Tag: cia

Eight Years of Corrosive Lies about Syria

We are told constantly that Donald Trump’s lies corrode the life of our Republic. Jacob Levy of the Niskanen Center invoked Hannah Arendt on the subject, and said that Trump uses lies the way authoritarians do, to demonstrate and expand their power, by “making his surrogates repeat the lies [he] compromised them; that tied them to him. And it degraded them, and made clear where power lay.” James Pfiffner of the Brookings Institute solemnly argued that Trump’s lies are different than past presidential fibs because Trump doesn’t try to equivocate, and that they thus “challenge the fundamental principles of the Enlightenment.”

I’m willing to give these arguments in the defense of truth-telling a great deal of time. The triviality of some presidential lies, they often tell us, is an aggravating factor. By lying trivially, and casually, the president demeans truth itself, which is suborned by power. All true, as far as it goes.

But, then I come across another story about Syria in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that the United States may leave 1,000 troops in that country after all. The president, if you’ll remember, announced a complete withdrawal of troops from Syria months ago. Then, weeks later the White House announced that a small force of 200 would stay behind. Now, the Journal was reporting that it would actually be 1,000. A few hours later the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff said the original plan remained unchanged.

I realized that I no longer knew what to believe.

Consider three assertions routinely made about Syria by pundits, politicians, and policymakers: 1) Syria shows the perils of U.S. non-intervention; 2) We’re only in Syria to fight ISIS; and 3) U.S. withdrawal from Syria would mean handing a victory to Vladimir Putin.

All of the above statements have become conventional wisdom. The same people sometimes repeat more than one of them. And yet they are entirely irreconcilable with one another.

If withdrawing from Syria means handing a victory to Vladimir Putin, then we are doing something other than fighting ISIS there, something that certainly can’t be described as “non-intervention.”

One fact I do know: The CIA began the U.S. mission in the Syrian Civil War years before ISIS came into being, and a full year before President Obama began talking up his red lines and proposing a congressional vote to authorize intervention in Syria.

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CIA Roasted Over Pride Month Post

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was roasted by social media users after it posted a Pride Month tribute on Twitter.

In a tweet Thursday, the CIA said Pride Month is a time to recognize the agency’s “rich history” of “LGBTQ+ officers” and their work.

“Pride Month is an occasion for all of us at the Agency to pay tribute to the rich history, community, and mission contributions of our LGBTQ+ officers,” the CIA tweeted.

The tweet prompted immediate ridicule from social media users. Some commenters asked whether the post was real, attempting to make sure it was not from a CIA parody account.

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CIA Head Took ‘Secret’ Trip to Beijing

CIA Director William Burns held “clandestine” meetings with Chinese intel agencies during an unannounced trip to Beijing last month, US officials told the Financial Times, suggesting the visit was intended to “stabilize” deteriorating relations with the People’s Republic.

Burns had no formal diplomatic engagements in China and “only met intelligence officials” for talks in May, FT reported on Friday, citing five unnamed sources familiar with the trip. Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, CBS and other agencies later confirmed the report, but offered few additional details.

“Last month, director Burns traveled to Beijing where he met with Chinese counterparts and emphasized the importance of maintaining open lines of communications in intelligence channels,” a US official said in a statement to FT and several other outlets.

The sources did not say what was discussed during the meetings, which mark the Joe Biden administration’s highest-level visit to China since outgoing State Department deputy Wendy Sherman traveled to Tianjin in 2021.

A career diplomat, Burns is seen as a “trusted interlocutor” by the PRC, according to former senior White House official Paul Haenle, who worked on China policy during his time in government. “They would welcome the opportunity to engage him quietly behind the scenes. They will see a quiet, discreet engagement with Burns as a perfect opportunity,” he told the Financial Times.

Burns’ trip took place around the same time that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with one of China’s top foreign policy officials, ex-Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The White House did not announce those talks beforehand, but later said the two sides had “candid, substantive, and constructive discussions on key issues,” including Taiwan. 

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Case against ex-CIA officer accused of abusing women may collapse because of how federal agents searched his phones

The prosecution’s case against a former CIA officer accused of sexually abusing more than 20 incapacitated women in Mexico City is at risk of collapsing because the Justice and State departments may have botched the execution of a warrant to seize the officer’s iPhones, court records show.

A federal judge is set to hear arguments Thursday about whether nearly 600 photos of the defendant allegedly abusing incapacitated women should be thrown out, in a dispute that could make new law on the question of what constitutes an improper search in the digital age.

The former CIA officer, Brian Jeffrey Raymond, has been held without bail in a Washington, D.C., jail for nearly three years. He made a deal to plead guilty to two counts of sexual abuse in July 2021, admitting in court to preying upon women he met in and outside the U.S. through dating sites even as he carried out his clandestine duties.

But the one-time spy withdrew his plea last year after members of his legal team realized there were significant problems with how the evidence in the case was obtained. In allowing Raymond to change his plea, the federal judge ruled that one of his former defense lawyers had been ineffective in noting major concerns about the manner in which investigators gained access to Raymond’s iPhones. The judge ruled that law enforcement agents may have violated Raymond’s rights under the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable search and seizure, and under the Fifth, which says a person can’t be forced to testify against himself.

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US to build regional CIA hub in Lebanon, report says

The US is working on building a new regional hub for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Lebanon, within a huge embassy complex with an area of 93,000 square meters on a 27-hectares (about 64 acres) site in the capital, Beirut, intelligence sources reported yesterday.

The complex, which is estimated to cost $1 billion, will also include an arts centre, a hospital, a swimming pool, residential towers and a data collection centre, according to the French Intelligence Online website.

The sources added that the US intelligence sees Lebanon as a safe and strategic location for the deployment of intelligence agents.

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CIA Officers Admit the Agency Ran Drug Trafficking Operations

In 1991, during the 1st Persian Gulf War, investigative journalist Douglas Valentine traveled to Thailand and interviewed a group of legendary CIA officers who had helped run the secret war in Laos and other clandestine operations in the Indochina Wars.

Among them was Anthony Poshepny (aka Tony Poe), the prototype for Colonel Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic 1979 film Apocalypse Now—a covert warrior who went off the deep end and established a secret jungle enclave where enemy body parts were displayed.[1]

Now 66, Poshepny lived at the time in a big, beautiful home in a fancy neighborhood in Udon Thani, Thailand, home of a major U.S. air base during the Indochina Wars used for carrying out secret bombing missions over Laos.

Poshepny owned a lumber and security consultant business and a sugar and tapioca farm; he was considered around town to be a friendly guy but a belligerent drunk.

Poshepny’s father had been a naval officer and he had become desensitized to violence serving with the Marines in the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II.

During a meeting with Poshepny, who suffered from diabetes and cirrhosis from years of heavy drinking, Valentine noticed that he was missing two middle fingers. Poshepny also liked to tell obscene jokes.

He told Valentine that he was proud of things he had done with political implications, notably his involvement in a failed CIA coup against Indonesian socialist leader Sukarno in 1958, where he and CIA officer “Pat” Landry supplied mutinous military forces in oil-rich Sumatra with M16s and thousands of rounds of ammunition. “It was an adventure,” Poshepny said.

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REVEALED: How America’s CIA Merged With Nazi Intelligence

“Honest and idealist….enjoys good food and wine.…unprejudiced mind…”

That’s how a 1952 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assessment described Nazi ideologue Emil Augsburg, an officer at the infamous Wannsee Institute, the SS think tank involved in planning the Final Solution. Augsburg’s SS unit performed “special duties,” a euphemism for exterminating Jews and other “undesirables” during the Second World War. Although he was wanted in Poland for war crimes, Augsburg managed to ingratiate himself with the U.S. CIA, which employed him in the late 1940s as an expert on Soviet affairs. Recently released CIA records indicate that Augsburg was among a rogue’s gallery of Nazi war criminals recruited by U.S. intelligence agencies shortly after Germany surrendered to the Allies. Pried loose by Congress, which passed the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act three years ago, a long-hidden trove of once-classified CIA documents confirms one of the worst-kept secrets of the cold war–the CIA’s use of an extensive Nazi spy network to wage a clandestine campaign against the Soviet Union.

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Regime Journalists Promote The ‘Right’ Conspiracy Theories To Be Successful

Independent investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald succinctly summarises how ‘regime media narratives’ are formed and disseminated, and that any journalist who questions the process ends up a target for destruction by the establishment.

During his “System Update” broadcast on Rumble, Greenwald noted how “Journalists who spread conspiracy theories that the CIA wants them to spread get promoted, and the journalists who question the conspiracy theories of the CIA get destroyed.”

“It’s not prohibited in American corporate journalism to spread false stories and conspiracy theories,” Greenwald asserted, adding “In fact, that’s the only way you can thrive in journalism.”

“The people who have lied the most, and who spread the most conspiracy theories, are the ones who have been promoted and enriched most within corporate journalism,” he further urged.

“The difference is, the way to advance in journalism is to tell lies and spread conspiracy theories on behalf of the CIA, and that advance the interests of the U.S. government. That is not only permitted. That is required to be promoted,” Greenwald emphasised.

He continued, “What you can’t do, the thing that [Seymour] Hersh did that got him expelled from journalism, is he spread what are called conspiracy theories that are against the narrative of the U.S. security state, that undermined U.S. foreign policy. That is the only thing that is prohibited. That’s what gets you kicked out of journalism.”

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AK-47 recovered from man trespassing at school who said he was headed to CIA: police

Fairfax County police recovered an AK-47 after a Florida man was found trespassing at the Dolley Madison Preschool in McLean on Tuesday.

Authorities said 32-year-old Eric Sandow told officers he was making his way to the CIA.

Sandow was detained and a search warrant was executed on his vehicle, police said. Two firearms were reportedly recovered from inside the car.

Sandow is charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property.

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Entertainment or propaganda? Washington’s insidious grip on the arts

AN EVIL dictator is on the brink of making a nuclear bomb at a secret facility carved deep inside the Zagros mountains. With no option, the American military deploys jets and, against all odds, destroys the factory — then flies home to the strains of [Highway to the] Danger Zone.

An evil dictator is on the brink of using a nuclear bomb. With no option, the American military deploys secret agents and, against all odds, triggers a democratic revolution by blowing up the dictator in his helicopter to the strains of Katy Perry’s Firework.

I‘ve just outlined the plots of Top Gun: Maverick starring Tom Cruise and The Interview starring Seth Rogan.

But it also describes real world aspirations — here towards Iran and North Korea — from top policymakers across Nato.

These parallels are no coincidence. Because each film was actually subject to script changes imposed by Washington. In the documentary Theaters of War, we show how the CIA and Defence Department have exercised editorial control over thousands of films and TV shows in exchange for lending equipment like helicopters to producers to use on screen.

Such films reflect and construct the paranoid fantasies of our imperial masters, most of them with direct script input: Iran taking Western hostages in Ben Affleck’s Argo; kindly marines unjustly slaughtered for handing out grain to hungry Africans in Black Hawk Down; US politicians too innocent to realise that arming Islamic terrorists will lead to 9/11 in the Julia Roberts hit Charlie Wilson’s War, and the Gerard Butler film Kandahar in which an evil dictator is on the brink of manufacturing a nuclear bomb at a secret facility carved deep inside a mountain. With no option and against all odds…

Is it any wonder that 30 per cent of Americans in a poll said they want to bomb Agrabah, the capital city in Disney’s Aladdin?

Is it any wonder that our politicians, as though clutching rosary beads, prefigure Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the word “illegal” with no sense of irony and “unprovoked” with no sense of history? When was the last thing you saw depicting Russia which didn’t have it crawling with tyrants? Red Dawn? Rambo; Air Force One; Hunter Killer; James Bond; Jack Ryan; 24; Homeland; Stranger Things…the 6 O’Clock News?

The US government has suppressed scripts — but on others it has overturned their original messages. In the Iron Man screenplay, Robert Downey Jr’s hero was opposed to his father’s arms business. After rewrites he became the ultimate evangelist for a bloodless industry: “Peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy.”

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