Latest Patreon Talks: Comparison with Japanese Pre-WWII Child-Rearing and Contemporary American Behavior; Reflections on Death of Ayman Al-Zawahiri
In the latest Patreon talks–three, one-hour presentations per week–Mr. Emory compares the military inculcation of Japanese youth in the pre-World War II period with the submersion of American boys in a cognitive military culture presented by movies, TV, video-games and the Internet. In addition, we review the role of Mohammed Al-Zawahiri–the late Ayman’s brother–with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi. Ukrainian television anchor quotes Adolf Eichmann verbatim in this video from UKRAINE 24. This video of Ukraine’s top military medical officer discussing an order to castrate Russian males is an eye-opener. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory emphatically recommends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash drive containing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fascist books on easy-to-download PDF files.
FTR #1080 Surveillance Valley, Part 6: Double Agents, Part 2 (Foxes Guarding the Online Privacy Henhouse, Part 3)
In this program, we resume discussion and analysis of the consummately important recent book Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine. In the previous program, we noted, among other points of analysis, the decisive role of Eddie “The Friendly Spook” Snowden in promoting the intelligence-agency crafted Tor network.
In addition to Tor, the Open Technology Fund (read “CIA”) helped finance the Signal app for mobile phones. It, too, is fundamentally compromised. ” . . . . . . . . The Tor project remained the best-known privacy app funded by the Open Technology Fund, but it was quickly joined by another: Signal, an encrypted mobile phone messaging app for the iPhone and Android. . . .”
Not surprisingly, the CIA’s Eddie “The Friendly Spook” Snowden was a big promoter of Signal, as well as Tor: ” . . . . People at the ACLU claimed that Signal made federal agents weep. The Electronic Frontier Foundation added Signal alongside Tor to its Surveillance Self-Defense guide. Fight for the Future, a Silicon Valley-funded privacy activist organization, described Signal and Tor as ‘NSA-proof’ and urged people to use them. Edward Snowden was the combo’s biggest and most famous booster and repeatedly took to Twitter to tell his three million followers that he used Signal and Tor every day, and that they should do the same to protect themselves from government surveillance. ‘Use Tor, Use Signal,’ he tweeted out.
“With endorsements like these, Signal quickly became the go-to app for political activists around the world. Egypt, Russia, Syria, and even the United States—millions downloaded Signal, and it became the communication app of choice for those who hoped to avoid police surveillance. Feminist collectives, anti-President Donald Trump protesters, communists, anarchists, radical animal rights organizations, Black Lives Matter activists—all flocked to Signal. Many were heeding Snowden’s advice: ‘Organize. Compartmentalize to limit compromise. Encrypt everything, from calls to texts (use Signal as a first step.)’ . . . .”
Yasha Levine sums up the fundamental contradictions inherent in this dynamic: ” . . . . If you stepped back to survey the scene, the entire landscape of this new Internet Freedom privacy movement looked absurd. Cold War-era organizations spun off from the CIA now funding the global movement against government surveillance? Google and Facebook, companies that ran private surveillance networks and worked hand in hand with the NSA, deploying government-funded privacy tech to protect their users from government surveillance? Privacy activists working with Silicon Valley and the US government to fight government surveillance—and with the support of Edward Snowden himself? . . . .”
Following Snowden’s promotion of OTF’s Tor and Signal technologies, OTF was at a zenith: ” . . . . After Edward Snowden, OTF was triumphant. It didn’t mention the leaker by name in its promotional materials, but it profited from the crypto culture he promoted and benefited from his direct endorsement of the crypto tools it financed. It boasted that its partnership with both Silicon Valley and respected privacy activists meant that hundreds of millions of people could use the privacy tools the US government had brought to market. And OTF promised that this was just a start: ‘By leveraging social network effects, we expect to expand to a billion regular users taking advantage of OTF-supported tools and Internet Freedom technologies by 2015. . . .’
As eventually became clear, the Tor network was easily breached. It is a safe bet that the fascists grouped around the Pirate Bay site (on which WikiLeaks held forth), had breached Tor’s “secrecy,” in addition to the obvious fact that intelligence services could penetrate it at will.
With this in mind, John Young’s rumination about WikiLeaks sound more and more substantive.
In all probability, WikiLeaks was a huge data mining operation both by the very intelligence agencies who were ostensibly targeted by WikiLeaks, and the Fascist International network around Carl Lundstrom, Daniel Friberg, David Duke et al.
In FTR #‘s 756 and 831 we noted Snowden’s fascist views and connections. Levine merely characterizes him as a “right-wing libertarian,” but there is MUCH MORE TO IT THAN THAT!
Snowden downplayed the fundamental role of the Big Tech firms in aiding and abetting government surveillance, in addition to their own massive surveillance and resultant data mining. ” . . . . There, while living under state protection at an undisclosed location in Moscow, he swept Silicon Valley’s role in Internet surveillance under the rug. Asked about it by Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman, who had first reported on the NSA’s PRISM program, Snowden shrugged off the danger posed by companies like Google and Facebook. The reason? Because private companies do not have the power to arrest, jail, or kill people. ‘Twitter doesn’t put warheads on foreheads,’ he joked. . . .”
Embodying his “corporatist” and Technocratic Fascist point of view, Snowden championed the Big Tech firms as bulwarks against government Internet surveillance, despite the only-too-obvious fact (reinforced by the documents he leaked) that Big Tech is–and always has been–in bed with, and actively collaborating with, the very government intelligence agencies conducting that surveillance: ” . . . . The only islands of safety were the private data centers controlled by private companies—Google, Apple, Facebook. These were the cyber-fortresses and walled cities that offered sanctuary to the masses. In this chaotic landscape, computer engineers and cryptographers played the role of selfless galloping knights and wizard-warriors whose job was to protect the weak folk of the Internet: the young, the old and infirm, families. It was their duty to ride out, weapons aloft, and convey people and their precious data safely from fortress to fortress, not letting any of the information fall into the hands of government spies. He called on them to start a people’s privacy war, rallying them to go forth and liberate the Internet, to reclaim it from the governments of the world. . . .”
The nauseating head of Facebook–Mark Zuckerberg–has decried the intelligence community’s use of the Internet for data mining. In FTR #1077, we highlighted the Cambridge Analytica affair, and Facebook’s full cooperation with that project at every turn.
Other Big Tech firms had similar reactions. “. . . . . ‘We hadn’t even heard of PRISM before yesterday,’ Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. He blamed the government and positioned Facebook as a victim. “I’ve called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.’ Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! All reacted in much the same way, denying the allegations and painting themselves as the victims of government overreach. ‘It’s tremendously disappointing that the government sort of secretly did all this stuff and didn’t tell us. We can’t have a democracy if we’re having to protect you and our users from the government,’ Larry Page told Charlie Rose in an interview on CBS. . . . .”
We present the conclusion of the main part of the book, with Levine’s summation of the inextricable nature and symbiosis between the Internet, the tech firms and the so-called “privacy community.”
The key points of discussion and analysis of Levine’s book (as a whole) include:
1.–The Internet is a weapon, developed for counter-insurgency purposes.
2.–Big Tech firms network with the very intelligence services they publicly decry.
3.–Big Tech firms that data mine their customers on a nearly unimaginable scale do so as a direct, operational extension of the very surveillance function upon which the Internet is predicated.
4.–The technologies touted by the so-called “Privacy Activists” such as Edward Snowden and Jacob Applebaum were developed by the very intelligence services they are supposed to deflect.
5.–The technologies touted by the so-called “Privacy Activists” such as Edward Snowden and Jacob Applebaum–such as the Tor Internet function and the Signal mobile phone app– are readily accessible to the very intelligence services they are supposed to deflect.
6.–The organizations that promote the alleged virtues of Snowden, Applebaum, Tor, Signal et al are linked to the very intelligence services they would have us believe they oppose.
7.–Big Tech firms embrace “Internet Freedom” as a distraction from their own willful and all-embracing data mining and their ongoing conscious collaboration with the very intelligence services they publicly decry.
NB: Mr. Levine does not go into the fascistic character of Snowden, Assange, Greenwald et al. Some of those shows: Greenwald–FTR #888, Snowden–FTR #‘s 756, 831, Assange and WikiLeaks–FTR #‘s 732, 745, 755, 917.
“. . . . Then there was the fact that Signal ran on Amazon’s servers, which meant that all its data were available to a partner in the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program. Equally problematic, Signal needed Apple and Google to install and run the app on people’s mobile phones. Both companies were, and as far as we know still are, partners in PRISM as well. ‘Google usually has root access to the phone, there’s the issue of integrity,’ writes Sander Venema, a respected developer and secure—technology trainer, in a blog post explaining why he no longer recommends people use Signal for encrypted chat. ‘Google is still cooperating with the NSA and other intelligence agencies. PRISM is also still a thing. I’m pretty sure that Google could serve a specially modified update or version of Signal to specific target for surveillance, and they would be none the wiser that they installed malware on their phones.’ . . .
. . . . So, although the app encrypted the content of people’s messages, it also marked them with a flashing red sign: ‘Follow Me, I Have Something to Hide.’ (Indeed, activists protesting at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in 2016 told me that they were bewildered by the fact that police seemed to know and anticipate their every move despite their having used Signal to organize. . . .”
” . . . . For many Internet companies, including Google and Facebook, surveillance is the business model. It is the base on which their corporate and economic power rests. Disentangle surveillance and profit, and these companies would collapse. Limit data collection, an the companies would see investors flee and their stock prices plummet. [Italics are mine–D.E.]
“Silicon Valley fears a political solution to privacy. Internet Freedom and crypto offer an acceptable alternative. Tools like Signal and Tor provide a false solution to the privacy problem, focusing people’s attention on government surveillance and distracting them from the private spying carried out by the Internet companies they use every day. All the while, crypto tools give people a [false] sense that they’re doing something to protect themselves, a feeling of personal empowerment and control. And all those crypto radicals? Well, they just enhance the illusion, heightening the impression of risk and danger. With Signal or Tor installed, using an iPhone or Android suddenly becomes edgy and radical. So instead of pushing for political and democratic solutions to surveillance, we outsource our privacy politics to crypto apps–software made by the very same powerful entities that these apps are supposed to protect us from. . . .”
FTR #1079 Surveillance Valley, Part 5: Double Agents (Foxes Guarding the Online Privacy Henhouse, Part 2)
Continuing with our examination of Yasha Levine’s seminal volume Surveillance Valley, we continue our analysis of the individuals, institutions and technologies central to the so-called “online privacy” effort. The Tor Project, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Broadcasting Board of Governors and its Open Technology Fund and Jacob Appelbaum are all the opposite of what they have been represented as being.
We begin with information overlapped from our last program, highlighting how Jacob Appelbaum and the Tor network hooked up with WikiLeaks.
Tor, Appelbaum, Assange and WikiLeaks:
1.–Became increasingly intertwined, enjoying accolades from many, apparently unsuspecting, groups: ” . . . . His [Appelbaum’s] association with WikiLeaks and Assange boosted the Tor Project’s public profile and radical credentials. Support and accolades poured in from journalists, privacy organizations, and government watchdogs. The American Civil Liberties Union partnered with Appelbaum on an Internet privacy project, and New York’s Whitney Museum—one of the leading modern art museums in the world—invited him for a ‘Surveillance Teach-In.’ The Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Tor its Pioneer Award, and Roger Dingledine made in on Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers for protecting ‘anyone and everyone from the dangers of Big Brother.’ . . . .”
2.– Differed fundamentally from the accepted text: ” . . . . With Julian Assange endorsing Tor, reporters assumed that the US government saw the anonymity nonprofit as a threat. But internal documents obtained through FOIA from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, as well as analysis of Tor’s government contracts paint a different picture. They reveal that Appelbaum and Dingledine worked with Assange on securing WikiLeaks with Tor since late 2008 and that they kept their handlers at the BBG informed about their relationship and even provided information about the inner workings of WikiLeaks’s secure submission system. . . .”
3.–Did not adversely affect the government funding of Tor at all, as might be expected by the superficial apparent reality of the situation: ” . . . . Perhaps most telling was that support from the BBG [read “CIA”–D.E.] continued even after WikiLeaks began publishing classified government information and Appelbaum became the target of a larger Department of Justice investigation into WikiLeaks. For example, on July 31, 2010, CNET reported that Appelbaum had been detained at the Las Vegas airport and questioned about his relationship with WikiLeaks. News of the detention made headlines around the world, once again highlighting Appelbaum’s close ties to Julian Assange. And a week later, Tor’s executive director Andrew Lewman, clearly worried that this might affect Tor’s funding, emailed Ken Berman at the BBG in the hopes of smoothing things over and answering ‘any questions you may have about the recent press regarding Jake and WikiLeaks.’ But Lewman was in for a pleasant surprise: Roger Dingledine had been keeping folks at the BBG in the loop, and everything seemed to be okay. ‘Great stuff, thx. Roger answered a number of questions when he met us this week in DC,’ Berman replied. . . .”
4.–” . . . . In 2011 contracts came in without a hitch–$150,000 from the Broadcasting Board of Governors and $227,118 from the State Department. Tor was even able to snag a big chunk of money from the Pentagon: a new $503,706 annual contract from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, an elite information and intelligence unit that houses a top-secret cyber-warfare division.The Navy was passed through SRI, the old Stanford military contractor that had done counterinsurgency, networking, and chemical weapons work for ARPA back in the 1960s and 1970s. The funds were part of a larger Navy ‘Command, Control, Communcations, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance’ program to improve military operations. A year later, Tor would see its government contracts more than double to $2.2 million: $353,000 from the State Department, $876,099 from the US Navy, and $937,800 from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. . . .”
In this context, we recall some earlier observations about WikiLeaks. John Young, one of WikiLeaks’ founders turned critic of the organization harbors deep suspicions concerning the group. ” . . . they’re acting like a cult. They’re acting like a religion. They’re acting like a government. They’re acting like a bunch of spies. They’re hiding their identity. They don’t account for the money. They promise all sorts of good things. They seldom let you know what they’re really up to. . .There was suspicion from day one that this was entrapment run by someone unknown to suck a number of people into a trap. So we actually don’t know. But it’s certainly a standard counterintelligence technique. And they’re usually pretty elaborate and pretty carefully run. They’ll even prosecute people as part of the cover story. That actually was talked about at (Sunday’s) panel. They’ll try to conceal who was informing and betraying others by pretending to prosecute them. . . .” The Tor/Appelbaum/BBG (read “CIA”)/WikiLeaks nexus may very well be proof of Young’s suspicions.
Appelbaum, WikiLeaks and Tor became fundamental to the operations of Eddie “The Friendly Spook” Snowden. In past discussion, we have noted that in the summer of 2009, when Snowden made his decision to disclose the NSA documents, he was working for the very same CIA from which the Broadcasting Board of Governors and its Open Technology Fund were derived. Jacob Appelbaum was funded by BBG, as was Tor. ” . . . . From the start, the Tor Project stood at the center of Snowden’s story. The leaker’s endorsement and promotion introduced the project to a global audience, boosting Tor’s worldwide user base from one million to six million almost overnight and injecting it into the heart of a burgeoning privacy movement. In Russia, where the BBG and Dingledine had tried but failed to recruit activists for their Tor deployment plan, use of the software increased from twenty thousand daily connections to somewhere around two hundred thousand.
“During a promotional campaign for the Tor Project, Snowden said: ‘Without Tor, the streets of the Internet become like the streets of a very heavily surveilled city. There are surveillance cameras everywhere, and if the adversary simply takes enough time, they can follow the tapes back and see everything you’ve done. With Tor, we have private spaces and private lives, where we can choose who we want to associate with and how, without the fear of what that is going to look like if it is abused. The design of the Tor system is structured in such a way that even if the US Government wanted to subvert it, it couldn’t.’ Snowden didn’t talk about Tor’s continued government funding, nor did he address an apparent contradiction: why the US government would fund a program that supposedly limited its own power. Whatever Snowden’s private thought on the matter, his endorsement gave Tor the highest possible seal of approval. It was like a Hacker’s Medal of Valor. With Snowden’s backing, no one even thought to question Tor’s radical antigovernment bona fides. . . .”
Next, we review information about the so-called “Arab Spring.” In FTR #‘s 733 through 739, we presented our view that the so-called Arab Spring was a U.S. intelligence operation, aimed at placing the Brotherhood in power in Muslim countries dominated either by a secular dictator or absolute monarchy.
Yasha Levine has highlighted the role of U.S. tech personnel in training and prepping the Arab Spring online activists. As we have noted in the past, the so-called Arab Spring might have been better thought of as “The Muslim Brotherhood Spring,” as the neo-liberal, privatization ideology of Brotherhood economic icon Ibn Khaldun was fundamental to the operation.
The economic goals of the Arab Spring “op” were reviewed in, among other programs, FTR #‘s 1025 and 1026.
Recall while reading the following excerpts of this remarkable and important book, that:
1.–The Tor network was developed by, and used and compromised by, elements of U.S. intelligence.
2.–One of the primary advocates and sponsors of the Tor network is the Broadcasting Board of Governors. As we saw in FTR #‘s 891, 895, is an extension of the CIA.
3.–Jacob Appelbaum has been financed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, advocates use of the Tor network, has helped WikiLeaks with its extensive use of the Tor network, and is an ideological acolyte of Ayn Rand.
The Arab Spring provided motivation for enhanced U.S. funding for Internet Freedom. The Open Technology Fund, like the BBG a CIA “derivative,” was at the center of this: ” . . . . The motivation for this expansion came out of the Arab Spring. The idea was to make sure the US government would maintain its technological advantage in the censorship arms race that began in the early 2000s, but the funds were also going into developing a new generation of tools aimed at leveraging the power of the Internet to help foreign opposition activists organize into cohesive political movements. The BBG’s $25.5 million cut of the cash more than doubled the agency’s anticensorship technology budget from the previous year, and the BBG funneled the money into the Open Technology Fund, a new organization it had created within Radio Free Asia to fund Internet Freedom technologies in the wake of the Arab Spring. . . .”
The fundamental position of BBG and OTF (read “CIA”) to the so-called online privacy community was concisely expressed by Yasha Levine: ” . . . . From behind this hip and connected exterior, BBG and Radio Free Asia built a vertically integrated incubator for Internet Freedom technologies, pouring millions into projects big and small, including everything from evading censorship to helping political organizing, protests, and movement building. With its deep pockets and its recruitment of big-name privacy activists, the Open Technology Fund didn’t just thrust itself into the privacy movement. In many ways, it WAS the privacy movement. . . .”
FTR #1078 Surveillance Valley, Part 4: Tor Up (Foxes Guarding the Online Privacy Henhouse, Part 1.)
Yasha Levine’s summation of the inextricable nature and symbiosis between the Internet, the tech firms and the so-called “privacy community” include:
1.–The Internet is a weapon, developed for counter-insurgency purposes.
2.–Big Tech firms network with the very intelligence services they publicly decry.
3.–Big Tech firms that data mine their customers on a nearly unimaginable scale do so as a direct, operational extension of the very surveillance function upon which the Internet is predicated.
4.–The technologies touted by the so-called “Privacy Activists” such as Edward Snowden and Jacob Applebaum were developed by the very intelligence services they are supposed to deflect.
5.–The technologies touted by the so-called “Privacy Activists” such as Edward Snowden and Jacob Applebaum–such as the Tor Internet function and the Signal mobile phone app– are readily accessible to the very intelligence services they are supposed to deflect.
6.–The organizations that promote the alleged virtues of Snowden, Applebaum, Tor, Signal et al are linked to the very intelligence services they would have us believe they oppose.
7.–Big Tech firms embrace “Internet Freedom” as a distraction from their own willful and all-embracing data mining and their ongoing conscious collaboration with the very intelligence services they publicly decry.
After detailing the history of the development of the Internet by the national security establishment, Levine presents the story of the development of the Tor network.
Key points of analysis and discussion:
1.–Tor’s Silicon Valley backing: ” . . . . Privacy groups funded by companies like Google and Facebook, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future, were some of Tor’s biggest and most dedicated backers. Google had directly bankrolled its development, paying out generous grants to college students who worked at Tor during their summer vacations. Why would an Internet company whose entire business rested on tracking people online promote and help develop a powerful privacy tool? Something didn’t add up. . . .”
2.–Not surprisingly, Tor does not shield users from orgiastic data mining by Silicon Valley tech giants: ” . . . . Tor works only if people are dedicated to maintaining a strict anonymous Internet routine: using only dummy email addresses and bogus accounts, carrying out all financial transactions in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and never mentioning their real name in emails or messages. For the vast majority of people on the Internet—those who use Gmail, interact with Facebook friends, and shop on Amazon—you reveal your identity. These companies know who you are. They know your name, your shipping address, your credit card information. They continue to scan your emails, map your social networks, and compile dossiers. Tor or not, once you enter your account name and password, Tor’s anonymity technology becomes useless. . . .”
3.–Silicon Valley’s support for Tor is something of a “false bromide”: ” . . . . After all, Snowden’s leaked documents revealed that anything Internet companies had, the NSA had as well. I was puzzled, but at least I understood why Tor had backing from Silicon Valley: it offered a false sense of privacy, while not posing a threat to the industry’s underlying surveillance model. . . .”
4.–Tor is, in fact, financed by elements of the very same intelligence community and national security establishment that supposedly frustrated/“locked out” by Tor! ” . . . . But as I analyzed the organization’s financial documents, I found that the opposite was true. Tor had come out of a joint US Navy—DARPA military project in the early 2000s and continued to rely on a series of federal contracts after it was spun off into a private nonprofit. This funding came from the Pentagon, the State Department, and at least one organization that derived from the CIA. These contracts added up to several million dollars a year and, most years, accounted for more than 90 percent of Tor’s operating budget. Tor was a federal military contractor. It even had its own federal contracting number. . . This included Tor’s founder, Roger Dingledine, who spent a summer working at the NSA and who had brought Tor to life under a series of DARPA and Navy contracts. . . .”
Widely regarded as a champion of Internet freedom and privacy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation helped finance Tor and championed its use.
Key elements of discussion and analysis of the EFF/Tor alliance include:
1.–EFF’s early financing of Tor: ” . . . . . . . . In 2004, [Roger] Dingledine struck out on his own, spinning the military onion routing project into a non-profit corporation called the Tor Project and, while still funded by DARPA and the Navy, began scratching around for private funding. He got help from an unexpected ally: the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which gave Tor almost a quarter million dollars to keep it going while Dingledine looked for other private sponsors. The EFF even hosted Tor’s website. . . .”
2.–The EFF’s effusive praise for the fundamentally compromised Tor Project: ” . . . . ‘The Tor Project is a perfect fit for EFF, because one of our primary goals is to protect the privacy and anonymity of Internet users. Tor can help people exercise their First Amendment right to free, anonymous speech online.’ EFF’s technology manager Chris Palmer explained in a 2004 press release, which curiously failed to mention that Tor was developed primarily for military intelligence use and was still actively funded by the Pentagon. . . .”
3.–The EFF’s history of working with elements of the national security establishment: ” . . . . In 1994, EFF worked with the FBI to pass the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which required all telecommunications companies to build their equipment so that it could be wiretapped by the FBI. In 1999, EFF worked to support NATO’s bombing campaign in Kosovo with something called the ‘Kosovo Privacy Support,’ which aimed to keep the region’s Internet access open during military action. Selling a Pentagon intelligence project as a grassroots privacy tool—it didn’t seem all that wild. . . .”
4.–In FTR #854, we noted that EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow was far more than a Grateful Dead lyricist/hippie icon: ” . . . . Indeed, in 2002, a few years before it funded Tor, EFF cofounder [John] Perry Barlow casually admitted that he had been consulting for intelligence agencies for a decade. It seemed that the worlds of soldiers, spies, and privacy weren’t as far apart as they appeared. . . .”
5.–EFF’s gravitas in the online privacy community lent Tor great credibility: ” . . . . EFF’s support for Tor was a big deal. The organization commanded respect in Silicon Valley and was widely seen as the ACLU of the Internet Age. The fact that it backed Tor meant that no hard questions would be asked about the anonymity tool’s military origins as it transitioned to the civilian world. And that’s exactly what happened. . . .”
In FTR #‘s 891 and 895, we noted the primary position of the Broadcasting Board of Governors in the development of the so-called “privacy” networks. The BBG is a CIA offshoot: “. . . . The BBG might have had a bland sounding name and professed a noble mission to inform the world and spread democracy. In truth, the organization was an outgrowth of the Central Intelligence Agency. . . . The bulk of the BBG is no longer funded from the CIA’s black budget, but the agency’s original cold War goal and purpose—subversion and psychological operations directed against countries deemed hostile to US interests—remain the same. The only thing that did change about the BBG is that today, more of its broadcasts are taking place online . . . .”
After documenting Radio Free Europe’s growth from the Nazi/Vichy run Radio France during World War II and RCA’s David Sarnoff’s involvement with the Transradio Consortium (which communicated vital intelligence to the Axis during the war), the program highlights the involvement of Gehlen operatives in the operations of Radio Free Europe, the seminal CIA broadcasting outlets.
The BBG (read “CIA”) became a major backer of the Tor Project: ” . . . . . . . . It was Wednesday morning, February 8, 2006, when Roger Dingledine got the email he had been badly waiting for. The Broadcasting Board of Governors had finally agreed to back the Tor Project. . . . Within a year, the agency increased Tor’s contract to a quarter million dollars, and then bumped it up again to almost a million just a few years later. The relationship also led to major contracts with other federal agencies, boosting Tor’s meager operating budget to several million dollars a year. . . .”
Yasha Levine sums up the essence of the Tor Project: ” . . . . The Tor Project was not a radical indie organization fighting The Man. For all intents and purposes, it was The Man. Or, at least, The Man’s right hand. . . . internal correspondence reveals Tor’s close collaboration with the BBG and multiple other wings of the US government, in particular those that dealt with foreign policy and soft-power projection. Messages describe meetings, trainings, and conferences with the NSA, CIA, FBI and State Department. . . . The funding record tells the story even more precisely. . . . Tor was subsisting almost exclusively on government contracts. By 2008, that included contracts with DARPA, the Navy, the BBG, and the State Department as well as Stanford Research Institute’s Cyber-Threat Analytics program. . . .”
Next, we begin chronicling the career of Jacob Appelbaum. A devotee of Ayn Rand, he became one of Tor’s most important employees and promoters. “. . . . Within months of getting the job, he assumed the role of official Tor Project spokesman and began promoting Tor as a powerful weapon against government oppression. . . . Over the next several years, Dingledine’s reports back to the BBG [read “CIA”–D.E.] were filled with descriptions of Appelbaum’s successful outreach. . . .”
Introducing a topic to be more fully explored in our next program, we note Appelbaum’s pivotal role in the WikiLeaks operation and his role in the adoption of Tor by WikiLeaks: ” . . . . Appelbaum decided to attach himself to the WikiLeaks cause. He spent a few weeks with Assange and the original WikiLeaks crew in Iceland as they prepared their first major release and helped secure the site’s anonymous submissions system using Tor’s hidden service feature, which hid the physical location of WikiLeaks servers and in theory made them much less susceptible to surveillance and attack. From then on, the WikiLeaks site proudly advertised Tor: ‘secure, anonymous, distributed network for maximum security.’ . . . . Appelbaum did his best to be Assange’s right-hand man. He served as the organization’s official American representative and bailed the founder of WikiLeaks out of tough spots when the heat from US authorities got too hot. Appelbaum became so intertwined with WikiLeaks that apparently some staffers talked about him leading the organization if something were to happen to Assange. . . . Assange gave Appelbaum and Tor wide credit for helping WikiLeaks. ‘Jake has been a tireless promoter behind the scenes of our cause,’ he told a reporter. ‘Tor’s importance to WikiLeaks cannot be underestimated.’ With those words, Appelbaum and the Tor Project became central heroes in the WikiLeaks saga, right behind Assange. . . .”
FTR #1028 Miscellaneous Articles and Updates
Updating previous paths of inquiry, as well as introducing new ones, the program begins with a bit of both–discussion of the murder of Saudi journalist and possible Saudi and U.S. intelligence officer Jamal Khashoggi. A development which resonates strongly with previous discussion of the so-called “Arab Spring” (read “Muslim Brotherhood Spring”), the corporatist economics of Ibn Khaldun and the Brotherhood, and Grover Norquist and Karl Rove’s Islamic Free Market Institute (which figures prominently in the post‑9/11 Operation Green Quest investigation into al-Qaeda and terrorist financing), Khashoggi’s death has occasioned howls of outrage, much beating of breasts and tearing of hair in normally Saudi-friendly confines both inside, and outside of the U.S.
Khashoggi’s many connections and personal and institutional relationships are important and pivotal in a number of ways. They include:
1.–Khashoggi’s long-standing advocacy of the Muslim Brotherhood. Note the mainstream media’s misrepresentation of the Muslim Brotherhood as “democratic.” In FTR #‘s 787, 1025 and 1026, we noted how fundamentally undemocratic the Brotherhood is: ” . . . . In his penultimate column, Mr. Khashoggi said democracy in the Middle East couldn’t happen without the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood. ‘The eradication of the Muslim Brotherhood is nothing less than an abolition of democracy and a guarantee that Arabs will continue living under authoritarian and corrupt regimes,’ Mr. Khashoggi wrote Aug. 28. ‘There can be no political reform and democracy in any Arab country without accepting that politicalIslam is a part of it.’. . . .”
2.–Allegedly actual membership in the Muslim Brotherhood: ” . . . . Several of his friends say that early on Mr. Khashoggi also joined the Muslim Brotherhood. . . .”
3.–A working professional relationship with Khaled Saffuri, the co-founder of Grover Norquist and Karl Rove’s Islamic Free Market Institute. This institution was, in effect, an American nexus for the Muslim Brotherhood and its laissez-faire/corporatist economics, as well as being a central element in the Operation Green Quest investigation. We covered Operation Green Quest at length in numerous programs, including FTR #‘s 356, 357, 462, 464, 513, 1006 : ” . . . . Jamal Khashoggi, a prolific writer and commentator, was working quietly with intellectuals, reformists and Islamists to launch a group called Democracy for the Arab World Now. . . . Khashoggi had incorporated his democracy advocacy group, DAWN, in January in Delaware, said Khaled Saffuri, another friend. The group was still in the planning stages, and Khashoggi was working on it quietly, likely concerned it could cause trouble for associates, including activists in the Gulf, Saffuri said. . . .”
4.–Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan, who might be described as a fascist wishbone, with one foot in the Islamic fascist Muslim Brotherhood and the other in the secular Pan-Turkist fascism of the National Action Party and the Grey Wolves. ” . . . . Mr. Khashoggi was close to the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose ties with Saudi Arabia had become increasingly strained in recent years. Turkey backed Qatar in its diplomatic spat with Saudi Arabia last year, and like Qatar, Turkey also differs with Saudi Arabia over its view of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Khashoggi knew President Erdogan personally and was a friend to some of his closest advisers, say people who knew him. . . .”
5.–Prince Turki al-Faisal, the head of Saudi intelligence, who, as discussed in numerous shows, including FTR #‘s 347 and 358, basically ran Osama bin Laden. Khashoggi was also close to Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, at one time the second largest stockholder in Newscorp (behind the Murdochs) and someone “20th hijacker” Zacarias Moussaoui named as one of the prominent Saudis who financed al-Qaeda. Immediately after being named by Moussaoui, al-Waleed announced that he was donating all of his billions to charity. ” . . . . Through it all, he maintained close ties to some of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful princes. In the early 2000s, he served as an adviser to Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence, during the prince’s time as ambassador to the U.K. and the U.S. He was a friend of the billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal. . . .”
5.–Osama bin Laden and support for the Afghan Mujahadeen, who morphed into al-Qaeda. ” . . . . He traveled to Afghanistan as a journalist, where he became the first Arab journalist to interview Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s. ‘A lot of them went to fight. He went to report,’ said Peter Bergen, an American journalist and academic who knew Mr. Khashoggi. . . .”
7.–Khashoggi was the nephew of Saudi weapons dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who was pivotally involved with the Iran-Contra scandal, the support effort for the Afghan Mujahadeen, Al-Qaeda and the so-called “Truther” movement. ” . . . . His uncle was Adnan Khashoggi, a famous arms dealer. . . .”
8.– His relationship with Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki (who “ran” Osama bin Laden for a time), his role in the Afghan war covering bin Laden and the Mujahadeen and his work for the CIA-connected Washington Post suggest the distinct possibility that the late Jamal Khashoggi was a spook-journalist, working for both the Saudis and elements of CIA.
In FTR #1015, we noted the issuing of school textbooks glorifying Nazism while Narendra Modi headed the Indian state of Gujarat.
In FTR #998, among other programs, we noted John Conyers’ active opposition to the OUN/B successor organizations in power in Ukraine, and his ouster by the #MeToo movement, which displays symptomatic features of an “op.” Of particular interest is the apparent role of Far right blogger Mike “Misogyny Gets You Laid” Cernovich. An interesting person to signal the destruction of one of the few actively anti-fascist lawmakers by on ostensibly “progressive” political movement.
It is interesting and significant that Conyers also co-sponsored a House Resolution condemning Modi’s support for Nazi racism and ideology.
” . . . . The sponsor, Rep. John Conyers (D‑MI) said the State Department ‘has discussed the role of Modi and his government in promoting attitudes of racial supremacy, racial hatred, and the legacy of Nazism through his government’s support of school textbooks in which Nazism is glorified.’ The resolution said Modi revised school textbooks, which mentioned the ‘charismatic personality of Hitler the Supremo’ and failed to acknowledge the horrors of the Holocaust. . . .”
Worth noting in this context is the fact that Pierre Omidyar actively assisted the rise of both the OUN/B fascists in Ukraine and Modi’s BJP/RSS fascists in India, as discussed in FTR #889.
The rest of the program consists of discussion of the intersection of eugenics, white supremacy and anti-immigration fervor, This will be examined at greater length in our next program.
Key points of analysis include:
1.–Similarity between the title of a DHS posting and the 14 words slogan minted by Nazi David Lane.
2.–The resignation of a DHS Trump appointee due to links to white supremacists.
3.–Other Trump appointees with links to the Federation of Immigration Reform.
4.–A possible mind control link to the murder of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts.
5.-Review of the Sirhan Sirhan link to the “girl in the polka dot dress.”
FTR #1026 The So-Called “Arab Spring” Revisited, Part 2
In FTR #‘s 733 through 739, we presented our view that the so-called Arab Spring was a U.S. intelligence operation, aimed at placing the Brotherhood in power in Muslim countries dominated either by a secular dictator or absolute monarchy.
Continuing analysis from our previous program, this broadcast delves further into the networking between the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda. Against the background of the occupation of Idlib Province in Syria by Al-Qaeda, we highlight the apparent role of Morsi’s government and the Muslim Brotherhood in the events surrounding the 2012 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.
The overthrow of Khadafy in Libya was an outgrowth of the so-called Arab Spring, as was the precipitation of the civil war in Syria. Of particular significance is the fact that the GOP-led investigations of the Benghazi attack led directly to both the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e‑mails and the decisively significant FBI tampering with the 2016 election, as well as the alleged “hack” of Hillary’s e‑mails!
An Egyptian newspaper published what were said to be intercepted recordings of Morsi communicating conspiratorially with Muhammad al-Zawahiri, the the brother of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of Al-Qaeda. Much of this checks out with information that is already on the public record.
Note the networking of GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham with Khairat El-Shater of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood while he was in prison, as well as the alleged links between the Egyptian Brotherhood and the cells involved in attacking the U.S. Embassy in Libya.
What we may well be looking at is a gambit along the lines of what has become known as the October Surprise–collusion between the Iranian Islamists and George H.W. Bush/CIA/GOP to (among other things) destabilize the Carter administration and 1980 re-election campaign.
In addition, we wonder about a deal having been struck to have Al-Qaeda fight against Bashar Assad in Syria, while avoiding attacks inside the U.S.?
Of primary focus in the material below is Khairat El-Shater (transliterated spellings of his name differ.) El-Shater:
1.–Was the number two man in the Muslim Brotherhood, though not formerly a member of Morsi’s government.
2.–Networked with U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson and GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham and Khairat El-Shater (alternatively transliterated with two “t’s” and/or an “al”), shortly after Morsi was deposed. ” . . . . It is interesting to note here that, prior to these revelations, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson was seen visiting with Khairat El-Shater—even though he held no position in the Morsi government—and after the ousting and imprisonment of Morsi and leading Brotherhood members, Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham made it a point to visit the civilian Shater in his prison cell and urged the Egyptian government to release him. . . .”
3.–Was deeply involved in mobilizing Al-Qaeda on behalf of Morsi and the Brotherhood: ” . . . . Also on that same first day of the revolution, Khairat al-Shater, Deputy Leader of the Brotherhood, had a meeting with a delegate of jihadi fighters and reiterated Morsi’s request that all jihadis come to the aid of the presidency and the Brotherhood. . . . ”
4.–Was the apparent source of a $50 million contribution by the Brotherhood to Al Qaeda: ” . . . . That the Muslim Brotherhood’s international wing, including through the agency of Khairat al-Shater, had provided $50 million to al-Qaeda in part to support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. . . .”
5.–Had the passport of the alleged leader of the Benghazi attack in his home when he was arrested: ” . . . . Most recently, on July 29, 2013, Ahmed Musa, a prominent Egyptian political insider and analyst made several assertions on Tahrir TV that further connected the dots. . . . Musa insisted that he had absolute knowledge that the murderer of Chris Stevens was Mohsin al-‘Azzazi, whose passport was found in Brotherhood leader Khairat El-Shater’s home, when the latter was arrested. . . .”
6.–Epitomized the GOP-beloved, corporatist economic ideology and lifestyle: ” . . . . Arguably the most powerful man in the Muslim Brotherhood is Khairat El-Shater, a multimillionaire tycoon whose financial interests extend into electronics, manufacturing and retail. A strong advocate of privatization, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Muslim Brotherhood businessmen who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party’s impressive electoral victory this winter and is now crafting the FJP’s economic agenda. . . . . . . . the Brotherhood’s ideology actually has more in common with America’s Republican Party than with al-Qaida. Few Americans know it but the Brotherhood is a free-market party led by wealthy businessmen whose economic agenda embraces privatization and foreign investment while spurning labor unions and the redistribution of wealth. Like the Republicans in the U.S., the financial interests of the party’s leadership of businessmen and professionals diverge sharply from those of its poor, socially conservative followers. . . .”
This broadcast begins with conclusion of reading of a key article that was featured in our last program.
Key points of analysis in discussion of the Morsi/Zawahiri/Brotherhood connection include:
1.–Muhamed Zawahiri’s promise to bolster Morsi’s government with military support, in exchange for Morsi steering Egypt in the direction of Sharia law. ” . . . . The call ended in agreement that al-Qaeda would support the Brotherhood, including its international branches, under the understanding that Morsi would soon implement full Sharia in Egypt. After this, Muhammad Zawahiri and Khairat al-Shater, the number-two man of the Muslim Brotherhood organization, reportedly met regularly. . . .”
2.–Morsi’s agreement with Zawahiri’s proposal. ” . . . . Zawahiri further requested that Morsi allow them to develop training camps in Sinai in order to support the Brotherhood through trained militants. Along with saying that the Brotherhood intended to form a ‘revolutionary guard’ to protect him against any coup, Morsi added that, in return for al-Qaeda’s and its affiliates’ support, not only would he allow them to have such training camps, but he would facilitate their development in Sinai and give them four facilities to use along the Egyptian-Libyan border. . . .”
3.–The networking between U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson and GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham and Khairat El-Shater (alternatively transliterated with two “t’s”), shortly after Morsi was deposed. ” . . . . It is interesting to note here that, prior to these revelations, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson was seen visiting with Khairat al-Shater—even though he held no position in the Morsi government—and after the ousting and imprisonment of Morsi and leading Brotherhood members, Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham made it a point to visit the civilian Shater in his prison cell and urged the Egyptian government to release him. . . .”
4.–Note that Morsi sanctioned and Brotherhood-aided Al-Qaeda militants were apparently involved in the Behghazi attacks that led to the Benghazi investigation, the Hillary e‑mails non-scandal and all that followed: ” . . . . According to a Libyan Arabic report I translated back in June 2013, those who attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were from jihadi cells that had been formed in Libya through Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood support. Those interrogated named Morsi and other top Brotherhood leadership as accomplices. . . . ”
5.–Khairat El-Shater was deeply involved in mobilizing Al-Qaeda on behalf of Morsi and the Brotherhood: ” . . . . Also on that same first day of the revolution, Khairat al-Shater, Deputy Leader of the Brotherhood, had a meeting with a delegate of jihadi fighters and reiterated Morsi’s request that all jihadis come to the aid of the presidency and the Brotherhood. . . . ”
6.–Khairat El-Shater was the apparent source of a $50 million contribution by the Brotherhood to Al Qaeda: ” . . . . That the Muslim Brotherhood’s international wing, including through the agency of Khairat al-Shater, had provided $50 million to al-Qaeda in part to support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. . . .”
7.–Next, we highlight another important article from Raymond Ibrahim about the Morsi/Al-Qaeda connection to the Benghazi attack. Supplementing the information about networking between U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson, John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Khairat al-Shater, we note that:
1.–The Benghazi attackers were apparently linked to Morsi and the Brotherhood: ” . . . . days after the Benghazi attack back in September 2012, Muslim Brotherhood connections appeared. A video made during the consulate attack records people approaching the beleaguered U.S. compound; one of them yells to the besiegers in an Egyptian dialect, ‘Don’t shoot—Dr. Morsi sent us!’ apparently a reference to the former Islamist president. . . .”
2.–The passport of the alleged leader of the Benghazi attack was found in the home of McCain/Graham contact Kharat al-Shater’s home when he was arrested: ” . . . . Most recently, on July 29, 2013, Ahmed Musa, a prominent Egyptian political insider and analyst made several assertions on Tahrir TV that further connected the dots. . . . Musa insisted that he had absolute knowledge that the murderer of Chris Stevens was Mohsin al-‘Azzazi, whose passport was found in Brotherhood leader Khairat El-Shater’s home, when the latter was arrested. . . .”
3.–The attack on the U.S. Embassy may well have been intended to take Chris Stevens hostage, in order to use him as potential barter for the Blind Sheikh: ” . . . . The day before the embassy attacks, based on little known but legitimate Arabic reports, I wrote an article titled ‘Jihadis Threaten to Burn U.S. Embassy in Cairo,’ explaining how Islamists—including al-Qaeda—were threatening to attack the U.S. embassy in Cairo unless the notorious Blind Sheikh—an Islamist hero held in prison in the U.S. in connection to the first World Trade Center bombing—was released. The date September 11 was also deliberately chosen to attack the embassy to commemorate the ‘heroic’ September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda strikes on America. . . .”
4.–The United States: ” . . . . first with Anne Patterson, and now with Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, keep pressuring Egypt to release Brotherhood leaders; McCain personally even visited the civilian El-Shater, whose raided home revealed the passport of Azzazi, whom Musa claims is the murderer of Stevens. . . .”
Following the Benghazi discussion, we recap an article about the Brotherhood and apparent Al-Qaeda/Benghazi collaborator Khairat El-Shater, noting the powerful resonance between his and the Muslim Brotherhood’s values and those of the GOP and the corporate community:
1.–” . . . . the Brotherhood’s ideology actually has more in common with America’s Republican Party than with al-Qaida. Few Americans know it but the Brotherhood is a free-market party led by wealthy businessmen whose economic agenda embraces privatization and foreign investment while spurning labor unions and the redistribution of wealth. Like the Republicans in the U.S., the financial interests of the party’s leadership of businessmen and professionals diverge sharply from those of its poor, socially conservative followers. . . .”
2.–” . . . . Arguably the most powerful man in the Muslim Brotherhood is Khairat El-Shater, a multimillionaire tycoon whose financial interests extend into electronics, manufacturing and retail. A strong advocate of privatization, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Muslim Brotherhood businessmen who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party’s impressive electoral victory this winter and is now crafting the FJP’s economic agenda. . . .”
We conclude with information about the training of activists in high-tech and social media in order to launch the Arab Spring.
In a remarkable and very important new book, Yasha Levine has highlighted the role of U.S. tech personnel in training and prepping the Arab Spring online activists.
Note while reading the following excerpts of this remarkable and important book, that:
1.–The Tor network was developed by, and used and compromised by, elements of U.S. intelligence.
2.–One of the primary advocates and sponsors of the Tor network is the Broadcasting Board of Governors. As we saw in FTR #‘s 891, 895, is an extension of the CIA.
3.–Jacob Appelbaum has been financed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, advocates use of the Tor network, has helped WikiLeaks with its extensive use of the Tor network, and is a theoretical accolyte of Ayn Rand.
FTR #1025 The So-Called “Arab Spring” Revisited, Part 1
In this program, we review and present information about the Muslim Brotherhood and the phenomenon that became known as “The Arab Spring.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic fascist organization, allied with the Axis in World War II. After the war, the organization gravitated to elements of Western intelligence, where it proved to be a bulwark against Communism in the Muslim world.
It is our view that the Brotherhood was seen as useful because of its military offshoots (Al-Qaeda in particular) were useful proxy warriors in places like the Caucasus and the Balkans and because the Brotherhood’s corporatist, neo-liberal economic doctrine was in keeping with the desires and goals of the trans-national corporate community.
(The Afghan Mujahedin were a direct offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and the successful war conducted by that group was a successful manifestation of “Brotherhood” as proxy warriors. Of course, Al-Qaeda grew directly from the Afghan jihadists.)
In FTR #‘s 733 through 739, we presented our view that the so-called Arab Spring was a U.S. intelligence operation, aimed at placing the Brotherhood in power in Muslim countries dominated either by a secular dictator or absolute monarchy.
In FTR #787, we solidified our analysis with definitive confirmation of our working hypothesis presented years earlier.
About the Muslim Brotherhood’s economic doctrine: ” . . . . . . . In Muslim liturgy, the deals cut in the souk become a metaphor for the contract between God and the faithful. And the business model Muhammad prescribed, according to Muslim scholars and economists, is very much in the laissez-faire tradition later embraced by the West. Prices were to be set by God alone—anticipating by more than a millennium Adam Smith’s reference to the ‘invisible hand’ of market-based pricing. . . . 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, and that state control should be limited to providing water, fire and free grazing land, the utilities of the ancient world. The World Bank has called Ibn Khaldun the first advocate of privatization. His founding influence is a sign of moderation. If Islamists in power ever do clash with the West, it won’t be over commerce. . . .”
Ronald Reagan resonated with the Brotherhood’s economic doctrine when promoting his supply-side economics: “President Reagan, in his news conference yesterday, cited a 14th century Islamic scholar as an early exponent of the ”supply-side” economic theory on which his Administration bases many of its policies. An authority on the scholar later said that the reference seemed accurate. . . . Responding to a question about the effects of tax and spending cuts that began taking effect yesterday, Mr. Reagan said the supply-side principle dated at least as far back as Ibn Khaldun, who is generally regarded as the greatest Arab historian to emerge from the highly developed Arabic culture of the Middle Ages. . . .”
The U.S. view on the Brotherhood and Islamism in general was epitomized by CIA officer Graham Fuller, who ran the Afghan Mujahadin: ” . . . . . . . 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.’ . . . .”
Next, we present the reading of an article by CFR member Bruce Hoffman. Noting Al Qaeda’s resurgence and Al Qaeda’s emphasis on the Syrian conflict, Hoffman cites the so-called “Arab Spring” as the key event in Al Qaeda’s resurgence. ” . . . . The thousands of hardened al-Qaeda fighters freed from Egyptian prisons in 2012–2013 by President Mohammed Morsi galvanized the movement at a critical moment, when instability reigned and a handful of men well-versed in terrorism and subversion could plunge a country or a region into chaos. Whether in Libya, Turkey, Syria, or Yemen, their arrival was providential in terms of advancing al-Qaeda’s interests or increasing its influence. . . . It was Syria where al-Qaeda’s intervention proved most consequential. One of Zawahiri’s first official acts after succeeding bin Laden as emir was to order a Syrian veteran of the Iraqi insurgency named Abu Mohammad al-Julani to return home and establish the al-Qaeda franchise that would eventually become Jabhat al-Nusra. . . .”
Hoffman notes that Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State were, at one time, part of a unified organization: ” . . . . Al-Qaeda’s chosen instrument was Jabhat al-Nusra, the product of a joint initiative with al-Qaeda’s Iraqi branch, which had rebranded itself as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). But as Nusra grew in both strength and impact, a dispute erupted between ISI and al-Qaeda over control of the group. In a bold power grab, ISI’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced the forcible amalgamation of al-Nusra with ISI in a new organization to be called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Julani refused to accede to the unilateral merger and appealed to Zawahiri. The quarrel intensified, and after Zawahiri’s attempts to mediate it collapsed, he expelled ISIS from the al-Qaeda network. . . .”
An Egyptian newspaper published what were said to be intercepted recordings of Morsi communicating conspiratorially with Muhammad al-Zawahiri, the the brother of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of Al-Qaeda. Much of this checks out with information that is already on the public record.
The Egyptian government sentenced more than 500 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the resounding condemnation of Western countries, including the U.S. What we were not told was why. THIS appears to be why. Note the profound connection between the Muslim Brotherhood government of Morsi and Al Qaeda, information that supplements what the Bruce Hoffman paper discusses: ” . . . . Morsi informed Zawahiri that the Muslim Brotherhood supports the mujahidin (jihadis) and that the mujahidin should support the Brotherhood in order for them both, and the Islamist agenda, to prevail in Egypt. This makes sense in the context that, soon after Morsi came to power, the general public did become increasingly critical of him and his policies, including the fact that he was placing only Brotherhood members in Egypt’s most important posts, trying quickly to push through a pro-Islamist constitution, and, as Egyptians called it, trying in general to ‘Brotherhoodize’ Egypt. This second phone call being longer than the first, Zawahiri took it as an opportunity to congratulate Morsi on his recent presidential victory—which, incidentally, from the start, was portrayed by some as fraudulent—and expressed his joy that Morsi’s presidency could only mean that ‘all secular infidels would be removed from Egypt.’ Then Zawahiri told Morsi: ‘Rule according to the Sharia of Allah [or ‘Islamic law’], and we will stand next to you. Know that, from the start, there is no so-called democracy, so get rid of your opposition.’ . . .”
Note the networking of GOP Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham with Khairat El-Shater of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood while he was in prison. ” . . . . The call ended in agreement that al-Qaeda would support the Brotherhood, including its international branches, under the understanding that Morsi would soon implement full Sharia in Egypt. After this, Muhammad Zawahiri and Khairat al-Shater, the number-two man of the Muslim Brotherhood organization, reportedly met regularly. It is interesting to note here that, prior to these revelations, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson was seen visiting with Khairat al-Shater—even though he held no position in the Morsi government—and after the ousting and imprisonment of Morsi and leading Brotherhood members, Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham made it a point to visit the civilian Shater in his prison cell and urged the Egyptian government to release him. . . .”
Might there be some relationship between the Graham, McCain/Shater contacts and the evolution of the Benghazi/Clinton emails/Trump election nexus?
Note, also, that Morsi and Zawahiri/Al-Qaeda jihadis were allegedly involved in the Behghazi attack that, ultimately, led to the Benghazi hearings, the Hillary Clinton e‑mail non-scandal and Donald Trump’s ascent: ” . . . . Along with saying that the Brotherhood intended to form a ‘revolutionary guard’ to protect him against any coup, Morsi added that, in return for al-Qaeda’s and its affiliates’ support, not only would he allow them to have such training camps, but he would facilitate their development in Sinai and give them four facilities to use along the Egyptian-Libyan border. That Libya is mentioned is interesting. According to a Libyan Arabic report I translated back in June 2013, those who attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were from jihadi cells that had been formed in Libya through Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood support. Those interrogated named Morsi and other top Brotherhood leadership as accomplices. . . .”
FTR #1024 Ukrainian Fascism, Maidan Snipers and Implications for the Syrian War, Part 2
On the 17th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we continue with analysis of the Maidan shootings–an apparent “false flag” operation–and muse about the implications of that for the conflict in Syria, as well as Russian and American political life.
In the first part of the program, we finish reading the poster presentation that professor Ivan Katchanovski, PhD of the University of Ottawa presented at The 2018 Conference of American Political Science Associates.
Katchanovski has done a deep, detailed forensic study of the evidence in the Maidan sniper attacks. He has a rigorous, succinct digital multimedia ‘poster’ (an ‘iPoster’) for his finding that the Maidan sniper attacks were a false flag operation. That poster was presented during the 2018 American Political Science Association conference in Boston. It gives a high level overview of his research and is heavily embedded with substantive, documentary videos. Here are the contents of the poster. Be sure to check out the numerous images and videos included in the actual iPoster online.
He concludes his presentation with: “ . . . . Maidan massacre trial and investigation evidence have revealed various evidence that at least the absolute majority of 49 killed and 157 wounded Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 were massacred by snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings. Such evidence includes testimonies of the majority of wounded protesters and many witnesses, forensic medical and ballisitic examinations, and investigation own finding that about half of Maidan protesters were wounded from other locations than the Berkut police. Various indications of stonewalling of the Maidan massacre investigations and the trials by the Maidan government officials and by far right organizations. Various indications of the cover-up of much of the key evidence of the massacre. Such revelations from the Maidan massacre trials and investigations corroborate previous studies findings that this massacre was a false flag mass killing with involvement of elements of Maidan leadership and the far right and that it included the massacre of the police. The puzzling misrepresentation of the Maidan massacre, its investigation, and the trial by Western media and governments require further research concerning reasons for such misrepresentation . . . . ”
Note: Since FTR #1023 was recorded professor Katchanovski has posted a 59-minute-long video of the Maidan shootings. The video features TV footage from that day, with many clips clearly showing snipers operating from Maidan-controlled buildings. It also includes English subtitles and forensic descriptions of scenes. The footage includes a number of people being shot and killed–a grizzly 59-minutes, but absolutely invaluable in terms of establishing what actually happened.
The presentation of professor Katchanovski’s research in this program begins with the section titled “Cover-Up and Stonewalling.”
Additional perspective on the apparent non-investigation of the Maidan sniper shootings is provided by Anatoliy Matios, Ukraine’s Deputy Prosecutor and Chief Military Prosecutor:
Matios, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor, gave an extensive interview where he said that Jews are behind all wars and want to “drown ethnic Slavs in blood.”
Also recall the cryptic statement Matios made back in 2016 about the identity of the people involved with the 2014 sniper attacks: “When public learns who is involved in this, people will be very surprised.” In FTR #‘s 982, 993, 1004, 1023, we examined evidence that Ukrainian fascists may well have executed those sniper attacks. It is ominous that the chief military prosecutor who is involved in that investigation is a neo-Nazi. ” . . . . In an extensive interview with the Ukrainian news outlet Insider, Anatoliy Matios, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor, espoused anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in which he implied that Jews want to drown ethnic Slavs in blood. . . .”
Returning to professor Katchanovski’s thought-provoking conclusion to his online poster: “ . . . . The puzzling misrepresentation of the Maidan massacre, its investigation, and the trial by Western media and governments require further research concerning reasons for such misrepresentation . . . . ”
With the Syrian government apparently commencing an offensive to vanquish Al-Qaeda jihadis in Idlib province (with Russian military support), the stage is set for a possible Russian‑U.S./Western military conflict.
Against the background of the Maidan sniping as a probable false flag provocation, the impending Syrian offensive to re-capture the last territorial enclave of the Islamists in Syria should be viewed with apprehension. As noted in the article we present, the so-called “rebels” are Al-Qaeda offshoots. Ominously, they have apparently successfully executed false-flag chemical weapons attacks before, including in Idlib province.
Russia has warned that such a provocation is in the wings–an unremarkable deduction in light of past history. In turn, the West has warned of retaliatory action if such actions are undertaken.
The stage appears set for an Islamist/Al-Qaeda chemical weapons false flag/provocation, upon which U.S., British and French military intervention will be predicated.
In this context, one should not lose sight of the fact that Chechnyan Islamist veterans of the Syrian war have already made their appearance in the combat in Eastern Ukraine, partnering with Pravy Sektor in their deployments. (The Chechen/Right Sector/Islamist link is discussed in FTR #‘s 857, 862, 863, 872, 878, 893, 911.)
We note possible outcomes of U.S./Western Russian combat:
1.–If the Western/U.S. forces are victorious, this will cover Trump’s rump with regard to the “Russia-Gate” so-called investigation and bolster the GOP’s position in upcoming 2018 midterm elections.
2.–If the Western/U.S. forces prevail, it will weaken Putin politically, which is a goal of the West.
The last part of the program consists of a partial reading of an article by CFR member Bruce Hoffman. Noting Al Qaeda’s resurgence and Al Qaeda’s emphasis on the Syrian conflict, Hoffman cites the so-called “Arab Spring” as the key event in Al Qaeda’s resurgence. ” . . . . The thousands of hardened al-Qaeda fighters freed from Egyptian prisons in 2012–2013 by President Mohammed Morsi galvanized the movement at a critical moment, when instability reigned and a handful of men well-versed in terrorism and subversion could plunge a country or a region into chaos. Whether in Libya, Turkey, Syria, or Yemen, their arrival was providential in terms of advancing al-Qaeda’s interests or increasing its influence. . . . It was Syria where al-Qaeda’s intervention proved most consequential. One of Zawahiri’s first official acts after succeeding bin Laden as emir was to order a Syrian veteran of the Iraqi insurgency named Abu Mohammad al-Julani to return home and establish the al-Qaeda franchise that would eventually become Jabhat al-Nusra. . . .”
In FTR #‘s 733 through 739, we presented our view that the so-called Arab Spring was a U.S. intelligence operation, aimed at placing the Brotherhood in power in Muslim countries dominated either by a secular dictator or absolute monarchy.
It is our view that the Brotherhood was seen as useful because of its military offshoots (Al-Qaeda in particular) were useful proxy warriors in places like the Caucasus and the Balkans and because the Brotherhood’s corporatist, neo-liberal economic doctrine was in keeping with the desires and goals of the trans-national corporate community.
In FTR #787, we solidified our analysis with definitive confirmation of our working hypothesis presented years earlier.
About the Muslim Brotherhood’s economic doctrine: ” . . . . 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, and that state control should be limited to providing water, fire and free grazing land, the utilities of the ancient world. The World Bank has called Ibn Khaldun the first advocate of privatization. [Emphasis added.] His founding influence is a sign of moderation. If Islamists in power ever do clash with the West, it won’t be over commerce. . . .”
Stephen Glain’s citation of Ibn Khaldun resonates with Ronald Reagan’s presentation of “supply-side economics.” ” . . . . Responding to a question about the effects of tax and spending cuts that began taking effect yesterday, Mr. Reagan said the supply-side principle dated at least as far back as Ibn Khaldun, who is generally regarded as the greatest Arab historian to emerge from the highly developed Arabic culture of the Middle Ages. . . .”
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
In programs and posts, we have chronicled the American use of Al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood elements as proxy warriors in Syria. We wonder about the U.S. trained prospective police officers pictured at right. They do NOT appear to be auditioning for an anti-perspirant commercial. 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.
FTR #917 WikiFascism, Part #4: Weighing In for the Trumpenkampfverbande (Technocratic Fascism in Action)
In FTR #‘s 724, 725, 732, 745 and 755, we have detailed the fascist and far right-wing ideology, associations and politics of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Lionized by the so-called progressive sector, as well as mainstream media sources like “The New York Times” and “Der Spiegel,” Assange’s true colors and fascist politics and associations have emerged on a larger stage. As the Trump campaign evolves, a major alliance between Trump and the Assange organization has developed. Obviously serving as a dirty-tricks cadre for the GOP, Assange is working hard to destroy Hillary Clinton with leaked documents intended to torpedo her campaign. Assange–not even an American citizen–is manifesting what we termed “technocratic fascism,” arrogating to himself the right to determine the results of the American Presidential election. Quoting from a seminal article by David Golumbia: ” . . . Hackers (“civic,” “ethical,” “white” and “black” hat alike), hacktivists, WikiLeaks fans [and Julian Assange et al–D. E.], Anonymous “members,” even Edward Snowden himself walk hand-in-hand with Facebook and Google in telling us that coders don’t just have good things to contribute to the political world, but that the political world is theirs to do with what they want, and the rest of us should stay out of it: the political world is broken, they appear to think (rightly, at least in part), and the solution to that, they think (wrongly, at least for the most part), is for programmers to take political matters into their own hands. . . .” Assange is networking with Trump’s dirty tricks operator Roger Stone and resonating with the right-wing GOP/Trump playbook in his activities against Clinton. A major portion of the program highlights the substantive evidence that the DNC hack was NOT done by Russia, but by someone trying to make it look like Russia did it. Assange is now strongly hinting that the source was Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee volunteer who was murdered. Assange is obliquely suggesting that Clinton was behind the murder. (Rich’s family disputes this canard and is urging the public to disregard Assange’s claims.) The WikiLeaks Clinton e‑mail dump: ” . . . . The emails include unencrypted, plain-text listings of donor emails addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, passport numbers, and credit card information. . . .” Might this have had something to do with the murder of Seth Rich? Program Highlights Include: WikiLeaks’ disclosure of the Social Security and credit card number of Democratic contributors; WikiLeaks anti-Semitic tweet, labeling its critics as Jews; Assange’s oblique endorsement of Trump; Assange’s embrace of a synthesis of Chicago school and Austrian school neo-liberal economic theory; Assange’s operational resonance with Koch brothers associate Peter Schweitzer; review of Assange’s pivotal associations with fascists and anti-Semites like Carl Lundstrom and Joran Jermas (aka “Israel Shamir”); review of David Duke’s links to the WikiLeaks milieu and to Ron Paul (Snowden and Assange’s Presidential candidate of choice); David Duke’s support of Trump; ideological and rhetorical resonance between Ron Paul, Glenn Greenwald and Donald Trump; a bullet-point analysis that connects the dots between elements of this complex analysis.
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