Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Conspiracy: Theory vs. Hypothesis

As promised in my last blog post, I'll be spending a good portion of this post synopsizing and analyzing the lastest Corbett Report interview of Sibel Edmonds on the Boston Bombing.  In addition, I'll be updating the latest news on this event, both the headlines and the lesser known details that require some digging.



Sibel Edmonds on the Boston Bombing Synopsis:  The interview begins with Sibel Edmonds musing about the lack of knowledge regarding the Chechnya region that has mainstream media (MSM) feverishly trying to educate their readers so that they don't confuse it with the Czech Republic!  Prior to this, they had been taking their script from the State Department that the Chechen rebels were "freedom fighters" with Russia not recognizing their independence.  She also highlights that there has been a lobbying group for the Chechen rebels the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) recently renamed the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus.  In this organization, you have the former head of the CIA, James Woolsey, as well as Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen and Frank Gaffney.  That's a lobbying group in DC for Chechnya composed of members of CIA, DIA, NATO, all top-tier neo-cons.  That shows what Chechnya used to mean to our government and the media.  Now suddenly, with the Boston Bombing, MSM is playing up Chechnya as "the hottest spot currently" for al-Qaeda activity.  Overnight!  Al-Qaeda has been there since the 90s!

Edmonds refers back to the fall of the Soviet Union, the US and NATO have been carrying out Operation Gladio Part B against the Caucasus, which is basically the "Stans" and Chechnya, directing the listener back to the  previous Gladio interview series.  She mentions how the top leadership of Chechen rebels have been located in Turkey, that Russian FSB has been assassinating them there on the intelligence of disgruntled Gladio A Turkish Generals that defected.  These stories were covered two years ago on her site.  Corbett points out an important nugget that came out from RT that the Tsarnaev mother said the FBI had been in contact with them for "three, five years" and the FBI later confirmed they had interviewed them in 2011.  Edmonds believes it's the most important clue revealed so far.  The FBI said a foreign government tipped them, Edmonds knew right off the bat it was Russia.  Then Russia provided a second tip to the FBI in late 2012 after Tamerlan Tsarnaev returned from Dagestan.  So there's a big discrepancy between what the FBI is admitting and what everyone else is saying.  She thinks it's possible for someone speaking as a second language to think that because other countries just have one intelligence service, whereas the US has FBI, CIA, DIA, etc., so it's possible the mother may have been confused about which agency or agencies have been in touch for the past three to five years, or perhaps she was shown an FBI badge and they aren't fessing up completely.  Edmonds thinks because of their linguistic ability, they would have been ideal recruits for the State Department on behalf of the CIA initially, (Edmonds experienced this type of CIA pitch personally) then the FBI would have come on the scene later.  This also fits in with the trips Tamerlan took to the region.  The story really doesn't add up without a CIA buffer; the FBI warned by Russia, tells him he's OK, then he becomes a terrorist?  Russia isn't giving any easy explanations, they're sitting on those cards.

Corbett asks what the point of the CIA hypothetically using them as assets.  Edmonds provides a context for understanding: there was a huge decrease in terror incidents in the region from the violence that occurred in the late 90's to early 2000's that dropped starting in 2002 to 2010.  Then from 2010 to present day, a significant increase occurred, particularly in the Dagestan region.  Edmonds is aware of two trips the Tsarnaevs took there, one in 2010, the other 2012, though she's awaiting further confirmation.  Our intelligence services would like to see this region continue to be torn up, like in 2008 in Georgia.  So for the CIA hypothetically using the Tsarnaevs, they know the language, still have passports, they would be ideal operatives as opposed to some blond-haired blue-eyed American.  Why do this to Russia?  They've been a stumbling block preventing us from invading Syria.  They've shut down our NGOs in their territory.  The US sanctioned 18 Russians in retaliation.  Then Russia sent a strong message a few weeks ago that they didn't like our joint military exercise with Georgia.  So with this buildup of tension, Edmonds theorizes we could be seeing a setup for a Syria invasion with the removal of Russia as a stumbling block by turning our backs on the Chechen rebels and designating them as the new "bad guys" on the global terror scene.  It wouldn't be the first time we did this: in Afghanistan with the mujahadeen, in the Balkans with the KLA.  So if Edmonds hypothesis, and she stresses it's a hypothesis, is correct, we will see in a few weeks time Russia back off on protecting Syria, paving the way for us to invade.  If not Syria, we may be seeing a repeat of what happened in Georgia in 2008, as things are not very close between Georgia and Russia.  A third possibility would be using what happened to focus our "War on Terror" in the Caucasus.

Corbett then brings up the story of the FSB asking the FBI if the Tamerlan Tsarnaev had links to terrorism, asking what that indicates about what was known about the brothers, what the FBI derived from that, and what Russia may have up their sleeve.  Edmonds says they have a lot up their sleeves; they know what's going on.  She brings up the story covered in the Gladio interviews of Russia arresting Ayman al-Zawahiri on his way to Dagestan, then letting him go because they couldn't translate the files on his laptop!  Where the Tsarnaev brothers are concerned, Russia's silence on the matter is fascinating.  She's never 100% certain what Putin's position is on all this.  If he gets too close to the US, he will upset Russian Nationalists.  So when we do things like dispute the quality of the elections he has, that plays into his hands and makes him look better to his constituency; he lacks the appearance of a puppet.  We used to do the same thing with Assad in Syria; while railing on about an "Axis of Evil", the FBI worked with Syria, we even sent detainees to Syria to be tortured!  It's a reverse psychology.  So the whole idea propagated by some in the alternative media that what is happening is "blowback" for what the US did is false.  If that's the case, why don't we learn?  It's happened too many times and we've been behind the scenes in so many aspects for this to be the case.  It doesn't add up anymore.

Corbett illustrates this media disconnect with reality by highlighting the story about Gov. Patrick Deval saying the video of the Tsarnaevs planting the bomb as "chilling" in the headline, then buried in the story it says he hasn't actually seen the video!  Edmonds concurs that while she is providing the Great Game background to understand the reason why something like this could happen, we haven't really seen the evidence.  She doesn't really buy that the FBI created this, she sees some other evil agency at work.  The domestic response represented a sort of graduation of our police state status and she was digusted by that level of success they achieved.  As far as international objectives are concerned, she would wait 10 days to 2 weeks to see how things play out, especially as far as Syria is concerned.  Also, keep an eye on Georgia and Ossetia, we could see a repeat of 2008.  Overall in the region, our objective is control of natural resources.  Corbett asks for clarification of how this plays into the Syria situation, is the US threatening Russia?  Edmonds doesn't see that as likely, a direct confrontation with Russia, it's more of a dangling carrot.  She brings up the history of the rise and decline of violence in the Chechnya/Dagestan region.  This is within Russia's border; they don't want the media reporting them cracking down on minorities and casting a bad international spotlight on them.  So what the US could do is declare the rebels in that region of Chechnya/Dagestan as "the real bad guys" with al-Qaeda cells.  That "wink-wink" gives Russia the leeway to crack down without negative publicity.  Defining this boogeyman (we can change the definition later if we choose) allows Russia to relax on Syria for the US to achieve their objectives there.  Any Chechen rebels that US/NATO trained that Russia kills would just be viewed as collateral damage, no big deal.

Corbett has one last question regarding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev not being read his Miranda rights and the Public Safety Exemption; what's her take on that?  Edmonds sees this as a test for the designation of enemy combatants along with the implementation of martial law.  Unfortunately, she sees this as a very successful test drive for the implementation of police state practices.  Since 9/11, the precedents set have been unchallenged by the courts and by the public.  For this to happen among an educated populace like Boston, they proved they will try it anywhere.



Analysis and Update:  Above all else, I want to give Sibel Edmonds credit for stressing that her point of view regarding the possibility of CIA-Gladio B involvement with the Boston Bombing be understood as a hypothesis.  This is an important distinction to make, not just where the investigation of a possible conspiracy is concerned, but because most people don't seem to understand what the difference is between a hypothesis and a theory in general.  Furthermore, I think the word "theory" itself has become denigrated in our culture to a degree that is unconscionable in a supposedly intelligent society.  Why is it that gravity and relativity are accepted as reality, yet evolution and the greenhouse effect are a source of controversy?  All four concepts are scientific theories.  It seems to me that the more deeply a theory threatens the way certain powerful institutions in society operate, the more controversial that theory is made to appear.  Just ask Galileo or Copernicus.  As it goes with scientific theories, it goes to an even greater degree for conspiracy theories.  After all, the academic study of conspiracy theory hasn't exactly been embraced by  institutions of higher learning to the same degree the study of scientific theory has.  If anyone offers a Doctorate in Political Conspiracy Theory, I'm not aware of it.  Lacking that legitimacy, it is a field of study that is easy to debase because so many practitioners fail to apply the same rigorous standards that a scientist does when testing a hypothesis.

So I think it's important, like Jamey Hecht did in this great essay, to differentiate between hypothesis and theory where conspiracy is concerned and give high praise to practitioners who engage in the rigorous standards of a scientist when investigating political conspiracy.  I believe Sibel Edmonds has applied rigorous standards in formulating her hypothesis.  As she spells out on her website:

BFP Boston Terror Update 4- The Backdoor Deal & Needed Face-Saving Ingredient for Russia on Syria

Wednesday, 1. May 2013
Under-the-Radar Developments on the Syria Front
The series of our analyses on the Boston Bombing-Syria-Russia-CIA connections continues with further related developments unfolding in the last few days. In my April 22 interview for Boiling Frogs Post EyeOpener Report I provided three possible US objectives associated with the Boston Terror incident. I emphasized the first possible scenario as the most likely: Removing Russia as the obstacle in invading Syria. I pointed out that to achieve this objective a back-door deal could have been struck with Russia. What sort of a deal? Here is what I hypothesized:
1-Our Back-Door Deal with Russia on Syria: Our soon-to-come Invasion of Syria immediately following the Boston Terror incident with Russia removing itself as an obstacle
2-Rise in “Radical Islamic Terror” in Russia’s Caucasus-mainly in the Chechnya and Dagestan region
3-Per Washington’s consent a major Russian crack-down in the Caucasus- US-Western governments support attributing this to Russia’s contribution in countering Global Islamic Terrorism

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/05/01/bfp-boston-terror-update-4-the-backdoor-deal-needed-face-saving-ingredient-for-russia-on-syria/

I think it's important to read the entire link to understand why getting Russia amenable toward NATO control of Syria is so important.  But why is Syria so important to NATO?  Once again, Big Oil figures prominently where motive is concerned.

Syria’s Oil Geopolitics
The quest for sources of cheap energy is one of the geopolitical contexts driving the war in Syria. Christof Lehmann has written that the discovery of the Iranian Pars gas field in 2007 and Teheran’s plan to pipe the gas to the Eastern Mediterranean by constructing a pipeline through Iraq and Syria holds the potential of turning Iran into a global economic power, giving Teheran enormous leverage over the EU’s Middle East policy. This development would pose a threat to the Zionist entity. It would pose an existential threat to the despotic emirates of the Gulf, who depend on the power of the petro-dollar for their survival.
That is one of the reasons why NATO and the Gulf Cooperation Council are using Al-Qaeda terrorists to break the Shite-led alliance of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. As Italian geographer Manlio Dinucci has reported, contrary to received opinion, Syria actually has massive energy reserves.
Dinucci writes:
The U.S. / NATO strategy focuses on helping rebels to seize the oil fields with a twofold purpose: to deprive the Syrian state of revenue from exports, already strongly decreased as a result of the EU embargo, and to ensure that the largest deposits pass in the future, through the ‘rebels’ under the control of the big Western oil companies.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/05/stealing-syrias-oil/

Just like the last oil-fueled war debacle, the editorial hawk-cheerleaders are back.

Pushing for War with Syria

May 6, 2013
Exclusive: The dam holding back pressure for U.S. war in Syria is giving way with President Obama – like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike – seeming unable to stop the inevitable. Cheering on the impending flood are many of the same big-name pundits from the Iraq War, Robert Parry notes.


By Robert Parry

Israel’s bombing raids into Syria appear to have shattered whatever restraint remained in Official Washington toward the United States entering the civil war on the side of rebel forces that include radical jihadist elements. On Monday, the Washington Post’s neocon editors weighed in for U.S. intervention as did former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller.

Both the Post’s editors and Keller also were key advocates for invading Iraq in 2003 – and their continued influence reflects the danger of not imposing any accountability on prominent journalists who were wrong on Iraq. Those tough-guy pundits now want much the same interventionism toward Syria and Iran, which always were on the neocon hit list as follow-ons to Iraq.

http://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/06/pushing-for-war-with-syria/


But unlike Iraq, there is another factor threatening to make this conflict the Mother Of All Quagmires: Iran.


Iran Reaffirms Syria, Assad Alliance As Key To 'Resistance Front' Against Israel

AP  |  By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Posted:   |  Updated: 01/27/2013 3:04 pm EST
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran considers any attack against Syria an attack on itself, an advisor to the Islamic Republic's supreme leader was quoted as saying Saturday, the strongest warning to date by a top Iranian official that Tehran will use any available means to keep the regime of President Bashar Assad in power.

Ali Akbar Velayati, an aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Syria plays a major role in the "resistance front" of anti-Israel states and militant groups.

"Syria plays a very key role in supporting, or God forbid destabilizing, the resistance front. For this same reason, an attack on Syria is considered attack on Iran and Iran's allies," Velayati was quoted by the semiofficial Mehr news agency as saying.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/26/iran-reaffirms-syria-assad-alliance_n_2557611.html


Now in her article above, Sibel Edmonds does note that Iran could be a key "ingredient" in a US-Russia backdoor deal guaranteeing no escalation there.  But I think if Iran honors the alliance linked above that they have with Syria, all guarantees are off.  That's why I don't see this conspiracy as originating in the current administration.  I think what's more likely is that with the National Security State Apparatus lining all the ducks in a row, this is the most expedient card to play. As Michael C. Ruppert said in Crossing the Rubicon, "When a flock of birds suddenly changes direction, simultaneously and uniformly, is it a conspiracy? Or is it just an instant recognition by every member of the flock where their collective interests lie?" My answer to this question would be, "Reserve judgment. But be sure to get the names of every fucking bird!"  With that, I'd like to introduce a flock of birds that Edmonds calls Uber-Neocons.

Uber-Neocons: The Main Architects of Post-Assad Syria at Work

Sunday, 5. May 2013
Bush Era’s Good-Ol’ Familiar Faces Resurface again on Operation Syria
With the approaching Finale for Syria’s Assad the Uber-Neocon architects of US foreign policy have been hard at work. Assuming (albeit knowingly) the certainty of the soon-to-come end for Assad’s government, the neocon architects are drafting and crafting their objectives for the Post-Assad regime in Syria. I know the mainstream and pseudo-alternative media use the term “Neocon” loosely and willy-nilly, but I can assure you this is not the case with my usage of “Uber-Neocons’ here. You will see that clearly after reading the following facts.
Yesterday I found this ‘interesting’ article in the Turkish newspaper Zaman [All Emphasis Mine]:
Analysts Call on US to Cooperate with Turkey Toward New Gov’t in Syria
A group of US foreign policy analysts called on President Barack Obama and his government to work towards drawing a common road map with Turkey that will help ensure the formation of a democratic, impartial government in a post-conflict Syrian.
The US think-tank Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) recently formed its Turkey Task Force, co-chaired by former US Ambassadors to Turkey Mort Abramowitz and Eric Edelman. The task force released on Thursday its first report, which points to a critical need for Turkey and the US to cooperate to ensure the formation of a “stable and decent post-Assad Syria.”
The report also analyzes the differences between Turkish and the US interests in a post-Assad Syria, explaining why it is imperative that the US immediately engage with Turkey in establishing joint principles and plans after a possible ouster of the Assad regime.
Do you notice how many times the term “Post-Assad” is used? Also, pay attention to the analysts named in the article and note that we are looking at architects rather than analysts. 

snip

Panel discussion and report release featuring
Mort Abramowitz
Co-chair, BPC Turkey Task Force
Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey

Ambassador Eric S. Edelman
Co-chair, BPC Turkey Task Force
Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey

Alan Makovsky
Senior Professional Staff Member, House Foreign Affairs Committee
   
snip

Now, let me point out another major commonality between Eric Edelman and Alan Makovsky. Last week I wrote an article on the CIA’s Graham Fuller and his role in US BlackOps in Central Asia & the Caucasus, his intimate connections to the Boston Terror Attack, and very importantly, his presence in my State Secrets Privilege Gallery since 2008. It is time to revisit my SSP Gallery again: Click Here
Alan Makovsky and Eric Edelman have both been present together with Graham Fuller in that gallery since 2008.
When we check further we’ll see that Graham Fuller and Morton Abramowitz have also been intimately connected, including their partnership in books and policy paper projects.
There are not many political and intelligence related subjects where I publically engage in and declare ‘absolutism.’ However, there is one point in these areas that has achieved an ‘absolute’ status for me, and that is: There are no coincidences when it comes to the CIA and our foreign policy black deeds. Whether it is CIA’s Graham Fuller’s intimate connections to the Boston Terror Attack, or, Syria-Russia, or the same-old Uber-Neocon architects’ foot-prints and work in the background, a declaration of ‘simple coincidences’ is nothing short of denial.

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/05/05/uber-neocons-the-main-architects-of-post-assad-syria-at-work/



It is within this nucleus of Deep State Actors that I hypothesize the Boston Bombing originated.  Is there any new information on this incident specifically?  Well, we do know that Graham Fuller's former live-in son-in-law, Ruslan Tsarni, previously identified as a former Halliburton and current USAID employee, incorporated a company called the Congress of Chechen International Organizations (CCIO) that sent aid to Islamic terrorists in Chechnya.  But here's the real kicker: they used Graham Fuller's address as the company's address!  This piece of investigative journalism by Daniel Hopsicker was corroborated by Dave Lindorff, who also has been reporting on the strange activities of Craft International at the Boston Marathon.


As I have written earlier, there remains the bizarre presence at the marathon finish line, before and after the bombing, of men who appear to have been working for the Texas-based private mercenary firm Craft International.

US mercenary firms like Xe (formerly Blackwater) and Craft International have a close and incestuous relationship to the CIA. Such organizations tend to recruit their personnel from the ranks of US and foreign special forces units, which both tend to have close links to the CIA. Craft International, in particular, which was founded n 2009 by the late US Navy SEAL unit member Chris Kyle, reportedly has a number of SEAL veterans in its ranks. The CIA has increasingly relied on Navy SEALs for its covert special operations actions, most notably the assault in Pakistan on the hideout of Osama Bin Laden.

While the CIA is not supposed to engage in covert activities within the United States, its tight relationship with a para-military organization like Craft International means that the Agency could do the same thing indirectly by relying on a private contractor like Craft, which would not face the same legal restrictions. Indeed, for all we know, Craft could be simply a dummy CIA front, like Air America was during the Vietnam War era. In that regard, it is interesting that the address listed for Craft International in a Business Week listing (2101 Cedar Springs Rd., Suite 1400, Dallas, TX), is the same address given for at least four other businesses, including Hayman Capital Management, LLC, a hedgefund firm headed by a J. Kyle Bass, Japan Macro Opportunities Off-Shore Partners, a Cayman Islands-incorporated firm, a Bruce Davis, listed as “registered agent” for a firm called Solidus Bancshares, Inc., and HW GP, LLC, business unclear -- suggesting that the location may be more of a “drop-box” kind of office than a functional business operation address. That would point to the possibility of a dummy corporation or front company.

I don’t have any specific information that would allow me to suggest that the CIA had anything to do with the Boston bombing. I cannot say the same thing about Craft International, however. Certainly there is some very troubling evidence in photos, visible on our site, showing some disturbing similarities between the markings on an exploded backpack which the FBI says contained one of the two pressure-cooker bombs and the backpacks being worn by the Craft International personnel photographed at the marathon finish line.

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1727?page=show


What has been truly shameful, but not surprising, is the near complete lack of investigative journalism by our MSM regarding these issues.  They don't even take the time to refute the stories, just ignore them as if the concerns don't exist.  There was another alternative media story corroborating the CCIO connection with Graham Fuller that listed a different Tsarnaev uncle who created the United States-Chechen Republic Alliance Inc. which is connected to Zbigniew Brzezinski.  We also saw the story Ruslan Tsarni weave about the Rasputinesque "Misha", who "brainwashed" the Tsarnaev brothers before they bombed Boston, completely fall apart.  His response to switch the finger of villainy from Misha to the Tsarnaev brothers mother was no stretch for MSM to buy; she is certainly, as Daniel Hopsicker describes her, "right out of Central Casting."  But why doesn't MSM investigate the discrepancies in Tsarni's accounts further?  Why not verify his connections with Halliburton-controlled oil companies or CIA-front USAID?  Why not investigate the identity of this individual who lost his backpack at the Boston Marathon and interview him?

Why not?  Well, if nobody provides proper testing for a hypothesis, it can't become a legitimate theory, right?

2 comments:

Tanya Savko said...

Very interesting. I especially liked your comparison of conspiracy theory to scientific theory. Makes sense!

Unknown said...

Look at the facts Robert Kennedy Jr went on record on Jan 12th 2013 stating that his father didn't believe the Warren Commission report. He also stated that he believed that there was a second gunman during his fathers assassination.
On April 15th 2013 The bombings at the Boston Marathon took place. Craft international is a CIA company who were behind the bombings Where were the Kennedy's from? the answer is Boston. The CIA has been covering up the Kennedy assassinations for over 50 years. This is in my opinion is another diversionary tactic. to cover up the truth.