By Sherwood Ross
If the CIA routinely lies to the American people, maybe that's because its got so much to lie about, like killing millions of innocent human beings around the world. As far back as December, 1968, the CIA's own Covert Operations Study Group gave a secret report to president-elect Richard Nixon that conceded, “The impression of many Americans, especially in the intellectual community and among the youth, that the United States is engaging in 'dirty tricks' tends to alienate them from their government.” According to Time Weiner's book “Legacy of Ashes”(Anchor), the report went on to say, “Our credibility and our effectiveness in this role is necessarily damaged to the extent that it becomes known that we are secretly intervening in what may be (or appear to be) the internal affairs of others.”
President Bill Clinton, who first gave the CIA the green light to launch its illegal “renditions” (kidnappings,) told the nation on the occasion of the Agency's 50th birthday (1997), “By necessity, the American people will never know the full story of your courage.” (Courage? For 22 agents to grab one Muslim cleric off the streets of Milan, Italy, and ship him abroad to be tortured?) Anyway, presidents who authorize criminal acts by the CIA, as virtually all have done since its founding in 1947, don't want the truth out, either, lest knowledge of those “dirty tricks” sicken and revolt the American people when they find out what crimes the Agency is perpetrating with their tax dollars. As former CIA agent Philip Agee once put it, “The CIA is the President's secret army.” This point was underscored at a luncheon by President Gerald Ford himself, which he hosted for New York Times top editors on Jan. 16, 1975. According to Weiner, Ford told them the reputation of every President since Truman could be ruined if the secrets became public. Asked by an editor, like what? Ford replied “like assassinations.”
One reason the Agency seeks to hide its operations is that it sadly is often guilty as charged. For example, take its complicity in the murders of American missionaries in Peru. As Reuters reported Nov. 21, 2008:
“The CIA obstructed inquiries into its role in the shooting down of an aircraft carrying a family of U.S. missionaries in Peru in 2001, the agency's inspector general(IG) has concluded. The (IG's) report said a CIA-backed program in Peru targeting drug runners was so poorly run that many suspect aircraft were shot down by Peruvian air force jets without proper checks being made first.” A small plane carrying Veronica Bowers, her husband Jim, their son Cory and infant daughter Charity was shot down by a Peruvian jet on April 20, 2001, after it was tracked by a CIA surveillance plane that suspected it was carrying drugs. Veronica and Charity Bowers were killed, while their pilot, Kevin Donaldson, who crash-landed the bullet-riddled plane into the Amazon River, was badly injured. The IG's report said that in the aftermath of the 2001 incident the CIA sought to characterize it as a one-time mistake in an otherwise well-run program. "In fact this was not the case. The routine disregard of the required intercept procedures ... led to the rapid shooting down of target aircraft without adequate safeguards to protect against the loss of innocent life," the report from the Agency's own IG said. (One might ask why the CIA didn't wait for the plane to land to interrogate the passengers?)
The kicker in the Reuters account is “The IG said the CIA found 'sustained and significant' violations of procedure in its own internal investigation but had denied Congress, the National Security Council and the Justice Department access to its findings.” This raises the question of whether the CIA has become so powerful it can withhold findings even from the Justice Department and Congress? The answer is that it can, has, and likely continues to do so, because it is indeed both powerful and influential. After all, with the exception of President Clinton, who abetted the CIA's crimes, presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush Jr., and Barrack Obama all have been directly on the CIA payroll as employees at one time or another. Bush Sr., of course, headed the Agency during 1976-77. Bush Jr. worked for a CIA front in Alaska, and President Obama worked for CIA front Business International Corporation after he got out of college.
The CIA's influence is such that it can successfully forbid other agencies of government to conceal its crimes if they find out about them. Example: “The Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) knew about and helped cover up the CIA's involvement in Guatemala's drug war murders, a former DEA agent said,” the AP reported on July 23, 1996. Although the DEA denied the allegations, Celerino Castillo, who was a special DEA agent assigned to Guatemala, said he and other DEA agents there “were aware of specific murders committed by the Guatemala military with CIA involvement and were ordered to lie to keep the crimes secret.” AP said the Intelligence Oversight Board issued a report stating CIA agents in Guatemala “were credibly alleged” to have ordered, planned or participated in human rights violations such as murder, torture and kidnapping.” (I.e., Castillo's charges were true.) So it has long since gotten to the point that officials of other U.S. agents cannot report the CIA's crimes either, as if they were under a Mafia oath of secrecy.
CIA employees themselves are forbidden by secrecy agreements (under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act passed under President Ronald Reagan) to write anything about the Agency without first clearing it with a CIA publications review board. Accordingly, the CIA recently cracked down on a former officer who wrote under the pseudonym “Ishmael Jones.” His “crime” was to publish two years ago “The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture.” The Associated Press quotes Jones as saying, “CIA censors attack this book because it exposes the CIA as a place to get rich, with billions of taxpayer dollars wasted or stolen in espionage programs that produce nothing.” Denying the truth, however, is a long established CIA practice. John Stockwell, for 13 years a CIA station chief in Angola or a top man in Viet Nam, said in a lecture, “What I ran into...was a corruption in the CIA and the intelligence business...what I found was that the CIA, us, the case officers, were not permitted to report about the corruption in the South Vietnamese army.”
Whether the Agency's John Stockwell, Ishmael Jones or DEA's Celerino Castillo, we note that many of the CIA's critics are former American intelligence officers who have seen too much, men apparently with a conscience and respect for human rights. Stockwell, a former Marine who held high posts in the field for the CIA was in a position to know when he charged that over the years the CIA has killed “millions” of innocents. He says the victims were largely “people of the Third World...that have the misfortune of being born in the Metumba mountains of the Congo, in the jungles of Southeast Asia...in the hills of northern Nicaragua...most of (whom) couldn't give you an intelligent definition of communism or of capitalism.” Stockwell estimated the CIA has perpetrated “10 to 20 thousand covert actions” between 1961, about the time of its Cuban Bay of Pigs fiasco, and 1987.
Stockwell concludes “We are responsible for doing these things on a massive basis to people of the world...we create a CIA, a secret police, we give them a vast budget, and we let them go and run these (covert) programs in our name and we pretend like we don't know it's going on...And we're just as responsible for these 1 to 3 million people we've slaughtered and for all the people we've tortured and made miserable, as the Gestapo was of the people that they slaughtered and killed. Genocide is genocide.”
Is it? The Obama administration apparently has no plans to expose and bring to trial past CIA killers and torturers, much less those who obstructed justice by destroying tapes of their torture or lying to Congress about it. This is the same country---which is now waging war in three Middle East nations and has been responsible for the violent and bloody overthrow of dozens of foreign governments---that keeps a quarter of a million pot smokers in prison who have never hurt another person in their lives. Pardon me if I ask whether my native land has not, in fact, become a lunatic asylum run by the criminally insane? #
(Sherwood Ross is director of the Anti-War News Service. He formerly worked for major dailies and wire services. To contribute to his news service or comment, reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com)
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Remember Remember the 5th of November
RIP Bill, it has been 9 years since your murder and you are sorely missed.
Bill was one of the few that was after one thing, getting to the truth. There were not many like him, except for some in this movement who have the same drive I believe this man had. To this day, I continue to learn from Bill Cooper and hope all of you do as well.
RIP Bill, it's too bad you will never truly know what you meant to those of us searching for the truth.
This post is dedicated to Bill on the anniversary of his death.
MILTON WILLIAM COOPER
1943-2001
Rest in Peace our friend.
You were a true patriot.
Bill was one of the few that was after one thing, getting to the truth. There were not many like him, except for some in this movement who have the same drive I believe this man had. To this day, I continue to learn from Bill Cooper and hope all of you do as well.
RIP Bill, it's too bad you will never truly know what you meant to those of us searching for the truth.
This post is dedicated to Bill on the anniversary of his death.
Nearly 100 Toronto officers to be disciplined over G20 summit conduct
Nearly 100 Toronto police officers will be disciplined for removing their name tags at the G20 summit, says the city’s police chief who also admitted charges were thrown out against roughly 100 people because the force failed to obtain appropriate arrest warrants.
Police Chief Bill Blair was called before the Commons public safety committee on Wednesday to explain his officers’ actions during the June summit which resulted in the arrest of more than 1,000 people.
Many of the people who confronted police over the tumultuous three-days of protests that closed down Toronto’s core said officers were not wearing badge numbers or name tags on their uniforms – allegations that were bolstered by photographs in the media.
“I have a rule in the Toronto Police Service, it’s my rule, it’s in accordance with the policy of my police services board, that our officers will wear their names displayed on their uniforms,” Chief Blair told the committee.
Faced with numerous complaints, the force launched an investigation and pored over 22,000 hours of closed-circuit videotape to identify “approximately 90” officers who were not wearing their name tags, said the Chief.
“Disciplinary processes have been initiated,” he said. When asked what kind of punishment would be handed out, Chief Blair said that has yet to be determined “but the discussion, I believe, is the loss of a day’s pay.” That would amount to about $300 for a first-class constable.
Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack said no G20-related disciplinary action has yet been taken.
“That’s currently being investigated right now, so discipline hasn’t been handed out ,” he said. “I’m aware that some of our officers – I can’t confirm the number – have been notified of an investigation in regards to the name-tag issue, so the officers are in the process of responding to that right now.”
When asked why an officer would remove his or her badge, the Chief said some of the name tags could have come off during scuffles with protesters but other officers were likely trying to hide their identities.
Read more...
Police Chief Bill Blair was called before the Commons public safety committee on Wednesday to explain his officers’ actions during the June summit which resulted in the arrest of more than 1,000 people.
Many of the people who confronted police over the tumultuous three-days of protests that closed down Toronto’s core said officers were not wearing badge numbers or name tags on their uniforms – allegations that were bolstered by photographs in the media.
“I have a rule in the Toronto Police Service, it’s my rule, it’s in accordance with the policy of my police services board, that our officers will wear their names displayed on their uniforms,” Chief Blair told the committee.
Faced with numerous complaints, the force launched an investigation and pored over 22,000 hours of closed-circuit videotape to identify “approximately 90” officers who were not wearing their name tags, said the Chief.
“Disciplinary processes have been initiated,” he said. When asked what kind of punishment would be handed out, Chief Blair said that has yet to be determined “but the discussion, I believe, is the loss of a day’s pay.” That would amount to about $300 for a first-class constable.
Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack said no G20-related disciplinary action has yet been taken.
“That’s currently being investigated right now, so discipline hasn’t been handed out ,” he said. “I’m aware that some of our officers – I can’t confirm the number – have been notified of an investigation in regards to the name-tag issue, so the officers are in the process of responding to that right now.”
When asked why an officer would remove his or her badge, the Chief said some of the name tags could have come off during scuffles with protesters but other officers were likely trying to hide their identities.
Read more...
Wikileaks Is Zionist Poison
by Jonathan Azaziah
Disinformation is defined as ‘misinformation that is deliberately disseminated in order to influence or confuse rivals.’ It is used by governments to mislead and brainwash their citizen populations, instigate wars, and blackmail foreign regimes. It is the ultimate instrument of the media. The most effective disinformation is that which is comprised of falsehood as well as facts. Wikileaks, founded by Julian Assange, fits this description perfectly, right down to the letter. Seemingly overnight, it has become one of the biggest ‘whistle-blowing’ agencies in modern history. In reality though, it is one of the biggest disinformation projects in modern history, and it may be the most dangerous because it is masquerading as an organization of truth. The information released by Wikileaks isn’t new; it isn’t groundbreaking; it doesn’t hurt the US as much as people think, it’s fractional really; and it is overloaded with as much as propaganda as the day-to-day Zionist media is. This propaganda is benefitting someone. And that someone is the illegal usurping entity of Israel. Even the Israeli government itself thinks so (1).
Afghanistan Drivel
The first major ‘leak’ released earlier this year by Assange was about occupied Afghanistan in the form of more than 92,000 documents. These docs included ‘secret files’ about civilian killings by the US and NATO along with boogeyman stories about the long-dead Osama Bin Laden, garbage regarding the Taliban acquiring ground-to-air missiles, and plenty of lies about Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI (2). There wasn’t a single document about the Israeli training of the Taliban (3), the massive drug profiteering by the Mossad (4), the CIA (5) and the US-puppet Hamid Karzai and his brother (6), Karzai’s connections to Unocal and Zionist war criminal Henry Kissinger (7), the clandestine Israeli business operations set up to take control of the oil fields in neighboring Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan (8), or the Russian-Jewish mafia, fully protected by the Zionist entity, selling guns to US-backed Afghan warlords (9). Why weren’t any of these massively important, critically damning events and operations mentioned? Because by doing so, it would incriminate the already internationally condemned Zionist regime. Journalists, bloggers and activists, from occupied Afghanistan and abroad, have been reporting on the vast civilian casualties in Afghanistan since US intervention began more than 30 years ago. Wikileaks revealed nothing that wasn’t already known; however, it did reinforce Zionist propaganda regarding the illegal ‘war on terror.’
Iraq Malarkey
The next major ‘leak’ by Assange’s organization, which has gained more notoriety than the previous ‘leak,’ was about occupied Iraq in the form of nearly 400,000 documents. Like the occupied Afghanistan disinformation, it included ‘secret files’ about mass civilian killings by US forces, torture by war criminal Nouri al-Maliki and his forces (which according to Wikileaks, US military officials attempted to halt) (10), US government failings in reprimanding Blackwater (XE) for committing murder (11), and brutal executions by the American and British occupiers mixed with more tripe about fictitious Al-Qaeda, nonsense about Iran training militant Iraqi militias and Iranian drones flying over Iraq (12), Iran smuggling guns, munitions, and explosives into Iraq (13), ridiculous accusations of the Lebanese Resistance movement Hezbollah training Iraqis in the art of kidnaping (14), slanderous attacks on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and other absurd assertions about the Islamic Republic involved in the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Wikileaks Iraq war logs also ‘reveal’ civilian casualties numbered at 66,081 (15). The logs also ‘reveal’ that Iraqi WMDs actually did exist, as US soldiers found chemical weapons labs, terrorist toxin specialists, and chemical weapons caches (16).
There was nothing ‘secret’ about American and British forces murdering, torturing and raping innocents in occupied Iraq. Like Afghanistan, Iraqi and international journalists, bloggers, and activists have been reporting the murder of civilians in Iraq since the beginning of the illegal occupation, with much more effectiveness than Wikileaks. The US military didn’t attempt to halt the puppet al-Maliki’s torture of unlawfully imprisoned Iraqis, they partook in it. They led the way after they signed off on it. They were the primary perpetrators (17). Secret prisons are still operating at this very moment where US forces barbarously torture innocent Iraqis (18). The US hired Blackwater’s contractors to instill fear and execute terrorism against the people of Iraq, of course it didn’t reprimand them. Erik Prince’s private army of terror was only doing what it was told to by the US government.
Read more...
Disinformation is defined as ‘misinformation that is deliberately disseminated in order to influence or confuse rivals.’ It is used by governments to mislead and brainwash their citizen populations, instigate wars, and blackmail foreign regimes. It is the ultimate instrument of the media. The most effective disinformation is that which is comprised of falsehood as well as facts. Wikileaks, founded by Julian Assange, fits this description perfectly, right down to the letter. Seemingly overnight, it has become one of the biggest ‘whistle-blowing’ agencies in modern history. In reality though, it is one of the biggest disinformation projects in modern history, and it may be the most dangerous because it is masquerading as an organization of truth. The information released by Wikileaks isn’t new; it isn’t groundbreaking; it doesn’t hurt the US as much as people think, it’s fractional really; and it is overloaded with as much as propaganda as the day-to-day Zionist media is. This propaganda is benefitting someone. And that someone is the illegal usurping entity of Israel. Even the Israeli government itself thinks so (1).
Afghanistan Drivel
The first major ‘leak’ released earlier this year by Assange was about occupied Afghanistan in the form of more than 92,000 documents. These docs included ‘secret files’ about civilian killings by the US and NATO along with boogeyman stories about the long-dead Osama Bin Laden, garbage regarding the Taliban acquiring ground-to-air missiles, and plenty of lies about Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI (2). There wasn’t a single document about the Israeli training of the Taliban (3), the massive drug profiteering by the Mossad (4), the CIA (5) and the US-puppet Hamid Karzai and his brother (6), Karzai’s connections to Unocal and Zionist war criminal Henry Kissinger (7), the clandestine Israeli business operations set up to take control of the oil fields in neighboring Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan (8), or the Russian-Jewish mafia, fully protected by the Zionist entity, selling guns to US-backed Afghan warlords (9). Why weren’t any of these massively important, critically damning events and operations mentioned? Because by doing so, it would incriminate the already internationally condemned Zionist regime. Journalists, bloggers and activists, from occupied Afghanistan and abroad, have been reporting on the vast civilian casualties in Afghanistan since US intervention began more than 30 years ago. Wikileaks revealed nothing that wasn’t already known; however, it did reinforce Zionist propaganda regarding the illegal ‘war on terror.’
Iraq Malarkey
The next major ‘leak’ by Assange’s organization, which has gained more notoriety than the previous ‘leak,’ was about occupied Iraq in the form of nearly 400,000 documents. Like the occupied Afghanistan disinformation, it included ‘secret files’ about mass civilian killings by US forces, torture by war criminal Nouri al-Maliki and his forces (which according to Wikileaks, US military officials attempted to halt) (10), US government failings in reprimanding Blackwater (XE) for committing murder (11), and brutal executions by the American and British occupiers mixed with more tripe about fictitious Al-Qaeda, nonsense about Iran training militant Iraqi militias and Iranian drones flying over Iraq (12), Iran smuggling guns, munitions, and explosives into Iraq (13), ridiculous accusations of the Lebanese Resistance movement Hezbollah training Iraqis in the art of kidnaping (14), slanderous attacks on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and other absurd assertions about the Islamic Republic involved in the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Wikileaks Iraq war logs also ‘reveal’ civilian casualties numbered at 66,081 (15). The logs also ‘reveal’ that Iraqi WMDs actually did exist, as US soldiers found chemical weapons labs, terrorist toxin specialists, and chemical weapons caches (16).
There was nothing ‘secret’ about American and British forces murdering, torturing and raping innocents in occupied Iraq. Like Afghanistan, Iraqi and international journalists, bloggers, and activists have been reporting the murder of civilians in Iraq since the beginning of the illegal occupation, with much more effectiveness than Wikileaks. The US military didn’t attempt to halt the puppet al-Maliki’s torture of unlawfully imprisoned Iraqis, they partook in it. They led the way after they signed off on it. They were the primary perpetrators (17). Secret prisons are still operating at this very moment where US forces barbarously torture innocent Iraqis (18). The US hired Blackwater’s contractors to instill fear and execute terrorism against the people of Iraq, of course it didn’t reprimand them. Erik Prince’s private army of terror was only doing what it was told to by the US government.
Read more...
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Remember Remember the 5th of November – Guy Fawkes day and Poker Face gig @ Lupos in Allentown
Friday NOVEMBER 5th (Guy Fawkes Day think the movie V)
we will be gigging at one of our favorite local clubs in Allentown - LUPOs Beef and Ale - 2149 Reading Road, (off of 22nd & Hamilton)
Allentown, PA
if you have a FaceBook account, you can see the ADD for the gig here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150278783665472&set=a.414224660471.369838.343225245471
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=145475088830876&ref=mf
-share it please
Gig starts at 9pm with a very special guests;
Antonio Andrade - http://www.lifeshakes.com
Kinetic Blu
Poker Face
and our very good friends HATE TANK
here is a video ad for the gig:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p6o7gvrYRM
GIG:Saturday Afternoon November 20th we will be participating in the
End the Fed rally in Philadelphia. For those of you not in the loop, all the End the Fed rallies have been labeled by the establishment as being anti-blah blah as well, which they are not. So come out and support their efforts to abolish the private banking corporation called THE FEDERAL RESERVE. It is neither Federal or has ANY reserves.
I believe fellow protest rocker Jordan Page will also be joining us for this protest gig in Philly.
More details to follow as the day gets closer.
GIG:Saturday EVENING November 20th
For those of our fans that have kids, and can never get out the door to see us, well kiddies... we have an all ages show scheduled later that night in Allentown.
Kinetic Blu and HATE TANK will also be on this bill
Again more details to follow, just mark it down on your calenders for now
Written Interviews:
Here are a couple of previous written interviews we have done in the past that I thought would be a good read..
Let the Chips Fall
A Discussion Paul Topete from Poker Face
http://www.upsidebackwards.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=8314
MayfairMall Interview 2006
http://www.themayfairmallzine.com/inter3/pokerface06.html
FAN SUPPORT
Also we have had some great support from a fan we call DOC from NW OR
He made two fan pages for us on both Youtube and MySpace...
as well as a couple of videos to support us as well.
If you have accounts with both sites, please sign up for them as well;
PokerFace Fan Club on Myspace
http://www.myspace.com/553940549
PokerFace Fan Club on You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/user/POKERFACEFANCLUB
PokerFace Fan video supporting all of our discs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhKJwTy3BaU
Another friend/fan DOC from the Watchman put this little piece together for us. He is now proudly using our song THE WATCHMAN as the intro to his song.. Thanks DOC from the Watchman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyAdwN5x0zo
we will be gigging at one of our favorite local clubs in Allentown - LUPOs Beef and Ale - 2149 Reading Road, (off of 22nd & Hamilton)
Allentown, PA
if you have a FaceBook account, you can see the ADD for the gig here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150278783665472&set=a.414224660471.369838.343225245471
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=145475088830876&ref=mf
-share it please
Gig starts at 9pm with a very special guests;
Antonio Andrade - http://www.lifeshakes.com
Kinetic Blu
Poker Face
and our very good friends HATE TANK
here is a video ad for the gig:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p6o7gvrYRM
GIG:Saturday Afternoon November 20th we will be participating in the
End the Fed rally in Philadelphia. For those of you not in the loop, all the End the Fed rallies have been labeled by the establishment as being anti-blah blah as well, which they are not. So come out and support their efforts to abolish the private banking corporation called THE FEDERAL RESERVE. It is neither Federal or has ANY reserves.
I believe fellow protest rocker Jordan Page will also be joining us for this protest gig in Philly.
More details to follow as the day gets closer.
GIG:Saturday EVENING November 20th
For those of our fans that have kids, and can never get out the door to see us, well kiddies... we have an all ages show scheduled later that night in Allentown.
Kinetic Blu and HATE TANK will also be on this bill
Again more details to follow, just mark it down on your calenders for now
Written Interviews:
Here are a couple of previous written interviews we have done in the past that I thought would be a good read..
Let the Chips Fall
A Discussion Paul Topete from Poker Face
http://www.upsidebackwards.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=8314
MayfairMall Interview 2006
http://www.themayfairmallzine.com/inter3/pokerface06.html
FAN SUPPORT
Also we have had some great support from a fan we call DOC from NW OR
He made two fan pages for us on both Youtube and MySpace...
as well as a couple of videos to support us as well.
If you have accounts with both sites, please sign up for them as well;
PokerFace Fan Club on Myspace
http://www.myspace.com/553940549
PokerFace Fan Club on You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/user/POKERFACEFANCLUB
PokerFace Fan video supporting all of our discs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhKJwTy3BaU
Another friend/fan DOC from the Watchman put this little piece together for us. He is now proudly using our song THE WATCHMAN as the intro to his song.. Thanks DOC from the Watchman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyAdwN5x0zo
Monday, November 1, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
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