On September 18th 1947, the main provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 went into effect. One of these was the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency, perhaps the most infamous part of the US national security state. While we pay a lot of attention these days to digital surveillance and the agencies that focus on signals intelligence like the National Security Agency and National Reconnaissance office, the CIA has and continues to play a crucial role in establishing and maintaining global US hegemony via human intelligence as well as through its covert actions, including coups, terrorism and sabotage...
The New York Times and other obituaries predictably left this out
Richard Armitage, the number two official at the State Department from 2001 to 2005, died on April 13.
The New York Times and other obituaries emphasized that Armitage was a Naval Academy graduate and Bronze Star recipient...
The name Allard Lowenstein (1929-1980) may not mean too much to political activists today, but in the 1960s and 1970s he was a well-known liberal figure associated with many of the progressive causes of the day.
For this reason, it would come as something of a shock to many of...
Like the proverbial cat, some concepts have several lives. Or, like the mythological phoenix, they can be reborn from the ashes. This is certainly the case of the Intermarium, a geopolitical concept that envisaged an alliance of countries reaching from the Baltic Sea over the Black Sea to the...
Over the past half-century, I have been engaged in research, lectured and worked with social movements and leftist governments in Latin America. I interviewed US officials and think tanks in Washington and New York. I have written scores of books, hundreds of professional articles and presented numerous papers at...
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...
The CIA rivals the Vatican in covering up sex crimes against children and then protecting the members of its organization who commit them
Buzzfeed reported early this month that, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the CIA revealed that 10 employees and a contractor had committed sex crimes against children—but only one was ever...
British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Queen Elizabeth and U.S. President Gerald Ford Sanctioned an Operation to Bring Left-Leaning Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Down by Having an Arms Company and Bank Run by CIA Assets Trick His Deputy Prime Minister into Accepting an Illegal Loan
Danny Casolaro was a maverick investigative...
Part 6 in our Biden Series: A Company Man?
On May 9, 1981, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism was debating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (S. 391). Their goal: criminalize the unauthorized identification of U.S. intelligence agents.
Then-Senator Joe Biden rose to his feet to denounce my...
On February 2nd, eagle-eyed pro-China activist Arnaud Bertrand revealed that WEghur Stories, a podcast “working to create a conversation within and about the global Uyghur diaspora” that has been aggressively promoted on Facebook and Spotify, is funded by Washington’s French diplomatic mission—and that John Bair, its co-creator, co-host and...
