DAILY TRIFECTA: It's The Cover-Up
But the crime sucks, too
THE SET-UP: Every day I “stumble upon” strange stories or a new sources. I’m pretty good at resisting the rabbit holes peppered around the interwebs. And I don’t listen to podcasts. Both are time prohibitive luxuries I cannot afford.
Then I stumbled upon an eye-catching episode of Hidden Forces with Demetri Kofinas:
“New Revelations About Saudi Arabia and the CIA’s Actions Ahead of 9/11 | Bob Kerrey”
Kofinas’s chat with the former Senator from Nebraska and, to wit, former member of the 9/11 Commission is well-worth a listen. The first half-hour covers the current state of US politics. It’s interesting, but, if you’re (understandably) bored with politics, it’s skippable. What follows, though, is a tour de force by Kofinas, whose knowledge of the Saudi connections to the attack is as impressive as it is infuriating.
For his part, Sen. Kerrey either plays little dumb or simply hasn’t kept up with the developments that point to a deep, operational involvement in the attack. And Kofinas asks some hard questions about the CIA’s inexplicable behavior prior to the day that “changed everything.”
Coincidentally, some of those same questions appeared in this “out-of-the-blue” article published a couple days ago by Reader’s Digest. Yes, that Reader’s Digest. They asked “12 Questions People Still Have About 9/11,” including: “What was the Saudi Arabian government’s involvement?”
Their answer cites a “2018 book, The Watchdogs Didn’t Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror,” in which the authors “theorized a conspiracy between the U.S. government and the Saudi Arabian government to cover up the true events of 9/11.”
That question is also being asked by 9/11 families who continue to seek the justice that Sen. Kerrey and his fellow commissioners were not really allowed to pursue. And, as you’ll see, they are not alone in their fight to peel back the layers of secrecy that ultimately end up undermining the system those secrets are supposed to protect.
TITLE: Watch: ‘Saudi intelligence officer’ films locations in Washington DC two years before 9/11
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/09/06/watch-saudi-video-washington-dc-before-911-attacks/
EXCERPTS: A 25-year-old video has been unearthed showing a man, who has been identified by the FBI as a Saudi intelligence officer, filming locations in Washington DC before the September 11 attacks.
The hour-long film was uncovered by Scotland Yard detectives when they arrested Mr Bayoumi, a PhD student, at his home in Birmingham 10 days after 9/11. He was questioned for seven days and then released without charge.
The US later identified him as a Saudi intelligence agent, which he denies. He also denies allegations he was involved in preparations for 9/11, insisting he visited Washington as a tourist.
However, he has been the subject of sustained speculation owing to his links to two of the 9/11 hijackers.
He admitted in the past to innocently befriending Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who went on to fly a passenger plane into the Pentagon, killing 189 people.
In the grainy video, shot over several days and accompanied by Mr Bayoumi’s commentary in Arabic, he repeatedly makes references to instructions he had been given and reports he would later send.
In front of the Capitol building, the seat of the US Congress, he says: “They say that our kids are demons. However, these are the demons of the White House. They are going upwards.”
On Capitol Hill, the camera lingers on two black limousines that appear to belong to the government, and he says: “Their cars. You said that in the plan”, but does not specify further.
“I will provide you with the results soon,” Mr Bayoumi says close to the Washington Monument. “I will report to you in detail what is there.”
At one point, he watches a low-flying plane and remarks: “Airport not far from here. Plane taking off.”
The evidence was revealed as part of a civil court case in the US brought by families of 9/11 victims who are trying to sue Saudi Arabia’s government for complicity in the attacks.
Gavin Simpson, for the plaintiffs, played the tape in court and told the judge: “A trove of evidence seized by the Metropolitan Police…. enables your honour, the public and the 9/11 families to perceive for themselves the mechanism by which Saudi Arabia provided support to the 9/11 hijackers.”
Saudi authorities have long denied complicity in or support for the September 11 attacks. They have always denied Mr Bayoumi was an agent of theirs.
TITLE: Indigenous Women Fight To Search 1950s CIA-Funded Human Experiments Site
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/indigenous-women-fight-to-search-1950s-cia-funded-human-experiments-site-6457357
EXCERPTS: A group of Indigenous women are hoping to stop the bulldozers at a former Montreal hospital which they believe could hold the truth about children still missing from a grisly half-century-old CIA experiment.
They have spent the last two years trying to delay the construction project by McGill University and the Quebec government.
"They took our children and had all kinds of things done to them. They were experimenting on them," said Kahentinetha, an 85-year-old activist from the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, southwest of Montreal, who goes by just one name.
The activists are relying on archives and testimonies that suggest the site contains unmarked graves of children formerly interned at the Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute, a neighbouring psychiatric hospital.
In the 1950s and 1960s, behind the austere walls of the old psychiatric institute, the US Central Intelligence Agency funded a human experiments program called MK Ultra.
During the Cold War, the program aimed to develop procedures and drugs to effectively brainwash people.
Experiments were conducted in Britain, Canada and the United States, subjecting people -- including Indigenous children in Montreal -- to electroshocks, hallucinogenic drugs, and sensory deprivation.
In the fall of 2022, the mothers obtained an injunction to suspend work on a new university campus and research centre at the site -- a project worth Can$870 million (US$643 million).
Fellow activist Kwetiio, 52, who also uses just one name, said they insisted on arguing the case themselves without lawyers, "because in our ways, no one speaks for us."
Last summer, sniffer dogs and specialized probes were brought in to search the property's expansive and dilapidated buildings. They managed to identify three areas of interest for excavations.
But, according to McGill and the government's Societe Quebecoise des Infrastructure (SQI), "no human remains have been discovered."
The Mohawk mothers accuse the university and the government infrastructure agency of breaching an agreement by selecting the archaeologists who did the search and then ending their work too soon.
"They gave themselves the power to lead the investigation of crimes that were potentially committed by their own employees in the past," says Philippe Blouin, an anthropologist working with the mothers.
Even though their appeal was dismissed earlier this month, they have vowed to continue their fight.
"People should know history, so that it does not repeat itself," said Kwetiio.
TITLE: CIA May Have Derailed Research Into ‘Havana Syndrome’
https://gizmodo.com/cia-may-have-derailed-research-into-havana-syndrome-2000494177
EXCERPT: It’s been awhile since we heard anything about “Havana Syndrome,” the bizarre brain malady supposedly impacting droves of U.S. service members all over the world. Now, a new report suggests that the Central Intelligence Agency recently helped derail a government probe into the phenomenon.
The National Health Institute has been researching the bizarre health incidents but has now said that it will end that research “out of an abundance of caution.” According to a report from CNN, the research is being halted because an internal probe of the program found that some research subjects had been “coerced” into participating in the program. Forced participation in research is considered deeply unethical. CNN also notes that some participants in the program had “previously claimed that the CIA made them join the research as a prerequisite for getting health care.”
In a recent statement, the NIH said that its “informed consent” policies related to the study “were not met due to coercion, although not on the part of NIH researchers.” “Given the role of voluntary consent as a fundamental pillar of the ethical conduct of research, NIH has stopped the study out of an abundance of caution,” the health agency noted.
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA official who has claimed to suffer from Havana Syndrome, previously told CNN: “They wanted us to be a lab rat for a week before we actually got treatment at Walter Reed—and at bare minimum, that is unethical and immoral.” Polymeropoulos had also previously said he thought that the CIA’s senior leadership “ordered” personnel to participate in the research.
Gizmodo reached out to the CIA and the NIH for comment. The agency previously denied that personnel were ordered to participate in the program.
Nobody is quite sure what to make of Havana Syndrome. Some people think it’s a hoax. Others, more controversially, say it’s evidence that some sort of “sonic weapon” exists that has been zapping U.S. personnel without their knowledge. Experts have yet to reach a consensus, and the syndrome has been blamed on a host of culprits—including mass psychogenic illness and crickets.