Hillary Clinton is repeating the methodology of the Iran/Contra affair, using “black” funds to finance the operation to ensure President Correa is not re-elected.
I had two excellent sources for the news that the US/UK strategy against Julian Assange was to ensure the defeat of President Correa in Presidential elections next spring, and then have him expelled from the Ecuadorean Embassy. One source was within the UK civil service and one in Washington. Both had direct, personal access to the information I described. Both told me in the knowledge I would publish it.
Of course Assange is not the only reason Clinton wants rid of Correa; but it adds spice and urgency.
We now have completely independent evidence from Chile that this CIA operation exists, from journalists who were investigating a smuggling operation involving 300 kg per month of cocaine, organised by the Chilean army and security services.
The links to US intelligence emerged after an anonymous source from the Agencia Nacional de Inteligencia (ANI) told Panoramas News that the smuggling of 300 kilos of cocaine was in fact a highly sensitive CIA/DEA operation that would help to raise money to topple the government of Ecuador. The operation is similar to the one carried out by the Agency in Central America during the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980’s, the source said.
A few days ago I published information I had received that Patricio Mery Bell, the director of the news programme which broke the story, had been lured to a meeting with a young lady “informant” who had worked with CIA-backed anti-Cuban groups in Miami. She had then accused him of sexual assault (does any of that scenario sound familiar?) He was arrested and his materials had been confiscated. However I took the article down after jst a few minutes because I had received the information in emails from sources I did not know previously, and was unsure it could stand up. It does now appear that this is indeed true.
My Washigton informant had told me, as I published, that the funds for the anti-Correa operation were not from the CIA budget but from secret funds controlled by the Pentagon. This could not be done by CIA funds because, perhaps surprisingly, for the CIA to operate in this way is a crime in the United States.
Whether my informant knew or suspected that the “secret Pentagon funds” were drug money I do not know. They did not mention narcotics.
Heh; Indeedy, Maze. The War on Drugs has been a failure as to the putative purpose, but the ramping up of prices because it is a Black Market, augers well for money-laundering spooks,and below the Public’s awareness is the Real Deal.
This is not a product of just the 20th/21st centuries
Drugs have always been the currency of Aggressors…….Opium Wars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
“Makes me wonder whether the brown stuff is about to hit the spinning blades on their drug operations in South America”
I thought the same, Craig! That’d be worth a headline or two …
Mary at 10:14pm on 9.11.12:
Off-topic, but I don’t think the BBC named him; he was named on the web by others. I think that he is claiming that the innuendo in the MSM, combined with the naming of him on the web, was defamatory.
It does seem odd that the man who claimed that he’d been abused as a child didn’t check the photo of the politician on the web in recent times (obviously it wouldn’t been there 20 years ago) – but for over a decade it’ll have been very easily available – before supposedly making the accusations in public. Did he just assume that the police had told him the truth? Would he not wish to check? Now he’s apologising.
All somewhat peculiar. If I were cynical, I’d say this reminds me just a little of the despatching of Piers Morgan as a mainstream tabloid editor when he fell for faked pictures of British soldiers urinating on Iraqis – in fact, British soldiers had done that, but the actual photos he was given were faked, so it was a trap. Or maybe this controversy now is simply down to incompetance, cover-up (20 years ago) or ignorance. Or has the man been threattened in some way, and so now is retracting and apologising?
Furthermore, if, 20 years ago, the police thought any senior politician (or indeed, anyone) allegedly had committed such acts, why would they not seek prosecution? let’s see if such questions will be aksed, or will this become, simply and narrowly, another stick with which to beat a (granted, deeply flawed) public sevrice broadcaster?
Is this week’s farrago the result of an attempt to throw people off the scent, or to discredit the victims, given that big questions about top people now are being asked in broad daylight wrt Wales and elsewhere? Does anyone smell the hand of the Security Service in this? Am I overly suspicious? is it surprising that I might be, given, say, the Hillborough conspiracy and much else?
Yeah what a surprise, the sources are president Correa and anonymous intelligence officers. Add a claim of historical reminiscence and voila – anti-war activists are going to run with this like mad. This is like a story from Press TV.
‘They have done it before in the Laos triangle, bumping up the annual production of opium from 4 tons to 200tons just before the outbreak of the Vietnam war and during the first part of it. The CIA has form.’
Good point Nevermind- for chapter & verse on the origins of the CIA drug traffic connection the best sources are Alfred McCoy & Peter Dale Scott. An excellent introduction to the research undertaken by the latter in this area is available here-
http://japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3436
Michal
When the CIA does this kind of thing (and there is no doubt it does. All evidence is in the past by definition – but hardly “historical reminiscence”) – what kind of evidence do you think there might be apart from “Anonymous intelligence officers”? Do you think there is a CIA document entitled “Masterplan for narcotics smuggling to fund illegal attempt to remove Correa” which you can obtain under the Freedom of Information Act?
My sources are not anonymous to me – and I presume that Mery Bell’s sources are not anonymous to him. I had never heard of him before, but I already trusted my own sources and Mery Bell’s Chilean information appears powerful corroboration.
Or are you claiming I am making it all up? If you want to come out and say that, you had better man up, reveal your real identity and not hide behind anonymity.
Well Craig, my identity is surely no more of an enigma than the identity of the good men and/or women, who are hard at work here trying to shed public light on the enormous CIA drug smuggling operation, but please no cameras.
I in fact do have significant doubt over whether CIA “does this kind of thing”. Not only CIA, but also apparently the Chileans as well.
You may trust your sources and Patricio Mery Bell may trust his, but why should I trust either of you? How do I know neither of you has been duped – as these things, such as planted newspaper articles, did happen a lot during the Cold War? Had there been a CIA document called “Masterplan for narcotics smuggling to fund illegal attempt to remove Correa” that were to be released, it certainly would give a powerful boost to the case being made here. But right now it’s just a socialist journalist, of whom I know nothing, and an assange supporter working together as an echo chamber to president Correa, who made the same claims also without apparently making any substantial proof public. Just to make a note: I am not saying that you personally are being dishonest, I think you are a very honest person, but perhaps with a cognitive bias.
Michal:
“I in fact do have significant doubt over whether CIA “does this kind of thing”.”
Watch this space closely to have your doubts removed.
Meantime, re-read Craig’s last sentence: “Whether my informant knew or suspected that the “secret Pentagon funds” were drug money I do not know. They did not mention narcotics.”
So what is it precisely that you find incredible?
Villager: The entire article published here is built on the basis that it is drug money, therefore I went from there. I guess it is plausible that CIA would be buttressing up efforts to remove Correa through funding the opposition, but I have significant doubts over whether they’d be so desperate as to smuggle hundreds of kilograms of drugs in cooperation with Chilean secret service. And here comes the question: if there are no drugs involved, why do we have a Chilean journalist making the the same claim as Craig Murray, but slightly improved with the presence of such vile goods as drugs, on the basis of a single anonymous “intelligence source” ?
Well, Hillary Clinton would certainly know who to ask for advice about smuggling cocaine out of South America…..
From Progreso Weekly
HAVANA /QUITO – President Rafael Correa of Ecuador said that, beginning in January 2013, the tax on the profits of private banks will be increased by 3 percent. The proceeds from that tax increase will benefit about 2 million poor Ecuadoreans, raising their monthly stipend from 35 to 50 dollars.
The stipend, known as the Human Development Bonus (BDH) is delivered by the State to the most vulnerable sectors of the population. The profits made by bankers totaled 393 million dollars last year.
The decision to socialize the profits of the nation’s banks is part of a broad program to benefit society, carried out by the Citizens’ Revolution. In this case, it will benefit disabled people, many of whom were “discovered” by the Manuela Espejo Mission*, with Cuban assistance, in the most remote corners of the Andean nation.
The added tax also helps single mothers and the elderly, to whom the government guarantees their basic meals. The Correa government only asks the beneficiaries to bring their children into the educational system and take advantage of preventive health programs.
Correa has pointed out that, while money transfers do not eliminate poverty, they mitigate the vulnerability of large sectors of the population.
When making the announcement, Correa showed videos that showed banker Guillermo Lasso rejecting this program of aid to the needy. Although Lasso had opposed “government subsidies,” when he became a candidate for president he offered to raise the BDH up to 50 dollars. Correa took him up on that offer and surprised Lasso, who had proposed that the raise be funded by cutting back public works.
Correa’s moves in favor of social equity are welcomed by the various social sectors and, to a degree, hinder the United States’ plans to prevent his reelection to the presidency. According to the former British diplomat Craig Murray, Washington is working “to influence the Ecuadorean elections” so the president will be ousted on Feb. 17, 2013, date of the election.
‘According to the former British diplomat Craig Murray, Washington is working “to influence the Ecuadorean elections” so the president will be ousted on Feb. 17, 2013, date of the election.’
As Craig is now being quoted in the context of this story, and as he said in the previous post he took down, he had better made sure that he is never in the sole company of a woman on his travels!
It seems this morning that the Director of the CIA has resigned over an extra marital affair….how did you arrange that one Craig…lol..
“It seems this morning that the Director of the CIA has resigned”
He may soon emerage from the ashes, could be the next President of the United States of America ?, the strong leader, needed to lead in a time of emergency, we live in strange times.
Probably off topic.
This is what should be read out at the Cenotaph by Cameron and across the country.
There an inhuman and uncultured race
Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God;
They rushed to war, tore from the mother’s womb
The unborn child – old age and infancy
Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms
Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends!
But what was he who taught them that the God
Of Nature and benevolence had given
A special sanction to the trade of blood?
His name and theirs are fading, and the tales
Of this barbarian nation, which imposture
Recites till terror credits, are pursuing
Itself into forgetfulness.
[..]
From kings and priests and statesmen war arose,
Whose safety is man’s deep unbettered woe,
Whose grandeur his debasement. Let the axe
Strike at the root, the poison-tree will fall;
And where its venomed exhalations spread
Ruin, and death, and woe, where millions lay
Quenching the serpent’s famine, and their bones
Bleaching unburied in the putrid blast,
A garden shall arise, in loveliness
Surpassing fabled Eden.
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/shelley-man-fabricates-the-sword-which-stabs-his-peace/
in conjunction with {http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/to-honor-value-of-single-life-first.html} By Arthur Silber. It’s rather long, but worth it.
Lots of info on the matter
http://www.narconews.com/
There is a massive amount of documented information, widely accepted and very easily available in the mainstream that confirms that the CIA does do precisely “this type of thing”. Afghanistan/Nicaragua and Colombia are just two examples. It’s entirely normal business as usual for the CIA and/or Pentagon. I mean, really, Michal, fool me once…
Petraeus’s departure is strangely timed. First for anything of this magnitude to be announced a couple of days after the election can surely be no coincidence. Second there has been a shift of power in America’s military strategy which some must be unhappy about. Drones are managed by the CIA and are a big deal, traditionally the Military manages overseas conflicts in terms of hardware and manpower. Was Petraeus moved out because some high-flyers in the US Military forced him out and the exposure of his affair was just an opening shot? Someone as powerful as the Head of the CIA would not be so vulnerable to removal based on private issues as simple as a slightly grubby love affair unless it had been with someone directly connected to an overseas hostile government.
Suhayl, I agree there is a smell of coordination.
That a victim has only now seen a photograph of who he accuses is hard to believe. That Newsnight did not think to show him is harder to believe. That a light entertainer would take it upon himself to confront the pm is simply unbelievable.
Then add in a barrage of wild accusations online. How many ridiculous lists of names were posted by strangers on this site?
Then fog everything further with multiple enquiries
Now the child abuse scandals are dead. The corporate media are further tamed. This will be cited when laws are used to retrict free speech online. The genuine accusations lost to libel threats. The victims and their long term supporters must be distraught. The corrupt politicians of Jersey will be celebrating.
Conspiracy or cock up? Either way it is a terrible day for justice.
I agree with you Suhayl. A contrivance. Old Eddie Mair doing the sackcloth and ashes bit last night and at the end him saying ‘Newsnight will be back on the air next week’, adding ‘probably’ as the credits rolled. No editorial name was shown and Helen Boaden’s name did not appear. I guess she was the senior news executive put i/c of last night’s performance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nwxt4/Newsnight_09_11_2012/ First 22 mins
Aren’t we the lucky ones to have the BBC!
They even had St Esther of Rantzen on to say that the BBC could be trusted if they asked the likes of her to come on the programme to say mea culpa. She has admitted recently that she knew about Sa Vile and of course, her husband Desmond Wilcox was i/c of fearures at the BBC in Sa Vile’s time.
I see he converted to Judaism eight years before he died, presumably to fit in with Esther’s beliefs. He was said to have been a plagiarist also. {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Wilcox}
The woman is question is Paula Broadwell, nee Kranz.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Paula-Broadwell-Woman-who-had-extramarital-affair-with-ex-CIA-director-David-Petraeus-is-high-achiever/articleshow/17168110.cms
How about being a model for a machine gun manufacturer? 🙂 There’s an opportunity for Nadine Dorries when she is booted out as she will be. She has already upset Agent Cameron by referring to him and Osborne as ‘two arrogant posh boys’.
Interesting comment on the Torygraph piece on the sacking of the Lockheed Martin incoming president and CEO.
Noonetovotefor
Today 04:28 AM
I smell a rat. The head of the CIA steps down after an alleged affair and now this. Has Obama crushed another coup attempt?
Its funny that a corporation[s] can have such draconian rules on the personal relationships they decide to develope and yet banks allow their employees to take staggering risks and break countless laws and regulation.
A judge has recently lambasted Apple executives for terrible judgement…they are still in post planning to waste yet more corporate money. Samsung will crush Apple to its core!lol
~~~~~~
What is going on?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/defence/9668671/Lockheed-Martin-chief-designate-Christopher-Kubasik-sacked-over-relationship-with-employee.html
PS I always think of our 2011 Census info which in the hands of Lockheed Martin when I see the name.
Another campaign which went nowhere. {http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/18/lockheed-martin-targeted-census-protesters}
Michal
“I guess it is plausible that CIA would be buttressing up efforts to remove Correa through funding the opposition…”
You can be sure that the CIA will be funding the opposition in Ecuador, all the Central and South American States, Iran, Syria etc. But this costs money. Money that is not forthcoming from official channels in the USA i.e. Congress.
There is a wealth of evidence in publications and on the internet that the CIA has a long history of organising assassinations, murders, coups etc. If they are not funded by US taxpayer dollars, how are these illegal operations funded?
By the way I use my real name in posts.
@ Suhayl Saadi 11:22 am
Okay, let’s see the abundance of widely accepted and available mainstream evidence of CIA drug trafficking. The only problem might be there isn’t any, the CIA never was involved in drug trafficking, not even in Nicaragua, although it has cooperated with drug traffickers. Notice the small but important difference there. The issue has been investigated at length and the accusations have never been confirmed. If you have some sort of groundbreaking evidence, you should sue all the bastards. Until then it’s all hot air and nothing but.
@ Doug Scorgie 2:14 pm
Congratulations on using your real name. Your mother must be proud. Judging by your post I’d even have to wonder whether CIA has a budget at all. Guess it’s a drug trafficking gang instead, nevermind part of its mission is fight against drug trafficking.
Michal, as you well know, the evidence is extensive. Here, in the next few posts, are some articles/book excerpts that refers to some of this evidence, but there is much more.
Your allegation of there being subtle differences b/w “cooperating with drug traffickers” and “being involved in drug trafficking” is a somewhat hilarious play on semantics. It’s like saying, “I wasn’t involved in arms-dealing, I simply was cooperating with arms dealers”. Yeah, sure. So, clearly, even you find yourself unable to deny that the US state has been deeply involved in – cooperating with, whatever – the drug trade. I would argue that it’s not simply been ‘cooperation’ (and what does that mean, exactly, ‘cooperation’ – were they holding the hands of the drug dealers, giving them energy drinks and health promotion advice, singing lullabies to them at night, what?), but systemic, active involvement with airfields, hangars, the lot. The CIA and Pentagon have much white powder up their very elegant noses. Oh, and it being close to Remembrance Sunday, let’s not forget too that they have lots of poppies in their handbags.
It is interesting that Craig Murray’s major news scoop – for that is what this is – has frightened those who support the foreign policy objectives of the USA imperium. That is a good sign. Spread the word, folks!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/cia-was-embroiled-in-contra-drug-fund-1314147.html
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jAzNQGZ0AV4C&pg=RA2-PA206&dq=cia+drug+trafficking&ei=14GFS8jwFZ6KlQS-29XZBA&cd=9&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=cia%20drug%20trafficking&f=false
‘Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies and the CIA In Central America (Scott and Marshall):
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vgthWZ5KlskC&pg=PR8&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
Michal; Do you think covert ops are just a fashion statement? The only resource for credible reports are former spooks who blow the whistle. Yes, sometimes they screw up (as they did by inadvertently sending a Telex regarding the deposing of the PM of Australia in 1975, which Chris Boyce picked up, and went Manning x 10. But we don’t often get corroborated info regarding CIA, until it’s been declassified (ARGO)
But this account describing Air America is not friendly to the notion of AA dealing in drugs, but makes some grudging concessions.
http://www.air-america.org/About/History.shtml