Counter-intelligence: Shining a Light on Black Operations

Part 1 The Company (aka the CIA)

by Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall

Counter-intelligence is a five-part documentary examining the history, structure and function of America’s National Security State. The latter is a secretive, quasi-legal bureaucracy whose primary purpose is to enforce the will of the wealthy elite without interference by elected representatives. Laying out the series like a college course, filmmaker Scott Noble reveals the mechanism by which this invisible shadow government exercises near total control over US foreign and domestic policy. Part 1 discusses the CIA, the Joint Services Operation Command and the NSA

Noble defines “black operations” as illegal clandestine operations that are carried out without Congressional oversight or accountability. The National Security Act President Harry Truman signed in 1947 made covert operations the responsibility of the Central Intelligence Group, which wouldn’t become part of the CIA until the 1950s. .

Truman appointed a number of Wall Street bankers and lawyers to run covert operations. Their foreign trade experience (especially with fascist countries) supposedly made them “experts” in foreign relations. Traditionally top CIA officials have been recruited from the children of Wall Street elites at Harvard, Yale and other Ivy League universities.

Yale’s secretive Skull and Bones society has been a particularly fertile ground for recruiting CIA officers. The requirement for new Skull and Bones members to commit an illegal act (usually grave robbing) prepares them for the illegal covert operations they will carry out for the CIA.

Plausible Deniability

“The Company” emphasizes the role of private foundations and contractors (mercenaries) in concealing  the CIA’s role in assassinations, foreign coups and drug trafficking. The CIA funded the 2002 against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez by funneling millions of dollars through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). This made it possible for the Bush administration to deny they played any role whatsoever in the coup.

Unlimited Budgets

A major feature of the National Security State is the total absence of oversight or accountability to any elected branch of government. Budgets are virtually unlimited, and there is no requirement for agencies that engage in black operations to report how they spend their funding.

The Joint Services Operation Command (JSOC) is a prime example. The JSOC, which technically falls under Pentagon, receives even less oversight than the CIA. JSOC has a 75 billion dollar budget and employs 200,000 covert operatives, many of them mercenaries. Noble believes the JSOC is a major culprit in the trillions that have gone missing from the Pentagon budget.

Owing to its total lack of oversight or accountability, the JSOC is free to contract with a scumbag company like DynCorps, despite their collaboration with the Serbian mafia in sex trafficking – or the sex parties, involving little boys, they throw for Afghan officials.

The National Security Administration (NSA) enjoys even less fiscal accountability. The NSA, which has more operatives than the CIA and FBI combined (40,000), had an $11.6 billion budget in 2012. It also has its own film festival, ski club and yacht club.

CIA Domestic Spying

Noble concludes by touching on the CIA’s repeated and ongoing violation of the federal law prohibiting them from engaging in domestic covert operations. He briefly discusses Operation Chaos (a 1967-73 covert operation against anti-Vietnam war and civil rights activists), MK-Ultra (a 1957-73 project involving mind control experimentation on unwitting Americans) and Operation Mockingbird (a 1950-ongoing operation in which the CIA “recruits” journalists to present the Company in a favorable light).

Counter-intelligence: Shining a Light on Black Operations

Scott Noble
Metanoia Films (2013)

Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall

Dr. Bramhall is a retired American child and adolescent psychiatrist, activist and political refugee in New Zealand.

Her first book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee describes the circumstances that led her to leave the US in 2002. She has also published two young adult novels about political activism: The Battle for Tomorrow: A Fable

View All Books by Dr. Bramhall >>>

She is involved in the national leadership of the New Zealand Green Party and has a political blog at StuartJeanneBramhall.com