This broadcast recaps material from previous programs, underscoring key points of information from current developments.
Last week, we opened our program with an article from Consortium News about some alarming developments in Ukraine–a piece of legislation approved by the Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) that might augur World War III.
One of the few media outlets that has covered the return to power of the OUN/B’s successor fascist organizations in Ukraine, Consortium News was founded and headed by Robert Parry.
Parry passed away last weekend.
Mr. Emory posted the following comment on the Consortium News article about Robert’s passing:
A very, very sad occasion. It was my privilege to have interviewed Robert a number of times over the years, including an interview–scheduled days before–that took place on the day he learned of Gary Webb’s death.
It was also my privilege to have used many articles from Consortium News in my weekly broadcasts, including, and especially, his reportage about the return to power of the OUN/B successor organizations in Ukraine.
Very few have manifested the courage and integrity to report honestly on those events.
Now, there will be fewer.
Rest in peace, Robert.
Next, we return to the subject of Peter Thiel, of “Team Trump,” Facebook and Palantir.
We have covered Peter Thiel in numerous programs, beginning with our warning about him in FTR #718.
Some of the points we have made about him include:
1.-His family background in the Frankfurt (Germany) chemical business. Probably I.G. Farben/Bormann, in that context.
2.-His primary role in Palantir, apparently the maker of the PRISM software at the epicenter of L’Affaire Snowden.
3.-His role as the primary financier of Ron Paul’s super PAC. (Paul is an unabashed white supremacist, joined at the hip with David Duke and the neo-Confederate movement. He was the Presidential candidate of choice for Eddie “The Friendly Spook” Snowden and Julian Assange.)
4.-Thiel’s networking with movers and shakers from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s high-tech venture capital firm.
5.-Thiel’s active anti-immigrant stance.
6.-Thiel’s seminal networking with other tech titans and venture capital firms, including some with political and historical tributaries leading back to the apartheid regime in South Africa.
With Thiel among the candidates to head Trump’s President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, we note that his apocalyptic, anti-Enlightenment ideology draws on, among other influences, Carl Schmitt. Arguably the prime mover behind the German Conservative Revolution, Schmitt was also: “. . . . a Nazi and the Third Reich’s preeminent legal theorist. For Thiel, Schmitt is an inspiring throwback to a pre-Enlightenment age, who exalts struggle and insists that the discovery of enemies is the foundation of politics. . .”
There has been a fair amount of buzz about the release of additional, previously classified, documents about the assassination of President Kennedy.
An interesting document came to light in the recent release of files relating to the assassination of JFK. Jack Ruby told an FBI informant to “watch the fireworks” in Dealey Plaza that day.
“Jack Ruby, the man who eventually shot Lee Harvey Oswald, told an FBI informant to ‘watch the fireworks’ on the day President John F. Kennedy was killed, according to new records the National Archives released Friday. . . . ‘The informant stated that on the morning of the assassination, Ruby contacted him and asked if he would ‘like to watch the fireworks,” an FBI record dated April 6, 1977, says. ‘He was with Jack Ruby and standing at the corner of the Postal Annex Building facing the Texas School Book Depository Building at the time of the shooting. . . .”
This might be evaluated against the background of FTR #963, relating–among other things–a reading of Jack Ruby’s Warren Commission testimony. (A reading of Ruby’s testimony is re-broadcast in this program.)
When interviewed by the Warren Commission, Jack Ruby indicated that he had been part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy and that he feared for his life. The Warren Commission turned a deaf ear to his desire to go to Washington and “spill the beans.”
Gerald Ford (who succeeded Nixon as President and pardoned him of all crimes committed), Leon Jaworski (a Warren Commission counsel who was a director of a CIA domestic funding conduit and who was selected by Nixon to be Watergate Special Prosecutor) and Arlen Specter (another Warren Commission counsel who was Nixon’s first choice as his personal defense attorney in the Watergate affair) were present at Ruby’s de facto confession.
Warren Commission Counsel J. Lee Rankin is also present at this interview. Nixon first selected J. Lee Rankin to serve as Watergate Special Prosecutor. Rankin was subsequently tabbed to review the Watergate tapes and determine which would be released. Rankin was the Warren Commission’s liaison between the commission and both the CIA and the FBI. Rankin was a key proponent of the so-called “Magic Bullet Theory.”
We conclude with discussion of another aspect of the JFK assassination.
Jane Mayer’s Dark Money has received considerable discussion and media play over the last couple of years. In past discussion of the Koch family, we noted that patriarch Fred Koch worked with Hitler building one of Nazi Germany’s most important refineries–one capable of refining the high-octane fuel needed by fighter planes.
In addition, we noted that Fred Koch was one of the first members of the John Birch Society.
Mayer notes that Fred Koch helped finance ads in the wake of the JFK assassination that pinned responsibility for the crime on the Soviet Union–one of the primary levels of disinformation.
” . . . . In a hasty turnabout, soon after the assassination, Fred Koch took out full-page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post, mourning JFK. The ads advanced the conspiracy theory that JFK’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, had acted as part of a Communist plot. The Communists wouldn’t “rest on this success,” the ads warned. In the corner was a tear-out order form, directing the public to sign up for John Birch Society mailings. . . .”
We have covered the “painting of Oswald Red” in numerous programs, including FTR #‘s 925 and 926.
Trump may be appointing Peter Thiel as head of his President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. Thiel is heavily influenced by Carl Schmitt, (on the right in the photograph) “. . . . a Nazi and the Third Reich’s preeminent legal theorist. For Thiel, Schmitt is an inspiring throwback to a pre-Enlightenment age, who exalts struggle and insists that the discovery of enemies is the foundation of politics. . .” We have been warning about Thiel since July of 2010. All of the contents of this website as of 12/19/2014–Dave Emory’s 37+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of videotaped lectures are available on a 32GB flash drive. Dave offers his programs and articles for free–your support is very much appreciated.
Developing information about the cast of characters in the “Russia-Gate” psy-op, we highlight the political allegiance of “Team Trump”–the operatives involved with Trump’s campaign and business dealings with Russia, as well as Robert Mueller, former FBI chief and a very special prosecutor indeed.
Although Trump certainly had links to Russian mob figures, they are by no means the prime movers in this drama.
Most importantly, we detail the political resumes and deep politics underlying the cast of characters in this drama, tracking the operational links back to Joe McCarthy and the red-baiting specialists from the first Cold War.
Joe McCarthy legal point man Roy Cohn is, to a considerable extent, the spider at the center of this web. Cohn:
1.-Was Trump’s attorney for much of “The Donald’s” professional life.
2.-Introduced Trump campaign manager and dirty tricks specialist Roger Stone to the seated President.
3.-Was instrumental in arranging for a bribe which made “independent” Republican John Anderson the Presidential candidate for the Liberal Party in New York. This gambit gave Reagan a key victory in New York. Cohn and Stone’s associate in this operation was Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno–one of Cohn’s mob clients and among Donald Trump’s organized crime associates as well.
4.-Was the point man for introducing Rupert Murdoch to Ronald Reagan and forging the right-wing media attack machine that dominates today, the most prominent element of which is Fox News.
Roger Stone is another figure who weaves throughout this concatenation. Stone:
1.-Was Donald Trump’s campaign manager and later dirty tricks operative, who networked with WikiLeaks go-between for the Trump/Alt-right crew.
2.-Was touting Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Johnson and Jill Stein were advocated for by Stone as participants in the debates between Hillary Clinton and Trump. (Johnson and Stein’s combined vote total helped Trump win in several key states.)
3.-Worked with Roy Cohn to put “independent” Republican John Anderson the Presidential candidate for the Liberal Party in New York. This gambit gave Reagan a key victory in New York, as noted above.
The point man for the Trump business interests in their dealings with Russia is Felix Sater. A Russian-born immigrant, Sater is a professional criminal and a convicted felon with historical links to the Mafia. Beyond that, and more importantly, Sater is an FBI informant and a CIA contract agent. As the media firestorm around “Russia-gate” builds, it is important not to lose sight of Sater. ” . . . . He [Sater] also provided other purported national security services for a reported fee of $300,000. Stories abound as to what else Sater may or may not have done in the arena of national security. . . .” We wonder if helping the “Russia-Gate” op may have been one of those.
Beyond Sater, other key players in this concatenation do not track back to “Kremlin/Putin/FSB/KGB.” Rob Goldstone–the publicist whose overture to Donald Trump, Jr. initiated the latest “Russia-gate journalistic feeding frenzy in the media, began his career a journalistic foot soldier for Rupert Murdoch, the very same Rupert Murdoch whose christening as a GOP/right-wing propagandist was initiated by Roy Cohn.
Goldstone contacted Donald Trump Jr., dangling the bait that there might be dirt on Hillary available if he met with some associates. Foremost among those is a Russian attorney, Natalie Veselnitskaya. Her apparent purpose in this meeting was not to offer up dirt on Hillary Clinton but to work toward easing a media lockdown on a documentary about the Magnitsky affair.
Spun in the West, the U.S. in particular, as a classic example of ham-fisted Russian corruption and violence, the Magnitsky affair was revealed in the film documentary to be an example of U.S. corruption, not Russian.
Crafted by Putin political opponent Andrei Nekrasov, the film revealed an unexpected dynamic: ” . . . . Nekrasov discovered that a woman working in Browder’s company was the actual whistleblower and that Magnitsky – rather than a crusading lawyer – was an accountant who was implicated in the scheme. . . .”
Attempting to lift the media blackout on Nekrasov’s film was Veselnitskaya’s goal, not disseminating dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Program Highlights Include: the financing of Joe McCarthy’s career by Nazi sympathizer Walter Harnischfeger, part of the German-American Fifth Column in this country which was at the forefront of the discussion in FTR #‘s 918, 919; McCarthy’s use of a postwar Nazi network headed by General Karl Wolff, SS chief Heinrich Himmler’s personal adjutant; Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s role in covering up the BCCI scandal and the overlapping Operation Green Quest investigation pursuant to 9/11.
Recent developments are suggestive of the ominous possibility of an imminent Third World War. We present some new information and recap and further analyze stories covered in previous programs in order to underscore and highlight the potential devastation of these events.
As the furor (“fuehrer”?) surrounding the potentially lethal political hoax known as “Russia-gate” gains momentum, it should be noted that the point man for the Trump business interests in their dealings with Russia is Felix Sater. A Russian-born immigrant, Sater is a professional criminal and a convicted felon with historical links to the Mafia. Beyond that, and more importantly, Sater is an FBI informant and a CIA contract agent: “. . . . There is every indication that the extraordinarily lenient treatment resulted from Sater playing a get-out-of-jail free card. Shortly before his secret guilty plea, Sater became a freelance operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. One of his fellow stock swindlers, Salvatore Lauria, wrote a book about it. The Scorpion and the Frog is described on its cover as ‘the true story of one man’s fraudulent rise and fall in the Wall Street of the nineties.’ According to Lauria–and the court files that have been unsealed–Sater helped the CIA buy small missiles before they got to terrorists. He also provided other purported national security services for a reported fee of $300,000. Stories abound as to what else Sater may or may not have done in the arena of national security. . . .”
Sater was active on behalf of the Trumps in the fall of 2015: “. . . . Sater worked on a plan for a Trump Tower in Moscow as recently as the fall of 2015, but he said that had come to a halt because of Trump’s presidential campaign. . . .”
Sater was initiating contact between the Russians and “Team Trump” in January of this year: “ . . . . Nevertheless, in late January, Sater and a Ukrainian lawmaker reportedly met with Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, at a New York hotel. According to the [New York] Times, they discussed a plan that involved the U.S. lifting sanctions against Russia, and Cohen said he hand-delivered the plan in a sealed envelope to then-national security advisor Michael Flynn. Cohen later denied delivering the envelope to anyone in the White House, according to the Washington Post. . . .”
A stunning development concerns extreme reticence on the part of the U.S. intelligence community:
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence had an “interesting” response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding the release of the classified report given to President Obama back in January purporting to show the Russian government was behind the hacks. According to the ODNI, the requested document would present a risk to human intelligence sources by revealing the comparative weight given to human vs technical evidence, risking US sources and methods. But the ODNI went further, suggesting that even releasing a fully redacted document would present similar risks!
It is NOT easy to see the ODNI’s reluctance to release even a fully-redacted copy of the report as anything but disingenuous. In the context of potentially devastating deterioration of Russian/U.S. relations over Syria, Ukraine, and the Russian “election-hacking” uproar, the ODNI’s behavior cannot be anything but disquieting:
” . . . . The intelligence official argued that a redacted version of the original report would allow a trained eye to assess ‘comparative weight’ of human intelligence and signals intelligence reporting included in the compendium. Release of some of the information the privacy-focused organization wants made public ‘could prove fatal to U.S. human intelligence sources,’ [Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Intelligence Integration Edward] Gistaro warned.
Gistaro also appears to argue that even if officials blacked out the whole report, highly classified information would be at risk.
‘I agree with the [National Intelligence Council] that a heavily or even fully redacted version of the classified report can not be publicly released without jeopardizing national security information properly classified as SECRET or TOP SECRET,’ he wrote. . . . ‘The ODNI should release the complete report to EPIC so that the public and the Congress can understand the full extent of the Russian interference with the 2016 Presidential election,’ EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg told POLITICO Tuesday. ‘It is already clear that government secrecy is frustrating meaningful oversight. The FBI, for example, will not even identify the states that were targeted by Russia.’ . . . ”
With the high-profile hacks being attributed–almost certainly falsely–to Russia, there are ominous developments taking place that may well lead to a Third World War. During the closing days of his Presidency, Obama authorized the planting of cyber weapons on Russian computer networks. Obama did this after talking with Putin on the Hot Line, established to prevent a Third World War. Putin denied interfering in the U.S. election.
The conclusion that Russia hacked the U.S. election on Putin’s orders appears to have been based on a CIA source in the Kremlin. Even when that intelligence was delivered, other agencies weren’t ready to accept the CIA’s conclusion and it took intelligence from another nation (not named) to provide the final intelligence tipping point that led to a broad-based conclusion the not only was the Russian government behind the cyberattacks but that Vladimir Putin himself ordered it.
That ally’s intelligence is described as “the most critical technical intelligence on Russia,” however the NSA still wasn’t convinced based on what sounds like a lack of confidence in that source. Thus, it looks like a CIA Kremlin source and an unnamed foreign intelligence agency with questionable credentials are the basis of what appears to be a likely future full-scale US/Russian cyberwar.
Of paramount significance is the fact that IF, on Putin’s orders (and we are to believe such) Russia continued to hack U.S. computer systems to influence the election, Putin would have to have gone utterly mad. Those hacks would have precluded any rapprochement between Russia and the United States under a President Trump. There is no indication that Putin went off the deep end.
Also auguring a possible Third World War are two developments in Syria. Seymour Hersh published an article in “Die Welt” revealing that, not only was the April 4 alleged Sarin attack NOT a chemical weapons attack but there was widespread knowledge of this in American military and intelligence circles.
What did the intelligence community know about the attack? The Russian and Syrian air force had informed the US in advance of that airstrike that they had intelligence that top level leaders of Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra were meeting in that building and they informed of the US of the attack plan in advance of the attack and that it was on a “high-value” target. And the attack involved the unusual use of a guided bomb and Syria’s top pilots. ” . . . . Russian and Syrian intelligence officials, who coordinate operations closely with the American command posts, made it clear that the planned strike on Khan Sheikhoun was special because of the high-value target. ‘It was a red-hot change. The mission was out of the ordinary – scrub the sked,’ the senior adviser told me. ‘Every operations officer in the region’ – in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, CIA and NSA – ‘had to know there was something going on. The Russians gave the Syrian Air Force a guided bomb and that was a rarity. They’re skimpy with their guided bombs and rarely share them with the Syrian Air Force. And the Syrians assigned their best pilot to the mission, with the best wingman.’ The advance intelligence on the target, as supplied by the Russians, was given the highest possible score inside the American community. . . .”
Following the attack, US intelligence concluded that there was no sarin gas attack, Assad wouldn’t have been that politically suicidal. The symptoms of chemical poisoning following the bombing was likely due to a mixture of chlorine, fertilizers, and other chemicals stored in the building that was targeted by the Syrian airforce created by secondary explosions from the initial bombing. ” . . . ‘This was not a chemical weapons strike,’ the adviser said. ‘That’s a fairy tale. . . .”
The symptoms of chemical poisoning following the bombing was likely due to a mixture of chlorine, fertilizers, and other chemicals stored in the building that was targeted by the Syrian airforce created by secondary explosions from the initial bombing. ” . . . . A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground. . . .”
The behavior of the Trump administration was not only in direct conflict with intelligence on the attack, but reinforced propaganda by some of the Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists the West has been using as proxy warriors in Syria and elsewhere: ” . . . . ‘The Salafists and jihadists got everything they wanted out of their hyped-up Syrian nerve gas ploy,’ the senior adviser to the U.S. intelligence community told me, referring to the flare up of tensions between Syria, Russia and America. ‘The issue is, what if there’s another false flag sarin attack credited to hated Syria? Trump has upped the ante and painted himself into a corner with his decision to bomb. And do not think these guys are not planning the next faked attack. Trump will have no choice but to bomb again, and harder. He’s incapable of saying he made a mistake.’ . . .”
Program Highlights Include: Review of a Trump administration warning of another supposed, impending “Syrian chemical weapons strike”–a warning that has since been retracted; discussion of brilliant Nazi hacker Andrew Auerenheimer’s orchestration of an “Alt-right” online intimidation campaign against CNN employees; Auerenheimer’s current residence in Ukraine; the ominous possibility of the activation/manipulation of the NSA cyber-weapons installed on Russian computer networks by a third party (perhaps someone with the capabilities of the brilliant Auerenheimer); review of the observations by a German professor–opposed to Nazism/Hitler–who described the essence of what it was like, subjectively, to live through the rise of Hitler–his observation presented in the context of the ODNI’s decision not to release even a fully-redacted version of the intelligence report on “Russian meddling” in the U.S. election: ” . . . . . . . . What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret, to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand because of nationality security, so dangerous that even if the people the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. . . .”
As we have noted in many previous broadcasts and posts, cyber attacks are easily disguised. Perpetrating a “cyber false flag” operation is disturbingly easy to do.
This is of paramount significance in evaluating the increasingly neo-McCarthyite New Cold War propaganda about “Russian interference” in the U.S. election.
Compounding the situation are some recent disclosures and developments:
1.–We learn that the CIA’s hacking tools are specifically crafted to mask CIA authorship of the attacks. Most significantly, for our purposes, is the fact that the Agency’s hacking tools are engineered in such a way as to permit the authors of the event to represent themselves as Russian.
2.–The NSA’s elite hacking technology has been made widely available to the hacking community, courtesy of “The Shadow Brokers.”
3.–During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Michael Flynn was professionally involved with numerous cyber-security and cyber arms manufacturing firms: “ . . . . The month before Flynn joined the advisory board of OSY Technologies, NSO Group opened up a new arm called WestBridge Technologies, Inc., in the D.C. region. (The company was originally registered in Delaware in 2014, but formed in Maryland in April 2016.) Led by NSO Group co-founder Lavie, WestBridge is vying for federal government contracts for NSO Group’s products. Hiring Flynn would provide NSO Group with a well-connected figure in Washington, to help get its foot in the door of the notoriously insular world of secret intelligence budgeting. . . .When you’re trying to build up your business, you need someone who has connections, someone who is seen as an authority and a legitimate presence,” Johnson said. Hiring someone with Flynn’s background in intelligence would ‘open up doors that they wouldn’t have had access to,’ Johnson said.Throughout 2016, Flynn worked for a number of cybersecurity firms personally and through his consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group. In addition to his advisory board seat at OSY Technologies, he sat on the board of Adobe Systems, a large software company with Pentagon contracts, and the boards of the cybersecurity companies GreenZone Systems and HALO Privacy. (Though Flynn described himself as an Adobe advisory board member in his financial disclosure paperwork, the group said in a statement that he provided only “periodic counsel to Adobe’s public sector team.”) . . .”
4.–NSO Group and OSY Technologies specialize in spear-fishing attacks, one of the methodologies used in the hacks of U.S. election computers. Is there any link between Flynn’s cyber-security/cyber arms links and the high-profile hacks during the campaign?
5.–A GOP tech database–Deep Root–Exposed the data of almost two hundred million American voters to widespread scrutiny. Is there any connection between Deep Root, the GOP and the alleged Russian hacking of U.S. voting computers?
Following a Bloomberg report about widespread Russian hacking of American elections systems: “ . . . . Kay Stimson, spokeswoman for the National Association of Secretaries of State, said the members of her group — which represents the chief election officials in 40 states — were taken aback by the allegation that 39 states were hacked. ‘We cannot verify any information in that report,’ Stimson told Benzinga. “It has some claims that have raised some red flags. I don’t know where they’re getting it. We’re not able to assess to the credibility.’ She said that some cybersecurity firms were engaging in scare tactics at the state and local levels. ‘There are cybersecurity firms making some wild claims,’ she said. ‘It is a very aggressive industry.’ . . .”
With the high-profile hacks being attributed–almost certainly falsely–to Russia, there are ominous developments taking place that may well lead to a Third World War. During the closing days of his Presidency, Obama authorized the planting of cyber weapons on Russian computer networks. Obama did this after talking with Putin on the Hot Line, established to prevent a Third World War. Putin denied interfering in the U.S. election.
The conclusion that Russia hacked the U.S. election on Putin’s orders appears to have been based on a CIA source in the Kremlin. Even when that intelligence was delivered, other agencies weren’t ready to accept the CIA’s conclusion and it took intelligence from another nation (not named) to provide the final intelligence tipping point that led to a broad-based conclusion the not only was the Russian government behind the cyberattacks but that Vladimir Putin himself ordered it.
That ally’s intelligence is described as “the most critical technical intelligence on Russia,” however the NSA still wasn’t convinced based on what sounds like a lack of confidence in that source. Thus, it looks like a CIA Kremlin source and an unnamed foreign intelligence agency with questionable credentials are the basis of what appears to be a likely future full-scale US/Russian cyberwar.
Of paramount significance is the fact that IF, on Putin’s orders (and we are to believe such) Russia continued to hack U.S. computer systems to influence the election, Putin would have to have gone utterly mad. Those hacks would have precluded any rapprochement between Russia and the United States under a President Trump. There is not indication that Putin went off the deep end.
Also auguring a Third World War are two developments in Syria. Seymour Hersh published an article in Die Welt revealing that, not only was the April 4 alleged Sarin attack NOT a chemical weapons attack but there was widespread knowledge of this in American military and intelligence circles.
Ominously, the Trump White House is claiming they have advance knowledge of an impending Syrian chemical weapons strike and will punish Syria heavily, and hold Russia accountable.
Program Highlights Include: The fact that the bulk of activity detected by the DHS on U.S. election systems was “scanning”–standard operating procedure for hacking; a former NSA hacking specialist–Jake Williams–said that spear-phishing operation was of “medium sophistication” that “practically any hacker can pull off”; the question of whether or not GOP Secretaries of State might have deliberately responded to the spear-phishing e‑mails that permitted the “hit” on U.S. election systems; the Russian authorization of the use by the Syrian air force of a smart bomb to eliminate Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists; the release of a chemical cloud as a result of that strike that was caused by secondary explosions; Cambridge Analytica’s hiring of GOP online data-basing kingpin Darren Bolding.
In the wake of the alleged sarin attack by Bashar al-Assad’s government and the cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base by the U.S., we examine some of the relevant issues in the crisis, including and especially intelligence evaluations sharply divergent from the official version:
a). We begin with analysis of the area (Idlib) where the alleged Syrian government sarin attack took place. It is dominated by the Al-Nusra Front, the name given to Al-Qaeda in Iraq when it operates in Syria. Note that the top cleric in the Al-Qaeda held area is Abdullah Muhaysini, a Saudi cleric: ” . . . . who was a student [25] of Sulayman Al-Alwan, the Wahhabi cleric who oversaw what his Muslim critics have called a ‘terrorist factory [26]’ in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qassim Province. Al-Alwan was also the instructor of the 9/11 hijacker Abdulaziz Alomari. . . .”
b.) Saddam and bin Laden worked out an arrangement in which Iraq—in order to provide for a payback capability if the U.S. ousted him—gave information about WMD’s to bin Laden’s people. Al Qaeda, in turn, was to act as a back-up unit for Saddam’s Iraq, striking at the United States if it knocked out Saddam. ” . . . . According to Arab sources, in anticipation of a foreseeable reversal of alliances in Kabul, bin Laden had been in discreet contact since September 2000 with associates of Oudai Hussein. . . . Bin Laden and the Iraqis are said to have exchanged information about chemical and biological weapons, despite the opposition of some of the Baghdad leadership, including Tarik Aziz. . . .”
c). Robert Parry notes in Consortium News that elements in the U.S. intelligence community do not agree with the Trump administration’s assessment of the situation. ” . . . . Alarm within the U.S. intelligence community about Trump’s hasty decision to attack Syria reverberated from the Middle East back to Washington, where former CIA officer Philip Giraldi reported hearing from his intelligence contacts in the field that they were shocked at how the new poison-gas story was being distorted by Trump and the mainstream U.S. news media. Giraldi told Scott Horton’s Webcast: ‘I’m hearing from sources on the ground in the Middle East, people who are intimately familiar with the intelligence that is available who are saying that the essential narrative that we’re all hearing about the Syrian government or the Russians using chemical weapons on innocent civilians is a sham.’ . . .”
d.) Parry also notes that some analysts are reporting a strike by a drone launched from a joint Saudi-Israeli base that supports Syrian rebels. ” . . . Despite some technical difficulties in tracing its flight path, analysts eventually came to believe that the flight was launched in Jordan from a Saudi-Israeli special operations base for supporting Syrian rebels, the source said, adding that the suspected reason for the poison gas was to create an incident that would reverse the Trump administration’s announcement in late March that it was no longer seeking the removal of President Bashar al-Assad. . . .”
e.) Parry concludes one of his articles with a scathing analysis of the Trump administration’s claims by a MIT researcher: ” . . . . In a separate analysis of the four-page dossier, Theodore Postol, a national security specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, concluded that the White House claims were clearly bogus, writing: ‘I have reviewed the document carefully, and I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria at roughly 6 to 7 a.m. on April 4, 2017. In fact, a main piece of evidence that is cited in the document points to an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an aircraft, on the morning of April 4. This conclusion is based on an assumption made by the White House when it cited the source of the sarin release and the photographs of that source. My own assessment, is that the source was very likely tampered with or staged, so no serious conclusion could be made from the photographs cited by the White House.’ . . . ”
f.) Detailed analysis of an August, 2013 sarin attack, originally thought to have been perpetrated by Bashar Al-Assad, was presented by Seymour Hersh in the London Review of Books. The sarin turns out not to have come from Syrian government stockpiles. “. . . . Obama’s change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn’t hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. . . .”
g.) Al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda), on the other hand, was producing Sarin and looking to ramp up production through a supply pipeline running through Turkey. ” . . . . The American and British intelligence communities had been aware since the spring of 2013 that some rebel units in Syria were developing chemical weapons. On 20 June analysts for the US Defense Intelligence Agency issued a highly classified five-page ‘talking points’ briefing for the DIA’s deputy director, David Shedd, which stated that al-Nusra maintained a sarin production cell: its programme, the paper said, was ‘the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida’s pre‑9/11 effort’. . . .”
h.) The 2013 conclusions of general Martin Dempsey are worth examining in the context of the current crisis: ” . . . . From the beginning of the crisis, the former intelligence official said, the joint chiefs had been skeptical of the administration’s argument that it had the facts to back up its belief in Assad’s guilt. They pressed the DIA and other agencies for more substantial evidence. ‘There was no way they thought Syria would use nerve gas at that stage, because Assad was winning the war,’ the former intelligence official said. . . .”
Program Highlights Include:
1. Review of the corporatist economic foundation of Muslim Brotherhood developmental theory. “. . . . The Muslim Brotherhood hails 14th century philosopher Ibn Khaldun as its economic guide. Anticipating supply-side economics, Khaldun argued that cutting taxes raises production and tax revenues . . . The World Bank has called Ibn Khaldun the first advocate of privatization. . . .”
2. Review of Graham E. Fuller’s support for the economic values of the Muslim Brotherhood and his strange support for Bernie Sanders, whose values are the opposite of those espoused by Fuller.
3. The fact that war in the Middle East raises oil prices–this to be seen against the background of Rex Tillerson being Secretary of State (previously CEO of Exxon/Mobil). ” . . . . For investors like Mr. Abdullah, conflict in the Middle East means one thing: higher oil prices. ‘It’s always good for us,’ he says. . . .”
4. Robert Parry’s view that the omission of CIA director Mike Pompeo and other top U.S. intelligence officials from a photo of Trump’s top advisors is indicative of dissent within the intelligence community from the official version of the attack.
Against the background of Trumpian political volatility made manifest in Syria, we look at St. Bernard [Sanders] and the implications of actions he has taken. This program is presented in the context of the “shock to the system” that Steve Bannon and other Trump advisers see as necessary and imminent.
After detailing more about the Hungarian fascist manifestations of Sebastian Gorka, the Trump administration’s point man for counter-jihadism, the program turns to the possible use of the Sanders campaign as a vehicle for the GOP to infiltrate and/or maneuver jihadist elements into prominence in the Democratic Party.
In numerous programs, we have noted the suppression of Operation Green Quest, which targeted individuals and institutions linked to the Al-Taqwa/Muslim Brotherhood milieu on the one hand, and to the Karl Rove/Grover Norquist-generated Islamic Free Market Institute on the other. Karl Rove, Grover Norquist and Graham E. Fuller, the Muslim Brotherhood’s and jihadis’ most significant backer in the intelligence community, factor into this analysis:
1. Rove financed Sanders campaign through the American Crossroads super-PAC. ” . . . American Crossroads—founded by former Bush adviser Karl Rove—and several other conservative-backed super PACs have spent the last month intentionally fueling the Bern, but their zeal has more to do with an effort to weaken Hillary Clinton, whom they still see as the likely Democratic nominee and harder to defeat in the general election. . . . Crossroads is one of several groups that has released ads that have been aimed at branding Sanders as the only true progressive in the race—a strategy the Vermont senator’s campaign also embraces. . . .”
2. Graham E. Fuller says that he was ” . . . . galvanized at watching the spectacle of Bernie Sanders proclaiming issues in his campaign that had been virtually off limits for political discussion for decades: gap between rich and poor, rapacious international trade deals, a fair wage, free university education, the call for US balance (gasp!) in handling the Arab-Israeli, issue, etc. The great thing about Bernie — even if he probably won’t get nominated — is that he has pushed hawkish, friend-of-Wall-Street Hillary to the left. . . .”
3. Fuller’s actual views are the opposite of Sanders policy points: “. . . Fuller comes from that faction of CIA Cold Warriors who believed (and still apparently believe) that fundamentalist Islam, even in its radical jihadi form, does not pose a threat to the West, for the simple reason that fundamentalist Islam is conservative, against social justice, against socialism and redistribution of wealth, and in favor of hierarchical socio-economic structures. Socialism is the common enemy to both capitalist America and to Wahhabi Islam, according to Fuller. . . ‘There is no mainstream Islamic organization...with radical social views,’ he wrote. ‘Classical Islamic theory envisages the role of the state as limited to facilitating the well-being of markets and merchants rather than controlling them. Islamists have always powerfully objected to socialism and communism....Islam has never had problems with the idea that wealth is unevenly distributed.’ . . . .”
4. Faisal Gill, a former operations director for Norquist’s Islamic Free Market Institute and official with George W. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security is now the head of Vermont’s Democratic Party, a post he has used to join Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard to promote Keith Ellison as head of the Democratic National Committee. Ellison is now the deputy chair of the DNC, the post formerly held by Gabbard. ” . . . . Yet some officials remain concerned that Gill apparently enjoys the political protection of Norquist, the architect of the 1994 Republican election sweep that brought Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich to power as House speaker. Norquist speaks of ‘crushing’ his political opponents and dismisses those who don’t agree with his anti-tax, anti-government agenda as ‘Bolsheviks.’ His power derives from a formidable coalition of evangelical, business and other conservative groups that he controls to push favored GOP issues, as well as from his close relationship with White House political chief Karl Rove. . . .”
The program also notes a number of other things about the Sanders campaign:
1. He was promoting open primaries for the Democratic Party, which would enable Karl Rove and the Republicans to choose the Democratic nominee.
2. Sanders was a Presidential elector for the Socialist Workers Party, embracing a stance which would have made him terminally vulnerable had he gotten the Democratic nomination. ” . . . . In 1980, Sanders served as an elector for the Socialist Workers Party, which was founded on the principles of Leon Trotsky. According to the New York Times, that party called for abolishing the military budget. It also called for “solidarity” with the revolutionary regimes in Iran, Nicaragua, Grenada, and Cuba; this was in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis. . . .”
3. The SWP was a vehicle for infiltration and the acquisition of a “left cover” by Nazis and spooks, including Lee Harvey Oswald.
4. The Third Reich saw Leon Trotsky’s methodology as worthy of emulation. (The SWP is a Trotskyite political party.) ” . . . . ‘You should read his books,’ he [Hitler] barked. ‘We can learn a lot from him.’ . . .”
5. To what extent have the GOP and the overlapping Underground Reich focused on Sanders (without his knowledge) as a vehicle for infiltrating the Democratic Party? In FTR #‘s 941, 942 and 945, we noted the numerous fascist connections of Tulsi Gabbard, one of the driving forces behind Sanders’ ascent. To what extent has the Trotskyite template served as a vehicle for Gabbard, and, perhaps, Ellison to infiltrate the Democratic Party?
Just as JFK’s assassination–pinned on the ersatz Communist Lee Harvey Oswald–destroyed JFK’s attempts at detente with the Soviet Union, the “op” fronted for by Edward Snowden–the “Obverse Oswald”–destroyed the Obama/Clinton State Department’s attempts at a “re-boot” with Russia. This program is the second in a series reviewing how Oswald was “painted red.” For purposes of convenience and continuity, we begin the discussion by reviewing and synopsizing information indicating that Russia has been framed for the “Shadow Brokers” alleged hack of the NSA, much as it appears to have been framed for the DNC hack.
Indeed, with both the DNC hack and the “Shadow Brokers” non-hack of the NSA, the evidence points increasingly toward “Team Snowden” (including WikiLeaks) and Eddie the Friendly Spook himself. The process of propagandizing the high-profile hacks as effected by “Russia” is analogous to the “painting of Oswald Red.” This broadcast details a visit to Mexico City by “Oswald,” in which the patsy-to-be of the JFK assassination went to lengths to reinforce the image of a Communist, linked to, among other elements, the KGB’s assassination expert Valery Kostikov.
The “Oswald” operating in Mexico City did not look like Oswald: ” . . . He was described as ‘apparent age 35, athletic build, circa 6 feet, receding hairline, balding top.’ In a CIA cable back to Mexico City on October 10, the Lee Oswald who defected to the U.S.S.R. in October 1959 was described as not quite 24, ‘five feet ten inches, one hundred sixty five pounds, light brown wavy hair, blue eyes.’ . . .” He did not speak like Oswald: ” . . . . Equally noteworthy in the October 9 cable is the evidence it provides that the “Lee Oswald” who made the October 1 phone call was an impostor. The caller, it said, “spoke broken Russian.” The real Oswald was fluent in Russian. . . .”
The “Oswald” in Mexico City had unusual credentials: ” . . . [Cuban diplomat Silvia] Duran was a little suspicious of Oswald. She felt the American was too eager in displaying his leftist credentials: membership cards in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and the American Communist Party, old Soviet documents, a newspaper clipping on his arrest in New Orleans, a photo of Oswald being escorted by a policeman on each arm that Duran thought looked Phony. Duran also knew that belonging to the Communist Party was illegal in Mexico in 1963. For that reason, a Communist would normally travel in the country with only a passport. Yet here was Oswald documented in a way that invited his arrest. . . .”
The “Oswald” in Mexico City displayed unusual behavior: ” . . . He took a revolver from his jacket pocket, placed it on a table, and said, ‘See? This is what I must now carry to protect my life.’ The Soviet officials carefully took the gun and removed its bullets. They told Oswald once again they could not give him a quick visa. They offered him instead the necessary forms to be filled out. Oswald didn’t take them. Oleg Nechiporenko joined the three men as their conversation was ending. For the second day in a row, he accompanied a depressed Oswald to the gate of the embassy, this time with Oswald’s returned revolver and its loose bullets stuck back in his jacket pocket. Nechiporenko says that he, Kostikov, and Yatskov then immediately prepared a report on Oswald’s two embassy visits that they cabled to Moscow Center. . . .”
A CIA telephonic intercept of the “Oswald” appears to have been a fabrication: ” . . . . The CIA’s transcript states that the Saturday, September 28, call came from the Cuban Consulate. The first speaker is identified as Silvia Duran. However, Silvia Duran has insisted repeatedly over the years, first, that the Cuban Embassy was closed to the public on Saturdays, and second, that she never took part in such a call. ‘Duran’ is said to be phoning the Soviet Consulate. Oleg Nechiporenko denies in turn that this call occurred. He says it was impossible because the Soviet switchboard was closed. The ‘Duran’ speaker in the transcript says that an American in her consulate, who had been in the Soviet Embassy, wants to talk to them. She passes the phone to a North American man. The American insists that he and the Soviet representative speak Russian. They engage in a conversation, with the American speaking with the translator describes as ‘terrible hardly recognizable Russian.’ This once again argues against the speaker being Oswald, given his fluent Russian. . . .”
The net effect of the phony Oswald in Mexico City was to reinforce the notion that a Communist killed Kennedy, increasing pressure for retaliation against Russia and/or Cuba and escalating Cold War tensions. ” . . . . One must give the CIA (and the assassination sponsors that were even further in the shadows) their due for having devised and executed a brilliant setup. They had played out a scenario to Kennedy’s death in Dallas that pressured other government authorities to choose among three major options: a war of vengeance against Cuba and the Soviet Union based on the CIA’s false Mexico City documentation of a Communist assassination plot; a domestic political war based on the same documents seen truly, but a war the CIA would fight with every covert weapon at its command; or a complete cover-up of any conspiracy evidence and a silent coup d’etat that would reverse Kennedy’s efforts to end the Cold War. . . .” The propaganda blitzkrieg against Russia over the high-profile hacks, Ukraine and Syria have positioned Hillary Clinton in an analogous fashion. It will be VERY difficult for her to avoid being sucked into the New Cold War dynamics. Program Highlights Include: Review of the disinformation linking Oswald to the KGB’s alleged assassination of Stephan Bandera (head of the OUN/B); review of the role of Pierre Omidyar in the Maidan coup; review of Oswald’s altogether improbable activities in the U.S., given his supposed Communist status.
Analyzing the possibility that American use of Muslim Brotherhood Islamists as proxy warriors and armed heralds of corporatist free-market economic values might backfire on the United States, we look at the development of ISIS, the curious Turkish about-face on the Fetullah Gulen organization and fallout from the so-called “Arab Spring.” Beginning with discussion of a “doomsday” contingency plan concocted by al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein to back each other up militarily in the event either or both were overthrown by the U.S., we examine the prominent role of former members of Saddam’s officer corps in administering ISIS. ISIS and al-Qaeda are holding forth in Libya, which is serving as a base for spreading their operations into Africa. Like the bloody Syrian civil war, the overthrow of Khadafy (which set the stage for the Islamist presence in Libya) is an outgrowth of the so-called “Arab Spring”–one of the “conga-line ops” we highlighted in FTR #885. Much of the program highlights the operations of the Fetullah Gulen organization in Turkey. Alleged to be a CIA front organization and Islamic extremist in nature, the Gulen organization was formerly an ally of Tayyip Erdogan. Now, it is among his most bitter opponents. Program Highlights Include: review of Hitler’s view that Islamists were a crucial Third Reich ally; review of a critical meeting in Switzerland at which prominent Euro-fascists and al-Taqwa director Ahmed Huber met; speculation that the Swiss “Euro-fascist” summit may have helped generate the intelligence disinformation that helped lure the Bush administration into the ill-advised Iraq war; “ex” CIA officer Graham Fuller’s ridicule of the allegation that the Gulen organization is a CIA front organization; the close connections between Erdogan’s AKP Party, Germany and the EU.