------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 16:36:27 EST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: "Church-State-Corporate Triangle" series ( Jim: Thanks for the note. I just wanted to make sure you saw these last two articles of mine, below. The way I see it, it all ties in to one economic fact of life. The power elite feel that those unfortunate enough to be below a certain economic level are like mushrooms to be cultivated and harvested by them. And you know how they cultivate mushrooms—keep them in a dark place and feed em bullshit. Best Mike Levine THE EXPERT WITNESS RADIO SHOW WBAI 99.5 FM, New York City (Tuesdays 7-8pm) KPFK 90.7 FM, Los Angeles replayed (Wednesdays, midnight, on "Something's Happening show) Host: Michael Levine, author of New York Times bestseller "Deep cover"-"The Big White Lie" and "Triangle of Death." http://www.radio4all.org/expert http://www.shineon.org/levine/index.html THE "SECRET" MEDIA EQUATION AT WORK BY Michael Levine No one who listens to THE EXPERT WITNESS show should have been surprised at the AP story (12/10/98) entitled "60 Minutes to Apologize [for Faked Drug Story]" which was followed Sunday night, 12/11 with the actual on-air apology made by Don Hewitt the producer. The text of the story and apology indicates that "60 Minutes" on two occassions ran a completely faked story about heroin smuggling and that the producers of the show are blaming the makers of a British Documentary and corroborating information they obtained from my alma mater, DEA (The Drug Enforcement Administration) for "fooling" them and causing them to "fool viewers in fourteen countries." Well, Holy disingenuous! Believe that and I have a case of Sammy Sosa homerun balls to sell you. During my 25 year career as a federal agent assigned to supervise many, many raids and operations arranged at the request of mainstream media, let me tell you, it is impossible to fool a professional media producer, unless he is so hungry for a dramatic story and/or film footage, that he does not want to see the obvious signs that the whole thing is a fraud. I lost count of the number of Expert Witness radio shows, since the show began in June, 1997, during which we identified fraudulent, faked and misleading law enforcement and covert ops stories headlined in mainstream media (print, radio and television). We, in fact, showed that many of the current drug war headlines were in essence, pro forma copies of headlines published 80 and 90 years ago, the only differences being the names of the arch villains, the countries and the quantities of drugs. The lesson being that absolutely nothing has changed in 90 years but the federal drug war budget, which is now more than $19 billion a year. The fact is that I cannot remember a week passing, since I retired from DEA in 1990, during which there is not at least one easily identifiable phony crime and/or covert operation story prominent in mainstream media. The vast majority of these stories involve drug cases and/or almost everything the CIA puts out as "fact." I recently taped a three hour "Expert Witness" radio show entitled "100 Years of Inside Experience" during which four federal agents having a total of 100 years service in CIA, FBI and DEA— all of us having taken part in some of our nation's highest profile criminal cases and covert agency operations —agreed that mainstream media coverage of these events was almost never even close to what actually happened, the exceptions being those rare occassions when the agency involved did everything right. In fact, it was during this taping that 25 year veteran CIA officer, Ralph McGeehee quoted from an in-house CIA document in which their public affairs division bragged that their "extensive media ties" had enabled CIA to "turn intelligence failures into intelligence 'successes'" in the media. Does it get any plainer than that? During our long careers the reasons for this "through-a-glass-darkly" media coverage became obvious to each of us. There is a simple equation at work that the American taxpayer should be aware of because we are paying for it, big time. The equation is as follows: A=Law Enforcement and covert agencies need positive, even frightening media, for increased budgets and career enhancement, particularly in the war on drugs. Which means that poor, inept and even criminal agency performance is covered up for, and positive activities exagerrated to any point the media "watchdogs" will tolerate. B=Politicians always need media and find that a close association with covert and law enforcement agencies keeps their names in headlines and their faces on television. Their roles in enforcement activities, covert and military operations, etc. are always exagerrated to any point that media allows. C=Law enforcement and covert agencies need close, mutually beneficial alliances with politicians for aid in obtaining ever increasing budgets. They can also count on the aid of "friendly" politicians in the coverup of any poor agency performance, corruption, etc., that might prove politically embarassing, i.e. Waco, Ruby Ridge, WTC Bombing, Iran-contra, etc. D=Media needs to form a close working relationship with politicians, and federal enforcement and covert agencies for access to exclusive stories that will enhance careers, sell newspapers and boost ratings. This is particularly true with all drug war stories and anything to do with CIA. E=Producers and reporters are all aware that if they publish a negative story or ask to many embarassing, difficult or intelligent questions they will lose access to the federal agencies and politicians, get a reputation as "unfriendly" and jeopardize their very careers (i.e. Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" story, Robert Parry's exposé of Iran-contra). Thus: A+B+C+D+E= Corrupt, politicized and inept federal law enforcement and covert operations agencies, erosion of our Constitution, a fraudulent, unwinnable war on drugs and the total waste of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars yearly. And that dear readers conforms to my legal definition of an "unnatural sex act" with the American taxpayer on the receiving end. Michael Levine c/o "THE EXPERT WITNESS RADIO SHOW" WBAI Radio 120 Wall Street New York, New York, 10005 212-209-2970 Dear Editor: The following "Is The CIA 'Street Smart'?" is herewith submitted as either an opinion piece or Letter-to-the-editor. IS THE CIA "STREET SMART"? by Michael Levine 25 year, veteran, DEA Agent A barrage of news articles was unleashed on us recently telling us how—just prior to the African Embassy bombing last year—the CIA had warned our State Department and embassies that some evil terrorist plot was underway (as if that isn't always true) and that their dire warnings had gone unheeded, hence, 212 people were killed in the terrorist bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Typical of this type of reporting was the massive NY Times article of 1/9/99, "Before Bombings Omens and Fears." Unless you read this closely, and with the eyes of an expert in intelligence gathering, your impression has to be that the all-seeing, all-knowing spooks had done their job, but the suits had failed to take heed, or that, at best, everyone involved had an equal share in the screw-up. Not so fast, this is not all the news that's fit to print in this case. With all the spin doctoring going on, particularly by CIA, you've got to read the small print. Even this article, which is a master piece of spin in its emphasis at finger pointing at everyone but CIA, points out that a state department report, signed by Admiral William J. Crowe, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated that "intelligence provided no immediate tactical warning of the attacks." How important is an immediate, tactical and specific warning? Speaking as a court qualified expert, it means the difference between the embassies taking real action instead of wringing their hands at yet another vague terrorist warning added to the thousands they receive every year. Such specific and "tactical" information may have saved 212 lives. The key question is: Was there such specific information available? Apparently there was. A Time Magazine article, "Inside the Hunt for Osama" (12/21/98-3 weeks before the Times article) pointed out that in November, 1997, an "informant walked into the Nairobi embassy" and "warned that unnamed terrorists planned to car bomb the compound." According to the article, the informant "had details about the planned attack—details that would end up being eerily similar to what happened in the bombing nine months later." So why didn't the CIA issue a specific "tactical warning of the attacks" as Admiral Crowe so correctly pointed out? Well, as the Time article points out, "CIA officers grilled [the informant] for days but finally concluded he was making up a tale." I've served 25 years as a federal agent for four federal agencies during which I have handled and supervised the handling of many thousands of informants of every type, during every kind of investigation imaginable, on every corner of this globe. To this day I am still a court qualified expert and lecture to many police agencies on the subjects of Informant Handling and Undercover tactics. As such, I am the first to recognize that knowing when an informant is telling the truth is one of the most difficult arts in intelligence gathering, but easily, when it comes to anti-terrorist intelligence, the most critical. Every expert I've ever spoken with agrees that whether the informant be criminal or political, (with the explosion of drug trafficking both areas commonly overlap, i.e.manuel Noriega) there is a commonality of handling methods and techniques at which few field agents really excel. During my 17 years with DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), there were a small percentage of street agents who were truly superior at this crucial art. And in a game where the universally accepted truth is "You are only as good as your informants," the best "stool handlers" are prized players. And if the best of these had any single trait in common it was they were possessed of what we used to call "street smarts." They were as streetwise as gutter rats and as moral, ethical and highly motivated as clergymen. I have known many CIA officers during my career, highly cultured men and women from Ivy League schools with advanced academic degrees who could quote from the classics, were master debaters, knew how to order the appropriate dinner wine at a fine French restaurant, but, I've met very few whom, when I was on the hiring panels for the Drug Enforcement Administration, would have been hired. They simply did not have the necessary street smarts to outwit and/or handle people who are forced to live by their wits. People like the informant who walked into the embassy in Nairobi to tell of a bombing that would happen nine months in the future. One of the few CIA officers I've ever met whom I would consider street smart, is 25 year veteran Ralph McGehee, who furnished me with excerpts from a CIA document, obtained via an FOIA request, wherein the Agency's PAO (public affairs office) bragged that its relationships with "reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly and TV network... has helped turn some "intelligence failure" stories into "intelligence success" stories..." As testament to the PAO's success at media maniuplation, the CIA's decades long record of horrific failure and screw-ups has been well documented but not well publicized. In May 1998, for example, CIA failed to discern that India was preparing to explode nuclear devices. As a result DCI George Tenet appointed a team to investigate headed by retired Vice Admiral David E. Jeremiah. The report damned CIA's performance and recommended across the board changes and improvements. Specifically, Admiral Jeremiah said that the CIA"needs to be scrubbed from the top down, from its spies to its analysts to its bureaucratic barons." The [Indian] debacle revealed chronic failures of imagination and personnel, flaws in information-gathering and analysis, and faulty leadership and training." This finding, so critical to the security of the American people, was virtually absent from mainstream media. As is usual in the sad history of CIA, the problem was answered by the US taxpayer throwing even more money at it—CIA's budget was raised to close to $30 billion a year. Not a thing was changed in the Agency's systems, training and management, proving that you can have the richest team in baseball, but if you can't play ball, you ain't gonna win a single game. But in the coming millennium game playing is all over. Kill crazy terrorists have nuclear and biological weapons within their reach. The time has come, once and for all, for our congress to have enough street smarts to not allow CIA to get away with turning its latest failure into yet another "success" and follow Admiral Jeremiah's recommendations. If they don't, our nation as we know it may not survive their next screw-up. Sincerely Michael Levine 212-209-2970 THE EXPERT WITNESS RADIO SHOW WBAI 99.5 FM, New York City (Tuesdays 7-8pm) KPFK 90.7 FM, Los Angeles replayed (Wednesdays, midnight, on "Something's Happening show) Host: Michael Levine, author of New York Times bestseller "Deep cover"-"The Big White Lie" and "Triangle of Death." http://www.radio4all.org/expert http://www.shineon.org/levine/index.html James Craven Dept. of Economics,Clark College 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663 [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tel: (360) 992-2283 Fax: 992-2863 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards Indians; their land and property shall never be taken from them without their consent." (Northwest Ordinance, 1787, Ratified by Congress 1789) "To speak of atrocious crimes in mild language is treason to virtue." (Edmund Burke) *My Employer has no association with My Private and Protected Opinion* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
