CovertAction Bulletin

The recent case of Liselle Herrera, a 26 year old woman charged with murder for performing a “self-induced abortion” made national news, bringing attention again to the human rights crisis happening in Texas around reproductive rights. What people don’t know is that this crisis is fueled by dark money, corruption, and deeper right-wing capitalist agendas for deregulation. How much money is changing hands and what does this mean for women's rights and LGBTQ rights? 

We also talk about the unfolding tragedy in Sunset Park of a mass shooter on the subway. While details are still emerging at the time of recording, we discuss how politicians and the media have already begun using this tragedy to further fuel the militarization of the police. 

April 11 marks the 20th anniversary of the coup attempt of then-president Hugo Chavez in Venezuela that strengthened the resolve of the revolution. We dive into a reflection on the Venezuelan socialist project in the last 20 years, and the impact of sanctions on the nation.

In a shock to no one, the mainstream media had abysmal coverage of the Senate Budget Committee hearing on corporate greed called by Bernie Sanders. 2021 marked the highest record corporate profits reaching almost $3 trillion in U.S. history. We discuss corporate greed and the left's complicated relationship to Sanders as a figure.

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US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that weapons and other equipment, including anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, Humvees and Puma drones, are being sent to Ukraine and NATO allies at “an unprecedented pace.” At the UN Security Council, in the White House and at NATO briefings, the military officials, politicians and the press only seem to be able to discuss sending more weapons instead of finding a lasting, diplomatic solution to the crisis.

We also highlight two speakers from CovertAction’s April 1 webinar, “The First Casualty of War is Truth.” Chris de Ploeg and Gerald Horne shared knowledge about the history of the run-up to the crisis between NATO and Ukraine.

In addition, we mark the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and what role the US government may have played in his shooting, the missing 457 minutes of Trump’s call logs on January 6, 2021, and more.

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In Hawaii thousands of people have been displaced and 93,000 have had their water poisoned by the Red Hill Navy facility. This is after two fuel leaks just last year, and a major fuel leak of 27,000 gallons of fuel in 2014. The Navy sacrifices water for war by refusing to do anything about the facility, which activists demand should be closed and fuel tanks drained immediately.  We are joined by Wayne Chung Tanaka, the director of the Sierra Club of Hawai'i, which has been fighting to shut down the Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility for years.

Ding Dong the witch is dead - Madeline Albright’s death prompts a reflection on her history of anti-communism and her role in the destruction of Iraq. We also discuss the unsettling surfacing of deep-fakes of Zelensky telling Ukrainian people to give up arms and the technology’s use in warfare and spycraft. Finally, we talk about the real violence in Hollywood - supported by the CIA and Pentagon.

*Thank you for your patience with our audio this week, we had some serious technical difficulties! All will be fine for next week's episode.

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As the US government continues to say it does not want US or NATO forces coming into direct conflict with Russian troops, a recent report in Yahoo News revealed that since 2015, the CIA has been overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces who are trained for insurgency.

What is the real purpose of this CIA program? And what does it actually say about U.S. intentions in the region? 

We discuss the history of this decades-long CIA training program in Ukraine, and more. Joining the show is Walter Smolarek, of the podcast The Socialist Program.

We also discuss Ukranian President Voldymyr Zelensky’s speech Sunday night where he denied Ukranian involvement in the Holocaust, the recent disturbing tweet from Secretary Blinken blaming Yemeni people for the ongoing U.S.-backed Saudi war in Yemen, and the role that U.S. intelligence agencies have played in cyber attacks. 

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We are joined on today’s show by Amanda Yee, host of the podcast Radio Free Amanda to discuss the one-year anniversary of the Atlanta Spa shooting. The epidemic of anti-Asian violence has grown exponentially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, Asian Americans have always been viewed as “enemy aliens” as the FBI and U.S. government had historically called it. We discuss the CIA launching of the “China Initiative” in 2018 and the new cold war on China, and what all this has to do with the tragedy of Atlanta and the rising hate crimes against Asian Americans.

We also discuss the massive spending bill that Biden signed off on Tuesday, dedicating billions of dollars in what the Pentagon is calling “aid” to Ukraine. Meanwhile sanctions deepen on Russia, pushing everyday Russian people into a deeper crisis. 

Additionally, Clearview AI has been using facial recognition technology in the crisis in Ukraine while big data and analytics company Palantir wants to expand in Europe. What does this mean? We dive deeper into that story and the threats of the surveillance state in time of war. 

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The information war has heated up, this time with targets on the backs of anti-war journalists and media voices critical to NATO and the U.S. Last week, the offices of RT America were suddenly and abruptly shut down amid the war fever and Russophobia spreading across the country. In addition to banning an entire network, platforms like Twitter and Spotify have also taken steps to discredit individual journalists by removing their content. 

In the last week we’ve also seen mainstream media outlets like the Washington Post churn out hit pieces claiming that voices exposing U.S. empire, uplifting black liberation struggles, or speaking out against capitalism are nothing more than Russian propaganda. 

Joining the show is Lee Camp, the former host and head writer of the weekly comedy news show Redacted Tonight, which aired on RT America.

We are also joined by Jacquie Luqman and Sean Blackmon the hosts of “By Any Means Necessary” on Radio Sputnik.  

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The outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine did not come out of nowhere. Fundamental to understanding the current moment is the history of NATO expansion in Europe — which the U.S. repeatedly promised Russia would not happen. 

We are joined by Richard Becker of the ANSWER Coalition to discuss the events in Ukraine and Russia from 2014 leading up to the current crisis. We ask the question, what should the U.S. anti-war movement demand?

In our patrons only edition of today's episode, we are also joined by Jeremy Kuzmarov, the Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. You can get access to this patrons-only interview by becoming a patron at patreon.com/CovertActionMagazine

 Together we discuss Jeremy's article titled, “As U.S. Threatens War with Russia, Biden Administration Unveils Imperial Strategy for Indo-Pacific That Could Lead to War with China” as well as the relationship between Russia and China in this conflict and explore deeper the U.S. and NATO aggression that are the roots of this crisis.

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Today we turn to Philip Agee, ex-CIA Case Officer from 1957 to 1969. After a series of short extraordinary excerpts from interviews with Philip Agee, featured in the classic documentary history of the CIA entitled “On Company Business," David Giglio goes in-depth with Louis Wolf and Chris Agee discussing Phil and the history of CovertAction Magazine.

Philip Agee was stationed in various parts of Latin America including Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico throughout the 1960s. As one of the first ex-CIA whistleblowers to go public in 1975, Agee not only exposed the covert activities of the U.S. government but provided the critical analysis including political economy to contextualize the mechanics of U.S. imperialism.

In addition to writing his tell-all book in 1975 entitled CIA Diary: Inside the Company, where he named all the actual names and operations, Agee started CovertAction Magazine (originally named CovertAction Information Bulletin) in 1978 with Louis Wolf, William Schaap, Ellen Ray, James and Elsie Wilcott, William Kunstler, and Michael Ratner.

The Magazine was created in order to carry on the work of the preceding publication called CounterSpy, which had been shut down as a result of CIA harassment. Over the years, contributors to the Magazine have included critics of U.S. foreign policy such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Philip Wheaton, Sean Gervasi and Christopher Hitchens.

By the printing of the second issue, eleven bookstores promoted the stapled newsletter. And by issue #3, the official library of the CIA had actually sent in its subscription request which was then posted on the cover. You can read these and all the back issues in the archives of CovertActionMagazine.com.

The publication became of interest to Congress in 1982 with the passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which made the practice of revealing the names of undercover officers illegal under U.S. law—even if derived from public unclassified sources.

Over the years, the magazine worked with and supported whistleblowers like John Stockwell, Ralph McGehee, David MacMichael, Jennifer Harbrury, Ambassador/Colonel Ann Wright, Christopher Simpson, and Wayne Madsen, publishing hundreds of articles on CIA covert operations and intelligence-related disclosures including undercover NSA and FBI operations in the U.S. and around the world.

When you think of the more recent whistleblowers including Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Jeffrey Sterling, and Daniel Hale, we are talking about a long history of whistleblowers going back to Philip Agee, Daniel Ellsberg, Anthony Russo and more…

As covered in earlier episodes, CAM played a important role in the making of Oliver Stone’s JFK in the early 1990s. Ellen Ray and Bill Schaap encouraged, edited and published Jim Garrison’s book entitled “On the Trail of the Assassins.” They then handed it to Oliver Stone in an elevator at the Havana Film Festival in the late 80s and he was quickly convinced to make the film.

In 1992, with issue #43, the magazine was renamed as CovertAction Quarterly and won awards from organizations including Project Censored for stories like "Phi Beta Capitalism", about corporate influence on universities.

CovertAction Quarterly ceased publication of its print magazine in 2005 with issue #78, and later relaunched online as CovertAction Magazine in 2018.

Numerous articles from CovertAction Quarterly were collected in two anthologies, CovertAction: The Roots of Terrorism and Bioterror: Manufacturing Wars The American Way, both by Ellen Ray and Bill Schaap and published by Ocean Press in 2003.

Agee and Louis Wolf also published Dirty Work: The CIA in W

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Today we turn to whistleblower Bill Binney, the former intelligence official and Technical Director of the National Security Agency, and go in-depth on the surveillance state, how 9/11 could have been avoided, Russiagate and more...

Bill resigned in the wake of 9/11 after more than 30 years with the NSA. He was a critic of his former employers during the Bush Sr. and Jr. administrations, and later criticized the NSA's data-collection policies during the Obama administration. More recently, he demonstrated with technical evidence that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections by hacking into the DNC servers.

After the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, Bill and his team were fast developing a program called ThinThread to monitor all communications around the world. The Nation reported that "despite ThinThread’s proven capacity to collect actionable intelligence, agency director Gen. Michael Hayden vetoed the idea of deploying the system in August 2001, just three weeks before 9/11." Hayden’s decisions, the whistleblowers told The Nation, "left the NSA without a system to analyze the trillions of bits of foreign SIGINT flowing over the Internet at warp speed, as ThinThread could do."

After discarding Bill's ThinThread program, which cost $3.2 million and used encryption to block out certain aspects of communications that might violate the U.S. constitution, among other things, Hayden implemented TrailBlazer instead, which violated numerous U.S. constitutional protections and cost 1,000 times more.

Not that we at CAM are in favor of any surveillance program, even Bill, as he tells us in this interview, celebrates the fact that he quit and never delivered an even more powerful program that would automatically produce reports on actionable intelligence.

Jeremy Kuzmarov, the Managing Editor at CAM, and Chris Agee, Executive Editor, sat down with Bill last September (2020) and discussed his work with the NSA, why he quit, and his views on the current surveillance state. Among other revelations, Bill provides evidence demonstrating that the DNC hack by the Russians was a false flag event and that the surveillance state is slipping into what he calls 'total population control toward totalitarianism.'

See the attached slides Bill uses in his talks exposing the worldwide surveillance state.

Thank you for listening to and supporting CovertAction Bulletin, the official podcast of CovertAction Magazine--an investigative journal exposing covert action since 1978. Head on over to our website where you will find hundreds of articles on the nefarious activities of U.S. imperialism and plutocrats worldwide.

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In this episode, we turn to Nicaragua and the recent elections that just took place last month, on November 7th.

Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas won the elections with over 75% of the vote. Nicaragua’s non-partisan, independent Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) reported that over 65% of the 4.4 million eligible voters (16 years and older) participated in the election.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media—including so-called progressive media outlets like National Public Radio—regurgitated U.S. State Department talking points on the elections highlighting the jailing of opponents without providing the much-needed background to the events including the activities of the U.S.-supported coup-plotters advocating the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government.

As reported in CovertAction Magazine, The Grey Zone and other trailblazing outlets, the reality on the ground couldn't be more different.

As is typical, U.S. covert activities were in full swing using National Endowment for Democracy and U.S. Agency for International Development money to finance the opposition, destabilize the country and the elections, not to mention support worldwide propaganda campaigns to deride President Ortega as a dictator. Its no wonder that so many people are confused about recent events in Nicaragua.

Today, we take an in-depth look at the electoral process and history of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. We find that U.S. destabilization efforts are nothing new—efforts that are quite common around the world—particularly in countries that are forging independent paths to implement universal healthcare, literacy campaigns and economies oriented toward raising the standard of living for its own people. In the view of the U.S. plutocratic elite, such efforts undermine international corporate interests and serve as an example threatening U.S. hegemony.

CAM sent globetrotting correspondent Lauren Smith to Nicaragua to report on the elections first hand. See her in-depth article published in CovertAction Magazine entitled "Nicaragua’s Evidence-Based Democracy Threatens U.S. Oppression Domestically and Abroad." She joins us today with Mark Cook who has reported on Nicaragua for the past 4 decades.

Thank you for listening to and supporting CovertAction Bulletin, the official podcast of CovertAction Magazine--an investigative journal exposing covert action since 1978. Head on over to our website where you will find hundreds of articles on the nefarious activities of U.S. imperialism and plutocrats worldwide.

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