Mental Midget Bullshit
By Larry Johnson on November 29, 2007 at 10:59 PM in Current Affairs
Not to be a party pooper but there is some bizarrely stupid shit floating around the web pretending to take us into the inner working of the CIA and the “black world”. If you have been taken in by this nonsense please do not go all sensitive and defensive on me. But this crap, whatever grains of truth contained in both, is blatant propaganda/information warfare material. Please take each with a grain of salt.
The first up is Confessions of a Covert Agent. The author, who is a clever, creative son of a bitch, is completely full of shit. But he or she makes it sound good:
Everything I’ve done has been highly classified, all black programs and black operations. Some people I know thought I worked for the CIA, but it’s much more complicated than that. I’ve worked with people in the CIA, DIA, NSC, NSA, SAIC, Army Intel and many more lesser known agencies within the intelligence apparatus.
Before focusing on PsyOps I started out running covert combat missions, special operations. I was good at what I did and rose through the ranks fast. When the “War on Terror” started I was paid a lot of money to consult with private military contractors. When private paramilitary units needed to get the jobs done that paid the most money they would come to me with checkbooks filled with US taxpayer dough.
Sorry folks, but this does not pass the sniff test. He/she is/was a covert operative who worked with who? Can’t tell you. It’s a SECRET. No, wait. It is beyond SECRET. Trust me on this. It is ridiculous.
Next up is the bogus memo allegedly written to the Director of the CIA by some nimrod diplomat at our Embassy in Venezuela. Dubbed Operation Pliers (on some websites) and Pincers (on others), we are offered a peek behind the curtain of CIA efforts to topple Chavez. It starts off:
November 20,2007
MEMORANDUM CONFIDENCIAL
De: Michael Middleton Steere, US Embassy
Para: Michael Hayden, Director Agencia Central de Inteligencia.
Asunto: Avance de la Fase Terminal de la Operación Tenaza
Tomando en consideración los anteriores avances documentales en torno a la Operación Tenaza que coordina Humint en Venezuela según la directiva 3623-g-0217, cumplo en informarle para los fines consiguientes, del status actual de dicha operación, la cual entra en su fase terminal según lo estimado.
As the official bubble burster let me state for the record, this is patent nonsense. State Department officers do not write memos to Hayden. Particularly mid-level Foreign Service Officers. A CIA officer under diplomatic cover sends his communications to headquarters via an encoded message. We call these messages cables, harkening back to the days of telegraphs and telegrams.
This, in my judgment, is the work–very clumsy work at that–of the Venezuelan intelligence service eager to build on the truth that the United States has sought to oust Chavez. All of this is quite convenient with Venezuelan elections on the horizon. It may be hamhanded, but for internal Venezuelan consumption, this is brilliant psyops and should help Chavez further demonize the equally clumsy Americans.
Do you think that the operation pliers has anything to do with CNN’s “who killed him”? (http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/11/chavez-slams-cn.html)
Plus, doesn’t the CIA communicate in English?
Sometimes in Navajo too.
There is definitely something fishy going on with regard to Venezuela
Electronic voting machines with or without paper are not reliable. The U.S. voting machine company that was owned by a Venezuelan interest….mmmmm
Yes. Chavez wants to be president for life.
The only difference that the Venezuelan electoral system has with other Latinamerican countries is that the rest do have a one term period in which the a president can not run. That is, S/he can be elected to two consecutive terms, not run in the next one, and then can run for another two.
That is, they can “almost” be presidents for life. Chavez might want to be president for life, but it depends on the people. I guess that being a president for life is not intrinsically bad. I t all depends in the quality of the president.
yeah he does. so what happens to the drug trade?is he ever going to address that issue?
………………………..
Diana King
floridadrugrehab.com
Oh yes, make the coin disappear trick…whats the right hand doing while I have you watching my leftist hand.
real spacey
Thanks for the info. From the articles I’ve seen on Operation Pliers/Pincers, the information was ‘intercepted’ by the Venezualans.
Does Hayden read Espanol?
Seriously, it lets the opposition know that any interference with the voting process could be labeled as CIA inspired.
Now, how did Chavez party get that kind of idea?
Aw, Larry! You’re just upset because you finally realized that the CIA that you thought that you once worked for wasn’t the real CIA, but just an elaborate ruse. Actually, it was just the DI that was the ruse. The DO was the real thing. We communicated in Spanish and maintained our State cover even when we sent personal backchannels to the DCI. I’ve forgotten how many times I sent “Dear Bill” memos when I was in LA and signed them “Your favorite Second Secretary of Embassy.”
Actually, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen an entertaining fabrication. The last really funny one that I saw was the Geneva station deferred telepouch (typed on old DCD letterhead, no less) that outlined our plan to kill Dodi and Princess Di as a favor to HRH. It advised COS London (to pass along to HRH) and the DCI that the Geneva “K team” was standing by for the hit on Dodi because Di was secretly preggers and the Palace would never accept the mother of a future King of England being knocked up by an Arab. After the hit, the team was going to stop and pick up a few items at Harrods to satisfy the Anglophonic tastes of COS Geneva before heading back to William Tell country. You just can’t get real marmelade on the continent, ya know.
It seems that the key to most of these fabrications is excessive drug use. The authors start out sober and are pretty convincing. Then after a few hits of marijuana, they get a little giddy and start letting their prejudice show through. Ulimately when they hit the hallucinogens, all bets are off and they start hearing the color read and tasting purple. Your two examples were obviously hitting Formula 51 about halfway through.
Retired, I think you’re the one smoking the grass.
Why, no, I’m just “high on life”!
“high on life”…is that a new strain or something? is it like maui wowwie? or alaskan whatever
I saw the sounds of conga drums once. Pretty.
Actually, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen an entertaining fabrication.
You’re forgetting the Niger document
Bush did not cover all of his tracks on that yet.
Larry, thanks for clearing that up about the confessions of a covert agent. I knew you were the man to ask. I appreciate it a bunch.
Dee
There is definitely something fishy going on with regard to Venezuela.
“In 2004, the influential U.S. polling firm Penn, Schoen, and Berland published fake exit polls on the day of the Presidential recall referendum, showing President Hugo Chávez losing by a 59-41 margin. The actual results, which were certified by observer missions from the Organization of American States and the Atlanta-based Carter Center, showed the opposite, with Chávez winning by a margin of 58 to 41 percent.”
http://www.cepr.net/content/view/1372/77/
These same polls have suddenly started to appear again, with the MSM ‘catapulting the propaganda’ around the world.
And isn’t Mark Penn, of Penn, Schoen, and Berland, one of Hilary Clinton’s chief advisors?
Tsk, tsk, tsk.
The memo is most likely bogus. But that’s almost beside the point.
It serves the purpose of making public the idea that the US is trying to intervene in Venezuela. This idea alone generates huge popular resentment towards Bushco, which is, of course, precisely how Chavez wants Venezuelans to feel about Bushco.
We have all seen the power of creating bogeymen here in the US (first “commies”, then “terrorists”). Well, in VZ the bogeymen are “neo-liberalists” and the American government. And using the bogeyman to rally the public is just as effective there as it has been here. Bush and Cheney in particular, are especially easy to make Bogeymen out of - it’s almost like they were pulled out from Central Casting for the role. Chavez would not miss such an easy target to rally popular emotion against.
That being said, like any dis-information worth even a cursory look, it is based on the probably true idea that Bushco probably does desire someone besides Chavez in charge in VZ, and they probably are looking at covert actions that would facilitate undermining or replacing him.
The bogus memo could then be seen as a pre-emptive psy-ops strike against Bushco. They guess, based on the past, that Bushco is going to come after them covertly, so they try to raise public awareness about that BEFORE it happens.
Arguably, this is an effective counter tactic based on the idea that if the public is informed, they become harder targets to get to by propaganda and psy-ops.
IMHO, there are two reasons for Chavez wanting to be perpetual President and exercise an inordinate amount of executive authority in VZ, and in my estimation, they are similar to the motivations for establishing a unitary executive here in the US, and the same purposes that Musharraf has in Pakistan (yes, I do see similarities between all these political animals).
1. They lust after the level of power it gives them. Let’s not fool ourselves about that.
2. They are such true believers in their agenda, and they sense that no one else besides them would be able to institute the kinds of changes they believe must be made for their countries.
I think Chavez, the neocons, and Musharraf all deeply believe they are the last hope for their nations, and therefore taking extreme measures to forward their agendas is necessary.
The multinational corporations, private contractors et al come into play in two ways - 1. the owners of these big banks, contractors and corporations (particularly Big Oil, but there are others), are some of the same people who deeply believe in these agendas, and 2. the money to be made (billions and billions) is nothing to be sniffed at.
Like most political battles, this isn’t a clash of good vs evil, but a clash of true believers/power seekers, each of whom is willing to do unethical, illegal, and sometimes murderous things to further their cause.
After seeing the MSM keep saying that Chavez wants to be president for life and reporting nothing else I checked to see what is being voted on.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2889
This is more interesting than the claim that Chavez wants to be president for life
Art. 301 - Removal of the requirement that foreign businesses receive the same treatment as national businesses, stating that national businesses may receive better treatment.
Now on to the claim
Art. 230 - Presidential term is extended from six to seven years. The two consecutive term limit on presidential reelection is removed.
Venezuela’s Constitutional Reform: An Article-by-Article Summary
November 23rd 2007, by Gregory Wilpert – Venezuelanalysis.com
The following is an article-by-article summary of the changes being proposed to Venezuela’s 1999 constitution. The summary is in no way official and should only be used as an aid in making sense of the proposed constitutional reform. The official reform text is quite long (31 pages), as it includes the full text of each to be changed article, even if only one sentence or word was changed in the article. Making out what, exactly, the changes are relative to the original 1999 constitution can thus be a sometimes time-consuming and difficult task.
Venezuelans will vote on the reform on December 2nd and will do so in two blocks. Block “A” includes President Chavez’s original proposal, as amended by the National Assembly, which would change 33 articles out of the 350 articles in the constitution. Also included in block A are another 13 articles introduced by the National Assembly. Block “B” includes another 26 reform articles proposed by the National Assembly. Voters may vote “Yes” or “No” on each block.
——————————————————————————–
Reform Question: “Are you in agreement with the approval of the constitutional reform project, passed by the National Assembly, with the participation of the people, and based in the initiative of President Hugo Chavez, with its respective titles, chapters, and transitional, derogative, and final dispositions, distributed in the following blocks?”
[Articles in italics are those proposed by the National Assembly, non-italic articles were proposed by the President.]
Block A
Section II. Politico-Territorial Division of the Country: President may declare special military and development zones, citizens have a new “right to the city.”
Section III. Citizen Rights and Duties: Voting age lowered to 16 years, gender parity in candidacies, creation of councils of popular power, social security fund for self-employed, reduction of workweek to 36 hours, recognition of Venezuelans of African descent, free university education, introduction of communal and social property.
Art. 64 - Lowers the minimum voting age from 18 to 16 years.
Art. 67 - Requires candidates for elected office to be set up in accordance with gender parity, reverses the prohibition against state financing of campaigns and parties, and prohibits foreign funding of political activity.
Art. 70 - Establishes that councils of popular power (of communities, workers, students, farmers, fishers, youth, women, etc.) are one of the main means for citizen participation in the government.
Art. 87 - Creates a social security fund for the self-employed, in order to guarantee them a pension, vacation pay, sick pay, etc.
Art. 90 - Reduction of the workweek from 44 hours to 36.
Art. 98 - Guarantees freedom for cultural creations, but without guaranteeing intellectual property.
Art. 100 - Recognition of Venezuelans of African descent, as part of Venezuelan culture to protect and promote (in addition to indigenous and European culture).
Art. 103 - Right to a free education expanded from high school to university.
Art. 113 - Monopolies are prohibited instead of merely being “not allowed.” The state has the right to “reserve” the exploitation of natural resources or provision of services that are considered by the constitution or by a separate law to be strategic to the nation. Concessions granted to private parties must provide adequate benefits to the public.
Art. 115 - Introduces new forms of property, in addition to private property. The new forms are (1) public property, belonging to state bodies, (2) direct and indirect social property, belonging to the society in general, where indirect social property is administered by the state and direct is administered by particular communities, (3) collective property, which belongs to particular groups, (4) mixed property, which can be a combination of ownership of any of the previous five forms.
Art. 152 - Venezuela’s foreign policy is directed towards creating a pluri-polar world, free of hegemonies of any imperialist, colonial, or neo-colonial power.
Art. 153 - Strengthening of the mandate to unify Latin America, so as to achieve what Simon Bolivar called, “A Nation of Republics.”
Art. 167 - States’ incomes are increased from 20% to 25% of the national budget, where 5% is to be dedicated to the financing of each state’s communal councils.
Art. 230 - Presidential term is extended from six to seven years. The two consecutive term limit on presidential reelection is removed.
Art. 236 - New presidential powers as specified in other sections of the reform are listed here, which include the ordering and management of the country’s internal political boundaries, the creation and suspension of federal territories, setting the number and naming of secondary vice-presidents (in addition to the first vice-president), promote all officers of the armed forces, and administrate international reserves in coordination with the Central Bank.
Art. 251 - Adds detail to the functioning of the State Council, which advises the president on all matters.
continue
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2889
yea larry..somebody posted a link to the psyops article here a few days ago and I went and read it and got a good chuckle..Why? It certainly wasn’t written very professionally, I’m guessing 2nd year College given over to far reaching statements..’ Millions of rotting bodies of men, women and children…’ Also.. Most of the paper had to do with politics, for instance most of his top 10 had to do things like campaign Finance reform.. WHAT?
I’m just guessing here but I’m betting most CIA or NSA pro’s could give a flying crap about stuff like that during thier briefs..
And last but not least..Most of his political points were democratic talking points..which is fine..I LOVE democratic talking points but it had no place in a supposed piece on PsyOp warefare..
oh and i like the part when he wants to make a point.. He increases the font by 500% and makes in Bold..
ah..yea..we get it, you’re trying to make a point..
Yeah, I’m the one that posted it up and asked who knew anything about it. I figured if it got ran through the wringer around here you guys would dissect it pretty quickly. Exactly the kind of follow up I had for. Thanks Larry et al…this blog goes a long way towards cutting through the BS. I hope lots of people are viewing it everyday.
Great work, Larry.
And we have this nugget -
Uh two time CMOH recipient winner Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC was a Major General.
Larry,
Your posts are always spot on.
I had to check out the bogus website you refer to and here is a great quote.
“I’ve seen the worst things imaginable, hell on earth. Had friends die in my arms. Seen piles of rotten corpses. Seen men, women and children tortured. I’ve seen the eyes of terrified and confused children being sold into a vicious life of slavery and an early death.
I could get a lot more graphic, but you get the idea.
The eyes of terrified and confused children sold into slavery…this person has truly seen it all.
I still don’t have answers to a thing. A few weeks ago I asked an uncle who retired from the CIA what he did. He isn’t talking. Humph!
Also, I want to know what Information Operations Roadmap is.
Chavez wouldn’t be rightfully demonizing this administration if they hadn’t tried to remove him from office TWICE.
We need to butt the fuck out of their affairs and hope they’ll keep selling us oil.
Retired said, “Aw, Larry! You’re just upset because you finally realized that the CIA that you thought that you once worked for wasn’t the real CIA, but just an elaborate ruse.”
Heh. My first division chief in the DI was sometimes seen to put his head in his hands and say, “This can’t be the real CIA. It has to be on a ranch someplace out in Wyoming.”
Reminds me of a facilities guy when I was a CT who claimed that he was one of a handful of people in logs who knew about the “real Hqs”, which he claimed was in Denver. Much later in OED, its then illustrious chief started out a staff meeting on the future of the division with some ideas for improvement. Number one was: “Move OED to Denver.” I think that Wyoming would’ve been OK too, though,
Isn’t this the problem with all government secrets besides giving away troop positions?
[…] from Larry Johnson, ex-CIA, terrorism expert, and political progressive (check his blogroll) As the official bubble burster let me state for the record, this is patent nonsense. State Department officers do not write memos […]
I awoke to the news this Morning on NBC that Bin Laden in his rant to the Europeans yesterday took full and complete responsibility for the attacks of 9-11.
I can only imagine there are thousands of 9-11 truthers that are really pissed off.
I guess after a hundred thousand web sites filled with conspiracy theories and scientific ‘facts’..
A big jet with full fuel tanks traveling at 500mph flying into a building really can bring it down.. Who would have thought it possible?
I would have thought you would need super duper secret explosives hidden in critical area’s of both towers triggered by someone that just happened to know those planes would be coming along any old time…
I only hope with OBL taking credit for the attacks we can put this to bed once and for all..
unfortunately, i’m expecting a bunch of replies ranging from I’m an idiot to that wasn’t really OBL ( it was a out of work Saddam double) to whatever new theory on the concoction list they can think of.
Keep remembering what British Journalist said on one of his interviews on NPR’s Talk of the Nation before the invasion. He had spent time with OBL many years back and Bergen said the OBL hoped to witness the “U.S. become a shadow of its former self”.
The Bush administration and the Congress people who supported the illegal invasion of Iraq granted OBL his wish.
Touche.
For OBL’s purposes, the right guy is in the White House.
For God’s sake. I’m not fooled by those sliced and diced tapes. Are you?
He’s a useful fanatic! He was before 9-11 and still is if he’s alive!
Until the many questions I have about 9-11 have been answered I’m not going to stop talking about this and PLEASE, don’t talk to me about no plane flying into a building or other such nonsense.
Now this person is asking questions and going public.
The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th: Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon
The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th
Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon speaks out on 9/11, NORAD and what should have happened on 9/11.
By Jeremy Baker
May, 2007
Within three hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Robin Hordon knew it was an inside job. He had been an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) for eleven years before Reagan fired him and hundreds of his colleagues after they went on strike in the eighties. Having handled in-flight emergencies and two actual hijackings in his career, he is well qualified to comment on what NORAD should have been able to achieve in its response to the near simultaneous hijacking of four domestic passenger carriers on the morning of September 11th, 2001.
I spoke to Mr. Hordon one afternoon at a coffee shop in Bremerton, Washington.
But
“Our aim has not been to assign individual blame.” 9/11 Commission Report, p. xvi
http://www.911truth.org/
oh golly Cee…
By Jeremy Baker
May, 2007
Within three hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Robin Hordon knew it was an inside job. He had been an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) for eleven years before Reagan fired him
Geez..He was an 11 year vet air traffic controller
over 20 years ago..
My Dad was a 33 year controller who was a supervisor and watched Robin’s union Strike..
being an air traffic controller doesn’t make anyone an expert in Norad procedures..And anyone who claims it was an insider job by noon EST is either delusional or a liar..Period.
When I graduated College i was hired by the DOD to work on nuclear Submarine nuclear weapons systems with a Ocean engineering clearance. ( much higher than Top secret..MINSY badge # 796001 ) And I can’t tell you what Norad procedures are because of a little thing the government calls ‘a need to know’
And a civilian is critiquing military procedures?
It has never happened..will never happen..never can happen..That’s the real world..
Besides all that..CEE.. I think you are an awesome poster here and contribute so much to our discussions at NQ..we agree on so much it’s not funny.. we are brothers and sisters in arms against this corrupt administration..
we just disagree about about 9-11 so let’s just drop that for another day and join forces against bushco and get our country back..
kind regards Cee
the hoopster
We will agree to disagree.
Darn…my last post disappeared. For giggles I went to seach for the new tape of our proxy warrrior.
This is pathetic.
Bin Laden and Future Jihad in Europe
By Walid Phares
http://counterterrorismblog.org/
So is this. So, they are replaced SITE in “locating” tapes now?
For a site that claims to be looking for answers regarding 9-11, much is missing.
NEFA Foundation: Complete Transcript of Latest UBL Audio Recording, “Message to the Peoples of Europe”
By Evan Kohlmann
http://www.nefafoundation.org/
LOOK OUT! Osama is going to Sudan! No, Palestine! No, uh…
HH
As you probably know I am a “9/11 truther”, however I do not want to get into a big discussion over any of the so called facts, etc.
I would like to present a question to you from a different point of view and you do not have to answer for now.
Normally when there is any kind of a crash involving any type of aircraft the NTSB is immediately dispatched and takes complete control of the site isolating it to avoid contamination and gathering evidence. Then following forensic procedures they to try to determine what happened. Sometimes this takes months sometimes it takes years. One example is the work done to come up with how the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie was brought down.
I believe we could all agree that Ground Zero, the Pentagon and the field in Penn were places that the NTSB would seal off take evidence etc and conduct an investigation and at some point publish their findings.
Do you believe the 9/11 Commission report which is the only recognized published report on what happened on 9/11 was conducted in a manner consistent with the investigation into the Lockerbie crash and if you do are you satisfied with the 9/11 Commission’s findings?
If so that is fine with me, but if there is any doubt in your mind that the 9/11 Commission was not as thorough as they could have been, then you can join the ranks of us “truthers” who do not believe in “conspiracy theories about what happened, but believe that the 9/11 Commissions Report leaves too many questions unanswered.
Hi bill keyes..
You’re asking me if any investigation..not just 9-11 conducted by this admin is unbiased and conclusive?
Ok..everybody get the laughter done now..
Wait for it…whew..ok Bill.. let me catch my breathe..
that we can agree on..But the NTSB doesn’t investigate a military attack..well let me rephrase that..a military/civilian attack.
Because of the unusual aspect of the attack we crossed into uncharted waters..
But i believe this.
I know what i saw with my own eyes.
I know what my son at ground zero saw
I know that Bin Laden has claimed responsibility.
I know we’ll never change each others mind..
But that’s ok cause we’re still on the same team here..Bush and the GOP are corrupt rotten pols that have taken us to an illegal war and have nearly ruined america the beautiful.
I blame Bush over almost everything..but not 9-11.
regards bill.. and i hope you and your family have a happy holiday season..
The Hoopster
Thanks hoops for a good answer.
Same to you on a good holiday season….my family will all be together here in sunny AZ for the first time in years.
Lets hope that by this time next year there is a better chance of peace in the world then there is today.
One of the great disappointments of my life after living under the threat of nuclear anniliation for 50 years was the failure of this country to take the lead in promoting world peace after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
To use the the title of John Lennon’s great peace song Imagine, can you imagine what the world would be like today if Al Gore had won in 2000?
While I am basically an optimistic person, I do not see world peace coming anytime in the future, in fact even if the Dems win next year I do not hear any rhetoric that would lead me believe that striving for world peace is any where near the top of their agenda’s.
As long as this country’s priorities are consumerism, greed, accumulation of wealth and power, lack of compassion for those less fortunate then us not only those in this country but the rest of the world, a foreign policy driven by empire building and corporate globalization, total lack of leadership in the global warming, (I could go on and on), I do not have a lot of hope for the future.
Peace
Bill.. We are so much on the same page..
I was so pissed off when Gore lost..Where would we be today if Gore won..No Iraq war that’s for sure..
Let me assure you that come Oct. 08 I will be posting on this site to drive your wife, family, friends and anybody else to the polls and defeat the GOP and get our country back.
Larry will probably be beside himself when every day for a month I’ll be asking people to get out and vote.
OT: Bill you’re in Az.. I love Sedona..great town and wonderful Golf course..one of the best I’ve ever played on..
well i’m going to the top thread to post..but I really enjoyed chatting with you.
Peace..
I don’t try to pretend to understand the methods used by the CIA and the FBI. And I don’t doubt that many in this country and the Bush administration would like to give Chavez the boot.
Just read the “Confessions of a Covert Agent” and whether this person is or is not a covert agent sure sounds like some truth telling going on. Brutal truth telling that I believe whether this person is an agent or not.
Have you ever listened to anyone who can tell you about the brutality that is taking place in the Democratic republic of Congo. This is not happenning because of broccoli being grown in Iraq.
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/8/they_are_destroying_the_female_species
And I do believe what this person has written “they do not give a fuck about the people of Iraq” 1 million are dead and 4 million are displaced due to our invasion. The reason we went into Iraq is access to oil for Israel and the U.S. simple as that. The powers that be do not give a rats ass about the people in these countries.
If ever there was a time that Americans need to consider living more simply so others can simply live the time was yesterday or how about 100 years ago.
Reality of the invasion of Iraq
http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_page1.htm
Anytime we hear about Africa it seems that the nation getting the news has something we want. Sudan/Darfur. Oil.
I just got my new copy of Business Week. The cover story reads “CAN GREED SAVE AFRICA”
Poor Africa.
Now this. Lord.
Rice to tackle African conflicts
Rice to Tackle African Conflicts, Shore Up Peace Deals on Trip to Ethiopia
MATTHEW LEE
AP News
Nov 30, 2007 18:35 EST
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hopes to try to cool several explosive African conflicts and shore up faltering peace deals when she travels next week to Ethiopia, headquarters of the African Union, the State Department said Friday.
In meetings in Addis Ababa, Rice plans to explore prospects for peace in the Horn of Africa, where Somalia is ravaged by violence and humanitarian crises and fresh tensions between Ethiopia and arch-foe neighbor Eritrea threaten a 2000 peace pact that closed a bloody two-year border war, a senior official said.
She will also press leaders from Africa’s volatile Great Lakes region on a comprehensive strategy to deal with insurgents from various conflicts, including those in Burundi, Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, who have sought haven in largely ungoverned stretches of the vast eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the official said.
In addition, in a jam-packed, one-day visit to the Ethiopian capital on Dec. 5, Rice intends to urge senior Sudanese officials to recommit to a 2005 accord that ended the country’s 21-year north-south civil war that was Africa’s longest running conflict, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer told reporters.
That agreement, which could be a model for a resolution to the fighting in Sudan’s western Darfur region, has been under strain with the autonomous ex-rebel south accusing the north of reneging on elements of the deal, including sharing oil revenue, and briefly suspending participation in a unity government.
Rice will hold talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who has been a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism and whose forces last Christmas eve invaded lawless Somalia to oust radical Islamists some of whom are accused of links to al-Qaida.
She’ll also meet in Addis Ababa with the interim president of Somalia and the new prime minister of the Somali transitional government that has been unable to assert authority in much of the country, which has without a functioning central administration since 1991.
Frazer said the U.S. placed a priority on political reconciliation among fractious Somali clans that would allow elections to be held as planned in 2009.
Rice will push for full deployment of an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, allowing Ethiopian troops to leave and supplementing the presence of Ugandan soldiers. Frazer said Burundi is preparing to deploy peacekeepers in the very near future and that Ghana and Nigeria might be close behind.
On Eritrea and Ethiopia, there are fears that a 1998-2000 border war, that resulted in the deaths of some 70,000 people, may flare again. The frontier has never been demarcated and on Friday the commission charged with setting it disbanded after neither side could agree on the drilling border pillars.
Rice does not plan to meet with officials from Eritrea, which accuses the U.S. of favoring Ethiopia, while she is in Addis Ababa, Frazer said. Washington has accused Eritrea of playing a negative role in Somalia by arming and supporting Islamists in Somalia in part to harass Ethiopia.
With Great Lakes leaders, Rice wants to address the issue of the lingering insurgents in eastern Congo, including Hutu rebels responsible for Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, combatants loyal to dissident Congolese General Laurent Nkunda and members of Uganda’s notorious Lord’s Resistance Army, Frazer said.
Frazer said the U.S. was continuing to urge Nkunda to go into exile.
Meanwhile she said Washington still supported peace talks between Uganda’s government and the Lord’s Resistance Army, despite evidence suggesting that the rebels’ shadowy leader, Joseph Kony, may have ordered the execution of his pro-peace deputy, Vincent Otti despite rebel denials that he is dead.
“We can’t confirm that Otti is dead,” Frazer said, “but the evidence is pointing in that direction.”
Source: AP News
“The reason we went into Iraq is access to oil for Israel and the U.S. simple as that.”
It was about a lot of things, but access to oil for Israel?! Come on! Access to oil for Israel had no significance in the decision to invade and take over Iraq.
The real motives are far more sinister and far-reaching than “access to oil for Israel”.
And by the way, it was also not about access to oil for the United States - at least not in the sense of obtaining oil for the United States’ consumption. That could have been accomplished in simpler, less costly, and far less destructive and deadly ways. Again, it is about something far more sinister and far-reaching than mere access to oil.
It’s really too bad that some people insist upon focusing on Israel so much in trying to explain this matter. It provides advocates of U.S. aggression a cheap and easy diversion from the real explanations, which are extremely dangerous and have worldwide and very long-range implications.
Shirin,
For some reason, your comment went into the spam filter. Fixed it!
Has everyone noticed that there are no more “experts” that are formerly qualified active duty personnel appearing on the teevee any longer?
funny, they must not be able to find a single one that will prop up the crap they are fed to say by the press secretary to the dictator
I think it’s more like they’re all back with the Agency wearing green badges and worried about losing their clearances.
IS that a patronage thing?
No, it’s more like an economy thing. They’re just offering too much money to come back.
Thanks…you were being satirical with Larry earlier I take it no?
You got it!
If this person is not for real why not prosecute them?
Noam Cholmsky and Bishop Tutu on the middle east conference. Democracy Now
http://www.archive.org/stream/dn2007-1127_vid/dn2007-1127_256kb.mp4
Worth the watch
Sorry not sure what happenned. The link to Noam and Bishop Tutu
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/11/27/stream
Oh, OK, so CIA doesn’t do THAT, but
there’s no denying “the
CIA,DIA, NSC, NSA, SAIC, Army Intel and many more lesser known agencies within the intelligence apparatus” have always been in the business of starting up shit they can’t finish, on whomever’s behalf.We haven’t had a good war we could actually win since OSS became CIA. Sixty years of delegitimization. Sixty years of foreign policy consisting in dealing with the blowback of undisclosed dirty tricks and fuckery. Sixty years of never getting the real reason why things have gone so shittily downhill. There’s no HUMINT because WE CAN’T GET OVER.
Now all the eyes of Sauron turn on US. This black ops administration and the alphabet soup are doing us in.
Hey, I don’t blame Venezuela for taking full advantage of any agitprop it can. It’s not like what we’ve been doing to other coutries is some kind of conspiracy theory or something. Christ, the “history” of the first half of the existence of the CIA was recently released. Everything we suspected was true. Probably in spades.
It’s not so much that intel agencies and other government entities start things that they can’t finish. Most often, the people on the ground are pulled out before they felt that they have finished because the White House and Congress feel that the American people won’t politically accept futher involvement (read: bloodshed). Or, alternatively, we get ourselves into situations where there is really no realistic prospect of withdrawal, even in the long term, and we pull out anyway.
We are a relatively young country in history. We go into lands that have literally existed for centuries before us and, for some reason, believe that we can impose a neat solution in the short term when such has eluded the society that we are mucking about in for longer than we have existed. And we wonder why people think of us as arrogant. Let’s face it, we are.
This is true for Iraq as well don’t you think? We will leave sooner than later.
I was thinking of the “Marsh Arabs” by George the first. I mean we did care one dam bit.
Great reply, Retired. We seem to be very good at coups and election meddling when the longevity of any one of “our” dictators is threatened.
We’re a can o’ fail, however, when we promise to back up insurgencies we’re in favor of (Bay of Pigs, bu$h 41 during Iraq I, more) with air strikes. This is a stopping point, where back ops end and commitment of armed force starts. Because at that point it goes public, we leave ‘em twisting in the wind.
Yeah, we’re a young, experimental country, but even during my lifetime we’ve been through the same stupid scenarios again and again.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Bombwielding_ma
n_believed_to_be_holding_1130.html
Bomb-wielding man believed to be holding hostages at Clinton campaign office
RAW STORY
Published: Friday November 30, 2007
Is it Glen Beck? If so it is just advertizing for his forthcoming book.
I’m not CIA, and I’ve never been part of any other government intelligence agency, and I was not fooled.
As far as Chavez and his uno peeps, uno conquista, uno el presidente!
Let his own people deal with him…tin pot dictators always get the home town love in spades when the da peepoles get tired of them and their egotistical antics.
Well said.
I’ve liked a few things Chavez did for his people and in helping the poor in the U.S. get heating oil.
But I don’t like his desire to be president for life. And his hours-long rants are a BIG sign that he’s a total narcissist … if our narcissistic President Bush could talk, he’d go on for hours too. (Snort.)
What do you really KNOW about Chaves and his supposed wish “to be president for life”? What USA (CIA) prop told you? Just the same as Saddam (Iran) WMD? And WHY do you feel entitled to snort on Chaves? Because he is a prez ( a real, unlike your Bush) of a not-white people? In short, after CIA REALLY have toppled a lot of democratic rulers and put in place a lot of dictators, I believ Chaves and NOT a CIA man - after all, WHO he is to tell me Chaves is a lier? CIA IS a biggest terrorist organisation - sorry, but it IS a truth
lidia,
I’ve reread your post, reread it again, and for the third time have reread it again, and all I can say is…interesting.
However, the good news is that you and I do have something in commmon:
We’re both poor judges of character.
my post was NOT about “judging of character” - it is about political, not personal matters.
And I guess my words could be new (if I understood correctly) only for somebody who NEVER got out of corporate USA media. And it has NOTHING to do with a caracter
At first I thought Confessions of a Covert Agent was supposed to be a satiric parody, until I read further and realized the author expected to be taken seriously.
The very few actual facts appear to be common items from the news, copied and pasted in strategic spots to make the surrounding rant sound legitimate. For example, the “psyop” of mentioning Saddam and 9/11 in the same sentence, has been pointed out in op-eds from a majority of news outlets in America.
He says “The scientific art of manipulating public opinion is 100 years old now. PsyOps have evolved to the point, thanks to the all pervasive mass media, where we can make you believe, or at least passively accept, whatever we want you to.” It’s so sinister, it’s too good to be true.
100 years old? Militarilly it’s at least as old as the Trojan Horse. In general terms, probably as old as the con game. In fact, one of the most well known psyops practicers of the last century, Ed Landsdale, has been described as using a combination of confidence schemes and public opinion.
It looks as though the ‘Confessions’ piece is actually itself a con game, used to sell the author’s book on the same web site. I wonder which chapter of the book opens with the line “It was a dark and stormy night…”
Since the writing reads like the drunken ramblings of someone alone and delusional on a dark and stormy Friday night, I’ll save the book money, and use it for my own Friday night drinking.
Not Spanish. Esperanto, man. Esperanto.
Larry, I also flagged the Operation Pincers thing as questionable.
However, I wouldn’t discount it out of hand. This is not the embassy in Moscow or Berlin. It’s in a backwater, and sometimes people get sloppy. And, sure, it would be surprising for the routing to be from the officer to Hayden. However, ratf–king Venezuela is high up enough on the Administration to do list that they could have arranged an unusual reporting relationship. If this were run out of Cheney’s office, they might not want to use Rice the way they used Kissinger as point man for Operation Condor. So, put it as a 20% probable that this is a real memo, but not as an impossible.
Your commenters who think that the fact it’s in Spanish disproves its authenticity are very sloppy thinkers. This is the version being supplied by the Venezuelan government to the Venezuelan people, who happen to speak Spanish.
David Vincent is the listed author of the book. While I am in no position to disagree with your assessment as to the BS-meter going off the scale, there are some things in the full article that at least a little seem to ring true. Ever hear of a David Vincent?
David Vincent is such a common name it’s hard to pin down. He’s either:
- a newcomer author (BTW the book at least has very nice pretty cover graphics)
- the author of “Home Run: The Definitive History of Baseball’s Ultimate Weapon”
- the bass player of death metal band Morbid Angel
- the owner of David Vincent’s Martial Arts & Fitness in Baton Rouge LA
See below… it’s #3. This from the boards at Salon.com, matching the ticket stuff from the same site as Larry’s link at the top.
Essentially, he’s ripped off the Matrix and its ilk storylines and does a show, video, chat, etc. stating that aliens have taken over or similar.