Cyberwar, the Internet and the Militarization of Civil Society

By Tom Burghardt

Global Research, October 28, 2013

Antifascist Calling and Global Research 25 April 2010

Region: USA

Theme: Intelligence, Police State & Civil Rights

This April 2010 path breaking article foresaw what is now unfolding in front of our very eyes: the repeal of civil liberties, privacy and personal freedoms, war without borders internationally…
Unfailingly, defense industry boosters and corporate media acolytes promote the disturbing hypothesis annunciated by former Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, that the nation is in peril.
In a February Washington Post op-ed, the latest version of the “grave and gathering danger” big lie repeated endlessly by former President Bush during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, McConnell claims that “the United States is fighting a cyber-war today, and we are losing.”
Since leaving the secret state’s employ, McConnell returned to his old beltway bandit firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, as a senior vice president in charge of the company’s national security business unit, a position he held after “retiring” as Director of the National Security Agency back in 1996.
Critics, including security system design experts and investigative journalists, question the alarmist drumbeat that promises to dump tens of billions of federal dollars into the coffers of firms like McConnell’s.
Indeed, Washington Technology reported two weeks ago that Booz Allen Hamilton landed a $20M contract to “foster collaboration among telecommunications researchers, University of Maryland faculty members and other academic institutions to improve secure networking and telecommunications and boost information assurance.”
While we’re at it, let’s consider the deal that L-3 Communications grabbed from the Air Force just this week. Washington Technology reports that L-3, No. 8 on that publication’s “2009 Top Ten” list of federal prime contractors, “will assist the Air Forces Central Command in protecting the security of its network operations under a contract potentially worth $152 million over five years.”
Or meditate on the fact that security giant Raytheon’s soaring first quarter profits were due to the “U.S. military demand for surveillance equipment and new ways to prepare soldiers for wars,” MarketWatch reported Thursday.
Chump-change perhaps in the wider scheme of things, considering America’s nearly $800B defense budget for FY2011, but fear sells and what could be more promising for enterprising security grifters than hawking terror that comes with the threat that shadowy “asymmetric” warriors will suddenly switch everything off?
As Bloomberg News disclosed back in 2008, both Lockheed Martin and Boeing “are deploying forces and resources to a new battlefield: cyberspace.”
As journalist Gopal Ratnam averred, the military contractors and the wider defense industry are “eager to capture a share of a market that may reach $11 billion in 2013,” and “have formed new business units to tap increased spending to protect U.S. government computers from attack.”
Linda Gooden, executive vice president of Lockheed’s Information Systems & Global Services unit told Bloomberg, “The whole area of cyber is probably one of the faster-growing areas” of the U.S. budget. “It’s something that we’re very focused on.”
Lockheed’s close, long-standing ties with the National Security Agency all but guarantee a leg up for the firm as it seeks to capture a large slice of the CYBERCOM pie.
The problem with a line of reasoning that U.S. efforts are primarily concerned with defending Pentagon networks reveals a glaring fact (largely omitted from media accounts) that it is the Pentagon, and not a motley crew of hackers, cyber-criminals or “rogue states” that are setting up a formidable infrastructure for launching future high-tech war crimes.
This is clearly spelled out in the DOD’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). In that document Pentagon planners aver that CYBERCOM “will direct the operation and defense of DOD’s information networks, and will prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum cyberspace military operations. An operational USCYBERCOM will also play a leading role in helping to integrate cyber operations into operational and contingency planning.”
The QDR promises to stand-up “10 space and cyberspace wings” within the Department of the Air Force that will work in tandem with Cyber Command.
Last week, Antifascist Calling reported how the mission of that Pentagon Command is primarily concerned with waging offensive operations against “adversaries” and that civilian infrastructure is viewed as a “legitimate” target for attack.
In that piece, I cited documents released by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), publicly available, though buried within a mass of Broad Agency Announcements, that solicited bids for contracts by the various armed service branches from private defense and security corporations for the design of offensive cyber weapons.
Accordingly, the Air Force Research Laboratory-Rome issued a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA-10-04-RIKA) February 25, for “Full Spectrum Cyber Operations Technology” that will address issues related to “the integration and better coordination of the day-to-day defense, protection, and operation of DoD networks as well as the capability to conduct full spectrum cyberspace military operations.”
The BAA explicitly states that “research efforts under this program are expected to result in functional capabilities, concepts, theory, and applications ideally addressing cyber operations problems including projects specializing in highly novel and interesting applicable technique concepts will also be considered, if deemed to be of ‘breakthrough’ quality and importance.”
Unsurprisingly, “technical information relevant to potential submitters is contained in a classified addendum at the Secret level to this BAA.”
But the military aren’t the only players leading the charge towards the development of highly-destructive cyberweapons. Indeed, the Cyber Conflict Research Studies Association (CCSA), a Washington, D.C. based think tank is top-heavy with former intelligence, military and corporate officials doing just that.
The group’s board of directors are flush with former officers or consultants from the FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Air Force, National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security and the CIA. Other board members are top officers in the spooky “public-private” FBI-affiliated spy outfit InfraGard, the Council on Foreign Relations as well as high-powered firms such as General Dynamics, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Goldman Sachs.
Demonstrating the interconnected nature of domestic surveillance, repression and military cyberwar operations, CCSA’s Treasurer, Robert Schmidt, is currently a member of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Council on Domestic Intelligence and the secretive Intelligence and National Security Association (INSA). Additionally, Schmidt is the President/CEO of InfraGard and “leads the operational side of private sector involvement with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s InfraGard program.” How’s that for a hat trick!
What that “operational side” entails has never been publicly disclosed by the organization, but as I wrote back in 2008, citing Matthew Rothschild’s chilling piece in The Progressive, martial law is high on InfraGard’s agenda.
Members on CCSA’s board of directors, like others whirling through the revolving door between government and the private sector were/are officers or consultants to the FBI, NSA, DHS and other secret state intelligence agencies. Others were/are key advisers on the National Security Council or serve as consultants to industry-sponsored associations such as the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) and INSA.
Dovetailing with research conducted by the Pentagon and their Intelligence Community partners, one CCSA study will explore “the full spectrum of military computer network operations, defined as computer network defense (CND), computer network exploit (CNE) and computer network attack (CNA), and examines the potential synergies and tradeoffs between those three categories.”
As befitting research conducted by the Military-Industrial-Security-Complex (MISC), CCSA’s study “will involve key academicians, strategists, military and intelligence community leaders and operational cyber practitioners to analyze key dilemmas of doctrine, organization, training, and planning, particularly with respect to integrating cyber warfare capabilities with kinetic operations.”
Key questions to be answered, among others, include “How can cyberwarfare capabilities be best integrated with other military forces?” and “How can leaders and personnel for conducting cyberwarfare be trained, educated and grown?”
Clearly, these are not academic issues.
DARPA to the Rescue
The Pentagon’s “blue sky” research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is chock-a-block with programs investigating everything from Neurotechnology for Intelligence Analysts to Operationally-Focused Systems Integration (OFSI) “that align DARPA technologies with explicit opportunities for military operational impact.”
Certainly, given the precarious state of the global capitalist economy, the enfeebled nature of American democratic institutions, and with no end in sight to planet-wide imperial adventures to secure access to increasingly shrinking energy reserves and other strategic resources, technological “silver bullets” are highly sought-after commodities by corporate and military bureaucracies. Such technophilic preoccupations by the MISC all but guarantee that the “state of exception” inaugurated by the 9/11 provocation will remain a permanent feature of daily life.
Several, interrelated DARPA projects feed into wider Pentagon cyberwar research conducted by the Army, Navy and Air Force.
One component of this research is DARPA’s National Cyber Range (NCR). The brainchild of the agency’s Strategic Technical Office (STO), NCR is conceived as “DARPA’s contribution to the new federal Comprehensive National Cyber Initiative (CNCI), providing a ‘test bed’ to produce qualitative and quantitative assessments of the Nation’s cyber research and development technologies.”
While DARPA claims that it is “creating the National Cyber Range to protect and defend the nation’s critical information systems,” a “key vision” behind the program “is to revolutionize the state of the art of test range resource and test automation execution.”
While short on specifics, DARPA’s “vision of the NCR is to create a national asset for use across the federal government to test a full spectrum of cyber programs.”
Many of the military programs slated for testing at NCR are highly classified, including those that fall under the purview of Pentagon Special Access or black programs. As defense analyst William M. Arkin pointed out in Code Names, such programs are hidden under the rubric of Special Technical Operations that have their own “entire separate channels of communication and clearances.” STO’s “exist to compartment these military versions of clandestine and covert operations involving special operations, paramilitary activity, covert action, and cyber-warfare.” Arkin identified nearly three dozen cyberwar programs or exercises back in 2005; undoubtedly many more have since come online.
As Aviation Week reported in 2009, “Devices to launch and control cyber, electronic and information attacks are being tested and refined by the U.S. military and industry in preparation for moving out of the laboratory and into the warfighter’s backpack.”
But as “with all DARPA programs,” the agency “will transition the operation of the NCR at a later date to an operational partner. No decision has been made on who will operate the final range.”
Amongst the private defense, security and academic “partners” involved in NCR’s development are the usual suspects: scandal-tainted BAE Systems; General Dynamics-Advanced Information Systems; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; Lockheed Martin; Northrop Grumman-Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems Division; Science Applications International Corporation; and SPARTA.
The aggressive nature of what has since evolved into CYBERCOM is underscored by several planning documents released by the U.S. Air Force. In a 2006 presentation to the Air Force Cyber Task Force, A Warfighting Domain: Cyberspace, Dr. Lani Kass unabashedly asserts: “Cyber is a war-fighting domain. The electromagnetic spectrum is the maneuver space. Cyber is the United States’ Center of Gravity–the hub of all power and movement, upon which everything else depends. It is the Nation’s neural network.” Kass averred that “Cyber superiority is the prerequisite to effective operations across all strategic and operational domains–securing freedom from attack and freedom to attack.”
Accordingly, she informed her Air Force audience that “Cyber favors the offensive,” and that the transformation of the electromagnetic spectrum into a “warfighting domain” will be accomplished by: “Strategic Attack directly at enemy centers of gravity; Suppression of Enemy Cyber Defenses; Offensive Counter Cyber; Defensive Counter Cyber; Interdiction.”
While the Pentagon and their embedded acolytes in academia, the media and amongst corporate grifters who stand to secure billions in contracts have framed CYBERCOM’s launch purely as a defensive move to deter what Wired investigative journalist Ryan Singel has denounced as “Cyberarmaggedon!” hype to protect America’s “cyber assets” from attack by rogue hackers, states, or free-floating terrorist practitioners of “asymmetric war,” CYBERCOM’s defensive brief is way down the food chain.
Indeed, “options for the Operational Command for Cyberspace” include the “scalability of force packages” and their “ease of implementation” and, as I wrote last week citing but two of the fourteen examples cited by the Senate, “research, development, and acquisition” of cyber weapons. This is attack, not defense mode.
Americans’ Privacy: a Thing of the Past
Situating CYBERCOM under the dark wings of U.S. Strategic Command and the National Security Agency, is a disaster waiting to happen.
As we now know, since 2001 NSA under dubious Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) findings that are still classified, and the despicable 2008 FISA Amendments Act, the Executive Branch was handed the authority the spy on American citizens and legal residents with impunity.
During his confirmation hearing as Cyber Command chief on April 15, NSA Director Lt. General Keith Alexander sought to assure the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) that “this is not about the intent to militarize cyber-space. My main focus is on building the capacity to secure the military’s operational networks.”
He told the Senate panel that if called in to help protect civilian networks, both NSA and Cyber Command “will have unwavering dedication to the privacy of American citizens.”
Alexander was far cagier however in his written responses in a set of Advanced Questions posed by the SASC.
While corporate media like the dutiful stenographers they are, repeated standard Pentagon boilerplate that the secret state has an “unwavering dedication” to Americans’ privacy, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding answers and the release of the classified supplement.
Alexander stated in his written testimony that although “U.S. Cyber Command’s mission will not include defense of the .gov and .com domains, given the integration of cyberspace into the operation of much of our critical infrastructure and the conduct of commerce and governance, it is the obligation of the Department to be prepared to provide military options to the President and SECDEF if our national security is threatened.”
He also defended the statement that “DOD’s mission to defend the nation ‘takes primacy’ over the Department of Homeland Security’s role in some situations.”
“Of greater concern” EPIC wrote in their brief, “may be the questions that Lt. Gen. Alexander chose to respond to in classified form. When asked if the American people are ‘likely to accept deployment of classified methods of monitoring electronic communications to defend the government and critical infrastructure without explaining basic aspects of how this monitoring will be conducted and how it may affect them,’ the Director acknowledged that the Department had a ‘need to be transparent and communicate to the American people about our objectives to address the national security threat to our nation–the nature of the threat, our overall approach, and the roles and responsibilities of each department and agency involved–including NSA and the Department of Defense,’ but then chose include that the rest of his response to that question in the ‘classified supplement’.”
“Most troubling of all” EPIC averred “is the classified nature of the responses to advance questions 27b) and 27c). After responding to the question of how the internet could be designed differently to provide greater inherent security by describing vague ‘technological enhancements’ that could enhance mobility and possibly security, Lt. Gen. Alexander responded to ‘Is it practical to consider adopting those modifications?’ and ‘What would the impact be on privacy, both pro and con?’ by referring the Senators to the ‘classified supplement.’ No answer to either question was provided in the public record.”
But in considering these questions, perhaps the SASC should have referred to ex-spook McConnell’s February Washington Post op-ed: “More specifically, we need to reengineer the Internet to make [it] more manageable. The technologies are already available from public and private sources and can be further developed if we have the will to build them into our systems and to work with our allies and trading partners so they will do the same.”
Is this a great country, or what!

Reflections On The Long Fight Against The Copyright Monopoly – And What You Can Do

• Rick Falkvinge
• October 27, 2013
• opinion

It can be disheartening to see how long it takes to change the world for the better, but it’s imperative to keep grinding – even if just through a choice of words.
It has been said, that nobody is as hard to convince of a fact as those whose paycheck depend on not understanding it.
This applies strongly to those copyright industry lobbyists who make a living dismantling our freedoms of speech, assembly, and opinion.
One of the more obscene arguments from the copyright industry lobby is that people who facilitate unlicensed manufacturing of culture and knowledge – breaking the copyright monopoly in the process – make money from facilitating this process, through ads and the like. At the same time, the people of the copyright industry lobby – the Dutch Tim Kuik, the Swedish Henrik Pontén, the Danish “child-porn-is-great” Johan Schlüter (yes, he said that), you all know your local antagonists – are raking in money themselves on introducing censorship, tracking and wiretapping, while somehow claiming it is immoral to do so for those who spread knowledge and culture to humanity. It is sickening, really.
We know that we are winning, only that it takes an enormous amount of time to shift the overall direction of society. We come from the Internet, we’re used to changing the world in a weekend of coding. The nightmare with today’s copyright and patent monopoly laws is that they have their origin in Industrial Protectionism (IP) in the United States directed against Japanese cars in the mid-1970s.
Yes, the anti-liberty, anti-market, and anti-humanity forces have been working for 40 years to take us where we are today. We’ve been making great strides in the past decade, but it’s going to take much more work – not to mention endurance – to save the world from a surveillance society nightmare where the copyright industry determines what we get to know, see, and learn.
The copyright industry has long been working in collusion with the wiretapping industry – the FRA, NSA, GCHQ, etc. – to get laws that enable more tracking, more wiretapping, and more surveillance. This, after all, is the only way the copyright monopoly can be preserved: by eliminating private communications as a concept. But we can turn the tide. Just look at the tipping point in public opinion brought about by Edward Snowden’s leaks, not to mention the outrage from affected politicians.
When activists fought software patent monopolies in Europe just under a decade ago, many of them burned out in the process and suffered from what can only be described as a post-traumatic stress disorder, even though the good side won the legislative process. (Which was immediately ignored by software patent monopoly lawyers, for which they should be sent to prison, but that’s a separate topic.)
That victory night, the activists met with the fell-funded corporate lobbyists where the activists had won, and the lobbyists smiled professionally, raised their glasses, and said “see you in another two years”. The corporate anti-liberty lobbyists, particularly from the copyright industry, will simply never stop. That’s why we need to strike at the root of the problem and work long-term, rather than thinking that a reduction or two in the scope of these monopolies will fix everything.
Christian Engström, one of the activists in that battle who is now an elected Member of the European Parliament, has a particularly good quote: “If you’re getting bitter and burnt out and feel you need to take a break from activism, that is always the right thing to do. There will always be something to do when you come back; you never need to worry about the world running out of evil while you’re away.”
Fortunately, there are small things that each of us can do every day that doesn’t require the exhausting effort of writing long articles or reading complex reports. When hundreds of thousands of people do these small things, it has a tremendous effect:
- Share articles with your social network on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Two kinds of articles are particularly valuable – those that expose the copyright industry’s bottomless cynicism, and those that propose a better alternative.
- Use correct language, and if you have the energy, call people out who don’t. Every time you say “copyright monopoly” instead of just “copyright”, it makes a difference. Every time you say “manufacturing their own copies” and reject “stealing movies”, it makes a difference. Every time you point out that people are manufacturing their own copies using their own property entirely, it makes a difference. Every time you point out that we never determined our freedoms of speech and expression based on who gets to make a profit or not, it makes a difference. See my previous TorrentFreak column on Language Matters.
These two simple actions, when done by tens of thousands, have an immense impact – and can be done even if you’re tired and bitter of fighting what seems like an uphill battle.
I write more about this kind of swarm intelligence in my book Swarmwise, which you can download for free, by the way. If you want more arguments against the copyright monopoly, I recommend the book “The Case for Copyright Reform”, also available for free.

A Timeline of CIA Atrocities

By Global Research News

Global Research, October 27, 2013

huppi.com

Region: USA

Theme: Crimes against Humanity, Intelligence

The following article was initially published in 1997. It is in part based on the work of William Blum. Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, 1995 (GR Ed. M. Ch.)
By Steve Kangas
The following timeline describes just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed by the CIA. (1)
CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: “We’ll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us.” The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be “communists,” but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.
This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious “School of the Americas.” (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the “School of the Dictators” and “School of the Assassins.” Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder.
The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (2) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an “American Holocaust.”
The CIA justifies these actions as part of its war against communism. But most coups do not involve a communist threat. Unlucky nations are targeted for a wide variety of reasons: not only threats to American business interests abroad, but also liberal or even moderate social reforms, political instability, the unwillingness of a leader to carry out Washington’s dictates, and declarations of neutrality in the Cold War. Indeed, nothing has infuriated CIA Directors quite like a nation’s desire to stay out of the Cold War.
The ironic thing about all this intervention is that it frequently fails to achieve American objectives. Often the newly installed dictator grows comfortable with the security apparatus the CIA has built for him. He becomes an expert at running a police state. And because the dictator knows he cannot be overthrown, he becomes independent and defiant of Washington’s will. The CIA then finds it cannot overthrow him, because the police and military are under the dictator’s control, afraid to cooperate with American spies for fear of torture and execution. The only two options for the U.S at this point are impotence or war. Examples of this “boomerang effect” include the Shah of Iran, General Noriega and Saddam Hussein. The boomerang effect also explains why the CIA has proven highly successful at overthrowing democracies, but a wretched failure at overthrowing dictatorships.
The following timeline should confirm that the CIA as we know it should be abolished and replaced by a true information-gathering and analysis organization. The CIA cannot be reformed — it is institutionally and culturally corrupt.
1929
The culture we lost — Secretary of State Henry Stimson refuses to endorse a code-breaking operation, saying, “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.”
1941
COI created — In preparation for World War II, President Roosevelt creates the Office of Coordinator of Information (COI). General William “Wild Bill” Donovan heads the new intelligence service.
1942
OSS created — Roosevelt restructures COI into something more suitable for covert action, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Donovan recruits so many of the nation’s rich and powerful that eventually people joke that “OSS” stands for “Oh, so social!” or “Oh, such snobs!”
1943
Italy — Donovan recruits the Catholic Church in Rome to be the center of Anglo-American spy operations in Fascist Italy. This would prove to be one of America’s most enduring intelligence alliances in the Cold War.
1945
OSS is abolished — The remaining American information agencies cease covert actions and return to harmless information gathering and analysis.
Operation PAPERCLIP – While other American agencies are hunting down Nazi war criminals for arrest, the U.S. intelligence community is smuggling them into America, unpunished, for their use against the Soviets. The most important of these is Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler’s master spy who had built up an intelligence network in the Soviet Union. With full U.S. blessing, he creates the “Gehlen Organization,” a band of refugee Nazi spies who reactivate their networks in Russia.
These include SS intelligence officers Alfred Six and Emil Augsburg (who massacred Jews in the Holocaust), Klaus Barbie (the “Butcher of Lyon”), Otto von Bolschwing (the Holocaust mastermind who worked with Eichmann) and SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny (a personal friend of Hitler’s). The Gehlen Organization supplies the U.S. with its only intelligence on the Soviet Union for the next ten years, serving as a bridge between the abolishment of the OSS and the creation of the CIA. However, much of the “intelligence” the former Nazis provide is bogus. Gehlen inflates Soviet military capabilities at a time when Russia is still rebuilding its devastated society, in order to inflate his own importance to the Americans (who might otherwise punish him). In 1948, Gehlen almost convinces the Americans that war is imminent, and the West should make a preemptive strike. In the 50s he produces a fictitious “missile gap.” To make matters worse, the Russians have thoroughly penetrated the Gehlen Organization with double agents, undermining the very American security that Gehlen was supposed to protect.
1947
Greece — President Truman requests military aid to Greece to support right-wing forces fighting communist rebels. For the rest of the Cold War, Washington and the CIA will back notorious Greek leaders with deplorable human rights records.
CIA created — President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947, creating the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Council. The CIA is accountable to the president through the NSC — there is no democratic or congressional oversight. Its charter allows the CIA to “perform such other functions and duties… as the National Security Council may from time to time direct.” This loophole opens the door to covert action and dirty tricks.
1948
Covert-action wing created — The CIA recreates a covert action wing, innocuously called the Office of Policy Coordination, led by Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner. According to its secret charter, its responsibilities include “propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world.”
Italy — The CIA corrupts democratic elections in Italy, where Italian communists threaten to win the elections. The CIA buys votes, broadcasts propaganda, threatens and beats up opposition leaders, and infiltrates and disrupts their organizations. It works — the communists are defeated.
1949
Radio Free Europe — The CIA creates its first major propaganda outlet, Radio Free Europe. Over the next several decades, its broadcasts are so blatantly false that for a time it is considered illegal to publish transcripts of them in the U.S.
Late 40s
Operation MOCKINGBIRD — The CIA begins recruiting American news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. The effort is headed by Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham is publisher of The Washington Post, which becomes a major CIA player. Eventually, the CIA’s media assets will include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more. By the CIA’s own admission, at least 25 organizations and 400 journalists will become CIA assets.
1953
Iran – CIA overthrows the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in a military coup, after he threatened to nationalize British oil. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran, whose secret police, SAVAK, is as brutal as the Gestapo.
Operation MK-ULTRA — Inspired by North Korea’s brainwashing program, the CIA begins experiments on mind control. The most notorious part of this project involves giving LSD and other drugs to American subjects without their knowledge or against their will, causing several to commit suicide. However, the operation involves far more than this. Funded in part by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, research includes propaganda, brainwashing, public relations, advertising, hypnosis, and other forms of suggestion.
1954
Guatemala — CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years.
1954-1958
North Vietnam — CIA officer Edward Lansdale spends four years trying to overthrow the communist government of North Vietnam, using all the usual dirty tricks. The CIA also attempts to legitimize a tyrannical puppet regime in South Vietnam, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. These efforts fail to win the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese because the Diem government is opposed to true democracy, land reform and poverty reduction measures. The CIA’s continuing failure results in escalating American intervention, culminating in the Vietnam War.
1956
Hungary — Radio Free Europe incites Hungary to revolt by broadcasting Khruschev’s Secret Speech, in which he denounced Stalin. It also hints that American aid will help the Hungarians fight. This aid fails to materialize as Hungarians launch a doomed armed revolt, which only invites a major Soviet invasion. The conflict kills 7,000 Soviets and 30,000 Hungarians.
1957-1973
Laos — The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections. The problem is the Pathet Lao, a leftist group with enough popular support to be a member of any coalition government. In the late 50s, the CIA even creates an “Armee Clandestine” of Asian mercenaries to attack the Pathet Lao. After the CIA’s army suffers numerous defeats, the U.S. starts bombing, dropping more bombs on Laos than all the U.S. bombs dropped in World War II. A quarter of all Laotians will eventually become refugees, many living in caves.
1959
Haiti — The U.S. military helps “Papa Doc” Duvalier become dictator of Haiti. He creates his own private police force, the “Tonton Macoutes,” who terrorize the population with machetes. They will kill over 100,000 during the Duvalier family reign. The U.S. does not protest their dismal human rights record.
1961
The Bay of Pigs — The CIA sends 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade Castro’s Cuba. But “Operation Mongoose” fails, due to poor planning, security and backing. The planners had imagined that the invasion will spark a popular uprising against Castro -– which never happens. A promised American air strike also never occurs. This is the CIA’s first public setback, causing President Kennedy to fire CIA Director Allen Dulles.
Dominican Republic — The CIA assassinates Rafael Trujillo, a murderous dictator Washington has supported since 1930. Trujillo’s business interests have grown so large (about 60 percent of the economy) that they have begun competing with American business interests.
Ecuador — The CIA-backed military forces the democratically elected President Jose Velasco to resign. Vice President Carlos Arosemana replaces him; the CIA fills the now vacant vice presidency with its own man.
Congo (Zaire) — The CIA assassinates the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba. However, public support for Lumumba’s politics runs so high that the CIA cannot clearly install his opponents in power. Four years of political turmoil follow.
1963
Dominican Republic — The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Juan Bosch in a military coup. The CIA installs a repressive, right-wing junta.
Ecuador — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows President Arosemana, whose independent (not socialist) policies have become unacceptable to Washington. A military junta assumes command, cancels the 1964 elections, and begins abusing human rights.
1964
Brazil — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the democratically elected government of Joao Goulart. The junta that replaces it will, in the next two decades, become one of the most bloodthirsty in history. General Castelo Branco will create Latin America’s first death squads, or bands of secret police who hunt down “communists” for torture, interrogation and murder. Often these “communists” are no more than Branco’s political opponents. Later it is revealed that the CIA trains the death squads.
1965
Indonesia — The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Sukarno with a military coup. The CIA has been trying to eliminate Sukarno since 1957, using everything from attempted assassination to sexual intrigue, for nothing more than his declaring neutrality in the Cold War. His successor, General Suharto, will massacre between 500,000 to 1 million civilians accused of being “communist.” The CIA supplies the names of countless suspects.
Dominican Republic — A popular rebellion breaks out, promising to reinstall Juan Bosch as the country’s elected leader. The revolution is crushed when U.S. Marines land to uphold the military regime by force. The CIA directs everything behind the scenes.
Greece — With the CIA’s backing, the king removes George Papandreous as prime minister. Papandreous has failed to vigorously support U.S. interests in Greece.
Congo (Zaire) — A CIA-backed military coup installs Mobutu Sese Seko as dictator. The hated and repressive Mobutu exploits his desperately poor country for billions.
1966
The Ramparts Affair — The radical magazine Ramparts begins a series of unprecedented anti-CIA articles. Among their scoops: the CIA has paid the University of Michigan $25 million dollars to hire “professors” to train South Vietnamese students in covert police methods. MIT and other universities have received similar payments. Ramparts also reveals that the National Students’ Association is a CIA front. Students are sometimes recruited through blackmail and bribery, including draft deferments.
1967
Greece — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government two days before the elections. The favorite to win was George Papandreous, the liberal candidate. During the next six years, the “reign of the colonels” — backed by the CIA — will usher in the widespread use of torture and murder against political opponents. When a Greek ambassador objects to President Johnson about U.S. plans for Cypress, Johnson tells him: “Fuck your parliament and your constitution.”
Operation PHEONIX — The CIA helps South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in South Vietnamese villages. According to a 1971 congressional report, this operation killed about 20,000 “Viet Cong.”
1968
Operation CHAOS — The CIA has been illegally spying on American citizens since 1959, but with Operation CHAOS, President Johnson dramatically boosts the effort. CIA agents go undercover as student radicals to spy on and disrupt campus organizations protesting the Vietnam War. They are searching for Russian instigators, which they never find. CHAOS will eventually spy on 7,000 individuals and 1,000 organizations.
Bolivia — A CIA-organized military operation captures legendary guerilla Che Guevara. The CIA wants to keep him alive for interrogation, but the Bolivian government executes him to prevent worldwide calls for clemency.
1969
Uruguay — The notorious CIA torturer Dan Mitrione arrives in Uruguay, a country torn with political strife. Whereas right-wing forces previously used torture only as a last resort, Mitrione convinces them to use it as a routine, widespread practice. “The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect,” is his motto. The torture techniques he teaches to the death squads rival the Nazis’. He eventually becomes so feared that revolutionaries will kidnap and murder him a year later.
1970
Cambodia — The CIA overthrows Prince Sahounek, who is highly popular among Cambodians for keeping them out of the Vietnam War. He is replaced by CIA puppet Lon Nol, who immediately throws Cambodian troops into battle. This unpopular move strengthens once minor opposition parties like the Khmer Rouge, which achieves power in 1975 and massacres millions of its own people.
1971
Bolivia — After half a decade of CIA-inspired political turmoil, a CIA-backed military coup overthrows the leftist President Juan Torres. In the next two years, dictator Hugo Banzer will have over 2,000 political opponents arrested without trial, then tortured, raped and executed.
Haiti — “Papa Doc” Duvalier dies, leaving his 19-year old son “Baby Doc” Duvalier the dictator of Haiti. His son continues his bloody reign with full knowledge of the CIA.
1972
The Case-Zablocki Act — Congress passes an act requiring congressional review of executive agreements. In theory, this should make CIA operations more accountable. In fact, it is only marginally effective.
Cambodia — Congress votes to cut off CIA funds for its secret war in Cambodia.
Wagergate Break-in — President Nixon sends in a team of burglars to wiretap Democratic offices at Watergate. The team members have extensive CIA histories, including James McCord, E. Howard Hunt and five of the Cuban burglars. They work for the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), which does dirty work like disrupting Democratic campaigns and laundering Nixon’s illegal campaign contributions. CREEP’s activities are funded and organized by another CIA front, the Mullen Company.
1973
Chile — The CIA overthrows and assassinates Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first democratically elected socialist leader. The problems begin when Allende nationalizes American-owned firms in Chile. ITT offers the CIA $1 million for a coup (reportedly refused). The CIA replaces Allende with General Augusto Pinochet, who will torture and murder thousands of his own countrymen in a crackdown on labor leaders and the political left.
CIA begins internal investigations — William Colby, the Deputy Director for Operations, orders all CIA personnel to report any and all illegal activities they know about. This information is later reported to Congress.
Watergate Scandal — The CIA’s main collaborating newspaper in America, The Washington Post, reports Nixon’s crimes long before any other newspaper takes up the subject. The two reporters, Woodward and Bernstein, make almost no mention of the CIA’s many fingerprints all over the scandal. It is later revealed that Woodward was a Naval intelligence briefer to the White House, and knows many important intelligence figures, including General Alexander Haig. His main source, “Deep Throat,” is probably one of those.
CIA Director Helms Fired — President Nixon fires CIA Director Richard Helms for failing to help cover up the Watergate scandal. Helms and Nixon have always disliked each other. The new CIA director is William Colby, who is relatively more open to CIA reform.
1974
CHAOS exposed — Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh publishes a story about Operation CHAOS, the domestic surveillance and infiltration of anti-war and civil rights groups in the U.S. The story sparks national outrage.
Angleton fired — Congress holds hearings on the illegal domestic spying efforts of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s chief of counterintelligence. His efforts included mail-opening campaigns and secret surveillance of war protesters. The hearings result in his dismissal from the CIA.
House clears CIA in Watergate — The House of Representatives clears the CIA of any complicity in Nixon’s Watergate break-in.
The Hughes Ryan Act — Congress passes an amendment requiring the president to report nonintelligence CIA operations to the relevant congressional committees in a timely fashion.
1975
Australia — The CIA helps topple the democratically elected, left-leaning government of Prime Minister Edward Whitlam. The CIA does this by giving an ultimatum to its Governor-General, John Kerr. Kerr, a longtime CIA collaborator, exercises his constitutional right to dissolve the Whitlam government. The Governor-General is a largely ceremonial position appointed by the Queen; the Prime Minister is democratically elected. The use of this archaic and never-used law stuns the nation.
Angola — Eager to demonstrate American military resolve after its defeat in Vietnam, Henry Kissinger launches a CIA-backed war in Angola. Contrary to Kissinger’s assertions, Angola is a country of little strategic importance and not seriously threatened by communism. The CIA backs the brutal leader of UNITAS, Jonas Savimbi. This polarizes Angolan politics and drives his opponents into the arms of Cuba and the Soviet Union for survival. Congress will cut off funds in 1976, but the CIA is able to run the war off the books until 1984, when funding is legalized again. This entirely pointless war kills over 300,000 Angolans.
“The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence” — Victor Marchetti and John Marks publish this whistle-blowing history of CIA crimes and abuses. Marchetti has spent 14 years in the CIA, eventually becoming an executive assistant to the Deputy Director of Intelligence. Marks has spent five years as an intelligence official in the State Department.
“Inside the Company” — Philip Agee publishes a diary of his life inside the CIA. Agee has worked in covert operations in Latin America during the 60s, and details the crimes in which he took part.
Congress investigates CIA wrong-doing — Public outrage compels Congress to hold hearings on CIA crimes. Senator Frank Church heads the Senate investigation (“The Church Committee”), and Representative Otis Pike heads the House investigation. (Despite a 98 percent incumbency reelection rate, both Church and Pike are defeated in the next elections.) The investigations lead to a number of reforms intended to increase the CIA’s accountability to Congress, including the creation of a standing Senate committee on intelligence. However, the reforms prove ineffective, as the Iran/Contra scandal will show. It turns out the CIA can control, deal with or sidestep Congress with ease.
The Rockefeller Commission — In an attempt to reduce the damage done by the Church Committee, President Ford creates the “Rockefeller Commission” to whitewash CIA history and propose toothless reforms. The commission’s namesake, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, is himself a major CIA figure. Five of the commission’s eight members are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations, a CIA-dominated organization.
1979
Iran — The CIA fails to predict the fall of the Shah of Iran, a longtime CIA puppet, and the rise of Muslim fundamentalists who are furious at the CIA’s backing of SAVAK, the Shah’s bloodthirsty secret police. In revenge, the Muslims take 52 Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
Afghanistan — The Soviets invade Afghanistan. The CIA immediately begins supplying arms to any faction willing to fight the occupying Soviets. Such indiscriminate arming means that when the Soviets leave Afghanistan, civil war will erupt. Also, fanatical Muslim extremists now possess state-of-the-art weaponry. One of these is Sheik Abdel Rahman, who will become involved in the World Trade Center bombing in New York.
El Salvador — An idealistic group of young military officers, repulsed by the massacre of the poor, overthrows the right-wing government. However, the U.S. compels the inexperienced officers to include many of the old guard in key positions in their new government. Soon, things are back to “normal” — the military government is repressing and killing poor civilian protesters. Many of the young military and civilian reformers, finding themselves powerless, resign in disgust.
Nicaragua — Anastasios Samoza II, the CIA-backed dictator, falls. The Marxist Sandinistas take over government, and they are initially popular because of their commitment to land and anti-poverty reform. Samoza had a murderous and hated personal army called the National Guard. Remnants of the Guard will become the Contras, who fight a CIA-backed guerilla war against the Sandinista government throughout the 1980s.
1980
El Salvador — The Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, pleads with President Carter “Christian to Christian” to stop aiding the military government slaughtering his people. Carter refuses. Shortly afterwards, right-wing leader Roberto D’Aubuisson has Romero shot through the heart while saying Mass. The country soon dissolves into civil war, with the peasants in the hills fighting against the military government. The CIA and U.S. Armed Forces supply the government with overwhelming military and intelligence superiority. CIA-trained death squads roam the countryside, committing atrocities like that of El Mazote in 1982, where they massacre between 700 and 1000 men, women and children. By 1992, some 63,000 Salvadorans will be killed.
1981
Iran/Contra Begins — The CIA begins selling arms to Iran at high prices, using the profits to arm the Contras fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. President Reagan vows that the Sandinistas will be “pressured” until “they say ‘uncle.’” The CIA’s Freedom Fighter’s Manual disbursed to the Contras includes instruction on economic sabotage, propaganda, extortion, bribery, blackmail, interrogation, torture, murder and political assassination.
1983
Honduras — The CIA gives Honduran military officers the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual – 1983, which teaches how to torture people. Honduras’ notorious “Battalion 316″ then uses these techniques, with the CIA’s full knowledge, on thousands of leftist dissidents. At least 184 are murdered.
1984
The Boland Amendment — The last of a series of Boland Amendments is passed. These amendments have reduced CIA aid to the Contras; the last one cuts it off completely. However, CIA Director William Casey is already prepared to “hand off” the operation to Colonel Oliver North, who illegally continues supplying the Contras through the CIA’s informal, secret, and self-financing network. This includes “humanitarian aid” donated by Adolph Coors and William Simon, and military aid funded by Iranian arms sales.
1986
Eugene Hasenfus — Nicaragua shoots down a C-123 transport plane carrying military supplies to the Contras. The lone survivor, Eugene Hasenfus, turns out to be a CIA employee, as are the two dead pilots. The airplane belongs to Southern Air Transport, a CIA front. The incident makes a mockery of President Reagan’s claims that the CIA is not illegally arming the Contras.
Iran/Contra Scandal — Although the details have long been known, the Iran/Contra scandal finally captures the media’s attention in 1986. Congress holds hearings, and several key figures (like Oliver North) lie under oath to protect the intelligence community. CIA Director William Casey dies of brain cancer before Congress can question him. All reforms enacted by Congress after the scandal are purely cosmetic.
Haiti — Rising popular revolt in Haiti means that “Baby Doc” Duvalier will remain “President for Life” only if he has a short one. The U.S., which hates instability in a puppet country, flies the despotic Duvalier to the South of France for a comfortable retirement. The CIA then rigs the upcoming elections in favor of another right-wing military strongman. However, violence keeps the country in political turmoil for another four years. The CIA tries to strengthen the military by creating the National Intelligence Service (SIN), which suppresses popular revolt through torture and assassination.
1989
Panama — The U.S. invades Panama to overthrow a dictator of its own making, General Manuel Noriega. Noriega has been on the CIA’s payroll since 1966, and has been transporting drugs with the CIA’s knowledge since 1972. By the late 80s, Noriega’s growing independence and intransigence have angered Washington… so out he goes.
1990
Haiti — Competing against 10 comparatively wealthy candidates, leftist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide captures 68 percent of the vote. After only eight months in power, however, the CIA-backed military deposes him. More military dictators brutalize the country, as thousands of Haitian refugees escape the turmoil in barely seaworthy boats. As popular opinion calls for Aristide’s return, the CIA begins a disinformation campaign painting the courageous priest as mentally unstable.
1991
The Gulf War — The U.S. liberates Kuwait from Iraq. But Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, is another creature of the CIA. With U.S. encouragement, Hussein invaded Iran in 1980. During this costly eight-year war, the CIA built up Hussein’s forces with sophisticated arms, intelligence, training and financial backing. This cemented Hussein’s power at home, allowing him to crush the many internal rebellions that erupted from time to time, sometimes with poison gas. It also gave him all the military might he needed to conduct further adventurism — in Kuwait, for example.
The Fall of the Soviet Union — The CIA fails to predict this most important event of the Cold War. This suggests that it has been so busy undermining governments that it hasn’t been doing its primary job: gathering and analyzing information. The fall of the Soviet Union also robs the CIA of its reason for existence: fighting communism. This leads some to accuse the CIA of intentionally failing to predict the downfall of the Soviet Union. Curiously, the intelligence community’s budget is not significantly reduced after the demise of communism.
1992
Economic Espionage — In the years following the end of the Cold War, the CIA is increasingly used for economic espionage. This involves stealing the technological secrets of competing foreign companies and giving them to American ones. Given the CIA’s clear preference for dirty tricks over mere information gathering, the possibility of serious criminal behavior is very great indeed.
1993
Haiti — The chaos in Haiti grows so bad that President Clinton has no choice but to remove the Haitian military dictator, Raoul Cedras, on threat of U.S. invasion. The U.S. occupiers do not arrest Haiti’s military leaders for crimes against humanity, but instead ensure their safety and rich retirements. Aristide is returned to power only after being forced to accept an agenda favorable to the country’s ruling class.
EPILOGUE
In a speech before the CIA celebrating its 50th anniversary, President Clinton said: “By necessity, the American people will never know the full story of your courage.”
Clinton’s is a common defense of the CIA: namely, the American people should stop criticizing the CIA because they don’t know what it really does. This, of course, is the heart of the problem in the first place. An agency that is above criticism is also above moral behavior and reform. Its secrecy and lack of accountability allows its corruption to grow unchecked.
Furthermore, Clinton’s statement is simply untrue. The history of the agency is growing painfully clear, especially with the declassification of historical CIA documents. We may not know the details of specific operations, but we do know, quite well, the general behavior of the CIA. These facts began emerging nearly two decades ago at an ever-quickening pace. Today we have a remarkably accurate and consistent picture, repeated in country after country, and verified from countless different directions.
The CIA’s response to this growing knowledge and criticism follows a typical historical pattern. (Indeed, there are remarkable parallels to the Medieval Church’s fight against the Scientific Revolution.) The first journalists and writers to reveal the CIA’s criminal behavior were harassed and censored if they were American writers, and tortured and murdered if they were foreigners. (See Philip Agee’s On the Run for an example of early harassment.) However, over the last two decades the tide of evidence has become overwhelming, and the CIA has found that it does not have enough fingers to plug every hole in the dike. This is especially true in the age of the Internet, where information flows freely among millions of people. Since censorship is impossible, the Agency must now defend itself with apologetics. Clinton’s “Americans will never know” defense is a prime example.
Another common apologetic is that “the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all.” There are two things wrong with this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly spurned alliances with defenders of democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the company of military dictators and tyrants. The CIA had moral options available to them, but did not take them.
Second, this argument begs several questions. The first is: “Which American interests?” The CIA has courted right-wing dictators because they allow wealthy Americans to exploit the country’s cheap labor and resources. But poor and middle-class Americans pay the price whenever they fight the wars that stem from CIA actions, from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Panama. The second begged question is: “Why should American interests come at the expense of other peoples’ human rights?”
The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for crimes against humanity. Our intelligence community should be rebuilt from the ground up, with the goal of collecting and analyzing information. As for covert action, there are two moral options. The first one is to eliminate covert action completely. But this gives jitters to people worried about the Adolf Hitlers of the world. So a second option is that we can place covert action under extensive and true democratic oversight. For example, a bipartisan Congressional Committee of 40 members could review and veto all aspects of CIA operations upon a majority or super-majority vote. Which of these two options is best may be the subject of debate, but one thing is clear: like dictatorship, like monarchy, unaccountable covert operations should die like the dinosaurs they are.

Obamacare Prompts Insurers to Drop Hundreds of Thousands From Coverage

nazi  pol~up~her~ass~o~low~c  aka "we gotta pass this Bill ..so we can read it "

me ?

Pelosi: "We Have to Pass the Bill So That You Can Find Out What Is In It"           & all America ..just sat there like dim~wits  ....now hows that ass ..feel ..America  ?   huh

Obamacare Prompts Insurers to Drop Hundreds of Thousands From Coverage

By Kate Randall

Global Research, October 28, 2013

World Socialist Web Site

Region: USA

Nearly a month after its rollout, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) web site is still plagued by massive technical problems. Despite the government’s initiation of a “tech surge” to resolve the situation at HealthCare.gov, the Obama administration has indicated the problems will not be resolved until the end of November.
As the fallout continues over the disastrous launch of the web site, the White House has yet to release figures on how many people have actually been able to access the site, register and enroll for coverage.
In recent days, it has come to light that the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, is provoking another health insurance crisis. Private insurers are sending hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who presently buy their own coverage and substantially raising the cost of premiums for new policies. Many of these people are being forced onto the federal insurance exchange at HealthCare.gov.
Under the legislation signed into law in 2010, individuals and families that are not insured through their employer or through a government program such as Medicaid or Medicare must obtain insurance or pay a penalty. Beginning January 1, 2014, the ACA also requires policies sold on the so-called “individual market” after March 2010 to cover ten “essential” benefits, such as preventive care, prescription drugs, mental health treatment, and maternity care.
The main reason insurers are canceling their coverage is because the plans do not meet these ACA standards. By forcing some of these more healthy self-insured people onto the insurance exchanges set up under Obamacare, the government and private insurers hope that the lower cost of covering them will offset the cost of providing insurance to those with preexisting conditions and other less-healthy individuals.
The Obama administration’s oft-repeated pledge that “if you like your plan, you can keep it,” is being exposed as a fraud for hundreds of thousands of the estimated 14 million Americans who purchase their own insurance because they don’t receive it through their job. These people are finding out that new coverage through their present insurer will be much more expensive, and that in most cases insurance offered through the insurance exchanges set up under Obamacare will either have more costly premiums or will include large out-of-pocket costs, while limiting choices. Many of these people will not be eligible for subsidies through Obamacare.
Insurance companies began sending out cancellation notices in August.Kaiser Health News reports that insurer Florida Blue is terminating about 300,000 individual policies in the state, about 80 percent of the total. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent termination notices to some 160,000 people, about half of its individual market business.
Blue Shield of California has sent out about 119,000 cancellation notices. Blue Shield spokesman Steve Shivinsky reports that about two thirds of these policyholders will see rate increases in their new policies.
In Pennsylvania, insurer Highmark is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers in Pittsburgh, while Independence Blue Cross, the major Philadelphia insurer, is dropping about 45 percent. According toKaiser Health News, both Independence and Highmark are canceling “guaranteed issue” policies sold to customers who had preexisting medical conditions when they signed up for coverage. While the ACA is supposed to guarantee that people with preexisting conditions cannot be denied coverage or be charged more for it, it appears that some insurers are doing precisely that.
Kaiser reports the case of Kris Malean, 56, who lives outside Seattle, Washington and received a cancellation notice from her insurer, Regence BlueShield. Her present policy costs $390 a month with a $2,500 deductible and $10,000 in potential out-of-pocket costs for doctor visits, prescriptions, hospital care and other services. As a replacement, Regence BlueShield is offering her a plan costing $79 more a month, with a deductible twice as large, but which limits potential out-of-pocket costs to $6,250 a year.
Los Angeles real estate agent Deborah Cavallaro received a cancellation notice from Anthem Blue Cross this month, the Los Angeles Times reports. Her insurer told her that a comparable Bronze plan on the federal insurance exchange would cost $484 a month, or about 65 percent more than her present policy. Cavallaro says she will most likely go uninsured because she cannot afford the increase.
Obama also promised that the ACA would mean reduced premiums and would “cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.” Many of those who opt to stay with their current individual plans, however, are seeing big premium hikes. Debra J. Sauders reports on her blog at the San Francisco Chronicle on a local architect who received a notice from Kaiser Permanente that his individual coverage will increase by $199.95 a month, or almost 80 percent. When coverage for his two sons is factored in, the increase is even greater.
In a related development, a CBS News analysis found that in many of the 15 health exchanges operated by the states, as opposed to the federal government, more people are enrolling in Medicaid than buying private insurance. If younger, healthier people do not sign up in sufficient numbers, insurers are certain to hike premiums to offset the cost of insuring older, less healthy enrollees.
The main driver of the policy cancellations and rate increases is that while Obamacare requires that individual insurers offer a certain level of coverage, and that customers cannot be discriminated against due to preexisting medical conditions, there is no meaningful oversight on what the private insurers can charge for their policies.
While the government-run Medicare program for the elderly and disabled and the Medicaid program for the poor—the latter jointly administered by the federal government and the states—involved a certain encroachment on the private insurance market, the Affordable Care Act is the opposite. From the beginning, it has been entirely tailored to the interests of the private insurers and aimed at slashing costs for the government and corporations while reducing care for the majority of ordinary Americans.
The price hikes by insurers in the individual insurance market, as well as the “sticker shock” many are experiencing on HealthCare.gov if they are actually able to log in, are the inevitable result of a program that proceeds from the interests of the giant insurers, pharmaceuticals and health care chains. Insurance companies will respond to any infringement on their profits connected to provisions of the ACA by either dumping customers or raising their premiums.

A Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: The Secret Origins of the Patriot Movement Part II

A Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: The Secret Origins of the Patriot Movement Part II

Welcome to the second installment in my examination of the origins of the so-called Patriot movement, a phrase often applied to tax protestors, sovereign citizens, militia types and fringe Christian sects driven by a conspiratorial (and frequently apocalyptic) world view. It is the contention of this series, and future sequels that will follow it, that this movement was hardly some type of grassroots, anti-Establishment challenge to The Power That Be, but was in fact a PSYOP and terror campaign that had its origins in a World War I-era industrial security network developed by the FBI and military intelligence.

While officially disbanded in the wake of WWI both the military and the FBI would encourage the network's architect, General Ralph Van Deman, to revive it in a private capacity by the end of the 1920s via financial support. Over time General Van Deman put together a nation-spanning intelligence network that combined reports provided by the military and FBI; corporate security departments, private detective firms, and the American Legion; and most likely superpatriot groups such as the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies and Church League of America.

Van Deman

This network became especially important in the wake of WWII when the Cold War began to heat up. The American Security Council (ASC), which brought together various individuals and groups affiliated with Van Deman's work, seemingly became the nexus for this network. Superficially the ASC was dominated by "former" FBI men, but it also featured ample amounts of "former" military and CIA personnel in addition to more arcane groups. I chronicled the rise of the ASC, superficially billed as a "think tank," here, here, here and here.

The ASC included members and groups who would become deeply involved with the modern day Patriot movement, as did the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). The WACL is another self-described "think tank," though more international in nature. It brought together various far right groups from across the globe, more than a few of them with ties to "former" Nazis and their collaborators as well as their Imperial Japan counterparts. Indeed, it would effectively become the major international front for fascism in the second half of the twentieth century.

Beyond this, the WACL would also become one of the largest drug cartels in the world by the 1960s, if not sooner. It would remain as such well into the 1980s, with various member organizations likely continuing in this capacity for years after the WACL's heyday was long past.

The WACL also established its own intelligence network that would offer military and financial assistance to various far right regimes the world over. By the 1970s, with the emergence of Operation Condor (an assassination and terror program supposedly started by the Chilean DINA, but which included participants from Italian neo-fascists, anti-Castro Cubans, and other groups associated with the WACL), it would seem that the WACL had gone even beyond this and had become actively engaged in the so-called "Dirty Wars" that would ravage Latin American for decades to come. During the 1980s the WACL network would play a major role in the Reagan regime's "private aid" network that helped destabilize Central America and lent a hand in Afghanistan and southern Africa as well. All of this was documented extensively in my examination of the WACL, which can be found here, here, here and here.

the ASC and the WACL comprised two key pieces of Ronnie's Mighty Ray Gun

The modern day Patriot movement had very close ties to both the ASC and the WACL as well as the US intelligence community, ties that will be expanded upon throughout this series. In the first installment I addressed several of the major figures who influenced the movement's ideology (especially its obsession with some type of communist conspiracy) as well as dispelling several common myths about the movement (i.e., it's common claims of poverty and legal harassment). At the end of the installment I began to trace the Patriot movement's origins in earnest, which I shall now expand upon.

While the Patriot movement has come to encompass a wide range or groups and personages, the bulk of its ideology can effectively be traced to three major sources: the John Birch Society, the Liberty Lobby, and the Posse Comitatus. These three "organizations" (this is a lose application of the word, especially concerning the Posse) would effectively mold the modern Patriot movement into what it is today. Let us briefly consider the ideological underpinnings of these three strands.

The John Birch Society was easily the most mainstream of these organizations, with the bulk of its efforts geared toward conventional lobbying techniques (i.e., letter writing campaigns) and education. The JBS is effectively responsible for much of the libertarian-oriented wing of the far right – their chief adversary was communism, which they perceived the United States as falling prey to. The JBS raged against everything from trade unions to fluoride in the water. The Federal Reserve system and the graduated income tax were specially sore points, which they saw as evidence behind a communist conspiracy amongst America's elite.

The Liberty Lobby was a little more radical, but not quite to the extent that some of its critics have long charged it as being. Like the JBS, the Liberty Lobby mainly concerned itself with "educating" the public and occasionally trying to field a political candidate even if its ideology was more extreme. While there was much ideological overlap between the John Birch Society and the Liberty Lobby, the Lobby was openly racist (unlike the JBS), with a special obsession with the Jews. They also perceived a communist conspiracy at play, but they viewed it through a prism of race, with the Jews at the center of the conspiracy. Virtually all of the modern day "historical revisionism" concerning the Holocaust derived from this wing.

Finally there is the Posse Comitatus, which was for years the most militant wing of the Patriot movement. The Posse, which was always closely associated with Christian Identity "theology," made some efforts at educating the public, but it was generally interested in action more direct (in terms of legalities as well as violence) than elections. It is from this wing that much of the modern day militia movement as well as the sovereign citizen ideology derives.

For our purposes here we shall start with the Liberty Lobby, as the forces behind the John Birch Society and the Posse Comitatus were more closely related (though all three wing shared a loose affiliation). The alleged architect behind the Liberty Lobby was mysterious Willis Carto.

"Founded in 1958 by Willis Carto, the Liberty Lobby emerged out of a long tradition of explicitly anti-Jewish conspiracy theorizing among a group of white supremacist intellectuals. Little is known about Carto's personal background, but aside from his attraction to esoteric racialist tomes like Francis Parker Yockey's Imperium, Carto was also committed to mass-based organizing. He was an early participant in the Congress of Freedom, which drew racist and grassroots anticommunist activist together for a series of high-profile national conventions. In San Francisco in 1955, Carto organized the Congress of Freedom's conference against U.S. participation in the United Nations.

"That same year, Carto also began publishing a monthly newsletter, Right, which promoted the activities of a wide range of right-wing groups. (Carto, for example, heralded the establishment of William F. Buckley's National Review in 1955; years later, Carto and Buckley would sue each other for libel.) Early issues of Right focused on the potential of small and obscure right-wing parties... Right also reported admiringly on the Citizens Councils. Carto used the newsletter to try to synthesize the thinking of grassroots anticommunist groups with theories of white supremacy. Carto's rhetorical approach was to frame the problems of Soviet 'expansionism' and anti-colonial national liberation movements as racial, not political and economic, in their origins and implications...

"Besides stressing white supremacy, Carto also promoted the conspiratorial analysis of world events. He drew his reader's attention, for example, to the purported role of U.S. elites in the spread of anti-Western, 'communist' subversion."

(The Roads to Dominion, Sara Diamond, pgs. 85-86)

young Willis

Of the Carto/Liberty Lobby world view, Diamond would go on to note that:

"In the 1980s, Liberty Lobbyists would earn reputations as promoters of holocaust revisionism and for the electoral career of Klansman David Duke. During the late 1960s and 1970s, however, the Lobby focused, among other issues, on opposing United States-Soviet consular treaties, school busing to achieve racial integration, and income taxes. As with the Birch Society, the Lobby's agenda was consistent with right-wing support for militarism and traditionally unjust race relations, and opposition to the state's redistribution of wealth and expansion of civil rights."

(ibid, pg. 149)

Due to the Lobby's long-time support of Holocaust revisionism (Carto co-founded the Institute for Historical Review) it still receives praise from leading Jewish conspiracy theorists. Self-described revisionist historian Michael A. Hoffman II recently cited the path Carto helped set him on, noting:

"As a heretic these many years (I was a voracious and reasonably precocious reader as a kid, and 44 years ago, in 1969, I stumbled upon a booklet published by Willis Carto, The Myth of the Six Million -- my career as a thought criminal was launched)..."

Hoffman

This would seem to insinuate that Carto was somehow a subversive figure.While this may have been true to certain elements of the "Establishment," Carto had long-standing ties to individuals affiliated with powerful members of the US intelligence community. One such individual was Roger Pearson.

Pearson, despite his longstanding ties to blatantly racist organizations, would gain a certain degree of respectability by the mid-1970s, years after he had already begun his association with Carto. It was at this point that his ties to powerful establishment figures became evident, most notably via his links to powerful conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Security Council, and the World Anti-Communist League. In point of fact, the British-born Pearson would briefly become the head of the American branch of the WACL in the 1970s when he also served as the organization's chairman.

"Pearson moved to the U.S. in 1965, merging his magazine Northern World with a Willis Carto publication to form Western Destiny, which Pearson edited for a short time. The magazine had over two dozen racialists and anti-Semites on its masthead, including Austin App and C.M. Goethe, honorary president of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies. Pearson published four monographs in 1966 that represent the core of his ideas. One monograph, titled Race and Civilization, was 'based on Professor Hans F. K. Gunther's Racial Elements of European Civilization. Gunther was a top Third Reich racial theoretician and Pearson associate from the Northern League...

"Pearson's monograms are still offered by neo-Nazi booksellers today. The Wall Street Journal quoted Pearson as saying 'I'm not ashamed of anything I've said or written.'

"Pearson moved to Washington in 1975. Within a year his Council on American Affairs was sponsoring seminars and publishing monograms with persons such as Edwin Fuelner, president of the Heritage Foundation; Ray Cline, former C.I.A. deputy director; and others who would later become high officials of the Reagan Administration. His Council also became the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), an international network including fascist, followers of the authoritarian Korean cult-leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and neo-Nazis.

"Pearson became the editor of the American Security Council's Journal of International Relations and served on the board of the ASC's American Foreign Policy Institute. His journal co-editors were James Jesus Angleton, former C.I.A. deputy director for counterintelligence, and Robert C. Richardson III, the retired Air Force general who worked in the Air Force's Politico-Military covert operations branch. At the time he was working with the ASC and Pearson, Richardson was also aiding the Wilson-Terpil operations to Libya, involving secret gunrunning and explosive transfers. He was also active in various ASC-spawned groups, such as the Security and Intelligence Fund and Coalition for Peace Through Strength. The Council of American affairs is also a member of the Coalition for Peace Through Strength.

"Pearson was a member of the editorial board of Policy Review, the monthly Heritage Foundation magazine, during this period. In 1977, Heritage officials reciprocated, joining Pearson's Journal of Social and Economic Studies. When Pearson decided to host the 1978 World Anti-Communist League (WACL) conference in Washington, D.C., he was well established with American and European Nazi networks, as well as the far right of the Republican Party and the New Right. The WACL meeting was not a total success for Pearson, however. The Washington Post warned of 'The Fascist Specter' behind the WACL and highlighted the conference participation of an Italian fascist party, American neo-Nazis, and Pearson's own racialist background. Pearson's name soon disappeared from the Policy Review masthead. However, ASC president John Fisher, who addressed the WACL meeting, did not drop Pearson from the American Foreign Policy Institute board."

(Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, Russ Bellant, pgs. 60-61) 

Pearson is on the left

There's a lot of significant information above. It's interesting to note that Pearson's association with the League seems to have coincided with the organization taking on more militant activities. The notorious Operation Condor, a terror and assassination program usually credited to the Chilean DINA and other intelligence agencies of the Southern Cone region, was likely coordinated in part by the WACL. During Pearson's tenure openly fascist and even violent European groups such as the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) and Ordine Nuovo were gleefully welcomed into the League and possibly conscripted into Condor along with long time allies such as anti-Castro Cubans.

MSI (top) and Ordine Nuovo (bottom) banners 

 Pearson was eventually forced out of the WACL by the end of the 1970s when his open racism became to much of a public relations liability. He was eventually replaced by General John Singlaub. Publically Singlaub brought a kinder, less openly fascistic face to the League but he also took the League's militancy under Pearson to its logical conclusion. Eventually Singlaub would be tapped to head the Reagan Administration's "private aid" network that was so crucial for funding the various "unconventional wars" the regime supported in Central America, Afghanistan and southern Africa. More information on the WACL's involvement with Condor and the "private aid" network can be found here.

General Singlaub

Pearson's ties with the two above-mentioned CIA men, Ray Cline and James Jesus Angleton, are also most significant. Cline was a part of the old OSS "China Cowboy" clique that forged close ties with Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) regime in Taiwan. Chiang was one of the chief architects of the WACL. He was also one of the largest drug lords in the world for decades. Cline was a very close friend of Chiang Ching-Kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son. Cline would assist Chiang in the founding of the Political Warfare Cadres Academy in Taiwan, an institution that trained more than a few Central American death squads in its day.

Cline

Then there's James Jesus Angleton, the man upon whom Matt Damon's character in The Good Shepherd is modeled. Angleton was one of the most powerful figures in the history of the CIA and long suspected of playing a key role in establishing the Agency's ties to drug trafficking (a topic I briefly discussed here). That Pearson would be a co-editor on an ASC publication with such an intelligence super star is indicative of the type of mojo Pearson had behind the scenes. More evidence of this is supplied by the fact that he received a letter from Ronnie Raygun himself that commended Pearson for all of his hard work.

"The letter from President Reagan is a source of pride in Roger Pearson's small office in downtown Washington, D.C.

You are performing a valuable service in bringing to a wide audience the work of leading scholars who are supportive of a free enterprise economy, a firm and consistent foreign policy and a strong national defense.

Your substantial contributions to promoting and upholding those ideals and principles that we value home and abroad are greatly appreciated.

"The letter had been a boon for Pearson, who used it in soliciting donations and subscriptions to his magazine and to show the approval of conservatives, up to and including the president, of his myriad activities...

"In fairness to Reagan, the president was probably not aware of some of Roger Pearson's past activities. Yet when White House officials were told Pearson's background, they neither disavowed nor repudiated the letter. What the president had done was offer his support – and provided a very useful fund-raising tool – to one of the most persistent neo-Nazis in the world."

(Inside the League, Scott & John Lee Anderson, pgs. 92-93)

Apparently the "thought-crime" rabbit hole behind Carto includes presidential endorsements.

And make no mistake about it folks, Pearson and Carto were close associates for years. Indeed, Carto was chiefly responsible for bringing Pearson's ideas to an American audience. Throughout the 1960s Carto was the chief publisher of Pearson's writings in this country. But this is only scratching the tip of this partnership, which has quite murky origins indeed. You see, Carto and Pearson first officially began collaborating in the late 1950s when both were involved with the mysterious Northern League.

"Carto's connections in the segregationist right led him to join a mysterious organization called the Northern League for Pan-Nordic Friendship. Both Earnest Sevier Cox and William Stephenson were also Northern League (NL) members. Cox addressed a Northern League gathering called the Teutoburger Moot in July 1959 in Detmold, Germany; Stevenson left the southern-U.S. branch of the Northern League operate out of The Virginian's office and served as an assistant editor of the Northern League magazine Northern World. (Besides Northern World, the NL also published the Northlander out of its Scottish headquarters. After Carto joined, the League's West Coast headquarters became Right.)

"The Northern League was officially launched in March 1958. A Scotsman named Alastair Harper ran its European wing from League headquarters in Dunfermline, Scotland. The League's founder and Central Organizer was Roger Pearson, an Englishman who at the time of the League's creation was living in Calcutta, India. Pearson and Harper also wrote for Oswald Mosley's high-brow fascist publication The European in the mid-1950s.

"The NL quickly established branches throughout the United States and Europe, including a cell for the Western part of the United States created in 1958 through Right. In 1959, Roger Pearson went on an extensive tour of the United States that included stops in New York, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, and New Orleans. His visit to the States were part of an NL organizing drive that had already taken him to Teheran, Istanbul, Vienna, London, and Scandinavia. A highlight of the American trip was the Alphafest Moot' run by Carto, the NL's San Francisco Alpha Group Organizer. The Moot was a three-day program of talks and seminars, and included an outdoor picnic in California's Redwood country.

"Pearson's biopolitical arguments were reflected in a 1960 essay by Carto ... entitled 'Cultural Dynamics: Why Do Civilizations Decline and What Can Be Done About It?' Carto believed that, although The Decline of the West had accurately chronicled the fall of great civilizations, Spangler had failed to supply a 'why' for the decline. Cultural dynamics argued that the collapse of empires was the result of an influx of alien ideals, religions, and peoples. Its adherents advanced a policy of 'strict anti-imperialism' against the 'disastrous trend towards cosmopolitan formlessness and disintegration of all different cultures, races, and nations.'

"Yet it was the vision of a noble future that most inspired Carto: In an all-italic paragraph, he wrote: 'Is men perhaps a bridge to something finer, greater, handsomer, more noble than ourselves? Yes, the dreams that our genetic and cultural unit – our people – my dream began with Darwin and Nietzsche.' In another italicized sentence, he asserted: 'What assists the process of evolution is good; what assists the process of  devolution is bad.' Carto, who called his mix of 'ethical humanism' and genetic utopia 'Evotism,' concluded his essay: 'I am an Evotist.'

(Dreamer of the Day, Kevin Coogan, pgs. 469-470)

And what is an "Evotist?" Coogan seems to imply that it is a follower of the Italian fascist and occultist Baron Julius Evola, a prospect that should dramatically arch the eyebrows of regular readers of this blog. As was addressed during my examination of the World Anti-Communist League, there is compelling evidence that Baron Evola was one of the major figures in the post-WWII fascist underground. The Baron had been an asset of the SD, the chief intelligence arm of the SS, throughout the war and seems to have been deeply involved in setting up an underground for the Nazi regime once it was evident that the war was lost.

"... Well before the end of World War II, the intelligence and financial networks of the Third Reich were hard at work preparing underground networks to survive the coming Allied occupation. Escape lines to South America and the Middle East were organized. Bank accounts were created in Switzerland and other neutral nations to finance the underground with plunder the Nazis had looted from occupied Europe. But how was this secret empire to be managed, except by a virtually invisible 'government in exile'?

"For years Evola had been fascinated by knightly orders as expressions of the Kshatriya caste of warrior aristocrats. In the former structure of the SS, he saw the precursor to a new Ordenstaat, a State ruled by an Order. He also understood the great advantages provided by medieval orders of chivalry due to their transnational composition. Proceeding orders, like the Knights Templar and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, were pan-European, the separate national sections... unified through a Council, presided over by a Grand Master. After the collapse of fascist state power, a new Order, an 'invisible college' of sorts, was needed not only to manipulate bank accounts and travel schedules, but to have policymaking functions. Nor could it simply be run under the auspices of the Vatican, since Evola believed that Rome's downfall had been caused by the acceptance of Christianity by the dominant faction of the Roman elite. The Emperor Constantine's official embrace of the 'gentle Nazarene' in 313 A.D. had accumulated, a hundred years later, in Alaric's sack of Rome. With the American chewing-gum imperials threatening in the West, and the new Hun sweeping in from the East, was the situation in 1945 really so different? The Order was a vessel for those 'Hermetic' elements of the Conservative Revolution, old ruling class, and new Nazi elite not entirely beholden to the political, cultural, and religious 'Guelf' wing of the European aristocracy, which remained ideologically loyal to the continued propagation of the ruling Christian mythology.

"This account of the origins of the Order is obviously speculative, and I advance it is hypothesis, not fact. Yet if I'm correct the SD really did have a need for Evola's unique talents. With his extensive knowledge of matters esoteric and occult; his fascination with secret societies and knightly Orders; his Waffen SS transnationalism; his ties to some of the highest figures in fascism, Nazism, and movements like the Iron Guard; and his loyal service to the SD, Baron Evola was a perfect candidate to help theorize a new underground Order. As the SD's equivalent of Albert Pike, the former Confederate Army general who designed the rituals for the Scottish Rite Masons in the late 1800s, Evola's task was to help create the inner organizational and ritual structure for the Grand Masters of a secret Shamballah whose financial nerve center was carefully hidden away in Swiss bank accounts."

"With the war rapidly coming to an end, however, the Order lacked the time to implement its plans. With support from the top RSHA leadership, a deception game was begun with both Allied intelligence and the Catholic Church. Utilizing Wall Street and Vatican fears of communism, some of Himmler's top cronies, like SS General Karl Wolff, became Damascus-road converts to a 'kinder, gentler' SS eager to establish friendly relations with both the Americans and the Holy See."

(ibid, pgs. 320-321)

Baron Evola

Coogan believed that the Northern League was a part of this "Order."

"The Northern League, then, appears to have been an activist branch of a pan-Europeanist faction inside the Fascist International...

"...  a full evaluation of the Northern League remains incomplete. What does seem clear is that in the mid-1950s a powerful axis developed inside the far right around the Northern League, the IAAEE, and publications like Right, The Virginian, True Seeker, Northern World, The Northlander and Mankind Quarterly. This network advocated a new biopolitical line in both crude (Carto's 'I am an Evotist) and sophisticated (A. James Gregor) arguments that challenged volkish race theory."

(ibid, pgs. 484-485)

Mankind Quarterly, one of the fine publications put out by Pearson's circle

IAAEE stands for the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics, a lovely organization of which more will be said in the next installment. For the time being, let us consider another compelling link between Carto and the fascist underground, namely one of his chief financial sources.

At some point in the late 1980s Carto had come into control of a large sum of money inherited from the mysterious figure of Jean Farrel, a wealthy American widow who held Columbian citizenship and had lived out her final years in Switzerland. This money was supposed to go into the coffers of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR, which would later be merged with Legion of the Survival of Freedom) but instead Carto had put it into an account held by a corporation named Vibet, Inc. Eventually there was a coup within the Legion-IHR which pitted Carto against his former underlinings in court for control of the Farrel funds. During the trial, which unfolded in the mid-1990s, some very interesting things came out about who Carto had been associated with.

"The legion's difficulties had been compounded, apparently, because of the ingenuity of Henri Fischer named as a defendant, along with Vibet. Fischer's reputation for international intrigue and double-dealing far exceeded any of Carto's own. Apparently born of French parents and raised in French Indochina, Fischer lived alternatively in  Australia in California in the 1960s and 1970s. He also traveled internationally, including to destinations in the Arab Middle East and North Korea, and was rumored to be connected to one intelligence agency or the other, most probably the Central Intelligence Agency. According to Australian press reports, during the 1960s Fischer was part of an ultraright clique in the country's Liberal Party and published in internationally distributed anti-Semitic journal. The Australian Labor Party apparently deputized him in 1975 as its bagman in a deal with Iraq's Baahist Party. Laden with postelection debt, the Liberal Party arranged for a five-hundred-thousand-dollar 'contribution' from Iraq to be picked up in Japan by Fischer and brought Australia. Fischer apparently did travel to Japan with two Iraqi officials and received five hundred thousand U.S. dollars, but he never deliver the money to the Labor Party. Instead, he absconded with the funds, losing a pair of 'bodyguards' at a Singapore hotel in the process. His ex-wife contended several years later that he used the money to buy home in San Diego County, where he subsequently settled.

"Fischer's home was actually a five-acre estate in Escondido, complete with a full guesthouse and tennis court, surrounded by chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Willis and Elizabeth Carto were rumored to have lived on this estate for more than two years, at the same time as a man named Michael Brown, who had once been a bodyguard for George Lincoln Rockwell, the American Nazi party fuhrer assassinated by one of his own men in 1967. When the Cartos needed their own home, they acquired a multi-acre estate of their own, also in Escondido. And when Carto needed assistance securing and then disposing of the Farrel funds, according to the legion's lawsuit, he turned to Fischer, who then helped set up Vibet, Inc., and made other arrangements for a tidy sum of two or three hundred thousand dollars. On the witness stand, Carto could not remember how much his friend had been paid...

"Webb's attorney questioned Carto about the expenses incurred in securing the Farrel legacy. Lawyers had to be highered, and a host of details handled in Switzerland. A huge sum, eight hundred thousand dollars, was paid to a man Carto described as an 'expeditor,' Mr. Francois Genoud. The legion's attorney began spelling the name for the record. 'I don't believe I gave the name,' Carto interrupted, but the attorney continued. Despite prodding from both attorney and judge, Carto didn't want to discuss Genoud in open court, but was forced to.

Attorney: Now Mr. Genoud was a well-connected man?

Carto: Yes

Attorney: And he's a well-respected banker, or was when he was alive?

Carto: Yes

Attorney: Why did you choose Mr. Genoud to be your expeditor, sir?

"Carto's attorney objected to the question, but the judge overruled.

Carto: Because in knowing him and discussing things with him and... and because he was available, I felt that he would be effective in performing the personal contact that he was capable of.

Attorney: Mr. Genoud was a personal friend of Adolf Hitler, correct?

"Francois Genoud was more than an aging, well-connected Swiss banker who once knew Adolf Hitler. In the immediate post-World War II period, Genoud helped finance the escape of Nazi war criminals from Europe, acquired the literary copyrights of Hitler and two of his most significant adjuncts – Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels – and used a Swiss banking fortune to underwrite the nexus of wartime Nazis with a sector of postwar Arab nationalists. Most famously, he also helped the hijacking of a Lufthansa airplane in 1972, engineering the ransom demand by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Genoud's continued devotion to Hitlerian causes was when all known to journalists and Nazi hunters. But his direct link to Willis Carto had never been made public before it became part of the transcript in California."

(Blood and Politics, Leonard Zeskind, pgs. 443-445) 

Henri Fischer

Genoud also seems to have had ties to SS men such as General Karl Wolff that have been linked to Evola's "Order."

"Genoud, too, was in the thick of things, having established a friendship with SS General Karl Wolff, leader of the German team in Italy that negotiated Operation Sunrise with Dulles. Shortly after the war, Genoud acquired the publishing rights to the works of Adolf Hitler, Martin Bormann, and Joseph Goebbels. He also played a major, if murky, role in aiding fugitive Nazi war criminals. Another key player in the postwar Nazi underground resident in Switzerland was SD Colonel Eugen Dollmann, General Wolff's chief lieutenant in the talks with Dulles. Besides Wolff, Dollmann and Genoud had another friend in common: Haj Amin el-Hussien, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Genoud first met the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem in 1936, and again in Berlin during the war. Dollmann also maintained links to the Grand Mufti."

(Dreamer of the Day, Kevin Coogan, pg. 585)

Genoud

As noted above, Carto was also an early advocate of Francis Parker Yockey, an American-born fascist obsessed with pan-Europeanism. Yockey died via a cyanide capsule in 1960 while in police custody. Yockey, whose magnum opus Imperium Carto was chiefly responsible for promoting in the United States, is an infinitely fascinating figure whose strange tale is far beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say, however, researcher Coogan also believed that Saint Francis was involved with the Evola network. Between Yockey, Pearson and Genoud, it would seem that Carto was well connected to it himself.

But as incredible as it may seem, this underground Nazi network may not even have been the most vile association Carto kept. In the next installment of this series we shall consider this association before moving along to the Bircher and Posse Comitatus wings of the Patriot movement. Stay tuned.

Posted by Recluse at http://visupview.blogspot.com/