Tuesday, March 12, 2013
CIA ramps up role in Iraq to 'help' government defend against al-Qaeda elements the CIA actively supports in Syria & Libya
Any takers for "Ambassador to Syria"?
(The West Point report on the Libyan CIA mercenaries who constitute "al-Qaeda in Iraq", and now AQ Syria, here.
Washington: The Central Intelligence Agency is ramping up support to elite Iraqi anti-terrorism units (ie. Death Squads -AI) to better fight Al Qaida affiliates, amid alarm in Washington about spillover from the civil war in neighbouring Syria, according to US officials.
The stepped-up mission expands a covert US presence on the edges of the two-year-old Syrian conflict, at a time of American concerns about the growing power of extremists in the Syrian rebellion.
Al Qaida in Iraq, the terrorist network’s affiliate in the country, has close ties to Syria-based Jabhat Al Nusra, also known as the Al Nusra Front, an opposition militant group that has attacked government installations and controls territory in northern Syria. The US State Department placed Al Nusra on its list of foreign terror organisations in December, calling the group an alias for Al Qaida in Iraq. [In Full]
Sunday, February 3, 2013
The 'Syrian National Council' Is Desperate... News Flurry follows:
Syrian National Council chief Moaz al-Khatib declares the Syrian revolution has failed (wayback machine)
Syria top opposition leader says willing to negotiate with Assad
Syria opposition chief al-Khatib appeals in Munich for action
Syria Opposition Leader Meets with Russian FM in Munich
Saturday, February 20, 2010
State of the 'Shadow State' - False Flag Operations and Western Governments in Iraq and Afghanistan
Operation Gladio lives on today in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Saturday, February 20, 2010More information about potential US false flag ops @ Razed By Wolves
Guest Post: Governments From Around the World ADMIT That They Carry Out False Flag TerrorPreface: Please skip to the end of this essay (entitled “Why Should I Care?”) if you want to see why this issue is important to the economy, civil rights, and the political causes which are most important to you. Yves does not necessarily agree with this essay. Indeed, she may dislike it so much that she bans me from the site. Please send any hate mail to me, not Yves, as I am solely responsible. So why am I posting this? Because if I don’t have the courage of my convictions to speak unpopular truths, then why should I write at all?"U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased.
The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers.
Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts (also) speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA." [In Full]
This post contains links to the Blackwater's Glock pistol smuggling operation in Iraq amongst other things.
Congressman Henry Waxman's Blackwater investigation (with the Nisoor Square massacre of Iraqi civilians as a (media driven) focus) was supposed to investigate, with witnesses from the organization's testimony, Blackwater's gun-running operations. "Shrink wrapped pallets" of Glock pistols intended for delivery to the Iraqi police from the CPA. They ended up being used in Turkish street crime. One of the weapons was turned over to Austrian manufacturer, Glock who ID'd the original purchaser... The Coalition Provisional Authority.
This could have been an attempt to destabilize the Turks and cause a backing off of their military presence at the time on the Kurd-Iraqi border by necessitating more domestic policing and intelligence resources.
The outcome of the Waxman investigation?
It's a secret.
This one is about Blackwater's German assassination operation for the CIA where they "Went Dark".
Blackwater, now Xe, was 'outed' recently for attempting an assassination of an alleged 'al Qaeda' financier in Germany at the behest of the CIA.
The kicker... They, as a US sponsored ASSASSINATION OPERATION, 'went dark'... AKA "Rogue".
That means they never informed the CIA station (the US government agents responsible for what little oversight might be applied) they were in-country no less the German government. It's just a short step, and the same personnel MOS/materiel from this sort of op to accomplish false flag operations.
This post exemplifies, in an illegal arms trade way, Yogi Berra's expression "It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again.
1/4 million weapons missing in Afghanistan, Just like Russian mobster/gunrunner/ex-KGB operative Victor Bout's 'airline' loss of 1/4 million Pentagon AKs in Iraq.
Victor Bout had already been 'apprehended' by INTERPOL by this time, but there's never a shortage of "Death Merchants" as long as someone is willing to pay.
The Victor Bout/Iraq incident is covered in the first link.
General David Petraeus responded, in that case, with the statement "It must have been a bookkeeping error". Even Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper thought it laughable.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Looking for "al Qaeda on Haiti" no doubt... CIA Contractor Drone Over Haiti
"Following the money" for US government Haiti Disaster Relief operations.
Evergreen International Aviation... They do the 'logistics' end of CIA 'renditions' and have a long history of covert ops for the CIA and Pentagon. The Wired article fleshes(sic) it out..
A controversial CIA contractor has found new work in Haiti, flying drones on disaster recovery duty.
When last we heard from Evergreen International Aviation, the Oregon-based firm was offering to post sentries at local voting centers during the 2008 election, ”detaining troublemakers” and making sure voters “do not get out of control.”
Now, company vice president Sam White tells Aviation Week that the firm is flying at least one ScanEagle surveillance drone over Haiti. ”The company has a fleet of 747s and a fleet of large and small choppers, and has begun ferrying in supplies to Port au Prince,” the magazine’s Paul McLeary notes. “White wouldn’t say who the company is moving cargo for, saying only that ‘we’re working with different agencies, and we have one plane coming in tomorrow full of humanitarian supplies.’”
Over the years, Evergreen has had all sorts of interesting clients over its five-plus decades in operation. Back in the late ’80s, the company “acknowledged one agreement under which his companies provide occasional jobs and cover to foreign nationals the CIA wants taken out of other countries or brought into the United States.” In 2006, Evergreen’s parent company flew Bill O’Reilly into Kuwait in 2006, according toSourceWatch. Last April, the company won a $158 million contract to supply the Air Force with helicopters in Afghanistan.
More @ Danger Room - Wired
Da Buffalo found Evergreen's NGO pricing for "Helicopters to Haiti":
"Bill Doonen, a representative of Evergreen Helicopters (Same Parent Co), said he could take the French team in. But it would cost about $7,000 an hour, with a four-hour minimum.
I'm at a loss for words." More @ OregonLive
The other day, Da Buffalo asked the question amongst friends:
The anti-terrorism operation, according to William Arkin of the Post, is stationed at Homestead AFB, current center of US "relief" operations for Haiti:
"The U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), SOD-G is moving to an airbase in Homestead, Fla., where it will take up contingency counter-terrorism planning responsibilities for the region, seeking to characterize how al Qaeda and other terrorists might exploit drug trafficking routes and patterns or other gaps in American defense to infiltrate into the United States."
So how long could it be until the US finds "al Qaeda on Haiti"?
Someone has an answer:
"...they ‘found’ those links quite a while ago - the occupation forces (Haiti’s current occupation started on 29 February 2004) was accusing Lavalas (Aristide’s party) of beheading members of the Haitian National Police, and doing so in an alliance with Haiti’s tiny (3000) Arab minority. Of course, it has generally been the HNP that has done assassinations, e.g. Abdias Jean, (with MINUSTAH - after MINUSTAH assassinated Dred Wilme in Cite Soleil (early 07/lat 06, if memory serves), kidnappings there went up according to the economist, although they don’t tie the matter to the murder, even though MINUSTAH had been accusing Dred Wilme of being behind the kidnappings), and Lavalas has accused them of beheadings. One UN representative repeated the charges against Lavalas, but neither he nor the HNP can supply the names of anyone beheaded by Lavalas...
...have a look at Kill the Bandits and “Haiti, The Untold Story” by Kevin Pina."
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Gee, I wonder how that happened? "Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere..."
.
For more details, see Historycommons:
"History of US Interventions US-Haiti (1804-2005)"
January 14, 2010
Haitian Earthquake: Made in the USA
Why the Blood Is on Our Hands
by Ted Rall
(Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge. He is also a cartoonist of the political persuasion)As grim accounts of the earthquake in Haiti came in, the accounts in U.S.-controlled state media all carried the same descriptive sentence: "Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere..."
Gee, I wonder how that happened?
You'd think Haiti would be loaded. After all, it made a lot of people rich.
How did Haiti get so poor?
Despite a century of American colonialism, occupation, and propping up corrupt dictators? Even though the CIA staged coups d'état against every democratically elected president they ever had?
It's an important question. An earthquake isn't just an earthquake. The same
7.0 tremor hitting San Francisco wouldn't kill nearly as many people as in Port-au-Prince.
"Looking at the pictures, essentially it looks as if (the buildings are of) breezeblock or cinderblock construction, and what you need in an earthquake zone is metal bars that connect the blocks so that they stay together when they get shaken," notes Sandy Steacey, director of the Environmental Science Research Institute at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. "In a wealthy country with good seismic building codes that are enforced, you would have some damage, but not very much."
When a pile of cinderblocks falls on you, your odds of survival are long. Even if you miraculously survive, a poor country like Haiti doesn't have the equipment, communications infrastructure or emergency service personnel to pull you out of the rubble in time. And if your neighbors get you out, there's no ambulance to take you to the hospital--or doctor to treat you once you get there.
Earthquakes are random events. How many people they kill is predetermined. In Haiti this week, don't blame tectonic plates. Ninety-nine percent of the death toll is attributable to poverty.
So the question is relevant. How'd Haiti become so poor?
The story begins in 1910, when a U.S. State Department-National City Bank of New York (now called Citibank) consortium bought the Banque National d'Haïti--Haiti's only commercial bank and its national treasury--in effect transferring Haiti's debts to the Americans.
Five years later, President Woodrow Wilson ordered troops to occupy the country in order to keep tabs on "our" investment.
From 1915 to 1934, the U.S. Marines imposed harsh military occupation, murdered Haitians patriots and diverted 40 percent of Haiti's gross domestic product to U.S. bankers. Haitians were banned from government jobs. Ambitious Haitians were shunted into the puppet military, setting the stage for a half-century of U.S.-backed military dictatorship.
The U.S. kept control of Haiti's finances until 1947.
Still--why should Haitians complain? Sure, we stole 40 percent of Haiti's national wealth for 32 years. But we let them keep 60 percent.
Whiners.
Xe/Blackwater's CIA 'Dark' Operation In Germany... A Practice Run For Somalia/HOA Operations?
Blackwater, in cooperation with certain elements of the CIA, stand accused of 'going dark' in Germany (Ie. not contacting the CIA station no less the German government) for a planned assassination of a German citizen 'al qaeda financier'...But is that op just the tip of the iceberg?
Just ask an older European about Operation Gladio and ask yourself, "Gladio/Horn of Africa?"
Reuters reports a spokesperson from the Islamist Al-Shabaab group in Somalia claiming that the US mercenary group Blackwater/Xe Services is in Somalia, is recruiting and is planning a series of spectacular terrorist attacks against civilians to discredit his movement in Mogadishu.
The spokesperson is Sheikh Ali Mohammed Rage of the Al-Shabaab group (The Youth), an Islamist faction fighting government forces in southern and central Somalia. In an interview with Reuters, he claimed that mercenaries from Blackwater (now called Xe Services) have started planning bomb plots in Mogadishu to discredit Al-Shabaab.
“US agencies are going to launch suicide bombings in public places in Mogadishu. They have tried it in Algeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan”.He added that the target will be the market of Bakara.
The source apparently warned a meeting of tribal elders that Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) has entered Somalia and has already started recruiting operationals to carry out its attacks.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Thirteen Expendable US Soldiers - Fort Hood Shooter Tried to Contact al Qaeda, U.S. intelligence knew...
H/t: The Gates of Hell
U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.Also see this post at "Tremble The Devil" for a little forensic psychology and a comparison to another 'Joker' in the deck:
According to the officials, the Army was informed of Hasan’s contact, but it is unclear what, if anything, the Army did in response.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the U.S. intelligence community, only to be refused...
In Full with linkage to more
In one of the more pivotal scenes of The Dark Knight, Alfred descends into a strictly ordered halogen-lit Batcave as Bruce Wayne is doggedly patching himself up. After helping his employer with some stitching, Alfred realizes that Master Bruce doesn't fully comprehend this new halcyon violence that the Joker has brought to Gotham City:Alfred: A long time ago, I was in Burma, my friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never found anyone who traded with him. One day I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.It's a fantastic scene from a cinematic standpoint, but a problem occurs when you pull the Joker out of the movie as one crazy-ass allegory for chaos and death. And especially when you make the leap of trying to fit terrorism into the framework provided by the Joker, to use the Joker's rubric on terrorists.
Bruce Wayne: Then why steal them?
Alfred: Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
No one better proves this than the Ft. Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan.
Because we lose any chance of gaining useful insight when we label Hasan a terrorist, stuffing him into a box of our choosing. Instead of trying to see the box that he saw himself in, and carefully crafted for himself...
Details at "Tremble the Devil" by... well... 'no name'... but impeccable 'creds'.
Anonymous received his undergraduate degree from Harvard, where he studied Comparative Middle Eastern Government under some of the university’s most renowned professors and minored in Arabic
He was employed by the Department of Defense for five-years, and worked in some of the DoD's most sensitive and salient missions.
He finished his career in Counterterrorism, where he produced analysis on some of the most ruthless and well-trained terrorists in the world.
He left to write Tremble the Devil, to help every American understand the true face of terrorism.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Still "...hoping for change..." (but expecting none) - ARAR REDUX? (Bill Fisher)
(but expecting none)
Our new president, president Obama, has no major problem with 'rendition' either.
But in certain countries of Europe Justice trumps 'hope'.
See: "CIA verdict in Italy challenges Obama on renditions".
ARAR REDUX?
November 09 2009
By William Fisher
On the heels of a federal appeals court ruling that only Congress and the executive branch of government – not the courts -- can interfere with government-sponsored “extraordinary rendition, ” a U.S. citizen from New Jersey is asking another court to tell the government it wasn’t OK to secretly imprison and abuse him in three different African countries over a period of four months.
The citizen is Amir Meshal, 24, the son of Muslim immigrants from Egypt.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed the lawsuit in Meshal’s behalf, after fleeing hostilities in Somalia in 2006, Meshal was arrested, secretly imprisoned in inhumane conditions and subjected to harsh interrogations by U.S. officials over 30 times in three different countries before ultimately being released four months later without charge,
"This case challenges the US government’s effort to evade accountability for illegal detention and interrogations in counter-terrorism operations by masking and hiding its involvement," Jonathan Hafetz, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, told IPS.
According to the ACLU, Meshal was studying Islam in Mogadishu, Somalia, in December 2006, when hostilities broke out. With the airport disabled by bombing, Meshal fled to neighboring Kenya, where he wandered in the forest for three weeks seeking shelter and assistance before being arrested. Following his arrest, he was detained and repeatedly interrogated by U.S. officials who threatened to harm him, denied him access to counsel and accused him of receiving training from al-Qaeda, which Meshal denied.
Following his arrest and detention in Kenya, the suit says Meshal was illegally rendered to Somalia and then to Ethiopia where he was imprisoned in secret for over three months. There, U.S. officials subjected him to harsh interrogations while denying him due process and access to a lawyer, his family or anyone else in the outside world...
[In Full at 'The World According To Bill Fisher]
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
SHOCKED! Shocked I Say! US Documents on Iran Nukes Forged? (Juan Cole)
Monday, November 10, 2008
US Documents on Iran Nukes Forged?
I'm shocked, shocked that allegations are emerging at the International Atomic Energy Agency that US-supplied "documents" from a laptop acquired in 2004 indicating a secret Iranian weapons program were probably forgeries.The IAEA clearly hopes that the Obama administration will end the previous administration's attempts to undermine it and will stop the Washington habit of using forged documents as a basis for aggressive military responses to nuclear programs and instead will opt for diplomacy.
Source
Since I've got your attention... A comparison is in order... to those Colombian FARC laptops the CIA and the Colombian military killed a number of people over (including a hostage negotiator and a number of Mexican college students) in a high tech (beyond the capabilities of the Colombian military) raid earlier in 2008:
"Using their forensic tools, they (the Interpol experts) found a total of 48,055 files for which the timestamps indicated that they had either been created, accessed, modified or deleted as a result of the direct access to the eight seized exhibits by Colombian authorities between the time of their seizure on 1 March 2008 and 3 March 2008 at 11:45 a.m.Or, to put it graphically:
"The actual seizure of the eight computer exhibits occurred between 5:50 a.m. and 7:50 a.m. (local time at the place of seizure, GMT -5:00) on Saturday, 1 March. However, it was not until more than 48 hours later that the eight seized exhibits were given to the computer forensic specialists of the Colombian Judicial Police," the report goes on to say.
"Access to the data contained in the eight FARC computer exhibits between 1 March 2008, when they were seized by Colombian authorities, and 3 March 2008 at 11:45 a.m., when they were turned over to…the Colombian Judicial Police, did not conform to internationally recognised principles for handling electronic evidence by law enforcement.
Source, IPS News
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Class War... Because Two Wars Are Not Enough - US escalating covert operations against Iran - Seymour Hersh/New Yorker
Want to stop 'em?
Don't bother voting...
Barack Obama supports war with Iran too!
Here's The Buffalo's suggestion...
Go after their friends...
But note:
"...since Barack Obama has no qualms about “unilaterally” militarily attacking other nations, there is absolutely no reason to believe that he would be self-constrained from ordering that Black, Brown, and Red peoples right here inside of the US be viciously attacked via “police actions;” and quite frankly, lots of white Americans themselves might not be that far behind from being sacrificed, especially if they dare to try and get in the way of Mr. Corporate - “unilaterally” attack them - Barack Obama." Source, Black Commentator
"Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed.
But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials.
Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.
Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees, the so-called Gang of Eight.Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.“
The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.”
The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said."
There Have Been
Thanks For Stopping By
Monday, May 19, 2008
International Law Portfolio - He "Looked Into It"... Quote of the day From Colombia's Defense Minister
Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos was asked yesterday exactly why 60 of his soldiers crossed the border into Venezuela over the weekend:“I looked into it and they were not doing anything”
H/T to Great Moments in Investigating (BoRev.Net)
Friday, May 16, 2008
Blatant Media Lies Department - Interpol’s Report Confirms that the Supposed FARC Computers **Were** Manipulated
El Pais (Spain, IHT/NYT affiliation) “Interpol Certifies that the FARC Computers Were Not Manipulated,” (with the subtitle: “Police Organization Says the Laptops Belonged to Raúl Reyes.”)From the Interpol Report they speak of...
"The verification of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits by INTERPOL does not imply the validation of the accuracy of the user files, the validation of any country’s interpretation of the user files or the validation of the source of the user files."BoRev's resident pundit put it this way:
I don’t know how you all have been spending your weekend, but mine’s been kind of busy. Between getting a haircut, rebuilding my hard drive, and those intermittent, rage-filled, computer-related screaming jags, I’ve been reading that Interpol report from the other day.
And you know what’s weird about it?
Fucking everything.
A BIG H/T to machetera.wordpress.com and igc.org
“FARC” computers go back to the future!
May 16, 2008
Look what Interpol found on the “FARC” computers!
- 2,110 files with creation dates ranging between 20 April 2009 to 27 August 2009
- 1,434 files which show as having been last modified between 5 April 2009 and 16 October 2010
Wait! Computer dates aren’t set in stone by the immutable Atomic Clock in Denver? But that would mean…
Interpol’s Report Confirms that the Supposed FARC Computers Were Manipulated
(The parts of the report they’ve not wanted to emphasize)
Carlos Martínez/Pascual Serrano - Rebelión
Translation: Machetera
Last March 1, the Colombian Army attacked a FARC camp in Ecuadoran territory. The army supposedly captured three laptops, three flash drives and two external hard disks. And it must be said “supposedly” because said evidence was not obtained under established police or judicial procedures, but rather through military aggression in a foreign country, making any evidence obtained thereby illegal and unusable in any judicial procedure.
In order to give validity to this “evidence,” the Colombian authorities asked Interpol to produce a report certifying the “authenticity” of the archives contained in the equipment. Yesterday, March 15, the report was made public; a reading of which, calls attention to the following conclusions:
First, a reference is made to “data classified as ULTRA SECRETO” (Page 20 of the report) when part of the data was already published in the El País newspaper.
The most important is that the report itself acknowledges in its “Finding 2b” (Page 30) that the Colombian authorities manipulated the computers and storage devices and that “Access to the data contained in the eight FARC computer exhibits…did not conform to internationally recognized principles for handling electronic evidence by law enforcement.”
The study commissioned by the Colombian government acknowledges that:
“Direct access may complicate validating this evidence for purposes of its introduction in a judicial proceeding, because law enforcement is then required to demonstrate or prove that the direct access did not have a material impact on the purpose for which the evidence is intended.”
For example, further on in the document, Interpol says that:
“The operating systems of the three seized laptops all showed that the laptops had been shut down on 3 March 2008 (at different times, but all three prior to 11:45 a.m., the time of receipt by the forensic computer examiners of the Colombian Judicial Police). The two external hard disks and the three USB thumb drives had all been connected to a computer between 1 and 3 March 2008, without prior imagine of their contents and without the use of write-blocking hardware.”
That is, the Colombian Army used and modified the archives contained in the computers, USB memory and hard disks, before delivering them to the Colombian police.
For example, on page 31, the report says:
“83. Seized exhibit 26, a laptop computer, showed the following effects on files on or after 1 March 2008:
- 273 system files were created
- 373 system and user files were accessed
- 786 system files were modified
- 488 system files were deleted
The report says that user documents (Word and the like) are authentic, because they were not modified between March 1 and the date of the examination, however, the same report acknowledges the limits of this statement because in Exhibit 31, there are:
- 2,110 files with creation dates ranging between 20 April 2009 to 27 August 2009
- 1,434 files which show as having been last modified between 5 April 2009 and 16 October 2010
It concludes that “these files were originally created prior to 1 March 2008 on a device or devices with incorrect system time settings. (Page 33)
What this means is that any user changing the time on the operating system can create a document with any date they please, either a prior or even a future one.
It must be stressed that in regard to the forensic conclusions, the report literally says:
Without revealing the content of the data, INTERPOL can state the following with regard to the user files contained in the eight seized FARC computer exhibits:
- 109 document files were found on more than one of the exhibits
- 452 spreadsheets
- 7,989 e-mail addresses
- 10,537 multimedia files (sound and video)
- 22,481 web pages
- 37,872 written documents (such as Word documents, PDF files, text format documents)
- 210,888 images
Of the above, 983 files were found to be encrypted. (Page 27)
In other words, nowhere in the seized computers is there a reference to them containing emails. Remember that the reports from El País referred to emails and published the files under the headline “Emails captured from Raúl Reyes computer.” Therefore, where did they get those emails? Or did they simply not exist in the seized computers?
Finally, the report concludes (Page 35 and beyond) with seven pages dedicated to recommendations to police in member countries, telling them how electronic evidence should be treated, recommendations that were probably made because this case serves as an example to police for how not to collect information technology (IT) evidence. The only way in which one might ensure the authenticity of documents contained in IT archives is to obtain them under judicial direction and from the outset, when they come into custody of jurisdictionally independent authorities; doing forensic testing on only one exact copy of the contents of the hard disks and memory.
As it is, Interpol’s own report only casts more doubt on the origin of the computer archives published by El País in order to attack Venezuela and Ecuador.
This has also been pointed out by the U.S. academics Miguel Tinker-Salas, Professor at the University of California (Pomona) and Forrest Hylton, Professor at New York University (NYU), who warned that the information found in the computers said to be those of Raúl Reyes, had been misused by the Colombian government and Interpol.
Miguel Tinker-Salas, an expert on Latin American subjects, indicated that there are number of politically motivated misinterpretations assigned to the contents of the computers. “One must recall that Interpol can only say whether manipulation took place. But it cannot say whether the elements it found are original and it cannot certify the information.” Moreover, he pointed out the problem inherent in the fact that the report was disseminated from Colombia, since this demonstrates that Interpol is defending the interests of Álvaro Uribe’s government, supported by the United States.
Forrest Hylton, of NYU, expressed the need for the contents to be verified by an institution with a greater degree of independence. “It’s likely that the computers did survive the Colombian bombing, but the problem is that we don’t know anything more, nor how they were treated,” he said.
The reality is the Colombia did manipulate the FARC computers. The media, the Colombian government and Interpol’s managers have stressed the elements that interest the media who headline their reports, “Interpol Finds Documents Sourcing From Raúl Reyes’ Computer to be Authentic,” or “Police Agency says Venezuela Financed the FARC” (El País).
The most eloquent evidence that these headlines are lies is that the Interpol report, in order to ensure its impartiality, was done by IT technicians who don’t speak Spanish and didn’t have a political understanding of what the files said.
That’s what one report said: “The experts come from outside the region and didn’t speak Spanish, which helped eliminate the possibility that they might have been influenced by the contents of the data they were analyzing.”
A report from an IT technician who doesn’t understand Spanish cannot possibly say that Venezuela financed the FARC, because s/he wouldn’t have understood a single word of what the files said.
The media misrepresentation has continued while the Interpol report summary says:
The verification of the eight seized FARC computer exhibits by INTERPOL does not imply the validation of the accuracy of the user files, the validation of any country’s interpretation of the user files or the validation of the source of the user files.
El País headlined its report from Maite Rico and Pilar Lozano, “Interpol Certifies that the FARC Computers Were Not Manipulated,” with the subtitle: “Police Organization Says the Laptops Belonged to Raúl Reyes.”
On the other hand, in passing supposed contents of the computers that implicated Venezuela and Ecuador through the filter of a friendly press, Colombian authorities showed the world that they were more interested in criminalizing these governments than in allowing judges and security forces to work. If they’re so interested in transparency, it would be good to know what information the FARC had about paramilitary crimes and the members of the Uribe administration implied in paramilitarism.
Surely there were was plenty of that in the hundreds of gigabytes that are said to be contained in the disks.
Related News:
More than 48,000 Files Manipulated in Colombian Computer
Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.
Original Spanish @ www.rebelion.org
Thanks For Stopping By
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Proxy War - Iran says U.S. aids rebels at its borders - Los Angeles Times
Iran says U.S. aids rebels at its bordersThe violence may be driving Tehran's efforts to back its own allies in Iraq.
By Borzou Daragahi
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 15, 2008
"Analysts say the anti-Iranian groups are tempting assets for the U.S. They say it would be a surprise if the groups were not receiving U.S. funding, but that the strategy would probably not work.
"It will give more encouragement to Iran's hard-liners to step up their own efforts to assist anti-American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst now at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
Among the most active groups is the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, known by its Kurdish acronym, PEJAK. It has hundreds of well-trained fighters along with camps in northern Iraq.
Iranian soldiers guarding the border are sometimes ambushed by PEJAK fighters. Iran responds with artillery attacks that send Iraqi villagers scurrying for cover. Border skirmishes last summer and fall between Iranian security forces and PEJAK left dozens dead on both sides.
PEJAK emerged this decade as an Iranian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, an armed group formed to fight a separatist war against the Turkish government.
Former members say PEJAK was meant to circumvent Western restrictions on contacts with the PKK, which has been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department and the European Union."
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
...And In Our OTHER Dirty Little War - Mogadishu Somalia, "...the really frightening part of it was the lack of people."
Eerie silence in empty Mogadishu
By Mark Doyle BBC News world affairs correspondent, Mogadishu
7 Apr 7, 2008 - 9:45:10 AM
The streets north of the ruins of the Old Parliament in Mogadishu stretch out like alleyways bulldozed through a rubble dump.
Parts of some of the buildings are still standing - a wall here, a section of collapsed roof there.
But the overall impression in this part of the Somali capital is one of massive destruction. I did not see a single house there without shell damage or bullet holes.
However, the really frightening part of it was the lack of people.
After covering several wars, I have come to be wary of empty places.
If, in a war zone, you turn a corner and see no shops open and no people going about their business - beware.
It usually means that some military activity has recently taken place there - so the people have fled - or that the people fear an imminent attack.
And the local people almost always know best.
As I drove through parts of Mogadishu on a patrol with Ugandan soldiers of the African Union (AU) peacekeeping force, there was an eerie lack of human beings.
Blasted buildings aside, this ghostly absence of people was a sure sign that this place is going through a period of terrible violence.
The United Nations estimates that in the past year at least half of the population of Mogadishu - or over half a million people - have fled the fighting between the Ethiopian-backed transitional government and its Islamist and clan-based opponents.... In Full
It's obvious to even the uninterested observer that Ethiopian and AU troops are in country, but the main players in this bush war (double entendre absolutely intended) are the Islamic Court Union, the people who tried to put the Somali warlords out of the western extractive industries protection business...
A family photo the CIA's Somali warlord mercenary army leadership.
They were "extracted" by US SEALS the first time their "government" collapsed.
...with air support and advisory services courtesy of DynCorp
Click the image for specifications and history (GlobalSecurity.org)...and in the near future AFRICOM, the US military command in Africa will be directly involved, upping the US military casualty ante considerably.
Where the same terror and intimidation tactics will be used, as seen by the civilian population of Iraq...
Click for a description via the 361st PsyOps Co. IraqThis on the latest fashionable mayhem creations specifically designed for the AC130, and (if it DOES work) undoubtedly intended for Horn of Africa deployment... Because if we CALL THEM al Qaeda (and we DO call the ICU that), they are no better than animals in our government's view, subject to torture, EMF radiation strong enough to cook flesh... whatever.
From DefenseTech's archive
Pimp My Gunship 2: Directed EnergyThe AC-130U Spectre is a byword for high-precision fire support. But equipping it with directed energy weapons (DE) will take close air support to an entirely new level. The technological breakthrough needed to get there is a radical $22m superconducting generator which the Air Force will demonstrate by 2009 and which is specifically indended to fit on a C-130.
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