War on Terror: Greatest Covert Op

Posted on June 7, 2017 by Reid Mukai

(Editor’s Note: The following commentary is drawn from a speech delivered by Douglas Valentine at a 2010 peace conference. In expanded version is included as the final chapter of his book “The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World”.)

By Douglas Valentine

Source: Consortium News

The politics of terror are the greatest covert operation ever.

In explaining why, I’ll begin by defining some terms, because, when discussing the covert op called “the politics of terror,” words and their management are all important.

How are politics and terror actually defined: how are these meanings manipulated; for what purposes, and by whom?

Terrorism is defined as “violence against civilians intended to obtain a political purpose.”

This is an ambiguous phrase, which begs the questions: what are politics and violence?

Politics is defined as “the process by which groups of people make collective decisions.” And violence in this context is the use of force to compel a person or group to do or think something against their will. That includes the violence of words – of threatening to hurt – and of social structures, as well as the violence of deeds.

So, by definition, terrorism is political violence – hurting people, or threatening to hurt them, in order to make them govern themselves (or acquiesce to an external force) against their will.

In America, terrorism is always condemned by the government, and, accordingly, America is never a perpetrator of terrorism, but always the victims of it.

The U.S. war on terror is the ultimate expression of this principle: it is a military response to terrorism; violence in self-defense, not (ostensibly) violence for a political purpose.

That’s the official story – the assumption. But I’m going to show that America does engage in terrorism – violence against civilians for political purposes. This “state” terrorism, however, is covert, in so far as it is equated with national security, and thanks to that built-in ambiguity, it has both stated and unstated purpose.

The State and Unstated Policy in America

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. But who really makes the overarching political decisions in America? Who governs us?

The two political parties represent the people and they compete for control of the government. Historically, Republicans have generally favored business and Democrats have favored labor. The political division is, generally, class based.

Now, the government can be controlled by either political party; but the state endures – “the state” being the nation’s indispensable industries and infrastructure (banking, auto industry, insurance, Microsoft), and the institutions which defend the nation’s enduring interests: the military, law enforcement, the intelligence and security services.

In Europe they often, cynically, refer to the state as “industry” or Big Business. In America we tend to call “the state” the Establishment – an ambiguous word that needs to be defined.

The dictionary defines Establishment as, “An exclusive group of powerful people who rule a government or society by means of private agreements and decisions.”

I would venture to say that the interests of the state and the Establishment are the same, and that the definition of Establishment with a capital E is the pivotal phrase in discussing “state” terrorism.

Consider this: there is the politics of the two parties vying for control of the government, and there is the Establishment, the state, making the covert (ostensibly non-political) decisions that effectively govern America.

Many of those covert decisions concern national security: they are unstated policy.

Moreover, these covert policy decisions about national security are made by people who control the military, law enforcement, and intelligence and security services. These guardians of “the state” are collectively called the National Security Establishment.

Like the Establishment that secretly rules the “state,” the National Security Establishment is an exclusive group that is not accountable to the political whims of the people.

These professional guardians of the state – the Establishment – are assumed to be above partisan politics. Their loyalty is assumed to be to the law or national security. And that assumption is the Big Lie upon which state terrorism is based.

Yes, it is true that the National Security Establishment is not accountable to the people: and, in fact, it has built a series of ever-larger, concentric moats around itself called the National Security State, precisely to keep the people out of its business.

The National Security Establishment rules the National Security State, with an iron fist, but it is pure propaganda that the National Security Establishment and State are not political.

In order to get inside the National Security Establishment, and rise to a position of authority within it, one must be born there (like Bush or make billions like Bill Gates), or submit to years of right-wing political indoctrination calibrated to a series of increasingly restrictive security clearances.

Political indoctrination – adopting the correct right-wing ideology – and security clearances represent the drawbridge across the moats.

The National Security State is the covert social structure of the Establishment, and it has as its job not just defending the Establishment from foreign enemies, but also expanding the Establishment’s economic and military influence abroad, while preserving its class prerogatives at home.

By “class prerogatives,” I mean the National Security State is designed to keep the lower class from exerting any political control over the state; especially, redistributing the Establishment’s private wealth.

To these unstated ends – imperialism abroad and repression at home – the National Security State engages in terrorism – i.e. political violence – on behalf of the Establishment.

Indeed, the National Security State is political violence, terrorism, in its purest form.

The Establishment and its National Security State as Terrorism

The lower classes in America have little voice in making government or state policy. Some members of the lower classes have given up hope, others are content: but in either case, voter turnout is a mere 54 percent.

Whether hopeless or content, they know they cannot fight conventional thinking. For example, when the Establishment exerts its influence, it is not considered politics; it is simply the status quo. The rich create jobs and must be accommodated with trillion-dollar bailouts, paid for by workers taking furloughs.

That’s just the way it is. Politicians in the service of the Establishment, for over-arching reasons of national security, have to keep the capitalist financial system afloat.

It is the same thing with the National Security Establishment: America invaded Iraq, and there was nothing the people could do about it. The decision was made for them. Peace activists, least of all, had no voice in the decision, because they are assumed to have no stake in national security.

You will not find peace activists in the National Security Establishment; and that political repression is part of covert state terrorism.

Likewise, if labor seeks to exercise influence, its efforts are described as exploiting the state for more than it deserves, because it does not have an enduring stake in the state.

It is a fact: only Establishment wealth – ownership – is equated with national security.

Consider the immortal words of Leona Helmsley: “Only the little people pay taxes.”

That injustice in the tax code is political repression and, in so far as it makes the people fearful, it is state terrorism. The Establishment fears losing its loopholes, while workers and the poor fear losing their homes: two types of fear, one for each class, one stated, one unstated.

The Establishment engages imperialism and political repression through propaganda (word management violence) and social structures. This state terrorism also is unstated, covert.

Only when the people rebel and challenge the Establishment is the word terrorism applied.

Likewise, the military, police or intelligence actions that provoke rebellion, or the responses to rebellion, are never called terrorism: they are national security.

And that’s how the management of words helps to repress the lower classes.

Language and the Psychology of State Terror

America’s industrial-sized war machine was never said to terrorize Iraq; the invasion was not political because the war machine is owned by the Establishment.

The Establishment profiting from war is not politics; it is ideological neutral “profits.”

In fact, America exerts its unwanted political influence overseas, through the state terror of aircraft carrier fleets, bombers, nuclear subs, shock and awe invasions, pacification programs, the overthrow of governments, and support of repressive puppet regimes.

This state terrorism, which you never hear about, is the biggest covert psychological warfare operation of all time.

This psywar operation depends on narrowly defining terrorism as a suicide bomber, a hijacked plane, the decapitated body of a collaborator: the “selective terrorism” of rebels and nationalists who, outgunned and outlawed in their own country, have no other options, other than submission.

The purpose of this “selective terrorism” by rebels is psychological: to isolate collaborators, while demonstrating to the people the ability of the rebels to strike at their oppressors. Brutal pacification campaigns – state terrorism – prevent people from making a living. Selective terrorism does not.

That’s a big, meaningful “class” difference.

The National Security Establishment understands that selective terror achieves political and psychological goals that state terror does not – that it rallies people to revolutionary ideals. So the National Security Establishment engages in selective terror, too, by targeting the rebel, his family and friends in their homes.

This is the selective terror conducted by counter-terrorists. But don’t be confused: it is terrorism. All terrorism is psychological and political; state terror seeks to immobilize people and make them submissive, apathetic and/or ostensibly “content.”

The National Security Establishment fully understands that once people have been terrorized, they have been politically defeated, without necessarily receiving bullets.

As former Director of Central Intelligence William Colby once said: “The implication or latent threat of terror was sufficient to insure that the people would comply.”

This principle of the psychological use of “the implication or latent threat of terror” is what brings us back to America and the business of terror.

The Business of Terror

State terror – colonization abroad and political repression at home – is a key means of extracting profits and maintaining ownership of property. Ask the American Indian.

In its colonies abroad, the U.S. engages in state terrorism by removing all legal protections for rebels; detention, torture, and summary execution are the price for rebellion against U.S. policy.

State terrorism overseas, imperialism, is never acknowledged by the U.S. media, because the media is a big business closely affiliated with the National Security Establishment; indeed, two of the major networks are owned by defense contractors.

And state terrorism applied domestically to ensure “internal” security is never acknowledged. But the National Security State is well thought out, by professionals in language management, and political and psychological warfare, aimed at you.

“Personal violence is for the amateur in dominance,” says Johan Galtung, a founder of the disciipline of peace and conflict studies. But he adds “structural violence is the tool of the professional. The amateur who wants to dominate uses guns; the professional uses social structure. The legal criminality of the social system and its institutions, of government…is tacit violence. Structural violence is a structure of exploitation and social injustice.”

As Colby said: “The implication or latent threat is enough to insure people will comply.”

The war on terror and its domestic version “homeland security” are the law of the land – America’s new legally criminal social structure based on administrative detention, enshrined in The Patriot Act and a number of executive orders, some secret.

This lack of due process comes on top of a justice system already skewed to protect the propertied elite and pack the prisons with the poor, through “structural violence,” mainly the drug wars.

The Establishment’s new anti-terror and anti-drug laws make the National Security State the most fearsome covert political and psywar machine the world has ever seen. And the National Security State is growing: the “Top Secret America” series in the Washington Post put it at 750,000 cadres.

This secret state within a state extends into the homeland’s critical infrastructure and beyond. For example, the arms industry provides good jobs, making American imperial aggression seem a positive value.

And this is how the psyched-out people become one of the moats.

As it is modeled on the totalitarian corporate paradigm, the National Security State in all its manifestations fits the classic definition of a fascist dictatorship. And we know what its intentions are. They have been stated.

In the days after 9/11, right-wing Republican stalwart Kenneth W. Starr, the Clinton inquisitor, said the danger of terrorism requires “deference to the judgments of the political branches with respect to matters of national security.”

But is there an on-going emergency that requires deference to the political branches, meaning the right-wing ideologues who rule the National Security State? And what does it mean for Establishment opponents if due process is completely abandoned at home, and subjected to politics?

Michael Ledeen, a former counter-terror expert on Reagan’s National Security Council, blamed 9/11 on President Bill Clinton “for failing to properly organize our nation’s security apparatus.”

Ledeen’s solution to the problem of those who sneered at security was “to stamp out” the “corrupt habits of mind.” By which he means Liberalism.

In other words, the reactionary right-wing that owns the National Security State wants to impose its total rule on the people in order to create a security conscious, uniform citizenry – marching in lock step, flags waving – that is necessary to win the war on terror.

This is how the National Security professionals are incrementally creating the requisite fascist social structure – through terror, the best organizing principle ever.

“This is time for the old motto, ‘kill them all, let God sort ’em out.’ New times require new people with new standards,” Ledeen asserted. “The entire political world will understand it and applaud it. And it will give us a chance to prevail.”

When Ledeen says “political” world he means the “owners of the business” of state terror, the right-wing ideologues who pack the National Security State and the capitalist Establishment they serve.

And they have won the propaganda war, folks.

Weaponized Hyperreality: Social Engineering Through Corporate State Propaganda and Religion

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By Luther Blissett and J. F. Sebastian of Arkesoul

Perhaps no philosophical concept more aptly describes the current cultural milieu than hyperreality, characterized by wikipedia as “an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies.” The predominance of hyperreality comes at a time when people in power have never had more to conceal, distort and distract the population from while there’s never been more people who have more means and motives to stay distracted. This is evident in many aspects of contemporary life from corporate news narratives shaped by sponsors and “official sources”, increasingly absurd denials of the true state of the economy from (mis)leaders, widespread dependence on pharmaceuticals worsened by direct-to-consumer advertising and a sham drug war, fanatical worship of celebrities, to slavish acquiescence to fads and fashion. But most obvious is the increasing amount of time spent in front of screens whether for work, shopping, social media, education, self-expression, games, web content, or the exponentially growing volume of video entertainment. Though video games and web series are catching up, the primary narrative formats for cultural expression and transmission today are still television and film.

Struggling to retain their cultural/economic status in the face of increased competition while appeasing shareholders of their monolithic multinational corporate owners, large film and television studios are increasingly risk averse. This is glaringly apparent in the output of major studios which are for the most part the media equivalent of comfort food; familiar (formulaic), satisfying (crowd pleasing), full of empty calories (lacking intellectual/emotional complexity or challenging ideas) and generally bland in terms of content and presentation. On television this is commonly displayed through clichéd tropes, characters and situations while films are now more than ever driven by CGI enhanced spectacle. Both rely on repeating what has worked in the past and (for viewers of a certain age) appealing to nostalgia while pandering to current cultural trends.

Of course such strategies overlap, as there’s more than a few television programs that offer Hollywood style spectacle and big budget movies which imitate successful formulas in the form of adaptations, sequels, prequels, reboots, spin-offs, and mockbusters. In fact the majority of Hollywood’s summer blockbuster output is now comprised of such derivative and safe content predominantly in the form of fantasy and science fiction films.

The ideological motives and functions of cinema and other pop culture are manifold, but a major one is control and influence of mass audiences. We now know the US government has been doing it at least since the 1950s. According to a Church Committee investigation detailing Operation Mockingbird in 1976:

“The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.”

More recently, in 1991 the Task Force Report on Greater CIA Openness revealed the CIA “now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation,” which enables them to “turn some ‘intelligence failure’ stories into ‘intelligence success’ stories, and has contributed to the accuracy of countless others.” It also revealed that the CIA has “persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests…” (Global Research, Lights, Camera… Covert Action: The Deep Politics of Hollywood)

Government influence of culture factories such as Hollywood through covert infiltration or embedded advisors ensures that the end product reflects the values and behaviors they wish to promote (ie. xenophobia, deference to authority, nationalism, parochialism, narcissism, anti-intellectualism, consumerism, rapaciousness, etc). In some cases, most notably Zero Dark Thirty and United 93, the goal is to cement an official narrative into the collective consciousness. A more sophisticated method of social engineering via Hollywood is predictive programming; presenting through media societal changes to be implemented by leaders in order to gradually condition the public and reduce resistance to such changes.

Manipulation of public sentiment through mass media also makes sense from a purely corporate perspective. Why wouldn’t media owners gear the ideological content of their products to support the systems they benefit from while screening out more critical messages? Occasional subversive content may get past the gatekeepers if it’s immediately profitable (which it sometimes can be if particularly resonant), can be co-opted in some way that serves the status quo, or if the creative minds behind it are particularly lucky, talented, and/or well connected. Regardless, one could argue uncritical media consumption is a form of pacification through distraction and escapism and all corporate media content are a result of calculating the highest return on investment, which more often than not reflects the culture’s most deeply ingrained values and myths.

This is particularly true for fantasy/sci film films, which have become ubiquitous for a number of reasons including cultural tastes of global demographics, aesthetic trends (eg. hyperreal CG effects for evermore spectacular imagery), impact of changing media technology on the economics of production and distribution, growing awareness of the value of properties belonging to rich fictional universes which can be mined by worldbuilding studio screenwriters, and in many cases, resonance with our increasingly dystopian world. Most fundamental is profitability, especially as sfx technology becomes more advanced and affordable, licensing opportunities increase, and film franchises that come with large and passionate built-in fan bases reduce the need for marketing and practically sell themselves.

Many who grow up immersed in geek culture already have a hyperreal relationship with fantasy and science fiction realms which heightens the nostalgia evoked by the stream of multimedia incarnations and product tie-ins (bolstered by cult-like fan communities). Is it any surprise that fans who’ve extrapolated on the “Jedi” concept from the Star Wars films turned it into a religion? The Jedi cosmology (and similar ones from countless sci-fi/fantasy films) are modeled on mysticism, a philosophical framework which could fill a void for spiritually deprived materialist cultures. For many people, comic book fandom is another safe and entertaining way to explore concepts that might otherwise be too “out there” (perhaps especially among those who share an equally strong interest in materialist science). At the same time, because of the influence of marketing, the greater role of technology in society and changing cultural trends, geek culture has become a larger part of mainstream culture. Combined with celebrity worship, the lure of technology (both on-screen and off), and increasingly omnipotent powers of multinational corporations, modern big budget sci-fi/fantasy films represent a confluence of potent socioreligious crosscurrents.

Recent works such as Christopher Knowles’s Our Gods Wear Spandex and Grant Morrison’s Supergods examine to an extent superheroes as modern mythological archetypes. Bill Moyer’s The Power of Myth explored how Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth (or hero’s journey) influenced and shaped the Star Wars films (which itself has influenced myriad blockbusters since). In The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell identified a story template used in almost all pre-modern cultures across the globe which goes something like this:

A reluctant “chosen one” in an ordinary world receives a call to adventure and warning of a danger that must be confronted. With the training and wisdom of a mentor the hero crosses the threshold into the unknown. Companions acquired along the way assist in overcoming a series of challenges and temptations until reaching the depth of their fears and resultant apotheosis or rebirth. This empowers them to achieve their goal and return triumphant to an admiring family/community/nation etc.

It’s not hard to see the attraction of narratives such as this which tap into primal emotional needs and can be found in a wide range of religious narratives such as the lives of Buddha, Christ, Muhammad and Rama among others. It also serves as a metaphor for spiritual/psychological journeys through life.

In a recent post on his Secret Sun blog, Christopher Knowles states “Myths grow out of times of crisis and upheaval, in one way or another. The current vogue for superheroes is a symptom of the powerlessness felt by a populace under assault by the realities of Globalist social engineering, war-making and economic redundancy.” I would add that myths can also be exploited to function as part of a cultural assault to perpetuate Globalist agendas. Authoritarians are all too eager to depict themselves as monomythic demigod saviors and/or those serving them as self-sacrificing rugged individualist heroes fulfilling their grand destinies.

In the same piece, Knowles concludes: “But myths do die. They aren’t immortal. The next war or wars may in fact sweep away the myths of the 20th Century entirely. The wars may send people reaching back to far older myths as civil wars can rekindle the bonfires of identity, sending people back to the myths of ancestors. This has always emerged in times of close conflict, particularly in conflicts seen as struggles against occupying powers.”

If he’s correct, there may be some hope for our culture to reclaim myths as a means of understanding reality rather than serve as a trapdoor to fabricated hyperreality. The problem is that there is a gap that needs “filling in” between reality and hyperreality. One of the many consequences of postmodernism is the complete blurring of the line between what is real and what is not. A sort of apathy has kicked in within the human psyche given that crushing truths, not easily discernable in the past, are all out there in the raw. Religious and scientific truths once held sacred can be easily discarded. Morality is a rare hobby in a generation both cynical and powerless to discern reality. This is as well due to globalism and technology, which serve as hubs for information retrieval that wasn’t readily available. Humanity has developed thicker skin, while at the same time widened the existential void left by a reality that is less and less objectifiable. Opinion makers are everywhere, information is ubiquitous, and the species is obsessed with being entertained while answers are readily manufactured in the shape of capital fetishes, all the while ideology that purportedly made a call for a “better and different” world, such as Marxism and psychoanalysis, has become both a haunting spectre and an empty promise.

In the past these formulae failed. In the future they seem more and more unlikely. Capitalism has adapted itself to revolutionary ideology. It has generated even more power from it, defusing the motivation for change and twisting the definition of revolution, all the while turning such concepts into brands. The irony. There is call for a “new objectivism”, however. A bet for a system reboot, in which categorical truths can be retrieved and argued from. The analogy is this: keeping what works and dismissing what doesn’t. Sounds like a simple and logical plan. The problem is that those who get to define what works and what doesn’t will be the powerful, uncanny minority. This is their game, and we have cynically accepted it. It is the way it is. Unless we can evolve from reality to hyperreality, and from hyperreality back into reality, as a species that learns, adapts, understands how high the stakes really are, and moves forward as a collective that is conscious and responsible of its flaws, it appears we are doomed. Three scenarios: first, the narrative will continue as is: the majority will continue to be repressed, and will perpetually seek escape by the hand that feeds until lost completely in hyperreality. Technology moves forward, religion condenses into inconvenient myth: we completely “plug in”. Then what? Well, you just have to see Her to see into this future. The second, war extinguishes civilization and winds back the evolutionary clock, think Mad Max, until we reach the first scenario, as if in a loop. The third and most bleak, nuclear war. The species ends.

What we learn from this exercise is that we are at the apex. This is it. The crushing truth of existence is firmly on our shoulders. War is unravelling. An ever-shrinking number of brands dominate the world. And an even smaller number of people call the shots. In between reality and hyperreality there is confusion. There is no longer a basis to discern between the two. We are as it were, lost. We need to fill in this gap. We need to dig deeper than ever before for a reason to dissolve our differences. Somehow the dilemma is set: surrender or die. But the crux of the problem can be overridden if we use the knowledge and tools we have to fight for a better, and more responsible alternative.

The Suspicious Downing of Russia’s Metrojet Airbus A321-200. “The ISIS is a Creation of the CIA”

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By Larry Chin

Source: Global Research

The explosion and crash of Russian Metrojet Airbus A321-200 over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula raises ominous new questions. There are going to be numerous theories bandied about in the course of another long international “investigation”, accompanied with endless political spin from all sides.

We hear numerous variations that boil down to two basic theories: catastrophic mechanical failure or bomb.

Many officials have already ruled out a missile strike because there was no evidence of a missile launch nor an engine burn. US satellites detected heat around the plane before the explosion, but the cause of the heat is unknown. In an Associated Press account, US aviation analyst Paul Beaver stated, “It doesn’t tell us if it was a bomb, or if someone had a fight in the airplane with a gun—there is a whole raft of things that could happen in this regard.” Adding to the mystery, Beaver also noted that in the event of a fuel tank or engine explosion, “engines are designed so that if something malfunctions or breaks off, it is contained within the engine”. The plane broke up at high altitude.

Most recently, British officials have more strongly suggested that a bomb was the cause. And now, US intelligence officials are coming forward to embrace the idea of a bomb.

Looking past the political smoke, one scenario deserves scrutiny.

The Islamic State (IS) has taken responsibility for the incident. In a manifesto, the IS claimed to have brought down the Russian plane in retaliation for Russian military intervention in Syria.

Egyptian officials immediately derided the claim as propaganda that damages the image of Egypt. But at the same time, the authenticity of the IS propaganda has not been debunked. The nature of the propaganda was in keeping with previous manifestos; CIA standard procedure. There is “insufficient evidence” to support the claim, but there never is sufficient evidence. By design.

Given the amply documented fact that the IS (ISIS, ISIL, etc.) is a creation of US intelligence, and function as assets and military-intelligence fronts of the CIA and Washington—financed, recruited and trained by the US and its allies— why shouldn’t the claims of responsibility be taken at face value?

In an era in which false flag atrocities and deception have constituted US foreign policy, it is in no way inconceivable that forces aligned with Washington committed yet another act of terrorism, another act of war, to send a message of warning and/or provocation to Moscow.

This is by no means the first time that the downing of a plane has been exploited for political purpose, aimed at Russia. The false flag shootdown of MH-17 and the cover-up and propaganda that followed offers a ghastly example. The history of American covert operations is rife with atrocities involving planes.

The CIA is opportunistic, flexible, and selective with its work. In this conveniently-timed case, Washington can deny terrorism, warn about terrorism, poo-pooh the jihadist rhetoric (sourced to their own propaganda machine), and express sympathy, all at the same time that a brutal political message is sent to Moscow.

This scenario is not merely “conspiracy theory” when viewed against current big picture realities, and the fact that a superpower war is underway. As chronicled by Michel Chossudovsky:

While the media narrative acknowledges that Russia has endorsed the counter-terrorism campaign, in practice Russia is (indirectly) fighting the US-NATO coalition by supporting the Syrian government against the terrorists, who happen to be the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance, with Western mercenaries and military advisers within their ranks. In practice, what Russia is doing is fighting terrorists who are supported by the US.

The forbidden truth is that by providing military aid to both Syria and Iraq, Russia is (indirectly) confronting America.

Moscow will be supporting both countries in their proxy war against the ISIL which is supported by the US and its allies.

Russia is now directly involved in the counter-terrorism campaign in coordination with the Syrian and Iraqi governments.

In fact, as written in Tru Publica, the war in Syria is not about the Islamic State.

In fact,

“the countries involved in this war are now from all four hemispheres of the planet who are now represented and engaged in a conflict that will definitely be a fight to the very end.”

We can even go beyond this measured view. From Ukraine to Syria, to hot spots across the Middle East and North Africa, we are witnessing an increasingly open war between Washington and Russia, no different than the Cold War (Vietnam, etc.) but with stakes even higher, engulfing far more of the planet. Add to this the increasing tensions between the United States and China, and the map of the global conflict is literally worldwide. What cannot be argued is that the war between the superpowers is intensifying, perhaps past the brink.

The downing of a Russian passenger plane and the death of hundreds of Russians would mean nothing to the war criminals with grand aspirations of conquest for the geography and resources of the most resource-rich chunks of the Earth.

Russia has openly and resolutely waged effective military counter-terrorism operations against the terror fronts of the US and NATO—all jihadist terrorist armies, including ISIS, ISIL, Al-Qaeda, and Al-Nusra, which are all US and CIA fronts. What Moscow has done is call Washington’s bluff and upping the ante.

Put simplistically, Moscow said:

“If you (US-NATO) truly wish to combat terrorism throughout the region, then we will ‘help you’, by actually doing it.”

These operations were followed by agonized and flummoxed whines from Washington, as more and more of the Anglo-American empire’s terror assets have been hampered from their massive attempt to topple the Assad regime. The Vienna-Geneva Peace Talks are a charade that buys time for Washington to counter the Russian actions.

Moscow, acting as the actual “good guys”, have “ruined everything”; ripped the “false good guy” mask off of Washington’s massive criminal operation. This embarrassment to the empire had to be met with a desperate reply.

Was Metrojet Airbus A321-200 part of this response? The message from the Islamic State (aka the CIA) clearly was.

The message was received: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov quickly rejected any connection between the crash and the Russian military operation in Syria, while Putin himself has vowed that nothing will succeed in scaring them off.

Follow the trail of facts, hints, and allegations—connect the dots

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Reid Mukai

By Edward Curtin

Source: Intrepid Report

“There were incidents and accidents/there were hints and allegations.”—Paul Simon

Children love to trace, to connect the dots, to make connections, but often the connections they make frighten adults who try to ignore their points or offer some ridiculous circumlocutions. Maybe we adults are much like children in our desires to make connections, but the thought of it frightens us.

Suppose we could for a while calm those fears and concentrate long enough to trace through the dim glimmerings of a faded pattern a clarifying story that would jolt us into an awareness that could change our lives and society. I offer here an arc of history that you may consider tedious. Try patience. I could yell, I could scream, I could try all the classical argumentation and logic that comes “naturally” to me. I could be a wise guy, amuse you, try to provoke you, curse, sing a song, stomp my feet—even write post-modern gibberish. As Andre Vltchek says, it’s hard—I’m putting it nicely—to get through, to have an impact that counts. We desperately want to believe in a world where we really are children and BIG Daddy (apologies to Burl Ives) has told the truth. Obviously I have reached some stern conclusions, but I think the conclusions follow from the facts. See what you think.

1957, Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy delivers a Senate speech in support of the Algerian liberation movement, in support of African liberation generally, and against colonial imperialism. The speech causes an international uproar, and Kennedy is harshly attacked by Eisenhower, Nixon, John Foster Dulles, and even liberals such as Adlai Stevenson. He is praised in the third world.

1959, George H. W. Bush moves his oil company—Zapata Offshore—to Houston, Texas. One of Zapata’s drilling rigs, Scorpion, having been moved from the Gulf of Mexico the previous year, is now operating 54 miles north of Cuba

1960. On March 17, President Eisenhower approves the Bay of Pigs project.

1961. On January 17, in anticipation of Kennedy’s inauguration in three days, the Belgian government in complicity with the CIA assassinates Congolese nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba. On February 13, a devastated Kennedy receives a belated phone call informing him of Lumumba’s murder.

1961, April. More than a week before the CIA led Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba—code-named the Zapata Operation—the CIA discovers that the Soviets have learned the date of the invasion and informed Castro. Knowing the invasion is doomed in advance, the CIA Director Allen Dulles doesn’t tell Kennedy. When the invasion fails, the CIA blames JFK who angrily says he wants “to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” Kennedy fires Dulles.

1962. On June 13, Lee Harvey Oswald, ex-Marine and alleged traitor, returns from the Soviet Union with a loan from the State Department that also arranges for him, together with his Russian wife, to be met at the dock in Hoboken, New Jersey by Spas T. Raikin, an official of an anti-communist organization with extensive intelligence connections. Oswald soon moves to Dallas, Texas where, at the behest of the CIA, he is chaperoned around by CIA asset and George H. W. Bush’s old friend, George de Mohrenschildt.

1963, June 10. JFK delivers his famous American University address calling for an end to “a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.”

1963. On October 11, Kennedy issues National Security Action Memorandum 263 calling for the withdrawal of 1,000 American troops from Vietnam by the end of 1963 and all of them by the end of 1965.

1963, November 2. At the last minute JFK cancels his trip to Chicago to attend the Army-Air Force football game when it is learned that a four-man rifle team has plotted to assassinate him. The four are never charged or named, but an alienated ex-Marine scapegoat with CIA connections, Thomas Arthur Vallee, is arrested on a pretext. Vallee works in a building overlooking a dog-leg turn where JFK’s car was to pass.

1963, November 22. JFK is shot in Dallas on a dog-leg turn at 12:30 P.M. and dies at 1 P.M. At 1:38 P.M. Walter Cronkite makes the first public announcement of the president’s death. At 1:45 P.M. George H. W. Bush, who is in Tyler, Texas an hour and a half southeast of Dallas, telephones Houston FBI agent Graham W. Kitchel to inform him that he’s heard gossip that a Houston man, James Parrot, has been talking about killing Kennedy when he comes to Houston (JFK had been in Houston the day before). Parrot is questioned and deemed harmless. Bush tells the FBI agent that he’ll be going to Dallas in the evening, though he fails to mention that he was there the night before. At 1:50 PM the Dallas police arrest Lee Harvey Oswald in the Texas theatre and charge him with the murder of Dallas police Officer J.D. Tippett. A few minutes after Oswald’s arrest and his exit out the front door to waiting police cars, a second Oswald is arrested in the theatre and surreptitiously taken out the back door. Later in the day Oswald is charged with also killing President Kennedy from behind from the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. But the fatal shot to Kennedy’s head comes from the left front.

1963. Two days later, Ruby kills Oswald, who claimed he was a patsy, in the Dallas police building. That same afternoon LBJ tells Henry Cabot Lodge that “I am not going to lose Vietnam.”

1963, November 29. LBJ announces the formation of the Warren Commission whose key member is Allen Dulles, the former CIA Director fired by Kennedy.

1963. On December 24, Johnson tells the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “Just get me elected, and then you can have your war.”

1964, August. The fraudulent Tonkin Gulf Incidents and Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Johnson orders the bombing of North Vietnam. The Vietnam War starts in earnest.

1964 ,September. The Warren Commission findings are made public. Oswald is declared the lone assassin with the magic bullet explanation being the key.

1967. Martin Luther King delivers his Riverside Church speech—“A Time to Break Silence”—denouncing the Vietnam War and calling for opposition to it, while linking it to social and economic oppression at home.

1968, April 4. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis. The authorities blame it on James Earl Ray, a petty criminal loner.

1968. On June 6 in Los Angeles, Senator Robert Kennedy. On the cusp of becoming the Democratic nominee for president, is assassinated. The accused lone assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was standing in front and to the left of RFK. The autopsy shows Kennedy was killed by a bullet from behind and below that entered his head behind his right ear. Sirhan is subsequently convicted as the lone crazed gunman, despite many witnesses seeing a girl, in a polka dot dress, with a male companion, running down the back stairs of the hotel, shouting. “We shot him! We shot him! We shot Senator Kennedy.”

1972, June 17. Five CIA employees and veterans of the Bay of Pigs operation are arrested inside the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. Together with H. Howard Hunt (CIA) and G. Gordon Liddy, they are later indicted. The burglars are caught by a security guard who notices that these skilled undercover operatives have taped locks open from the outside so that the tape is showing.

The Watergate story is primarily reported by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who work at the Washington Post under Editor Ben Bradlee. Woodward had earlier served in Naval Intelligence, as had Bradlee, while Bradlee and the Washington Post have deep ties to the CIA and intelligence communities.

1974, August 9. Nixon is forced to resign. He is the second president in eleven years to be removed from office. Gerald Ford, a former member of the Warren Commission assumes the presidency. Dick Cheney is named White House Chief of staff and Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.

1976, January 30. Having been nominated by Ford, George H. W. Bush assumes the directorship of the CIA, despite critics arguing that he has no intelligence experience. He serves in that capacity for 365 days.

1976. George de Mohrenschildt, Oswald’s CIA chaperone and George H. W. Bush’s old friend, writes a letter to CIA Director Bush begging for help “we are being followed everywhere. . . .”

1977, March 27. George de Mohrenschildt, about to be questioned by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, allegedly commits suicide in Florida.

1979, November 4. Fifty-two Americans are taken hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

1980. Ronald Reagan is elected president and George H. W. Bush, vice-president. It is later alleged that Bush, CIA officer Robert Gates, and CIA Director William Casey met secretly with Iranian officials in Paris before the election and made a secret deal to insure Reagan/Bush an election victory by not releasing the hostages before the vote. The hostages were subsequently released a few minutes after Reagan and Bush were sworn in on January 20, 1981.

1985-88. The Iran-Contra scandal plays out as it is discovered that the Reagan administration was secretly selling arms to Iran in exchange for hostages and using the proceeds to illegally arm the anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua in violation of the Boland amendment. Oliver North becomes the public face of the secret machinations while Reagan and Bush plead ignorance. Many are indicted, while Bush, when running for president in 1988, claims he was “out of the loop.”

1988, July 16. In the midst of the presidential campaign pitting Bush against Dukakis, the Nation magazine publishes an article by Joseph McBride, “The Man Who Wasn’t There, ‘George Bush,’ CIA Operative.” The article centers around a newly discovered memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, dated November 29, 1963, concerning the JFK assassination and an oral briefing the bureau had given on November 23 regarding the assassination to “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency.” A Bush spokesman denies it was candidate Bush.

1988, July 3. The USS Vincennes shoots down in Iranian airspace civilian Iran Flight 655 killing 299, including 66 children. Vice President Bush says, “ I will never apologize for the U.S. I don’t care what the facts are . . . I’m not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.”

1988. George H. W. Bush is elected president.

1990-91. President Bush attacks Iraq, called the Gulf War, public and congressional support for which is given a huge boost on the testimony of a nurse who claims she witnessed Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait City hospital grabbing babies out of incubators and throwing them on the floor to die. It is later discovered that the “nurse” in question was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States and that she hadn’t lived in Kuwait at the time. Her story had been hatched by the Hill and Knowlton public relations firm and was a lie—a successful lie.

1991, May 19. A few weeks after filming had begun on Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK, the Washington Post’s national security reporter George Lardner, Jr., writes a scathing review of the film based on a stolen copy of the first draft of the screenplay.

1991, December 20. Stone’s film, JFK, is released.

1991,0n December 24, President Bush grants pardons to six former members of the Reagan/Bush administration facing prosecution in the Iran-Contra scandal.

1993-2000. President Bill Clinton bombs Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Sudan . . . killing untold numbers of people, while maintaining economic sanctions on Iraq.

1996, May 12. On CBS’s Sixty Minutes, Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albrecht says that the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of the sanctions are worth it.

1997. The Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative enterprise, three of whose signatories are Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Jeb Bush, is launched. Among other things, they call for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Ten signees of the statement of principles go on to serve in the George W. Bush administration.

1999. On April 26, CIA headquarters was named the George Bush Center for Intelligence in honor of former president George H.W. Bush who served as CIA Director for 357 days.

1999. A jury in Memphis, Tennessee returns a verdict in a civil trial brought by Martin Luther King’s family concluding that King was killed, not by James Earl Ray, but by a conspiracy involving agencies of the U. S. government and the Memphis police.

2000, September. The Project for the New American Century releases a position paper, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” stating that the United States will not be able to enforce its will on Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan and maintain a Pax Americana “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” The paper introduces a new word to refer to the United States of America—“the homeland.”

2000, November. George W. Bush is elected president after a disputed ballot count and the intervention of the Supreme Court. Dick Cheney becomes vice-president and Donald Rumsfeld is named secretary of defense.

2001, May 1. George W. Bush gives a major foreign policy speech at the National Defense University and says that the U.S.A. must be willing to “rethink the unthinkable,” giving public notice that the U. S. planned to withdraw from the ABM treaty. He warns against “weapons of mass destruction” and “weapons of terror” in the hands of rogue actors. The speech closely follows the reasoning of the PNAC paper of the previous year in urging an aggressive foreign policy. Cheney and Rumsfeld are in the audience.

2001, June 22-23. Exercise Dark Winter takes place at Andrews Air Force base. The scenario involves anonymous threatening letters sent to mainstream media. The letters threaten more letters to come with anthrax. Judith Miller, author of Germs, and a notoriously deceptive Iraq war hawk for The New York Times, participates, playing Judith Miller of the New York Times.

2001, September 11. The terrorist attacks in NYC and Washington, D.C. occur. The media immediately starts referring to them as another Pearl Harbor, a new Pearl Harbor. CBS News reports that before going to bed at night George W. Bush wrote in his diary, “The Pearl Harbor of the 21^st century took place today.” The site of the Twin Towers is first referred to as “ground zero,” a nuclear war term, by Mark Walsh, identified as a freelancer for Fox News by the Fox News interviewer on the street of lower Manhattan. Presciently anticipating the official explanation for the buildings collapse, Walsh adds that the towers obviously collapsed “mostly due to structural failure since the fires were too intense.”

2001, September 12. The New York Times headlines a story: “Personal Accounts of a Morning Rush that Became the Unthinkable.” Another headline under the byline of future editor Bill Keller, Iraq war hawk, reads, “America’s Emergency Line: 9/11.” The endless emergency and war on terror begin. Henceforth, for the first time in American history, a very important day is referred to by numbers, not by name—an emergency phone number.

2001, September 22. Tom Ridge is named director of the newly created Homeland Security and becomes in charge of politically motivated terror alerts.

2001 September-October. Real and fake anthrax attacks occur. A sham investigation follows with the FBI eventually accusing government scientist Bruce Ivins on little to no evidence, resulting in Ivins alleged suicide.

2001. Throughout the first three weeks of October the major media use the word “unthinkable” repetitively, echoing its association with nuclear war, just as the World Trade Center site is similarly referred to as “ground zero,” another nuclear term. A phony “anthrax” letter containing a harmless white powder, postmarked in St. Petersburg, Florida. On September 20, is sent to Tom Brokaw of NBC. The letter, not made public until October 22, after the media’s repeated use of the word “unthinkable,” begins: “The Unthinkabel” Sample Of How It Will Look. Judith Miller of the New York Times receives an anthrax threat letter also sent from St. Petersburg.

2001, October 7. The U.S.A attacks Afghanistan.

2001 October 27. The Patriot Act is passed.

2001, December 4. George W. Bush says when he was outside the classroom in Florida on September 11, he “had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on. . . .” Problem: No one saw the first plane hit the North Tower since it wasn’t televised live. Much later a tape someone had made was shown on television.

2002, October 2. At the Cincinnati Museum Center President Bush gives a speech linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks and says that “we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” He urges the disarming of Iraq.

2002-10. Regular color-coded terrorist alerts.

2003, February. Secretary of State Colin Powell gives false testimony at the U.N., asserting that Iraq possesses chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction and must be confronted.

2003, March. The U. S. attacks Iraq based on lies.

2003-8. Bush wages war on Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Homeland “security” leads to indefinite detention, black sites, torture, spying on Americans, the loss of constitutional rights, etc.

2007, February 10. Barack Obama, having been a U.S. Senator for 2 years, 1 month, announces he is running for president.

2008, September. An international financial meltdown occurs. The government claims it was unforeseen. The Bush administration bails out the big banks and financial institutions.

2008, November. A seriously inexperienced Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, comes out of nowhere to be elected president on a populist platform of “hope” and “change.” He receives more backing from Wall Street than his Republican rival. Liberals and progressives go wild for joy. Hope and change is proclaimed.

2009. Lawrence Summers, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, takes up his position as head of Obama’s economic team. Timothy Geithner, former head of the New York Federal Reserve, whose father, Peter Geithner, oversaw the Ford Foundation’s programs in Indonesia developed by Obama’s mother, becomes secretary of the Treasury. And Robert Gates, former CIA Director and George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense continues in that position for Obama.

2009, March. Obama meets with the CEOs of fifteen big banks and tells them that “my administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks. . . . I’m not out there to go after you. I’m protecting you.”

2009. Obama intensifies the war on Afghanistan.

2009, October 9. Obama is given the Nobel Peace Prize.

2009, December. Obama sends 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan, saying this “will bring this war to a successful conclusion.”

2010. Obama vows to carry forward the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans.

2010 and ongoing. Obama chooses his drone war kill list every Tuesday; says the killing of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki “is an easy one.”

2011. Obama and partners attack Libya and brutally kill Muammar Gaddafi. Libya descends into chaos.

2009 and ongoing. Obama attacks Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, etc. Does nothing to stop the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians. Supports and arms terrorists in Syria and other countries. Engineers a coup d’etat in Ukraine and supports neo-Nazi forces attacking eastern Ukraine. Encircles Russia with NATO troops and military exercises. Starts a new Cold War. Maintains military commissions and indefinite detention. Prosecutes more whistleblowers than all previous American presidents combined, but does not prosecute any banksters or torturers. Charges Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, Jeffrey Sterling, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou, et al of violating the 1917 Espionage Act. Acquiesces in the military coup against the democratically elected leader of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi and his subsequent imprisonment. Spies on Americans and other countries. Maintains a national state of emergency and the Patriot Act with minor adjustments. Prosecutes “the war on terror” initiated by George W. Bush. Rules over a technological, computerized war of killing all over the globe and a technological, computerized spying apparatus here at home. And does all this and more with a smile.

It should be clear from this small portion of events over the years that there is a connecting link, that there is a bloody thread running through them connecting key players and the obvious ongoing presence of a secret structure that recruits its team to maintain this oppressive system. To see it should be gutsy child’s play. It is not an issue of either/or; we can’t explain how we have come to this terrifying situation of rule by a murderous, militarized national security apparatus serving the wealthy elites by concentrating on either individuals or structures. People such as Barack Obama, the Bushes, et al don’t emerge from thin air (though in Obama’s case it seems that way, and some have speculated on his CIA links). These people grow out of a system that has cultivated and nurtured them. They become spokesmen for the secretive and powerful monied forces some call the Deep State. (The scholar Peter Dale Scott sees a hidden link between the JFK assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11.) Spokesmen, yes, but executive spokesmen; they are not innocent victims; they are free executioners. People and ongoing structures are intertwined. Individuals count, but so do structures. We are now living within a structure of non-stop and almost total propaganda that individuals, with the help of alternative structures of communication such as alternative media, can penetrate and understand, but only if they are willing to trudge through history that will allow for context and the connecting of dots. In the end, it takes desire and work. Many individuals concluding alike can lead to change. Connect and be outraged.

The psychiatrist Allen Wheelis once wrote a brilliant little book, called How People Change. His “childish” conclusion was that they change because they want to. Simple but true.

Edward Curtin is a sociologist and writer who teaches at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and has published widely.

Game Over

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Reid Mukai

The Jargon of Game Theory

By Branko Malic

Source: Soul of the East

While suffering under the information barrage wrought by mass media, a question arises in one’s mind: exactly how many words are there in the media vocabulary? For, when it comes to treatment of serious subjects like the economy and politics, the words in use are reduced to surprisingly few, so that even purported media analysis or commentary comes to resemble a mantra or nursery rhyme. Furthermore, it is notable that this “linguistic drain” occurs precisely at the moment when “serious” matters come into focus, and in spite of all the loftiness of the talking heads – our designated hierophants and media oracles – we are bombarded with rather frivolous terminology. One can only be perplexed at why, for instance, economic and political agents are called players? Why does the philosophy professor speak about the strategy of Nietzsche’s arguments? What exactly does it mean to have a cultural strategy? On what grounds does the literally critic assume that James Joyce employed a narrative strategy?

Why are all those serious things spoken about as if they were some kind of game?

On the face of it, the answer is surprisingly easy to deduce. Game or game-play jargon originates in global epistemic dominance of thought models derived from mathematical game theory. Its various abstract and complex forms (so called ‘models’ or ‘modules’), as well as their global application to all aspects of life, build the spiritual framework of our time to a significant extent, although they are rarely discussed outside of academia. However, game theory is not merely a mathematician’s plaything. If we bear in mind that the world stage – with all those global players – is also the home to all sorts of people who are well aware that they are being played, but have no idea of true nature of those playing them, then it is clear that the fundamentals of game theory should be subjected to critical scrutiny. The task is all the more urgent – and all the easier – if we bear in mind that the peculiarity of game theory, in contrast to other mathematical models, lies in the fact that it is founded on all-encompassing and simultaneously incredibly simple – one could say simple as in ‘dim witted’ – explanation of man and the world in general.

Game theory is a metaphysical doctrine, i.e. its ambition is to encompass everything, both the nature of man and the nature of universe. And there is a one special rule to every game of metaphysics, namely this: when the abstract and esoteric professional language of science is put aside, the game is potentially understandable to all parties – both those who are playing and those who are being played. It is an unspoken rule, an ancient assumption of all world-view con-games: in order for half-truth to hold sway over everybody, it must be spoken in common language. So let us examine, aided by some elementary concepts, what game theory is exactly and what it means for someone who is not a player, only played.

At its core, though, game theory is an explanatory model of decision making. It defines its subject as rational activity whose purpose is an increase in well-being of the deliberating individual or collective. Any behavior seemingly pursuing different purpose is only a roundabout way to achieve this goal more rationally, or it is simply “irrational.” Tertium non datur. Obviously, we are dealing with, broadly speaking, a “liberal” definition of man, although it is in fact the legacy of Ancient Greek Sophists. Bearing in mind that an individual is always in the midst of other individuals and that in order to achieve its goals it must collaborate or come into conflict with them, society must be rationally modelled in order to minimize conflict. That old bogeyman of political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes, conceived such a thing as possible only through the absolute sovereignty of the State, for was convinced that all those self-centered atoms were more prone to play at some iteration of Total War than that of Sims.

Proponents of game theory try to evade this fairly consistent inference of universal war or use it to prove something else: atomized individuals do not strive toward all-out conflict but towards equilibrium. The term denotes a state of conflict turned latent, in the sense of permanent threat or warning, but having ceased to be destructive; it is, in a word, a rational conflict, a war that grew cold. Namely, rational behavior is primarily strategic, i.e. it endeavors to accomplish its objective despite possible resistance by anticipating the strategies of that resistance. The healthy society is the one in which unavoidable conflicts are being channeled into relative harmony, regulated by the rules of the game, because the players realized that relative equality is more expedient than playing an ‘all or nothing’ game. Hence, game theory has a notably militaristic nature, affirmed by its history: it flourished inside military think tanks during the first years of the Cold war, only to be later unleashed on civil societies throughout the West.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma

At this level, some peculiarities are also notable. The term ‘game’ is made distinct but is not clearly defined, i.e. it is obviously artificially narrowed. For instance: since when does the game have to be competitive? Moreover, it is usually understood as a leisure activity, an escape from labor and conflict. Game by its nature doesn’t require winners and losers. It can be – and it usually is – a completely self-sufficient activity. In that sense, dances, visual and linguistic creative activities, fine or liberal arts, are all forms of playing a game. Those are all activities that, deprived of any calculated purpose outside themselves, remain autonomous and, therefore, free. However, game theory, without further clarification, presumes that games are always forms of competition implying conflict, binary division on winners and losers, elements of chance and power relations, domination and submission. So game theory is concerned with power plays. This is best illustrated in that most famous of game theory modules, the “Prisoner’s Dilemma.”

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is an imagined situation that game theoreticians apply to reality, and it has many variations with according levels of complexity. It can be described, using the so-called static model, in the following way:

Two criminals are brought to a police station for questioning. They committed the crime, but if the police fail to get the confession from one or either of them, they’ll walk. They are put in separate rooms and isolated from one another. A confession is demanded from each one. A situation develops in which the rules of the game provide them with a limited number of possible strategies: each one could or could not confess. If both confess, their pay-off is equally small, but if only one confesses, his pay-off is small, but bigger than the pay-off of his accomplice. If neither confesses, the pay-off is equally big for both of them, yet so is the risk of losing everything. Two key factors are in play: the prisoners are completely isolated from one another – they only know the game’s rules and the pay-offs by which they model their respective strategies, and each one only wants to maximize his own pay-off. The game-theory endeavor to use this module to explain real-life situations and foresee the decisions to be made by opponents (for instance, by Soviets in the Cold-War era) or to offer the best course of deliberation to its users. In the dynamic model of The Prisoner’s Dilemma, the main difference is in access to information, because players are allowed to confer before they are isolated.

A striking feature of such models must be noted. More often than not, the agents of decision-making in game theory modules are described as criminals. Sometimes they are jewel thieves, sometimes it’s a fugitive escaping the posse, and one encyclopedia’s game theory module is illustrated by the act of tossing the incapacitated opponent into precipice. It is interesting that the author uses the pronoun he for the victim while the criminal in the dilemma is denoted as she, in strict obeisance to the rules of political correctness. Bearing in mind that victimhood, imaginary or not, proves to gain a rather abundant pay-off, it seems that even the game theoretician is faced with a Prisoner’s Dilemma.

The Game Myth

This feature leads us to key weak point of game theory, i.e. its flimsy definition of rationality. Namely, the “big players”, of whose moving and shaking the media hierophants inform us unceasingly, are implicitly denounced as criminal organizations, and not by the frustrated and confused public – the notion appears incorporated into the very definition of their enterprises. Every player seeks exclusively his own maximal gain, and that which is considered to be “one’s own,” therefore rationally desirable, seemingly private, comes dangerously close to being privative. Bearing in mind that such exclusive economic players are prone to merge with their playmates in politics – which is, after all, the elementary definition of fascism – one must reach the conclusion that in the foundations of seemingly supra-private bodies, be it corporations or governments, not only private but also privative interests are embedded, and that the very process of democracy can be seen as a means of accomplishing this.

In that sense, it is no wonder that what is now called liberalism is a form of strange metaphysics. Namely, it appeals to ‘human nature’ and ‘natural rights’, but has in fact always been infected with an urge for escapism, clearly visible in so-called “state of nature” and “social contract” theories, mythical stories about a historical event that never happened in a historical age that never was, which man escaped by a decision he never made. Game theory metaphysics transforms this myth and enriches it, but it certainly doesn’t dispel it. The myth is sold, against all reason and the wealth of human imagination, as the veritable image of truth, i.e. a valid world-view, the prism through which the entire contemporary landscape is transmitted before our eyes. However, this picture, no matter how coherent and self-sufficient, is in fact rather fragile.

The persuasive power of the myth is proportional to the verity of its images of truth, while the persuasive power of the lie stems from its appellation to weaknesses of thought – to an inertia delighted with the ease of passing flippant judgment. The mythology of the rational playground falls precisely into this second category, because it assumes the pretense of a necessary and all-applicable system, thereby subverting the transcendental, robbing it of its very possibility while replacing it with a simulacrum. However, in moments of crisis – etymologically equal to moments of judgment – its frailty is all the more obvious, and its ability to maintain the illusion ever more inadequate to the task. The notion of man as a ‘selfish information processor’ is in fact a careless distortion of the classical understanding of elementary human solidarity, founded on love of one’s own transferred to another, best explained in Aristotle’s Book VIII of Nicomachean Ethics, where it is defined as ‘friendship’ (filia) in the broadest sense. The progressive concentration of power in the hands of players, at the expense of those who are played is more likely to push the losing side into the irrational decision of giving up on selfishness, of declaring: “I will not play anymore.”

Ghosts in the Machine

We face the following eventuality: the choice of irrational decision sheds more light on a crucial system error in the definition of man and game that this pseudo-metaphysics imposes on us. The term ‘irrational’ is never really defined in the framework of game theory. And rationality fared only slightly better, though at least it can serve as a foothold for via negativa deduction of what is not irrationality. For the game theoretician, irrational behavior is not behavior at all; it is a pseudo-behavior deprived of deliberation. Bearing in mind that game theory yields a considerable pay-off in microbiology, where genes are conceived as rational players in the game of survival of the fittest, we can’t even say that irrational players are making monkeys of themselves. So how, using this sophisticated net, does one catch this elusive mutant who won’t play games, strategize, steal, or bow to political religion?

Let’s define him. This “ghost in the machine” could be someone whose moral sentiment forces him to irrationally decline profitable professions or profitable occasions, such as employing his talents in mass propaganda or advertising. Furthermore, in order to achieve his objective, perhaps writing a novel penetrating the depths of human condition, for example, he irrationally decides to always be close to death, because only then he can really reach the heart of his subject, while at the same time he knows that the pay-off will probably come after he is long gone. Is there any conceivable rational agent who can assume that he rationally planned all this? Or are all those “whistleblowers” really rational players; people who rationally decided to confront corruption, and now enjoy the pay-off by being unemployed or jailed, crucified between responsibility towards their conscience and their families?

After all, were the lines you now read calibrated for a payoff? “Irrationality” is what you were seeking the entire time.

Game theory views the irrational as its own confinement; the razor wire lining the playground fence or an unforeseen eventuality breaking the rules of game-play, its strict order. Bearing in mind that we are talking about world order – and world-encircling razor wire – the deprecation of the irrational is absolute inasmuch as the myth of the rational is absolute. Endemic, logically indescribable specimens are reduced to occasional noise in communication channels between players. Yet those endemic specimens are in fact the majority of our respectably populated planet, and so the noise grows to permeate our societies. It even begins to obstruct the tranquility of academic think tanks, and we know that devising complex and abstract logical, not to mention mathematical, models demands focus, a certain withdrawal from the world in the isolation of one’s paneled office – that parody of the monk’s cloister. Could it be that the hum of the irrational is evolving into an unpredictable, unbearable roar of chaos whose source is too powerful for even the valiant forces of campus security to subdue?

Is it only rational to predict that a creature of grand scale is much too big for nets weaved from a flimsy conceptual framework, unfit for catching even butterflies? What happens when the net breaks? Because the enemy is irrational, and therefore unthinkable. It is the great Unknown, something equal to an extraterrestrial invasion. Can the controllers’ sorcery of half-truth, half-philosophy, half-culture, and half-living keep our eyes wide shut for much longer? Among the faceless and unprepossessing shall awaken the beast of the irrational, its inner abyss suspending man between the angelic and the infernal. Game over.

See all of Branko Malic’s writings on philosophy, culture, and deep politics at Kali Tribune.

Deep Politics of the Sony Hack

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Reid Mukai

When news of the Sony hack first broke in late November it seemed of relatively little importance. Stories about hacking and stolen data are increasingly common these days and Sony wasn’t a particularly sympathetic victim in light of their DRM rootkit CD scandal a few years ago. I have mixed feelings about Sony as I do with most tech/entertainment conglomerates. On one hand I appreciate the media storage innovations they’ve helped develop over the years, but with rare exceptions (eg. Starship Troopers and Attack the Block), I’ve been less fond of the content they’ve produced. Some of the worst U.S. propaganda films have been from Sony/TriStar, such as Airforce One, Black Hawk Down and Zero Dark Thirty, indicating at least some filmmakers within the studio have strong government ties. Though I’ve yet to see “The Interview”, it would be no surprise if the comedy contained elements of propaganda as well.

It wasn’t initially clear if the hacks were directly related to The Interview (and still isn’t in terms of hard evidence) but the story did serve as a reminder of the importance of internet privacy and security. Leaked information also provided an interesting glimpse into the arrogant and racist culture of the upper echelons of typical multinational corporations. About a week ago after threats allegedly from the hackers began escalating (soon after the CIA torture report story started to gain momentum), a number of theater chains announced they wouldn’t screen The Interview and a few days later Sony shelved the film completely. The decision received widespread condemnation (including harsh words from Obama), but since Sony is dealing with three class action lawsuits related to leaked personal information from the hacking, they’re probably reasonably worried about further litigation due to larger leaks and possible terrorist attacks (whether “real” or hoaxed). But the most alarming aspect of the hacking story is the reaction from the U.S. government, especially last Friday’s official press release from the FBI blaming North Korea.

Typical of U.S. government agencies, they provided zero hard evidence yet attempt to justify the absence by claiming “the need to protect sensitive sources and methods precludes us from sharing all of this information…“. So what did they provide to support their conclusion? From the press release:

Technical analysis of the data deletion malware used in this attack revealed links to other malware that the FBI knows North Korean actors previously developed. For example, there were similarities in specific lines of code, encryption algorithms, data deletion methods, and compromised networks.
The FBI also observed significant overlap between the infrastructure used in this attack and other malicious cyber activity the U.S. government has previously linked directly to North Korea. For example, the FBI discovered that several Internet protocol (IP) addresses associated with known North Korean infrastructure communicated with IP addresses that were hardcoded into the data deletion malware used in this attack.
Separately, the tools used in the SPE attack have similarities to a cyber attack in March of last year against South Korean banks and media outlets, which was carried out by North Korea.

None of this qualifies as a smoking gun because tools and codes used by hackers are not unique identifiers (it’s not uncommon for them to share or duplicate hacking techniques). It doesn’t matter if there’s similarities with previous alleged North Korean hacking attempts or links to North Korean infrastructure because such incriminating data can be fabricated by true hackers. But the FBI tips their hand with the following paragraph where they state: “North Korea’s attack on SPE reaffirms that cyber threats pose one of the gravest national security dangers to the United States.” In other words, they’re pushing a “cyber terror” scenario which could possibly lead to a “cyber Patriot Act” and increased geopolitical aggression. The national security state wants the Sony hack to be a “cyber 9/11” though they may also exploit larger attacks in the future (whether “genuine” or false-flag).

In the same paragraph the FBI states with absolutely no self-awareness or shame of hypocrisy: “North Korea’s actions were intended to inflict significant harm on a U.S. business and suppress the right of American citizens to express themselves. Such acts of intimidation fall outside the bounds of acceptable state behavior. The FBI takes seriously any attempt—whether through cyber-enabled means, threats of violence, or otherwise—to undermine the economic and social prosperity of our citizens.”

It’s obviously not considered a crime by the FBI when the U.S. government and collaborators in the private sector spy on us, suppress our freedom of speech, and/or threaten our livelihoods, and where were they when the big banks wrecked the economy? From a government that has inflicted horrific torture and countless other crimes, who are they to determine what falls outside the bounds of “acceptable state behavior”?

On the day before the release of the FBI statement, White House press secretary Josh Earnest ominously announced “[members of the national security team] would be mindful of the fact that we need a proportional response, and also mindful of the fact that sophisticated actors, when they carry out actions like this, are oftentimes — they’re not always but often seeking to provoke a response from the United States of America. They may believe that a response from us in one fashion or another would be advantageous to them.”

When pressed on how provoking a response might be advantageous, Earnest argues “it’s not hard to imagine that there may be some organizations or individuals who would perceive a specific response from the United States as something that might enhance their standing, either among their cohorts or colleagues, or even on the international stage.” Translation: shouldn’t all brainwashed Americans realize that being sabotaged, embargoed, and/or bombed by the U.S. is considered a badge of honor and prestige among the Axis of Evil?

As for what exactly the White House considers a “proportional response”, Earnest tenaciously sticks to his talking points: “I wouldn’t speculate at this point about the range of options that are currently under consideration. I also wouldn’t commit at this point to being entirely transparent about what that response is… I don’t anticipate that we’ll be in a position where we’re going to be able to be completely forthcoming about every single element of the response that has been decided upon… it would be inappropriate to get ahead of that investigation to start publicly discussing what our response is going to be, particularly in light of the fact that I’m confident that at least some of the measures that will be considered as a response are the kinds of things we wouldn’t want to telegraph in advance… I think I’ve been pretty candid about the fact that I’m not talking in a lot of detail about what our response is going to be.” etc…

As usual, the government is only interested in advancing a narrative that can further their agenda in secrecy (whether or not they were directly involved in setting up the crime). As with 9/11, it will be up to independent researchers and critical thinkers to ask “who truly benefits?” Who has the greatest means, motive and opportunity?

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