Gary Webb was right: CIA Sold Dope (Cocaine Importation Agency)

[Octafish]

Check out the excellent article at Esquire. It mentions Gary Webb's work and the story of a DEA agent who was there, but didn't hear about Webb until he read his work in the newspaper...

Gary Webb, 1955-2004

EXCERPT...

WHEN HECTOR BERRELLEZ SPENT HIS YEAR GOING TO MOVIES IN Washington, he knew he was finished in the DEA. One day in October 1996, a month after he retired, Hector Berrellez picked up a newspaper and read this big story about a guy named Gary Webb. Hector had lived in shadows, and talking to reporters had not been his style. As I read, I thought, This shit is true," he says now. He hadn't a doubt about what Webb was saying. He saw the reporter as doomed. Webb had hit a sensitive area, and for it he would be attacked and disbelieved. Hector knew all about the Big Dog and the Big Boy rules.

SORRY TO SNIP...

Before he retired, Hector was summoned to Washington to brief Attorney General Janet Reno on Mexican corruption. He talked to her at length about how the very officials she was dealing with in Mexico had direct links to drug cartels. He remembers that she asked very few questions.

SORRY TO SNIP...

But he doesn't carry a smoking gun around. The photos, the ledgers, all the stuff the cops found that morning as they hit fourteen sterile stash houses where all the occupants seemed to be expecting company, all that material went to Washington and seems to have vanished. All those reports he wrote for years while in Mexico and then later running the Camarena case, those detailed reports of how he kept stumbling into dope deals done by CIA assets, never produced any results or even a substantive response.

Hector Berrellez is kind of a freak. He is decorated; he is an official hero with a smiling Ed Meese standing next to him in an official White House photograph. He pulled twenty-four years and retired with honors. He is, at least for the moment, neither discredited nor smeared. Probably because until this moment, he's kept silent.

SORRY TO SNIP...

He tells me a story that kind of sums up the place he finally landed in, the place that Gary Webb finally landed in. The place where you wonder if you are kind of nuts, since no one else seems to think anything is wrong. An agent he knows was deep in therapy, kind of cracking up from the undercover life. And the agent's shrink decided the guy was delusional, was living in some nutcase world of weird fantasies. So the doctor talked to Hector about his patient, about whether all the bullshit this guy was claiming was true, about dead men and women and children, strange crap like that. And he made a list of his patient's delusions, and he ticked them off to Hector. And Hector listened to them one by one and said, "Oh, that one, that's true. This one, yeah, that happened also." It went on like that. And finally, Hector could tell the shrink wondered just who was nuts--Hector, his patient, or himself.

CONTINUED...

http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2004/041217_mfe_webb_1.html

Edit: Typo in title

Read the article and weep. For Webb and for America.

[kk897]

1. thank you once again, Octafish...

...and I will look at those links on the other thread, too...right after I quit stewing uselessly about election fraud, I suppose.

There's so much to be up in arms about.

[Octafish]

12. You're welcome, kk897! These are interesting times, eh?

(Don't) Take drugs, for example.

The CIA & Drugs: Narco Colonialism in the 20th Century

EXCERPT...

"For decades, the CIA, the Pentagon, and secret organizations like Oliver North's Enterprise have been supporting and protecting the world's biggest drug dealers.... The Contras and some of their Central American allies ... have been documented by DEA as supplying ... at least 50 percent of our national cocaine consumption. They were the main conduit to the United States for Colombian cocaine during the 1980's. The rest of the drug supply ... came from other CIA-supported groups, such as DFS (the Mexican CIA) ... other groups and/or individuals like Manual Noriega." (Ex-DEA agent Michael Levine: The Big White Lie: The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic)

Former Congessional Investigator Jack Blum, on the structure of CIA narco-colonialism:
"For criminal organizations, participating in covert operations offers much more than money. They may get a voice in selecting the new government. They may get a government that owes them for help in coming to power. They may be able to use their connections with the United States government to enhance their political power at home and towave off the efforts of the American law enforcement community."(Prepared October 1996 statement of Jack Blum (former special counsel to the 1987 "Kerry" Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations) for the October 1996 Senate Select Intelligence Committee on alleged CIA drug trafficking to fund Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s, Chaired by Senator Arlen Specter)

"We also became aware of deep connections between the law-enforcement community and the intelligence community. I, personally, repeatedly heard from prosecutors and people in the law-enforcement world that CIA agents were required to sit in on the debriefing of various people who were being questioned about the drug trade. They were required to be present when witnesses were being prepped for certain drug trials. At various times the intelligence community inserted itself in that legal process. I believe that that was an impropriety; that that should not have occurred."(Jack Blum, speaking before the October 1996 Senate Select Intelligence Committee on alleged CIA drug trafficking to fund Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s, Chaired by Senator Arlen Specter).  

"In my 30-year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA." --Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit. FROM: Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Berkeley: U. of CA Press, 1991, pp. x-xi.

Taken alone, one CIA drug ring, that of Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo (two Contra supporters based in Guadalajara, Mexico) were known by DEA to be smuggling four tons A MONTH into the U.S. during the early Contra war. Other operations including Manuel Noriega (a CIA asset, strongman leader of Panama), John Hull (ranch owner and CIA asset, Costa Rica), Felix Rodriguez (Contra supporter, El Salvador), Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros (Honduran Military, Contra supporter, Honduras) along with other elements of the Guatemalan and Honduran military. Cumulatively, the aforementioned CIA assets were concurrently trafficking close totwo hundred tons a year or close to 70% of total U.S. consumption. All of these CIA assets have been ascertained as being connected to CIA via public documentation and testimony. -- from the outline section of this web site: (http://ciadrugs.homestead.com/files/outline.html)

CONTINUED WITH LINKS N' SOURCES N' BFEE (SECRET GOVERNMENT) CONSPIRACY STUFF...

http://ciadrugs.homestead.com/files/

[alexisfree]

2. another good reason

to have esquire..:D

[Octafish]

13. Usually I like the pictures a lot, too.

http://www.cia-drugs.org/

Discover the Bush Family Evil Empire!
The real axis of evil is shaped like an Octopus:
The spokes are eight tentacled arms reaching out to the worlds
of the KKK, Eugenics, Big Oil, the CIA, the Mafia, Big Money,
Big Business, the Military Industrial Complex and the NAZIs --
in spades.

[indigobusiness]

3. Thread on Coroners report. 2 shots to the head=SUICIDE

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2845062

[Padraig18]

7. It happens.

Not as often as one, but not unheard of, either.

[indigobusiness]

8. But rarely, if ever, without the usual suicide "signals".

Nobody close to Gary foresaw this.

[BrotherBuzz]

20. Appearently some close friends did...

Christine Craft did a good program this last week on her Sacramento radio show 'Talk City'. She was bummed out because she did the last interview with Gary in October and personally didn't know of his troubles at the time.

Christine Craft had Webb's ex-wife on the air. They apparently had stayed close despite the divorce and had known each other since their teens. When Craft asked if she had any questions that it was suicide, she said there is no doubt it was suicide, although when she heard about his death, she at first,too, wondered if there was any connection to his previous work. But still said there was no question that it was suicide. Said he'd had a long term depression that it started with "Dark Alliance", since everything went downhill from there. After he lost his job with the State Legistation earlier this year, he looked for work with major newspapers but no one would hire him. (The local obit said that at the time of his death he was working for The News and Review, a local free weekly that occasionally has good articles on local/state politics and other stuff.) Said the family tried to get him to get treatment for his depression, but he didn't want to be medicated.

Christine also spoke with Mike Levine (former DEA agent who's a writer and has a radio show). He knew Webb and said (of Webb's death, suicide), "it wasn't a total shock." Full of praise for Webb and spent some time discussing his work but did not question that his death was a suicide.

Christine had two other people on that knew Gary and had similar stories but I can't remember their names.

Gary was a superb investigative reporter who was screwed by the MSM and others who trashed and blackballed him for acutally doing what so many others don't have the guts to do, his job. The question that begs to be asked is WHO made the decision to destroy Gary Webb? (I think we know that answer)

[indigobusiness]

22. But just before his death, he wa fine and upbeat...

according to family.

"it wasn't a total shock." - Doesn't pass the smell test, with me.

This resonates:

"The question that begs to be asked is WHO made the decision to destroy Gary Webb? (I think we know that answer)."

[Cuban_Liberal]

24. Actually, many, many suicides are people on the emotional 'upswing'

Frequently, people in the throes of a deep depressive episode lack the energy to commit suicide, and it is only when the depression begins to 'lift' that they are actually able to go through with the act.

[indigobusiness]

25. Perhaps in manic depressives.

It doesn't seem to fit Webb's form of depression. He seemed more situationally depressed.

[Cuban_Liberal]

28. It fits both, to a surprising degree.

During both my paramedic training and my Police Training Institute sessions dealing with psychiatric problems and intervention, the lecturers both noted that this was a fairly common occurence, and one of the reasons that survivor's often seem surprised by the suicide, e.g., "He's been pretty down lately, but he seemed to be feeling better/coming out of it the last few days."

I handled a suicide of a man who had been SEVERLY depressed for almost a week, so badly that his wife stayed awake 24/7 watching over him; one evening his medications seemed to be kicking in and he was subectively and objectively much less depressed and told his wife that she should lie down and get some rest, and assured her that he would be OK in the interim. She lay down for a one-hour nap, setting the alarm clock to wake herself up. While she was asleep, he covered her with an afghan, quietly went into the garage, ran a garden hose from the tailpipe through the back window of the car and started the engine. He died from CO poisoning.

I think part of what makes suicides so.... 'weird' to those of us who examine them is that the act itself goes against our own instinct for survival, i.e., on some level we see it as an illogical act ("he had so much to live for"... "he didn't have to kill himself, I would have helped him get through this"... "didn't he know how much we all loved him?" , etc.). Bearing that in mind, we often cast about for 'other' reasons to explain what we feel/believe to be the consumately irrational act--- trying to seek proof that it was an accident, or a murder--- simply because acceptance that it IS a suicide is too hard to handle, temporarily.

I can't speak for every jurisdiction, but every place I've ever worked, a suicide is always approached as though it were a homicide: crime scene processes the scene of the death in conjunction with the detectives, evidence is collected and sent to the crime lab for analysis, the coroner causes a forensic autopsy to be performed, detectives and uniformed officers talk to family, friends and other witnesses who do or even MAY have information that could be useful, treating psychiatrists/psychologists/social workers are contacted, etc., and in a FEW instances that were unclear, a 'psychiatric autopsy' was done.

:hi:

PS-- I hope this helps explain 'where I'm coming from', and lets you know that I'm not some garden-variety skeptic or naysayer.

[indigobusiness]

29. Not at all, I knew you were well-meaning, and had an experienced opinion.

Your points are well taken, it's just I've never seen situational depression drain the taste for living from someone. It is easily observed when seen, though. It is almost palpable, and obviously excruciating.

[Octafish]

14. Some say it happens all the time.

I dunno and donwannafindout. What I want to know is: "Whatever happened to Democracy?"

Regarding Gary Webb: The guy knew a lot about a subject a lot of people didn't like him knowing about. What made him dangerous was that he knew how to tell other people about it. Whether that knowledge and ability have anything to do with his passing or not, Webb's death by .38 revolver sends a message.

The powers-that-be do not like this thing called the will of the people. If people knew what was going on, they'd exercise power in the name of the law. That would mean the Bush Transnational Criminal Enterprise would then be the powers-that-was.

[harrison]

4. Everyone PLEASE read this article in Esquire. Damn, it is

good. Kick. Kick. Kick.

[Octafish]

15. harrison, anybody who likes to read is all right...

... in the best sense of the word! Thanks. Hey! If you like to read, you might enjoy this, which sort of spells out the rationale for the Bush Family Transnational Criminal Enterprise, Bushler's Masters, the Bush Organized Crime Family, the Bush Gang, BushCo, Busholini, the Bush Family Evil Empire, our one and only, Octopus:

OVERVIEW: THE CIA, THE DRUG TRAFFIC, AND OSWALD IN MEXICO

Kryptocracies, Kryptonomy, and Oswald: the Mexican CIA-Mob Nexus 

EXCERPT...

Kryptocracies and the Kryptonomy (International Drug Traffic)

But the power of kryptocracies to influence history became even greater when, as we shall see, they acted in concert with forces allied to the powerful international drug traffic. Most people are unaware of the size of this unrecorded drug economy. In 1981 U.S. Government analysts estimated that the annual sales volume of illicit drugs exceeded half a trillion dollars.<4> The total of legitimate, recorded international trade, in all commodities, was in the order of one trillion dollars, or twice the estimate for drugs. While estimates of the unrecorded drug traffic remain questionable, it is obvious that this traffic is large enough to be a major factor in both the economic and political considerations of government, even while it does not form part of recorded economic statistics.

For this reason, I propose the word kryptonomy, to name this unrecorded, illicit, but nonetheless important shadow economy. It is no accident that kryptocracies and the kryptonomy work in concert. The kryptonomy is so large, and so powerful, that governments have no choice but to plan to manage it, even before attempting to suppress it.<5>

There is a third factor contributing to the invisible alliance of kryptocracies and the kryptonomy: the power of the independently wealthy, and of the banks that cater to them. Informed observers of American politics have more than once commented to me that most of the hundred wealthiest people in the US know each other, and in addition often have connections to both the CIA and to organized crime. There is no shortage of anecdotal examples: James Angleton of CIA Counterintelligence delivering the sole eulogy at the small private funeral of Howard Hughes, or Joseph Kennedy Sr. being a point-holder in the same casino (the Cal-Neva) as Sam Giancana.<6>  More relevant to the milieu of the JFK assassination is the example of Clint Murchison, Sr. Murchison paid for the horse-racing holidays of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover at the same time as he sold stakes in his investments to mob figures like Jerry Catena, and enjoyed political influence in Mexico.<7>

These connections are no accident. More often than not the extremely wealthy became that way by ignoring or bending the rules of society, not by observing them. In corrupting politicians, or in bypassing them to secure unauthorized foreign intercessions, both the mob and the CIA can be useful allies. In addition drug profits need to be laundered, and banks can derive a significant percentage of their profits by laundering them, or otherwise bending or breaking the rules of their host countries.<8> Citibank came under Congressional investigation after having secretly moved $80 million to $100 million for Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas.<9>

CONTINUED...

http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm

Gee. There are a lot of conspiracies, aren't they. They aren't theory though. They're based on FUCKING FACT.

[indigobusiness]

23. Most lies are based on fact, too.

But, I'm on your side here.

Just saying.

[Carl Brennan]

5. Kick. Berellez picks up the torch.

This article is a must read.

[Octafish]

16. Thanks a lot, Carl! Hey! Didja hear about 'Celerino Castillo'?

Like Hector Berrellez, Celerino Castillo was a top DEA agent stationed in Central America who witnessed and reported seeing US Government planes deliver guns and return home with a load of cocaine. The guy saw it and told it to the Kerry committee investigating the Contra-cocaine connections. Like Berrellez and Webb, Castillo's a hero of my country. He actually believes in the Constitution of the United States and has served to protect and defend it.

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF CELERINO CASTILLO III., (D.E.A. RETIRED) FOR THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

April 27, 1998

For several years, I fought in the trenches of the front lines of Reagan's "Drug War", trying to stamp out what I considered American's greatest foreign threat. But, when I was posted, in Central and South America from 1984 through 1990, I knew we were playing the "Drug War Follies." While our government shouted "Just Say No !", entire Central and South American nations fell into what are now known as, "Cocaine democracies."

While with the DEA, I was able to keep journals of my assignments in Central and South America. These journals include names, case file numbers and DEA NADDIS (DEA Master Computer) information to back up my allegations. I have pictures and original passports of the victims that were murdered by CIA assets. These atrocities were done with the approval of the agencies.

We, ordinary Americans, cannot trust the C.I.A. Inspector General to conduct a full investigation into the CIA or the DEA. Let me tell you why. When President Clinton (June, 1996) ordered The Intelligence Oversight Board to conduct an investigation into allegations that US Agents were involved in atrocities in Guatemala, it failed to investigate several DEA and CIA operations in which U.S. agents knew before hand that individuals (some Americans) were going to be murdered.

I became so frustrated that I forced myself to respond to the I.O.B report citing case file numbers, dates, and names of people who were murdered. In one case (DEA file # TG-86-0005) several Colombians and Mexicans were raped, tortured and murdered by CIA and DEA assets, with the approval of the CIA. Among those victims identified was Jose Ramon Parra-Iniguez, Mexican passport A-GUC-043 and his two daughters Maria Leticia Olivier-Dominguez, Mexican passport A-GM-8381. Also included among the dead were several Colombian nationals: Adolfo Leon Morales-Arcilia "a.k.a." Adolfo Morales-Orestes, Carlos Alberto Ramirez, and Jiro Gilardo-Ocampo. Both a DEA and a CIA agent were present, when these individuals were being interrogated (tortured). The main target of that case was a Guatemalan Congressman, (Carlos Ramiro Garcia de Paz) who took delivery of 2,404 kilos of cocaine in Guatemala just before the interrogation. This case directly implicated the Guatemalan Government in drug trafficking (The Guatemalan Congressman still has his US visa and continues to travel at his pleasure into the US). To add salt to the wound, in 1989 these murders were investigated by the U.S Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility. DEA S/I Tony Recevuto determined that the Guatemalan Military Intelligence, G-2 (the worst human rights violators in the Western Hemisphere) was responsible for these murders. Yet, the U.S. government continued to order U.S. agents to work hand-in-hand with the Guatemalan Military. This information was never turned over to the I.O.B. investigation. (See attached response)

SNIP...

I was there. I was the leading Agent in Guatemala. 99.9% of DEA operations were conducted with the Guatemalan military. In 1990, the DEA invited a Guatemalan military G-2 officer, Cpt. Fuentez, to attend a DEA narcotic school, which is against DEA policy. I know this for a fact because I worked with this officer for several years and was in Guatemala when he was getting ready to travel to the States.

CONTINUED...

http://www.american-buddha.com/cia.writ.state.htm

[seemslikeadream]

6. Thanks Octafish

Take us to the river

[Octafish]

17. Here's seemslikeadream taking a break from DU...

Taming of Evil
2000, by Renata Pabulinkas
oil on canvas, 58 x 62-inches

It IS True.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. Kick

*

[Octafish]

18. Thanks, General!

Unavoidable Debts
2001 by Renata Palubinskas
oil on panel
22 x 16-inches

I mean it. Regarding the BFEE: Someone's gonna pay.

[harrison]

10. Kicking again. Everyone please read this story. It tells so

much about what kind of man Gary Webb was; how he and his family suffered for telling the truth. The fucking government imports dope and then jails so many people for using it. Sickening.

[Octafish]

38. Those he worked with call him "A Hero of Authentic Journalism"

This should shame the Presstitutes of the White House Press Corpse:

A hero of authentic journalism

By Anthony Lappé

Gary Webb, the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who broke the story of the CIA’s involvement in the importation of cocaine into the U.S., died Friday, reportedly from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

It was a tragic end to a brilliant, and tragic, career.

I didn’t know Webb well. We met in Mexico two years ago, at NarcoNews.com’s rag-tag School of Authentic Journalism, a low-budget gathering of outcast journalists from across the western hemisphere.

For all of us there – Mexican, Brazilian, Bolivian, Gringo – Webb was something of a living legend. The quiet, generous reporter was the first to document what many had been alleging for years – that the CIA aided the smuggling of large quantities of cocaine into the U.S. in an effort to illegally fund the Nicaraguan Contras. The shipments, Webb discovered, helped fuel the crack epidemic that ravaged America’s inner-cities in the mid-80s.

One of GNN’s first NewsVideos was based largely on Webb’s scoop. The video, Crack the CIA, earned us first place at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival’s online competition and helped propel our fledgling web-based news operation to the next level.

Webb didn’t fare as well.

CONTINUED...

http://www.gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=993

[seemslikeadream]

11. Has he signed it yet?

...

Webb carried the letter with him from November 19 until December 10 of last year Every day, he got up to sign the letter and mail it. Every night, he went to bed with the letter unsigned. His wife would ask, Have you signed it? Somebody from the Mercury kept calling the Guild and asking, Has he signed it yet?

"I mean," he says softly, "writing my name on that thing meant the end of my career I saw it as a sort of surrender. It was like signing," and here he hesitates for several seconds, "my death certificate."
more
http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2004/041217_mfe_webb_10.html

[nascarblue]

19. Anyone got any good links to journalists tied to Bush who have died?

I read an article a couple weeks ago right after Gary Webb died listing about 5 or 6 journalists who have died under suspicious suicide circumstances...Anyone have any links to such a story??

[Octafish]

26. "Suicide" Journalists who got depressed and dead after investigating BFEE

This probably isn't it, but then again suspicious suicides aren't anything to get most DUers worried:

BFEE "Suicides" Journalists

Seems journalists who oppose the BFEE end up in a bad way. Gary Webb "shot himself in the head" Friday morning, according to the police.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/10399522.htm?1c


What Webb did to hurt the BFEE's feelings is he tied the CIA's Iran-Contra gang to the crack cocaine epidemic in America's major metropolitan areas. To the Bush gang, telling the truth made Webb an enemy.

http://www.parascope.com/mx/articles/garywebb/garyWebbSpeaks.htm


Here are a few others who actually had the guts to investigate the Bush Family Evil Empire:

Daniel “Danny” Casolaro — Researched BCCI and the Inslaw/PROMIS Affair, found that George HW Bush had ties going around the world and back through Iran-Contra, Iraq-gate, the October Surprise, Watergate, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs and Dallas. A “suicide.”

http://www.cjr.org/archives.asp?url=/91/6/octopus.asp


Abbie Hoffman — Yippie of the 60s turned into an investigative reporter in the 80s, researched and wrote about “October Surprise” allegations involving George HW Bush, Bill Casey and Robert Gates doing a deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini to delay the release of the hostages in 1980. The pretty good overview appeared in Playboy in 1992. A “suicide.”

http://www.democracyunbound.com/playboy1088.html


Steve Kangas — Researcher and writer who started “Liberal Resurgent” web site dedicated to naming names like Richard Mellon Scaife and telling the truth about what was happening to America. Wrote the seminal “The Origins of the Overclass” which detailed the role of the CIA in preserving the privileged positions of the nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations. A “suicide.”

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html


Jim Hatifield — Researcher and writer who penned “Fortunate Son,” an unauthorized biography of George W Bush that included allegations of cocaine use, planted by Karl Rove, who knew that Hatfield, an ex-con would be discredited. The last thing Hatfield wrote “Why Would Osama Want to Kill His Ex-Business Partner?” that detailed bin Laden threatening to crash a plane loaded with explosives into the G-8 summit in Genoa Italy in July 2001. Bush slept offshore aboard a US warship and the meeting was guarded by SAMs. A “suicide.”

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Hatfield-R-091901/hatfield-r-091901.html


Mark Lombardi — Artist and researcher who developed “Global Networks” or “Social Network Diagrams” which illustrated and chronicled the relationships between many of our day’s shadiest characters, institutions and treasons. One of his works graphically charted Osama bin Laden, Sheik Salim bin Laden, James R Bath, Texas Gov George W Bush and HARKEN Energy. A “suicide.”

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=2&contentid=1012&page=2


There are many more examples of brave journalists who’ve investigated the Octopus and turned up “suicided.”

SOURCE WITH LOTS O' RESPONSES N' LINKS:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2819427

[nascarblue]

31. What does BFEE stand for? Bush fascist enterprise ...?

[Octafish]

34. Bush Family Evil Empire

The term may've been coined by Bartcop. Whoever used it helped put the finger on some of the world's most effective arch-criminals. Here's a nice sampler:

The Family That Preys Together -
the Bush Family

by Jack Colhoun
CovertAction Quarterly, 1992
excerpted from the book

Covert Action

edited by Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap

George Jr.'s BCCI Connection

"This is an incredible deal, unbelievable for this small company," analyst Charles Strain told Forbes magazine, describing the oil production sharing agreement the Harken Energy Corporation signed in January 1990 with Bahrain.

Under the terms of the deal, Harken was given the exclusive right to explore for gas and oil off the shores of the Gulf island nation. If gas or oil were found in waters near two of the world's largest gas and oil fields Harken would have exclusive marketing and transportation rights for the energy resources. Truly an "incredible deal" for a company that had never drilled an offshore well.
Strain failed to point out, however, the one fact that puts the Harken deal in focus: George W. Bush, the eldest son of George and Barbara Bush of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., is a member of Harken's board of directors, a consultant and a stockholder in the Texas-based company. In light of this connection, the deal makes more sense.

The involvement of Junior - George Walker Bush's childhood nickname-with Harken is a walking conflict of interest. His relationship to President Bush, rather than any business acumen, made him a valuable asset for Harken, the Republican Party benefactors, Middle East oil sheikhs and covert operators who played a part in Harken's Bahrain deal. In fact Junior's track record as an oilman is pretty dismal. He began his career in Midland, Texas, in the mid-1970s when he founded Arbusto Energy, Inc. When oil prices dropped in the early 1980s, Arbusto fell upon hard times. Junior was only rescued from business failure when his company was purchased by Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation, a small oil firm owned by William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. As part of the September 1984 deal, Bush became Spectrum 7's president and was given a 13.6 percent share in the company's stock. Oil prices stayed low and within two years, Spectrum 7 was in trouble.

In the six months before Spectrum 7 was acquired by Harken in 1986, it had lost $400,000. In the buy out deal, George "Jr." and his partners were given more than $2 million worth of Harken stock for the 180-well operation. Made a director and hired as a "consultant" to Harken, Junior received another $600,000 of Harken stock and has been paid between $42,000 and $120,000 a year since 1986.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/Bush_Family_Preys_Together.html

[RBHam]

21. Funny how finding out truth is often a death sentence...

Especially when you publish your name to the truth...

[Octafish]

30. It's ironic -- or "goldy" -- how Presstitutes who protect Bush do "well."

One things for sure: Write about the Bushes in a bad light and one's career is finished. Write about what the BFEE does, like flooding the nation with crack, and one will end up so depressed one might wish they were dead.

Big Media, Some Nerve!

By Robert Parry
November 13, 2004

You might think that the major media that got suckered by George W. Bush’s Iraqi weapons-of-mass-destruction claims just last year would show some humility about its own fallibility.

But, no, the elite U.S. news media is now criticizing common citizens who have raised questions about voter fraud in the Nov. 2 election. The New York Times has joined the Washington Post and other major news outlets in scouring the Internet to find and discredit Americans who have expressed suspicions that Bush’s victory might not have been entirely legitimate. The New York Times' front-page story was entitled, “Vote Fraud Theories, Spread By Blogs, Are Quickly Buried.”

As odd as these attacks might seem to some, this pattern of protecting the Bush family has a history. It actually dates back a couple of decades, as the major media has either averted its eyes or rallied to the Bushes’ defense when the family has faced suspicions of lying or corruption.

That was the case in the 1980s when then-Vice President George H.W. Bush was implicated in a string of scandals, starting with the clandestine supplying of Nicaraguan contra rebels.

When one of Oliver North’s secret supply planes was shot down over Nicaragua in October 1986, the surviving crew member, Eugene Hasenfus, correctly named Vice President Bush's office and the CIA as participants in the illegal operations. But for years, the big media accepted Bush’s denials and dismissed Hasenfus’s claims.

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/111304.html

[TWiley]

27. Reminiscent of "Poppy" Bush

and the Oliver North scandal. Why am I not surprised that Afghanistan's Opium production is at an all time high?

The bush Klan seems to make a habit of verbalizing one thing, and then directly contradicting it with secret policy.

[nascarblue]

32. Exactly what I was thinking... Opium was under control under Taliban...

...now it's out of control. I dont know if this is true, but I read an article the other day that said this year Afghanistan will account for 85% of the worlds herion.. Or was it opium? Hmmm. Big difference. I've never heard of Opium around over here on the west coast.

Makes you wonder why Dubya took that side trip to Columbia on his OPEC trip... Probably telling them to "step up the cocaine production or else!" More drugs, means more money! Law enforcement, prisons=Tax money for the Chimp.

[TWiley]

33. Opium is Heroine

Or, I should say that Heroine is refined from Opium.

Ollie and Poppy financed a covert war in South America with the money. There were many atrocities committed by the "good guys".

I remember seeing one photo of Marine advisor's watching the guerrilla's throw babies into the air and bayoneting them on the way down.

They were teaching how to subvert a village through horror.

[Octafish]

36. Thanks for bringing up Ollie the Traitor.

Oliver North, no matter what G. Gordon Liddy or Rush Limbaugh say, is a traitor. To please Adm. Poindexter and Vice President Bush, North broke the law and took the fall...



Close Encounter with Oliver North

So, one fine day Paul emailed me to say that Oliver North would be dropping by his show and did I have any questions that I'd like to ask him? Hell, yeah. For 15 years I've wanted to hear Oliver North's explanation for why he was banned from Costa Rica.

In case you never heard (and the odds are that you haven't. This is one of the most under-reported stories of all time and, as far as I know I'm the first person ever to ask Lt. Col. North about it), in 1989 Oliver North (Along with Richard Secord, John Poindexter and a few others was banned from Costa Rica when a Costa Rican government committee concluded that the contra re-supply network that North was running out of the White House was doubling as a drug smuggling operation.

It seems that the narcotics commission was looking into the possible drug smuggling activities of a US-born Costa Rican rancher named John Hull and his relationship with Oliver North. By the way, North's personal notebook mentioned" the necessity of giving Mr. Hull protection." Speaking of entries in Oliver North's notebook, here's one of my favorites from July 12, 1985: "$14 million to finance came from drugs."

The commission also held North responsible for Gen. Manuel Noriega's (remember him?) participation in the contra supply network, which opened the door to at least seven pilots who trafficked in drugs while supplying arms to the contras.

While I was on hold, waiting to ask Mr. North about all of this, I heard Paul ask Ollie how he felt about Senator John Kerry. Ollie said that he didn't quite care for John Kerry because of Kerry's involvement with several anti-war groups back in the Sixties.

CONTINUED...

http://www.rodneyanonymous.com/radio/north.html

[Cocoa]

35. CIA's inspector general confirms Webb's facts

* On March 16, 1998, the CIA inspector general, Frederick P. Hitz, testified before the House Intelligence Committee. "Let me be frank," he said. "There are instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug-trafficking activity, or take action to resolve the allegations."

Representative Norman Dicks of Washington then asked, "Did any of these allegations involve trafficking in the United States?"

"Yes," Hitz answered.



The response by the press, in spending all their energy attacking Webb's series rather than expanding on it, reminds me of their furious (and nonsensical) reaction to Michael Moore.

[Octafish]

37. Wonder if anyone at CIA ever apologized to Gary Webb?

Or if anyone from the major media who attacked him and his work?

Nah. I must be dreaming.

Here's a nice essay on the subject from someone who knows what he's talking about, written years ago...


IS ANYONE APOLOGIZING TO GARY WEBB?

by Michael Levine

Gary Webb, just in case you've already forgotten him, was
the journali st who, in a well researched, understated
article entitled "The Dark Alliance," linked the CIA
supported Contras to cocaine and weapons being sold to a
California street gang and ended up literally being hounded
out of journalism by every mainstream news peddling
organization in the Yellow Pages. Even his own employer The
San Jose Mercury piled on for the kill.

And guess what? The CIA finally admitted, yesterday, in the
New York Times no less, that they, in fact, did "work with"
the Nicaraguan Contras while they had information that they
were involved in cocaine trafficking to the United States.
An action known to us court qualified experts and federal
agents as Conspiracy to Import and Distribute Cocaine—a
federal felony punishable by up to life in prison.

To illustrate how us regular walking around, non CIA types
are treated when we violate this law, while I was serving as
a DEA supervisor in New York City, I put two New York City
police officers in a federal prison for Conspiracy to
distribute Cocaine when they looked the other way at their
friend's drug dealing. We could not prove they earned a
nickel nor that they helped their friend in any way, they
merely did not do their duty by reporting him. They were
sentenced to 10 and 12 years respectively, and one of them,
I was recently told, had committed suicide.

I have spent three decades as a court qualified expert and
federal age nt and am not aware of any class of American
Citizen having special permission to violate the law that we
have been taxed over $1 trillion in the past two decades to
enforce; the law that every politician, bureaucrat and media
pundit keeps telling us protects us against the most serious
danger to American security in our history.

The interesting thing to me, about the Webb article is that
the CIA is provably (and now admittedly) responsible for
much larger scale drug trafficking than Webb alleged or even
imagined in his report.

CONTINUED...

http://ciadrugs.homestead.com/files/m-l-4-g-w.html

[pberq]

39. More info on the Webb story

Michael Ruppert on the memorial service, etc.:

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/122004_goodbye_giant.shtml

<snip>
Approximately 300 people came from as far away as New Jersey to this quiet Sacramento suburb to honor a man who - against all odds - made the corrupt and venal world of corporations, covert operations and search-and destroy economics blink, stagger and show its true vulnerabilities. Webb's August 1996 Dark Alliance series in the San Jose Mercury News, and his 1998 book of the same name sparked an international outrage that led to congressional hearings, massive disclosures of criminal activity by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Reagan-Bush (I) White House. They also gave brief, if fleeting, hope to the oppressed - from America's inner cities to villages and farms from Mexico to Colombia - that justice might not be the sole province of a parallel universe, untouched and unreachable from the world in which we "the abandoned ones" must live.

But even as his memorial service was a stirring tribute to a man who changed our world, Gary's passing was not without controversy and a just few more cheap shots for which his courageous surviving family has paid the inevitable price. That was the nature of Gary's life and - given his experience since 1996 - he would/should have expected this. To be fair, these follow-on blows are also an inevitable byproduct of all suicides for which the one pulling the trigger must bear some responsibility.


Marc Cooper of the LA Weekly on LA Times role:

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/20784/

<snip>
First the L.A. Times helped kill off Gary Webb's career. Then, eight years later, after Webb committed suicide this past weekend, the Times decided to give his corpse another kick or two, in a scandalous, self-serving and ultimately shameful obituary. It was the culmination of the long, inglorious saga of a major newspaper dropping the ball journalistically, and then extracting relentless revenge on an out-of-town reporter who embarrassed it.

Webb was the 49-year-old former Pulitzer-winning reporter who in 1996, while working for the San Jose Mercury News, touched off a national debate with a three-part series that linked the CIA-sponsored Nicaraguan Contras to a crack-dealing epidemic in Los Angeles and other American cities.

A cold panic set in at the L.A. Times when Webb's so-called Dark Alliance story first appeared. Just two years before, the Times had published a long takeout on local crack dealer Rickey Ross and no mention was made of his possible link to and financing by CIA-backed Contras. Now the Times feared it was being scooped in its own backyard by a second-tier Bay Area paper.

The Times mustered an army of 25 reporters, led by Doyle McManus, to take down Webb's reporting. It was, apparently, more important to the Times to defend its own inadequate reporting on the CIA-drug connection than it was to advance Webb's important work (a charge consistently denied by the Times). The New York Times and the Washington Post also joined in on the public lynching of Webb. Webb's own editor, Jerry Ceppos, also helped do him in, with a public mea culpa backing away from his own papers stories.

[Octafish]

42. Gee. Who was Raygun's Drug War Czar in '82?

Could it be Satan? Yes. His name is George Herbert Walker Bush.

From Kicking a Dead Man

Worse, the results of those investigations proved that the core of what Webb alleged was, indeed, true and accurate. When CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz presented the findings of his internal investigation to Congress in 1998 (two years after Webb's piece and the ensuing Times vindication of the CIA), he revealed for the first time an eye-popping agreement that the CIA had cemented with the Justice Department: Between 1982 and 1995, the CIA was exempted from informing the DOJ if its non-employee agents, paid or unpaid, were dealing drugs. In short, it was the policy of the U.S. government to turn a blind eye to such connections.

SOURCE: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/20784



Thanks for the heads-up, pberq! BTW: A most hearty welcome to Democratic Underground!

Hey! In looking for a by now scrubbed picture showing Poppy and the Pineapple seated on the same settee, no doubt discussing the ins-and-outs of offshore banking, I found a most interesting web site. Talk about your coincidences! Thanks again, pberq!

http://www.treasoninc.com/main.html

[InvisibleBallots]

40. Anyone remember Danny Caslaro?

Reporting about organized crime often gets you killed.

[seemslikeadream]

41. Danny Casolaro

"This book is the key for uncovering probably the greatest threat to freedom for the 21st Century" - Vince LoDato):


Village Voice article

The Last Days of Danny Casolaro

Although his death was tentatively ruled a suicide, back in Washington, D.C., his friends and family quickly protested that decision, and reports in the media were soon suggesting that Danny Casolaro had been murdered. For in this, the year of conspiracies, Danny Casolaro happened to be one of a small army of freelance journalists exploring the possibility that the powers of the national security state had been used to manipulate domestic politics. In particular, Casolaro was interested in what he called the "Octopus," a network of individuals and institutions that he believed had secretly masterminded a whole series of scandals, from the Iran-Contra affair and the S&L debacle to the BCCI collapse and the 1980 October Surprise deal.

In the weeks before his death Casolaro had spoken frequently about threats on his life, and just before he left for Martinsburg he had told his brother, "If anything happens to me, don't believe it's an accident." Many of the friends and sources who spoke to him in the last days of his life recalled that he seemed euphoric and quite certain that he was on the brink of proving the existence of his Octopus; he did not sound like a candidate for suicide to them. More suspicious, before the family could be told of Casolaro's death or an autopsy performed, the body was embalmed by a local funeral home; early press reports added that the hotel room had been quickly cleaned, perhaps to obscure any trace of a crime. The wildest story even suggested that the undertaker was an employee of the C.I.A., hired to clean up after agency assassinations.

Even at Casolaro's funeral, the family felt engulfed by mysteries. As his mother, brothers, sisters and close friends watched from beneath a canopy, a man in a tan raincoat and a beribboned black soldier in Army dress uniform walked up to the casket. The soldier laid a medal on the lid, saluted and both men quickly walked away. No one recognized either man; Danny had never served in or covered the military. The medal was buried with the coffin.

CONTINUED...

http://www.american-buddha.com/danny.last.htm

From the Catbird Seat:

An Octopus Named Wackenhut

EXCERPT...

On the desk in the hotel room was an empty mead composition notebook with one page torn out and a suicide note which read: "To those who I love the most, please forgive me for the worst possible thing I could have done. Most of all, I'm sorry to my son. I know deep down inside that God will let me in."

There were no other papers, folders, documents of any sort, nor any briefcase found in the room. Danny's wallet was intact, stuffed with credit cards. The body was removed from the tub by Lieutenant Dave Brining from the Martinsburg fire department, and his wife, Sandra, a nurse who works in the hospital emergency room. The couple, who often moonlighted as coroners, took the body to the Brown Funeral Home where they conducted an examination. Charles Brown then decided to embalm the body that night and go home, rather than come back to work the next day, Sunday.

SNIP...

According to Tony Casolaro, Danny did not take drugs or have any prescriptions for the drug traces of Hydrocodone and Tricyclic antidepressant that were found in the body. No pill boxes or written prescriptions were found. Dr. Casolaro searched through his brother's Blue Cross records and found no record of the prescriptions or doctor visits. . . .

On August 6, 1991, Casolaro's housekeeper, Olga, helped Danny pack a black leather tote bag. She remembered he also packed a thick sheaf of papers into a dark brown or black briefcase. She asked him what he had put into the briefcase and he replied, "I have all my papers ..."

He had been typing for two days, and as he left the house, he said, "Wish me luck. I'll see you in a couple of days."

By August 9th, Casolaro's friends were alarmed. None had heard from him and Olga was receiving threatening phone calls at Danny's home. On Saturday, August 10th, Olga received another call, a man's voice said, "You son of a bitch. You're dead."

CONTINUED...

http://electromagnet.us/mirrors/octopus.html

[Octafish]

43. Casolaro was looking into Inslaw-PROMIS.

Software hijacked by the Octopus and used to spy on the criminal "justice" systems of nations around the world -- from Canada to Kashmir, to borrow a phrase. Here's a bit on that:

Inslaw-PROMIS

Reporter Danny Casolaro had been following a huge network of crime that connected with a program named PROMIS created by a company named Inslaw. Inslaw executives claimed PROMIS had been stolen by the government, and they wanted recompense. While following this twisted story, Casolaro suddenly turned up "suicided". He had told friends if they were ever told he had committed suicide not to believe it, and to know he had been murdered. This is a very real, very large, very dark conspiracy which has been acknowledged, albeit quietly, by the mainstream media.

"It's far worse than Watergate."

~ Former Attorney General Elliot Richardson.

The following is taken from the  Government's Summary of Inslaw's claims, emphasis added:

Based on their knowledge and belief, the Hamiltons have alleged that high level officials in the Department of Justice conspired to steal the Enhanced PROMIS software system. As an element of this theft, these officials, who included former Attorney General Edwin Meese and Deputy Attorney General Lowell Jensen, forced INSLAW into bankruptcy by intentionally creating a sham contract dispute over the terms and conditions of the contract which led to the withholding of payments due INSLAW by the Department. The Hamiltons maintain that, after driving the company into bankruptcy, Justice officials attempted to force the conversion of INSLAW's bankruptcy status from Chapter 11: Reorganization to Chapter 7: Liquidation. They assert that such a change in bankruptcy status would have resulted in the forced sale of INSLAW'S assets, including Enhanced PROMIS to a rival computer company called Hadron, Inc., which, at the time, was attempting to conduct a hostile buyout of INSLAW. Hadron, Inc., was controlled by the Biotech Capital Corporation, under the control of Dr. Earl Brian, who was president and chairman of the corporation. The Hamiltons assert that even though the attempt to change the status of INSLAW's bankruptcy was unsuccessful, the Enhanced PROMIS software system was eventually provided to Dr. Brian by individuals from the Department with the knowledge and concurrence of then Attorney General Meese who had previously worked with Dr. Brian in the cabinet of California Governor Ronald Reagan and later at the Reagan White House. According to the Hamiltons, the ultimate goal of the conspiracy was to position Hadron and the other companies owned or controlled by Dr. Brian to take advantage of the nearly 3 billion dollars, worth of automated data processing upgrade contracts planned to be awarded by the Department of Justice during the 1980's. Information obtained by the Hamiltons through sworn affidavits of several individuals, including Ari Ben- Menashe, a former Israeli Mossad officer, and Michael Riconosciuto, an individual who claims to have ties to the intelligence community, indicated that an element of this ongoing criminal enterprise by Mr. Meese, Dr. Brian and others included the modification of the Enhanced PROMIS software by individuals associated with the world of covert intelligence operations. The Hamiltons claim the modification of Enhanced PROMIS was an essential element of the enterprise, because the software was subsequently distributed by Dr. Brian to intelligence agencies internationally with a "back door" software routine, so that U.S. intelligence agencies could covertly break into the system when needed. The Hamiltons also presented information indicating that PROMIS had been distributed to several Federal agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and DEA.

Wired's Story on Inslaw: Results of a two-year investigation

Paul Franklin's Large Inslaw Archive

Bob Gonsalves' excellent Pink Noise Archives Inslaw Collection

SOURCE and LINKS to above three sources:

http://www.webcom.com/~lpease/collections/conspiracies/inslaw.htm

[InvisibleBallots]

44. I remember this on 60 minutes

I don't remember if they mentioned Casolaro or not, but I do remember they extensively covered the INSLAW scandal.

[Octafish]

46. Octopus at Work: Inslaw-PROMIS Related Deaths

OCTOPUS-Inslaw related Deaths

NSLAW-OCTOPUS RELATED DEATHS
Site Map
------------------------------------------------------------------------


Table of Contents:

Star of the Show:

* Danny Casolaro


Others:

* Carlos Allende
* Fred Alvarez and Friends
* Jose Aguilar
* Ron Bonds
* Don Boyles
* Gerald Bull
* Tommy Burkett
* Jack Chisum
* Bill Cooper
* John Crawford
* Fred Crisman
* Vali Delahanty
* Dennis Eisman
* Vincent Foster
* Larry Guerrin
* Cyrus Hashemi
* Abbie Hoffman
* Dexter Jacobson
* Barry Kusnick
* Alan Michael May
* Robert Maxwell
* David Meyer
* Paul Morasca
* Jonathan Moyle
* Anson Ng
* Amirin Nir
* Frank Nugan
* Olof Palme
* Danny Pearl
* Gary Ray Pinnell
* Mary Quick
* Peter Sandvugen
* Adler Berriman Seal
* Hugo Spadafora
* Ian Spiro and Family
* Alan Standorf
* Kenn Thomas
* Paul Wilcher


Major Life Alteration:

* Fred Alvarez investigator
* Judge Bason
* Steve Clark
* Gary Eitel
* Jimmy Hughes
* John Kerr
* Manuel Noriega
* Leigh Ratiner
* Michael Riconosciuto
* Gunther Russbacher
* Bill Turner
* Gough Whitlam

SOURCE: American Buddha

http://www.american-buddha.com/inslaw.deaths.toc.htm

MANY LINKS at Source.

[Octafish]

45. Jim Hatfield

The author of "Fortunate Son: The Unauthorized Biography of George W Bush" ended up dead after writing the following missive” that detailed how bin Laden planned to crash a plane loaded with explosives into the G-8 summit in Genoa Italy in July 2001. Bush slept offshore aboard a US warship and the meeting was guarded by SAMs. Hatfield's death was ruled a “suicide.”

Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya, his former business partner?

By James Hatfield

Editor's note: In light of last week's horrific events and the Bush administration's reaction to them, we are reprising the following from the last column Jim Hatfield wrote for Online Journal prior to his tragic death on July 18:

July 3, 2001—There may be fireworks in Genoa, Italy, this month, too.

A plot by Saudi master terrorist, Osama bin Laden, to assassinate Dubya during the July 20 economic summit of world leaders, was uncovered after dozens of suspected Islamic militants linked to bin Laden's international terror network were arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, and Milan, Italy, in April.

German intelligence services have stated that bin Laden is covertly financing neo-Nazi skinhead groups throughout Europe to launch another terrorist attack at a high-profile American target—his first since the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last October.

According to counter-terrorism experts quoted in Germany's largest newspaper, the attack on Dubya might be a James Bond-like aerial strike in the form of remote-controlled airplanes packed with plastic explosives.

Why would Osama bi Laden want to kill, Dubya, his former business partner?

SNIP...

In June 1977, Dubya formed his own drilling company, Arbusto Energy ("arbusto" means "bush" in Spanish), in Midland, Texas. Like his father before him, Dubya founded his oil business with the financial backing of investors, including James R. Bath, a Houston businessman whom Dubya apparently first met when they were in the same Texas Air National Guard unit. (Interestingly, both Dubya and Bath were both suspended from flying in August and September 1972, respectively, for "failure to accomplish annual medical examination.")

CONTINUED...

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Hatfield-R-091901/hatfield-r-091901.html

[Octafish]

47. Abbie Hoffman

Abbie "Steal This Book" Hoffman was a yippie of the 60s who turned into an investigative reporter in the 80s. The guy researched and wrote about “October Surprise” allegations involving George H W Bush, Bill Casey and Robert Gates doing a treasonous deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini to delay the release of the hostages in 1980. His article appeared in Playboy in 1988. Of course, authorities ruled his death a “suicide.”

OLD LINK DIED OR DISAPPEARED SINCE ORIGINAL POSTING.

Kind of makes it easier to understand how Bush and that whole entire Iran-Contra Thing happened.

An Election Held Hostage

FROM PLAYBOY, OCT. 1988
(BY ABBIE HOFFMAN AND JONATHAN SILVERS)

`The obscure we see eventually. The completely apparent takes a little longer.' --Edward R. Murrow

On January 20, 1981, minutes into his first term, President Ronald Reagan performed a diplomat miracle.

For more than a year, a revolutionary government in Iran had held 52 Americans hostage in retaliation for America's support of the deposed shah. To the world's dismay, President Jimmy Carter was unable to secure their release. Traditional methods of persuasion--an admixture of pleas, threats, economic and military sanctions--proved useless against a fanatic regime that preferred martyrdom to capitulation. Armed with little but epithets and clubs, an Iranian mob had crippled the Carter Presidency and brought America to its knees.

And there the nation remained until Reagan placed his hand on a Bible and took a solemn oath. Half a world away, the fanatics who had once chanted `Death to the Great Satan' instantly scrambled to appease the country's new leader. Barely two hours after the Inauguration, `with thanks to Almighty God,' Reagan made the announcement that America had been longing to hear for 444 days: `Some 30 minutes ago, the planes bearing out prisoners left Iranian airspace and they are now free of Iran.'

In the jubilation of homecoming, no one asked why the hostages had been released at that particular moment. No explanation seemed necessary. Throughout his Presidential campaign. Reagan had slammed the Iranians as `murderous barbarians' and implied that, if elected, there were ways of handling such people. `We did not wish to inherit the hostage crisis,' explains Richard Allen, a Reagan campaign strategist and his first National Security Advisor. `We wanted to make it clear to the Iranians that this was the one issue Reagan was unstable about.' The Reagan transition team circulated menacing rumors that military reprisals and Normandylike invasions were `under consideration.' (According to Allen, its propaganda was not without humor: `What's flat and glows in the dark?' `Tehran, five minutes after Reagan's Inauguration.')

It would be five years before Reagan's antiterrorist posturing came under scrutiny. In November 1986, a Lebanese newsweekly reported that National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane had secretly negotiated an arms-for-hostages deal with the Iranian Revolutionary Council in an attempt to win release of captives taken during Reagan's first term. As the scandal unfolded, it was discovered that this was not the rash enterprise of a small group of National Security Council adventurers but a rigorously conceived Presidential initiative.

CONTINUED...

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_cr/h920205-october-clips.htm

The source lists the Congressional Record. You won't believe what all is listed there. Then again, you should. Your nation's future depends on it.

[Octafish]

50. Mark Lombardi

A visual artist and researcher, Mark Lombardi developed “Global Networks" -- social network diagrams that MAP and chronicle the relationships between many of our day’s shadiest characters, institutions and treasons -- many of whom deal with George Herbert Walker Bush. One of his works charted the direct connections between Osama bin Laden, Sheik Salim bin Laden, HARKEN Energy, James R Bath and Texas Gov George W Bush. Of course, as his career took off, the artist was judged a “suicide.”

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=2&contentid=1012&page=2

[Octafish]

52. Steve Kangas

Researcher and writer who started “Liberal Resurgent” web site dedicated to naming names like Richard Mellon Scaife and telling the truth about what was happening to America. Wrote the seminal “The Origins of the Overclass” which detailed the role of the CIA in preserving the privileged positions of the nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations. He saw America's Haiti-like future as a result of corrupt government. In the bathrooms, literally, just outside VRWC and ARKANSAS Project funder Richard Mellon Scaife, he became a “suicide.”

The Origins of the Overclass

By Steve Kangas

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

CONTINUED...

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html

[seemslikeadream]

55. just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed by the CIA

By Steve Kangas

The following timeline describes just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed by the CIA. (1)

CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists," but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.

This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious "School of the Americas." (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the "School of the Dictators" and "School of the Assassins." Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder.

The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (2) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an "American Holocaust."

The CIA justifies these actions as part of its war against communism. But most coups do not involve a communist threat. Unlucky nations are targeted for a wide variety of reasons: not only threats to American business interests abroad, but also liberal or even moderate social reforms, political instability, the unwillingness of a leader to carry out Washington’s dictates, and declarations of neutrality in the Cold War. Indeed, nothing has infuriated CIA Directors quite like a nation’s desire to stay out of the Cold War.

The ironic thing about all this intervention is that it frequently fails to achieve American objectives. Often the newly installed dictator grows comfortable with the security apparatus the CIA has built for him. He becomes an expert at running a police state. And because the dictator knows he cannot be overthrown, he becomes independent and defiant of Washington's will. The CIA then finds it cannot overthrow him, because the police and military are under the dictator's control, afraid to cooperate with American spies for fear of torture and execution. The only two options for the U.S at this point are impotence or war. Examples of this "boomerang effect" include the Shah of Iran, General Noriega and Saddam Hussein. The boomerang effect also explains why the CIA has proven highly successful at overthrowing democracies, but a wretched failure at overthrowing dictatorships.

The following timeline should confirm that the CIA as we know it should be abolished and replaced by a true information-gathering and analysis organization. The CIA cannot be reformed — it is institutionally and culturally corrupt.

1929

The culture we lost — Secretary of State Henry Stimson refuses to endorse a code-breaking operation, saying, "Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail."

1941

COI created — In preparation for World War II, President Roosevelt creates the Office of Coordinator of Information (COI). General William "Wild Bill" Donovan heads the new intelligence service.

1942

OSS created — Roosevelt restructures COI into something more suitable for covert action, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Donovan recruits so many of the nation’s rich and powerful that eventually people joke that "OSS" stands for "Oh, so social!" or "Oh, such snobs!"

1943

Italy — Donovan recruits the Catholic Church in Rome to be the center of Anglo-American spy operations in Fascist Italy. This would prove to be one of America’s most enduring intelligence alliances in the Cold War.

1945

OSS is abolished — The remaining American information agencies cease covert actions and return to harmless information gathering and analysis.

Operation PAPERCLIP – While other American agencies are hunting down Nazi war criminals for arrest, the U.S. intelligence community is smuggling them into America, unpunished, for their use against the Soviets. The most important of these is Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler’s master spy who had built up an intelligence network in the Soviet Union. With full U.S. blessing, he creates the "Gehlen Organization," a band of refugee Nazi spies who reactivate their networks in Russia. These include SS intelligence officers Alfred Six and Emil Augsburg (who massacred Jews in the Holocaust), Klaus Barbie (the "Butcher of Lyon"), Otto von Bolschwing (the Holocaust mastermind who worked with Eichmann) and SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny (a personal friend of Hitler’s). The Gehlen Organization supplies the U.S. with its only intelligence on the Soviet Union for the next ten years, serving as a bridge between the abolishment of the OSS and the creation of the CIA. However, much of the "intelligence" the former Nazis provide is bogus. Gehlen inflates Soviet military capabilities at a time when Russia is still rebuilding its devastated society, in order to inflate his own importance to the Americans (who might otherwise punish him). In 1948, Gehlen almost convinces the Americans that war is imminent, and the West should make a preemptive strike. In the 50s he produces a fictitious "missile gap." To make matters worse, the Russians have thoroughly penetrated the Gehlen Organization with double agents, undermining the very American security that Gehlen was supposed to protect.

1947

Greece — President Truman requests military aid to Greece to support right-wing forces fighting communist rebels. For the rest of the Cold War, Washington and the CIA will back notorious Greek leaders with deplorable human rights records.

CIA created — President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947, creating the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Council. The CIA is accountable to the president through the NSC — there is no democratic or congressional oversight. Its charter allows the CIA to "perform such other functions and duties… as the National Security Council may from time to time direct." This loophole opens the door to covert action and dirty tricks.

1948

Covert-action wing created — The CIA recreates a covert action wing, innocuously called the Office of Policy Coordination, led by Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner. According to its secret charter, its responsibilities include "propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."

Italy — The CIA corrupts democratic elections in Italy, where Italian communists threaten to win the elections. The CIA buys votes, broadcasts propaganda, threatens and beats up opposition leaders, and infiltrates and disrupts their organizations. It works -- the communists are defeated.

1949

Radio Free Europe — The CIA creates its first major propaganda outlet, Radio Free Europe. Over the next several decades, its broadcasts are so blatantly false that for a time it is considered illegal to publish transcripts of them in the U.S.

Late 40s

Operation MOCKINGBIRD — The CIA begins recruiting American news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. The effort is headed by Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham is publisher of The Washington Post, which becomes a major CIA player. Eventually, the CIA’s media assets will include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more. By the CIA’s own admission, at least 25 organizations and 400 journalists will become CIA assets.

1953

Iran – CIA overthrows the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in a military coup, after he threatened to nationalize British oil. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran, whose secret police, SAVAK, is as brutal as the Gestapo.

Operation MK-ULTRA — Inspired by North Korea’s brainwashing program, the CIA begins experiments on mind control. The most notorious part of this project involves giving LSD and other drugs to American subjects without their knowledge or against their will, causing several to commit suicide. However, the operation involves far more than this. Funded in part by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, research includes propaganda, brainwashing, public relations, advertising, hypnosis, and other forms of suggestion.

1954

Guatemala — CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years.

1954-1958

North Vietnam — CIA officer Edward Lansdale spends four years trying to overthrow the communist government of North Vietnam, using all the usual dirty tricks. The CIA also attempts to legitimize a tyrannical puppet regime in South Vietnam, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. These efforts fail to win the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese because the Diem government is opposed to true democracy, land reform and poverty reduction measures. The CIA’s continuing failure results in escalating American intervention, culminating in the Vietnam War.

1956

Hungary — Radio Free Europe incites Hungary to revolt by broadcasting Khruschev’s Secret Speech, in which he denounced Stalin. It also hints that American aid will help the Hungarians fight. This aid fails to materialize as Hungarians launch a doomed armed revolt, which only invites a major Soviet invasion. The conflict kills 7,000 Soviets and 30,000 Hungarians.

1957-1973

Laos — The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections. The problem is the Pathet Lao, a leftist group with enough popular support to be a member of any coalition government. In the late 50s, the CIA even creates an "Armee Clandestine" of Asian mercenaries to attack the Pathet Lao. After the CIA’s army suffers numerous defeats, the U.S. starts bombing, dropping more bombs on Laos than all the U.S. bombs dropped in World War II. A quarter of all Laotians will eventually become refugees, many living in caves.

1959

Haiti — The U.S. military helps "Papa Doc" Duvalier become dictator of Haiti. He creates his own private police force, the "Tonton Macoutes," who terrorize the population with machetes. They will kill over 100,000 during the Duvalier family reign. The U.S. does not protest their dismal human rights record.

1961

The Bay of Pigs — The CIA sends 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade Castro’s Cuba. But "Operation Mongoose" fails, due to poor planning, security and backing. The planners had imagined that the invasion will spark a popular uprising against Castro -– which never happens. A promised American air strike also never occurs. This is the CIA’s first public setback, causing President Kennedy to fire CIA Director Allen Dulles.

Dominican Republic — The CIA assassinates Rafael Trujillo, a murderous dictator Washington has supported since 1930. Trujillo’s business interests have grown so large (about 60 percent of the economy) that they have begun competing with American business interests.

Ecuador — The CIA-backed military forces the democratically elected President Jose Velasco to resign. Vice President Carlos Arosemana replaces him; the CIA fills the now vacant vice presidency with its own man.

Congo (Zaire) — The CIA assassinates the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba. However, public support for Lumumba’s politics runs so high that the CIA cannot clearly install his opponents in power. Four years of political turmoil follow.

1963

Dominican Republic — The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Juan Bosch in a military coup. The CIA installs a repressive, right-wing junta.

Ecuador — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows President Arosemana, whose independent (not socialist) policies have become unacceptable to Washington. A military junta assumes command, cancels the 1964 elections, and begins abusing human rights.

1964

Brazil — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the democratically elected government of Joao Goulart. The junta that replaces it will, in the next two decades, become one of the most bloodthirsty in history. General Castelo Branco will create Latin America’s first death squads, or bands of secret police who hunt down "communists" for torture, interrogation and murder. Often these "communists" are no more than Branco’s political opponents. Later it is revealed that the CIA trains the death squads.

1965

Indonesia — The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Sukarno with a military coup. The CIA has been trying to eliminate Sukarno since 1957, using everything from attempted assassination to sexual intrigue, for nothing more than his declaring neutrality in the Cold War. His successor, General Suharto, will massacre between 500,000 to 1 million civilians accused of being "communist." The CIA supplies the names of countless suspects.

Dominican Republic — A popular rebellion breaks out, promising to reinstall Juan Bosch as the country’s elected leader. The revolution is crushed when U.S. Marines land to uphold the military regime by force. The CIA directs everything behind the scenes.

Greece — With the CIA’s backing, the king removes George Papandreous as prime minister. Papandreous has failed to vigorously support U.S. interests in Greece.

Congo (Zaire) — A CIA-backed military coup installs Mobutu Sese Seko as dictator. The hated and repressive Mobutu exploits his desperately poor country for billions.

1966

The Ramparts Affair — The radical magazine Ramparts begins a series of unprecedented anti-CIA articles. Among their scoops: the CIA has paid the University of Michigan $25 million dollars to hire "professors" to train South Vietnamese students in covert police methods. MIT and other universities have received similar payments. Ramparts also reveals that the National Students’ Association is a CIA front. Students are sometimes recruited through blackmail and bribery, including draft deferments.

1967

Greece — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government two days before the elections. The favorite to win was George Papandreous, the liberal candidate. During the next six years, the "reign of the colonels" — backed by the CIA — will usher in the widespread use of torture and murder against political opponents. When a Greek ambassador objects to President Johnson about U.S. plans for Cypress, Johnson tells him: "Fuck your parliament and your constitution."

Operation PHEONIX — The CIA helps South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in South Vietnamese villages. According to a 1971 congressional report, this operation killed about 20,000 "Viet Cong."

1968

Operation CHAOS — The CIA has been illegally spying on American citizens since 1959, but with Operation CHAOS, President Johnson dramatically boosts the effort. CIA agents go undercover as student radicals to spy on and disrupt campus organizations protesting the Vietnam War. They are searching for Russian instigators, which they never find. CHAOS will eventually spy on 7,000 individuals and 1,000 organizations.

Bolivia — A CIA-organized military operation captures legendary guerilla Che Guevara. The CIA wants to keep him alive for interrogation, but the Bolivian government executes him to prevent worldwide calls for clemency.

1969

Uruguay — The notorious CIA torturer Dan Mitrione arrives in Uruguay, a country torn with political strife. Whereas right-wing forces previously used torture only as a last resort, Mitrione convinces them to use it as a routine, widespread practice. "The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect," is his motto. The torture techniques he teaches to the death squads rival the Nazis’. He eventually becomes so feared that revolutionaries will kidnap and murder him a year later.

1970

Cambodia — The CIA overthrows Prince Sahounek, who is highly popular among Cambodians for keeping them out of the Vietnam War. He is replaced by CIA puppet Lon Nol, who immediately throws Cambodian troops into battle. This unpopular move strengthens once minor opposition parties like the Khmer Rouge, which achieves power in 1975 and massacres millions of its own people.

1971

Bolivia — After half a decade of CIA-inspired political turmoil, a CIA-backed military coup overthrows the leftist President Juan Torres. In the next two years, dictator Hugo Banzer will have over 2,000 political opponents arrested without trial, then tortured, raped and executed.

Haiti — "Papa Doc" Duvalier dies, leaving his 19-year old son "Baby Doc" Duvalier the dictator of Haiti. His son continues his bloody reign with full knowledge of the CIA.

1972

The Case-Zablocki Act — Congress passes an act requiring congressional review of executive agreements. In theory, this should make CIA operations more accountable. In fact, it is only marginally effective.

Cambodia — Congress votes to cut off CIA funds for its secret war in Cambodia.

Wagergate Break-in — President Nixon sends in a team of burglars to wiretap Democratic offices at Watergate. The team members have extensive CIA histories, including James McCord, E. Howard Hunt and five of the Cuban burglars. They work for the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), which does dirty work like disrupting Democratic campaigns and laundering Nixon’s illegal campaign contributions. CREEP’s activities are funded and organized by another CIA front, the Mullen Company.

1973

Chile — The CIA overthrows and assassinates Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first democratically elected socialist leader. The problems begin when Allende nationalizes American-owned firms in Chile. ITT offers the CIA $1 million for a coup (reportedly refused). The CIA replaces Allende with General Augusto Pinochet, who will torture and murder thousands of his own countrymen in a crackdown on labor leaders and the political left.

CIA begins internal investigations — William Colby, the Deputy Director for Operations, orders all CIA personnel to report any and all illegal activities they know about. This information is later reported to Congress.

Watergate Scandal — The CIA’s main collaborating newspaper in America, The Washington Post, reports Nixon’s crimes long before any other newspaper takes up the subject. The two reporters, Woodward and Bernstein, make almost no mention of the CIA’s many fingerprints all over the scandal. It is later revealed that Woodward was a Naval intelligence briefer to the White House, and knows many important intelligence figures, including General Alexander Haig. His main source, "Deep Throat," is probably one of those.

CIA Director Helms Fired — President Nixon fires CIA Director Richard Helms for failing to help cover up the Watergate scandal. Helms and Nixon have always disliked each other. The new CIA director is William Colby, who is relatively more open to CIA reform.

1974

CHAOS exposed — Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh publishes a story about Operation CHAOS, the domestic surveillance and infiltration of anti-war and civil rights groups in the U.S. The story sparks national outrage.

Angleton fired — Congress holds hearings on the illegal domestic spying efforts of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s chief of counterintelligence. His efforts included mail-opening campaigns and secret surveillance of war protesters. The hearings result in his dismissal from the CIA.

House clears CIA in Watergate — The House of Representatives clears the CIA of any complicity in Nixon’s Watergate break-in.

The Hughes Ryan Act — Congress passes an amendment requiring the president to report nonintelligence CIA operations to the relevant congressional committees in a timely fashion.

1975

Australia — The CIA helps topple the democratically elected, left-leaning government of Prime Minister Edward Whitlam. The CIA does this by giving an ultimatum to its Governor-General, John Kerr. Kerr, a longtime CIA collaborator, exercises his constitutional right to dissolve the Whitlam government. The Governor-General is a largely ceremonial position appointed by the Queen; the Prime Minister is democratically elected. The use of this archaic and never-used law stuns the nation.

Angola — Eager to demonstrate American military resolve after its defeat in Vietnam, Henry Kissinger launches a CIA-backed war in Angola. Contrary to Kissinger’s assertions, Angola is a country of little strategic importance and not seriously threatened by communism. The CIA backs the brutal leader of UNITAS, Jonas Savimbi. This polarizes Angolan politics and drives his opponents into the arms of Cuba and the Soviet Union for survival. Congress will cut off funds in 1976, but the CIA is able to run the war off the books until 1984, when funding is legalized again. This entirely pointless war kills over 300,000 Angolans.

"The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence" — Victor Marchetti and John Marks publish this whistle-blowing history of CIA crimes and abuses. Marchetti has spent 14 years in the CIA, eventually becoming an executive assistant to the Deputy Director of Intelligence. Marks has spent five years as an intelligence official in the State Department.

"Inside the Company" — Philip Agee publishes a diary of his life inside the CIA. Agee has worked in covert operations in Latin America during the 60s, and details the crimes in which he took part.

Congress investigates CIA wrong-doing — Public outrage compels Congress to hold hearings on CIA crimes. Senator Frank Church heads the Senate investigation ("The Church Committee"), and Representative Otis Pike heads the House investigation. (Despite a 98 percent incumbency reelection rate, both Church and Pike are defeated in the next elections.) The investigations lead to a number of reforms intended to increase the CIA’s accountability to Congress, including the creation of a standing Senate committee on intelligence. However, the reforms prove ineffective, as the Iran/Contra scandal will show. It turns out the CIA can control, deal with or sidestep Congress with ease.

The Rockefeller Commission — In an attempt to reduce the damage done by the Church Committee, President Ford creates the "Rockefeller Commission" to whitewash CIA history and propose toothless reforms. The commission’s namesake, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, is himself a major CIA figure. Five of the commission’s eight members are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations, a CIA-dominated organization.

1979

Iran — The CIA fails to predict the fall of the Shah of Iran, a longtime CIA puppet, and the rise of Muslim fundamentalists who are furious at the CIA’s backing of SAVAK, the Shah’s bloodthirsty secret police. In revenge, the Muslims take 52 Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

Afghanistan — The Soviets invade Afghanistan. The CIA immediately begins supplying arms to any faction willing to fight the occupying Soviets. Such indiscriminate arming means that when the Soviets leave Afghanistan, civil war will erupt. Also, fanatical Muslim extremists now possess state-of-the-art weaponry. One of these is Sheik Abdel Rahman, who will become involved in the World Trade Center bombing in New York.

El Salvador — An idealistic group of young military officers, repulsed by the massacre of the poor, overthrows the right-wing government. However, the U.S. compels the inexperienced officers to include many of the old guard in key positions in their new government. Soon, things are back to "normal" — the military government is repressing and killing poor civilian protesters. Many of the young military and civilian reformers, finding themselves powerless, resign in disgust.

Nicaragua — Anastasios Samoza II, the CIA-backed dictator, falls. The Marxist Sandinistas take over government, and they are initially popular because of their commitment to land and anti-poverty reform. Samoza had a murderous and hated personal army called the National Guard. Remnants of the Guard will become the Contras, who fight a CIA-backed guerilla war against the Sandinista government throughout the 1980s.

1980

El Salvador — The Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, pleads with President Carter "Christian to Christian" to stop aiding the military government slaughtering his people. Carter refuses. Shortly afterwards, right-wing leader Roberto D’Aubuisson has Romero shot through the heart while saying Mass. The country soon dissolves into civil war, with the peasants in the hills fighting against the military government. The CIA and U.S. Armed Forces supply the government with overwhelming military and intelligence superiority. CIA-trained death squads roam the countryside, committing atrocities like that of El Mazote in 1982, where they massacre between 700 and 1000 men, women and children. By 1992, some 63,000 Salvadorans will be killed.

1981

Iran/Contra Begins — The CIA begins selling arms to Iran at high prices, using the profits to arm the Contras fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. President Reagan vows that the Sandinistas will be "pressured" until "they say ‘uncle.’" The CIA’s Freedom Fighter’s Manual disbursed to the Contras includes instruction on economic sabotage, propaganda, extortion, bribery, blackmail, interrogation, torture, murder and political assassination.

1983

Honduras — The CIA gives Honduran military officers the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual – 1983, which teaches how to torture people. Honduras’ notorious "Battalion 316" then uses these techniques, with the CIA’s full knowledge, on thousands of leftist dissidents. At least 184 are murdered.

1984

The Boland Amendment — The last of a series of Boland Amendments is passed. These amendments have reduced CIA aid to the Contras; the last one cuts it off completely. However, CIA Director William Casey is already prepared to "hand off" the operation to Colonel Oliver North, who illegally continues supplying the Contras through the CIA’s informal, secret, and self-financing network. This includes "humanitarian aid" donated by Adolph Coors and William Simon, and military aid funded by Iranian arms sales.

1986

Eugene Hasenfus — Nicaragua shoots down a C-123 transport plane carrying military supplies to the Contras. The lone survivor, Eugene Hasenfus, turns out to be a CIA employee, as are the two dead pilots. The airplane belongs to Southern Air Transport, a CIA front. The incident makes a mockery of President Reagan’s claims that the CIA is not illegally arming the Contras.

Iran/Contra Scandal — Although the details have long been known, the Iran/Contra scandal finally captures the media’s attention in 1986. Congress holds hearings, and several key figures (like Oliver North) lie under oath to protect the intelligence community. CIA Director William Casey dies of brain cancer before Congress can question him. All reforms enacted by Congress after the scandal are purely cosmetic.

Haiti — Rising popular revolt in Haiti means that "Baby Doc" Duvalier will remain "President for Life" only if he has a short one. The U.S., which hates instability in a puppet country, flies the despotic Duvalier to the South of France for a comfortable retirement. The CIA then rigs the upcoming elections in favor of another right-wing military strongman. However, violence keeps the country in political turmoil for another four years. The CIA tries to strengthen the military by creating the National Intelligence Service (SIN), which suppresses popular revolt through torture and assassination.

1989

Panama — The U.S. invades Panama to overthrow a dictator of its own making, General Manuel Noriega. Noriega has been on the CIA’s payroll since 1966, and has been transporting drugs with the CIA’s knowledge since 1972. By the late 80s, Noriega’s growing independence and intransigence have angered Washington… so out he goes.

1990

Haiti — Competing against 10 comparatively wealthy candidates, leftist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide captures 68 percent of the vote. After only eight months in power, however, the CIA-backed military deposes him. More military dictators brutalize the country, as thousands of Haitian refugees escape the turmoil in barely seaworthy boats. As popular opinion calls for Aristide’s return, the CIA begins a disinformation campaign painting the courageous priest as mentally unstable.

1991

The Gulf War — The U.S. liberates Kuwait from Iraq. But Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, is another creature of the CIA. With U.S. encouragement, Hussein invaded Iran in 1980. During this costly eight-year war, the CIA built up Hussein’s forces with sophisticated arms, intelligence, training and financial backing. This cemented Hussein’s power at home, allowing him to crush the many internal rebellions that erupted from time to time, sometimes with poison gas. It also gave him all the military might he needed to conduct further adventurism — in Kuwait, for example.

The Fall of the Soviet Union — The CIA fails to predict this most important event of the Cold War. This suggests that it has been so busy undermining governments that it hasn’t been doing its primary job: gathering and analyzing information. The fall of the Soviet Union also robs the CIA of its reason for existence: fighting communism. This leads some to accuse the CIA of intentionally failing to predict the downfall of the Soviet Union. Curiously, the intelligence community’s budget is not significantly reduced after the demise of communism.

1992

Economic Espionage — In the years following the end of the Cold War, the CIA is increasingly used for economic espionage. This involves stealing the technological secrets of competing foreign companies and giving them to American ones. Given the CIA’s clear preference for dirty tricks over mere information gathering, the possibility of serious criminal behavior is very great indeed.

1993

Haiti — The chaos in Haiti grows so bad that President Clinton has no choice but to remove the Haitian military dictator, Raoul Cedras, on threat of U.S. invasion. The U.S. occupiers do not arrest Haiti’s military leaders for crimes against humanity, but instead ensure their safety and rich retirements. Aristide is returned to power only after being forced to accept an agenda favorable to the country’s ruling class.

EPILOGUE

In a speech before the CIA celebrating its 50th anniversary, President Clinton said: "By necessity, the American people will never know the full story of your courage."

Clinton’s is a common defense of the CIA: namely, the American people should stop criticizing the CIA because they don’t know what it really does. This, of course, is the heart of the problem in the first place. An agency that is above criticism is also above moral behavior and reform. Its secrecy and lack of accountability allows its corruption to grow unchecked.

Furthermore, Clinton’s statement is simply untrue. The history of the agency is growing painfully clear, especially with the declassification of historical CIA documents. We may not know the details of specific operations, but we do know, quite well, the general behavior of the CIA. These facts began emerging nearly two decades ago at an ever-quickening pace. Today we have a remarkably accurate and consistent picture, repeated in country after country, and verified from countless different directions.

The CIA’s response to this growing knowledge and criticism follows a typical historical pattern. (Indeed, there are remarkable parallels to the Medieval Church’s fight against the Scientific Revolution.) The first journalists and writers to reveal the CIA’s criminal behavior were harassed and censored if they were American writers, and tortured and murdered if they were foreigners. (See Philip Agee’s On the Run for an example of early harassment.) However, over the last two decades the tide of evidence has become overwhelming, and the CIA has found that it does not have enough fingers to plug every hole in the dike. This is especially true in the age of the Internet, where information flows freely among millions of people. Since censorship is impossible, the Agency must now defend itself with apologetics. Clinton’s "Americans will never know" defense is a prime example.

Another common apologetic is that "the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all." There are two things wrong with this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly spurned alliances with defenders of democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the company of military dictators and tyrants. The CIA had moral options available to them, but did not take them.

Second, this argument begs several questions. The first is: "Which American interests?" The CIA has courted right-wing dictators because they allow wealthy Americans to exploit the country’s cheap labor and resources. But poor and middle-class Americans pay the price whenever they fight the wars that stem from CIA actions, from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Panama. The second begged question is: "Why should American interests come at the expense of other peoples’ human rights?"

The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for crimes against humanity. Our intelligence community should be rebuilt from the ground up, with the goal of collecting and analyzing information. As for covert action, there are two moral options. The first one is to eliminate covert action completely. But this gives jitters to people worried about the Adolf Hitlers of the world. So a second option is that we can place covert action under extensive and true democratic oversight. For example, a bipartisan Congressional Committee of 40 members could review and veto all aspects of CIA operations upon a majority or super-majority vote. Which of these two options is best may be the subject of debate, but one thing is clear: like dictatorship, like monarchy, unaccountable covert operations should die like the dinosaurs they are.

Endnotes:

1. All history concerning CIA intervention in foreign countries is summarized from William Blum’s encyclopedic work, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995). Sources for domestic CIA operations come from Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen’s The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time (Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1997).

2. Coleman McCarthy, "The Consequences of Covert Tactics" Washington Post, December 13, 1987.

Copyright 1996 by Steve Kangas. Text can be quoted freely for non-commercial purposes only, with proper attribution.
<http://home.att.net/~Resurgence/CIAtimeline.html >

[RBHam]

48. Teddy Ebersol

nt

[Octafish]

51. You know he was a great young Democrat.

I remember reading about how he took on some NASCAR pit crew on his own, pulling facts to counter the charges of a dozen or so supporters of the coward from Crawford.

[RBHam]

49. JFK Jr

nt

[Octafish]

53. In my heart of hearts, I always feared...

... the evil these people are capable of creating.

John F. Kennedy Jr. had a magical name. The guy certainly was a shoe-in for high elected office.

Imagine if we could pick up the promise of the New Frontier?
The world would be a different place.
America would be a better place.

[Octafish]

54. Kick to the pants of the BFEE -- CIA imports DOPE!

Esquire found a DEA agent who the LA Times, New York Times and Washington Post IGNORE. Why?

Gary Webb, 1955=2004

EXCERPT...

Hector Berrellez wanted a criminal investigation of the Central Intelligence Agency. His $3 million snitch budget had brought in an unseemly harvest, report after report from informants that in the eighties CIA-leased aircraft were flying cocaine into places like the air-force base in Homestead, Florida, and the airfield north of Tucson long believed to be a CIA base. And that these planes were flying guns south. One of his witnesses in the Camarena case told him about flying in a U.S. military plane loaded with drugs from Guadalajara to Homestead. Other informants told him that major drug figures, including Rafael Cato Quintero, the man finally imprisoned for the Camarena murder, were getting guns delivered through CIA connections. Everywhere he turned, he ran into dope guys who had CIA connections, and to a narc this didn't look right. "I can't believe," he told his superiors, "that the CIA is handling all this shit and doesn't know what these pilots are doing." His superiors asked if he had hard evidence of actual CIA case officers moving dope, and he said no, just lots of people they employed. All intelligence services use the fabled cutouts to separate themselves from their grubby work.

The DEA in Washington asked for a memo, so Hector fired off a summary of his telephone request. Agents were assigned, and Hector shipped every snippet of new information to this team. Nothing came of the investigation. The DEA team came out and debriefed him and some of his agents. And then, silence.

Hector's Camarena work had burrowed deep, very deep, inside the Mexican government and found endless rot. With the vote on NAFTA in the air in the fall of 1993, his investigation started to get pressure, then his budget was cut. By 1994, after Justice Department officials had been in Mexico City, he was told, "Don't report that crap anymore." It was clear to Hector that the Mexican government wanted this Camarena investigation reined in. In early 1995, he learned of his future in a curious way. One of Hector's informants in Mexico City called another one of his informants in Los Angeles and said, Hector's getting transferred to Washington. The guy in Los Angeles said, No, no, Hector's still here. Two months later, in April 1995, Berrellez was transferred to Washington, D.C. Over the years, Hector had become used to a certain amount of duplicity in the DEA. Some of his fellow agents, he had come to believe, were actually members of the CIA. The DEA had been penetrated.

At headquarters, Hector sat in an office with nothing to do. "There ain't no fucking drug war," he says now. "I was even called un-American. Nobody cares about this shit." He started going a little crazy. Each day, he checked in to a blank schedule. So he caught a lot of double features.

In September 1996, he retired. He had had enough. The most decorated soldier in the war on drugs kind of faded out at the movies.

CONTINUED...

http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2004/041217_mfe_webb_1.html