Sunday, May 27, 2012

The CIA In Australia: America's Foreign Watergate

by Wakeupmag.co.uk

"The CIA's aim in Australia was to get rid of a government they did not like and that was not co-operative… it's a Chile, but in a much more sophisticated and subtle form." - VICTOR MARCHETTI, ex-CIA officer, 1980


"There is profoundly increasing evidence that foreign espionage and intelligence activities are being practised in Australia on a wide scale… I believe the evidence is so grave and so alarming in its implications that it demands the fullest explanation. The deception over the CIA and the activities of foreign installations on our soil… are an onslaught on Australia's sovereignty." - GOUGH WHITLAM to the Australian Parliament, 1977

On December 2nd 1972, Australia's first Labor Government for twenty-three years was elected. The new Prime Minister, Edward Gough Whitlam, quickly set about a series of historic legislations: wages, pensions and unemployment benefits were increased; equal pay for women was introduced; a free national health service was established; spending on education was doubled; university and college fees were abolished; and legal aid became a universal right.

The Federal Government assumed responsibility for Aboriginal health, education and welfare, and the first land rights legislation for Aborigines was drafted. Cultural initiatives for women, Aborigines and immigrants were set up. Imperial honours such as knighthoods and MBEs were scrapped. The "Commonwealth Government" was renamed the Australian Government and an Australian anthem replaced "God Save the Queen."

Conscription was ended. Australian troops were withdrawn from the Vietnam War and men imprisoned for draft evasion were released. Australian ministers publicly condemned the American conduct of the Vietnam War. The U.S. bombing of Hanoi during Christmas 1972 was denounced as the work of "maniacs" and "mass murderers". Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Jim Cairns, called for public rallies to condemn the bombing and for boycotts on American goods. In response, Australian dockers refused to unload American ships. Whitlam himself warned the Nixon administration that he might draw Indonesia and Japan into protests against the bombing.

The Australian Government also pressed for support for the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace, which was opposed by the US, and spoke up in the United Nations for Palestinian rights. The French were condemned for testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific, and refugees fleeing the CIA-backed coup in Chile were welcomed into Australia (an irony in the light of Washington's retaliation against Whitlam).

"We were told that the Australians might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators." - FRANK SNEPP, CIA officer stationed in Saigon at the time of the Agency's covert activities against the Whitlam government.

The CIA's alarm over the Australian Government rose to a fury when, in the early hours of March 16th 1973, the Attorney General, Lionel Murphy, led a raid on the Melbourne offices of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Murphy and Whitlam were concerned about ASIO's involvement with local fascist Croatian groups that had carried out terrorist acts in Australia and against Yugoslav diplomats abroad.

Set up under the auspices of the UKUSA Treaty in 1949, ASIO had distinguished itself by not uncovering a single spy or traitor (this is still the case), yet it had become almost as powerful in Australia as the CIA itself. ASIO had a secret pact of loyalty to the CIA and helped to set up and maintain secret police organisations that kept files on all Australian Labor Party members, prominent politicians, government officials, union leaders, members of the Council of Civil Liberties and anyone considered the slightest left-of centre. Even prayer meetings for peace were watched and recorded.

According to a top-secret report to a Royal Commission into Australia's secret services led by Mr Justice Hope, for decades members of ASIO handed over to the CIA slanderous information against Australian politicians and senior officials who they regarded unfavourably. This material ranged from accusations of subversive tendencies to concern about their personal lives, and allowed the CIA to work against these people in ways that ranged from blackmail to efforts to block their careers.

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How to start a revolution: Learn from Iceland!


The people of Iceland forced their corrupt government to resign.
A public assembly was created to rewrite the constitution.
The banks were nationalized, it was decided not to pay the debt that PRIVATE banks created.
All of this in a peaceful way...
What would happen if the rest of the world took this as an example?

Amnesty Report Slams UN as Failure in the Wake of Global Uprisings

In its 50th global human rights report, rights group Amnesty International slammed the UN Security Council as a failure and "unfit for its purpose" in the wake of global uprisings.

In the backdrop of courageous protesters worldwide, the group says that the UN Security Council is "tired, out of step and increasingly unfit for purpose." Salil Shetty, Amnesty International Secretary General, said, “Failed leadership has gone global in the last year, with politicians responding to protests with brutality or indifference."

“In the last year it has all too often become clear that opportunistic alliances and financial interests have trumped human rights as global powers jockey for influence in the Middle East and North Africa,” added Shetty. “The language of human rights is adopted when it serves political or corporate agendas, and shelved when inconvenient or standing in the way of profit.”

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Sicily honours murdered anti-Mafia campaigner, 60 years on

More than 60 years ago, union leader Placido Rizzotto was killed after standing up to the Mafia in his hometown of Corleone. After campaigning by friends and relatives, he is finally being given a state funeral.

Land grabbers: Africa's hidden revolution

Vast swaths of Africa are being bought up by oligarchs, sheikhs and agribusiness corporations. But, as this extract from The Land Grabbers explains, centuries of history are being destroyed...

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Projected PIIGS Pillage: 3233.5 Tons Of Gold To Be Confiscated By Insolvent European Banks

While hardly discussed broadly in the mainstream media, the top news of the past 24 hours without doubt is that in addition to losing its fiscal sovereignty, and numerous other things, the Greek population is about to lose its gold in a perfectly legitimate fashion, following amendments to the country’s constitution by unelected banker technocrats, who will make it legal for Greek creditors – read insolvent European banks – to plunder the Greek gold which at last check amounts to 111.6 tonnes according to the WGC. And so we come full circle to what the ultimate goal of banker intervention in the European periphery is – nothing short of full gold confiscation. So just how much gold will be pillaged by the banker oligarchy (it is amusing how many websites believe said gold is sacrosanct by regional national banks, and thus the EUR is such a stronger currency as it has all this ‘gold backing’ – hint: it doesn’t, as all the gold is about to be transferred to non-extradition countries)? As the World Gold Council shows in its latest update, between all the PIIGS, who will with 100% certainty suffer the same fate as Greece (which has shown that unlike during World War 2, it is perfectly willing to turn over and do nothing) there is 3234 tonnes of gold to be plundered.

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