(WMR)—President Obama, in his typical Machiavellian fashion, says he “offers no apologies” for the subpoena of two months of Associated Press phone calls covering the conversations, and quite possibly the cell phone text messages, of over 100 reporters.
At the same time, Obama has called on Congress to pass a media shield law. However, Obama, himself scuttled such a media shield law bill because it did not contain adequate “exemptions” for national security. And, as we should now know from Obama, who masks his own CIA past and those of his family, one could drive a Mack truck through the national security “exemptions” Obama and his national security controllers—John Brennan and Valerie Jarrett—foresee a lackluster media shield law that would prevent reporters from being called before grand juries to divulge their confidential sources.
On May 14, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said something very interesting about Obama’s crackdown on leaks to the media: “I think it’s important to look at the president’s past here to understand where he comes from . . .” It’s not difficult to figure out where a one-time CIA asset is “coming from” on leaks to the press.
Living up to their commissioned responsibilities, Obama’s George Soros-funded “amen chorus,” including the highly dubious Media Matters, leaped to Obama’s and Attorney General Eric Holder’s defense about as fast as the Congressional Black Caucus “peanut gallery” of sycophants could say “Jackie Robinson.”
The “outrage” over the AP putting in danger a CIA-MI6 agent who penetrated “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” is laughable when one considers that one of the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the Middle East was the product of a CIA-MI6 plot. On March 8, 1985, a car bomb exploded near the Beirut home of Lebanese Shi’a religious leader, Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, leveling two 7-story apartment buildings and killing more than 80 people, including a number of children, and injuring more than 200. The bombing was timed to coincide with Friday prayers at a nearby Shi’a mosque, which added to the death toll. Fadlallah, who attending religious services at the mosque in his Bir el-Abed neighborhood residence at the time of the blast, was unharmed. However, several of Fadlallah’s bodyguards were killed in the blast.
In 1985, Obama was a field agent for U.S. intelligence, having completed his tour at the CIA front company Business International Corporation, Inc., in New York and being reassigned to Chicago to spy on black Muslims and radical black groups believed by the CIA and FBI to be associated with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. WMR previously reported that the head of the Libya unit at the CIA confirmed there were no ties between Qaddafi and Chicago terrorist groups or black street gangs.
The “preemptive” counter-terrorist bombing of Fadlallah, itself a terrorist act, was opposed by CIA Deputy Director John McMahon as a violation of President Gerald Ford’s prohibition of assassinations of foreign leaders, Executive Order 12333, and President Ronald Reagan’s strengthening of the order. However, McMahon was overridden by CIA Director William Casey, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, CIA general counsel Stanley Spoorkin, and National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane.
The CIA later denied it was involved in the bombing. However, WMR has obtained from formerly classified CIA files a translation of an Arabic language report from the Lebanese newspaper Al Safir datelined May 15, 1985 Washington, DC that provides details of the CIA’s bloody terrorist operation in Beirut. The CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service translated the report from reporter Shawqi Rafi:
“What is the extent of the relationship between the Lebanese Intelligence Service and the U.S. CIA? This is the question that has been the main theme of U.S. media for the 3d [third] consecutive day since The Washington Post exposed the secret of the explosion that killed dozens of Lebanese citizens in Bi’r Al-’Adb.
“Al-Safir has obtained information from a number of reliable sources which sheds some light on what has been published in the U.S. newspapers. Meanwhile, Lebanese officials continue to ignore the ‘information scandal’ and have made no moves to reply to the accusations being levelled against them.
“Our information says that when Prime Minister Rashid Karami and Nabih Birri, Minister of State for South Lebanon and Reconstruction Affairs, returned from the United Nations on 6 October 1984, a prominent Lebanese intelligence official said that the latter met with Robert McFarlane, the U.S. President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs. He also met with a number of CIA officials to coordinate ways of ‘combatting terrorism.’ The U.S. administration at the time, and following the attack on the U.S. embassy in ‘Awkar, placed ‘combatting terrorism’ at the top of its priorities. But the Lebanese intelligence official at the time denied that he met with McFarlane. He said that he asked to meet ‘his friend McFarlane, but he was busy and hence the meeting was not held.’ In reply to another question, he denied meeting with CIA director William Casey. But knowledgable sources confirm his meeting with Casey. The official said that coordination with the United States includes purchasing nearly $5 million worth of intelligence equipment.
“The information adds that among the points agreed upon between U.S. and Lebanese intelligence is for Lebanon to send three intelligence missions to the United States. Each mission will spend 15 days in the United States to work, train, and coordinate with the CIA on combatting terrorism. The first mission arrived at the end of last January, and included six officers: four Christian officers, one Shi’ite officer, and one Sunnite officer.
“The second mission arrived last March. All its officers were Maronites. It included an officer with the rank of major who occupied an important position in Lebanese intelligence in 1982–83 and until the breakout of the war in the mountain [sic]. The mission also included a colonel, a lieutenant colonel, and a major.
“Each of the two missions spent 15 days in the United States in accordance with an agreement reached between Lebanese and U.S. intelligence services. But, informed sources said that other Lebanese intelligence officers arrived in Washington on various pretexts, such as medical treatment, vacations, etc. They arrived with official papers signed by their direct supervisors.
“Informed sources believe that it is one of these officers who was quoted by The Washington Post as saying: ‘My service carried out that attack on Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah on 8 March. I believe the operation was done to show that we are strong . . . and that you have to stop terrorism with terrorism.’
“Informed sources say that the fate of the third mission is not known. The mission may have been cancelled following the scandal caused by The Washington Post report.
“Meanwhile, U.S. administration officials confirmed that the CIA worked with a Lebanese intelligence team which hired the agents who carried out the attempt to assassinate Fadlallah.
“In a front-page report, The New York Times quoted an administration official as saying that the CIA and intelligence sources had been trying to belittle the relationship between the CIA and counterterrorist groups lest the terrorists would carry out retaliatory operations against Americans working in Lebanon.
“The report said that on 3 April President Reagan signed a law that was immediately put into effect. Under the law, preemptive operations are sanctioned against ‘terrorism’ and against states that sponsor ‘terrorism.’ U.S. officials have been quoted as saying that this policy has received the support of Secretary of State George Schultz, National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, and CIA director William Casey. These officials said that as a result of this activity, U.S. intelligence agents and military elements have begun training, financing, supporting, and sharing information with counterterrorist teams from friendly countries.
“These officials said that there are no plans to use Americans in other countries, but that there is a dependence on foreigners working in the service of other governments.
“These officials added that ‘in Lebanon, American intelligence was following the trail of Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah. The Lebanese Intelligence Service was also following his trail, but for different reasons.’ They said that the CIA had not decided what it wanted to do with Fadlallah, but some Lebanese intelligence officials had their own ideas. They could not act against him because they are an official organ, and the Shi’ites are part of the Lebanese government. Therefore, and in accordance with information derived from administration officials, the Lebanese Intelligence Service hired foreigners to carry out the operation.
“Officials were commenting on the statement which the CIA issued on 13 May and in which it denied that it had trained those who carried out the bombing operation in the Bir al-’Abd area. The New York Times, however, described the statement as not touching on the core of the subject. It said that the CIA denied, for example, that it had trained those who carried out the bombing operation, but the statement did not contain a specific denial that the agency is working with Lebanese intelligence.”
The United States, for years, has trained terrorists like the Lebanese teams who oversaw the 1985 bombing of the residential area of Beirut. WMR previously reported that such training has occurred for decades at the Fort Huachuca, Pinal Air Park/Marana, Barry Goldwater Test Range complex near Tucson, Arizona and that past trainees have included Osama Bin Laden, Iraqi operatives loyal to Saddam Hussein, and Rwandan leader Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Army forces. It is highly possible that the Lebanese intelligence teams received part of their terrorist bomb training at the Fort Huachuca complex.
The Obama administration is concerned about the leak of the Yemeni CIA operation to the AP because the CIA had an agent in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who had in his possession a sophisticated underwear bomb that he, himself, was to detonate on a U.S.-based passenger plane. Having a CIA and reportedly MI5 and Saudi agent come so close to detonating a bomb on an aircraft comes very close in profile to other operations in which CIA operatives have been on the verge of carrying out or have actually carried out terrorist attacks and “false flag” events. If that sort of information leaks, the Obama administration and its predecessor will be called to task for a number of such incidents, including 9/11/01 and, more recently, 9/11/12 in Benghazi, Libya.
Obama said he makes no apologies for trying to stop leaks that could endanger national security. The media should make no apologies in publishing leaks that expose the U.S. government as the most dangerous threat to national security. The people of the Bir el-Abed neighborhood in Beirut do not have to be convinced that the CIA engages in terrorist attacks to advance its goals. They experienced it first hand in March 1985.
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).
