The CIA’s Involvement in Indonesia and the Assassinations of JFK and Dag Hammarskjold
The truth about Indonesian history and the United States involvement in its ongoing tragedy is little known in the West.
All posts tagged: CIA
Behind the CIA’s Failed Coup in Turkey: Was It Only a Dry Run?
from the Corbett Report: “…As we predicted last year, the deep state coup against Erdogan finally materialized last weekend…but it fizzled out almost as quickly as it arrived. So what are we to make of this would-be putsch? Did Erdogan allow it to happen in order to further cement his control on the rebound? Or was this merely a trial run for the real CIA/NATO/Gulenist coup yet to come? And what role do the Turkish people play in all of this? Joining us today to dissect the mayhem is Sibel Edmonds and Spiro Skouras of Newsbud.com….”
America’s Real Foreign Policy: Global Corporatization by Force
by Noam Chomsky, via Common Dreams (2014) The question of how foreign policy is determined is a crucial one in world affairs. In these comments, I can only provide a few hints as to how I think the subject can be productively explored, keeping to the United States for several reasons. First, the U.S. is unmatched in its global significance and impact. Second, it is an unusually open society, possibly uniquely so, which means we know more about it. Finally, it is plainly the most important case for Americans, who are able to influence policy choices in the U.S. — and indeed for others, insofar as their actions can influence such choices. The general principles, however, extend to the other major powers, and well beyond. There is a “received standard version,” common to academic scholarship, government pronouncements, and public discourse. It holds that the prime commitment of governments is to ensure security, and that the primary concern of the U.S. and its allies since 1945 was the Russian threat. There are a number of ways …
Whitewashing Libya House Report on Benghazi Reveals Nothing, Hides Everything
by Eric Draitser, via “Information Clearing House“ The Republican dominated House Select Committee on Benghazi has released its long awaited final report on the 2012 Benghazi attack which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others. And, surprise, the report reveals absolutely nothing of substance that wasn’t already known. Naturally, Democrats running interference for Hillary Clinton have continually charged that the probe was simply an act of partisan politics designed more to hurt Clinton in the presidential campaign than to uncover the truth about what happened. No doubt there is truth to such an allegation. But the most important fact about this whole manufactured drama, the one that neither Democrats nor Republicans want to touch, is the simple fact that what happened in Benghazi was perhaps the most complete encapsulation of everything wrong and criminal about the illegal US war against Libya. Moreover, it exposes the uncomfortable truth that the US harnesses terrorism, using it as one of the most potent weapons it has against nations that refuse to submit to the will of Washington and …
German Intelligence Service to Become Branch of CIA
by Eric Zuesse According to a news report in the June 7th German Economic News (Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, or DWN) headlined “Merkel entmachtet BND: USA kontrollieren Spionage in Deutschland” or “Merkel Ousts BND: US to Control German Espionage,” a new law will soon be passed in the German parliament and be approved by Chancellor Angela Merkel, which will make Germany’s version of the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienstes (BND), nothing more than a branch of the CIA. The BND is to be subordinated to the CIA to such an extreme degree that even U.S. corporate espionage against German companies will become part of that nominally German operation. The independent capacities of the BND will become emasculated, no longer operational, under the new law. “In practice, this means that the US intelligence services [NSA] will be allowed to continue to listen in on every company and every individual in Germany.” That includes the Chancellor herself, whose phone-conversations were previously embarrassingly revealed to have been listened-in upon by the NSA. Now it’ll be legal. This appears to be part of the West’s buildup toward a global war. …
US Officials Responsible for Torture Should Be Prosecuted Under Nuremberg Protocols
by Rebecca Gordon, book excerpt, via TruthOut With the Nuremberg tribunal after World War II, the United States helped establish the international principles guiding the prosecution of war crimes. But the US refuses to apply these principles to itself. American Nuremberg makes the case for indicting the officials who have presided over torture, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations and more since 9/11 in the name of national security. The following excerpt is from the foreword to American Nuremburg: The US Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 Crimes: “The modern concept of human rights is based on the fundamental principle that those responsible for violations must be held to account.”—Ben Emmerson, UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights “Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”—Richard Nixon, in 1977 interview with David Frost September 11, 2001, began an ominous new chapter in this country’s history. Horrified Americans turned our eyes from the images on TV screens and toward our government. We were looking for reassurance, for bold actions to assuage our …
Freedland: “I, for one, welcome our Corporate American Overlords”
American lawmakers are a global force for good, one for which we should all be grateful…according to the Guardian. Too often, according to Jonathan Freedland, the term “self-appointed global policeman”, when applied to America, is used in derogatory fashion because: …it serves as shorthand for the arrogance of American power, invading countries and imposing regime change, charging about the world heedless of everyone’s needs but its own. A war here or there, a fascist coup every now and then, these are just little foibles. The geo-political equivalent of putting the milk back empty, or clicking your knuckles.
Reporting (or Not) the Ties Between US-Armed Syrian Rebels and Al Qaeda’s Affiliate
by Gareth Porter, FAIR A crucial problem in news media coverage of the Syrian civil war has been how to characterize the relationship between the so-called “moderate” opposition forces armed by the CIA, on one hand, and the Al Qaeda franchise Al Nusra Front (and its close ally Ahrar al Sham), on the other. But it is a politically sensitive issue for US policy, which seeks to overthrow Syria’s government without seeming to make common cause with the movement responsible for 9/11, and the system of news production has worked effectively to prevent the news media from reporting it fully and accurately. The Obama administration has long portrayed the opposition groups it has been arming with anti-tank weapons as independent of Nusra Front. In reality, the administration has been relying on the close cooperation of these “moderate” groups with Nusra Front to put pressure on the Syrian government. The United States and its allies–especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey–want the civil war to end with the dissolution of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who …
Western Hegemony Versus Russian Sanity
by Mark Taliano One of the unstated goals of imperial warfare is to make hapless civilians pay a price for having the temerity to be born in a targeted nation. Prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq, for example, the Western oligarchies imposed sanctions which destroyed water treatment infrastructures and killed about 700,000 children, and about 1 million other innocent Iraqis. These consequences were all planned and projected. There was nothing accidental about the mass killings. It was simply imperial punishment for living in Iraq. Part of the calculus for such barbarity is that Imperialists hope that such punishments will demoralize local populations, and possibly make them reject their leaders. It falls under the euphemistic categories of “destabilization” and “collateral damage”. More accurately, it is targeted mass murder. Why did the Western oligarchies choose to destroy Iraq and its people? It had nothing to do with Weapons of Mass Destruction, or terrorism, or any other of the creative lies perpetrated by cooked intelligence reports and public relations agencies. More accurately, CIA asset Saddam Hussein had …
The Caesar Photos and Impunity in Syria
by Steven Chovanec Western media are reporting headline claims that “new evidence supports claims about Syrian state detention deaths”, saying that “a leading rights group has released new evidence that up to 7,000 Syrians who died in state detention centres were tortured, mistreated, or executed”, noting that this information is a moral wakeup call and demanding that officials being held to account should be “central to peace efforts.” However, as is usually so, not everything is quite as it seems. So let’s take a look at the facts. First the timing. As has been commonplace the timing of the reports like these have almost always coincided with important diplomatic meetings or just after important UN resolutions are passed. For example, beginning in mid-March claims began to pour in that Assad had been using chlorine bombs against his opponents. Media reports would cite the fact that only 2 months later the government had already been accused of using chlorine 35 times. What they failed to mention however was that no claims were made for an entire …
Benghazi: Hillary Clinton and C.I.A. Crimes
by David Pear, originally published in OpEdNews, October 27, 2015 Hillary Clinton has been pilloried by her critics for not providing adequate security for the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three C.I.A. agents on the night of September 11, 2012. Her real crime was the project of regime change in Libya that resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, the destruction of the country with over 5,800 bombing sorties and 309 cruise missiles fired, causing a once prosperous Libya to become a failed state that has resulted in misery for millions of Libyans. Hillary Clinton is largely responsible for the planning of a similar regime change in Syria, using the same plot that was used in Libya. It has resulted in the destruction of Syria too, and the deaths of hundreds-of-thousands of people and turned millions of people into refugees. She should have been investigated for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Instead the Congressional Committee to investigate Benghazi was turned into a “Hillary infomercial”. The death …
“Modern art was CIA ‘weapon'”
by BlackCatte The article below was first published in the Independent, in 1995. It makes the surprising and rather curious claim that US intelligence agencies manipulated the creation and dissemination of Modern Art as “weapons” in the “propaganda war with the Soviet Union.” I’m not sure such an article would appear in the Independent – or any other mainstream outlet – today, but I think most of us would agree the discussion of the CIA’s ‘Propaganda Assets Inventory’, which “at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations” can still be viewed as relevant. It would probably be insanely naive to imagine such initiatives are a thing of the past The narrative is spun – inevitably – as being about the west “promoting freedom”, but of course you don’t “promote freedom” by covert manipulation, do you? Freedom is promoted by letting people alone to make they own informed choices. If Russian art was “strapped into an ideological straightjacket” at this time, then it’s apparent the CIA wanted the same to …
GCHQ’S RAINBOW LIGHTS: EXPLOITING SOCIAL ISSUES FOR MILITARISM AND IMPERIALISM
by Glenn Greenwald Over the weekend, the British surveillance agency GCHQ — the most extremist and invasive in the West — bathed its futuristic headquarters with rainbow-colored lights “as a symbol of the intelligence agency’s commitment to diversity” and to express solidarity with “International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.” GCHQ’s public affairs office proudly distributed the above photograph to media outlets. Referring to Alan Turing, the closeted-and-oppressed gay World War II British code-breaker just memorialized by an Oscar-nominated feature film, Prime Minister David Cameron’s office celebrated GCHQ’s inspirational lights: This is so very moving. Gay Brits are now just as free as everyone else to spy on people, covertly disseminate state propaganda, and destroy online privacy. Whatever your views on all this nasty surveillance business might be, how can you not feel good about GCHQ when it drapes itself in the colors of LGBT equality? This is all a stark illustration of what has become a deeply cynical but highly effective tactic. Support for institutions of militarism and policies of imperialism is now manufactured …
The forgotten coup – how America and Britain crushed the government of their ‘ally’, Australia
by John Pilger first published October 23 2014 on Johnpilger.com Across the political and media elite in Australia, a silence has descended on the memory of the great, reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam, who has died. His achievements are recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. But a critical reason for his extraordinary political demise will, they hope, be buried with him. Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution”. Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported “zones of peace” and opposed nuclear weapons testing. Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to “buy back the farm”. In drafting the first Aboriginal …
