No Surprise Here, Either: DEA Laundering Profits from Mexican Cartels

COMMENT: No one famil­iar with the long his­tory of com­plic­ity of ele­ments of CIA and other intel­li­gence ser­vices will be sur­prised at this.
Are they actu­ally work­ing to fur­ther the cause of jus­tice or the cause of “Just Us”?
Are they actu­ally track­ing the funds for the pur­pose of even­tual inter­dic­tion or to shore up the finan­cial sys­tem?
“U.S. Drug [...]

Thompson Agonistes: The Dissent and Subsequent Disappearance of A CIA Officer

COMMENT: Younger readers/listeners might be puz­zled by dis­cus­sion of a “lib­eral” CIA offi­cer. Before the trans­for­ma­tion of the CIA into a huge para­mil­i­tary force, Jim Thomp­son worked for the Agency and its World War II pre­de­ces­sor the Office of Strate­gic Ser­vices. Imbued with the ideals of the Roo­sevelt admin­is­tra­tions and the war against fascism, [...]

Reflections on Khadafy’s Death

COMMENT: With Khadafy’s death, a focal point of research in the archives has died. I seri­ously doubt that the more impor­tant aspects of his reign will ever be fully explored.
In AFA #4, we exam­ined evi­dence that Khadafy’s ter­ror­ist cadre was trained by ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence, oper­at­ing through the “ex” CIA agents Edwin Wilson [...]

“Somewhere . . . Beyond the Sea . . . ” (Apologies to Bobby Darin)

COMMENT: Some very scary peo­ple, includ­ing extreme right-wingers asso­ci­ated with Face­book, as well as Car­lyle Group alumni, have been back­ing the con­cept of estab­lish­ing enor­mous, float­ing “Utopia” lin­ers as seago­ing liv­ing and recre­ational enclaves for the ultra-rich.
Pro­filed in FTR #718, Face­book finan­cial backer Peter Thiel is a major backer of this under­tak­ing. Along with associates, [...]

Swedish Nazi Background of Assange Accuser’s Accuser

Com­ment: The web has been abuzz with a story about con­nec­tions between Julian Assange’s accuser and the Anti-Castro Cuban milieu har­nessed by Oliver North to effect the Iran-Contra machi­na­tions. (Assange has been charged with rape in Sweden–a coun­try who’s rape laws are con­sid­er­ably dif­fer­ent from those in the U.S.)
What has been absent from the dis­cus­sion has [...]

Pan Am 103 Bombing, BP and Libya

Com­ment: Numer­ous news accounts, such as the story below, have engaged in spec­u­la­tion that BP was involved in secur­ing the release of con­victed Locker­bie bomber al-Megrahi in exchange for being granted off­shore drilling rights for Libya.
What is not being dis­cussed are the evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries link­ing George H.W. Bush to the bomb­ing of Pan Am 103 and, [...]

FTR #715 Interview (#5) with Russ Baker, Author of “Family of Secrets”

Poppy Bush tabbed by Ger­ald Ford to head CIA as Kennedy assas­si­na­tion inves­ti­ga­tions pro­ceed; Dick Cheney, Don­ald Rums­feld, Karl Rove and Paul Wol­fowitz launch their careers cour­tesy of Poppy and Ger­ald Ford in same time period.

Family of Secrets

The Bush Dynasty, the Pow­er­ful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influ­ence Means for America

“Family of Secrets”: A VERY Important New Book

Com­ment: Jour­nal­ist Russ Baker has writ­ten a land­mark vol­ume about the deep polit­i­cal his­tory of the Bush fam­ily, George H.W. (“Poppy”) Bush in par­tic­u­lar. Fam­ily of Secrets (Blooms­bury Press [SC]; Copy­right 2009 by Russ Baker) is a must for seri­ous stu­dents of the real­i­ties of con­tem­po­rary power structure.

Painstak­ingly trac­ing evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries  run­ning through decades of [...]

FTR #703 Interview with Daniel Hopsicker: Catching Up with the “Herd Shot ‘Round the World”

Infil­tra­tion point for the 9/11 hijack­ers, the Venice Air­port has a his­tory of involve­ment with wrong­do­ing and wrong­do­ers; Ponzi schemes the least heinous of their activ­i­ties; the deep his­tory of that facil­ity over­laps the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy.