The US contracts out its regime change operation in Nicaragua
By John Perry | COHA | August 4, 2020
Masaya, Nicaragua – An extraordinary leaked document gives a glimpse of the breadth and complexity of the US government’s plan to interfere in Nicaragua’s internal affairs up to and after its presidential election in 2021.
The plan,[1] a 14-page extract from a much longer document, dates from March-April this year and sets the terms for a contract to be awarded by USAID (a “Request for Task Order Proposal”). It was revealed by reporter William Grigsby from Nicaragua’s independent Radio La Primerisima[2] and describes the task of creating what the document calls “the environment for Nicaragua’s transition to democracy.” The aim is to achieve “an orderly transition” from the current government of Daniel Ortega to “a government committed to the rule of law, civil liberties, and a free civil society.” The contractor will work with the “democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG) sub-sectors” which in reality is an agglomeration of NGOs, think tanks, media organizations and so-called human rights bodies that depend on US funding and which – while claiming to be independent – are in practice an integral part of the opposition to the Ortega government.
To justify such blatant interference, a considerable rewriting of history is needed. For example, the document claims that the ruling Sandinista party manipulated “successive” past elections so as to win “without a majority of the votes.” Then after “manipulating the 2016 presidential elections” to similar effect, it was warned by the Organization of American States (OAS) that there had been various “impediments to free and fair elections” as a result of which the OAS requested “technical electoral reforms.” What the document omits, however, are the overall conclusions of the OAS on the last elections. Although it identified “weaknesses typical of all electoral processes,” the OAS explicitly said that these had “not affected substantially the popular will expressed through the vote.” In other words, the nature of Daniel Ortega’s victory (he gained 72% of the popular vote) made any minor irregularities irrelevant to the result: he won by an enormous margin. The leaked document makes clear that the US is worried that the same might happen again and aims to stop it.
Not surprisingly, the document also rewrites recent history, saying that the “uprising” in 2018 (which had strong US backing) was answered by “the government’s brutal repression” of demonstrations, while it ignores the wave of violence and destruction that the opposition itself unleashed. The economic disruption it caused is still damaging the country, even though (pre-pandemic) there were strong signs of recovery. USAID, however, has to paint a picture of a country in crisis “… broadening into an economic debacle with the potential to become a humanitarian emergency, depending on the impact of the COVID-19 contagion on Nicaragua’s weak healthcare system.” Someone casually reading the document, unaware of the real situation, might get the impression that, in Nicaragua’s “crisis environment,” regime change is not only desirable but urgently required. The reality – that Nicaragua is at peace, has so far coped with the COVID-19 pandemic reasonably well, and hasn’t suffered the severe economic problems experienced by its neighbors El Salvador and Honduras – is of course incompatible with the picture the US administration needs to present, in order to give some semblance of justification for its intervention.
A long history of US intervention
Given the long history of US interference in Nicaragua, going back at least as far as William Walker’s assault on its capital and usurption of the presidency in 1856, the existence of a plan of this kind is hardly surprising. What’s unusual is that someone has made it publicly available and we can now see the plan in detail. Of course, the US has long developed a tool box of regime change methods short of direct military intervention, such as when it sent in the marines in the 1920s and 1930s or illegally funded and provided logistical support for the “Contra” forces in the 1980s. It now has more sophisticated methods, using local proxies, which are deniable in the unlikely event that they will be exposed by the international media (which normally displays little interest, being much more interested in electoral interference by Russia than it is in Washington’s disruption of the democratic processes).
The latest escalation in intervention began under the Obama presidency and continued under Trump, although the motivation probably has more to do with the US administration’s ongoing concerns about the success of the Ortega government’s development model since it returned to power in 2007 and began a decade of renewed social investment. Oxfam summarized the problem in the memorable title it gave to a 1980s report about Nicaragua: The Threat of a Good Example. Between 2005 and 2016, poverty was reduced by almost half, from 48 percent to 25 percent according to World Bank data. Nicaragua had a low crime rate, limited drug-related violence, and community-based policing. Over the 11 years to 2017, Nicaragua’s per-capita GDP increased by 38 percent—more than for any of its neighbors. Its success contrasted sharply with the experience of the three “Northern Triangle” countries closely allied to the US. While Nicaragua became one of the safest countries in Latin America, neighboring Guatemala, El Salvador and particularly Honduras saw soaring crime levels, rampant corruption and rapid growth in the drug trade that prevented social progress and produced the “migrant caravans” that began to head north towards the US in 2017.
The US administration’s efforts in 2016 and 2017, building on long experience of manipulating Nicaraguan politics, appeared to produce results in April 2018. The first catalyst for action by US-funded groups was an out-of-control forest fire in a remote reserve, inaccessible by road.[3] The tactics were clear: take an incident with potential to get young people onto the streets, blame the government for inaction (even though the fire was almost impossible to control), whip up people’s anger via social media, organize protests, generate critical stories in the local press, enlist support from neighboring allies (in this case, Costa Rica) and secure hostile coverage in the international media. All of these tactics worked, but before the next stage could be reached (protesters being repressed by the Ortega “regime”) the forest fire was extinguished by a rainstorm.
A week later, the opposition forces were unexpectedly given a second opportunity. The government announced a package of modest social security reforms, and quickly faced new protests on the streets. The same tactics were deployed, this time with much greater success. Violence by protesters on April 19 (a police officer, a Sandinista supporter and a bystander were shot) brought inevitable attempts by the police to control the protests, leading to rapid escalation. Media messages proliferated about students being killed, many of them false. Only a few days later the government cancelled the social security reforms, but by now the protests had (as planned) moved on to demanding the government’s resignation. The full story of events in April-July 2018, and how the government eventually prevailed, is told in Live from Nicaragua: Uprising or Coup?
A section of the report
Laying the groundwork for insurrection
How were the conditions for a coup created? The aims of US government funding in Nicaragua and the tactics they paid for in this period were made surprisingly clear in the online magazine Global Americans in 2018, which is partly funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).[4] Arguing (in May 2018, at the height of the violence) that “Nicaragua is on the brink of a civic insurrection,” the author Ben Waddell, who was in Nicaragua at the time, pointed out that “US support has helped play a role in nurturing the current uprisings.”
His article’s title, Laying the groundwork for insurrection,[5] was starkly accurate in describing the ambitions behind the NED’s funding program, which had financed 54 projects in Nicaragua over the period 2014-17 and has continued to do so since then. What did the projects do? Like the recently leaked document, NED promotes ostensibly innocuous or even apparently beneficial activities like strengthening civil society, promoting democratic values, finding “a new generation of democratic youth leaders” and identifying “advocacy opportunities.” To get behind the jargon and clarify the NED’s role, Waddell quotes the New York Times (referring to the uprisings in Egypt, where NED had also been active):[6]
“… the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections.”
In the case of Nicaragua, the NED’s funding of groups opposed to the Sandinista government began in 1984, giving the lie to their aim being to “promote democracy” since that was the year in which Nicaragua’s revolutionary government held the country’s first-ever democratic elections. Waddell makes it clear that the NED’s efforts continued, years later:
“… it is now quite evident that the U.S. government actively helped build the political space and capacity in Nicaraguan society for the social uprising that is currently unfolding.”
The NED is not the only non-covert source of US funding. Another is USAID, which describes its role in the 2018 uprising in similar terms to the NED. Not long before he exposed the new document, William Grigsby was able to publish lists of groups and projects in Nicaragua funded by USAID and by the National Democratic Institute (NDI).[7] He showed that upwards of $30 million was being distributed to a wide range of groups opposed to the government and involved in the violence of 2018, and that in the case of the NDI at least this funding continued into 2020.
Last year, Yorlis Gabriela Luna recounted for COHA her own experiences of how US-funded groups trained young people, in particular, and influenced their political beliefs in the build-up to 2018.[8] She explained how social networks and media outlets were “capable of fooling a significant portion of Nicaragua’s youth and general population.” She explained how the groups used scholarships to learn English, diploma programs, graduate studies, and courses with enticing names like “democratic values, social media activism, human rights and accountability” at private universities, “to attract and lure young people.” She went on to explain how exciting events were organised in expensive hotels or even involving trips abroad, so that young people who had never before been privileged in these ways developed a sense of “pride,” belonging, and “group identity,” and as a result “wound up aligning themselves with the foreign interests” of those who funded the courses and activities.
The new task during and after the pandemic
Two years after the failed coup attempt, what are the organizations that receive US funding now supposed to do? The new document is full of jargon, requiring the contractor (for example) to engage in “targeted short-term technical and analytical activities during Nicaragua’s transition that require rapid response programming support until other funds, mechanisms, and actors can be mobilized.” The work also requires “longer-term programs, which will be determined as the crisis evolves.” Preparation is required for the possibility that “transition [to a new government] does not happen in an orderly and timely manner.” The contractor will have to prepare “a roster of subject matter experts in Nicaragua” to provide short term technical assistance, “regardless of the result of the 2021 election, even in the event of the Sandinistas ‘winning fairly’.” The document is full of requirements like being able to offer “a rapid response” and “seize new opportunities,” emphasizing the urgency of the task. In other words, a fresh attempt is underway to destabilize Daniel Ortega’s government and, in the event that this doesn’t work, and even should the Sandinistas win the next election fairly, as the document admits is a possibility, US attempts at regime change are stepping up a gear.
Who will carry this out? The document places much emphasis on “maintaining” and “strengthening” civil society and improving its leadership, which appears to refer to the numerous NGOs, think tanks and “human rights” bodies which receive US funding. At one point the document asks “what should donor coordination, the opposition, civil society, and media focus on?” – clearly implying that the contractor has a role in influencing not just these civil society groups but also the media and political parties.
Not surprisingly, the document has been interpreted as a new plan to destabilize the country. Writing in La Primerísima, Wiston López argues that the plan’s purpose is “to create the conditions for a coup d’état in Nicaragua.”[9] Brian Wilson, the VietNam veteran severely injured in the 1980s when attempting to stop a freight train carrying supplies to the “Contra,” and who lives in Nicaragua, concludes that the US now realizes that Ortega will win the coming election.[10] In response, the “US has launched a brazen, criminal and arrogant plan to overthrow Nicaragua’s government.”
Supposing that there is a clear Sandinista victory in 2021, will the US nevertheless refuse to accept the result? Having implied that the OAS had serious criticisms of the last election when this was not the case, the document implies that it will be pressured to take a different attitude next time, saying that “whether the OAS decides to pick up the pressure on electoral reform again will be an important international pressure point.” No doubt the US will try to insist that the OAS must be election observers, and if this is refused it will allow the legitimacy of the election to be called into question, if the result is unfavorable to US interests. Many question whether the OAS is even qualified to have an observer role any longer, however, after the serious harm it did to Bolivian democracy in 2019 by casting doubts on what experts considered a fair election and, in effect, instigating a coup.[11] This document creates legitimate concern that the US government would like to use the OAS to prevent another government that is not to its liking from winning an election, as it did so recently in Bolivia.
Not only must conditions be created to replace the current government, but once this is achieved the changes must extend to “rebuilding” the institutions of government, including the judicial system, police and armed forces. After the widespread persecution of government officials, state and municipal workers and Sandinista supporters that occurred in 2018, it is not surprising that this is interpreted as requiring a purge of all the institutions and personnel with Sandinista sympathies. As Wilson says, “the new government must immediately submit to the policies and guidelines established by the United States, including persecution of Sandinistas, dissolving the National Police and the Army, among other institutions.”
USAID makes it clear that it is internal pressure in Nicaragua that might eventually provoke a coup d’état, so it calls on its agents to deepen the political, economic and also the health crisis, taking into account the context of COVID-19. The US State Department recently awarded an extra $750,000 to Nicaraguan non-government bodies as part of its global response to COVID-19, and this includes “support for targeted communication and community engagement activities.”[12] As López points out in Popular Resistance, “Since March the US-directed opposition has focused 95% of their actions on attempting to discredit Nicaragua’s prevention, contention, and Covid treatment. However, this only had some success in the international media and is now backfiring since Nicaragua is the country with one of the lowest mortality rates in the continent.”[13] The Johns Hopkins University’s world map of coronavirus cases currently shows Nicaragua with 3,672 cases compared with 17,448 in El Salvador, 42,685 in Honduras and 51,306 in Guatemala.[14] Even though higher figures produced by Nicaragua’s so-called Citizens’ Observatory[15] are regularly cited in the international media, they currently show just 9,044 “suspected” cases, still far below the numbers in the “Northern triangle” countries.
What will the opposition do next?
COHA has already documented the disinformation campaign taking place against Nicaragua during the pandemic and how this has been repeated in the international media. So far, however, warnings of the health system’s collapse have proved to be unfounded.[16] If, as happened with the Indio Maíz fire and the social security protests in 2018, the opposition fails in its attempt to use the pandemic to destabilize the Ortega government, what will it do next? A recent incident shows that attempts to seize on events to spur a crisis will continue. On July 31, a fire occurred in Managua’s cathedral. The fire department responded quickly and put out the blaze within ten minutes, but a crucifix and the chapel where it stood were badly damaged. Within minutes opposition newspaper La Prensa reported that “an attack” had occurred involving a “Molotov cocktail” and that the government or its supporters were implicated.[17] This was echoed by other local and international media, opposition parties, the Archbishop of Managua, and by one of the NGOs which received USAID funding.[18] Despite the lack of any evidence to back up the media stories, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCR) also condemned the incident, obviously implying that it was an attack on human rights.[19]
Yet a police investigation quickly established that there was no evidence at all of any foul play, or that petrol or explosive materials were involved.[20] Their investigations pointed instead to a tragic accident involving lighted candles and the alcohol spray being used as a disinfectant as part of the cathedral’s anti-COVID-19 precautions. The Catholic Church has already announced that the damaged chapel will be restored to its former state. However, the damage that has been done to the government’s national and international reputation, and to its highly politicized relationship with the Catholic Church, will be more difficult to repair.
John Perry is a writer based in Nicaragua.
End notes
[1] Downloadable in English (pdf) at https://s3.amazonaws.com/rlp680/files/uploads/2020/07/31/aid-mayo-2020-ingles.pdf
[2] “EEUU lanza descarado plan intervencionista para tumbar al FSLN”, https://www.radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias/general/287264/eeuu-lanza-descarado-plan-intervencionista-A histotrypara-tumbar-al-fsln/
[3] “International Forces ‘Distorting’ Nicaragua’s Indio Maíz Fire,” https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/International-Forces-Distorting-Nicaraguas-Indio-Maiz-Fire-20180414-0019.html
[4] See details at https://www.ned.org/wp-content/themes/ned/search/grant-search.php (NED is nominally independent of the US administration, but is funded by Congress.)
[5] “Laying the groundwork for insurrection: A closer look at the U.S. role in Nicaragua’s social unrest,” https://theglobalamericans.org/2018/05/laying-groundwork-insurrection-closer-look-u-s-role-nicaraguas-social-unrest/
[6] “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html
[7] “Asi financia EEUU a los terroristas,” http://www.radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias/general/286068/asi-financia-eeuu-a-los-terroristas/
[8] “The Other Nicaragua, Empire and Resistance,” https://www.coha.org/the-other-nicaragua-empire-and-resistance/
[9] “EEUU lanza descarado plan intervencionista para tumbar al FSLN,” http://www.radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias/general/287264/eeuu-lanza-descarado-plan-intervencionista-para-tumbar-al-fsln/
[10] “NIcaragua targeted for US overthrow in 2020-21,” https://popularresistance.org/nicaragua-targeted-for-us-overthrow-in-2020-21/
[11] “Bolivia’s Struggle to Restore Democracy after OAS Instigated Coup,” https://www.coha.org/bolivias-struggle-to-restore-democracy-after-oas-instigated-coup/
[12] See https://www.state.gov/update-the-united-states-continues-to-lead-the-global-response-to-covid-19/
[13] “US Launches Brazen Interventionist Plan to Overthrow the FSLN,” https://popularresistance.org/us-launches-brazen-interventionist-plan-to-overthrow-the-fsln/
[14] See https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
[15] See https://observatorioni.org/
[16] “Experts Warn about Possible Health System Collapse in Nicaragua,” https://www.voanews.com/episode/experts-warn-about-possible-health-system-collapse-nicaragua-4320606
[17] See https://www.laprensa.com.ni/2020/07/31/nacionales/2702954-lanzan-bomba-molotov-adentro-de-la-capilla-de-la-catedral
[18] See for example https://confidencial.com.ni/atentado-con-bomba-molotov-en-la-catedral-de-managua/ and https://elpais.com/internacional/2020-07-31/un-atentado-con-bomba-molotov-incendia-la-capilla-de-la-catedral-metropolitana-de-managua.html
[19] See https://twitter.com/OACNUDH/status/1289574031159488514?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1289574031159488514%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.laprensa.com.ni%2F2020%2F08%2F01%2Fnacionales%2F2703388-organismos-de-derechos-humanos-condenan-ataque-a-la-catedral-de-managua
[20] “Esclarecimiento de incendio en Capilla de la Sangre de Cristo, Catedral de Managua”, https://www.el19digital.com/articulos/ver/titulo:105922-esclarecimiento-de-incendio-en-capilla-de-la-sangre-de-cristo-catedral-de-managua-presentacion
‘All the Evidence’ Suggests Guccifer 2.0 is Linked to CIA, Not Russia, NSA Whistleblower Says
© Photo : Bill Binney
Sputnik | August 13, 2020
The internet is not capable of accommodating the download speeds necessary to validate the claims by Guccifer 2.0, that they hacked documents from across the Atlantic, according to a former technical director at the National Security Agency.
Guccifer 2.0, the cyber personality which claimed to have hacked documents belonging to members of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, is likely to be a front for the CIA, according to analysis conducted by members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Bill Binney, a cryptogropher and former technical director at the US National Security Agency (NSA), blew the whistle on the agency’s mass surveillance programmes after serving with them for 30 years. Mr Binney explains to Sputnik that despite Guccifer 2.0 claiming to have hacked documents which the cyber criminal later published, the download speeds necessary to have obtained the documents simply are not available across the World Wide Web.
Sputnik: What were the conclusions that you came to regarding a cyber personality known as Guccifer 2.0 and his claims that he had hacked a trove of documents?
Bill Binney: Guccifer 2.0, posted files from the 5th of July [2016], the 1st of September [2016] in batch mode. He also put files out in the 15th of June that had Russian fingerprints. So to go straight at those, we had some collaborating analysts looking in the UK, looking at the data also. And they came up with a match of five files out of the Guccifer 2.0 batch on the 15th of June, they found five of those files also posted by Wikileaks in the Podesta emails, the same files. Now, the difference is the Guccifer 2.0 posts had Russian fingerprints. You know, Cyrillic characters and things like that implanted in the file. The WikiLeaks files posted, of those same five emails, did not have Russian signature prints in it. So that told us that Guccifer 2.0 was inserting these Russian fingerprints. And we had some other fingerprint evidence of them using that.
Then, when we looked at the 5th of July 2016 and the September 2016 data that was posted by Guccifer 2.0, he would give a bio, we had extracted file names, number of characters and the timestamp at the end of the file. And he did the batch. So there was one file after the other. It was timestamped at the end of each file. So all we had to do was [assess the] difference in time between the files and see how many characters were passed and we calculate the transfer rate. And when we did that we got rates between 14 and 49.1 megabytes per second. That’s between 19 and 49.1 million characters per second. And we knew that the international web across the Atlantic to Europe, somewhere in Eastern Europe could not handle that kind of rate transfer.
Some people here thought we could. So we said, okay, we’ll try it. And we tried it from Albania, Serbia, Netherlands and the UK. The fastest we got with between two data centres, one in New Jersey and one in the United Kingdom in London. And that was 12 megabytes per second, which is slightly less than one fourth necessary capacity to transfer just the data, not counting overhead that goes with it and all of that… So all of that said to us, it was not there.
Sputnik: Was there anything else?
Bill Binney: There was another factor. We looked at the files again and if you ignored the date and the hour, the two [batches] shuffled together like a deck of cards. That is the times, [if you] looked only at a minutes, seconds and milliseconds, the data from the 1st of September merged into the time holes of the 5 July data. Which meant it was shuffling like one of cards. You have one file, he separated in two, then they had a range change on the date and the hour. You can’t do it on minutes and seconds because they keep changing. I mean, you’d have to go up there every minute and every second you got to know it’s not possible to do that, without extreme effort I’d say. What that said to us was this guy is fabricating the data, he’s playing with the data, he’s playing with us…
Vault 7
Then we went back and looked at the Vault 7 material (descriptions of CIA hacking tools published by WikiLeaks), which said that there’s a programme called Marble Framework, which [the CIA can use to] modify an attack and make it look like someone else did the attack, and the countries they had the capability to do that [to] were Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Arab countries. Also [Vault 7] said that the Marble Framework programme was [used] one time in 2016. Well, we think we found that one time. That one time came up and that fit very well with what was going on which we were finding out with the Guccifer 2.0 material. He was fabricating it. So that suggested us all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator Guccifer 2.0. And that Guccifer 2.0 was inside CIA.
Sputnik: Just to clarify, the documents Guccifer 2.0 was publishing weren’t what is known as the DNC leaks or DNC hacks that WikiLeaks published in three batches?
Bill Binney: [Yes]. [Gucifer 2.0] claimed to have hacked [the documents he published].
The Hammer
There’s another whistleblower that we’re working with also and they’ve talked to us about a programme called The Hammer. This programme was set up inside CIA by, according to the whistleblower, by [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper and [former CIA chief John] Brennan. And it was done so that they could spy on anybody they wanted to, without anybody in the intelligence community or the US government or any other government knowing they were doing it. The programme actually goes… back to 2003, I believe, with you when they first set it up. But [the whistleblower] also said that after that they had a secret operation inside CIA, by this group of people inside CIA looking at the Trump campaign and anybody else they wanted to sign on.
And it was done in that way, because, see, if you go into the NSA data and which the Five Eyes can do that as well, if you do that, anybody going in there, you’re tracked and recorded [when you use the surveillance system]. It’s wherever you go and what you do. And that’s based on the network logs. And also if you do an unmasking, you have to make a request and that’s recorded, who did it, what time, what the subject was and what the justification was and what person they were after. So, you know, all that stuff is recorded to go there. But if you set up your own separate one, nobody knows what you’re doing. And that’s exactly what this [whistleblower] is claiming. I’m pointing to that group as the group that was probably the originator of Guccifer 2.0 and also this fabrication of the entire story of Russiagate.
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
Trust the experts and take your pills, citizen! Meet the nerd who wants to force-feed you ‘morality pills’ to beat Covid
By Graham Dockery | RT | August 13, 2020
Swallowing mind-bending pills until you love your government and obey its orders might sound like science fiction. But there are scientists out there who want you to shut up and take your morality pills – by force if necessary.
People, or at least those with a spark of vitality and life in them, don’t like following orders. Months into the coronavirus pandemic, leaders have tried to enforce mandatory social distancing and mask wearing through a mixture of fines, snitching and public shaming. Still, some people refuse to toe the line, from lockdown protesters in the US to cheeky Brits sneaking off for an unlicensed picnic.
The scientific experts, however, have a solution for that. Take Parker Crutchfield, a professor of medical ethics. According to a recent op-ed, he thinks that the ‘ethical’ solution to this rule breaking is to drug the population into compliance, using psychoactive drugs to “induce those who are noncooperative to get on board with doing what’s best for the public good.”
That’s right. A top-of-his-field ethicist at Western Michigan University wants to drug you into cooperation. Should you refuse, he thinks the government should force this “morality booster” on everyone, either by military power, or by administering it in secret, “perhaps via the water supply.”
Crutchfield’s article was retweeted – and later deleted – by the prestigious Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. However, he isn’t the only labcoat who dreams of drugging the proletariat. Late last month, a group of Cambridge academics suggested adding lithium to drinking water to lower suicide rates and mood disorders. Just like Crutchfield, they see this tyranny as serving the greater good.
Strongmen and dictators are reliable bogeymen in the West. After all, the entire origin story of Western liberalism centers around the struggle of the free world against the fascist axis. However, the tyranny of the nerd more often than not goes unnoticed. In some ways, it’s more terrifying than the tyranny of the dictator. When the despot forces you to obey his diktats at gunpoint, the power dynamic is clear. He’s in control. When the bespectacled professor slips morality pills into your water, you won’t even know you’re being dominated.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve repeatedly heard the same refrains from our leaders. “Trust the experts,” they say. “Believe the science.” But scientists – who worship amoral empiricism above all else – see you as little more than a laboratory mouse, an imperfect specimen to be tweaked and molded until the desired result is achieved.
Perhaps that’s why these “experts” are so beloved by liberals. Jean- Jacques Rousseau considered man a “perfectible” creature, a view that would be refined in the 20th century by GWF Hegel, Karl Marx and Leo Strauss, and now underpins most left-wing thought. While religion saw man as trapped in a state of original sin, these leftists saw him as having boundless potential – if only the right scientific tools were used to shape him.
Changing behavior through science is the perfect method for modern liberalism to crush dissent. Doing so by force would invalidate its core tenet: it’s supposed respect for your human rights. Instead, its scientists dream up ways to silence malcontents quietly and peacefully.
Every now and then, an article like Crutchfield’s gives us a glimpse behind the mask.
Chemically rewiring the brains of the population seems far-fetched, but it’s a logical next step when one considers the social engineering projects foisted on the masses at present. From the endless tirades against masculinity, Christianity and the nuclear family one reads in liberal newspapers, to the bizarre push to convert the Western world to an insect-based diet, academics and their enablers in the media and government want to change your life – usually for the worse.
The latest racial conflagration tearing apart the USA has only served to give them a new angle of attack, with corporate bosses now subjecting white employees to mandatory brainwashing sessions in the name of stamping out their “whiteness.”
As easy as the transition to mass drugging would be, Crutchfield’s dream is unlikely to come true any time soon. The managers and bureaucrats who hold the levers of power lack the skill to pull off such a coup. However, remember that behind their university credentials and scientific clout lurk experts salivating at the prospect of turning you into a lab rat, and that the prototypical nerd can harbor a lust for power to rival even the most demented dictator.
Graham Dockery is an Irish journalist, commentator, and writer at RT. Previously based in Amsterdam, he wrote for DutchNews and a scatter of local and national newspapers.
‘No change’ of West Bank annexation plans after Israel-UAE deal, Netanyahu says
RT | August 13, 2020
Israel is still committed to annexing parts of the occupied West Bank, PM Benjamin Netanyahu said, after a peace deal with the UAE was reached. As part of the deal, Tel Aviv agreed to suspend the annexation.
The revelation was made by Netanyahu in a televised speech on Thursday.
“There is no change in my plans to apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, with full coordination with the US,” Netanyahu said, referring to parts of the West Bank region by their biblical names.
The remark came shortly after the peace deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel was unveiled. Among other things, it contains a provision that Tel Aviv agrees to ‘suspend’ its annexation plans.
Netanyahu did not give any timeframe for when exactly his land-grabbing plans will go through, but apparently sought to reassure his hardline supporters, disappointed by the sudden U-turn on the annexation issue.
The Israel-UAE deal was first announced by US President Donald Trump on Twitter earlier in the day. Trump called the agreement a “HUGE breakthrough” and labeled the whole deal a “historic” achievement.
Most of the Arab world does not officially recognize the Jewish state, but countries like Saudi Arabia have enjoyed quite cozy relations with Tel Aviv for years.
Prince Peter Kropotkin and the Murder of the Liberator Tsar
By Martin Sieff | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 11, 2020
Why did London host a convention of anarchists in July 1881 less than three months after they had murdered the Liberator Tsar of Russia?
The International Anarchist Congress of London, from July 14 to July 20, 1881 was highly unusual in many ways, though it has almost totally been forgotten by history, save as a curiosity.
It was the last such gathering to be held for more than a quarter of a century until the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in August 1907. During that time, there were four other unsuccessful attempts to call international congresses, in Geneva in 1882, in Paris in 1889, in Chicago in 1890 and once again in Paris in 1900.
Those interested in the procedural minutiae of the congress can easily enough find obscure academic articles discussing theoretical intellectual positions held and debated at the Congress.
But as far as I have been able to find, no historians have given any serious study to the possibility that the Congress may have been used to coordinate or plan any program of “Propaganda of the Deed” – the assassination of important political leaders across Europe and the Americas, which was central to the achievement of the anarcho-syndicalist movement’s goals.
Nor is there any discussion anywhere – save in terms of abstruse and apparently harmless political theory – of the role that former Prince Peter Kropotkin, the most consistently high-profile and charismatic leader of the anarchist movement played in the convention.
Most striking of all, there appears never to have been any serious investigation conducted as to why the British government permitted its capital London, to be the host of the conference that on the surface stood for the destruction of everything that the British Empire, its traditions and institutions held dear.
The decision to permit the 1881 congress to gather in London was particularly striking – and from the Russian government’s point of view outrageous – because it opened only four months almost to the day after Tsar Alexander II, the Great Liberator who freed 24 million serfs from slavery and supported Abraham Lincoln and the Union through the U.S. Civil War, was assassinated by a specially designed shrapnel grenade thrown by Ignacy Hryniewiecki on Sunday, March 13, 1881.
That hideous crime was planned and committed by the Narodnaya Volya, “The People’s Will” itself a strange, tiny, conspiratorial group shrouded in mystery and unanswered questions to this day.
The name of the group suggests – as it was meant to – a mass popular movement, But the Narodnaya Volya was no such thing. The best estimates of Russian and Western historians alike put it at no more than 200 members. Almost none of these were from peasant backgrounds. They were almost all from favored, prosperous, professional middle class families and in some cases even from aristocratic backgrounds.
Interestingly, the followers of the late Osama Bin Laden in the first generation of al-Qaeda that carried out the destruction of the World Trade Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001 exhibit an almost identical set of profiles, as former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Feisal bin Abdelaziz ibn Saud has pointed out.
The Narodnaya Volya was only founded in 1879. But it was totally crushed by 1884. Yet in the first two years of its existence, it operated with apparent impunity carrying out no less than eight attempts on the life of Tsar Alexander. No other tsar in Russian history including Alexander’s son and grandson after him was ever hunted so mercilessly and relentlessly by assassins.
The Narodnaya Volya never lacked for any of the financing it needed for its murderous schemes. The Russian internal security services, who proved extremely efficient and energetic in smashing the group after it carried out its bloody deed, seemed utterly helpless and inept against it until that point. This may in large part have been because the group was so tiny and so novel in its operational techniques.
Who led the Narodnaya Volya? Its documented leaders were Andrey Zhelyabov and Sofya Perovskaya. Perovskaya came from an aristocratic background but showed little capability beyond her own murderously intense fanaticism and strange obsession with murdering the tsar. Other members of the group when arrested openly commented on her merciless hatred for the ruler who had liberated the serfs.
But Perovskaya from 1872 was personally very closely associated with the then handsome, dashing and charismatic anarchist leader Prince Peter Kropotkin. It is likely they were lovers.
The carefully (British) constructed image of Kropotkin that endures to this day is a tubby, kindly, smiling old, bearded Father Christmas. In his youth, however, he was darkly satanically handsome and was obsessed with Goethe’s devil figure Mephistopheles in “Faust.”
For Perovskaya, Kropotkin would have been the dashing, aristocratic brilliant love of her life. For Kropotkin, the rather plain Perovskaya would have been a means to an end: The hunting and murder of the tsar.
Kropotkin came from one of the most aristocratic eminent families in Russia. He claimed descent from the House of Rurik, the original ruling family of Russia. He had actually been a personal page of Tsar Alexander II in his early years in power. He had been brutally bullied (or so he later claimed) when entering the Imperial corps of pages. For ever after, he maintained an intense personal hatred of the tsar, intensified by the years he spent as a prisoner for his subversive activities in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg starting in 1872. His escape was engineered by friends in 1876.
Kropotkin’s relationship with Perovskaya starting in 1872 in the Tchaikovsky (not the great musical composer) Circle is the key documented fact that links Kropotkin directly to the murder of the great tsar he so intensely personally hated. The group’s leader Nikolai Tchaikovsky, like Kropotkin found protection in Britain for most of his later life.
Kropotkin was a noted scientist in his day who contested Darwin and argued a version of evolution based on natural cooperation rather than natural selection. In fact it was superficial and crackpot but interestingly has recently been revived, along with his scientific reputation in British academic circles.
During the remainder of his own long life (he died in 1921 at the age of 79), Kropotkin was allowed to live in complete peace and security in Britain. Not coincidentally, Britain was the only major country in Europe not to suffer from the mysterious outbreak of assassinations that swept the continent and even the United States in the last quarter of the 19th century.
As Matthew Ehret has noted, the anarchist assassinations seemed to disproportionately target major leaders who rejected free trade and a global economic order dictated by British financial interests from the City of London. Its victims included U.S. presidents James Garfield (1881) and William McKinley (1901), French President Sadi Carnot (1894), Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Canovas (1897) and King Umberto I of Italy (1900).
In addition, in 1878 alone, anarchists attempted to kill Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany twice as well as the Kings of Spain and Italy. Kropotkin hailed all these efforts at “the Propaganda of the Deed.” Not coincidentally, all of these leaders, especially the old Kaiser, Bismarck’s patron and protector stood like Tsar Alexander II squarely opposed to British efforts at global financial domination.
Yet despite all these outrages – or more likely because of them – Kropotkin, the guiding figure of anarcho-syndicalism and the great champion of the murder of national leaders continued to enjoy a charmed life protected by the British Empire.
To this day, British historians and other writers have unanimously continued to swallow the approved line that Kropotkin was a kindly, brilliant, pacifist saint – belonging to the company of Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King rather than that of Sergei Nechayev and Dostoyevsky’s “Devils.”
The hyper-energetic, much loved and woefully idiotic American popular historian Barbara Tuchman spread this Disneyworld fairy tale image of Kropotkin in her enormously popular and influential history of the pre-World War I world “The Proud Tower” in 1966. Typically, she won the Pulitzer Prize twice for writing other histories that got their central facts and theses wrong.
A serious study of the role of Kropotkin and his “Anarchist International” in the assassinations of the late 19th century is well over 100 years overdue.
But even in that age of carefully selected and discriminating terror, the hunting and murder of the great liberator Tsar Alexander stands out for its relentless nature and obsessive cruelty.
That age of assassinations and the Anarchists Congress that the British so incongruously hosted in July 1881 is not just a matter of abstract curiosity about a long forgotten and irrelevant past. It offers disquieting parallels to the use of targeted assassinations and the methodical destabilization of great nations in the name of free trade, democracy and human rights that continues at a feverish pace in our own time.
As the great American novelist William Faulkner rightly wrote in “Requiem for a Nun,” “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
‘We Have Absolute Proof’ DNC Leaks Were Not Hacked, NSA Whistleblower Says
Sputnik – 12.08.2020
Because the National Security Agency is tapped into data transfer points throughout the United States, via its mass surveillance programmes, if there was any evidence that the DNC servers were hacked then they would have the evidence to prove it, a former technical director at the agency explains.
Documents published by WikiLeaks that belonged to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) could not have been hacked via the internet and must have been initially downloaded from within the US, according to an investigation by members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Bill Binney, a cryptogropher and former technical director at the US National Security Agency (NSA), blew the whistle on the agency’s mass surveillance programmes after serving with them for 30 years. Mr Binney detailed for Sputnik why the forensic evidence proves that key claims of Russiagate (regarding Russian officials hacking the DNC servers) are a “farce”.
© Photo : Bill Binney
Sputnik: A recent investigation by you and some of your colleagues at Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity determined that the Democratic National Committee documents published by WikiLeaks in 2016 could not have been hacked by actors outside the US and instead had to have been downloaded onto a USB or CD-ROM.
Bill Binney: Yes, that’s right. And we have forensic evidence to prove it.
Sputnik: Could you please break down, for the average layperson, exactly how you came to this conclusion?
Bill Binney: Well, we did it by looking at the published DNC emails by WikiLeaks. In other words, the original assertion was that the DNC data was hacked externally, from Russia or by the Russians in Europe or something, and then transferred to WikiLeaks to publish so they could influence the election.
We looked at the DNC emails that were documented by WikiLeaks on the web. And that came down in three groups. One came down on 23rd of May 2016 and the other 25th of May 2016 and then one on the 26th of August of 2016. All of those three batches of emails had last modified times ending in an even number and even second, rounding up to the second, not including milliseconds. So, that meant to us that that was the property of the FAT (file allocation table) format. It’s a programme that when you read data to a thumb drive or CD ROM, and the programme indexes stuff on the [CD] and the thumb drive, for example, it then also rounds off the last modified time to an even number. That tells us very simply that there is 35,813 emails, all with the same property FAT file formatting saying that hey this was read [ie downloaded] to a thumb drive or a CD ROM before WikiLeaks got it to publish. Which meant it was physically transported to WikiLeaks. So, for us, that meant it was not a hack. Period.
We also had [CEO of cyber security firm Crowdstrike] Shawn Henry give testimony, I think it was the 7th of January of 2017, the secret testimony that just came out, where he said ‘we had indications that the data was exfiltrated, but we didn’t see the data exfiltrated’. Well, the indications that it was [exfiltrated], is this a FAT file format, to my mind. I mean, Shawn Henry never said specifically why his people were saying that. So for us, the only thing he could be [basing] it on what was last modified time.
Sputnik: So, just to be clear, when information is downloaded onto a CD roam or thumb drive, you’re saying that there’s a particular process, which means that, the last modified time will be recorded in such a way onto those files that is different than if those files were hacked and taken from a server across international boundaries or across a very long distance.
Bill Binney: Right. And we had provided all this data to the courts. Also we’ve included the Podesta emails, which show how a hack could occur and what the last modified times looked like. And that’s a, that’s also published by WikiLeaks, I think on the 21st of September [2016], that’s the date for that, that they put it out there. And the modified times of those files… close to 10,000 of them I think, run through even and odd numbers and various times, including milliseconds, things of that nature. So all that stuff, all that data, we provided to several courts, and several sets of lawyers to introduce as evidence in court and we were prepared to testify to that in court.
Sputnik: And is it not possible for the last modified time to be changed somehow or modified itself?
Bill Binney: Sure, but I don’t know of a programme that does, other than FAT, I mean, keeping in mind, you’re talking about 35,813 files. If you want to change them, you can go in and do them individually one at a time. I don’t know of any other programme that does it automatically, which is what what’s happened here, because it’s just a straightforward consistency. Humans make errors. If they go in and do something like that, they’ll make errors somewhere in the files. We didn’t see any errors at all. So that’s a program doing [it].
Sputnik: How many people from VIPs would you say were involved in this investigation that you conducted?
Bill Binney: Probably about six and a couple of auxiliaries, as we call them, in the UK cooperating with us. And we had a couple other people from outside VIPS helping us because they were also interested in getting to it too. Also, people who retired from commercial companies, running fiber lines and things like that.
Sputnik: If you were still working at the NSA and you were tasked to investigate an alleged hack would you have additional technical resources if you worked for the government, then if you’re doing it independently?
Bill Binney: Yeah, absolutely. This is one of the reasons why I started in August of 2016 saying that this entire Russiagate story was a farce. And that basically came out by knowing the capacity of NSA. The capabilities of them being able to capture stuff on the web. I mean, [the NSA] have over almost a hundred tap points inside the United States, all loaded up with fiber optic lines… You know, it can take everything off those lines and capture it. [A]nd that was true across the US as well as all the external points exiting and entering where you exit and enter the US.
And you’ll notice that NSA never said they saw any of the data transferring anywhere on any line. And that’s because it didn’t, it went on a thumb drive, you know, that’s the difference. That was one of the main reasons I said that this was not a hack. Because if it was NSA would have it. Like they did when the Chinese hacked one of the places over here in the US about six years ago. The government said, the hack came from this building in Shanghai.
Sputnik: And is there any kind of a practical or legal consideration as to why the NSA can’t publish its findings regarding the DNC servers?
Bill Binney: Actually, there isn’t, if the president approves, I mean, he can declassify anything he wants.
Sputnik: So where do you go from here? Is there more to investigate in relation to this subject or is this the end of the matter for you?
Bill Binney: As far as I’m concerned, we have absolute proof that this whole thing […] Russiagate, is a fabrication. It was a fabrication of the FBI, CIA and the DOJ primarily, but also included the State Department and [Department for Homeland Security] and a number of other departments.
Sputnik: There are those that argue Julian Assange will have a fair trial in the US should he be extradited. What can you tell us about the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, where Mr Assange would be tried?
Bill Binney: That’s a court that’s pro CIA because it’s in that jurisdiction of CIA. This is why they picked that court because it’s pro CIA and whatever national security issues come up, they will always go with that national security. So, you have a prejudiced judge in a court to begin with.
Sputnik: Would there be a jury with 12 men and women?
Bill Binney: Pulled from the area and most of them work for the government. So, you know, you just look at it. I mean, that should be a disqualifier as a jury from my point of view. But also think of it this way: Julian Assange published data he was given. So has the New York Times, The Guardian, all the major publications, the Washington Post, they’ve all done that. So why aren’t they being charged also?
Sputnik: Well, the US government is claiming that the first amendment does not apply to foreign journalists.
Bill Binney: Well then why don’t they go after The Guardian ?
Sputnik: Maybe they’re next?
Bill Binney: [I]f you accept their premise – of the US government – that means that any journalist anywhere in the world, publishing any article that exposes crimes by the US government, the US government can charge them with conspiracy to violate national security. So, every reporter in the world is now liable based on that [premise].
This interview has been edited for concision and clarity
Media Falsely Claim Ethiopian Climate Crisis as Crop Yields Set Records
By H. Sterling Burnett | ClimateREALISM | August 10, 2020
Among the top Google News search results today for “climate change,” an article at Insider.com claims “food insecurity from climate change” is “pushing millions of people into cities.” In reality, Ethiopian crop yields are enjoying consistent, impressive gains, and are setting new records virtually every year. Also, Ethiopia’s rural population is growing, not shrinking, as higher crop yields support more farmers and more food production. The Insider.com article being promoted by Google is a perfect example of the dishonest claims made by proponents of the Climate Delusion.
The Insider.com article, titled “Climate change is pushing millions of people into cities like Addis Ababa. Here’s what rapid urbanization looks like in the Ethiopian capital,” asserts that World Health Organization predictions of a growing Ethiopian urban population prove that climate change is devastating crop production and driving people into cities. But that is faulty logic that defies objective reality. In reality, Ethiopia is benefiting from increasing food production and rapid economic growth in its cities. This economic growth is not forcing people away from the farms, but rather enticing many Ethiopians into cities with better paying jobs and the cultural and social attractions of urban life.
Data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), charted below, show remarkable growth in Ethiopian crop yields as the Earth continues its modest warming. Crop yields per acre are currently 80 percent higher than just a decade ago, and double what they were in the year 2000.
Moreover, the FAO reports that fully half the Ethiopian population was undernourished in the year 2000, while less than 20 percent of the population is undernourished today.
It is amazing that a “news” article at Insider.com can paint this spectacular crop growth and beneficial improvement in nutrition as “food insecurity from climate change.”
About the only thing that is true in the Insider.com article is that Ethiopia is experiencing dramatic urban population growth. However, it is a lie that the urban growth is being caused by climate change destabilizing food production and forcing people into cities. According to the FAO, Ethiopia’s urban areas have added 13 million people since the year 2000. However, Ethiopia’s rural areas have added 28 million people since the year 2000. Ethiopia’s urban and rural areas are gaining population – with rural areas experiencing the largest growth – as increasing crop yields sustain more population and bring more wealth to the nation’s people.
World Bank economic data illustrate this. Per the World Bank:
“Ethiopia’s economy experienced strong, broad-based growth averaging 9.9 percent a year from 2007/08 to 2017/18, compared to a regional average of 5.4%. … Industry, mainly construction, and services accounted for most of the growth. … Higher economic growth brought with it positive trends in poverty reduction in both urban and rural areas. The share of the population living below the national poverty line decreased from 30% in 2011 to 24% in 2016.”
In summary, Ethiopia is enjoying spectacular gains in crop yields that are supporting a rapidly growing population and dramatic growth in both urban and rural populations. The growth in Ethiopia’s urban population is clearly and inarguably a result of spectacular increases in food production and a wealthier population rather than mythical food insecurity. But the easily discernible and reassuring truth doesn’t promote climate alarmism. Therefore, the media lie and invent a false narrative.
Why Immunity for the CIA?
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | August 11, 2020
Amidst the controversy over the doctrine of qualified immunity for cops, no one is talking about the full immunity accorded to the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency within the national-security establishment that wields omnipotent power.
Among the most interesting lines in the new Amazon Prime series The Last Narc is what a CIA official says to DEA investigator Hector Berrellez, who was charged with leading the investigation into the kidnapping, torture, and murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The official tells Berrellez that the CIA is not a law-enforcement agency and, therefore, doesn’t have to comply with the Constitution. Its mission, he said, is to protect the United States. Therefore, the implication is that the Constitution cannot be permitted to serve as a barrier to that end.
That’s the way it’s been since the beginning. The CIA has had omnipotent power to do whatever it deems necessary to protect “national security.” That includes, of course, the power of assassination, a power that the CIA assumed practically since its inception. In fact, as early as 1952, the CIA was developing a formal assassination manual for its assassins.
The CIA also wields the power of torture, the power to record its torture sessions, and the power to destroy such recordings to prevent Congress or the public from listening to them or viewing them.
The CIA also wields the power to lie, at least if it’s in the interest of “national security.”
No one jacks with the CIA. Not the Justice Department, including every U.S. Attorney in the land. Not the Congress. Not the president. Not the military. Who is going to mess with an organization that wields the omnipotent power to destroy or kill people and is more than willing to exercise that power in the name of protecting “national security”?
The kidnapping, torture, and execution of Kiki Camarena
A good example of this phenomenon is found in The Last Narc, which I wrote about in a blog post last week.
In 1985, 37-year-old DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena was kidnapped on the streets of Guadalajara, Mexico, and brutally tortured for 36 hours before finally being executed.
It was commonly believed that the crime had been committed by the Guadalajara drug cartel, which was headed by Rafael Caro Quintana, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, and Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, all of whom are featured in Netflix’s series Narcos: Mexico. But Mexican officials steadfastly refused to extradite the three drug lords to the United States for trial.
The DEA assigned Berrellez to take charge of the investigation. Berrellez, who felt as comfortable operating in Mexico as he did in the United States, found three former members of the Jalisco State Police who were willing to talk. They came to the United States and told Berrellez that back in 1985, they had been working double jobs — as state policemen and also as bodyguards for Caro, Fonseca, and Gallardo.
Berrellez interviewed them separately to ensure the integrity of their statements. They each pointed toward complicity of high Mexican officials with the cartel in the distribution of drugs into the United States, which I don’t think would surprise anyone.
The three former cops and bodyguards told Berrellez that they were in the room while Camarena was being tortured. Each of them stated that there were several high Mexican officials present in the house in which Camarena was being tortured while he was being tortured.
The heroism of Hector Berrellez
But then Berrellez discovered something else. According to the three former Mexican state policemen, a man named Max Gomez, also known as Felix Rodriguez, was inside the torture room and taking an active role in the brutal interrogation of Camarena. Berrellez investigated and determined that Rodriguez was a “retired” CIA agent.
Among the principal questions that was being addressed to Camarena was the extent to which he had discovered, in the course of his investigation, the nexus between the drug cartel, the CIA, and the Mexican government in the drug trade.
It was later learned that the interrogation was being recorded, which is something that one would not expect drug lords to do but that one would expect a CIA agent to do.
At that point, Berrellez was in trouble. It’s one thing to conduct an investigation that leads to the Mexican government’s involvement in Camarena’s torture and murder. It’s another thing to conduct an investigation that leads to the U.S. government’s involvement in the torture and murder of a DEA agent who is also an American citizen.
As Berrellez states in The Last Narc, he was warned to back off and let sleeping dogs lie. He was warned that if he didn’t, his life would be in jeopardy. If he didn’t back off, U.S. officials even threatened to forcibly return him to Mexico to face criminal charges that the Mexican government had leveled against him.
But Berrellez refused to back off, and so U.S. officials removed him from the investigation. Even though he could have remained silent, he instead decided to go public with his findings and cooperated in the making of The Last Narc. He comes across as a heroic figure in the series.
For his part, Rodriguez denies that he was in the torture room or that he has had anything to do with Guadalajara cartel and with drug dealing. The problem, however, is that CIA agents will lie if they believe that it is in the interest of “national security.” And they all know that they have immunity when it comes to lying and anything else that touches on “national security.”
Full immunity for the CIA
Here you have a prima facie case of U.S. governmental involvement in the torture and assassination of a U.S citizen, one who was an agent of the DEA. The alleged purpose of the torture was to determine if Camarena had uncovered evidence of CIA complicity with the Guadalajara Cartel and the Mexican government in the drug trade. Three witnesses, all giving their testimony separately, identified Rodriquez as one of Camarena’s interrogators.
That’s clearly enough evidence to launch a formal investigation into the matter. Perhaps it’s worth mentioning that Camarena’s murder took place during Iran Contra, when U.S. officials were breaking the law to raise the money to give to the Nicaraguan contras.
Has any of this caused any U.S. Attorney or the U.S. Congress to launch an aggressive investigation into the matter?
Don’t make me laugh. This is the CIA we are talking about. No one investigates the CIA, which makes the U.S. government as crooked and corrupt as the Mexican government. If you want to get a good sense of how both governments operate, I highly recommend watching The Last Narc.
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics.
Horror in Beirut
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 11, 2020
The Establishment explanation for what occurred in Beirut’s port on August 5th is that the horrific series of explosions that killed hundreds, injured thousands and left hundreds of thousands homeless was a terrible accident that came about due to a multi-faceted failure by Lebanon’s corrupt and incompetent government. Or at least that is the prevalent narrative in the international media, but a more critical examination of what took place is a bit like peeling an onion only to discover that there are layers and layers of alternative possibilities that just might place the catastrophe in a broader context.
The story, which is generally being accepted, is that a Russian-leased but Moldovan flagged ship the Rhosus carrying nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate from Batumi in Georgia to Mozambique wound up unexpectedly in Beirut’s port in November 2013 due to a leak in the hull and mechanical problems. It was then impounded and blocked from exiting due to alleged general unseaworthiness as well as its inability to pay disputed debts and docking fees. The dangerous cargo was offloaded and stored in a Hanger number 12 in the port a year later. Ammonium nitrate can be used to make fertilizer but it also can also be used in explosives. The two ton “fertilizer bomb” used to destroy the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 killing 168 people was, for example, primarily ammonium nitrate.
The ship and cargo, which was supposedly destined for a Mozambican company that produced commercial explosives, was then de facto abandoned by its lessee and sat in the port with its Russian captain and three Ukrainian crewmen while the issue was being largely ignored by the Lebanese government. The crew were basically being held as hostages by the port authorities, unable to leave the ship and, it was claimed, frequently on the verge of starvation. They were eventually released and allowed to fly home in 2014 while the Rhosus itself, emptied of its cargo, reportedly sank in an unused corner of the port in 2018.
Both the crew and the port authorities were aware of how dangerous the offloaded cargo was, but the Lebanese government, which was having its own problems, did nothing to address the issue. Shafik Merhi, director of the Lebanese Customs Authority, wrote to government officials no less than six times between 2014 and 2017 requesting “urgent” steps be taken to secure the explosives, but he received no response.
The first explosion may have been started by a welder or even a smoker who somehow ignited fireworks or possibly even a storage site for munitions which then somehow caused the ammonium nitrate to explode. The second explosion has already been described as the largest ever that did not involve a nuclear weapon, though some have been suggesting that it did indeed involve an Israeli tactical nuke. If there is any residual radiation at the site surely that possibility will again be raised.
The blast devastated the port and the surrounding residential area and was felt as far as 120 miles away in Cyprus. Grain silos near the explosion were heavily damage, destroying an estimated 80% of the country’s grain supply at a time when there is already widespread hunger due to a deepening economic crisis that has produced many bankruptcies, a failure of health services and sharply declining standards of living. The problems have all been exacerbated by U.S. unilaterally imposed sanctions and Israeli meddling.
The narrative that the explosion had been a horrible accident was almost immediately widely accepted, but President Donald Trump was quick to describe it as an attack, saying “I’ve met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that . . . this was not some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event. They seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind.” However, the Defense Department subsequently refused to confirm Trump’s speculation and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper observed that “Most believe that it was an accident.”
Others also had some problems with the narrative. A cui bono? “who benefits” analysis inevitably suggests that Israel, which has been increasing its pressure both on Lebanon and particularly on Hezbollah recently, might well consider a totally wrecked Lebanese economy to be a gift insofar as that would increase political turmoil and could produce a reaction against Hezbollah. Israel is heavily involved in destabilizing neighboring Syria as well as Iran and has been specifically targeting Hezbollah as the connecting link in the frequently touted Shi’a “land bridge” extending from Iran to the Lebanese Mediterranean coast.
To be sure Israel has officially expressed shock and has denied any connection with the blast. It’s top government officials and Foreign Ministry have offered their condolences. It has even sought to send humanitarian aid to assist in the recovery, but, of course what governments say and do does not necessarily mean anything if there is a hidden agenda or policy. When governments say one thing and do another thing secretly, they frequently hide their actions, a practice which is described using the intelligence expression “plausible denial.”
Israel has not hesitated to attack Lebanon in the past, inflicting enormous damage on the country’s infrastructure and killing thousands of civilians during two major incursions and an actual occupation in 1982 and 2006. Over the past year, Israeli warplanes have flown repeatedly into Lebanese airspace to attack Syrian and alleged Iranian positions and has also staged ground attacks along the border. There has been considerable speculation that war between the two states is coming, particularly as it is widely believed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs a war as a distraction from the many scandals that he has been associated with.
Lebanese party of government Hezbollah, which is by invitation using its military wing to help Damascus, has become increasingly an Israeli target of choice as it is seen as an Iranian proxy. If indeed it was storing weapons at the port they might plausibly have been identified for destruction by Israel, but reliable sources in Lebanon insist that Hezbollah had no access to the area. Beyond that, at the end of July the Israeli defense minister specifically threatened to destroy Lebanese infrastructure. As the port of Beirut is the country key’s economic lifeline, it constitutes the primary infrastructure target.
Israel is known to have numerous intelligence agents operating in Lebanon, so it has the means to get into the port and set off an explosive intended either to ignite the ammonium nitrate or destroy Hezbollah weapons, if they actually exist. That would avoid having to send a bomber or a missile to do the job, though some have claimed that one video of the bombing shows an incoming missile.
Israel has long espoused the so-called Dahiya Doctrine, named after a suburb of Beirut that was devastated by the Israel Defense Forces in 1982-3. It endorses the employment of maximum lethal force against civilians and infrastructure to teach the “enemy” a lesson. It has been used in both Lebanon and more recently in Gaza with Operation Cast Lead and Operation Protective Edge.
Several observers of developments in the Middle East believe that Israel did in fact arrange for the explosion. Shortly after the blast a general in the Lebanese Army stated that the explosion had been caused by a tactical nuclear device intended to bring down the Lebanese government and ignite a civil war with Hezbollah. Indeed, aerial photography shows an enormous crater, at least several hundred yards across. American anti-Zionist Richard Silverstein also blamed Israel, writing on his Tikun Olam blog that “A confidential highly-informed Israeli source has told me that Israel caused the massive explosion at the Beirut port earlier today [when] Israel targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot at the port and planned to destroy it with an explosive device. Tragically, Israeli intelligence did not perform due diligence on their target… It is, of course, unconscionable that Israeli agents did not determine everything about their target including what was in its immediate vicinity. The tragedy Israel has wreaked is a war crime of immense magnitude.”
Silverstein clearly has a good high-level source in Israel but the information he obtains has sometimes been challenged. Some believe that he is being fed information that the Israeli government wishes to make public without having to admit to anything. If that is true in this case, the Israelis might want to be sending a message to the Lebanese and to Hezbollah, suggesting that the second explosion had not been intended and warning them against retaliation that would escalate the fighting. It would also warn Hezbollah that Israel is willing and able to strike anywhere in Lebanon and it might also turn ordinary Lebanese against Hezbollah because the suggestion would be that its actions had invited a devastating attack from Israel.
There have also been suggestions that something had to be done to the ammonium nitrate to make it explode like it did. Ammonium nitrate is not an explosive by itself, but serves as an oxidiser, drawing oxygen to a fire and making it rage faster and further. British security specialist Robert Emerson is speculating that the “…ammonium nitrate got something added to it accidentally, possibly oil or some other flammable compound. Ammonium nitrate smoke is more yellow, this is rather red. An investigation would ascertain if that is the case and where contamination took place.”
Other speculation is perhaps more sinister with a local journalist in Beirut claiming that security-agency sources revealed a routine check three months ago that discovered military-grade explosives together with tons of the chemical in Hanger 12 while a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer, Robert Baer, told CNN that certain aspects of the explosion “suggest the combustion of military-grade material along with the ammonium nitrate.”
One of the better-quality videos of the explosions would appear to show a first explosion that might consist of fireworks or munitions going off followed by the huge explosion of the ammonium nitrate, which would more-or-less support the emerging standard narrative. Beirut residents, who have been demonstrating against the government since the incident, seem mostly to believe that it was no more than an accident due to bureaucratic incompetence. But that does not rule out that it was an inside job carried out covertly by the Israelis to weaken Lebanon and its arch-foe Hezbollah. If recent history has anything to teach us it is that whatever actually happened, the cover-up will begin right away. Likely no one will be punished in Lebanon and no one will seriously look into a possible Israeli role. The real losers will be the people of Lebanon who have lost their lives and homes in a horrific incident that never should have occurred.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
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$1.5bn up in smoke: US THAAD missile stockpile dries up defending Israel against Iran
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | July 2, 2025
According to American media, defense news outlets, and independent analysts, the 12-day Israeli military aggression against Iran significantly depleted the US stockpile of THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) interceptor missiles.
Citing official sources, American magazine Newsweek reported on Friday that the US transferred a substantial portion of its advanced missile defense capabilities to support the Israeli regime, an effort with questionable results and a critical impact on US strategic reserves.
THAAD, developed by Lockheed Martin arms manufacturing company, is a key component of Israel’s multi-layered air defense architecture. It is designed to intercept medium-range ballistic missiles, including those launched from Iran and Yemen.
The US-made system is capable of targeting short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during their terminal phase, whether inside or outside Earth’s atmosphere.
THAAD uses a “hit-to-kill” method, relying on kinetic energy rather than explosive warheads to destroy incoming threats, intercepting at altitudes of up to 150 km and ranges between 150-200 km.
Operated exclusively by American personnel, the US military maintains eight THAAD batteries with an estimated 350–400 interceptors in total. The eighth battery was activated during the June 20 Israeli aggression against Iran and is capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles. … continue
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