The Guardian reports that the UN is launching an investigation into US drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. This comes at the request of Pakistan and two permanent members of the Security Council. British lawyer Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur leading the investigation, will also review drone strikes Israel has carried out in Palestine.

Emmerson will study twenty to thirty strikes to assess the extent of any civilian casualties, the identity of militants targeted and the legality of strikes in countries where the UN has not formally recognized there is a conflict.

Read more here

photo credit: Doctress Neutopia via photopin cc

Crossposted at Daily Censored

Retiring Congressman Ron Paul, former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, comes down on the same side as many progressives on the Israeli occupation of Palestine. A recent post on his website, reiterates comments he made when was president about Gaza being nothing but a vast concentration camp.

It has never mattered to Paul which party was in power. His greatest appeal, especially among young supporters, is his ability to tell the unvarnished truth. He puts the blame for Gazan atrocities squarely where it belongs: with the US government, which is the main supplier of planes and bombs Israel uses to attack Palestinians.

He highlights Obama’s hypocrisy in “racing” to justify Israel’s massacre of Gazan civilians – “No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders” – reminding us of all the missiles our President is raining down on Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and numerous other countries.

The libertarian congressman  sides with progressive columnist Glenn Greenwald when he emphasizes that current US policy only exacerbates the loss of human life on both sides. He also points outs that our country’s bellicose Middle East policy serves to reduce, rather than increase US security.

Read more here: How to end the tragedy in Gaza

Mail Online photo

According to the British Mail Online, Pakistani human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar has filed two separate court cases intended to trigger a formal murder investigation into the roles of two US officials responsible for ordering drone strikes which killed teachers, students and policemen in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The officials are Jonathan Banks, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Islamabad station, and John A. Rizzo, the CIA’s former chief lawyer. Rizzo is named because of an interview he gave after he retired as CIA General Counsel last year. In it, he boasts that he personally authorized every drone strike in which America’s enemies were ‘hunted down and blown to bits’.

The first case which has already been heard by a court in Islamabad and judgment is expected imminently. If the judge grants Akbar’s petition, an international arrest warrant will be issued via Interpol against the  two Americans.

The second case is being heard in the city of Peshawar. In it, Akbar and the families of civilian drone victims civilians are seeking a ruling that further strikes in Pakistani airspace should be viewed as ‘acts of war’. For this reason, they argue that the Pakistan Air Force should try to shoot down the drones and that the government should sever diplomatic relations with the US and launch murder inquiries against those responsible.

According to a report last month by academics at Stanford and New York universities, between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed since Pakistan drone strikes began in 2004. According to the report, up to  881 were civilians, including 176  children. Only 41 people who were killed were confirmed as ‘high-value’ terrorist targets.

Read more here: CIA Chiefs Face Arrest

***

To provide some historical context, I have embedded the 1998 documentary about five brave whistleblowers (Ralph McGhehee, Verne Lyon, Mary Embree and Phillip Agee), who left the Agency owing to disgust with CIA policies involving the torture and assassination of innocent civilians and subsequently went public. Agee, especially, experienced major retaliation for writing about his past CIA work. Roetinger’s account is most interesting, as he was in charge of organizing the coup in Guatemala that removed democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz from the presidency. The manner in which Roetinger was recruited is extremely comical. This CIA officer comes to the door, refuses to identify himself and tells him they want him to overthrow an unnamed government in Latin America.

YouTube video is in 6 parts. Full video can also be seen at http://www.personalgrowthcourses.net/video/secrets_cia

The Road to Guantanamo

(Free download – 2006 Directed by Morgan Spurlock)

If film won’t play go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HCw-5Qnm8c

Film Review

The Road to Guantanomo is docudrama about the Tipton 3, three British Muslims who were captured along with dozens of civilian refugees when the Afghan town of Kunduz fell to the Northern Alliance. When their captors’ CIA advisers learned they were from Britain, they were transferred to Guantanamo in the belief they would provide valuable intelligence under interrogation (i.e. torture). In addition to providing a realistic and gruesome depiction of daily life in the US prison at Guantanamo Cuba, the film provides an in depth look at the psychological make up of both the Tipton 3 and the CIA agents who conducted their interrogation sessions

The film begins in September 2001, when Azif decides to travel from Tipton (a suburb of Birmingham) to his home village in Pakistan to meet the bride his family has chosen for him. He meets her, decides to participate in the arranged marriage and requests that his three closest friends from Tipton join him in Pakistan for the ceremony. The four of them (their friend Monir is killed in a bombing raid shortly after his capture in Afghanistan) sleep in a mosque in Karachi to save the expense of a hotel. They are moved by an impassioned speech by the imam about the need to help the Afghan people (who are caught in a decade long civil war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance) “in any way they can.”

The young Muslims’ motives for traveling to Afghanistan are unclear. The film leaves the impression they are victims of reckless youthful curiosity. In any case they cross the border October 11, 2001 – the same day Bush begins carpet bombing Afghanistan. They spend 2 ½ weeks in Kabul. Because the continuous air raids severely restrict their movements, they arrange for what they think is a ride back to Pakistan. Because they speak neither Farsi nor Pashtun, they end up in Kunduz province and become trapped there when it’s taken over by the Northern alliance.

Daily Life in Guantanamo

During their three years at Guantanamo, they are denied access to their families or lawyers. When they first arrive, they are held in open air cages rather than cells. The most striking aspect of their stay at Camp Xray is the extreme level of verbal and physical abuse and systematic degradation they experience at the hands of their Marine guards. In addition to being constantly deprived of food and water (as punishment for refusing to confess and other infractions). they must remain seated at all times are are punished if they talk, stand up, move, pray or put towels on their head (to pray). The guards swear at them constantly. If they persist in talking (or praying, standing up, moving etc), four or five marines enter their cage and beat and kicked them to a bloody pulp.

The treatment their CIA torturers subjects them to consists mainly of verbal abuse, food deprivation, painful shackling and cavity searches, beatings and extensive periods of isolation. Azif describes having his wrists and ankles shackled to the floor – and being forced to defecate and urinate on himself – while in isolation.

Street Smarts

Two of the Tipton 3 had prior criminal records in Britain related to gang activity. Azif and Ruhel had both pleaded guilty to breaking a man’s jaw and cheekbone with a bottle and hammer in a gang fight in 1998. Ironically it’s this criminal record that results in their release. For months CIA interrogators try to get them to confess to attending Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in either January or August 2000. Both Azif and Ruhel have alibis for these periods, owing to frequent contact with the police, courts and probation.

Ironically the men’s prior experience with gangs and street life leaves them much better prepared than the devout Muslim detainees for the brutal sociopathic behavior of their CIA interrogators. Although the CIA has Azif’s police records, showing he was in Britain during the periods in question, they continue to torture him to force him to confess. This conduct is distinctly different from that seen in torture experiments – in which subjects engage in torture because a superior orders this to. This is pure sociopathy, a personality disorder (according to the DSM IV) characterized by a total lack of empathy and a callous, cynical and contemptuous disregard for the feelings, rights and suffering of other human beings.

After years of running the streets of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, the three youths are far more skilled at dishing out putdowns than their CIA interrogators. During his time at Camp X-ray, Shafiq writes and performs a rap for his friends and the guards about the way they are being treated:

“My name’s Shafiq Rasul, and I’m from Tipton,

I tell them I ain’t Taliban, but they don’t wanna listen.

You won’t believe I just came out here, for my mate’s wedding, do you?

I never thought my ass would be heading for Cuba.”

From our friends at We Are Change

If video fails to play go to We Are Change

If you read/hear it in the US media, assume it's a lie.

Anyone who has followed the war in Iraq is aware of the bitter religious and political rivalry between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Thus it’s pity that the mainstream corporate media fails to enlighten us about the major sectarian conflict underlying the civil war in Syria. Yes, civil war. For thirteen months, the Muslim Brotherhood, which claims to represent the majority Sunni population, has been fighting to overthrow the predominantly Shiite government of Bashar al-Assad. The US media, which continues to perpetuate the myth that Syria’s only problem is a ruthless dictator who likes shooting unarmed civilians, omits important historical facts essential to understanding the current military conflict:

1. This is the second attempt by Syrian Sunnis, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, to overthrow the Shiite government. The first uprising of Sunni Islamists occurred in 1976 -1982, against the regime of Hafez al-Assad (father of the current dictator Bashar al-Assad).
2. The civil war in Libya was also Sunni-led, which is the main reason the Muslim Brotherhood, which runs post-Gaddafi Libya, has instituted strict sharia law. The latter is notorious for extremely harsh penalties (including death) for blasphemy, homosexuality, theft, adultery and use of intoxicants.
3. Both the Libyan and Syrian rebels have received major financial support from Sunni Gulf States in the Arab League, most notably Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Qatar also provided the bulk of military aid to the Libyan rebels. Both countries have approved weapons shipments to the Free Syrian Army. However at the request of Secretary of State Clinton, they have postponed delivery to avoid undermining the Annan peace process. At the same time, it’s a matter of public record that Sunni Gulf states are supplying the funds for Free Syrian Army salaries See Gulf States Warned Against Arming Syria. In addition, many former Libyan rebels have relocated to Syria with their weapons.

Most of this background, about Syria’s sectarian divisions and the major support Syrian rebels receive from Sunni Gulf states (as well as CIA trainers and US special operations forces – see Why the US Wants Regime Change in Syria), receives fairly good coverage in the British and international press. In contrast, the US media merely functions as the propaganda arm of the Obama administration.

The Political Agenda of Wahhabi Sunnis

As Tariq Ali outlines in his book the Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity, the Sunni Wahhabism practiced in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, is a conservative and austere form of Islam that insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran. Strict Wahhabis believe that Muslims who don’t practice their form of Islam are heathens and enemies. Part and parcel of Wahhabism is the belief that their religious doctrine must also have political expression. This translates into the view of many Sunnis that the only form of government acceptable to Allah is an Islamic state operating according to strict Sharia law.

Wahhabism’s explosive growth began in the 1970s when Saudi and United Arab Emirate (UAE) charities (and US intelligence) began funding Wahhabi schools (Madrassas) throughout the Islamic world. The US government strategically supported the rise of Wahhabism and the Muslim Brotherhood to counter the secular Arab leftists and nationalists who controlled most of the Middle East prior to 1967 (see Israel’s Role in Creating Hamas). The latter were understandably unsympathetic to the corporate interests of US oil companies who were heavily invested in the region.

The spread of Madrassas in Pakistan led to the gradual islamization of a state that was largely secular at the time of its separation from India (see Wikileaks: Saudi Arabia, UAE funded jihadi networks). This was accompanied by increasing religious intolerance and the creation of a jihadist mujaheddin army (funded and trained by the CIA) to repel the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. These CIA freedom fighters would later become the Taliban, who would come to occupy all of Afghanistan and enact an extremely oppressive version of Sharia law.

The US Role in Bringing Sharia Law to Libya

The US and NATO have recently been complicit in bringing a similar Wahhabi government to Libya. Owing to Syria’s close relationship with Iran’s Shia-led government, Obama is extremely gung-ho about pursuing a similar agenda in Syria. Fortunately, thanks to the refusal of China and Russia to go along with UN-sanctioned regime change, the truth about Syria’s civil war is gradually coming out (at least in the international media). Many Syrian civilians, especially Shias, Christians, Sufis and other minorities, are terrified of the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power and subjecting them to the same intense persecution these minorities experience in Saudi Arabia, Libya and other states governed by Whahhabi Sunnis.

Disunity in the Syrian Opposition

It has also come out that there are deep divisions in both the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the Free Syrian Army. Both veteran opposition leaders and a new generation of young activists are deeply critical of the lack of support they receive from the Muslim Brotherhood leaders and Syrian exiles who run the SNC. Many of the SNC’s critics are Sunni Muslims who see strong advantages to continuing secular rule in Syria. They just want to end the hereditary dictatorship of the Assad family.

Likewise, members of the Free Syrian Army who have defected from Assad’s forces feel that their military experience makes them the natural leaders of the rebel forces. Yet they are continually overruled by religious zealots who control the purse strings, thanks to their links to Sunni governments in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

A few analysts have speculated that this disunity was the main rationale for the SNC’s urgent request for NATO support. Their leadership believes an international bombing campaign would serve to unify a hopelessly fragmented opposition, as it did in Libya.

Iraqi Parliament

The American political landscape is undergoing rapid change. A book I published seven weeks ago on political change (Revolutionary Change: An Expatriate View) is already out of date, and I’m hard at work on a second edition. No one dared hope that the simple anti-greed message of five hundred demonstrators camped out in a Wall Street park could instantly overcome decades of political apathy in the US. Moreover there are already small signs that #OccupyWallStreet is impacting US foreign policy.

The first major accomplishment of the antiglobalization movement was in empowering the third world WTO delegates who attended the 1999 Seattle Ministerial to refuse, for the first time, to submit to major concessions the US was trying to ram down their throats. There is already evidence – from Iraq, Palestine, and Pakistan – that OWS is having similar repercussions in the Middle East. This can be seen both in new boldness on the part of Iraq and Pakistan, and a major concessionary move on the part of the US and Israel.

The Iraqi Parliament Pushes Back

In October the mainstream media widely reported that Obama will withdraw all US troops from Iraq by the end of December. Only a few outlets reported the back story – that both the Pentagon and State Department have been pushing for 10,000 US troops to remain past the December withdrawal deadline. The response, in early October, by the Iraqi government and all opposition parties was unanimous: a decision in the Iraqi parliament to withdraw legal immunity (for war crimes) for any US troops who remained after December 2011. This left Obama no choice but to withdraw them. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iraq-pm-immunity-issue-scuttled-us-troop-deal/2011/10/22/gIQAX6k26L_video.html).

Israel Releases 1,027 Palestinian Prisoners

A week later Israel, which is totally reliant on US political and military support for its existence, agreed to the unprecedented release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in return for one Israeli soldier Hamas has been holding in captivity for over five years (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Israel-Arrests-Palestinian-by-Stephen-Lendman-111022-492.html).

Reversal in Pakistan

Meanwhile, over a matter of weeks, there is a 180 degree reversal in harsh Pentagon/State Department rhetoric towards Pakistan, which, in September, seemed to signal impending US military intervention in Pakistan. A month ago Admiral Mike Mullen, who chairs the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused Pakistan’s intelligence service of direct complicity in terrorist attacks on the US embassy in Kabul. Yet on October 25, five weeks after #OccupyWallStreet began, the State Department released two interviews by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/25/us-not-seeking-overt-military-action-in-fata-says-clinton.html) with a very different message. In them Clinton emphasizes that the US has no plans to send ground troops into as no plans to send ground troops into the tribal areas and no longer expects Pakistan to undertake military action against the Pakistani Taliban. She also acknowledges for the first time that the Pakistani Taliban have safe havens in US-occupied Afghanistan, which they are using to launch terrorist attacks in Pakistan’s cities. Sajjat Shaukat (http://www.newscenterpk.com/shift-in-us-south-asian-policy.html) and other Pakistani analysts attribute this about face, in part, to massive civil unrest (i.e. #OccupyWallStreet) the US government confronts in its major US cities.

Although the mainstream media is unlikely to acknowledge the link between these events and #OccupyWallStreet, it seems highly unlikely that they are totally unconnected.

My last blog suggested that the current US wars in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia are really proxy wars with China over oil and gas resources. I continue the discussion by outlining the crucial Chinese and US alliances in the region.

The prime ministers of China and Pakistan

China‘s Strategic Alliance with Pakistan

Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s recent threats against Pakistan for allegedly promoting Taliban terrorism are pure rhetoric. Their purpose is to conceal the strategic importance of Pakistan (and Afghanistan) in US competition with China over oil and national gas resources. It also conceals the reality that the undeclared US war against Pakistan (approximately 2,000 civilians have been killed since the drone attacks started in 2004 – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan) is really a proxy war against China.

Pakistan is China’s strongest ally in protecting the oil supply critical to its booming economy is Pakistan. At present China imports 46% of its oil. In contrast the US imports 60%. (See http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/6891500.html). Twenty percent of Chinese oil imports come from Saudi Arabia and somewhat less from Angola (see http://www.presstv.ir/detail/183746.html.) Ten percent of China’s oil imports come from Iran.

Growing Military Tension in Pakistan

Until recently, all oil originating from Saudi Arabia and Iran had to be transported via the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, which is under the control of the US Navy (see http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/62604/dennis-blair-and-kenneth-lieberthal/smooth-sailingthe-worlds-shipping-lanes-are-safe). To counterbalance this de facto US control over their oil transhipments, China built a port in Gwadar (in Balochistan province) Pakistan to facilitate overland oil transport – via an extensive Chinese-built super highway and eventually the IPIC (the Iran- Pakistan- India-China) pipeline.

Since 2002, covert CIA support for the Baloch separatist movement and daily “terrorist” bombings and assassinations have seriously disrupted operations at the Gwadar Port (see “Our CIA Freedom Fighters in Pakistan” at http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/03/07/our-cia-freedom-fighters-in-pakistan/). As this obviously has more effect on the Pakistan economy than on China, the Pakistani government has recently given China permission to build a naval base in Gwadar http://corredorbioceanico.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/great-game-in-the-indian-ocean/.This move is also partly motivated by continued US violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty with CIA drone strikes in Waziristan.

China’s Other Strategic Alliances

As US influence in Saudi Arabia declines (in 2003 they demanded the US withdraw their troops from Saudi military bases – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_Saudi_Arabia), the Chinese also strengthen political and economic ties with the Saudis.

Meanwhile as the US prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan, the US State Department is extremely concerned about growing Chinese investment and influence in Afghanistan, especially in view of China’s strong alliance with Pakistan and the latter’s historic links with the Taliban (which seems positioned to take power following US withdrawal). Important context often omitted by the US media is that the CIA collaborated with Pakistan to create the Taliban in CIA-funded Madrassas (fundamentalist Islamic schools) to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1988). The subsequent Taliban takeover was fully supported by both Bush senior and Clinton, in the belief that they had the ability to bring peace and stability to a country devastated by decades of civil war. Both were essential to enable US oil companies to employ Afghanistan as a transit route for newly discovered Caspian Sea oil and gas. It was only when the Taliban balked at the Bush administration’s proposed oil-gas pipeline in 2001 that they became the enemy.

It’s no surprise that China is also one of the strongest political and economic supporters of Hamas and the Palestinian peace process (see http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-03/26/content_12231765.htm). At present Israeli terrorist victims are suing a Chinese bank that provided major financial support to Hamas (http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=228728).

US Allegiances in the Middle East

India, Pakistan’s long time enemy, is a strong ally of the US (second only to Israel) in this strategic war over resources. Indian intelligence (RAW) is a longstanding supporter of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance. With US military support, the Northern Alliance install Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan following the US invasion, although Karzai only controls a small area around Kabul. RAW provided the Northern Alliance with weapons, training and financial support while the US and Pakistan were still supporting the Taliban. In addition, RAW provides major support for the Baloch separatist movement in Pakistan (see “Our CIA Freedom Fighters in Pakistan” at http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/03/07/our-cia-freedom-fighters-in-pakistan/). According to many Pakistani analysts, it’s also responsible for cross border terrorism on the Kashmir-Pakistan border (see http://www.newscenterpk.com/indian-double-game-with-bangladesh.html).

This is the first of a series of posts discussing the likelihood that capitalism is on the verge of collapse and what a post-capitalistic world might look like.

Fatal Debt Contagion

As the global recession and debt crisis worsens, even mainstream analysts are starting to speculate that global capitalism is on the verge of collapse. At the moment, most attention is focused on European “debt contagion.” European Union economists are terrified that the Greek government will default on their debt. A Greek default makes it inevitable that Spain and Italy will also default. The mechanism here relates to the totally unregulated, speculative way in which “sovereign debt” (the money countries borrow from private banks to finance government operations) is financed.

Investment banks in France, Germany, London and New York have already jacked up the interest rates they charge Italy and Spain – high risk investments always command higher interest rates. Higher debt repayments will make Italian and Spanish default inevitable, which will increase interest rates on Japanese, British and US debt – as all three countries have very high debt levels. Owing to the size of their economies, default in Japan or the US is very likely to crash the global economy.

The Endgame

There are three schools of thought as to how the capitalist endgame is likely to play out. The first predicts a scenario in which the Asian tiger economies (China and India) collapse when the US, Japan and UK do – given that national economies are hopelessly intertwined as a result of globalization. This school also predicts that any serious global instability will pop the Chinese real estate (debt) bubble. When this happens, the Chinese economy will crash, like the US economy did when the subprime derivatives bubble burst in 2008. The creation of debt bubbles (the bubbles leading to the 1987 market crash and 2001 dot com collapse are examples), involves the creation of vast amounts of credit (i.e. wealth that only exists on paper), which are all wiped out simultaneously when the bubble bursts. This sudden loss of economic wealth inevitably bankrupts large numbers of businesses and causes massive job loss.

The second school believes that only the US, Europe and Japan will collapse, while the economies of China, India and its Asian and non-Asian trading partners (for example, Australia and New Zealand) will continue to prosper. In this scenario the coming debt crisis and crash will merely accelerate the gradual role reversal of the past two decades – with China rising to the status of economic superpower and the US, Europe and Japan becoming third world nations. Based on the current strength of the New Zealand dollar – rising over the past nine years from $US 0.50 to $US 0.82 – it strikes me that most global currency traders subscribe to this second school of thought.

The third school supports the scenario I believe Wall Street and the Pentagon have in mind, in which the US and its NATO allies confront China militarily to prevent it from replacing the US as the world superpower. Evidence that the Pentagon has already chosen this tack is seen in the strategic alliances it has formed around Middle East and North African oil resources. Many foreign analysts believe that the US wars in the Middle East and Libya are really proxy wars with China over oil resources. They worry that these proxy wars have the potential to degenerate into a full scale war between the US and China – which would surely destroy both economies.

China’s regional allies in this global struggle are Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Angola, Russia, Palestine and (indirectly through Pakistan) a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. US allies are NATO, India, Israel and Iraq (thanks to the permanent American military installations in Iraq).

To be continued, with a discussion of how these regional alliances play out in current proxy wars.

Obama’s secrecy and evasiveness about his early life has only fueled speculation about his alleged links to the CIA. Sherman Skolnick, the late Chicago based court reformer, journalist and conspiracy buff, first raised the issue when the Russians detained Senator Obama in 2004. Any evidence Skolnick had for his claims has been scrubbed from the Internet (with hard copies discarded by his family after his death). Left-leaning historian and journalist Webster Tarpley revived the controversy in Barack H Obama: the Unauthorized Biography, written in early 2008 and published just prior to Obama’s election. Tarpley’s claims relate mainly to the President’s long time relationship with the ex-Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, who Tarpley and others believe was actually a Cointelpro operative, and the “left gatekeeping foundations” Obama worked for in Chicago. I have blogged about this previously at http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2010/07/26/who-did-obama-work-for-in-chicago/

Sherman Skolnick

Reverend Manning’s Mock Treason Trial

Following the inauguration, Harlen pastor Dr James David Manning (who has been featured on Fox News) propelled Obama’s past into public view with a highly publicized mock treason-sedition trial in May 2010. I’ve read the transcript of Dr Manning’s trial. In my opinion, he makes a pretty convincing case that Obama didn’t attend Columbia University in 1982-83, the years he claims to have been there. He’s not listed in the year book or the graduation roster, and no one in the political science department (his major) can remember him. In fact, a number of Columbia professors question how a student with Obama’s 2.5 grade point average (from his two years at Occidental College) would even qualify for admission.

The rest of the case is pretty flimsy. It’s mainly based on hearsay evidence from a phone conversation a Manning witness had with an alleged KGB-CIA double agent named Krezonoski. According to the double agent, Obama was really in Afghanistan in 1982-83, as a Farsi interpreter and the lead agent for the CIA operation training mujaheddin guerrillas to fight the Soviet occupation. In his testimony, the same witness implicates Obama in a vast conspiracy which also involves Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Whitewater scandal.

Wayne Madsen’s Investigation Into Obama’s Elusive Past

Wayne Madsen, whose intelligence credentials (see below) make his allegations more plausible than Manning’s witnesses, also claims that Obama was in Afghanistan between 1981 and 1983. However his sources (unnamed intelligence operatives and arms dealers in Kabul) are only slightly more credible that an alleged phone conversation with a supposed KGB/CIA agent.

Obama admits that he was in Pakistan in 1981, visiting his mother, who had been transferred from Indonesia to Lahore. There are some interesting unanswered questions about this trip, such as why Obama was traveling on an Indonesian passport under the name Barry Soetoro, why a 20 year college student would be staying with a high level Pakistani official Muhammadmian Soomo (who would become acting president of Pakistan in 2008) and why the President has sealed his passport records. There is also the unsolved murder of a federal witness, Leiutenant (his name) Quarles Harris Jr, in the attempted 2008 theft of Obama’s passport records by the Analysis Corporation, a CIA-contracted company run by former CIA agent John Brennan (currently Deputy National Security Adviser).

For me, Madsen’s most interesting and credible findings concern Obama’s family, rather than the President himself. I think they establish quite clearly that Obama’s parents, maternal grandparents and stepfather – like the Bush family – all had intelligence links. And that Obama has fabricated many details about his past to conceal this.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author and political and national security commentator for Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and MS-NBC. As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He subsequently worked for the National Security Agency, the Naval Data Automation Command, Department of State, RCA Corporation, and Computer Sciences Corporation. Madsen is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Association for Intelligence Officers.

To be continued, with an exploration of Obama family links to the CIA