Huge Seymour Hersh Interview

 

 

Seymour Hersh on novichok, Russian links to Donald Trump and 9/11

We end up ruminating about 9/11, perhaps because it is another narrative ripe for deconstruction by sceptics. Polling shows that a significant proportion of the American public believes there is more to the truth. These doubts have been reinforced by the declassification of the suppressed 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report last year undermining the version that a group of terrorists acting independently managed to pull off the attacks. The implication is that they may well have been state-sponsored with the Saudis potentially involved.

AND THEIR AMERICAN FRIENDS! DUH!

This is gold:

However, when [Oliver] Stone begins to expand on his thesis that Kennedy was assassinated by a CIA conspiracy in what would eventually become his tour de force magnum opus JFK, Hersh is completely dismissive, telling Stone that the idea is preposterous – to which Stone replies that he always knew Hersh was a CIA agent and walks off.

 

BULLSHIT ALERT: NBCNEWS Iran/Al Qaeda “Link”

 

So convenient to spin reality when you execute your star witness.

Newly Released Bin Laden Document Describes Iran, Al Qaeda Link

Well there you have it. Shi’ite Iran, which has been at war with the Sunni Al Qaeda for decades, are the real culprits!

No mention of Pakistan, which was protecting bin Laden ON THEIR TERRITORY for a decade!

No mention of Saudi Arabia, which supports Al Qaeda with arms and money to this day!

But Iran is implicated. Sure. Orwell smiles from the grave.

 

PARTIAL release of Bin Laden files

You have to read the whole article to understand…

This is by no means the full extent of the data retrieved in the raid, according to the CIA’s statements, as many of the files are being withheld for national security reasons, or they have become corrupted.

Bin Laden was supported by the Saudi regime, the Pakistani regime, and potentially others.

That’s why he was executed and not brought to trial. 

Don’t ever forget THAT.

 

Real History, Stupid Population (8)

 

 

 

India helped FBI trace ISI-terrorist links

top sources confirmed here on tuesday, that the  [ISI] general lost his job because of the “evidence” india produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the world trade centre. the us authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to wtc hijacker mohammed atta from pakistan by ahmad umar sheikh at the instance of gen mahumd.

 

Real History

 

Son of Osama Bin Laden, The Sequel

There is another…

Bin Laden 2.0: ‘Crown prince of terror’ stakes claim to Osama’s legacy

the son of Osama Bin Laden has made a menacing statement, calling for jihad against the US and its allies, and advocating lone attacks in such world capitals as London, Paris, Tel Aviv and Washington.

Imperial Media Attacking Sy Hersh

The media’s reaction to Seymour Hersh’s bin Laden scoop has been disgraceful

Barrels of ink have been spilled ripping apart Hersh’s character, while barely any follow-up reporting has been done to corroborate or refute his claims—even though there’s no doubt that the Obama administration hasrepeatedly misinformed and misled the public about the incident. Even less attention has been paid to the little follow-up reporting that we did get, which revealed that the CIA likely lied about its role in finding bin Laden, which it used to justify torture to the public.

…even though, less than six months ago, the Senate released a 500-page report documenting in meticulous detail the dozens of times the CIA blatantly lied to the public, the press, and Congress about torture over the past decade.

Zero Dark Thirty Cover-Up

Torture propaganda was approved by the white house.

New Documents in Zero Dark Thirty Affair Raise Questions of White House-Sanctioned Intelligence Leak and Inspector General Coverup

Especially disturbing are the lengths to which DoD’s then-Acting Inspector General Lynne Halbrooks went to suppress details of the collaboration between Hollywood and the CIA.

…Halbrooks ultimately issued a sanitized account of what happened and withheld the embarrassing material from Congress and the public.

Feinstein’s panel produced a reportsaying that most of the “documents, statements and testimony” connecting the use of torture and the bin Laden mission were “inaccurate and incongruent with CIA records.”

More on ZDT.

BFP: Terror Shenanigans in Turkey

Capture of Top al-Qaeda Operative Highlights Turkey’s Role in U.S.-NATO Terror Operations

Al-Zawahiri’s Man in Libya Detained in Turkey: Another Desperate Attempt to Save the War on Terror Myth

Since the start of the so-called “Syrian civil war,” NATO member Turkey has played a decisive role in fueling the conflict by funneling countless weapons and fighters into Syria. Were it not for Turkey’s strong support of terrorists fighting in Syria, the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) would not have been possible, as ISIS fighters themselves acknowledged.[1]… [So has the Vice President of the United States!]

1998 CIA Doc. “Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft”

From Michael Riconosciuto Document Archive

 

What Is Al Qaeda?

The al-Qaeda Menace: A Tale of Two Headlines

by JP Sottile | Newsvandal

What exactly is al-Qaeda?

Is it a group of committed jihadists previously led by Osama bin Laden? Or it is a “brand?”

Is the enemy just the so-called “core” al-Qaeda, or it is now an amorphous conglomerate of affiliates, franchisees and enthusiasts?

If “core al-Qaeda” is, as Director of National Intelligence James Clapper just said in his most recent congressional testimony, those “remnants” of the original ideological core still in Pakistan and Afghanistan, by what criteria are other groups not self-identifying as “al-Qaeda” then deemed as “designated al-Qaeda”

Considering the President’s State of the Union anti-terrorist to-do list of Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Mali, is al-Qaeda really “on the path to defeat?” Is it “resurgent?” Or is the to-do list just a broad wish list of militants and insurgents not really associated with “core” al-Qaeda?

And now that Osama bin Laden is long-since dead, is Ayman al-Zawahri truly running a massive network of evildoers? Or is he, as CNN’s Peter Bergen wrote in 2012, “a black hole of charisma” who will never fill the void left behind by Osama bin Laden?

Questions are manifold. Answers are, as ever, scarce.

The confusion about al-Qaeda’s role in Syria and Iraq—supposed fronts in the nearly thirteen year war on those responsible for 9/11—illustrates the extent to which an ill-defined al-Qaeda is the crucial element sustaining the War On Terror.

It has been both officially asserted and widely accepted that al-Qaeda is actively fighting to take control of both Syria and Iraq. Both print and television news media used alarming headlines to emphasize the persistent specter of al-Qaeda in Syria and to bemoan its takeover of two Iraqi cities—Fallujah and Ramadi.

But then came a poser. Zawahri seems to have distanced himself and his “core” version of al-Qaeda from the proceedings in Syria. The way two major news agencies handled the story tells as much about the problem of defining al-Qaeda as it does about al-Qaeda itself.

Here’s how the Associated Press headlined the story: “Al-Qaida breaks with Syria group in mounting feud.”

However, that was not the first version to appear on AP’s website. The original headline from AP was: “Al-Qaida breaks ties with group in Syria.” And that was the headline run by Yahoo!News, US News & World Report, the San Francisco Chronicle and a variety of outlets that use AP’s wire service. FOX News altered AP’s headline a bit: “Al Qaeda announces it’s breaking ties with militant group fighting in Syria,” and the Times of Israel followed suit by also adding a qualifier: “Al-Qaeda breaks ties with rebel group in Syria.”

On the other hand, The Guardian took the story from Reuters and, therefore, a completely different tack: “Al-Qaida denies links to ISIL in Syria.”

This isn’t a simple difference in style. In this second headline, al-Qaeda “denies” a connection to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)—a group consistently identified as “al-Qaeda” by the U.S. news media. Other European outlets used both “denies” and “ISIL” in their versions, and Haaretz used the Reuters wire story and an even more precise headline: “Al-Qaida denies link to Syrian militant group ISIL.”

“Syrian militant group” is a far cry from al-Qaeda, which is how the ISIL is consistently referred to by the US government, members of Congress and much of the U.S. media. Make no mistake, it matters how these groups are characterized. Although decision-makers like to raise the all-inclusive threat posed by “The Terrorists,” there is a black and white distinction at the very center of who’s who in the wide world of terrorism.

That’s because the War On Terror depends upon the Authorization For Use Of Military Force (AUMF). Passed on Sept. 14, 2001 and signed by President Bush four days later, the AUMF authorized the President to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations, or persons.”

This is the authorization President Obama uses every time a drone kills “suspected militants” in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. Although 9/11 was officially the alpha and the omega of the AUMF, the expansive language of “designated al-Qaeda,” its affiliates and various linked groups provides an evergreen public relations cover story for the mostly-secret program of targeted killings. Mostly secret.

While relentless gumshoes at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism piece together the details of the killer drone program from numerous sources and tabulate the mounting death toll in spite of official silence, Team Obama happily leaks information when it suits their purposes. An unnamed official told the Washington Post that the killer drone program was being curtailed in Pakistan as a concession to the Pakistani government’s peace talks with the Taliban. The official did note that the U.S. reserves the right to kill “…senior al-Qaeda targets, if they become available, and move to thwart any direct, imminent threat to U.S. persons.”

But aren’t senior al-Qaeda targets who directly and imminently threaten U.S. persons the whole point of AUMF? Aren’t these the “core al-Qaeda” DNI Clapper defined in his testimony? Also, has the killer drone program been assassinating people who are not “core” evildoers? The anonymously-confirmed pseudo-hiatus implies that the U.S. has been killing insurgents engaged in a political battle with their government. In fact, former Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf stated exactly that after he returned to home to run for office, but then ended up on trial for treason.

This is the ultimate danger of this program—that the ever-expanding AUMF transforms the killer drone program into a de facto assassination tool used in quid pro quo agreements with governments, to shore up factional allies or to tip the balance of power in sovereign nations. It’s something that got the CIA into trouble back in the 1970s.

And it’s something made so much easier by the advent of drones and the secrecy surrounding the program. Ever since Dick Cheney hailed a taxi to the dark side, it’s been harder and harder to trust executive power operating under the cover of national security. Perjury by DNI Clapper about the NSA’s spying program makes it difficult to trust him on anything—including about the parameters and capabilities of al-Qaeda.

So, what is al-Qaeda? And what happened in Syria?

The AP characterized Zawahri’s statement as an “apparent” move “to reassert the terror network’s prominence in the jihad movement across the Middle East amid the mushrooming of extremist groups during the upheaval of the past three years.”

The Reuters story stated, “Al-Qaida‘s general command has said it has no links with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), in an apparent attempt to assert authority over the Islamist militant groups involved in Syria‘s civil war.”

Apparent? To whom?

Reassert prominence? Or assert authority?

Are extremist groups really “mushrooming,” and do they, like “core al-Qaeda,” now fall under the AUMF?

What is the truth? How can we verify it? And without it, will the war ever really end?

Abbotabad True or False?

Questions about the Death and Dumping at Sea of Osama bin Laden Remain

by Vic Sadot, the TruthTroubadour

Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?

If he is dead, when did he die? Was he really the “mastermind of 9/11,” or not? How can we know the truth?

One thing we know is that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset used to recruit Muslim fundamentalists to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. What else do we know for sure? Why would Obama claim to have ordered a kill on Osama, and then dispose of his body at sea? Does that sound like the American way of justice?

Dr. David Ray Griffin published “Osama bin Laden Dead or Alive” in 2009. It’s a good read today! Evidence of fraud is abundant. The questions he raises need to be answered.

The Corporate media spin machine has cranked out an avalanche of “reports” on the “daring” execution of a supposedly-alive Osama bin Laden hiding in a “million dollar mansion” in Pakistan.  The story of the amazing commando raid may end up being another high-tech production from the same folks who brought us the lies about Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch & WMD in Iraq. In the case of Pat Tillman, the “official glory story” was that he got killed in a shoot out with the Taliban. Later, as the Tillman family bravely pressed on and on for the truth, the story was amended to be “friendly fire”. Then the military coroner report revealed that the evidence showed that Pat Tillman was shot “by 3 bullets to the forehead at 10 yards range”. Ignored AP story.

In the case of Jessica Lynch, she refused to go along with the “official glory story”. She testified to Congress that she was wounded by an explosion, not in a firefight. Iraqi hospital authorities informed the US military that she was alive and well and under their care. But the Pentagon sent a commando unit in there to “rescue the heroic soldier”. Was the truth less important than having a recruitment poster boy and girl to use to lie to young people about corporate resource & domination wars?

In the aftermath of 9/11, we were all in “shock & awe” as the media reported “explosions” at the WTC (World Trade Center) and the Pentagon. This was rapidly revised to the “official story” that the jet fuel from the planes that hit the two tallest towers of the WTC complex “melted the steel” and caused their collapse. It’s against the laws of physics! Both Dan Rather and Peter Jennings mused aloud as it was happening that the only way that steel frame buildings could be brought down by fire would be to “get at the inner structures” as in a “demolition”. What’s worse, the WTC buildings did not just collapse. They disintegrated to dust in 10 seconds! Building 7, which was not hit by a plane, did so in 7 seconds at around 5:30 that evening. In fact, Dan Rather reported on CBS that Osama bin Laden was in a Pakistani military hospital on Sept 10, 2001 getting dialysis treatments for kidney failure. Read about that here.

CBS Report

In spite of the lack of any evidence to prove that bin Laden was the man whose body was killed in Pakistan and dumped into the ocean, we are simply being intellectually bullied by authority to accept their story as true. We have a media so consolidated and conscripted into service to the secret security state that they just repeat what they are told to us so that they can keep their jobs. No wonder people call them “presstitutes” doing fake journalism for money.

Now we have a new Hollywood movie called “Zero Dark Thirty” that was done in secret complicity with the CIA and the Orwellian-named fascist sounding Homeland Security apparatus to deliver a movie that falsely claims that torture works and was necessary. The 9/11 Commission had no access to CIA prisoners but they accepted and used confessions wrought through torture as if they were reliable evidence gained from good detective work.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) not only authorized 622 billion dollars for the Pentagon, the bill passed the U.S. House on Dec. 14, 2011, the U.S. Senate on Dec. 15, 2011, and was signed into United States law on December 31, 2011 by President Barack Obama while most Americans were celebrating the New Year and he signed similar repressive legislation on New Year’s Eve 2012 as well. These NDAA bills include a clause that legalizes the dissemination of propaganda to US citizens. With executive claims to the power to indefinitely detain and disappear anyone it deems a “suspect” without judicial due process as the Constitution clearly requires, we have treasonous criminal and immoral conduct declared acceptable.

Those who question the 9/11 story and the rewarding of those who failed to defend us on that day, what hit the Pentagon or how that could even happen after the New York attacks, why and how three World Trade Center buildings could disintegrate to toxic dusk and rubble in 10 seconds, the WMD lies about Iraq, the lack of accountability for torture and murder in secret prisons, the prosecution and punishment of whistle-blowers instead of the criminals they expose, the incredibly lethal firepower unleashed on Libya without Congressional authorization, and the need for evidence and transparency about major events and policies to have an informed electorate and a functioning democracy, the challenge is frightening and intimidating. But as any American who has taken an oath “to honor and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies both foreign and domestic” will tell you, it does not have to continue to go down this way. The US does not have to descend into a fascist police state or global corporate empire. We have a right to question and we will continue to do so.

Movies like “Zero Dark Thirty” turn our political culture into a stinking cesspool. The reader is referred to this excellent critique in Global Research on 2-25-13 by London-based writer Patrick Henningsen,“Hollywood History: CIA Sponsored “Zero Dark Thirty”, Oscar for “Best Propaganda Picture”. Henningsen asks, “Was bin Laden really killed by Seal Team 6 that day? Examine the evidence, if you can find any.” In mock sympathy, Henningsen says,

“I felt sorry for the director, the cast and all the production crew who put in their hard work and sweat, and probably believed that bin Laden was indeed in the Abbotabad compound in May 2011, and that they were reenacting a rare and proud piece of American history. In order to believe this, they would also would have to have believed that somehow, that same bin Laden also masterminded a multi-pronged assault that managed to bypass the whole of the US Defense apparatus – all from his legendary cave in Tora Bora. …Unfortunately, the mythology does not measure up to reality, with multiple admissions in public by heads of state, by Pervez Musharraf, and Benazir Bhutto, as well as by Madeline Albright and others, and even mainstream media reports going all the way back to 2001, stating that Osama bin Laden was dying, or had in fact died in late 2001. Knowing all this, when I heard the news of Obama and the Navy Seal Team 6 raid on bin Laden, I knew immediately that not only was this almost certainly a fiction, but that there would be no photographs and videos released, because a dead man cannot come back to life after 10 years for a photo session. As predicted, a few days later the White House confirmed my suspicions, announcing that indeed, ‘no photos or video will be released’… On top of that, we were also told that they dumped bin Laden’s body at sea 48 hours after allegedly killing him. Fancy that? But even that pillar of the official story fell apart later when it was revealed that no US sailors aboard the USS Carl Vinson ever saw the alleged burial at sea, and that no images exist in any government records of bin Laden aboard the decorated US sea vessel.”

With all of this heavy information, I would recommend a good laugh at it all as well. This Joy Camp Channel video spoof at YouTube is just what the doctor ordered!

“Best Propaganda Film (OSCAR 2013 SPOILER!LEAKED CLIP!!)” http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Clza1XVA0SI

 

Zero Dark’s Crackpot Pragmatism

 Full Coverage of Zero Dark Thirty Torture Scandal

Crackpot Pragmatism: Richard Cohen and Torture

By Steve Breyman

It’s 2013 and Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is still conflicted about torture. Why? The proximate cause is that he went to the movies, and saw “Zero Dark Thirty,” which impressed upon some viewers the efficacy of torture in unearthing the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Cohen considers the movie “fantastic,” Oscar worthy “in the category of ‘thought-provoking.’” The fuller explanation is that Cohen is a crackpot pragmatist.

The radical American sociologist C. Wright Mills coined the term “crackpot realist” in The Causes of World War Three, a broadside against the men, ideas, and habits of mind driving the Cold War to what seemed its inevitable conclusion in 1958. The crackpot realist is that no-nonsense operator, a Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, who appears cold and hard, capable of making the tough decisions. These decisions are typically cloaked in “high-flying moral rhetoric” (Mills). Problem is, the ‘tough decisions’ of this sort invariably make matters worse.

Cakewalk wars for ‘freedom’ (even when it’s not easy as in Iraq or Afghanistan) rather than uneasy and unsettling peace. The clarity and release of armed force for ‘peace and stability’ over the murk and anxiety of diplomacy.  Bombardment over negotiations (even when the former makes the latter, universally agreed as necessary in the end, more difficult). Problems are solved, and conflicts resolved, through the application of violence (even and especially when they aren’t and can’t be). Robert McNamara and Henry Kissinger’s conduct of the Vietnam War was crackpot realism par excellence. Crackpot realism remains a touchstone in Washington, DC, a vital element of the conventional wisdom that must be accepted should one want to be taken seriously.

Crackpot pragmatism is a close cousin of crackpot realism. The defining characteristic of the crackpot realist is his readiness to use military force under most any foreign policy circumstances regardless of the abundance of alternatives. The crackpot pragmatist is obsessed by what “works,” by what gets the public policy job done now. The crackpot pragmatist has a narrow time horizon; his obsession with practicality extends only to the near-term. He is unconcerned about the fuzzy future, about whether what allegedly works today might create more problems down the road.

Senators Feinstein, Levin, and McCain, Cohen tells us, “protested the film’s depiction of torture as instrumental in locating and . . . killing bin Laden.” This gives Cohen pause because the three are “as a group, a somber lot” (i.e., they are crackpot realists), and because of course, they are powerful people. They may know something he doesn’t because they are privy to “highly classified information” (a crucial, mythical component of the self-justifying system of crackpot realism; ‘trust us, we know secrets’).

The senators’ complaint is a screaming siren for everyone but the torture advocate and the crackpot pragmatist. Feinstein, Levin and McCain voted in congenial bipartisan fashion for unimaginable horror and death over their many years in the Senate, and are ready to do so again, at a moment’s notice. They are Minutemen of Death. They are complicit in virtually all of Bush and Obama’s War on Terror atrocities. These non-gentle souls are sanguine about preemptive war, warrantless domestic spying, indefinite detention, military commissions, extraordinary renditions, drone strikes (even against US citizens), covert operations in dozens of countries and all the rest of the Devil’s Toolbox. They draw the line, however, at torture. But Cohen is unable to follow their lead because he’s bothered by “all these declarative statements about the morality of torture . . . from various journalists.” Such certainty is too “basso profundo” for him. He draws the line instead at what “works,” at what “saves lives.”

That those with first-hand knowledge claim that torture “doesn’t work” is not enough for Cohen. He justifies his stance by pitching it as reasonable uncertainty over unreasonable certainty. Everybody else is so sure of either the evils or merits of torture, but not the crackpot pragmatist. What, after all, of extreme emergencies?

Is it immoral to waterboard someone who knows of an imminent Sept. 11-type attack? Wouldn’t it instead be immoral not to do everything in your power to avoid the loss of thousands of lives? Torture in that case might be hideous, repugnant and in some rarefied way still immoral, but I could certainly justify it. . . . Morality and the clock are, inescapably, connected.

For Cohen, morality only enters our decision calculus should time permit. What became of his discomfort with certainty? He appears ready here to torture “someone who knows” of an imminent attack. How can we be sure this someone knows? By torturing him? Circular logic escapes the crackpot pragmatist. Cohen ought to know that not a single instance of the infamous ‘ticking bomb’ torture-scenario exists (outside Hollywood).

Drawing lines, proscribing certain practices, is what civilized societies do. Those lines are often mere segments, insufficiently bright, or morally wrong; hardly the last word. But whether the practice “works” is what the crackpot pragmatist cares about. Concern for aftermaths, backlash, spiritual death, or moral degradation simply evince a lack of seriousness.

“[I]t would be all right with me,” writes Cohen, “if the government were silent on torture so that no detainee could be confident of civilized treatment or if, in a crisis, an understandable looking away was permitted. Life ain’t neat.” Such a view would’ve placed Cohen in grave danger before the Nuremburg Tribunal. Note the use of “detainee” rather than “prisoner.” Even Cohen might require “civilized treatment” of someone for whom due process was required. Cohen likely believes capital punishment deters those contemplating homicide.

The upside of all the fuss about “Zero Dark Thirty” for Cohen is that “we are getting a robust debate over torture that we should have had years ago.” Where has Cohen been the past decade? Could he truly be ignorant of Bush’s lies—“we don’t torture”–or Alan Dershowitz’s grotesqueries in defense of it? Eight years of official prevarication about torture, and four more of failing to demand accountability for it? This is why Cohen retains his job. Alex Pareene named Cohen the number one “hackiest pundit in America” on his list of thirty pundit-hacks in 2010. His columns since may be even worse. Anything goes in the name of crackpot pragmatism, and inconvenient facts go down the memory hole.

Steve Breyman served as William C. Foster Visiting Scholar Fellow at the US State Department in 2011-12. Reach him at breyms@rpi.edu