Is Guerilla News Network a Psy-op?

by **kurtangleitstrue** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 7:17 am

Given that so many people are turning to the "alternative media" for their news, and the ability of the news organizations to freeze those with news out if they wish, I found this investigation/report of <a href="http://gnn.tv">GNN</a> to be very interesting and for me it raises many questions about "alternative" news sites, and media access in general. <a href="http://smartamerican.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=450">Is GNN a Psy-op?</a> These are the results of an independent investigation into GNN by about four former site members, including myself. It was originally posted at GNN itself, but I'm re-posting it here because it needs a new home in light of my decision to delete my account at GNN. Since its original writing, it has been edited to include new information, as well as edited for clarity in certain parts. I hope you all enjoy the read, and even if you don’t accept my thesis, at the very least I’m sure you’ll find this information intriguing. It will also likely bring significantly more traffic to this message board than normal; hopefully nobody minds. My primary thesis is this: Guerrilla News Network is an American Intelligence disinfo operation designed to attract young political dissidents, draw them into the community, document their beliefs, and moderate their opinions. This thesis is not merely a hunch of mine, and I will now delve into the primary evidence which suggests collusion between GNN and the American intelligence community. 1. Anthony Lappe and the USIA Anthony Lappe is one of the four people who own and operate GNN, and is the website's editor and primary contributor; the other three owners are Stephen Marshall, Josh Shore, and Ian Inaba. Anthony is the son of the (moderately popular) American leftist writer Frances Moore Lappe, who - together with her daughter - operates the Small Planet Institute. The Institute has acknowledged that it has received funding for book tours from Heifer International, the WK Kellogg Foundation, The Sunflower Fund and Sustainable Table. It's also worth noting that the Small Planet Institute's primary sources of funding, in terms of day-to-day operations, are not publicly disclosed on their website, not unlike GNN's primary sources of funding are not publicly disclosed. Keep all of this in mind, because it will be important later. In any case, Anthony shares a similar moderate-left worldview to his mother, and wound up in the same type of business: producing and distributing moderate-left propaganda. But Anthony has had other, slightly different (but also largely similar) jobs before GNN; particularly, "training" Palestinian reporters on behalf of the United States Government. Anthony's bio on GNN explicitly states that "in 1996, he received two grants from the U.S. government to help train reporters from the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation in the West Bank". Under what circumstances did this "training" occur? Well, the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), while technically a part of the Palestinian Authority, receives part of its funding from the US Government. Complaints about pro-jihadi propaganda in the PBC's television programs prompted American lawmakers to cut the station's funds in the mid-1990's. According to this wire report from the time: In 1995 Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat changed the structure to force the directors to report directly to him. That's when the United State Information Agency cut off direct funding for the station and decided to support and train individual journalists, including many who work for the PBC. But in 1997 the USIA decided to try again, providing more than $200,000 of satellite-receiving equipment after the PBC agreed to broadcast seven hours of Worldnet and Voice of America programming on American policy, society and culture. So what is this USIA which sought to strong-arm the Palestinians into broadcasting American propaganda over their airwaves? According to Wikipedia, The United States Information Agency (USIA), which existed from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to "public diplomacy." The term public diplomacy (q.v.) is closely related to the word "propaganda," possibly synonymous with it depending on how the latter word is defined. So, the USIA was an American propaganda agency which existed from the early 1950's until 1999, when it was absorbed into the US State Department. I think that this quote, from one of the agency's former directors, articulates the USIA's role quite well: USIA’s combined informational resources not only provide the only complete and unedited articulation of official U.S. policy abroad, they also enable us to shape and influence the overseas environments in which those policies are considered. – USIA Director Joseph Duffey, 1996 Budget Hearings The USIA's target audience, explains California State University professor and propaganda expert Nancy Snow, "is upper class business and professional elites who are often themselves agents of the propaganda system. The American majority, or remaining 80-90 percent, assume the role of "the bewildered herd". They are expected to go with the flow and not trouble themselves with political and economic decision making. Compliance of the herd is achieved because it forms the target audience of the commercial mass media through tabloid news, professional sports and popular television." It is worth noting that GNN's target audience is largely the same demographic, albeit younger; upper- and upper-middle class educated youths, particularly college students. The "upper class business and professional elites" of tomorrow. With the USIA's unmistakable role as a propaganda agency for the US Government firmly established in our minds, is it not noteworthy - and indeed alarming - that Anthony Lappe worked for the agency in Palestine? Some of the aforementioned issues will be covered further in the next topic. 2. GNN and the Ford Foundation While one might hope for transparent financial information from an allegedly "guerrilla" news network, GNN's owners have been disturbingly mute on the venture's finances, only ceding certain points when confronted about them. One such point is the fact that, as Stephen Marshall and Anthony Lappe have previously acknowledged, GNN has received grants from several non-profit foundations, including the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation has had numerous documented links to the CIA, and even the Wikipedia article on it touches on this fact, noting that "certain critics such as former Binghamton University professor James Petras have criticized the Foundation for alleged links with the CIA. Petras has accused the Foundation of being a CIA front, citing former Foundation president Richard Bissell's relationship with DCI Allen Dulles and involvement with the Marshall Plan during the 1950s. Petras further denounces the Ford Foundation for funding what he terms "anti-leftist" human rights groups that "...do not participate in anti-globalization and anti-neoliberal mass actions."" This type of intelligence/foundation collusion is not at all uncommon, however; as Petras himself noted in his work The Ford Foundation and the CIA: A documented case of philanthropic collaboration with the Secret Police, "the CIA uses philanthropic foundations as the most effective conduit to channel large sums of money to Agency projects without alerting the recipients to their source. From the early 1950s to the present the CIA’s intrusion into the foundation field was and is huge. A U.S. Congressional investigation in 1976 revealed that nearly 50% of the 700 grants in the field of international activities by the principal foundations were funded by the CIA (Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders, Granta Books, 1999, pp. 134-135). The CIA considers foundations such as Ford "the best and most plausible kind of funding cover" (Ibid, p. 135). The collaboration of respectable and prestigious foundations, according to one former CIA operative, allowed the Agency to fund "a seemingly limitless range of covert action programs affecting youth groups, labor unions, universities, publishing houses and other private institutions" (p. 135). The latter included "human rights" groups beginning in the 1950s to the present. One of the most important "private foundations" collaborating with the CIA over a significant span of time in major projects in the cultural Cold War is the Ford Foundation." The Ford Foundation specifically allocated $62,650 to the post-production costs of the GNN documentary American Blackout. This fact raises some obvious red flags; is a CIA-linked foundation really the type of people who should be funding movies about voting, particularly given the CIA's less-than-stellar respect for democracy around the globe? Further, could American Blackout have been changed in any way as a result of this funding, like some CIA-funded films have been in the past? Recall that the Small Planet Institute, mentioned at the beginning of this article, also receives (seemingly all?) of its funding from non-profit foundations similar to Ford, as does GNN. So, taking into account that one of GNN's owners has worked for the US Government’s propaganda agency before, and that GNN has received funding from a foundation that has worked as a covert funding source for US Government propaganda before, I don't think it's at all unfair to suspect that we may be on to something here in terms of GNN being, to at least a certain degree, a Psy-Op. 3. Stephen Marshall and Voice of Free Nigeria GNN co-founder Stephen Marshall is the son of a wealthy Canadian industrialist, Jeffrey Marshall, who ran the family steel business (aptly named “Marshall Steel”) until he was fired in the midst of a hostile corporate takeover in 1992. Being the son of such a wealthy man afforded Stephen the opportunity to attend Lower Canada College, one of the most prestigious schools in Canada and a veritable daycare for the children of elites, who will essentially have found their way into one “old boys’ club” or another by the time they graduate at age eighteen. Another GNN co-founder, Josh Shore, also attended the school as a boy, though he and Stephen claim that they did not know each other in their formative years. Stephen continued his education at Lakefield College School, where he claims to have studied alongside “various members of European and Middle Eastern royalty including the Prince of Wales”. Going on to attend Queen’s University, Stephen’s life looked to be on the inside track to financial and social success, but several things happened along the way, some of which may not be what they initially seem. According to Globe and Mail writer Sarah Hampson, "in 1995, [Stephen] travelled to the Arizona desert, where a group of channellers put him in touch with some aliens from another planet who told him he would manifest a global television network". The “official” narrative of this incident and the years immediately thereafter is that, being an overly-ambitious young man, Stephen overstepped his bounds, got involved with drugs, and made some monetary errors; not a particularly compelling story, and surely one with which many people can relate. The first unique part of this story is the amount of money involved; backed by a 1.5 million-dollar investment from childhood friend and Cara Operations Ltd heiress Holiday Phelan, Stephen set off for the world in an effort to make the type of music video-inspired documentaries that would eventually lead to the creation of GNN. It’s worth noting that one doesn’t make childhood friends like the heiress to the Cara Foods fortune by attending an under-funded public school. That said, within a relatively short period of time, the money had all but vanished, the works it had funded had not taken off, and Stephen found himself alone in Cuba without any identification (having ripped it all up in a “moment of complete erasure”). Contacting his father (who promptly wired him some cash), Stephen eventually found his way back to the wealthy West, where – after still more traveling – he was allegedly contacted by a Nigerian peace activist requesting his help in overthrowing the Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. Why would a peace activist seek out an allegedly drug-plagued young man with transcendental experiences involving hallucinations about aliens to overthrow a military dictator on the other side of the world? Apparently, he liked Channel Zero and hoped that Stephen could help him make something just as good, but with a Nigerian audience in mind. Stephen claims to have agreed to help this Nigerian activist because he felt that, particularly after the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the best way to help the Nigerian people was to overthrow Abacha. Ken Saro-Wiwa, for the uninitiated, was the leader of a nonviolent Ogoni movement against the catastrophic environmental destruction associated with Shell’s oil extraction operations in the Niger Delta. After being framed for the murder of four Ogoni elders, Saro-Wiwa and eight other members of his political action group were executed. All of this occurred amidst virtual silence from both Shell Corporation and the United States Government. Thus (and allegedly with funding from Stephen himself) was born the radio station Voice of Free Nigeria (VOFN), whose function was to broadcast anti-Abacha propaganda into Nigeria. While being confronted about the dubious nature of the radio station, Stephen initially stated: “it’s worth noting, that when the Abacha regime discovered the broadcast, they said it was a CIA operation”. However, after reading the first draft of this very investigation, Stephen downplayed that remark, saying: “when I saw [Nigerian democracy activist] Tunde Okorodudu in Oakland five years ago he had a newspaper clipping from 1998 that referenced the various pirate radio operations involved in trying to bring hope to the people, and that one of them, VoFN, was described by a government official as possibly a CIA operation, or something. that’s it.” A minor change in tune, to say the least. Assuming the Nigerians did indeed suspect VOFN was a CIA front as was initially alleged, we should recall that Washington has a history of tolerating and aiding military dictatorships that keep their domestic population under control and their markets open to Western penetration, both of which Abacha had essentially done, particularly during the aforementioned Saro-Wiwa episode. This compliance to Western expectations makes one wonder why Abacha would have suspected that the Americans were conspiring against him, and begs the question as to when the Washington/Abacha relationship may have taken a turn for the worse. While documentation regarding the US-Nigerian relationship is hardly plentiful, we can go back as far as September 1997 (approximately five months after Stephen started working on Voice of Free Nigeria) to find one widely-reported manifestation of the friction between the two countries. According to Nigerian newspaper reports, armed policemen from the Lagos State anti-robbery squad also known as Operation Sweep … stopped a send-off party organized by human rights and pro-democracy groups for United States ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington. Apparently, the send-off party was shifted from its original venue after police sealed off all roads leading to the place. The party moved to a nearby house, of another opposition member Chief Ayo Adebanjo, but police appeared after Chief Bola Ige had said the opening prayers and Senator Abraham Adesanya, acting chairman of the opposition NADECO group, was in the middle of his farewell speech for Carrington. The police snatched the microphone from him and pointed guns at those present. The Nigerian government later issued an unconvincing apology for the incident, but the damage was done, and it was clear that Abacha was trying to mark his territory. Less than a year later, Abacha suddenly dropped dead under questionable circumstances, and was promptly buried on the same day; no autopsy was ever performed. The official reason given for his death was heart attack, but most Nigerians suspect either assassination or poisoning; “many,” according to his Wikipedia page, suspect he “died due to a Burantashi overdose”. Needless to say, Voice of Free Nigeria stopped broadcasting before the end of 1998, the raison d’etre of the station having been, in one way or another, accomplished. But questions obviously remain; does the narrative we’ve been fed really make sense? Hardly. The sudden appearance of a mysterious Nigerian “activist” with an idea for an anti-Abacha radio station at a time when the relationship between Abacha and the US Government was deteriorating is highly questionable, as is the chronology of Stephen’s story up to that point. The son of a plutocrat, graduate of multiple elite schools and friend to other young heirs wealthy enough to front him $1.5 million, we are led to believe, indulged in psychotropic substances and followed the proverbial white rabbit to a communion with imagined aliens in the Arizona desert and – eventually – a kind of spiritual reawakening in Cuba, only to return to North America and be asked by a Nigerian peace activist to start a rebel radio station in Africa, and then continue on to start up a supposedly “dissident” news website alongside several other young elites, one of whom (Anthony Lappe) also partook in a foreign media operation that was linked to American intelligence. The entire story is so utterly ridiculous as to beg dismissal. Wish though I may that anybody had a life so intriguing, it sounds to me more like “what a spy tells a civilian: a cover story, a legend” (Daniel Hopsicker, Welcome to Terrorland, p. 109). By crafting such an elaborate and bizarre back story, one could easily present such serendipitous moments as the meeting that led to VOFN as either believable or likely. As a simple exercise in rationality, I would urge the reader to ask himself or herself how many people they know who’ve studied at the best schools in their country, engaged in a years-long drug binge involving visions of aliens, and proceeded to start up a rebel radio station on the other side of the planet. Needless to say, calling such a series of events “unlikely” would be an understatement. What is likely, on the other hand, is that what occurred during Stephen’s apparent travels was something altogether quite different, as were – most likely – the situations under which he became involved with VOFN and GNN. 4. Ian Inaba and the Israeli Connection The fourth and final GNN partner (and the one who has passed largely without mention thus far) is Ian Inaba. Ian had - as seems to be the trend among GNN owners - a well-off upbringing, graduating from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and quickly landing a spot as an investment banker at the San Francisco financial group Robertson Stephens & Co., staying on until 1996, when he left to work for a large Israeli corporation, Check Point Technologies. Last year, Check Point posted half a billion dollars of revenue; it’s one of the most well-known Israeli technology corporations, largely due to its popular firewall software. The company was founded (and has since been run) by an enigmatic young Israeli man named Gil Shwed. According to Fortune magazine, in 1986 Shwed, just 18 years old, joined the supersecret electronic intelligence arm of the Israeli Defense Forces called Unit 8200. His job most likely was to string together military computer networks in a way that would allow some users access to confidential materials while denying access to others. When he left the service in 1990, Shwed walked off with the idea that would define his career and make him one of the youngest members of FORBES' billionaires list. Ian’s role at Check Point, according to his profile on GNN version 1 (cached here), was as the director of corporate development … where he headed the company's investment and acquisitions activities. This seems like a remarkably important job for such a young and relatively inexperienced person, especially when one takes into account that the firm in question is an Israeli intelligence-connected technology giant. While it’s unclear which “acquisitions” Ian oversaw during his time at Check Point, the company caught newspaper headlines earlier this year under rather dubious circumstances; namely, according to the Washington Post, by trying to buy the Maryland software security firm Sourcefire, which does business with Defense Department agencies. Not surprisingly, Check Point's proposed $225 million purchase of Laurel-based Sourcefire raised red flags with government cybersecurity officials … Check Point was built by Gil Shwed, whom Forbes magazine has described as an Israeli billionaire who served in the electronic intelligence arm of the Israeli Defense Forces. By contrast, the firm that Check Point was attempting to buy out, Sourcefire, has deep roots in the National Security Agency. Its founder and chief technology officer, Martin Roesch, has served as an NSA contractor. Its vice president of engineering, Tom Ashoff, developed software for the secretive spy agency. After it became obvious that certain entrenched interests in the American security establishment didn’t want to let an Israeli intelligence-connected firm acquire an American intelligence-connected firm, Check Point quietly withdrew its buy-out plans. In the same vein as Anthony Lappe and Stephen Marshall, then, we can regard Ian Inaba as a wealthy elite with connections to state intelligence agencies; in his case, Israeli military intelligence. Hardly a “guerrilla” former employer, if indeed there were such a thing. 5. Understanding Propaganda There is an astounding ignorance about the nature of propaganda and psychological operations (“Psy-Ops”) in our society today. Those without an education in the matter may wonder aloud how a website that provides “dissident” material could possibly be an agent of the state that it allegedly opposes; "after all," these people will ask, "if GNN is with the state, why would it run anti-Bush headlines? Isn’t "propaganda" something obvious, like the pro-military posters of the Second World War?" Well, yes, it can be; but propaganda – as disinformation – can manifest itself in many different, more complex ways. Recall that, in George Orwell’s magnus opus 1984, there are two notable parties seemingly at war with each other: the tyrannical state, which controls all of the mainstream media in a very obvious, overbearing way, and the “Brotherhood,” a band of anti-government rebels who subvert the state through open resistance and an underground literature trade. By the end of the book, it’s revealed that both the state and the Brotherhood are controlled by the same interests, and the tension between the two is essentially fictional; while the state controls the majority through blatant propaganda and a forceful subversion of human intellectual faculties, the Brotherhood controls the minority who, for whatever reason, see beyond the more obvious propaganda. By creating an anti-government resistance movement, the government of 1984 – the original “Big Brother” – ensures its own complete control of its populace, for even those opposing it are simultaneously fighting for it, albeit unknowingly. Such is the case with most modern propaganda, including GNN; it works because we are unaware that we are even exposed to it. Taking into account things like Operation Mockingbird – which turned over 400 domestic American journalists into CIA assets by the late 1960’s – as well as the mystifying, irrelevant nature of mainstream commercial television and radio, we can with a reasonable degree of certainty conclude that the mainstream American media is already essentially controlled by the state, or at least manipulated by the corporate interests that today dictate policy to the most powerful sectors of the state. Such an arrangement may suffice for indoctrinating and brainwashing "the American majority, or … 80-90% [of the population]… the bewildered herd" as propaganda expert Nancy Snow put it, but it leaves dissident media – and indeed free thinkers in general – totally unaccounted for. Thus are born the popular leftist “gate-keepers” of conspiracy lore; intelligence-connected institutions like the aforementioned Ford Foundation funnel money to moderate-left media establishments like Democracy Now or GNN in the interests of drowning out radical or revolutionary thought and legitimizing moderate beliefs and opinions. The term “gate-keepers” refers to the power that moderate leftists like Amy Goodman or Anthony Lappe can thus receive, as they are able to essentially decide what is or is not appropriate for discussion among contemporary leftists, and will thus essentially set the agenda for many in their audience. As a CIA-connected (and, it would seem, CIA-funded) media source, GNN has several primary functions of invaluable importance to the state: it draws political radicals to the site, urges them to publish their views and opinions with blogs and message boards (thus exposing their thoughts to analysis), and serves to moderate their opinions over time through editorial intervention (as with Anthony’s chronic bias against the 9/11 truth movement or his attacks on mathematical certainties). GNN also has a functional purpose which is achieved through the structure and nature of the website itself: it compels political radicals to waste their time sitting at their computers exchanging articles with other like-minded political radicals instead of doing something truly conducive to change, like learning to grow their own food or taking part in direct action. In terms of both its distractionary and manipulative properties, GNN possesses all of the signs of a typical media psy-op; its readers’ minds are being manipulated in subtle ways every time they visit it, from the promotion of the democracy lie and the fictional Republican-versus-Democrat dialectic to the regular legitimization of authority and statism. To conclude and summarize, I’ll simply urge the reader to let the facts be understood: All four of the owners of GNN are elites; one of them is confirmed to have worked on a USIA propaganda operation, and one of them is confirmed to have worked on a propaganda operation that appears to have been a CIA front. Another one of them worked as an investment banker for an Israeli intelligence-connected technology firm. Throw in the fact that GNN bears all of the hallmarks of a disinformation operation, and you’ve got a more-than-compelling case. Guerrilla News Network is a Psy-Op.

by **Hugh Manatee Wins** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:17 am

While all that background is interesting, I'm comfortable with the 'product,' which a website that carries articles by anti-CIA whistleblowers like William Blum -- <a href="http://www.guerrillanews.com/headlines/11901/Some_Things_You_Need_To_Know_Before_The_World_Ends">www.guerrillanews.com/hea...World_Ends</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Some Things You Need To Know Before The World Ends Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:35:06 -0700 Summary: Author William Blum left the State Department in 1967 in opposition to what the United States was doing in Vietnam. In this article he covers the rise in terrorism activity in recent years, and its relationship to American foreign policy. Discussing American Foreign Policy dating back to CIA, and other US intelligence and military services, involvement in Post WWII Germany.<hr></blockquote>

by **kurtangleitstrue** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:16 am

sure they run stuff from ex-CIA guys, but they also publish articles on their front page that are critical of Israel and "dissapear" them after less than an hour and then lie about it. <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann10172006.html">www.counterpunch.org/neum...72006.html</a> Guerrilla Reviewing By MICHAEL NEUMANN The Guerrilla News Network web site seems slightly retro, slightly well-off, slightly out-of-kilter cool, like Lily Allen in a Che Guevara T-shirt. The guys may wear berets. They do guerrilla book reviews: you attack, and when the clumsy reaction force finally gets in place, you're gone! The review vanishes, as if it had never been, into some misty Sierra Madre of the internet. In my case the attack was on The Case Against Israel, and the attacker is Ari Paul, who also does music reviews. I read the review, a couple of weeks late, I write a reply, I send it to GNN. But I don't get the guerrilla reviewers, I get the guerrilla apparatchiks. They only have first names, like code names ------ They publish articles written by ex cia whistleblowers. They publish them while claiming 'fair use' which means they are publishing it without the authors permission or knowledge of it being published.

by **Dreams End** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:29 am

Thanks for the article. Hugh...you of all people...should get that disinfo contains lots of truth. Take the case of the Congress of Cultural Freedom. They published a BUNCH of magazines and were basically a CIA op. The magazines were allowed to print pretty much what they wanted, including critical stories of the US. However, they also had to publish material the CIA wanted published. and, of course, I'm sure they insured that the editors were on the same page..er....so to speak. The goal in that case was not to discourage criticism...but to create a non-socialist left. This is what, if I have read the articles wordspeak posted correctly, Soros is up to today. It's also what groups like the NED are about. This is why articles like the above matter. And I also found interesting that the US was training pro-jihadist journalists. But I'm sure they'd never play both sides of that conflict.

by **robertdreed** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 7:31 pm

It's tough for me to winnow fact and fiction from an account like the one above. It's so typical Ass-Out Left. The Ass-Out Left has no means of support of their own, so they perennially rely on the money of others. Then they complain when their patrons don't meet the Purity Test. The Purity Test, as best I can figure out, is that the funding patrons remain in the good graces of the Ideologically Pure for only as long as there's never enough that they can do for them. Often, the demands of the Ideologically Pure implicitly include funding an ideological stance that would, if implemented, confiscate all of the wealth of the patrons, in the name of "the people." ( At minimum. ) The Ideologically Pure are mystified that this position isn't more popular with the citizenry. And they're outright baffled that the people who decide to fund them would do anything other than acquiesce to it....instead, they insist on involving themselves in pernicious attempts to get activists on the Left to "moderate their views." Even the most avowedly "progressive" funders turn out to have this agenda! So, once again, it's time for the Purge to begin...they're all CIA-directed, that's the ticket. Part of the Psychological Operations branch- you know, that's the one that's even more pervasive and powerful than the East German Stasi was. ( Except that in this case, they're the bad guys. ) Here's my suggestion for the Ass-Out Left. If you envy and hate all "rich people"*, per se- you do, don't you?- don't take money from them.Don't expect it, don't solicit it, don't accept it if offered. Instead, get some resources of your own. Except, that means...oh, I cannot utter it... *phrase subject to elastic definition Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 10/26/06 6:28 am

by **wordspeak** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 7:38 pm

kurtangleitstrue, that's very interesting stuff. I've actually had a personal relationship with Anthony Lappe for about three years, since we both spoke at a small indymedia conference in Connecticut. I've never met the others, but a colleague of mine worked closely with them all in the production of their 9/11 film "Aftermath," which was the first significant 9/11 video. Aftermath was a decent film; it had some good material on the standdown of the air defense system... but it reflected the lack of clarity by the producers. I always knew that Lappe was something of a weak liberal, and I'd had some mild arguments with him in the past, but very recently I saw that GNN was posting anti-9/11 truth articles by CIA hack Bill Weinberg (of "High Times" infiltration fame, if anyone remembers), and I called him out on it publicly, and fought to get GNN's URL off of the Deception Dollar... those fucking assholes, running CIA disinfo. Still, I believe Lappe is likely just a confused postmodernist who was brainwashed by Columbia Journalism School. Remember that GNN made "Crack the CIA," which was an awesome video, and also they did a twelve-minute montage piece after 9/11 that was amazing (I wish I could remember the name of it and find a copy online). The stuff about Lappe "training" Palestinian journalists is very interesting, but it doesn't mean that he's a witting agent. I could see him rationalizing it to himself. Stephen Marshall's story, though, is fascinating, especially the whole part about Nigeria. Bizarre, yes. But what does it mean? Anything more than that Marshall is a rich-kid freak who took too much acid? Possibly, but I'm not convinced. Same with the stuff about Ian Iaba. He was much higher in the world than I knew, but a Mossad agent? Who knows, but I'm not convinced from the evidence presented. The Ford Foundation grant is where it gets serious. This is my current area of study, having just read the amazing book "Foundations and Public Policy" by Joan Roelofs and interviewed Roelofs. Here, by the way, is the direct link to that excellent article by James Petras on the historic collaboration between the CIA and the Ford Found: <a href="http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/FordFandCIA.html">www.ratical.org/ratville/...ndCIA.html</a> Ford and Rockefeller grants (and Carnegie and Schuman, et al, but Ford above all) have always been used to control oppositional movements and projects. So it's really interesting that Ford gave a very sizable grant to the production of "American Blackout," which GNN says is an Ian Iaba side project. I haven't even seen the film yet, but I don't think, knowing the topic, that Ford wants the general story to get out there- I think, as stated, that they wanted to control how it gets out there, to control it, maybe focus on certain things and minimize others. And Iaba, as 99.9% of Ford fundees do (or don't don't get funded next time), surely went along with their wishes. It doesn't mean that Iaba is an agent of any government, but it would mean that he's complicit. Does anyone who's seen "American Blackout" have any insight? Anyway, searching on the Ford Foundations's web site, I don't see any other grants for GNN. We should go on the GNN board and bring this information up. But it may be that GNN is more *the result* of decades of CIA psy-ops on just those types of people- rich white alternative types- than it is a psy-op itself, per se.

by **Et in Arcadia ego** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 2:08 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Anyway, searching on the Ford Foundations's web site, I don't see any other grants for GNN.<hr></blockquote> Why would you expect to find any? ____________________ Wehret den Anfängen

by **Angel** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 2:12 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>We should go on the GNN board and bring this information up.<hr></blockquote> This article was actually first published in two parts on GNN, Inc's website before being removed by the author and republished at <a href="http://smartamerican.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=450&start=0">SmartAmerican.</a> Here's an interesting post from Andrew Stromotich in response to Anthony Lappe at <a href="http://sundaymag.ca/index.php?id=435">Sunday Mag:</a> The fact of the matter is: Anthony Lappe worked for the USIA in Palestine in 1997. He was recruited directly by the director of USIA operations in Israel (by his own admission). He downplays this as nothing noteworthy and alludes that he did not know who he was working for- hard to believe that this columbia grad school journalist working for the NYT had no idea of who the USIA were. Further, we are expected to believe he was willing to work for an American government organization in Palestine as an American of Jewish descent, without doing any investigation into the USIA (would make him a pretty pathetic journalist)... He also refuses to give any of the names of the journalists he trained as an agent of the USIA. He claims not to remember a single name, which again I find hard to believe when recognizing he was an american of jewish descent working with palestinians (don’tcha think he might pass on some of the names to his superiors to see if they were connected to organizations which might look to harm him?)... In 1997, his future partner Stephen Marshall was in Ghana setting up a pirate radio station looking to fall the gov’t of that country (a pro-US dictatorship that had recently gone rogue). After his time with the USIA, he hooks up with Ian Inaba, an investment banker from Berkeley (how did they meet?), who happens to be a director of a company run by billionaire Gil Shwed, who just got out of the intelligence services of the Israeli Defence Forces; ironic, huh? This guy that used to train palestinian journalists ends up working with a guy with a directorship of a company that works security for US government and pentagon operations? This needs to be investigated, but Anthony’s response to investigation has been to hack into peoples sites and erase all material connected to this. He has also been evasive with regards to answering direct questions. I know anthony has read this post and I again ask him: 1) what was the name of the USIA director that recruited you. 2) What were then names of any of the Palestinian journalists you trained? 3)How did you meet Ian Inaba and have you ever met Gil Shwed? 4) DID you recieve a copy of the document 1997-2002: USIA stratgic Plan? 5) Are you an Isreali Citizen? We need to know how these guys met. Gil Shwed, Ian Inaba and Anthony Lappe are all roughly the same age. Gil was special inteligence, and anthony’s father lived in Israel (is anthony a dual citizen of israel and the USA, and did he serve in the IDF? what about Ian?)... As the director of a self professed independant media outlet in a time of US-gov psy-ops directed at controlling US media (last example came as late as early october of US journalists being outed as working for what were originally USIA run propaganda agencies), Anthony should recognize the importance of these investigations, and start participating into this with honesty and sincerity if he wishes to ‘set the record straight’ (instead of hiding and hacking, and smearing those investigating this)... Anthony’s refusal to answer these questions with regards to his connections to ISrael and the USIA, his partners connections to the IDF, pentagon and big corporate interests. Yeah, that’s right, Stephen Marshall was originally funded by the family of fast-food giant Cara Foods, and Marshall’s family were for generations owned a big steel corp, before going on to head the newly formed Ontario Clean Water Agency which environment probe has called a major obstacle to environmentally secure water and sewage in Ontario. In essence, a false watchdog that has overseen such disasters as the walkerton deaths while stephen’s dad was at the helm (kinda explains the seemingly unexplainable smear campaign marshall ran against Al Gore and his environmental film: an inconveneint truth). This group looks about as independent as CNN. If any of this is incorrect, then response is needed. But GNN’s response of none at all, or limited evasive answers only furthers the image of a USIA orchestrated psy-op anne coulter would be proud of…

by **Sweejak** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 2:12 am

Thread is here: <a href="http://smartamerican.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=450">smartamerican.com/forums/....php?t=450</a> With a link to the Ford Foundation Grant. on edit, this was the link which went to the page, a page, which showed the grant. It's changed and is just an entry page. <a href="http://www.fordfound.org/">www.fordfound.org/</a> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=sweejak@rigorousintuition>Sweejak</A> at: 10/24/06 12:28 am

by **Angel** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 2:27 am

GNN Inc's Stephen Marshall on 9/11: "I am positive there are elements of the official narrative that are completely bogus. Do I know which ones? No." "...the last thing I wanted to say to you is that there is another dimension to this whole 9/11 conspiracy thing. And that is the fact that there are more than 19 Muslims in the world who would like nothing else but to hijack some planes and drive them into a bunch of large American buildings. And to me, that is the real problem." "I repeat, I DO NOT BUY THE GOVERNMENT STORY. But the fact that there was rejoicing in Islam when the towers were hit, the fact that people are readying themselves at this moment to blow up Iraqi checkpoints and some Starbucks in New York is the real problem. That’s the real conspiracy… ok?" <a href="http://www.gnn.tv/threads/20662/Psy_Ops_sockpuppets_and_the_anthropology_of_fundamentalism">Link</a>

by **Sweejak** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 2:32 am

Here it is: <a href="http://www.fordfound.org/grants_db/view_grant_detail.cfm?grant_id=34229">www.fordfound.org/grants_...t_id=34229</a>

by **whipstitch** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:05 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>and also they did a twelve-minute montage piece after 9/11 that was amazing (I wish I could remember the name of it and find a copy online)<hr></blockquote> <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=F1yKH4mFPMk">S-11 Redux</a>

by **MASONIC PLOT** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 12:07 pm

Nothing on the internet can be trusted anymore. They have extended their reach into the alternative media. Trust no one.

by **wordspeak** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 1:59 pm

MASONIC PLOT, that's really not helpful. Et in arcadia ego, from the beginning othe article I thought that there was going to be more Ford connection, but no, my mistake. Still I wonder- what effect did Ford money have on "American Blackout"? Thanks for the S-11 Redux link. great little ditty, but... That Stephen Marshall quote about 9/11 say it all. He doesn't get it.

by **MASONIC PLOT** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:12 pm

May not be helpful to you, but its the truth. Prove me wrong. Most of the alternative news websites, 9-11 truth groups etc, have been infiltrated by spooks. Chertoff has even admitted that the internet is their new war front, calling it a breeding ground for terrorism and dissent.

Is Guerilla News Network a Psy-op?

Is Guerilla News Network a Psy-op?

Re: Is Guerilla News Network a Psy-op?

sure they run stuff from ex-CIA guys

Re: sure they run stuff from ex-CIA guys

It's hard to know...

CIA guys?

Re: CIA guys?

Re: CIA guys?

Re: CIA guys?

Re: GNN Inc's Stephen Marshall on 9/11

Re: GNN Inc's Stephen Marshall on 9/11

S-11 Redux

Disinfo

Re: Disinfo

Re: Disinfo

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