Mainstream media—part of the CIA’s “Mighty Wurlitzer” of propaganda—is buzzing with the recent televised performances of CIA agent Gary Schroen . Schroen alleges that shortly after 9/11, his CIA superior, J. Cofer Black, ordered fellow CIA agents to behead Osama bin Laden, and deliver his head in a box of dry ice to George W. Bush. Black allegedly also ordered the delivery of the heads of other al-Qaeda lieutenants to Bush, on “pikes”. (Also see the CNN and BBC versions.)
The lurid Schroen account is of little actual significance, except as loud Washington infotainment chatter, and well-timed disinformation. The Schroen/Black sound bites add new color to the bogus cover stories and mythical legends about 9/11 and “Osama”—the myth cemented in place by the likes of the Kean Commission, and endless media “war on terrorism” propaganda:
1. Schroen and Black are longtime CIA operatives. This fact alone is cause for deep skepticism and suspicion, almost immediately discrediting anything they say. The CIA’s job is to hide truth, or promote a version of events that the White House and Wall Street want promoted.
2. Anything broadcasted by the CIA or the Bush administration over mainstream media is what the CIA and the Bush administration want the public to swallow.
3. There is a strong likelihood that this “Osama head on ice” is more a planted myth, in the same vein as Bush’s alleged cowboy 9/11 rants about “tin horn terrorists”, “dead or alive”, etc. and in the same file cabinet with the continuing series of Osama confessional videotapes, and other sick products of the post-9/11.
4. There is an equally strong likelihood that the Rove-Bush disinformation factory is in overdrive, pushing to inflate Bush’s macho image, distract from deepening losses in Iraq and falling Bush popularity numbers. Rove-Bush must also earnestly stoke the masses for the coming war on Iran . The depiction of a crazy-macho “terrorist decapitator” Bush assists this effort, ridiculous as it is.
More importantly:
5. The Schroen account changes nothing about the continuing cover-up of 9/11, and the amply documented facts regarding ongoing US sponsorship and use of terrorist groups, and the truth about “Osama bin Laden”—the ultimate US intelligence asset. Explosive analysis that exposes direct US government connections to al-Qaeda (such as Who is Osama bin Laden? , Historical roots of Al-Qaeda , by Michel Chossudovsky) remains deliberately ignored. Even mainstream factual histories that expose the American roots of Islamic terrorism (Taliban and Jihad by Ahmed Rashid are two notable examples) are given a wide berth, while Bush war noise from CIA agents are given major mainstream exposure.
In Crossing the Rubicon : The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, the landmark book that exposes the criminal apparatus behind 9/11, Mike Ruppert writes:
“I believe that bin Laden was, and remains, a CIA/US government/Wall Street asset.
This would explain why he has never been caught.
There are still wars to fight. He can’t be caught for a variety of other reasons, including his family’s enormous and diverse financial connections to the same elites that control the United States financial system, and his close interrelationship with a Saudi ruling class that could pull the plug on the US economy even before Peak Oil does.
Osama bin Laden knows way too much, and without him, the Bush administration would have no excuse for any of what it has done over the last four years. From a strategic point of view, Osama is Dick Cheney’s best friend.”
The same applies to Zarqawi, Khalid Sheik-Mohammed, and other (real and imaginary) “terrorists-of-the-month”.
6. Schroen’s “crazy macho Bush” bluster also dovetails neatly with the propaganda sparked by the recent alleged capture (and torture) of al-Qaeda “number three”, Abu Farraj al-Libbi:
Pakistan captures Al-Qaeda number three (CNN)
al-Libbi arrest sparks US nuclear fears
Given how Pakistan’s ISI operates as a branch of the CIA, this arrest cannot be accepted at face value, any more than the statements of Schroen and Black. Al-Libbi’s connection to the Daniel Pearl murder (and suspects Omar Saeed Shiekh and Amjad Hussain Farooqi) casts a damning light on the ISI and the CIA, and the Bush administration.
Bush’s embarrassing post-capture speech, in which he struggled to pronounce the name of this alleged “top general for bin Laden” (but one who is somehow not on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists), strongly suggests a propaganda script going through the system at a critical moment.
7. Schroen is promoting his own book about the “hunt” for Osama. Sensationalism is part of his PR.
8. J.Cofer Black has been at the forefront of the “war on terrorism” since before 9/11, and a leading exponent of the Bush administration’s cover-up:
J.Cofer Black’s Congressional testimony on terrorism and 9/11
Black’s views on “terrorism” mirrors the deceptive line pushed by the Kean Commission, James Pavitt, former CIA operative Robert Baer, and many others. The falsehoods include the idea that 1) Islamic terrorism is something unconnected to (or not beholden to) CIA, 2) the CIA needs more human assets planted in the Middle East, 3) the CIA needs more funding and increased police powers, and 4) the Bush administration did not have specific information to prevent 9/11.
9. The deep political system is not a monolithic apparatus. In fact, it is a mess of conflicting and competing fiefdoms and factions, even as it operates under larger criminal umbrella working towards similar objectives (formulated by the world’s elites).
Which faction within the CIA does Schroen represent? Where do Schroen/Black fit, in terms of the new Porter Goss/Negroponte regime?
10. It would be no surprise if Schroen, and perhaps (but less likely) Black, may honestly believe the Osama/al-Qaeda myths, even as their political superiors manipulate them, and even as they go about their unsavory field work. As Mike Ruppert has written, “in covert operations, the best kind of an asset is one that has no idea who is really ‘running’ them.” This applies to both American intelligence agents, as well as foreign “terrorists” and terror cells.
The liberal media (Air America Radio host Randi Rhoades, etc.) have jumped all over the Schroen broadcasts, in a predictably naïve and wrongheaded fashion. “Bring me Osama’s head” is seen as evidence of Bush administration brutality (which should be assumed, including war crimes, torture and atrocities), and Bush “hypocrisy” (which also should be assumed) (“they condone beheadings if done by our people, but attack foreigners for beheading Americans”). Worse, many liberals see the Schroen account as a vindication of the John Kerry and Democrat/neoliberal falsehoods (“it proves that ‘Osama was cornered in Tora Bora’”, “we need real homeland security”, “we need a real “war on terrorism”, “we need more CIA agents in Afghanistan and Iraq”) and other such dangerous views.
The monumental inability or refusal to clearly and completely understand criminal empire, propaganda, and the reality of covert operations, will continue to empower (not cripple) Bush, and fuel (not end) war, the “war on terrorism”, and the deepening of a world police state.
Facts that contradict and refute the accounts of Schroen, Black and other Bush administration operatives, have been amply exposed, over the course of the past five years:
In the past several issues of Covert Action Quarterly, the publication has provided a box summary about 9/11 and “terrorism” that should serve as the short version of the reality that Bush/neocon/neoliberal functionaries deliberately work to obscure. It goes as follows:
9/11 cover-up continues:
Comprehensive analysis of this same milieu, and a thorough debunking of the “terrorism” myth, can be found at this web site, the work of Michel Chossudovsky at Center for Research on Globalisation , Mike Ruppert (Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil and at From The Wilderness ) and other related independent publications and web sites.
Shortly after the founding of the CIA, OSS/CIA legend Frank Wisner gleefully coined the CIA’s powerful propaganda machine “the Mighty Wurlitzer”. Today, the “Wurlitzer” is a global orchestra. It is the mainstream media, and vice versa—and its disinformation is played around the clock, echoing in every corner of the world. It is the noise of an irrevocably criminal empire, rotten to its core.
Those who willingly consume the CIA’s brain-numbing indoctrinations, who accept any aspect of the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism” myth, have delivered their own heads, their minds, to George W. Bush—on dry ice and on pikes.
