Far from ‘shutting down the CIA’s secret prison network’, Obama’s executive orders actually give the CIA authority to carry out renditions, abductions and transfers of prisoners in secret without the threat of legal obstruction. As the Los Angeles Times disclosed, ‘current and former intelligence officials said the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role’. A semantic sleight of hand is that ‘long term prisons’ are changed to ‘short term prisons’; and while Americans are now banned from directly torturing people, foreigners working for the US are not. This means that America’s numerous ‘covert actions’ will operate as they did under previous presidents, with proxy regimes, such as Augusto Pinochet’s in Chile, doing the dirtiest work.
Bush’s open support for torture, and Donald Rumsfeld’s extraordinary personal overseeing of certain torture techniques, upset many in America’s ‘secret army’ of subversive military and intelligence operators as it exposed how the system worked. Obama’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, has said the Army Field Manual may include new forms of ‘harsh interrogation’, which will be kept secret.
Obama has chosen not to stop any of this. Neither do his ballyhooed executive orders put an end to Bush’s assault on constitutional and international law. He has retained Bush’s ‘right’ to imprison anyone, without trial or charges. No ‘ghost prisoners’ are being released or are due to be tried before a civilian court. His nominee for attorney-general, Eric Holder, has endorsed an extension of Bush’s totalitarian USA Patriot Act, which allows federal agents to demand Americans’ library and bookshop records. The man of ‘change’, is changing little. That ought to be front page news from Washington. John Pilger, article New Statesman, ‘The Politics of Bollocks’; viz also website
More terrorists are given training and sanctuary in the United States than anywhere on earth. They include mass murderers, torturers, former and future tyrants and assorted international criminals. This is virtually unknown to the American public, thanks to the freest media on earth. John Pilger
People starve to death for a number of reasons; the least understood reason is the denial of food for motives of politics and profit. John Pilger, Zap! The Weapon is Food For Dictators, 1976
One of the weapons that brought down the democratically elected Allende government in Chile was food. On Dr Kissinger’s orders most American food aid to Chile was cut off, and hunger and disorder followed, leading to a military takeover which brought Chile back into the American fold. And of course once the generals and admirals were in power, Chile got its food back. ibid.
Up to 1974 the US government had paid American farmers $3 billion not to plant millions of acres of cereal crops. This kept the world price inflated. And as a result the food that was available was beyond the reach of those countries on the Zap List like Chile, and countries like Bangladesh that were considered strategically expendable and had no reserves of hard currency. ‘Hunger,’ said President Harry Truman, ‘is fostered not by scarcity but by greed.’ ibid.
At the end of the Second World War in 1945 America emerged as a global superpower. But the ensuing Cold War then presented the US with a very new crisis. Ultimate Guide to the Presidents: Hail to the Chief 1945-1964, History 2013
It was the scoop of the century. These were cables that showed a superpower’s secret thoughts. A quarter of a million US diplomatic messages apparently stolen by one of their own soldiers. Richard Bilton, Wikileaks: The Secret Life of a Superpower I, BBC 2012
Bradley Manning ... had access to a world of secrets. ibid.
The cables show a real tension in US diplomacy. ibid.
Failed efforts to spread democracy and cosy alliances with dictators are recurring themes in the cables. ibid.
The cables reveal a kind of moral ambivalence in US diplomacy. ibid.
When key American interests are at stake justice counts for very little. ibid.
Because of the Wikileaks’ reports we can all read their private thoughts. Richard Bilton, Wikileaks: The Secret Life of a Superpower II
It’s the detail that’s extraordinary. ibid.
Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, over half a million leaked documents. Tonight the whole story: Wikisecrets. Frontline: Wikisecrets, PBS 2011
Video of massacre: Assange edited the material into a short presentation with a provocative title: Collateral Murder Baghdad 12th of July 2007. ibid.
Manning had become an analyst at a time of increased intelligence sharing. ibid.
Was Assange a passive recipient or was he more involved? ibid.
In the weeks before Manning was arrested, Julian Assange was on the road promoting Wikileaks. ibid.
The release exposed candid, often embarrassing assessments. ibid.
The courage we need is not the courage, the fortitude, to be obedient in the service of an unjust war, to help conceal lies, to do our job by a boss who has usurped power and is acting as an outlaw government, it is the courage at last to face honestly the truth and reality of what we are doing in the world, and act responsibly to change it. Daniel Ellsberg
Gambon: The Americans are meant to be our allies.
Nighy: I’ve never suffered from that delusion. Page Eight 2011 starring Bill Nighy & Rachel Weisz & Holly Aird & Ewen Bremner & Judy Davis & Tom Hughes & Felicity Jones & Marthe Keller & Alice Krige & Saskia Reeves & Michael Gambon & Ralph Fiennes et al, director David Hare
The CIA brought hundreds of Hitler’s ex-Intelligence officers back to the USA after the War. At secret bases they were retrained as CIA spies, then sent back to Germany to spy on the Russians. Secrets of the CIA
In 1953 in fact the CIA secretly sponsored its first full-scale coup in Iran, and as a result the USA kept control of one of the largest oil producers in the world. ibid.
In 1951 Prime Minister Mosaddegh became Iran’s first democratically elected leader. His first act in power was to nationalise Iran’s oil industry, and his second was to begin talks with Iran’s Soviet neighbour. ibid.
In February 1979 the Iranian people staged the first ever Islamic revolution, which not only changed the face of Iran but changed the face of the entire Middle East. And the CIA had no idea that any of this was going to happen. ibid.
The CIA’s actions in Cuba were designed to spark a popular revolution against Fidel who had come to power via a revolution himself – a revolution against American power in Cuba. ibid.
The CIA’s first enemy was to be the red menace from Russia. ibid.
The CIA became convinced that the Russians had a new and powerful secret weapon. The CIA believed that the Russians knew how to control people’s mind. The CIA turned to its scientists and asked them to find a drug which could be used to control people’s minds. And in 1958 the CIA started a secret drug-testing program under the catchy but meaningless name of M K Ultra. ibid.
By 1970 the CIA had perfected the art of overthrowing democratically elected leaders: Iran, Congo and Indonesia had already fallen victim to CIA plots to depose and replace their prime ministers. ibid.
Indonesia was strategically important. It had a huge population. And the CIA believed their prime minister, Sukarno, was going to open up the country to communism. The CIA made a bizarre decision. They tried to blacken prime-minister Sukarno’s name by making the world’s first celebrity porn film. They hired a Sukarno lookalike and filmed him enjoying the company of a young lady who wasn’t his wife. But the CIA failed to realise that Sukarno was already a famed womaniser, and this movie had no impact at all on his popularity. So when this amusing attempt to get rid of him failed, the CIA turned to something a lot less funny – black operations. ibid.
Sukarno was driven from power. After the coup the CIA worked together with the generals to ensure every single communist in Indonesia was killed. ibid.
On February 24th 1994 Aldrich Ames a CIA Soviet expert who’d worked at the CIA for nearly thirty years, was arrested with a suitcase stuffed full with cash and a plane ticket to Russia in his pocket. ibid.
In 1980 Ronald Reagan sent the CIA into Afghanistan. Their secret mission was to fund, train and arm the Mujahideen, a band of Islamic Afghani fighters. They were at war with the Soviet-backed People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The CIA was told to crush the Soviet force by any means possible. ibid.
Laos had enormous strategic importance in the fight for Vietnam. The Vietnamese communists from the north had been using a secret trail which ran through Laos to direct troops, weapons and supplies to fight the US troops in the south of Vietnam. The Americans couldn’t invade Laos, so the CIA was called in and ordered to take care of the problem. ibid.
A huge quantity of the heroin produced by the tribesmen was delivered straight into the hands of the American GIs stationed in Vietnam. ibid.
What if American people learn the truth that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security? That it never changes from one administration to the next? What if war and preparation for war is a racket serving the special interests? What if President Obama is completely wrong about Afghanistan? ... What if diplomacy is found superior to bombs and bribes in protecting America? Ron Paul, address 12th February 2009
The USA has bombed 50 countries since the end of the Second World War. Chris Everard, Illuminati I