The Voice of the White House

Washington , D.C. , March 6, 2008 :” Has anyone considered that the CIA and its stooges in Colombia KNEW perfectly well that negotiations on the release of the French and American hostages were close to success, and that this raid was INTENDED to destroy those negotiations?

If the hostages die in captivity, the propaganda benefits to the USA and France and to Uribe in Colombia will be immense. The Greek chorus of the media will be instructed to play up their lives and show pictures of bereaved wives and orphaned children of the hostages.

The corrupt US government of the corporatocracy cares less than a flea turd for the lives of the hostages. They WANT them to remain hostages and die in captivity. Then more arms can be sent to their proxy stooge Colombia , which will send assassins to kill Chavez and Correa, so that the US oil companies can move in again and seize the oil from the Venezuelan and Ecuadorean people, while the American public cheers mightily. How much do the lives of a few hostages count against tens of billions of dollars?

Keeping gasoline cheap for Republican voters in their SUV's. That, dear friends, was the whole purpose of this raid.

Chavez, who hates the United States, partially because the clumsy CIA tried three times to overthrow him, has been fishing in troubled waters but also note that the CIA has been very active in Columbia where they engineered a takeover by a right wing leader and have used the country as a base for their instigated ‘guerrilla raids’ into Venezuela.

While it is true that Israel instigated our involvement in Iraq and has been strongly pushing Bush to bomb Tehran flat, the potential serious mess in South America is solely the responsibility of the CIA and Bush himself.”

A look at the military strength of U.S.-backed Colombia compared to Ecuador and Venezuela .

Colombia has been battling left-wing insurgents for more than four decades and enjoys close U.S. logistical and intelligence support. Venezuela 's military lacks combat experience but its air force has superior technology. Ecuador fought a monthlong border war with Peru in 1995.

COLOMBIA (includes army, navy, air force)

Regular troops: 254,300

Reservists: 61,900

National Police: 136,000 (many combat-trained and equipped).

Hardware: 115 combat-capable aircraft, including 22 ground-attack fighters, among them Mirages and Kfirs. Four surface combat ships

Defense budget in 2007: $5.1 billion

ECUADOR (includes army, navy, air force)

Regular troops: 57,100

Reservists: 118,000.

Hardware: 57 combat-capable aircraft including 31 fighters, among them Mirages and Kfirs. Eight surface combat ships.

Defense budget in 2007: $918 million

VENEZUELA (includes army, navy, air force, national huard):

Regular troops: 115,000

Reservists: 280,000 (estimated, fighting capability unknown)

Hardware: 94 combat-capable aircraft including 68 fighter jets including Sukhois, F-16s and Mirages. Recent military purchases include 53 helicopters, two dozen SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. Six surface combat ships.

Defense budget in 2007: $2.56 billion

Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies, AP

Latin American crisis triggered by an assassination “Made in the USA ”

March 7, 2008

By Bill Van Auken

Nearly a week after Colombia ’s cross-border raid against an encampment of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrilla movement in neighboring Ecuador , Latin America continues to confront its worst regional diplomatic and military crisis in decades. The US government and mass media have weighed in with unsolicited judgments and advice, attributing the tense standoff between Colombia , Ecuador and Venezuela to the threat of terrorism to Colombia , the complicity in terrorism on the part of Venezuela and overheated animosities between the respective heads of state of these three countries.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey declared that “it’s important to recognize that the events that took place were, in fact, a response to the presence of terrorists.” Similarly, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino affirmed that Colombia “was defending itself against terrorism.”

This official reaction extends to Colombia — Washington ’s principal client state in South America and the recipient of some $600 million annually in American military aid—the mantle of the Bush Doctrine, which holds that in the “global war on terrorism” such niceties as respect for sovereign borders and international law no longer apply.

The Washington Post went a step further, calling the March 1 raid a “remarkable success” and accusing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa of “backing an armed movement with an established record of terrorism.” It compared the strike on the FARC camp to US air strikes against Al Qaeda in Pakistan .

And the New York Times, the voice of America ’s erstwhile liberal establishment, found it “hard to believe that in the 21st century the democratically elected governments of Colombia , Ecuador and Venezuela would be talking about war.” While acknowledging that Colombia ’s raid constituted “an infringement of Ecuador ’s territory—a sensitive issue anywhere,” it urged the presumably hot-headed Latin leaders of Ecuador and Colombia to “cool their rhetoric and begin a serious discussion of how they can jointly secure their borders against the FARC.”

One would never guess that Washington had any role in the bloody events on the Colombian-Ecuadoran border. The Bush administration portrays itself—and is largely portrayed by a compliant media—as a selfless champion of democratic values and faithful ally of the people’s of the southern hemisphere.

The facts, however, tell another, far uglier story. The three Andean nations have been brought to the brink of war by a brutal and cold-blooded political assassination carried out to further the interests of US imperialism at the expense of the Colombian people and the population of the entire region.

The March 1 raid was carried out not to defend Colombia from terrorism, but to murder one man, Raul Reyes, considered the second-in-command of the FARC and the guerrilla movement’s principal international spokesman and diplomatic representative. He was well known in both Latin America and Europe , having served as the principal FARC negotiator in the abortive attempt under the government of President Andres Pastrana (1998-2002) to broker a peaceful settlement of the civil conflict that has wracked Colombia for more than four decades. During that same period, he met with officials of the Clinton State Department.

To carry out this political murder, air strikes were called in against the camp inside Ecuador as Reyes and some 20 of his comrades slept. Commandos were then sent into the camp to finish off most of the survivors and haul Reyes’s bloody corpse back to Colombia as a political trophy for the right-wing US-backed government of President Alvaro Uribe.

This ruthless attack was staged not to ward off some pending terrorist attack. On the contrary, it was designed as a “preemptive strike” against a negotiated release of hostages held by the FARC, among them a former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, who holds joint Colombian-French citizenship and has been held prisoner by the FARC for six years.

Just two days before the border massacre, French President Nicolas Sarkozy publicly called for the release of the ailing Betancourt and announced that he was prepared to fly to the Colombian border to personally receiver her.

The FARC itself issued a statement that Reyes had been working through Venezuelan President Chavez to concretize plans for a meeting with Sarkozy to arrange for the hand-over of Betancourt.

The French government has not denied this account. Indeed, on Monday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told the media, “It’s bad news that the man we were talking to, with whom we had contacts has been killed. Do you see how ugly the world is?”

Meanwhile, a French deputy foreign minister confirmed the role played by Chavez in mediating the Sarkozy-FARC hostage negotiations. “President Chavez has taken the initiative, he had taken the initiative earlier on that had allowed for the release of several hostages even though the situation had been blocked for some time, so we are aware of his involvement and the important role he has played,” the minister, Rama Yade, told a news conference in Geneva.

After the news of Reyes’s assassination, the French foreign ministry issued a pointed statement to the effect that the Colombian government was well informed that France was conducting negotiations with him.

This statement was fleshed out this week by the Argentine press. Citing sources in the Argentine foreign ministry, it reported that Sarkozy had sent a delegation of three personal envoys to Colombia and that they were in the border region to meet with Reyes.

“On Saturday the day of the cross-border raid, the three negotiators were 200 kilometers from the attack zone and were headed for a meeting with Reyes when they received a call,” the daily Pagina 12 reported. It was Luis Carlos Restrepo, head of the Colombian government’s Peace Commission, who warned them not to go to the meeting place.

US role in Reyes’s assassination

Colombian officials have openly acknowledged the role of US intelligence agencies in instigating and coordinating the March 1 targeted assassination. General Oscar Naranjo, commander of the national police told reporters it was no secret that the Colombian military-police apparatus maintained “a very strong alliance with federal agencies of the US .”

The Colombian radio network, Radio Cadena Nacional (RCN), reported Wednesday that Reyes’s location was pinpointed by US intelligence as a result of monitoring a satellite phone call between the FARC leader and Venezuelan President Chavez. The February 27 call—three days before the raid—came after the FARC released to Venezuelan authorities four former Colombian legislators—Gloria Polanco, Luis Eladio Perez, Orlando Beltran and Jorge Eduardo Gechem—who had been held hostage for nearly seven years.

“Chavez was thrilled by the release of the hostages, and called Reyes to tell him that everything went well,” RCN reported. Presumably, the CIA or other US intelligence agencies were also tapping phone calls between Reyes and French officials over the proposed release of Betancourt.

Another Colombian station, Noticias Uno, cited intelligence sources as saying that they had received photographs from “foreign spy planes” pinpointing the location of Reyes’s camp in Ecuador .

The Colombian police commander insisted that, while relying on US intelligence, the March 1 attack was an “autonomous operation.”

This claim is improbable to say the least. US military “trainers” are attached to the elite counterinsurgency units that would have been employed in the ground attack that finished off the survivors of the aerial bombardment.

As for the air raid itself, Ecuador ’s Defense Minister Wellington Sandoval reported the attack included the use of five “smart bombs” of the type utilized by the US military. “It is a bomb that hits within a meter of where it is programmed, from high velocity airplanes,” he said. He added that to target Reyes with such weapons, “they needed equipment that Latin American armed forces do not have.”

Both Washington and the right-wing regime in Colombia were determined to stop any further hostage releases in order to further efforts to politically isolate the Chavez regime and to enforce the Bush administration’s proscription against negotiations with “terrorists.”

At the same time, the bombs dropped on the FARC encampment were undoubtedly also meant as a message to Sarkozy not to meddle in Yankee imperialism’s “backyard.” It should be recalled that the French president, shortly after his election, sent his then-wife to Libya to consummate the release of six medical workers who had been held for eight years on false charges. This political coup managed to bypass the European Union, which had been negotiating the release, and paved the way for lucrative Libyan contracts for French corporations. Washington had no intention of seeing Paris pursue a similar path in relation to Venezuela , which constitutes the fourth largest source of US oil imports.

In the final analysis, this episode in the “global war on terrorism,” which has brought three South American nations to the brink of armed conflict, is the product of a filthy political murder carried out to defend the strategic and profit interests of US capitalism.

It is a reminder that “Murder, Inc.”—as the CIA became known during the 1960s and 1970s, when it organized numerous assassinations and assassination attempts, along with right-wing coups and dirty wars—is still very much in business in Latin America.

SECRECY NEWS

from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy

Volume 2008, Issue No. 23

March 5, 2008

COMMERCIAL SATELLITES AS "NATIONAL TECHNICAL MEANS"

U.S. intelligence agencies could do more to incorporate commercial satellite capabilities into the U.S. intelligence satellite architecture, an advisory panel told the Directors of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in a study last year.

The report laid out several scenarios for integrating commercial capabilities into the government's "National Technical Means."

The panel's preferred scenario "that mitigates the most risk is for the US government to competitively acquire satellites and supporting infrastructure to ensure maximum control and access to imagery data on demand."

Purchase of satellites is warranted, the panel said, because "The US government cannot rely on or be dependent on any external entity to responsively get needed data."

The report "contains general findings about the technical competency and business viability of commercial remote sensing vendors, suppliers, and CDPs [commercial data providers] in the United States ."

The report also specifies the standards that commercial vendors need to meet in order to fulfill a spectrum of intelligence requirements.

"The requested review was in response to concerns/criticisms by Congress of how NGA and NRO have under-utilized commercial remote sensing capabilities."

The unclassified report has not been publicly released, but a copy was obtained by Secrecy News.

See "Independent Study of the Roles of Commercial Remote Sensing in the Future National System for Geospatial-Intelligence (NSG)," Report to the Directors of the NGA and the NRO, July 16, 2007 :

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/crs.pdf

I.F. STONE PROJECT ON JOURNALISTIC INDEPENDENCE

I.F. Stone (1907-1989), the celebrated journalist and iconoclast who was renowned for his independence, is being remembered in the service of the values he embodied.

The Nieman Foundation at Harvard University today announced the establishment of an I.F. Stone Award for journalistic independence, integrity and courage.

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/

A richly detailed new website devoted to I.F. Stone provides excerpts from his writings, biographical information, reminiscences and other information:

http://www.ifstone.org/

PROLIFERATION SECURITY INITIATIVE, AND MORE FROM CRS

Noteworthy new or updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following.

"Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)," updated February 4, 2008 :

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL34327.pdf

"Botnets, Cybercrime, and Cyberterrorism: Vulnerabilities and Policy Issues for Congress," updated January 29, 2008 :

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL32114.pdf

"Executive Order 13,438: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq ," updated January 29, 2008 :

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34254.pdf

" Armenia , Azerbaijan , and Georgia : Security Issues and Implications for U.S. Interests," updated January 31, 2008 :

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30679.pdf

"Asylum Law and Female Genital Mutilation: Recent Developments," February 15, 2008 :

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22810.pdf

"'Wounded Warrior' and Veterans Provisions in the FY2008 National Defense Authorization Act," February 13, 2008 :

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34371.pdf

THE REIMER DIGITAL LIBRARY IS BACK

The U.S. Army today restored public access to the Reimer Digital Library, as it had promised to do in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American Scientists

(Secrecy News, Feb. 25).

http://www.train.army.mil

At first glance, the site appears to be complete. Or at least as complete as it was before it was closed to the public last month. But there are some anomalies.

Among the items listed under "New Documents" is Field Manual Interim (FMI) 3-04.155, "Army Unmanned Aircraft System Operations." Oddly, the link to this document is marked as Restricted, and it cannot be downloaded from the Reimer site.

However, Secrecy News obtained a copy independently, and it is posted here (9 MB PDF file):

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fmi3-04-155.pdf

The document is clearly marked "approved for public release; distribution is unlimited."

Seemingly arbitrary restrictions on public access to online records continue to appear, and we try to swat them down when we can.

Yesterday, FAS filed another Freedom of Information Act request asking the U.S. Marine Corps to release all of the unclassified contents of its online doctrine library. That site, which had previously been available to the public, no longer is.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2008/03/usmc-doctrine.pdf

NON-STATE ACTORS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA : A WIKI-BASED ESTIMATE

Using open sources and a wiki-based approach, students at Mercyhurst University prepared an unofficial "intelligence estimate" on the role of Non-State Actors in Sub-Saharan Africa in the next five years.

The resulting product was posted here:

https://nonstateactorsafrica.wikispaces.com/Non-State+Actor+Project

The exercise in collective, collaborative analysis was coordinated by Mercyhurst Professor Kristan J. Wheaton, who described the background to the activity in his blog here:

http://sourcesandmethods.blogspot.com/2008/03/non-state-actors-in-sub-saharan-africa.html

FREDERICK SEITZ AND THE 1970 TASK FORCE ON SECRECY

The distinguished scientist Frederick Seitz who died this week was not only an accomplished physicist, global warming skeptic and tobacco industry-funded medical researcher, as obituaries in the New York Times and Washington Post observed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/us/06seitz.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030503524.html

He was also an early, incisive critic of government secrecy.

In 1969-70, Dr. Seitz chaired the Defense Science Board Task Force on Secrecy, leading a stellar panel of defense scientists and technologists such as Edward Teller, Jack Ruina, Marshall Rosenbluth and others, who identified fundamental defects in the secrecy and security policies of the time.

Their Task Force Report on Secrecy presented an acute critique of secrecy policy that remains pertinent.

"When an otherwise open society attempts to use classification as a protective device, it may in the long run increase the difficulties of communications within its own structure so that commensurate gains are not obtained," the Report stated.

"Classification of technical information impedes its flow within our own system, and, may easily do far more harm than good by stifling critical discussion and review or by engendering frustration. There are many cases in which the declassification of technical information within our system probably had a beneficial effect and its classification has had a deleterious one."

"In the opinion of the Task Force the volume of scientific and technical information that is classified could profitably be decreased by perhaps as much as 90 percent through limiting the amount of information classified and the duration of its classification."

"The Task Force noted that more might be gained than lost if our nation were to adopt-- unilaterally, if necessary-- a policy of complete openness in all areas of information, but agreed that in spite of the great advantages that might accrue from such a policy, it is not a practical proposal at the present time."

A copy of the 1970 Final Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Secrecy, chaired by the late Dr. Frederick Seitz, is posted here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dsbrep.html

Controlling the News

Who Controls the American Media?

by Brian Harrinig

For decades, it has been rumored and discussed, often on anti-Semitic websited and in revisionist journals, that “the Jews own all the media in America .” As the Internet is filled with all manner of rumors, ksome true but mostly invented fiction, it might be instructive to examine this question in a balanced way.

This is an important issue for most Americans, because they are influenced by the media to a tremendous degree and if a special interest group, or groups, had control over the news they read or watched,  depending on the agendas of these groups, the effect of a controlled media could have serious consequences for the public weal.

There is no greater power in the world today than that wielded by the manipulators of public opinion in America . No king or pope of old, no conquering general or high priest ever disposed of a power even remotely approaching that of the few dozen men who control America 's mass media of news and entertainment.

Their power is not distant and impersonal; it reaches into every home in America , and it works its will during nearly every waking hour. It is the power that shapes and molds the mind of virtually every citizen, young or old, rich or poor, simple or sophisticated.

The mass media form for us our image of the world and then tell us what to think about that image. Essentially everything we know -- or think we know -- about events outside our own neighborhood or circle of acquaintances comes to us via our daily newspaper, our weekly news magazine, our radio, or our television.

It is not just the heavy-handed suppression of certain news stories from our newspapers or the blatant propagandizing of history-distorting TV "docudramas" that characterizes the opinion-manipulating techniques of the media masters. They exercise both subtlety and thoroughness in their management of the news and the entertainment that they present to us.

For example, the way in which the news is covered: which items are emphasized and which are played down; the reporter's choice of words, tone of voice, and facial expressions; the wording of headlines; the choice of illustrations -- all of these things subliminally and yet profoundly affect the way in which we interpret what we see or hear.

On top of this, of course, the columnists and editors remove any remaining doubt from our minds as to just what we are to think about it all. Employing carefully developed psychological techniques, they guide our thought and opinion so that we can be in tune with the "in" crowd, the "beautiful people," the "smart money." They let us know exactly what our attitudes should be toward various types of people and behavior by placing those people or that behavior in the context of a TV drama or situation comedy and having the other TV characters react in  a manner which has been called ‘politically correct.’

Molding American Minds

The average American whose daily life TV-watching takes such an unhealthy portion, distinguishes between deliberately invented, fictional situations and reality only with difficulty, if at all. They respond to the televised actions, statements, and attitudes of TV actors much as they do to their own peers in real life. For all too many Americans, the real world has been replaced by the false reality of the TV environment, and it is to this false reality that his urge to conform responds. Thus, when a TV scriptwriter expresses approval of some ideas and actions through the TV characters for whom he is writing, and disapproval of others, he exerts a powerful pressure on millions of viewers toward conformity with his own views.

And as it is with TV entertainment, so also is it with the daily national and international  news, whether televised or printed. The insidious thing about this form of what can be rightfully be considered as  ‘thought control’ is that even when we realize that entertainment or news is biased, the media producers still are able to manipulate the great bulk of their viewers or readers.

As an example, consider the media treatment of Middle East news. Some editors or commentators are slavishly pro-Israel in their every utterance, while others seem nearly neutral. No columnist or news-reader, however, would ever dare to  suggest that the U.S. government might be  backing the wrong side in the Arab-Israeli conflict and that it served Israeli interests, rather than American interests, to send U.S. forces to cripple Iraq , Israel 's principal rival in the Middle East . And no commentator in the print or television media would ever mention the excellent advice of George Washington that America should practice strict neutrality in foreign political issues, supporting neither side but selling to both. Thus, a spectrum of permissible opinion, from pro-Israel to nearly neutral, has been firmly established.

Because there are differences in degree, however, most Americans fail to realize that they are being manipulated. Even the citizen who complains about "managed news" falls into the trap of thinking that because he is presented with an apparent spectrum of opinion he can escape the thought controllers' influence by believing the editor or commentator of his choice. It's a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation. Every point on the permissible spectrum of public opinion is acceptable to the media masters -- and no impermissible fact or viewpoint is allowed any exposure at all, if they can prevent it.

The control of the opinion-molding media is nearly monolithic. All of the controlled media -- television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, motion pictures -- speak with a single voice, each reinforcing the other. Despite the appearance of variety, there is no real dissent, no alternative source of facts or ideas accessible to the great mass of people that might allow them to form opinions at odds with those of the media masters. They are presented with a single view of the world -- a world in which every voice proclaims the equality of the races, the grave, and completely truthful, nature and history of the Jewish "Holocaust" theme. It is a view of the world designed by the media masters to suit their own ends -- and the pressure to conform to that view is overwhelming. People adapt their opinions to it, vote in accord with it, and shape their lives to fit it.

And who are these all-powerful masters of the media? As we shall see, to a very large extent they are Jewish. It isn't simply a matter of the media being controlled by profit-hungry capitalists, some of whom happen to be Jews. If that were the case, the ethnicity of the media masters would reflect, at least approximately, the ratio of rich gentiles to rich Jews. Despite a few prominent exceptions, the preponderance of Jews in the media is so overwhelming that we are obliged to assume that it is due to more than mere happenstance.

Electronic News & Entertainment Media

Continuing government deregulation of the telecommunications industry has resulted, not in the touted increased competition, but rather in an accelerating wave of corporate mergers and acquisitions that have produced a handful of multi-billion-dollar media conglomerates. The largest of these conglomerates are rapidly growing even bigger by consuming their competition, almost tripling in size during the 1990s. Whenever you watch television, whether from a local broadcasting station or via cable or a satellite dish; whenever you see a feature film in a theater or at home; whenever you listen to the radio or to recorded music; whenever you read a newspaper, book, or magazine -- it is very likely that the information or entertainment you receive was produced and/or distributed by one of these megamedia companies.

AOL-TW. This entity has been the nation’s  largest media conglomerate .-Time Warner, created when America Online bought Time Warner for $160 billion in 2000.. A brief history of the company is in order.

The four non-Jewish Warner brothers founded their movie company in 1907 and had their first major success ten years later with My 4 Years in Germany . WB incorporated in 1923 and went on to cartoon success with Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny. In 1944, a court ruled that WB must release Olivia de Havilland after her seven-year contract. This decision prevented any one company from controlling a pool of creative talent, but it did nothing to stop others from controlling the entire industry with which that talent was obliged to work. In 1948, WB sold its film library to MGM. In 1949, another court ruling forced WB to sell its cinema chain, obstructing vertical integration by a single movie-making company.

In 1958, WB created Warner Brothers Records, which was later renamed WEA. In 1968, Jack Warner sold his shares to Seven Arts, while DC and All-American Comics were bought by Kinney National Services (a funeral parlor conglomerate). Kinney turned around and bought a talent agency, then turned around again and bought Warner-Seven Arts, becoming Warner Communications.

Warner Communications bought Elektra Records in 1970, the same year that  David Geffen started the Asylum label. Time bought HBO from Charles Dolan in 1972. Ironically, 1972 was also the year when Money magazine began publication, while the (original) magazine Life ceased.

Ted Turner entered the major media scene in 1976 when his TV station WTCG ( Atlanta ) was carried on US cable networks. In 1979, Turner Communications Group became Turner Broadcasting System, and WTCG was renamed WTBS. The following year, CNN became the world's first 24-hour all-news cable network. Turner tried to buy CBS in 1985, but he was blocked when Lawrence Tisch, a Jew, bought 25% of shares. Instead, Turner bought MGM's film library (1986). TBS merged with Castle Rock and New Line Cinema in 1994. In 1996, Turner made a career-destroying  faux pas by selling TBS to Time Warner. AOL bought Time Warner in 2000.

In 2001, Gerald Levin, who had been Chairman of Time Warner and then CEO of the merged AOL-TW, fired Ted Turner from his position during a telephone conversation. Control of TBS temporarily shifted to Robert Pittman), but was given shortly afterward to Walter Isaacson  who was recruited from his former position at Time Inc., to take over the company that Ted Turner built. It seems reasonably certain that Ted Turner would not have sold TBS to Time Warner if he'd known that Levin was going to fire him only five years later. Levin smooth-talked Turner, and Turner paid the price for that mistake.

But Levin wasn't finished with his dagger. Having backstabbed Turner, he did likewise to his other useful dupe, Robert Pittman. Pittman had been Levin's champion for the AOL-TW merger on the AOL side.. Richard Parsons has been AOL-TW's CEO since May 2002.

Before the merger, AOL was the largest Internet service provider in America , and it is now being used as an online platform for heavily-slanted pro-Israeli propaganda from Time Warner. Time Warner, with 1997 revenues of more than $13 billion, was the second largest of the international media leviathans when it was bought by AOL.

Time Warner's subsidiary HBO is the country's largest pay-TV cable network. Until the purchase in May 1998 of PolyGram by Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music was America 's largest record company, with 50 labels, the biggest of which is Warner Brothers Records (WEA). Warner Music was an early promoter of "gangsta rap."

AOL-TW's publishing ventures include Time-Life International Books, Time-Life Education, Time-Life Music, Time-Life AudioBooks, Book-of-the-Month Club (both adult and children's branches), Paperback Book Club, History Book Club, Money Book Club, HomeStyle Books, Crafter's Choice, One Spirit, Little Brown, Bulfinch Press, Back Bay Books, Warner Books, Warner Vision, The Mysterious Press, Warner Aspect, Warner Treasures, Oxmoor House, Leisure Arts, Sunset Books and TW Kids.

AOL-TW owns the following cable and satellite companies, among others: Cinemax, Time Warner Sports, HBO (7 US and 6 international divisions), CNN (10 divisions worldwide), Time Warner Cable, Road Runner, Time Warner Communications (primarily a telephone service), New York City Cable Group, New York 1 (a sort of CNN devoted exclusively to news in the NYC area), Time Warner Home Theater, Time Warner Security (video monitoring), Court-TV (ownership shared with Liberty Media), Comedy Central (ownership shared with Viacom) and Kablevision (Hungary).

AOL-TW owns the following TV and movie companies: Warner Brothers, WB studios, WB Television (Productions, Animation, and Network), Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Telepictures Production, Witt-Thomas Productions, Castle Rock Entertainment, Warner Home Video, WB Domestic Pay-TV, WB Domestic TV Distribution, WB International TV Distribution, The Warner Channel (separate companies for Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Australia, and Germany), and WB International Theaters in 12 countries.

The editor-in-chief of Time Warner's publishing division is Norman Pearlstine,. AOL-TW owns the following magazines: Time, Time Asia, Time Atlantic, Time Canada, Time Latin America, Time South Pacific, Time Money, Time For Kids, Fortune, Life (the watered-down new version), Sports Illustrated (plus SI Women/Sport, SI International, and SI For Kids), Inside Stuff, Money, Your Company, Your Future, People, Who Weekly (Australia), People en Español, Teen People, Entertainment Weekly, EW Metro, The Ticket, In Style, Southern Living, Progressive Farmer, Southern Accents, Cooking Light, Travel Leisure, Food & Wine, Your Company, Departures, SkyGuide, Vertigo, Paradox, Milestone, Mad Magazine, Parenting, Baby Talk, Baby on the Way, This Old House, Sunset, Sunset Garden Guide, Health, Hippocrates, Costal Living, Weight Watchers, Real Simple, President (Japan), and Dancyu (Japan). AOL-TW owns 80 additional magazines (mostly hobby and leisure) in Britain .

AOL-TW holds the following music record labels: Atlantic Group, Atlantic Classics, Atlantic Jazz, Atlantic Nashville, Atlantic Theater, Big Beat, Background, Breaking, Curb, Igloo, Lava, Mesa/Bluemoon, Modern, Rhino Records, Elektra, EastWest, Asylum, Elektra/Sire, Warner Brothers Records, Warner Nashville, Warner Alliance, Warner Resound, Warner Sunset, Reprise, Reprise Nashville, American Recordings, Giant, Maverick, Revolution, Qwest, Warner Music International, WEA Telegram, East West ZTT, Coalition, CGD East West, China, Continental, DRO East West, Erato, Fazer, Finlandia, MCM, Nonesuch, and Teldec.

Disney. The second-largest media conglomerate today, with 1997 revenues of $23 billion, is the Walt Disney Company. Its chairman and CEO, until his removal by the board of directors, was Michael Eisner,. The Disney empire, headed by a man described by one media analyst as "a control freak," includes several television production companies (Walt Disney Television, Touchstone Television, Buena Vista Television) and cable networks with more than 100 million subscribers altogether. The TV stations under Disney control include: WLS (Chicago), WJRT (Flint), KFSN (Fresno), KTRK (Houston), KABC (Los Angeles), WABC (New York City), WPVI (Philadelphia), WTVD (Raleigh), KGO (San Francisco) and WTVG (Toledo).

Disney also has a major presence in radio, owning WKHX, WYAY and WDWD in Atlanta; WMVP, WLS, and WXCD in Chicago; WBAP and KSCS in Dallas; WDRQ, WJR and WPLT in Detroit; KLOS and KTZN in Los Angeles; KQRS, KXXR, KDIZ, KZNR, and KZNT in St. Paul; WPLJ in New York City; KSFO in San Francisco; WMAL, WJZW, and WRQX in Washington; and ESPN Radio.

As for feature films, the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, under Walt Disney Studios, headed by Joseph E. Roth , includes Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, and Caravan Pictures. Roth founded Caravan Pictures in January 1993, and it is now headed by Roger Birnbaum. Disney also owns Miramax Films, run by the Weinstein brothers, Bob and Harvey, who have produced such ultra-raunchy movies as The Crying Game, Priest, and Kids.

When the Disney Company was run by the gentile Disney family, prior to its takeover by Eisner in 1984, it epitomized wholesome, family entertainment. While it still holds the rights to Snow White, the company under Eisner expanded into the production of a great deal of so-called "adult" material.

In August 1995, Eisner acquired Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., which owns the ABC Television Network, which in turn owns ten TV stations outright in such big markets as New York , Chicago , Philadelphia , Los Angeles , San Francisco , and Houston . In addition, it has 225 affiliated stations in the United States and is part owner of several European TV companies.

ABC's cable subsidiary, ESPN, is headed by president and CEO Steven Bornstein, who is a Jew. The corporation also has a controlling share of Lifetime Television and A & E Television Networks cable companies, with 67 million subscribers each. ABC Radio Network owns 26 AM and FM stations, again in major cities such as New York , Washington , and Los Angeles , and has over 3,400 affiliates.

Although primarily a telecommunications company, Capital Cities/ABC earned over $1 billion in publishing in 1997. Besides these publishing concerns, Disney owns Walt Disney Company Book Publishing, Hyperion Books, and Miramax Books. It also owns six daily newspapers, including the Albany Democrat and the St. Louis Daily Record.

Disney's magazine titles include Automotive Industries, Biography (partial ownership), Discover, Disney Adventures, Disney Magazine, ECN News, ESPN Magazine, Family Fun, Family PC, Institutional Investor, Jane, JCK, Kentucky Prairie Farmer, Kodin, Los Angeles, Multichannel News, Penny Power, Talk, Top Famille (France), Video Business, and Quality.

Disney operates 660 retail stores worldwide, and, incidentally, it is also invested in crude oil and natural gas exploitation.

On the Internet, Disney runs Buena Vista Internet Group, ABC Internet Group, ABC.com, ABCNEWS.com, Oscar.com, Mr. Showbiz, Disney Online, Disney's Daily Blast, Disney.com, Family.com, ESPN Internet Group, ESPN.sportzone.com, Soccernet.com, NFL.com, NBA.com, Infoseek (partial ownership), and Disney Interactive.

Viacom. Number three on the list, with 1997 revenues of just over $13 billion, is Viacom, Inc., headed by Sumner Redstone (born Murray Rothstein).. Viacom was formed in 1971 as a way to dodge an anti-monopoly FCC ruling that required CBS to spin off a part of its cable TV operations and syndicated programming business. This move by the government unfortunately did nothing to reduce the mostly Jewish collaborative monopoly that remains the major problem with the industry. In 1999, after CBS had again augmented itself by buying King World Productions (a leading TV program syndicator), Viacom acquired its progenitor company, CBS, in a double mockery of the spirit of the 1971 ruling.

Viacom produces and distributes TV programs for the three largest networks, owns 13 television stations and 12 radio stations. It produces feature films through Paramount Pictures, headed by Jewess Sherry Lansing. Redstone acquired CBS following the December 1999 stockholders' votes at CBS and Viacom.

Working for Redstone as CBS's chief executive has been Melvin A. Karmazin. He has been the boss and biggest individual shareholder of the company that owns the CBS Television Network, 14 major-market TV stations, 160 radio stations, the Country Music Television and the Nashville Network cable channels, and a large number of outdoor advertising assets.

Viacom's publishing division includes Simon & Schuster, Scribner, The Free Press, Fireside, Archway Paperbacks and Minstrel Books, Anne Schwartz Books, MTV Books, Nickelodeon Books, Pocket Books, and Washington Square Press. It distributes videos through over 4,000 Blockbuster stores (including the Video Flicks chain in Australia ). It is also involved in satellite broadcasting, theme parks, and video games.

Viacom's chief claim to fame, however, is as the world's largest provider of cable programming, through its Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon, and other networks. Since 1989 MTV and Nickelodeon have acquired larger and larger shares of the juvenile television audience. The first quarter of 2001 was the 16th consecutive quarter in which MTV was rated as the #1 cable network for viewers between the ages of 12 and 24. Redstone, who actually owns 76 per cent of the shares of Viacom, has offered Beavis and Butthead as teen role models.. MTV Networks acquired The Music Factory (TMF) from the Dutch media and marketing group Wegener in 2001. TMF distributes music to almost 10 million homes in Holland and Belgium . MTV has been  expanding its presence in Europe through new channels, including MTV Dance ( Britain ) and MTV Live ( Scandinavia ). MTV Italy is active through Cecchi Gori Communications. MTV pumps its rock and rap videos into 210 million homes in 71 countries.

Nickelodeon, with about 65 million subscribers, has by far the largest share of the four-to-11-year-old TV audience in America and also is expanding rapidly into Europe . Most of its shows do not yet display the blatant degeneracy that is MTV's trademark, but Redstone is gradually nudging the fare presented to his kiddie viewers toward the same poison purveyed by MTV. As of early 2001, Nickelodeon was continuing a nine-year streak as the top cable network for children and younger teenagers.

Viacom operates two major motion picture enterprises jointly with Vivendi Universal (detailed hereafter): United Cinemas International (UCI) and United International Pictures (UIP).

Vivendi Universal. Another Jewish media mogul is Edgar Bronfman, Jr. He headed Seagram Company, Ltd., the liquor giant, until its recent merger with Vivendi. His father, Edgar Bronfman, Sr., is president of the World Jewish Congress. Seagram owned Universal Studios and Interscope Records, the foremost promoter of "gangsta rap." These companies now belong to Vivendi Universal.

Bronfman became the biggest man in the record business in May 1998 when he also acquired control of PolyGram, the European record giant, by paying $10.6 billion to the Dutch electronics manufacturer Philips. With the revenue from PolyGram added to that from MCA and Universal, Bronfman became master of the fourth largest media empire, with annual revenues around $12 billion. One especially unfortunate aspect of the PolyGram acquisition was that it gave Bronfman control of the world's largest producer of classical music CDs: PolyGram owns the Deutsche Grammophon, Decca-London, and Philips record companies.

In June 2000, the Bronfman family sold Seagram to Vivendi, a French utilities company formerly led by gentile J