A World of Shadows: CITIZEN FOUR, Edward Snowden, and Charlie Hebdo

(These reflections were taken from previous posting, which was a little too long with too many themes.)

The world is not in a good state at the moment at this beginning of 2015, and I certainly don't wish to be a prophet of doom. I trust as always in the deeply hidden mystery of Divine Providence, ever there, ever watching, always guiding, always supporting - in the shadows, in the silences, in our doubts and fears - the loving face of the Divine leading us through darkness into the glorious light. 



I just watched Citizen Four, the extraordinary, chilling documentary about Edward Snowden by Loira Poitras.This one is also not to be missed. Scary and horrifying to see it all layed out there, the full extent of the surveillance machine aimed against us. The film helped me immeasurably to come to terms with the enigma of Edward Snowden, and as I feel about good Pope Francis, I continue to believe in Snowden's integrity and courage, despite some very alarming red flags! There are suspicions in some quarters that he was a CIA plant from the get go, dishing out carefully controlled and selected revelations as a way of protecting the truly damaging secrets. A disinformation agent engaging in 'controlled dissent.' Hard to believe, however, than any one human being would make such a sacrifice, forced to hide away in a foreign country, cut off from family and friends with little hope of returning home. Why has this radical point of view gained any credibility? Because of the strange linkage of journalist Glen Greenwald and documentary filmmaker, Laura Poitras with billionare owner of Ebay (and Pay Pal), Pierre Omidyar. This was all the more disturbing when it was revealed that Omidyar has close ties with the NSA, the very institution that Snowden was supposedly exposing. Furthermore, Omidyar was funding some of the same Ukrainian NGO's the US was funding in its (successful) attempt to overthrow  the pro Russian Ukrainian government. This has led to suspicions that he was funding on behalf of the US government and not simply acting independently.  Suspicious indeed. Now this billionaire business man with close ties to US intelligence, surveillance and government essentially owns the 'secrets of Edward Snowden'. Not a propitious ending to this story at all and it leaves a very sour taste in the mouth. The subsequent posturings and rationalizations of Greenwald have not helped the case either. The documentary, however,  takes us right into that famous Hong Kong hotel room two years ago when Greenwald and Poitras first met Snowden, recording history in the making. I felt the film revealed a genuine, honest, thoughtful idealist, who seemed truly pressured and in fear for his own safety.  This was not an acting performance we were treated to, the man seemed really under threat - no matter how the affair has ended up - and it is certainly not ended yet. But the mystery and enigma is shrouded in shadows. Who is the real Edward Snowden, living in exile in Moscow - with no uncertain future ahead of him, 'the most wanted man in the world'? Let the reader decide. 

Here's a worthwhile article asking the right questions:

Keeping Secrets: Pierre Omidyar, Glenn Greenwald and the privatization of Snowden’s leaks.

Edward Snowden has popularly been compared to major whistleblowers such as Daniel Ellsberg,Chelsea Manning and Jeffrey Wigand. However, there is an important difference in the Snowden files that has so far gone largely unnoticed. Whistleblowing has traditionally served the public interest. In this case, it is about to serve the interests of a billionaire starting a for-profit media business venture. This is truly unprecedented. Never before has such a vast trove of public secrets been sold wholesale to a single billionaire as the foundation of a for-profit company.

Here is FBI whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, website, BOILING FROGS:, which contains the most searching critique of the Edward Snowden affair available online. Since Sibel is a noteworthy whistle blower herself, her criticism has considerable merit and deserves to be taken seriously. I just can't go quite as far as she does in dismissing Snowden as as a fake from the get go. Sorry, Sibel, he seems like the real thing to me (but then what do I know), but he handed over all controls and documents to Greenwald and Poitras. Are they the 'villains' in this story? 

In the interests of fairness, here is Laura Poitras explaining her own motivations and the many grave risks she took in making the documentary. It is stirring stuff.

My own intuitions are with Edward Snowden as a genuine hero for the age. 

I see I've babbled on enough in this posting about too many disparate subjects, but for any readers interesting in exploring the background investigations going on about the horrendous Paris shootings, here is the website of former secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts (Paul Craig Roberts:Institute for Public Policy), who is now a fierce critic of US foreign policy. He frequently publishes updates from his French contacts on the Charlie Hebdo affair - and the number of alarming red flags surrounding it and the glaring holes in the official story. I kept my distance from all of the mass hysteria, the marching in the streets, the arms joined by some of the worst offenders of free speech in the political world. It just seemed too suspicious to me. However, I was moved by the solidarity of the 'masses' in the streets of Paris, joining hands across religious and ideological lines. Was this, indeed,  a false flag event, as many are suggesting? Circumstantial evidence seems to point as much in this direction, and to various security agencies (unnamed),  as it does towards the two (conveniently) assassinated radical Islamic brothers. Were they set up as patsies beforehand, with a trail of incriminating actions they might have been led into by double agents? Fodder for a great spy novel. I would say it's about 50/50 at the moment, but it does all have a very fishy smell. However,  this is food for a future posting. 

Not a very happy or uplifting way to end a new year posting, but then it has been a shocking beginning to 2015. So here is a great photo of our favorite, gay friendly Super Model, River Viiperi! Looking very sexy and sassy in white! 

Read More

The Myth of Bin Laden Death receives another blow from FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds

(It's not my intention to turn Gay Mystic into a political blog, but this story is too  important to let rest, as it deals with the power of myth to corrupt entire societies. I continue to be shocked by the credulity with which this latest story of the death of OBL is being greeted. Have we learned nothing from the past ten years of government duplicity? To remind us, here is Sibel Edmonds' latest analysis of the Osama Bin Laden death story. Edmonds was the FBI translator fired from her position in March 2002 for having accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving foreign nationals. She is also the source for the info  that the US maintained 'intimate relations' with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, "all the way until that day of September 11." See that story here and  here.)

 Bin Laden Story Keeps Changing-Obama’s Nose Keeps Growing

(The links, highlighted in blue, are well worth following. And as a cure for political naivete, I can't recommend her blog, Boiling Frogs, too highly. )

The standard, call it classic, definition of PSYOP is badly in need of an update. When you look it up, you see something along these lines [Emphasis are mine]: planned propaganda operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. It is way past time to add ‘domestic’ in there. Isn’t it? Come on; remember our mini PSYOP cases like Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. I say ‘mini’ because they were mini, thus, eventually exposed. The ‘major’ ones, at least here in the US, tend to go unnoticed or not widely debated. Right now, we may be very well looking at one of those major ones as it is unfolding: White House Osama Death PSYOP Script.

On Monday, less than a day after the supposed operation, I started covering the Osama Death sensationalism. In my first post I said: “It is way too early for a comprehensive analysis or even a short commentary.” I wish others, the so-called media had exercised the same restraint, instead of spreading the far-fetched and fantastical script given to them by their masters to fire up and round up the gullible and easily hurray-ing majority. 

On Tuesday, I pointed out the uncanny resemblance between the script and method used in the Jessica Lynch PSYOP case and the latest Osama Death case: “It is too early. I can talk about the strange timing, absurdity of some mysterious burial at sea, questionable coincidences, and or our government’s pretty tainted record when it comes to facts: Remember Iraq’s WMD lies, Pentagon’s made-up script on Jessica Lynch, wrongfully accused Steven Hatfill, questionable Anthrax suspect Bruce Ivins, Niger Yellowcake fantasy…” Again, it took the resourceful media another 24-48 hours and tons of pounding to make the connections.

You can read the rest of her analysis at her excellent blog,  Boiling Frog. She is asking that this information/analysis be widely disseminated and I'm happy to oblige.

To end, here is a quotable quote from Sibel's previous posting on the Pakistan Story:

Vanity Fair has declared war on anyone who dares to question the unanswered questions in the latest Bin Laden death development. Anyone. Doesn’t the least matter if the questions are completely rational. Doesn’t matter if the latest development leaves many unanswered questions and or unproved claims. It doesn’t matter. When the government is questioned, when the establishment is second-guessed, Vanity Fair comes running in defense of its masters by engaging in completely illogical offense. Now, the magazine is calling anyone with any questions or rational skepticism on the circumstances of Bin Laden’s death and burial at sea ‘Tin-Foil-Hat’ wearers. They have designated one bucket and are dropping everyone in it at the rate of 10000s per minute. This big bucket is reserved for: UFO believers, Birthers, Truthers, Taliban Sympathizers, Al Qaeda Sympathizers, terrorists, schizophrenic community, paranoid individuals, vegetarians… You see, it is a really big bucket.

You know how it is when crazy people view sane people as crazy? We have exactly the same phenomenon here.  

Now considering our government’s well-established tainted record in providing stories-fantasies, especially those released immediately and sensationally and those timed strangely, how could a rational thinking person consider a logical hesitancy as conspiratorial? How could an unbiased and untainted reporter write off the questioning of official stories (with a darn tainted historical record) as ‘tin-foil hat’ conspiracy? 

When it comes to our government’s tainted record in truth-telling: Fool us once, shame on them, fool us twice shame on us, fool us three times shame on us, fool us four times shame on us…I believe you all catch my drift; no?

Addendum: This just in from Al Jazeera:

The problem is the man who was last seen alive on November 30, 2001 was reported dead, again, and again, and again. A Taliban leader said it happened in mid-December 2001, near Tora Bora (he claimed to have attended the funeral); Osama had not been able to survive a serious lung problem.

By late 2002, everyone from then Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf to Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai, Israeli intelligence and the FBI's Dale Watson was sure of it. Yet it took Saudi intelligence years to come up with a definitive date: August 23, 2006. Throughout the 2000s, all Osama videotapes were revealed to be crass fakes.  

Beyond the fact that Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan insists that Pakistan was not in the loop about the target assassination; beyond the fact that Osama was sold out by the Pakistani ISI and the military; beyond the fact that "justice" means capturing and trying someone in a court of law - not a targeted killing; beyond the suspicious fact that Washington did not profit from exhibiting Osama's body, Che Guevara-style (after all, Osama reveled in selling his myth as a sort of Sheikh Guevara); beyond the fact that al-Qaeda had already been strategically defeated by the Great 2011 Arab Revolt, and thus Osama was already irrelevant – a nagging question remains.

That body now slowly disintegrating in the waters of the Arabian Sea – is it the real shaheed who chose, as promised, not to surrender and die in a "firefight" this past Monday? Or is it a replicate?
Pepe Escobar 
 

Read More