Counter Intelligence and the Deep State

The deep state can be defined as the secret structure that steers defense and foreign policy behind the facade of democracy. It’s.all of the ways the affluent—private wealth--influence policy, placing themselves above the law. The deep state in America is more complicated than it is in other countries. It is the complex of power exerted off camera by people who are not elected, who are not part of the Constitution or the bureauocracy, but who have real power and assert themselves in American politics.


Counter-Intelligence: II - The Deep State from S DN on Vimeo.

Some highlights:

War on Drugs:

Wherever you declare a war on drugs, you get more drugs, not less drugs.

In Columbia, ten years after President Bush declared a war on drugs,  the amount of cocaine production increased more than three times the amount before his declaration.

A US Senate staff report has estimated that $500 billion to $1 trillion in criminal proceeds are laundered through banks worldwide each year, with about half of that amount moved through US banks.

The London Independent reported in 2004 that drug trafficking constitutes ‘the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade’.

According to US Justice Department records obtained by the Guardian, one bank alone, Wachovia, which is now part of Wells Fargo, laundered $383 billion drug dollars between May 2004 and May 2007

The “crime” of drug possession accounts for one in four persons imprisoned in the US. According to some estimates, drugs and/or drug related crimes account for over half of all criminal offenses.

Today, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 38 seconds. More people are arrested for marijuana possession than for all violent crime combined.

Prison profit

It’s no secret that the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. With only 5% of the global population, the US holds one quarter of the world’s prisoners. The expanding prison industrial complex, which has grown 350% over the last 15 years, has a vested interest in keeping people locked up.  This complex has been lobbying Congress hard to pass legislation that would imprison more people. Yes, the true criminals are pushing for the criminalization of very minor behavior, most of it, victimless.

Wells Fargo, who received $37 million in bailout money—that we know about-- is the main investor in four private prisons.

The Octopus:

Danny Casolaro called it "the Octopus", a vast, interlocking network of criminal conspiracy that reaches into every branch and agency of the U.S. government, According to Casolero, the Iran-Contra affair, Iran hostage crisis, and all funds channeled through BCCI, charged with everything from money laundering to fraud has a common thread: PROMIS (Prosecutor's Management Information System) and the Inslaw affair, when a court ruled the Reagan justice department stole valuable law enforcement software from the Inslaw corporation.

Cosolaro’s theory is that righ-winged zealots sold the software for profit. The money went to Iranian officials who supposedly delayed the release of Iranian hostages back in 1981, the so-called October surprise and later went to the back training funding of the contras.

Just days before his death, Casolaro told friends he was close to breaking the story that consumed him the past year: the political conspiracy of the century that implicated US justice offcials.  All of the Casolaro’s papers and documents disappeared.

Mafia

September 10 1931 - On orders of Charles Luciano and Frank Costello, boss of all bosses Salvatore Maranzano is murdered in his headquarters on Park Avenue in Manhattan by gangsters disguised as police officers. That same day, several of Maranzano's lieutenants, including James Marino, are killed by unknown gunmen including outside a Bronx neighborhood barbershop. The bodies of Maranzano allies Samuel Monaco and Louis Russo would later be recovered from Newark Bay; both corpses would show signs of torture. These events may or may not have been the basis for the beginning of the alleged "Night of the Sicilian Vespers" in which many old world Sicilian-born mafiosi are killed throughout the country by the Luciano-Lansky faction in the aftermath of the Castellammarese War.

In 1942, US Naval intelligence made deals with Luciano to protect the docks from German saboteurs since the mob was in control of the labor on the docks. In turn, the mafia was assisted by Patton who got the foothold in Italy by coming up into the mountains instead of going down into the cities  You see, since Mussolini regarded the mafia as a rival, and had broken up crime syndicates and executed mob bosses, he was no friend of the mob. The cities were controlled by Mussolin who chased the old mob up into the hills, so Patton approached through the mountains, bringing with him a scarf with LL Lucky Luciano as a symbol to Don Calogero Vizzini who was a head of the Italian mob. They rode through the towns who wanted revenge against Mussolini. Then they released hit men from the prisons and replaced those in political offices throughout Siciily .

The link between intelligence and mafia didn’t end there.

On November 21, 1993, 60 Minutes revealed the government was involved in running drugs. The CIA had joined the Venezuelan National guard in drug smuggling: a  ton of pure cocaine worth millions of dollars. Moreover, for more than 30 years, the federal government had been protecting drug dealers.

Thomas Drake, Bradley Manning, Jeffrey Sterling, Shamai Leibowitz, Stephen Jin Woo-Kim, James F. Hitselberger, and John Kiriakou were all charged under the Espionage Act during the Obama administration in its first term.