Sometimes reality is even stranger than fiction…
Is conservative satire site Babylon Bee psychic?
Let Amanda explain the controversy below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Words matter. In a post on his Truth Social platform last Friday, former President Donald Trump suggested that outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley deserved to be executed after speaking with China’s top general during Trump’s final months in office.
Trump said Milley’s “treasonous act” was “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
Clearly, Trump wasn’t threatening to do so but saying that Milley’s actions could have been punished by death in a prior era.
I condemned Milley’s actions at the time because they seemed to give the Chinese Communist regime a promise that they would be given a warning prior to any attack under Trump.
While Milley claims his actions were a normal part of his duties, I disagree.
They appeared to be more a normal part of the mission that he took upon himself, which was to counter Trump when Milley believed the president had crossed some line only Milley could see.
Some argue that Milley’s actions were not only disloyal to the president but also borderline ‘treasonous.’
Milley contends that he was behaving appropriately to avert an accidental war. He responded to Trump’s comments on CBS:
He also assured viewers that he had adequate safety measures for himself and his family.
The two backchannel calls to China’s top general, Li Zuocheng, that Milley made, and at the center of all this, were revealed in the 2021 book “Peril.”
As CNN reported:
In October 2020, as intelligence suggested China believed the US was going to attack them, Milley sought to calm Li by reassuring him that the US was not considering a strike, according to the book. Milley called again two days after the January 6 riot at the US Capitol to tell Li that the US is “100 percent steady” even though “things may look unsteady.”
How much of this reporting in the book was accurate, is hard to say. But Trump sees things very differently.
Trump said that Milley “turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States.”
And Trump may be right. For Milley to do that could be seen as highly inappropriate, if not exactly ‘treasonous.’
Still, Trump, a former president, and current front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, is way out of line. No American political leader should be using that kind of language against any American military official or political leader.
In today’s volatile climate, it is extremely dangerous.
Yet few in the GOP will condemn Trump’s statements. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is one of those willing to take aim at the Republican frontrunner. Politico quoted Hutchinson as saying:
To suggest that Gen. Milley should be executed is inexcusable and dangerous. While some will excuse this latest outrage as Trump just being Trump, the fact is that his statement endangers people and is an insult to those who serve in the military.
Perennial Trump critic, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, had stronger words, calling Trump an “absolute child” for the “reprehensible” remarks.
But it is part of a disturbing pattern by both sides to use dangerously inflammatory rhetoric at the highest levels against the other side.
Democrats raised the political temperature considerably against Trump, calling for, or at least condoning the calls for, his beheading and death on many occasions.
The demonization of Trump by the left and Democrat Party was more than I had ever seen in over thirty years in and around U.S. politics.
It was, and still is, outrageous.
But Trump isn’t helping things with his own dangerous rhetoric.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
A leading House conservative and member of the Budget Committee used his time in a committee hearing on the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” spending package to explain that the bill does little to reform spending and the supposed spending cuts are pushed to future years, giving future congresses and the next president time to repeal them.
Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy explained that while the bill does deliver tax relief it dramatically increases budget deficits by putting off spending reform:
“I appreciate my friend from Texas, the chairman, and you know, my Democratic colleagues keep telling things that are not true. The vast majority of Americans will get tax benefits under this bill. It’s just simply false to say that that’s not true. Hardworking Americans who will benefit from the standard deduction increase, hardworking Americans who will benefit from child tax credits and lower tax rates—stop saying things that aren’t true. Those things are true. The fact is, we have money in here for the border to undo the damage of Joe Biden. We have more money in here for defense to undo the damage of Joe Biden, but we also address Medicaid and Medicaid spending goes up. Stop lying. Medicaid spending goes up. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are profoundly unserious when it comes to being real about what’s happening with the numbers. I applaud Chairman Arrington. I applaud my colleagues on this side of the aisle for taking a step forward in dealing with the spending problem in this town.
But I have to now admonish my colleagues on this side of the aisle: this bill falls profoundly short. It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits. The fact of the matter is, on the spending, what we’re dealing with here is tax cuts and spending a massive front-loaded deficit increase. That’s the truth. That’s the truth. Deficits will go up in the first half of the 10-year budget window. And we all know it’s true, and we shouldn’t do that. We shouldn’t say that we’re doing something we’re not doing.
The fact of the matter is, this bill has back-loaded savings and front-loaded spending, nowhere near the Senate Budget top line, by the way. The Senate Budget top line of six and a half trillion dollars, which, by the way, is what we were pre-COVID, inflation-adjusted, on interest, on Medicare and Social Security. And if we would reform Medicaid, we could actually get to the core of the problem, but we refuse to do it. And I’m not going to sit here and say that everything is hunky-dory when this is the Budget Committee. This is the Budget Committee. We are supposed to do something to actually result in balanced budgets, but we’re not doing it. Look at what happens under deficits… Only in Washington are we expected to bet on the come that in five years, everything will work, then we will solve the problem.
We have got to change the direction of this town, and to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: yes, that means touching Medicaid. It went from $400 billion in 2019 to $600 billion this year. It’ll be over a trillion in the 2030s. We are making promises that we cannot keep. We do need to reform it. We need to stop giving seven times as much money to the able-bodied over the vulnerable. Why are we sticking it to the vulnerable population, the disabled and the sick, to give money to single able-bodied male adults? We shouldn’t do that. We should reform it. But guess what? That message needs to be delivered to my colleagues on this side of the aisle too.
We are writing checks we cannot cash, and our children are going to pay the price. So I am a no on this bill unless serious reforms are made today, tomorrow, Sunday. We’re having conversations as we speak, but something needs to change, or you’re not going to get my support.”
ANALYSIS – No surprise to me. I ran against this disgrace in 2010 in the GOP primary. I highlighted his obscene corruption, but much of the GOP establishment backed him to the hilt.
In the ‘you can’t make this up’ category, the discredited GOP ex-congressman David Rivera has been arrested by federal officials for conspiring to lobby on behalf of America’s Latin American nemesis, socialist Venezuela.
This, despite being the GOP’s South Florida poster boy for ‘anti-communism,’ an image he assiduously cultivated for years to curry favor with the Miami conservative base and deflect from his myriad failings.
When I ran against Rivera in the South Florida 2010 GOP congressional primary as a Tea Party outsider, my motto was ‘the Marine vs. the Machine’ due to Rivera’s lifelong ties to the GOP establishment.
During that race, Rivera, a termed-out state representative, got a massive number of Republican congressional leaders to back him, even though I was beating the drum about his corruption and lack of integrity.
Rivera won that primary, in part because a politically unknown woman, and possibly Democrat-linked spoiler, named Marili Cancio jumped into the race and siphoned off about 12% of the GOP voters I would have gotten.
Rivera then went on to win the congressional seat.
However, his corruption finally caught up with him and he lost his reelection to an equally distasteful Democrat – Joe Garcia.
That was the first time the GOP had lost that seat in 30 years, and Rivera became radioactive to most in the GOP afterward.
Thankfully, Democrat Joe only lasted one term himself.
But back to Rivera’s arrest.
CNBC reports that Rivera:
A former Miami congressman who signed a $50 million consulting contract with Venezuela’s socialist government was arrested Monday on charges of money laundering and representing a foreign government without registering.
Scandals have marred Rivera since he represented parts of the Miami metro area in Congress a decade ago.
The eight-count indictment against Rivera and lobbyist Esther Nuhfer chronicles the nefarious duo’s alleged dealings with Venezuela to help revive its state-run oil company.
The investigation stretches back to the start of the Trump administration when Rivera reportedly arranged meetings with an unnamed senator and a congressman as part of a conspiracy to ease tensions between the United States and South America’s socialist holdout. The unsavory politician ultimately hoped to lift sanctions on a regime universally reviled in South Florida.
Rivera began his efforts after signing a $50 million contract. Per Bloomberg, the indictment lays out the reputed method by which he unlawfully enriched himself:
The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Delcy Rodriguez, directed executives at CITGO, a Texas-based unit of PDVSA, to draw up a consulting contract with Rivera’s company, according to the indictment.
The contract was between Interamerican and PDV USA, which prosecutors allege was used by CITGO to facilitate “special projects” ordered by executives of the state-owned parent company.
Additional charges against Rivera and Nuhfer include conspiracy to commit offense against the US, conspiracy to commit money laundering and engaging in transactions in criminally deprived property. Nuhfer couldn’t immediately be located for comment.
At one point, note prosecutors, Rivera received a $5 million payment from PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-run oil company and personal piggy bank for its corrupt socialist leaders, in an account at Gazprom Bank in Russia.
Thankfully Rivera’s illegal pro-Venezuela outreach effort ultimately failed, as Trump in 2019 recognized opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader and imposed stiff oil sanctions on the OPEC nation in a bid to unseat Maduro.
The U.S. Marshals Service said Rivera bailed out of jail Monday afternoon after making an initial appearance in Atlanta federal court.
Even more concerning, though, the Associated Press’ initial report detailed how Rivera attempted to arrange a meeting between a prominent female Trump campaign adviser-turned-White House “counselor” and a pro-Maduro businessman on his jet in Miami on June 27, 2017.
Kellyanne Conaway was in Miami that day to headline a Republican Party fundraiser. At the time, she served the Trump White House as the Senior Counselor to the President.
This wouldn’t surprise me either, as Conway was very close to Rivera, and may have been behind efforts to keep me from entering the Trump administration during his term, at the behest of Rivera.
Trump’s hiring of Conway, who I admired and knew casually from years in conservative circles, was one of the reasons I believed Trump could win and helped convince me to back him.
Sadly, it seems Conway’s ties to slimy Rivera may have slimed her too.
All this should remind us all to be very careful when blindly backing politicians, no matter who they are.
Opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
FBI agents descended on Joe Biden’s beach home in Rehoboth Beach, DE on Wednesday as the Justice Department continues its search for classified documents…
Watch Amanda explain the latest developments below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Be afraid, Be very afraid. 1984 is almost here. A recent poll by the Libertarian CATO Institute showed that a big chunk of our latest and brightest Generation Z (Gen Z or Zoomers) actually favors having the government watch them 24/7.
Including surveillance in their homes and bedrooms.
Zoomers are officially those under the age of 26. And come right after Millennials.
After the horrors of World War Two showcased the brutal dangers of modern totalitarian dictatorships such as Nazi Germany and Communist Soviet Union, George Orwell penned his classic dystopian tale titled ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1984).
In the novel, written in 1949, the pervasive government of the fictional nation Oceania was known as ‘Big Brother,’ and it watched its citizens incessantly via two-way video devices called ‘telescreens.’
This was of course before the advent of television or modern surveillance.
Government agents known as the ‘Thought Police’ were able to monitor everyone at home, at work, on public streets, in shops, even in bathrooms. It was a terrifying existence.
The book and term ‘Big Brother’ have since been widely referenced when warning about government overreach and expanding state control.
Sadly, it seems that almost 30 percent of Gen Z (and some Millennials) haven’t read the book or understand the danger.
CATO’s Blog notes that:
In a newly released Cato Institute 2023 Central Bank Digital Currency National Survey of 2,000 Americans, we asked respondents whether they “favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.”
Fortunately, the poll shows that 75 percent of Americans oppose or are strongly opposed to this insane idea.
However, CATO also notes that the younger you get, the less concerned Americans are about state surveillance and control:
…Americans under the age of 30 stand out when it comes to 1984‐style in‐home government surveillance cameras. 3 in 10 (29 percent) Americans under 30 favor “the government installing surveillance cameras in every household” in order to “reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.” Support declines with age, dropping to 20 percent among 30–44-year-olds and dropping considerably to 6 percent among those over the age of 45.
Support for 24/7 surveillance was especially high among those younger than 30. Almost a third of those born after 1993 said they would welcome round-the-clock monitoring by the government.
Those respondents in their 40s, 50s, and 60s were almost totally opposed. That is a terribly disturbing trend that bodes ill for liberty in America in the next decades.
In his Boston Globe Email Newsletter, Jeff Jacoby provides his explanation for this sad state among Zoomers:
…perhaps, [it] is that Generation Z has been indoctrinated to regard safety, not freedom, as the highest good — so much so that many would rather be under the nonstop watch of the state than face the possibility of being abused or endangered.”
If so, they are in for a fearful awakening. What little protection they might gain from being under the authorities’ constant watch is nothing compared with the peril they would face. Benjamin Franklin’s famous admonition is as relevant as ever: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Inviting Big Brother into your home will not keep Gen Z-ers safe. And by the time they realize what they have given up, it will be too late to get it back.
Jacoby adds that the protagonist of Orwell’s novel, Winston Smith, is a weak man who resents the regime — and is ultimately broken for it. And the must-read book’s final words are haunting: “He loved Big Brother.”
Yet, after all we have seen and know about tyranny, almost a third of Generation Z is still prepared to love Big Brother too. Yes, we must be afraid. Very afraid.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – After reportedly imploding earlier Wednesday, Hunter Biden’s sweetheart criminal plea deal then appeared to be ‘back on’ after being revised.
But then the revised deal imploded again when it was blocked by the federal judge overseeing the case.
It now may be on life support.
Prosecutors said in court that Hunter Biden failed to pay between $1.1 million and $1.5 million in taxes when they were due.
Questioning from Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Trump appointee, during Biden’s hearing, uncovered that the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Biden’s legal team were not on the same page regarding the scope of the deal.
Biden’s team believed it was more sweeping than it was intended.
Hunter Biden had been expected to plead guilty to 2017 and 2018 misdemeanor tax charges Wednesday in a Delaware court, in part it seemed, to avoid jail time on a separate felony gun charge.
Under an earlier agreement with federal prosecutors in Delaware, the First Son has entered a pretrial diversion program for the gun charge, which allows defendants to avoid a conviction or prison time.
Noreika said she had “concerns” about the parties seemingly linking the tax plea agreement to resolving a felony gun charge.
However, the deal was then revised.
The new deal was going to cover Biden’s drug use and tax-related conduct from 2014 to 2019 (not just 2017-2018) but would not cover Biden for any other matters or crimes.
This is critical since the GOP-led House Oversight Committee is currently investigating Biden’s shady foreign business dealings and how Joe Biden is connected to the money that came to Hunter from overseas sources including Ukraine and China.
News of the sweetheart deal in June sparked accusations of favorable treatment for the president’s son from Republicans who have accused the younger Biden of a myriad of crimes and improprieties, including influence-peddling abroad.
Under the revised deal the DoJ could now charge Biden in the future for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) since he lobbied on behalf of foreign governments without registering as a Foreign Agent under FARA.
America First Legal (AFL) is suing the DoJ for allegedly failing to require the president’s son to register for FARA during the Obama administration.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley told CNN that court proceedings today on Biden’s plea deal shows that the deal was always flawed and that additional charges could be coming.
CNN reported:
“It’s very telling that the judge intervened here and said basically, ‘No, I’m not going to approve some sweeping blanket deal,’” the Republican from Missouri said. “I mean, that tells you the court has serious concerns about other potential charges here, and also the scope of the deal, which has seemed outrageous from the beginning.”
He added, “This, I think, signals that they’re still very much as potential for prosecution forward.”
Hawley said that Biden should not receive special treatment, as whistleblowers have alleged. “He should be treated like any other person under the law. That’s my view on him.”
But the judge wasn’t satisfied with the revised deal either. “What if it is unconstitutional?” Judge Noreika asked. “I’m trying to exercise due diligence and consideration to make sure we don’t make a misstep.”
The tax charges could carry a sentence of up to 18 months, but Hunter Biden is unlikely to face prison time because he lacks a criminal history and has accepted responsibility for his actions.
As part of the deal, prosecutorsare recommending probation, but ultimately the judge has the sole authority to decide his punishment.
The hearing ended with Biden pleading not guilty ‘for now’ with the judge asking both sides to file additional briefs explaining the plea deal’s legal structure.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Two Proud Boys leaders have been sentenced to more than a decade each in jail after being convicted of the rarely used ‘seditious conspiracy’ charge for storming the Capitol.
They tried to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, which they considered fraudulent.
A federal judge sentenced former far-right Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs to 17 years in prison and his co-defendant Zachary Rehl to 15 years. (RELATED: Proud Boys Member Who Led Capitol Break-In Sentenced To 10 Years)
These sentences are much less than the three decades of jail time proposed by prosecutors but still very long prison terms for a few hours of rioting.
And yes, I understand that the rioting was at the U.S. Capitol and that the certification of the Electoral College vote was in process. I also understand these two guys and the two others convicted on this same charge were intimately involved in organizing what became violent chaos that day.
I was there, at the Capitol, as an observer with a TV camera crew. And I denounced the violence the next day. It was outrageous.
I believe any violent rioter who attacked police or media, or anyone else, on Jan. 6 should be put in jail – as should all the BLM rioters who earlier caused $2 billion in damages throughout the country and injured 2,000 cops months earlier.
But a decade or two behind bars for ‘conspiracy’?
Biggs and Rehl are the first Proud Boys convicted of the Civil War-era seditious conspiracy charge to be sentenced for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
The sentences kicked off a series of hearings scheduled for this week and next, where punishment will be meted out against the former chairman of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio (who was not in D.C. on Jan. 6 but was unbelievably arrested earlier for burning a BLM banner!), and two other members of the group.
All were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes at a landmark conspiracy trial this spring. But was what they did really as bad as the Biden Justice Department tries to portray?
As The Guardian noted:
Seditious conspiracy is a broad statute that concerns attempts to overthrow the government, levy war against it or prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law. It also can be applied in cases where suspects seize any government property and carries up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Partly because seditious conspiracy allegations carry so much political weight, prosecutors have generally been hesitant to bring such charges in the past. “Seditious conspiracy charges are rarely used in American jurisprudence,” said Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist and expert on political crime at the University of Baltimore. Prosecutors can be wary of issuing such charges, even in cases that may fall under its broad statute, he added.
In the only similar case in the 20th century, federal prosecutors secured a seditious conspiracy conviction against Puerto Rican nationalists who stormed the Capitol building in 1954.
These four armed Puerto Rican independence militants entered the House floor and fired dozens of bullets around the chamber, wounding five legislators.
The four shooters and co-conspirators were convicted of seditious conspiracy and spent over two decades in jail until Jimmy Carter commuted their sentence in 1979.
In that case, however, the perpetrators had firearms and used them to try to kill Congressmen. That’s a pretty big difference.
The last successfully prosecuted seditious conspiracy was in the mid-1990s, when authorities charged Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine Islamist co-conspirators for plotting to bomb the United Nations, the FBI building, and several other landmarks around New York City.
Again, this was very serious and involved planning mass murder and terrorism.
There is little or no evidence that any Jan. 6 rioters planned any offensive violence.
To date, of those charged in relation to Jan. 6, former Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes holds the record with an 18-year sentence, after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy earlier this year.
The Guardian reported in 2022 that:
Even Rhodes, who is not believed to have actually stormed the building, is alleged to have plotted to bring weapons to the area and coordinate militia movements.
In the weeks before the insurrection, Rhodes allegedly purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of weapons and began communicating to other Oath Keepers in an encrypted group chat. “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war,” he messaged days after the presidential election. One Oath Keeper admitted as part of a plea deal last year that he brought an M4 rifle to a Comfort Inn hotel near the Capitol, while Rhodes and others allegedly discussed “quick reaction force” teams that could move into Washington DC with firearms. Once inside the Capitol, prosecutors state in their indictment that one group of Oath Keepers moved in a military “stack” formation and went in search of the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
And at first glance, this does seem serious.
But Rhodes claims that despite earlier texts about possible ‘civil war,’ Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol went “totally off mission” and that he was only there to prevent his militia members from getting into trouble.
He has also stated that the armed ‘reaction force’ in Virginia was there to respond if armed leftist antifa thugs attacked pro-Trump protestors.
In the largest manhunt in FBI history, more than 1,100 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol assault. Of those, 597 defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences. About 366 of them have been given jail time.
The vast majority of these Jan. 6 defendants, though, accepted plea deals for minor, nonviolent offenses such as trespassing or obstructing an official function. Many of them still got jail sentences totally out of proportion to their alleged crimes.
And these four got the worst of it.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. It was first published in American Liberty News.
Nothing is off limits to the radical left…
Electric vehicle producers are contemplating removing AM radio from future models citing safety concerns…but there’s more to it.
Watch Amanda explain the controversy below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Pentagon Reveals Records On Operation That Could Have Prevented 9/11
After nearly two decades of courtroom arguments, the Defense Department has finally turned over records on an intelligence program that could have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The non-profit public interest law firm Judicial Watch announced in a statement after a nearly 19-year Freedom of Information Act battle, “the Department of Defense produced 62 pages of records out of hundreds of previously withheld documents regarding the U.S. intelligence program ‘Operation Able Danger.’ The Defense Department identified hundreds of pages of responsive records but withheld them, claiming the overwhelming majority are still classified to this day.”
“It shouldn’t take two decades to decide that the American people can’t see documents about a military investigation that could have prevented 9/11. What an insult to the American people and the victims of 9/11,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
“Able Danger was formed in 1999. It compiled publicly available information regarding al Qaeda and other targets,” Judicial Watch notes.”
“In August 2005 interviews, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, and other experts reported that the operation identified four future September 11, 2001, hijackers as al Qaeda members in the United States well before the attacks,” Judicial Watch states, adding, “The Senate Intelligence Committee began its investigation of the program in August 2005. In September 2005, the Senate Judiciary Committee conducted a hearing on Able Danger, however, members of the data-mining team were blocked from testifying.”
That’s when Judicial Watch stepped in, submitting a FOIA request to Defense Department for related records, as well as information on “U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and/or counterterrorism projects and/or programs utilizing data mining software/techniques to search open-source records in the public domain.”
Judicial Watch lays out what they discovered, writing:
The Defense Department response on August 24 from U.S. Special Operations Command identifies hundreds of pages of responsive records but claims the overwhelming majority are still classified and, over 20 years later, remain exempted from disclosure:
[S]pecifically, Sections 1.4(a), military plans, weapon systems, or operations; 1.4(c), intelligence activities (including covert actions), intelligence sources or methods, or Cryptology; 1.4(g), vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, projects, plans, or protection services relating to the national security; and Section 1.7(e), for compilation of items of information that are individually unclassified, but may be classified if the compiled information reveals an additional association or relationship.
The records obtained by Judicial Watch include an unredacted, declassified Top Secret/SCI record contains a 17-page listing of unclassified, open-source internet resources listing websites and URLs for topics such as terrorism news stories; Office of the Coordinator of Counterterrorism; and “Albanian Terrorism in Kosovo,” among many others. Across the bottom of page three of the lists of open-source records is a statement: “Began to understand the status of ongoing efforts!” The author of the exclamation is not identified.
Small passages of what seem to be declassified Top Secret/SCI analytical reports (unnamed and undated) feature commentary such as:
Arab countries in North Africa especially, Algeria, Tunisia, Morrocco, Libya, Egypt, and almost all other Arab countries have been annoyed for the high profile of Osama bin Laden first in Pakistan and later in Afghanistan especially, when he publicly claims that he trains Arab fundamentalists to overthrow most of Arab regimes in the Middle East.
The records also cite journalist Jason Burke’s December 1998 reporting that Osama bin Laden decided to get into drug trafficking as a new weapon and approached (through intermediaries) major opium and heroin dealers, as well as major landowners in the opium-growing districts of Afghanistan, and offered to buy all of the opium they grow.
Drug trafficking was also featured in an undated/unsourced, declassified TOP SECRET/SCI record that stated:
In fact, heroin is the major source of income for the Taleban [sic] government that has seized power in Afghanistan. It is not the Taleban government alone; heroin is also a major source of earning for the Inter Service Intelligence ISI of Pakistan, which has been providing support and assistance for the Taleban government which has seized power in Afghanistan. The lion’s share of the funds earned through heroin smuggling is spent on intelligence service and also on subversive activities carried out by the ISI in neighboring countries.
Another undated/unsourced excerpt states:
Opium is traded at large bazaars in Afghanistan that are the treacherous domain of criminal syndicates. One of the more notorious is located in the town of Sangin, a three-hour drive west of the Taliban capital of Kandahar. ‘Sangin is known as a dangerous place,’ says Bernard Frahl, head of the U.N. drug-agency office in Islamabad, who visited the market town in October. “It is known for people going in and not coming out.” Of about 500 shopkeepers crowded along one main street, and two or three footpaths off it, he says, almost half sell opium.
“The records produced to Judicial Watch include the homepage of a Swedish construction firm and what appears to be a worker complaint from someone employed in Saudi Arabia,” Judicial Watch adds.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.