Headlines of note for December 2014...
A tide has turned...
Radio Enciclopedia: Comparecencia de Raúl sobre relaciones Cuba- EEUU
Radio Vaticana: Obama - Pope Francis instrumental in Cuba deal
CBC: Barack Obama thanks Canada for hosting Cuba-U.S. meetings
Reuters: In U.S.-Cuba prisoner swap, mystery surrounds the unnamed 53
Voltaire.net: Washington’s secret negotiations with Havana and Tehran
A belated milestone in U.S.- Cuba relations immediately follows the sordid Guantanamo Bay revelations of the Senate's torture report and the re-entry of the Bush dynasty into presidential politics...
Miami Herald: Jeb Bush says he’ll 'actively explore' 2016 presidential run
There's plenty of dirt to be slung at this candidate. Tip of the iceberg...
Think Progress: Jeb Bush’s Four Mysterious Companies Share The Same Address And Have Never Done Any Known Business
Wayne Madsen Report pithy comments...
Bush patriarch is in Houston hospital. Hell's welcoming committee is on standby notice.
Karl Rove defends rectal feeding. Karl used to get rectally-fed at afternoon "Tea Dances" in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of DC. Guys known as "hairy bears" would rectally feed Karl until he squealed like a pig. This information came from a senior editor of The Washington Times who was not permitted to run with the story.
Michael Hayden defends rectal rehydration. That's because Hayden likely attended Dick Cheney's rectal rehydration parties at which female prostitutes squirted on glass top tables. Maybe Hayden got his expertise on this fetish when he was getting it on with "Captain AmErika" in Sarajevo in the 90s.
Counterpunch: The Complicity of Psychologists in CIA Torture
On The Contrary: More details on “psychologist” thugs who devised CIA torture
NBC News: Bin Laden Expert Accused of Shaping CIA Deception on 'Torture' Program
New Yorker: The Unidentified Queen of Torture
AKA Isla, She-Wolf of the CIA
Her name, Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, has been out there for some time: since September 2011...
Boiling Frogs Post: Confirmed Identity of the CIA Official behind 9/11, Rendition and Torture Cases is Revealed
Of course the Brits have been integral to these infamies, while managing to evade the media circus, for the most part...
Guardian: US hid UK links in CIA torture report at request of British spy agencies
In other spook news...
Intelligence Online: MI5 acknowledges errors to MPs
IntelNews: Hezbollah leader’s senior bodyguard was Mossad agent
Republic Report: Blackwater Lobbyist Will Manage the House Intelligence Committee
Daily Mail: 'CIA
paid me to use airstrip as rendition zone... and to look the other
way': Former airport director reveals secret Polish staging post for
U.S. torture programme
Al Jazeera: How a false witness helped the CIA make a case for torture
Blacklisted News: US Propaganda Arm Radio Free Europe Raided And Shut Down in Azerbaijan
WikiLeaks: The Spyfiles
Sputnik: WikiLeaks Releases Classified CIA Agents Tips on Infiltrating EU, Schengen
Digital Journal: Wikileaks - CIA's Brennan on 'witch hunt' when Hastings was killed
33rdSquare: Car "Hacking" Growing in Popularity - How to Know if Your Car Can Be Hacked
Spiegel: Prying Eyes - Inside the NSA's War on Internet Security
The Age: US spyware 'on USB stick of Merkel aide'
Around the world...
Reuters: At least 26 killed in Yemen suicide bombing: security official
BBC: As it happened - Pakistan school attack
Dawn: Afghan Taliban condemn Peshawar school attack
Cryptogon: Australia - Hostage Situation in Sydney
Land Destroyer: Who Created Cartoon Character "Man Haron Monis" Behind "Sydney Siege" Circus?
Al Monitor (translation of Radikal): Is Islamic State finding refuge in Turkey?
...while receiving reconnaissance courtesy of Israel?
Israeli fly-over coincides with attack on Lebanese army
...along with more lethal air support...
21st Century Wire: AIDING ISIS - Israel Bombs Syria For Fifth Time in 18 Months, Gives Arms, Medical Aid to Militants
IANS: Iran terrorist group declares support for IS
Jerusalem Post: Is Obama secretly working to replace Netanyahu?
Intelligence Online: Washington’s Sunni allies disgruntled
Al Monitor (translation of Al Hayat): Is an Algerian uprising near?
Columbia Reports: ‘Colombian paramilitaries’ attack army post in Venezuela
On the new cold warpath...
ThereAreNoSunglasses: Obama’s Russian War Resolution Passes By 411 to 23
Rumours in Bryansk about invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine
RT: ‘If US sends weapons to Ukraine, Russia should send troops’ - lawmaker
Washington's Blog: NATO Prepositions Weapons in Poland for Attack on Russia
Sophie and Co.: Mikhail Gorbachev to RT: America wanted to rule the world but lost its way
It's up to Deutchland, the nation that brought us WWII, to save us from WWIII...
RT (Pepe Escobar): How Russia and Germany may save Europe from war
Die Welt: "Niemand kann Kiew den Weg in die Nato verbauen"
niqnaq translates: ukraine has the peculiar idea that it has “the right to join nato”
BRUSSELS
– In Ukraine are growing doubts as to the policy of the German Federal
government. Kiev is particularly frustrated about statements made by
foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) at the beginning of this
week which rejected the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine. The
Ambassador of Ukraine to the European Union in Brussels, Konstantin
Yeliseev, told Die Welt:
"I can’t understand
why the German foreign Minister Steinmeier wants to exclude NATO
membership for Ukraine. This remark Mr Steinmeier made a few days ago is
surprising and disappointing. Each partner country, including Germany,
should respect the choice of a sovereign state such as Ukraine..."
Sovereign state? In the past year we would liken the Ukraine more to a playground of clandestine agencies' "fun and games". German foreign minister Steinmeier seems to be coming to the realization that this is no game...
Global Post: Germany wants NATO, Russia to restart dialogue
"We
now have very few ways of talking about events which come up suddenly,
for example military exercises, (aircraft) over-flights or the presence
of Russian warships around the world," German Foreign Minister Franz
Walter Steinmeier said.
"We no longer have
the possibility to determine what lies behind such moves and whether
they are cause for concern or not," he said on the sidelines of a NATO
foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.
Steinmeier
warned that current contacts with Russia were even less than during the
Cold War and this should be changed so as to avoid events getting
"completely out of control."
We hope not this kind of "out of control"...
ENENews: Emergency repair reported at largest nuclear power plant in Europe — Prime Minister: I know that a nuclear accident has occurred (VIDEO)
The nuclear plant is just west of the E. Ukraine conflict zone: LIVEUAMAP
Later in the month, for a second time...
RT: Emergency shutdown at Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant
Radiation measurement reported to be 14 times permissible level...
Русская весна: Новый Чернобыль в Запорожье: в ДНР сообщают об утечке радиации на крупнейшей АЭС Украины - translation at The Vineyard of the Saker
The war escalates on the economic front, with Russia reeling...
ZeroHedge: Russia Shocks With Emergency Rate Hike, Boosts Interest Rate From 10.5% To 17%
The Sellside Reacts: "17% Rate Hike Not Enough" According To Citi, JPM; Goldman Positive: "Removes CBR Uncertainty"
RussEurope: What happened to the Ruble?
Strategic-Culture (Wayne Madsen): How the CIA Launched the «Financial Pearl Harbor» Attacks on Russia and Venezuela
Collateral damage?...
OilPrice.com: Saudi Facing Largest Deficit In Its History
RT: Slumping Russian ruble threatens German economy – top exec
Earlier in the month, Putin took a set-back on South Stream pipeline, but not without a back-up plan...
Sputnik: Russia Scraps South Stream Gas Project - Gazprom
Gazprom Plans to Build New Black Sea Gas Pipeline to Turkey
Gazprom will set up a legal entity for construction of a new pipeline
with annual capacity of 63 billion cubic meters to deliver Russian
natural gas to Turkey and customers in Southern Europe, Alexey Miller
added.
Al Arabiya: Erdogan eyes tighter Turkey, Russia alliance
+
Police state news...
Global Grind: Police Brutality - Denver Police Attempt To Erase Video Of Cop Brutally Beating Unarmed Suspect, Injuring Pregnant Woman
Counter Current News: Charges Dropped For Cop Who Fatally Shot Sleeping 7-Year-Old Girl
NY Daily News: NYPD officer in Eric Garner 'chokehold' death not indicted by Staten Island grand jury
NYPost: NYPD chokehold decision sparks protests
A few more copy-cats of this incident and Civil War II will be upon us...
Gunman executes 2 NYPD cops as ‘revenge’ for Garner
Doing everything they can to instigate it...
Bustle: Fox's WBFF Airs "Kill A Cop!" Protest Footage That Never Happened Outside Of An Editing Room — VIDEO
Privacy SOS: So-called 'counterterror' fusion center in Massachusetts monitored Black Lives Matter protesters
Reuters: Cops scan social media to help assess your ‘threat rating’
Infowars: Former Police Chief Admits Involvement in Federal Anti-Patriot Operation
Liberty Unyielding: Feds threaten Oath Keepers, allegedly at gunpoint, for protecting Ferguson businesses
ZeroHedge: Obama Planning To Increase Funding For The Militarization Of America's Police Force
Alternet: From Occupation to “Occupy” - The Israelification of American Domestic Security
NYPD Uses Military-Grade Sonic Weapon on Eric Garner Protesters
Medium: America Has a New Commando Unit - National Guard Special Operations Detachment could boost secretive command
Cop Block: FORMER FEDERAL AGENT EXPOUNDS ON ILLEGAL MEANS USED TO FRAME TARGETS
Truthout: Convicted With No Evidence by an All-White Jury, Black Community Leader Faces Life in Prison
PressTV: Civil rights activist's verdict, travesty of justice
Prison Planet: The TSA Will Be Unwrapping Your Gifts This Christmas
+
Miscellania...
Wall Street on Parade: Slain MassMutual Executive Held Wall Street “Trade Secrets”
The Economic Collapse: New Law Would Make Taxpayers Potentially Liable For TRILLIONS In Derivatives Losses
Washington Post: Jamie Dimon himself called to urge support for the derivatives rule in the spending bill
NHK: Shadow over NYC
Veterans Today: America’s Real Ties to ISIS
Telegraph: Brixton slavery case - suspected cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan is charged
Aangirfan: CHILD RAPE BY GURUS; CIA LINKS
THE BOYLOVERS WHO RUN THE UK
Delaware Online: Ex-Tower Hill leader guilty of dealing in child porn
Court records - Former Tower Hill headmaster Christopher D. Wheeler sexually abused adopted son
Guardian: Femen activist who stole St Peter’s Square Jesus could face Vatican trial
The U.S. will not relinquish policies of cultural harassment...
Radio Habana Cuba: La USAID considera que la múscia es una herramienta para desequilibrar a Cuba
Antiwar: Emails Reveal US State Department Influenced Sony’s “The Interview” so as to Encourage Assassination and Regime Change in North Korea
Some might retaliate...
Vulture: Everything That’s Been Revealed in the Sony Leak Scandal [Updated]
Re/code: Sony to Officially Name North Korea as Source of Hack Attack
More likely, some will be maliciously blamed for retaliation...
Fabius Maximus: The FBI told their story about North Korea attacking Sony. Before we retaliate, read what they didn’t tell you.
...whereas other factors may point to the true provenance of the attack...
Cryptome: Sony Options Greenwald's Snowden
Beforeitsnews: Internet News Sites Blocked 12-2-2014 – Getting Ready to GO LIVE?
Nanowerk: 3D printed nanostructures made entirely of graphene
Farm Wars: Closing the Gate on GMO and the Criminal Transatlantic Trade Agreement
The Complete Patient: MIT Scientist Presents Dire Portrait of Damage from Monsanto's Roundup
Sharyl Attkisson: CDC - More Than 1,400 People in U.S. Being Actively Monitored for Ebola
ABC News: Mystery Surrounds NASA's Secret Mission in Africa
Underground construction project or sonic boom?...
Idaho State Journal: No causes found for mysterious Bingham County explosions
Daily Mail: Is this proof mysterious bangs heard on both sides of Atlantic WERE caused by a top-secret US jet? Footage of hypersonic engine in action reveals it sounds almost identical to unexplained noises
Telegraph: The Night Sky in December - A new cold war waged not on Earth, but in space
Sputnik: Russian Company Proposes to Build Lunar Base
ENENews: Experts: 100% death rate for baby killer whales along West Coast — ‘Alarm bells ring’ as no newborns have survived in past 3 years — “This is absolutely the worst thing possible”, pregnant orca dies with decomposing stillborn full-term fetus inside — “We’re going to lose them… they’ll be extinct for sure”
Malaysia Insider (Dec. 26): AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes sells shares in Tune Insurance
ZeroHedge (Dec. 28): Search For Disappeared Air Asia Flight Suspended: Summary Of The Facts So Far
Updates on old news...
Russia Insider: MH17 - The Facts and the Cover-Up
Voltaire.net: Vladislav Voloshin - "The Plane Was In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time"
IndependentMediaSolidarity: We Need to Talk about Sandy Hook
Infowars Nightly News: The Ultimate Sandy Hook Debate As The 2nd Anniversary Looms
All voices: BP oil spill - The disaster that keeps killing
Herald Scotland: Revealed 30 years on - secret role of Henry Kissinger in Bhopal tragedy
Counterpunch: Conversation with a CIA Interrogator
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Who Wanted Waterpower?
Among the more notorious of practices that have come to light in the recently released Senate torture report is that of "rectal hydration" (covered in our post, The Anal Americans). In the ensuing media spin cycles, we have been treated to the embarrassment of former CIA directors and agents along with other Bush Administration officials, including Dick Cheney, defending rectal hydration and feeding as legitimate medical procedures...
The Hill: Ex-CIA director defends rectal rehydration
Rove defends CIA's use of rectal feeding tubes
Guardian: Cheney insists 'rectal feeding' was for medical reasons, not torture
Daily Beast: CIA Interrogation Chief - ‘Rectal Feeding,’ Broken Limbs Are News to Me
“Rectal hydration thing sounds like a medical procedure, but it was not part of the approved and sanctioned techniques that were given to us by our guys and approved” by the Justice Department, he said.
Since these procedures were conducted outside of the interrogation sessions proper, and as M.D.'s say they have no medical value, the motivation for them can only be attributed to the sadism and voyeurism of the officials who approved of and conducted them...
Physicians for Human Rights: Medical Professionals Denounce “Rectal Feeding” as “Sexual Assault Masquerading as Medical Treatment”
Amidst the flurry of recriminations and "no apology" defenses, certain allegations revisited in the December 10-11 Wayne Madsen Report, Senate Torture Report exposes bizarre sexual voyeurism of Cheney, others, tend to support this thesis. When Cheney said on FOX, CIA Report 'Is Full of Crap', he was making a Freudian slip. He would have a good idea of what crap looks like - indeed, from a perspective beneath "the dark side". According to an April 11, 2008 Madsen report during the "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeanne Palfrey trial, Cheney's predilection for water-sports - of the "number two" variety - was first brought to light...
Cheney, according to knowledgeable sources involved in the Palfrey trial, paid at least one escort to straddle a glass top table and defecate on it while Cheney peered at the bowel "evacuation" from underneath.
Suggestive of Cheney's voyeurism, Madsen recounts the curious timing of both the destruction of some of the CIA torture videotapes and a suspicious fire near Cheney's office in the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building...
After the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed interest in the torture videotapes, the CIA destroyed them on November 9, 2005, according to the report. The number of videotapes held by the CIA and destroyed is not disclosed. The report indicates that other videotapes of torture were destroyed by the CIA beginning in December 2007.
WMR previously reported that live video streaming equipment used by Vice President Cheney and his aides to view torture sessions in his Old Executive Building office was destroyed by a suspicious fire.
The fire occurred on December 19, 2007. Citing May 28, 2009 and December 21, 2008 reports, Madsen continues...
"WMR reported on the high-tech support provided the Bush-Cheney White House by Mike Connell's GovTech Solutions and his close colleague Jeff Averbeck's firm SmarTech. Connell died last December when the plane he was piloting crashed short of landing in Akron, Ohio. We have now learned that Connell and Averbeck may have been behind the installation of live streaming black boxes in the White House and the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building used to stream live video of torture sessions in Guantanamo, Cuba and Abu Ghraib to the Old Executive Office Building office of Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief Counsel David Addington and into the White House, itself."
Addington is mentioned a number of times in the Senate report as being a key player in the torture program. WMR's May 28, 2009 report continued: "The fire that broke out in an 'electrical closet' in the Old Executive Office Building on December 19, 2007, near Cheney's ceremonial office likely contained the live streaming boxes used to stream torture sessions from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, according to our sources who added that SmartTech and Airnet have been in the live streaming video business since 2002..."
These allegations further raise an admittedly speculative and seemingly improbable but quite plausible possibility. While we do not have a smoking gun, we have evidence of both motive and opportunity to suggest that Dick Cheney may have requested the making of Waterpower, a 1977 hardcore "high colonics" specialty film, a remake of Taxi Driver but loosely based on the true story of the "enema bandit," Michael Kenyon.
With lines in the Senate report quoted from internal emails being practically lifted out of the screenplay of Waterpower...
"[w]hat I infer is that you get a tube up as far as you can, then open the IV wide. No need to squeeze the bag - let gravity do the work."
...and given Cheney's peculiar kink, some have pondered whether he might have had something to do with the film. We have contacted Shaun Costello, the director of Waterpower, about this question; while he has no knowledge of Cheney's involvement, we wondered about a brief encounter in '74 - when Cheney was the Deputy Assistant to President Ford following Nixon's Watergate resignation - that suggests this possibility cannot be ruled out. Costello has an autobiographical blog where he recounts the hey-day of "The Deuce" - the area around Times Square where the adult cinema thrived in the '70s and early '80s before it became an industry and before Times Square was "Disney-fied". The post that peaked our interest on this matter concerns his mother's wedding reception in Washington D.C...
The Third Hand
Both the ceremony and the reception were to be held at the townhouse of Michael Gill, a close friend of my mother’s new victim, and a man who had made a lifetime career out of being the nephew of Mamie Eisenhower. He was one of those Washington political parasites who lived on the perks when his party was in power. The republicans still held the Whitehouse so Michael Gill was on the dole. It was never made clear to me exactly what Gill did, but from the look of him, I was certain that not all of it was legal.
Perhaps not, but he had been on the staff of Charles S. Rhyne (NYT obit) during the '68 Nixon-Agnew Presidential Campaign (CQ Almanac: Special assistant to Rhyne is Michael Gill, a Washington, D.C., resident and nephew of former President Eisenhower.) Rhyne was a long time Nixon supporter who eventually became council for his Oval Office secretary, Rose Mary Woods, in the inquiry concerning the missing 18 minutes of White House recordings during Watergate.
Back to Costello:
The ceremony was to be presided over by a Seventh Circuit Appellate Judge, and attended by a collection of Washington’s best and worst characters. My mother’s new husband had owned restaurants in the Washington area for years, and seemed well liked. Bob Dole was there, as was Dick Cheney, Ed Musky, and what seemed like every lobbyist in the capital.
On the other side of the reception was a delegation of boys from the Bonnano family in New York, some of whom looked familiar. What an amazing gathering. Some of them had gone to law school to learn how to defend criminals, and some of them had attended “The University of the Streets” to learn the subtle nuances of the import/export business, but all of them were gangsters. I hadn’t seen this many republicans in one room since the televised coverage of the 1972 Convention.
Costello describes his exploration of Gill's townhouse, particularly of the basement which he describes as "a wood paneled wonderland of adult entertainment," including a home theater...
The shelves in the projection room contained 16MM prints of feature films, all pornographic. As I went through the titles I was horrified to find several little movies that I had made for Sid Levine the previous year, and I was in about half of them. So Michael Gill had seen me in action. But how could he have gotten his hands on theatrical films that I had made for the DeCavalcante crime family? Then I remembered the boys from the Bonnano family who were upstairs for the wedding.
Costello then recounts his meeting Dick Cheney...
Gill, who’s constantly filling my glass, was telling me a series of bizarre stories about the sexual capabilities of his insatiable, nymphomaniac girlfriend. She was a mousy little thing, who I’m sure no one at the reception suspected of having a third hand located in her vagina, yet Gill maintained that this was the case. Now I knew that he recognized me from the movies. Why else would he be constantly whispering in my ear about his girlfriend’s sexual exploits? If he knew, did his pal who was in the midst of marrying my mother also know? Did Cheney? Dole? Musky? Just how many members of the United States Senate had watched, in the comfy confines of Michael Gill’s underground pleasure chamber, the movies I had made for the Mob? Gill was still relentlessly whispering. “I guarantee you young man, the slippery grasp, the velvety fingers, your zorch will be the happiest little guy on planet Earth.” Zorch? I hadn’t heard that word since I was twelve. At this point Gill decided that I should meet his pal Dick Cheney who, for the past few months, had been running Gerry Ford’s transition team, working just under his buddy Don Rumsfeld. “Dick, I’d like you meet the bride’s son Shaun. He’s a film maker you know.” Cheney turned with an outstretched hand, “A real pleasure Shaun. They make quite a handsome couple. A film maker, huh. Not a member of the press are you?” “No sir, not at all.” Cheney was sizing me up. “What kind of films do you make?” He was peering at me over the top of his glasses. “Golf sir, my last film was about the British Open.” Cheney smiled, “Golf. That’s the ticket. The great American common denominator. Everybody loves golf. Did you know that President Ford is quite an accomplished golfer? Plays with the pros all the time.”
Wink wink? Fast forward a couple of years, to an odd request from Costello's mafia patrons, recounted in his blog entry on the making of Waterpower, of his meeting with Sid Levine in the Fall of '76...
Sid was looking grim when I got to his office, and he didn’t waste any time. “Look, I’m a grandfather and I’m ashamed to have to ask you this, but they need an enema movie.”
We wondered, who is this "they"? Mr. Costello insists that "they" are Robert "DiBi" DiBernardo (see the Mafia Wikia entry for background). He thought money could be made on this film because of the notoriety of the true story of the "enema bandit". Listen however to the words of DiBi that Costello quotes:
“Look, I don’t want to know about this thing. You just do whatever Sid tells you. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to know about it. I don’t want to talk about it. OK? Understand? I don’t want anybody to know I was involved in this thing. OK? Got it?”
Does this sound like someone who thinks he's going to make a bundle? In fact, as Costello recounts, Waterpower languished in the American theaters, finding no success until years later, when Reuben Sturman's operation distributed it to the European and Japanese markets. DiBi's tone however suggests that perhaps this film was to be made as a favor for someone. But who? The players in the crime syndicates of the time were quite conservative in their sexual tastes. Politicians however were and are another matter. Given the confluence of "connections" that were present together at Michael Gill's townhouse, we are thus presented with the opportunity for the request to eventually be made. Though the Bonannos did not handle porn distribution on the East Coast, they were friendly with the Gambino interests who did. As we read on pg. 175 of The Other Hollywood:
Operation "Amore" Report: Michael Zaffarano: Subject is an old capo in the Bonanno crime family. Information has been received that Zaffarano has been working very closely with Gambino interests in New York City, Los Angeles and Miami. Los Angeles Police Department states that the Bonanno family through Zaffarano is the controlling porno power in California.
From Cheney to Gill to Zaffarano to DiBi to Costello? The question remains: for what in exchange of which would this favor have been done? We can only speculate, but the history of government collusion in the drug trade - particularly in order to fund CIA operations unapproved by Congress - is well documented, from Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia to Daniel Hopsicker's Barry and the Boys to Gary Webb's Dark Alliance series. Could Cheney have offered "most favored status" to the Bonanno and/or Gambino interests in the drug trade? Here we veer into the nether regions of deep politics, one might say, "where the sun doesn't shine"...
The Hill: Ex-CIA director defends rectal rehydration
Rove defends CIA's use of rectal feeding tubes
Guardian: Cheney insists 'rectal feeding' was for medical reasons, not torture
Daily Beast: CIA Interrogation Chief - ‘Rectal Feeding,’ Broken Limbs Are News to Me
“Rectal hydration thing sounds like a medical procedure, but it was not part of the approved and sanctioned techniques that were given to us by our guys and approved” by the Justice Department, he said.
Since these procedures were conducted outside of the interrogation sessions proper, and as M.D.'s say they have no medical value, the motivation for them can only be attributed to the sadism and voyeurism of the officials who approved of and conducted them...
Physicians for Human Rights: Medical Professionals Denounce “Rectal Feeding” as “Sexual Assault Masquerading as Medical Treatment”
Amidst the flurry of recriminations and "no apology" defenses, certain allegations revisited in the December 10-11 Wayne Madsen Report, Senate Torture Report exposes bizarre sexual voyeurism of Cheney, others, tend to support this thesis. When Cheney said on FOX, CIA Report 'Is Full of Crap', he was making a Freudian slip. He would have a good idea of what crap looks like - indeed, from a perspective beneath "the dark side". According to an April 11, 2008 Madsen report during the "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeanne Palfrey trial, Cheney's predilection for water-sports - of the "number two" variety - was first brought to light...
Cheney, according to knowledgeable sources involved in the Palfrey trial, paid at least one escort to straddle a glass top table and defecate on it while Cheney peered at the bowel "evacuation" from underneath.
Suggestive of Cheney's voyeurism, Madsen recounts the curious timing of both the destruction of some of the CIA torture videotapes and a suspicious fire near Cheney's office in the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building...
After the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed interest in the torture videotapes, the CIA destroyed them on November 9, 2005, according to the report. The number of videotapes held by the CIA and destroyed is not disclosed. The report indicates that other videotapes of torture were destroyed by the CIA beginning in December 2007.
WMR previously reported that live video streaming equipment used by Vice President Cheney and his aides to view torture sessions in his Old Executive Building office was destroyed by a suspicious fire.
The fire occurred on December 19, 2007. Citing May 28, 2009 and December 21, 2008 reports, Madsen continues...
"WMR reported on the high-tech support provided the Bush-Cheney White House by Mike Connell's GovTech Solutions and his close colleague Jeff Averbeck's firm SmarTech. Connell died last December when the plane he was piloting crashed short of landing in Akron, Ohio. We have now learned that Connell and Averbeck may have been behind the installation of live streaming black boxes in the White House and the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building used to stream live video of torture sessions in Guantanamo, Cuba and Abu Ghraib to the Old Executive Office Building office of Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief Counsel David Addington and into the White House, itself."
Addington is mentioned a number of times in the Senate report as being a key player in the torture program. WMR's May 28, 2009 report continued: "The fire that broke out in an 'electrical closet' in the Old Executive Office Building on December 19, 2007, near Cheney's ceremonial office likely contained the live streaming boxes used to stream torture sessions from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, according to our sources who added that SmartTech and Airnet have been in the live streaming video business since 2002..."
These allegations further raise an admittedly speculative and seemingly improbable but quite plausible possibility. While we do not have a smoking gun, we have evidence of both motive and opportunity to suggest that Dick Cheney may have requested the making of Waterpower, a 1977 hardcore "high colonics" specialty film, a remake of Taxi Driver but loosely based on the true story of the "enema bandit," Michael Kenyon.
With lines in the Senate report quoted from internal emails being practically lifted out of the screenplay of Waterpower...
"[w]hat I infer is that you get a tube up as far as you can, then open the IV wide. No need to squeeze the bag - let gravity do the work."
...and given Cheney's peculiar kink, some have pondered whether he might have had something to do with the film. We have contacted Shaun Costello, the director of Waterpower, about this question; while he has no knowledge of Cheney's involvement, we wondered about a brief encounter in '74 - when Cheney was the Deputy Assistant to President Ford following Nixon's Watergate resignation - that suggests this possibility cannot be ruled out. Costello has an autobiographical blog where he recounts the hey-day of "The Deuce" - the area around Times Square where the adult cinema thrived in the '70s and early '80s before it became an industry and before Times Square was "Disney-fied". The post that peaked our interest on this matter concerns his mother's wedding reception in Washington D.C...
The Third Hand
Both the ceremony and the reception were to be held at the townhouse of Michael Gill, a close friend of my mother’s new victim, and a man who had made a lifetime career out of being the nephew of Mamie Eisenhower. He was one of those Washington political parasites who lived on the perks when his party was in power. The republicans still held the Whitehouse so Michael Gill was on the dole. It was never made clear to me exactly what Gill did, but from the look of him, I was certain that not all of it was legal.
Perhaps not, but he had been on the staff of Charles S. Rhyne (NYT obit) during the '68 Nixon-Agnew Presidential Campaign (CQ Almanac: Special assistant to Rhyne is Michael Gill, a Washington, D.C., resident and nephew of former President Eisenhower.) Rhyne was a long time Nixon supporter who eventually became council for his Oval Office secretary, Rose Mary Woods, in the inquiry concerning the missing 18 minutes of White House recordings during Watergate.
Back to Costello:
The ceremony was to be presided over by a Seventh Circuit Appellate Judge, and attended by a collection of Washington’s best and worst characters. My mother’s new husband had owned restaurants in the Washington area for years, and seemed well liked. Bob Dole was there, as was Dick Cheney, Ed Musky, and what seemed like every lobbyist in the capital.
On the other side of the reception was a delegation of boys from the Bonnano family in New York, some of whom looked familiar. What an amazing gathering. Some of them had gone to law school to learn how to defend criminals, and some of them had attended “The University of the Streets” to learn the subtle nuances of the import/export business, but all of them were gangsters. I hadn’t seen this many republicans in one room since the televised coverage of the 1972 Convention.
Costello describes his exploration of Gill's townhouse, particularly of the basement which he describes as "a wood paneled wonderland of adult entertainment," including a home theater...
The shelves in the projection room contained 16MM prints of feature films, all pornographic. As I went through the titles I was horrified to find several little movies that I had made for Sid Levine the previous year, and I was in about half of them. So Michael Gill had seen me in action. But how could he have gotten his hands on theatrical films that I had made for the DeCavalcante crime family? Then I remembered the boys from the Bonnano family who were upstairs for the wedding.
Costello then recounts his meeting Dick Cheney...
Gill, who’s constantly filling my glass, was telling me a series of bizarre stories about the sexual capabilities of his insatiable, nymphomaniac girlfriend. She was a mousy little thing, who I’m sure no one at the reception suspected of having a third hand located in her vagina, yet Gill maintained that this was the case. Now I knew that he recognized me from the movies. Why else would he be constantly whispering in my ear about his girlfriend’s sexual exploits? If he knew, did his pal who was in the midst of marrying my mother also know? Did Cheney? Dole? Musky? Just how many members of the United States Senate had watched, in the comfy confines of Michael Gill’s underground pleasure chamber, the movies I had made for the Mob? Gill was still relentlessly whispering. “I guarantee you young man, the slippery grasp, the velvety fingers, your zorch will be the happiest little guy on planet Earth.” Zorch? I hadn’t heard that word since I was twelve. At this point Gill decided that I should meet his pal Dick Cheney who, for the past few months, had been running Gerry Ford’s transition team, working just under his buddy Don Rumsfeld. “Dick, I’d like you meet the bride’s son Shaun. He’s a film maker you know.” Cheney turned with an outstretched hand, “A real pleasure Shaun. They make quite a handsome couple. A film maker, huh. Not a member of the press are you?” “No sir, not at all.” Cheney was sizing me up. “What kind of films do you make?” He was peering at me over the top of his glasses. “Golf sir, my last film was about the British Open.” Cheney smiled, “Golf. That’s the ticket. The great American common denominator. Everybody loves golf. Did you know that President Ford is quite an accomplished golfer? Plays with the pros all the time.”
Wink wink? Fast forward a couple of years, to an odd request from Costello's mafia patrons, recounted in his blog entry on the making of Waterpower, of his meeting with Sid Levine in the Fall of '76...
Sid was looking grim when I got to his office, and he didn’t waste any time. “Look, I’m a grandfather and I’m ashamed to have to ask you this, but they need an enema movie.”
We wondered, who is this "they"? Mr. Costello insists that "they" are Robert "DiBi" DiBernardo (see the Mafia Wikia entry for background). He thought money could be made on this film because of the notoriety of the true story of the "enema bandit". Listen however to the words of DiBi that Costello quotes:
“Look, I don’t want to know about this thing. You just do whatever Sid tells you. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to know about it. I don’t want to talk about it. OK? Understand? I don’t want anybody to know I was involved in this thing. OK? Got it?”
Does this sound like someone who thinks he's going to make a bundle? In fact, as Costello recounts, Waterpower languished in the American theaters, finding no success until years later, when Reuben Sturman's operation distributed it to the European and Japanese markets. DiBi's tone however suggests that perhaps this film was to be made as a favor for someone. But who? The players in the crime syndicates of the time were quite conservative in their sexual tastes. Politicians however were and are another matter. Given the confluence of "connections" that were present together at Michael Gill's townhouse, we are thus presented with the opportunity for the request to eventually be made. Though the Bonannos did not handle porn distribution on the East Coast, they were friendly with the Gambino interests who did. As we read on pg. 175 of The Other Hollywood:
Operation "Amore" Report: Michael Zaffarano: Subject is an old capo in the Bonanno crime family. Information has been received that Zaffarano has been working very closely with Gambino interests in New York City, Los Angeles and Miami. Los Angeles Police Department states that the Bonanno family through Zaffarano is the controlling porno power in California.
From Cheney to Gill to Zaffarano to DiBi to Costello? The question remains: for what in exchange of which would this favor have been done? We can only speculate, but the history of government collusion in the drug trade - particularly in order to fund CIA operations unapproved by Congress - is well documented, from Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia to Daniel Hopsicker's Barry and the Boys to Gary Webb's Dark Alliance series. Could Cheney have offered "most favored status" to the Bonanno and/or Gambino interests in the drug trade? Here we veer into the nether regions of deep politics, one might say, "where the sun doesn't shine"...
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
The Anal Americans
In as much as the Order of Skull and Bones may be said to be integral to the origins of the CIA, so may it be said that excrement lines the embryo from which the agency has sprung. This much is alleged in the depiction of a Skull and Bones hazing rite in Robert DeNiro's 2006 film The Good Shepherd, wherein nude initiates wrestle in mud (or feces) while being rained down upon with the urine of their seniors. The scene is pruriently discussed here:
Towleroad: In the Mud with Matt Damon
(More sober reviews of the Eric Roth screenplay critique its accuracy, however, ranging from the limited hangout charge leveled by Conspirazzi to the sour assessment of the CIA's own court historians.)
A recent Wayne Madsen Report details the ongoing fascination the CIA has had with "Excrem-INT" throughout its history and up to the present. Some excerpts...
Genetic assassination weapons in CIA's quiver
Ever since Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the double helix of DNA in the 1950s, intelligence agencies immediately began to discover ways to use the discovery of DNA for weapons research. Although it has always been assumed that intelligence services conducted MEDINT, or medical intelligence gathering, to discover what ailments were afflicting world leaders, it is also true that particular genetic traits of potential targets for assassination were being analyzed to develop genetic-specific weapons. A genetic susceptibilty of a targeted individual to develop cancer, heart disease, or other fatal or debilitating diseases would assist intelligence agencies to deliver particular "designer" genetic weapons.
The U.S. Secret Service goes to great lengths to collect all of the President's DNA samples while he travels abroad. Drinking glasses are wiped, napkins are collected, and even stool and urine samples are protected from being obtained by foreign intelligence agencies while the President is visiting foreign locales. This has always been one of the more closely-guarded operations of the Secret Service. However, such countermeasures are not only taken to ensure that medical information on a commander-in-chief's prescription drug usage, medical condition, and other health information is not obtained by a hostile or even friendly intelligence service but also to prevent medical intelligence from enabling a hostile service from developing a designer genetic weapon.
The State Department's program to collect DNA samples from foreign political figures was leaked in a 2010 SECRET/NOFORN cable from the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to U.S. embassies in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo requesting them to obtain "DNA," in addition to fingerprints, facial images, and iris scans, from government leaders. The collection needs were described as being part of the National HUMINT Collection Directive (NHCD). Other embassies and missions also received requests for DNA samples. The Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency were copied on the State Department biometric collection tasking cables. In 2005, the CIA director was designated as the National HUMINT Manager for the U.S. Intelligence Community. The operations are carried out under the National Clandestine Service of the CIA...
The annals of the CIA are replete with operations designed to capture human waste samples from various world leaders. Included in the CIA's sweep for poop and urine were Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev whose solid waste was trapped by the CIA during his 1959 visit to the United States and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia whose urine was captured in the urinal of a Monte Carlo casino. Similar samples taken from Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Indonesian leader Sukarno, founders of the non-aligned movement, may have resulted in the CIA creating designer poisons to kill them both within a few months of each other in 1970. Nasser died from a sudden heart attack while Sukarno , under house arrest after a CIA coup, died from kidney failure...
In an WMR article from 2006, Even Bush's crap is classified top secret (mirrored at Rense), we read of other "Copro-ops" on foreign leaders...
The Israeli Mossad conducted one such operation against Syrian President Hafez Assad when he visited Amman, Jordan in Feb. 1999 for the funeral of King Hussein. The Mossad and its Jordanian counterpart installed a special toilet in Assad's hotel room that led not to a pipe but to a specimen canister. Assad suffered from diabetes and cancer and the operation was designed to discover the actual medical condition of the ailing leader. During Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's visit to Washington in 1987, the CIA reportedly placed a special trap under a sewage tank to collect the Soviet leader's bodily waste for analysis. More recently, the CIA was reported to have collected waste samples from Ugandan President-dictator Yoweri Museveni's toilet when he visited Washington.
While such coprophagous "intelligence gathering" is purposed to specific operative or analytic goals, other practices can be only be characterized as purely gratuitous. For instance, take the case of "The IRF-ing of Omar Deghayes" at Guantanamo Bay. IRF is the acronym for Immediate Reaction Force or alternately ERF, Emergency Reaction Force, described in this Jeremy Scahill article found at WikiLeaks:
Guantanamo's Immediate Reaction Force still terrorizing detainees
ERF-ing Omar -- The Feces Incident
On one of the ERF-ing incidents where Omar was abused, the officer in charge himself came into the cell with the feces of another prisoners [sic] and smeared it onto Omar's face. While some prisoners had thrown feces at the abusive guards, Omar had always emphatically refused to sink to this level. The experience was one of the most disgusting in Omar's life.
The parallel of this treatment to the alleged coprophilic hazing rite of Skull and Bones is evident. It is clear however that these "enhanced interrogation" techniques go far beyond even the most elite of frat-boy antics. Today, with the U.S. Senate's release of the much anticipated CIA torture report, we find officials who are not concerned with what comes out of the anal cavity, but with what they can force in, as is detailed in footnote 584, pg. 100 (129 of the PDF), courtesy of Cryptome...
CIA medical officers discussed rectal rehydration as a means of behavior control. As one officer wrote, "[w]hile IV infusion is safe and effective, we were impressed with the ancillary effectiveness of rectal infusion on ending the water refusal in a similar case."...
The same officer provided a description of the procedure, writing that "[r)egarding the rectal tube, if you place it and open up the IV tubing, the flow will self regulate, sloshing up the large intestines." Referencing the experience of the medical officer who subjected KSM to rectal rehydration, the officer wrote that, "[w]hat I infer is that you get a tube up as far as YOU can, then open the IV wide. No need to squeeze the bag - let gravity do the work."...
The same email exchange included a description of a previous application of the technique, in which "we used the largest Ewal bag we had."...
Majid Khan's "lunch tray," consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins was "pureed" and rectally infused...
CIA leadership, including General Counsel Scott Muller and DDO James Pavitt, was also alerted to allegations that rectal exams were conducted with "excessive force" on two detainees at DETENTION SITE COBALT. CIA attorney [redacted] was asked to follow up, although CIA records do not indicate any resolution of the inquiry. CIA records indicate that one of the detainees, Mustafa al-Hawsawi. was later diagnosed with chronic hemorrhoids, an anal·fissure, and symptomatic rectal prolapse.
+
Perhaps these secret society initiates and intelligence operatives could apply their anal fixations to more productive endeavors...
33rd Square: Researchers Convert Human Waste into Rocket Fuel
Towleroad: In the Mud with Matt Damon
(More sober reviews of the Eric Roth screenplay critique its accuracy, however, ranging from the limited hangout charge leveled by Conspirazzi to the sour assessment of the CIA's own court historians.)
A recent Wayne Madsen Report details the ongoing fascination the CIA has had with "Excrem-INT" throughout its history and up to the present. Some excerpts...
Genetic assassination weapons in CIA's quiver
Ever since Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the double helix of DNA in the 1950s, intelligence agencies immediately began to discover ways to use the discovery of DNA for weapons research. Although it has always been assumed that intelligence services conducted MEDINT, or medical intelligence gathering, to discover what ailments were afflicting world leaders, it is also true that particular genetic traits of potential targets for assassination were being analyzed to develop genetic-specific weapons. A genetic susceptibilty of a targeted individual to develop cancer, heart disease, or other fatal or debilitating diseases would assist intelligence agencies to deliver particular "designer" genetic weapons.
The U.S. Secret Service goes to great lengths to collect all of the President's DNA samples while he travels abroad. Drinking glasses are wiped, napkins are collected, and even stool and urine samples are protected from being obtained by foreign intelligence agencies while the President is visiting foreign locales. This has always been one of the more closely-guarded operations of the Secret Service. However, such countermeasures are not only taken to ensure that medical information on a commander-in-chief's prescription drug usage, medical condition, and other health information is not obtained by a hostile or even friendly intelligence service but also to prevent medical intelligence from enabling a hostile service from developing a designer genetic weapon.
The State Department's program to collect DNA samples from foreign political figures was leaked in a 2010 SECRET/NOFORN cable from the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to U.S. embassies in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo requesting them to obtain "DNA," in addition to fingerprints, facial images, and iris scans, from government leaders. The collection needs were described as being part of the National HUMINT Collection Directive (NHCD). Other embassies and missions also received requests for DNA samples. The Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency were copied on the State Department biometric collection tasking cables. In 2005, the CIA director was designated as the National HUMINT Manager for the U.S. Intelligence Community. The operations are carried out under the National Clandestine Service of the CIA...
The annals of the CIA are replete with operations designed to capture human waste samples from various world leaders. Included in the CIA's sweep for poop and urine were Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev whose solid waste was trapped by the CIA during his 1959 visit to the United States and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia whose urine was captured in the urinal of a Monte Carlo casino. Similar samples taken from Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Indonesian leader Sukarno, founders of the non-aligned movement, may have resulted in the CIA creating designer poisons to kill them both within a few months of each other in 1970. Nasser died from a sudden heart attack while Sukarno , under house arrest after a CIA coup, died from kidney failure...
In an WMR article from 2006, Even Bush's crap is classified top secret (mirrored at Rense), we read of other "Copro-ops" on foreign leaders...
The Israeli Mossad conducted one such operation against Syrian President Hafez Assad when he visited Amman, Jordan in Feb. 1999 for the funeral of King Hussein. The Mossad and its Jordanian counterpart installed a special toilet in Assad's hotel room that led not to a pipe but to a specimen canister. Assad suffered from diabetes and cancer and the operation was designed to discover the actual medical condition of the ailing leader. During Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's visit to Washington in 1987, the CIA reportedly placed a special trap under a sewage tank to collect the Soviet leader's bodily waste for analysis. More recently, the CIA was reported to have collected waste samples from Ugandan President-dictator Yoweri Museveni's toilet when he visited Washington.
While such coprophagous "intelligence gathering" is purposed to specific operative or analytic goals, other practices can be only be characterized as purely gratuitous. For instance, take the case of "The IRF-ing of Omar Deghayes" at Guantanamo Bay. IRF is the acronym for Immediate Reaction Force or alternately ERF, Emergency Reaction Force, described in this Jeremy Scahill article found at WikiLeaks:
Guantanamo's Immediate Reaction Force still terrorizing detainees
ERF-ing Omar -- The Feces Incident
On one of the ERF-ing incidents where Omar was abused, the officer in charge himself came into the cell with the feces of another prisoners [sic] and smeared it onto Omar's face. While some prisoners had thrown feces at the abusive guards, Omar had always emphatically refused to sink to this level. The experience was one of the most disgusting in Omar's life.
The parallel of this treatment to the alleged coprophilic hazing rite of Skull and Bones is evident. It is clear however that these "enhanced interrogation" techniques go far beyond even the most elite of frat-boy antics. Today, with the U.S. Senate's release of the much anticipated CIA torture report, we find officials who are not concerned with what comes out of the anal cavity, but with what they can force in, as is detailed in footnote 584, pg. 100 (129 of the PDF), courtesy of Cryptome...
CIA medical officers discussed rectal rehydration as a means of behavior control. As one officer wrote, "[w]hile IV infusion is safe and effective, we were impressed with the ancillary effectiveness of rectal infusion on ending the water refusal in a similar case."...
The same officer provided a description of the procedure, writing that "[r)egarding the rectal tube, if you place it and open up the IV tubing, the flow will self regulate, sloshing up the large intestines." Referencing the experience of the medical officer who subjected KSM to rectal rehydration, the officer wrote that, "[w]hat I infer is that you get a tube up as far as YOU can, then open the IV wide. No need to squeeze the bag - let gravity do the work."...
The same email exchange included a description of a previous application of the technique, in which "we used the largest Ewal bag we had."...
Majid Khan's "lunch tray," consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins was "pureed" and rectally infused...
CIA leadership, including General Counsel Scott Muller and DDO James Pavitt, was also alerted to allegations that rectal exams were conducted with "excessive force" on two detainees at DETENTION SITE COBALT. CIA attorney [redacted] was asked to follow up, although CIA records do not indicate any resolution of the inquiry. CIA records indicate that one of the detainees, Mustafa al-Hawsawi. was later diagnosed with chronic hemorrhoids, an anal·fissure, and symptomatic rectal prolapse.
+
Perhaps these secret society initiates and intelligence operatives could apply their anal fixations to more productive endeavors...
33rd Square: Researchers Convert Human Waste into Rocket Fuel
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