On May 26, The New York Times Magazine ran a feature story by Matthieu Aikins entitled “America’s Monster: Uncovering the Brutal Career of Abdul Raziq—And the Hidden Truths of the War in Afghanistan.”
The story detailed the U.S. military and CIA’s support for Abdul Raziq, a police commander in Spin...
Part 3: “Subversion.” "On Company Business" is an in-depth look into the origins, history, and inner-workings of one of the world’s most powerful, but least understood, covert intelligence gathering organization: the Central Intelligence Agency.
A decorated hero in WW II, he ran death squad operations in North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the Cold War; and was fired by Jimmy Carter for challenging civilian authority over the military.
When Philip Agee resigned from the CIA in the late 1960s, he embarked on a...
With the confirmation of Gina Haspel as CIA director, there’s rightfully great interest in her record regarding torture. Contrary to the rhetoric--and with barely a word about the utility of torture in rigging the case for the Iraq invasion--the actual ends of torture are incredibly worse than the gruesome means.
Of course, there...
David Wise--the prize-winning journalist and author who in 1964 co-wrote one of the first best-selling history books critical of the CIA--passed away on October 8th, 2018, in Washington, DC. He was 88.
Co-written with fellow journalist Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government became a best-seller with its revelations of --...
I had the great fortune recently of addressing a gathering of Greek parliamentarians in Athens and with meeting members of the European Parliament to discuss national security whistleblowing. The European Union has drafted, and will soon release, a new whistleblower protection law that would be the finest and most comprehensive...
On February 4th, The Economist published a devastating analysis—or perhaps, “pre-mortem”—on the collapse of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) under Olaf Scholz’s stewardship. Elected in what the Western media contemporaneously branded a “shock” result in September 2021, hopes for his coalition government in many quarters were high. Today,...
April 5 marked the 32nd anniversary of former Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain’s death, supposedly from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
This past year, an unofficial private sector team of forensic scientists that put fresh eyes on Cobain’s autopsy and the crime scene material concluded that Cobain’s death actually resulted from...
For over seven weeks, events in Nicaragua have devolved into an increasingly common scenario for leaders who find themselves at odds with Washington: the country’s president, Daniel Ortega, stands accused of “killing his own people” after authorities have used “lethal force” in quelling recent protests. The unrest, which has resulted in...
On April 6, The New York Times ran an article under the headline “CIA’s Deception Plan Helped Divert Iranians from Missing American” by Julian Barnes.
The article noted that, when two American pilots ejected from their plane after it was shot down and took refuge in the mountains, the CIA...
