Secret HistoryS


Bad Guys

James Comey and the Bush Torture Scandal

James Bovard
Future of Freedom Foundation
Fri, 05 Oct 2018 10:56 UTC
Comey
The vast regime of torture created by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks continues to haunt America. The political class and most of the media have never dealt honestly with the profound constitutional corruption that such practices inflicted. Instead, torture enablers are permitted to pirouette as heroic figures on the flimsiest evidence.

Former FBI chief James Comey is the latest beneficiary of the media's "no fault" scoring on the torture scandal. In his media interviews for his new memoir, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, Comey is portraying himself as a Boy Scout who sought only to do good things. But his record is far more damning than most Americans realize.

Comey continues to use memos from his earlier government gigs to whitewash all of the abuses he sanctified. "Here I stand; I can do no other," Comey told George W. Bush in 2004 when Bush pressured Comey, who was then Deputy Attorney General, to approve an unlawful anti-terrorist policy. Comey was quoting a line supposedly uttered by Martin Luther in 1521, when he told Emperor Charles V and an assembly of Church officials that he would not recant his sweeping criticisms of the Catholic Church.
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Archaeology

Girl, 8, pulls a 1,500-year-old pre-Viking sword from Vidöstern Lake, Sweden


BBC
Thu, 04 Oct 2018 02:11 UTC
pre-viking sword Sweden
© Jönköpings Läns MuseumExperts at the local museum believe it may date to around 1,500 years ago.
An eight-year-old found an ancient pre-Viking-era sword while swimming in a lake in Sweden during the summer.

Saga Vanecek found the relic in the Vidöstern lake while at her family's holiday home in Jönköping County.

The sword was initially reported to be 1,000 years old, but experts at the local museum now believe it may date to around 1,500 years ago.

"It's not every day that you step on a sword in the lake!" Mikael Nordström from the museum said.
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Archaeology

Fragments of 20-million-year-old elephant tusks unearthed in Iran


Iran Front Page
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 16:29 UTC
elephant tusk fossil Iran
© Ardabil Department of Environment
The remnants of two Proboscidean fossils including two elephant tusks have been unearthed in Iran's northwestern city of Ardabil, said the General Director of Ardabil's Department of Environment.

Mohammad Khodaparast said the remnants date back to the Miocene, the first geological epoch of the Neogene period, from about 23.03 to 5.333 million years ago.
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Evil Rays

Did the US NAVY deliberately bombard the people of Eugene, Oregon with disabling EMF waves in 1978?

Melissa Dykes
Sott.net
Thu, 04 Oct 2018 00:00 UTC
radio wave tower
In 1978, dozens of inhabitants in the sleepy town of Eugene experienced disorientation, a variety of negative physical symptoms, strange vibrations and the hearing of voices. The official government line is that EMF waves are harmless and could not produce such effects on human beings. But is that really true - and if not - could the effects that were felt by the people affected be anything less than a deliberate attempt to test a weaponized form of electromagnetic wave on an unsuspecting population?

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Marijuana

Rainbow Farm: The FBI siege forgotten in the haze of 9/11

Jeff Winkler
The Outline
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 14:44 UTC
In 2001, two men were killed by the FBI at a farm in Michigan. Then, 9/11 happened.
Rainbow Farm, Doug Leinbach
© Elizabeth De La Piedra/The OutlineDoug Leinbach.
In September of 2001, the buildings burned, filling the bright blue sky with black smoke that could be seen for miles. Locals remember exactly where they were when it happened. When the ash settled, many were left in shock. To some, the razed site had been a symbol of freedom, liberty, and enterprise. To others, it had been a manifestation of vice, turpitude, and lawlessness. Either way, it seemed obvious that such an event would be covered and discussed from coast to coast. As a country, we'd eventually begin to truly examine the costs of an overly broad and ill-defined war.

Then, about a week later, 9/11 happened.

And with that, the five-day standoff at Rainbow Farm was mostly forgotten. The 34-acre campground in rural Michigan had, for several years, proudly and defiantly hosted pro-marijuana festivals. Dead and gone were its owners, Tom Crosslin, 46, and Rolland "Rollie" Rohm, 28, killed by the feds and buried by a national emergency.

So much has changed in the past 17 years. Well, some things, at least.

Doug Leinbach, Rainbow Farm's former manager, still remembers when Merle Haggard arrived at the property for his headlining gig in the summer of 2000. The country outlaw took one look at the huge marijuana-themed party happening on a back road in Cass County, about three hours from Detroit, and said, "I can't believe they haven't killed you boys already."
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Red Flag

Flashback Best of the Web: Later Communism totalitarian and oppressive? 'It was best time of my life' says Hungarian

Zsuzsanna Clark
Daily Mail, UK
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:49 UTC
Image
The golden years before Anglo-American 'free trade' (debt-slavery) devoured the world: Zsuzsanna, right, aged 14 with a friend
When people ask me what it was like growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary in the Seventies and Eighties, most expect to hear tales of secret police, bread queues and other nasty manifestations of life in a one-party state.

They are invariably disappointed when I explain that the reality was quite different, and communist Hungary, far from being hell on earth, was in fact, rather a fun place to live.

The communists provided everyone with guaranteed employment, good education and free healthcare. Violent crime was virtually non-existent.

But perhaps the best thing of all was the overriding sense of camaraderie, a spirit lacking in my adopted Britain and, indeed, whenever I go back to Hungary today. People trusted one another, and what we had we shared.

I was born into a working-class family in Esztergom, a town in the north of Hungary, in 1968. My mother, Julianna, came from the east of the country, the poorest part. Born in 1939, she had a harsh childhood.

Comment: Whew, living under later Communism sounded truly horrid. Thank goodness the US and British governments saw to it that it was destroyed.

Now we can all be free and happy... together... in the gutter... as atomized automatons... with the NSA watching over us all... as the endless War on Terror... grinds on into infinity.



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Archaeology

Discovery of prehistoric art in India hints at lost civilization

Mayuresh Konnur
BBC
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 19:49 UTC
Maharashtra
© BBC MarathiThe discovery of rock carvings believed to be tens of thousands of years old in India's western state of Maharashtra has greatly excited archaeologists who believe they hold clues to a previously unknown civilisation.
The rock carvings - known as petroglyphs - have been discovered in their thousands atop hillocks in the Konkan region of western Maharashtra.

Mostly discovered in the Ratnagiri and Rajapur areas, a majority of the images etched on the rocky, flat hilltops remained unnoticed for thousands of years.

Most of them were hidden beneath layers of soil and mud. But a few were in the open - these were considered holy and worshipped by locals in some areas.

The sheer variety of the rock carvings have stunned experts - animals, birds, human figures and geometrical designs are all depicted.

The way the petroglyphs have been drawn, and their similarity to those found in other parts of the world, have led experts to believe that they were created in prehistoric times and are possibly among the oldest ever discovered.

Comment: There is evidence all over the globe of dramatic shifts in climate and so there is a strong possibility that the rhinos and other creatures depicted, that no longer inhabit the region, may have done so in the past: Of Flash Frozen Mammoths and Cosmic Catastrophes

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Snakes in Suits

Former Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin: The Nobel Laureate and the father of modern terrorism


Diplomatico
Thu, 17 Aug 2017 00:00 UTC
Menachem Begin:
Menachem Begin: The Nobel Laureate who bragged about being the Father of Terrorism in the World

It seems that terrorism and political violence have become more prevalent and intense. Not a single day goes by without at least one story about grotesque violence mostly perpetrated against innocent civilians. Somehow, terrorism became a normal part of our everyday life, but this was not always the case.

More worryingly, the absence of debate about the root causes of terrorism have given way to casual media reporting which most likely encourages further terrorism by feeding it the oxygen of publicity.
"How does it feel, in the light of all that's going on, to be the father of terrorism in the Middle East?" "In the Middle East?" he [Begin] bellowed, in his thick, cartoon accent. "In all the world!" - Russell Warren Howe interview with Menachem Begin, January 1974

Most of us today, associate terrorism with Muslim fanatics that have ever morphing acronyms such as ISIS, ISIL, Al-Qaeda and so forth. A few decades ago, it was either Palestinian individuals or Iranian fanatics and before that very few people remember the IRA, Red Brigade or the many other European groups who too were described in the very same media as evil Terrorist, and only a tiny minority even have an inkling of other cases of terrorism, let alone the definition, history or roots of this scourge of society.

Comment: Actually, we can't give Begin and Israel all the credit:

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Dig

Lasers reveal 60,000 ancient Mayan structures hidden in Guatemalan forest

Becky Little
History.com
Sun, 28 Oct 2018 12:00 UTC
maya guatemala
© PACUNAM/Estrada-BelliLaser technology helped detect more than 60,000 previously unknown structures in northern Guatemala.
Laser technology helped detect more than 60,000 previously unknown structures in northern Guatemala.

The largest-ever survey of a region from the Maya civilization has located over 60,000 previously unknown structures in northern Guatemala. The survey, conducted with the help of lasers, challenges long-held assumptions that this area was poorly connected and sparsely populated.

The structures researchers identified include farms, houses and defensive fortifications, as well as 60 miles of causeways, roads and canals connecting large cities across the civilization's central lowlands. Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist who uses satellite technology, had this reaction on Twitter when preliminary images became public: "This is HOLY [expletive] territory." (Parcak was not involved with this study).

The ancient Maya civilization stretched from southern Mexico down to Guatemala and Belize, flourishing between 1000 B.C. and 1500 A.D. The recent study focused on 830 square miles of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Petén, Guatemala. Scientists used a laser technology called lidar, or light detection and ranging, to penetrate the thick tree canopies in the area and discover archaeological remains beneath them.

Comment: Recent findings point to the Mayan civilization being much more extensive than previously thought: New finds reveal Mayan elite lived in Teotihuacan, "City of the Gods" - 1000km from center of civilization

See also:

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Chess

A CIA lucky break? How the death of the 'Smiling Pope' in 1978 helped Washington win the Cold War

Neil Clark
RT
Fri, 28 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
Pope John Paul I
The sudden death of Pope John Paul I, exactly 40 years ago today, stunned the world. The 'Smiling Pope' had only served for 33 days. His demise and replacement by John Paul II marked an important turning point in the old Cold War.

The year 1978, as I argued in a previous op-ed, was the year today's world was made.

There was nothing inevitable about the ascendancy of Reagan and Thatcher, the rise of groups like Al-Qaeda and IS, and the downfall of the Soviet Union. The neoliberal, neoconservative world order and its associated violence came about because of key events and decisions which took place 40 years ago. The Vatican was at the heart of these events.
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