Showing posts with label Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ireland. Show all posts

Friday, March 26, 2010

False-Flag Operations: An Introduction


New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 13 -- March 27, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, program #108, March 30:

False-Flag Operations:
An Introduction

Former MI-5 spy--and now whistleblower--Annie Machon.
Most graphics: Click to enlarge.

In brief:

"False-flag" ops. are incidents used by the authorities to justify war or the revoking of civil liberties. These incidents are staged, or misrepresented, or imaginary. Ex-MI-5 agent Annie Machon discusses the London IRA bombings (1990s) and the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London (1994). The latter, it turns out, was done by . . . Israel itself--for a purpose. I discuss the faked Polish invasion of Germany (1939), Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964), bombing of 3 Russian apartment buildings (1999), and the Underwear Bomber scam (December 2009). I try my hardest not to call 9-11 a false-flag op. Plus expert Rufus T. Firefly.

Notes and credits

Annie Machon speech of May 14, 2007, courtesy of London Sound Posse. Their recording of the complete speech (1:08:28, 31 MB .mp3) is available here.

Dialogue and song ("We're Going to War") from The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933). See the unedited video segment.

Credit to Wikipedia for several of the facts I relate on false-flag ops in Germany, Vietnam, and Russia, 1939-1999.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "average quality") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com.

Top: the Reichstag fire, the morning after it began. The German parliament building was set ablaze on the night of February 27, 1933, possibly with the connivance of the NSDAP (Nazi party). Newly-installed Chancellor Hitler and cohort blamed the arson on the communists, persuaded President Hindenberg to suspend civil liberties (cf. the USA-PATRIOT Act), unseated and imprisoned left-wing MPs, and consolidated their own power. By removing the communist MPs, the Nazi party increased its lead in parliament from a plurality to a majority.
Bottom: On August 7, 1964--following in imaginary attack on a U.S. naval ship in Vietnam--Congress overwhelmingly passed a resolution giving the President carte blanche to wage war against the Vietnamese. A massive escalation of the war followed.

Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut date shown:

  • April 6 -- False-Flag Operations, Part 2. K.D. discusses the battleship Maine, the reasons the U.S. started the Spanish-American War, and USAF attempts to provoke the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). Annie Machon explains false-flag terrorism in Northern Ireland (1990s), operations Gladdio and Northwoods, and the great loss of civil liberties in the U.K. following 9-11.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

In September 1999, Russian state security forces bombed apartment buildings in three cities of the Russian Federation, including Moscow. Blamed on "Chechen terrorists," the incidents were used to justify Russia's invason of the troublesome Republic of Chechnya at the end of September. For some reason, the "Chechen terrorists" chose to bomb only low-rent apartment buildings.
Top: Propaganda photocollage. Note sinister "terrorist" in the center. Doesn't look at all like President Putin. Bottom: First-responders carry one of the 300 murder victims.


Saturday, February 20, 2010

Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly (R) + LIVE on WWUH




New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 7 -- February 20, 2010

This Week EXCEPT on WWUH: radio program #103, Feb. 23:

Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly


Last week's installment, "Not ALL Christians Are Evil," started off by whacking the Institutional Church--Protestant Division. This week's starts off by whacking the Roman Catholic Division. Outraged Catholic listeners are asked not to turn off the radio the instant they hear the late Cardinal Spellman described as a "fascist warmonger." Please wait for the "However, . . . ."

This "encore presentation" (with minor revisions) celebrates and features the great American and Catholic antiwar activist Kathy Kelly. She tells a touching and funny story about ordinary citizens who fought against the U.S. War Machine . . . and won. The hero(ine)s of the story happen to be ordinary citizens of Ireland. But who's to say it wouldn't work just as well at home?

Kelly says almost nothing about her religious beliefs--which, however, clearly underlie her antiwar crusade. Imagine! Two weeks in a row, we've managed to turn up some people (two of them still alive!) who believe that Christianity requires something other than killing "evildoers," stealing oil, and persecuting homosexuals! Who'd a' thunk?

(l. to r.:) Kathy Kelly, Australian Catholic Worker activist Ciaron O'Reilly,
and the five Pitstop Ploughshares, outside the courthouse, Dublin, 2006.

For details and more photos, please see the blog entry for the original incarnation of this installment: http://newworldnotes.blogspot.com/2008/11/resisting-violence-kathy-kelly.html . Note that the links to the audio file on that old page are to the unrevised, lower-audio-fidelity version (installment #39), of December 2008.

Listeners in central Connecticut--and all others--who wish to hear the updated version of the program (installment #103) can listen online or download an MP3 audio file for later listening. You'll find the download links at the top of this blog page.


This Tuesday, noon to 1 PM, on WWUH 91.3 and wwuh.org:

Special Hour-Long Live Show

In this special broadcast for Pledge Marathon Week, regular but brief appeals for money will punctuate a potpourri of insightful political/social commentary by a range of voices. You'll hear none of these voices on corporate-controlled radio or TV stations--neither the overtly commercial stations nor the ones dependent on grants from Cargill, Exxon Mobil, and other social ils. Plus we'll have a reflection or two by me and two or three songs (not by me).

Black Agenda Report Senior Columnist Margaret Kimberley

Pledges of support to any noncommercial, alternative, community-based radio station are always in good taste. Pledges of support to WWUH made by telephone while New World Notes is broadcasting--noon to 1 PM (Eastern) this Tuesday, February 23--are even nicer, as I'll be able to thank you on-air . . . unless you prefer to remain anonymous. A tally is made of the amount pledged by phone during each show--and the loser has to buy beer and pizza for the other 67 volunteer staff members. No, just kidding about the beer and pizza.

The phone number for pledges is 1 - 800 - 444 - WWUH ( - 9984). You can also pledge online at http://wwuh.org/ or else print out a form and mail in a check (same Internet address).

Words and voices included in this Tuesday's show come from people including

  • the late the Rt. Hon. Robin Cook, MP--a high official in Tony Blair's Labour government--denouncing the U.K.'s imminent invasion of Iraq and resigning from the Government (March 17, 2003). Ends with the first-ever standing ovation in the House of Commons. Then the next day they voted for war. Cook died in 2005
  • Margaret Cook--Robin's estranged divorced wife at the time of the resignation--in a stunning new appreciation marking the Chilcot Inquiry, titled, "I'm So Proud of You, Robin Cook" (February 7, 2010)
  • Margaret Kimberley on the Obama administration claiming the right--and attempting--to assassinate U.S. citizens (Don't the 5th and 12th Amendments sort of discourage this sort of thing?)
  • Jello Biafra, in the summer of 2008, predicting almost exactly what an Obama presidency would be like. Jello's batting average: .980. He failed to imagine assassinating American citizens or the magnitude of the strings-free giveaway of the nation's wealth to Wall Street
  • Michael Parenti, from a phone interview with me last October, discussing the real agenda of U.S. foreign policy
  • comedians Jimmy Tingle and George Carlin, proving that you can be serious and funny too. And that even the darkest tragedy can use a little Comic Relief. Yes, we do lighten up from time to time . . . at frequent intervals!
  • 3 Vietnam Veterans--Greg Payton, Susan Schnall, and David Kline-- recalling their and other GIs' rebellion against an evil and unnecessary war
  • urban poet Benjamin Zephaniah, showing the ill effects of bad media choice, in "(I've Been Listening to the) Rong Radio Station"--performed in the back of a cab driving around west London. Listener, beware! Don't let this happen to you!*

Robin Cook, denouncing the imminent Iraq War and resigning from
Blair's Labour Government, March 17, 2003. His speech prompted
the first-ever standing
ovation in the House of Commons. "Principled
resignation" is another bit of eccentric British behavior unknown in
the upper ranks of American government. Compare Colin Powell.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):


* Thanks to fellow radio guy Tereza Coraggio (http://www.thirdparadigm.org/) for finding & sharing the Zephaniah video from which I'll broadcast the audio.


Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly

New World Notes News
Volume 1, Number 21 -- December 2 , 2008

Kathy Kelly in 2003. Is this Camp Casey?

This week in New World Notes, #39 -- December 2 & 5:

In my mind's ear, I can hear my mother advising, "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?" She wasn't urging me to go and punch Randy Peterson in the nose--however much he deserved it. Rather, she meant that there is no glory in starting and winning a fight with someone two years younger than you and 20 pounds lighter.

With such ethical lessons, Mom destroyed all my chances of a career in the U.S. State Department, CIA, or armed forces.

Not that I can't appreciate the copious heroism displayed in America's great military invasion and glorious conquest of the island-nation of Grenada in 1983. Normandy, Schmormandy . . . this was war! Heute Grenada, morgen . . . Nantucket?

Now as adults, many of us face a problem the opposite of the one Mom pointed out. The adversaries that we feel deserve a swift kick are no longer smaller and weaker than us. They are huge and immensely powerful. The military-industrial-Congressional complex, for instance. Does it make sense even to show up for a fight?

Hero(in)es of the story: The Pit Stop Ploughshares (5 people on right)
in front of court building, Dublin, 2006

In NWN #39, Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly, the alliterative veteran activist/peacemaker answers, "You betcha!"--or words to that effect. Kelly tells some inspiring and funny stories about small groups of ordinary people in Ireland--Belfast as well as Dublin--who were determined to fight back against Bush's war on the Middle East. And they were determined to end Ireland's complicity in it, even if a law or two had to be broken in the process. And they succeeded more than anyone expected.


GBU-28 bunker-buster: Made in USA, used by Israel in Lebanon, July-August 2006.
Capable of vanquishing enemy children in even the deepest bomb-shelter.

Raytheon--with substantial presence in Ireland--produced the software the GBU-28 requires.
Kathy's story explains the computer defenestration.

Kelly is a terrific storyteller, and these are fine, and heartening, stories. For me, the high point is her re-creation--in full Oyrish brogue--of defense attorney Nicks’s summation to the jury. This is funny, moving, and a key scene, for Mr. Nicks asks a question of the jury to which Kelly herself has no good answer.

Not to be outdone in the David-vs.-Goliath department, I single-handedly take on the Roman Catholic Church. Actually, my attitude is complex. This outfit is much like a compost pile: pretty dry near the top; fertile, effective, alive, and beneficial in many places close to the bottom. There--among the lower clergy and the laity--are committed political- and social activists such as Dorothy Day, the Berrigans, Fr. Roy Bourgeois. Such as the ones Kathy Kelly found in Ireland. Such as Kelly herself.

Stateside again, and off to jail in Illinois. Studs Terkel (left) and others lend support.


In my teens, I dated a number of "good Catholic girls" of Irish ancestry, so I feel I can give the world some general advice. Don't ever, ever underestimate what any one of them is capable of doing, once she makes up her mind to it.

Catch New World Notes . . .
Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford) & wwuh.org
Fridays, 7:30 to 8:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs) & http://www.whus.org/
Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New%20World%20Notes

For nearly two decades, Kelly has been trying to show Americans the suffering of the
Iraqi people under U.S. bombings of infrastructure, sanctions, invasion, and now
occupation. And to move us to action to end our government's jihad against
these people. Too big a task? Never underestimate what a Good Catholic Girl is
capable of -- especially if she's Irish and from Chicago.