The Iron Behind The Velvet: Wikileaks, Assorted Actors And Faith-Based Frolics In The War On Terror

Does anyone believe it anymore? I really wish I had access to a reliable census on what the majority of people in this world believe about the purported 'Islamic terror threat', 9/11 etc. etc. Over the past 10 years several US 9/11 polls have been published. Depending on which of the shockingly few mainstream media corporations you prefer, somewhere between 36% and 62% of the US public believe that the US government is, at the very least, not telling the truth about the 9/11 attacks. If true, (and we have every reason to believe that the media corps down-play the figures) what does that mean for public perception of the 'Islamic terror threat' on which the 9/11 attacks are based?

If a majority of human beings can, at this stage, see through most of the increasingly crass US, British, French and Israeli government and assorted 'Intelligence' agency hyperbole and propaganda, can we expect them to just drop the whole charade any time soon? Sadly, recent media reports suggest otherwise and point to a deepening of the global psychological operation to which we have all been subjected these past 10 years.

A still from the most recent 'al-Qaeda' video released by Intel Center featuring Adam Gadhan

"Media reports". We use and hear that term so often in reference to the 'war on terrorism' that we can easily forget what it actually means. It means that everything you know, or think you know, about the global terror threat has come to you via media corporations that are either owned or controlled by the governments that are waging the 'war on terror' and profiting handsomely from it. Does that bother anyone?

To make matter worse, the stories you watch, listen to and read concerning what's what and who's who in Muslim terror-land are invariably provided by the intelligence arms of the same governments. There are no 'al-Qaeda' TV or radio stations, no 'Muslim Terrorism' weekly magazines with articles and Op-Eds penned by Osama and his alleged cohorts. And before you protest, all of the 'al-Qaeda' internet video and audio tapes that you vaguely remember seeing and hearing have long since been deemed so suspect by objective analysis that they are inadmissible as reliable evidence.

Take for instance the recent reappearance of 'Adam Gadhan', the all-American 'home-grown' spokesman for Osama bin Laden. Gadhan was born Adam Pearlman, the son of Californian hippy goat-rearing parents and the grandson of Anti-Defamation League board member, Dr. Carl Pearlman with whom Adam lived during his childhood. During his teenage years, Adam dabbled in the death metal scene before finally opting for Islam, to which he converted when he was 17. Soon thereafter, he seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet for a while, with reports (from Intel agencies) claiming that he moved to Pakistan in 1998, where, at the tender age of 19, he is said to have married an Afghan refugee.

In March 2001, he cut off all contact with his family, just before Muslim Terror Inc. went live. Later that year, he reemerged (on the internet) with a new name, Adam Yahiye Gadahn', a new Muslim beard and elevated to the position of "senior commander to Bin Laden translator, video producer, and cultural interpreter." I kid you not. Since then Adam has been the front man for 'As-sahab', allegedly the media arm of 'al-Qaeda', and has starred in several video messages where he attempts to combine Californian schmooze with radical Islamic ideology...to limited success. Here's one such video dispatch for your viewing pleasure (note, you can tell he's reading a prompter):

That particular video was released a few years ago by Intel Center, which has released most of the 'al-Qaeda' audio and video tapes. Intel Center claims to be a "private contractor working for intelligence agencies" that "studies terrorist groups and other threat actors and disseminating that information in a timely manner to those who can act on it." It is also a stone's throw from CIA HQ in Virginia. Owned by Verisign, which operates "two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the generic top-level domains for .com, .net, .cc, .name and .tv", Intel Center's CEO is Ben Venzke, a former US intelligence officer. Alongside Venzke is 'Director of Threat intelligence', Jim Melnick who served 16 years in the US army and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and worked in psychological operations. The IDEFENSE website described him this way a few years ago:

Prior to joining iDefense, Mr. Melnick served with distinction for more than 16 years in the U.S. Army and the Defense Intelligence Agency. During this period, Mr. Melnick served in a variety of roles, including psychological operations, international warning issues with emphasis on foreign affairs and information operations and Russian affairs. He also served in active political/military intelligence roles with an emphasis on foreign affairs. Mr. Melnick is currently a U.S. Army Reserve Colonel with Military Intelligence, assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Note that Melnick was assigned to the Office of Donald "Go massive sweep it all up. Things related and not" Rumsfeld'. Melnick does more or less the same job for another company called ISight Partners. Basically, he has his finger on the pulse of all potential 'cyber-threats' and works for a company (Verisign) that should have no problem at all in identifying precisely where in the world any 'al-Qaeda' video or audio message had been uploaded to a server. With his military Intel background, surely he could then notify the recruits manning the predator drones in the CIA's Arizona bunker? Apparently not, because the stars of all these 'al-Qaeda' videos are still at large, after 10 years, and the only people receiving the predator's special brand of freedom and democracy are innocent Afghan and Pakistani villagers. Although I shouldn't be too hard on the Intel Center guys, they are clearly a talented bunch, after all, it takes serious intel savvy to predict the release of an 'al-Qaeda' video in advance!

New Al Qaeda Tape to Be Released

July 05, 2006

Al Qaeda is set to release a new video tape featuring one of the suicide bombers from last year's London attacks, according to Ben Venzke at the IntelCenter. Venzke says the as-Sahab production house will be putting out a tape on the Internet sometime Thursday that includes a video last will and testament of Shahzad Tanweer as well as a new statement from the al Qaeda number two leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The tape is also expected to include former Californian Adam Gadahn, who now goes by the name of Azzam al-Amriki. Gadahn is believed by U.S. authorities to be running the al Qaeda propaganda operation from a secret location somewhere inside of Pakistan.

If you'd like the inside scoop on when the ~~CIA~~ ~~Intel Center~~ 'al-Qaeda' plans to release another fascinating dispatch from the front lines of ~~Langley~~ 'Tora Bora', their 'Terrorism Threat Intel Package' can be yours for $1,499 per user per year. Really, it's well worth the money, they put a lot of effort into making these videos available. Consider, for example, the 2006 'al-Qaeda' video featuring Islamic terrorism's Mr Magoo, Ayman al-Zawahiri. After its release, the video was analyzed by computer security consultant Neil Krawetz. During a presentation he gave at the BlackHat security conference in Las Vegas in 2007 about analyzing digital photographs and video images for alterations and enhancements, Krawetz showed that the video had been altered in a very interesting way.

Using a program he wrote (and provided on the conference CD-ROM) Krawetz could print out the quantization tables (that indicate how the image was compressed) and determine the last tool that created the image - that is, the make and model of the camera if the image is original or the version of Photoshop that was used to alter and re-save the image.

This is the image from the video he analyzed.

A still from the the Intelcenter-faked "al-qaeda" video

After conducting his error analysis, Krawetz was able to determine that the writing on the banner behind al-Zawahiri's head was added to the image afterward and at the same time as the logo of Intel Center.

Hmmm...

Moving along. Remember al Zarqawi? He was the guy who almost single-handedly provoked 'civil war' in Iraq, or so we were told. Apart from the fact that he could barely shoot a gun, (here's a quick video clip)

there was also this from a few years ago:

How the U.S. Fuelled the Myth of Zarqawi The Mastermind

Adrian Blomfield
The Telegraph, UK
03 Oct 2004

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader believed to be responsible for the abduction of Kenneth Bigley, is 'more myth than man,' according to American military intelligence agents in Iraq.

Several sources said the importance of Zarqawi, blamed for many of the most spectacular acts of violence in Iraq, has been exaggerated by flawed intelligence and the Bush administration's desire to find "a villain" for the post-invasion mayhem.

US military intelligence agents in Iraq have revealed a series of botched and often tawdry dealings with unreliable sources who, in the words of one source, "told us what we wanted to hear".

"We were basically paying up to $10,000 a time to opportunists, criminals and chancers who passed off fiction and supposition about Zarqawi as cast-iron fact, making him out as the linchpin of just about every attack in Iraq," the agent said.

"Back home this stuff was gratefully received and formed the basis of policy decisions. We needed a villain, someone identifiable for the public to latch on to, and we got one.

None of which prevented the mainstream media from regaling us with this the other day:

British blunder may have let al-Qaida kingpin Zarqawi go free

British troops came close to capturing al-Qaida's top commander and the occupation forces' most wanted target in Iraq - but the operation collapsed after the only surveillance helicopter ordered to monitor him [followed him for 15 minutes and then] ran out of fuel and had to return to base, secret military intelligence logs suggest.

If I had a penny, (or a no-bid US govt. contract to rebuild a formerly flourishing Middle Eastern nation) for every time I've read about how close the US or British military came to catching [insert name of your favorite Islamic terrorist] only to have him somehow miraculously slip away, I'd be at least as rich as Tony Blair. But sadly, my chances of getting a no-bid US govt. contract are about as slim as Osama bin Laden after ten years living with kidney failure in a cave in Afghanistan, so I suppose I'll just have to grin and bear the ignominy of having my intelligence insulted with further fantastic tales of terrorist Houdinis. It's still kind of rude though. I mean, the official story of al Zarqawi's life was ridiculous enough, but the story of his death must surely have provoked a massive bout of cognitive dissonance in even the most eager believer in Western benevolent militarism.

Here's a little recap for your edification:

The official file on Zarqawi, whose real name was Ahmad Fadil al-Khalayleh, tells us that he was born in Jordan. Barely literate, he became a petty criminal until the call to arms came with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After his time in the terror training camps of Afghanistan Zarqawi returned to his home with a radical Islamist agenda. The interesting part of his file, the part that is generally omitted from such reports, is that the training camps in Afghanistan before and during the soviet invasion of that country that Zarqawi attended, were funded and run by the CIA, making Zarqawi and others like him, assets of the US government.

Consider the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser, in an interview in the 15-21 January 1998 edition of Le Nouvel Observateur

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.

Zarqawi was on the CIA's books for over twenty years by the time the Neocons came to power in 2000. When 9/11 just happened to gift them the 'casus belli falsus' to beat them all, they immediately went about the task of gathering together a group of likely fundamentalist Islamic patsies to take the rap for the Neocon's war on fake Islamic terrorism, which wasn't a war at all but rather the bludgeoning of millions of innocent people in the Middle East and S.E Asia in the interest of Empire or, to be more precise, the externalization of the Neocon's psychopathology.

At 6am on June 7th 2006, a U.S. airforce F-16 dropped two 500lb bombs on a single isolated safe-house outside the city of Baqubah, 30 miles northwest of Baghdad, where, we are told, Zarqawi was staying with 5 comrades. In doing so, the NeoCons sacrificed a valuable 'Islamic terrorist' bogeyman. That is not to say, however, that Zarqawi was actually in that "safe house".

Here's an image of the house before it was bombed:

Now, have you ever seen the effects of a 500lb bomb? Have you ever seen the effects of two? Have a look:

Here's an image of what was left of the house:

Now remember, we were told Zarqawi was in that house at the time of the bombing.

So after two massive pieces of ordinance were dropped, essentially on his head, this is the condition in which US troops allegedly found him

An abrasion on his cheek and a cut on his forehead and above his left eye. Is that ok then? Good.

So the question is, or rather, the question I am asking myself right now is: why am I even saying any of this? What's my point? Do I even have one? The main reason for this little trip down the memory hole is Julian Assange. You see, I hold him (and what's left of his Wikileaks shop front) responsible for the fact that I couldn't just stop at Adam Gadahn/Pearlman. You're probably aware that Wikileaks has released yet another armored truck-load of 'war logs', this time from Iraq, among which was the above tale of Zarqawi's fortuitous escape from the clutches of the British. In this most recent download, the mainstream media has, once again, been gifted with a plethora of 'logs' that allow them to do three main things:

1) Dig up and retell the officially fabricated history of Muslim terrorists and terrorism

2) Remind the world that Iran is really to blame for everything

3) Reveal selected isolated stories of complicity in torture and killing of civilians by US and British forces and thereby provide Wikileaks' bone fides as an honest anti-war organisation, despite the fact that much worse abuse had already been exposed long ago.

And so, I'm forced to try and set the record straight.

Number 1: has already been dealt with above:

Number 2:

Wikileaks: how Iran devised new suicide vest for al-Qaeda to use in Iraq

Iranian-backed forces supplied insurgents attacking coalition troops and devised new forms of suicide vests for al-Qaeda, according to assessments released by Wikileaks.