We look this time at the terrifying reality that is "the war on terror", and the effects of that terror on two target populations - US and UK. Our first speaker, author, academic and activist asks why more US citizens today consider torture acceptable than did during the Bush presidency. Our second speaker, a senior lecturer in Risk and Corporate Security analyses the disproportionate reaction to the purported threat of terrorism. We conclude with more from Sibel Edmonds on the global heroin trade, and especially on its close connections with NATO.
Rebecca Gordon, an activist and lecturer at the University of San Francisco and author of the "Mainstreaming Torture - Ethical Approaches to the post 9-11 United States". She suggests that US citizens have become habituated to living in fear, a situation promoted through media reports of terrorists and the post 9/11 "security theater" enforced by the FAA etc.
Torture, she says, is not primarily about obtaining information to protect civilians. Torture, she says, is a weapon of control to promote fear and to stifle political opposition. She describes how, post 9/11, the public consensus that torture was, unconditionally, wrong, was quickly dismantled.
Bill Durodié, then senior lecturer in Risk and Corporate Security at the Defence Academy at Cranfield University speaks on the problems that UK society has with managing risks, especially those associated with terrorism. I hesitated to put him on the show, since he appears to takes the official narratives of 7/7 and 9/11 more or less at face value. However, even without raising the essential issue of False Flag terrorism, he makes some important observations about risk management and the broader social changes associated with the war on terror. Durodié identifies "two core social and political drivers which have lent themselves to encouraging an exaggerated sense of vulnerability right across society, well before Sep 11th": political disengagement and social disconnection. He points out that Islamic terrorists seem clearer on what the are against (Western capitalist society) than what they are in favor of, that they are reflecting the values of the dominant society.
This is quite ironic given his failure to point out the elephant in the room - but otherwise his analysis is well worth listening to, such as for example his observation that use of the word "risk" in the UK broadsheet press went up by an order of magnitude from 1994 to 2000 - establishing that the "war on terror" was being ramped up even before Sep 11th.
We conclude with another section of the interview of Sibel Edmonds by James Corbett. Focusing as before on Turkey, she outlines the role of NATO's Operation Gladio (A) in the business of refining Afghani opium and their clandestine operatives' use of diplomatic credentials in heroin distribution through the Balkans and to Europe/USA. The war on Afghanistan, she suggests, allowed NATO to effectively cut out the Russian mafia from the opium trade, and to upscale operations by traditional replaced methods of transport with military aricraft. Edmonds notes Yaşar Öz's remarkable "escape" from a DEA interrogation in New Jersey (a deep state 'get-out-of-jail free card'). Also mentioned are Öz's boss, Abdullah Çatlı, and his boss, Mehmet Ağar (whose NATO bosses protected him after the Susurluk incident). The case of Willem Matser is also cited as further evidence of NATO's connections with the high level international drugs trade.
Thanks to David Swanson and Steve Lerman of Talk Nation Radio for the Rebecca Gordon interview.
Torture, she says, is not primarily about obtaining information to protect civilians. Torture, she says, is a weapon of control to promote fear and to stifle political opposition. She describes how, post 9/11, the public consensus that torture was, unconditionally, wrong, was quickly dismantled.
Bill Durodié, then senior lecturer in Risk and Corporate Security at the Defence Academy at Cranfield University speaks on the problems that UK society has with managing risks, especially those associated with terrorism. I hesitated to put him on the show, since he appears to takes the official narratives of 7/7 and 9/11 more or less at face value. However, even without raising the essential issue of False Flag terrorism, he makes some important observations about risk management and the broader social changes associated with the war on terror. Durodié identifies "two core social and political drivers which have lent themselves to encouraging an exaggerated sense of vulnerability right across society, well before Sep 11th": political disengagement and social disconnection. He points out that Islamic terrorists seem clearer on what the are against (Western capitalist society) than what they are in favor of, that they are reflecting the values of the dominant society.
This is quite ironic given his failure to point out the elephant in the room - but otherwise his analysis is well worth listening to, such as for example his observation that use of the word "risk" in the UK broadsheet press went up by an order of magnitude from 1994 to 2000 - establishing that the "war on terror" was being ramped up even before Sep 11th.
We conclude with another section of the interview of Sibel Edmonds by James Corbett. Focusing as before on Turkey, she outlines the role of NATO's Operation Gladio (A) in the business of refining Afghani opium and their clandestine operatives' use of diplomatic credentials in heroin distribution through the Balkans and to Europe/USA. The war on Afghanistan, she suggests, allowed NATO to effectively cut out the Russian mafia from the opium trade, and to upscale operations by traditional replaced methods of transport with military aricraft. Edmonds notes Yaşar Öz's remarkable "escape" from a DEA interrogation in New Jersey (a deep state 'get-out-of-jail free card'). Also mentioned are Öz's boss, Abdullah Çatlı, and his boss, Mehmet Ağar (whose NATO bosses protected him after the Susurluk incident). The case of Willem Matser is also cited as further evidence of NATO's connections with the high level international drugs trade.
Thanks to David Swanson and Steve Lerman of Talk Nation Radio for the Rebecca Gordon interview.
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