The Americans do not only spy on governments, authorities and private
individuals across the world with the help of their secret services;
they also understand how to push forward the global interests of their
companies with full force. An impressive example of this is the
agriculture giant Monsanto, the leading manufacturer of genetically
modified seeds in the world. A glimpse into the world of Monsanto shows
that companies which delivered the pesticide ‘Agent Orange’ to the US
military in the Vietnam war had close connections with the central power
in Washington, with tough people from the field of the US secret
services and with private security companies.
Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung
By MARIANNE FALCK, HANS LEYENDECKER AND SILVIA LIEBRICH
Translated by New Europe Translations for Sustainable Pulse (Original in German)
“Imagine the internet as a weapon”
In the global fight against genetic engineering, the US group
draws on dubious methods, strange helpers – and the power of Washington.
Critics of the group feel they are being spied upon.
The US group Monsanto is a giant in the agriculture business: and
number one in the controversial field of plant genetic engineering. For
its opponents, many of whom live in Europe, Monsanto is a sinister
enemy. Time and again mysterious things happen, which make the enemy
seem yet more sinister.
In the previous month, the European environmental organisation
‘Friends of the Earth’ and the German Environmental and Nature
Protection Association (BUND) wanted to present a study on the pesticide
glyphosate in the human body. Weed killers containing glyphosate are
the big seller for Monsanto. The company aims for more than two billion
dollars turnover for the Roundup product alone. ‘Roundup herbicide’ has
a “long history of safe use in more than 100 countries”, Monsanto
emphasises.
As viruses attack their computers, the eco-activists ask themselves: “could we be seeing ghosts?”
However, there are studies which show that the product may damage
plants and animals and the latest study shows that many large city
inhabitants now have the field poison in their bodies, without knowing
it. Exactly what the spray can trigger in an organism is, as with so
many things in this field, disputed.
Two days before the study across 18 countries was set to be
published, a virus disabled the computer of the main organiser, Adrian
Bepp. There was a threat that press conferences in Vienna, Brussels and
Berlin would be cancelled. “We panicked”, remembers Heike Moldenhauer
from BUND. The environmental activists were under extreme time pressure.
Moldenhauer and her colleagues have widely speculated about the
motives and identity of the mysterious attacker. The genetic
engineering expert at BUND believes the unknown virus suppliers wanted
in particular to “generate confusion”. Nothing is worse for a study
than a cancelled press conference: “we did ask ourselves at the time if
we were seeing ghosts”, said Moldenhauer.
There is no evidence that Monsanto was the ghost or had anything to
do with the virus. The company does not do things like that. It takes
pride in operating “responsibly”: “Today, it is very easy to make and
spread all kinds of allegations,” Monsanto claims. They say that “over
and over there are also dubious and popular allegations spread, which
disparage our work and products and are in no way based on science.”
Critics of the group see things differently. This is due to the wide
network Monsanto has developed across the world. There are ties with the
US secret services, the US military, with very hard operating private
security companies and of course, with the US government.
A conspicuously large number of Monsanto critics report regular
attacks by professional hackers. The secret services and military also
like to employ hackers and programmers. These specialise in developing
Trojans and viruses in order to penetrate foreign computer networks.
Whistle-blower Edward Snowden has indicated the connection between
intelligence services actions and economic drive. However, this sinister
connection has been overshadowed by other monstrosities.
Some powerful Monsanto supporters know a lot about how to carry out a
cyber war. “Imagine the internet as a weapon, sitting on the table.
Either you use it or your opponent does, but somebody’s going to get
killed” said Jay Byrne, the former head of public relations at Monsanto,
back in 2001.
Companies regularly fight with dubious methods to uphold what they
see as their right: but friend or foe, him or me – that is fighting talk
and in a war, you need allies. Preferably professionals. Such as those
from the secret service milieu, for example.
Monsanto contacts are known to the notorious former secret service
agent Joseph Cofer Black, who helped formulate the law of the jungle in
the fight against terrorists and other enemies. He is a specialist on
dirty work, a total hardliner. He worked for the CIA for almost three
decades, among other things as the head of anti-terroism. He later
became vice president of the private security company Blackwater, which
sent tens of thousands of soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan under US
government orders.
Investigations show how closely connected the management and the
central government in Washington are, as well as with diplomatic
representatives of the USA across the world. In many instances,
Monsanto has operationally powerful assistants. Former Monsanto
employees occupy high offices in the USA in government authorities and
ministries, industrial associations and in universities; sometimes in
almost symbiotic relationships. According to information from the
American Anti-Lobby-Organisation, Open Secrets Org, in the past year, 16
Monsanto lobbyists have taken up sometimes high ranking posts in the US
administration and even in regulatory authorities.
For the company, it is all about new markets and feeding a rapidly
growing world population. Genetic engineering and patents on plants play
a big role here. Over 90 % of corn and soya in the USA is genetically
modified. In some parts of the rest of the world the percentage is also
growing constantly.
Only the European markets are at a standstill. Several EU countries
have many reservations about the Monsanto future, which clearly
displeases the US government administration. In 2009, the German CSU
politician, Ilse Aigner, Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and
Consumer Protection, also banned the corn type MON810 from German
fields. When she travelled to the USA shortly afterwards, she was
approached by her US colleague, Tom Vilsack about Monsanto. The democrat
was once governor in the agricultural state of Iowa and distinguished
himself early on as a supporter of genetic engineering. The genetic
engineering industry elected him as ‘governor of the year’ in 2001.
Unfortunately, there is no recording of the discussion between
Vislack and Aigner. It was said to be controversial. A representative
for the Federal Government described the tone: there were “huge efforts
to force a change in direction of the German government regarding
genetic policy.” The source preferred not to mention details the type of
“huge efforts” and the attempt “to force” something. That is not
appropriate between friends and partners.
Thanks to Snowden and Wikileaks, the world has a new idea of how
these friends and partners operate where power and money are concerned.
The whistle-blowing platform published embassy dispatches two years ago,
which also included details about Monsanto and genetic engineering.
For example, in 2007, the former US ambassador in Paris, Craig
Stapleton, suggested the US government should create a penalties list
for EU states which wanted to forbid the cultivation of genetically
engineered plants from American companies. The wording of the secret
dispatch: “Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target
retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU.” Pain,
retaliation: not exactly the language of diplomacy.
Monsanto led the fight to allow the famous genetically engineered
corn plant MON810 in Europe with lots of lobbying – the group completely
lost the fight. It was even beaten out of the prestigious French and
German markets. An alliance of politicians, farmers and clergy rejected
genetic engineering in the fields and the consumers do not want it on
their plates. But the battle is not over. The USA is hoping that
negotiations started this week for a free-trade agreement between the
USA and the EU will also open the markets for genetic engineering.
Lobbying for your own company is a civic duty in the USA. Even the
important of the 16 US intelligence services have always understood
their work as being a support for American economic interests on the
world markets. They spy on not only governments, authorities and
citizens in other countries under the name of the fight against terror,
they also support American economic interests, in their own special way.
A few examples?
Monsanto denies the accusations and emphasises that it operates “responsibly”
More than two decades ago, when Japan was not yet a major economic
power, the study ‘Japan 2000’ appeared in the USA, created by the
employees of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Japan, the
study read, was planning a kind of world takeover with a ‘reckless trade
policy’. The USA would be the losers, stated the study. The national
security of the USA was at threat, it continued and the CIA gave the
call to war.
America’s economy must be protected from the European’s “dirty
tricks”, explained former head of the CIA James Woolsey. This, he
maintained, is why the “continental European friends” were spied upon. A
clean America.
The whistle-blower Snowden was once in Switzerland for the CIA and
during this time, he reported on which tricks the company was said to
have tried in order to win over a Swiss banker to spy on account data.
The EU allowed the American services to take a close look at its
citizens’ financial business. Allegedly, this was to dry up money
sources for terror. The method and purpose are highly dubious.
In Switzerland, the scene of many earlier espionage novels now plays
one of these episodes that make Monsanto especially mysterious and
enigmatic: In January 2008, the former CIA agent Cofer Black travelled
to Zurich and met Kevin Wilson, at the time Monsanto’s safety officer
for global issues. About what did the two men talk? Probably the usual:
Opponents, business, mortal enemies.
The investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, who wrote the reference
work about Blackwater, the company specializing in mercenaries, wrote in
the American weekly The Nation in 2010 about the reported strange
meeting in Zurich. He had received leaked documents once again. These
show: Monsanto wanted to put up a fight. Against activists who destroyed
the fields. Against critics, who influenced the mood against the
genetic modification company. Cofer Black is the right man for all
seasons: “We’ll take off the kid gloves”, he declared after the 11
September terrorist attacks, and tasked his CIA agents in Afghanistan to
take out Osama bin Laden: “Get him, I want his head in a box.” However,
he also understands a lot about the other secret service business,
which operates with publicly available sources. When he meets with the
Monsanto safety officer Wilson, Cofer Black is still the Vice
(President) at Blackwater, who has the Pentagon, the State Department,
the CIA and, of course private companies as customers. However, there
was a lot of anxiety in January 2008, because the mercenaries of the
security company had shot 17 civilians in Iraq and some Blackwater
employees had drawn attention by bribing Iraqi government employees. It
just so happened that Cofer Black was at the same time head of the
security company Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS), which was a
subsidiary of Blackwater, not saddled with the same devastating
reputation, however staffed with some excellent and versatile experts.
According to their own statements, Monsanto was conducting business
with TIS at the time and not with Blackwater. It is without doubt that
Monsanto received reports from TIS about the activities of critics. The
activities in question were those that would have presented a risk for
the company, its employees or its operating business. The information
collected ranged from terrorist attacks in Asia to the scanning of
websites and blogs. Monsanto emphasizes that TIS only used publicly
accessible material when preventing said risk.
This matched Black’s modus operandus. No shady dealings.
There used to be rumors that Monsanto wanted to take over TIS to
mitigate their risk – and there are new rumors these days that the group
allegedly is considering a takeover of the company Academi that emerged
after a few transformations from the former Blackwater Company. Is
anything correct about these rumors? “As a rule we are not disclosing
details about our relations with service providers, unless that
information is already available to the public,” is the only commentary
from Monsanto.
Every company has its own history, and the history of Monsanto
includes a substance, which the turned the company into a demon not only
not only for the aging 1968ers: Monsanto was one of the leading
manufacturers of the pesticide Agent Orange, which was used until
January 1971 by the US military in the Vietnam War. Forests were
defoliated by constant chemical bombardment to make the enemy visible.
Arable land was poisoned, so that the Vietcong had nothing to eat. In
the sprayed areas, the teratogenic effects increased more than ten
times. Children were born without noses, without eyes, with
hydrocephalus, with facial clefts and the US military stated that the
Monsanto agent was as harmless as aspirin.
Is everything allowed in war? Especially in the new fangled cyber war?
It is already obvious that somebody makes life difficult for Monsanto
critics and an invisible hand ends careers. However, who is this
somebody? The targets of these attacks are scientists, such as the
Australian Judy Carman. Among other things, she has made a name for
herself with studies of genetically modified plants. Her publications
were questioned by the same professors which also attacked the the
studies of other Monsanto critics.
It does not stop at skirmishes in the scientific community. Hackers
regularly target various web pages where Carman publishes her studies
and the sites are also systematically observed, at least that is the
impression Carman has. Evaluations of IP log files show that not only
Monsanto visits the pages regularly, but also various organizations of
the U.S. government, including the military. These include the Navy
Network Information Center, the Federal Aviation Administration and the
United States Army Intelligence Center, an institution of the US Army,
which trains soldiers with information gathering. Monsanto’s interest in
the studies is understandable, even for Carman. “But I do not
understand why the U.S. government and the military are having me
observed,” she says.
The organization GM Watch, known to be critical of gene technology,
also experiences strange events. Editor Claire Robinson reports
continued hacker attacks on the homepage since 2007. “Every time we
increase the page security just a bit, the opposite side increases their
tenacity and following are new, worse attacks”, she says. She also
cannot believe the coincidences that occur. When the French scientist
Gilles Eric Seralini published a controversial study on the health risks
of genetically modified maize and glyphosate in 2012, the web site of
GM Watch was hacked and blocked. The same repeats when the opinion of
the European food inspectorate (EFSA) is added to the site. The timing
was skilfully selected in both cases. The attacks took place exactly
when the editors wanted to publish their opinion.
It has not yet been determined who is behind the attacks.
Monsanto itself, as stated, emphasizes that the company operates “responsibly”.
The fact is, however, that much is at stake for the group. It is
about an upcoming bill. Especially about the current negotiations on the
free trade agreement. Particularly sensitive is the subject of the
agricultural and food industry. The Americans want to open the European
markets for previously prohibited products. In addition to genetically
engineered plants controversial feed additives and hormone-treated beef
are subject of the negotiations. The negotiations will probably extend
over several years.
The Americans want to use the Free Trade Agreement to open the European GMO Market.
The negotiations will be detailed. Toughness will rule the day. US
President Barack Obama has therefore appointed Islam Siddiqui as chief
negotiator for agriculture. He has worked for many years for the US
ministry of agriculture as an expert. However, hardly anyone in Europe
knows: From 2001 to 2008, he represented CropLife America as a
registered lobbyist. CropLife America is an important industry
association in the United States, representing the interests of
pesticide and gene technology manufacturers – including of course
Monsanto. “Actually, the EU cannot accept such a chief negotiator
because of bias”, says Manfred Hausling, who represents the Green Party
in the EU parliament.
Eigentlich (In fact). The word Eigentlich (in fact) meant in the
Middle High German according to the relevant dictionaries “indentured”,
which is not a bad description of the current situation, in particular
as the European and German politicians have surprisingly much
understanding for the US services who regularly spy on them.
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