FTR #899 Fara Mansoor on “The Deep October Surprise,” Part 4

This broad­cast con­cludes our review of Fara Man­soor’s hero­ic, ground-break­ing research on what we call “The Deep Octo­ber Sur­prise,” and ref­er­ences the his­tor­i­cal lessons to be drawn from the inquiry to the con­tem­po­rary polit­i­cal scene. Usu­al­ly, the term “Octo­ber Sur­prise” refers to an alleged deal between the Reagan/Bush cam­paign and the Khome­i­ni regime in Iran to with­hold the U.S. hostages tak­en from the Amer­i­can Embassy until after Jim­my Carter’s humil­i­a­tion and con­se­quent elec­tion defeat were assured. Fara’s research goes far­ther and deep­er, sug­gest­ing that the CIA learned of the Shah’s can­cer in 1974 (from for­mer CIA direc­tor Richard Helms), with­held the infor­ma­tion from Jim­my Carter, installed Khome­ini’s Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ists as an anti-com­mu­nist bul­wark on the Sovi­et Union’s South­ern flank and then micro-man­aged the hostage cri­sis to insure the ascen­sion of the Reagan/Bush/Casey forces. What has become known as the Iran-Con­tra Scan­dal was an out­growth of this dynam­ic. In this pro­gram, we flesh out the net­work­ing involv­ing the Shah’s intel­li­gence spe­cial­ist Hos­sein Far­doust, who select­ed the per­son­nel for Khome­ini’s mil­i­tary gen­er­al staff and became the head of his secret police. Anoth­er of the Bush/CIA operatives–Ibrahim Yazdi–helped Khome­i­ni move from Iraq to Paris, served as his de fac­to chief of staff in Paris, served as his PR flack in the U.S., and was instru­men­tal in maneu­ver­ing Mashal­lah Khashani into place as secu­ri­ty coor­di­na­tor for the U.S. Embassy in Teheran. Pro­gram High­lights Include: Khashani’s lead­er­ship in the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Novem­ber of 1979; the par­tial dis­arm­ing of the Marine guards at the embassy pri­or to the takeover; a pri­or takeover attempt on 2/14/1979 by Khome­i­ni forces dis­guised as “left­ists;” net­work­ing between some of Far­doust’s selec­tions for Khome­ini’s gen­er­al staff and promi­nent fig­ures in the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal; the counter-ter­ror­ism back­ground of Lin­da Tripp, the Bush White House holdover who helped de-sta­bi­lize the Bill Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion; Mitt Rom­ney backer and FBI direc­tor James Comey’s ini­ti­a­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion of Hillary Clin­ton’s e‑mail serv­er.

The New World Ordoliberalism, Part 8: A New MIC Becomes the EU’s New Austerity Loophole. Maybe.

Life on earth real­ly can’t afford anoth­er major mil­i­tary indus­tri­al com­plex (MIC). But that’s what’s com­ing. Or at least the financ­ing is get­ting worked out as Europe deals reels from the dam­age already inflict­ed on the Transat­lantic alliance in the open months of the sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion. It’s urgent. A new era of secu­ri­ty inde­pen­dence has begun for the Euro­pean com­mu­ni­ty and there’s no time to spare in get­ting start­ed on build­ing it. Plans are already tak­ing shape. Plans to dra­mat­i­cal­ly increase EU-wide defense spend­ing by effec­tive­ly forc­ing each EU mem­ber to achieve at least 3% of GDP on defense spend­ing, well about the 2% NATO min­i­mum. Rough­ly 650 bil­lion euros in extra defense spend­ing over the next four years. But what about the EU’s strict debt and aus­ter­i­ty rules? There’s a plan for that too: extra defense spend­ing will not count towards the EU’s debt and deficit rules. At least for the next four years. And per­haps longer. And yet, all signs indi­cate that this extra debt will have be repaid even­tu­al­ly. So are we look­ing at the begin­ning of a new MIC? Or the largest aus­ter­i­ty trap in EU his­to­ry? Time will tell.

Oth­er plans include 150 bil­lion euros in direct loans from the EU to mem­ber states for approved mil­i­tary hard­ware pur­chas­es. Loans that, again, will have to be repaid. But the loans will also be pro­vid­ed at low­er-than-mar­ket inter­est rates from funds raised direct­ly by the EU Com­mis­sion. In oth­er words, joint­ly-backed bonds, some­thing pre­vi­ous­ly anath­e­ma to Ger­many and the rest of the EU’s wealth­i­er mem­bers. Remark­ably, Ger­many isn’t just strong­ly behind the loan plan but wants it expand­ed to poten­tial­ly include loans to non-EU mem­bers like Nor­way, Switzer­land, or Turkey. These big spend­ing plans keep get­ting big­ger, with Ger­man back­ing. It’s an his­toric shift. Beyond that, Ger­many is already plan­ning an 800 bil­lion euro defense spend­ing splurge of its own over the next decade and call­ing for the EU’s plan to be extend­ed well beyond the four year pro­pos­al. Yes, Ger­many is back­ing much high­er EU-wide debt lev­els for the indef­i­nite future. As long as that debt is spent on the mil­i­tary, of course. That’s the incred­i­ble sto­ry cur­rent unfold­ing. The kind of sto­ry that points towards a big new EU MIC, much high­er EU debt lev­els, and, per­haps, the biggest aus­ter­i­ty trap in EU his­to­ry. The dev­il in the details. Details yet t be ham­mered out, and pos­si­bly not ever ham­mered out until long after the EU has com­mit­ted itself to this path and the trap has already been set.

FTR#‘s 1368, 1369 & 1370: Korea on Our Minds, Parts 1, 2 & 3

Intro­duc­tion: These pro­grams set forth devel­op­ments in Korea, past and present. FTR#1368 relies heav­i­ly on excerpts from FTR#1141, set­ting forth the his­to­ry of Japan’s cen­turies-long loot­ing of Korea, cul­mi­nat­ing in its bru­tal col­o­niza­tion. Fol­low­ing the end of World War II, the Japan­ese influ­ence in Korea remained dom­i­nant.

That influ­ence derives from the pre­em­i­nent posi­tion in Kore­an soci­ety of col­lab­o­ra­tors with Japan dur­ing its decades-long occu­pa­tion.

Those col­lab­o­ra­tors dom­i­nat­ed the mil­i­tary, police, polit­i­cal cul­ture and cor­po­rate life of South Korea.

A key per­son involved in cement­ing the Japan­ese dom­i­nance over post-World War II Korea is Nobusuke Kishi, whose rise to promi­nence took place dur­ing the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion of Manchuria.

The Japan­ese dom­i­nance of South Korea is a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in Pres­i­dent Yoon’s recent attempts at declar­ing mar­tial law, stag­ing provo­ca­tions to jus­ti­fy his actions and (appar­ent­ly) using false-flag attacks on U.S. mil­i­tary per­son­nel and instal­la­tions in an attempt at re-start­ing the Kore­an War.

Key Points of Analy­sis and Dis­cus­sion Include: The tac­tic of tar­ring all oppo­nents of the sit­ting regime as “communists”–a tac­tic that dates to the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion of Korea; even­tu­al Sec­re­tary of State Dean Rusk’s role in draw­ing the 38th Par­al­lel as the divid­ing line between the Kore­as; Rusk’s posi­tion as a key mem­ber of the Chi­na Lob­by; Gen­er­al Kim Suk-won’s role as a key Japan­ese offi­cer dur­ing World War II, as well as his posi­tion as the com­man­der of Syn­g­man Rhee’s bor­der forces; Japan­ese-occu­pied Manchuria as a dom­i­nant pro­duc­er of opi­um and hero­in for the glob­al mar­ket and Chi­ang Kai-shek’s Kuom­intang.

FTR#‘s 1364 & 1365 The Return of Sebastian Gorka: Terror Blitzkrieg in London? Parts 1 & 2

Intro­duc­tion: Don­ald Trump has appoint­ed Sebas­t­ian Gor­ka as his “ter­ro­ism czar” on the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil. Gor­ka not only appears to have links to British intel­li­gence, but ” . . . . Gor­ka was, appar­ent­ly, a sworn mem­ber of Hungary’s neo-Nazi Vitezi Rend, or ‘Order of Heroes,’ a group that the State Depart­ment says was ‘under the direc­tion of the Nazi Gov­ern­ment of Ger­many dur­ing World War II’ and which con­tin­ues to be neo-Nazi in its ori­en­ta­tion. . . .”

With Gor­ka poised to direct any U.S. response to ter­ror­ism, clouds on the hori­zon sug­gest the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a loom­ing mass-casu­al­ty “False-Flag” oper­a­tion, pos­si­bil­i­ty in Lon­don. This is high­ly unap­pe­tiz­ing.

Top­ics of Dis­cus­sion and Analy­sis Include: Gorka’s father Paul, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 1956 Hun­gar­i­an upris­ing and claims he was sprung from prison by Vietezi Rend forces; Sebas­t­ian Gorka’s links to British intel­li­gence and Chris Don­nel­ly; A “warn­ing” by the head of Britain’s domes­tic intel­li­gence agency (MI5) that Rus­sia was foment­ing ter­ror­ist inci­dents in the West; The alle­ga­tion that web­cams in Lon­don went black in Sep­tem­ber (IF true, a har­bin­ger of false-flag oper­a­tions?); Analy­sis of the “Novi­chok poi­son­ing” of the Skirpals–a false-flag oper­a­tion blamed on Rus­sia and exe­cut­ed by British intel, appar­ent­ly with CIA assis­tance.

FTR#‘s 1362 & 1363 The Truth About Pearl Harbor, Parts 1 and 2

Intro­duc­tion: With the GOP tar­get­ing Social Secu­ri­ty (imple­ment­ed by FDR), the his­tor­i­cal and cog­ni­tive dis­cred­it­ing of the New Deal has fea­tured a fascis­tic revi­sion­ist his­to­ry of Pearl Har­bor.

Main­tain­ing that Roo­sevelt delib­er­ate­ly let the attack pro­ceed to bring the U.S. into World War II, this revi­sion­ism paints FDR as a trai­tor.

In this metic­u­lous­ly-researched and doc­u­ment­ed pre­sen­ta­tion, we not only refute this his­tor­i­cal slan­der and revi­sion­ism, but demon­strate con­clu­sive­ly that Admi­ral Kim­mel [in charge of Naval forces in Hawaii] and (per­haps to a less­er extent) Gen­er­al Short [in charge of Army forces in Hawaii] bear respon­si­bil­i­ty for the fail­ure.

Points of Dis­cus­sion and Analy­sis Include: The revi­sion­ist con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about Pearl Har­bor, blam­ing FDR, Win­ston Churchill, Joseph Stal­in, Chief-of-Staff George C. Mar­shall among oth­ers for the fail­ure of the mil­i­tary high com­mand at Pearl Har­bor; Major Hen­ry Clausen’s pouch fea­tur­ing a mag­ne­sium bomb to car­ry the decrypt­ed mes­sages from the Japan­ese Pur­ple Code (a diplo­mat­ic code that was bro­ken by U.S. intel­li­gence per­son­nel); The secure office in which Hen­ry C. Clausen worked; The Army Board­’s self-serv­ing scape­goat­ing of Chief-of-Staff Mar­shall; Three of the offi­cers on the Army Board had been demot­ed by Gen­er­al Mar­shall; Among the shills attack­ing FDR was GOP Sen­a­tor (from Michi­gan) Homer Fer­gu­son, exposed as a pro­pa­gan­diz­ing fool by Major Clausen; 1944 GOP Pres­i­den­tial Can­di­date Thomas Dewey was among those who point­ed the accus­ing fin­ger at FDR for delib­er­ate­ly allow­ing the attack to pro­ceed; Warn­ing on 1/24/41 of “a sur­prise attack upon the fleet or the naval base at Pearl Har­bor. The dan­gers envis­aged, in order of their impor­tance and prob­a­bil­i­ty, are con­sid­ered to be (1) air bomb­ing attack, (2) air tor­pe­do plane attack, (3) sab­o­tage, (4) sub­ma­rine attack . . . .’ ”; A mes­sage sent to Admi­ral Kim­mel and seen by Gen­er­al Short–“The dis­patch sent by the Chief of Naval Oper­a­tions to Kim­mel began with the fate­ful words ‘THIS DISPATCH IS TO BE CONSIDERED A WAR WARNING . . . . “; After not­ing that the U.S. had bro­ken the Japan­ese Pur­ple Code (a diplo­mat­ic code) ” . . . . Wash­ing­ton knew from read­ing these mes­sages that war would have to break out, with Japan attack­ing some­where in the Pacif­ic. There­fore, the Navy in Wash­ing­ton alert­ed Kim­mel on Decem­ber 3 by send­ing two advi­so­ry mes­sages that para­phrased the inter­cepts . . . . War had to fol­low; it was inevitable. . . .”; GOP shill Fer­gu­son’s attempts to deflect blame toward Roo­sevelt: ” . . . . ‘But that was nev­er sent to Kim­mel and Short, was it?’ ‘It cer­tain­ly was,’ I [Clausen] replied. I had him stone cold dead. . . .”; The Hawai­ian news­pa­pers had ample warn­ing of the poten­tial attacks to come; FDR knew that the inter­cept­ed mes­sages meant that war was inevitable; Churchill and British intel­li­gence knew that the inter­cepts meant that war was com­ing and alert­ed the U.S.; The role of the Bletch­ley Park code­break­ers in com­mu­ni­cat­ing (to no avail) the Japan­ese immi­nent attack; The par­tic­i­pa­tion of one of those codebreakers–the late Colonel Har­ry Beckhough–on Mr. Emory’s web­site; Dis­cus­sion of the U.S.S. Antares, the destroy­er U.S.S. Ward and the warn­ing they pro­vid­ed to Admi­ral Kimmel–to no avail; The attack on Pearl Har­bor and the role in it played by Gen­er­al Minoru Gen­da, the even­tu­al head of the Japan­ese Air Self-Defense Force, and the recip­i­ent of a medal from the U.S. Air Force; The per­for­mance char­ac­ter­is­tics of the air­craft car­ri­ers in the Pacif­ic and the bat­tle­ships in Pearl Har­bor; The leak of the U.S. Navy’s code-break­ing secret to the Japan­ese via the Chica­go Tri­bune and its FDR-hat­ing pub­lish­er Robert McCormick; The com­mence­ment of the Gold­en Lily oper­a­tion with the Rape of Nanking in 1937; The fact that the break­ing of the Japan­ese code informed the U.S. of the nature of the car­go of their ships, pos­si­bly inform­ing today of the posi­tion of sunken Gold­en Lily trea­sure.

The Confederacy and Slavery: Alexander W. Stephens’ Cornerstone Speech

Apol­o­gists for the Con­fed­er­a­cy claim their ide­ol­o­gy is based on “her­itage, not hate.” Con­fed­er­ate Vice-Pres­i­dent Alexan­der W. Stephens char­ac­ter­ized the Con­fed­er­a­cy: ” . . . . its cor­ner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slav­ery sub­or­di­na­tion to the supe­ri­or race is his nat­ur­al and nor­mal con­di­tion. . . .” As peo­ple with an oblig­a­tion to our descen­dants, we have the respon­si­bil­i­ty to pre­serve a record of the events lead­ing to the col­lapse of our social and polit­i­cal milieu. There is no bet­ter way of ful­fill­ing that oblig­a­tion than by obtain­ing the lat­est flash dri­ve, con­tain­ing all of Dav­e’s 45+ years on the air and a library of old anti-fas­cist books. Dave has estab­lished a Patre­on site fea­tur­ing arti­cles that he and oth­er researchers have writ­ten, inter­views with guests and three, week­ly talks by Dave. Lis­ten­ers can inter­act with Monte and oth­er guests on the plat­form. WFMU-FM is pod­cast­ing For The Record–You can sub­scribe to the pod­cast HERE.

PLEASE Get the New, 64GB Flashdrive!

As peo­ple with an oblig­a­tion to our descen­dants, we have the respon­si­bil­i­ty to pre­serve a record of the events lead­ing to the col­lapse of our social and polit­i­cal milieu. There is no bet­ter way of ful­fill­ing that oblig­a­tion than by obtain­ing the lat­est flash dri­ve, con­tain­ing all of Dav­e’s 45+ years on the air and a library of old anti-fas­cist books. Dave has estab­lished a Patre­on site fea­tur­ing arti­cles that he and oth­er researchers have writ­ten, inter­views with guests and three, week­ly talks by Dave. Lis­ten­ers can inter­act with Monte and oth­er guests on the plat­form. WFMU-FM is pod­cast­ing For The Record–You can sub­scribe to the pod­cast HERE.

State of the Union per Sitting Bull

Reflect­ing on the sor­ry state of this coun­try, the wis­dom impart­ed by Sit­ting Bull in the 19th cen­tu­ry looms large. “We have now to deal with anoth­er peo­ple, small and fee­ble when our fore­fa­thers first met with them, but now great and over­bear­ing. . . . the love of pos­ses­sions is a dis­ease in them. These peo­ple have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! . . . They even take tithes of the poor and weak to sup­port the rich and those who rule. . . .” Dave has launched a Patre­on plat­form, fea­tur­ing arti­cles and Zoom talks. Peo­ple can net­work direct­ly with guests such as Dav­e’s new co-host Monte. Con­tain­ing all of Mr. Emory’s work on Covid-19 and the Ukraine War, the lat­est 64GB flash dri­ve is now avail­able! WFMU-FM is pod­cast­ing For The Record–You can sub­scribe to the pod­cast HERE.

Soft Fascism Florida-Style: Ron DeSantis’s War on Amendment 4

A fas­cist to the core. That’s how retired US gen­er­al Mark Mil­ley, who direct­ly served Trump as the chair of joint chiefs of staff, as described in Bob Wood­ward’s upcom­ing book. As Mil­ley put it, “He is the most dan­ger­ous per­son ever. I had sus­pi­cions when I talked to you about his men­tal decline and so forth, but now I real­ize he’s a total fas­cist. He is now the most dan­ger­ous per­son to this coun­try.” And while they may be true, it’s impor­tant to keep in mind that Don­ald Trump is far from the only aspir­ing fas­cist in con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. The Sched­ule F/Project 2025 scheme orches­trat­ed by the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy is a group effort, after all. And as we’re going to see, Flori­da Gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis has been lay­ing the ground­work for the kind of ‘soft fas­cism’ that we should antic­i­pate a lot more of under a sec­ond Trump pres­i­den­cy. The kind of ‘soft fas­cism’ that is shaped less by Trump’s per­son­al mad­ness and more by the theo­crat­ic ambi­tions of the move­ments that have long ani­mat­ed the Repub­li­can Par­ty. Which brings us to DeSan­tis’s war on Amend­ment 4, a bal­lot ini­tia­tive that would enshrine abor­tion rights in Flori­da’s state con­sti­tu­tion up to the moment of via­bil­i­ty, com­ing months after Flori­da Repub­li­cans put in place a restric­tive new 6 week abor­tion ban. After first try­ing to get Amend­ment 4 thrown off the bal­lot, the DeSan­tis admin­is­tra­tion has pro­ceed­ed to spend tax­pay­er funds on an anti-Amend­ment 4 pub­lic mes­sag­ing cam­paign includes tv and radio ads. An unprece­dent­ed inves­ti­ga­tion into the Amend­ment 4 bal­lot sig­na­tures has also been opened, with police show­ing up at peo­ple’s homes to con­firm they signed the peti­tion. Local elec­tion super­vi­sors are also under sus­pi­cion of ver­i­fy­ing invalid sig­na­tures. And as we’re going to also see, there’s no pos­si­ble way this inves­ti­ga­tion can get the Amend­ment 4 removed from the bal­lot even if it suc­ceed­ed in reveal­ing some fraud. It’s pure intim­i­da­tion. More recent­ly, the Flori­da gov­ern­ment has threat­ened tele­vi­sion sta­tion employ­ees with crim­i­nal charges if they air a pro-Amend­ment 4 ad. Why? Because the state claims the ads — which raise ques­tions about whether or not wom­en’s health is ade­quate­ly pro­tect­ed under the new 6 week abor­tion law — pose a threat to pub­lic health because the new law in no way endan­gers women. Yes, if you run an ad sug­gest­ing the new Flori­da abor­tion law — one of the strictest in the US — could put women at risk, you could be crim­i­nal­ly charged. So if you were won­der­ing how the GOP is plan­ning on han­dling pub­lic dis­con­tent over the unpop­u­lar pol­i­cy that are about to be imposed on the pub­lic at large, look to Flori­da. Ron DeSan­tis is one of the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy’s favorite politi­cians for a rea­son.

“Some Folks Need Killing!” Mark Robinson, David Lane, and the CNP’s American Renewal Project

“Some Folks Need Killing!” So declared North Car­oli­na Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Mark Robin­son on June 30. At a church. With the full endorse­ment of the church’s pas­tor, Rev­erend Cameron McGill, who explained how Robin­son only meant the peo­ple ‘try­ing to kill us’ should be killed. Two days lat­er, Her­itage Foun­da­tion Pres­i­dent and Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts made his now infa­mous “Sec­ond Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion” speech, warn­ing that the rev­o­lu­tion would remain blood­less “if the left allows it”. Days lat­er, Don­ald Trump laugh­ably dis­avowed know­ing any­thing about Project 2025. And while Robert­s’s com­ments have received ample atten­tion, Robin­son’s “Some Folks Need Killing!” com­ments have remained an under-explored top­ic. Because as we’re going to see, Mark Robin­son has become quite a celebri­ty on the far right. With one very notable fan base: The Amer­i­can Renew­al Project ded­i­cat­ed to recruit­ing con­ser­v­a­tive pas­tor to run for office and the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CNP) fig­ures behind it. Not only is Robin­son the star of Amer­i­can Renew­al Project events, but it turns out Rev­erend McGill is a recruiter for the group too. That project, formed in 2005 by polit­i­cal activist David Lane but with roots going all the way back to the for­ma­tion of the CNP in 1981, is what we’re going to explore in this post. Because as dis­turb­ing as Robin­son’s “Some Folks Need Killings” com­ments may have been out of of con­text, they are a lot more dis­turb­ing when placed in con­text. A Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist domin­ion­ist con­text that warns of plans for a lot more than just ‘some’ killing.