advance about what was impending and may have even been instrumental in making sure that it succeeded.

The evidence of Israeli involvement is substantial, based on the level of the Jewish state’s espionage operations in the U.S. and also its track record on so-called covert actions simulating terrorist attacks designed to influence political decision making in foreign countries. But, of course, in reporting on the 9/11 tragedy no one in the mainstream media did pick up on the connection, inhibited no doubt by the understanding that there are some things that one just does not write about Israel if one hopes to remain employed. That is true in spite of the fact that the Israeli angle to 9/11 is without a doubt a good story, consigned to the alternative media, where it can be marginalized by critics as a conspiracy theory or the product of anti-Semitism.

In the year 2001 Israel was running a massive spying operation directed against Muslims either resident or traveling in the United States. The operation included the creation of a number of cover companies in New Jersey, Florida and also on the west coast that served as spying mechanisms for Mossad officers. The effort was supported by the Mossad Station in Washington DC and included a large number of volunteers, the so-called “art students” who traveled around the U.S. selling various products at malls and outdoor markets. The FBI was aware of the numerous Israeli students who were routinely overstaying their visas but they were regarded as a minor nuisance and were normally left to the tender mercies of the inspectors at the Bureau of Customs and Immigration.

The Israelis were also running more sophisticated intelligence operations inside the United States, many of which were focused on Washington’s military capabilities and intentions. Some specialized intelligence units concentrated on obtaining military and dual use technology. It was also known that Israeli spies had penetrated the phone systems of the U.S. government, to include those at the White House.

All of that came into focus on September 11, 2001, when a New Jersey housewife saw something from the window of her apartment building, which overlooked the World Trade Center. She watched as the buildings burned and crumbled but also noted something strange. Three young men were kneeling on the roof of a white transit van parked by the water’s edge, making a movie in which they featured themselves high fiving and laughing in front of the catastrophic scene unfolding behind them. The woman wrote down the license plate number of the van and called the police, who responded quickly and soon both the local force and the FBI began looking for the vehicle, which was subsequently seen by other witnesses in various locations along the New Jersey waterfront, its occupants “celebrating and filming.”

The license plate number revealed that the van belonged to a New Jersey registered company called Urban Moving Systems. The van was identified and pulled over. Five men between the ages of 22 and 27 years old emerged to be detained at gunpoint and handcuffed. They were all Israelis. One of them had $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock and another had two foreign passports. Bomb sniffing dogs reacted to the smell of explosives in the van.

According to the initial police report, the driver identified as Sivan Kurzberg, stated “We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.” The five men were detained at the Bergen County jail in New Jersey before being transferred the FBI’s Foreign Counterintelligence Section, which handles allegations of spying.

After the arrest, the FBI obtained a warrant to search Urban Moving System’s Weehawken, NJ, offices. Papers and computers were seized. The company owner Dominick Suter, also an Israeli, answered FBI questions but when a follow-up interview was set up a few days later it was learned that he had fled the country for Israel, putting both his business and home up for sale. It was later learned that Suter has been associated with at least fourteen businesses in the United States, mostly in New Jersey and New York but also in Florida.

The five Israelis were held in Brooklyn, initially on charges relating to visa fraud. FBI interrogators questioned them for more than two months. Several were held in solitary confinement so they could not communicate with each other and two of them were given repeated polygraph exams, which they failed when claiming that they were nothing more than students working summer jobs. The two men that the FBI focused on most intensively were believed to be Mossad staff officers and the other three were volunteers helping with surveillance. Interestingly, photo evidence demonstrated that they had been seen “casing” the area where they were seen celebrating on the day before, indicating that they had prior knowledge of the attack.

The Israelis were not exactly cooperative, but the FBI concluded from documents obtained at their office in Weehawken that they had been targeting Arabs in New York and New Jersey. The FBI concluded that there was a distinct possibility that the Israelis had actually monitored the activities of at least two of the alleged 9/11 hijackers while the cover companies and intelligence personnel often intersected with locations frequented by the Saudis.

The dots were apparently never connected by investigators. Police records in New Jersey and New York where the men were held have disappeared and FBI interrogation reports are inaccessible. Media coverage of the case also died, though the five were referred to in the press as the “dancing Israelis” and by some, more disparagingly, as the “dancing Shlomos.”

Inevitably, the George W. Bush White House intervened. After 71 days in detention, the five Israelis were inexplicably released from prison, put on a plane, and deported. One should also recall that when the news of 9/11 reached Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was pleased, saying that “It’s very good. Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.” It will “strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we’ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.” And, of course, it was conveniently attributable to Israel’s enemies.

The possible role of Israel in 9/11 was first explored in book form in 2003 by Antiwar.com editorial director Justin Raimondo in his The Terror Enigma, a short book focusing on Israeli spying and inconsistencies in the narrative that bore the provocative subtitle “9/11 and the Israeli Connection.”

Currently, the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 has inspired some others to take another look at the possible Israeli role. Ron Unz has recently completed an exhaustive examination of the evidence. He observes that 9/11 and its aftermath have shaped “the last two decades, greatly changing the daily lives and liberties of most ordinary Americans.” He asks “What organized group would have been sufficiently powerful and daring to carry off an attack of such vast scale against the central heart of the world’s sole superpower? And how were they possibly able to orchestrate such a massively effective media and political cover-up, even enlisting the participation of the U.S. government itself?”

Ron Unz answers his question, concluding that there is “a strong, perhaps even overwhelming case that the Israeli Mossad together with its American collaborators played the central role” in the attack. His argument is based on the noted inconsistencies in the standard narrative, plus an examination of the history of Israeli false flag and mass terrorism attacks. It also includes new information gleaned from Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman’s recent book Rise and Kill First: the Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations.

To a certain extent, Unz relies on a detailed investigative article written by French journalist Laurent Guyenot in 2018 as well as on an argument made by an ex-Marine and former instructor at the U.S. Army War College Alan Sabrosky in an article where he records how “Many years ago I read a fascinating discussion of the ‘tactics of mistake.’ This essentially entailed using a target’s prejudices and preconceptions to mislead them as to the origin and intent of the attack, entrapping them in a tactical situation that later worked to the attacker’s strategic advantage. This is what unfolded in the 9/11 attacks that led us into the matrix of wars and conflicts, present (Afghanistan and Iraq), planned (Iran and Syria) and projected (Jordan and Egypt), that benefit Israel and no other country — although I concede that many private contractors and politicians are doing very well for themselves out of the death and misery of others. I am also absolutely certain as a strategic analyst that 9/11 itself, from which all else flows, was a classic Mossad-orchestrated operation. But Mossad did not do it alone. They needed local help within America (and perhaps elsewhere) and they had it, principally from some alumni of PNAC (the misnamed Project for a New American Century) and their affiliates within and outside of the U.S. Government (USG), who in the 9/11 attacks got the ‘catalytic event’ they needed and craved to take the U.S. to war on Israel’s behalf…”

Economist and author Paul Craig Roberts has also been motivated by the anniversary to review the evidence and concludes “Circumstantial evidence suggests that 9/11 was a scheme of George W. Bush regime neoconservative officials allied with vice president Dick Cheney and Israel to create a ‘new Pearl Harbor’ that would generate support on the part of the American people and Washington’s European allies for a Middle Eastern ‘war on terror’ whose real purpose was to destroy Israel’s enemies in the interest of Greater Israel… This is the most plausible explanation, but, if true, it is not one that the U.S. and Israeli governments would ever acknowledge. Consequently, we are stuck with an official explanation long championed by the presstitutes that no one believes.”

Yes, an implausible explanation that no one really believes for the greatest national security disaster in America’s twenty-first century. And Israel gets yet another pass.

Families of 9/11 Victims Expect Release of FBI Report on Saudi Role

September 10, 2021

By Staff, Agencies 

Families of the victims of the September 11 attacks who are suing the government of Saudi Arabia in a United States federal court in New York are expecting the US government to imminently release a key FBI report.

The 16-page report is an FBI summary and analysis of the agency’s long-running investigation into the activities of two of the September 11 hijackers, Saudi nationals, Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi.

In January 2000, the two Al-Qaeda operatives arrived in California where they were assisted by other Saudis. The FBI report, which may be redacted upon its public release, is expected to provide details of the FBI’s inquiry into who helped Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi, according to a lawyer for the September 11 families.

“It’s unclear what other parts of the government may have known what was going on, but clearly, fairly high-level and mid-level Saudi officials working for the government were part of this conspiracy,” said Andrew ‘Duke’ Maloney, a lawyer with the law firm Kreindler LLP representing the September 11 families in the litigation against Saudi Arabia.

Now 20 years after the 2001 attacks that resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington, DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the families’ lawsuit accusing the Saudi government of complicity is nearing a turning point. Either sufficient evidence to support the lawsuit will be presented to the court or it will fail to move forward.

The pending FBI report is an analysis by agents who looked into how Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi, who spoke little English and had no independent resources when they arrived in the US, gained a foothold in Los Angeles and then in San Diego.

Lawyers for the September 11 families believe they can prove there was “a cabal” of Saudi government officials “who were conspiring with Al-Qaeda operatives.” The lawsuit’s goal is to win a financial settlement for the families of the victims of the attack.

Argued largely in private, behind closed doors and in secret filings, the factual underpinnings of the case could soon become public under an executive order by President Joe Biden.

After Biden was told by September 11 family members he would not be welcome at anniversary memorials usually attended by the president, Biden directed the Justice Department and other agencies to review and release still-secret FBI documents and evidence.

Biden’s order specifically directs the release of the 16-page report by the September 11, 2021 anniversary.

The report is likely to shed new light on what the FBI knows about several men connected to the hijackers, including Saudi nationals, Muslim leader Fahad Al-Thumairy and suspect Saudi spy Omar Al-Bayoumi, Maloney said.

A Saudi embassy official, Mussaed Ahmed Al-Jarrah, whose name had emerged previously as part of the legal proceedings, is believed to have provided assistance to the future hijackers, according to the families’ lawyers.

Of the 19 al-Qaeda hijackers, 15 were Saudis and from the beginning of multiple US inquiries in to the September 11 attacks, questions have swirled around the Saudi role.

The Taliban, 9/11, the Empire, MAGA eastern wet pampers

September 09, 2021

by Andrei for the Saker Blog

Most of you must have heard it: the Taliban will organize a major celebration on September 11th to mark the liberation of Afghanistan from the US occupation and the creation of the new Afghan government.  The Russians and the Chinese have been invited.  As are the Pakistanis.  Not sure about Iran (do you know?)?

The Afghan government could be called a “GITMO government” since 5 members are former GITMO hostages and one, the head of security/intel, is still on the FBI most wanted list.

Needless to say, the Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11.  As for Bin-Laden and al-Qaeda they were somewhat involved, but only as “patsies”.

But the US government declared that the Taliban guilty and invaded Afghanistan.

Twenty years later, the Taliban are in total control and the US has probably executed one of the dumbest, worst and generally immoral military operation in history.  And 20 years later, the US was totally defeated.  Not by Russia.  Not by China.  Not by Iran.  Not even by Venezuela.  By the Afghans, after 20 years of warfare and trillions spent.

I have to agree with a Russian analyst who recently declared that “no, this is not even a “regular/normal” imperial collapse, this is the worst and most shameful imperial collapse in history”.

I fully concur.

As for what the Taliban will do this Saturday, it can’t even be called “spitting in Uncle Shmuel’s face”.  It’s even more than that.  Maybe we could speak of “urinating into Uncle Shmuel’s face” or some other even ruder metaphor showing both the total and utter contempt in which the Taliban hold not only the USA but the entire AngloZionist Empire AND somehow express the magnitude of the humiliation inflicted upon the USA.

I lack the words to come up with a suitable metaphor.

Can somebody come up with something sufficiently powerful?

Also, and especially for the MAGA folks out there:

CNN has reported that the entire “Ukie plan” to kidnap Russian PMCs was organized by the CIA and botched by the Ukies.  The harcore Ukronazis are now accusing CNN of either being “duped by the FSB” or even for being used by Putin personally.  Or both.

Anyway, what this goes to prove that Trump approved a clear terrorist attack against Russia.  Either that, or he did not even know about it, which might be worse…

And you guys are seriously discussing his possible comeback?!?!

Get real!

I saw an interesting poll somewhere (sorry, don’t remember where exactly) which shows that 49% of US Americans feel safer than on 9/11 20 years ago and 41% feel less safe.

And that is the real outcome of this monumentally evil and stupid Neocon plan.

After 20 years of warfare, pompous self-aggrandizement, many thousands dead and maimed and trillions spent.

Nothing will ever wash off this shame from the awareness of folks in Zone B and even many in Zone A.

Finally, today the Ukronazis shelled the Donbass again, with howitzers and mortars.  They were aiming at a water pumping station, miss and wounded/killed a couple.  Either way, this is a warcrime.  The Russians have declared that they have the designation of the unit which fired and the name of the commander who gave the order.

Which is all very predictable, since 1) US officials just visited the Ukraine 2) the CNN story is a HUGE scandal in the Ukie Rada and 3) Zelenskii is desperate to show that he might still be useful to the USA.

As for the Poles, they are fearing Russian invasion, so they put bared wire (I kid you not!) along their eastern border.  Which remind me of a Russian joke: a man walks down the street minding his own business, when he sees a woman on a balcony screaming “help! he wants to rape me! help!!!” from the top of her lungs.  The man looks up and says, “ma’am, calm down, I have no interest in you whatsoever and you are on the balcony while I am in the street” to which the woman replies, “yeah, maybe, but I can come down!“.

The Russian military is engaged in some large and serious, not fake, military maneuvers: 200’000 soldiers in both Russia and Belarus.  Hence all the wet pampers in eastern Europe (especially in Poland – the “hyena of Europe” always was a cowardly animal).

The Poles have even predicted the date of the Russian invasion: tomorrow (not a joke)

I have terrible news for Poland, the Baltic statelets and the Ukraine: nobody in Russia has any need for you, or your land.  Nobody.  Oh, and, for your information: “defenses” like walls, barbed-wires or even trenches cannot stop a modern military, such crap would not even slow the Russians down.

Summary: both Biden and Zelenskii might get impeached or otherwise removed.  That’s won’t solve anything for the US or the Ukraine, but sheer magnitude of their incompetence and stupidity makes such an outcome quite possible.

Not even in my most wildest and craziest dreams could I ever have imagined such a quick and total collapse of the Empire and of the USA.  I have to pinch myself several times a day, each time I get the news 🙂

Cheers

Two 9/11 Saudi Hijackers Helped By US-Based Network – Ex-FBI Agent

September 6, 2021

By Staff, Agencies

A former Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] agent involved in an investigation into the September 11, 2001 attacks said two of the hijackers received help from a US-based network of Saudis, including Omar al-Bayoumi who had ties to the Saudi government.

Danny Gonzalez, who worked on the still-classified FBI investigation ‘Operation Encore’ which focused on Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar who along with three other hijackers flew planes into the Pentagon, said he believes the pair were helped by a number of Saudi citizens including Bayoumi after they moved to San Diego in January 2001.

“19 hijackers cannot commit 3,000 mass murders by themselves,” Gonzalez told CBS News.

Bayoumi, who was working for the Riyadh government, helped al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar move to San Diego and assisted them in finding an apartment and opening a bank account after, Gonzalez said.

The 9/11 Commission report released in 2004 found that Bayoumi was an “unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement” with extremists. It said there was “no credible evidence that he believed in violent extremism or knowingly aided extremist groups.”

But Gonzalez said the public would learn “a lot” if documents from ‘Operation Encore’, which began two years after the Commission’s report, were released, adding that the records would change the public’s understanding of the attacks.

Gonzalez said he can’t reveal certain classified information about the investigation per orders from the FBI.

His statements came as US President Joe Biden on Friday directed the Department of Justice to declassify some documents related to the attacks and release them over the next six months amid pressure from families and survivors who are suing the kingdom for its alleged complicity in the attacks.

Some of the documents which are set to be released pertain to “Encore.”

Commenting on Biden’s order, Brett Eagleson who lost his father Bruce in the Twin Towers attacks and has been an advocate for the victims’ families, said they would stay skeptical until the documents were released. 

“We are cautiously optimistic that we will get the documents we need, however our guard is still up,” Eagleson told DailyMail.com.

Some 3,000 people were killed in the attacks that targeted several locations across the US.

Saudi Arabia’s name came to the fore in discussions concerning the attacks after their occurrence, with investigators quickly concluding that 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the raids were of Saudi origin.

The Riyadh regime, however, has managed to avoid any liability amid what the families of the victims, survivors and their lawyers denounce as Washington’s attempts to shield the kingdom from any comeuppance.

Nasrallah suggests Lebanese politicians aiding militants in Syria behind nitrate stockpile at Beirut Port

August 10, 2021

“Poor” Hezbollah..”Poor” Syria

Original link: http://middleeastobserver.net/nasrallah-suggests-lebanese-politicians-aiding-militants-in-syria-behind-nitrate-shipment-to-beirut-port/

Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah comments on the political exploitation and investigation findings of the Port of Beirut Disaster that took place one year ago in Lebanon’s capital.Source: Spot Shot (YouTube)Date: August 8, 2021

(Please help MEO keep producing independent translations for you by contributing a sustainable monthly amount https://www.patreon.com/MiddleEastObserver?fan_landing=true)

Transcript:

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s Secretary General:

And after a year has passed, they (i.e. Lebanese groups leading the anti-Hezbollah campaign in relation to the Beirut Port explosion) found no evidence, proof, or investigation that could lead to this conclusion. They got lost, they were lost for a while; what can they say (in this regard)? They were waiting for the investigations, and they know that the official investigation by the Lebanese Army, the investigation by (Lebanon’s) Information Branch, the French investigation and the FBI investigation, and all the sides that took part and contributed to this investigation, reached a clear conclusion, which is now openly available and documented as well: there were no missiles, no weapons, and no munitions in Warehouse 12, nor anywhere in the entire Port (of Beirut). Nothing. And there was no (military or sabotage) action (from an external state/party). I’m not rushing (to conclusions), the (official Lebanese investigators) are obliged to announce the findings (of their investigation), but they don’t wish to announce (the results), and I’ll get back to this point.

In this case, what could they possibly do, having nothing (in hand) that can lead to (the accusation) of the Resistance and Hezbollah? They came up with a new story regarding the (Ammonium) nitrate. Who brought the nitrate (to Lebanon)? Great! The (Lebanese) judiciary should reveal who brought the nitrate, the ship that brought the nitrate. There are reports that say that (the ship’s intended) destination wasn’t Beirut, but it had an accident and resorted to the Port of Beirut. Its destination wasn’t Beirut to begin with.

So, who brought in the nitrate? Who stored them? Who kept them in (the warehouse)? Who prevented the transportation of these materials and (prevented) their sale? The same story all over again: ‘the one who brought the nitrate is Hezbollah, and Hezbollah is the one who knows about it because they brought it (into Lebanon), Hezbollah stored it in Warehouse 12 and kept it there, and the one who prevented the transportation (of the nitrate) is Hezbollah as well’.

Okay, what evidence do you have dear? What’s the evidence for this vile and atrocious accusation (against Hezbollah)? None, there is nothing. However, they have television stations, newspapers, media outlets, and an electronic army, and they can say whatever they want, and they’re (indeed) trying to frame a (particular) scenario.

Now, I want to answer (this campaign of accusations) in way that is somehow sarcastic. Poor Hezbollah, how saddening! They don’t have tons of weapons, munitions, missiles, and explosives that are manufactured in the best military factories in the world, which meet the (required) standards, poor (Hezbollah), they have nothing. They must bring nitrate and smuggle them into Lebanon, nitrate that is used for agricultural purposes and can also be used for manufacturing explosives, how poor (Hezbollah) is, it has no other choice. Poor Hezbollah, they’ve got no warehouses to transport nitrate to, they’ve got warehouses that can accommodate tens of thousands of missiles, but they do not have warehouses where they can put about 2,000 tons of this nitrate for example, so they had to leave them in the warehouse in the Port (of Beirut). Poor Hezbollah, for six or seven years, they haven’t been able to secure places to transport the nitrate to. Poor Hezbollah, they haven’t got any transportation (means) or trucks, they need to rent trucks, taxis, chauffeurs, or drivers to transport (these materials) directly to the south of Lebanon. Poor Hezbollah…

Could there be anything more ridiculous than this? Anything sillier? Anything more horrible? I’ll leave the judgement to you. If someone wishes to make an accusation, they need to make it a bit logical and make some sense. This is all absurd talk. Yet, it is intended; they know it is ridiculous and absurd, but they follow the method of telling lies upon lies as there are people who are ready to believe them, and this is a part of the battle, part of the open war.

They then developed their claim, they said: no, Hezbollah is not in need, those (stockpiles of nitrate) were brought by Hezbollah and placed in the Port so that they can move them to Syria. (I’ll use the) the same (sarcastic) approach. The poor Syrian regime, it doesn’t have ports, it doesn’t have a port in Latakia, nor in Tartus, it doesn’t have any, so, it is forced to bring them into Beirut, and burden Hezbollah with the process of transportation from Beirut to Syria. Poor Syrian regime, it has got no allies that could provide it, through aircrafts and ships, with weapons, munitions, explosives, and so on…Come on! Could someone sane believe such a thing?

Well, anyway, whatever has been said from one year till this very moment, especially the past few days, is not based on any logic or sense, and it doesn’t have any aim other than distortion, accusation, extortion, insulting, and misleading (people from) the truth. We could’ve done the same, from the first day, while people were still searching for the (bodies of the) martyrs, I could’ve went up on TV and said: The ones who killed your children and led to this (massive) explosion in the country are the ones who support the armed groups in Syria. The ones who need nitrate to manufacture explosives are neither Hezbollah nor the Syrian (government) forces. Rather, the ones who need the nitrate to manufacture explosives are the militants on the outskirts of Arsal, Qalamoun, and Al-Qusayr, and the armed groups in Syria. Certain Lebanese groups supporting (the armed militant groups in Syria) are the ones who brought the nitrate (into Lebanon), and they are known by name, and (these personalities) are present within (various levels of the Lebanese) state and security apparatus.

We could have accused them (from that very day). You have a voice and we have ours, you have (your) television (stations) and we have (ours), you have (your) social media networks and we have ours, you have your outlets and we have ours; and the people of the country would have fought each other with each side accusing the other. However, we didn’t adopt this approach, and even today, I’m only mentioning it as an evidence, you know why? Because we are a people of logic and proof, and because we have honor. Because we have honor. Because we know what if feels like to (have) martyrs, we know what it feels like to be wounded, we know how it feels for people to have their homes demolished, we know how it feels like when people have their livelihoods destroyed, we’ve been aware of this matter for many years.

However, you who are sitting behind television screens, running seminars, you and some politicians, who live with golden spoons in your mouths, how could you possibly understand these emotions? We refused to (engage in trying to) manipulate people’s emotions, the emotions of the families of the martyrs and the wounded, and the people affected (by the port explosion), or to exploit anything whatsoever – no matter how small it be – in such a serious event of this magnitude that affected everyone. This is because we are concerned about the country, the peace of the country, and harmony within the country, we didn’t exploit anything for our political interests, nor have we attacked (others) through the media; even when we were accused, insulted, and (our reputation was) distorted, we didn’t defend ourselves with (counter)attacks; we rather defended ourselves by clarifying (the situation) and by resorting to (the matter to the course of) investigations. We (reasoned with public opinion and) said that there are (findings from the) investigations which are not being made public, (and we questioned) why they are not being made public. This is the difference between you and us.

أسئلة شديدة الملوحة حول تفجير مرفأ بيروت؟؟؟

 الأربعاء 4 آب 2021

 ناصر قنديل

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يدور النقاش اللبناني الداخلي وما يواكبه من نقاش خارجي حول من يجب ان يُلاحق بموجب التحقيق الجاري حول تفجير مرفأ بيروت، ولا يخفي نقاش الحصانات، سواء بدعوة رفعها عن الجميع، أو بالتحصّن خلفها من الجميع، أو بتمييز البعض عن البعض، وسواء ما يصدر عن القوى السياسية او عن المحقق العدلي او عن الهيئات الحقوقية الخارجية والداخلية، أن الأصل في النقاش هو السياسة، وفي هذا توظيف لدماء الشهداء ولشعاري الحقيقة والعدالة، لأن الأصل في تحرك من ينشد الحقيقة والعدالة ليس البحث عمّن يمكن تحميله المسؤولية وتقديمه على مذبح الحقيقة والعدالة، فالأصل هو البحث عن الحقيقة ثم إقامة العدالة، لأنّ البحث عن العدالة يعني البحث عن قصاص يعادل سقوط أرواح غالية ودمار وخراب لحقا بأملاك الناس وتشويه أصاب وجه المدينة الجميلة، والبحث عن قصاص يعادل الجريمة قد لا ينسجم مع السعي للحقيقة التي تبدأ من طرح الأسئلة الحقيقية، قبل الحديث عن المسؤولية، وتبحث عن توصيف الجرم قبل الحديث الجريمة والمجرمين.

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الأسئلة التي توصل الى الحقيقة لا يجب ان تعرف المجاملة، ولا السعي لتجنب الإحراج، ولا التوجيه السياسي، والأجوبة على هذه الأسئلة يجب ان توضع في تصرف الرأي العام ليُبنى عليها الإتهام، وفق التوصيف الجرمي الذي توفره الحقيقة وحدها، وما دامت الحقيقة غائبة أو مغيبة، يبقى كل اتهام وكل توصيف جرمي سياسة، ولو رافقته سياقات مدبجة قانونا، وتبقى كل حصانة سياسة أيضاً ولو رافقتها سياقات مدبّجة قانوناً، والصراع بينهما صراع سياسي بغلاف قانوني، لأنّ الفريقين الإتهامي والمتحصن، لا يقدمان أولوية البحث عن الحقيقة، بل يدخلان فوراً في النقاش الجرمي والإتهامي، مع إيهام الزعم ان في ذلك سعياً للعدالة.

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نحو الحقيقة يجب ان نعرف بداية، هل ان النقاش يدور على قاعدة التسليم بأن لا عمل جرمياً وراء جلب النترات، وأن لا عمل جرمياً وراء استبقائها، وأن لا عمل جرمياً وراء تفجيرها، وانّ كلّ المعنيين أبرياء من هذه الزاوية، والنقاش محصور بتوصيف جرم الإهمال وحدود المعرفة بالخطر الناتج عنه، وهذا هو معنى القتل بالقصد الاحتمالي قانوناً، فلماذا لا يقول لنا التحقيق أولاً إنّ الفرضيات الجرمية القائمة وراء جلب النترات واستبقائها وتفجيرها، ساقطة، وإنّ لديه سردية تقول إنّ كلّ شيء تمّ عفواً وبالصدفة، وسقط الشهداء وتخرّبت المدينة لأنّ المسؤولين لم يقوموا بما كان يمكنهم القيام به لتجنب الكارثة، تماماً كما هو التوصيف الرائج لسردية الانهيار المالي، القائمة على نفي وجود جريمة الاستدانة المفرطة، والفوائد المفرطة، والأرباح المصرفية المفرطة، والتحويلات المفرطة، والإنفاق العام المفرط، وانّ كلّ القضية انّ المسؤولين نسوا أن ينتبهوا لما يجب فعله لمنع الإنهيار!

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الأسئلة نحو الحقيقة تبدأ من تقديم جواب مقنع ورسمي من اليونيفيل حول كيفية تعاملها مع ملف النترات، وهي الجهة الأمنية المزوّدة بأحدث التقنيات، والموجودة للتشدّد في مراقبة كلّ ما يقع تحت تصنيف عسكري او شبه عسكري في البحر ويحاول دخول المياه اللبنانية، من دون مزحة المانيفست، لأن الألمان والطليان والفرنسيين ليسوا موجودين لمنع تزوّد حزب الله بالسلاح من خلال مراقبة ما اذا كان يجلب السلاح مصرحاً عنه وفقاً للمانيفست، بل لتجاوز المانيفست ومعرفة المخفي والمخبّأ ووضع اليد عليه، فما هي معلومات البحرية الدولية عن النترات، وكيف تفسّر تسامحها مع دخولها ومع بقائها، وكيف تفسّر ما هو أخطر الحديث عن استعمالها، خصوصاً انّ الإتهامات الرائجة توجه نحو حزب الله الذي وُجدت هذه البحرية الدولية لمراقبة ما هو أقلّ ومنع وصوله، فهل يعقل ان اليونيفيل البحرية كانت علم خلال ست سنوات وتصمت على تخزين حزب الله للنترات واستجرارها نحو سورية او غيرها، وربما في وجهات أوروبية كما يقول خصوم حزب الله، فماذا تقول اليونيفيل عن كلّ ذلك، ولماذا لم يسألها مجلس الأمن الذي انتدبها لمهمة واضحة وحاسمة، عن تبريرها لهذا الانتهاك الخطير لمهمتها، وهل قام المحقق العدلي بمراسلة من تعاقبوا على قيادة هذه القوة البحرية واستدعاهم للتحقيق، لأنّ جوهر مهمتهم وفق القرار الأممي هو مساعدة البحرية اللبنانية على ضبط السواحل اللبنانية ومنع دخول أيّ مواد عسكرية وشبه عسكرية، لغير الجهات العسكرية الشرعية للدولة اللبنانية؟ وان لم يفعل فلماذا؟

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الحلقة الثانية من الأسئلة تطال زيارات متعددة تمّت لبوارج حربية أميركية وبريطانية وفرنسية، الى مرفأ بيروت، آخرها كانت زيارات البارجة الأميركية يو اس اس راماج في شهر أيلول 2019، وبعدها حاملة الطائرات الفرنسية تولون في آب 2020، وقبلهما حاملة الطائرات البريطانية أوشن في شهر آذار 2017، وقبل هذه الزيارات زيارات أخرى، تمت لمرفأ بيروت، من سفن حربية غربية، ومعلوم عند أبسط الخبراء الأمنيين أنّ مسحاً أمنياً تفصيلياً يتمّ لمدى جغرافي لعدة كيلومترات، بواسطة معدات تقنية عالية الدقة، تهتمّ اصلاً بوجود المواد المتفجرة، في دائرة قريبة، وكلّ هذه الزيارات وما سبقها من مسح أمني جرت في فترة إقامة النترات في المرفأ، فماذا قال الخبراء وكيف صنفوا وجودها ودرجة خطورتها، ولماذا تغاضوا عنها، وكلّ الخبراء يقولون انه يستحيل الا تكون قد ظهرت على شاشات أجهزتهم، أو ان يكون قد فاتهم حجم خطورتها، وانّ التفسير الوحيد للتغاضي هنا هو وظيفة متفق عليها ومعلومة من المعنيين في الغرب وبعض نظرائهم في لبنان لمهمة النترات واقامتها، لأنّ القول بالعكس بالنسبة لعمليات التفتيش العسكرية كما بالنسبة لليونيفيل يعني ضمنا تبرئة المسؤولين اللبنانيين العسكريين والأمنيين، الذين لا يمكن اتهامهم حتى بالتقصير ان كان كبار خبراء الغرب العسكريين لم يعتبروا ان وجود النترات مصدر خطر، فكيف من هم أقلّ مسؤولية وخبرة من وزراء ومدراء لهم صفات ادارية!

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الحلقة الثالثة من الأسئلة التي تقودنا للحقيقة، هي لبّ القضية، فهل تمّ استقدام هذه النترات لاستعمالها، والوجهة المنشودة كانت الحرب السورية، ولحساب من في سورية، وإذا ثبت سواء لجهة الاستقدام المتعمّد لهذه الغاية، او استثمار بقاء النترات وإطالة أمد بقائها عمداً، سيكون سهلاً معرفة الجهة اللبنانية الإدارية والسياسية والأمنية التي ارتكبت جرم التواطؤ من خلال معرفة جهة الإستخدام السورية، خصوصاً انّ التقرير المسرّب عن الـ «أف بي أي» يقول إنّ الكمية التي تفجرت هي أقلّ من ربع الكمية الموجودة نظريا وعلى الورق، وتبعه محامي القائد السابق للجيش اللبناني، المتهم بالتقصير في الملف، العماد جان قهوجي، يقول انّ حزب الله كان يهرّب هذه النترات الى سورية، ولأنّ الحقيقة هي الحقيقة، وجب على المحقق العدلي ان يسير بفرضية واحدة يمكن الحديث معها عن جرم عمد، هي جلب أو استبقاء النترات بهدف ارسالها الى سورية، وتتبّع هذه الفرضية لنفيها او تأكيدها، وإن تأكدت تحديد وجهة الإستخدام، ليسهل تتبّع جهة التسهيل اللبنانية، وبالمناسبة قد يفيد التذكير بأنّ سورية من الدول الأولى في العالم بإنتاج نترات الأمونيوم، وأنّ مصنعاً واحداً تملكه الدولة السورية قرب بحيرة قطينة بجوار حمص ينتج 250 ألف طن من النترات سنوياً وموجود منذ السبعينيات من القرن الماضي وكان يصدّر الفائض من إنتاجه للخارج، وبقي تحت سلطة الدولة السورية، وتمّ تخفيض إنتاجه خلال سنوات الحرب لتراجع الطلب داخلياً وصعوبة التصدير للخارج بسبب ظروف الحرب ومصاعب العلاقات الدولية الناتجة عنها ما ينفي حاجة الدولة السورية للنترات، لكن بكلّ حال على المحقق ان يتتبّع خيوطه ويطرح أسئلته ويبحث عن الأجوبة، حتى يجد ما يقنعه ويخرج به على اللبنانيين طالبا اقتناعهم؟

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اذا كانت الخلاصة التي تختصر حقيقة التحقيق هي ما بُنيت عليه الاتهامات، فهي تقول ان لا جرم ولا جريمة، وان القضية هي انّ هناك من عرف بوجود النترات وخطرها ولم يفعل ما كان ينبغي فعله، وهؤلاء قصّروا ويجب ان يحاسبوا على تقصيرهم، وهذا معنى القتل بالقصد الاحتمالي، وان ثبت هذا فالاستنتاج صحيح، لكن قناعة المحقق بهذه الحقيقة يجب ان تقال بصراحة ووضوح، وله أن يمضي في توزيع المسؤوليات بعد ذلك، وفقاً لمعادلة درجة المسؤولية عن واجب المعرفة، ودرجة المسؤولية وفقاً لموجب القدرة على التحرك، ومن يجب ان يعرف ولم يعرف لا ينال البراءة، ومن ضمن صلاحياته التحرك ولم يتحرك لا يمنح صكّ البراءة لأنّ أحداً لم يراجعه، فوفقاً للصلاحيات ثمة من اطلع عرضاً وليس من مهمته المعرفة ولا من صلاحياته التحرك، وثمة من عليه ان يعلم وعليه ان يتحرك، وهؤلاء في مقدمة من يجب ان يتحمّل المسؤولية، ووفقاً للقوانين اللبنانية ثمة ثلاث جهات لبنانة يجب ان تعلم ويجب ان تتحرك، هي الجمارك، والنيابة العامة وقيادة الجيش، وقبلها جميعاً قيادة اليونيفيل البحرية!

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Bombshell book in Germany revives 9/11 as a business model

April 06, 2021

By Pepe Escobar – Book Review for The Saker Blog

Nearly 20 years after 9/11, Germany and the German-speaking world are being hit by a formidable one-two.

A ground-breaking study by gifted independent financial journalist Lars Schall, Denken wie der Feind – 20 Jahre Ausnahmezustand 9/11 und die Geopolitik des Terrors 

(“Thinking Like the Enemy – 20 Years State of Emergency, 9/11 and the Geopolitics of Terror”) is being published in Germany in two books.

The first one – Das Erdöl, der Dollar und die Drogen (“The Oil, The Dollar and The Drugs”) – is out this week. Volume II will be out next week.

Nomi Prins, formerly from Goldman Sachs, has described Schall’s “investigation of 9/11 insider trading” as “stunning”. Marshall Auerback, researcher at the Levy Institute in the U.S., noted how “most of the MSM still refuse to tackle the broader, more controversial aspects of the 9/11 tragedy”. Schall, he adds, “provides a healthy corrective”.

A sample of Schall’s work, already published by The Saker blog, is this interview on 9/11 terror trading.

I’ve had the pleasure to write the introduction for the German one-two. Here it is – hoping that such an extraordinary achievement may find its way in many other languages, especially across the Global South

9/11, or “The Owls Are Not What They Seem”

Until COVID-19 showed up on the scene in the Spring of 2020, nearly two decades after the fact, the world remained hostage to 9/11. This was the ultimate geopolitical game-changer that set the tone for the young 21st century. The book you have in your hands asks the ultimate question: why 9/11 matters.

Follow the money. It’s quite fitting that this meticulous investigation is conducted by a gifted, extremely serious financial journalist – and, in an unprecedented way, presents a mass of information previously unavailable in German.

I’ve known Lars Schall, virtually, for years – exchanging correspondence on politics and economics. When we met in person in Berlin in 2015, we finally had time, live, to also indulge in our number one pop culture mutual passion: David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Lars may be a German incarnation of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. Or, better yet, the compassionate version of Albert Rosenfield, the sarcastic pathologist in Twin Peaks.

Take for instance this dialogue from Twin Peaks:

Albert Rosenfield: We sent a portrait of your long-haired man to every agency from NASA to DEA and came up empty. This cat is in nobody’s database. 

 Special Agent Dale Cooper: A man that four of us have seen here in Twin Peaks. 

 Albert Rosenfield: [smiling] Sure. Oh, by the way, you were shot with a Walther PPK. It’s James Bond’s gun, did you know that?

So what you have in your hands is 9/11 dissected by a thoroughly working pathologist, who had “a lot of cutting and pasting to do”. He was aware of myriad red lines from the start, as well as myriad vanishing acts and false non sequiturs. 9/11 may be the ultimate illustration of one of Twin Peaks’ legendary one-liners: “The owls are not what they seem”.

Our pathologist had in fact to disassemble a humongous matryoshka to break it down into smaller dolls. This process had some surprises in store: by following-the-money approach regarding 9/11, for instance, our pathologist was in the end confronted with the case of an anal prolapse at Guantanamo Bay. You don’t believe it? Just wait and read the research.

This journey will take you through hundreds of pages of text and myriads of endnotes, over 2,400 of them, quite a few dealing with many different sources, as well as selected sensitive documents treated by professional translators.

The double volume details the interconnected implications of extremely complex dossiers: the US national energy policy group chaired by former Vice-President Dick Cheney, in secrecy, only four days after the start of the Bush administration; the ramifications of Peak Oil; the interest by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on Middle East oil, especially Iraq; the CIA’s major role in the drug trade business; the Saudi-U.S. alliance related to the protection of al-Qaeda; what happened with the U.S. air defense on 9/11; and last but not least, insider trading on 9/11, especially anomalies in the option and bond markets.

The nearly mythical computer software program PROMIS, created in the 1970s by former NSA analyst Bill Hamilton, plays a sort of Rosebud role in this narrative – complete with a trail of unexplained deaths and disappearing files that renders some of its avatars, especially those containing backdoor eavesdropping capabilities enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI) almost impervious to investigation.

As a matter of fact, Lars had been contacted by Bill Hamilton, who asked him if he could help in relation to the PROMIS affair. It was this request – which took place in the Spring of 2012 after Lars had just published a 9/11-Insider Trading article at Asia Times – that has been the spark which started the investigation you are about to read.

For the German reader, one of the firsts of this sprawling analysis is to take what is considered in the U.S. as a “conspiracy theory” – Mike Ruppert’s seminal 2004 book “Crossing the Rubicon” – and, in Lars’s words, “figure out how far it can be proven correct, more than 15 years after it was published.”

Lars shows in detail how 9/11 enabled a state of emergency, a permanent Continuity of Government (COG) in the U.S. and mass surveillance of U.S. citizens – connecting the dots all the way from missing trillions of dollars in the Pentagon to NSA data mining and leading U.S. neocons. The latter had been praying for a “Pearl Harbor” to reorient US foreign policy since 1997. Their prayers were answered beyond their wildest dreams.

The investigation eventually displays a startling road map: the war on terror as a business model. However, as Lars also shows, in the end, much to the despair of U.S. neocons, all the combined sound and fury of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror, in nearly two decades, ended up bringing about a Russia-China strategic partnership in Eurasia.

It’s fair to ask the author what did he learn as he juggled for years with this immense mass of information. Lars points to the familiarity he acquired with the work of Peter Dale Scott – author, among others of “The Road to 9/11”, and a specialist in the origins of the U.S. Deep State – which is diametrically opposed to the sanitized narrative privileged by the Beltway and U.S. corporate media. Lars presents information by Peter Dale Scott that had never been translated into German before.

Special Agent Lars Cooper / Lars Rosenfield had in effect to kiss goodbye to a career as a journalist, because “I’ll be forever scorned as a ‘conspiracy theorist’,” as he told me. So a stark choice was in play; fearlessness, or a comfortable career as a corporate hack. In the end, Lars chose fearlessness.

In Twin Peaks, Special Agent Dale Cooper has ultimately to confront himself. He knows he’s lost if he tries to run away from his dark self – who is “the dweller on the threshold.” Our Special Agent Lars Cooper definitely did not run away from the dweller on the threshold this time around. He dared to cross to the other side to stare at the abyss. And now he’s back to tell us in a book what it looks like.

Denken wie der Feind – 20 Jahre Ausnahmezustand 9/11 und die Geopolitik des Terrors 

(“Thinking Like the Enemy – 20 Years State of Emergency, 9/11 and the Geopolitics of Terror”), by Lars Schall

Book 1: Das Erdöl, der Dollar und die Drogen

(The Oil, The Dollar and The Drugs)

Via Books on Demand (BOD):

ISBN for the book: 9783753442938. For the e-Book: 9783753414737

Book 2:  Das “Pearl Harbor” des 21. Jahrhunderts (The “Pearl Harbor “ of the 21st Century)

Via Books on Demand (BOD):

ISBN for the book: 9783753460796. For the e-book:  9783753433882