John le Carré: Speaking Truth to Power

John le Carré (1931-2020) on the Iraq War, Corporate Power, the Exploitation of Africa & More

Democracy Now! (2020)

Film Review

This video is a replay (following his December 12 death) of a 2010 Democracy Now interview with David Cornwell. Famous for spy thrillers under the pen name John Le Carré, Cornwell will always been my favorite novelist. I love his work, in part owing to his exquisite character development and, in part, owing to his scathing critique of the politicization and corruption of Western intelligence services.

Most of this interview relates to the malfeasance of multinational corporations, particularly banks. Cornwell begins with a reference to the $352 of laundered drug money analysts credit for preventing economic collapse in 2008. He then quotes from an International Herald Tribute article about all the banks* who have pleaded to money laundering and paid a fine. After paying a small fine (which Cornwell refers to as “the government’s cut), they resume business as usually without anyone serving a single day in jail.

Conwell also deplores the way both US and UK intelligence services were politicized to justify the illegal US/UK invasion of Iraq. Cornwell personally participated in the 3 million strong UK anti-Iraq war protest in March 2003.

Commentator Amy Goodwin and Cornwell also discuss two of his books: The Constant Gardener (about Big Pharma’s unethical/illegal drug trials in Africa) and The Mission Song about continuous civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Cornwell blames the latter on greedy multinational corporations determined to exploit DRC’s precious mineral resources. My favorite, A Delicate Truth, is a novel about the CIA’s illegal extraordinary rendition scheme. See A Novel About Extraordnary Rendition

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*He mentions Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Union Bank of California, Wachovia, American Express and BankAtlantic.

How a Small Group of Activists Helped Bring Down Corrupt Government In Malaysia

Borneo Death Blow

Directed by Erik Pauser and Dylan Williams (2017)

Film Review

This is a fascinating documentary about an activist group that campaigned hard to bring two major Malaysian corruption scandals to international attention – including one involving former Prime Minister Najib Razak and 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

The story starts in the early nineties when Bruno Manser, a Swiss environmentalist, and Mutanga, a Penan tribesman in Sarawak, paired up to protest wholesale rainforest logging on the island of Borneo (Malaysia). After successfully blockading the logging trucks for more than nine months, the activists and their supporters were imprisoned and torture.

In 1992, they undertook a world tour to bring the plight of Borneo rainforests and the Penan. They visited 24 cities in 13 countries, including the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the UN. The response they received was underwhelming.

In 2000, Manser returned to Sarawak and was “disappeared” in the jungle. Fearing for his own life, Mutanga went into exile in Montreal.

Fifteen years after Manser’s death – – concerned about a controversial dam project that  permanently displace an additional 50,000 indigenous Penan – Mutanga linked up with activists running Radio Free Sarawak shortwave station from London

Meanwhile the founder of the radio station Claire Rewcastle Brown partnered with the Bruno Manswer Foundation in Switzerland to research the $15 billion in private wealth the Malaysian forestrt minister Taib Mahmoud accrued for allowing foreign companies to illegally log Bornero’s pristine rain forests. It was an extremely complex scenario involving money laundering, off shore accounts and holding companies, as well as Goldman Sachs, UBS, HSBC and Deutsche Bank.

The went public with their findings at a Deutsche Bank shareholder meeting. Their presentation instantly focused international and social media attention on Malaysian corruption for the first time.

Taib was forced to resign, with the new forestry minister committing to ban both logging and new palm oil plantations.

Thrilled by the outcome, Brown subsequently undertook an investigation of the corrupt relationship between Malaysia’s prime minister and 1 MBD. In July 2015, she published a  report revealing that personal bank accounts of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak held nearly $700 million tied to state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

The attention her report received led to a prolonged mass protests in Malaysia and the defeat of Razak in the 2018 general election.

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*1MDB was a fund set up to finance various Malaysian development projects: Malaysia Corruption 1MDB Scandal

 

 

Hidden History: The War on Terror

Crossing the Rubicon: the Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil

by Michael Ruppert

New Society Publishers (2004)

Book Review

I recently picked up Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon for the first time in nearly 13 years. I’ve always admired Ruppert, who killed himself in April 2014. It was after hearing him present early evidence (in May 2002) about the role of Bush insiders in 9-11 that I made a decision to close my psychiatric practice and move to New Zealand.

In re-reading Rupert’s 617-page encyclopedia of Peak Oil, CIA narcotics trafficking and the foreign policy/intelligence background to the mother of all false flag operations, I’m totally amazed about the amount of evidence he had already collected in 2004. Nearly all his conclusions have been corroborated by other investigators. At the same time many of his findings, particularly regarding Clinton’s role in supporting the Taliban’s rise to power, don’t receive nearly enough attention in the 9-11 Truth community.

Ruppert links Clinton’s decision to put the Taliban in power in Afghanistan to the oil exploration he facilitated in the Caspian Sea basin by declaring war on Yugoslavia. Both Enron (see The Greedy Bastards who Gave us Enron and Bankrupted California) and Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s oil company) had deep commitments in Caspian Sea and Central Asian oil and gas companies. Both companies needed pipelines across Afghanistan to transport oil and gas to energy-hungry Pakistan, India and China. Building and maintaining said pipelines was totally impossible in a country that, following Soviet withdrawal, had become a failed state of feuding warlords.

According to Ruppert, in was Clinton’s intent to “pacify” Afghanistan by putting the totalitarian Taliban regime in power. Ruppert’s evidence for these assertions comes mainly from Congressional hearings called by Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacker to challenge Clinton’s support for the Taliban. Ruppert also describes the two years (1999-2000) of 6+2 meetings (to plan the pipelines) between Taliban representatives, and the US, Russia, Pakistan, China, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

The Clinton administration suddenly reversed their position on the Taliban in 1999, after the results of exploratory Caspian Sea oil drilling revealed the limited deposits were too small to be commercially viable.

Ruppert goes on to present substantial evidence that the decision to go to war against the Taliban was made during the Clinton presidency – he first imposed economic sanctions against them in July 1999. Ruppert maintains this related less to the oil and gas lobby than to the banking/finance lobby, which had become addicted to drug profits from Afghan opium production. Following Soviet withdrawal, the CIA had worked with opium warlords to concentrate world opium production in Afghanistan. The loss of billions dollars of money laundering profits threatened to wreak major havoc with Wall Street and the US economy.

Ruppert, a five year veteran of the LAPD narcotics squad, devotes several chapters of Crossing the Rubicon to the CIA’s historic role in narcotics trafficking and the role of all major US banks and brokerage hoses in money laundering.

Ruppert also makes a strong case that planning for 9-11 began during the Clinton administration and that National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and NATO commander Wesley Clarke were party to the planning.

The CIA Role in Narcotics Trafficking

 

Part 2 of Counter-intelligence: Shining a Light on Black Operations

“Deep state” is Part 2 of a five part documentary by Scott Noble called Counter-Intelligence: Shining a Light on Black Operations. Historian and former diplomat Peter Dale Scott coined the term Deep State to describe the shadow government that operates outside our so-called democratic institutions to service the needs of America’s wealthy elite.

This episode focuses on close historical links between the Mafia and CIA and the role of narcotics trafficking in all major CIA covert operations. CIA drug trafficking serves two main purposes. In addition to providing off the books (not reportable to Congress) income for clandestine operations, it’s also a source of ready-made criminal networks. The latter are valuable as a conduits for weapons delivery to CIA mercenaries and as lethal enforcers of corporate interests against labor and human rights activists.

Scott, who is interviewed at length, stresses the instrumental role of the CIA in ALL global narcotics trafficking. The converse is also true. Citing the French Connection (centered in Marseilles) and the Golden Triangle (in Southeast Asia) as prime examples, he makes the case that all major narcotics hubs collapse following CIA withdrawal from the region.

“Deep State” also shines a light on current drug operations in Afghanistan and Columbia. At present Afghanistan is the world’s leading heroin producer,  a direct result of CIA involvement in the region. Colombia, in turn is the world’s largest purveyor of cocaine, thanks to the CIA decision to use Colombia to “block the spread” of communism from Cuba to the rest of Latin America.

According to filmmaker Scott Noble,  all major Wall Street banks have engaged in laundering profits from illicit narcotics. Illegal drugs are America’s third biggest commodity, with the wealthy elite siphoning off the vast majority of drug profits. They also rake in immense profits from the prison industrial complex, a growth industry that owes its existence to the so-called War on Drugs. Wells Fargo and other Wall Street banks are major investors in the prison privatization industry.

Counter-intelligence: Shining a Light on Black Operations

Scott Noble
Metanoia Films (2013)

photo credit: jimforest via photopin cc

Also posted at Veterans Today