Unraveling the Threads - Part Deux

In the movie The Departed, Irish Mob boss Frank Costello plants an informant in the Police Department. Simultaneously, the police assign an undercover cop to infiltrate Costello's mob. To add to the confusion, Mob Boss Costello is himself an FBI informant (for many decades) which all adds up to a very interesting movie. The most interesting bit is the heavy blurring of lines between the infiltrators and the infiltrated with the characters undergoing sometimes abrupt transitions between the two roles. The infiltrators are tacitly allowed to prove their credentials by committing the same violent acts that the criminals may commit. The movie is also about the concept of Identity and how it motivates behavior. The earlier Hong Kong crime-thriller Internal Affairs has a similar theme and The Departed is based on it.

It seems to me that after enough infiltration, there is virtually no difference between the infiltrators and the group they're supposedly infiltrating. The infiltrator is "legally" sanctioned to perform the same heinous acts as the group he is infiltrating in order to gain approval and trust. We'll see how this is related to P2OG (which we'll see later in this post)

Now back to the Mumbai attacks, two Indian men were recently arrested (by the Calcutta police) as suspects in the attacks. However, one of them (Ahmed) turns out to be a counterinsurgency police officer (from the Srinagar Police) on an undercover mission. According to the Srinagar police

Ahmed was a Special Police Officer, part of a semiofficial counterinsurgency network whose members are usually drawn from former militants. The force is run on a special funding from the federal Ministry of Home Affairs.

So embarrassingly for India, the two police departments were completely unaware of clandestine operations within the the other group. It also means that Ahmed "successfully" aided the the eventual perpetrators. And in all likelihood, the entire undercover operation Ahmed was participating in is probably blown wide open.

All this got me thinking about Double Agents and Triple Agents.

From wikipedia, we have the following definitions:

Double agent is a counterintelligence term for someone who pretends to spy on a target organization on behalf of a controlling organization, but in fact is loyal to the target organization. Double agents may be agents of the target organization who infiltrate the controlling organization, or may be previously loyal agents of the controlling organization who have been captured and turned by the target; the threat of execution is the most common method of turning a captured agent into a double agent.

A Triple Agent pretends to be a double agent for the target organization, but in fact is working for the controlling organization all along. Usually, he keeps the trust of the target organization by feeding information to them that apparently is very important but is in fact misleading or useless.

Which got me thinking about how all this Double Agent, Triple Agent stuff is pertinent to the Mumbai attacks. We can find a few more connections if we approach the Mumbai attacks from this angle.

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First, lets look at the possible role of Dawood Ibrahim (the gangster/terrorist hybrid fugitive). After all, he was the mastermind of the 1993 Mumbai attacks, so the angle merits heavy investigation.

Dawood Ibrahim ranks fourth on Forbes' list of the world's 10 most wanted fugitives from the law. He was the mastermind of the 1993 bombings in Mumbai. Dawood has also been involved in several deep undercover operation for the CIA in Afghanistan. From the article The Mumbai Attacks:More Than Meets The Eye, we see that

Ibrahim's organization is known as the D-Company and is known to be heavily involved in drug trafficking. According to the U.S. government, D-Company is involved in large-scale shipment of narcotics into the U.K. and Western Europe. He is also alleged to have ties to the CIA through casino operations in Nepal.

So we can probably assume that the CIA (and hence the ISI) and Dawood have a long history (the term often used for Dawood is "ex-CIA off-the-books spook"). If indeed, Dawood was involved in the recent attacks, then it's possible that this was in conjunction with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) with Dawood possibly providing the logistical and financial support.

So what are the gang aspects of the Mumbai attacks ?

1. I initially read newspaper reports that 2 CIA agents were directly targeted by the terrorists at the Taj and shot gang execution style. The reports are now quite impossible to find. If this were true, why on earth would LeT do this?
2. And what to make of the VERY mysterious death of Hemant Karkare (head of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS)) ? As we all know, he was investigating a false flag operation by Hindu extremists in India and had made some high-profile arrests (see Malegaon blasts). He was apparently the earliest of targets and died under VERY mysterious circumstances with varying accounts. Again, why would the LeT consider this to be a top-priority target? It's logically possible that Karkare was killed accidentally "in the line of duty", but this just seems a bit too convenient. All of a sudden, we have the very real possibility of the involvement of Hindu extremist groups at some level. The web gets too complicated if that is the case.
3. The attacks have all the signs of a bitter feud between hidden parties with several reports pointing to execution style killings.

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Next, we look at the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG), a U.S. intelligence agency that would employ black operations tactics. From wikipedia, we have a description below of what the P2OG might do. Note that this isn't just some abstract idea. It appears that this Group is already operational (or always been under a different name)

The Defense Science Board (DSB) conducted a 2002 "DSB Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism". Excerpts from that study, dated August 16, 2002, recommend the creation of a super-Intelligence Support Activity, an organization it dubs the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG), to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence and cover and deception. For example, the Pentagon and CIA would work together to increase human intelligence (HUMINT), forward/operational presence and to deploy new clandestine technical capabilities.

Concerning the tactics P2OG would use, Among other things,

• This body would launch secret operations aimed at "stimulating reactions" among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction—that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and exposing themselves to "quick-response" attacks by U.S. forces.
• Such tactics would hold "states/sub-state actors accountable" and "signal to harboring states that their sovereignty will be at risk", the briefing paper declares

Again, note that 2 reliable sources indicate very strongly that P2OG is already operational.
Darkness Visible: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism is Now in Operation by Chris Floyd
The Coming Wars What the Pentagon can now do in secret by Seymour M. Hersh

Note the P2OG tactics: "hold states/sub-state actors accountable" and "signal to harboring states that their sovereignty will be at risk". The keyword here is sovereignty. To see how this is being fulfilled real-time as we speak, we need to look at the fact that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to New Delhi soon after the attacks which I believe is significant. She says that even if non-state actors carried out the attacks, it would still be the Pakistani government’s responsibility to take “direct and tough action". The other interesting bit about sovereignty is in this article Is Pakistan’s sovereignty under threat which in turn refers to a column published in the Washington Post Tuesday by Robert Kagan titled The Sovereignty Dodge.

Kagan says

...It would be useful for the United States, Europe and other nations to begin establishing the principle that Pakistan and other states that harbor terrorists should not take their sovereignty for granted. In the 21st century, sovereign rights need to be earned."

...Rather than simply begging the Indians to show restraint, a better option could be to internationalize the response. Have the international community declare that parts of Pakistan have become ungovernable and a menace to international security. Establish an international force to work with the Pakistanis to root out terrorist camps in Kashmir as well as in the tribal areas. This would have the advantage of preventing a direct military confrontation between India and Pakistan

And here are Obama's comments on the situation:

Sovereign nations obviously have a right to protect themselves

Seriously, what does that mean? Does that mean invading another country? I sincerely hope that this isn't giving the green flag to India to launch an attack on Pakistan. We all know the consequences of that.
Sounds very much like the United States is setting up the groundwork to justify "legal" invasion of any country based on the "War on Terror" justification. Ummm .. wait a minute, they're already doing that! But now, it will all be executed under an official "international operation" (NWO Alert!) and the scope is the entire globe.

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Finally, how does the Military-Industrial Complex fit into the web?

Consider this interesting article which talks about "a Gladio-style attack, perhaps using brainwashed patsies and double agents."

From wikipedia,

Gladio is a code name denoting the clandestine NATO "stay-behind" operation in Italy after World War II, intended to counter an eventual Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organisations, "Operation Gladio" is used as an informal name for all stay-behind organisations, sometimes called "Super NATO". Gladio has been accused of trying to influence policies through the means of "false flag" operations.

The article above also mentions the following:

Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated, in sworn testimony: 'You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force ... the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security." (aangirfan: The Bologna Bomb 1980, Gladio, terrorism in Europe)

The keyword here is "the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security". Note how this translates more or less directly into more power for the Military-Industrial-Complex.
Vincenzo Vinciguerra's prediction above is actually very ominous. Consider this news: Mumbai Attacks Politicize Long-Isolated Elite from Dec 6th

Last Wednesday, an extraordinary public interest lawsuit was filed in this city’s highest court. It charged that the government had lagged in its constitutional duty to protect its citizens’ right to life, and it pressed the state to modernize and upgrade its security forces.

The lawsuit was striking mainly for the people behind it: investment bankers, corporate lawyers and representatives of some of India’s largest companies, which have their headquarters here in the country’s financial capital, also known as Bombay. The Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the city’s largest business association, joined as a petitioner. It was the first time it had lent its name to litigation in the public interest.

OK, there you have it: Military + Industry. And it is certainly all very Complex.
Should we also expect the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA)to be introduced in India once again ? Are we in for massive coastline modernization projects ? Boondoggle upon Boondoggle nested within other Boondoggles spanning billion dollar defense contracts all over the globe purporting to make us more secure.
Postscript

Will we ever rise above this all-consuming murkiness ? Sadly, I don't think we'll ever know what really happened since in all likelihood, there will be no transparency or accountability during the investigation. As I described in my previous post on the Mumbai attacks, it seems as if governments, intelligence agencies, corporations, drug traffickers and extremist organizations are all participating in this complex web at multiple levels, each with their own set of objectives, with some overlap across the different groups. IMHO, the consequences are highly unpredictable and extremely dangerous.

I suspect that all of the mayhem is somehow related to "Deep Politics".

Here is an excerpt from wikipedia regarding Deep Politics:
Deep politics is a phrase coined by researcher and academic Peter Dale Scott, which he describes thus;

“My notion of deep politics… posits that in every culture and society there are facts which tend to be suppressed collectively, because of the social and psychological costs of not doing so. Like all other observers, I too have involuntarily suppressed facts and even memories about the drug traffic that were too provocative to be retained with equanimity”\

Scott has spent an enormous amount of time researching political processes that fly under the radar of conscious political activity, are omitted from discourse on the right and the left, and are many times intertwined with global drug traffic. Here is Scott’s definition of “parapolitics”;

parapolitics , n. 1. a system or practice of politics in which accountability is consciously diminished. 2. generally, covert politics, the conduct of public affairs not by rational debate and responsible decision-making but by indirection, collusion, and deceit… 3. the political exploitation of irresponsible agencies or parastructures, such as intelligence agencies… Ex. 1. ‘The Nixon doctrine, viewed in retrospect, represented the application of parapolitics on a hitherto unprecedented scale.’ 2. ‘Democracy and parapolitics, even in foreign affairs, are ultimately incompatible.

Note very carefully the mention of "are many times intertwined with global drug traffic". As mentioned earlier in this post,

Dawood Ibrahim's organization is known as the D-Company and is known to be heavily involved in drug trafficking. According to the U.S. government, D-Company is involved in large-scale shipment of narcotics into the U.K. and Western Europe. He is also alleged to have ties to the CIA through casino operations in Nepal.

To close out this very long post, I find this comment by 'felicity' here very enlightening:

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serb national is supposedly what set off WWI. George Bush once said, “He (Saddam) tried to kill my daddy.” (That may well be the ‘reason’ George decided to invade Iraq given his recent, slightly roundabout remark that even if proven that Iraq had no wmd’s he still would have ordered the invasion.)

The point is that vendettas, petty grievances, challenges to personal power, religious zealotry, pride, humiliation...have set off more than one war throughout history. The tragedy is that mass suffering and death could have been avoided had the truth been identified.

It’s absolutely necessary that we determine what was really behind the Mumbai attacks otherwise we’ll be repeating our ingrained habit of simply reacting which is no more mindful than an involuntary response to a stimulus.