MEDIA ROOTS – The AP recently reported that Israel is still considered the premier counterintelligence threat to the CIA’s Near East Division. Other media have reported similar findings over the years. The Associated Press has reported the fundamental paradox underlying the U.S.-Israel relationship: Israel spies ferociously against the United States, while the U.S. Congress and Executive Branchwork overtime to support Israel “unconditionally.”

Best friends

During a March 2011 trip to Israel, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates commented how he couldn’t recall an era in his decades of public service when any two countries shared a closer military relationship than the United States and Israel. He remarked that the U.S. and Israel are cooperating closely in many areas including missile defense technology. One must wonder what Robert Gates, a veteran of the Cold War, thought about the September 2010 arms deal signed between Israel and Russia, Mossad’s decision to withhold vital intelligence from the USA regarding an imminent truck bomb, which killed over 240 U.S. Marines on 23 October 1983 (Ostrovsky: 320-322), Israel’s sale of U.S. military technology to China, or the June 2012 revelation that Israel and Russia are cooperating together to develop an advanced unmanned aerial vehicle. Gates eventually summoned a modicum of courage behind closed doors and referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an “ungrateful ally.” 

In his capacity as U.S. Secretary of Defense, Gates was undoubtedly aware that Israel spies ferociously on the United States, obtains U.S. weaponry through licit and illicit means, and bootlegs U.S. military technology with a precision that puts Beijing to shame. Despite this threat, the CIA doesn’t spy on Israel; Even though Israel is theoretically an intelligence target, most of the U.S. Intelligence Community refrains from spying on Israel due to “the complexities of U.S./Israel politics” (Jones: 50). Espionage against Israel is mostly limited to counter-intelligence work, which is conducted stateside by the FBI.

Leon Panetta, who succeeded Robert Gates as U.S. Defense Secretary, traveled to Israel in October 2011. Panetta’s trip mirrored Gates’ in many ways. Following the United States’ great tradition of sycophancy towards Israel, Panetta expressed his pleasure that “the United States and Israel have a closer defense relationship today than ever in history,” in traditional areas as well as in missile defense technology, counterterrorism and joint military exercises. Sound familiar? According to Panetta, this relationship “is yielding tangible benefits” and “helping to save lives.” Like Gates, Panetta reaffirmed “the unshakeable commitment of the United States to the security of Israel,” citing specifically the battery of Iron Dome rockets given to Israel, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers. At the beginning of August, Secretary Panetta returned to Tel Aviv and pledged fiscal and military fidelity to the Israeli government.

The trips undertaken by Gates and Panetta “reaffirm” Israel’s “security,” while making no mention of the Palestinians’ “security.” Both trips witness U.S. and Israeli defense officials discussing Iran’s nuclear program, while making no mention of Israel’s substantial nuclear arsenal. Both trips cite “security challenges” such as “violent extremism,” “terrorism,” and “adversarial states.” Although giving arms to Israel benefits the U.S. military-industrial complex tremendously, supporting Israel unconditionally muddles the United States’ ability to act as an impartial mediator. In other words, annually feeding the Israeli government billions of dollars exposes the United States as the world’s worst arbiter. Perhaps unintentionally, the trips undertaken by U.S. defense officials showcase how the U.S. taxpayer subsidizes the Israeli Defense (sic.) Force.  

Deeply comprimised

Israel consistently ranks among the top perpetrators of espionage against the United States, rivaling China and Russia in certain metrics, particularly economic espionage. Israeli intelligence permeates the U.S. Intelligence Community to an alarming extent through elaborate front companies, wiretapping firms, and individual Mossad assets. Simply put, Israel’s operations within the United States are extensive:

“In 2004, the authoritative Jane’s Intelligence Group noted that Israel’s intelligence organizations ‘have been spying on the U.S. and running clandestine operations since Israel was established.’ The former deputy director of counterintelligence at FBI, Harry B. Brandon, last year told Congressional Quarterly magazine that ‘the Israelis are interested in commercial as much as military secrets. They have a muscular technology sector themselves.’ According to CQ, ‘one effective espionage tool is forming joint partnerships with U.S. companies to supply software and other technology products to U.S. government agencies.’”

Stewart Nozette, a noted scientist with a high-level security clearance, was one of the most recent arrests in the FBI’s uphill struggle against Israeli espionage. In true diplomatic cowardice, “the indictment does not allege that the government of Israel or anyone acting on its behalf committed any offense under U.S. laws in this case.” Stewart is expected to serve only 13 years for treason. Numerous individuals have been investigated on allegations of spying for Israel, with many investigations closed prematurely. Individuals include Jonathan Pollard, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Ben-Ami Kadish, David A. Tenenbaum, and Larry Franklin. The Mossad operatives who run spies are never pursued.

Yona Meztger, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, has recently called for Jonathan Pollard’s release. Prime Minister Netanyahu even granted Pollard Israeli citizenship while Pollard served his jail sentence in the United States. In spring 2011, two-thirds of Israeli parliamentarians even had the gall to petition the U.S. Embassy for Pollard’s release from U.S. prison. In spring 2012, both the Israeli Prime Minister and President appealed directly to the U.S. President for Pollard’s release.

In a rare display of backbone, Defense Secretary Panetta actually defended the United States’ decision to keep Pollard incarcerated for the duration of his term. “There is a great deal of opposition to the release of Pollard that goes back to the fact that obviously he was convicted as a spy,” Panetta mustered. “And I think for that reason the President and others have indicated that the position of the United States is not to release him.”

Mossad operatives have no problem obtaining secrets, given the following figures: roughly 854,000 U.S. citizens possess top-secret security clearances; an estimated 2,000 distinct companies perform classified work for the U.S. government; and numerous U.S. citizens within the Intelligence Community look upon Israel through religious lenses, which is a helpful lever often pulled by Mossad.

Even Fox News, which is typically taciturn on all issues that put Israel under the microscope, couldn’t ignore Israel’s espionage against the United States. In November of 2001, Fox News journalist Carl Cameron reported nearly 200 Israeli operatives were rounded up by U.S. counterterrorism officials in years leading up to 11 September 2001. This is by no means an implication of the Israeli government in the 9/11 attacks, but it is a clear sign that Israel strives daily to obtain the industrial, Executive, intelligence and military secrets of the United States.

Modern efforts to spy on the United States are part of a storied Israeli history, which shows little regard for the welfare of its target. In 1954, Israeli operatives (read: terrorists) bombed U.S. diplomatic buildings throughout Egypt in Operation Susannah. This false-flag attack was designed to trick the United States into war with Egypt, serving Israel’s regional interests. In 2005, much to the disgust of the international community, Israeli President Moshe Katsav presented nine of the surviving operatives with certificates of appreciation for their work. Other instances of Zionism’s history of manipulation and terrorism include bombing the King David Hotel in 1946; attacking the USS Liberty in 1967; murdering Rachel Corrie and Furkan Dogan, both of whom were U.S. citizens; and posing as CIA personnel when recruiting Iranian operatives. Such cheek knows no equal on the international stage.

Criticism of Israel is necessary from a U.S. standpoint. Current levels of U.S. generosity towards Israel are foolish, wasteful, and unsustainable, considering other places where taxpayer money could be allocated. Fortunately, all such policies are amendable: the billions of dollars given to Israel each year, the United States’ perpetuation of regional conflict by feeding the IDF weaponry, and protecting Israel from justifiable international criticism through using United Nations Security Council veto power. Criticism of U.S. unconditional support for Israel can only commence in earnest through access to these facts. In this respect, the United States needs to join the world community. All other nations, unaffected by AIPAC’s ferocity, although rife with their own Zionist lobbies, have greater abilities to see clearly.

Christian Sorensen for Media Roots.

The next installments in this series will further examine the protection of Israeli colonialism by United States federal, state, and local governments.

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Photo by Flickr user Secretary of Defense.

MEDIA ROOTS – You often hear the term Gulag and think of a secret prison in a third world dictatorship, where its purpose is to break you down, humiliate and torture you.  This style of imprisonment has been frequently used by members of the US military in Afghanistan, Gitmo and Iraq. 

Torture and ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ fall outside of the realm of the Geneva Conventions since those imprisoned are deemed ‘enemy combatants’ instead of prisoners of war.  Labeling such prisoners as ‘enemy combatants’ is nothing more than a flimsy legal loop hole that gives the military carte blanch to treat them however they would like, without due process.  It’s hard to believe that someone would experience a similar fate on American soil.

Recently, in San Diego, California, a UCSD student named Daniel Chong was arrested during a 4/20 marijuana drug raid and left in a holding cell without charges for over five days.  He was without food, water, toilet, or human contact of any kind.  Chong eventually resorted to drinking his own urine and eating a bag of white powder he discovered in the cell, which turned out to be meth amphetamine–only exacerbating his psychotic state.  He described attempting to commit suicide with broken glass from his glasses and said that the he literally lost his mind and didn’t think he would survive. 

The DEA and San Diego police claim that this is a unique incident that rarely ever happens.  They chalk it all up to a “mistake,” stating that someone simply “forgot to go check on him.”  Whether or not the person [or people] accountable for driving Chong insane and leaving him to potentially meet his demise for the crime of smoking marijuana is yet to be seen.

Robbie Martin for Media Roots

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HIGHLANDER NEWS – For nearly five days, Chong sat alone in a room with no food, no water and no toilet. Chong told CBS News that he kicked the door many times and screamed for help, but his cries were ignored. “I just couldn’t believe that this was legal,” Chong told the AP. “I’m thinking ‘no way.’”

He drank his urine three times due to dehydration and unknowingly consumed methamphetamine after finding the drugs in the cell; the DEA has yet to explain why the methamphetamine was found in the holding cell.

“The DEA’s protocol was so sloppy that somebody who was a previous prisoner secreted a small amount of meth in a plastic bag inside a blanket,” stated Chong’s attorney, Gene Iredale, in an article by the LA Times. It is unclear whether the hallucinations that Chong experienced were caused by the drugs or other severe ailments such as starvation.

Chong told the New York Times that on the fourth day, the lights shut off in his holding cell. Chong, contemplating suicide, chewed into his glasses and attempted to carve the words “Sorry mom” into his arm using a glass shard. “I pretty much lost my mind,” he told the Associated Press.

Agents found Chong on the afternoon of April 25, covered in his own feces but still conscious. “He is glad to be alive,” Iredale said of Chong. “He wants to make sure that what happened to him doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

Continue Reading UCSD student left in DEA cell for 5 days sues for 20 million.

Photo by Robbie Martin

MEDIA ROOTS – The feverish hysteria of the “red scare” during the 1950s and 1960s prompted the Central Intelligence Agency to do some dirty deeds, not the least of which was a pet project called Operation Midnight Climax.  The C.I.A. conducted the operation in the hopes of finding a truth serum by dosing civilians with psychotropic drugs, namely lysergic acid diethylamide.  Subsumed by the mind control program MK Ultra, Operation Midnight Climax became its sordid C.I.A. offshoot.

When the Central Intelligence Agency launched MK Ultra in the early 1950s, it was a reactionary and paranoid response to alleged mind control tactics being used on American prisoners of war in North Korea.  Fearing that the Soviets, Chinese and North Koreans were revolutionizing interrogation techniques, the C.I.A. began implementing a sinister, top secret program involving “scientific” experimentation on unwitting American civilians.  The C.I.A.’s desire to keep pace with the Soviet threat of mind control thus spawned Operation Midnight Climax, a spinoff project from the the depraved minds of George White and Sidney Gottlieb.

During the 1960s, the American status quo was being rocked by a raucous counter culture, with volatile anti-government sentiment and rebellious undercurrents affecting virtually every aspect of society.  Taking advantage of the chaos, White and Gottlieb established “safe houses” in New York City and San Francisco where they secretly dosed people with LSD, without the test subjects’ consent or prior medical examination.  Gottlieb, a chemist, provided the brains behind the operation.  However, the majority of the blame for the ill-conceived and unethical program belongs to George White.  Under his tutelage, Operation Midnight Climax developed into a sensationalist story more likely found in the pages of Hustler and High Times than from an actual program carried out by the United States government. 

Throughout the experiments, George White behaved like a power drunk sadist, reveling in his ability to foment debauchery.  He preyed on dozens of unsuspecting victims, filling their heads with potent doses of acid.  White, a bureau of narcotics veteran and a former Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to the C.I.A.) agent, oversaw three safe houses in San Francisco where the human guinea pigs were lured in by drug addicted prostitutes.  The hookers would pour the johns LSD laced drinks.  Meanwhile, White would sit and observe behind two way mirrors installed in the rooms.  The drug took hold after some time and perversions quickly ensued.  The rooms were fitted with listening and recording equipment, providing agents further lurid insights into minds of the drug addled johns.  But the unsuspecting johns were not the only victims.  After a night of trying to drown the acid in booze, Wayne Ritchie, White’s coworker, lost his grip on reality and was arrested for armed robbery.  Whether it was a colleague like Ritchie, a random drunk at a bar, or a friend at a dinner party, White spared no one on his psychedelic dosing campaign.

The medically unsupervised LSD fest continued until 1964, when John F. Kennedy forced the resignation of C.I.A. director Allen Dulles.  The resulting shockwaves running down the C.I.A. hierarchy eventually exposed MK Ultra and Operation Midnight Climax.  In 1966, in the incoming C.I.A. director Richard Helms, ordered the destruction of all MK Ultra and Operation Midnight Climax files and paperwork.  The files from the New York City safe houses were destroyed, but thanks to bureaucratic blundering, 20,000 documents were saved, unveiling the insidious nature of what took place on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco.

Think about how the government played a major role in demonizing and undermining the 1960’s counterculture.  Think about Hunter S. Thompson writing about Hell’s Angels, the motorcycle gang comprising some of the most reviled outlaws of the time.  Think about Richard J. Daley, the mayor of Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention and his allegations about Abbie Hoffman’s intent to lace the city’s water supply with LSD.  Think about the numerous educational films that the government produced to trumpet the evils of LSD.   Now think about how the government deflected responsibility for some of that decade’s worst transgressions, and how they themselves were  some of the biggest drug villains of the era.  Given that our government frequently repeats history’s mistakes, what could Uncle Sam be doing now that we’re blissfully unaware of?

Written by Adam Miezio

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SF Weekly–  It’s been over 50 years, but Wayne Ritchie says he can still remember how it felt to be dosed with acid.

He was drinking bourbon and soda with other federal officers at a holiday party in 1957 at the U.S. Post Office Building on Seventh and Mission streets. They were cracking jokes and swapping stories when, suddenly, the room began to spin. The red and green lights on the Christmas tree in the corner spiraled wildly. Ritchie’s body temperature rose. His gaze fixed on the dizzying colors around him.

The deputy U.S. marshal excused himself and went upstairs to his office, where he sat down and drank a glass of water. He needed to compose himself. But instead he came unglued. Ritchie feared the other marshals didn’t want him around anymore. Then he obsessed about the probation officers across the hall and how they didn’t like him, either. Everyone was out to get him. Ritchie felt he had to escape.

He fled to his apartment and sought comfort from his live-in girlfriend. It didn’t go as planned. His girlfriend was there, but an argument erupted. She told him she was growing tired of San Francisco and wanted to return to New York City. Ritchie couldn’t handle the situation. Frantic, he ran away again, this time to the Vagabond Bar where he threw back more bourbon and sodas. From there, he hit a few more bars, further cranking up his buzz. As he drank his way back to Seventh and Mission, Ritchie concocted a plan that would change his life.

Now in his mid-eighties and living in San Jose, Ritchie may be among the last of the living victims of MK-ULTRA, a Central Intelligence Agency operation that covertly tested lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on unwitting Americans in San Francisco and New York City from 1953 to 1964.

“I remember that night very clearly, yes I do,” he said in a recent interview. “I was paranoid. I got down to where I thought everyone was against me. The whole world was against me.”

After the day had bled into night on Dec. 20, 1957, Ritchie returned to his office in the Post Office Building and retrieved two service revolvers from his locker. He was going rogue.

“I decided if they want to get rid of me, I’ll help them. I’ll just go out and get my guns from my office and hold up a bar,” Ritchie recalls. “I thought, ‘I can get enough money to get my girlfriend an airline ticket back to New York, and I’ll turn myself in.’ But I was unsuccessful.”

Out of his skull on a hallucinogen and alcohol, Ritchie rolled into the Shady Grove in the Fillmore District, and ordered one final bourbon and soda. After swallowing down the final drops, he pointed his revolver at the bartender and demanded money. Before joining the marshals, Ritchie served five years in the Marines and spent a year as an Alcatraz prison guard. But the cop had suddenly become the robber.

Read more about the C.I.A. gone wild with acid during the 1960s.

© 2012  SF Weekly

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Photo by flickr user cisc1970