| http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.28E.JVB.Warnings.htm CIA and FBI Attack Warnings: The Method and the Madness By Jennifer Van Bergen t r u t h o u t | April 27, 2002 The articles following this came out April 24th and April 25th respectively. One declares that the FBI has been alerted to “unconfirmed attack plans.” The other states that the CIA warns of Chinese plans for “cyber-attacks” on the U.S. Naturally, I found these two articles disturbing. But the reason I found them disturbing was not because of the possible impending attacks. Instead, I found myself wondering why the FBI and the CIA were now issuing statements like this to the public. Isn’t it the job of these agencies to silently ferret out and thwart such attacks? Was the purpose of the publication of such information – of which no American can determine the accuracy – to thwart attacks? Or was it to drum up fear in the American public? It feels ominous to me. According to one investigative reporter, Kyle F. Hence, in an Open Letter to Selected Members of Congress, on April 24th, Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham said on Fox & Friends that there is a “100% chance of being struck by Al-Qaeda before the end of the year.” U.S. Representative Cunningham sits on the Select House Committee on Intelligence. Hence points out that if a Congressman knows this much, one can presume the intelligence community knows more. And if the intelligence community has this information, “they must be on the trail and there is at least a good chance, especially with all [the] additional funding, that they will foil this plot.” “So,” Hence asks, “how can Duke say with utter confidence that there is a ‘100% chance of being struck before the end of this year’ unless of course the intention is to let another attack happen?” I don’t intend to get into 911 conspiracy theories here. Not that I don’t believe there is validity to any of them. There are two problems with going down that road. First, there is no way to connect the dots. We do not have all the information and we are not likely ever to obtain it. Second, as a result of this, to go down that road without being armed with substantive information is to invite madness. I am not particularly interested in going mad right now. Nor am I interested in playing mind games with the CIA or FBI – or Bush. I’m sure they are better at it than I am. But, I do think that Americans can apply some basic logic to reports of this nature. It is all too easy NOT to think about these things. Let Alphabet City and the Puzzle Palace do their jobs, we say. Furthermore, it is hard for most Americans to imagine its own agencies playing tricks on its citizens. Yet, it has historically proven to be the case before. Perhaps the best comment I can make about this is to share a personal experience of mine. A few years ago, I was doing extensive research on government projects to create Manchurian Candidates. For those who are not familiar with the term “Manchurian Candidate,” it came from the 1959 novel by Richard Condon of that title, which was later made into a film. The story, summed up neatly by John Marks in his book “The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control, the Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences,” was about a “joint Soviet-Chinese plot to take an American soldier captured in Korea, condition him at a special brainwashing center located in Manchuria, and create a remote-controlled assassin who was supposed to kill the President of the United States.” During the time I was researching this frightening topic, I attended the “SMART Conference on Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control.” Okay, got that? Don’t worry, I’m not going to burden my readers with the content of that conference, except to say that some speakers, perhaps at great risk to themselves, did discuss and document personal knowledge of government Manchurian Candidate projects. All I’m going to tell you is that at the end of the first day of this conference, my drink was drugged by the bartender in the hotel. Does this make any sense? Perhaps not. Am I certain of this? Yes, I am. My point here is that this IS serious business. We DO need to be aware that our intelligence agencies are not necessarily truthful with or nice to us. We DO need to question incendiary reports by these agencies or by the Administration, reports that tell us to remain frightened and leave the driving to them. We DO need to think about what things really mean, and we need to remain grounded in facts and logic when we think about these things. Many readers ask me what they can do. I am not really an activist, to be honest. However, I believe many Americans are simply too busy to think. Yet, millions spend hours every night watching television, a mind-numbing device if ever there were one. If that time were spent thinking and talking with others, and maybe even writing, we might find our collective thoughts have more weight and force than an unaccountable shadow government does. On the Internet FBI Agents Alerted To Uncomfirmed Attack Plans http://news.findlaw.com/news/s/20020425/attackwarningdc.html CIA Warns Of Chinese Plans For Cyber Attacks On U.S. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-042502china.story Jennifer Van Bergen <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is an Editor and a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t. |
