Exposure of police spy in UK sheds light on covert operations
By Robert Stevens
19 January 2011

Last week, a trial of six environmental campaigners at Nottingham Crown Court in England collapsed. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said they could not continue, as “new evidence” had come to light undermining their case.

Police Constable Mark Kennedy had been an undercover police agent within the environmental movement since 2003 and had offered to give evidence on behalf of the six.

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Kennedy confirmed that the evidence in question consisted of tape recordings he had made, which police withheld from defence lawyers. Under the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act of 1996, the police are duty-bound to make the CPS and the defence team aware of the evidence they have compiled. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is currently investigating whether Nottinghamshire Police made available all the evidence they had to the CPS.

Bin Laden Death Script & the Needed Trigger for Next Step-Pakistan

By Sibel Edmonds

Time to Talk about ‘Why & Why Now’

May 20, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- It has been over two weeks since the orchestrated ever-changing Bin Laden Death. The question of what happened remains the same except it doesn’t seem to matter any longer. The US media is done after making their initial splash, and the majority is left with one conclusion: the SOB is dead, and who gives a da… how it happened. Whether Osama held an AK-47 while using some damsel in distress as a shield, whether there was a real fight or not, whether it was really Osama’s body in an organic edible shell we fed to the endangered sharks, whether the full credit goes to the CIA or the White House or the Pentagon …no longer seems to matter. Dizzy-fying confusion induced by dozens and dozens of lies and discrepancies and denials has given way to post-adrenaline-rush exhaustion. The question of what happened has been classified as moot and irrelevant. Right or wrong I’ll leave that question behind, at least for now, and instead, go back to focus on the more important question- the question of ‘why and why now.’

China 'Asks USA To Respect Pak Sovereignty'

By Press Trust of India

May 19, 2011 "The Statesman" -- ISLAMABAD, 19 MAY: In the wake of the US raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden, China has “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”, a media report claimed today.

The warning was formally conveyed by the Chinese foreign minister at last week's China-US strategic dialogue and economic talks in Washington, The News daily quoted diplomatic sources as saying. China also advised the USA to “respect Pakistan's sovereignty and solidarity”, the report said.

Chinese Premier Mr Wen Jiabao informed his Pakistani counterpart Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani about the matters taken up with the US during their formal talks at the Great Hall of the People yesterday. The report said China “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”. The two premiers held a 45-minute one-on-one meeting before beginning talks with their delegations.

Indiana prosecutor told Wisconsin governor to stage ‘false flag’ operation

By Eric W. Dolan
Thursday, March 24th, 2011 -- 7:32 pm

An Indiana prosecutor and Republican activist has resigned after emails show he suggested Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker stage a fake attack on himself to discredit unions protesting his budget repair bill.

The Republican governor signed a bill on March 11 that eliminates most union rights for public employees.

In an email from February 19, Indiana deputy prosecutor Carlos F. Lam told Walker the situation presented "a good opportunity for what’s called a ‘false flag’ operation."

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism discovered the email among tens of thousands released to the public last week following a lawsuit by the Isthmus and the Associated Press.

"If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions' cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions," Lam said in his email.

Lifting the Veil from S DN on Vimeo.

Just a print interview I conducted with the Venus Project folks (Zeitgeist).

Second half hasn't been printed yet.

V-RADIO interview with Scott Noble. Filmmaker of "Psywar".

Mr. Noble said he is not taking video or radio interviews at this time. However he did agree to take some time for a text based interview that I decided to share with you here.

V-RADIO: Please introduce yourself to the readers.

Mr. Noble:
Sure. I’m a writer, filmmaker and wage slave currently living on Vancouver Island in British Colombia. My first film, Psywar (“The Real battlefield is the mind”) was recently released online. It explores the evolution of propaganda and public relations in the United States.

V-RADIO: Can you describe for the readers what was the precipice, the moment that got you "out of the box"? What got you out of the mainstream dream and instead peering behind the curtain?

Mr. Noble:

A few quotes to pique your interest…

“Brilliant…Riveting…The amount of material the filmmaker covers and unifies is astounding… Human Resources diagnoses the 20th century.”
- Stephen Soldz, Professor, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis; President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Terrifiying in its implications….Human Resources is a must see for those of us who still take democracy seriously.”
- Bruce E. Levine, Author Commonsense Rebellion

“A Masterpiece. Unless you weep, you may be damaged by this film. Viewer discretion, and love, advised.
- David Kerr Thomson, Professor, Language and Thinking Program at Bard College

I’m pleased to present the second film in my documentary series, Human Resources. If you missed the first, Psywar, you can view it here.

‘State secrets’ invoked over case of American targeted for assassination

By Stephen C. Webster
Saturday, September 25th, 2010 -- 11:07 am

State secrets invoked over case of American targeted for assassinationIn a last-ditch effort to get a terrorism lawsuit dismissed, the Obama administration invoked a claim of "state secrets" on Friday, arguing that revealing details about efforts to capture or kill an American citizen charged with leading a terrorist group would endanger national security.

The suit, filed by civil liberties groups, charges that Anwar al-Aulaqi, an American citizen and Islamic cleric in Yemen, has been placed on a list of high-value targets the CIA would like to see dead.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights specifically charge that lacking threat of an imminent attack, efforts to kill al-Aulaqi amount to the targeted, "extrajudicial" assassination of a US citizen, which is illegal.

Attorneys for the groups want to see these efforts ended.

"If it is your desire to understand how we are manipulated into believing the things we do -- watch this film. Every American should see it...for the sake of our future."
- Timothy Gatto, fmr Chairman, Liberal Party of America

I'm pleased to present the first feature in my documentary series, entitled Psywar ("The real battlefield is the mind"). It premiered on Global Research and should be appearing on some other alternative news websites in the coming days.

The film explores the evolution of propaganda and public relations in the United States, with an emphasis on the “elitist theory of democracy” and the relationship between war, propaganda and class.

This is not a high budget affair, but was financed via a blue collar job, and is being released online for free. The interviews contained within are original and were conducted by proxy.

Poll: Waning support for Obama on wars

WASHINGTON — Public support for President Obama's Afghanistan war policy has plummeted amid a rising U.S. death toll and the unauthorized release of classified military documents, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.

Support for Obama's management of the war fell to 36%, down from 48% in a February poll. Now, a record 43% also say it was a mistake to go to war there after the terrorist attacks in 2001.

The decline in support contributed to the lowest approval ratings of Obama's presidency. Amid a lengthy recession, more Americans support his handling of the economy (39%) than the war.

Even Obama's handling of the war in Iraq received record-low approval, despite a drawdown of 90,000 troops and the planned, on-schedule end of U.S. combat operations there this month.

Only 41% of those surveyed Tuesday through Sunday approved of the way Obama is handling his job, his lowest rating in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll since he took office in January 2009. In Gallup's separate daily tracking poll, his approval was at 45% Monday.

Church to Burn Copies of Koran to Mark 9/11

By staff writers

August 04, 2010 "News.com.au" -- A FLORIDA church was yesterday promoting an event where it will burn copies of the Koran to mark the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the U.S.

In the announcement on its Facebook page, The Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Florida, asked other religious groups to join in standing "against the evil of Islam. Islam is of the devil!"

The Facebook event has received more than 1,500 "Like" recommendations by users, but had also been attacked with a number of threatening messages posted on the page and corresponding anti-Islam rants.

The church's pastor, Terry Jones - who has written a book titled "Islam is of The Devil" and sells T-shirts bearing the same message - defended the controversial event.

"Islam and Sharia law was responsible for 9/11," Jones told Agence France-Presse.

"We will burn Korans because we think it's time for Christians, for churches, for politicians to stand up and say no; Islam and Sharia law is not welcome in the U.S.

Provocateurs and police terror at the G20 summit in Toronto

Short vid I put together on the G20 psyop. Featured on GlobalResearch.ca

Will be of interest to activists of all stripes.

Police State Canada from bill johnson on Vimeo.

The Semantics of Terrorism

By SOHA AL-JURF

During the fifth annual Al Jazeera forum on May 23, 2010, Robert Fisk gave an address, stressing the potency of semantics in the media (posted on aljazeera.net, May 25, 2010). Fisk's remarks underlined the ways in which word-choices define and color media coverage and reporting, and, consequently, determine our readership’s perceptions of world affairs.

"Power and the media," he said, "…are not just about the parasitic-osmotic relationship between supposedly honourable reporters and the nexus of power that runs between White House and state department and Pentagon…in the Western context, power and the media is about words—and the use of words...It is about semantics."

Got Fascism? : Obama Advisor Promotes 'Cognitive Infiltration'

Your government appointees at work: Cass Sunstein seeks "cognitive" provocateurs.

WRITTEN By Marc Estrin / The Rag Blog / January 11, 2010

Cass Sunstein is President Obama's Harvard Law School friend, and recently appointed Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

In a recent scholarly article, he and coauthor Adrian Vermeule take up the question of "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures." (J. Political Philosophy, 7 (2009), 202-227). This is a man with the president's ear. This is a man who would process information and regulate things. What does he here propose?

[W]e suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity. (Page 219.)

Bill Curry

Ottawa — From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009 9:15PM EDT Last updated on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009 10:24AM EDT

Three undercover officers accused of inciting protesters to attack riot police at the 2007 North American leaders summit in Montebello are being summoned to testify before Quebec's independent police ethics committee.

The decision from the committee released this week overrules an independent review that exonerated the officers. It also comes more than two years after the black-clad trio were first exposed on YouTube.

Dave Coles, the union leader who confronted the men at the time and filed a complaint against the police, said a public inquiry is needed to determine whether they were acting on orders from federal officials.

Five days in September

By Holland Van den Nieuwenhof

Posted: October 15, 2009

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The recent spate of foiled terror plots in this country have given this author an uncomfortable feeling of dread, for we have been down this road before. I am referring specifically to a trio of bomb plots that serve to remind the American people that we are eternally unsafe, and bound under the ever-tightening screws of National Security that we shall never be without.

On September 19, 2009 Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan citizen and legal resident of the U.S., was arrested in Denver by the FBI for planning and preparing a series of bomb attacks on the New York City subway system. The FBI was intensely concerned about a trip that Zazi had made back to NYC, where he had recently resided, on September 10 when President Barack Obama was also visiting that city. Also arrested were Zazi’s father and the Imam of a mosque they attended.

Obama: Afghan war secures America
PressTV
August 18, 2009

US President Barack Obama says there will be no quick or easy victory over the Taliban, noting that the war in Afghanistan is crucial in protecting Americans from terrorism.

Talking in a meeting of veterans in Arizona on Monday, Obama tried to step up the campaign in Afghanistan. “The insurgency in Afghanistan didn't just happen overnight and we won't defeat it overnight," he said.

US administration is sending 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, therefore the success or failure of the mission of US forces in the war-torn country is crucial for its future plans in the region.

Torturing Children: Bush's Legacy and Democracy's Failure
Henry A. Giroux

The torture of children under the Bush administration has gone relatively unpublicized.

Monday 03 August 2009 - t r u t h o u t | Perspective

This is an excerpt from Henry A. Giroux's forthcoming book, "Hearts of Darkness: Torturing Children in the War on Terror," to be published by Paradigm Publishers.

The Big Lie of Afghanistan

By Malalai Joya

July 26, 2009 "The Guardian" -- July 25, 2009 -- In 2005, I was the youngest person elected to the new Afghan parliament. Women like me, running for office, were held up as an example of how the war in Afghanistan had liberated women. But this democracy was a facade, and the so-called liberation a big lie.

On behalf of the long-suffering people of my country, I offer my heartfelt condolences to all in the UK who have lost their loved ones on the soil of Afghanistan. We share the grief of the mothers, fathers, wives, sons and daughters of the fallen. It is my view that these British casualties, like the many thousands of Afghan civilian dead, are victims of the unjust policies that the Nato countries have pursued under the leadership of the US government.

Almost eight years after the Taliban regime was toppled, our hopes for a truly democratic and independent Afghanistan have been betrayed by the continued domination of fundamentalists and by a brutal occupation that ultimately serves only American strategic interests in the region.

Cheney's Secret CIA Program

Worse Than Foreign Assassinations?

By Digby

July 14, 2009 "Hullabaloo" --- Pretty much every news outlet has confirmed that the secret CIA program held from Congress by Dick Cheney concerned targeted assassinations of Al Qaeda members abroad, basically the "executive assassination ring" discussed by Sy Hersh earlier this year.

Dick Cheney, the former vice president, ordered a highly classified CIA operation hidden from Congress because it pushed the limits of legality by planning to assassinate al-Qaida operatives in friendly countries without the knowledge of their governments, according to former intelligence officials.

Former counter-terrorism officials who retain close links to the intelligence community say that the hidden operation involved plans by the CIA and the military to launch operations, similar to those by Israel's Mossad intelligence service, to hunt down and kill al-Qaida activists abroad without informing the governments concerned, even though some were regarded as friendly if unreliable.

Pentagon’s Black Budget Grows to More Than $50 Billion

* By Noah Shachtman Email Author
* May 7, 2009 |
* 7:39 pm |
* Categories: Paper Pushers, Beltway Bandits, Politicians, Spies, Secrecy and Surveillance

The Pentagon wants to spend just over $50 billion on classified programs next year, newly-released Defense Department budget documents reveal. “That’s the largest-ever sum,” according to Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman, a longtime black-budget seer — a three percent increase over last year’s total.

It makes the Pentagon’s secret operations, including the intelligence budgets nested inside, “roughly equal in magnitude to the entire defense budgets of the UK, France or Japan,” Sweetman adds. All in all, about seven and a half percent of the Defense Department’s total spending is now classified.

Black-world weapons-buying “remains dominated by the single line item,” according to Sweetman. (You can find it under the Air Force’s “other procurement” section, on page F-21 here.) “This year’s number stands just above $16 billion. In inflation-adjusted terms, that’s 240 per cent more than it was ten years ago.”

Program from Al-Jazeera entitled "Al-Qaeda at 20" sees Christopher Hitchens, Justin Raimondo from anti-war.com and Nazar Janabi from the Washington Institute debate the nature and development of "Al-Qaeda".

Raimondo argues "blowback" and mentions early CIA funding but is hamstrung by his refusal to explore present-day intelligence concerning "Al-Qaeda" and 911. This allows Hitchens to move in for the kill.

Article does not question the existence of "Al-Qaeda" as a real entity nor "Al-Qaeda in Iraq". However it contains useful information about the media's cavalier usage of the term for acts of violence committed in Iraq and elsewhere.

Al-Qaeda – Who Else?
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
30 March, 2009

Al-Qaeda – Who Else?

On March 23, BBC online reported another bloody day in Iraq:

“It was the second bomb attack in Iraq on Monday, with an earlier explosion near the capital. Baghdad, killing at least eight people.

“The BBC’s Hugh Sykes, in Baghdad, says al-Qaeda have launched several attacks in Diyala since losing support in other parts of Iraq.” (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7959918.stm)

The foe, naturally, was the global bad guy, “al-Qaeda”. Thirty years ago the BBC would have declared them “Communists” or “Marxists”. We wrote to the BBC’s “man in Baghdad” the same day:

Dear Hugh

Hope you’re well. A BBC online report today says:

Now might be a good time brush up on Stalin's Show Trials...

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: March 9, 2009

The five detainees at Guantánamo Bay charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have filed a document with the military commission at the United States naval base there expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting full responsibility for the killing of nearly 3,000 people.

The document, which may be released publicly on Tuesday, uses the Arabic term for a consultative assembly in describing the five men as the “9/11 Shura Council,” and it says their actions were an offering to God, according to excerpts of the document that were read to a reporter by a government official who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The document is titled “The Islamic Response to the Government’s Nine Accusations,” the military judge at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp said in a separate filing, obtained by The New York Times, that describes the detainees’ document.

The document was filed on behalf of the five men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has described himself as the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Propaganda story attempts to justify Gitmo, torture

Report: Ex-Gitmo detainee joins al-Qaida in Yemen

By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer Maggie Michael, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 23, 10:56 am ET

CAIRO, Egypt – A Saudi man released from Guantanamo after spending nearly six years inside the U.S. prison camp is now the No. 2 of Yemen's al-Qaida branch, according to a purported Internet statement from the terror network.

The announcement, made this week on a Web site commonly used by militants, came as President Barack Obama ordered the detention facility closed within a year. Many of the remaining detainees are from Yemen, which has long posed a vexing terrorism problem for the U.S.

The terror group's Yemen branch — known as "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula" — said the man, identified as Said Ali al-Shihri, returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from Guantanamo about a year ago and from there went to Yemen, which is Osama bin Laden's ancestral home.

The Internet statement, which could not immediately be verified, said al-Shihri was the group's second-in-command in Yemen, and his prisoner number at Guantanamo was 372.

Antony Beevor on films that rewrite history

Open Minds: Films that rewrite history, says Antony Beevor, are fatally warping our sense of reality

Antony Beevor

In the West, we tend to assume that the greatest threats to democracy and liberty come from outside. We think of the totalitarian systems of the last century or fundamentalist terrorism today, but we fail to recognise the viral strain that has developed out of our own entertainment industries.

Over the past dozen or so years, television and movie-makers have managed to blur the border between fact and fiction to an unprecedented degree. They pretend increasingly that their film is based on a true story. Every device possible, from computer-generated imagery to place names and dates thrown onto the screen seek to suspend the disbelief of historically illiterate audiences. Alarmingly, the new technology has coincided with a dramatic growth in conspiracy theories.

(Originally published as: Alternative Theory of 9/11?)

Joel Brinkley's Article on Richard Falk: Does It Demonstrate the Right "Frame of Mind" to Teach Journalism at Stanford?

By Elizabeth Woodworth

Abu Nidal, notorious Palestinian mercenary, 'was a US spy'

Secret papers claim the feared assassin was hired to find links between Saddam and al-Qa'ida. Robert Fisk reports

Saturday, 25 October 2008

Years of terror: A man as feared as Bin Laden

Abu Nidal was once as feared as Osama bin Laden. His most notorious attacks included:

The Shrinking Case Against Binyam Mohamed
Justice Department Drops "Dirty Bomb Plot" Allegation

By ANDY WORTHINGTON

As the Washington Post reported yesterday, the US Justice Department has dropped the key allegation against British resident and Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed -- that he was involved, with American citizen Jose Padilla, in a plot to detonate a “dirty bomb” in a US city.

For over three years, Binyam’s lawyers at Reprieve, the London-based legal action charity, have been arguing that the allegations against Binyam were extracted through the use of torture -- in Morocco, where Binyam was tortured for 18 months, after being rendered by the CIA, and at the CIA’s own “Dark Prison,” near Kabul, where he was held for four or five months from January 2004, before his transfer to the US military prison at Bagram airbase, and his eventual arrival at Guantánamo in September 2004.

Mr. Ford is careful not to espouse the "inside job" thesis, however his account of two Israeli "journalists" frothing at the mouth over the attacks is new to me

The author begins with his encounter with two Israelis on the banks of the Hudson River as the second tower fell at the World Trade Center, and proceeds through the brief euphoria at "victory" in Iraq, and subsequent reversals in U.S. fortunes. "9/11 may one day be viewed much like the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, in 1914: as an occurrence that merely served to ignite the inevitable. The Bush regime desperately wanted a global war, and it got one." But rather than ushering in an era of unchallenged American hegemony, the U.S. entered into irreversible decline.

9/11 and the Great American Decline

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

"9/11 was wielded as a kind of weapon to take down the planet."

"So, what do you think will happen now?" The question was posed by the taller of two young Israelis, my sole companions in this section of Liberty State Park on the Jersey City side of the Hudson River, the morning of September 11, 2001.