Showing posts with label NSA Wiretaps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NSA Wiretaps. Show all posts

Friday, March 18, 2016

SPECIAL REPORT. U.S. fomenting "constitutional coups" in BRICS alliance by Wayne Madsen Report



SPECIAL REPORT. U.S. fomenting "constitutional coups" in BRICS alliance
by Wayne Madsen Report
When President Obama flies over Brazil on his way from Cuba to Argentina, he will be flying over the latest member of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South African (BRICS) alliance to feel the effects of the Central Intelligence Agency's new brand of coup generation. After trying to mount an electoral defeat of Brazil's progressive leftist president, Dilma Rousseff, through a combination of presidential candidate assassination, "rent-a-mob" street demonstrations, and corporate media propaganda, the Langley spooks are now trying to run Rousseff from office through a "Made in America" impeachment process. Aware that Rousseff's progressive predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has been targeted by Brazilian prosecutors on the CIA's payroll, for arrest and prosecution for bribery, she has appointed him to her government with ministerial rank. 

Bribery charges, involving Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras and, in the case of Lula, construction firms, have also been leveled against Rousseff. George Soros, whose operatives in Brazil have been involved in launching "themed revolution" street protests, has made no secret of his desire to see Petrobras totally privatized so he can sink his fangs into the company and drain it for all it is worth. Soros operatives have turned thousands of people out into the streets of Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, and Rio de Janeiro in the "green and yellow" revolution. Protesters carry green and yellow banners and signs and dressed in green and yellow clothes have been confronted by an equal number of government supporters dressed in the red color of the ruling Workers' Party.

The anti-Rousseff/Lula movement bears a signature Soros name, "Vem Pra Rua," Portuguese for "To the Street." As with the disastrous Soros-inspired and CIA-nurtured Arab Spring protests in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia and Euromaidan protest in Ukraine, the Vem Pra Rua movement is basically nothing more than a politically-motivated capitalist campaign using Facebook, Twitter, and pro-insurrection television and radio networks, newspapers, and websites.

Vem Pra Rua's protests were marked by quickly-manufactured inflatable dolls of Lula in black and white prison garb and a placard cartoon drawing of Rousseff with a red diagonal "No" sign drawn through it.

Brazilian prosecutors on Langley's payroll recently arrested the popular Lula after staging a massive police raid of his house. Police also arrested the former First Lady of Brazil, Lula's wife Marisa Leticia. Lula said he felt that he was kidnapped by the police. In 2009, Honduran troops actually kidnapped President Manuel Zelaya in the middle of the night and detained him in a military cell prior to expelling him from the country. That operation, like the one against Lula and Rousseff, was backed not only by the CIA and NSA, but by the U.S. Southern Command in Miami. The Honduran coup was also backed by the Supreme Court of Honduras. To prevent a further political arrest of her predecessor, Rousseff has made Lula her chief of staff, a cabinet position that affords Lula protection from continuing prosecutorial harassment and legal proceedings by the federal court.


Soros's and the CIA's latest themed uprising, the Green and Yellow Revolution in Brazil. Soros's "revolutions" only serve the interests of Wall Street, the Pentagon, and Israel.

On March 16, Judge Sergio Moro, who is in charge of Operation "Lava-jato" ("Carwash"), the two-year investigation of Petrobras and the alleged bribery involving Rousseff and Lula, released two taped intercepts of phone calls between the president and former president. The bugged phone conversation involved Rousseff's plans to appoint Lula to her cabinet as a way to afford him some protection from the CIA's judicial-backed coup operation now in play. When the classified National Security Agency documents leaked by whistleblower Ed Snowden illustrated how NSA had spied on Rousseff's office and mobile phones, President Obama said he had ordered an end to such spying on world leaders friendly to the United States.

Rousseff, in a 2013 speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, said the following about the NSA spying on Brazilians: "
Personal data of citizens was intercepted indiscriminately. Corporate information, often of high economic and even strategic value,  was at the centre of espionage activity . . Also, Brazilian diplomatic missions, among them the permanent mission to the UN and the office of the president of the republic itself, had their communications intercepted." President Obama followed Rousseff on the General Assembly's podium and, in answer to Rousseff's blistering attack on the U.S. and NSA, stated, "We have begun to review the way that we gather intelligence, so as to properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies, with the privacy concerns that all people share." Obama did not say that the U.S. would not use intercepted phone calls and email to bring down foreign leaders.

The NSA's wiretaps of Brazilian leaders and businessmen involved systems with such cover terms as SILVERZEPHYR, BLACKPEARL, FLYING PIG, and ROYALNET.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJDy68FxJpS3xH4TToBhA9yGK_JdISNQ2VGvQD6KUPGUHiE4O2kBeAUGGVqmYfgzaDBGLXq-i2Fb4yFUP99UfXCqqp_F417rKaAZ40NMSu_CdVFjhysuCZ3hsHrrVURhEF90G/s1600/satc-03.jpg
NSA spying on Rousseff and Lula continuing. Intercepted phone calls being turned over to Brazilian judge with CIA ties.

Judge Sergio Moro's name appears in one of the leaked State Department cables. On October 30, 2009, the U.S. embassy in Brasilia reported that Moro attended an embassy-sponsored conference in Rio de Janeiro held from October 4-9. Titled "
Illicit Financial Crimes," the conference appears have been an avenue for the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies to train Brazilian federal and state law enforcement, as well as other Latin American police officials from Argentina, Paraguay, Panama, and Uruguay, in procedures to mount bogus criminal prosecutions of Latin American leaders considered unfriendly to the United States. Former Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and members of her leftist political party also faced investigations by prosecutors and judges on the CIA's payroll. The State cable from Brasilia states: "Moro . . . discussed the 15 most common issues he sees in money laundering cases in the Brazilian Courts." Moro is also taking inspiration for his prosecution of Lula and Rousseff from the prosecutors in the Watergate affair that brought down President Richard Nixon.

The rece
nt intercepts of Rousseff's phone conversations with Lula, believed to have been gathered by NSA and turned over to Moro by the U.S. embassy in Brasilia, shows that Obama lied. The American president's forthcoming visit to Latin America has avoided Air Force One touching down in Latin America's biggest power, Brazil. Obama, who once prepared Latin America analytical reports for CIA front company Business International Corporation, is keenly aware that Brazil is now undergoing a "constitutional coup" aided and abetted by the CIA and Soros. Obama cannot be seen giving the imprimatur of legitimacy to a government being actively targeted by Langley and other U.S. intelligence agencies, including NSA.

The transcript of one phone call between Rousseff and Lula is hardly a reason to impeach Rousseff and throw her and Lula into prison, regardless of the aims of Soros, the CIA, and their Brazilian lackeys:

Phone call between Rousseff and Lula, 16 March
Rousseff: Hello.
Lula: Hello.
Rousseff: Lula, let me tell you something.
Lula: Tell me, my love.
Rousseff: It’s this, I am sending Messias [Jorge Rodrigo Araújo Messias, deputy head of legal affairs at the cabinet office] round with the papers, so that we have them, just in case of necessity, that is the terms of office, right?
Lula: Uh-huh. Ok, ok.
Rousseff: That’s all, wait there, he is heading there.
Lula: OK, I’m here. I’ll wait.
Rousseff: Right?
Lula: OK.
Rousseff: Bye.
The phone call is hardly an impeachable offense but a tactical move to protect Lula from a runaway prosecutor.
----
The CIA previously used judicial cover in its coups against Honduras's Zelaya in 2009 and Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo in 2012. Both Zelaya and Lugo were ousted by a relatively new CIA methodology for deposing leaders its dislikes -- the "constitutional coup" -- using legislatures and high courts to justify ousters brought on by Soros-financed street demonstrations and manipulation of private media, including newspapers and television. Rousseff and Lula are using the legal powers afforded to the Brazilian presidency to bring charges against Moro.

Lula sees Moro as the CIA rat he is. He condemned Moro's witch hunt, saying that "
with the press leading the investigative process they [the prosecutors] are going to re-found the republic. We have a totally cowardly Supreme Court, a totally cowardly High Court, a totally cowardly parliament  . . . a speaker of the house who is fucked, a president of the senate who is fucked, I don’t know how many legislators under threat, and everyone thinking that some kind of miracle is going to happen."

In South Africa, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), which receives its support from Soros and the Jewish-dominated South African diamond and gold industry, is targeting president Jacob Zuma. The CIA has traditionally maintained strong influence over the DA, especially when it was led by Tony Leon, a former visiting fellow at the right-wing libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, DC. The tactics in South Africa are similar to those in Brazil. There are calls for Zuma to resign because of alleged bribes received by the wealthy Gupta family and influence peddling by the family. The charges against Zuma also extend to the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which has, since the apartheid era, been the target of the CIA. Even the South African Communist Party, a member of the ANC government, has taken on the taint of a Soros-infiltrated party by demanding Zuma reveal the full nature of his connections with the Guptas or face the political "consequences."

As far as Brazil is concerned, it is apparent that the CIA and Soros want to see Rousseff and Lula gone and in prison by the time the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics opens in August. The goal of the anti-government agitators in Brazil is to see a head of state chosen by the usual globalist suspects opening the Olympiad before an international audience.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Engineered bedlam: a fictional and real-life theme by Wayne Madsen




 Engineered bedlam: a fictional and real-life theme
by Wayne Madsen
From the newly-established Syrian and other Asian migrant camps in Europe to acts of terrorism throughout the world, there is but one small group of elitists who owe their loyalty to a single individual that benefits from global bedlam. While this is the theme of the last four James Bond movies, including the latest, "SPECTRE," the theme actually has a real-life counterpart.

WMR reported in 2010 that international Quantum hedge fund tycoon George Soros was so upset with the Bond movie, "Quantum of Solace" and its not-so-veiled references to "Quantum" as an all-powerful international villainous organization, he tried to buy, through front men, MGM and the Bond production company, EON Production of London, which films at the famed Pinewood Studios near Heathrow International Airport outside of London.

Soros's and his friend Leonard Blavatnik's ploy failed and in the latest Bond movie, "SPECTRE," the screen writers launch a full-blown blast at Soros.This is a spoiler alert. If you have not seen the film, you may not want to read on!



It turns out that all of 007's villains in the last four films all worked for the same uber-wealthy man, an individual who heads up Quantum and is known by one name, Franz Oberhauer, but was born under another, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. George Soros was born Gyorgy Schwartz and it is claimed that the name Soros is Esperanto for "to soar." Schwartz's father. Tivadar Schwartz, said he chose Soros as his family's last name so they could, as Hungarian Jews, easily blend into Nazi-occupied Hungary. Tivadar was a proponent of Esperanto as a global language.

It is unusual that MGM and EON survived Soros's hostile takeover bid. On April 26, 2010, WMR reported: "Blavatnik, a one-time Soviet Jewish refusenik who emigrated to the United States and a Soros ally -- is pressuring MGM to sell to him. Production has ceased on the Quantum sequel, given the working title of "Bond 23,"  even after a major script re-writing, said also be as a result of pressure from Soros." "Bond 23" turned out to be Skyfall and after the Soros-Blavatnik bid failed, Quantum again became Bond's chief nemesis.

Before Soros's MGM takeover bid collapsed, there was some suspicious activity involving MGM stock, activity that pointed to Soros's "stock-in-trade" -- shorting shares of stock. WMR reported: "MGM was bought by a group of investors in 2005 for $5 billion. They stood to take a financial bath because MGM was not expected to fetch more than $2 billion. Two of the MGM investors, Sony Corporation and Comcast, wrote off their investments as losses." These behind-the-scenes machinations drove down the value of MGM stock, making it vulnerable to a takeover by Soros and Blavatnik. However, in May 2010, the Soros deal went sour. The Quantum-fighting Bond, played by actor Daniel Craig, continued to battle against Quantum another day.

Soros is considered a major enemy by Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) so there should be no surprise that the agency would martial its fictional top agent Bond to battle the Soros doppelganger chief of Quantum. In 1992, Soros committed the sin of trying to short the British pound. An attack upon sterling in Britain is considered an attack on the Queen herself. From that time onward, MI-6 had Soros in its figurative sights. MI-6 has always held huge sway over Bond movie scripts and the last four were no different. In "SPECTRE," Bond is told that all of his last several enemies, including one Israeli Mossad veteran, all worked for Oberhauser/Blofeld, the real head of Quantum.

Bond also discovers that most of the world's terrorist attacks, coups, revolutions, and other upheavals are all the work of Quantum, which is trying to unite the world's intelligence agencies under the framework of "NINE EYES," which will actually be controlled by -- you guessed it -- Quantum. In real life, the National Security Agency (NSA) and its English-speaking allies are united under the FIVE EYES intelligence-sharing pact.

In "SPECTRE," one of the NINE EYES countries, South Africa, is the only one to vote against combining the nations' intelligence surveillance databases, thus preventing the plan moving forward. It changes its vote to "yes," after a huge terrorist bomb strikes Cape Town.

In "SPECTRE," a "cocky" Tony Blair-like character named Max Denbigh becomes "M's" [Ralph Fiennes] boss ("C") and makes a secret agreement with Quantum to close down the 007 program and MI-6 itself. M and Bond not only have to face off against Quantum but also the chief of British intelligence. The similarities between Denbigh and Blair may also be rooted in reality. The following is from WMR's 2010 report: "In 2007, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild hosted a swank and ritzy reception in London for outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie. Blair hob-nobbed with a select group of American and other billionaires hoping to land lucrative work after his success in steering Britain into a bloody occupation of Iraq as a favor for George W. Bush. Among the billionaires present were Blavatnik; Ron Burkle, the grocery chain magnate who gave Bill Clinton work after he left office; oilman Sid Bass, Lehman Brothers' manipulative CEO Richard Fuld -- who was busy setting up shadow Lehman business deals through Hudson Castle; fashion mogul Calvin Klein; billionaire cosmetic heirs Leonard and Ronald Lauder -- a few months later Ronald Lauder was elected president of the World Jewish Congress; and Mexican telecommunication billionaire Carlos Slim Helu." All would make excellent candidates for Blofeld's Quantum "round table" of international tycoons and brigands who periodically meet in secret to chart out the next catastrophes and financial mega-schemes.
The Bond script's lines about Quantum ultimately causing the world's destabilization could have very well been written by the actual head of MI-6.

More about Soros as the "Quantum of Chaos" can be read in WMR's new book by the same title: "Soros: Quantum of Chaos," available at the WMR bookstore.

Thursday, November 07, 2013

National Security Agency – The only part of the government that really listens to what you have to say By William Blum




The Anti-Empire Report #122

By William Blum – Published November 7th, 2013
http://williamblum.org/aer/read/122
National Security Agency – The only part of the government that really listens to what you have to say
The New York Times (November 2) ran a long article based on NSA documents released by Edward Snowden. One of the lines that most caught my attention concerned “Sigint” – Signals intelligence, the term used for electronic intercepts. The document stated:
“Sigint professionals must hold the moral high ground, even as terrorists or dictators seek to exploit our freedoms. Some of our adversaries will say or do anything to advance their cause; we will not.”
What, I wondered, might that mean? What would the National Security Agency – on moral principle – refuse to say or do?
I have on occasion asked people who reject or rationalize any and all criticism of US foreign policy: “What would the United States have to do in its foreign policy to lose your support? What, for you, would be too much?” I’ve yet to get a suitable answer to that question. I suspect it’s because the person is afraid that whatever they say I’ll point out that the United States has already done it.

The United Nations vote on the Cuba embargo – 22 years in a row

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We haven’t heard that for a very long time. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions):
YearVotes (Yes-No)No Votes
199259-2US, Israel
199388-4US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay
1994101-2US, Israel
1995117-3US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1996138-3US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1997143-3US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1998157-2US, Israel
1999155-2US, Israel
2000167-3US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2001167-3US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2002173-3US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2003179-3US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2004179-4US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2005182-4US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2006183-4US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2007184-4US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2008185-3US, Israel, Palau
2009187-3US, Israel, Palau
2010187-2US, Israel
2011186-2US, Israel
2012188-3US, Israel, Palau
2013188-2US, Israel
Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.
Speaking before the General Assembly, October 29, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared: “The economic damages accumulated after half a century as a result of the implementation of the blockade amount to $1.126 trillion.” He added that the blockade “has been further tightened under President Obama’s administration”, some 30 US and foreign entities being hit with $2.446 billion in fines due to their interaction with Cuba.
However, the American envoy, Ronald Godard, in an appeal to other countries to oppose the resolution, said:
“The international community … cannot in good conscience ignore the ease and frequency with which the Cuban regime silences critics, disrupts peaceful assembly, impedes independent journalism and, despite positive reforms, continues to prevent some Cubans from leaving or returning to the island. The Cuban government continues its tactics of politically motivated detentions, harassment and police violence against Cuban citizens.”1
So there you have it. That is why Cuba must be punished. One can only guess what Mr. Godard would respond if told that more than 7,000 people were arrested in the United States during the Occupy Movement’s first 8 months of protest 2 ; that their encampments were violently smashed up; that many of them were physically abused by the police.
Does Mr. Godard ever read a newspaper or the Internet, or watch television? Hardly a day passes in America without a police officer shooting to death an unarmed person?
As to “independent journalism” – what would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money – secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba – would own or control most of the media worth owning or controlling?
The real reason for Washington’s eternal hostility toward Cuba? The fear of a good example of an alternative to the capitalist model; a fear that has been validated repeatedly over the years as Third World countries have expressed their adulation of Cuba.
How the embargo began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.” Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” 3 Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against its everlasting enemy.

The Cold War Revisited

I’ve written the Introduction to a new book recently published in Russia that is sort of an updating of my book Killing Hope. 4 Here is a short excerpt:
The Cold War had not been a struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. It had been a struggle between the United States and the Third World, which, in the decade following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, continued in Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, Yugoslavia and elsewhere.
The Cold War had not been a worldwide crusade by America to halt Soviet expansion, real or imaginary. It had been a worldwide crusade by America to block political and social changes in the Third World, changes opposed by the American power elite.
The Cold War had not been a glorious and noble movement of freedom and democracy against Communist totalitarianism. It had typically been a movement by the United States in support of dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and corrupt oligarchies which were willing to follow Washington’s party line on the Left, US corporations, Israel, oil, military bases, et al. and who protected American political and economic interests in their countries in exchange for the American military and CIA keeping them in power against the wishes of their own people.
In other words, whatever the diplomats at the time thought they were doing, the Cold War revisionists have been vindicated. American policy had been about imperialism and military expansion.
Apropos the countless other myths we were all taught about the Soviet Union is this letter I recently received from one of my readers, a Russian woman, age 49, who moved to the United States eight years ago and now lives in Northern Virginia:
I can’t imagine why anybody is surprised to hear when I say I miss life in the Soviet Union: what is bad about free healthcare and education, guaranteed employment, guaranteed free housing? No rent or mortgage of any kind, only utilities, but they were subsidized too, so it was really pennies. Now, to be honest, there was a waiting list to get those apartments, so some people got them quicker, some people had to wait for years, it all depended on where you worked. And there were no homeless people, and crime was way lower. As a first grader I was taking the public transportation to go to school, which was about 1 hour away by bus (it was a big city, about the size of Washington DC, we lived on the outskirts, and my school was downtown), and it was fine, all other kids were doing it. Can you even imagine this being done now? I am not saying everything was perfect, but overall, it is a more stable and socially just system, fair to everybody, nobody was left behind. This is what I miss: peace and stability, and not being afraid of the future.
Problem is, nobody believes it, they will say that I am a brainwashed “tovarish” [comrade]. I’ve tried to argue with Americans about this before, but just gave up now. They just refuse to believe anything that contradicts what CNN has been telling them for all their lives. One lady once told me: “You just don’t know what was going on there, because you did not have freedom of speech, but we, Americans, knew everything, because we could read about all of this in our media.” I told her “I was right there! I did not need to read about this in the media, I lived that life!”, but she still was unconvinced! You will not believe what she said: “Yes, maybe, but we have more stuff!”. Seriously, having 50 kinds of cereal available in the store, and walmarts full of plastic junk is more valuable to Americans than a stable and secure life, and social justice for everybody?
Of course there are people who lived in the Soviet Union who disagree with me, and I talked to them too, but I find their reasons just as silly. I heard one Russian lady whose argument was that Stalin killed “30, no 40 million people”. First of all it’s not true (I don’t in any way defend Stalin, but I do think that lying and exaggerating about him is as wrong)*, and second of all what does this have to do with the 70s, when I was a kid? By then life was completely different. I heard other arguments, like food shortages (again, not true, it’s not like there was no food at all, there were shortages of this or that specific product, like you wouldn’t find mayo or bologna in the store some days, but everything else was there!). So, you would come back next day, or in 2-3 days, and you would find them there. Really, this is such a big deal? Or you would have to stay in line to buy some other product, (ravioli for example). But how badly do you want that ravioli really that day, can’t you have anything else instead? Just buy something else, like potatoes, where there was no line.
Was this annoying, yes, and at the time I was annoyed too, but only now I realized that I would much prefer this nuisance to my present life now, when I am constantly under stress for the fear that I can possibly lose my job (as my husband already did), and as a result, lose everything else – my house? You couldn’t possibly lose your house in Soviet Union, it was yours for life, mortgage free. Only now, living here in the US, I realized that all those soviet nuisances combined were not as important as the benefits we had – housing, education, healthcare, employment, safe streets, all sort of free after school activities (music, sports, arts, anything you want) for kids, so parents never had to worry about what we do all day till they come home in the evening.
* We’ve all heard the figures many times … 10 million … 20 million … 40 million … 60 million … died under Stalin. But what does the number mean, whichever number you choose? Of course many people died under Stalin, many people died under Roosevelt, and many people are still dying under Bush. Dying appears to be a natural phenomenon in every country. The question is how did those people die under Stalin? Did they die from the famines that plagued the USSR in the 1920s and 30s? Did the Bolsheviks deliberately create those famines? How? Why? More people certainly died in India in the 20th century from famines than in the Soviet Union, but no one accuses India of the mass murder of its own citizens. Did the millions die from disease in an age before antibiotics? In prison? From what causes? People die in prison in the United States on a regular basis. Were millions actually murdered in cold blood? If so, how? How many were criminals executed for non-political crimes? The logistics of murdering tens of millions of people is daunting. 5
Hillary: Defending the Bush regime all the way

Let’s not repeat the Barack fuckup with Hillary

Not that it really matters who the Democrats nominate for the presidency in 2016. Whoever that politically regressive and morally bankrupt party chooses will be at best an uninspired and uninspiring centrist; in European terms a center-rightist; who believes that the American Empire – despite the admittedly occasional excessive behavior – is mankind’s last great hope. The only reason I bother to comment on this question so far in advance of the election is that the forces behind Clinton have clearly already begun their campaign and I’d like to use the opportunity to try to educate the many progressives who fell in love with Obama and may be poised now to embrace Clinton. Here’s what I wrote in July 2007 during the very early days of the 2008 campaign:
Who do you think said this on June 20? a) Rudy Giuliani; b) Hillary Clinton; c) George Bush; d) Mitt Romney; or e) Barack Obama?
“The American military has done its job. Look what they accomplished. They got rid of Saddam Hussein. They gave the Iraqis a chance for free and fair elections. They gave the Iraqi government the chance to begin to demonstrate that it understood its responsibilities to make the hard political decisions necessary to give the people of Iraq a better future. So the American military has succeeded. It is the Iraqi government which has failed to make the tough decisions which are important for their own people.” 6
Right, it was the woman who wants to be president because … because she wants to be president … because she thinks it would be nice to be president … no other reason, no burning cause, no heartfelt desire for basic change in American society or to make a better world … she just thinks it would be nice, even great, to be president. And keep the American Empire in business, its routine generating of horror and misery being no problem; she wouldn’t want to be known as the president that hastened the decline of the empire.
And she spoke the above words at the “Take Back America” conference; she was speaking to liberals, committed liberal Democrats and others further left. She didn’t have to cater to them with any flag-waving pro-war rhetoric; they wanted to hear anti-war rhetoric (and she of course gave them a bit of that as well out of the other side of her mouth), so we can assume that this is how she really feels, if indeed the woman feels anything. The audience, it should be noted, booed her, for the second year in a row.
Think of why you are opposed to the war. Is it not largely because of all the unspeakable suffering brought down upon the heads and souls of the poor people of Iraq by the American military? Hillary Clinton couldn’t care less about that, literally. She thinks the American military has “succeeded”. Has she ever unequivocally labeled the war “illegal” or “immoral”? I used to think that Tony Blair was a member of the right wing or conservative wing of the British Labour Party. I finally realized one day that that was an incorrect description of his ideology. Blair is a conservative, a bloody Tory. How he wound up in the Labour Party is a matter I haven’t studied. Hillary Clinton, however, I’ve long known is a conservative; going back to at least the 1980s, while the wife of the Arkansas governor, she strongly supported the death-squad torturers known as the Contras, who were the empire’s proxy army in Nicaragua. 7
Now we hear from America’s venerable conservative magazine, William Buckley’s National Review, an editorial by Bruce Bartlett, policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan; treasury official under President George H.W. Bush; a fellow at two of the leading conservative think-tanks, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute – You get the picture? Bartlett tells his readers that it’s almost certain that the Democrats will win the White House in 2008. So what to do? Support the most conservative Democrat. He writes: “To right-wingers willing to look beneath what probably sounds to them like the same identical views of the Democratic candidates, it is pretty clear that Hillary Clinton is the most conservative.” 8
We also hear from America’s premier magazine for the corporate wealthy, Fortune, whose recent cover features a picture of Clinton and the headline: “Business Loves Hillary”. 9
Back to 2013: In October, the office of billionaire George Soros, who has long worked with US foreign policy to destabilize governments not in love with the empire, announced that “George Soros is delighted to join more than one million Americans in supporting Ready for Hillary.” 10
There’s much more evidence of Hillary Clinton’s conservative leanings, but if you need more, you’re probably still in love with Obama, who in a new book is quoted telling his aides during a comment on drone strikes that he’s “really good at killing people”. 11 Can we look forward to Hillary winning the much-discredited Nobel Peace Prize?
I’m sorry if I take away all your fun.

Notes

  1. Democracy Now!, “U.N. General Assembly Votes Overwhelmingly Against U.S. Embargo of Cuba”, October 30, 2013 ↩
  2. Huffingfton Post, May 3, 2012 ↩
  3. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba (1991), p.885 ↩
  4. Copies can be purchased by emailing kuchkovopole@mail.ru ↩
  5. From William Blum, Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire (2005), p.194 ↩
  6. Speaking at the “Take Back America” conference, organized by the Campaign for America’s Future, June 20, 2007, Washington, DC; this excerpt can be heard on Democracy Now!’s website ↩
  7. Roger Morris, former member of the National Security Council, Partners in Power (1996), p.415 ↩
  8. National Review Online, May 1, 2007 ↩
  9. Fortune magazine, July 9, 2007 ↩
  10. Washington Post, October 25, 2013 ↩
  11. Washington Post, November 1, 2013, review of “Double Down: Game Change 2012” ↩
Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided attribution to William Blum as author and a link to this website are given.

Tuesday, November 05, 2013

EXCLUSIVE: NSA routinely intercepted Jimmy Carter's and Hillary Clinton's phone calls



EXCLUSIVE: NSA routinely intercepted Jimmy Carter's and Hillary Clinton's phone calls

The National Security Agency intercepted so many of the phone calls and other communications of former President Jimmy Carter and then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, special internal procedures were established within NSA to handle the intercepts. According to declassified formerly CONFIDENTIAL HANDLE VIA COMINT CHANNELS ONLY memos issued by the NSA General Counsel's office, Mrs. Clinton was to be treated as any other U.S. government employee owing to her being the Chairperson of the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform.

An NSA memo dated December 15, 1994 states that intercepts of President Carter's phone calls pertaining to his efforts to bring about a peace agreement with Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic were to identify Carter as a "U.S. person" and not as a "former President."Transcripts of Carter's calls were only to refer to him as a "former U.S. President" if his status changed from private peace envoy to official U.S. government representative.

If Carter's status had become official in 1994 or 1995, there were only four living "former U.S. Presidents -- Carter, Ford, Reagan, and Bush -- but only Carter was involved in Balkan peace talks. It would not have been difficult for anyone reading a "minimized" transcript omitting Carter's name to determine the intercepted communications involved Carter. Even being referred to as a "U.S. person" would not have done much to mask Carter's identity since he would have been one of but a few involved in peace talks with Karadzic, who was considered an international pariah and a number one target for NSA surveillance.

However, the memo on Carter does not mention his private life or potential criminal wrongdoing as does the July 8, 1993 memo dealing with intercepts of Mrs. Clinton's communications by NSA. NSA sources have told WMR that every government employee or contractor who uses a U.S. government telephone or e-mail account is subject to NSA monitoring of their domestic and international communications. Domestic monitoring is done for the purpose of ensuring communications security or "COMSEC." NSA sources have also revealed that on more than one occasion, Mrs. Clinton's conversations while she was First Lady revealed some potentially embarrassing sexual content to NSA eavesdroppers. The 1993 memo states that "no reports may be published concerning Mrs. Clinton's private life."



A June 6, 1996 NSA memo reveals that special procedures were put in place for NSA interception of the communications of U.S. presidential and Senate candidates, as well as U.S. political parties. The memo also states that NSA intercepts were not merely confined to a "U.S. political party" or a "U.S. Senate candidate," but other office seekers as well. The 1996 presidential campaign pitted Democratic President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore against the Republican ticket of Senator Bob Dole and former Representative and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp.

Several newspapers have refrained from publishing the names of NSA or British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) personnel. The NSA and GCHQ claim that these names are sensitive. WMR has obtained a circa early 1990s UNCLASSIFIED organization chart, complete with names of NSA and GCHQ, from the NSA station (F83) in Menwith Hill, England.If the identities of NSA and GCHQ personnel are so sensitive, the UNCLASSIFIED chart does not indicate so. WMR is publishing the organizational chart in full, without redactions. We can only hope that newspapers like The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Le Monde, will see the foolishness of their past redactions of names.



F83 (Menwith Hill) org chart. Click image to enlarge.

The Washington Post
, in particular, has treated its cache of classified NSA documents as if they were in possession of the keys to the gold vaults at Fort Knox. However, the Post was not always so reticent over publishing details about NSA surveillance. For example, on July 19, 1980, the Post ran a story titled "Magazine Says NSA Is Tapping Phones, Telex from Britain." The original article about the tapping, which involved Menwith Hill and British Post Office microwave towers, appeared in the New Statesman in the UK. The Post reporter in London who covered the surveillance story was none other than Leonard Downie, Jr., who would later become the managing editor of The Washington Post.



Once upon a time, when The Washington Post had just a little intestinal fortitude.

The Guardian
 had no problem in skirting Britain's infamous "D-Notice" press censorship regulations when, on February 7, 1981, it ran a story titled "US agency 'bugged Labour MPs.'" The paper was reporting on a BBC "Panorama" television story that revealed that the NSA was bugging the telephones of Labor Party Members of Parliament. It has always been assumed that NSA does not spy on the British government in keeping with the UK-USA signals intelligence agreement, originally the BRUSA (British-US Agreement of 1946, that prohibits reciprocal surveillance of each government by NSA or GCHQ.

Former MI6 agent James Rusbridger revealed that NSA was authorized by GCHQ to spy on Labor MPs because the Margaret Thatcher government believed they were in contact with Communist agents or were, themselves, Communists. NSA spying resumed on British MPs after Prime Minister Harold Wilson put a stop to the practice, according to Rusbridger.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Michael_Foot_%281981%29.jpg
NSA did spy on the British government. The Labor Leader of the Opposition in 1981 was Michael Foot, believed by Margaret Thatcher, GCHQ, and NSA to be a Communist sympathizer. Leader of the Opposition in Britain is an official position.

Rusbridger said the surveillance of Labour MPs by NSA was carried out by the NSA's "Special Projects Division." Rusbridger said his job w at MI6 was to smuggle large amounts of cash overseas through front companies like "J. A. Goldschmidt" of London. Rusbridger wrote a number of books on espionage, including his 1989 book, The Intelligence Game: The Illusions and Delusions of International Espionage."In February 1994, Rusbridger's body was found hanging from a ceiling beam in his Cornwall home. His death was ruled as a case of auto-asphyxiation. Rusbridger was wearing a black raincoat and a gas mask and pornographic photos of black women in bondage scenes were strewn on the floor. A pulley connected his neck and ankle to a rope. Such "accidental" deaths with pornographic and bizarre sexual practices are a favorite method of MI6 to silence critics and whistleblowers. The embarrassment of the scenes of death are so great, family members decide not to investigate the deaths of their loved ones any further. James Rusbridger should not be confused with Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian who had the final call on pulling the June 30, 2013 Guardian web article quoting the WMR editor on NSA surveillance and Europe's hypocrisy over the NSA revelations.