Thursday, May 13, 2010

Is the “Times Square Terrorist” more Field-based Warfare?

Buddhas of Bamyan

By Jeff Gates

In March 2001, Indonesian Intelligence Chief Arie Kumaat asked American James M. (“Mel”) Rockefeller to assess the Taliban’s destruction of the two ancient Buddhas of Bamyan carved into a sandstone cliff in central Afghanistan 140 miles northwest of Kabul.

Familiar with psychological operations (psy-ops) that involve lengthy pre-staging, Kumaat inquired of Rockefeller in Jakarta why that incident occurred at that time and place.

Kumaat also noted the curious timing of two other operations: (a) a Defense minister in India had recently been caught in a bribery scandal involving an Israeli company, and (b) that same Israeli firm attempted to bribe the Malaysian Defense Minister.

Six months prior to 911, the motivation for the Bamyan incident was difficult to discern. In hindsight, we now know that high profile event branded the Taliban globally as Evil Doers.

What about the briberies? The amounts involved were too small, Rockefeller suggested, to constitute real bribes. Rather, both were attempts to change key personnel though it was not yet clear to what end. Since 911, the reason for the timing of those Israeli operations comes more clearly into focus.

In national security parlance, the dynamiting of the Buddhas “prepared the mind” of a global public for whom the Taliban remained an obscurity until their extremism was branded by that well timed event. The briberies will be addressed in a subsequent analysis. Suffice it to say that both involved the pre-staging of “out-of-theater” operations.

By Way of Deception

For those skilled at Information Age warfare, the relevant battlefield is the public’s shared field of consciousness. In that intangible realm, the power of association is routinely deployed to create lasting impressions as a means of mental manipulation.

In preparing that ‘field’ for an emerging narrative, mainstream media depicted the incident at Bamyan as a “cultural Holocaust.” Akin to the casting of a movie, by September 11, 2001, the intolerant Taliban had already been cast as a credible enemy of liberal democracies.

When the reaction to 911 triggered a global search for a plausible Evil Doer, the narrative quickly became a morality play with the U.S. pitted against extremists who hate our values.

As a nation, we segued seamlessly from a global Cold War—against those who hate our values to a Global War on Terrorism—against those who hate our values.

The violence inflicted on the peaceful Buddhas of Bamyan also brought Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar onto the battlefield of consciousness—where he remains.

In the unfolding of this storyline, Omar became the oft-featured Epitome of Evil, akin to a Muslim Darth Vader from Star Wars films. Or Saddam Hussein in the lead-up to war in Iraq.

Best Story Wins

This brief overview of “field-based warfare” brings us to the latest incident in New York again featuring in a starring role Mullah Omar as leader of the “Pakistan Taliban.”

But first a brief review of three recent events.

Keep in mind that when waging game theory warfare, it is not the incident but the reaction that advances the narrative. The cascade of reactions to an incident is what gains traction for a storyline when manipulating minds in that “field.” See: Can the U.S. Beat Israel at Their Game?

The first incident was the December 2007 murder of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mark Siegel, her Ashkenazim biographer and lobbyist, assured U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice that the return to Pakistan of the corrupt but widely popular Bhutto was “the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact.”

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had announced that an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine was critical to end the conflicts in Iraq and neighboring Afghanistan. That comment made him a target of those for whom that occupation has long served a strategic purpose.

Bhutto’s death was blamed on the Pakistan Taliban. The reaction resulted in the replacement of Musharraf with Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto’s notoriously corrupt husband. By our alliance with Zardari, the U.S. could be cast as extending its corrupting influence in the region. See: What is Israel’s Role in the Destabilization of Pakistan?; Israel’s Role in Terrorism

In August 2008, Ashkenazim General David Kezerashvili returned to Georgia from Tel Aviv to lead an assault on separatists in South Ossetia with the support of Israeli arms and training. That out-of-theater crisis ignited Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia, key members of the Quartet (along with the EU and the UN) pledged to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict. Russia was then negotiating an energy agreement with Iran.

The incident in Georgia was the second of three prepare-the-mind events. Third was “India’s 911” in November 2008 when extremists recruited from the tribal regions of western Pakistan killed 173 and wounded more than 300 in Mumbai, India’s financial center.

The attack included a hostel run by Chabad Lubavitch, an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect from New York. In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced: “Our world is under attack.”

Livni then argued: “Israel, India and the rest of the free world are positioned in the forefront of the battle against terrorists and extremism.” By its exclusion, Pakistan was indicted.

By standing “shoulder to shoulder” with India (the signature phrase of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon), Tel Aviv associated India with Israel’s victim status.

The response to that attack drew Pakistani troops to its eastern border with India. That reaction left its Western tribal regions less well guarded and thereby plausibly more susceptible to extremist infiltrators from Afghanistan joining the Pakistan Taliban.

By May 2009, Israel had delivered to India its first of three Phalcon Airborne Warning & Control Systems (AWACS). That arms sale shifted the balance of conventional air power in the region. That military alliance also confirmed what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced: “Our ties with India don’t have any limitation….” See: The India/Israel Alliance

Whose Pakistan Taliban?

Now let’s turn to the latest incident—also attributed to the Pakistan Taliban. Keep in mind that when waging war on the battlefield of the public’s shared mind space, the power of association is routinely deployed as a form of weaponry.

The “Times Square terrorist” incident occurred at 6:30 pm on May 1st. That same day, reports emerged from London that more than 3,000 European Jews, including prominent intellectuals, had signed a petition speaking out against Israeli settlement policies and warning that systematic support for the Israeli government is dangerous.

That statement garnered high praise from those aware of how peace in the Middle East has long been kept beyond reach by Israeli agent provocateurs. Serial provocations around the settlements issue have long been a reliable catalyst for well-timed outrage that, in turn, is cited to again defer resolution of a six-decade conflict. See: What Next for Israel: Entropy or Outrage?

Bernard-Henri Levy, a high-profile French writer, led that European effort. That development appeared quite positive when first announced. Then Levy began to appear as a commentator on television following the “Times Square Terrorism” as that incident was portrayed on the cover of Newsweek, aWashington Post magazine.

Rather than promote the petition and the urgent need to solve the settlements issue, instead Levy offered his appraisal of the Times Square incident. He described in depth how he studied what went on “inside the mind” of a Muslim Evil Doer who in 2002 slit the throat and then beheaded an American-Jewish reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

The Levy analysis injected into the “field” the most visually provocative image of the War on Terrorism featuring the epitome of both violence and extremist intolerance. Levy’s well-timed on-camera recitation refreshed in the public mindset the disturbing imagery of a Muslim Evil Doer who brutally murdered and dismembered a young professional with a pregnant wife.

Levy’s described for the television viewer the mental state of the psychopathic Muslim profiled in his book Who Killed Danny Pearl? Where did this evil doing occur? In Pakistan.

Is U.S. Foreign Policy Shaped from the Shadows?

As Levy’s account was injected into the field at the same time as the Time Square Bomber, the U.N. Security Council then had under review a 15-year old proposal for a treaty that would create a Middle East free of nuclear weapons.

The timing of these developments could be coincidental. Yet consider another possibility.

Assume your numbers are few but your ambitions vast. The confirmed facts point to the manipulation of U.S. foreign policy from the shadows with phony intelligence that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq in pursuit of a Muslim Evil Doer that had nothing to do with that incident. Is it possible that this latest incident had a strategic purpose that is not yet clear to the public?

If, as the facts suggest, advisers to President Barack Obama are advancing a pro-Israeli agenda, could the timing of this incident be a means to exert influence from outside the White House?

Could that be because their influence inside the White House has become apparent? See: Will Israel Assassinate Barack Obama?

The facts suggest that Obama, as U.S. commander-in-chief, is feeling pressure from the military to change our policy on Israel. Did the timing of these “out of theatre” events help finesse that issue by refreshing a storyline that calls for the U.S. to lead a Global War on Terrorism?

Was this latest incident timed to provide a rationale with which our policy-makers can preempt Pentagon concerns about the effect of U.S.-Israeli policy on our troops in the field? Note the military concerns described in Foreign Policy: The Petraeus Briefing – Israel Endangering U.S. Troops

How long ago would pro-Israeli White House insiders have known about the pending U.N. Security Council consideration of a treaty that could force Israel to forfeit its nuclear weapons? When was the Times Square Terrorist recruited by the “Pakistan Taliban”?

Is this how a war-making narrative is sustained, using well-timed crises staged in a nonlinear fashion such that their common origin is diffused in the “field”?

Could that explain the well-timed murder of Benazir Bhutto by the “Pakistan Taliban”? Could that explain the well-timed destabilizing impact on Pakistan of the recent “911” attack on Mumbai using operatives recruited and trained in Pakistan? Was this too the “Pakistan Taliban”?

In a televised May 10th interview, General Stanley McChrystal explained that winning the current war in the Middle East requires a “change in perception.” Is that the purpose of these well-timed crises? Are they meant to refresh our fear of the “Pakistan Taliban”?

The displacement of facts with false beliefs induced us to invade Iraq consistent with a narrative that was revitalized by this latest well-timed “incident.” Is the American public again being manipulated by those skilled at managing perceptions?

Is this incident a high profile example of field-based warfare being waged on America? Are we in the midst of another psy-ops?

Is that possible? Could there be a sufficient critical mass of like-minded operatives in positions of influence capable of inducing enough minds to freely embrace another war that is not in our interest?

Is it possible in the Information Age that psy-ops could operate on such a scale? Is there sufficient collateral support in key decision-making quarters to again deceive an entire nation in plain sight yet, to date, with legal impunity?

Pakistan has long been an ally of the U.S. So was Iraq. Likewise Iran was an ally in recent history. Where are we to find this purported “Axis of Evil”? Does its source reside in nation-states? Or does this evil reside in the mental state of those skilled at manipulating the minds of others to wage war on false pretenses?

War in Iraq Could Have Been Prevented

The answers to those questions may need to await an official, good faith investigation of the three-decade experience of Mel Rockefeller who has been profiling the common source of this duplicity—from the inside—since 1982. That experience remains ongoing.

In March 2001, he and Indonesian intelligence chief Arie Kumaat were not then able to detect the pre-staging of the mass murder on U.S. soil that emerged six months later.

After that provocation and before the manipulated response (the invasion of Iraq), Kumaat agreed to schedule a meeting for Rockefeller with former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid. A religious and political leader of 80 million moderate Muslim men, Wahid had recently presided over the world’s largest Muslim nation.

Rockefeller knew the Wahid meeting would lead to a meeting with Malaysian president Mahathir bin Mohamad. This Muslim leader was familiar with the common source of many of today’s troubles, including a well timed attempt to topple the Malaysian Minister of Defense.

Plus Kumaat had uncovered a multi-billion dollar Israeli bribe that would have destabilized the entire Indonesia government reportedly organized with the help of a nonprofit funded by American George Soros. See: The Truth About America and Pakistan

With all two Muslim nations appraised of the common Israeli source of this manipulation, could the invasion of Iraq have been stopped?

With that knowledge, could a “coalition of the willing” have been assembled to support that U.S.-led invasion? Would other nations have been energized to resist? We may never know.

Soon after agreeing to set that meeting with Wahid, Arie Kumaat was poisoned. He received a state funeral in January 2002, four months after the provocation that took the U.S. to war against Muslim Evil Doers.

Though the official account of his death cited a heart attack, a family autopsy reportedly detected the poison used to induce a heart attack. That account was confirmed in an interview with Kumaat’s son, Henrie. See: Zionist Dominance in the Obama Presidency

The People in Between

In an October 2007 speech, Defense Secretary Robert Gates identified “the people in between” as the most problematic combatant when waging “unconventional warfare.” The facts suggest that such warfare is only “unconventional” for those targeted. For the aggressor, this form of warfare is standard operating procedure.

Those waging war from the shadows imbed their operatives in that realm “in between” a targeted populace and the facts they require for a system of governance reliant on informed consent. By displacing facts with false beliefs, mental manipulation can proceed in plain sight.

Between a deceived American public and the facts they required to assess whether to wage war in Iraq were legions of pro-Israeli operatives. Many of those operatives are imbedded in media, a key in-between domain essential for success in field-based warfare.

Thus, for example, the critical agenda-advancing role played by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. He even branded his broadcasting set “The Situation Room” to lend White House-associative credibility on a network branded as “the most trusted name in news.” See: Israel’s Fifth Column: The People in Between

Likewise New York Times “reporter” Judith Miller who featured on its front page the false intelligence provided by Ahmed Chalabi, head of the credible-sounding “Iraqi National Congress.” This Iraqi expatriate and London-based Iraqi liar served as a reliable and pliable Israeli asset developed over two decades by pro-Israeli operatives, including Richard Perle who in 2001 became chairman of the U.S. Defense Policy Advisory Board.

This form of Information Age treason could only succeed if hidden in plain sight. Today’s fast-paced velocity of information ensures that media impressions now shape political agendas. Thus the importance of “the people in between” in manipulating U.S. foreign policy.

Out-of-Theater Repositioning

Pro-Israelis in the Obama administration could no longer directly shape Middle East policy after General David Petraeus, head of Central Command, complained to the Joint Chiefs about the adverse impact of the U.S.-Israeli relationship on U.S. interests in the region.

Could that explain the utility of an “out of theater” incident to refresh the narrative? That may explain the timing of an incident in a high-profile venue (Times Square) featuring a power-of-association component (New York) that could plausibly be attributed to Pakistan as a source of violent Islamic extremists.

The control wielded in Washington by the Israel lobby remains little known to mainstream Americans. As our representatives in what was meant to be a representative system of governance, the U.S. Congress now epitomizes “the people in between.” See: How the Israel Lobby Controls U.S.

The accountability of Congress to the broader population—or even to our troops in the field—is now out of the question. Meanwhile those who deceived the U.S. to war in Iraq are working to induce us to war in Iran—or Pakistan.

If the consensus storyline cannot be sustained, the consequences are clear. If the War on Terrorism loses credibility, the resulting stability will provide Americans with the breathing space required to identify the real enemy. And to begin rooting out a deeply entrenched treason.

This Can Only End Badly

Meanwhile business-as-usual continues in plain sight. The day after Israel was admitted to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charged that Iran is provoking Israel to wage war with Syria.

When President Shimon Peres denied this week that Israel would go to war with Syria, he meant that Syria is the likely rationale for the next crisis. When on May 11th he declared in Moscow that nuclear terror is the world’s greatest threat, rest assured that game theory war planners in Tel Aviv have in place a plausible plan for blaming such an incident on Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The same day that “proximity talks” began, the Palestinians confirmed that Israel had another settlement underway in East Jerusalem. The next day, the Israeli minister for public safety announced that Israel will demolish Arab homes in East Jerusalem.

On May 12th (“Jerusalem Day”), the U.S.-based Conference of Presidents (of Major American Jewish Organizations) took a full-page ad in The New York Times to proclaim “Jerusalem in the Heart of the Jewish People.” Meanwhile, Netanyahu announced from Israel, “We will never divide Jerusalem.”

When this Likud Party leader calls for peace while insisting on conditions that make peace impossible, rest assured that more provocations are planned.

The latest storyline in search of traction: Syrian-provided poison-gas missiles pose a threat to Israel from Lebanon-based, Iran-backed Hezbollah. As the war on terrorism is rebranded, it is not yet clear how the Pakistan Taliban will be worked into the narrative.

All we know for certain is that Muslims will remain the Evil Doers in this storyline. And that Israelis will once again be cast as hapless victims.

Anticipating a tactical need to collapse another government, Israeli politicians are in discussions about an alliance between the Kadima Party and the Labor Party. When the latest Likud coalition falters, the resulting political instability will inject into the field the requisite “entropy” for Israel to continue on its current path without a government with whom other nations can negotiate.

See: What’s Next from Israel: Entropy or Outrage?

What is the endgame for those once again defrauding the nation that befriended this enclave six decades ago and has since defended their interests without question?

What happens when Americans understand the depth and duration of this duplicity? And when the U.S. military confirms the common source of this ongoing treason?

What happens when a long-deceived global public grasps what this entangled alliance has cost them in blood and treasure over the past 62 years?

What Next for The People in Between?

The most recent Sunday edition of The New York Times is filled not with hopes of a nuclear-free Middle East but with fears of the future horrors inflicted on Americans by Muslim Evil Doers.

That storyline is reinforced on television by a reminder of the horrors inflicted on Danny Pearl. Meanwhile it’s made to appear that pro-Israeli moderates are busily working to restrain extremists in the Likud Party. That too is part of the storyline.

The Big Question is this: is anyone still buying it? Meanwhile the Big Sell continues.

The Sunday New York Times featured page after page marketing fear and insecurity:

  • The front page featured a large photo of U.S.-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awaki who advised a series of alleged Evil Doers whose photos were also prominently displayed:

The featured article consumed two full inside pages. There was no news coverage—none—of the pending U.N. proposal to free the Middle East of nuclear weapons.

The front page of the commentary section in the national paper of record included two major articles. The first article warned that this enemy “may mutate and even grow.” The second analysis explored “when to suspend fear.”

The book review section featured “Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England,” and “Heidegger—The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy.”

The only mention of the pending U.N. proposal for ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons appeared in the lead editorial titled “Fixing the Treaty.” The editors’ assessment of Israel giving up its nuclear weapons: “That is not going to happen any time soon.”

To successfully wage war in the shared field of consciousness, an enemy must hide in plain sight. Otherwise, those deceived cannot be induced to believe.

There lies the fast-emerging peril for those complicit in this ongoing treason. As the common source of this duplicity becomes transparent, its operatives are becoming apparent.

A Vietnam veteran, Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide. He served for seven years as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He is widely published in the trade, popular and academic press. His latest book is ‘Guilt By association....

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Turkey's investigation of Ergenekon is Phase I


Turkey's investigation of Ergenekon is Phase I

WMR has learned from sources connected to the Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the current investigation of the Ergenekon "deep state" ("deren devlet") network is phase one of what will eventually extend to an investigation of Ergenekon-related coup activities in the 1990s.

The sources maintain that the current phase of the Ergenekon probe is concentrating on the events of the past ten years, including the attempted military coups against the Erdogan government launched in 2003 (Sledgehammer or "Balyoz") and 2009 (Cage or "Kafes"). A number of senior military officers have been arrested in connection with the two plots.

However, WMR has learned there will be a second phase of the Ergenekon investigation that will look at the roles of certain military officers and foreign intelligence agencies in the soft coup of February 28, 1997. The Turkish military forced the Welfare (Refah) Party Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan to step down after he was charged with being pro-Islamist. The Welfare Party was later banned by Turkey's Constitutional Court, the pro-Kemal Ataturk institution that has applied pressure on the current Justice and Development Party (AKP) government of Erdogan. Proposed constitutional amendments would reform the Constitutional Court and limit its powers that favor the military over democratic institutions.

Erbakan, like Erdogan today, attempted to diversify Turkey's foreign relations by establishing closer relations with Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, and other Muslim nations and criticizing Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians.

However, Israel, which had established close military and intelligence ties with the Turkish military in the 1990s, ordered the Mossad to work with friendly Turkish generals to depose Erbakan and his government. The Mossad-Turkish military plans culminated in the soft coup of February 28, 1997.

The prime architect of the soft coup was Turkish Army Deputy Chief of Staff General Çevik Bir who also helped establish the strategic military alliance between Turkey and Israel in the 1990s. Bir later boasted of his role in the soft coup of 1997 in an article written with neocon Michael Sherman in the Israeli lobby front publication Middle East Quarterly in the Fall of 2002. The article, titled "Formula for Stability: Turkey plus Israel," Bir wrote: "the army made it clear to Erbakan that it would not sit by idly and watch Turkey turn toward Islam or allow Israeli-Turkish military relations to be jeopardized."

Veteran Turkish leader Bulent Ecevit, who preceded Erdogan as Prime Minister, also incurred the wrath of Ergenekon and their Israeli allies. Ecevit strongly criticized Israel's treatment of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat in 2001 and the Israeli attack on Jenin on the West Bank in 2002. Ecevit was the first leader to expose the secret NATO Gladio operations in Turkey in 1974.

On April 9, 2010, WMR reported from Turkey: "There are also revelations that Ergenekon attempted to oust Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit in 2002, prior to the AKP's victory in the election. On May 4, 2002, Ecevit became ill and was transported to Baskent University hospital in Ankara. After being sent home, Ecevit fell and broke his rib and was returned to the hospital. Ecevit's condition worsened. The investigation of Ergenekon is now focusing on whether Ergenekon generals were working with Baskent doctors to try to totally incapacitate Ecevit or kill him, thus paving the way for his deputy prime minister, Hüsamettin Özkan of the coalition partner Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), to take over. Ozkan was much more to the liking of the military. The prime minister's wife, Rahsan Ecevit, barred Baskent doctors from seeing her husband . . . Ecevit died on November 5, 2006, after suffering the cerebral hemorrhage the previous May. He had been in an induced coma since the hemorrhage."

The second phase of the Ergenekon investigation will examine the roles of Bir and his contacts in Washington and Israel had in Turkey's 1997 soft coup. The investigation will also look into the role of U.S. ambassador to Turkey Marc Grossman, present in Ankara in 1997, in the events surrounding the soft coup.

Bir was awarded the Secularism and Democracy Award of 1997 at a ceremony in Washington, DC. That award was followed by his being named the recipient of the International Leader Award of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) for his “contributions to cooperation with Israel."

Bir's connections with Israel were cited in a June 24, 2009, article in Radikal. An email message found in Bir's computer sent to his Israeli counterpart stated: "I may go to Istanbul [as the First Army Commander] this August. Otherwise, it is not possible to be in charge in Ankara [as the Commander of Turkish Armed Forces]. There will be active lobbying afterwards. They may ask my retirement one year after. I made plans according to both possibilities. If they ask my retirement, I am planning to be the President."

Since Bir's treasonous activities with the Israelis became known to the public, Bir has disappeared from Turkish public life. One Turkish source told WMR, "Bir may either be in Washington or Tel Aviv."

The Obama administration views the Turkish Ergenekon investigation with alarm. The official U.S. view is that the United States supports bringing to justice those who broke the law in attempting coups in Turkey. However, there is a caveat: the Obama administration warns the Turkish government not to go "too far" in the investigation of Ergenekon.

With Ergenekon eventually entering Phase Two, Washington and Tel Aviv are nervous. A probe of "deep state" activities in Turkey in the 1990s threatens to expose joint CIA-Mossad covert activities in Turkey that include political assassinations, coups, false flag terrorist attacks, and drug and arms smuggling.