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Post by RPankn on Jan 13, 2006 23:18:23 GMT -5
The Deeper Malady: From Terrorism to Covert Action
excerpted from the book The Iran Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reagan Era by Johnathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott, and Jane Hunter South End Press, 1987, paper
<snip>
And when legislators tried to write a new CIA charter to limit presidential powers and check abuses, Carter's people fought every inch of the way. Exhausted liberals caved in. To complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union that the proposed charter was too permissive Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del) said, "Let me tell you something, fellas. The folks don't care. The average American could care less right now about any of this...You keep talking about public concern. There ain't none.'
<snip>
A Blank Check for "Counterterrorism"
But that predisposition has been heavily conditioned by historical circumstances. In particular, successive presidents have manipulated popular fears to argue convincingly for centralizing power and excluding Congress from the making of national security policy. Over time the specific "threats" have changed, but the reliance of presidents on the public's unquestioning reaction to them has not.
Since World War II, the most important ideological prop to presidential power has been anticommunism. More often than not, the charge was false and the intervention counter-productive, not to mention an exercise in imperial power. Having defined the Soviet Union as the preeminent threat to American security, Washington argued by extension that Soviet manipulation lay behind everything from turmoil in the developing world to political challenges from the left in Western Europe. Thus nearly any form of foreign intervention could be justified in the name of anticommunism. The CIA's overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953 installed the Shah on the throne and sowed the seeds of the radical Khomeini revolution. Its 1954 coup against the Arbenz regime in Guatemala spawned an ongoing guerrilla war there and hardened the Marxist, revolutionary left elsewhere in Central America with results that haunt the Reagan administration today. Although Washington claimed otherwise, those CIA targets-and many others-were nationalists, not Soviet surrogates.
With the advent of "detente" and the visit of arch-anticommunist Richard Nixon to the People's Republic of China, anticommunism lost much of its emotive appeal and thus its effectiveness in mobilizing Congress behind unquestioned acceptance of covert operations. The Nixon administration discovered a new and seemingly uglier menace to take its place: drugs. Nixon's "war on drugs" opened loopholes in congressional restrictions on foreign police training, provided cover for counterinsurgency campaigns from Burma to Mexico and even justified plots to assassinate foreign political leaders. All were programs picked up from the CIA in the guise of narcotics enforcement.
Ronald Reagan's contribution was to fully develop the potential of the ultimate bogeyman: terrorism. His predecessors, Presidents Ford and Carter, had identified drugs and terrorism as two foreign intelligence targets of such unquestioned importance and sensitivity as to justify barring congressional supervision. But the Reagan White House mastered the exploitation of public fears aroused by highly publicized terrorist acts as means of restoring covert operations to their central role in presidential foreign policy. (The seizure of the American embassy in Tehran had dramatized the issue like no other event.) By defining terrorism sweepingly to include even guerrilla wars and insurgencies against uniformed armies- but never anything the U.S. or its allies do-the administration expanded the rationale for anti-terrorist interventions. By inventing a new category of "narco-terrorism" with which to brand certain rebel groups, the administration conjured up even more nightmarish images. And by defining diverse terrorist outrages as "Soviet sponsored," the administration dealt the final blow to detente.
The terrorist threat provides the perfect rationale for secrecy and covert operations. Responding to terrorist attacks requires speedy intervention and absolute secrecy, not lengthy debate with Congress. And if anyone doubts the means, the end of stamping out terrorism justifies them as well as anything could.
Paradigm Shift
The intellectual genesis of Reagan's anti-terror revolution goes back to 1970s, when cold-war conservatives were looking for new mobilizing issues to replace detente and human rights. The concept of Soviet-sponsored international terrorism as new mode of warfare against the West was kicked off at the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism in July 1979. Led by a group of top Israeli intelligence officers and political leaders, the conference was also studded with those Americans most actively seeking a renewal of the clandestine approach to American foreign policy. The participants included former CIA director George Bush and former CIA deputy director Ray Cline; the hawkish former Air Force intelligence chief Major General George Keegan, who resigned from the Air Force in 1977 to protest the Carter administration's estimate of the Soviet threat; Harvard's Soviet scholar Richard Pipes [Daniel Pipes' father.], whom Bush had recruited to bring the CIA's strategic estimates of Soviet power more in line with worst-case military thinking; some prominent neoconservatives including Commentary magazine editor Norman Podhoretz; the newspaper columnist and Reagan's 1980 debating coach George Will; and reporter Claire Sterling, who two years later would publish this faction's bible, The Terror Network.
At the conference, Ray Cline developed the theme that terror was not a random response of frustrated minorities, but rather "a preferred instrument" of East bloc policy adopted after 1969 "when the KGB persuaded the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to accept the PLO as a major political instrument in the Mideast and to subsidize its terrorist policies by freely giving money, training, arms and co-ordinated communications." Terrorism, he maintained, had "hardened into a system-an international trouble-making system." The British propagandist Robert Moss extended the theory to Iran, where he charged that a Soviet-controlled PLO unit was functioning "as the nucleus of a secret police, a revolutionary SAVAK." And conference participants singled out the Sandinistas for their alleged international terrorist connections.
This formulation was as significant for what it ignored as for what it put in. Left out of the equation was any mention of terrorist acts by CIA-trained Cuban exiles, Israeli ties to Red Brigades or the function of death squads from Argentina to Guatemala. Soviet sponsorship, real or imagined, had become the defining characteristic of terrorism, not simply an explanation for its prevalence. Moreover, there was no inclination whatsoever to include under the rubric of terror bombings of civilians, for example, or any other acts carried out by government forces rather than small individual units.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative, Washington-based think tank that rode Ronald Reagan's coat-tails to influence, saw these themes as a potent vehicle for reversing political reforms of the Watergate/Church committee era. Its master political blueprint, prepared before Reagan's inauguration to guide his transition team, urged "presidential emphasis on the nature of the threat, repeated speeches on the escalation of Soviet bloc intelligence activities, the nature of the terrorist threat and its international dimensions and the reality of subversion." Such tactics, the report hoped, would allow the CIA to regain authority to conduct "surreptitious entries," mail opening and other powers lost in the 1970s.
The Reagan team took the report to heart. The lead item on the agenda of the its first NSC meeting on January 26,1981 was terrorism. The next day, President Reagan declared, "Let terrorists be aware that when the rules of international behavior are violated, our policy will be one of swift and effective retribution."
At his first news conference as secretary of state, on January 28, Alexander Haig gave terrorism an address. He charged that the Kremlin was seeking to "foster, support and expand" terror around world and was "training, funding and equipping" terrorist armies. [Deja vu] And he vowed that "international terrorism will take the place of human rights" as the new administration's top priority.
Jerusalem Conference alumna Claire Sterling was on hand to supply "massive proof that the Soviet Union and its surrogates, over the last decade, have provided the weapons, training and sanctuary for a worldwide terror network aimed at the destabilization of Western democratic society." Her book The Terror Network, excerpted that March in the New York Times Magazine and New Republic, branded the 1970s "Fright Decade I" and warned that Fright Decade II was at hand. [I think Lorie Mylroie, Jayna Davis and Steve Emerson took her place in the 90s.]
Sterling's book, with all its evidentiary and methodological weaknesses, was all that administration polemicists could cite to justify their claims. A CIA report drafted after Haig's outburst directly rebutted his claim that most terrorism found sponsorship from the Soviet Union. CIA Director William Casey sent the report back for further review. Casey also asked the more conservative Defense Intelligence Agency for a report, but found it inadequate as well. So a third report was prepared-but it, too, concluded that Soviets were not directly equipping or training terrorists, nor did they have a master plan for terrorism. What little evidence there was against the Soviets came from unverifiable claims of a Czech defector, Gen. Jan Sejna, whose credibility the CIA came to doubt. [Iraq, Soviet Union, it's all the same difference.]
"There's just no real evidence for it," one administration official said of the Haig thesis. Another high administration source lamented that such charges put "the American intelligence community in a terrible political bind. The CIA has been requested to look harder. When they come back and say it isn't true, that they don't see the hand of Russia everywhere, they're told, 'd**n it, you are either stupid or you aren't trying."' [Pretty good indication why the OSP and WHIG were set up.]
FBI chief William Webster threw a little cold water of his own on official claims pointing out that the number of bombings had declined steadily in the United States, from 100 in 1977 to 20 in 1980. He added, "l can say that there is no real evidence of Soviet-sponsored terrorism within the United States."
The administration was on the defensive. Since the evidence wasn't good enough, officials fell back on altering the data. Statistics on terrorist incidents were changed to include not only acts but also "threats," thus at one swoop doubling the apparent numbers.
A more effective and subtle counter came from the private sector. Claire Sterling impugned the CIA as "the least informed and most timid of any intelligence service on this issue." Michael Ledeen, Sterling's longtime journalistic collaborator, who would later become the key emissary in the Iran arms plot, also accused the agency of incompetence. "They are scared in the [State Department and CIA] bureaucracy," Ledeen maintained, "because if Haig is right about the Russians, then they have failed in their jobs." In terms almost identical to Haig's, Ledeen called the Soviet Union "the fomenter, supporter and creator of terrorism" worldwide. In the late spring of 1981, Haig appointed him an adviser on international terrorism.
The Wall Street Journal editorial writers weighed in as well. They claimed-without having seen the analysis-that the CIA document's "underlying reasoning would not survive the light of public day." The editorial dismissed appeals to the evidence: "no one should be allowed to argue successfully that because there's evidence of the Soviet influence in some places but not in others, the whole Soviet-connection theory must be thrown out." And most important, the editorial insisted on the broadest possible definition of terrorism to justify a counter-revolutionary policy abroad: "no one should be allowed to say without challenge that Soviet support for national liberation movements is by definition different from Soviet support for terrorism."
The themes formulated by Sterling, Ledeen and the Journal served conservatives as a hammer with which to hit not only detente, but also the Carter-era CIA. Cold-war interventionists portrayed the CIA as crippled by excessive oversight, misplaced human rights concerns, a deplorable timidity toward covert action and the purge of experts in paramilitary war. The terrorism issue thus ignited demands for a sweeping bureaucratic upheaval in the intelligence community.
That February, for example, Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) applauded Haig's speech and called for "a permanent, highly professional organization to plan and train on a continual basis" against terrorism. He stressed:
One of the most important ingredients must be a strong, revitalized intelligence community...No antiterrorist capability can be adequate without excellent intelligence, including covert capabilities which have largely been demolished...We must... repeal some laws and executive orders which go far beyond constitutional requirements or court decisions and which have resulted from a massive overreaction to the Watergate/Vietnam era.
Neo-conservative and intelligence-connected circles quickly mobilized public support for giving the administration and CIA a freer hand abroad. Writer Midge Dector (the wife of Norman Podhoretz) founded the Committee for the Free World in February 1981 to call attention to the terrorist threat and revive America's interventionist impulse. According to the New York Times, Dector said the idea for the committee emerged almost two years ago after she and others attended a meeting in Jerusalem on international terrorism. She said she came away convinced of the need for action against those who kidnap and throw bombs, many of whom are trained in the Soviet Union and Cuba, but also concerned about a spreading practice of indulging in self-criticism to the point of condoning terrorism as being justified.
The members included Michael Ledeen; former CIA deputy director of plans Ray Cline; Leo Cherne, chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; and Paul Henze, former CIA station chief in Turkey, who would take the lead with Sterling in publicizing alleged Soviet-bloc complicity in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.
Lest domestic dissent at home hamstring administration plans for a tougher foreign policy, the terrorism issue served to break down barriers to surveillance and intimidation of domestic critics. The new Republican Senate formed a special subcommittee on security and terrorism in February. Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), chairman of the parent Judiciary Committee, predicted it would be "one of the most important subcommittees of the entire Congress." The subcommittee's chief counsel, Joel Lisker, pledged that "we will do everything we can to modify and eliminate" restrictions on infiltration and surveillance of domestic groups. Members said they would strongly urge the administration to remove other restraints on the intelligence agencies. Witnesses at their first hearing included Claire Sterling and Michael Ledeen, who reiterated their warnings of the Soviet threat.
In March, the Reagan administration moved on the same front. It came up with a draft executive order that would allow sweeping additions to the CIA's authority, particularly in area of domestic operations previously ruled off-limits. Several months later, the administration also proposed amending the Freedom of Information Act to exempt files relating to organized crime, foreign counterintelligence and terrorism. "It isn't an accident that they picked terrorism and foreign counterintelligence," observed Jack Landau, director of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "That's the mandate that the FBI used to violate peoples' civil liberties." [Also to cover up their clandestine activities like weapons and drug trafficking via intermediaries in the mafia, like Abramoff this time around.]
The proposals naturally met opposition from civil libertarians and some members of Congress. Liberals who had not abandoned the Carter era commitment to human rights deplored Reagan's apparent double standard on terrorism. In March, for example, the administration announced its intention to lift the ban on arms sales to Argentina, imposed three years earlier by Carter because of the mass killing of civilians committed by the military. And the CIA was reported to be "considering the renewal of cooperation with anti-Castro Cuban exiles as part of a general expansion of its covert operations." [Like pro-Israeli Jews, the gusanos still dictate policy on the Carribean and South America, and use the clout they've built through their corruption of Florida politics to blackmail presidential candidates, like in 2000, when they should be told to go to hell.]
But Congress as a whole was in no mood to quibble over such inconsistencies. After the humiliation of the Tehran embassy crisis and the Reagan election sweep, it granted Reagan almost everything he wanted in the way of intelligence resources. The first three years of the Reagan presidency saw a 50 percent increase in CIA appropriations and a five-fold increase in the number of authorized covert operations. And after all the layoffs of the Nixon-through-Carter years, the CIA workforce grew by over a third. The White House now had the tools and the incentive to go undercover with the implementation of its foreign policy agenda.
Libya Bashing
This initial vote of confidence in the CIA was not enough. The administration redoubled its domestic propaganda campaign to persuade the nation of the virulent menace of foreign terrorism. If no one could find convincing evidence of Soviet-sponsored terror, they could of Libyan support for violent European and Middle Eastern groups. And the administration could magnify the evidence until Americans felt positively threatened by what was in fact a weak and ineffectual power-and one that, far from being a surrogate of the USSR, did not even let the Soviets base ships at its ports.
The campaign against Libya started at the New Republic, whose line on terrorism and foreign policy in general was shaped increasingly by editor Martin Peretz's strong political commitment to Israel. The once-liberal magazine had begun publishing regular articles by Michael Ledeen and former Newsweek correspondent Arnaud de Borchgrave, a Jerusalem conference participant and a vociferous exponent of the theory that Soviet disinformation had duped the American media. (De Borchgrave would later become editor of the Washington Times, owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.) Now, in March, the New Republic excerpted a chapter from Claire Sterling's new book on terrorism. Entitled "Qaddafi Spells Chaos," the kicker read "A murder, a maniac-and Moscow's man."
On July 26, 1981 Newsweek reported that the administration was gearing up a major effort to topple Gadhafi, involving a "disinformation" campaign to erode the colonel's domestic support, formation of a "counter government" of Libyan exiles and a program of paramilitary and sabotage operations inside Libya to stir up discontent and expose Gadhafi's vulnerability. The next month, provocative U.S. naval exercises off Libya's coast provoked a rash-and desired-response from Gadhafi. U.S. jets downed two Libyan fighters in a dogfight over Gulf of Sidra.
In September, columnist Jack Anderson confirmed that CIA director Casey had concocted a disinformation campaign to mislead the American press about Libya by planting false stories abroad. The stories accused Gadhafi of supporting the slave trade in Mauritania, mismanaging his country's petrodollar accounts and stirring up terrorism.
On October 19, Newsweek passed along a provocative leak that the administration was talking with Egypt about a possible invasion of Libya. After the August confrontation over the Gulf of Sidra, according to this account, Gadhafi hatched a scheme to kill the American ambassador in Rome, Maxwell Rabb. The plot "was aborted when Italian police deported ten suspected Libyan hit men," Newsweek reported. "Washington officials now believe Gadhafi has called off the assassination attempt, but they are not entirely certain." It also mentioned in passing that U.S. intelligence had "picked up evidence that Ghadafi had hatched yet another assassination plot-this time against President Reagan." [Like the "assassination plot" Hussein had against crackhead's father -- another fake. And Americans keep falling for this b.s.]
The plot continued to thicken-with numerous ominous leaks but no evidence. On October 25, the New York Times revived the Libyan plot to murder Rabb, reporting that he had been rushed out of the country "without even a change of clothes." (Other sources insisted he had simply left for Washington to lobby for the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia.) Gadhafi hotly denied the charge and noted correctly that to carry out such a plot would be suicidal.
November saw a positive flurry of reports linking Gadhafi to terrorist plots. Newsweek cited reports of Libyan plans to attack four U.S. embassies in Western Europe. Secretary of State Haig blamed Gadhafi for hiring a killer to target Christian Chapman, the U.S. charge d'affaires in Paris. Time magazine joined in with a report that National Security Advisor Richard Allen had discussed with French officials plans to assassinate Gadhafi. And in late November claims surfaced that Gadhafi planned to kill the president of Niger.
[Continued in next post.]
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Post by RPankn on Jan 13, 2006 23:19:08 GMT -5
[Continued from previous post.] But the most significant theme in this strategy of tension surfaced with Newsweek. Its voluble U.S. intelligence sources tipped the magazine that "Gadhafi is plotting to assassinate the president and other top American officials," including Vice President Bush and Secretaries Haig and Weinberger. The average reader could sympathize with administration officials who were said to "openly admit that they would be delighted if someone else killed Gadhafi." The notorious Reagan assassination plot story hit the front pages of the New York Times on December 4. "The government has received detailed reports that five terrorists trained in Libya entered the United States last weekend with plans to assassinate President Reagan or other senior officials," the paper revealed. A "huge nationwide search for the potential assassins" was underway. Later reports added lurid flourishes: no less than Carlos "the Jackal," the infamous Venezuelan terrorist, was on his way to kill the president. [ Too bad they didn't name the reporters on this, but I would bet a fortune one of them was Judy Miller.] Fed a steady diet of Gadhafi rumors, the American public could be excused for believing President Reagan's dismissal of the Libyan's denials: "We have the evidence, and he knows it....l wouldn't believe a word he says if I were you."A few skeptics raised questions. It seemed doubtful that any one informant (as reported) could supply so much detail on each member of the hit team, that Libya would send so large a squad and that the East bloc would have risked training the assassins. Government sources told the Washington Post that reports of the plot included "lots of speculation" based on "a plausible scenario" resting on "a limited amount of knowledge." Haynes Johnson, a veteran Post correspondent, noted "lt's almost as if public opinion were being prepared for dramatic action-say a strike against Libya or Ghadhafi himself...lt is reminiscent of the talk about Castro in the days when the United States was planning the Bay of Pigs invasion, and in fact, commissioning assassination schemes against Castro."Then, as mysteriously as they had appeared, the hit teams vanished. By late December, officials decided "the hit squads have become inactive." Indeed, "the information about the hit squads has been and still is mushy," sources told the Washington Post. "The United States still does not know for sure whether any members of the two hit squads ever left Libya." Only in the context of the latest Iran arms scandal has the public finally learned that the source of the fanciful "hit squad" story was Manucher Ghorbanifar, a former Iranian SAVAK agent with close ties to Israeli intelligence. According to the Washington Post, the CIA believed he was a lying schemer who "had made up the hit-squad story in order to cause problems for one of Israel's enemies."These details confirm what the Los Angeles Times had learned in 1981: "Israeli intelligence, not the Reagan administration, was a major source of some of the most dramatic published reports about a Libyan assassination team allegedly sent to kill President Reagan and other top U.S. officials... Israel, which informed sources said has 'wanted an excuse to go in and bash Libya for a long time,' may be trying to build American public support for a strike against Libyan strongman Moammar Ghadhafi, these sources said." In short, the whole story was an intelligence provocation from start to finish. So, it would now appear, was Israel's promotion of Ghorbanifar as a reliable go-between for Washington with Iran in 1985. [ A role picked up by Weldon today.] But if it served Israeli interests to discredit Gadhafi, it also served the Reagan administration. The deadly threat from Libya swept aside public objections to a sweeping expansion of CIA powers. Never mind that the reality, as evidenced by the 1986 bombing attack on Tripoli, that in fact it was Reagan who planned and attempted to assassinate Gadhafi, not the reverse. Unleashing the CIAOn the very day the New York Times reported the existence of the Libyan hit squad, President Reagan announced his signing of Executive Order 12333, a controversial and long-awaited blueprint for the intelligence community's resurgence. When first drafted in March 1981 under the supervision of an interagency task force led by CIA officials, the order provoked instant controversy. "The proposed order would recast Mr. Carter's [1978] decree in terms that authorize, rather than restrict, the collection of intelligence information and the use of such techniques as searches, surveillance and infiltration," the New York Times had noted that spring. "The existing order says that intelligence agencies may collect, store and disseminate information about a person who is 'reasonably believed' to be acting on behalf of a foreign power or engaging in international terrorist or narcotics activities. The draft order drops the requirement for a 'reasonable' belief." Significantly, the Times added that the revised order had grown out of a meeting held at the outset of the administration "in which intelligence officials discussed terrorism with President Reagan. The White House asked various agencies to suggest changes in intelligence regulations to improve antiterrorism capabilities and approved a suggestion by the CIA for a study group to make specific recommendations." As Congress reviewed successive drafts, Republican Sen. David Durenberger warned the order would "give credence to many of the public's fears and worst-case scenarios of government misuse of power." But the timing of Reagan's announcement of the final order ensured a minimum of protest. Coming on the heels of so much talk of Libyan plots, his stress on the dangers of terrorism sold the plan. "The American people are well aware that the security of their country-and in an age of terrorism, their personal safety as well-is tied to the strength and efficiency of our intelligence gathering organization," Reagan maintained. "An approach that emphasizes suspicion and mistrust of our own intelligence efforts can undermine this nation's ability to confront the increasing challenge of espionage and terrorism...We need to free ourselves from the negative attitudes of the past and look to meeting the needs of the country." [ George Bush, you've been plagarazing Reagan.] Aside from opening the door to a renewal of domestic espionage-a policy shift that may explain the rash of burglaries suffered by organizations critical of administration policy on Central America - the order also contained an obscure loophole through which the NSC's covert operators would later slip. The order directed that "No agency except the ClA...may conduct any special activity unless the President determines that another agency is more likely to achieve a particular objective."Washington Becomes MilitantOngoing political turmoil in the Middle East ensured that terrorism would continue to occupy center stage in the administration's foreign policy agenda. The antiterrorist fervor reached a new plateau after the April 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut-wiping out the entire CIA station-and the devastating bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks in October 1983. Although the latter suicide attack targeted uniformed military personnel and not civilians, administration spokesmen and the media denounced it as the most brutal act of terrorism to date. In response, the Joint Chiefs that January formed the Joint Special Operations Agency to coordinate special operations against terrorists. And Congress would enthusiastically cooperate in promoting the buildup of SOF counterinsurgency forces in the name of fighting terrorism. On April 3, 1984, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 138, which guided 26 government agencies in drafting counter-terrorist measures. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Noel Koch said it "represents a quantum leap in countering terrorism, from the reactive mode to recognition that pro-active steps are needed." Although it did not authorize U.S. "hit squads," as reportedly recommended by senior Pentagon officials and the NSC's Oliver North, the directive was said to permit "the use of force in other forms, such as by FBI and CIA paramilitary teams and Pentagon military squads." Administration sources called the aggressive plan an "effort to give the cloak and dagger back to the Central Intelligence Agency. The campaign will include pre-emptive strikes and direct reprisals" based on Israeli models. Officials admitted that the distinction between retaliation and assassination was mainly rhetorical. Jeff McConnell observed: This new policy on counterterrorism could not have come at a better time for the Reagan administration. Its effort to end the so-called 'Vietnam Syndrome' had blown up in Lebanon. Support in congress for war in Nicaragua was at an all-time low...Though the 1984 directive had been drafted with more limited purposes in mind, administration planners now saw in it a way to resuscitate its foreign adventures. Yet the policy lacked a rationale large enough to sustain so much. It was one thing to make a case for commando assaults against hijacked airliners, quite another to sell military action all over the world as counterterrorism. What was needed was an ideological framework for the new policy that would spell out terrorism's threat in a way clear enough to enlist popular sympathy and, at the same time, comprehensive enough to justify action against all the Third World nations that Washington opposed." That framework was found in the concept of "state-sponsored terrorism," and more particularly, the presumption of Soviet sponsorship of terrorist cadre that Haig and other administration officials had pushed from the opening days of the administration. Secretary of State George Shultz recalled those old themes along with the new counter-terrorism stance in late June at a Washington conference sponsored by the Jonathan Institute. He blamed the Soviets for providing "financial, logistic and training support for terrorists worldwide." They "use terrorist groups for their own purposes, and their goal is always the same: to weaken liberal democracy and undermine world stability," he charged. The threat called for tougher countermeasures. "It is time to think long, hard and seriously about more active means of defense- about defense through appropriate preventive or pre-emptive actions against terrorist groups before they strike." Shultz added, "We will need to strengthen our capabilities in the area of intelligence and quick reaction." Those two areas encompassed the CIA and Pentagon special operations forces.CIA Director Casey told an interviewer in the same month that "I think you will see more...retaliation against facilities connected with the country sponsoring the terrorists or retaliation that just hurts the interests of countries which sponsor terrorism" - an open-ended formula for aggression against any country that the administration labeled a sponsor of terrorism, with or without evidence.p223 Looking to the FutureThe continued use of terrorism as an ideological rationale for expanded covert operations, foreign intervention and government secrecy still goes largely unchallenged in the wake of the Iran and contra scandals. Frank Carlucci, the former CIA deputy director brought to replace Admiral Poindexter as national security advisor and clean house on the NSC, has chosen to place responsibility for counterterrorism under an expanded intelligence unit, as yet unnamed. 'Terrorism and intelligence are very closely related,' says Carlucci. 'The best way to stop a terrorist act is to know it's going to happen.' The head of the new section...will be Barry Kelly, who...had previously served in the CIA's clandestine service during Carlucci's tour as deputy director. The new intelligence unit, according to James Bamford, will handle not only counterterrorism and all covert actions, but narcotics control as well- significantly the one other area where Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibilities. New officials have replaced old and discredited ones, but the potential for abuses may be greater than ever. Accompanying this centralization of secret authority for covert operations is a massive expansion of the president's ability to intervene abroad. A new Special Operations command at the Pentagon will coordinate covert terrorism and insurgency, grouping together some 30,000 men from the Army Special Operations Command, the Rangers, SEALS, Delta Force and others. The command reportedly will be "very tightly controlled by the White House," so that it can carry out operations "closely tied to the national interest." Finally, following the Tower Commission's recommendation, congressional conservatives are pushing for a merger of the House and Senate intelligence committees to further limit oversight of covert operations. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) seeks a "lean, mean, small, very active committee with as few malcontents as possible." It would be ironic, but far from unprecedented, if a "reform" commission ended up grossly aggravating the problem by so fundamentally mis-identifying the cause. Covert action embodies in its purest form the philosophy that ends (anticommunism, counterterrorism, democracy, economic gain) justify the means (political manipulation, disinformation, even support for death squads). Where such tools exist, abuses will follow whether the ends are good or not. The fact that the ends are so often verbal rationales themselves only makes the situation that much worse. Power corrupts, and secrecy is an essential element of unchecked power. Where secrecy is allowed to flourish, under the guise of protecting national security, fighting terrorism or combating narcotics traffickers, the conditions are ripe for presidential usurpation of power from the Congress and the cynical manipulation of public opinion.Secrecy and covert policy making are not only undemocratic, they inevitably lead to bad policy. Secrecy breeds arrogance among policy makers who consider themselves uniquely "in the know" and thus less fallible in their judgments; at the same time it motivates the elite of "cleared" individuals to elevate their status by confining secrets (and thus policy advice) to an ever tighter circle. The consequences can be disastrous; the administration's failure to consult a wider group of experts or members of Congress surely contributed to its extraordinary blunders in Iran. Ignorant errors are compounded by the temptation to adopt covert means-to avoid messy public debates-where policy objectives are unclear and public support is lacking. Most damaging of all, covert operations usually become overt, discrediting not only the particular administration but the United States as a whole. If the immorality of covert policies like the Iran and contra operations doesn't decide the case, these practical considerations should. Failure to curb the extraordinary power of presidents to wage covert foreign and military campaigns can only ensure a succession of similar policy disasters in the future.www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald_Reagan/Deeper_Malady_TICC.html
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Post by RPankn on Jan 13, 2006 23:28:21 GMT -5
starroute (1000+ posts) Thu Jan-12-06 01:34 PM Response to Reply #2 4. Libya was a big deal then Edited on Thu Jan-12-06 01:37 PM by starroute
Qaddafi was a sort of Castro-like figure -- far more important symbolically than for his actual degree of power. But there's more to the story than that. For example, try googling for any of the below:
Check into "the Enterprise" -- the rogue CIA operations of Ted Shackley, Tom Clines, Edwin Wilson, and Richard Secord that started in Vietnam and wound up in Iran-Contra. Note that in the middle 70's, they transferred their main base of operations from southeast Asia to Iran, where they were both overseeing their drug-running, arms-dealing and money-laundering and also instructing SAVAK in Phoenix Program-style assassination. (This was a major factor leading to the overthrow of the Shah a couple of years later.) Note that when the Carter administration forced them to pull out of Iran, they started diversifying their operations throughout the Middle East. It was Edwin Wilson's dealings with Qaddafi that finally got the whole gang in trouble and ultimately led to them being pushed out of the CIA.
Then note that Michael Ledeen was working with Ted Shackley in Italy around 1979-80, offering trainings to European intelligence services. Note that it was Ledeen who help shut down the investigation of Wilson that might have implicated Shackley and Clines. Note also that it was Shackley who first brought Ghorbanifar into Iran-Contra in November 1984 and then passed him on to both Ledeen and Ollie North (who himself went back to the Shackley team's Vietnam days.)
(I'd really love to know how that Shackley-Ghorbanifar connection came about and whether it went back to the Enterprise's days in Iran in the middle 70's.)
Also note that in 1980 Ledeen was busy trying to concoct a "Billygate" scandal tying President Carter's brother to Qaddafi. And that Ledeen and Shackley are both said to have been involved in the October Surprise.
Finally, just for the fun of it, check out Ledeen in connection with the "strategy of tension" and P2.
It seems possible to me that what was happening around 1980-81 was a preliminary attempt to shift gears from the Cold War to the war on terror. It was still haphazard -- partly because Libya wasn't a good enough boogeyman -- and they soon reverted to the standard Cold War moves in Latin America and in Afghanistan. But this proto-phase of the war on terror seems to have set the paradigm for everything that has come along since 9/11.
On edit: Now that I think about it, if Ghorbanifar was behind the Libyan hit squad story in 1981, he couldn't have popped up out of nowhere in 1984. That's interesting . . .
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Post by RPankn on Jan 13, 2006 23:34:25 GMT -5
Wednesday, August 18, 2004 Yellow Cake and Black Shirts We should have been paying attention all along, but particularly since the sadly unsurprising revelation that Italian military intelligence looks to have served as a linchpin in the Niger "Yellow Cake" caper, we would do well to brush up on the strange case of Michael Ledeen You know Ledeen: arguably Washington's most influential neoconservative. He's resident scholar of the senior neoconservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and regarded widely as one of the world's leading authorities on intelligence, counter-intelligence and international affairs. From the beginning, and before the beginning, Ledeen has been one of the loudest cheerleaders for the "War on Terror." Now, do you know of Italy's "Strategy of Tension"? It was a campaign of false-flag terror in the late 1970s, waged by outright fascists who enjoyed the patronage of the CIA, the Mafia and far right elements of the Italian State. These were the Gladio Brigades and Licio Gelli's P2 Lodge, and they intended to discredit the increasingly popular Communist Party, and to ensure it would not take power, by staging terrorist acts in the name of the Left. Their campaign culminated in the Bologna train station bombing of 1980. Now, do you know where Michael Ledeen was during these years, what he was doing, and with whom he was doing it? From tompaine.com: ...terrorism has been Ledeen's bread and butter since at least the late 1970s, when he consulted for Italian military intelligence. From Asia Times: Ledeen's right-wing Italian connections - including alleged ties to the P2 Masonic Lodge that rocked Italy in the early 1980s - have long been a source of speculation and intrigue, but he returned to Washington in 1981 as "anti-terrorism" advisor to the new secretary of state, Al Haig. Over the next several years, Ledeen used his position as consultant to Haig, the Pentagon and the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan to boost the notion of a global terrorist conspiracy based in the Kremlin, whose KGB pulled the strings of all of the world's key terrorist groups, especially in the Middle East. An excerpt from Herman and O'Sullivan's The "Terrorism" Industry: In 1980 [Ledeen] entered into a collaboration with Francesco Pazienza, an agent of the Italian secret service (SISMI) and a member of Rome's extreme right-wing Masonic Lodge, P2 (Propaganda Due), headed by the fascist Licio Gelli. In an Italian criminal court in 1985, Pazienza was judged guilty of political manipulation, forgery, and the protection of criminals and terrorists, among other offenses. Indeed, according to the findings of the court, Pazienza falsified information about the Bologna bombing in order to divert attention away from the real (right-wing) terrorists who had staged the attack. From Barbara Honegger's October Surprise: When the Italian police raided (P2 Lodge founder) Gelli's home in March 1981, it was Michael Ledeen who, at the instigation of Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger, offered to buy the list of 953 P2 members in an apparent attempt to keep it from becoming public. Henry Kissinger had also reportedly sent Ledeen to Italy to try to squash an investigation into his and Haig's involvement in the founding of P2.On the morning of August 2, 1980, a massive bomb since linked to Gelli...exploded in the waiting room of the central train station in Bologna, killing 81 people and injuring 200 others. General Santorito, the chief of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, who was also reportedly a member of P2, testified in the wake of the bombing that it had been planned by the British-Swiss-American Montecarlo Comite, P2's "sister" organization based in Monaco. When P2 had come under increasing scrutiny in 1979, grandmaster Licio Gelli had reportedly made his base of operations the Montecarlo Comite.... Not surprisingly, reported members of the Montecarlo Comite are Gelli, Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig and Michael Ledeen.And this assessment, translated from the Italian: One of the most dangerous of these "bad teachers" is Michael Ledeen, promoter of the the idea of "universal fascism". These days he does not stop threatening war against Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, and has evidently been chosen once more by the establishment to manipulate institutions and threaten those who oppose his dangerous and wicked madness. On the other hand, Ledeen has a long history of interference in Italy's strategic choices. During the Moro case he was among those "most suspected" of having misled the enquiries, with the collaboration of the "bretheren" of the P2. It was wondered and it is still wondered why the Italian magistrates do not carry out adequate enquiries about him and his work. [ And here in the US too!] And now, from the man himself. Some of Ledeen's own words, on a leadership trait he admires, from his book Universal Fascism: In order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to 'enter into evil.' This is the chilling insight that has made Machiavelli so feared, admired and challenging... we are rotten.... It’s true that we can achieve greatness if, and only if, we are properly led. Back to Italy, for some of his thoughts on the fascist era: ...fascism nevertheless constituted a political revolution in Italy. For the first time, there was an attempt to mobilize the masses and to involve them in the political life of the country. And on Mussolini himself: He never had enough confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in fascism. The resemblance between the recent mass murder in Madrid and the Bologna bombing extends, I suspect, well beyond the scale of carnage. Why do some insist on calling these people neo-fascists? I see nothing new here.posted by Jeff at 1:02 PM rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/yellow-cake-and-black-shirts.html
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Post by RPankn on Jan 13, 2006 23:54:01 GMT -5
I really think a lot of what they have been doing since the '70s was just a dress rehearsal for the "war on terror." Their techniques -- death squads, collective punsihment, quarantines, martial law and an imperial presidency -- are only being perfected for when the time is right, when such becomes necessary in this country.Martial Lawby Michael Nolan Many folks accept, some with a sense of high probability, that the US will suffer a terrorist attack, perhaps of horrific proportions. If that happens, as General Tommy Franks and others have suggested, democracy could well fail and the US Constitution could be brought down and replaced by martial law. An attack would leave a terrified US populace, many of them so desperate for a sense of order, so lustful for revenge against the terrorists (to be identified by the War Machine, of course) that they will follow the US Government in lockstep. Nuke Iran and Syria immediately (as neocons have wanted to do for quite some time)? No problem. Arrest and intimidate anyone who dares speak out against the government? Hey, national security is at stake. Vigilantism waged against dissident “traitors”? We’re fighting for the survival of Western civilization, for God’s sake. But that can’t happen here! Well it can happen here. Consider the moral character of those in the White House and consider the demonstrated failure of Congress to stop them on their long march to disaster. Americans would be wise to adopt the attitude toward government leaders held by their ancestors. In 1787, citizens harbored disdainfully little trust in government. After viewing the original version of the US Constitution, they found no explicit enumerations of a citizen’s right to bear arms, to speak freely, to get a fair trial, etc. Show it to us in writing, demanded the patriots and thus, two years later, was born the Bill of Rights. They assumed, and so should we, that government leaders, unchecked, have limitless potential for harm toward the citizenry. This is the government, after all, that runs a gulag network of CIA prison camps. These facilities were “black” (so secret that they didn’t ostensibly exist) until being outed, anonymously, to the Washington Post. One camp, fittingly, is in a former Soviet compound in Eastern Europe. Who the prisoners are, how they are interrogated or even how many make it out alive is unknown. While Dick Cheney fights tooth and nail to prevent any reining in of American brutality in the questioning of prisoners overseas, President Bush threatens to veto the John McCain anti-torture bill that passed in the Senate 90-9. If we, the people, allow government leaders to commit unnamed, unaccounted-for tortures upon those we hold in far-flung gulags – in “support” of a war that these leaders can’t explain to the American people or the world – it won’t be surprising when, in the event of domestic chaos at home, they visit like horrors upon their own citizens. Senator Joe Lieberman, Honorary Co-Chairman of the hawkish, right-wing Committee on the Present Danger and a firm supporter of the war in Iraq, has this to say: "The fear...of federal military usurping state and local authority and, in the worst case, martial law imposed by a president has to give way to the reality of lives on the line." Senator John Warner expressed similar sentiments in a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Both men were speaking in the context of natural disasters, after the post-Katrina government rescue debacle. Since Katrina, the mention of martial law is trendy in government circles and in the media. The trouble is: it’s a short conceptual leap from the pushing of a recalcitrant homeowner out of a hurricane zone at the end of a federal bayonet, to the violent dispersal of angry crowds gathered to voice disapproval of a fascist state. How would the neocon think tanks view martial law? Michael Ledeen, a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, and close and trusted White House adviser, has this to say on p. 173 of his book Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today As Five Centuries Ago:The title of that book alone should be enough to turn him over to The Hague.] “Paradoxically, preserving liberty may require the rule of a single leader – a dictator – willing to use those dreaded 'extraordinary measures,' which few know how, or are willing, to employ." According to the Boston Globe, Ledeen in a 2003 speech to the American Enterprise Institute, asserted our nation’s insatiable lust for war by claiming that "All the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. . .What we hate is not casualties but losing." Did anyone in the media ever challenge an administration spokesman to defend Ledeen’s staggeringly wrongheaded, anti-American values? Did any of the (self-described) scholars at AEI that day ask why the GD fool would say such a thing? President Bush, for his part has personally offered these congratulations to the AEI: “At the American Enterprise Institute, some of the finest minds in our nation are at work on some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds.” The leaders of the War Machine – with their gulags, their lies, their senseless, immoral war – do not treat enemies and purported enemies terribly well. In the event of martial law, it would be naïve indeed to suspect that they would treat Americans any better. Patriots – left, right and center – should unite under the American flag to stop the War Machine today while they still can. The impeachment of Bush and Cheney is the obvious place to start. We, the people, should demand it of the US Congress, just as statesmen and citizens of their time demanded the Bill of Rights. Congress should be ordered, as well, to act responsibly and responsively and in the best interest of the sovereign Republic of the United States of America, not in the interest of neocon warmongers. November 12, 2005 Michael Nolan [send him mail] is a freelance writer from Taunton, MA. His work recently appeared in Common Dreams and OpEdNews.com. His fiction has appeared in the Dublin Writers Workshop Electric Acorn. He is currently finishing a novel. www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/nolan-m2.html
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Post by RPankn on Jan 14, 2006 0:03:08 GMT -5
starroute (1000+ posts) Fri Jan-13-06 09:23 PM Response to Original message 19. George H.W. Bush and the invention of the War on Terror in 1979 I've been Googling some more and found interesting stuff in Tarpley's "Unauthorized Biography." It seems that over the Fourth of July weekend in 1979, just as he was gearing up his campaign for the presidential nomination, George H.W. Bush went off to Israel for the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism, held at the Jonathan Institute, founded earlier that year by Benjamin Netanyahu.
Along for the trip were a bunch of Neocons who had been associated with Team B, founded by Bush when he was CIA director in 1977 in order to provide more hysterical evaluations of Soviet military capacities than the official CIA would endorse. Also present were two figures whose names come up at that period in connection with Michael Ledeen. One was Ray Cline, formerly of the OSS and CIA and the founder of CSIS, of which Ledeen was then a fellow. The other was Claire Sterling, Ledeen's frequent collaborator in promoting the theory that the Soviet Union was the source of all terrorist movements.
According to Tarpley:
Ray Cline made a major presentation, developing his theory that terrorism should not be seen as a spontaneous response to oppression by frustrated minorities, but rather only as the preferred tool of Soviet bloc subversion. . . . Richard Pipes then drew on Russian history to illustrate the singular thesis that terrorism was a product of Russian history, and of no other history. . . . Ian Black wrote in the Jersualem Post that "the conference organizers expect the event to initiate a major anti-terrorist offensive."
There were skeptics, even in the U.S. intelligence community, where Ray Cline's monomania was recognized. At the 1980 meeting of AFIO, Cline was criticized by Howard Bane, the former CIA station chief in Moscow, who suggested "We've got to get Cline off this Moscow control of terrorists. It's divisive. It's not true. There's not one single bit of truth to it." A retired CIA officer named Harry Rostizke put in: "It's that far-right stuff, that's all. It's horsenuts."
Nevertheless, the absurd thesis of the Jerusalem Conference was soon regurgitated by several new top officials of the Reagan Administration. In Alexander Haig's first news conference as Secretary of State on January 28, 1981, Haig thundered that the Kremlin was trying to "foster, support, and expand" terrorist activity worldwide through the "training, funding, and equipping" of terrorist armies. Haig made it official that "international terrorism will take the place of human rights" as the central international concern of the Reagan Administration.
So there you have it -- the War on Terror at the very moment of its invention.
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Post by RPankn on Jan 14, 2006 0:07:33 GMT -5
Manucher Ghorbanifarby: Jane Hunter October - November 1987 The Link - Volume 20, Issue 4 Page 1 Ghorbanifar is an Iranian who now runs a rug business in Europe.1 Albert Hakim said he met Ghorbanifar in the early 70s right after the formation of “his new company,” Star Line Shipping (a company headed by the deputy prime minister and run by about 15 Israelis). When asked by the Congressional Iran-contra panel counsel whether Ghorbanifar “was a Savak agent who had worked for the Israelis,” Hakim said that was so. He also acknowledged seeing information connecting Ghorbanifar to the “intelligence services of Israel.”2 Some CIA officials as well suspected Ghorbanifar had ties to Israeli intelligence,3 a point testified to several times by Oliver North before the Iran-contra committees: “[Ghorbanitar] was widely suspected to be, within the people I dealt with at the Central Intelligence Agency, an agent of the Israeli government or at least one of, if not more, of their security services.”4 And an unconfirmed report from both U.S. intelligence and Iranian sources say that Ghorbanifar ingratiated himself with the Khomeini Government by betraying a 1980 coup d’etat mounted by military officers loyal to the Shah. Seventy of those involved were said to have been executed.5 Ghorbanifar is credited with the 1981 disinformation that Libyan “hit squads” were about to infiltrate the U.S. and kill President Reagan. The CIA thought his motive in this case was “to cause problems for one of Israel’s enemies.”6 Michael Ledeen recently denied claims that Ghorbanifar was an Israeli agent. Had they been true, said Ledeen, he would have been further encouraged as to the go-between’s reliability.7 1. Alison Mitchell, “CIA Warned Against Dealing With Ghorbanifar,” Newsday, February 4, 1987. 2. Iran-contra hearings, June 4 and June 5, 1987; Ronald Koven, “Allegiances of Iranian arms deal intermediary unclear,” Boston Sunday Globe, December 14, 1986 contains details of Star Shipping. 3. Mitchell, “CIA Warned Against Dealing With Ghorbanifar.” 4. Taking the Stand, testimony of Oliver North before the Iran-contra committees, Pocket books, New York, 1987, p. 307 and passim. 5. Miguel Acoca and Knut Royce, “High-roller arms dealers key to deals with Iran,” San Francisco Examiner, February 19, 1987. 6. Washington Post story in San Francisco Chronicle, January 31, 1987. 7. Larry Cohler: “Michael Ledeen’s Story,” Washington Jewish Week, June 18, 1987. www.ameu.org/page.asp?iid=159&aid=417&pg=1
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Post by RPankn on Jan 14, 2006 0:11:12 GMT -5
Lest we forget: IRAN-CONTRA Trading Cards 20 Arms Merchant ALBERT HAKIM In 1976, Iranian expatriate businessman Albert Hakim obtained contracts from Bechtel Corporation, a large defense contractor then headed by George Schultz and Caspar Weinberger [ What a coincedence Feinstein's husband sits on the board of directors!] (see card #6). The same year, Theodore Shackley (see card #24) introduced Hakim to Richard Secord (see card #19) in Iran. Secord was then in charge of U.S. arms sales to the Shah, and Hakim had contacts in the Iranian military and in the Shah's secret police, SAVAK. The huge disparity between what the Pentagon charged and what the Iranians were willing to pay enabled Hakim, and allegedly Secord, to make fortunes by skimming profits off these arms sales. After Secord resigned from the military Hakim became his partner. He was the financial wizard behind "the Enterprise", a non-governmental, profit-making operation which aided the Reagan Administration's covert foreign policies. The tangled web of "shell" companies and off-shore bank accounts that Hakim created and controlled for the "Enterprise" was designed, as Secord admitted, to "confuse anyone who might start poking around." For instance, when con- gressional investigators poked into the B. (for Belly) Button account, Hakim explained that he had set up this $200,000 trust for Oliver North's family out of respect for North, whose radiations of patriotic love "immediately penetrated to my system." This is inconsistent with Hakim's admission that he was only in it for the money. In 1988, Albert Hakim was indicted for defrauding the U.S. government. IRAN-CONTRA SCANDAL TRADING CARDS Text copyright 1988 Paul Brancato. Art copyright 1988 Salim Yaqub. Eclipse Enterprises, P.O. Box 1099, Forestville, CA 95436 homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/chris.holt/home.informal/bar/corsair.afdq/contra.cards/20.html
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Post by RPankn on Jan 14, 2006 0:47:59 GMT -5
Bo Gritz Letter to George Bush 1 February 1988, Sandy Valley, NV Honorable George Bush, Vice President, United States of America, Washington, D.C. Sir: Why does it seem that you are saying "YES" to illegal narcotics in America? I turned over video tapes to your NSC staff assistant, Tom Harvey, January 1987, wherein General KHUN SA, overlord of Asia's "Golden Triangle", offered to stop 900 tons of heroin/opium from entering the free world in 1987. Harvey told me, "...there is no interest here in doing that." General Khun Sa also offered to identify U.S. Government officials who, he says, have been trafficking in heroin for more than 20 years. November 1986, Scott Weekly and I went into Burma in coordination and cooperation with The White House. Tom Harvey told me you received a letter from Arthur Suchesk, Orange County, CA, dated 29 August 1986. Dr. Suchesk said that Gen Khun Sa had access to U.S. POWs. Harvey said the letter had received "highest attention". He gave me a copy along with other case documents. I was asked if it was possible to verify the information. According to Harvey, the CIA said Khun Sa had been assassinated some months before. Harvey supplied Scott and myself with language under White House and NSC letterhead that would help us gain access to Khun Sa. It worked. Unfortunately, Khun Sa knew nothing about US POWs. He did, however, offer to trade his nation's poppy dependence for a legitimate economy. Instead of receiving an "Atta Boy" for bringing back video tape showing Khun Sa`s offer to stop 900 tons of illegal narcotics and expose dirty USG officials, Scott was jailed and I was threatened. I was told that if I didn't "erase and forget" all that we had discovered, I would, "hurt the government". Further, I was promised a prison sentence of "15 years". I returned to Burma with two other American witnesses, Lance Trimmer, a private detective from San Francisco, and Barry Flynn from Boston. Gen Khun Sa identified some of those in government service he says were dealing in heroin and arms sales. We video taped this second interview and I turned copies over in June 1987, to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence; Chairman of the House on Foreign Affairs Task Force on Narcotics Control; Co-Chairman, Senate Narcotics Committee; Senator Harry Reid, NV; Representative James Bilbray, NV; and other Congressional members. Mister Richard Armitage, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, is one of those USG officials implicated by Khun Sa. Nothing was done with this evidence that indicated that anyone of authority, including yourself, had intended to do anything more than protect Mr. Armitage. I was charged with "Misuse of Passport". Seems that it is alright for Oliver North and Robert MacFarlane to go into Iran on Irish Passports to negotiate an illegal arms deal that neither you nor anyone else admits condoning, but I can't use a passport that brings back drug information against your friends. Lance Trimmer and I submitted a "Citizen Complaint of Wrongdoing by Federal Officers" to Attorney General Edwin Meese, III on 17 September 1987. Continuous private and Legislative inquiries to date indicate that the Attorney General's Office has "lost" the document. Congressional requests to the Government Accounting Office have resulted in additional government snares and stalls. January 20, 1988, I talked before your Breakfast Club in Houston, Texas. A distinguished group of approximately 125 associates of yours, including the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, expressed assurance that you are a righteous man. Almost all of them raised their hand when I asked how many of them know you personally. If you are a man with good intent, I pray you will do more than respond to this letter. I ask that you seriously look into the possibility that political appointees close to you are guilty of by passing our Constitutional process, and for purposes of promoting illegal covert operations, conspired in the trafficking of narcotics and arms. Please answer why a respected American Citizen like Mister H. Ross Perot can bring you a pile of evidence of wrongdoing by Armitage and others, and you, according to TIME magazine (May 4, page 18), not only offer him no support, but have your Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci tell Mr. Perot to "stop pursuing Mr. Armitage". Why Sir, will you not look into affidavits gathered by The Christic Institute (Washington, D.C.), which testify that Armitage not only trafficked in heroin, but did so under the guise of an officer charged with bringing home our POWs. If the charges are true, Armitage, who is still responsible for POW recovery as your Assistant Secretary of Defense ISA, has every reason not to want these heros returned to us alive. Clearly, follow on investigations would illuminate the collective crimes of Armitage and others. Several years ago a secretary working for Armitage asked me "Why would he have us expunge his official record of all reference to past POW/MIA assignments and activities?" Not knowing, I ventured a guess that maybe he was considering running for public office and didn't feel the POW -Vietnam association would be a plus in his resume. It was about the same time a CIA agent named by Khun Sa turned up dead in Bangkok under "mysterious circumstances". Also about this time, as an agent of NSC's Intelligence Support Activity, I was told by ISA Chief Jerry King, "...there are still too many bureaucrats in Washington who don't want to see POWs returned alive". I failed to realize the fullness of his meaning, or these other events, until in May 1987, Gen Khun Sa, in his jungle headquarters, named Richard Armitage as a key connection in a ring of heroin trafficking mobsters and USG officials. A U.S. agent I have known for many years stopped by my home last month enroute to his next overseas assignment. He remarked that he had worked for those CIA chiefs named by Khun Sa, and that by his own personal knowledge, he knew what Khun Sa said was true. He was surprised it had taken so long to surface. I am a registered Republican. I voted for you twice. I will not do so again. If you have any love or loyalty in your heart for this nation; if you have not completely sold out, then do something positive to determine the truth of these most serious allegations. You were Director of the CIA in 1975, during a time Khun Sa says Armitage and CIA officials were trafficking in heroin. As Director of Intelligence you were responsible to the American people for the activities of your assistant - even as you should know what some of these same people are doing who are close to you now as our Vice President because I feel these "parallel government" types will only be promoted by you, giving them more reason to bury our POWs. I am enclosing some documentation that supports the charges made. Chief is a letter from Khun Sa to the U.S. Justice Department dated 28 June 1987, wherein Richard Armitage is named along with Theodore Shackley (your former Deputy Director CIA from Covert Operations) and others. Please also note William Stevenson's article, "Bank of Intrigue-Circles of Power". You, Armitage, and General Richard Secord are prominently mentioned. Stevenson, you might remember, authored A MAN CALLED INTREPID. Also Tom Fitzpatrick's article, "From Burma to Bush, a Heroin Highway", should interest you. Both of these men are prize winning journalists. The book, CRIMES of PATRIOTS, "A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA", by Jonathan Kwitny, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, details for you the bank connections that Khun Sa mentions. Finally, the basic primer that spells out exactly how this dope for covert operations gambit began, is Alfred McCoy's THE POLITICS OF HEROIN IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. All of these should be required reading for the man appointed chief cop by our President to safeguard America from illegal narcotics. These are just a sampling of many works now available that chronical disgraceful conduct by those sworn to protect and defend our Constitution. Parting shot Mr. Vice President: On 28 January 1988, General Khun Sa tendered an offer to turn over to me one metric ton (2,200 pounds) of heroin. He says this is a good faith gesture to the American people that he is serious about stopping all drugs coming from the infamous Golden Triangle. I, you and Nancy Reagan are really serious about saying "NO" to drugs, why not test Gen Khun Sa? I challenge you to allow me in the company of agents of your choice to arrange to receive this token offer worth over $4 billion on the streets of New York City. It will represent the largest "legal" seizure of heroin on record. You can personally torch it, dump it in the ocean, or turn it into legal medication; as I understand there is a great shortage of legal opiates available to our doctors. I think Gen Khun Sa's offer is most interesting. If you say "YES" then the ever increasing flow of heroin from Southeast Asia (600-- tons-- '86, 900 tons-- '87, 1200-- tons'88) may dry up--not good for business in the parallel government and super CIA circles Oliver North mentioned. If you say "NO" to Khun Sa, you are showing colors not fit for a man who would be President. What is your decision? I challenge you to demonstrate exactly where you stand with respect to big-business-drugs, parallel government, misuse of U.S. tax-payer dollars in foreign drug supression programs that don't work, no interest in dialogue that will stem the flow of illegal narcotics, return of POWs while they are still alive? I for one am not for a "USA, Inc." with you or anyone else as Chairman of the Board. Respecting Your Office, James "Bo" Gritz, Concerned American, Box 472 HCR-31Sandy Valley, NV 89019, Tel: (702) 723-5266 www.serendipity.li/cia/gritz1.htm
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Post by Moses on Jan 14, 2006 7:00:35 GMT -5
It is important to understand that undoing the Church commission reforms was on the agenda of this administration/the neocons when they took office, right along with the war, and ensuring Israeli expansion. These articles connect the dots -- why these agendas were all part of the usurpation of the US to Israeli interests, and why it feels so foreign.
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Post by Moses on Jan 14, 2006 10:09:22 GMT -5
Fascism in the US has been the goal of zionists for over 30 years, and they have succeeded, with the Bush Administration.
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Post by Moses on Jan 14, 2006 10:18:57 GMT -5
Here's an example from the Heritage Foundation in 1979. Note they throw in the PLO as responsible for "terrorism" in Latin America. They just replaced the PLO w/ Al Quada -- having implicated the IRA as well, for the sake of the Anglo-fascists: www.heritage.org Latin American Terrorism: The Cuban Connectionby Francis, Samuel T. November 9, 1979 Backgrounder #104 (Archived document, may contain errors) November 9 1979 LA TIN AMERICAN TERRORISM THE CUBAN CONNECTION INTRODUCTION The fall of the Somoza govern ment in Nicaragua to the Sandi nista guerrilla forces (FSLN, Sandinista Front for National Liberation) and their foreign collaborators in July, 1979, has raised concern throughout the Western hemisphere that similar insurgency movements in other Latin Ame rican countries could lead to the weakening or overthrow of their governments as well. Increasing awareness of the role of Communist Cuba, the Palestine Liberation Organization.(PLO and various Soviet surrogate forces in assisting the FSW through arms, tra hing, and moral support has also created concern that the Nicaraguan and other Latin American insurgency movements are not merely indigenous protests1' or spontaneous rebellions against oppressive regimes but are part of an internationally orchestrated ca mpaign of subversion and terrorism to increase Soviet and Cuban influence in Latin America at the expense of the U.S. Since the U.S. depends on Latin America in a number of ways international cooperation in the UN and OAS, international trade and investmen ts, and general diplomatic and political support this concern for the internal security of Latin American states is especially relevant to the national security interests of the U.S. South American state would seriously compromise U.S. geopolitical securi ty is the "soft underbelly of Europe so Latin America is the soft underbelly of the United States recent remarks about exaggerating the role of Cuba in destabiliz ing friendly governments and supporting armed rebellions, the evidence is clear throughout L a tin America that the Castro regime 1s responsible for widespread support for terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and political subversion, that Cuba has long been involved in such activities, and that the Soviet Union itself supports the Furthermore, Communist i nfluence in any Central or Just as, in Winston Churchill's phrase, North Africa Despite President Carter's Note: Nothing written here is Io be construed as necessarily reflecting the views ol The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the p a ssage of any bill before Congress. 2 1 disruptive and revolutionary policies of Cuba. In view of the i. fall of the Somoza government, the escalation of internal violence in other Latin American states, and the recent controversy over the Soviet military presence in Cuba, the Cuban connection with international terrorism in Latin America is especially relevant. BACKGROUND Terrorism and guerrilla warfare are certainly not new pheno mena in Latin America. Continued warfare with Indians, periodic slave rebell ions, and internal political wars in the region have caused terrorism to persist in Latin American political culture In recent history since.1960 left wing (i.e., Marxist-Leninist Trotskyist, Castroite, or Maoist) ideologies and strategies have predominat ed among Latin American terrorists, but terrorism from right wing (i-e., ultra-nationalist or anti-communist) groups and counter-terrorism from ruling authorities have also been prominent. Some of the ideological content of terrorist groups, such as the Ar gentine Peronists, has been ambiguous in terms of having left right identity In 1977, the CIA found that, of fourteen Latin American terrorist groups, only one could be described as "Extreme Right and that the current status of its activities was unknown O f the other thirteen groups, all but one, described as IfPopulist Left," were IIRadical Left The fourteen groups were known or suspected to have been responsible for eighty-two transnational or international terrorist acts (including abductions, bombings hi] ackings, and assassinations between January 1, 1968, and December 31, 1975 this count does not include terrorist fcts committed entirely within the borders of a single state). A more recent CIA study has found that, of a total of 3043 international ter rorist incidents between 1968 and 1978 808 incidents (26.6 percent) occurred in Latin America, which'was second only to Western Europe (with 1130 or 37.1 percent) in the incidence of international terrorism. Perhaps of more direct significance'for America n s, the study also found that of 1271 international terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens or property from 1968 to 1978, 474 (37.3 percent) occurred in Latin America the were 19 international terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens or property in Latin AmeZica out of a total of 123 such attacks throughout the world. The following tables show the incidence of terrorism chronologically and by catc lory of attack region in which such attacks were most common. In 1978, there 1. Research Study: International and Transna t ional Terrorism: Diagnosis and 2. International Terrorism in 1978: A Research Paper (Washington: Central Prognosis (Washington: Central Intelligence Agency, April, 1976 App. C Intelligence Agency, March, 1979 App Table I, p. 7; Table VII, p. 10 Table ViII , p. 11. 3 1968 1969 19 70 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 Table 1 International Terrorist Incidents (ITI 1968-1978 Total IT1 on IT1 in Total IT1 UiS. Citizen or Property Latin America 111 166 282 216 269 275 382 29 7 413 279 353 51 93 188 153 109 1 02 139 104 125 84 123 41 71 113 70 49 80 124 48 105 46 61 Total 3043 1271 808 Source: CIA Table 2 ITI, 1968-1978, by Category of Attack On U.S. Citizens Total In Latin America Property Kidnapping Barricade, Hostage Letter Bombing Incendiary Bombing Explos i on Bombing Armed Attack Hijacking Assassination Theft, Break-in Sniping Other Actions 243 60 162 437 1473 162 92 199 76 63 76 133 11 69 388 33 22 56 44 28 15 9 95 13 12 266 655 54 34 54 41 28 19 Total 3043 808 127 1 Source: CIA Thus, of a total of 808 Lat in American international terror ist incidents in the last decade, over half (474 or 58.7 'percent represent attacks on Americans or their property. Latin American international terrorism has increased since 1968 but appears to have diminished since 19 74. With the successful terrorist and guerrilla operations against Somoza, however, it is likely that there will be an upsurge in such operations in the future, and it is possible that they will enjoy more success than they have in the last decade. 4 In the m iddle and later part of the 1960s, a number of terrorist organizations were founded and became active in South America. These were such groups as the Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP, Revolutionary Army of the People) and the Monto neros in Argenti n a; the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN Army of National Liberation) in Bai-c-tadora National (ALN, National Liberation Action) and the Vanquardia Popular Revolucionaria (VPR, Popular Revolutionary Vanguard) of Brazil; the Movimiento de Izquierda Revo l ucion'aria (MIR, Movement of the Revolutionary Left) of Chile; and the Movimiento de Libera cion Nacional (MLN, Movement of National Liberation) or Epamaros of Uruguay. These and similar groups in other countries were often so successful in destabilizing their respective societies that they sometimes provoked authoritarian reactions from the governments, which in recent years have made considerable progress in the suppression of terrorist activities within their countries. Unfortunately, however, generally democratic political cultures were sometimes destroyed or retarded in their development in the reactions against the terrorism and subversion of the left. Yet terrorism has not been destroyed completely, and the leaders of many terrorist movements have g one into exile in Western Europe Communist states, or Third World countries. Some of the above-named groups had their origins in Trotsky ist revolutionary organizations. Thus, the ERP of Argentina, the ELN of Bolivia, and the MIR of Chile, as well as the F rente Izquierdista Revolucionaria (FIR, Revolutionary Left Front) of Peru, led by convicted terrorist Hugo Blanco-Galdos, all origina ted in the various branches of the Fourth International and have received assistance from within this international Trots kyist organization. However, the ERP, under the leadership of Mario Roberto Santucho Juarez, split with the Fourth International in 19 73. Prior to the split, the ERP had sought to recruit its members from Argentine urban youths and by 1972 had about 500 m embers in 17 cells in 6 Argentine provinces. By 1974 the ERP had about 2000 active and 12,000 secret members. The Tupamaros of Uruguay are said to have originally been composed of sugar plantation workers from the northern part of the country, but they in c reasingly attracted middle class intellectuals and stu dents and provoked the military reaction against the terrgrists by The Uruguayan Communist Party penetrated the Tupamaros instigating Tupamaro attacks on military personnel 3. Lawrence P. McDonald, Tr o tsk-ism and Terror: The Strategy of Revolution Washington: ACU Education and Research Institute, 1977 ch. iv passim hereafter cited as McDonald, Trotskyism Albert Parry, Terrorism from RobesDierre to Arafat (New York: The Van2 A uard Press, Inc 1976 pp. 2 6 2-63, 277 (hereafter cited as Parry, Terrorism Brian Crozier, ed. Annual of Power and Conflict, 1977-78: A Survey of Political Violence International Influence (London: Institute for the Study of Conflict 1978 p. 151 (hereafter cited as APC 9 and 5 Many o f these terrorist organizations received support from each other as well as from Cuba. On February 13, 1974, a clandes tine meeting was held in Mendoza, Argentina, and the Junta de Coordinacion Revolucionaria (JCR, Junta of Revolutionary Coordina tion) was formed. The JCR consisted of four groups: the ERP of Argentina, the ELN of Bolivia, the MIR of Chile, and the Tupamaros of Uruguay. Also in attendence at the Mendoza meeting was Alain Krivine, the leader of the French Trotskyist organization, the Lime Com m uniste. The manifesto of the JCR declared that Itarmed struggle is the only possibility for victoryit and that '!The continental character of the struggle is fundamentally determined by the presence of a common enemy. North American imperialism carries ou t an international strategy to hold back the socialist revolution in Latin America from the ransom of an Exxon Corporation official for the joint operations of the JCR and in effect became the dominant group within it. Buenos Aires became the headquarters of the JCR. The other member-groups were already in decline, and, in July, 1976 Santucho himself was killed in a battle with Argentine authorities. However, the JCR became the central organization for Latin American terrorism, and its members received arms and training from Cuba. The JCR maintained a guerrilla warfare training school, an arms factory, and a false documentation center all of which wer e closed down in 1975 by Argentine security forces. However, the JCR, mainly through the ERP, sponsored and cooperated with a Bolivian support group for the ELN, with Colombian terrorist groups, and with a Paraguayan guerrilla group called Frepalina. Members of the JCR received training from Cuba, Iraq, and Libya. As of 1976, Cuba was providing training for the JCR on an 1800 hectare (7 square miles) estate near Guanabo as well as at another site in Pinar del.Rio. The course lasted at least three months a nd included the use of translated manuals of the U.S. Special Forces. Training concentrated oil the use of explosives, weapons tactics, operations against regular forces, survival in rugged terrain, tank warfare, and the techniques of clandestine warfare. The JCR maintained front organizations in Western Europe as well as a secret documentation center in Paris where fabricated identi ty papers are manufacture The.JCR now calls itself the Southern Cone Revolutionary Junta The ERP in 1974 provided $5 million RECENT TERRORISM XN LATIN MRICA Latin American terrorism is so complex that it is impossible to give a full account of its organizational and operational 4. Robert Moss Soviet Ambitions in Latin America" in Patrick Wall, ed The Southern Oceans and the Se c urity of the Free World: New Studies in Global Strategy (London: Stacey International, 1977 pp. 197-206 (hereafter cited as Moss Soviet Ambitions Parry, Terrorism, p. 261; the passage from the JCR manifesto is quoted from Terrorism: A Staff Study Prepared by the Committee on Internal Security, U.S. House of Representatives 93rd Congress, 2nd Session (August 1, 1974 p. 11 (hereafter cited as Terrorism McDonald, Trotskyism, p. 46; Information Digest, August 24 1979, p. 265. 6 background without an extensive t reatment. Moreover, many of the organizations active in the late 1960s and early 1970s have been suppressed, disrupted, or forced into exile by the rigorous measures adopted.by Latin American governments especially in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay. However terrorism continues to threaten Latin America and U.S. citizens and property there, and many currently active terrorists are related to the terrorist groups of the recent past. Argentina The most important terrorist groups of the recent past in Argentina were the ERP, originally a Trotskyist group, and the Montoneros, which developed partly from the splintering of the Argentine Trotskyists in 19 73. In 1962, Trotskyist terrorists received training in Cuba. The military regime of General Videla since 1976 has been generally successful in the fight against Argentine terrorism, although at a fearful cost. The Em, as discussed above, became the dominant group in the JCR. The Montoneros, led by Mario Firmenich, were virtually crushed by the end of 1977, and Firmenich fled to Europe. He has admitted to the murder of the Provisional President of Argentina, Pedro E. Aramburu, in 19 70. Soon after the fall of the Somoza government, Firmenich arrived in Managua, were he announced that his followers will again seek to take over Argentina this year. The Montoneros have the support of the PLO and the Baader-Meinhof Gang (Red Army Fraction). In 1973, the Montoneros merged with the Cuban-oriented FAR (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias or Armed Re v olutionary Forces) and by that time had already absorbed most members of the Peronist revolutionary groups. In the spring of 1975, the Monto neros kidnapped Juan and Junge Born, sons of the founders of Bunge and Born, one of Argentina's largest multinatio n al corpora tions. The Born brothers were released on June 20, 1975, after the firm paid a ransom of $60 million, the largest ransom for a kidnapping in history. According to Firmenich, this money was to be used for the financing of further terrorism by th e Montoneros. In April, 1977, Firmenich and other Montonero leaders formed the Movimiento Peronista Montonero (MPM, Montonero Peronist Movement with a Marxist ideological base number of European and Third World socialist parties. According to a chronology of significant terrorist incidents compiled by the'State Department, there were 72 such incidents involving Americans or American inst5llations in Argentina between June MPM sought the support of a 1963, and September, 1978 5. Parry, Terrorism, p. 269 pp. 117-20; Intelligence Digest, September 5, 1979; Stefan T. Possony and L. Francis Bouchey, International Terrorism The Communist Connection (Washington: American Council on World Freedom 19781, p. 51 (hereafter cited as Possony and Bouchey, International T e rrorism Trotskyite Terrorist International: Hearing before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 94th Congress, 1st Session (July 24 , 1975 pp. 34, 208-9 I I I 7 Bolivia Ernest0 IIChe" Guevara founded the ELN in 1967 as a rural guerrilla movement. Seventeen Cubans, some of them.members of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, fought with him in Bolivia, and the ELN receive d arms and training from Cuba and included some Bolivians and Peruvians. The Soviets, however frowned on Guevara's strategy for revolution in Latin America and, using the pro-Soviet Bolivian Communist Party, sabotaged his movement. The Bolivian Party had l ured Guevara to their country by reporting that it was ripe for a guerrilla insurgency, but after Guevara's arrival, the Party did nothing to assist him. Furthermore, Guevara's mistress, Tania Bunke, was a KGB agent who helped betray him to the Bolivian au thorities in 1967, when he was killed Soon after Guevara's death, the ELN was refounded as a Trotskyist group, the armed branch of the Partido Obrero Revolu cionario (POR, Revolutionary Workers Party), led by Hugo Gonzales Moscoso In 1974, the ELN adhered to the JCR, discussed above. In 1972, the Bolivian government expelled 49 Soviet diplomats who had'been involved with the ELN, indicating that the Soviets came to have a more favorable attitude toward terrorism and insurgency once they had more influence over it. One of the group's princi pal commandos was Monica "Irmilla" Ertl, who assassinated the Bolivian consul in Hamburg, Germany, on April 1, 1971, using a weapon provided by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who was deeply involved with European terrorism. an d with the Cuban Tricontinental, the publication of the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America OSPAAAL Ertl was killed in a gunfight with Bolivian police on May 13, 1973:. Terrorist activi ties in Bolivia have been61ar gely curtailed by the military regime of General Banzer. Brazil Carlos Marighella, a former member of the Executive Committee of the Brazilian Communist Party, was a principal leader of and theoretician for two Brazilian terrorist groups, the ALN and the V PR. These groups were originally Maoist and rural-based in ideology and strategy, but became urban-based in 19 68. Both received arms and training from Cuba. Marighella's Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla was published in Havana in November, 1970, in Tricontinental, no. 56. In October, 1968, the VPR murdered Captain Charles Chandler.of the U.S. in Sao Paulo and o n September 4, 1969, the ALN kidnapped U.S. Ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick who was released fter 78 hours in exchange for 15 political prisoners, most of whom soon went to Cuba. Marighella was killed by police in Sao Paulo in November, 1969, but both te r rorist 6. Terrorism, pp. 16-17; Possony and Bouchey, International Terrorism, pp 47-48; McDonald, Trotskyism, pp 46-47; Peter Kemp Left Against Left in Latin America Spectator, April 9, 1977, p. 7 I I I 1: I! 8 I i groups survived him. In 1970, they kidna p ped the West German and Swiss ambassadors to Brazil and released them in exchange for political prisoners, who were flown to Cuba. The military regime of General Geisel was successful in suppressing terrorist activi ties in Brazil in the mid 1970s, but re c ent reports indicate that international terrorist groups consisting of the United Red Army URA which carried out the Lod Airport massacre on behalf of the PFLP in 1972), the Montoneros, and the ERP of Argentina may have joined together to attack U.S. targ ets in Brazil in retalia tion for the U.S. role in the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement In April, 1979, the Japanese consulate in Sao Paulo is said to have given police informatjon on 15 URA members reported to have been present in Sao Paulo. Chile The pri ncipal terrorist group in Chile is the MIR, also a MIR was member of the JCR and an active force in the support of Salvator Allende Gossens's Popular Unity government of 1970-73 founded in 1965 and became a terrorist.movement after its takeover in 1967 by Bautista von Schouwens (condemned to death in 1973 by the Pinochet government), Andres Pascal Allende (nephew of Presi dent Allende), and other extreme elements. MIR went underground in 1969, but later emerged in 1970 after Allende's amnesty of political c riminals. During the Allende years, MIR served as shock troopsvf or Ilstorm troopsvf for the leftist government and received'clandestine arms shipments from Cuba. MIR went under ground again in 1973 after the coup d'etat that overthrew the Allende governm e nt, and in December, 1974, joined in the formation of the Revolutionary Party of the'chilean Proletariat. MIR has never been as active or as successful in its terrorism as some of its allies in the JCR were e.g., the Tupamaros or the ERP and the Pinochet g overnment has maintained a tight lid on its activi ties. Nevertheless, MIR remains active. On October 16, 1977 MIR exploded 10 bombs in Santiago ment arrested several MIR leaders and killed August0 Carmona Acevedo, a former MIR editor of Punto Final. In 1 979, about 40 bombing incidents were attributed to MIR in April-June. (more at link)
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Post by Moses on Jan 14, 2006 11:50:29 GMT -5
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Post by Moses on Jan 14, 2006 12:02:19 GMT -5
Joel Lisker Senior Vice Chairman Dudinsky Lisker & Associates Joel S. Lisker was most recently the Senior Vice-President for Security and Risk Management for MasterCard International where he served as the company's world-wide senior security representative for matters relating to the fraudulent use of its numerous card products. He was instrumental in developing technical solutions and strategies to thwart the efforts of organized crime. As head of Corporate Security, he was responsible for safeguarding MasterCard employees, premises, and property throughout the world. Currently, he is serving on two FBI industry task forces dealing with terrorist financing and identity theft. After completing his formal education at the University of Pennsylvania (BS) and the Temple University School of Law (J.D.), he joined the FBI as a Special Agent where he worked against domestic terrorist groups. Thereafter, as a Special Agent Supervisor assigned to FBI Headquarters, he developed sophisticated solutions to safeguard FBI communications between FBI Headquarters and several overseas offices. He also developed techniques used in foreign counter-intelligence operations. Next Lisker served as senior trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division, Internal Security Section where he directed a task force operating against domestic terrorists and led a group seeking to control foreign agents. In 1981, Lisker was selected by the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary to be Chief Counsel and Staff Director of its Sub-Committee on Security and Terrorism. In this capacity, he managed the Committee's oversight and authorization responsibility for the FBI and the U.S. Marshal Service. It was in this role that Lisker organized more than 25 hearings aimed at uncovering the global terrorist inter-connections and transnational operations that became known as the “terror network”. In 1987, Lisker was selected as Associate Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition. One of his major accomplishments in this assignment was the uncovering and tracing of clandestine funding sources through the Swiss banking network. Lisker is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He is also admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a life member of the FBI Agents Association, the Association of Former Agents of the FBI, the Board of Directors of the IAFCI, and the Board of Directors of the Economic Crime Institute.
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Post by Moses on Jan 14, 2006 13:25:46 GMT -5
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