This week we continue our radio adaptation of Scott Noble's latest film, Counter Intelligence, which takes up most of the show. We begin with a profile of the so-called War On Drugs - how this meshes with the agenda of prison privatization, works as an off-the-books income source for the secret government and as a cover for neo-colonialism abroad and for conditioning the domestic population to SWAT teams and the rest of the militaristic totalitarian agenda. We take a break from the film to listen to a speech by a younger and more optimistic Mike Ruppert from a classic Unwelcome Guests episode, number 23 - Double Dipping into Misery (Crack, the CIA and the Prison Industrial Complex). Ruppert notes that laundered drug money is highly correlated with political influence and thus, as we noted last week, since the CIA are so involved in organizing drug smuggling, the secret state effectively controls the US political kabuki.

Part 2 of Counter Intelligence concludes with constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald reminding us that the fact that the defining characteristic of the rule of law is that noone should be above it - so how did the idea of prosecuting government leaders for their wrongdoing come to be regarded as a radical one in modern day USA?

The hypocrisy of the Cold War is underlined, with national leaders simultaneously decrying the communist menace to the public whilst accepting their reasonableness in private. We focus particularly on Italy and Operation Gladio as part of a 'Strategy of Tension', noting that there is nothing new about the creation of a fictitious enemy as an excuse for expanding both military oppression overseas and for rolling back civil liberties at home. The sound track of a video from the ISGP video archive about the bombings of apartment blocks in Russia in the run up to the war in Chechnya underlines the fact that the use of fear to manipulate compliant citizens is by no means confined to Western Europe or to the 20th century...

"What we learn from Operation Gladio is that intelligence and covert action as carried out by states is clearly something which is routinely conducted under the radar and that it is often conducted in such a way that civilian administrations are not fully aware of what is going on. Quotes-" — Nafeez Ahmed

Since the film mentions the phrase 'conspiracy theory' as a label used by commercially-controlled media to short-circuit discussions would challenge the interests of its sponsors, we revisit Mark Crispin Miller's discussion of the topic from episode 561, in which he highlights a declassified CIA memo that explains why this term has become so widespread commercially-controlled media since the assassination of JFK.

Thanks to Olivier for a pointer to Counter Intelligence, and thanks to Metanoia Films for making it. The 9/99 video was taken from the ISGP video channel on YouTube
This episode rebroadcasts content from UG#23 and UG#561.