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Post by Moses on May 31, 2005 10:52:31 GMT -5
Michael Ledeen, a fascist Israeli operant, is suspected of being involved in the most heinous treasons, is not only still free, but is a frequent guest "expert" in the media, and close advisor and policy-maker in the Bush Administration.
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Post by Moses on May 31, 2005 11:01:40 GMT -5
Michael Ledeen on Larry Franklin & AIPACAugust 31, 2004, 12:46 a.m. An Improbable Molehunt Sorting it out. Must be something to do with the hurricanes and typhoons — or maybe it's the street demos in New York — but it took longer than usual for me to get in touch with my late friend, James Jesus Angleton. The ouija board kept giving me a "no service available" message, but finally I got through. There was a lot of static on the line. ...JJA: Look, as you've said, if the FBI has a real case, they don't go whispering to the press about it. They go to the grand jury. They don't leak, they indict and prosecute. ML: Plus, they promised their media agents — I mean the journalists — that there would be arrests, and pronto. Nobody's been arrested, and some of the latest stories even quote the "sources" as saying that the Pentagon target — my pal Larry Franklin — may well be exonerated. That's quite a turnaround in a couple of days, isn't it? JJA: It's embarrassing. At this point, given the state of the "news stories," you'd have to conclude that the CI folks in the bureau are either incompetent or McCarthyites. Either they leaked information that should have been kept secret — if there is indeed any case against Mr. Franklin or others — or they are trying to smear him and some of his friends and colleagues. Including you, I might point out. ML: Thanks for noticing, but it's same old, same old. But maybe it's not the bureau. Apparently people on the intelligence oversight committees were briefed on the investigation, so maybe they're the leakers. JJA: It's an attractive theory, and I’d love to believe it, because it would mean that the FBI isn't going through one of J. Edgar Hoover's worst moments. But as I read the stories, there are specific references to FBI sources. I doubt those are invented by the journalists to protect pals on the House or Senate committee staffs. ML: If you were a serious journalist working on this story, what questions would you be asking? JJA: Well, first of all I'd be trying to find out whether the wiretap stories are true, because that would be an indicator of the seriousness of the investigation. If the bureau wants to listen to somebody's telephone conversations, they need explicit permission from a special court, and for the court to approve a wiretap, or whatever the electronic equivalent is nowadays (you'd be amazed how low-tech life is around here, confound it!), the bureau has to provide reasonable grounds to believe a crime has been committed, or is about to be committed. ML: So if there were such approval, it would give weight to the leaks? JJA: Yes. Conversely, if there were no such approval, it would suggest that they don't have much of a case. I'd be interested in knowing specifically how many wiretaps were approved or rejected. For example, I'd be quite astonished if a court approved a wiretap of AIPAC — which, according to the stories, is the alleged intermediary of the "classified information" Franklin is supposed to have passed to the Israelis. ML: What's your gut reaction? JJA: I can't really tell, because the "story" doesn't make any sense. What do we know about Franklin? The main fact is that he's an intelligence professional. He spent his career in the DIA. Like everyone else who handles classified material, he knows the rule by heart: You cannot disclose such information to "unauthorized persons." So if a professional decides to do that, he's always going to do it very carefully. You've read enough spy novels to know the methods: dead drops, secret writing, codes, the whole nine yards. ML: Yeah, John le Carre. JJA: Oh for heaven's sake! That hack. ML: Sorry, sorry. But the "stories" say that Franklin walked into a restaurant where one or two guys from AIPAC were having lunch or coffee or something with some Israeli, and dumped the documents on the table. JJA: Not good spycraft, is it? More like Laurel and Hardy. ML: Yeah. Reminds me of the old Neapolitan joke, where Mr. Smith goes to Naples, takes an apartment, lives quietly for ten years, and then one day a new face shows up at the front door and asks the concierge whether a Mr. Smith lives there. "Oh, Smith the spy? Yes, second floor, first door on the left." JJA: Worse even. Because, to use your metaphor, Franklin would have a big sign over the door saying "Franklin the Israeli agent." ML: But countries, even friendly countries, certainly spy on one another, so theoretically there might be friendly espionage operations in Washington. JJA: There are certainly espionage operations here, from all our friends and enemies. But Israel is one of the countries least likely to recruit agents in the American government. ML: Because of Pollard, right? JJA: You bet. That d**n near wrecked the relationship, and they don't want a repeat. And I keep coming back to the professionalism question. If someone in the U.S. government were passing secrets to Israel, I just can't imagine that it would take place in a restaurant, or that AIPAC — which knows it has endless enemies in the counterintelligence community — would do such a thing. ML: So what do you think an AIPAC guy would do if somebody walked up to him in a restaurant and said "Here, I've got some interesting documents for you about American policy debates on Iran." JJA: The AIPAC guy would run away as fast as he could. Are you kidding? ML: I agree. And I also agree that we're dealing with incompetence or McCarthyism. In either case, it's disgusting. JJA: Yes it is. Counterintelligence is a very complex and frustrating art. You're going to get things wrong, inevitably. Look at the guy who's reportedly in charge of this case. He was totally off base when he was involved in the Ames investigation. So be it. It happens, and you can't lose your morale just because you get something wrong from time to time. But it's totally unprofessional for the story to be leaked, and it's morally repugnant for a mid-level civil servant to be ruined if there is no serious case against him. ML: You had some bitter experiences along these lines didn't you? JJA: Yes. Sad to say, I thought I had strong cases against some people who, in the fullness of time, turned out to be innocent. I ruined their careers, for which I've paid in the last few years. But at least it happened quietly. I didn't go talk to some television producer and whisper that we'd found a Soviet mole. And when their innocence was established, they got some compensation. That was bad; this, at least so far as we can tell today, looks worse. ML: Let's come back to the journalists for a second. Aren't they culpable too? JJA: That's a bit more difficult, but they certainly haven't covered themselves with glory. Whenever they're approached with a story like this, they should ask the FBI: If you've got such a strong case, why haven't you obtained indictments from a grand jury? And if there aren't any indictments, and if nobody's been arrested, then why are you asking me to do your dirty work for you? ML: So put up or shut up, right?
JJA: Amen, brother. Put up or shut up.ML: I'll get back to you if there are further developments. JJA: Thanks. I'll look forward to it. ML: Me too.
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Post by Moses on May 31, 2005 11:11:55 GMT -5
Mon May 09, 2005 Israeli Spy Scandal: Bloggers in the Dock?Here it's been close to a week since Israeli spy and former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin was nabbed by the feds, and still not a peep out of the right-wing of the blogosphere. And these are the same people who want to set up their own news service? Well, I've got a catchy slogan for them: All the news that fits our agenda. Oh sure, Michelle Malkin had a couple of posts up about it, as I noted earlier, but, aside from her, the silence is positively eerie. I mean, all the Usual Suspects haven't even bothered to denounce the arrest as based on a "sheer fabrication," as Powerline did when the story first broke. Odd. Or, maybe, not so odd, if Newsweek is right: Journalists -- and bloggers? Waaaaay cool! Finally, the puffed-up bloggers are receiving the notice -- and equal treatment -- that is their due! Even cooler is the prospect of finding out which bloggers are going to be subpoenaed. Imagine Charles Johnson, the fanatically pro-Israel blogger who once gloated that the whole Franklin affair would "slip off the media radar as quickly as it appeared," sitting in the hot seat, refusing to give up his sources. Oh boy! Can I watch? On second thought, it probably isn't Johnson who's aroused the interest of the feds. His "blog" consists mostly of cut-and-paste selections from previously published articles, interspersed with brief-but-hateful comments. No wonder Google won't carry his garbage. No, it must be somebody more ... substantial. Someone who's been covering the Franklin affair -- or, more likely, someone who has been blogging about the alleged threat posed to American troops in Iraq by pro-Iranian groups, like the Dawa party and SCIRI. That, after all, was the subject of the top secret material Franklin was handing over to AIPAC, which acted as a conduit passing stolen secrets on to Israel. Oh, this is going to be good. Here we have people who hate the ACLU, who denounce their political opponents as "traitors" and "fifth columnists," and lustily invoke "patriotism" (i.e. state worship) while wrapping themselves in the flag, suddenly in the dock for ... aiding and abetting espionage. There is a God. Posted by: Justin Raimondo on May 09, 05 | 1:13 pm | Comments? | link
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Post by Moses on May 31, 2005 11:22:16 GMT -5
Buddies of the terrorists: ChechnyaIn the US, the group that pleads the Chechen cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). Its members are the most prominent neo-conservatives who so enthusiastically support the "war on terror" and the occupation of Iraq. They include Richard Perle, very important Pentagon adviser; Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame; Kenneth Adelman, the former US ambassador to the; Midge Decter, biographer of Donald Rumsfeld and a director of the rightwing Heritage Foundation; Frank Gaffney of the militarist Centre for Security Policy; Bruce Jackson, former US military intelligence officer and one-time vice-president of Lockheed Martin, now president of the US Committee on Nato; Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, a leading proponent of regime change in Iran; and R James Woolsey, the former CIA director who is one of the leading cheerleaders behind George Bush's plans to re-model the Muslim world along pro-US lines
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Post by Moses on May 31, 2005 11:28:11 GMT -5
"every now and again the United States has to pick up a crappy little country and throw it against a wall just to prove we are serious." -- Michael Ledeen
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Post by Moses on May 31, 2005 11:38:25 GMT -5
JINSA: ....The incestuous nature of the proliferating boards and think tanks, whose membership lists are more or less identical and totally interchangeable, is frighteningly insidious. Several scholars at the American Enterprise Institute, including former Reagan UN ambassador and long-time supporter of the Israeli right wing Jeane Kirkpatrick, make their pro-Israel views known vocally from the sidelines and occupy positions on other boards. Probably the most important organization, in terms of its influence on Bush administration policy formulation, is the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). Formed after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war specifically to bring Israel's security concerns to the attention of U.S. policymakers and concentrating also on broad defense issues, the extremely hawkish, right-wing JINSA has always had a high-powered board able to place its members inside conservative U.S. administrations. Cheney, Bolton, and Feith were members until they entered the Bush administration. Several lower level JINSA functionaries are now working in the Defense Department. Perle is still a member, as are Kirkpatrick, former CIA director and leading Iraq-war hawk James Woolsey, and old-time rabid pro-Israel types like Eugene Rostow and Michael Ledeen. Both JINSA and Gaffney's Center for Security Policy are heavily underwritten by Irving Moskowitz, a right-wing American Zionist, California business magnate (his money comes from bingo parlors), and JINSA board member who has lavishly financed the establishment of several religious settlements in Arab East Jerusalem.
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Post by Moses on May 31, 2005 11:44:43 GMT -5
AIPAC forums last week (they are still ostentatiously pushing for a war w/ Iran, despite the investigation and their reknown as a foreign lobby, and of course, Ledeen was there). In short, the impetus behind the war, and the impetus behind fascism in America is AIPAC's agenda:
FORUMS: TRACK I (CONVENTION CENTER, VARIOUS ROOMS), 2 P.M. TO 3:30 P.M.
AIPAC Strategic Tour 2005: Iran's Path to the Bomb. (Convention Center, Hall C); A groundbreaking interactive multimedia display entitled: How Iran is Building a Bomb and How We Can Stop It. This unique experience will allow visitors to step inside the nuclear fuel cycle, tracing step-by-step the paths that Iran is taking in order to mislead the international community and assemble an atomic bomb. AIPAC experts will be on hand as viewers explore the implications of a nuclear Iran, and what can be done to prevent this eventuality. The one-of-a-kind Strategic Tour combines dramatic staging with sophisticated multimedia to create an unforgettable experience.
Disengagement and Beyond: The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process; Brig. Gen. Udi Dekel, director of the Strategic Planning Division, Israel Defense Forces; Mr. David Makovsky, director, Project on the Middle East Peace Process, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Ambassador Ron Prosor, director general, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, State of Israel
Terror in the USA: How Vulnerable Are We and What Are We Doing About It?; Representative James Turner, former ranking member, House Select Committee on Homeland Security; Mr. Michael Bopp, majority staff director and chief counsel, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; Mr. David Cohen, senior lobbyist for Homeland Security Affairs, AIPAC
Beyond the Headlines: The Media and the War on Terror; Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, director, Diplomatic/Political Department, Israeli Ministry of Defense; Mr. Dan Senor, former spokesman, Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority
The Day After the Bomb: How a Nuclear Iran Would Change the World; Dr. Michael Ledeen, freedom scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), United States House of Representatives; The Honorable Ephraim Sneh, member of Knesset, Labor Party; Ambassador Brad Gordon, legislative director, AIPAC
Profs and Propaganda: Israel in the Academic Arena; Mr. Peter McPherson, president emeritus, Michigan State University; Dr. Jonathan Adelman, professor, Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver; Mr. Jonathan Kessler, leadership development director, AIPAC
FORUMS: TRACK II (CONVENTION CENTER, VARIOUS ROOMS), 4 P.M. TO 5:30 P.M.
AIPAC Strategic Tour 2005: Iran's Path to the Bomb. (Convention Center, Hall C); A groundbreaking interactive multimedia display entitled: How Iran is Building a Bomb and How We Can Stop It. This unique experience will allow visitors to step inside the nuclear fuel cycle, tracing step-by-step the paths that Iran is taking in order to mislead the international community and assemble an atomic bomb. AIPAC experts will be on hand as viewers explore the implications of a nuclear Iran, and what can be done to prevent this eventuality. The one-of-a-kind Strategic Tour combines dramatic staging with sophisticated multimedia to create an unforgettable experience.
Approaching Statehood: Are the Palestinians Really Ready?; Mr. Khaled Abu Toameh, Palestinian affairs correspondent, The Jerusalem Post; Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog, visiting military fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Ms. Ester Kurz, director for Legislative Strategy and Policy, AIPAC
Business and Beyond: How U.S.-Israel Collaboration is Changing the World; Mr. Erel Margalit, managing partner, Jerusalem Venture Partners; Mr. Jonathan Medved, managing partner, Israel Seed Partners; Mr. Larry Weinberg, executive vice president, Israel21C
Knesset Conversation: A Roundtable Featuring Israeli Political Leaders; The Honorable Reshef Chayne, member of Knesset, Shinui Party; The Honorable Meir Sheetrit, minister of transportation, Likud Party; The Honorable Ephraim Sneh, Member of Knesset, Labor Party; Mr. Yaron Deckel, Washington bureau chief, IBA News
Promise or Pitfall: What's Next for Syria and Lebanon and Why it Matters; Mr. Frederic Hof, president and CEO, Armitage Associates, L.C.; Mr. Avi Jorisch, senior fellow, The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; Mr. David Gillette, senior lobbyist, AIPAC
Today and Tomorrow: The Parties and Their Approach to Foreign Policy; Mr. Peter Beinart, eEditor, "The New Republic"; Mr. David Frum, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Winds of Change: Understanding the Middle East's Shifting Picture; Dr. Robert Satloff, executive director, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Dr. Kenneth Stein, director, Institute for the Study of Modern Israel at Emory University
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Post by Moses on May 31, 2005 11:53:26 GMT -5
Cover-up: collaboration w/ Iranian hostage holders to sabatage US election...Barcella headed a House task force which investigated the accusations and exonerated the Republicans. Accepted Wisdom The House task force report “debunking” the October Surprise allegations was accepted by Official Washington as the final word on the controversy. But subsequent discoveries have shown that the Barcella-led task force hid substantial evidence pointing toward Republican guilt as well as the involvement of some Barcella associates in the scandal.
According to Maas’s Manhunt, prosecutor Barcella entertained a nighttime visit in 1982 from Michael Ledeen, a neoconservative writer who then was working as a State Department consultant on terrorism. Ledeen and Barcella were personal friends. Barcella had sold Ledeen a house and the two aspiring Washington professionals shared a housekeeper. That evening, Ledeen was concerned because two of his associates, legendary CIA officer Ted Shackley and Pentagon official Erich von Marbod, had come under suspicion in the Wilson case. “I told Larry that I can’t imagine that Shackley [or von Marbod] would be involved in what you are investigating,” Ledeen told me. “I wasn’t trying to influence what he [Barcella] was doing. This is a community in which people help friends understand things.” Barcella also saw nothing wrong with the out-of-channel approach. “He wasn’t telling me to back off,” Barcella told me. “He just wanted to add his two-cents worth.” Barcella said the approach was appropriate because Ledeen “wasn’t asking me to do something or not do something.” Later, Shackley and von Marbod were dropped from the Wilson investigation. In the context of Barcella’s later role in the October Surprise case, however, the Ledeen connection raised other conflict-of-interest questions. The House task force staff discovered that Barcella’s friend, Ledeen, was considered an informal member of the Reagan-Bush campaign’s “October Surprise Group,” which supposedly monitored Carter’s hostage negotiations and plotted Republican counter-strategies. Ledeen also had other connections to the October Surprise case, including work that Ledeen and Shackley had done for the Italian intelligence service SISMI in 1980. At the time, Shackley, who had quit the CIA, also was serving as an emissary for then-vice presidential nominee George H.W. Bush on the Iran hostage issue.
See Russian Report on 1980 meeting in Europe ....As more Iran-Contra secrets spilled out in 1987, evidence emerged showing that the Reagan-Bush team had winked at third-country shipments of U.S. armaments to Iran as early as 1981. Some Iran-Contra witnesses began alleging that those shipments were part of a payoff by the Republicans for Iran’s secret cooperation during the 1980 campaign.
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Post by Moses on Jun 27, 2005 14:46:28 GMT -5
www.juancole.com/2005/06/ahmadinejad-uses-bushs-tactics-supreme.html.... Michael Ledeen over at the American Enterprise Institute alleged last week that hardliners brought two million Pakistanis over to vote for Ahmadinejad. Presumably they would have been brought in to Zahedan in Iranian Baluchistan from Quetta. Ledeen fancies himself a Middle East expert and is trying hard to get up a US war on Iran, having been helpful in getting up the Iraq War, which he promised us would go so well. Let me explain a few basics to Mr. Ledeen. 1. You can't move 2 million people through the Baluchistan desert in a short period of time. A population movement that massive could even be seen by satellite. 2. Pakistanis are largely Sunnis. They don't like the Iranian regime, which is their rival. They would not go vote in Iran. Even the Shiite minority would not, and it wouldn't vote for Ahmadinejad if it could. 3. The voting rolls for Iranian Baluchistan show about 800.000 voters. Where are the two million Pakistanis? 4. Baluchistan voted for reformist candidates. (Most Baluchis are Sunnis and are afraid of the Shiite hardliners). Can you imagine that people like Ledeen are actually allowed to come on television as "experts" or to publish in political journals despite spewing complete nonsense? If your son or daughter gets drafted and sent to die in Iran, it will be in some part because of the propaganda spread by people like Ledeen, who, by the way, has some sort of weird relationship both to the more fascistic elements in Italian military intelligence and to the Likud extremists in Israel. NB: The false Niger uranium documents were forged by a former agent of Italian military intelligence . . .
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Post by Moses on Jul 6, 2005 21:50:28 GMT -5
Italy Nabs 2 in 'Parallel' Police Scheme 2005-7-2 10:55:44 †† Associated Press ROME - Italian police arrested two people Friday accused of creating a "parallel" anti-terrorism police force that used government money and confidential police information, officials said. The two key suspects were identified as far-right activists, though their precise goals and motivations remained unclear. About 25 people °™ including some from to the state police, Carabinieri paramilitary police and border police °™ were placed under investigation, said the Genoa prosecutor, Domenico Porcelli. The two people arrested, Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca, founded the "Department of Strategic Anti-terrorism Studies" in 2004 to monitor anti-terrorism investigations, the ANSA and Apcom news agencies reported. The two are accused of criminal association with the aim of usurping public functions, taking public money and illicitly using government information, Porcelli said. Prosecutors believe the group attempted to gain contacts and funds from NATO, the United States and Israel, with little success, Apcom said. The group allegedly also conducted police-like operations, following people around several Italian cities, writing reports and running background checks by illegally accessing the Interior Ministry's databanks, the agency reported. The head of the Digos anti-terrorism unit in Genoa, Giuseppe Gonan, said the law enforcement officers under investigation helped supply the two suspects with confidential police information. But they apparently acted under the belief that the organization was legitimate, Apcom said.
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Post by Moses on Jul 6, 2005 22:12:27 GMT -5
DIPLOMATIC CABLES 07/04/2005 A MAJOR SPY SCANDAL IS BREAKING IN ITALY -- PARALLEL, UNOFFICIAL NEO-FASCIST ITALIAN INTELLIGENCE GROUP HAS TIES TO NEO CON INTELLIGENCE APPARATUS IN BUSH ADMINISTRATION INVOLVED IN KIDNAPING MILAN IMAM. GENOA POLICE BUST PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE CELLS AROUND ITALY. POSSIBLE LINKS BETWEEN BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND TERRORIST GROUPS FIGURE IN PROBE. Washington and Rome, Jul 4, 2005 UPDATED -- Genoa police have arrested the two leaders of a neo-Fascist unofficial intelligence and "anti-terrorism" police network in Italy and have conducted searches of homes throughout the country in a major crackdown on a group that recruited police and intelligence agents to their cause. The two neo-Fascist leaders -- Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca -- who reportedly have close ties to both the P-2 (Propaganda Due) Masonic lodge and a secret Cold War network known as Gladio [this was confirmed today officially], were arrested. Some 25 members of the regular state police, the Carabinieri, the Frontier police, and the Prison police were placed under official investigation. Tens of searches, including two houses in Genoa, were conducted by police in nine Italian regions: Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Lazio, Molise, Sicily and Sardinia. The investigation may soon extend to members of the Italian intelligence service SISMI. In 2004, Saya and Sindoca established the Department of Strategic Anti-Terrorism Studies (DSSA), which reportedly had links to both the Bush administration and Ariel Sharon's Likud government in Israel. Some Italian police were tricked into assisting the organization because they thought it was legitimate. Saya and Sindoca were leaders of the Destra Nazionale - Nuovo MSI (an off shoot of the neo-Fascist MSI party represented in the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi). The group is also unofficially known as the Fiamma Tricolore (Tri Color Flame). Police temporarily shut down the web site of Destra Nazionale - Nuovo MSI. The web site (their symbol is the bald eagle] was back up on July 3. Another web site run by DSSA asked for anonymous tips on terrorists and fraudulently claimed the be linked to official police functions. That site has also reportedly been shut down by police. There is now a suspicion by prosecutors in Genoa and Milan that the neo-Fascist intelligence group may have been involved with American covert operators in the kidnaping of Imam Abu Omar (Moustapha Hassan Nasr) from a street in Milan in 2003.[that is, this is who the CIA worked w/, while they shut out the legitimate Italian law-enforcement] Omar, a political refugee in Italy, was spirited out of Italy to Egypt by a covert team of U.S. Defense Department Special Forces, mercenaries, and intelligence agents who are now the subject of international arrest warrants (see articles below). There is now mounting evidence that the U.S. team was working with the parallel Italian intelligence network. Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has quickly distanced the parallel intelligence network from official intelligence and police networks by claiming the two men arrested are just criminals and not tied to the Italian Gladio, which a number of intelligence experts believe Cossiga once headed. Cossiga also defended the secret U.S. intelligence operation in Italy that is presently under attack by Milan prosecutors. Cossiga said that by not telling the Italian government of the operation, the U.S. avoided having its secret plans spread throughout the Middle East. By mentioning both the Milan and Genoa cases, Cossiga may have unintentionally linked the two. The parallel intelligence network is reportedly the outgrowth of a Gladio network consisting of six divisions that operated in Italy, North Africa, and the Middle East during the Cold War. The P-2 Lodge, headed by fascist leader Licio Gelli, reportedly maintained close links to former Secretary of State Alexander Haig and his one-time foreign affairs adviser Michael Ledeen. Former CIA Osama Bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer told Italy's LaRepubblica that the kidnaping of Abu Omar was authorized by SISMI chief Nicolo Pollari. A number of SISMI agents and assets have been tied to the group, including Francesco Pazienza, a SISMI agent, and Rocco Martino, who said he was the source of the faked Niger yellowcake uranium documents that were laundered through Rome and used as proof by the Bush White House that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium in Niger. That charge prompted the CIA to send Ambasssador Joseph Wilson to Niger resulting in a retaliatory exposure by the White House of the CIA's covert weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation network. Italian sources report that the Milan case against the Americans and the Genoa case against the private Italian network may be linked in another way. The reported CIA station chief in Milan, Honduran-born Robert Seldon Lady (whose name may be an alias and whose CIA connections may be incorrect or overstated) was, prior to his assignment in Milan, in charge of a covert American unit in Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua charged with penetrating anti-American groups and taking them over. It is now believed that Lady was in charge of a similar operation to turn Abu Omar and others into intelligence assets for the Americans. Abu Omar, according to Albanian intelligence sources, assisted the U.S. with intelligence on Islamic militants in Albania. It is also believed that the late Deputy SISMI chief Nicola Calipari became aware of information in Iraq that linked the control of terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere to a "third level" in "an anti-terrorism country." Calipari was shot to death by U.S. troops while transporting freed Italian hostage and journalist Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad International Airport. The U.S. ruled the shooting an "accident." Abu Omar may have become a hot potato for the Americans after Calipari discovered links between the Americans and terrorist groups in Iraq and elsewhere -- and a decision was made to conduct a "rendition" of the imam to Egypt to get him out of circulation. Abu Omar, also said to have been a credible intelligence source, may have also become aware of U.S. connections to terrorist groups. In an unexpected and possibly related move, the U.S. Defense Department announced that it was withdrawing a specal forces unit, mostly comprising Navy SEAL personnel, from the Rota Naval Station near Cadiz in southern Spain. The move came after the Pentagon announced it would move much of its Special Operations to southern Europe, particularly Spain, Italy, and Portugal and establish a new Special Operations command at Rota. Some experts on Gladio and the "stay behind networks" have cited the similarity of the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings and a Gladio/P-2-connected train bombing in Bologna in August 1974 and the 1978 assassination of Prime Minister Aldo Moro (after he announced he would bring Communists into the government) and the recent assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri after his negotiations with the pro-Syria and pro-Iran Hezbollah. Hariri was reportedly threatened beforehand by White House National Security Council officials in the same way Henry Kissinger threatened Moro in 1974 while the Christian Democratic leader was Foreign Minister. The United States blamed the Italian Red Brigades for Moro's killing in the same manner it blamed Syria for Hariri's assassination. And in another link to the present day, Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) also threatened Moro in 1976 for negotiating with the Communists. This was at the same time both Richard Perle and another arch-neo, Frank Gaffney, worked on Jackson's Senate staff.
Italian news repeatedly mentioned the connections between this group and Israel and the US, and connected the group w/ past assasinations. That is , those arrested and their collegues. The weapons and badges and passports of this group was shown as well. And this is the official news.
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Post by Moses on Jul 6, 2005 22:24:41 GMT -5
This is huge news in Italy. Note the news blackout here.
Also, it is of interest that the "anti-Syrian" journalists who were assasinated were both Communists. -- Two birds w/ one stone! Kind of like those who received Anthrax were all Democrats who support women's reproductive rights. It seems clear that the "Syrian secret police" in Lebanon, are in fact, well, someone else.
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Post by Moses on Jul 6, 2005 22:47:51 GMT -5
An unwieldy translation of July 2 press report: Italy One of the prisoners in relation to the parallel antiterrorist structure assures that the authorities knew itEurope Press Saturday, 2 of July 2005 Gaetano Gayo, one of both stopped yesterday by the Italian antiterrorist Police within the framework of an operation that brought to light the existence from a structure from parallel antiterrorist fight in Italy under the name Department from Strategic Studies from Antiterrorismo (DSSA), assures that the Italian authorities were to as much of the existence of this organization, whose main objective was to take control of public subventions. The woman of Gayo, under house arrest in Florence, today assures in the newspaper "the Repubblica", doing of spokesman of her husband who, said, "tries to clarify that the DSSA is a being of public right, like the Red Cross". "Whereas the Red Cross takes care of attendance, the Department is a training center of monitoring on the Islamic terrorism, that has never attributed functions of intelligence in the Italian territory", it declared to the newspaper Maria Antonietta Cannizzaro. According to the wife of Gayo, one had inquired into his existence to "the ministries of Interior, Defense, Justice, to the General Office of the public prosecutor of Rome, the Sismi (military intelligence service), to the Sisde (civil intelligence), to the general control of the Guard of Finances, to the Embassies of the United States and Israel, and to the Shape, the top command of NATO in Europe". "the idea was to create a listening structure and of valuation of the Islamic terrorism", it added. As far as the financing, Cannizzaro explained that "the center requested bottoms to the commission of security of Brussels, and is to the delay of which the procedure is completed". "This is the confirmation of which it is an absolutely public structure", it added, needing that a request had become of 32 million euros. With respect to the presence of members of all the Italian bodies of security, the woman of Gayo explained it affirming that "all can adhere (to the DSSA) in quality of external technical consultant". "No has been deceived", assured. Also, it indicated that "any successfully obtained information was transmitted to the Sismi and the Sisde". "the Dssa was first in discovering the underground mosques and was completing the most important study on the whitening and the financing of A the Qaeda through the telephone doctor's offices, the restaurants of kebab and the Islamic slaughters", indicated. "the truth is that Italy has been invaded by the Muslims and the test is that the Department, the only structure who could fight the Islamic terrorism effectively, has been blocked", he indicated the woman, transmitting the opinions of its husband, who cannot speak with the press. CASE SGRENA Gaetano Saya thinks perhaps that the DSSA could be investigated "because it had let know that it had knowledge of some truths on the liberation of Giuliana Sgrena", the journalist kidnapped in Iraq because "the 8 million euros paid by the rescue could not have left Italy and that Nicola Calipari --el secret agent that died in a shooting after the liberation of Sgrena -- was not an accidental victim".Nevertheless, it does not discard either that it must to that "our work was very appreciated in Israel and the United States" and to that "Gaetano Saya was raising the flight". According to his woman, "one was becoming too powerful" and "never it has hidden whom it loves to become minister of Interior". Gaetano Saya and the other prisoner, Sindoca Robert, are known by to have directed the organization "Destra Nazionale" (right national). Saya also was implied in the process against ex- prime minister Giulio Andreotti.Than 20 people the more investigated it is blamed to them of association to break the law with aims of usurpation of titles and functions in the matter of prevention and repression of crimes. According to the Police, the objective of the organization was to take advantage of the financing that offers as much national organisms as international. The mentioned band had created a species of parallel structure and sent so much to institutions as to mass media police information and lists on presumed terrorist attacks that were organizing presumed islamistas cells, totally infundadas and that did not have any real base in the investigations of the Italian forces of security. In some cases, the members of this illegal organization were made happen through members of the forces of the order and showed false identifications in name of the "Department of strategic studies on antiterrorism".
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Post by Moses on Jul 7, 2005 0:50:41 GMT -5
It would appear that the DSSA has a parallel organization here in the US: What prompted Knight's initial interest in Hamide and the PFLP remains less than clear. There were mentions in early reports of tips from other FBI field offices, as well as a widespread effort before the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics to check out anyone who might conceivably be connected to any terrorist plot against the Games. After the arrests in 1987, Anti-Defamation League officials claimed that the investigation had been triggered by information developed by their organization. They would back away from this boast a few years later, however, in the wake of embarrassing disclosures that ADL operatives in several cities, including Los Angeles, had kept thousands of covert files on people they deemed worthy of extra vigilance. Indeed, ADL files on Hamide and Shehadeh did turn up. From the Los Angeles Times COLUMN ONE 18 Years Waiting for a Gavel to Fall A group of Palestinians have been in legal and personal limbo for nearly two decades as the U.S. has sought to deport them. Their case foreshadowed post-9/11 policy. By Peter H. King Times Staff Writer June 29, 2005
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Post by Moses on Oct 26, 2005 20:26:56 GMT -5
Michael Ledeen’s Fingers in the Niger YellowcakeKurt Nimmo, Another day in the empire October 25, 2005 Some of us, those who pay attention, have suspected for some time the fraudulent Niger yellowcake documents—so crudely slapped together as to be laughable—are tied to Michael Ledeen, the neocon’s neocon, who is connected to the neofascist Italian military intelligence agency, SISMI. Ledeen’s role in dispensing these bogus documents—a puzzle piece fitting into the larger scam used as a pretext by Bush and Crew to invade a helpless Iraq—is so well-known it has made it into the Wikipedia entry on the yellowcake forgery: In an interview published April 7, 2005, [Vincent Cannistraro, the former head of counterterrorism operations at the CIA and the intelligence director at the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan] was asked by Ian Masters what he would say if it was asserted that the source of the forgery was former National Security Council and State Department consultant Michael Ledeen. (Ledeen had also allegedly been a liaison between the American Intelligence Community and SISMI two decades earlier.) Cannistraro answered by saying: "you’d be very close." Ledeen’s connection to SISMI goes way back—all the way back to Ledeen fingering the late and pathetic brother of Jimmy Carter, Billy, for allegedly hanging out with Yasser Arafat and George Habash, a PLO military leader, in Libya in October of 1978. Ledeen accused Carter of taking loans and expense money from the Libyans. (Obviously, this an old trick, used over and over, as the neocons now accuse British MP George Galloway of taking money from Saddam). [/url].) [/ul] As usual, though, when dealing with all things neocon, it gets worse. "Negroponte. Ledeen. Boykin. North. Kerek. If these figures make you uneasy, they should. An Italian investigation has uncovered an underground, parallel police network with possible links to the CIA which may be involved in the slaying of Niccola Calipari and Il Diario reporter Enzo Baldoni, the extraordinary rendition of Abu Omar and Nigergate," the Daily Kos wrote in July. Abu Omar (aka Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr) was the CIA asset (according to the Chicago Tribune) kidnapped off the streets of Milan (subsequently to disappear, a not uncommon fate for CIA assets). Niccola Calipari was a SISMI agent shot and killed while escorting the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena out of Iraq after she was released from kidnappers. Both Sgrena and Enzo Baldoni were working on Fallujah stories when they were abducted (Baldoni was executed). Mark Zepezauer adds: It appears Michael Ledeen, the "influential" neocon, was involved in Gladio operations past and is also linked to the faux Niger yellowcake documents cooked up by Italian intelligence, as noted above. Now we have Laura Rozen, citing a scoop from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, telling us Nicolo Pollari, chief of the fascist SISMI, "brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax." Pollari met with none other than Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. "Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons…. La Repubblica also quotes a Bush administration official saying, 'I can confirm that on September 9, 2002, General Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley.’" Let’s review: Ledeen is suspected of working on the forged Niger yellowcake documents and Nicolo Pollari, chief of the fascist SISMI, passed these off to the highest levels of the Bush administration, and these documents played a big part in the invasion of Iraq and the mass murder of more than a 100,000 Iraqis. Sounds like the stuff of impeachment to me. I might as well wish for a pony. Ledeen is apparently sensitive about his role in the creation of the fake Niger documents. "When I posted a rumor pointing in the direction of the best-known SISMI-connected neocon player, Michael Ledeen, who was a big wheel in Iran-contra, Ledeen emailed me to deny that he had any involvement with the forgeries," writes blogger Steve Sailer. Meanwhile, blogger Scott Horton has called for Fitzgerald to indict Ledeen. Horton writes: Thus, as Horton contends, Michael Ledeen should be indicted. Of course, that would shed an immense amount of light on the whole neocon operation and send the neocon rats scurrying to cut deals with Fitzgerald. It would be heavenly music. But it ain’t gonna happen. Unfortunately, in Bushzarro world, this scenario is against the laws of physics. Hadley or Scooter Libby or on the outside Rove (certainly not Cheney) will have the tender sides of their wrists slapped, maybe even be indicted and prosecuted, only to be pardoned by Bush on the day he leaves office—if he ever leaves office. It’s just too much to expect Fitzgerald to be a Samson and bring down the whole sordid house of cards. Plamegate will be a taint. It will not be the beginning of the end of the Bushcons. After all, the neocons have a couple more countries to invade.
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