Recorded Feb­ru­ary 28, 2008
MP3: Side 1 | Side 2
REALAUDIO

As indi­cated by the title, this pro­gram sup­ple­ments dis­cus­sion top­ics cov­ered in past broad­cast, as well as intro­duc­ing some new items of inter­est. Begin­ning with a look at one of the more friv­o­lous sto­ries pre­oc­cu­py­ing an Amer­i­can jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­nity that should be pay­ing more atten­tion to the deadly seri­ous mat­ters con­fronting soci­ety, the pro­gram looks at a fea­ture of the ongo­ing Brit­ney Spears melo­drama that has received lit­tle atten­tion. It appears that the unfor­tu­nate Ms. Spears is being squired by an Islamist. Much of the pro­gram con­sists of a read­ing of an arti­cle by a retired Air Force offi­cer that decries the grow­ing pres­ence of an author­i­tar­ian, evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian hege­mony within the Air Force offi­cer corps and much of the rest of the U.S. mil­i­tary. Among those man­i­fest­ing what the offi­cer of that arti­cle calls “Chris­t­ian fas­cism” within the national secu­rity estab­lish­ment is Joseph Schmitz, the chief oper­at­ing offi­cer of the Black­wa­ter pri­vate secu­rity out­fit. A mem­ber of the Vat­i­can mil­i­tary order the Knights of Malta, Schmitz refused to cor­rect the orgias­tic pros­e­ly­tiz­ing within the mil­i­tary while he was Inspec­tor Gen­eral of the Pen­ta­gon. The island of Malta itself appears to have become Blackwater’s oper­a­tional base. The State Department’s inter­nal watch­dog has been obliged to step down from his posi­tion because his brother, for­mer CIA offi­cial “Buzzy” Kro­n­gard is an offi­cial with Black­wa­ter. The pro­gram con­cludes with a look at the Ukrain­ian fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion OUN/B, which col­lab­o­rated with the Nazis in World War II.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Review of the OUN/B’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with the CIA; review of the Schmitz fam­ily and their con­nec­tions with inter­na­tional fascism.

1. Begin­ning with a look at one of the more friv­o­lous sto­ries pre­oc­cu­py­ing an Amer­i­can jour­nal­is­tic com­mu­nity that should be pay­ing more atten­tion to the deadly seri­ous mat­ters con­fronting this soci­ety, the pro­gram looks at a fea­ture of the ongo­ing Brit­ney Spears melo­drama that has received lit­tle atten­tion. It appears that the unfor­tu­nate Ms. Spears is being squired by an Islamist. Her body­guard and—according to some accounts—lover Adnan Ghalib has fought in Afghanistan, Mace­do­nia and Kosovo. The avail­able evi­dence sug­gests that Ghalib belongs to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and [pos­si­bly] Al Qaeda. (For more about the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 455, 473 and 537.) “ . . . Over the past week or so Adnan—who has earned his exper­tise in weaponry fight­ing abroad in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Macedonia—has been act­ing more body­guard than boyfriend. . . .”
(“Brit Files Restrain­ing Order Against Adnan?” by jwin­ter; PageSix.com; 1/20/2008.)

2. Much of the pro­gram con­sists of a read­ing of an arti­cle by a retired Air Force offi­cer that decries the grow­ing pres­ence of an author­i­tar­ian, evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian hege­mony within the Air Force offi­cer corps and much of the rest of the U.S. mil­i­tary. “ . . . I no longer rec­og­nize the Air Force Acad­emy as the insti­tu­tion I attended almost four decades ear­lier. At that point, I had no idea how inva­sive this extreme evan­gel­i­cal ‘can­cer’ had become through­out the entire mil­i­tary, that what I had wit­nessed was far from an iso­lated case of a few reli­gious zealots. . . .”
(“The Can­cer from Within” by David Antoon; Truthdig; 11/7/2007.)

3. In FTR#610, we exam­ined the Knights of Malta, a Catholic mil­i­tary order dat­ing back to the time of the Cru­sades. Incor­po­rat­ing intel­li­gence offi­cers, polit­i­cal offi­cials, jour­nal­ists and busi­ness lumi­nar­ies from around the world, the orga­ni­za­tion issues its own diplo­matic pass­ports and is viewed as a sov­er­eign nation by many coun­tries. With the United States embroiled in mil­i­tary adven­ture in the Mid­dle East and with Black­wa­ter play­ing a sig­nif­i­cant role in those adven­tures, it should not come as a great sur­prise to learn that Blackwater’s cen­ter of global oper­a­tions is—according to the Mal­tese press—Malta. For­mer Pen­ta­gon inspec­tor gen­eral Joseph Schmitz is the chief oper­a­tions offi­cer of Black­wa­ter. He is a Knight of Malta. (For more about Joseph Schmitz and his fam­ily, see FTR 476.) “A Euro­pean Par­lia­ment work­ing doc­u­ment drawn up by Gio­vanni Clau­dio Fava has claimed ‘Malta is the oper­a­tional base of Black­wa­ter, the orga­nizer of pri­vate mil­i­tary mili­tia which are increas­ingly tak­ing on more and more roles which used to be under­taken by US forces in Iraq and else­where.’ . . .”
(“Malta is ‘Blackwater’s Oper­a­tional Base’—MEP Report” by Noel Grima; The Malta Inde­pen­dent Online; 2/9/2008.)

With Blackwater—a pri­vate secu­rity outfit—playing an increas­ingly large role in Amer­i­can national secu­rity affairs, con­flicts of inter­est involv­ing Black­wa­ter are begin­ning to sur­face. (For more infor­ma­tion about Black­wa­ter, see—among other programs—FTR#529.) “The State Department’s inter­nal watch­dog, accused of politi­ciz­ing his office, told a con­gres­sional panel Wednes­day that he will step aside from any future probe of Black­wa­ter USA because his brother serves on the advi­sory board of the con­tro­ver­sial secu­rity con­trac­tor. The tes­ti­mony by Howard J. Kro­n­gard, the department’s inspec­tor gen­eral, came as a sur­prise at a con­gres­sional hear­ing about his per­for­mance. At first, Kro­n­gard denied that his brother, for­mer CIA offi­cial Alvin B. Kro­n­gard, had any inter­est in Black­wa­ter, the State Department’s pri­mary pri­vate secu­rity con­trac­tor in Iraq being inves­ti­gated for deaths of civil­ians. . . . Dur­ing a hear­ing break, Kro­n­gard called his brother and said he learned that, in fact, Alvin Kro­n­gard agreed ear­lier this year to be a mem­ber of Blackwater’s advi­sory board, a posi­tion that pays travel expenses for meet­ings and offers $3,500 for each gath­er­ing attended. . . .”
(“State Depart­ment Official’s Brother Has Black­wa­ter Ties” by Paul Richter; Los Ange­les Times; 11/15/2007.)

5. The pro­gram con­cludes with a look at the ongo­ing pres­ence of the Ukrain­ian fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion the OUN/B. (For more about the OUN/B and its con­nec­tions to the cur­rent gov­ern­ment of the Ukraine, see FTR#529. For more infor­ma­tion about the OUN/B and its links to the Nazi Gehlen spy out­fit, the CIA and the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy, see—among other programs—AFA#’s 1, 36, 37.) “ . . . World War II also remains a divi­sive issue. A new mon­u­ment to the Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ist leader Stepan Ban­dera, assas­si­nated by the KGB in Munich in 1959, was van­dal­ized after it was recently unveiled in Lvov. . . .”
(“Rus­sia, Ukraine Trade Harsh Words over His­tor­i­cal Mem­ory” by Taras Kuzio; Eura­sia Daily Mon­i­tor; 12/17/2007.)