Secret HistoryS


Bad Guys

Feeding the drug business: How the CIA commandeered the Drug Enforcement Agency

Douglas Valentine
Counterpunch
Sat, 12 Sep 2015 12:11 UTC
Richard Nixon
© unknownRichard Nixon
The outlawing of narcotic drugs at the start of the Twentieth Century, the turning of the matter from public health to social control, coincided with American's imperial Open Door policy and the belief that the government had an obligation to American industrialists to create markets in every nation in the world, whether those nations liked it or not.

Civic institutions, like public education, were required to sanctify this policy, while "security" bureaucracies were established to ensure the citizenry conformed to the state ideology. Secret services, both public and private, were likewise established to promote the expansion of private American economic interests overseas.

It takes a book to explain the economic foundations of the war on drugs, and the reasons behind the regulation of the medical, pharmaceutical and drug manufacturers industries. Suffice it to say that by 1943, the nations of the "free world" were relying on America for their opium derivatives, under the guardianship of Harry Anslinger, the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN).
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Bad Guys

The other 9/11: The US-sponsored Chilean coup

Claire Bernish
The Anti Media
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 23:22 UTC
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende

September 11th carries a significant heaviness in the U.S., no matter one's opinion or perspective on the events of that day; but another country, Chile, shares that anniversary after a bloody coup d'etat in 1973 brought an infamous leader to power: General Augusto Pinochet.

On September 11, 1973, Pinochet and his military and government proponents ousted democratically elected President Salvador Allende by force. Tens of thousands were arrested, tortured, and "disappeared," and hundreds were executed in the process — which was made possible with notable aid from both the Nixon administration and the CIA.
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Fireball

The Black Death: The Plague that sowed terror and death in Medieval Europe

Mariló TA
Ancient Origins
Sun, 13 Sep 2015 13:01 UTC
Image
In recent months, health authorities in California, USA, have been obliged to report two cases of the plague that appeared in West Coast state. In the state of Colorado two other people also contracted and died of the disease. As if that were not enough, in recent weeks the Yosemite National Park located in California, has had to close their camp Tuolumne Meadows after the authorities determined that two squirrels apparently also died from the plague.

The plague is the most famous and feared disease of human history. An evil that killed millions of people in Europe for centuries and that, despite common belief and in spite of the great scientific advances, remains a problem for modern humanity.

Comment: The common belief is that the plague was spread through rats and fleas, but maybe it was something else? Could it have been brought in by comets? To learn more about the possible origins of the Black Death read:

New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection

The Apocalypse: Comets, Asteroids and Cyclical Catastrophes

New Light on the Black Death: The Viral and Cosmic Connection

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Info

Artifacts discovered amid submerged ruins of cities of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus unveiled


The Guardian
Sun, 13 Sep 2015 17:57 UTC
statue pharoah
Bronze statuette of a pharaoh. Photograph: Christoph Gerigk
Spectacular ancient Egyptian treasures are to be exhibited for the first time having been discovered underwater in the submerged ruins of the near-legendary cities of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus.

A finely sculpted statuette of a pharaoh and a golden-eyed depiction of god Osiris are among antiquities to be unveiled in a major exhibition in Paris from next month.

The cities were almost erased from mankind's memory after sinking beneath the waves in the eighth century AD following cataclysmic natural disasters including an earthquake and tidal waves.

Across a vast site in Aboukir Bay near Alexandria, the seabed has been giving up secrets from a lost world in an excavation led by Franck Goddio, a French marine archaeologist.

Founding head of the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology in Paris, Goddio is working with the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and the Egyptian authorities.
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Question

Largest sand desert in the world may have been the site of an ancient great river

David Millar
Ancient Origens
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 21:45 UTC
bedouin camp
Painting of Bedouin camp circa 1892
The Bedouin of the southern Arabian desert have a legend about a great river in the west, and an eighth century Arabic poem talks of wild cows living in the Empty Quarter. Can it be true?

The Empty Quarter, also known as the Rub al-Khali, is the largest sand desert in the world, covering an area of 650,000 square kilometers (250,966 square miles) or around one third of the southern Arabian Peninsula. It is also one of the hottest most arid environments on the planet with temperatures regularly above 50 C (122 F) and less than three centimeters (one inch) of rain per year.

Comment: See also: Before the sand: Ancient Mega-Lake Found in Egyptian Desert

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Magnify

Polish explorer claims he's found massive underground Nazi shelter


Yahoo! News
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 13:50 UTC
Image
© AP/Poland OutThe abandoned building of a German nazi-era railway installation in Walim, near Walbrzych, in Poland, photographed on Friday, Sept. 11, 2015. An explorer says he has found massive underground World War II installations in the neighborhood that were probably intended as a anti-nuclear shelter for Hitler.
A Polish explorer claimed Friday he has found a massive underground structure in southwestern Poland that, he says, the Nazis built to protect thousands of people.

Krzysztof Szpakowski told a news conference that he has no doubt as to his find, which he says was based on evidence that he has gathered for decades, including witness statements, old documents and an examination of the area by ground-penetrating radar and by dowsers.

Image
© AP/Poland OutExplorer Krzysztof Szpakowski, right, with his legal advisor,attends a news conference at the provincial governor’s office in Walbrzych, Poland on Friday, Sept. 11, 2015.
Speaking on TVN24, Szpakowski said the structure was part of the "Riese" (giant) system of railway tunnels, corridors and shelters that the Nazis were building during World War II in the mountains around the city of Walbrzych.

He said that anything from technical appliances to armaments could be inside, but "not a gold train."

His conference was hosted by Walbrzych regional authorities, who said they have officially registered his information and are seeking state funds for the exploration.

Last month, two other men sparked a gold rush by claiming they have fund a tunnel at a separate location in Walbrzych that contains a Nazi train that could be carrying valuables. Now they say it could be rather precious minerals for the war industry. Nothing has been found yet.

Historians say there are dozens of kilometers of tunnels and only 10 percent of them have been uncovered. No documents have been found to indicate their overall purpose, but they have attracted explorers and inspired legends of a hidden Nazi train laden with gold.

The region was in Germany until the war's end and then became part of Poland. The Red Army resided in the area for some 18 months after the war before handing it over to the Poles.
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Question

The mysterious holes of Peru: A pre-Columbian domestic water source for trans-oceanic travelers?

William James Veall
Ancient Origins
Mon, 31 Aug 2015 13:30 UTC
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No really serious attention has been paid by scientists to resolve the mystery of nearly 7000 'pits' that snake their way for almost one mile across the rugged Cajamarquilla Plain bordering the Pisco Valley of Peru, South America.

Just as with their near neighbour the famous Nasca Lines, this curiously patterned stream of cavities (pits) now attracts a plethora of theories concerning its original purpose: silos for grain storage, for water, local tribal defenses, vertical tombs in a mass graveyard - or even a coded message to the Sky Gods! To date the site has revealed no real artifactual evidence whatsoever—just a path of empty holes excavated into a limestone escarpment for no apparent rhyme or reason. No tools have been found, no skeletons or bones, no potsherds or textiles—nothing.

However, the 'pits' are extremely interesting. Around 7000 have been excavated into a band some 20 meters wide (65 feet), each hole averaging half a meter in diameter (25 inches). Some pits are set in near perfect straight lines, some in curved rows. Each row averages between nine and 12 cavities. Again, as with the Nasca Lines, only from aerial photographs can you truly observe the unique and deliberately precise nature of the elaboration.
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Red Flag

Standard operating procedure: American false flags that started wars

Robert Fantina
Blacklisted News
Tue, 08 Sep 2015 11:10 UTC
Johnson McNamara
© AP Photo/FileIn this March 13, 1964 file photo, President Lyndon Johnson, right, talks with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, center sitting, after McNamara returned from a fact-finding trip to South Vietnam, at the White House in Washington. Fifty years ago Sunday, Aug. 10, 2014, reacting to reports of a U.S. Navy encounter with enemy warships in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam, reports long since discredited, Johnson signed a resolution passed overwhelmingly by Congress that historians call the crucial catalyst for deep American involvement in the Vietnam War. (AP Photo/File)
As this is being written, Congress is experiencing extensive and dramatic hand-wringing as it decides between doing what is best for the country and the world or doing what is best for the American Israel Political Affairs Committee. This is no easy task for members of Congress, especially Democrats who, on the one hand, want to assure a "victory" for President Barack Obama, but who are also loathe to displease the Israeli lobby. Whether preventing a war factors into their deliberations is not known.

AIPAC and its countless minions in Congress are painting the recent agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, plus Germany), as nothing short of the end of Israel.

If this deal preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons is approved, they warn darkly, Iran will secretly develop nuclear weapons. This will mean the destruction of Israel, they say. But if it isn't approved, Iran will develop such weapons. This, they say, will also mean the destruction of Israel. Feel free to re-read those sentences whenever time allows.

From this point of view, the only alternative is war, with the ostensible purpose of destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities — capabilities that the Islamic Republic has always said are for peaceful energy purposes. Yet the risk of Iran ever having nuclear weapons is too great. If it did obtain them, then Israel would have a hostile nation to counterbalance its power in the Middle East, and, of course, it doesn't want that competition. And whatever Israel wants, the U.S. wants. Hence the fear-mongering.

Comment: Make sure to check out Robert Fantina's book, Empire, Racism and Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy, published by Red Pill Press.

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Info

Arctida: Russian scientists find two ancient continents existed before Arctic


RT.com
Sat, 12 Sep 2015 02:36 UTC
Arctida
© Kathryn Hansen/Reuters
The modern Arctic turns out to be the third incarnation of an ancient landmass at the top of the world. A group of Siberian scientists has discovered that the northern most continent broke apart twice, and not once as was previously thought.

An ancient continent named Arctida formed around one billion years ago, but then split apart around 750 million years ago, only to come back together again after another 500 million years, TASS reports, citing the findings of the Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Novosibirsk State University.

"There were at least two continents and not one as it was thought before," head of the General and Regional Geology Department at Novosibirsk State University and leading author of the study, Dmitry Metelkin, said.

The structure of the continent, however, did not stay the same in both instances when the constituent elements of Arctida came back together again.
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Boat

Wayfinding: Dying wishes from one of the last remaining Micronesian master navigators

Dan Lin
voices.nationalgeographic.com
Wed, 09 Sep 2015 16:44 UTC
Image
© Daniel Lin
Master Navigator Francis Sermonyoung holds up a Rogarog, a sacred weather charm belonging only to a few navigators. The Rogarog gives the navigator the ability to fight off bad weather out at sea.
In a world where information is accessible at the touch of a button, there is something extra special about the few remaining pockets of knowledge that exist only in the minds of a few individuals. Traditional navigation in Micronesia is one of those last bastions of knowledge that, to this day, is passed on almost exclusively through oral teachings from a master navigator to his chosen students. Also known as "wayfinding", traditional navigation involves finding one's way across vast distances using only the natural surroundings (stars, swells, clouds, etc) as guides.
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