(WMR)—Groucho Marx is famously quoted as once saying, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member!” If one is able to judge others by the company they keep, Groucho’s sentiments could apply to the nefarious Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), founded in 1921 by the world’s wealthiest and most influential tycoons on the four pillars of unbridled capitalism, imperialism, Zionism, and elitism.
The CFR’s membership sits at 4,700 and aspiring members must be nominated in writing by a current member, and seconded by at least three and no more than four other active members, in order to advance through the membership vetting process.
Thanks to a leak to Cryptome.org, a list of the CFR members with an interest in intelligence matters was leaked. A close examination of the list, which contains affiliations and contact information for the members, yields a relational picture of the close connections between those pushing the National Security Agency’s surveillance agenda and members of the media, including a large contingent of journalists who are with media organizations who attacked this editor for his revelations about NSA surveillance in Europe.
To peruse the CFR list is to understand how the world’s elites control almost every aspect of the government, the military, the intelligence agencies, big business, the media, and academia.
The most alarming names on the CFR list are not merely those of high-ranking members of the military and Foreign Service, including a “Who’s Who” of current and former U.S. commanders, intelligence officers, and diplomats in the Afghan and Iraqi military disasters, but mid-level military, intelligence officers, and State Department employees, including the commander of SEAL Team 2, who are obviously being groomed for higher rank and positions of responsibility.
How membership in the CFR can be compatible with honorable military service is dubious, to say the least. In fact, many a military officer, since the foundation of the country, have been warned against joining problematic organizations that have shown disdain toward the U.S. Constitution—from the Know Nothing Party to the Ku Klux Klan to anarchist groups. Security clearances were often denied to prospective officers who were members of known subversive organizations.
One CFR member of note is John Alexander, the former president of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), a longtime partner of the CIA in holding training sessions for CIA recruiters in “talent spotting” future agents. CCL masters in the field of spotting future talent, especially among the mid-level military and government officials whose names appear on the CFR intelligence list.
Michael Leiter, the former director of the National Counterterrrorism Center in McLean, Virginia, is listed as the senior counsel to the CEO of Palantir Technologies, the company that specializes in creating “sock puppet” personae on the Internet to conduct smear campaigns against news stories and the journalists who write them. Palantir also developed a meta-data collection program that is very similar to that used by the National Security Agency. Both programs have the name PRISM. Leiter happens to advise Palantir CEO Alex Karp, a recent attendee at the Bilderberg meeting outside of London. Palantir was started up in 2004 by a group of businessmen that included Karp and the Ron Paul-supporting “libertarian” Peter Thiel. The firm began with $2 million in seed money from the CIA’s venture capital firm IN-Q-TEL and $28 million in seed money from unknown sources. The firm is now worth over $2 billion thanks mainly to government contracts.
There are a number of similar and virtually unheard of companies that thrive off the military and intelligence teat. Companies like Stellar Solutions, Inc., of Palo Alto, And there are the usual suspects on the list, including Edward Snowden’s former employer Booz Allen and Hamilton; the Chertoff Group (including former NSA director Michael Hayden); George Soros’s Open Society Institute; NSA’s “go to” law firm for lobbying Congress, Steptoe & Johnson; and the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, still headed up by the 92-year-old “Yoda” of all neocons, Andrew Marshall.
Palantir has developed software that permits U.S. intelligence analysts to launch character assassination and news story debunking attacks using phony Internet identities. Also found on the list are journalists with organizations, including Newsweek/The Daily Beast, CNN, and The Washington Post, that have facilitated such attacks, including the recent one against this editor.
There is also representation on the list from the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, which has suddenly appeared as a center for right-wing neocon advocacy and agitation, especially through the use of social media.
The leaked CFR list is quite a gold mine for those who have an interest in constructing wire diagrams and relational charts illustrating how the global elites are connected. The information found on the CFR list is infinitesimal compared to the type of data that are being collected by Palantir’s and the NSA’s PRISM project for the government to establish relationships among the 99 percent who are not members of the oligarchy. However, this CFR list, a contribution by a hacker group known as Gucifer, now permits the 99 percent to expand on its own research into the connections among the global elite who thrive in their dark subterranean networks and abhor the disinfectant of sunshine.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2013 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
