—https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/09/27/how-is-the-cia-still-a-thing/
Citing “conversations with more than 30 former U.S. officials,” a Yahoo News report has confirmed that the CIA not only spied on the WikiLeaks founder, but also discussed seizing, renditioning and killing him.
These plans were reportedly made in coordination with the Trump White House as then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo and then-Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel raged over WikiLeaks’ 2017 Vault 7 release which revealed that the CIA had lost control of an enormous digital arsenal of hacking tools. These included tools which enabled the surveillance of smartphones, smart TVs and web browsers, the hacking of computerized vehicle control systems, and the ability to frame foreign governments for cyber attacks by inserting the digital “fingerprints” of the hacking methods they employ for investigators to find. It was the single largest data leak in CIA history…
I was going to quote just the header to Caitlin Johnstone’s op-ed for RT and throw in my own two cents. Basically I was going to say that given the power and evil of the CIA the question is not why does it still exist but why do the legal systems of the nations of the “Five Eyes” co-ordinated Intelligence agencies (USA, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand) still exist in any meaningful and effective sense of the word.
In fact the question can even be shortened. Do our legal systems still exist? Oh lawyers are making tons of paper and billable hours have exceeded the timespan of the known universe no doubt. But are there still supreme courts of our states, provinces and federal systems which still stand independent of political intimidation, overt and covert, ready to defend our nations’ various constitutional guarantees of the civil rights of people like you and me, and Caitlin and Julian?
The silence and inactivity of these highest courts strongly implies that their Justices are on the back foot, fearing to make judgements they know to be their duty but which they also know would call for the abolition of the CIA and the FBI and all the other extra-judicial agencies. How could these people be human and be located in the capitol cities of the Five Eyes countries and not hear rumours in high circles of tortures and murders committed by these agencies? Senator Chucky Schumer openly threatened then President Trump that if he dared to defy the CIA there would be “six ways from Sunday” for the CIA to “get him”.
Trump appointed Mike Pompeo Secretary of State. Who can ever say what nativity prompted him to do that but I cannot avoid concluding that there was a presidential decision which set up the CIA as an office in the White House. Today we are all supposed to believe that the plans to kidnap and murder Julian Assange were made “under Trump”.
“Under Trump”, “By the Trump administration”. Wow. As if the CIA were ever “under” Trump or any president since November 22, 1963! The presidents since John F Kennedy was removed by mechanics commanded by the CIA have tried to preserve some portions of their constitutional powers by trying to keep the CIA at arms length. That’s all gone now.
Caitlin Johnstone’s article here is far too important to be missed. I followed just one of her suggested links, Operation Condor, and there I found 37 pages of very well sourced data on the torture and terror program carried on by the CIA in Central and South America from 1975 (the year Sydney Pollock made “Three Days of the Condor"). I archived that and also the wikipedia article on Operation Phoenix where Caitlin sourced the terrible litany of barbaric tortures the CIA employed in Vietnam. What they called “the airplane” was (and is? Why in hell-on-earth not?) what the Spanish Inquisition of the 1500s and 1600s called “the Strapado”. Did Gina Haspel gleefully preside over these tortures? That was her reputation.
Caitlin Johnstone is based in Melbourne where a police state has replaced the democratic system. What guts this lady has. And she’s a journalist with the kind of tenacity to search out sources and documents that I can scarcely imagine having. I’m a diarist, essentially, and I’m a witness. Some day the world is going to need what people like me are seeing, noting and archiving. That day will be the day when the octopus of of evil and crime called the CIA and all its brothers and its many evil children have been destroyed by the very consequences of their own lawlessness. Here’s to that future world!