John Kiriakou: CIA Should Get Out of the Laboratory

 

 

The C.I.A. has long had labs, whether overt or covert, where terrible things happened.


By John Kiriakou
Special to Consortium News

The Central Intelligence Agency announced in October 2020 — which was ignored until just the past few weeks, when it began circulating on social media — that it had launched something called C.I.A. Labs, “a federal laboratory and in-house research and development arm for C.I.A. to drive science and technology breakthroughs for tomorrow’s intelligence challenges.”

The Agency says that C.I.A. Labs will join with a network of more than 300 other federal laboratories and that it will serve as a “research partner for other labs, academia, and industry in disciplines spanning from artificial intelligence and biotechnology to quantum computing and advanced materials manufacturing.”

The C.I.A.’s Deputy Director for Science and Technology Dawn Meyerriecks said in a statement, “In an evolving threat landscape, C.I.A. Labs will help us maintain our competitive edge and protect our nation,” whatever that means.

When I was at the C.I.A. through the 1990s and into the middle of the next decade, the deputy director for whom I worked was fond of saying (over and over again) that the job of the C.I.A. was simple: “Recruit spies to steal secrets and then analyze those secrets so that policymakers could make the best-informed policy possible.”

That was fantasy at best and disingenuous propaganda at worst. The truth is that the C.I.A. for decades has been active in areas, including “labs” and experimentation, from which it should have stayed away.

On my very first day at the C.I.A., as my new boss was walking me to the cafeteria for lunch, I happened to look out the window, where I saw something moving along the ground. It looked like a flat, round robot. My boss mentioned casually that it was a new C.I.A. invention, and it was mowing the grass. He added that the C.I.A. had invented the machine, but didn’t know what to do with it. It was the precursor of the Roomba.

But it’s not Roombas that will come out of this new C.I.A. lab.

 

What CIA Labs Have Hatched

The new lab is actually not new. The C.I.A. has long had labs, whether overt or covert, where terrible things happened. Before we celebrate this new C.I.A. lab, let’s look at what its predecessors did.

• MKULTRA is probably the best-known example of something awful that came out of a C.I.A. lab. The official explanation to Congress of the purpose of MKULTRA was the development of drugs to aid in interrogations. But it wasn’t quite that simple. Under MKULTRA, the C.I.A. experimented on unwitting Americans, including their own employees. The Church Committee’s investigators concluded that MKULTRA “aimed to develop mind-controlling drugs for use against the Soviet bloc” and “to produce a perfect truth drug for interrogating suspected Soviet spies and to explore other possibilities of mind control.”

• MKCHICKWIT was a program whereby the C.I.A. would infiltrate foreign pharmaceutical companies to steal drug samples and information about the drugs’ development. It would then seek to duplicate or to modify those drugs in its own labs.

• A similar operation, dubbed MKOFTEN, started off as a study on dopamine before morphing into something far more sinister. By the end of the “study,” it had expanded to include the hallucinogen ibogaine and to LSD in the hopes of “creating a new pharmacologically active drug affecting the central nervous system to modify men’s behavior.” Thousands of active duty U.S. servicemen were unwittingly dosed during this operation.

• Operation Midnight Climax was a program in the 1960s and 1970s, carried out in C.I.A. safehouses in San Francisco, to dose non-consenting individuals —mostly homeless men and prostitutes — with LSD and other drugs, monitor them from behind one-way glass, and determine if they would voluntarily reveal secrets. The prostitutes eventually were also taught to dose their clients and were then debriefed as to whether or not the johns had revealed any personal secrets.

• The C.I.A.’s very first foray into drug experimentation was Project CHATTER, in which both animals and humans were dosed with the drugs anabasine (a product of the tobacco plant, it is chemically similar to nicotine,) scopolamine (a drug used to treat motion sickness and post-operative nausea,) and mescaline (a hallucinogen similar to LSD and psilocybin) to see what the effects might be. The operation ended in 1953.

 

As you can see, the C.I.A.’s track record when it comes to developing things in labs isn’t a good one. And we only know about the above programs thanks to the Church Committee and the Freedom of Information Act. Otherwise, the information likely would still be kept from the American people.

My bottom line is this: I don’t care how proud the C.I.A. is of its foray into U.S. Government labs. I don’t care if it considers itself to be a research partner for other labs, academia, and industry. I don’t care if its leaders believe that they have a place in artificial intelligence, biotech, or anything else.

The C.I.A. has proven time and time again that it can’t be trusted. It has proven that it will simply push the envelope into the realm of illegality if it thinks it can get away with it. And the Congressional oversight committees have proven that they will act as little more than cheerleaders for the C.I.A., rather than as overseers.

The C.I.A. has no business creating a new lab. It shouldn’t exist.

~ John Kiriakou is a former C.I.A. counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act—a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.

STOP U.S. Wars: MLK Week of Actions, Jan 13–22

 

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.”
                ~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. April 4, 1967

 

As you know, after the October antiwar actions, more than 75 actions, we held a meeting to discuss next steps.  It was decided that we should have another week of actions and the week around Martin Luther King Day, Jan 14 – 22 was proposed.  So, we are moving forward organizing STOP U.S. Wars actions again during that week.  Many organizations endorsed the October week of actions and are anxious to continue.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. so correctly reminded us, the U.S. is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.  Since WWII, the US has initiated more than 60 military interventions in foreign countries.  The US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine brings the US in direct confrontation with a major nuclear power as does the U.S. provocation against China over Taiwan.

It is extremely important that we build a strong, unified antiwar movement that can break through the media propaganda and censorship and end the US military aggression around the world.

Each of our actions are based on building local connections among various solidarity organizations. A variety of actions are encouraged from demonstrations, teach-Ins, banner drops, chalk-ins to street meetings.

Actions linking ALL the continuing US wars and sanctions is a unifying focus and helps break through the propaganda that saturates each war.

Stop US/NATO Wars and Sanctions 

Today working people face escalating costs of food and energy, recession, growing insecurity and attacks on efforts to unionize. The continuing wars and military provocations have brought us to the brink of nuclear war.

• Stop Washington’s war moves toward Russia and China!
• Stop endless wars: Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Palestine…. everywhere
• Money for Human Needs not War
• No to NATO!

Please fill out the form to endorse the January Days of Action.

Oliver North on Ukraine and China

Amazing candor from Iran-Contra felon Ollie North:

Ukraine is just like Reagan's dirty wars in Central America, Africa and Afghanistan

Most of the aid is a kickback to US weapons makers and Beltway contractors

The proxy war is preparation for a larger war w/ China over Taiwan pic.twitter.com/kmKW2JZCH4

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 29, 2022

The position of the Hungarian Community for Peace

 

 

The key to peace

The key to peace is guaranteeing Russia's security. As long as Washington does not stop arming Ukraine, and even supplies Kiev with a medium-range Patriot missile, an immediate cease-fire and peace negotiations will remain empty words. We must realize that it is in vain that we want peace in our neighbors if our own allies do not want to end the war. 

The Western elite lulls themselves into the illusion that they can win the war and defeat Russia. The Hungarian Community for Peace constantly warns the government not to lose its sense of reality, as happens with many of its NATO partners. Anyone who talks about Russian aggression and turns a blind eye to the non-fulfillment of the Minsk agreement, the massacre of 15,000 Russians in the Donbass, and vetoes Ukraine's NATO membership only because Kyiv terrorizes the Transcarpathian Hungarians, is hardly a sincere supporter of peace! 

This is indicated by the fact that the Hungarian Parliament is preparing to ratify the expansion of NATO with Finland and Sweden. The Hungarian government, like its Western allies, is not serious about a political settlement with a mutual guarantee of security. At Christmas, Putin reached out again and said he was ready to negotiate an end to the war. The Western answer is no and no. Our government is reluctant to take the necessary step: to recognize the legitimacy of Russian security claims. In the absence of a compromise, Russia will enforce its will with a gun because it has the same right to be safe as anyone else.

It has been a year since Moscow asked Washington and Brussels in writing to conclude an agreement so that NATO does not threaten Russia along its borders, Ukraine ceases to be a battering ram of NATO, and a European security system is born in which no country can assert its security at the expense of the security of other countries. 

We all know the answer of the West: NATO was not willing to give up on the integration of Ukraine, nor on its further expansion to the east, but, on the contrary, took the direction of dismembering Russia and seizing its natural resources. US-EU had a nonsensical negotiation with Moscow, trying to buy more time to strengthen the Ukrainian army against the Russians, and Moscow decided that enough was enough. Since then, the Hungarian government has acknowledged that NATO does not want to compromise. 

Our government is afraid that if it takes the inevitable step, NATO itself will lose its meaning and our country will become neutral. We wouldn't see anything wrong with that! According to our position, it is in the interest of our country to live in good relations with both the East and the West. No one should impose sanctions on us, hinder our development, the free movement of people, goods, capital, or interfere in our internal affairs. Our national interest is cooperation instead of confrontation! 

What we are not interested in is the exact opposite. The Hungarian Community for Peace starts from the premise that Hungary's interest is equal, peaceful cooperation with everyone.

Budapest, 27 December 2022

Magyar Békekör/Facebook
Magyar Békekör/VK
Magyar Békekör/Wordpress 

Zelensky is another Churchill?

 

 

Zelensky is compared to Winston Churchill and Abe Lincoln.

Come on..... 

Tucker happens to be right about this one.

It's the perfect illustration of how the public is brainwashed by the neo-cons.

This is media corruption for certain.

No U.S. nukes in Europe - No WW 3

 

 

This short animated video reviews the new nuclear warheads the United States is deploying in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey (and very likely UK too) without the people's knowledge or consent. 

Who are these nukes being aimed at?

Russia....   

Good luck if you happen to think that the US is truly 'liberating' Ukraine with its proxy war on Russia. And even more good luck to you if you believe that Washington won't use nukes to try to take out Moscow. You will need extraordinarily good luck if you think that a full-blown red-hot nuclear war would be survivable!

So what is left?

Stop NATO. Stop sending US taxpayer dollars down the rat hole in Ukraine. Stop buying the non-stop BS from the corporate media and so-called 'progressive media' like Democracy Now and other compromised sources. Check their donors if you doubt me.

Demand a halt to the absolutely massive trillion dollar annual appropriations for the Pentagon.

Stop voting for politicians (from either party) who are clearly corporate agents and have turned the national treasury over to the warmongers.

Stop spouting the neo-con endless lies.

Go hold a sign on a street corner saying 'No war with Russia' or 'Bring our war $$$$ Home'.

Maybe if we do these things we could rebuild the currently disabled and divided peace movement that has largely been corrupted by the oligarchic agenda.

Possibly then we could live thru the coming year that at this point looks to be 'full steam ahead' toward WW 3.

Best wishes to all of us.

Bruce

PS Moscow is not likely to ever agree to a 'ceasefire' as long as the US-NATO keep flooding Ukraine with more weapons systems that are used to attack the Russian-ethnic regions of eastern Ukraine (Donbass) and lately even hitting targets inside of Russia. 

U.S. planning 'first-strike' on Moscow?

 

 

RT

 US should think twice before contemplating ‘decapitation strike’

American officials essentially suggested the elimination of Russia’s leadership, the foreign minister has said

Reported comments by US officials about the possibility of a “decapitation strike” against Russia strongly suggest that Washington does not rule out the assassination of President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TASS news agency published on Tuesday.

The minister noted that some “‘unnamed officials from the Pentagon actually threatened to conduct a ‘decapitation strike’ on the Kremlin…What we are talking about is the threat of the physical elimination of the head of the Russian state,” he said.

The top diplomat went on to warn against such a line of thinking. “If such ideas are actually being nourished by someone, this someone should think very carefully about the possible consequences of such plans.”

Lavrov was apparently referring to a September article by Newsweek, which alleged that US defense officials are considering a number of options to respond against a potential Russian nuclear strike, including “a decapitation strike to kill Putin in the heart of the Kremlin.”

Fears of a possible nuclear conflict have been sparked in the West after Putin said in September that Moscow would use “all means” necessary to defend Russia and its people if its territorial integrity is threatened. However, Moscow has repeatedly stated that it has no plans to deploy atomic weapons, maintaining that a nuclear war should never be fought.

The foreign minister also accused some of America's partners of embracing a confrontational approach in the nuclear sphere. “They seem to have gone completely beyond the bounds of decency,” he said, recalling that former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss “without a shadow of a doubt declared during the election debates that she was quite ready to order a nuclear strike.”

Lavrov also recalled Ukraine’s statements on the matter, saying “I not even mentioning the Kiev regime’s provocations, that go off the chart. [Ukrainian President] Vladimir Zelensky went as far as to demand preventive nuclear strikes by NATO countries on Russia. This is also beyond the bounds of what is acceptable,” he noted.

Clare Daly on EU hypocrisy

 

 

Madam President, everybody knows, of course, that Qatar is one of the most repressive regimes in the world, where human rights simply don’t exist for the majority of the people. Of course, it’s not the only one, but the idea of improvements in minimum wage and labour conditions and so on really belies the reality for so many people – particularly the thousands who have lost their lives without any compensation. But for all the standing—up in here and crying about ‘sportswashing’ and giving out about football, the truth is that next week most people will come in here behind closed doors and agree to give Qatar the privilege of visa—free travel to the EU, a privilege that most countries – more than a hundred actually – in the world don’t have. 

You’ll sign off on Qatari progress on human rights, even as the families of the dead are still mourning their loved ones. You’ll do it for oil and gas, because the EU has cut itself off from Russian energy as it’s an authoritarian regime fighting an illegal war, but you will do business with an authoritarian regime that’s fighting an illegal war in Yemen. Nobody’s fooled. If there was a world cup for hypocrisy, the EU would walk away the victors without a match being played!

Latest update from those who know the real story in Ukraine

 

 

Judge Andrew Napolitano's latest interview with Col Doug Macgregor 

Sunday song