THE LIE OF THE CENTURY The Downing Street Memo is only the beginning of the proof we were all lied to. "All war is based on deception." -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War “War is a Racket.” This is the title of a book and a speech given by the late Major General Smedley Butler, USMC. Why do they do this? Perhaps because after a very distinguished career in the Marines, he realized that most of his work in the military was in reality acting as a mob enforcer for the wealthy and their corporations. Butler also deserves a special spot among America’s great for exposing the plot to stage a military coup and take control of the US government. A coup in the USA? Sounds like something you would expect in some “Banana Republic”, but never here. It would have probably succeeded if not for Butler’s patriotism, the real thing, not what now passes for patriotism. Who plotted this coup and why? In the summer of 1933, newly elected President Roosevelt was working hard to try to end the great depression. Part of his plan included a redistribution of
wealth to aid the less fortunate. This angered the rich and powerful who had made millions and billions during the depression mostly on the backs of the poorest. (Sounds a bit like today, doesn’t it) Members of the most wealthy families and corporations joined in a secret plot to overthrow Roosevelt by military force. The families leading the insurrection included the DuPonts, the Morgans, The Goodyears, the Bush family (Yes, that Bush family), General Motors leadership, Chase Bank, and many other of the rich and powerful. They planned to recruit an army of 500,000 retired military to march on the White House and seize control of the government to again make this a safe place for robber barons. Some of the other conspirators are listed below along with their credentials: -
Irenee Du Pont – Right-wing chemical industrialist and founder of the American Liberty League, the organization assigned to execute the plot. -
Grayson Murphy – Director of Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel and a group of J.P. Morgan banks. -
William Doyle – Former state commander of the American Legion and a central plotter of the coup. -
John Davis – Former Democratic presidential candidate and a senior attorney for J.P. Morgan. -
Al Smith – Roosevelt’s bitter political foe from New York. Smith was a former governor of New York and a co-director of the American Liberty League. -
John J. Raskob – A high-ranking Du Pont officer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party. In later decades, Raskob would become a “Knight of Malta,” a Roman
Catholic Religious Order with a high percentage of CIA spies, including CIA Directors William Casey, William Colby and John McCone. -
Robert Clark – One of Wall Street’s richest bankers and stockbrokers. They needed a leader for this army, a man who would garner instant respect so they sent Gerald MacGuire, who was a bond salesman for Clark, and a former commander of the Connecticut American Legion to recruit Smedley Butler. Butler was famous at the time and was well respected in the general population as well as the military. What they did not count on, was Butler’s loyalty to the principles of the US Constitution and the rule of law. He reported the conspirators to the Committee on Un-American Activities, and they eventually put an end to it. Being that the conspirators were among the country’s elite, it would have been too embarassing to persue their prosecution, so most got off without even a slap on the wrist. Luckily for us, the plotters did not do proper research on the man they hoped would lead their privateers. If they had, they would have discovered that on August 21, 1931, Butler had given an impassioned speech to an American Legion convention in New Britain CT. The person who gave this speech would be very unlikely to join their conspiracy. This video shows an actor re-creation of the exact words he spoke that day. There is nothing new in a government lying to their people to start a war. Indeed because most people prefer living in peace to bloody and horrific death in war, any government that desires to initiate a war usually lies to their people to create the illusion that support for the war is the only possible choice they can make. The Iraq war that was waged – yes, for oil, was waged above all to terrify the world (especially China) with American power. It turned into the largest boomerang in history. For what has been demonstrated instead are the limits of near-bankrupt America’s power. Far from being cowed, America’s adversaries – and its enemies – have been emboldened. With shock and awe the empire soon dominated the skies over Iraq to be sure. But they never controlled a single street in the country from the day they invaded until this day of retreat. One street alone – Haifa Street in Baghdad – became the graveyard of scores, maybe hundreds of Americans. Fortresses like Fallujah entered history alongside Stalingrad as symbols of the unvanquishable power of popular resistance to foreign invasion. Crimes like Abu Ghraib prison – where Iraqis were stripped naked and humiliated, forced to perform indecent acts upon each other and videotaped doing so for the entertainment of their torturers in the barracks afterwards – entered the lexicon of the barbarism of those who invade others, flying the colours of their “civilising” mission. As Chairman Mao once put it: “Sometimes the enemy struggles mightily to lift a huge stone; only to drop it on its own foot.” In an America where a third of the population are living in poverty or terrifyingly near it, and where imperial hubris met its nemesis on Haifa Street, China now knows it has nothing to fear from this paper tiger. The invasion of Iraq would be worse than a crime: it would be the Mother of All Blunders. And that the Iraqis would fight them, with their teeth if necessary, until they had driven them from their land. 
Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal But two things, as George Bush would put it, I “mis-underestimated”. First, that when the tower of lies on which the case for the Iraq war had been constructed was exposed, the credibility of the political systems of the two main liars would collapse under the weight. And second, that the example of the Iraqi resistance would trigger seismic changes in the Arabian landscape from Marrakesh to Bahrain. Almost nobody in Britain or America any longer believes a word their politicians say. This profound change is not wholly the result of the Iraq war, but it moved into top gear following the war and the militarised mendacity that paved the way to it. In America this malaise has fuelled both the Tea Party phenomenon and the Occupy movement alike, even if the word Iraq seldom crosses their lips. And from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf the plates are moving still … 
President McKinley told the American people that the USS Maine had been sunk in Havana Harbor by a Spanish mine. The American people, outraged by this apparent unprovoked attack, supported the Spanish American War. Three weeks after arriving, on the night of February 15, 1898, the USS Maine exploded, killing 266 men. There are two theories for the explosion: some believe the explosion was caused by an external mine that detonated the ship’s ammunition magazines. Others say it was caused by a spontaneous coal bunker fire that reached the ammunition magazines. Currently, the evidence seems to favour the external mine theory.
Without waiting on an investigation, America’s mainstream media blamed the tragedy on Spain and beat the drums for war. By April, McKinley yielded to public pressure and signed a congressional resolution declaring war on Spain. To help pay for the Spanish-American War, congress enacted a “temporary” tax of 3 percent on long-distance telephone bills. This was essentially a tax on the rich, as only about 1,300 Americans owned phones in 1898. Although the Spanish-American War ended in 1898, the temporary tax was only abolished in… 2005. Over its lifetime, the 107-year-old tax generated almost $94 billion – more than 230 times the cost of the Spanish-American War. The Spanish-American War put a large nail in the coffin of Spain’s global empire. And by the end of 1898, the United States, which was founded in opposition to imperialism, found itself in control not only of Cuba, but of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Hawaiian Islands as well. The Captain of the USS Maine had insisted the ship was sunk by a coal bin explosion, investigations after the war proved that such had indeed been the case. There had been no mine. Hitler used this principle of lying to his own people to initiate an invasion. He told the people of Germany that Poland had attacked first and staged fake attacks against German targets. The Germans, convinced they were being threatened, followed Hitler into Poland and into World War 2.
 In the late evening of Thursday, August 31, 1939, German covert operatives pretending to be Polish terrorists seized the Gleiwitz radio station in the German/Poland border region of Silesia. The station’s music program came to an abrupt halt, followed by frantic German voices announcing that Polish formations were marching toward town. Germany was being invaded by Poland! Then, like a bad imitation of the previous year’s infamous War of the Worlds broadcast, the transmission went dead for a moment of dramatic silence. Soon, the airwaves popped and crackled to life again, and this time Polish voices called for all Poles in the broadcast area to take up arms and attack Germany.
In no time, radio stations across greater Europe picked up the story. The BBC broadcast this statement: “There have been reports of an attack on a radio station in Gleiwitz, which is just across the Polish border in Silesia. The German News Agency reports that the attack came at about 8.00pm this evening when the Poles forced their way into the studio and began broadcasting a statement in Polish. Within quarter of an hour, says reports, the Poles were overpowered by German police, who opened fire on them. Several of the Poles were reported killed, but the numbers are not yet known.” And thus, Hitler invented an excuse to invade Poland, which he did the next day: September 1, 1939. World War II began. What really happened? Alfred Helmut Naujocks received the orders from Heinrich Müller, chief of the Gestapo, to put the staged terrorist attack together at the Gleiwitz station. At Naujock’s disposal were what the Germans had codenamed “canned goods,” which were dissenters and criminals kept alive in detention camps until the Gestapo needed a warm dead body. To add cogency to the Gleiwitz attack, Naujocks brought along one such canned good: Franciszek Honiok. Honiok, a German from the Silesian region, was a known Polish sympathizer. Before arriving at the station, the Gestapo gave him a lethal injection. Then, they dressed him up like a Polish terrorist and brought him to the front of the radio station. Naujocks later testified that the man was unconscious, but not dead yet, when he was shot full of pistol rounds. When the police and press found Honiok’s body, they assumed he’d been one of the fictional Polish terrorists that attacked the station.
In all, there were 21 fake terror actions along the border that same night, many of them using “canned goods” from German prisons so there would be plenty of bodies in the morning: evidence of Polish attackers that had been shot in self defence. 
FDR claimed Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack.
It wasn't. The United States saw war with Japan as the means to get into war with Germany, which Americans opposed. So Roosevelt needed Japan to appear to strike first. Following an 8-step plan devised by the Office of Naval Intelligence, Roosevelt intentionally provoked Japan into the attack. Contrary to the official story, the fleet did not maintain radio silence, but sent messages intercepted and decoded by US intercept stations. Tricked by the lie of a surprise attack, Americans marched off to war. On January 27, 1941, Joseph C. Grew, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, wired Washington that he’d learned of the surprise attack Japan was preparing for Pearl Harbour. On September 24, a dispatch from Japanese naval intelligence to Japan’s consul general in Honolulu was deciphered. The transmission was a request for a grid of exact locations of ships in Pearl Harbour. Surprisingly, Washington chose not to share this information with the officers at Pearl Harbour. Then, on November 26, the main body of the Japanese strike force (consisting of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, three cruisers, nine destroyers, eight tankers, 23 fleet submarines, and five midget submarines) departed Japan for Hawaii.
Despite the myth that the strike force maintained strict radio silence, US Naval intelligence intercepted and translated many dispatches. And, there was no shortage of dispatches: Tokyo sent over 1000 transmissions to the attack fleet before it reached Hawaii. Some of these dispatches, in particular this message from Admiral Yamamoto, left no doubt that Pearl Harbour was the target of a Japanese attack: “The task force, keeping its movement strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet and deal it a mortal blow. The first air raid is planned for the dawn of x-day. Exact date to be given by later order.”
Even on the night before the attack, US intelligence decoded a message pointing to Sunday morning as a deadline for some kind of Japanese action. The message was delivered to the Washington high command more than four hours before the attack on Pearl Harbour. But, as many messages before, it was withheld from the Pearl Harbour commanders.Although many ships were damaged at Pearl Harbour, they were all old and slow. The main targets of the Japanese attack fleet were the Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers, but Roosevelt made sure these were safe from the attack: in November, at about the same time as the Japanese attack fleet left Japan, Roosevelt sent the Lexington and Enterprise out to sea. Meanwhile, the Saratoga was in San Diego.
Why did Pearl Harbour happen? Roosevelt wanted a piece of the war pie. Having failed to bait Hitler by giving $50.1 billion in war supplies to Britain, the Soviet Union, France and China as part of the Lend Lease program, Roosevelt switched focus to Japan. Because Japan had signed a mutual defence pact with Germany and Italy, Roosevelt knew war with Japan was a legitimate back door to joining the war in Europe. On October 7, 1940, one of Roosevelt’s military advisors, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, wrote a memo detailing an 8-step plan that would provoke Japan into attacking the United States. Over the next year, Roosevelt implemented all eight of the recommended actions. In the summer of 1941, the US joined England in an oil embargo against Japan. Japan needed oil for its war with China, and had no remaining option but to invade the East Indies and Southeast Asia to get new resources. And that required getting rid of the US Pacific Fleet first.
Although Roosevelt may have got more than he bargained for, he clearly let the attack on Pearl Harbour happen, and even helped Japan by making sure their attack was a surprise. He did this by withholding information from Pearl Harbour’s commanders and even by ensuring the attack force wasn’t accidentally discovered by commercial shipping traffic. As Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner stated in 1941: “We were prepared to divert traffic when we believed war was imminent. We sent the traffic down via the Torres Strait, so that the track of the Japanese task force would be clear of any traffic.” The Men Who Killed Kennedy, the Truth Will Make You Free, the episode that is most often censored is complete here and now. The lesson for all future Presidents, cave to the military-industrial coalition or else, why we have been fighting continually since the end of the second World War. Why Obama stated some Wars are necessary, if you were wondering who he was speaking to, it wasn't to you and me, it was to them. It's the reason we're fighting in three wars NOW WITH NO MONEY FOR THE PEOPLE, ONLY MONEY FOR THE KILLING MACHINES.
A decorated Green Beret tells how he was asked to join an an elite assassination team, back in 1965, teams that were being taught the correct way to assassinate foreign leaders, the instructors (CIA), had the training facility set up with their most successful accomplishment, a recreated facsimile of DEALEY PLAZA, where they murdered JFK! President Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin to send Americans off to fight in Vietnam. On August 2, 1964, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a US destroyer, the USS Maddox. The boats reportedly fired torpedoes at the US ship in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin, about thirty miles off the Vietnam coast. On August 4, the US Navy reported another unprovoked attack on the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy.
Within hours, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a retaliatory strike. As the bases for North Vietnamese torpedo boats were bombed, Johnson went on TV and told America: “Repeated acts of violence against the armed forces of the United States must be met not only with alert defense, but with a positive reply. That reply is being given as I speak tonight.” The next day, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara assured Capital Hill that the Maddox had only been “carrying out a routine mission of the type we carry out all over the world at all times.” McNamara said the two boats were in no way involved with recent South Vietnamese boat raids against North Vietnamese targets.
At Johnson’s request, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The resolution pre-approved any military actions Johnson would take. It gave Johnson a free ticket to wage war in Vietnam as large as the President wanted. And, true to his large Texas roots, Johnson got a big war: by 1969, over half a million US troops were fighting in Indochina. Despite McNamara’s testimony to the contrary, the USS Maddox had been providing intelligence support to South Vietnamese boats carrying out raids against North Vietnam. McNamara had also testified that there was “unequivocable proof” of an “unprovoked” second attack against the USS Maddox. In fact, the second attack never occurred at all.
At the time of the second incident, the two US destroyers misinterpreted radar and radio signals as attacks by the North Vietnamese navy. It’s now known that no North Vietnamese boats were in the area. So, for two hours, the two US destroyers blasted away at nonexistent radar targets and vigorously manoeuvred to avoid phantom North Vietnamese ships. Even though the second “attack” only involved two US ships defending themselves against a nonexistent enemy, the President and Secretary of Defense used it to coerce Congress and the American people to start a war they neither wanted nor needed. There were no torpedoes in the water in the Gulf. LBJ took advantage of an inexperienced sonar man's report to goad Congress into escalating the Vietnam War. 
It is inescapable historical reality that leaders of nations will lie to their people to trick them into wars they otherwise would have refused. It is not "conspiracy theory" to suggest that leaders of nations lie to trick their people into wars. It is undeniable fact. This brings us to the present 9/11 case. America’s war in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, more than ten years ago. America’s war in Iraq began on March 20, 2003, almost nine years ago. Toss in the six months we have been engaged in the Libyan conflict, and what you have is the United States at war for a combined total of nineteen years…and now, according to reports, the Iraq withdrawal deadline has become thoroughly elastic, and the Afghanistan withdrawal timeline is about to be punted so far over the horizon as to become thoroughly meaningless. Back when George W. Bush was in office, plenty of people were aware of how rich his family, friends and allies were getting off these conflicts. Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, KBR, the Bush-affiliated Carlyle Group, Blackwater/Xe and many others were raking in the cash thanks to a harshly simple economic algorithm: every day of these wars, every ration eaten, every uniform donned, every bullet fired, every bomb dropped, every missile launched, every helicopter shot down, and every body bag filled translates directly into extreme profits for someone. Mr. Bush is gone now, but that algorithm remains ruthlessly in place. War-oriented companies like DynCorp, Washington Group International, Aegis Defense Services, URS Corporation, BAE Systems, Renco, CACI, Bechtel, General Dynamics, General Electric, and Titan, along with oil giants like ExxonMobil and Chevron, have profited to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars off these conflicts, and are poised to continue doing so well into the future. Think about that. Nineteen combined total years of war, amounting to approximately seven thousand consecutive days of profiteering off the blood, bone and flesh of soldiers and civilians. We have heard much about the idea that certain financial institutions are “too big to fail,” and thus have been bailed out of the economic disaster zone they themselves helped to create, with little or no punishment for the perpetrators in the aftermath. While there can be no doubt that the actions of these essentially criminal enterprises have done great and lasting damage to the American economy, scant notice has been paid to the unimaginable expenditures we have thrown into a decade of largely fruitless warfare, and the brutal cost levied against the American people – most especially the soldiers and civilians who have borne the brunt of combat – all of which means obscene profit for a select few who you nor I will ever meet. War profiteering is nothing new. The Roman who invented the gladius forged the weapon that carved out a lasting empire, and probably died a very wealthy man. Here in 21st century America, however, the empire is crumbling not for lack of our war-making abilities, but because war-making appears to be the only healthy industry left in our economy. We are collapsing not despite war, but because of it. We are eating ourselves, and if the powerful ones behind Mr. Obama and Mr. Panetta get their way, we will be continuing to do so for years to come. The defeat and conquest, directly or by proxy, of Libya secured a key outpost for the Pentagon and NATO on the Mediterranean Sea. The consolidation of U.S. control over North Africa would have more than just regional repercussions, important as they are. Shortly after the inauguration of U.S. Africa Command, Lin Zhiyuan, deputy director of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences, wrote the following: “By building a dozen forward bases or establishments in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and other African nations, the U.S. will gradually establish a network of military bases to cover the entire continent and make essential preparations for docking an aircraft carrier fleet in the region.” “The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with the U.S. at the head had [in 2006] carried out a large-scale military exercise in Cape Verde, a western African island nation, with the sole purpose of controlling the sea and air corridors of crude oil extracting zones and monitoring how the situation is with oil pipelines operating there.” “Africa Command represents a vital, crucial link for the US adjustment of its global military deployment. At present, it is moving the gravity of its forces in Europe eastward and opening new bases in Eastern Europe.” “The present US global military redeployment centers mainly on an ‘arc of instability’ from the Caucasus, Central and Southern Asia down to the Korean Peninsula, and so the African continent is taken as a strong point to prop up the US global strategy. “Therefore, AFRICOM facilitates the United States advancing on the African continent, taking control of the Eurasian continent and proceeding to take the helm of the entire globe.” Far more is at stake in the war with Libya than control of Africa’s largest proven oil reserves and subjugating the last North African nation not yet under the thumb of the U.S. and NATO. Even more than domination of the Mediterranean Sea region. The war in Libya has won no significant popular support in any of the aggressor countries. Working people instinctively suspect that this war, like those that have preceded it, is being waged for the benefit of the financial oligarchy and at the expense of the broad masses. The struggle against war and imperialism can be taken forward only if it centered in the working class. The fight against war and the struggle against the destruction of jobs, living standards and basic social and democratic rights are today inseparable. Militarism abroad and social counterrevolution at home have common objective roots in the insoluble crisis of world capitalism. They can be defeated only through the political mobilization and international unity of the working class in the struggle for socialism. War in Afghanistan Leading up to the invasion of Afghanistan, the US government told Americans and the world that they were going into Afghanistan to hunt down Al Qaeda and establish a democracy in Afghanistan, however, this was nothing but the typical deceit of the American government. In reality, the US had been planning to go into Afghanistan before 9/11 and not to kill bin Laden, but rather to establish an oil pipeline. It was a fact that America had been planning to invade Afghanistan before 9/11. A BBC News article released just days after 9/11 stated that “Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.” [17] It may have seemed that 9/11 was just an excuse to invade Afghanistan, however, Naik also stated that “it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan” even if the Taliban had given up bin Laden. In addition to this, President Bush “was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.” [18] Thus, even if the 9/11 attacks had not occurred, the US still would have launched an invasion of Afghanistan. However, in reality, the US didn’t care about getting Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda, rather they were interested in the greater Central Asian region because it didn’t want any Central Asian nation to come within the Chinese or Russian sphere of influence, thus closing out US and general Western access to the oil and gas wealth of that region. So far at that point, the “sales of Central Asia’s states’ large energy holdings [were] restricted to Russia” To overcome this, the US tried to create other pipelines such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline so that Western oil companies would be able to get at the oil and gas reserves. The creation of new pipelines would serve two major US interests in the region besides accessing oil. America would “isolate Iran from Central Asian energy by urging states to build pipelines that bypass Iran and enforcing sanctions upon those states and firms who are trading with Iran” and it would disrupt the creation of a “Russian pipeline or overall [Russian-led] energy monopoly from forming in the oil market.” [20] By disrupting the formation of a Russian led “oil cartel” and attempting to create a US pipeline, America was also protecting its European allies as “the degree to which Central Asian energy markets are open or closed is an issue of great and increasing importance to European states’ energy security.” [21] The US knew that Europe was importing large amounts of gas from Russia and to make sure that the Russians didn’t use this as a political weapon, America planned on making sure that their European allies were able to access the gas of Central Asia. Thus the American government wasn’t as truly interested in avenging the deaths of the 9/11 victims as they so professed, they also wanted to expand the empire. Venezuelan Coup In early 2002, the US government attempted to overthrow democratically-elected leader Hugo Chavez in an attempted coup, due to the fact that he wouldn’t subjugate himself to Western economic interests. Chavez “was elected on a radical programme of opposition to the austerity measures of the outgoing regime” and as soon as he entered office, Chavez began “to take measures against the economic and political establishment” through actions such as building roads, schools, and hospitals, increasing taxes on the wealthy, and purging sections of former state apparatus. His actions and attitude had far reaching changes as could be seen in the insurrectionary events which took place in Ecuador at the beginning of [2002]. A movement spearheaded by the organisations of the indigenous peoples, who make up 40% of the population, overthrew the government and established a National Salvation Assembly. Looking to Venezuela the new leadership proclaimed their "Chavismo" after Chavez. In addition to this, Chavez nationalized the oil company PDVSA, “encouraged lowering oil production to raise prices,” and “changed a 60 year-old agreement with oil companies that raised royalties for Venezuela.” [24] This, along with his other moves to turn Venezuela socialist, did not please the US and thus they began to hatch a plan for a coup. The coup began to be created when in June 2001, when “American military attaches had been in touch with members of the Venezuelan military to examine the possibility of a coup.” [25] On April 11, 2002, there was a “killing of 17 anti-Chavez protesters by snipers” (the surrounding events of which are still murky) which the Venezuelan military used as an excuse to overthrow Chavez. Once the shootings took place TV announcements that had been produced by the CIA argued that “Chavez ‘provoked’ the crisis by ordering his supporters to fire on peaceful protesters in Caracas.” [26] After the military had overthrown Chavez and sent him to an island prison, they installed “Pedro Carmona, a wealthy businessman and former business associate of George Bush Sr., into office.” His first move as president was to “‘dissolve the Constitution, national legislature, Supreme Court, attorney general’s office, and comptroller’s office,’” [27] thus taking dictatorial control of Venezuela. It is quite reminiscent of the coups the CIA perpetrated in Latin America during the Cold War. Thankfully, however, Chavez was bought back into power due to “a huge anti-coup civil protest involving hundreds of thousands of people” and because of this “within two days Carmona stepped down and Chavez returned to power” [28] and Chavez was bought back to his rightful place as president of Venezuela. Even though the coup did not go as planned, that did not stop the US from continuing to portray Chavez as an evil doer, which continues to this day. War in Iraq Just as with the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq was filled with lies and deceit, however only more so. There were lies that Saddam had connections to and supported Al Qaeda and that he had WMDs, all of this now we know as untrue, however, even if PNAC had not recommended attacking Iraq, the US was already planning it. The administration “began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days after the former Texas governor entered the White House.” [29] The Bush Administration was planning even on 9/11 as “ barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq.” [30 Even when all the intelligence pointed to bin Laden, Rumsfeld “wanted ‘best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.’ – meaning Saddam Hussein – ‘at same time.’” US military doctrine changed greatly for the invasion of Iraq. Instead of using overwhelming force, the US military used a new doctrine called “rapid dominance.” Rapid Dominance “rests in the ability to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary through imposing sufficient Shock and Awe to achieve the necessary political, strategic, and operational goals of the conflict or crisis that led to the use of force.” [31]The purpose of rapid dominance was to effect the enemy’s will to fight by denying him of information and creating perceptions, specifically overpowering the enemy “through the adversary’s perception and fear of his vulnerability and [America’s] own invincibility.” [32] Rapid Dominance was also very different in that it was very time-oriented, focusing on the fact that taking action in a timely and decisive manner “multiplies substantially the chances of ultimate success” and that action needed “to be taken precisely when it will have greatest impact.” [33] The entire point of Rapid Dominance was to achieve military supremacy in a short amount of time, using low amounts of troops and high levels of technology. The Iraq war did well in lining the pockets of defense contractors and oil companies, however, it had deeply negative effects on the Iraqi population from education to economics to the destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage. In November 2010, it was reported that since the invasion of Iraq, “more than 700 primary schools have been bombed, 200 have been burnt and over 3,000 looted” and that the number of teachers in Baghdad have fallen by 80%. [34] In addition to this “Between March 2003 and October 2008, 31,598 violent attacks against educational institutions were reported in Iraq, according to the Ministry of Education.” [35] Iraq’s middle class was destroyed because since the educated class had “been subject to a systematic and ongoing campaign of intimidation, abduction, extortion, random killings and targeted assassinations” [36] they fled Iraq, with only a few coming back in 2010. Iraq’s culture was destroyed as “attacks on national archives and monuments that represent the historical identity of the Iraqi people.” However, this destruction of the Iraqi state didn’t matter to the US and its allies as they aided Western economic interests in the form of introducing new economic laws that “instituted low taxes, 100% foreign investor ownership of Iraqi assets, the right to expropriate all profits, unrestricted imports, and long-term 30-40 year deals and leases.” With Afghanistan and Iraq subdued, it was time for the Empire to focus on its main regional enemy: Iran. Iran In 2002, the US government began propagating the myth that Iran was attempting to create nuclear weapons, with President Bush labeling Iran part of an “axis of evil” in the world and that they “aggressively pursue” nuclear weapons. In later years the Bush administration would get more serious about trying to find evidence that Iran was making nuclear weapons, even going to far as to send unmanned aerial vehicles over Iran in 2005. [39] However, in that same year, it was acknowledged in a US intelligence review that Iran was “about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years.” [40] Due to this review, the question must be bought up of why the US was pushing so hard on the issue, when Iran was supposedly a decade away from gaining nuclear weapons? The answer is because the US was using the Iranian nuclear fabrication as a pretext to invade Iran. The very next year it was a fact that “some senior officials have already made up their minds: They want to hit Iran.” [41] This was without a doubt true, as in 2007 it was reported that America had plans attack Iran, as did Israel. However, what was not mentioned was the fact that the US and Israel had had plans to attack Iran for quite some time, with the US, Israel, and Britain working to create an unstable Iran which would in turn create a pretext for invasion. The US media and general Western media toed the line that Iran was attempting to make nuclear weapons, however, even with all the screaming and yelling, the US and its allies have yet to lay down any real evidence proving that Iran is trying to attain nuclear weapons. Color Revolutions In the years 2004 and 2005 new governments came about in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. In the West, these were hailed as democratically elected governments, however, in reality the elections were controlled by the United States in a bid to make sure that those states didn’t stray from the American sphere of influence. Georgia In November 2003, Georgian leader Edouard Shevardnadze was swept aside in the aftermath of the Rose Revolution to make room for Mikheil Saakashvili. This came about due to US and Western NGOs (non governmental organizations) creating “an atmosphere of popular protest against the existing regime” as Shevardnadze was “no longer useful to Washington when he began to make a deal with Moscow over energy pipelines and privatizations.” [43] The plan involved having the NGOs led by US ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, and using George Soros’ Open Society Georgia Foundation, the Washington-based Freedom House, the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy, and the Georgia Liberty Institute in such a manner as to create a movement of that was anti-Russian, pro-Western, and would back Saakashvili in the elections preceding the parliamentary election fiasco, in which it was revealed that the voting system was rigged and there were calls for new elections among the US-backed protesters. Once in power Saakashvili “led a policy of large-scale arrests, imprisonment, torture and deepened corruption” and created a “de facto one-party state, with a dummy opposition occupying a tiny portion of seats in the parliament.” [44] Even though the people of Georgia suffered under a vicious dictator and had their hopes of a true democracy crushed, this was entirely fine with the US as it coincided with their interests in Georgia. The Rose Revolution aided the US in attaining oil from the Caucus region as Georgia was “crucial in the wider project of building an East-West transportation corridor” for oil and gas and important to the creation of “a [railroad] transit route connecting Europe to Central Asia, China, and India via the Black Sea, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the Caspian Sea” [45] which would have allowed the West to ship goods inexpensively across Asia. This creation of an oil pipeline fit in perfectly with America’s goal for Central Asia which was to deny the creation of a Russian-led energy cartel. Also, the US saw Georgia as a potential staging ground for an invasion of Iran. Ukraine The Orange Revolution in Ukraine took place from November 2004 to January 2005. The entire thing was “an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing” [46] where the US organized and funded the installation of another puppet regime. The same formula that established a US puppet in Georgia was followed here. It included the same players as well, with a few new ones such as the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute which are NGOs used by both the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, to push a pro-American agenda around the world. There was the usual youth protest movement, Otpor (meaning resistance) but also the Americans “ordered opposition parties to unite behind the dour, elderly trade unionist, Vladimir Goncharik, because he appealed to much of the Lukashenko constituency.” [47] With the protest movement in place, the opposition parties united, and the aid of having “thousands of local election monitors trained and paid by western groups,” [48] the US through its weight behind Viktor Yushchenko. Even though there was a massive protest after the original run-off votes which caused the Ukranian Supreme Court to declare a re-vote on December 26, 2004, Yushchenko still succeeded in attaining the presidency. Once in power, the Yushchenko regime “turned out to be just as incompetent and rife with cronyism as his corrupt and venal predecessors, if not more so” as large amounts of Western aid was siphoned off into the personal coffers of the elite. Overall, Ukraine “disintegrated, not only economically but socially as centrifugal forces of culture, language, and the weight of history were brought to bear on the unity of the country, and things began to come apart.” [49] Once again, Washington came out on top as the Yushchenko regime wanted “closer ties with the European Union, NATO, and the United States, with the goal of eventual NATO and EU membership.” [50] The new US puppet regime would also hurt Russia due to its plans to get its oil from other sources. The Ukranian goverment was “studying how to move forward with a plan to extend into Poland an oil pipeline that currently runs from an oil terminal at the port of Odesa to the town of Brody” which would be used to transport Caspian Sea oil into Western Europe, “thereby reducing [European] dependence on Russian oil, and reducing Russia’s control of regional pipelines.” [51] By reducing European dependence on Russian oil, the US was once again making sure that Russia would be unable to use their oil wealth as a political weapon and by creating a new puppet state, the US was ensuring that it would be able to keep an eye on Russia and quickly counter any moves they made. Kyrgyzstan During early 2005, the US engineered its last takeover in Central Asia where Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev was ousted due to his efforts to increase economic and political ties with Russia and China. On March 24th, rioters forced Akayev to flee the country which allowed “a loose coalition of opposition forces under the leadership of Kurmanbek Bakiyev seized power.” [52] This occurred after parliamentary run-off elections on March 13th which were widely seen as fraudulent and in response to this, the opposition movement began holding protests. This opposition movement was “largely the product of US intervention in the country, owing its existence to the financial and logistical resources provided either directly from Washington or through US-funded non-governmental organizations” [53] such as Freedom House, which published opposition newspapers in an effort to stir up popular discontent. The events seemed to be going according to plan, however the Americans were surprised when on March 13th “when Akayev was still in power, the opposition leadership began backing off its initial calls for the president’s resignation and instead demanded negotiations with the ruling authorities” [54] and protests became violent. By next week American was calling “for an end to the violence, urging ‘all parties in Kyrgyzstan to engage in dialogue and resolve differences peacefully and according to the rule of law’” [55] and had S Ambassador Stephen Young attempt to work with opposition forces and Akayev to find a solution. A solution was found: A new parliament was formed and Akayev resigned from the presidency. This allowed US front-man, Kurmanbek Saliyevich Bakiyev, to be elected President. America’s main interests in Kyrgyzstan was that “the country is of great geopolitical significance due to its proximity to oil-producing countries” and that the “US military base near Bishkek is also critical to American efforts in Afghanistan.” [56] Overall, Washington succeed in fulfilling its main interests of expanding oil routes and limiting Russian influence on its neighbors. However, the US also gained a foothold that would more easily allow for an attack or invasion of Iran or potentially a staging ground to do covert operations in Russia. Africom In October 2007, the US established Africa Command (Africom), Its stated goal was to aid the African people in military operations and promote US foreign policy, however, there was also the other goal of combating China as they were making moves into the continent to get at its oil resources. With the creation of Africom, the US would become the first nation in history to have military commands that covered literally the entire planet. America was concerned about the Chinese making moves to access African oil due to the fact that “African oil supplies [would] account for 25% of its energy demands by 2015.” [57] In addition to this the US viewed Africa “as a backdrop” to take out terrorists. Even before Africom was created, African leaders put up such a strong resistance “that commanders abandoned initial ambitions to install a headquarters on the continent.” [58] In general most Africans didn’t trust Africom as they didn’t even “trust their own militaries, which in places like [the] Congo [where militaries] have turned weapons on their own people.” Also, since Africom was itself a military force, many Africans were worried that the Americans wanted to make African states “proxies” and would use Africom to look out for American interests. While dealing with this policy of imperial domination of the globe, the Empire’s homeland was economically about to crumble. Financial Crisis In late 2007, a massive financial crisis that originated in the US hit the world and its effects are being felt to this day. It began with the housing market having an upward spiral due to people buying houses due to easy credit, predatory lending by realtor companies, and massive government deregulation. This deadly mixture would lead to the global economy being put on the brink of collapse. After the 9/11 attacks, the Federal Reserve “lowered the Federal funds rate 11 times - from 6.5% in May 2000 to 1.75% in December 2001 - creating a flood of liquidity in the economy.” [59] This access to easy credit (as well as predatory lending and Americans being able to purchase houses via Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in many cases) led people to buy houses that they were unable to afford. With houses being snapped up quickly, it “made investments in higher yielding subprime mortgages look like a new rush for gold.” [60] Thus, companies began putting their money into these subprime mortgages. This only increased when the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to 1% in June 2003. Financial companies then created a secondary market for subprime mortages by repackaging them into collateralized debt obligations, which, while they were quite risky, if successful, would pay off quite handsomely. The risk increased in October 2004 when the Security Exchange Commission relaxed the net capital requirement for Goldman Sacs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley. This allowed the banks to “leverage up to 30-times or even 40-times their initial investment.” [61] This was essentially a green light from the feds for financial companies to take more risks with their investments. Things began to go sour when “U.S. homeownership had peaked at 70%” in 2004 and “during the last quarter of 2005, home prices started to fall, which led to a 40% decline in the U.S. Home Construction Index during 2006.” [62] This was already bad as the job boom in the construction sector would end, but also many people began defaulting on their loans, which in turn made banks wary of lending people money. This effects of this mass mortgage defaulting would come home in 2007 as the financial companies couldn’t solve the problem on its own and the crisis began spreading around the world. Even though the Federal Reserve began to slash discount and fund rates, the situation continued to worsen as corporations like Lehman Brothers and Merril Lynch collapsed. It an attempt to solve this, in 2008 the US government bailed out the financial companies at the tune of $700 billion. While this saved the financial corporations, it did nothing for those that had lost retirement or pension funds in the crisis. Many of those who had were directly involved in creating the crisis got multi-million and -billion dollar bonuses, while average Americans suffered in the form of skyrocketing unemployment and loss of investments. While this financial disaster led to the near collapse of the global economy, there was also a moral collapse of America. Due to the unjustified war in Iraq, the torturing of prisoners, the illegal wiretapping, and the American government’s general disregard for both national and international law, the United States lost its moral standing with the world. No longer was it the nation that was the beacon of freedom, democracy, and liberty. Now the US was in an onset of imperial decline, something from which it would never come back from. 
On the British side of the Iraq invasion: The exhausted secret intelligence officer was heading home after a heavy session analysing reports from Iraq. As he stepped out through the high-security air-lock exit from MI6’s grand headquarters beside the Thames in London, a newspaper-seller’s placard caught his eye — ‘45 minutes from attack,’ it proclaimed. Alarm bells rang in his head. It was September 2002, and Prime Minister Tony Blair had that day unveiled with great fanfare the government’s dossier detailing Saddam Hussein’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, as a justification for going to war. He knew, in a way the public did not, the precise background to that headline. His first thought was that this was not what the original intelligence report had said. ‘If this goes wrong, we’re all screwed,’ he muttered to himself. 
Mopping up: British soldier prepares to jump from a burning tank which was set ablaze in Basra It did go wrong, spectacularly so, as a new history of MI6 by the BBC’s well-informed security correspondent Gordon Corera recounts. It’s a disturbing story of how tiny sparks of dubious information picked up in the backstreets of Baghdad and elsewhere were fanned into giant flames. The result was a firecracker of a dossier which was pivotal in the run-up to the deeply divisive British and American invasion of Iraq. For many people, the scary information it disclosed — that Saddam was so advanced with his chemical and biological weapons that he could fire them with a mere 45 minutes notice — was a tipping point. Millions who had been sceptical about the reality of the Iraq threat were brought up short by the Prime Minister’s assurance that the evidence of Saddam’s evil intentions was ‘extensive, detailed and authoritative’. The case for confronting him was cut and dried. Only later would it emerge how dodgy that dossier actually was. 
Victim: David Kelly, 59, after giving evidence in a Commons Select committee Yet disastrous consequences flowed from its false and exaggerated claims. They were cited as a pretext for the conquest of Iraq, which led to tens of thousands of deaths. They also caused a damaging clash between the government and the BBC over suggestions that the dossier had been ‘sexed-up’ and the mysterious death of a respected weapons inspector, Dr David Kelly. For MI6, the dossier brought the biggest crisis of confidence since the infamous Cambridge spy ring and the defection of one of its top men, Kim Philby, to the Soviet Union in 1963. What happened was a lesson in the distortion that can arise when the painstaking craft of intelligence-gathering — MI6’s pride and joy since its inception in 1909 — was over-ridden by the wishful thinking and unrelenting ambition of politicians. From the start, Blair had put his weight and his reputation behind U.S. plans to topple Saddam, believing in his heart that the world would be a better place without the Iraqi dictator. But selling a war to a sceptical public would be very difficult. Regime change on its own was not accepted in Britain in the way it was in post-9/11 America. So the decision was taken to base the case for war entirely on Iraq’s possession of chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. This meant leaning heavily on intelligence. From his spymasters Blair sought material to make a public case for armed intervention. 
OBLIGING: MI6 at Vauxhall Bridge, were supposed to be the nation's eyes and ears, but failed to smell something fishy They, in turn, were eager to oblige. MI6 was still in shock from having missed signs of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and Washington and was determined never to be caught out again. There was a more deep-seated reason too. ‘One of the cultural weaknesses of MI6 is that it is too eager to please,’ one former senior official told Corera. For all the secret service’s James Bond-ish bravado, it has always been beset by a fear that one day it will no longer be needed. 
Trauma: After the events of September 11, 2001, MI6 was concerned not to be caught out The ending of the Cold War and MI6’s legendary cat-and-mouse tussles with the KGB seemed to herald that redundancy. Then the post-9/11 era offered a new mission. Out to prove it still had a vital use in the modern world, MI6 set to work. Early drafts were begun of a dossier on Saddam’s weapons programmes. Some MI6 officers were unhappy with the idea of working to so precise an agenda. ‘All our training, all our culture, bias, is against such a thing,’ one complained. But there was no stopping what quickly became a juggernaut as Britain’s two most senior spies — Richard Dearlove, head of MI6, and John Scarlett, chairman of the government’s Joint Intelligence Committee, whose job was to sift and assess MI6’s information — became central to the build-up to war. Dearlove in particular became one of the Prime Minister’s closest advisers and, according to officials, enjoyed a ‘privileged relationship’. Blair was open about his reliance on him to provide the central plank of the argument for intervening in Iraq. At one point he turned to his spy chief and said: ‘Richard, my fate is in your hands.’ Meanwhile, Scarlett was working closely with Downing Street, to the extent that Alastair Campbell, Blair’s all-powerful media director, would talk of him as a ‘mate’ and ‘a very good bloke’. The JIC’s brief was to make its dossier suitable for publication to the public, in itself an unprecedented step in the publicity-shy world of spies. Campbell called for it to be ‘revelatory’. As the drafting process continued, Scarlett attended meetings chaired by Campbell to look at the presentation. 
Target: Saddam Hussein's Iraq was viewed with suspicion by the West after the invasion of Kuwait and the First Gulf War Intelligence was being sucked closer to policy than it had ever been before in MI6’s history. Scarlett disputes this, maintaining that he was just putting information in the public domain not taking sides. Subordinates disagree. ‘We knew the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war,’ one senior military intelligence officer later complained. ‘Every fact was managed to make it as strong as possible.’ Direction and pressure were being applied on the JIC and its drafters, he maintained. A line had been crossed. Intelligence was being used as a tool for political persuasion. But what intelligence was there to gather? Not a lot, in reality. 
Going to war: British airmen from 51 Squadron RAF Regiment shelter from the dust thrown up from a helicopter in 2009 in Basra, Iraq, after an invasion in 2003 that was supposed to bring peace and stability Iraq had long been a backwater for MI6, with information about it, on the spy masters’ own admission, ‘sporadic and patchy’. Then, suddenly, in the wake of 9/11, it was rocketed into top priority. All the dirt on Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction was required as a matter of urgency. The problem was that it takes years to build up reliable intelligence sources. Potential agents have to be spotted, researched, cultivated, approached and their veracity and good faith validated. But that was not the time-frame on offer. Though MI6 had a small stable of agents reporting from within Iraq, one or two long-standing and reliable, none of them had any first-hand knowledge of the WMD programme. 
Terror: A resident runs from the site of a bomb attack as fire engulfs vehicles in central Baghdad in 2009 But, knowing exactly what MI6 was looking for — and with cash bonuses on offer — they managed to find it by recruiting (or claiming to recruit) sub-sources with what was little more than gossip to spill and the product of their own imaginations. What the handful of agents didn’t report on — because they knew it was not wanted — was the large number of people they met in Iraq who knew nothing about special weapons and doubted their existence. Herein lay another problem. Saddam was clever and cunning, a master of deception. So MI6 decided they would have to deal with him in the same double-bluff and double-cross way they had treated the Soviet Union during the great espionage and counter-espionage days of the Cold War. This has an inherent difficulty. If you are convinced that your enemy is practising deception, and you can’t find what you are looking for, the logic — which, of course, is utterly flawed — is that your opponent is simply very good at deceiving you. Absence of evidence, as U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it, was not evidence of absence. It was a doctrine that was about to implode over Saddam’s non-existent WMDs. Any claims he now made that he had destroyed his chemical and biological weapons and halted his nuclear programme were simply dismissed in Washington and London as disinformation. Because Saddam had lied and cheated in the past, the overwhelming view was that he was doing the same now. As things stood, though, the dossier proving that he still had WMDs was still looking thin. 
Horror: The site of a car bomb explosion in Baghdad's al-Sadriyah district,in April 2007 in which 21 people were killed and 71 others wounded Much of the ‘crucial’ material came from Iraqi defectors who pimped stories to the Western intelligence agencies, making wild assertions in return for asylum. One such ‘fabricator’, codenamed Curveball, was set up with a new life in Germany after making up information about biological weapons being manufactured on mobile trailers. But in the climate of the times no one wanted to have a major source knocked out from under them. Curveball’s reports became the main evidence for Britain’s case that Saddam was still producing biological weapons. 
War crime: US Army Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. posing next to a detainee who died during interrogation in late 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq Even so, as time marched on and deadlines approached, the JIC and Downing Street were increasingly desperate for something more concrete to still the nation’s doubts about war. Emails whizzed back and forth, pleading for more information to put into the dossier. ‘Has anybody got anything more they can put in it?’ was the constant cry. Then, with a flourish, the magicians at MI6 pulled a rabbit or three out of their hat. They produced new intelligence, in the nick of time, that seemed to save the day. From Baghdad, a long-serving agent had sent an encrypted message over a tiny transmitter. One of his sources had produced a rather vague and ambiguous report saying that biological and chemical munitions could be with military units and ready to fire within 20 to 45 minutes. Quite what the weapons were he could not say. The source was untested but his identity was known, and he seemed to be in a position to know the information. The will for him to be right outweighed caution. Not everyone was convinced. Some at the JIC thought MI6’s description of its new sub-source too vague. It was also unclear what sort of weapons he was referring to. If the 45 minutes related to battlefield shells, as the JIC assessment staff believed, then it was not particularly surprising. In fact it was pretty pathetic rather than scary if it took the Iraqi army 45 minutes to fire a shell. But if it was referring to a ballistic missile, it was unrealistic to the point that it should be ignored. 
Prisoners: Iraqi detainees mill about and others pray at the Camp Cropper detention centre in Baghdad, Iraq. In 2007 US forces held a total of some 25,000 detainees Basically, what the source had provided was what Corera describes as ‘just a lonely piece of intelligence floating in a sea of uncertainty, to which those who wanted to could cling’. It was more local colour than hard intelligence, but the spooks grabbed at it gratefully. Then, out of the blue, another piece of intelligence dropped. MI6 had apparently bagged an important new agent, who claimed that Iraq’s production of biological and chemical weapons was being accelerated and new facilities built. The source was untested but Dearlove and senior officers around him were bullish. This was crucial in hardening up judgments and overcoming doubts. The reports were passed straight to Downing Street, bypassing assessors who could judge its technical credibility. 
Convinced: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaking at an inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War Some inside MI6 believed this was emblematic of what had gone wrong. Too much unproven intelligence, hot off the printer, was rushed into the welcoming arms of No 10. ‘Everything was supposed to go through the assessment staff,’ one officer recalled, talking about intelligence reports in general, ‘but often we got it half an hour after it had gone to Downing Street, with it post-dated to cover their backs.’ But confidence was high. The new source promised another consignment of crucial intelligence soon, including details of WMD sites. This, it was hoped, might be Blair’s eagerly sought ‘silver bullet’. The dossier, now stiffened by the new sources, was ready for the outside world. In a foreword, Blair wrote that Saddam’s continuing production of WMDs was ‘established beyond doubt’. Any hint that there were limits to the intelligence and even major gaps had been lost, along with many other caveats. Armed with MI6’s dossier, weapons inspectors for the United Nations — which still hoped to forestall war — now went back to Iraq to hunt once again for WMD. They inspected 300 sites and found nothing. ‘We went to a lot of chicken farms,’ one said,’ but there were just chickens’. The response in London was that this proved only how devious and duplicitous Saddam was and how incompetent and naive the inspectors were. In any case, proof of WMDs was largely irrelevant now. Nothing was going to stop the momentum. 
Murdered: British hostage Kenneth Bigley on a video tape in which he made a plea to Prime Minister Tony Blair to work for his release from captivity by Iraqi militants When hard intelligence of Saddam’s preparedness or otherwise for war suggested Iraq did not have usable weapons able to attack at all, let alone in 45 minutes, this was never revealed to the British public. ‘The books had been cooked, the bets placed,’ as an American intelligence officer put it. The conquest of Iraq began. In no time, Saddam’s forces were caving in, and it seemed odd that with Coalition troops approaching Baghdad, he did not use any of his ‘special weapons’. When it was all over, the issue resurfaced. Site after site was searched for evidence of WMDs. None was found. 
Linchpin: Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell played a major part in preparing the argument to involve Britain in Iraq One by one MI6’s prized sources melted away like mirages in the desert heat. Three months after the fall of Baghdad, MI6 interviewed in person the cherished new source in whom so much had been invested and who had dispelled so many doubts. He denied ever having said anything about accelerated production of biological and chemical weapons. The military officer who had passed on the 45-minute claim also denied having ever said such a thing, and it became clear that he had made it all up. So too had ‘Curveball’. The impact on MI6’s reputation was calamitous. The use of intelligence to sell a war to the public might not have mattered much if it turned out to be true. But once it was proved to be wrong, it left the public, and especially those who had been persuaded by the intelligence, feeling bitter. The recriminations began. Who was to blame for this fiasco, which had justified a war on a false premise? Who was responsible for launching Britain’s very own WMD, a weapon of mass deception? MI6 over-promised and under-delivered, was the verdict of one JIC member. This is disputed by some at MI6, who maintain that they
always made clear the intelligence was scant. Others argue that they had been left exposed by the politicians. The decision to go to war was a political choice by a prime minister who settled on intelligence as the best means by which to sell it to Parliament and the public. When it didn’t materialise: ‘We got dumped on.’ Many inside MI6 believed their organisation should take it squarely on the chin. Their sources had been wrong, and that was an end of it. The politicians may have pushed and pressed and spun the intelligence, but ultimately, the problem was that MI6’s reporting was dud. But others thought it was their own leadership who had let them down and left them exposed by getting too close to power. Scarlett and his committee were accused of making a dreadful error in entering Blair’s ‘magic circle’. They had allowed themselves to be engulfed by the heady atmosphere and failed to keep their distance and objectivity. The same criticism was made of Dearlove, who was said to have relished being at the epicentre of power, having informal meetings with Blair and even briefing Bush in the Oval Office. The truth — as we can now see nearly a decade later — is that politicians and spies became far too close in the run-up to the Iraq war. Why the Death of the Man Who Was Not Behind 9/11 Was Announced on May 1st  After the announcement of Bin Laden’s death, hundreds of people gathered in front of the White House chanting “USA! USA!”. It is in times like these that a line is drawn between critical thinkers and those who get swiped by media crap-storms; Between those who understand the complexity of a situation and those who’d rather not know; Between those who comprehend the underlying motives of the elite and those who go outside chanting “USA! USA!”. On the evening of May 1st 2011, Barak Obama’s statement was one of triumph and celebration. He claimed that, with the death of Osama Bin Laden, “justice was served”. The media spin following the announcement was equally as celebratory: “It is a great day for America and the world”…”The biggest piece of news since 9/11″…”We’ll all remember where we were when we’ve heard this news”…The entire “event” was artificially inflated, exaggerated and glorified. Should the death of a man cause happiness and celebrations? Since when have we devolved into such a barbaric state? Because he perpetrated 9/11? Did he also cause the Building 7 to implode? Damn you Osama and your team of engineers! The Mujahideen were recruited and formed in the late 70′s by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the United States National Security Advisor of Jimmy Carter (Brzezinski is today Obama’s main policy advisor). The military group was trained by the United States in order to repel Russian forces from Afghanistan. Bin Laden was trained by the CIA to fight the Communists and
the Taliban are a by-product of this US created movement. Since the fall of the USSR, Bin Laden and his Taliban served a new agenda: providing an excuse for the invasion of key middle-eastern countries under the guise of a “war on terror”. In 2001, about 15 minutes after the second plane hit the WTC, the image of Bin Laden was shown on television. He was the ideal patsy on who to blame the attacks and the perfect boogey-man to scare the American people. This scapegoat allowed the unquestioned invasion of Afghanistan, of Iraq. He even facilitated the enactment of the aberration called the Patriot Act. In 2011, Bin Laden’s usefulness to the Agenda has ran its course. Furthermore, the Obama administration needed an exploit to boost its poll ratings until the next elections. Consequently, in a classic combination of occult rituals with pragmatic politics, the death of Bin Laden was announced on May 1st 2011 with triumph and jubilation. Through CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX, millions of viewers rejoiced at the death of man in the same matter ancient peasants rejoiced at the offering of human sacrifices to Baal. In a dumbed-down, politicized and “Illuminati-sed” version of the Beltane Festival, the masses have celebrated the ritual sacrifice of a man and, without even realizing it, partook in one of the Illuminati’s most important holidays. | The SpanishAmerican War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States. While many historians and experts routinely include the indigenous struggles for independence in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippine Islands under this heading, the name Spanish-American War (explicitly suggesting the period of US military involvement, as it does) narrowly refers to the US-sponsored punctuation to the late-nineteenth-century turmoil in the Spanish colonies.
Ostensibly fought over the issue of Cuban independence, the four-month war developed into a global conflict as the U.S. Navy sought to dislodge Spain from longstanding colonial outposts in both the Caribbean and the South Pacific. Its outcome—with temporary administrative authority over Cuba and indefinite colonial authority over Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines ceded to the U.S. through the December 10, 1898 Treaty of Paris[7]—had long-range implications for both belligerent parties. For Spain, the conflict, thereafter referred to as the Disaster, contributed to the further weakening of the Restoration Government, the eventual rise of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, and Spains military insignificance in the twentieth century. The victorious United States, however, gained several island possessions spanning the globe and a modern navy capable of defending them 
Adolf Hitler salutes parading troops of the German Wehrmacht in Warsaw, Poland, on October 5, 1939 after the German invasion. Behind Hitler are, from left to right: Colonel General Walther von Brauchitsch, Lieutenant General Friedrich von Cochenhausen, Colonel General Gerd von Rundstedt, and Colonel General Wilhelm Keitel. (AP Photo) #  Soldiers of the SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Division, resting in a ditch alongside a road on the way to Pabianice, during the invasion of Poland in 1939. (LOC/Klaus Weill) # 
A ten-year-old Polish girl named Kazimiera Mika mourns over her sister's body. She was killed by German machine-gun fire while picking potatoes in a field outside Warsaw, Poland, in September of 1939. (AP Photo/Julien Bryan) # 
German advance guards and scouts are shown in a Polish town that has been under fire during the Nazi invasion of Poland, September 1939. (AP Photo) # 
German infantry cautiously advance on the outskirts of Warsaw, Poland on September 16, 1939. (AP Photo) # 
Several civilian prisoners of war, with arms raised, walk along a road during the German invasion of Poland in September of 1939. (LOC) # 
A small boat rescues a USS West Virginia crew member from the water after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941 during World War II. Two men can be seen on the superstructure, upper center. The mast of the USS Tennessee is beyond the burning West Virginia. (AP Photo) # 
Japanese pilots get instructions aboard an aircraft carrier before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7th, 1941, in this scene from a Japanese newsreel. It was obtained by the U.S. War Department and released to U.S. newsreels. (AP Photo) # 
This December 7, 1941 file photo obtained from the US Naval Historical Center shows the Commanding Officer of the Japanese aircraft carrier Hokaku, watching as planes take off to attack Pearl Harbor, during the morning of December 7, 1941. The Kanji inscription (L) is an exhortation to pilots to do their duty. (HO/AFP/Getty Images) # 
Japanese soldiers wave at a plane from under their flag December 7, 1941 just before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (Photo by Getty Images) # 
This picture, taken by a Japanese photographer, shows how American ships are clustered together before the surprise Japanese aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, on Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941. Minutes later the full impact of the assault was felt and Pearl Harbor became a flaming target. (AP Photo) # 
A Japanese bomber, its diving flaps down, was photographed by a U.S. Navy photographer as the plane approached its Pearl Harbor objective on December 7. (AP Photo) # 
The USS Shaw explodes during the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. (Photo by Newsmakers/National Archive) # 
First Army photos of the bombing of Hickam Field, Hawaii, Dec. 7, 1941. Wreckage of barracks from parade ground off Hangar Ave. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.) # 
Officers' wives, investigating explosion and seeing smoke pall in distance on Dec. 7, 1941, heard neighbor Mary Naiden, then an Army hostess who took this picture, exclaim "There are red circles on those planes overhead. They are Japanese!" Realizing war had come, the two women, stunned, start toward quarters. (AP Photo/Mary Naiden) # 
Ford Island is seen in this aerial view during the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor December 7, 1941 in Hawaii. The photo was taken from a Japanese plane. (Photo by Getty Images) # 
U.S. Sailors stand amid wreckage watching as the USS Shaw explodes December 7, 1941 on Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii during the Japanese attack. (Photo by Getty Images) # 
A Japanese bomber on a run over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii is shown during the surprise attack of Dec. 7, 1941. Black smoke rises from American ships in the harbor. Below is a U.S. Army air field. (AP Photo) # 
USS Arizona, at height of fire, following Japanese aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.) # 
This December 7th file image shows an aerial view of battleships of the US Pacific Fleet consumed by the flames in its home base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii after 360 Japanese warplanes made a massive surprise attack. (HO/AFP/Getty Images) # 
The USS Arizona burns during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 in Hawaii. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy/Newsmakers) # 
The US Pacific Fleet burns in its home base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii after 360 Japanese warplanes made a massive surprise attack, 07 December 1941. (Photo credit should read STF/AFP/Getty Images) #  
| See the large explosion, more evident of explosives than a fire created by jet fuel. If you follow the money, you can see that the people with the most to g ain occupied the key military and civilian positions to help 9/11 happen, as well as to cover up the crime. Such is the hallmark of false flag operations throughout history. But the incredible scale of the 9/11 sham, and the sheer number of people who still refuse to see the mountain of truth in front of their eyes…that’s what makes the September 11, 2001 attacks the greatest false flag operation of all time. Like many buildings built in the 1970s, the twin towers were constructed with vast quantities of cancer-causing asbestos. The cost of removing the Twin Tower asbestos? A year’s worth of revenues at a minimum; possibly as much as the value of the buildings themselves. The cost to disassemble the Twin Towers floor by floor would have run into the double-digit billions. In addition, the Port Authority was prohibited from demolishing the towers because the resulting asbestos dust would cover the entire city, which it did when they collapsed, resulting in many cancers with a confirmed link to the WTC dust.
Despite its questionable status, in January of 2001, Larry Silverstein made a $3.2 billion bid for the World Trade Center. On July 24, the Port Authority accepted the offer. Silverstein then took out an insurance policy that, understandably, covered terrorist attacks, which happened seven weeks later. To date, Silverstein has been awarded almost $5 billion from nine different insurance companies. What was an asbestos nightmare turned into a $1.8 billion profit within seven weeks. | | | Krgyzstan During early 2005, the US engineered its last takeover in Central Asia where Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev was ousted due to his efforts to increase economic and political ties with Russia and China. On March 24th, rioters forced Akayev to flee the country which allowed “a loose coalition of opposition forces under the leadership of Kurmanbek Bakiyev seized power.” This occurred after parliamentary run-off elections on March 13th which were widely seen as fraudulent and in response to this, the opposition movement began holding protests. This opposition movement was “largely the product of US intervention in the country, owing its existence to the financial and logistical resources provided either directly from Washington or through US-funded non-governmental organizations” [53] such as Freedom House, which published opposition newspapers in an effort to stir up popular discontent. The events seemed to be going according to plan, however the Americans were surprised when on March 13th “when Akayev was still in power, the opposition leadership began backing off its initial calls for the president’s resignation and instead demanded negotiations with the ruling authorities” [54] and protests became violent. By next week American was calling “for an end to the violence, urging ‘all parties in Kyrgyzstan to engage in dialogue and resolve differences peacefully and according to the rule of law’” [55] and had S Ambassador Stephen Young attempt to work with opposition forces and Akayev to find a solution. A solution was found: A new parliament was formed and Akayev resigned from the presidency. This allowed US front-man, Kurmanbek Saliyevich Bakiyev, to be elected President. America’s main interests in Kyrgyzstan was that “the country is of great geopolitical significance due to its proximity to oil-producing countries” and that the “US military base near Bishkek is also critical to American efforts in Afghanistan.” [56] Overall, Washington succeed in fulfilling its main interests of expanding oil routes and limiting Russian influence on its neighbors. However, the US also gained a foothold that would more easily allow for an attack or invasion of Iran or potentially a staging ground to do covert operations in Russia. Africom In October 2007, the US established Africa Command (Africom), Its stated goal was to aid the African people in military operations and promote US foreign policy, however, there was also the other goal of combating China as they were making moves into the continent to get at its oil resources. With the creation of Africom, the US would become the first nation in history to have military commands that covered literally the entire planet. America was concerned about the Chinese making moves to access African oil due to the fact that “African oil supplies [would] account for 25% of its energy demands by 2015.” [57] In addition to this the US viewed Africa “as a backdrop” to take out terrorists. Even before Africom was created, African leaders put up such a strong resistance “that commanders abandoned initial ambitions to install a headquarters on the continent.” [58] In general most Africans didn’t trust Africom as they didn’t even “trust their own militaries, which in places like [the] Congo [where militaries] have turned weapons on their own people.” Also, since Africom was itself a military force, many Africans were worried that the Americans wanted to make African states “proxies” and would use Africom to look out for American interests. While dealing with this policy of imperial domination of the globe, the Empire’s homeland was economically about to crumble. Financial Crisis In late 2007, a massive financial crisis that originated in the US hit the world and its effects are being felt to this day. It began with the housing market having an upward spiral due to people buying houses due to easy credit, predatory lending by realtor companies, and massive government deregulation. This deadly mixture would lead to the global economy being put on the brink of collapse. After the 9/11 attacks, the Federal Reserve “lowered the Federal funds rate 11 times - from 6.5% in May 2000 to 1.75% in December 2001 - creating a flood of liquidity in the economy.” [59] This access to easy credit (as well as predatory lending and Americans being able to purchase houses via Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in many cases) led people to buy houses that they were unable to afford. With houses being snapped up quickly, it “made investments in higher yielding subprime mortgages look like a new rush for gold.” [60] Thus, companies began putting their money into these subprime mortgages. This only increased when the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to 1% in June 2003. Financial companies then created a secondary market for subprime mortages by repackaging them into collateralized debt obligations, which, while they were quite risky, if successful, would pay off quite handsomely. The risk increased in October 2004 when the Security Exchange Commission relaxed the net capital requirement for Goldman Sacs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley. This allowed the banks to “leverage up to 30-times or even 40-times their initial investment.” [61] This was essentially a green light from the feds for financial companies to take more risks with their investments. Things began to go sour when “U.S. homeownership had peaked at 70%” in 2004 and “during the last quarter of 2005, home prices started to fall, which led to a 40% decline in the U.S. Home Construction Index during 2006.” [62] This was already bad as the job boom in the construction sector would end, but also many people began defaulting on their loans, which in turn made banks wary of lending people money. This effects of this mass mortgage defaulting would come home in 2007 as the financial companies couldn’t solve the problem on its own and the crisis began spreading around the world. Even though the Federal Reserve began to slash discount and fund rates, the situation continued to worsen as corporations like Lehman Brothers and Merril Lynch collapsed. It an attempt to solve this, in 2008 the US government bailed out the financial companies at the tune of $700 billion. While this saved the financial corporations, it did nothing for those that had lost retirement or pension funds in the crisis. Many of those who had were directly involved in creating the crisis got multi-million and -billion dollar bonuses, while average Americans suffered in the form of skyrocketing unemployment and loss of investments. While this financial disaster led to the near collapse of the global economy, there was also a moral collapse of America. Due to the unjustified war in Iraq, the torturing of prisoners, the illegal wiretapping, and the American government’s general disregard for both national and international law, the United States lost its moral standing with the world. No longer was it the nation that was the beacon of freedom, democracy, and liberty. Now the US was in an onset of imperial decline, something from which it would never come back from. The result was a firecracker of a dossier which was pivotal in the run-up to the deeply divisive British and American invasion of Iraq. For many people, the scary information it disclosed — that Saddam was so advanced with his chemical and biological weapons that he could fire them with a mere 45 minutes notice — was a tipping point. Millions who had been sceptical about the reality of the Iraq threat were brought up short by the Prime Minister’s assurance that the evidence of Saddam’s evil intentions was ‘extensive, detailed and authoritative’. The case for confronting him was cut and dried. Only later would it emerge how dodgy that dossier actually was. Victim: David Kelly, 59, after giving evidence in a Commons Select committee Yet disastrous consequences flowed from its false and exaggerated claims. They were cited as a pretext for the conquest of Iraq, which led to tens of thousands of deaths. They also caused a damaging clash between the government and the BBC over suggestions that the dossier had been ‘sexed-up’ and the mysterious death of a respected weapons inspector, Dr David Kelly. For MI6, the dossier brought the biggest crisis of confidence since the infamous Cambridge spy ring and the defection of one of its top men, Kim Philby, to the Soviet Union in 1963. What happened was a lesson in the distortion that can arise when the painstaking craft of intelligence-gathering — MI6’s pride and joy since its inception in 1909 — was over-ridden by the wishful thinking and unrelenting ambition of politicians. From the start, Blair had put his weight and his reputation behind U.S. plans to topple Saddam, believing in his heart that the world would be a better place without the Iraqi dictator. But selling a war to a sceptical public would be very difficult. Regime change on its own was not accepted in Britain in the way it was in post-9/11 America. So the decision was taken to base the case for war entirely on Iraq’s possession of chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. This meant leaning heavily on intelligence. From his spymasters Blair sought material to make a public case for armed intervention. OBLIGING: MI6 at Vauxhall Bridge, were supposed to be the nation's eyes and ears, but failed to smell something fishy They, in turn, were eager to oblige. MI6 was still in shock from having missed signs of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and Washington and was determined never to be caught out again. There was a more deep-seated reason too. ‘One of the cultural weaknesses of MI6 is that it is too eager to please,’ one former senior official told Corera. For all the secret service’s James Bond-ish bravado, it has always been beset by a fear that one day it will no longer be needed.
Trauma: After the events of September 11, 2001, MI6 was concerned not to be caught out The ending of the Cold War and MI6’s legendary cat-and-mouse tussles with the KGB seemed to herald that redundancy. Then the post-9/11 era offered a new mission. Out to prove it still had a vital use in the modern world, MI6 set to work. Early drafts were begun of a dossier on Saddam’s weapons programmes. Some MI6 officers were unhappy with the idea of working to so precise an agenda. ‘All our training, all our culture, bias, is against such a thing,’ one complained. But there was no stopping what quickly became a juggernaut as Britain’s two most senior spies — Richard Dearlove, head of MI6, and John Scarlett, chairman of the government’s Joint Intelligence Committee, whose job was to sift and assess MI6’s information — became central to the build-up to war. Dearlove in particular became one of the Prime Minister’s closest advisers and, according to officials, enjoyed a ‘privileged relationship’. Blair was open about his reliance on him to provide the central plank of the argument for intervening in Iraq. At one point he turned to his spy chief and said: ‘Richard, my fate is in your hands.’ Meanwhile, Scarlett was working closely with Downing Street, to the extent that Alastair Campbell, Blair’s all-powerful media director, would talk of him as a ‘mate’ and ‘a very good bloke’. The JIC’s brief was to make its dossier suitable for publication to the public, in itself an unprecedented step in the publicity-shy world of spies. Campbell called for it to be ‘revelatory’. As the drafting process continued, Scarlett attended meetings chaired by Campbell to look at the presentation. Target: Saddam Hussein's Iraq was viewed with suspicion by the West after the invasion of Kuwait and the First Gulf War Intelligence was being sucked closer to policy than it had ever been before in MI6’s history. Scarlett disputes this, maintaining that he was just putting information in the public domain not taking sides. Subordinates disagree. ‘We knew the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war,’ one senior military intelligence officer later complained. ‘Every fact was managed to make it as strong as possible.’ Direction and pressure were being applied on the JIC and its drafters, he maintained. A line had been crossed. Intelligence was being used as a tool for political persuasion. But what intelligence was there to gather? Not a lot, in reality. Going to war: British airmen from 51 Squadron RAF Regiment shelter from the dust thrown up from a helicopter in 2009 in Basra, Iraq, after an invasion in 2003 that was supposed to bring peace and stability Iraq had long been a backwater for MI6, with information about it, on the spy masters’ own admission, ‘sporadic and patchy’. Then, suddenly, in the wake of 9/11, it was rocketed into top priority. All the dirt on Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction was required as a matter of urgency. The problem was that it takes years to build up reliable intelligence sources. Potential agents have to be spotted, researched, cultivated, approached and their veracity and good faith validated. But that was not the time-frame on offer. Though MI6 had a small stable of agents reporting from within Iraq, one or two long-standing and reliable, none of them had any first-hand knowledge of the WMD programme. Terror: A resident runs from the site of a bomb attack as fire engulfs vehicles in central Baghdad in 2009 But, knowing exactly what MI6 was looking for — and with cash bonuses on offer — they managed to find it by recruiting (or claiming to recruit) sub-sources with what was little more than gossip to spill and the product of their own imaginations. What the handful of agents didn’t report on — because they knew it was not wanted — was the large number of people they met in Iraq who knew nothing about special weapons and doubted their existence. Herein lay another problem. Saddam was clever and cunning, a master of deception. So MI6 decided they would have to deal with him in the same double-bluff and double-cross way they had treated the Soviet Union during the great espionage and counter-espionage days of the Cold War. This has an inherent difficulty. If you are convinced that your enemy is practising deception, and you can’t find what you are looking for, the logic — which, of course, is utterly flawed — is that your opponent is simply very good at deceiving you. Absence of evidence, as U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it, was not evidence of absence. It was a doctrine that was about to implode over Saddam’s non-existent WMDs. Any claims he now made that he had destroyed his chemical and biological weapons and halted his nuclear programme were simply dismissed in Washington and London as disinformation. Because Saddam had lied and cheated in the past, the overwhelming view was that he was doing the same now. As things stood, though, the dossier proving that he still had WMDs was still looking thin. Horror: The site of a car bomb explosion in Baghdad's al-Sadriyah district,in April 2007 in which 21 people were killed and 71 others wounded Much of the ‘crucial’ material came from Iraqi defectors who pimped stories to the Western intelligence agencies, making wild assertions in return for asylum. One such ‘fabricator’, codenamed Curveball, was set up with a new life in Germany after making up information about biological weapons being manufactured on mobile trailers. But in the climate of the times no one wanted to have a major source knocked out from under them. Curveball’s reports became the main evidence for Britain’s case that Saddam was still producing biological weapons. War crime: US Army Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. posing next to a detainee who died during interrogation in late 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq Even so, as time marched on and deadlines approached, the JIC and Downing Street were increasingly desperate for something more concrete to still the nation’s doubts about war. Emails whizzed back and forth, pleading for more information to put into the dossier. ‘Has anybody got anything more they can put in it?’ was the constant cry. Then, with a flourish, the magicians at MI6 pulled a rabbit or three out of their hat. They produced new intelligence, in the nick of time, that seemed to save the day. From Baghdad, a long-serving agent had sent an encrypted message over a tiny transmitter. One of his sources had produced a rather vague and ambiguous report saying that biological and chemical munitions could be with military units and ready to fire within 20 to 45 minutes. Quite what the weapons were he could not say. The source was untested but his identity was known, and he seemed to be in a position to know the information. The will for him to be right outweighed caution. Not everyone was convinced. Some at the JIC thought MI6’s description of its new sub-source too vague. It was also unclear what sort of weapons he was referring to. If the 45 minutes related to battlefield shells, as the JIC assessment staff believed, then it was not particularly surprising. In fact it was pretty pathetic rather than scary if it took the Iraqi army 45 minutes to fire a shell. But if it was referring to a ballistic missile, it was unrealistic to the point that it should be ignored. Prisoners: Iraqi detainees mill about and others pray at the Camp Cropper detention centre in Baghdad, Iraq. In 2007 US forces held a total of some 25,000 detainees Basically, what the source had provided was what Corera describes as ‘just a lonely piece of intelligence floating in a sea of uncertainty, to which those who wanted to could cling’. It was more local colour than hard intelligence, but the spooks grabbed at it gratefully. Then, out of the blue, another piece of intelligence dropped. MI6 had apparently bagged an important new agent, who claimed that Iraq’s production of biological and chemical weapons was being accelerated and new facilities built. in the desert heat. Three months after the fall of Baghdad, MI6 interviewed in person the cherished new source in whom so much had been invested and who had dispelled so many doubts. He denied ever having said anything about accelerated production of biological and chemical weapons. The military officer who had passed on the 45-minute claim also denied having ever said such a thing, and it became clear that he had made it all up. So too had ‘Curveball’. The impact on MI6’s reputation was calamitous. The use of intelligence to sell a war to the public might not have mattered much if it turned out to be true. But once it was proved to be wrong, it left the public, and especially those who had been persuaded by the intelligence, feeling bitter. The recriminations began. Who was to blame for this fiasco, which had justified a war on a false premise? Who was responsible for launching Britain’s very own WMD, a weapon of mass deception? MI6 over-promised and under-delivered, was the verdict of one JIC member. This is disputed by some at MI6, who maintain that they
always made clear the intelligence was scant. Others argue that they had been left exposed by the politicians. The decision to go to war was a political choice by a prime minister who settled on intelligence as the best means by which to sell it to Parliament and the public. When it didn’t materialise: ‘We got dumped on.’ Many inside MI6 believed their organisation should take it squarely on the chin. Their sources had been wrong, and that was an end of it. The politicians may have pushed and pressed and spun the intelligence, but ultimately, the problem was that MI6’s reporting was dud. But others thought it was their own leadership who had let them down and left them exposed by getting too close to power. Scarlett and his committee were accused of making a dreadful error in entering Blair’s ‘magic circle’. They had allowed themselves to be engulfed by the heady atmosphere and failed to keep their distance and objectivity. The same criticism was made of Dearlove, who was said to have relished being at the epicentre of power, having informal meetings with Blair and even briefing Bush in the Oval Office. The truth — as we can now see nearly a decade later — is that politicians and spies became far too close in the run-up to the Iraq war. Why the Death of the Man Who Was Not Behind 9/11 Was Announced on May 1st -
After the announcement of Bin Laden’s death, hundreds of people gathered in front of the White House chanting “USA! USA!”. It is in times like these that a line is drawn between critical thinkers and those who get swiped by media crap-storms; Between those who understand the complexity of a situation and those who’d rather not know; Between those who comprehend the underlying motives of the elite and those who go outside chanting “USA! USA!”. On the evening of May 1st 2011, Barak Obama’s statement was one of triumph and celebration. He claimed that, with the death of Osama Bin Laden, “justice was served”. The media spin following the announcement was equally as celebratory: “It is a great day for America and the world”…”The biggest piece of news since 9/11″…”We’ll all remember where we were when we’ve heard this news”…The entire “event” was artificially inflated, exaggerated and glorified. Should the death of a man cause happiness and celebrations? Since when have we devolved into such a barbaric state? Because he perpetrated 9/11? Did he also cause the Building 7 to implode? Damn you Osama and your team of engineers! The Mujahideen were recruited and formed in the late 70′s by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the United States National Security Advisor of Jimmy Carter (Brzezinski is today Obama’s main policy advisor). The military group was trained by the United States in order to repel Russian forces from Afghanistan. Bin Laden was trained by the CIA to fight the Communists and
the Taliban are a by-product of this US created movement. Since the fall of the USSR, Bin Laden and his Taliban served a new agenda: providing an excuse for the invasion of key middle-eastern countries under the guise of a “war on terror”. In 2001, about 15 minutes after the second plane hit the WTC, the image of Bin Laden was shown on television. He was the ideal patsy on who to blame the attacks and the perfect boogey-man to scare the American people. This scapegoat allowed the unquestioned invasion of Afghanistan, of Iraq. He even facilitated the enactment of the aberration called the Patriot Act. In 2011, Bin Laden’s usefulness to the Agenda has ran its course. Furthermore, the Obama administration needed an exploit to boost its poll ratings until the next elections. Consequently, in a classic combination of occult rituals with pragmatic politics, the death of Bin Laden was announced on May 1st 2011 with triumph and jubilation. Through CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX, millions of viewers rejoiced at the death of man in the same matter ancient peasants rejoiced at the offering of human sacrifices to Baal. In a dumbed-down, politicized and “Illuminati-sed” version of the Beltane Festival, the masses have celebrated the ritual sacrifice of a man and, without even realizing it, partook in one of the Illuminati’s most important holidays.  2
U.S Army operations Spec. Jeremy Hopkins from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment stands on an overlook at Forward Operating Base Edi, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Thursday, May 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  3
Sgt. Darrell McKinstry, right, a medic with the United States Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment leads Marines as they carry a Marine wounded by an improvised explosive device to a waiting medevac helicopter in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  4
U.S. Marines gather around a colleague wounded by an improvised explosive device (IED) as smoke marks the landing area for a medevac helicopter from the United States Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  5
Sgt. Quincey Northern of Lousiana, left, a medic with the United States Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment leads Marines as they carry an Afghan civilian wounded by insurgent gunfire on a stretcher to a waiting medevac helicopter in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  6
Sgt. Quincey Northern, a medic with the United States Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment gathers his equipment after finishing a medevac mission and arriving back at Camp Dwyer, in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  7
U.S. Marines run through dust kicked up by a Black Hawk helicopter from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment as they rush a colleague wounded in an IED strike for evacuation near Sangin, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, May 10, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  8
US Army flight crew chief Spc. Torrell Bryant from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment tends to an Afghan suffering a gunshot wound, during a medevac from east of Musa Qalah in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan on Monday, May 9, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  9
US Army medic Sgt. Bob Winchester of Alaska, left, and US Navy nurse Lt. Cdr. Eric Gryn tend to a critically injured Afghan civilian on board a US Army medevac Blackhawk helicopter from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment. The civilian was shot in an area north of Sangin District, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Sunday, May 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  10
A United States Marine Cobra attack helicopter fires diversionary flares as it flies near Forward Operating Base Edi in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Sunday, May 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  11
US Army flight medic Sgt. Jose Rivera from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment shaves his head while waiting for missions at Forward Operating Base Edi in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Sunday, May 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  12
British medics wait to unload an Afghan patient, suffering from a gunshot wound, off a US Army medevac Blackhawk helicopter from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment at hospital at Camp Bastion, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Sunday, May 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  13
NATO soldiers from Georgia carry an Afghan Army soldier, suffering from a gunshot wound, to a waiting Blackhawk helicopter from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment west of Sangin District, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Friday, May 6, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  14
US Army flight crew chief SPC. Jenny Martinez holds her weapon as she secures the area in dust kicked up by a Blackhawk helicopter from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment while awaiting the evacuation of a United States Marine wounded in an IED strike near Sangin, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Tuesday, May 10, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  15
U.S Army soldiers from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment warm themselves on fire at Forward Operating Base Edi, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Thursday, May 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  16
U.S Army medevac pilot Chief Warrant Officer Eric Williams, left, holds onto his hat alongside Lt. Terry Hill of Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment during a brief dust storm at Forward Operating Base Edi, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  17
A Blackhawk helicopter attached to Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment flies over Kandahar Province in volatile southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  18
A brief dust storm rolls towards United States Marine Forward Operating Base Edi, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) #  19
A United States Marine from Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Marines carries his weapons and ammunition during an operation to clear the area of insurgents near Musa Qaleh, in northern Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, Friday, July 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 
|
