John R. Houk
© July 11, 2016
Daniel Gladstein had
two comments to Norma Zager’s submission “What Me Worry?” (on
the NCCR blog) of which the
first I was not on board
with but the second I thought might deserve some consideration.
The theme of the
first comment grouped the Christian Right and Jewish Zionist supporters of the
existence of Israel with the same methodology as Islamists, violent Marxists
and White Supremacists as one and the same. I did not concur as I explained
in these thoughts:
Daniel attaching the Christian Right to
Nazis, Leftists, Islamists, the Far Right (I am guessing this would be all
forms of white supremacists), Zionist Jews and probably more extremists as
simply divergent aspects but the same methodology is not something I concur
with. Although there might be a small fraction of the Christian Right that
condone violence of any means as a methodology to achieve an end, that small
fraction is in NO WAY representative of the entire Christian Right that simply
desire a government that doesn’t endorse immorality as a norm, does not force
the issue of accepting the practices of an immoral lifestyle and supports the
existence of a Jewish State. Admittedly the Christian Right supports the existence
of a Jewish State for different reasons than Leftist Jews, Right Wing Jews and
Observant Jews. The Christian Right sees the return of Israel as a sign of the
times of the soon return of the Messiah King Jesus who will heal whatever
divides Jews and Christians on the view point on who the Biblical Messiah is.
Jewish Zionists of both sides of the political spectrum view the Jewish State
as the restoration of a lost heritage as a place to live without government
sponsored persecution of Jews whether secular or religious. Israeli Jews even
disagree among themselves of how Israel should be constituted depending on the
political spectrum of Left, Right, Secular or religiously observant. However,
all Israeli Jews believe Israel must exist for Jews.
So anyway, grouping the Christian Right and
Jewish Zionists in toto with Islamists, White Supremacists, Leftist violent
extremists and so on is a bit of a bad judgement in my opinion. Otherwise after
pondering your other points, including your “deep state” thoughts in your
following comment is quite deserving of introspective pondering.
However, I thought
his “deep state” thoughts of the second comment might be deserving of some
contemplation. Now to add some thought dwelling to Daniel’s second comment I
had to look-up what the “deep state” might signify. I went to Wikipedia for a
definition:
Deep state
For other uses, see State within a state.
The deep state (Turkish: derin devlet) is alleged to be a group of influential
anti-democratic coalitions within the Turkish political system, composed of
high-level elements within the intelligence services (domestic and foreign),
Turkish military, security, judiciary, and mafia.[1][2] The notion of deep state is
similar to that of a "state within the state". For those who believe in its
existence, the political agenda of the deep state involves an allegiance
to nationalism, corporatism, and state interests. Violence and other means of pressure have
historically been employed in a largely covert manner to manipulate political
and economic elites and ensure specific interests are met within the seemingly
democratic framework of the political landscape.[3][4] Former president Süleyman Demirel says that the outlook
and behavior of the
(predominantly military) elites who constitute the deep state, and work to
uphold national interests, are shaped by an entrenched belief, dating
to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, that the country is always "on the
brink".[5]
The ideology of the deep state is seen by leftists as being anti-worker
or ultra-nationalist; by Islamists as being anti-Islamic and secularist; by
ethnic Kurds as being anti-Kurdish, and by liberal democrats as anti-democratic
and anti-liberal.[6]As pointed out by former prime minister Bülent
Ecevit, the diversity of
opinion reflects a disagreement over what constitutes the deep state.[7] One explanation is that the "deep
state" is not an alliance, but the sum of several groups that
antagonistically work behind the scenes, each in pursuit of its own agenda.[8][9][10]Another explanation refutes the reduction of
the deep state to an interest network and defines it as a type of domination
based on the high military autonomy levels that enable the security apparatus
to disrupt formal democratic institutions (in the foreground) by employing a
sui generis repertoire of informal institutions (in the background), i.e.
putsch threat, autocratic cliques, mafia, organized crime and corruption.[11] Rumours of the deep state have been
widespread in Turkey since Ecevit's term as prime minister in the 1970s, after his
revelation of the existence of a Turkish counterpart to Italy's Operation
Gladio, the "Counter-Guerrilla".[12][13]
Many Turks, including elected politicians, have stated their belief that
the "deep state" exists.[14][15]
More recently, the term 'deep state' has been used to describe politics
in other nations including Egypt[16] and the United States.[17]
Contents
So the author of the
above Wikipedia article uses the now extinct Ottoman Empire which was replaced
by the secular republic of Turkey as platform for the existence of shadow
governments within various major powers of the present. Then the Wikipedia
author goes into the details of the Turkish evolution of this Deep State
apparatus,
There is little
elaboration of Deep State operations in various other nations such as the USA.
Nevertheless, it is not a big stretch that there is an insinuation of a
coalition Deep State entities globally that wheel and deal clandestine
agreements and rivalries outside the structure of the rule of law. To what
purpose? To leverage global domination for the winners.
Armed with this info
you should tackle Daniel Gladstein’s thoughts in his second comment.
JRH 7/11/16
***********************
Daniel Gladstein
The relationship
between the Pakistani ISI and the CIA during the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–92)
and the ensuing civil war (1992–2001) illustrates the delicate balance between
cooperative competitors that nevertheless view each other, or at least one
side, as a credulous enemy to be deceived and exploited, ostensibly for the
stated purposes of anti-Soviet coordination, but actually for divergent goals.
The CIA funneled aid to ISI and its Saudi allies, which in turn employed
favored groups, namely Sunni (and especially Arab rather than Afghan)
Islamists, as anti-Soviet proxies. However, the real goal of these Islamists,
especially the Arab “volunteers,” was to usurp the credibility of their
anti-Soviet rivals, who were often more capable fighters, came from ethnic
minorities rather than the Pashtun tribes, and, like all Afghans, were
non-Arabs. Despite this, the CIA and ISI tapped the Islamists, in particular
for drug-running operations and opium production.
The CIA-, ISI-, and
Saudi-favored groups accrued more aid and weaponry, including surface-to-air
missiles, than their competitors did, yet did less fighting over a shorter
period. The Arab “volunteers,” in particular, saw the U.S., Israel, and the
al-Saud family, rather than the Soviets, as their main enemies. These
“volunteers” later formed the initial core of al-Qaeda, which, through its
links to wealthy patrons, had extensive financial and ideological links to the
Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood, while Sunni, was tied to the
unorthodox Shiite ideology of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who sought an alliance
with Sunni Arabs to ensure Iranian hegemony in the Middle East. (It should be
noted that, early in the Iranian Revolution, Khomeini and his domestic allies,
both Islamist and radical leftist, saw the Soviets as a potential ally against
U.S.-backed Sunni regimes—and a weapon to overthrow the U.S.-led order in the
Middle East.)
Khomeini was a
visionary revolutionist who envisaged an Islamist coalition to co-opt secular
leftists and unite under the banner of anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, and
anti-imperialism. This goal would find ready recipients in Yasser Arafat’s
secular PLO, non-aligned but revolutionary Marxist states like Castro’s Cuba
(and its late ally, Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela), the unstable Stalinist regime of
East Germany, and Soviet clients like Gaddafi’s Libya, which sponsored
pan-African, anti-colonialist, and anti-apartheid movements. These were often
anti-Zionist and were generally tied to ostensibly progressive elements in the
Western New Left, including radical, Maoist-inspired communists. (All these
elements, including the radical leftist MEK [which later became a CIA/Iraqi
proxy in the Iran–Iraq War], may have aided Khomeini’s faction in the takeover
of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.)
Thus the Muslim
Brotherhood/al-Qaeda milieu, which derived its ideology from far-right fascist
movements rather than traditional Islam, aimed to amass the forces of the left,
the apostate Shiites (now reformed under the unorthodox, pro-Sunni Khomeini),
and the KGB and its global allies. Their aim was nothing less than the total
destruction of the U.S., Israel, and the existing regional order. The Muslim
world, formerly diverse, would be Arabized and homogenized under the guide of
the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, which would include both the Soviet and
Western blocs. Once the Brotherhood’s global order was established, it would
dispense with the ostensibly leftist elements, their usefulness in destroying
the West (and the old Muslim world) exhausted. However, in the meantime, its
role in polarizing the world by intervening in and fostering local conflicts
would be indispensable, and could be readily exploited by an opportunistic but
nominally opposing side.
Note that the U.S.
deep state and its allies would play an indispensable role in fostering and
exploiting its ostensible enemies. The heterogeneity of the forces at work
would indicate numerous centers of power, colluding with each other where
interests overlap but ultimately aiming to destroy or control the other. The
continual appearance of links between ostensibly “conservative,” and avowed
far-right, U.S. deep-state constituents and far-left anti-Western forces, as
well as the considerable overlap in their views and aims, is too pervasive to
attribute to mere coincidence, especially given each side’s ties to global
finance, including the public sphere (i.e., banks, leading financial and
political institutions, universities, NGOs) and the underworld drug/arms
networks, which utilize fronts and false paper or electronic trails to avoid
scrutiny, much less a full uncovering of their activities.
An example is the
milieu of James J. Angleton, CIA counterintelligence director, who knowingly
recruited KGB double agents to spread disinformation that would serve both
Soviet and U.S. deep-state hardliners, whose shared interest was to further the
Cold War, which Angleton likely calculated would benefit his (ultimately
anti-American and nominally anticommunist) right-wing Mafia, Teamster, and
drug-running connections, all of which were organically linked to fascist,
Nazi, and neo-Nazi elements in post-war Europe, East Asia, and Latin America.
(Note that many of these right-wing elements were associated with stay-behind
networks established by NATO and Western intelligence, as part of Operation
GLADIO, an early Cold-War effort to foster local anti-Soviet forces in the
event of a Soviet military incursion into Western Europe and the Mediterranean.
These forces soon strayed beyond their masters’ intentions, became enmeshed in
local and regional political structures, and pursued their own interests
through the drugs-and-arms milieu, often while under the patronage of both
Western and Soviet-allied intelligence agencies.)
Note that elements
of the CIA and its right-wing GOP allies have patronized “former” KGB-linked
Marxist-Leninists turned Revisionist Zionists [i.e., in the right-wing,
fascist-leaning Jabotinsky mold] within the Russian Jewish émigré community in
Israel. These “defectors” were tapped as CIA assets with access to CIA-favored
elites within the Soviet bureaucracy, who in turn would serve as dependable
U.S. assets in a post-Soviet Russia, thereby benefiting the U.S. deep state’s
economic interests. They would also form the nucleus of the CIA-assisted
takeover of the State of Israel by the CIA-favored Netanyahu faction within
Likud. They became favorites of the neoconservative WASP elite, its allies in
the military-industrial-intelligence complex, and its far-right affiliates in
the U.S. and abroad. One example of the neoconservative–communist nexus can be
seen in the actions of Oliver North and Shackley, who were deeply involved, as
were anti-Obama GOP rightists who coordinated their activities with Iranian
hardliners, in treasonous activities with ostensible U.S. enemies.
North and Shackley,
among others, likely worked with drug-laundering Saudi and Pakistani
intelligence, and operated partly through the Safari Club, in what were likely
joint Western/Soviet intelligence operations promoting Khomeini to power in
Iran, supporting Iranian proxies like Hezbollah, and orchestrating the hostage
crisis to beset President Carter (the so-called “October Surprise”). North,
Shackley, and their allies hoped to benefit Western, especially British,
multinational oil corporations by ousting the friendly Shah when his opposition
to a deal, like Mossadegh’s in 1953, became inconvenient. (The BBC aired the
British government’s unstated official policy by broadcasting Khomeini’s
virulently anti-Shah and anti-Western speeches while he was still in exile.)
Indeed, North and Shackley, who were both implicated in the Iran–Contra affair,
were in the milieu of Israeli and other Western firms, like Halliburton, that
secretly circumnavigated the official “freeze” on U.S.–Iranian ties by
conducting oil (and, as we know, arms) deals with the revolutionary Khomeini
regime. In return, the oil and arm transfers were covertly used to fund U.S.
deep-state and Western intelligence, especially CIA, operations in sub-Saharan
Africa and Central America, and probably in Afghanistan and Eastern Europe as
well. These operations benefited the global arms-and-drugs milieu that the U.S.
deep state and its ostensible opponents both exploited for divergent aims,
though immediate goals, especially systematic (and systemic) destabilization,
overlapped.
The milieu of
cooperation can be seen in the formation of front companies like Far West,
Ltd., which was composed of motley and seemingly irreconcilable characters: CIA
operatives; KGB and GRU (Soviet military intelligence) figures who were then
serving in Afghanistan; Stasi, (Cuban) DGI/G2, and (future pro-Chávez,
Venezuelan) DICIP operatives; top officials from the Sunni Gulf states and
Saudi Arabia as well as Pakistan; Chinese executives who ran shell companies to
arm the Afghan mujahideen; and corporate figures from various Western
companies. Other states on each side of the Iron Curtain, such as South Africa
and Libya, may well have been involved as well. All the players had divergent
aims but shared goals.
This alliance
between former Soviet Marxist-Leninists-turned-neo-Nazi (or fascist) Russian
nationalists and the U.S. deep state, as we shall see, is part of a broader
long-term “convergence” strategy by global elites that transcends the
ideological fiction that they present to various levels of the societies that
they rule internally (and influence or control externally, often for the
purpose of building alliances on the basis of shared goals). The Muslim
Brotherhood and Sunni takfiris are closely allied not only to Western
intelligence, but also to anti-Western proxies, domestic “leftist” groups, and
anti-U.S. intelligence agencies. The pro-Islamist “leftists” may in fact be
provocateurs for the U.S. deep state as well as anti-U.S. forces. The groups
that they inhabit or control may be infiltrated by Western intelligence
agencies and their contractors, whose allies in the media, the corporate world,
and societal institutions—both on the “left” and on the “right”—have either
openly supported Sunni (and Iranian-linked, or Khomeini/Khamenei-type, Shiite)
Islamists or marginalized secular Muslims and true progressives.
Thus the narrative
is shaped by phased indoctrination through a dialectical paradigm: secularists
are branded by the “right” as supporting Islamists and/or Islamic extremism
(either takfiri or Shiite violence, often in the form of terrorism), while the
“left” expresses overtly what the “right” does more covertly, namely, support
for Islamist forces. The “left,” unlike the “right,” does so ostensibly in the
name of leftist tropes like “anti-imperialism,” anti-capitalism, or
anti-globalization. Its actions are explained away as an outreach to build a
coalition, a strange and not coincidental echo of the U.S. GOP right’s own
“ethnic outreach” (far-right identity politics) during and after World War II,
which was modulated through Nazi and fascist channels that were eventually
tapped for use in the Cold War, both domestically and abroad.
__________________
Deep State USA
John R. Houk
© July 11, 2016
__________________
Daniel
Gladstein
