Paul Rigby

Above, retrospective CIA whitewash. Below, contemporaneous, pre-assassination truth: The NLF = CIA pseudo-gang?

Journalist and CIA-er. Presumably the latter silenced the former.

In the long gone days when establishment hack Christopher Hitchens bothered to masquerade as an oppositionist, The Guardian invited him to defend Joe McGinnis’ imaginative fiction, The Last Brother. The result was classic formulaic “left-gatekeeper” stuff on JFK and his family, as Hitchens ran through the check list of CIA bulletin points in his own ludicrously hyperbolic fashion. The lines highlighted must rank as among the most obviously silly ever written even by a left-gatekeeper: Christopher Hitchens, “Commentary: Thou shalt not mock the legend of Camelot,” The Guardian, 14 August 1993:

For a rare, welcome mention of Starnes, and much else besides of relevance to this thread, the following link/broadcast is of considerable interest. The attempt to pin Diem’s death, and the sabotage of JFK’s withdrawal strategy, on Henry Cabot Lodge, would appear to be powerfully reinforced by Jim Douglass’ book, JFK and the Unspeakable. Reviewer DiEugenio regurgitates the old, and demonstrably untrue, line that Richardson, the CIA station-chief recalled as a direct consequence of Starnes’ astonishing coup prophecy despatch, was close to Diem at the time. (He showed it by advocating Diem’s overthrow!) Rather more impressive is the material in Douglass’ book on the role of a CIA man in the Hue atrocity; and, most importantly of all, his insistence that Kennedy sought the same solution in Vietnam that he had brought about in Laos. This is an important truth for which one confidently anticipates a robust establishment response in defence of the agreed lie. Keep your eyes on the Washington Post and the NYT. I look forward to reading it. The link: http://www.blackopradio.com/archives2008.html Black Op Radio, Show #370 Original airdate: April 17, 2008 Topics: JFK Assassination Research Interview Audio - Part Two - Jim DiEugenio • Jim gives a review of the book "JFK and the Unspeakable" written by Jim Douglass • Very well written and researched with very good sources • Jim quotes a few paragraphs to show how JFK understood Cuban problems • Castro's comments upon hearing of Kennedy's death • Douglass agrees with Prouty that JFK was pulling out of Vietnam • He gets there from a different direction • Douglass contends that McNamara actually wanted to accelerate the Vietnam withdrawal • This book puts you right in the action of the day • Henry Cabot Lodge was not Kennedy's first choice • JFK has many people pulling the rug out from under him • Lodge gives Ngo Diem's location to Luc Conein... insuring The Diems' demise • Jim calls this the best book in years on JFK

By the time Stone’s “Nixon,” his follow-up to “JFK,” was released, Lawson was in full stalker mode. His anguished public “letter” to the director is sublimely absurd, and, in paragraphs two and six, nothing less than barking mad. Enjoy: Mark Lawson, “Dear Oliver Stone,” Independent on Sunday, 15 March 1995, p.21: Camp humbug of the most agreeable kind. Perfect for BBC Radio 4.

I wonder if this was about the same time that the Times - or was it the Sunday version - ran a piece in which McVeigh was described as a former bodyguard, during Iraq invasion the first, to Schwartzkopf? Bearing in mind the latter's fleetingly admitted temptation to go all the way and overthrow Sadam, I further wonder whether had he attempted any such thing, we would have heard of McV some time earlier? A friend and I attempted to find a suitably Wisnerian circumlocution for McVeigh's stand-by role in Iraq. He won with the outstanding entry: "Terminal Control Mechanism." Paul

Another sure route: One of British journalism’s finest hours in the field of JFK studies was the responsibility of the late John Diamond. As he was to relate in an April 1994 piece for The Mail on Sunday’s Night and Day supplement, when “Oliver Stone’s movie ‘JFK’ first appeared, I sat in a viewing theatre with the director and talked to him about it.” Diamond’s initial verdict? “I came back convinced that Stone had it right: Kennedy was killed by gangsters hired by the CIA to stop him pulling out of Vietnam. It made perfect sense.” So what happened to Diamond’s favourable review of Stone’s “JFK”? “I wrote a piece for this very paper to that effect – and had it thrown back in my face.” PS: In “Plotgate,” Diamond unquestionably seeks to give the impression that he never did produce a favourable review of Stone’s “JFK.” Odd, them, to find that in an Independent column entitled “Speech Marks: The things they say about…Oliver Stone,” (16 November 1993), we find the following excerpt: The quote was attributed to one John Diamond, and the Mail on Sunday, 5 January 1992.

Another sure route: One of British journalism’s finest hours in the field of JFK studies was the responsibility of the late John Diamond. As he was to relate in an April 1994 piece for The Mail on Sunday’s Night and Day supplement, when “Oliver Stone’s movie ‘JFK’ first appeared, I sat in a viewing theatre with the director and talked to him about it.” Diamond’s initial verdict? “I came back convinced that Stone had it right: Kennedy was killed by gangsters hired by the CIA to stop him pulling out of Vietnam. It made perfect sense.” So what happened to Diamond’s favourable review of Stone’s “JFK”? “I wrote a piece for this very paper to that effect – and had it thrown back in my face.” Was Diamond appalled by this censorship? Not a bit of it. British journalists are, after all, nothing if not pragmatic: “I went away and did a little research.” By happy coincidence, you understand, this research revealed to Diamond that his first response to Stone’s film was nonsense; and resulted in a piece called “Plotgate,” which was, amazingly, published, and from which I take his quotes. Why was “Plotgate” published? Because that alleged “little research” had caused him to conclude that “Yes, Stone’s theory made sense, but so did a hundred other theories. On balance, therefore” – wait for it, wait for it – “the one which must make the most perfect sense is that Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone nutter with a gun, killed him.” Now there’s a specimen of logic fit for a connoisseur. The challenge confronting Diamond, an impeccably pleasant and liberal soul by all accounts, was how to transform the base metal of cowardly conformity into the bankable gold of a lucrative Sunday supplement commission. Easy – play the anti-semitic card. “Plotgate” offered ploddingly jokey summations of the ten conspiracies thought most likely by Diamond to lend themselves to ridicule – and, of course, earn him a commission. At number ten, he offered the following: “The mass media is run by Jewish liberals, which is why you have, until now, never read any of this stuff.” It was under this title that he introduced his apologia for his well-rewarded volte-face on Stone’s film. Cowardice, we were to believe, was really its exact opposite, courage: “I’ll hold my hands up to this one. I am a Jewish liberal waiting for my papers to come through from the World Zionist Conspiracy HQ in Hollywood so that I too can help in the cover-up…Lone nutters, you see, tend to influence history rather more than organised cabals of rich Jewish-Jesuit-Masons.” What heroism, what insight. A proper journalist, one capable of actual research, might well have looked at the name of the producer of Stone’s JFK, and shared that research with his, or her, readers. Not because Jews do control the media, or anything so crass, never mind untrue, but because Arnon Milchan had long been identified as an arms-dealing propagandist for Israel and South Africa, and his role in the making of Stone’s “JFK” begged important questions. But Diamond wasn’t a proper journalist; and the paper he produced “Plotgate” for was no more a paper of honest journalism than Pravda under Stalin. "Plotgate," The Mail on Sunday, Night and Day, 17 April 1994, pp.20-21.

Surely a rolled up copy of The Guardian or The Observer? Anyway, what follows should in no way be misconstrued as remotely connected with any suggestion of spook outreach or information flow. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances. At all. Francis Wheen, “finds the missing link in JFK’s assassination...Where’s Wally?” The Observer, Life section, 4 December 1994, p.6: Not if The Guardian and The Observer can help it.

I hadn't bothered to look into all this hitherto, other than privately musing that it had that particular and recognizable media odour to it that suggested a government driven disinfo campaign. Wonder what is behind it all? Why such pressure is being applied? Neutralising China's opposition would seem to be an essential prelude to attack on Iran, King Bush II's swan-song. Paul

John Crawley, “Obituary: Donald Milner – Scoop by serendipity,” The Guardian, 3 February 1994, p.13: Richard Norton-Taylor, “First for MI6 as former senior agent goes public,” The Guardian, 20 November 1963: John Sweeney, “There is nothing like a dame, sings spook,” The Observer, 21 November 1993:

Western Media Fabrications regarding the Tibet Riots Fake Videotape used by CNN by Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, April 16, 2008 http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8697

It gets stranger. Here’s an extract from David R. Wrone’s The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK’s Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003), pp.150-152: “At nine o’clock on the morning of November 25, 1963, three days after the murder of President Kennedy – but early on the first working day after the murder – Walter Bent, sales service manager of the Eastman Kodak Company, the same firm that had developed Zapruder’s film, telephoned the Dallas FBI office and spoke to FBI special agent Milton L. Newsom (41). His company had just received film from Charles Bronson to be developed. In his package Bronson had included a note advising Kodak that the film may be of the assassin as he fired the shots. Would the FBI, said Bent, be interested in viewing the film? (42) Newsom’s memorandum of the conversation reads as follows: Bent then phoned Bronson and set up a meeting at the Kodak plant for 3:00 P.M. At 3:00 Special Agents Milton Newsom and Emory Norton appeared at the plant and together with Bronson watched the films (44). Afterwards they did not ask for copies. When they returned to their office, they wrote up a memorandum on the films... According to Richard Trask’s Pictures of the Pain (p.205), citing Maurice Schonfeld’s July-August 1975 Columbia Journalism Review piece, “The Shadow of a Gunman,” Muchmore’s film was developed at the same “Eastman Kodak in Dallas” on the same day as Bronson’s – but entirely unbeknownst, it seems, to Mr. Bent, either at 9am, when he rang the FBI, or at 3pm, when he met with the Bureau’s Newsom and Norton.

Len, I've emailed Langley and if you'll just be a little pat... No need. According to the email that's just arrived, CIA and its porter service at Vauxhall Cross applied for the gagging order to protect an on-going operation involving... George Bernard Shaw and the Fabians. Well, that settles it. Paul

So, let me see if I have this element of the anti-alterationist story straight: UPI had footage of the actual shooting of President Kennedy but withheld news of its existence from the FBI, the very organisation assigned the lead role in the official investigation, for a period of, what, two to three weeks? Curious. In addition, no one at WNEW-TV bothered to mention it to the FBI, nor any viewer. Curiouser, and curiouser. Broadcasting magazine “reviewed” – more accurately, recorded the bald facts of Four Days' publication and contents – in its “Book Notes” section, 16 December 1963, p.102:

The text below is buttressed by a number of photos, maps, and links that considerably enhance the piece and reward a visit. Click on the link to see them: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8673 China and America: The Tibet Human Rights PsyOp By Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, April 13, 2008 The human rights issue has become the centerfold of media disinformation. China is no model of human rights but neither are the US and its indefectible British ally, responsible for extensive war crimes and human rights violations in Iraq and around the World. The US and its allies, which uphold the practice of torture, political assassinations and the establishment of secret detention camps, continue to be presented to public opinion as a model of Western democracy to be emulated by developing countries, in contrast to Russia, Iran, North Korea and the People's Republic of China. Human Rights "Double Standards" While China's alleged human rights violations in relation to Tibet are highlighted, the recent wave of killings in Iraq and Palestine are not mentioned. The Western media has barely acknowledged the Fifth "anniversary" of Iraq's "Liberation" and the balance sheet of the US sponsored killings and atrocities perpetrated against an entire population, in the name of a "global war on terrorism". There are more than 1.2 million Iraqi civilian deaths, 3 million wounded. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) indicates a figure of 2.2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled their country and 2.4 million "internally displaced persons": "Iraq’s population at the time of the US invasion in March 2003 was roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23 million. Elementary arithmetic indicates that currently over half the population of Iraq are either refugees, in need of emergency aid, wounded, or dead." (Dahr Jamail, Global Research, December 2007) The Geopolitical Chessboard There are deep-seated geopolitical objectives behind the campaign against the Chinese leadership. US-NATO-Israeli war plans in relation to Iran are at an advanced state of readiness. China has economic ties as well as a far-reaching bilateral military cooperation agreement with Iran. Moreover, China is also an ally of Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the context of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Since 2005, Iran has an observer member status within the SCO. In turn, the SCO has ties to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), an overlapping military cooperation agreement between Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan. In October of last year the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, laying the foundations for military cooperation between the two organizations. This SCO-CSTO agreement, barely mentioned by the Western media, involves the creation of a full-fledged military alliance between China, Russia and the member states of SCO/CSTO. It is worth noting that the SCTO and the SCO held joint military exercises in 2006, which coincided with those conducted by Iran. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games in Response to US Threats, Global Research, August 2006) In the context of US war plans directed against Iran, the US is also intent upon weakening Iran's allies, namely Russia and China. In the case of China, Washington is seaking to disrupt Beijing's bilateral ties with Tehran as well as Iran's rapprochement with the SCO, which has its headquarters in Beijing. China is an ally of Iran. Washington's intention is to use Beijing's alleged human rights violations as a pretext to target China, an ally of Iran. In this regard, a military operation directed against Iran can only succeed if the structure of military alliances which link Iran to China and Russia is disrupted. This is something which German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck understood in relation to the structure of competing military alliances prevalent prior to World War I. The Triple Alliance was an agreement between Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy formed in 1882. The Triple Alliance ultimately came to an end in 1914, when Italy withdrew from the Triple Alliance and declared its neutrality, leading to the outbreak of World War I. Encircling China With the exception of its Northern frontier which borders on the Russian Federation, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, China is surrounded by US military bases. The Eurasian Corridor Since the 2001 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the US has a military presence on China's Western frontier, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. is intent upon establishing permanent military bases in Afghanistan, which occupies a strategic position bordering on the former Soviet republics, China and Iran. Moreover, the US and NATO have also established since 1996, military ties with several former Soviet republics under GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Moldava). In the post 9/11 era, Washington has used the pretext of the "global war against terrorism" to further develop a U.S. military presence in GUUAM countries. Uzbekistan withdrew from GUUAM in 2002.(The organization is now referred to as GUAM). China has oil interests in Eurasia as well as in sub-Saharan Africa, which encroach upon Anglo-American oil interests. What is at stake is the geopolitical control over the Eurasian corridor. In March 1999, the U.S. Congress adopted the Silk Road Strategy Act, which defined America’s broad economic and strategic interests in a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia. The Silk Road Strategy (SRS) outlines a framework for the development of America’s business empire along an extensive geographical corridor. The successful implementation of the SRS requires the concurrent "militarization" of the entire Eurasian corridor as a means to securing control over extensive oil and gas reserves, as well as "protecting" pipeline routes and trading corridors. This militarization is largely directed against China, Russia and Iran. The militarization of the South China Sea and of the Taiwan Straits is also an integral part of this strategy which, in the post 9/11 era, consists in deploying "on several fronts". Moreover, China remains in the post-Cold War era a target for a first strike nuclear attack by the US. In the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), China and Russia are identified along with a list of "rogue States" as potential targets for a pre-emptive nuclear attack by the US. China is listed in the NPR as "a country that could be involved in an immediate or potential contingency". Specifically, the Nuclear Posture Review lists a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan as one of the scenarios that could lead Washington to use nuclear weapons against China. China has been encircled: The U.S. military is present in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straights, in the Korean Peninsula and the Sea of Japan, as well as in the heartland of Central Asia and on the Western border of China’s Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region. Moreover, as part of the encirclement of China, "Japan has gradually been amalgamating and harmonizing its military policies with those of the U.S. and NATO." (See Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Military Alliance: Encircling Russia and China, Global Research, 10 May 2007) Weakening China from within: Covert Support to Secessionist Movements Consistent with its policy of weakening and ultimately fracturing the People's Republic of China, Washington supports secessionist movements both in Tibet as wall as in the Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region which borders onto North Eastern Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Xinjiang-Uigur, Pakistani intelligence (ISI), acting in liaison with the CIA, supports several Islamist organizations. The latter include the Islamic Reformist Party, the East Turkestan National Unity Alliance, the Uigur Liberation Organization and the Central Asian Uigur Jihad Party. Several of these Islamic organizations have received support and training from Al Qaeda, which is a US sponsored intelligence asset. The declared objective of these Chinese-based Islamic organizations is the "establishment of an Islamic caliphate in the region" (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America's War on Terrorism, Global Research, Montreal, 2005, Chapter 2). The caliphate would integrate Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan (West Turkestan) and the Uigur autonomous region of China (East Turkestan) into a single political entity. The "caliphate project" encroaches upon Chinese territorial sovereignty. Supported by various Wahabi "foundations" from the Gulf States, secessionism on China’s Western frontier is, once again, consistent with U.S. strategic interests in Central Asia. Meanwhile, a powerful U.S.-based lobby is channeling support to separatist forces in Tibet. By tacitly promoting the secession of the Xinjiang-Uigur region (using Pakistan’s ISI as a "go-between"), Washington is attempting to trigger a broader process of political destabilization and fracturing of the People’s Republic of China. In addition to these various covert operations, the U.S. has established military bases in Afghanistan and in several of the former Soviet republics, directly on China’s Western border. The militarization of the South China Sea and of the Taiwan Straits is also an integral part of this strategy.(Ibid) The Lhasa Riots The violent riots in Tibet's capital in mid-March were a carefully staged event. In their immediate aftermath, a media disinformation campaign supported by political by Western leaders directed against China was launched. There are indications that US intelligence played a behind the scenes role in what several observers have described as a carefully premeditated operation.(See our analysis below). The Lhasa event in mid-March was not a spontaneous "peaceful" protest movement as described by the Western media The riots involving a gang of mobsters were premeditated. They had been carefully planned. Tibetan activists in India associated with the Dalai Lama's government in exile "hinted they were indeed expecting the disturbances. But they refuse to elaborate how they knew or who their collaborators were" (Guerilla News) The images do not suggest a mass protest rally but rather a rampage led by a few hundred individuals. Buddhist monks were involved in the rampage. According to China Daily (March 31, 2008), the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) based in India, considered by China as a "hard-line organization" affiliated to the Dalai Lama, was also behind the violence. The TYC's training camps are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). (See the text of the Congressional Hearings regarding NED support to the TYC) CLICK TO VIEW VIDEO OF LHASA RIOTS Video footage confirms that civilians were stoned, beaten and in some cases killed. Most of the victims were Han Chinese. At least ten people were burned to death as a result of acts of arson, according to statements of the Tibet government. These statements were confirmed by several eyewitness reports. According to a China Daily report: "five shop assistants at a clothing store were burnt to death before they had any chance to escape. A 1.7-meter-tall man named Zuo Yuancun was torched down to chunks of horrid flesh and skeletons. A migrant worker had his liver stabbed and bled by mobsters. A woman was beaten hard by the attackers and had her ear sliced off." (People's Daily, March 22, 2008) Meanwhile, the Western media casually described the looting and arson as a "peaceful demonstration" which the Chinese authorities suppressed with the use of force. There are no accurate reports (from Chinese and Western news sources) on the nature of the Chinese police operation launched to repress the riots. Western press reports point to the deployment of more than 1000 soldiers and police in the Tibetan capital. Businesses, schools were attacked, cars were set on fire. According to Chinese reports, there are 22 dead and 623 injured. "Rioters set fire at more than 300 locations, mostly private houses, stores and schools, and smashed vehicles and damaged public facilities." The planning of the riots was coordinated with the media disinformation campaign, which accused the Chinese authorities of having instigated the looting and arson. The Dalai Lama accused Beijing of "disguising its troops as monks" to give the impression that Buddhist monks were behind the riots. The claims were based on a four year old photograph of soldiers dressing up as monks in a theatrical stage performance (See South China Morning Post, 4 April 2008). The mainland newspaper {People's Daily] said the security forces quelling riots in Lhasa could not possibly have been wearing the uniforms shown in the photograph because they were summer uniforms, unsuitable for the cold March weather. It also said the PAP had changed to new uniforms in 2005, which feature shoulder emblems. The armed officers shown in the photograph were in old-style uniforms which had been phased out after 2005. ... Xinhua said the photograph was taken during a performance years ago, when soldiers borrowed robes from monks before performing on stage. (Ibid) The Dalai Lama's claim that the Chinese authorities had instigated the riots, quoted in the Western media, is supported by a statement of a former Communist Party official Mr. Ruan Ming who "claims the CCP carefully staged the incidents in Tibet in order to force the Dalai Lama to resign and to justify future repression of the Tibetans. Mr. Ruan Ming was a speechwriter for former CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang." (quoted in The Epoch Times) 2003 photograph used by the media to accuse China of having deliberately instigated the riots. "This [2003] photo was apparently made when soldiers were ordered to put on robes to play as actors in a movie." See http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/chinese-...riots-tibet.htm The Role of US Intelligence The organization of the Lhasa riots are part of a consistent pattern. They constitute an attempt to trigger ethnic conflict in China. They serve US foreign policy interests. To what extent has US intelligence played an undercover role in the current wave of protests regarding Tibet? Given the covert nature of intelligence operations, there is no tangible evidence of direct CIA involvement. However, there are various Tibetan organizations linked to the Tibet "government in exile" which are known to be supported by the CIA and/or by the CIA's civilian front organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The CIA's involvement in channeling covert support to the Tibetan secessionist movement goes back to the mid-1950s. The Dalai Lama was on the CIA's payroll from the late 1950s until 1974: The CIA conducted a large scale covert action campaign against the communist Chinese in Tibet starting in 1956. This led to a disastrous bloody uprising in 1959, leaving tens of thousands of Tibetans dead, while the Dalai Lama and about 100,000 followers were forced to flee across the treacherous Himalayan passes to India and Nepal. The CIA established a secret military training camp for the Dalai Lama's resistance fighters at Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado, in the US. The Tibetan guerrillas were trained and equipped by the CIA for guerrilla warfare and sabotage operations against the communist Chinese. The US-trained guerrillas regularly carried out raids into Tibet, on occasions led by CIA-contract mercenaries and supported by CIA planes. The initial training program ended in December 1961, though the camp in Colorado appears to have remained open until at least 1966. The CIA Tibetan Task Force created by Roger E McCarthy, alongside the Tibetan guerrilla army, continued the operation codenamed "ST CIRCUS" to harass the Chinese occupation forces for another 15 years until 1974, when officially sanctioned involvement ceased. McCarthy, who also served as head of the Tibet Task Force at the height of its activities from 1959 until 1961, later went on to run similar operations in Vietnam and Laos. By the mid-1960s, the CIA had switched its strategy from parachuting guerrilla fighters and intelligence agents into Tibet to establishing the Chusi Gangdruk, a guerrilla army of some 2,000 ethnic Khamba fighters at bases such as Mustang in Nepal. This base was only closed down in 1974 by the Nepalese government after being put under tremendous pressure by Beijing. After the Indo-China War of 1962, the CIA developed a close relationship with the Indian intelligence services in both training and supplying agents in Tibet." (Richard Bennett, Tibet, the 'great game' and the CIA, Global Research, March 2008) The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which channels financial support to pro-US opposition groups around the World has played a significant role in triggering "velvet revolutions" which serve Washington's geopolitical and economic interests. The NED, although not formally part of the CIA, performs an important intelligence function within the arena of civilian political parties and NGOs. It was created in 1983, when the CIA was being accused of covertly bribing politicians and setting up phony civil society front organizations. According to Allen Weinstein, who was responsible for setting up the NED during the Reagan Administration: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." ('Washington Post', Sept. 21, 1991). The NED provided funds to the "civil society" organizations in Venezuela, which initiated an attempted coup against President Hugo Chavez. In Haiti, the NED supported the opposition groups behind the armed insurrection which contributed to unseating President Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. The coup d' Etat in Haiti was the result of a carefully staged military-intelligence operation. (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization of Haiti, Global Research, February 2004) The NED funds a number of Tibet organizations both within China and abroad. The most prominent pro-Dalai Lama Tibet independence organization funded by the NED is the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), founded in Washington in 1988. The ICT has offices in Washington, Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels. Distinct from other NED funded Tibet organizations, the ICT has a close cozy and " overlapping" relationship with the NED and the US State Department:: Some of ICT’s directors are also integral members of the ‘democracy promoting’ establishment, and include Bette Bao Lord (who is the chair of Freedom House, and a director of Freedom Forum), Gare A. Smith (who has previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor), Julia Taft (who is a former director of the NED, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, has worked for USAID, and has also served as the President and CEO of InterAction), and finally, Mark Handelman (who is also a director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, an organization whose work is ideologically linked to the NED’s longstanding interventions in Haiti). The ICT’s board of advisors also presents two individuals who are closely linked to the NED, Harry Wu, and Qiang Xiao (who is the former executive director of the NED-funded Human Rights in China). Like their board of directors, ICT’s international council of advisors includes many ‘democratic’ notables like Vaclav Havel, Fang Lizhi (who in 1995 – at least – was a board member of Human Rights in China), Jose Ramos-Horta (who serves on the international advisory board for the Democracy Coalition Project), Kerry Kennedy (who is a director of the NED-funded China Information Center), Vytautas Landsbergis (who is an international patron of the British-based neoconservative Henry Jackson Society – see Clark, 2005), and until her recent death, the “mid-wife of the neocons” Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (who was also linked to ‘democratic’ groups like Freedom House and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies). (Michael Barker, "Democratic Imperialism": Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for Democracy Global Research, August 13, 2007) Other NED funded Tibet organizations include the Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) referred to earlier. The SFT was founded in 1994 in New York City "as a project of US Tibet Committee and the NED-financed International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). The SFT is most known for unfurling a 450 foot banner atop the Great Wall in China; calling for a free Tibet." (F. William Engdahl, Risky Geopolitical Game: Washington Plays ‘Tibet Roulette’ with China, Global Research, April 2008). The SFT together with five other Tibet organizations proclaimed last January "the start of a 'Tibetan people's uprising" ... and co-founded a temporary office in charge of coordination and financing." ( Ibid) "The NED also funds the Tibet Multimedia Center for “information dissemination that addresses the struggle for human rights and democracy in Tibet,” also based in Dharamsala. And the NED finances the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy.(Ibid) There is a division of tasks between the CIA and the NED. While the CIA provides covert support to armed paramilitary rebel groups and terrorist organizations, the NED finances "civilian" political parties and non governmental organizations with a view to instating American "democracy" around the World. The NED constitutes, so to speak, the CIA's "civilian arm". CIA-NED interventions in different part of the World are characterized by a consistent pattern, which is applied in numerous countries. PsyOp: Discrediting the Chinese Leadership The short-term objective is to discredit the Chinese leadership in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympic games, while also using the Tibet campaign to divert public opinion from Middle East war and the war crimes committed by the US, NATO and Israel. China's alleged human rights violations are highlighted as a distraction, to provide a human face to the US led war in the Middle East. Moreover, US sponsored war plans directed against Iran are barely acknowledged by the Western media. Moreover, with Tibet making the headlines, the real humanitarian crisis in the Middle East is not front page news. More generally, the issue of human rights is distorted: realities are turned upside down, the extensive crimes committed by the US and its coalition partners are either concealed or justified as a means to protecting society against terrorists. A "double standards" in the assessment of human rights violations has been instated. In the Middle East, the killing of civilians is categorized as collateral damage. It is justified as part of the "global war on terrorism". The victims are said to be responsible for their own deaths. The Olympic Torch Carefully timed demonstrations on China's human rights violations in Western capitals have been set in motion. A partial boycott of the Olympic games seems to be underway. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (a strong protagonist of US interests who has a relationship to the Bilderbergs), has called for a boycott of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Kouchner said the idea should be discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers The Olympic torch was lit at a ceremony in Greece, which was disrupted by "pro-Tibet activists". The event was sponsored by "Reporters Without Borders", an organization known to have links to US intelligence. (See, Diana Barahona, Reporters Without Borders Unmasked, May 2005). "Reporters Without Borders" also receives support for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The Olympic Torch is symbolic. The Psychological operation (PsyOp) consists in targeting the Olympic torch in the months leading up the Beijing Olympic games. At each phase of this process, the Chinese leadership is denigrated by the Western media. Global Economic Implications The Tibet campaign directed against the Chinese leadership could backlash. We are at the crossroads of the most serious economic and financial crisis of modern history. The unfolding economic crisis bears a direct relationship to the US sponsored military adventure in the Middle East and Central Asia. China play a strategic role with regard to US military expansionism. So far it has not exercised it Veto power in the United Nations Security Council in relation to the several US sponsored UNSC resolutions directed Iran. China also plays a central role in the global economy and financial system. Resulting from an accumulated trade surplus with the US, China's now holds 1.5 trillion dollars worth of US debt instruments (including US Treasury bills). It has the ability to significantly disrupt international currency markets. The US dollar would plunge to even lower levels, were China to sell off its dollar denominated debt holdings.(For further details see: F. William Engdahl, op cit) Moreover, China is the largest producer of a wide range of manufactured goods which constitute, for the West, a significant share of monthly household consumption. Western retail giants rely on the continued and uninterrupted flow of cheap labor industrial commodities from China. For the Western countries, China's insertion into the structures of global trade, investment, finance and intellectual property rights under the World Trade Organization (WTO) is absolutely crucial. Were Beijing to decide to curtail its "Made in China" manufacturing exports to the US, America's fragile and declining manufacturing base would not be able to fill the gap, at least in the short run. Moreover, the US and its coalition partners including the UK, Germany, France and Japan have important investment interests in China. In 2001, the US and China signed a bilateral trading agreement prior to the accession of China to the WTO. This agreement allows US investors, including the major Wall Street financial institutions, to position themselves in Shanghai's financial and trading system as well as in China's domestic banking market. While China is, in some regards, the West's "cheap labor industrial colony", China's relationship to the global trading system is by no means cast in steel. China's relationship to global capitalism has its roots in the "Open Door Policy" initially formulated in 1979. (Michel Chossudovsky, Towards Capitalist Restoration. Chinese Socialism after Mao, Macmillian, London, 1986, chapters 7 and 8) Since the 1980s, China has become the main supplier of industrial goods to Western markets. Any threat against China and/or military venture directed against China's Eurasian allies including Iran could potentially disrupt China's extensive trade in manufactured goods. China's export oriented industrial base is the source of tremendous wealth formation in the advanced capitalist economies. Where does the wealth of the Walton family, owners of WalMart, originate? WalMart does produce anything. It imports cheap labor commodities "Made in China" and resells them in the US retail market at up to ten times their factory price. This process of "import led development" has allowed the Western "industrialised" countries to close down a large part of their manufacturing outlets. In turn, China's industrial sweat shops serve to generate multibillion dollar profits for Western corporations, including the retail giants, which purchase and/or outsource their production to China. Any threat of a military nature directed against China could have devastating economic consequences, far beyond the familiar upward spiral in the price of crude oil.

Here's UPI, courtesy of US News & World Report, seeking to rebind the fraying threads in mid-December 1963. Did all of the interpretation contained within really come from just the Muchmore and Nix films? “As Warren Inquiry Starts – Latest on the Assassination,” U.S. News & World Report, 30 December 1963, pp.29-30: “News films of the shooting remove any doubt about the actual sequence of shots. United Press International, on December 16, gave this account of what happened in and around the Kennedy car, based on a study of UPI news film:

A quick survey of the few Brit newspapers I own from 27/28 Nov 1963 has so far failed to disclose any mention of the Muchmore film being shown on UK TV. This strikes me as odd because there is at least one reference to a film shot in the immediate aftermath. Surely a film of the actual shooting was more noteworthy? The inevitable question: Has anyone any evidence that it was shown elsewhere on the planet on 26/27 November? Or in the days following? And if so, how come the FBI wasn't aware of it and had to discover the existence of the film from the publication of a book in mid-December 1963? Puzzling. Or perhaps not. Paul

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8656 Is the CIA behind the China-bashing Olympics protests? By Larry Chin Global Research, April 11, 2008 Around the world, Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games has become the target of unprecedented, well-orchestrated and extremely hostile mass protests. Meanwhile, geostrategic realities, and historical and current parapolitical fact, suggest that the protesters and passionate activists (in time-honored form) have once again become the willing dupes, propaganda shills, and street bullies for “causes” created, fronted, and pushed by Anglo-American intelligence agencies (CIA, British intelligence, etc.) that continue to target a government (this time Beijing), in a host of long-term subversion and sabotage plans. Tibet: imperial pawn Behind the powerful din created by the popular and celebrity-embraced “Save Tibet,” campaign is the fact that the CIA is behind the Tibet independence movement. According to many reports, the Dalai Lama himself may be a long-time CIA asset. See The Role of the CIA behind the Dalai Lama's holy cloak and The Tibet Card. In addition to being geostrategically situated, Tibet is also rich with oil and gas, and minerals -- and this is just part of the larger superpower warfare between the US and China. See Tibet, the "great game", and the CIA. The legions of pro-Tibet activists also seem largely unaware of the historical fact that the “holy land of compassion” has been a CIA pawn since the end of World War II. The infamous Tolstoi Mission sent CIA operatives into Tibet, with plans to establish it as a US military base, from which the US could control the entire Asian region. This activity flourished under the US-supported, opium-banked Nationalist Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-Shek. When the Communists rose to power, the CIA trained Tibetans in guerrilla tactics to use against the regime in Peking, and thousands of Tibetans lost their lives in these battles. Who benefited? Who really gave the orders then -- and who is driving the agenda now? There is little doubt that Anglo-American interests continue to use Tibet, exploit the image of Tibet as a holy place under siege, and bamboozle naïve (and well-heeled) outside activists with slick marketing, in order to undermine Beijing. Denunciations of Beijing’s brutal crackdowns do not take into account the covert operations and outside infiltrations that triggered the crackdowns in the first place. Outside forces behind Falun Gong On the surface, and to uncritical eyes, practitioners of the practice of Falun Gong, a school of Chinese qi gong, are the innocent victims of horrific suppression by Beijing. In a situation parallel to the crackdowns in Tibet, it is also a fact that Falun Gong has been the recipient of years of vicious crackdowns and human rights atrocities across China. But just as is the case with Tibet, there is more to the Falun Gong case than simple persecution. Outside political forces and corporate interests can be found pushing Falun Gong into increasingly political activities, including well-funded, well-organized, and ubiquitous worldwide protests against the Chinese Communist Party. Among the foreign (predominantly Western) Friends of Falun Gong, we find the likes of Mark Palmer of Freedom House. Freedom House is a quasi-intelligence front created by the CIA-connected Open Society Institute of elite George Soros. In addition to Palmer, Freedom House has counted among its top management the former CIA Director James Woolsey, neocons Bernie Aronson and Diana Negroponte, super elite Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Clinton National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, Clinton Commerce Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, and the late Congressman Tom Lantos and his wife. Freedom House is backed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which former CIA agent Philip Agee, and many others have amply documented, is a US intelligence apparatus that has been a driving force behind opposition forces (“democracy revolutions”) in many countries. As pointed out by William Blum in his book, Rogue State, the CIA has created a host of “Trojan horses” such as the NED specifically to subvert foreign countries, under the guise of humanitarianism: “The NED was set up in the early 1980s under President Reagan in the wake of the negative revelations about the CIA, in the second half of the 1970s . . . The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities. “It was a masterpiece. Of politics, of public relations and of cynicism. “The National Endowment for Democracy was set up to 'support democratic institutions throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts' . . . In actuality, every penny of its funding comes from the federal government . . . NED likes to refer to itself as an NGO (non-governmental organization). The NED is a 'GO.' “In a multitude of ways, the NED meddles in the internal affairs of foreign countries . . . In short, NED’s programs are in sync with the basic needs and objectives of the New World Order’s economic globalization, just as the programs have for years been on the same wavelength as US foreign policy. “The NED, like the CIA before it, calls what it does supporting democracy. The governments and movements whom the NED targets call it destabilization.” An analysis conducted in 1999 (during the Clinton administration) offers a glimpse of the NED’s role behind a long list of “democracy” fronts -- including Tibet independence and Falun Gong. Just imagine what this list looks like today, in a time of war, spearheaded by the Bush-Cheney milieu. For legitimate reasons, Beijing clearly suspects US and CIA involvement behind Falun Gong. Denunciations of human rights offenses committed against Falun Gong, however legitimate, are one-sided if they do not also take into account the funding and co-opting of the group by outside political forces. Manipulation behind Darfur Similar to the “Save Tibet” movement, the “Save Darfur”/“Stop Darfur Genocide” movement has become a worldwide cause celebre, embraced and trumpeted by a host of Hollywood celebrities and headline-loving political bigwigs, and aggressive activists. While this cause is continuously promoted by propaganda, and one-sided “Hotel Rwanda” type fare, the real geostrategic game being played in Africa is being largely ignored. China and the US are just one of many nations whose political and corporate interests are battling over which controls the energy spoils in Darfur, and the entire horn of Africa. It is not just China doing business there. In fact, the Western oil companies have engaged in far more aggressive activities, for many years more. Darfur is brimming with covert operations, and Anglo-American military-intelligence involvement behind tribal warfare, elections, cross-border military skirmishes, and massacres is undeniable. In other words, there is a “great game” being played in Africa, just as there is one being played around Tibet. Through propaganda, China is being made into the single arch-villain. Off-target passions, easily manipulated Virtually every government on the planet is guilty of human rights abuses, and these abuses deserve to be exposed and protested. But to simplemindedly (and, with more than a little racism thrown in) protest China, based on human rights “causes” created, manipulated, and co-opted by Anglo-American intelligence propaganda is to fall directly into the hands of the exponentially greater violators of human rights all over the world: the United States and its allies. Indeed, activists and protesters all over the world must ask themselves whose side they are really on, and to whose orders are they marching? The vast majority of both pro- and anti-Chinese protesters fail to acknowledge the complexities underlying their pet causes, or the corruption poisoning the situation from every side. Far from actually alleviating any suffering in Darfur, Tibet or within China itself, activists are being guided into deepening the suffering; assisting the Anglo-American empire’s own plans to destabilize and conquer (energy-rich and strategically situated) Africa and (energy-rich and strategically situated) Tibet, and politically hamper Beijing. China is the target of long-term US military and political aggression. A full-blown superpower conflict is underway. China is being simultaneously used as the labor engine for the world’s capitalist economy, while being geostrategically and militarily encircled. China is also in the process of being financially seized and gutted by the World Trade Organization. Every move made by the Beijing government, particularly for its own stakes in oil and gas, have been violently contested by the Western powers. China’s attempted rise to the world stage, out of decades of isolation, is headed off by rapacious US-led machinations. Today’s anti-Chinese Olympics protests are simply the latest manifestation. It is no surprise that US presidential aspirants Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have jumped on the anti-Chinese Olympic boycott bandwagon, joining the worldwide anti-China propaganda noise. It is now politically expedient for all of the presidential nominees, as well as the Bush-Cheney administration, to hammer at Beijing, without bothering to mention the true complexities of US-China politics. It is tragically ironic that the predominantly Western/developed market-based “Save Tibet” and “Save Darfur” activists and anti-China protesters have done relatively little, if anything to “save themselves.” Compared to the militant zeal expended against China, relatively little passion or outrage has been aimed at the Bush-Cheney administration. These “activists” would rather focus on “saving those poor Tibetans and Africans,” even as their own human rights, liberties, material assets and well being have been systematically ripped away, by an openly criminal administration that (with the help of a corrupt Supreme Court, Congress, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, etc.) enjoys absolute unchecked power. The “Save Tibet,” “Save Darfur,” and “Help Falun Gong” movements are as deceptive as the “war on terrorism.” The “causes” are controlled by Anglo-American intelligence apparatuses and/or co-opted by them, in order to provide the masses with the propaganda justification for wars and intervention, and resource conquest. The CIA’s “mighty Wurlitzer” has never been more deafening, and the masses are dancing to its tune.

Lawson arrived at the Grauniad as a fully paid-up member of the CIA-serving fiction service. In June 1995, Picador published his alternative history satire, Edelweiss, which posited JFK’s survival of the Dallas visit thanks to the death by chicken-bone of would-be assassin Oswald; and his second-term turn, in no particular order, to the German-American Bund, Father Coughlin, and the National Gentile League in a desperate attempt to shore up domestic support for his pre-emptive nuclear strike on Vietnam and the forced sterilisation of non-Catholics. The ex-President, driven into mittel European exile by a coalition of concerned patriots led by a reluctant Allen Welch Dulles, is compelled to pass along a reverse “Rat Line” disguised, among other things, as a singing nun, chiefly to escape the attentions of Fraser, that rarest of American things, a genuine lone-nut bent on avenging JFK’s genocidal south-east Asian assault. Kennedy takes refuge in the Vatican, where he is given a face change, speech therapy and a new career – as a French ventriloquist, Pierre Latrine – before becoming the victim, during the “events” of May 1968, of a Paris diplomatic protection team’s Citroen as its occupants desperately hunt Fraser. Lawson’s mastery of detail particularly impressed one Hugo Barnacle, who reviewed the book – subsequently turned into a film starring Christopher Plummer as Von Trapp Deux, veteran Nazi-hunter, and the man who thwarts Fraser’s best shot at revenge – in The Independent, Lawson’s employer prior to his departure for the more BBC-rich pastures of Farringdon Road: Earlier, Barnacle had skewered the central political lie at the fiction’s heart: If we live long enough, we might, just might, see a serious piece in the Guardian acknowledging precisely both long-obvious facts.

Sussed. I am ashamed. Hand me a tent-peg at once. Oh to be able to micturate out, and not in...

On 15 November 2003, Lawson the crazed obsessive returned to give the presidential corpse another good kicking in a column entitled “Still Crazy about JFK” (p.23), in which readers were treated to sound reasons to thank the powers-that-be for his premature demise: Charming.

Apology declined. You're manifestly as guilty as sin of refusing to be guided by your "liberal" elders and betters. Shame on you. Have you no room for Hofstadter in your heart? Or Chomsky? I don't know, where will it all end? In an informed populace making up their own minds? The very thought! Paul

Nat, you've still not got the hang of this conformity business. I hereby sentence you to a life-time's subscription to The Nation. Condign, I know, as punishments go, but you did ask for it. Paul

Case 2: Mark Lawson’s bizarre “continuum theory” had precedent. On 13 March 1996, the Old Harrovian biographer of Karl Marx (and BBC radio regular), Francis Wheen, treated Grauniad readers to an equally impressive Grand Unified Theory of career-advancement in a Wheen’s World column modestly entitled: “A theory to end all theories,” G2, p.4. Read on, and weep, most likely with laughter: One sees at once why Wheen was considered sound BBC material.