State crimes against democracy. Peter Phillips and Prof. Mickey Huff, Global Research.ca. Mar. 4, 2010.
New research in the journal American Behavioral Scientist (Sage publications, February 2010) addresses the concept of “State Crimes Against Democracy” (SCAD). Professor Lance deHaven-Smith from Florida State University writes that SCADs involve highlevel government officials, often in combination with private interests, that engage in covert activities for political advantages and power. Proven SCADs since World War II include McCarthyism (fabrication of evidence of a communist infiltration), Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (President Johnson and Robert McNamara falsely claimed North Vietnam attacked a US ship), burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in effort to discredit Ellsberg, the Watergate break-in, Iran-Contra, Florida’s 2000 Election (felon disenfranchisement program), and fixed intelligence on WMDs to justify the Iraq War.1
Other suspected SCADs include the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooting of George Wallace, the October Surprise near the end of the Carter presidency, military grade anthrax mailed to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, Martin Luther King’s assassination, and the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11, 2001. The proven SCADs have a long trail of congressional hearings, public records, and academic research establishing the truth of the activities. The suspected SCADs listed above have substantial evidence of covert actions with countervailing deniability that tend to leave the facts in dispute.2
The term “conspiracy theory” is often used to denigrate and discredit inquiry into the veracity of suspected SCADs. Labeling SCAD research as “conspiracy theory” is an effective method of preventing ongoing investigations from being reported in the corporate media and keep them outside of broader public scrutiny. Psychologist Laurie Manwell, University of Guelph, addresses the psychological advantage that SCAD actors hold in the public sphere. Manwell, writing in American Behavioral Scientist (Sage 2010) states, “research shows that people are far less willing to examine information that disputes, rather than confirms, their beliefs . . . pre-existing beliefs can interfere with SCADs inquiry, especially in regards to September 11, 2001.”3
Professor Steven Hoffman, visiting scholar at the University of Buffalo, recently acknowledged this phenomenon in a study “There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification.” Hoffman concluded, “Our data shows substantial support for a cognitive theory known as ‘motivated reasoning,’ which suggests that rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe. In fact, for the most part people completely ignore contrary information.”4
Sometimes even new academic research goes largely unreported when the work contradicts prevailing understandings of recent historical events. A specific case of unreported academic research is the peer reviewed journal article from Open Chemical Physics Journal (Volume 2, 2009), entitled “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust for the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe.” In the abstract the authors write, “We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.” Thermite is a pyrotechnic composition of a metal powder and a metal oxide which produces an aluminothermic reaction known as a thermite reaction and is used in controlled demolitions of buildings.5
National Medal of Science recipient (1999) Professor Lynn Margulis from the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is one of many academics who supports further open investigative research in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Margulis recently wrote in Rock Creek Free Press, “all three buildings were destroyed by carefully planned, orchestrated and executed controlled demolition.”6 Richard Gage, AIA, architect and founder of the non-profit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Inc. (AE911Truth), announced a decisive milestone February 19, 2010 at a press conference in San Francisco, CA. More than 1,000 architects and engineers worldwide now support the call for a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center complex on September 11, 2001.7
Credible scientific evidence brings into question the possibility that some aspects of the events of 9/11 involved State Crimes Against Democracy. Psychologically this is a very hard concept for Americans to even consider. However, ignoring the issue in the context of multiple proven SCADs since World War II seems far more dangerous for democracy than the consequences of future scientific inquiry and transparent, fact-based investigative reporting. Anything short of complete, open discourse based on all the evidence about these critical issues in our society relating to the possible continuation of SCADs is simply a matter of censorship.8
Notes
1 Lance deHaven-Smith, “Beyond Conspiracy Theory: Patterns of High Crime in American Government,” American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 53, No. 6, (February, 2010): pp. 795-825. For more studies on SCADs and related issues see all articles for American Behavioral Scientist, Sage publications, Vol. 53, No. 6, (February, 2010), online at http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6/.
For more background reading on this subject with specifics on the controversial cases mentioned in this paragraph, see the following scholarly works: Robert Abele, The Anatomy of a Deception: A Reconstruction and Analysis of the Decision to Invade Iraq (New York: University Press of America, 2010); Bob Coen and Eric Nadler, Dead Silence: Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2009); Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York: Viking Adult, 2002); Steve Freeman and Joel Bleifuss, Was the 2004 Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2006); Robert Griffith, The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate. (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987); David Ray Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report About 9/11 Is Unscientific and False (New York: Olive Branch press, 2008); Mark Crispin Miller, Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 (New York: Ig Publishing, 2008); Kenneth O’Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Americans: The FBI, HUAC, and the Red Menace (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983); Robert Parry, Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1993); William Pepper, An Act of State: The Execution of Marin Luther King (Updated) (New York: Verso, 2008); Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq (New York: Tarcher and Penguin, 2003); selected works of Peter Dale Scott, including Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993, 1996), Drugs Oil and War (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, March 2003), The Road to 9/11 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), and The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War (Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2008); Norman Solomon, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning us to Death (New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2005); Lawrence Walsh, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997); Gary Webb, Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2nd Edition, 2003);
2 Ibid.
3 American Behavioral Scientist, Sage publications, February, 2010, Vol. 53, No. 6, online at http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6/. Specifically, see Laurie A. Manwell, “In Denial of Democracy: Social Psychological Implications for Public Discourse on State Crimes Against Democracy Post-9/11,” American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 53, No. 6, (February, 2010): pp. 848-884.
4 “How We Support Our False Beliefs,” Science Daily (Aug. 23, 2009) online at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090821135020.htm. For the full study see Steven Hoffman, Ph.D., et al, “There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification,” Sociological Inquiry, Volume 79 Issue 2, (2009): pp. 142-162.
5 Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen, “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” Open Chemical Physics Journal, Vol. 2 (April 3, 2009): 7-31, online at http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm.
6 Lynn Margulis, “Two Hit, Three Down, the Biggest Lie,” Rock Creek Press, February 2010, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 6, and online at http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/353434420/two-hit-three-down-the-biggest-lie
7 Richard Gage, AIA, Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth, Press Conference, February 19th, 2010, SF, CA, online at http://www.ae911truth.org/info/160. See the Conference announcement video online at http://www.youtube.com/ae911truth#p/c/891B0945A34D98F7/0/R35O_QQP8Vw
8 For more on issues of media censorship see Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff, eds., Censored 2010 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2009).
In Denial of Democracy: Social Psychological Implications for Public Discourse on State Crimes Against Democracy Post-9/11. Laurie A. Manwell, University of Guelph. Feb. 2010.
Social and Psychological Constructs Interfering With Inquiry and Investigation of State Crimes Against Democracy (SCADs)
Representative democracies are susceptible to “subversion from within,” such as leaders’ and officials’ attempts to circumvent, exploit, or otherwise deconstruct laws and institutions for personal or political gain, events collectively referred to as SCADs (Lasswell,1937-1962; cf. deHaven-Smith, 2006; p. 331). However, alternative explanations of political assassinations, terrorist attacks, and other national tragedies that differ from official state accounts can be dismissed by mass publics because they evoke strong cognitive dissonance, a psychological phenomenon occurring when new ideas or information conflict with previously formed ideologies, accepted beliefs, and corresponding behaviors (Festinger, 1957; Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2008).
Although people may harbor some cynicism about bureaucrats and politicians, most do not want to believe that public officials in general, and especially those at the highest levels, would participate in election tampering, assassinations, mass murder, or other high crimes (Altemeyer, 1988, 1996; Baumeister, 1997; Chanley, 2002; Falomir- Pichastor et al., 2005; J. Greenberg, Solomon, & Arndt, 2008; Jost, Pietrzak, Liviatan, Mandisodza, & Napier, 2008; Peck, 1983; Stout, 2005; Zimbardo, 2008). For example, although public cynicism toward government was high in the months prior to 9/11 (e.g., fewer than 30% of U.S. citizens indicated that they trusted their government to “do what is right”), trust in U.S. officials in Washington rose significantly (e.g., more than doubled to 64%) in the weeks following the terrorist attacks, suggesting that heightened focus on national security breeds support for incumbent foreign policy makers (Chanley, 2002). Claims that state intelligence and other officials within democratic states could conspire with criminal elements to kill innocent civilians are difficult for citizens of those states to comprehend, even when backed by substantial corroborating evidence (Griffin, 2004; Mandel, 2004; Blum, 2005; Parenti, 2007; Bugliosi, 2008; Hersh, 2008; Scott, 2007c, 2008).
Research shows that people are far less willing to examine information that disputes, rather than confirms, their beliefs; information that contradicts worldviews often paradoxically serves to strengthen preexisting beliefs (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2008). For example, conservative portrayals depicting America as a benign or benevolent providence to the rest of the world, and “just how important continued American dominance is to the preservation of a reasonable level of international security and prosperity” (Kagan, 1998, p. 11), are broadly disseminated within North America in the media (D’Souza, 2002; Griffin, 2007c), although actual historical precedent documents the extent to which imperial ambitions have tarnished nearly every U.S. foreign imbroglio (Barber, 2003; Blum, 2005; Bugliosi, 2008; Klein, 2007; Mailer, 2003; Mandel, 2004; D. Miller, 2004; Parenti, 2007; Roberts, 2004; Scahill, 2008; Scott, 2007a, 2007b, 2007c, 2008; Taylor, 2003; Wolf, 2007). This is succinctly illustrated by Richard Falk (2004), professor emeritus of international law and policy at Princeton and recently appointed UN official:
There is no excuse at this stage of American development for a posture of political innocence, including unquestioning acceptance of the good faith of our government. After all, there has been a long history of manipulated public beliefs, especially in matters of war and peace. Historians are in increasing agreement that the facts were manipulated (1) in the explosion of the USS Maine to justify the start of the Spanish-American War (1898), (2) with respect to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to justify the previously unpopular entry into World War II, (3) the Gulf of Tonkin incident of 1964, used by the White House to justify the dramatic extension of the Vietnam War to North Vietnam, and, most recently, (4) to portray Iraq as harboring a menacing arsenal of weaponry of mass destruction, in order to justify recourse to war in defiance of international law and the United Nations. . . . Why should the official account of 9/11 be treated as sacrosanct and accepted at face value, especially as it is the rationale for some of the most dangerous undertakings in the whole history of the world? (pp. ix-x)
Conspiracies don't happen... here. Kit, Off-Guardian. Oct. 29, 2017.
Supposing the CIA were complicit, who’s going to release, 50 years after the event, the evidence of their own coup? We haven’t covered it here, at OffG, because it doesn’t really need any attention. It’s a charity dump, a distraction. It allows Trump to look like he’s combating the Deep State, when in fact he’s firmly on the leash. That the CIA or FBI didn’t suddenly produce proof of their complicity in JFK’s assassination is not evidence of anything.
Jonathan Freedland, writing one of his toxic editorials in The Guardian, begs to differ. The fact that CIA didn’t release any evidence they did it…is evidence they didn’t do it, according to Freedland. His column, long on mockery and self-righteous smears but short on evidence (as usual), does nothing but demonstrate three things:
1. He is only just barely acquainted with the facts of the JFK case.
2. He has no faculty for basic logical thinking.
3. He is not averse to practicing intellectual dishonesty.
If you’ve been paying even the slightest bit of attention, none of these will come as a surprise.
But this article isn’t about JFK – we’ve written about that before, and will do again. But not today. This article isn’t about Freedland’s aggressively uninformed opinions, his cloying prose or his ill-deserved sense of moral superiority. It’s about the world-view he’s trying to market between banner ads begging for money. It’s about his smug insistence that conspiracy theories just don’t happen.
Or, to be more specific, conspiracy theories don’t happen…here.
Because, despite his deep-held belief that Conspiracy Theories are dangerous, he certainly believes in a lot of them. He thinks the Russian Government poisoned Alexander Litvinenko. He thinks Vladimir Putin had Boris Nemstov shot. He thinks Russian banks have been backing the far-right in Europe and supported Brexit. And he thinks the FSB “hacked” the American presidential election in order to get their Manchurian candidate elected.
Buzz in when you spot the connection.
These are all, by definition, conspiracy theories – but they are also all things done by the other. Conspiracies happen over there. They are done by the bad guys. We don’t do them.
….except of course, when we do.
Two years ago, the idea that the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel and others had created ISIS as front for a proxy war on Syria was dismissed as a “conspiracy theory”. It has since been proven, many times over, to be completely true. That ISIS are US proxies is not a “conspiracy theory”, but a conspiracy fact.
Five years ago, anybody claiming that the NSA were secretly surveilling most of the world, including the governments of allied countries, would have been dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theorist and told to don their “tin-foil hat”. Edward Snowden’s revelations on the NSA internet and communications surveillance programme, of course, prove the accusation true. Freedland should remember this one, the story broke in his paper, his colleagues won awards for it, and their computers were destroyed on the orders of GCHQ. Why this constantly escapes the man’s memory is anyone’s guess. Regardless, NSA mass surveillance is a not a “conspiracy theory”, but a conspiracy fact.
Fifteen years ago, anybody claiming that wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were being pushed under false pretences, in order to make money for the private sector and encircle Iran…would have been dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theorist. Now we know that the WMD dossier was “sexed up”. It is not a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy fact.
Twenty-seven years ago, anybody claiming that “Nayirah” – the Kuwaiti nurse who famously testified that Iraqi soldiers had thrown Kuwaiti babies out of incubators – was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador and had never been a nurse…would have been dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theorist. This information became public knowledge in 1991, just months after her testimony had been used to stoke public support for the first Iraq war. Nayirah being a fake witness to push war propaganda is not a “conspiracy theory”, but a conspiracy fact.
Thirty-two years ago, anybody claiming that Reagan’s government were trading with Iran in order to fund and arm a proxy army in Nicaragua to overthrow the democratic government of Daniel Ortega…would have been dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theorist. However, the whole affair came to light in 1986. Iran-Contra is not a “conspiracy theory”, but a conspiracy fact.
Fifty-three years ago, anyone claiming that Gulf of Tonkin incident had been almost entirely fabricated as an excuse to launch a full-scale war against North Vietnam….would have been dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theorist. There is a mountain of evidence has been compiled since then, that proves the “incident” never really happened. The faking of the Gulf of Tonkin incident is not a “conspiracy theory”, but a conspiracy fact.
These are just six famous, high-profile examples. There are dozens of others. Conspiracies happen. All the time. Freedland’s piece is an attack on this truth, an effort to distort reality by blurring clear definitions. He claims that:
[conspiracy theorists] perennially cast the FBI and the CIA as the key tools of dark, unseen forces.…without making any reference to decades of state-sanctioned murder, torture and destruction that earned these agencies their well-deserved reputation.
You don’t need to be deluded to think the CIA a tool of “dark forces”, you just need to study the history of Iran. Or Chile. Or Indonesia. Or Afghanistan. Or Honduras. The list of democratic governments overthrown by the US is very long. A lot those plots were considered “conspiracy theories”, until the facts of the case eventually came out.
- Operation Northwoods was a Pentagon plan to shoot-down an American passenger plane and blame it on Cuba.
- Operation Paperclip was a CIA plan to smuggle Nazi scientists out of Germany and employ them in covert research for the American government.
- Operation Mockingbird was a CIA plan to recruit members into of the media into intelligence work, and use them to seed propaganda.
All of these would have, at some point, been dismissed as “conspiracy theory”. They are all, now, accepted historical facts. Freedland mentions none of them. A remarkable act of hypocrisy for a man so adamantly against what he calls the “post truth age”.
Freedland would have us believe that none of these conspiracies, however well documented, actually happened. But there is another kind – the kind that definitely did happen…regardless of the lack evidence.
Now, we turn our eyes to Russia.
Russia, you see, is place where “conspiracy theories” are no longer dangerous. They are always appropriate and universally true. Nothing that happens in Russia is explicable by any means other than “the Kremlin”.
Freedland would have us believe that none of these conspiracies, however well documented, actually happened. But there is another kind – the kind that definitely did happen…regardless of the lack evidence.
Now, we turn our eyes to Russia.
Russia, you see, is place where “conspiracy theories” are no longer dangerous. They are always appropriate and universally true. Nothing that happens in Russia is explicable by any means other than “the Kremlin”.
In the media and state-backed push to create a great enemy for our age, there is no crime so petty it cannot be linked to Moscow, no evidence of “Russian interference” so pathetically small it won’t be splashed across the headlines.
On the same pages where Jonathan Freedland espouses the dangers of “conspiracism”, Luke Harding blames the FSB for opening his windows.
Just a few months ago, when a metro station in St Petersburg was bombed, the BBC suggested it was a Putin-backed false-flag within hours. No such assertion was ever made about Las Vegas. Or Westminster. Or Sandy Hook. Or Paris. Or Berlin. Or Orlando.
That the FSB poisoned Litvinenko is treated as an unquestioned fact. That MI5 murdered Princess Diana? Nothing but a laughable absurdity. It is the shallowest, almost childlike propaganda, that beatifies its own side whilst projecting all the ills of the world into the other.
This demonisation of Russia are then segued into demonisation of democracy. The Russians are currently accused of having meddled in every major election for years. The Scottish Independence Referendum, the Brexit vote, the American and French Presidential elections, the general elections in the UK and Germany, and the Dutch referendum on Ukraine. All were subject to phantom “interference”, yet to be substantiated by any real evidence. This groundless accusation is then used as an argument to overturn or ignore the results of democratic votes. Not all of them, you understand, only the ones where the wrong side won. Trump must be “removed” according to Freedland, and we must ignore the Brexit results.
Even Catalonia’s vote for independence, just the latest move in a struggle hundreds of years long, has already been linked to Putin.
Further, Russia is accused of “bankrolling the far-right in Europe”. The evidence for this? Marine Le Pen got a loan from a Russian bank “with links to the Kremlin” (whatever that means)…over ten years ago.
There is FAR more evidence of NATO and EU supporting REAL fascists and extremists – namely Right Sector in Ukraine, and ISIS et al all over the Middle East. But, while the former is an accepted media “fact”, the latter is the subject of nothing but derision.
Even our homegrown problems, through complex absurdities of “conspiracism”, are laid at the Kremlin’s door. In 2015, CNN and others accused Russia of “weaponising the refugee crisis”, as if they had caused it. As if Russia had forced us into the destruction of Libya, and then ordered Merkel to throw open Germany’s borders. Those in Eastern Europe who blamed Germany or the EU, notably Hungarian’s President Viktor Orban, were said to be “friends of Putin”. As if the epithet is an argument in and of itself.
Putin and Russia have become Snowball from Orwell’s Animal Farm. An invisible but ever-present creation of the state, responsible for all our ills. And if Putin is Snowball, then Freedland, and all the media-types like him, are Squealer. Oily charlatans who twist language to suit their needs, and the needs of their employers.
If “conspiracy theories are dangerous”, then how dangerous is it to use ridiculous allegations to undermine democracy? If Conspiracy Theories damage society, why clamp-down on honest debate by dismissing all those who disagree as “Putin-bots”? If Conspiracy Theories are so offensive, why use them to vilify Russia, and stoke up public hatred of a nuclear armed superpower?
The author’s real point is quite clear – it’s not all conspiracy theories which are “dangerous”. Only Conspiracy Theories that investigate, undermine, or otherwise question the governments, institutions or agendas of Western countries are “dangerous”.
Our governments do no wrong, are benign and honest. To question that is dangerous.
Their governments are malign and dishonest. To question them is a duty.
On the same pages where Jonathan Freedland espouses the dangers of “conspiracism”, Luke Harding blames the FSB for opening his windows.
Just a few months ago, when a metro station in St Petersburg was bombed, the BBC suggested it was a Putin-backed false-flag within hours. No such assertion was ever made about Las Vegas. Or Westminster. Or Sandy Hook. Or Paris. Or Berlin. Or Orlando.
That the FSB poisoned Litvinenko is treated as an unquestioned fact. That MI5 murdered Princess Diana? Nothing but a laughable absurdity. It is the shallowest, almost childlike propaganda, that beatifies its own side whilst projecting all the ills of the world into the other.
This demonisation of Russia are then segued into demonisation of democracy. The Russians are currently accused of having meddled in every major election for years. The Scottish Independence Referendum, the Brexit vote, the American and French Presidential elections, the general elections in the UK and Germany, and the Dutch referendum on Ukraine. All were subject to phantom “interference”, yet to be substantiated by any real evidence. This groundless accusation is then used as an argument to overturn or ignore the results of democratic votes. Not all of them, you understand, only the ones where the wrong side won. Trump must be “removed” according to Freedland, and we must ignore the Brexit results.
Even Catalonia’s vote for independence, just the latest move in a struggle hundreds of years long, has already been linked to Putin.
Further, Russia is accused of “bankrolling the far-right in Europe”. The evidence for this? Marine Le Pen got a loan from a Russian bank “with links to the Kremlin” (whatever that means)…over ten years ago.
There is FAR more evidence of NATO and EU supporting REAL fascists and extremists – namely Right Sector in Ukraine, and ISIS et al all over the Middle East. But, while the former is an accepted media “fact”, the latter is the subject of nothing but derision.
Even our homegrown problems, through complex absurdities of “conspiracism”, are laid at the Kremlin’s door. In 2015, CNN and others accused Russia of “weaponising the refugee crisis”, as if they had caused it. As if Russia had forced us into the destruction of Libya, and then ordered Merkel to throw open Germany’s borders. Those in Eastern Europe who blamed Germany or the EU, notably Hungarian’s President Viktor Orban, were said to be “friends of Putin”. As if the epithet is an argument in and of itself.
Putin and Russia have become Snowball from Orwell’s Animal Farm. An invisible but ever-present creation of the state, responsible for all our ills. And if Putin is Snowball, then Freedland, and all the media-types like him, are Squealer. Oily charlatans who twist language to suit their needs, and the needs of their employers.
If “conspiracy theories are dangerous”, then how dangerous is it to use ridiculous allegations to undermine democracy? If Conspiracy Theories damage society, why clamp-down on honest debate by dismissing all those who disagree as “Putin-bots”? If Conspiracy Theories are so offensive, why use them to vilify Russia, and stoke up public hatred of a nuclear armed superpower?
The author’s real point is quite clear – it’s not all conspiracy theories which are “dangerous”. Only Conspiracy Theories that investigate, undermine, or otherwise question the governments, institutions or agendas of Western countries are “dangerous”.
Our governments do no wrong, are benign and honest. To question that is dangerous.
Their governments are malign and dishonest. To question them is a duty.
It is nothing but a long, drawn-out, argument for conformity of opinion and deadness of mind. An attack on independent thought, peppered with abuse.
First he describes “Conspiracy Theorists” as:
Regardless of the source of Freedland’s sudden Bolshevik leanings, he contradicts himself – and in so doing paints a picture of an insane world. He doesn’t acknowledge that two of these billionaires – Soros and the Rothschilds – he has already named as nothing but a “euphemism” for anti-Semitism.
So which is it, Jonathan? Are wealthy people the problem? Or is criticising the super-rich merely a mask for racism? Why is it acceptable to cite “inequality” as a threat to the world, but crazy to blame the main beneficiaries of said inequality?
Freedland wants us to believe we live in a world where a tiny percentage of the population control vast fortunes, but wield no political power. He decries the “flawed system”, but refuses to acknowledge that corruption or conspiracy has played any part in creating it. That is insane at best, and dishonest at worst.
He doesn’t acknowledge the unavoidable truth that super-wealthy people will wield influence over government policy. From arms-sales, to tax loop-holes, to the push to privatise the NHS, to the war in Iraq…there are dozens of examples of political power being used to further the agenda of the rich.
harmless potting-shed eccentrics, green-ink cranks whose tightly spaced letters could once safely be filed in the dustbin.…before adding:
you might have dismissed such talk as the derangement of the bug-eyed, irrelevant fringe,And then finally playing the anti-Semitism card:
so many conspiracy theorists…end up reaching the terminus of antisemitism. For antisemitism is itself often rooted in conspiracy theory: the belief that the secret hand behind world events, manipulating each and every development, belongs to the Rothschilds or George Soros or, when no euphemism is required, the Jews.A baseless, childish ad hominem, that makes so little sense it contradicts his own last paragraph, and shows up his quasi-delusional mindset:
On Thursday we learned that 1,500 billionaires have now amassed $6tn of wealth, a level of inequality not seen since the Gilded Age. That’s not come about because of a secret meeting in an underground boardroom, but because of a system that is fatally flawed.I don’t follow his argument, “don’t talk about conspiracies when we’ve got all these billionaires to worry about” doesn’t make any sense to me. It seems he’s created some new kind of logical fallacy, the argument to inequality, a derivation of “think of the children”. It’s an odd chord for Freedland to strike, and is probably a rather desperate attempt to seem “hip” to the current issues. He certainly never wrote about the perils of inequality before Corbyn-mania swept the country.
Regardless of the source of Freedland’s sudden Bolshevik leanings, he contradicts himself – and in so doing paints a picture of an insane world. He doesn’t acknowledge that two of these billionaires – Soros and the Rothschilds – he has already named as nothing but a “euphemism” for anti-Semitism.
So which is it, Jonathan? Are wealthy people the problem? Or is criticising the super-rich merely a mask for racism? Why is it acceptable to cite “inequality” as a threat to the world, but crazy to blame the main beneficiaries of said inequality?
Freedland wants us to believe we live in a world where a tiny percentage of the population control vast fortunes, but wield no political power. He decries the “flawed system”, but refuses to acknowledge that corruption or conspiracy has played any part in creating it. That is insane at best, and dishonest at worst.
He doesn’t acknowledge the unavoidable truth that super-wealthy people will wield influence over government policy. From arms-sales, to tax loop-holes, to the push to privatise the NHS, to the war in Iraq…there are dozens of examples of political power being used to further the agenda of the rich.
Hyper-wealthy individuals exerting influence over elected officials and using military and intelligence apparatus to further undeclared political agendas, is the very definitions of a conspiracy theory. And it happens every single day.
If we are indeed living in the “post-truth age”, then it is not because of Donald Trump. Or Facebook. Or Russia Today.
It is because of dishonest journalism such as you’ll find in the Guardian, or the New York Times, or Buzzfeed. Because Jonathan Freedland, and his ilk, have stopped trying to hold power to account, and instead act as spokespeople for authority. Official heralds, handing down to the proles a pre-approved consensus and an a la carte menu of opinion. Labelling as “dangerous” aNY questioning of a government organisation with a proven track-record of illegal operations, whilst constantly stoking public fear of the mythic “Russian influence”. Conjuring an entirely fictional enemy from smoke and gossip, whilst throwing real crimes against humanity down the memory hole.
Freedland’s article, and all others like it, are an attack on reason itself. Denying our ability, and even our right, to question the motives and actions of the powerful, whilst asserting the moral rectitude of blind obedience. The Guardian is engaging in cultural policing, enforcing the unquestioned morality of the state and the system, at the expense of critical thinking and truth.
The Reichstag Fire was a conspiracy too. The state that rose from its ashes was only able to cover up its crimes thanks to rigid programmes of state-sponsored propaganda…faithfully carried out by a compliant and controlled media.
9/11: Finally the Truth Comes Out? Paul CraigRoberts. Jan. 4, 2019.
3 Griffin books available at the Unz Review in HTML:
Cognitive Infiltration
An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
David Ray Griffin • 2011
9/11 Contradictions
An Open Letter to Congress and the Press
David Ray Griffin • 2008
9/11 Ten Years Later
When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed
David Ray Griffin • 2011
If we are indeed living in the “post-truth age”, then it is not because of Donald Trump. Or Facebook. Or Russia Today.
It is because of dishonest journalism such as you’ll find in the Guardian, or the New York Times, or Buzzfeed. Because Jonathan Freedland, and his ilk, have stopped trying to hold power to account, and instead act as spokespeople for authority. Official heralds, handing down to the proles a pre-approved consensus and an a la carte menu of opinion. Labelling as “dangerous” aNY questioning of a government organisation with a proven track-record of illegal operations, whilst constantly stoking public fear of the mythic “Russian influence”. Conjuring an entirely fictional enemy from smoke and gossip, whilst throwing real crimes against humanity down the memory hole.
Freedland’s article, and all others like it, are an attack on reason itself. Denying our ability, and even our right, to question the motives and actions of the powerful, whilst asserting the moral rectitude of blind obedience. The Guardian is engaging in cultural policing, enforcing the unquestioned morality of the state and the system, at the expense of critical thinking and truth.
The Reichstag Fire was a conspiracy too. The state that rose from its ashes was only able to cover up its crimes thanks to rigid programmes of state-sponsored propaganda…faithfully carried out by a compliant and controlled media.
9/11: Finally the Truth Comes Out? Paul CraigRoberts. Jan. 4, 2019.
3 Griffin books available at the Unz Review in HTML:
Cognitive Infiltration
An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
David Ray Griffin • 2011
9/11 Contradictions
An Open Letter to Congress and the Press
David Ray Griffin • 2008
9/11 Ten Years Later
When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed
David Ray Griffin • 2011
JFK
The Kennedy Assassination. Paul Craig Roberts. Oct. 28, 2017.
If you really want to know who killed President Kennedy and why, read JFK and the Unspeakable. Yes, there are other carefully researched books that you can read.
Douglass concludes that Kennedy was murdered because he turned to peace. He was going to work with Khrushchev to end the Cold War. He refused the CIA US air cover for the Bay of Pigs invasion. He rejected the Joint Chiefs’ Operation Northwoods, a plan to conduct false flag attacks on Americans that would be blamed on Castro to justify regime change. He refused to reappoint General Lyman Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He told US Marine commandant General David Shoup that he was taking the US out of Vietnam. He said after his reelection he was going to “break the CIA into 1,000 pieces.” All of this threatened the power and profit of the military/security complex and convinced military/security elements that he was soft on communism and a threat to US national security.
JFK Files: Cover-Up Continues of President’s Assassination. Finian Cunningham, Strategic Culture. Oct. 28, 2017.
The murder of President John F Kennedy 54 years ago has been described as the “crime of the century”. If US and Western news media cannot discuss this seminal event openly and honestly, let alone investigate it, then what does that say about their credibility?
Such systematic media denial of reality inflicts irreparable damage to their credibility. How can they be taken seriously on any other matter, whether it is claims of “Russian meddling” or about the war in Syria, or the claims justifying Washington’s aggression towards Iran and North Korea?
The astounding media denial over JFK’s assassination is a symptom of the tacit totalitarianism that passes for “Western democracy”....
The word “conspiracy” is not used here in the pejorative sense to demean. It conveys the literal meaning of an organized plot. What was that plot? As James Douglass and others have cogently pieced together, after his election in 1960 JFK was increasingly viewed by the US deep state as a “rogue president”. He was firmly opposed to the unfurling arms race against the Soviet Union and wanted to pursue earnest, radical nuclear disarmament with Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev. The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 had jolted JFK on the dangers of a nuclear world war. Kennedy also wanted to normalize relations with Cuba’s Fidel Castro following the disastrous CIA-led Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 for which the president vowed he would “smash the agency into a thousand pieces”. He fired the CIA director Allen Dulles over the fiasco. Ironically, Dulles would later be appointed to the seven-member Warren Commission, supposedly tasked with uncovering the truth behind Kennedy’s assassination.
Moreover, JFK had concluded that the looming Vietnam War would be a disaster. In the summer of 1963 he was preparing orders for US military withdrawal. That move was a formidable threat to the anticipated huge profits for the military industrial complex if the war escalated, which it did after Kennedy’s death.
At the height of the Cold War, Kennedy was therefore seen as little more than a traitor by the military-security apparatus and as an obstacle to the vested economic interests of the Pentagon’s military-industrial complex. In short, he had to be got rid of by “executive action”....
The story of JFK’s assassination is one of state-sponsored murder carried out by the deep state power structure in the US. It was a coup d’état against a president elected by the people, whom the deep state viewed as an enemy to their objectives for war and foreign intrigues.
It was a shocking, brutal blow against democracy, a “regime change”, delivered not in some distant country, but right at home in the United States.
Such was the elaborate conspiracy to murder the president, involving contract-killers and secret services, as well as the complicity of police forces, the FBI, the military, judiciary and the corporate media, that the plotters behind JFK’s killing had to be positioned at the highest level of US government – the deep state.
Nearly 54 years after Kennedy’s murder by America’s state apparatus, the cover-up continues in the form of a futile release of “secret papers”. And, suitably, the mainstream media declare that this “disclosure” is the final settling of the matter, which puts an end to “conspiracy theories”. The media’s complicity may simply be due to an inability or reluctance to question the official narrative. This is what we mean by “tacit totalitarianism” – a willingness to believe in indoctrinated thinking, such as the false Warren Commission conclusion.
No wonder the US public – which polls have consistently shown do not believe the official Warren Commission narrative, and who indeed believe instead that JFK was actually killed in a nefarious plot – no wonder the public have increasing distrust and contempt for the corporate media for being dishonest and unreliable.
For the past year, the same media have been trying to slander Russia for interfering in US democracy. The same media have also tried to conceal American state-sponsored terrorism in Syria to overthrow the government there, just like it did when it overthrew the government in Libya in 2011 and killed the country’s leader Muammar Gaddafi. And many other illegal regime-change operations carried out by the US and its Western allies, presented as noble endeavors to “defend democracy”, “fight terrorism” or “protect human rights”.
In an era when such commercially-driven mass media pontificate about “fake news” perpetrated by others it is all the more galling that the accusation comes from the very same media who specialize in mass fake news and mass fake narratives.
The US state murder of JFK in 1963 and the decades-long cover-up is perhaps the greatest condemnation of the fraud that is US mass media. The day that the president was assassinated was also the day that American pretensions of democracy took a deadly hit.
SOLVED: JFK and others murdered by the Elite Shadow One World Order. GlobalIntelHub. Oct. 29, 2017.
54 years ago, a US President was murdered in broad daylight in Dallas, Texas; John Fitzgerald Kennedy ... To this day, the facts surrounding this event remain clouded. The ‘official’ Warren Commission report presents fanciful theories about a “Magic Bullet” that was able to go in and out of JFK’s body multiple times, and other wild fantasies. But this official report is ‘official’ and any other explanation of the events of that day are ‘conspiracy theories.’ As time has passed, and secondary information surfaces, there are indications of the true power of the information that was kept secret for so long.
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. Review of James Douglass’ Book. Edward Curtin, Global Research. republished Oct. 31, 2017; first published Nov. 25, 2009
Despite a treasure-trove of new information having emerged over the last forty-six years, there are many people who still think who killed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and why are unanswerable questions. There are others who cling to the Lee Harvey Oswald “lone-nut” explanation proffered by the Warren Commission. Both groups agree, however, that whatever the truth, it has no contemporary relevance but is old-hat, history, stuff for conspiracy-obsessed people with nothing better to do. The general thinking is that the assassination occurred almost a half-century ago, so let’s move on.
Nothing could be further from the truth, as James Douglass shows in his extraordinary book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (Simon & Schuster, 2008). It is clearly one of the best books ever written on the Kennedy assassination and deserves a vast readership. It is bound to roil the waters of complacency that have submerged the truth of this key event in modern American history.
It’s not often that the intersection of history and contemporary events pose such a startling and chilling lesson as does the contemplation of the murder of JFK on November 22, 1963 juxtaposed with the situations faced by President Obama today. So far, at least, Obama’s behavior has mirrored Johnson’s, not Kennedy’s, as he has escalated the war in Afghanistan by 34,000. One can’t but help think that the thought of JFK’s fate might not be far from his mind as he contemplates his next move in Afghanistan.
Douglass presents a very compelling argument that Kennedy was killed by “unspeakable” (the Trappist monk Thomas Merton’s term) forces within the U.S. national security state because of his conversion from a cold warrior into a man of peace. He argues, using a wealth of newly uncovered information, that JFK had become a major threat to the burgeoning military-industrial complex and had to be eliminated through a conspiracy planned by the CIA – “the CIA’s fingerprints are all over the crime and the events leading up to it” – not by a crazed individual, the Mafia, or disgruntled anti-Castro Cubans, though some of these may have been used in the execution of the plot.
Why and by whom? These are the key questions. If it can be shown that Kennedy did, in fact, turn emphatically away from war as a solution to political conflict; did, in fact, as he was being urged by his military and intelligence advisers to up the ante and use violence, rejected such advice and turned toward peaceful solutions, then, a motive for his elimination is established. If, furthermore, it can be clearly shown that Oswald was a dupe in a deadly game and that forces within the military/intelligence apparatus were involved with him from start to finish, then the crime is solved, not by fingering an individual who may have given the order for the murder or pulled the trigger, but by showing that the coordination of the assassination had to involve U.S. intelligence agencies, most notably the CIA . Douglass does both, providing highly detailed and intricately linked evidence based on his own research and a vast array of the best scholarship.
We are then faced with the contemporary relevance, and since we know that every president since JFK has refused to confront the growth of the national security state and its call for violence, one can logically assume a message was sent and heeded. In this regard, it is not incidental that former twenty-seven year CIA analyst Raymond McGovern, in a recent interview, warned of the “two CIAs,” one the analytic arm providing straight scoop to presidents, the other the covert action arm which operates according to its own rules. “Let me leave you with this thought,” he told his interviewer, “and that is that I think Panetta (current CIA Director), and to a degree Obama, are afraid – I never thought I’d hear myself saying this – I think they are afraid of the CIA.” He then recommended Douglass’ book, “It’s very well-researched and his conclusion is very alarming.”
Let’s look at the history marshaled by Douglass to support his thesis. ...
American Pravda: The JFK Assassination, Part I - What Happened? Ron Unz. June 18, 2018.
American Pravda: the JFK Assassination, Part II – Who Did It? Ron Unz. June 25, 2018.
9/11
Is Washington the Most Corrupt Government in History? Paul Craig Roberts. Nov. 29, 2017.
Robert Mueller, a former director of the FBI who is working as a special prosecutor “investigating” a contrived hoax designed by the military/security complex and the DNC to destroy the Trump presidency, has yet to produce a scrap of evidence that Russiagate is anything but orchestrated fake news. As William Binney and other top experts have said, if there is evidence of Russiagate, the NSA would have it. No investigation would be necessary. So where is the evidence?
It is a revelation of how corrupt Washington is that a fake scandal is being investigated while a real scandal is not. The fake scandal is Trump’s Russiagate. The real scandal is Hillary Clinton’s uranium sale to Russia. No evidence for the former exists. Voluminous evidence for Hillary’s scandal lies in plain view. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/10/25/hillary-clinton-and-real-russian-collusion.html
Why are the clearly false charges against Trump being investigated and the clearly true charges against Hillary not being investigated? The answer is that Hillary with her hostility toward Russia and her denunciation of Russian President Putin as the “New Hitler” is not a threat to the budget and power of the US military/security complex, while Trump’s aim of normalizing relations with Russia would deprive the military/security complex of the “enemy” it requires to justify its massive budget and power.
Why hasn’t President Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate Hillary? Is the answer that Trump is afraid the military/security complex will assassinate him? Why hasn’t the Justice Department undertaken the investigation on its own? Is the answer that Trump’s government is allied with his enemies?
How corrupt does Mueller have to be to agree to lead a fake investigation designed to overthrow the democratic election of the President of the United States? Why doesn’t Trump have Mueller and Comey arrested for sedition and conspiring to overthrow the president of the United States?
Why instead is Mueller expanding his investigation beyond his mandate and bringing charges against Manafort and others for decade-old under-reporting of income? Why instead is Congress harassing journalist Randy Credico for interviewing Julian Assange? How does an interview become part of the House Intelligence (sic) Committee’s investigation into “Russian active measures directed at the 2016 U.S. election?” There were no such active measures, but the uranium sale was real.
Why havent the media conglomerates that have produced presstitutes instead of journalists been broken up? Why can presstitutes lie 24/7, but a man can’t make a pass at a woman?
Once you begin asking questions, there is no end of them.
The failure of the US and European media is extreme.
The presstitutes never investigate real events. The presstitutes never question inconsistencies in official stories. They never tie together loose ends. They simply read over and over the script handed to them until the official story that controls the explanation is driven into the public’s head.
Consider, for example, the Obama regime’s claim to have murdered Osama bin Laden in his “compound” in Abbottabad, Pakistan, next to a Pakistani military base. The official story had to be changed several times. The Obama regime claim that Obama and top government officials had watched the raid via cameras on the SEALs’ helmets had to be abandoned. There was no reason to withhold the filmed evidence, and of course there was no such evidence, so the initial claim to have watched the killing became a “miscommunication.” The staged photo of the top government officials watching the alleged live filming was never explained. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1382859/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-Photo-Obama-watching-Al-Qaeda-leader-die-live-TV.html
The entire story never made any sense: Osama, unarmed and defended only by his unarmed wife, was murdered in cold blood by a SEAL. What in the world for? Why murder rather than capture the “terrorist mastermind” from whom endless information could have been gained? Why forgo the political fanfare of parading Osama bin Laden before the world as a captive of the American superpower?
Why were no photographs taken? Why was Osama’s body dumped in the ocean. In other words, why was all the evidence destroyed and nothing saved to back up the story?
Why the fake story of Osama being given a sea burial from an aircraft carrier? Why was no media interested that the ship’s crew wrote home that no such burial took place?
Why was there no presstitute interest in the fact that the SEAL unit, from which the SEALs on the alleged raid on bin Laden’s compound were drawn, was loaded against regulations in one 50-year old Vietnam era helicopter and shot down in Afghanistan, with all lives lost? Why was there no presstitute interest in the parents of the SEALs complaints about inappropriate procedures that cost their sons’ lives and about fears expressed to them by sons that something was wrong and they felt endangered? http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/navy-seals-father-obama-sent-my-son-to-his-death/
and https://www.military1.com/navy/article/403494-navy-seals-parents-sue-biden-panetta-over-sons-deaths/ and http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/08/families-of-seal-team-6-to-reveal-why-they-think-the-govt-is-as-much-responsible-for-the-death-of-their-sons-as-the-taliban
Did the SEAL unit have to be wiped out because the members were asking one another, “who was on that raid?” “Were you on the bin Laden raid?” When in fact no one was on the raid.
Why wasn’t Congress interested?
Why was the live Pakistani TV interview with an eye witness of the alleged raid on bin Laden’s compound not reported in the US media? The witness contradicted every aspect of the official story. And this was immediately after the event. There was no time for anyone to concoct an elaborate counter-story or motive to do so. Here is the interview: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/11/15/pakistan-samaa-tv-interview-eyewitness-alleged-osama-bin-laden-killing/ and here is a verified translation that confirms the accuracy of the English subscripts: https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=Pakistan-TV-Report-Contrad-by-paul-craig-roberts-110806-879.html
Osama bin Laden had been dead for a decade prior to the false claim that Navy SEALs murdered him in Pakistan in May 2011. Here are the obituraries from December 2001: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/11/20/bin-ladens-obituary-notice/ and this one from Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2001/12/26/report-bin-laden-already-dead.html
Here is bin Laden’s last confirmed interview. He says he had nothing to do with 9/11. Why would a terrorist leader who succeed in humiliating “the world’s only superpower” fail to boost his movement by claiming credit?
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/11/26/the-osama-bin-laden-myth-2/
See also:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/11/07/another-fake-bin-laden-story-paul-craig-roberts/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-orders-purge-of-osama-bin-ladens-death-files-from-data-bank/5342055
http://themindrenewed.com/interviews/2013/334-int-32
https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=Creating-Evidence-Where-Th-by-paul-craig-roberts-110805-618.html
https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=Pakistan-TV-Report-Contrad-by-paul-craig-roberts-110806-879.html
Think about this. The bin Laden story, including 9/11, is fake from start to finish, but it is inscribed into encyclopedias, history books, and the public’s consciousness.
And this is just one example of the institutionalized mass lies concocted by Washington and the presstitutes and turned into truth. Washington’s self-serving control over explanations has removed Americans from reality and made them slaves to fake news.
So, how does democracy function when voters have no reliable information and, instead, are led into the agendas of the rulers by orchestrated events and fake news?
Where is there any evidence that the United States is a functioning democracy?
A Call to Reinvestigate American Assassinations. Consortium News. Jan. 20, 2019.
To mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day a group of academics, journalists, lawyers, Hollywood artists, activists, researchers and intellectuals, including two of Robert F. Kennedy’s children, are calling for reinvestigation of four assassinations of the 1960s.
On the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a group of over 60 prominent American citizens is calling upon Congress to reopen the investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Signers of the joint statement include Isaac Newton Farris Jr., nephew of Reverend King and past president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Reverend James M. Lawson Jr., a close collaborator of Reverend King; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, children of the late senator. The declaration is also signed by numerous historians, journalists, lawyers and other experts on the four major assassinations.
Other signatories include G. Robert Blakey, the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which determined in 1979 that President Kennedy was the victim of a probable conspiracy; Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the surgeons at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas who tried to save President Kennedy’s life and saw clear evidence he had been struck by bullets from the front and the rear; Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower who served as a national security advisor to the Kennedy White House; Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a leading global authority on human rights; Hollywood artists Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner and Oliver Stone; political satirist Mort Sahl; and musician David Crosby.
Wikispooks
False Flags
Wikipedia:
The contemporary term false flag describes covert operations that are designed to deceive in such a way that activities appear as though they are being carried out by individual entities, groups, or nations other than those who actually planned and executed them.Lance deHaven-Smith states that "The term “false flag” originally referred to pirate ships that flew flags of the home countries of the ships they were approaching to attack and board. The pirates used the false flag as a disguise to prevent their victims from fleeing or preparing for battle. The term today extends beyond naval encounters to include countries that organize attacks on themselves and make the attacks appear to be by enemy nations or terrorists, thus giving the nation that was supposedly attacked a pretext for domestic repression and foreign military aggression."
42 ADMITTED False Flag Attacks. Washington's Blog. Feb. 9, 2015.
There are many documented false flag attacks, where a government carries out a terror attack … and then falsely blames its enemy for political purposes.
In the following 42 instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admits to it, either orally or in writing...
Intelligence Officer: Every Single Terrorist Attack In U.S. Was a False Flag Attack … Or Egged On By the Government. Washington's Blog. March 15, 2015.
Most terrorists are false flag terrorists or are created by our own security services.
***
In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI.
ANOTHER French False Flag?: Bloody Tracks from Paris to San Bernardino. by Kevin Barrett.
Were the "terrorist attacks" in Paris and San Bernardino false flag operations? Most of this book's 27 contributors say "yes." Though the government, academy, and mainstream media are afraid to explore the evidence, these 27 leading public intellectuals - including former high-level government officials, professors, and journalists - fearlessly explain how and why our own governments are slaughtering us in horrific terror events set up to be falsely blamed on "radical Muslim" patsies.
From the Pentagon's "Operation Gladio," a US military program which orchestrated almost all of the high-profile "terrorist attacks" during the Cold War, to the post-9/11 era, abundant evidence indicates that most terrorism is created by governments and falsely blamed on their enemies. The motive: Roll back freedom, promote authoritarian leadership, and prepare the public for war.
In this book, former CIA counter-terrorism officers Philip Giraldi and Robert David Steele, leading economic advisor to President Reagan Paul Craig Roberts, and two dozen other top analysts question the official stories of what happened in Paris on 11/13/15 and in San Bernardino on 12/2/15.
This book was published on the first anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. It follows on the heels of We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo! Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11, which garnered praise from 9/11 researcher leader David Ray Griffin, international law professor Richard Falk, and former Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hellyer, among other luminaries.
ANOTHER French False Flag, and We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo, have pioneered a new genre: “Open-Source Intelligence” projects that expose big false flags shortly after they happen. Why is this necessary? Normally, false flags are designed so that the Official Story is hammered deep into the public mind in the immediate aftermath of the event, when people are in a state of shock and susceptible to mass hypnosis. If critics wait too long to express a skeptical view, it will fall on deaf ears. So if we want to win the “infowar” by spreading the truth, we need to act as quickly as possible. These books do that.
ANOTHER French False Flag is a monument to free speech in a time of cowardice and censorship (especially self-censorship). Editor Kevin Barrett, who was driven out of the University of Wisconsin by Republican politicians for questioning 9/11, has been attacked indirectly by French President François Hollande in anti-conspiracy-theory tirades, and named as one of the five most dangerous “conspiracy intellectuals” in the world by Hollande’s think tank, the Jean Jaurés Institute. That hasn’t stopped Barrett from repeatedly flying to Paris to give interviews (in French) and participate in conferences in which he tells the French people that it is Hollande’s government and its foreign allies—NOT “radical Muslims”—who have been mass-murdering them in their streets, offices, stadiums, cafés and nightclubs.
As a challenge to the censors, Barrett has chosen to include a very wide variety of perspectives in this book. Most readers will find something in it challenging, disagreeable, perhaps even offensive. And that is when free speech matters most. As the spurious Voltaire quote has it, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
ANOTHER French False Flag and its predecessor We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo are the most important books the truth movement has produced since the 2002 – 2005 period that gave us the seminal works of Thierry Meyssan, Nafeez Ahmed, David Ray Griffin, and Webster Tarpley.
The Clash of Histories: Critical background on Orlando and other terror events. Veterans Today. Jun. 15, 2016.
Reading Kevin Barrett’s edited collection of essays on false flag history in the twenty-first century is a dissonant experience. On the one hand, the daily media tell us stories about a “war on terror” started by crazed Muslims on 9/11. This war is said to be waged in the present by al-Qaeda’s offspring, called ISIS, in the form of mass murders like the Paris Attacks of 2015. On the other hand, scholars like Barrett and most of the twenty-five thinkers represented in Another French False Flag? tell us stories about a “war on terror” fabricated by the CIA and Mossad on 9/11. This war is said to be promoted in the present by Western governments in the form of ongoing attacks against their own people. Clearly, there is a clash of histories going on. The outcome of this clash could well determine whether the coming century will be dominated by war.
That is why Another French False Flag? is such an important book. Its wide-ranging collection of essays provides a view of our current history that shatters the official government and media story about the “terrorist attacks” that have befallen the West. Essays like these ones aren’t usually written until long after the events have passed, when it’s too late to change history. Indeed, the essays in this collection read like the core of a history curriculum fifty years in the future. With the publication of this book, we see that history has caught up with itself. Today, the tricks of those who want to steer history have been used too many times to go unnoticed.
As Barry Kissin points out in his chapter on the urgency of exposing false flag terror if we are to secure peace, the CIA’s history of using this tactic to overturn governments has long been declassified. As an example, he cites the CIA-led coup that overthrew democratically elected Iranian president Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. Kissin writes, “The record now affords us a comprehensive view of the makings of what is destroying today’s world.” Similarly, Gearóid O Colmáin traces the use of false flag terrorism by deep state actors from Latin America in the 1980s to present-day Europe and Syria. Notably, the agents who carry out such false flag terror attacks are likened to Nazi “brown shirts” in Colmáin’s chapter. All the way back to Hitler’s Germany, we see that terror by governments against their own people is not a new phenomenon.
Most striking about this kind of terror is that it targets innocent civilians instead of targeting the political enemies of those who are said to be the terrorists. This tactic of terrorizing the populace has long been used by fascists to further anti-democratic agendas. When terrorism of this kind is blamed on others, we can be sure that we are observing a false flag event. More than that, from 9/11 to Paris, Another French False Flag? identifies the telltale signs of modern-day false flag terror.
Among these common traits is the fact that there is never an investigation before blame is assigned. As Ole Dammegard describes in his chapter, the official story of the Paris Attacks was posted on Wikipedia less than two hours after the attacks had begun, complete with President François Hollande’s comment to the nation that France should “close the border” to keep out murderous Muslims. Few noticed that the president did not actually make this comment until fifty-two minutes after Wikipedia reported it.
Additional recurring features of false flag attacks are discussed in the chapters by Paul Craig Roberts and Nick Kollerstrom, among others. These include the fact that terror drills replicating the specifics of the attack are always running at the same time. In the case of the Paris Attacks, the number of dead in the terror drill just happened to be identical to the number of dead reported after the live attack. Further, the terrorists who are blamed always leave behind their ID, either a passport or a driver’s license. And, most convenient, some kind of technical failure, like failed subway cameras, usually aids the terrorists. Roberts reports that during the Paris Attacks, “the French police were blinded by a sophisticated cyber attack on their mobile data tracking system.”
What perhaps most reveals the involvement of governments in these attacks is their prior “surveillance” of the Muslims who end up being blamed. Although said to be under investigation before the attacks, these people are permitted to cross borders unimpeded, establishing a pattern of suspicious behavior that is later used against them. Warnings about these behaviors are ignored, and the terrorists are often hunted down and killed afterward, lest they confess that they are covert federal assets who are being used or framed by their employer. Roberts states, “By my last count, the FBI on 150 occasions has successfully deceived people into participating in FBI orchestrated ‘terror plots.’”
False flag attacks are psychological operations intended to terrorize. In Hitler’s time, those who carried out the terrorist killing of innocent civilians face to face were members of “death squads.” Today, they are mercenaries hired by “private security” firms. In both Paris and San Bernardino, these mercenaries turned up in eyewitness accounts. Contrary to the official story about Arab Muslim terrorists, witnesses to both events reported that the shooters were “white men in black military attire.” In documenting the similarities between such attacks, Another French False Flag? provides us with a handbook by which to identify false flags and thereby free ourselves from psychological manipulation by the agents of fascism.
In fact, the Orlando attack of 2016 exhibits many of the characteristics of state terror identified by the writers of Another French False Flag? A drill similar to the attack, with a similar number of casualties, was held in Orlando three months beforehand. And the Muslim man blamed for the attack had been under investigation by the FBI in prior years, yet he was never questioned about a Florida gun shop’s report to the FBI that he had recently attempted to purchase body armor and bulk ammunition. Instead, he was allowed to proceed with his preparations, and on the night of the attack the SWAT team waited outside for three hours while he continued his rampage.
In addition, eyewitness accounts of the Orlando attack contradict the official story about a lone Muslim gunman who hated gays. One survivor reported that a man inside the club was blocking a side exit and preventing people from escaping. Another survivor said that there were two additional shooters who went free. Were these shooters again “private security” mercenaries? In a revealing coincidence, the attacker was himself employed by one such security firm, called G4S. So the answer is likely yes, making him a mercenary and a pretend homophobic jihadi rolled into one.
More than providing us with a blueprint for modern-day false flag terrorism, Barrett and his colleagues situate our governments’ use of such terror in the unfolding of history, painting a clear picture of why this fascist campaign is being waged now and who benefits from the march toward a third world war. Notably, the chapter by Anthony Hall discusses NATO’s use of terror against civilians in Europe during the Cold War as a means to falsely discredit left politics, which is the method now being employed by NATO to discredit Muslims. He explains that “the same national security establishment created to fight communism was re-deployed in a very strange operation involving both the creation of, and opposition to, Islamic terrorism.” Only in understanding the agenda of the real terrorists – the deep state elites – can we intelligently confront their push to war.
At the beginning of Another French False Flag? Barrett writes, “based on what we know of other events such as 9/11, I think it’s fair to assume these new events are probably false flags, and put the burden of proof on the authorities and mainstream media to prove they aren’t.” I agree. But many readers may be shocked to learn of the murderous tactics used by our governments to shape public opinion and thereby the course of history. Why should this evil shock us? Why do many of us refuse to believe the evidence of this truth? Why do some of us become angry when confronted with a history that clashes with the official one?
Roberts offers this answer: “Some people are so naive and stupid as to think that no government would kill its own citizens. But governments do so all the time … Americans are not capable of believing truth. They have been brainwashed that truth is ‘conspiracy theory.’ A population this stupid has no future.” Roberts is only half-right. Being “naive and stupid” has little to do with it. He is closer to the truth when he concedes that we have been “brainwashed.” But even that isn’t accurate. Rather, events like 9/11 can be said to hypnotize us. When we are in a state of heightened fear, our subconscious is susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. Things implanted subconsciously bypass rational scrutiny and become difficult to dislodge.
Mujahid Kamran hints at this phenomenon in his chapter when he writes, “The people, who are in a state of shock, and are therefore in a highly suggestible state, are deeply influenced by the media.” Readers would do well to remember this fact when exploring the alternate twenty-first-century history presented in Another French False Flag? If the clash of histories is going to be won by the side of truth, it will require a mass awakening of Western citizens. And that isn’t going to happen unless we understand not only the tactics of the elite but also the psychological effects of those tactics, including the hypnotic effect of lies told to the traumatized. We don’t need to blame ourselves for being susceptible to this effect. We only need to recognize that it has prevented us from knowing the truth. Until now.
In short, Another French False Flag? is a book by the fearless for the fearless. It goes a long way toward countering the onslaught of war propaganda that passes for news today. In doing so, it stands as a great resource in the quest for global peace.
Historical:
Reichstag fire
Gulf of Tonkin
Operation Gladio
Operation Northwoods
Contemporary:
9/11
Las Vegas shooting
Boston Marathon bombing
Sandy Hook school
Orlando night club
Paris truck
San Bernardino
Las Vegas shooting
Boston Marathon bombing
Sandy Hook school
Orlando night club
Paris truck
San Bernardino
Days of Shock, Days of Wonder. by Rafiq.
“If Kerouac or Bukowski had shunned alcohol for cannabis, encountered Sufism, and faced 9/11 truth and its implications, the result might have looked a bit like this. An engrossing read and an important document of our time.” ~ Kevin Barrett, author of Truth Jihad and 9/11 & American Empire
“Rafiq narrates a twofold journey of discovery, describing how the 9/11 attack was engineered by the Bush administration and why humanity needs to replace religion, based on an external God, with devotion to the divine as a unifying force that lives in all of us.” ~ David Ray Griffin, author of 9/11 Ten Years Later and God Exists, although Gawd Does Not
“This book links one man’s luminous journey with a nation’s crisis of identity and waywardness in the aftermath of the state crime that was 9/11. Rafiq gives us a deeply engaging account of arriving on the other side of a new awareness of our world from which there is no returning. Having shared this experience, I drew much solace and inspiration from his lyrical meditation on choice, doubt, determination, and resolve.” ~ Matthew Witt, co-editor of State Crimes against Democracy
False Flag Theatre: Boston bombing involves clearly staged carnage. Sheila Casey, Truth and Shadows.
Really?!!
Really?!!?
Nobody Died at Sandy Hook. by James H. Fetzer. free online PDF
It wasn't a School Massacre. It was a FEMA Drill. Proof it was a drill was right before our eyes: The sign, "Everyone must check in!" Boxes of bottled water & pizza cartons. Port-a-Potties present from scratch. Many wearing name tags on lanyards. Parents bringing children to the scene. Proof it wasn't a massacre was also there: No surge of EMTs in to the building. No Med-Evac helicopter was called. No string of ambulances to the school. No evacuation of 469 other students. No bodies placed on the triage tarps. We have proof of photo fakery: Proof of furnishing the Lanza home to serve as a prop. Proof of refurbishing the school to serve as the stage. We even have the FEMA manual for the Sandy Hook event.
James Henry Fetzer is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor Emeritus of the philosophy of science at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Since the late 1970s, Fetzer has worked on assessing and clarifying the forms and foundations of scientific explanation, probability in science, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of cognitive science, especially artificial intelligence and computer science.
Nobody Died at the Las Vegas Concert. Mona Alexis Pressley.
Those who have been publicly identified as "victims" of the 1 October 2017 shooting in Las Vegas, it turns out, died at other times and other locations and of other causes. Some of them do not even exist but were created through a photo-shop program that produces the illusion of an entirely different person. If this seem initially unbelievable, when you finish this article, look back at the photos of the victims and see if you can find the same person in many of the others. This study will uncover the beginning of the research conducted to this date, with new findings to follow.
It is important that Americans pay attention, stand-up and demand answers and not relinquish until the entire truth comes out. If Americans remain apathetic, in denial, or just plain lazy, we run the risk of losing all freedom, including what's left of the right to bear arms. It is difficult to wrap one's mind around a government so corrupt that it could orchestrate a "false flag" event this elaborate, until you reflect upon "Operation Northwoods" of 1962. This unclassified document should be read by every American to teach them the lengths the US government will go to fund its wars and continue to enslave its own people.
There’s a segment of the world wide web that has been calling the mass shooting in Las Vegas on 1 October a "staged event" or a "false flag". The brave souls who have been going with their gut feelings after watching the production unfold on television have been getting blasted by the Mainstream Media and the Social Media, which at one time, but no longer, used to be the place to voice daring opinions. Even one's own peers have put the pressure on "conspiracy theorists", who are preferably called "conspiracy realists" or "conspiracy analysts".
This shooting was strikingly similar to the event in Newtown, CT, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 in the manner in which it was presented by the media. For those unfamiliar with the Sandy Hook school shooting, the book NOBODY DIED AT SANDY HOOK (2015) is the best way to catch up on "false flags" and hoaxes that our government conducts in collaboration with state and local authorities. Following that event, which turned out to be a two-day FEMA drill, conspiracy realists went to work and have effectively eviscerated the official account. Let this be true of Las Vegas, too.
This shooting was strikingly similar to the event in Newtown, CT, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 in the manner in which it was presented by the media. For those unfamiliar with the Sandy Hook school shooting, the book NOBODY DIED AT SANDY HOOK (2015) is the best way to catch up on "false flags" and hoaxes that our government conducts in collaboration with state and local authorities. Following that event, which turned out to be a two-day FEMA drill, conspiracy realists went to work and have effectively eviscerated the official account. Let this be true of Las Vegas, too.
Confirmed.
If by now you are not asking questions about the Las Vegas shooting it is clear the masters that own you have done a great job at the PSYOP they continue to perpetrate on you and most Americans. The entire aftermath of events demonstrate that if the police, FBI, and MSM were telling the truth, there would not be all the confusion. To clarify:- The police and FBI have changed the timeline a few times while totally ignoring witnesses seeing 2 shooters.
- We have not seen any casino and hotel footage of the shooter “Stephen Paddock” which would probably clear up so much.
- The 2 security guards have no licence for the state of Nevada which should have made it impossible to work at any event or casino and the representative of the casino lied on a MSM news report saying he did not need one.
- Photos that were shown on the news and videos were staged.
- Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter are deleting videos that have evidence of a hoax, which violates freedom of speech and sends a message they have something they are hiding.
- The FBI collected witness phones and scrubbed everything off the phones that pertained to the shooting.
- A couple of weeks before the event a person from 4chan warned others to stay out of Vegas for the next few weeks due to an event that will bring in body scanners to casinos.
- A group, “Crowds on Demand” were advertising on Craigslist for Crisis Actors needed in Las Vegas for an event a few weeks before the shooting drill.
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