by cameron | Jun 20, 2007 | CIA, US politics
5am. Haven’t been able to sleep. So I got up about 2am intending to work and have instead done what I always do at this hour – watch YouTube videos on 80s film clips. Sad. Very sad.
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When the JFK Airport bomb plot thing broke in the headlines a few weeks ago, I immediately smelled a rat. So I set up a Google news alert on the name of the main guy, Russell Defreitas, so I could track the developments once the main thrust and hype of the original story had died down.
And in the last week, there has already been a lot of interesting reports picked up.
Wired News has this story about how sensationalist the US media has been over the report.
The recently publicized terrorist plot to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport, like so many of the terrorist plots over the past few years, is a study in alarmism and incompetence: on the part of the terrorists, our government and the press.
What that story doesn’t explain, as this one does, is that Defrietas once worked for Evergreen International Airlines. Who are Evergreen?
A nine-part series in The Oregonian newspaper in 1988 reported that Evergreen International Airlines has close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and functions as an “ad hoc government air arm that thrives on a combination of covert and commercial work.” Work the company had been contracted for included “black ops” missions in Central America, War on Drugs operations around the world, and delivering arms to the Egyptian military, while non-military contracts included tracking ice floes in the Arctic, providing security for John Paul II, and spraying anti-locust pesticides in the Niger.
(source)
So the main guy accused of plotting to blow up JFK airport used to work for a company that is a front for the CIA. Is this starting to sound like a bad film plot yet?
The other thing about this story which interests me is how the “informant” who gave away the JFK plot, Steve (Toro) Francis, is a twice-convicted convicted drug dealer who entrapped the plotters. According to this article, Defreitas and the informant were introduced “last July by another government operative”.
So… the story shapes up like this.
We have an ex-CIA employee who was introduced by the CIA to a twice-convicted crack dealer who then claims there was a plot to blow up JFK airport. No bombs were ever made, no plans even drawn up.
Kurt Nimmo writing in The Daily Scare has this quote:
As Paul Joseph Watson notes, the JFK case reveals “that the terror threat has been overhyped and magnified a thousand-fold for political propaganda,†a fact demonstrated “by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act that show only 0.0015 percent of the total number of cases filed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were terrorism related, despite the fact that the Bush administration has repeatedly asserted that it is the primary focus of the DHS.â€
Bruce Schneier. who wrote the Wired News article, hit the nail squarely on the head in an earlier article:
“There are two basic ways to terrorize people. The first is to do something spectacularly horrible, like flying airplanes into skyscrapers and killing thousands. The second is to keep people living in fear through constant threat warnings, security checks, rhetoric, and stories of terrorist plots foiled by the diligent work of the increasingly intrusive Department of Homeland Security.â€
Now – while the mainstream media in the US and Australia blared the details of the JFK plot across front pages and TV news coverage, how much, if any, coverage will they give to these newly-emerging details? Will they get the same treatment? Or will they be either printed down the back of the paper near the obits or ignored altogether?
Don’t buy into the sensationalist press coverage. Read between the lines. Research. Use the web to get the facts.
by cameron | Jun 19, 2007 | Melbourne, Uncategorized
Anybody out there subscribe to B&T magazine? I think this week’s edition has the “Digital Media” insert again and I’ve written an article on podcasting in it. Let me know if any of you has a copy.
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Oh yeah I’m speaking at Microsoft’s REMIX thing in Melbourne next Tuesday. I’m on the Web 2.0 panel with Brad Howarth, Richard McManus and Ben Barren. Our session is 1.30. Crown Promenade. God knows what Microsoft is doing inviting me to speak at one of their events. I wonder what the legal department thinks about that. Last time I heard, Microsoft employees weren’t even supposed to TALK to me in case I corrupt them. Someone must have forgotten to tell the noob Kordahi.
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by cameron | Jun 18, 2007 | CIA, Iran, Iraq, US politics
Charley Reese (ex-Orlando Sentinel) has written an interesting piece for AntiWar.com about Iran. He makes the following points:
I don’t see how any honest man can believe that Iran is a threat to the United States or its neighbors. Iran has not invaded anyone in the past 100 years. Iran has from the beginning insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes, and there has been no evidence – I repeat, no evidence – to the contrary. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty explicitly authorizes countries to enrich uranium. In other words, Iran has not done anything illegal.
Iran has no intercontinental missiles, and the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons is Israel. Please note that the United States flatly refuses to endorse the idea of a nuclear-free Middle East. Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel has refused to sign it. Iran admits international inspectors. Israel flatly refuses to allow international inspectors. The only country in today’s Middle East with weapons of mass destruction and a history of invading and occupying other people’s countries is Israel.
So why are the US so interested in Iran? According to Wikipedia:
Iran ranks second in the world in natural gas reserves and third in oil reserves.
Or course, the US has been trying to get its hands on Iran for decades. The Iran-Iraq war was started when Saddam Hussein, backed by the USA, invaded Iran in 1980.
According to Robert Parry there was a secret encouragement by the US administration (President Jimmy Carter, conveyed through Saudi Arabia) which was embroiled in a dispute with the new Islamic Republic of Iran. In the words of Alexander Haig, secretary of state from 1981, “It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Fahd.”
(Source: Wikipedia)
Robert Parry, btw, was the journalist who broke the Iran-Contra scandal involving Oliver North. For those of you too young to remember,
It involved several members of the Reagan Administration who in 1986 helped to illegally sell arms to Iran, an avowed enemy, and used the proceeds to fund, also illegally, the Contras, a right-wing insurgent organization in Nicaragua.
(Source: Wikipedia)
They also turned a blind eye to the Contras raising money by exporting crack cocaine to the US.
Ever wondered what happened to the people in the US administration that were convicted in the Iran-Contra affair? Most got away with it, pardoned by George H. W. Bush when he was President. Many of the people involved are now working for the current Bush administration. Including Robert Gates, the guy who replaced Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.
He served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1991–1993 under George H.W. Bush. During Iran Contra he was Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. In 1984, as deputy director of CIA, Gates advocated that the U.S. initiate a bombing campaign against Nicaragua and that the U.S. do everything in its power short of direct military invasion of the country to remove the democratically-elected Sandinista government.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Where does that leave us?
It’s important to understand that the people running the US at the moment have a history. And anyone who thinks these things are “conspiracy theories” only need to read a couple of books. The Iran-Contra affair wasn’t a conspiracy theory. It happened. Ronald Reagan admitted his involvement in it (after first denying it). He admitted George H. W. Bush knew about it as well.
These things happened.
Israel, on the other hand,
has received substantial direct economic aid from the United States, including approximately $1.2 billion per year since the mid-1970’s, although that regular annual amount has been being tapered off by $120 million per year beginning in 1998.
(Source)
Israel’s relationship with the United Nations is pretty bleak.
From 1967 to 1989 the UN Security Council passed 131 resolutions directly dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Of the 131 resolutions passed, 43 could be considered neutral while the remaining 88 either criticized and opposed the actions of Israel or judged against its interests. Nearly half of the 88 resolutions against Israel “condemned,” “censured,” or “deplored” the member state or its actions. During this time, in the UN General Assembly, 429 resolutions against Israel were passed, and Israel was condemned 321 times.
(Source)
It makes you wonder.
by cameron | Jun 17, 2007 | US politics
This is strange. A few sites (link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4) are reporting that German police intercepted American agents trying to smuggle C4 explosive into the G8 conference at Heiligendamm. No coverage of this by MSM at the moment.
Sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that US security men tested German security by trying to smuggle C4 plastic explosive past a checkpoint at Heiligendamm.
German surveillance machinery detected the tiny stash in a suitcase in a car and the Americans in plainclothes then identified themselves. German police declined comment.
I wonder who the ‘sources’ were who reported it to DPA? And why would German police decline comment? If the story was untrue, surely they would just say so? I’m going to ping a few friends in Germany to see if it’s getting much coverage over there.
by cameron | Jun 17, 2007 | TPN
Tony has uploaded the first episode of the All New Productivity Show! He invited me on as the first guest. We talked about my productivity over the last six months and some of his tips and tricks. Good fun. Glad the show is back.
