The CIA's Iran Coup

 In 1953 the CIA instituted Operation Ajax which was led by Kermit Roosevelt cousin of Franklin Roosevelt. Using cash to payoff government opposition groups and propaganda the coup was a success collapsing the  government of Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh.  

The overthrow of Mosadegh's was done to stop the nationalisation of Irans oil industry which at that time was controlled by the British  Anglo-Iranian Oil Company  Mosadegh's government had sought an audit of Anglo-Iranian books to insure that Iran was being paid what was owed per the agreement.  The British saw the nationalisation of Anglo-Iranian has a case of theft. 

With Mosadegh removed from power the Shah of Iran was able to consolidate his power. Over his 26 years in power the Shah's government became more repressive using the SAVAK to repress dissent, censor the media and imprison those opposed to the Shah's rule. 

All of this helped to ensure the Islamic Revolution of 1979 would be a success. 

CIA chief says Ukraine war forcing China to rethink Taiwan invasion

Russia’s experience in Ukraine is affecting China’s calculations on how and when it may decide to invade Taiwan, the head of the CIA said on Wednesday. Appearing at the Aspen Security Forum, the Central Intelligence Agency director, Bill Burns, played down speculation that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, could move on Taiwan after a key Communist party meeting later this year

Kidnap or Kill: The CIA’s plot against WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange

 

Why isn’t the CIA’s plan to kidnap Julian Assange making more headlines? And a look at the complexities and nuances of translating literary work.

An exposé detailing the CIA’s war on WikiLeaks – a Trump administration plan to silence Julian Assange and the organisation – has been published. But like so much of the Assange story, it’s got nothing like the media coverage it deserves.

China Wants To Rewrite Its Coronavirus Failures

The Chinese Communist government has ratcheted up its efforts to rewrite history to cover up its failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak.  Li Wenliang who tried to warn other doctors about the outbreak was at first detained by the security services and told not disparage the state.  What followed was a complete cock-up leading not only to uncontrolled outbreak but, the death of Li Wenliang.  His death caused serious outrage  among social media users in China on Weibo .  It wasn't until March that the Chinese Communist government finally and I'm sure reluctantly issued a statement acknowledging the doctors attempts to warn the country and the world about the coronavirus outbreak.

Its been revealed that the CIA has tried to warn the White House about the statistics coming from the Chinese government. Of course Donald Trump just ignored the warning.   

Sadly a large swath of the American public will believe the Chinese governments rewrite of history.

The Chinese state is ramping up its English-language media campaigns in a bid to defend the country’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, highlight the failings of western governments, and raise China’s standing on the world stage.

Photographs of Chinese aid – dubbed “facemask diplomacy” – arriving at Heathrow on Saturday including boxes labelled “Keep Calm and Cure Coronavirus” have been promoted to UK audiences by the Xinhua news agency. Some younger Chinese diplomats have used English-language Twitter, which is banned within China, to spread false suggestions that the virus may have been started by the west to discredit the Chinese state.

Prof Kerry Brown, an associate fellow on the Asia-Pacific programme at the thinktank Chatham House, suggested the country was trying to turn a national disaster into a global triumph: “They’re trying to push back against some of the politicisation of this in America and to try to get control of the narrative before it spirals out of control.”

Libya Renditions: The CIA, MI6 and Gaddafi's Secret Prisons

How British and US secret services collaborated with the former Libyan regime to detain and torture dissidents.

In 2004, Sami al-Saadi and Abdel-Hakeem Belhaj - two Libyan opponents of the Muammar Gaddafi regime - were abducted en route to the United Kingdom, then repatriated to Libya where they were imprisoned and tortured.

But following the 2011 uprising and the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime, the two men - who were released from detention in 2010 - began to investigate the real story behind their abduction, and the role played by the UK government.

Two years later in 2013, Al Jazeera's Juliana Ruhfus gained exclusive access to the men as they returned to Libya in search of answers.

John O. Brennan: I Gave Trump A Year To Live Up To The Office. He Didn't. | Rachel Maddow

John Brennan, former CIA director, talks with Rachel Maddow about his criticisms of Donald Trump and his early awareness of Russian efforts to intrudce upon the 2016 presidential election.

Mustang: A Kingdom on the Edge

Al Jazeera's Steve Chao follows the struggle of the Tibetan people to preserve an ancient culture.

While Tibetan Buddhism is squeezed inside of China's borders, there is a place where it still survives intact: Upper Mustang - a once forbidden kingdom high in the Nepalese Himalayas.

Al Jazeera's Steve Chao travels there to document the fight to preserve an ancient culture, as China expands its influence into Nepal, and the modern world slowly creeps in.

Captain Chaos Strikes Again: He Sacked Rex Tillerson

Captain Chaos struck again this morning when (using twitter because a normal press release just wouldn't do.) he announced the sacking of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.  Tillerson will be replaced by Mike Pompeo presently the Director of the CIA. If you've never heard of Mike Pompeo don't feel bad he's a former Republican Congressman from Kansas whose almost as bright as Donald Trump which of course is an oxymoron.   

It's rather interesting timing given Donald Trump's recent acceptance to meet with North Korean leader Kim-Jong un possibly as soon as May.  Neither Donald Trump or Mike Pompeo have any experience with diplomacy.  Nor our they experts on North Korea nor is anyone else in the administration as there is no U.S. ambassador to South Korea as the person nominated by Trump withdrew his name over comments he made about taking military action against the North if they failed to give up their nuclear arsenal.  Which they will never agree to. The foreign service officer who was working on this issue has also resigned. 

Given Donald Trump's penchant for not listening to actual good advice or just going with his gut instinct will only lead to a diplomatic cockup.  

Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood and the US media

How Hollywood and the media failed to expose Harvey Weinstein. Plus, how the CIA and the Pentagon manipulate the movies.

Weinstein, Hollywood and the media

In Hollywood, it was one of those open secrets, something widely known that no one was prepared to say out loud. Harvey Weinstein, one of the most successful producers in the movie business, is a serial sex abuser, using his immense power and influence to force women - staff, interns, but mostly actresses - to succumb to his will.

But why has something that took place over decades not been reported until now?

We examine what the Harvey Weinstein story - the one the US media failed to report until now - says about the relationship between the film industry and the news business.

North Korea Accuses The CIA

Date Line North Korea: Pyongyang accuses CIA of trying to kill Kim-Jong un. The weapon of choice? A proton torpedo.

— Taro Aso (@Nishinasuno) May 5, 2017

Next they'll say that the Klingon's were involved along with the Borg. Resistance is futile.

— Taro Aso (@Nishinasuno) May 5, 2017

The Dark Prison: Legacy of the CIA Torture Programme

Victims of the CIA's brutal interrogation programme speak out about torture and its effect on their lives.

It's been more than a year since US President Barack Obama admitted that the CIA tortured prisoners at its interrogation centres.

While the CIA has long admitted the use of waterboarding, which simulates drowning by pouring water into a person's nose and mouth, a truncated and heavily redacted report by the Senate Intelligence Committee in December 2015 detailed other abuses that went beyond previous disclosures.

Reading like a script from a horror film, some of the techniques involved prisoners being slapped and punched while being dragged naked up and down corridors, being kept in isolation in total darkness, subject to constant deafening music, rectal rehydration and being locked in coffin-shaped boxes.

Drone: Inside the CIA's Secret Drone War (video)

From drone operators to strike victims, we examine the impact of remote-controlled killing and the future of warfare.



In 2001, the White House concluded that it was legal to use armed drones to kill senior al-Qaeda leaders. Within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, US President George W Bush signed off on an order which authorised the CIA to capture and kill al-Qaeda operatives.

For some, drones are the greatest weapon ever to be developed by the CIA; for others, they present a constant, deadly and terrifying threat.

In this two-part documentary, we go inside the CIA's secret drone war to explore, through wide-ranging interviews spanning the US and Pakistan, what drones mean for the people who fly them and for the people who live under their constant threat.

Drone: Inside the CIA's Secret Drone War (video)

From drone operators to strike victims, we examine the impact of remote-controlled killing and the future of warfare.
In 2001, the White House concluded that it was legal to use armed drones to kill senior al-Qaeda leaders. Within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, US President George W Bush signed off on an order which authorised the CIA to capture and kill al-Qaeda operatives.

For some, drones are the greatest weapon ever to be developed by the CIA; for others, they present a constant, deadly and terrifying threat.



In this two-part documentary, we go inside the CIA's secret drone war to explore, through wide-ranging interviews spanning the US and Pakistan, what drones mean for the people who fly them and for the people who live under their constant threat.

What happens when you spend hours in a pitch-black room, day after day, shooting at "targets" halfway across the world on a pixelated screen in the hinterland of Nevada? Why are former pilots speaking out against the drone war and is the US government attempting to silence them? And how do drone operators process killing with a joystick?

The Dark Prison: Legacy of the CIA Torture Programme (video)

Victims of the CIA's brutal interrogation programme speak out about torture and the impact on their lives. It's been more than a year since US President Barack Obama admitted that the CIA tortured prisoners at its interrogation centres. While the CIA has long admitted the use of waterboarding, which simulates drowning by pouring water into a person's nose and mouth, a truncated and heavily redacted report by the Senate Intelligence Committee in December 2015 detailed other abuses that went beyond previous disclosures. Reading like a script from a horror film, some of the techniques involved prisoners being slapped and punched while being dragged naked up and down corridors, being kept in isolation in total darkness, subject to constant deafening music, rectal rehydration and being locked in coffin-shaped boxes. Critical to the development of the CIA's brutal interrogation programme was a legal memo that said the proposed methods of interrogation were not torture if they did not cause "organ failure, death or permanent damage".

Torture by another name: CIA used 'water dousing' on at least 12 detainees

Interrogators used a technique that elicits a drowning sensation and lowers body temperature on many more detainees than the agency admits to waterboarding

At least a dozen more people were subjected to waterboard-like tactics in CIA custody than the agency has admitted, according to a fresh accounting of the US government’s most discredited form of torture.

The CIA maintains it only subjected three detainees to waterboarding. But agency interrogators subjected at least 12 others to a similar technique, known as “water dousing”, that also created a drowning sensation or chilled a person’s body temperature – sometimes through “immersion” in water, and often without use of a board.

New lawsuits, recently released documents and the Senate’s landmark torture report indicate that at least 13 men in total experienced “water dousing”. Those familiar with their cases and an interrogator cited in the Senate report consider water dousing’s departure from waterboarding to be “a distinction without a difference”.

Senate Intelligence Committee Study on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

Key Resources

• SSCI Study: Executive Summary
• SSCI Study: Findings and Conclusions
• SSCI Study: Additional Views
• SSCI Study: Minority Views
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Timeline of the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
• Key Dates Related to the Study
• Feinstein Floor Statement
• Transmittal Letter of the Full SSCI Study to President Obama
• Letter to President Obama Proposing Reforms to Prevent Future Use of Torture
• Corrections to Appendix 2

Floor Speeches

• Speech on Release of Intelligence Committee's Detention and Interrogation Study, December 2014
• Speech on CIA’s Unauthorized Access into Intelligence Committee Computers, March 2014

John Oliver Addresses Americans' 'Fairy Tale' Ideas About Torture

John Oliver really is both principled and brilliant: With the help of British actress Helen Mirren, Oliver compared the reality of torture to the version most American's believe from television shows like "24." With Mirren reading from the report about "rectal rehydration" - in the case of one detainee who was force fed a meal of…

Naming the Torturers, Part Two

By Ek Hornbeck From Docudharma


So Leni Riefenstahl Kathryn Bigelow Kathryn_Bigelow, how do you feel about Maya now that she's been exposed not only as a bloodthirsty sadist, but a lying incompetent as well?

Meet Alfreda Bikowsky, the Senior Officer at the Center of the CIA’s Torture Scandals
By Glenn Greenwald and Peter Maass
12/19/14


NBC News yesterday called her a “key apologist” for the CIA’s torture program. A follow-up New Yorker article dubbed her “The Unidentified Queen of Torture” and in part “the model for the lead character in ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’” Yet in both articles she was anonymous.

The person described by both NBC and The New Yorker is senior CIA officer Alfreda Frances Bikowsky. Multiple news outlets have reported that as the result of a long string of significant errors and malfeasance, her competence and integrity are doubted — even by some within the agency.
...
The executive summary of the torture report released by the Senate last week provides abundant documentation that the CIA repeatedly and deliberately misled Congress about multiple aspects of its interrogation program. Yesterday, NBC News reported