By Jo Nova
We need to understand the Machine
The way Mike Benz explains the world, crazy things seem to make sense, but it is at its core, a dark and deep corruption that for most us, has been operating for our whole lives. It is, though, depressingly easy to believe that people with virtually unaccountable power, even those who start with good intentions, end up at the gates of hell, discussing “heart attack guns”.
For the deep state, the dark art of influencing elections started on foreign governments, but once the CIA and State Department had honed the skills they needed, and broken every rule, what would stop them doing the same thing on domestic politics “to save democracy”? In a sense, it is as if a World War II no-holds-barred mentality has lived on to this day.
If what Mike Benz says is correct, there is no way that those who apparently influence elections all over the world will give up that power easily, especially in the most important election.
Mike Benz: Speedrunning The History Of The Intelligence State
Presented Hillsdale College, transcribed at RealClearPolitics
Something has gone very wrong — that intelligence, which is supposed to serve the state, has subsumed it.
The CIA was formed in 1947 and the first election they rigged was, allegedly in Italy in 1948. Just 12 days after that election a document was written called “The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare” by George Kennan. It was kept secret and declassified nearly 60 years later in 2005. In it, Kennan admits the government has been conducting political warfare and says they cannot leave “unmobilized our resources for covert political warfare.” They had begun three months ago “specific projects in the field” and now needed to create a covert political warfare operations directorate.
After World War II the CIA were afraid the communists were going to win in Italy. According to Benz, they spent the equivalent of $250 million US dollars (adjusted for inflation) to swing things in favor of their preferred candidate. They coopted, used, and exploited churches and charities. They beamed the US messages through Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe. They assessed that 60% of the voters would have chosen the communists if the CIA hadn’t intervened.
…they set up a vast spawn of Italian news networks to create a surround sound inside that country to broadcast U.S. propaganda and messaging. We funneled aid money through churches and charity fronts to mafia and union street muscle. We worked with Hollywood to project Greta Garbo films and others into the country.
The Voice of America and Radio free Europe were created specifically to be a tool of the CIA. Like a wartime propaganda unit but working in peacetime. The CIA battle in Italy was fundamentally dishonest. Benz claims they even went so far as to enlist the help of the mafia. They may have had noble aims, but they breached every principle the USA is supposed to stand on. It was called Political Warfare. As Benz describes it:
Miles Copeland, one of the founding members of the CIA, wrote in his own book that, “Had it not been for the mafia, the Communists would by now be in control of Italy.”
Once the CIA had tasted the fruit of election rigging, and gotten away with it, he claims they realized they needed a team in every country, just in case an inconvenient candidate looked like winning. Thus since World War II the US Empire has grown, not through conquering countries, but through “soft power”. The Italian election success lit a fire — but also crossed a line the US has not crossed since 1789.
We might wonder if Benz is exaggerating and these operatives are just running amok in Venezuela, Bolivia and Russia? Would they really be so bold as to operate in democratic Western Nations? But then, if they did start in Italy…
Today, he says, they use the exact same language and techniques to stop the rise of domestic populism on the Right.
…
The Spy agency became the Lie agency — they are paid to lie to you
Kennan, the creator of the original Political Warfare doctrine helped craft a memo NSC 10/2 that became a Presidential document that said sabotage, demolition, subversion, and propaganda was fine, as long as the government couldn’t be blamed for it. He later called it the greatest mistake he ever made:
You’ll see this memo here, NSC 10-2, and it’s right here on the State Department website, under state.gov. What I’m about to read here sanctioned U.S. intelligence to carry out a broad range of covert operations, including propaganda, economic warfare, demolition, subversion, and sabotage. It was sponsored by George Kennan. He pushed for this right after he wrote “The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare,” but he would later say it was the greatest mistake he ever made because of the monster it created.
What NSC 10-2 did was give the intelligence community — this burgeoning, newly created CIA — and what we now have, 17 intelligence agencies plus the ODNI, not just spy organizations but lie organizations. What I mean by that is because of the phrase used in NSC 10-2, I’m going to read it:
“All of these activities, which are normally illegal, can be carried out so long as they are planned and executed so that any U.S. government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons, and if uncovered, the U.S. government can plausibly deny any responsibility for them.”
This is from 1948: “All covert operations, including sabotage, demolition, and controlling the media, are now legal as long as they are planned and executed so that any U.S. government responsibility is not evident to unauthorized persons.”
So once the CIA was legally permitted to do “illegal” activities overseas, they had to lie about it to the outside world. And thus, as night follows day, then they also had to lie to the American people. After all, they could hardly tell the American people they were rigging elections in Italy without the rest of the world finding out. Thus do small lies beget bigger lies, and pretty soon everyone forgets they’re lying for Truth, Justice and the American Way.
The people involved knew this breach was a monster, but thought they could contain it with the Smith-Mundt Act:
Wisely the intel agencies were forbidden from using political warfare propaganda at home:
In 1948, when the founding fathers of the intelligence state were setting this all up, they were intensely aware of the monster they were creating. In 1948, Congress passed the Smith-Mundt Act, because, again, in 1948, as all of this was being established, the CIA was brand new, and NSC 10-2 had just come out. Congress said, “Okay, okay, listen, you guys are creating a monster here. We want to make sure that we don’t build this empire of lies and that Americans are not being inundated with this sprawl of information control that you are conducting around the world in order to conduct organized political warfare on all countries on planet Earth.”
That was until that safeguard was repealed by Barack Obama
Even though the cheating and lies had been going on since WWII, if you have the feeling the world became extra crazy in the last ten years, perhaps there’s a reason:
Many folks in this room are probably familiar with what happened during the Obama administration, which repealed this essential safeguard, which had been with us since the moment all of this was created in 1948, with very little fanfare. It was tucked into an NDAA. It was really only discovered by the public after the damage had been done that the Smith-Mundt Act was modernized to get rid of that restriction. It was effectively amended, and the headline was, “U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans.”
For decades, this anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government’s mammoth broadcasting arms from delivering programming to American audiences. “Mammoth” is not a big enough word.
The American hard power of World War II evolved into American domination by soft power in peacetime:
After World War II, at this exact time in 1948, the UN Declaration for Human Rights came out and forbade the territorial acquisition of other countries by military force. Against these new international norms and standards, international law, you could not simply have a military occupation of the Philippines like the United States had in the early 1900s.
So, with hard power ruled out as the dominant means to have an empire, the U.S. transitioned to a soft power empire, dominated by agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency, democracy promotion programs at the State Department, later USAID, and the whole swarm army we’re about to meet.
After Italy, the CIA was legion, all over the world. The scope and size of this operation spread like cancer:
What happened after 1948? There is a list of CIA regime change operations after Italy. The CIA orchestrated coups in 85 countries following the Italy operation that George Kennan and other State Department officials were so inspired by. They did achieve their goal of expanding this strategy to virtually every country, continent, and region on earth and building these networks, whether they were needed or not.
Fifty of these regime change operations took place during the Eisenhower administration between 1952 and 1960.
Fifty regime changes by 1960! No wonder Eisenhower warned us about the Military Industrial Complex.
By the 1960s and 1970s the pushback to this was growing. A populist leftist faction arose to oppose the CIA. Left leaning protestors, naturally, were sympathetic to the socialist and communist countries the CIA was controlling. They saw the pain the intelligence agents were inflicting.
Mike Benz refers to the article Seymour Hersh wrote in 1974 in the New York Times exposing the CIA.
By the early 1960s, this began to come home, leading to a chain of events that caused the first real structural change to the intelligence state. During that time, the intelligence state was targeting the New Left within the Democratic Party in much the same way it is targeting the populist right today. There was a new faction within the Democratic Party, made up of not necessarily limousine liberals but anti-war protesters, civil rights activists, and supporters of third-world people’s movements. Many in the Democratic Party were socially, politically, and informationally aligned with countries targeted by the CIA.
The CIA was seen as a right-wing force because it was primarily targeting socialist and communist governments, aiming to privatize state-held industries. The agency began to do the same things against the left that they are now doing against the populist right.
Just to show how dark and malevolent this force had begun, imagine, a heart-attack gun:
Think of a democratic agency working on ways to assassinate world leaders and make it look like a heart attack. That’s not what all the CIA and FBI shows look like on TV:
Heart Attack Gun, US CIA
[32 minutes]: This is Frank Church here on the left, holding up the famous “heart attack gun,” which was in the CIA assassination guide and part of their research and development. They were assassinating world leaders, political dissidents all over the world, and were working on ever more extreme ways to kill people and get away with it, adhering to their government license for plausible deniability. The heart attack gun, which you can look up on YouTube, was discussed in an open hearing of Congress, with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency testifying. It was essentially a dart gun that induced a heart attack, making the cause of death appear natural.
On the right here is Christopher Pyle. He was one of the first whistleblowers to expose what was going on—not from the CIA, but from the U.S. Army. He provided very damning evidence that the U.S. military had active operations to survey and infiltrate any public meeting of 20 or more people in the United States, regardless of the group’s political affiliation—right, left, mothers’ knitting groups, religious groups, etc. He revealed troves of documents showing that the U.S. military perceived it was necessary to maintain political control over the civilian population to prevent any popular bills from getting passed or people from getting elected who might undermine the military agenda. This amounted to a basic usurpation of the concept of civilian-run government in a democracy.
According to Benz, the CIA had worked its way into popular culture, the media, music, even churches:
At that time, many thought leaders within the targeted section of the Democratic Party began to realize, due to these disclosures, that almost everything around them was not real—their media, culture, and music were all being used as instruments of statecraft, often directly against them. [Mike Benz lists the CIA’s use of journalists and clergy in intelligence operations.]
Very famous figures were involved in this, including many from spaces you might not expect. For example, Gloria Steinem, the famous feminist, was funded by the Congress for Cultural Freedom. At the time, our State Department was using this as a means to win the Cold War by promoting feminism to oppose patriarchal structures in countries east of Germany.
Jimmy Carter conducted the Halloween massacre, firing 30% of the CIA
I had no idea Jimmy Carter did something so useful:
Even in the 1960s, labyrinthine money laundering and hiding it from public accountability were already very robust. The Church Committee hearings popped off, and then Jimmy Carter won in 1976, coasting on popular resentment against the intelligence state. He was fiercely opposed by the intelligence state and conducted what became known as the “Halloween Massacre,” where he fired 30% of the CIA’s operations division in a single night, dramatically cutting the agency’s budget. There was this brief moment of accountability and a rollback of these plausibly deniable octopus-like operations against the American people.
After this Halloween massacre, Ronald Reagan reinstated the powers of the CIA, but the agency went underground, so to speak, keeping its visibility low.
Then Ronald Reagan came to power. In 1983, he embarked on structural changes to the way the intelligence state worked in order to restore the powers the CIA had lost during the Carter administration, including signing into law the bill that established the National Endowment for Democracy, which is now today’s premier CIA cutout. The CIA became less visible because of its previous scandals and diffused itself into a liaison role within a public-facing network of captured institutions. The intelligence state moved into the whole of society, embedding itself into cultural and media organizations, universities, NGOs, and other publicly visible sectors.
Despite all this power, the CIA is not running the world though, apparently the State Department is:
When you see the CIA or the intelligence state do something, understand that it’s to serve a State Department official, a Pentagon official, or the stakeholders around them. It’s not a rogue agency in the sense that it answers to the State Department and does the dirty work.
But what’s gone rogue is something much deeper than just the intelligence state—it’s the entrenched forces in diplomacy and defense that the CIA is tasked with serving and doing the dirty work for.
To listen to Mike Benz is to wonder if the whole world became a defacto part of The American Empire, sold as peace, truth and freedom, but based on quite a few lies and a fiat currency that is at this moment spiraling into uncontrollable debt. It was an arrangement that benefited many people in the US and abroad, but ultimately was not the American Experiment we hoped it was.
It’s easy to believe this shapes the bizarre Uniparty effect where both sides of politics end up looking so similar.
On the plus side, Mike Benz, and so many others still believe in the US Constitution. His sole goal is free speech online.
Mike Benz is Director for the Foundation for Freedom Online. He worked in the cyber section of the State Department under Trump in formulating foreign policy related to IT. He has written some speeches for Donald Trump. His aim is to preserve free speech online.
What will the Hollywood do now?
Decades of super cool double 00 spy heroes saving the Free World.
Now saving us from Donald Trump.
Heroes no more.
Something else.
Here’s a real life f-ing hero.
https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/07/1200/675/Donald-Trump-Butler-PA-Shooting_05.jpg?ve=1&tl=1
Thrown everything ya’ got at him haven’t ya’.
And there he is.
Wankers.
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What has happened to the enquiry of that assassination? I’m sure it exists to tick the box. But no one seems to care or ask about it anymore. Memory holed.
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Too busy hunting down MAGA grandmas that overpowered valiant Capitol Hill policemen and wandered around the lobby of the Capitol Dome (a public building normally open to the public) and then went home.
Insurrectionist trespassers.
We can’t allow insurrectionists to trespass in buildings built by insurrection, in a city named after an insurrectionist, filled with monuments to other insurrectionists.
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I was in Vietnam recently (a communist country) and was very surprised to see a framed copy of that very photo of trump in a shop in one of the markets that we passed through. He seems to have a few fans over there as well.
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When I was last in Vietnam the people told us that our view of the war being the Vietnam War is in their view the American War. When I enquired further they told me that Vietnam is now a friend of the USA. When I asked – “Who is your enemy?”, they all said “CHINA”
They were never Communists. They are Nationalists..
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I had a short visit to Vietnam (Saigon) a few months back. They are a very friendly people, very hard workers, seem happy and confident. I do wish we could have more of their work ethic here. Communist or not they like working for themselves and making money. I was surprised that the state was helping to refurbish the Catholic Notre Dame Cathedral.
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The VietNam war was sustained by the USSR, not by China. At times during that period North VietNam was at war with China.
Our commentariat, already trained by Marxists, never understood that from the US point of view, the VietNam war achieved its objective, which was to hold the USSR’s war machine up until it ran out of puff.
Had we not fought the VietNam war USSR agencies would have overrun the whole of south east Asia, Indonesia and New Guinea.
As the VietNam war came to an end the Soviets had just one more puff in them, and they spent that in Afghanistan.
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Yes Ted, Russia was the hidden key actor there.
Having said that it’s hard to excuse the US for their callous behaviour, exemplified by napalm
From an earlier discussion:
https://joannenova.com.au/2020/05/weekend-unthreaded-311/#comment-2330925
As Jo’s post shows, manipulation is an art form.
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Napalm?
You know anything about WWII?
Look up Operation Meetinghouse where General Curtis LeMay realized that conventional bombs didn’t do much in a city made of wood. So he burned Tokyo down to the ground in one night killing more Japs in one raid than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki and leaving 1,000,000 homeless. He used M69’s – jellied gasoline – napalm.
In war you use what is effective. I’m a Vietnam Era war vet and Washington DC screwed that one up big time. However, its ultimate purpose was achieved.
I spoke with General Westmoreland about that and he agreed. If you don’t what that was well, figure it out. I’ll give you a hint. Vietnam wasn’t the major objective.
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Hi John,
There were many threads to the background of the Vietnam war and it’s not easy to pick the one you are talking about.
What was the major objective?
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John.
If it’s China you’re thinking about then see this: they wanted a piece , or all of Vietnam,
https://joannenova.com.au/2020/05/weekend-unthreaded-311/#comment-2330925
And there’s still the South China sea and the Spratleys and Paracels
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Earlier post has disappeared but here
s the link that was included:
https://joannenova.com.au/2020/05/weekend-unthreaded-311/#comment-2330925
Napalm remains an ugly issue.
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What you are describing is the “Domino Theory” for which there is only limited evidence. You wrote that the Communists would have overrun the rest of south east Asia but the British had already defeated the Communist insurgents in Malaya and afterwards defeated the Indonesians who tried to seize North Borneo and Brunei from Malaysia.
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an earlier post about that complex war.
KinkyKeith
November 20, 2014 at 7:58 pm
The Soviets also did very well after the Vietnam war ended.
During it they shipped huge trainloads of equipment and munitions through China to Hanoi.
After it all ended in 1975 Vietnam became another Soviet of the great Russia and began making reparations.
Many tens of thousands of Vietnamese workers were sent across to help pay back the gift made earlier, with free labour and like the rest of Vietnam began to learn to speak Russian.
Never let it be said that Communists don’t keep accounts just like Capitalists.
KK
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The Vietnamese were factional insofaras the Communists and Nationalists both had sway. Anyway, blame colonialism – in this case the French who, post WW2 sought the return of indo-China. Funnily, I was conscripted by ballot in the last call in 1972. Whitlam was elected in December and conscription was abolished. Of course we had started to disengage earlier. The Domino Theory was nonsense.
11
“They are Nationalists..”
Were they ‘ethno-nationalists’*, like MAGA supporters?
*(The BS agitprop the Democrats created after ‘white supremacy’ didn’t sell.)
Just months ago, Biden was parading around declaring the “the greatest threat to America is White Supremacy”.
Gawd, I can’t tell if these people are just dumb or wicked smart.
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The sense that I got is that they love their Country. Not too sure how the voting system goes and whether there is an Opposition Party.
A lot of the South Vietnamese came to Australia in leaky boats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXlswmbIxos
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The ones I know in their 60s are bitterly opposed to anything of the left. They’ve seen evil first hand and want nothing to do w8thit.
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That is why Gough Whitlam didn’t like them.
30
Same of the refugees from that war I have known in America.
BTW, it was Biden who strongly opposed the taking in of those South East Asian refugees. Such a hypocrite.
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just plain “WICKED”.
10
Same old tricks from the same old playbook. Adherents of Alinsky. Devious, mendacious and evil.
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Josef Stalin had the right/wrong idea.
“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2140-those-who-vote-decide-nothing-those-who-count-the-vote
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Explains a lot really, especially US politics.
70
I’d dare say what happened in Ukraine was related to the topic at hand?
What was that Biden Jr doing on a Ukraine gas company or board or whatever it was? No one ever asks. But next thing we are at war for them. I’m only a simple man who grows a vegetable patch, but I can smell a rat beneath the weeds.
260
The Biden jr allegations were found to be insupportable.
American adventurism has produced conflict far and wide, spies and propagandists spreading disinformation to lay the groundwork for the US military industrial complex to get on with the job and do some weapon testing.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/us-nato-helped-trigger-ukraine-war-its-not-siding-putin-admit-it
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The Biden Jr corruption was totally supported, but suppressed by his corrupt father and the rest of the corrupt treasonous demorat administration.
250
Things are going to get boring on here if we start to agree EG! Still, its nice to see my conspiracy opinions backed up by others, we’ve just ridden on the coat tails of the Yanks while they subjugated most of the world.
That is a marvelous article Jo, only old people can remember those things happening, to the young ones it just another dusty story.
Now, where’s Hanrahan?
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KP,
Conspiracies are being ignored because no-one believes that they are possible even when they are , and the bigger they are the harder to pin down . Massive voting fraud is not only possible but highly likely , but everyone involved has deniability . E.G. ignores the laptop and appointment of Hunter to Burisma , not to mention Joe getting Ukrainian prosecutors fired and boasting about it. The USA media is entirely captured Cato included . Most NGO’s are arms of the deep state and operate tax free and unaccountable . Flame on….
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Its news to me, but the story must have substance if the Guardian runs it.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/14/hunter-biden-burisma-energy-company
06
Given that Time Magazine proudly printed their front page as ‘The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election’ when Biden won – and explained how they did it, how they cheated and lied and fraudulently manipulated the Dominion voting machines (is it just a coincidence that the Clintons are shareholders in the company?) – it’s clear that the repealing of the Mundt-Smith Act has allowed the Democrats and their media shills to lie with impunity.
What the Democrats and mainstream media have forgotten is that the American population are over being abused this way. What they see and experience is not what the government is telling them to believe. And now the voting public have absolute proof of Democrat infidelity: that of being able to compare Trump’s first term with Biden’s only term.
40
The Americans have been strongly against Communism and of course they were also embroiled in other conflicts with the war on terror.
https://www.wiley.com/en-us/American+Adventurism+Abroad%3A+Invasions%2C+Interventions%2C+and+Regime+Changes+Since+World+War+II-p-9781405170758
They even meddled in Australia in 1975.
11
So, Burisma didn’t exist in your view EG. Poppycock.
30
Maybe the claim that the CIA had a hand in Whitlams demise might have a glimmer of truth.
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Yes, Tirath Khemlani was almost certainly a CIA operative.
[Kalm Keith says he wrote this comment. Beth? Any clues? – Jo]
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Jo, I did not write this post. I have been out of town, no computer.
10
Thanks for the info beth
20
The Loans affair, also called the Khemlani affair, was a political scandal involving the Whitlam government of Australia in 1975 in which it was accused of attempting to borrow money from the Middle East by the agency of the Pakistani banker Tirath Khemlani (17 September 1920 — 19 May 1991) and thus bypass the standard procedures of the Australian Treasury and violate the Australian Constitution.
30
the pinko lads at universities used to scoff at Menzies for looking for Reds under the Bed.
Whitlam in his turn worried about the CIA under the bed.
The CIA didn’t have to be under the bed. They could get rid of Gough without leaving their desks in Virginia.
One of the pillars of Australia’s regional economy is the beef trade. The beef trade was underpinned by the US trade, which took all our lower grade beef (mainly the old cows) for hamburger mince.
In 1974 the US cut that trade. This dumped the lower grade beef back onto our local market, and the effect was devastating. I remember selling prime steers for 17c a kilo, while their sisters sold for as low as $24 a head. Scarcely enough to pay the truck to take them to market.
These were terrible times for our family, but the end result was that in 1975 Gough lost every rural seat in the parliament.
130
Rex O’Connor trying to “buy back the farm” as he put it. I thought Rex an old style Labor bloke. Influenced Keating a fair bit I gather.
00
good job if true
20
The lack of supply issue was false too – the law at the time had provision for a continuing resolution in the event the budget was not passed.
00
Gonna need more rope
40
The CIA-Mafia link is old and deep. The Mafia ran the docks in New York, and during World War 2 the US government worked with them in loading up the vital transatlantic convoys. When American troops invaded Sicily the jails were opened, formal;y under the presumption that prisoners were mostly political prisoners against Mussolini. But they were mostly Mafia gangsters.
Postwar Western Europe was indefensible from Russian invasion by conventional means, hence the NATO one-for-all-and-all-for-one treaty which included the USA with its nuclear weapons. Nobody should doubt that communist Russia was aggressively expansionist. NATO buried arms caches for use by trained guerillas in the event of a Soviet invasion; even today these are unearthed in remote areas such as the Black Forest by people walking their dogs. But the cost soon ballooned beyond what Congress would refrain from asking questions about as part of the CIA black ops budget. The CIA therefore needed an off-books source of income. They joined with the Mafia in the drugs trade, sharing the profits and laundering the money through the Vatican Bank. (The definitive book on this subject is Operation Gladio by Paul Williams.) That is why any competent US cop or spook set to investigate the drugs trade runs into a brick wall, or gets pulled off the job if they find out too much. The assassination of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, who wished to form a government of national unity that included communists, was a CIA-backed operation. The assassination in London of Italian banker Robert Calvi, and the attempted assassination in Vatican Square of Pope John Paul 2 who, despite his anti-communist credentials, had concerns about Vatican financial liability, also relate to the CIA-Mafia-Vatican link. The CIA’s source of funding from the worldwide drugs trade has today made the CIA a fourth pole of power in the USA, beyond the three poles envisaged in the Constitution (legislature, executive, judiciary). This explains a lot.
There is plenty of trash written about the CIA and the drugs trade, and some of it is probably designed to discredit the link. Paul Williams’ book is not the last word on the subject, but it is non-hysterical and well documented.
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Well, does any sane person believe that a mentally-deficient guy with no experience in firearms bought two rifles and shot 30 people in Port Arthur. A crack shot during the day when in a crowded cafe full of screaming running people, and on the road trip to the holiday house, where he suddenly turned into a hopeless amateur that shot at Police until the next day and never hit one of them.. Any shooter could tell you that the whole official story is a fake.
Joe Vialls, the investigative reporter who wrote about the Americans shooting the policewoman outside the Libyan embassy and them blaming the Libyans, wrote the whole story of the fake Port Arthur shootings before he died of the heart attack gun. Someone wanted the Australians dis-armed, and they succeeded extremely well!
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Yes, I do believe that.
But I also believe, without doubt, that the Liberal Party contrived to persuade the defendant to plead guilty to ensure that the questions that should have been asked and answered were never asked .
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1948 = 1984 = 2024 =
simply numbers rolling over in the Gregorian calendar wheel-of-fortune game of chance. As for those whose name is Legion, they’ve been lurking in the shadows long before Mussolini & his Mrs decorated Italian lampposts. Name an empire, a religion, a tribe – doublespeak spies have walked the corridors of power and sailed the proverbial seven seas (seize?).
Both our antipodean colonies have felt the slithering machinations of the hidden hand (up to this very day) although not as blatantly as Italy, Argentina, the Ukraine and assorted ‘colour’ revo!utions across numerous continents, ie. softer power for the subservients.
Every coin has two sides: it’s still the same coin.
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From the shadows they control. Covert and nasty the Illuminati.
00
Might I make the suggestion Jo that you provide a few introductory paragraphs for threads rather than the entire post on the homepage, just like we do when posting.
Smartphone scrollers fingertip wear will be a thing before long.
Maybe check your formatting too as line length degrades into a few words wide.
eg
Mike Benz is Director for
the Foundation for
Freedom Online. He
worked in the cyber
section of the State
Department under Trump
in formulating foreign
policy related to IT. He
has written some
speeches for Donald
Trump.
In fairness a lot of other sites have the same issue, with severe cases degrading into a single letter per line!
23
pffftt! Get off that stupidphone and read Jo on a decent screen! So many people want the world of web pages shrunk down to a phone screen size, befitting their concentration time!
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I agree re – ‘stupidphones’. One of my grandsons picked my dumbphone up (although it was turned off as it usually is six days per week), and pointed it at the television, thinking it was a remote control unit because it had numbered buttons. In my opinion, the internet has gone way too far beyond it’s promising beginnings as an educational tool, etc. So called smartphones should just revert to their original purpose – telephonic communication. The sixties/seventies were great in so many ways – even queuing at the local telephone box.
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“even queuing at the local telephone box.”
..and that’s not all that happened in phone boxes!! Ah, great times!
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And boy! didn’t we drink a lot of beer!
10
For those who don’t know (rolleyes KP again), this is a multi platform issue which has existed for years and it’s not just an Android issue.
Yes, it happens on Windows pc’s with big screens too.
In any case, content providers should, by modern standards, adjust content delivery to suit the client’s platform, which is typically mobile these days.
Nothing against Jo, but just saying.
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My view: I like the whole article and usually read Jo’s blog on my laptop, however when I read it on my phone I turn the screen 90 degrees and zoom to fit. I find this is comfortable to read with less lines.
WUWT does not allow screen rotation on my samsung.
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Sorry John, it was only a 40 minute speech, yet there was so much that needed to be said. I hear you, but I don’t know that there are any shortcuts here.
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CIA or NSA, is there any difference? Don’t forget US surveillance in Europe and influence on elections. The NSA surveilled three French presidents, allies…
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-hollande-nsa-eavesdropping-spying-french-presidents-ambassador/
Edward Snowden revealed that the US was spying on the EU parliament. Obama ordered surveillance of Angela Merkel’s government and, according to a German newspaper, with the help of German intelligence
Obama administration spied on German media as well as its government
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/03/politics/germany-media-spying-obama-administration/index.html
And there is so much more
Look at Syria which gained its independence from France in 1946. The CIA was barely a year old before they staged a bloody coup against Syria’s democratically elected government and installed corrupt leaders. Reason… Syria would not allow an oil pipeline through the country. But Syria managed to throw out the CIA and the US has been on them ever since. Assad’s father also said no, and when Assad took over he also said no. Then Wikileaks revealed that the CIA wanted to remove Assad and this time too they failed.
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Completely disagree with JC. I like the whole article on each blog in one place. I read on an iPad and no problems with spacing or legibility. Keep going as you are, Jo.
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … Trump needs to decimate the entire federal government as soon as he is in office. Just whack 10% off the top of the budget IMMEDIATELY. And he should probably do it more than once. Make it an annual event for his entire second term.
It’s not just the CIA and State Department and Pentagon that need to get it in the neck. There are entire federal departments that serve no purpose. Department of Education is at the top of my list (The Fed is at the top of Ron Paul’s list, and the Department of Energy is another popular candidate for elimination). American education performance has done nothing but decline since the DOE was created. The American education system was far more effective when it was controlled by the states and they were able to put the ‘laboratory of democracy’ to work to find best practices that other states could then adopt. Top down planning has been a massive failure.
I also think the government needs to start selling off public lands. The government was originally granted lands west of the Mississippi with the idea that they would gradually release that land over the years to private owners. But ever since the Antiquities Act passed in the early 20th century, the bureaucrats have found ways to hoard 40% of the land in the country for the federal government. In eight states, the federal government holds over half the land (with Alaska topping out at 95%). That’s insane. Sure, some of that land is national parks and military bases and other positive uses of the land, but most of it just sits fallow and isn’t used for anything. There are hundreds of millions of acres that could be turned to some productive end that generates GDP and jobs, but the Bureau of Land Management holds onto it like Gollum holds onto his precious. The BLM needs to be forced to divest from it’s real estate empire.
https://www.summitpost.org/public-and-private-land-percentages-by-us-states/186111
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The problem is not the Presidency. The problem is Congress. That is where the Power is. They could easily get a balanced Budget but they don’t want to. Far too many people and Organisations buying the votes of the “Pollies”.
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Jonny,
Warren Buffett’s solution for budget deficits should be adopted world wide . The return of accountability is essential . They are using the budget deficits to buy votes – using your money to buy your vote . Free money isn’t free….
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I agree. Why can’t the people there see it and the people in OZ see it? They need to go to “Spec Savers.”
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The people that can’t see it are the main beneficiaries of government largess! Team “Wood from trees”
Jo in case you’re reading, when replying to some comments I’m seeing their email addresses
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The President sets the budget for the executive branch (where almost all of the bureaucratic and intelligence agencies reside). Congress then has to approve it with their ‘power of the purse’. But it’s up to the President to propose the cuts. If Congress wants to deny that budget because it’s too SMALL, then I wish them luck defending that to their constituents.
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Joanne, thank you from America!
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William, just wish I could do more… we need a good result this week as much as you do.
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This is as explosive as all of Jo’s climate science evidence ( that’s gone nowhere), if only the facts were to actually appear ?.
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Why do you bother one of so little intellect. Shoo, Fly. Be off or be sprayed.
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Clarifies the looking the other way back on July 13th.
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It’s not just the CIA, it is also most of the alphabet agencies. Perhaps all of them. Certainly the FBI and DHS. Reference the Russian Collusion Hoax, and the shameful conduct of James Comey. And the Mueller Witch Hunt. What about the Disgraceful 52? The Sham Impeachments I&II. The Stalinist Trial.
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The bigger, the stronger, and more powerful, the more corrupt they become . .
Hi, I am also seeing others emails in the prompt box ?
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I always check now before I send.
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No wonder The US Political System is hell bent on stopping DJT from regaining a leadership role in The USA and The World! Plausible Deniability has proven to be a cancerous agent that is on the verge of killing the world as we thought we knew it! When I first read a phrase uttered by Biden about “those who count the votes supersede actual voters” (paraphrased) only now to realise that it has Marxist origins puts the whole thing into frightening perspective! We would be absolute mugs to think that these resources have not been used in Australia. Our political Leadership has been compromised at least since Korea and Vietnam wars and therefore cannot be relied upon, now or in the immediate future, to act in the best interests of Australia and Australians. The Greens and Teals are nothing but overt front agencies for Marxism.
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The OSS preceded the CIA.
It was run by one of the greatest Americans ever – Bill Donovan
He was stitched up at the Nurnburg Trials by FDR cronies and latter ditched when the CIA started by Truman.
On the other hand the GRU, OGPU, KGB and its Warsaw Pact subsidiaries did a far better job of screwing up the US than the CIA did of any other country – not even close. The CIA was pathetic for decades especially from around the late 1960’s until today.
I worked for ASA, a division of NSA back in the 1960’s and watched all this crap happen. I have seen nothing since to change my mind. Back then we spied on America’s enemies especially Communists. Now they spy on us. Screw them.
Trump better win or America is finished for good.
You have to remember these clowns even got Vietnam wrong in 1963. That is the CIA, the State Dept. and President Kennedy who was to busy screwing Marilyn Monroe until a Communist killed him to even bother to govern effectively.
Read Maggie Higgin’s “Our Vietnam Nightmare.” She was the best reporter in Vietnam back then and she saw what was happening and what was going to happen.
Benz is terrific by the way.
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