Martin Summers Video...

[Alex_V]

(This is a response to the Martin Summers video posted on the 9/11 news forum elsewhere on the site - http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=15261 )

I watched the video with interest, but I don't agree with the logic of what Summers is alleging. Even if I accept that false-flag operations have been a staple of government policy, that does not mean that every terrorist attack is necessarily a false flag operation. I accept what Summers says when he states that people have a right to be suspicious of events as they are told, but surely the only policy is then to tackle each incident on a case by case basis.

I also disagree with sections of his talk.

He bases his information on Afghanistan on a highly-discredited book by Tom Carew. The author later admitted that he had never been in the SAS, and had actually failed in his attempts to join them in the 70s - the written reports paint him as something of a fantasist, and it certainly sounds as if the accounts in the book need to be taken with a pinch of salt. There is certainly no reason to believe the account that Summers bases his accusations on, of Carew's fictitious SAS hero giving a briefing to high level military personnel about opium smuggling on his return from Afghanistan.

Likewise, I consider the drug-running slant on the CIA contra affair in the 80s to be unproven conspiracy theory. Certainly Summers allegation that the Kerry inquiry found evidence of CIA drug-running is utterly false. It is common knowledge that the CIA dealt with some shady types during that affair, but it is a massive jump from that to alleging that they conducted drug-running to fund rebels. Indeed the whole Iran-Contra affair revolved around money from arms to Iran funding the rebels, rather than drug money.

Other subjects, like Operation Gladio and the bombs in Russia in 1999 are more complex subjects, but there is certainly more than an element of doubt that these are proven false-flag events. Likewise the FRU unit allegations from Northern Ireland - while I don't doubt that relations with paramilitary organisations were not properly dealt with and maybe tolerated by those in charge, it's a long way from that to direct false-flag operations under government policy.

In short, Summers is justifying his suspicion of false-flag operations on 9/11 and 7/7 on what I consider a rag-bag of conspiracy theories and unproven allegations from the last few decades. Certainly there have been no shortage of outrageous conspiracy theories over recent decades - on that basis I reserve my right to be utterly suspicious of conspiracy theories around 9/11 and 7/7.

[Frazzel]

"I have put thousands of Americans away for tens of thousands of years for less evidence for conspiracy with less evidence than is available against Ollie North and CIA people. . . . I personally was involved in a deep-cover case that went to the top of the drug world in three countries. The CIA killed it."

Former DEA Agent Michael Levine
CNBC-TV, October 8, 1996


"The connections piled up quickly. Contra planes flew north to the U.S., loaded with cocaine, then returned laden with cash. All under the protective umbrella of the United States Government. My informants were perfectly placed: one worked with the Contra pilots at their base, while another moved easily among the Salvadoran military officials who protected the resupply operation. They fed me the names of Contra pilots. Again and again, those names showed up in the DEA database as documented drug traffickers.

"When I pursued the case, my superiors quietly and firmly advised me to move on to other investigations."

Former DEA Agent Celerino Castillo
Powder Burns, 1992


"The Subcommittee found that the Contra drug links included:

Involvement in narcotics trafficking by individuals associated with the Contra movement.

Participation of narcotics traffickers in Contra supply operations through business relationships with Contra organizations.

Provision of assistance to the Contras by narcotics traffickers, including cash, weapons, planes, pilots, air supply services and other materials, on a voluntary basis by the traffickers.

Payments to drug traffickers by the US State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies."

Senate Committee Report on Drugs,
Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy
chaired by Senator John F. Kerry


"I really take great exception to the fact that 1,000 kilos came in, funded by US taxpayer money."

DEA official Anabelle Grimm, during a 1993 interview on a CBS-TV "60 Minutes" segment entitled "The CIA's Cocaine." The 1991 CIA drug-smuggling event Ms. Grimm described was later found to be much larger. A Florida grand jury and the Wall Street Journal reported it to involve as much as 22 tons.

[Frazzel]

thanks to whatreallyhappened.com.

The Intermountain Regional Airport at Mena first came to national attention following the crash of a cargo plane in the jungles of Nicaragua. The sole survivor of the crash, Eugene Hassenfuss, confessed to being part of an illegal operation to arm and resupply the Contra forces staged out of the Mena airport, and the scandal known as Iran-Contra erupted across the headlines of the world.

The specific aircraft which crashed in Nicaragua had, during the Vietnam war, belonged to Air America, the CIA proprietary airline that had flown guns to the Laotian Meo in Long Tien, while bringing heroin back. Following the end of the Vietnam war, the aircraft was purchased by legendary drug smuggler Barry Seal, who renamed it the "Fat Lady" and based it at the Mena airport. Following Seal's suspicious murder, the plane was used in the gun running operation to Nicaragua, ending with the crash.

The fact that guns were being sent to the Contras was itself illegal, under the Boland Amendment. While diverted arms sales were held aloft as the funding mechanism for the gun running to the Contras, the sheer scale of the Contra effort suggested that another, even more clandestine, funding mechanism had to existed. Drug running. To allay this suspicion, Oliver North claimed that he reported any drug activity to the D.E.A. The D.E.A. says he did no such thing. Evidence of drug running connected to the Contra Resupply was made available to the Iran-Contra Special Prosecutor, but it was not followed up.

After the Iran-Contra scandal erupted, individuals began to come forward with stories that the same planes that ferried guns down to Nicaragua were ferrying back cocaine for sale in the United States. Cocaine whose profits were the real source of funding for the Contra's custom made (and numberless) M-16s. These individuals included military personnel such as Eugene Wheaton, and pilots such as Richard Brenneke, and Terry Reed, who claimed they were part of the guns and drugs operation itself. Some, like Chip Tatum, had documents proving their claims. Others were highly respected law enforcement officers and members of government, such as William Duncan, L.D. Brown, and others, who had stumbled on the drug running operation and tried to expose it. Some of those who had knowledge of Mena started to die.

Almost immediately, it became apparent that Mena enjoyed a special status. Every attempt to investigate met with interference. Investigator Russel Welch of the Arkansas Police was ordered to stay away from drug activity at the Mena Airport. Despite a public statement by then-Governor Bill Clinton that he was doing all he could to investigate allegations of CIA drug running at Mena, citizen's groups charged that funding was cut for any investigations that pointed at Mena, and petitioned the Iran-Contra Special Prosecutor to investigate drug running at Mena. He never did.

Politicians elected on a promise to investigate Mena quickly broke those promises.

Appearing before Congress, Former IRS Criminal Investigator William Duncan testified that he was ordered to suppress information about Mena by his superiors, and that investigations into Mena were shut down on orders from the US Attorney!

Even a Congressman, US Representative Bill Alexander, whoseappeal to Bill Clinton for investigative funding was ignored, charged that he had found interference in the Mena affair from the IRS!

Angered by what appeared to be a cover up, Alexander threatened budget cuts on non-cooperative agencies, then directly challenged Richard Thornburgh,the Attorney General Of The United States, to look into Mena. Thornburgh promised he would investigate. He never did.

The IRS works for the Department of the Treasury. Hence, it was worth noting that following US Representative Bill Alexander's complaints of IRS interference, another division of the Treasury Department, the Customs Bureau, issued the following memo, requesting that all records, especially paper records relating to activities at Mena be sent to Washington D.C.. Included in the memo was the request that Customs be notified if no records were found in the individual offices.

Click for full size picture.(352K)

For those who do not wish to download the 300 kilobyte scan, here is a transcript of the first paragraph.(A capital X signifies an unreadable character)
The House Committee on Banking and Financial Services is
requesting Customs to make available to the Committee all
documents and communications in Customs possession related to
alleged money laundering and drug activities occurring at Mena
Airport, Arkansas. Attached for your review and action is the
Committee's letter and several attachments listing individuals,
firms, case numbers etc. The Committee requests Customs search
its records for information and documents related to the
information contained in the Attachments to the Committee's
letter.

Even the press seemed to have a blind spot where Mena was concerned. Writer Roger Morris (author of "Partners In Power") and Sally Denton wrote a well-researched article entitled The Crimes Of Mena. This story, based on Barry Seal's surviving records, had been fact checked and cleared for publication by the legal staff of the Washington Post, when it was suddenly spiked without explanation by Managing Editor Bob Kaiser, a fellow Skull & Bones alumni with ex CIA chief George Bush.

With only a few notable exceptions like Jack Anderson, and Sarah McClendon, along with a few small town newspapers like the Ozark Gazette, The Guardian, the mainstream press's silence has been deafening.

This self-imposed blindness towards Mena by the America media did not go unnoticed by the foreign press, most notably among them London Telegraph journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

[Alex_V]

This is the standard approach - regurgitate two pages of quotes and suggest that it 'proves' something. What it proves is not obvious.

The Kerry quotes support my post - that investigation did not uncover direct evidence of CIA drug-trafficking, as alleged by Martin Summers in his talk.

The Annabelle Grimm quotes surround a different story, that of the CIA wanting a drugs shipment to be delivered in the US from Colombia to uncover the entirety of the drug operation that their agents had infiltrated. Nobody in that case was ever suggesting that the CIA were routinely smuggling drugs - it was a special case to do with a sting operation.