EARLY EDITION. SPECIAL REPORT. Father of Orlando shooter part of U.S. pro-Taliban CIA/VOA network by Wayne Madsen Report
Seddique Mir Mateen, the presidential pretender of Afghanistan and father of Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, is part of a pro-Taliban network of Afghan and Pakistani propagandists who use the television and radio networks funded by the CIA-influenced Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to spread their messages to audiences throughout the world. Mateen hosts a television show called the Durand Jirga Show, which is funded through his Durand Jirga, Inc., a Florida not-for-profit corporation based in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Mateen's program is broadcast by Payame Afghan out of Los Angeles, which is also the home to a number of CIA- and VOA-subsidized satellite broadcasts in the Farsi language to Iran.
Mateen claims he maintains his own intelligence network, but this appears to be a reference to his CIA and Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) friends who are involved in South Asia's propaganda war using satellite programs broadcast in Pashto -- major languages of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mateen's broadcast language Dari, and Urdu.
The BBG has funded a number of U.S.-based broadcasters that operate from the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in order to target Pakistani and Afghan audiences in the United States and around the world with propaganda. For example, the Voice of America uses Pakistani television networks to broadcast VOA programs produced in Washington that involve anchors located in Washington and Pakistan. One Urdu-language program called "The Platform" airs on Pakistani television with an anchor in Washington and local hosts in Lahore and Islamabad. Another show is "Kahani Pakistani," a TV magazine program. These attempts at winning over the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan are considered major failures and a waste of taxpayers' funds.
Even after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States, the VOA's Pashto service gave a propaganda platform to the Afghan Taliban.
After the September 11 attack, Spozhmai Maiwandi, the director of the Voice of America's Pashtun service, jokingly nicknamed "Kandahar Rose" by her colleagues, aired favorable reports on the Taliban, including a controversial interview with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. It should not be surprising, therefore, that Seddique Mir Mateen's own views side with those of the Taliban. The presence of a number of pro-Taliban Afghan-Americans in the United States was facilitated by the CIA's support for the mujaheddin cause in the Afghan jihadist war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Even Afghan-American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations, served as a key interlocutor between the Taliban government of Afghanistan and the UNOCAL oil company in Houston in the late 1990s. Today, those links serve Khalilzad and the CIA well at the CIA-linked Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, where Khalilzad serves as a counselor.
Since Omar Mateen's massacre in Orlando, the VOA continues with its propaganda aimed against the United States. The following are just a few of the comments posted on Ashna TV's Dari and Pashto Service's webpage:
“I hope for a day when U.S. and Britain fall in the same level of blood and dust that Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are." - Feroz Sherzy.
Writing of Omar Mateen: "verry [sic] brave mane [sic]. action is great." -Mahmoodullah Hamid of the Agha Khan Foundation in Afghanistan.
Some 60 percent of the comments on the Ashna TV website praised Omar Mateen and his actions in Orlando. And the American taxpayers fund this activity through their financial support for the VOA and BBG. And, as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton championed the expansion of these broadcast services. In 2011, Clinton testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that her department needed additional funds for the propaganda war. She said, “During the Cold War we did a great job in getting America’s message out. After the Berlin Wall fell we said, ‘Okay, fine, enough of that, we are done,’ and unfortunately we are paying a big price for it . . .Our private media cannot fill that gap.”
The radical messages broadcast by Payame Afghan and Ashna TV are the results of Mrs. Clinton's efforts to expand U.S. propaganda broadcasting. For the CIA, keeping expatriates like Seddique Mir Mateen and his pro-Taliban colleagues at the VOA on the government dole is to ensure a ready supply of interlocutors and agents-of-influence is available to Langley should the Taliban, once again, take over control of Afghanistan.
Seddique Mir Mateen, the presidential pretender of Afghanistan and father of Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, is part of a pro-Taliban network of Afghan and Pakistani propagandists who use the television and radio networks funded by the CIA-influenced Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to spread their messages to audiences throughout the world. Mateen hosts a television show called the Durand Jirga Show, which is funded through his Durand Jirga, Inc., a Florida not-for-profit corporation based in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Mateen's program is broadcast by Payame Afghan out of Los Angeles, which is also the home to a number of CIA- and VOA-subsidized satellite broadcasts in the Farsi language to Iran.
Mateen claims he maintains his own intelligence network, but this appears to be a reference to his CIA and Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) friends who are involved in South Asia's propaganda war using satellite programs broadcast in Pashto -- major languages of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mateen's broadcast language Dari, and Urdu.
The BBG has funded a number of U.S.-based broadcasters that operate from the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in order to target Pakistani and Afghan audiences in the United States and around the world with propaganda. For example, the Voice of America uses Pakistani television networks to broadcast VOA programs produced in Washington that involve anchors located in Washington and Pakistan. One Urdu-language program called "The Platform" airs on Pakistani television with an anchor in Washington and local hosts in Lahore and Islamabad. Another show is "Kahani Pakistani," a TV magazine program. These attempts at winning over the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan are considered major failures and a waste of taxpayers' funds.
Even after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States, the VOA's Pashto service gave a propaganda platform to the Afghan Taliban.
After the September 11 attack, Spozhmai Maiwandi, the director of the Voice of America's Pashtun service, jokingly nicknamed "Kandahar Rose" by her colleagues, aired favorable reports on the Taliban, including a controversial interview with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. It should not be surprising, therefore, that Seddique Mir Mateen's own views side with those of the Taliban. The presence of a number of pro-Taliban Afghan-Americans in the United States was facilitated by the CIA's support for the mujaheddin cause in the Afghan jihadist war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Even Afghan-American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations, served as a key interlocutor between the Taliban government of Afghanistan and the UNOCAL oil company in Houston in the late 1990s. Today, those links serve Khalilzad and the CIA well at the CIA-linked Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, where Khalilzad serves as a counselor.
Since Omar Mateen's massacre in Orlando, the VOA continues with its propaganda aimed against the United States. The following are just a few of the comments posted on Ashna TV's Dari and Pashto Service's webpage:
“I hope for a day when U.S. and Britain fall in the same level of blood and dust that Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are." - Feroz Sherzy.
Writing of Omar Mateen: "verry [sic] brave mane [sic]. action is great." -Mahmoodullah Hamid of the Agha Khan Foundation in Afghanistan.
Some 60 percent of the comments on the Ashna TV website praised Omar Mateen and his actions in Orlando. And the American taxpayers fund this activity through their financial support for the VOA and BBG. And, as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton championed the expansion of these broadcast services. In 2011, Clinton testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that her department needed additional funds for the propaganda war. She said, “During the Cold War we did a great job in getting America’s message out. After the Berlin Wall fell we said, ‘Okay, fine, enough of that, we are done,’ and unfortunately we are paying a big price for it . . .Our private media cannot fill that gap.”
The radical messages broadcast by Payame Afghan and Ashna TV are the results of Mrs. Clinton's efforts to expand U.S. propaganda broadcasting. For the CIA, keeping expatriates like Seddique Mir Mateen and his pro-Taliban colleagues at the VOA on the government dole is to ensure a ready supply of interlocutors and agents-of-influence is available to Langley should the Taliban, once again, take over control of Afghanistan.
