Picasso Dreams

Counter Culture Covert Op?

What do Frank Zappa, David Crosby, Jackson Brown, Mama Cass, Jim Morrison, John Phillips, Stephen Stills, Mike Nesmith (Monkees), Cory Wells (Three Dog Night), America (Gerry Beckley, Dan Peek and Dewey Bunnell), and Warren Zevon, have in common?

All became leading members of the counter-culture within a few years time.  The majority came from military/intelligence families.

Excerpt:

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr93.html

Given that Zappa was, by numerous accounts, a pro-war, rigidly authoritarian control-freak, it is perhaps not surprising that he would not feel a kinship with the youth movement that he helped nurture. And it is probably safe to say that Frank’s dad also had little regard for the youth culture of the 1960s, given that Francis Zappa was, in case you were wondering, a chemical warfare specialist assigned to – where else? – the Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood is, of course, the longtime home of America’s chemical warfare program, as well as a facility frequently cited as being deeply enmeshed in MK-ULTRA operations. Curiously enough, Frank Zappa literally grew up at the Edgewood Arsenal, having lived the first seven years of his life in military housing on the grounds of the facility. The family later moved to Lancaster, California, near Edwards Air Force Base, where Francis Zappa continued to busy himself with doing classified work for the military/intelligence complex. His son, meanwhile, prepped himself to become an icon of the peace & love crowd. Again, nothing unusual about that, I suppose.

Zappa’s manager, by the way, is a shadowy character by the name of Herb Cohen, who had come out to L.A. from the Bronx with his brother Mutt just before the music and club scene began heating up. Cohen, a former U.S. Marine, had spent a few years traveling the world before his arrival on the Laurel Canyon scene. Those travels, curiously, had taken him to the Congo in 1961, at the very time that leftist Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was being tortured and killed by our very own CIA. Not to worry though; according to one of Zappa’s biographers, Cohen wasn’t in the Congo on some kind of nefarious intelligence mission. No, he was there, believe it or not, to supply arms to Lumumba “in defiance of the CIA.” Because, you know, that is the kind of thing that globetrotting ex-Marines did in those days (as we’ll see soon enough when we take a look at another Laurel Canyon luminary).

Making up the other half of Laurel Canyon’s First Family is Frank’s wife, Gail Zappa, known formerly as Adelaide Sloatman. Gail hails from a long line of career Naval officers, including her father, who spent his life working on classified nuclear weapons research for the U.S. Navy. Gail herself had once worked as a secretary for the Office of Naval Research and Development (she also once told an interviewer that she had “heard voices all [her] life”). Many years before their nearly simultaneous arrival in Laurel Canyon, Gail had attended a Naval kindergarten with “Mr. Mojo Risin’” himself, Jim Morrison (it is claimed that, as children, Gail once hit Jim over the head with a hammer). The very same Jim Morrison had later attended the same Alexandria, Virginia high school as two other future Laurel Canyon luminaries – John Phillips and Cass Elliott.

Read the rest here.

Art Undermines Government

Some of you may be aware of the Israeli art student scandal, but odds are against it.  There is a reason for that. 

Shortly after the infamous attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, FOX News broadcast a four-part series about a massive espionage ring that had infiltrated the highest levels of government.  It was scrubbed from their website within days, but you can read the transcripts here (Part 1, 2,3,  4) or search The Memory Hole for the video.

In the words of Morpheous, “Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.” 

Yes, I actually own a piece of the infamous Israeli art.  When I first heard the story, the picture was hanging next to a bookcase that held numerous volumes on intelligence, terrorism, and Cold War politics on its shelves.   Just a few feet away from the frame was my copy of “By Way of Deception: The Secret History of the Mossad.” 

As you can see, it is not the prettiest painting, but for a brief – very brief moment, it had some sort of meaning, which is why I purchased it back in November of 2000.

On the Tuesday prior to Thanksgiving, I was hanging out at a coffee shop in Scottsdale, Arizona.  I had met the owners the prior week while working a booth for a holiday turkey drive at their store.  They invited me back the next week, promising to teach me how to make a real cappuccino and get my feet wet behind the bar.  The elderly owners needed a day off from their 7-day a week business and hoped that I could fill in once a week.

About 9 a.m., a man claiming to be an Israeli art student came in with some unstretched canvas paintings he did in art school.  He was here in the United States, hoping to sell some art to pay for his trip.

The paintings were mediocre, like the original artwork you can pick up for $19.99 at some “art expo” held at the Holiday Inn. 

I was a little skeptical when he mentioned he was from Israeli, wondering if he was sympathetic to the Palestinians, whose plight is worse than Black South Africans under apartheid, according to Desmond Tutu.  I despise Zionism.

He pointed to a painting of two blue elephants with a message of peace written in Hebrew scrolled around the border.  He did a song and dance routine about peace with the Palestinians and peace with the world.  Maybe it was because he saw the “My karma ran over your dogma” bumper sticker on my car.  The Volvo was one of two cars in an otherwise empty lot. 

It was enough for me.  I think I gave him twenty bucks because I liked the message coming from an Israeli.  It gave me hope.

Hope was a fleeting moment.

He offered to put me in touch with a framer who had a store in Scottsdale and was offering a generous discount on framing, but the art student could not remember the number and offered to call me with the information, so out of forced politeness, I gave him my business card.  It only had my mobile number – no address.  I wasn’t about to visit a framer in Scottsdale.  I’d just wait for a coupon from Michaels’, as the frame was worth more than the painting.

I forked over the twenty, ready to get back to the conversation with the coffee shop owners.  Then it got weird.  He kept hanging around, so to fill an awkward moment of silence, I asked him something about a paint medium and it right then it became obvious that he hadn’t picked up a paint brush since elementary school.  I made a flip comment and he then admitted that he was traveling with friends who were art students from Israel.  He was helping them to sell their paintings.  He had an accent and his English wasn’t perfect - or perhaps it was and it was merely a facade, I thought to myself.  I shrugged it off, but I was already uncomfortable.

He spent the next two hours there, nursing one cup of coffee and talking on his cell phone in Hebrew or Yiddish, which I seem to think of as one in the same.   He tried to engage us in conversation, stating that he had taken a bus there and was waiting for his friend to pick him up.  He didn’t approach the other customers with his work.  It was kind of odd that he would remain there caught in a lie.

He left shortly after 11 a.m. and the owners and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Still, the painting had the message of peace, though I wondered if it hadn’t been just a scam.  I just shrugged it off.

The next day I received a call from the framer, who it turned out did not have a store in Scottsdale.  He framed out of his car.  I politely told him that I wasn’t ready to frame it.  He kept insisting that he knew the perfect frame for the painting, that he knew the artist who painted it and what a special paint it was, yada, yada, yada.  He then said that he operated out of the van (first it was car) because it was best to drive to someone’s home to match the frame with the décor of the room.  I said that I wasn’t about to let some strange man into my house, and hung up the phone. 

Later that evening, the art student poseur called, asking if I had gotten in touch with his friend.  I explained to him the lie, and that I didn’t need or want the “art” framed.  He became aggressive, suggesting that I had to use his friend’s services.  I started yelling at the guy, telling him to stop calling me. 

The following day – Turkey Day!, I received yet another phone call from the “framer”, insisting he come over and frame the painting.  He said he needed money.  I was screaming into the phone, asking him with a tone of incredulous facetiousness why he would be calling on Thanksgiving morning (around 11) demanding to come over right then to frame a cheap piece of art!  My voice was getting a little shaky because it’s not in my nature to scream at people, at least not out loud.  I told him that I would not let a stranger in my house and to stop calling me.  I only wish that I could have slammed the phone down for him to feel my anger.   My husband said he would answer the phone if the guy tried to call back, but the psycho got the message.  No more calls.

Flash forward to early October 2001.  Fox News aired the story of the Israeli spy ring, claiming that agents were approaching DEA personnel in hopes of gaining access to federal buildings.  Phoenix was not listed as a target city, though there was a kiosk selling toy airplane doodad things at the mall nearest my house.  Also, the story said the art students were seen in the spring, though a couple of these guys had been in Phoenix back in 2000, as was evidenced by my painting, now appropriately hanging next to the military strategy and intelligence books. 

I thought back to my conversations with these men, wondering why they would have been so vociferous about entering my home.  Would there have been a transmitter in the frame?  My husband and I had security clearances, but that was over a decade ago.  I called the local FBI office, but no one returned my call.  Of course not, because no Mossad agent would ever conspire against America.

Was I targeted?  Perhaps, or maybe it is just another in a weird occurrence in a long stream of coincidences.  Who knows?  I had to laugh when I discovered that the company that provides billing and directory assistance for 90% of the phone companies in the United States is owned by an Israeli company, and not only that, their main computer billing center is in Israel.   Here I was happy they didn't have my address,and yet they could have had so much more.  This is the ultimate intelligence collection tool, allowing Israelis better access than even the NSA.

And the Israelis do have access.  All wiretaps in the United States are made and installed by an Israeli company, Comverse Infosys. 

“Comverse Infosys is an Israeli telecom company, which subcontracts the installation of the automatic tapping equipment now built into every phone system in America.  Comverse maintains its own connections to all this phone tapping equipment, insisting that it is for maintenance purposes only.  However, Converse has been named as the most likely source for leaked information regarding telephone calls by law enforcement that derailed several investigations into not only espionage, but drug running as well.  Yet another Israeli telecom company is Odigo, which provides the core message passing system for all the "Instant Message" services.  Two hours before the attacks on the World Trade Towers, Odigo employees received a warning.  Odigo has an office 2 blocks from the former location of the World Trade Towers.’

Are the Israelis spying on us?  The Starr report indicated that President Clinton told Monica Lewisnky that their calls were probably recorded.  Shortyly thereafter, he called off the FBI investigation of the Israeli mole, “Mega”, who had penetrated the highest office in the United States.   

With all this access to phone conversations, it is quite easy for a foreign power to blackmail just about any official.  Having an affair?  Calling a bookie?  Talking with the enemy?  No wonder why Israel has become the spoiled golden child!   

After giving this serious consideration, serious as a maragrita might provide, I have decided to transform my symbol of Israeli intelligence into something better.   The two elephants with their trunks interlocked will serve as my campaign symbol in my write-in campaign for Presidency of the United States.  I am up to ten committed votes, and possibly eleven provided I get off my butt and e-mail my platform to my campaign manager in Arizona.  The people need answers and I can provide them, albeit in a tangential fashion.  You can vote for the lesser of two evils, or you can use your voice to let people know you want something better.  There is no knight in shining armor ready to swoop us away to fantasyland.   A better future starts with following your conscience, even if you stand alone in the crowd. 

Five Dancing Israelis

Sunday Herald - 02 November 2003 Five Israelis were seen filming as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 ... Were they part of a massive spy ring which shadowed the 9/11 hijackers and knew that al-Qaeda planned a devastating terrorist attack on the USA ? Neil Mackay investigates

THERE was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes.

Who do you think they were ? Palestinians ? Saudis ? Iraqis, even ? Al-Qaeda, surely ? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis - and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.

Their discovery and arrest that morning is a matter of indisputable fact. To those who have investigated just what the Israelis were up to that day, the case raises one dreadful possibility : that Israeli intelligence had been shadowing the al-Qaeda hijackers as they moved from the Middle East through Europe and into America where they trained as pilots and prepared to suicide-bomb the symbolic heart of the United States. And the motive ? To bind America in blood and mutual suffering to the Israeli cause.

After the attacks on New York and Washington, the former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was asked what the terrorist strikes would mean for US-Israeli relations. He said : "It's very good." Then he corrected himself, adding : "Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [for Israel from Americans]."

If Israel's closest ally felt the collective pain of mass civilian deaths at the hands of terrorists, then Israel would have an unbreakable bond with the world's only hyperpower and an effective free hand in dealing with the Palestinian terrorists who had been murdering its innocent civilians as the second intifada dragged on throughout 2001.

It's not surprising that the New Jersey housewife who first spotted the five Israelis and their white van wants to preserve her anonymity. She's insisted that she only be identified as Maria. A neighbour in her apartment building had called her just after the first strike on the Twin Towers. Maria grabbed a pair of binoculars and, like millions across the world, she watched the horror of the day unfold.

As she gazed at the burning towers, she noticed a group of men kneeling on the roof of a white van in her parking lot. Here's her recollection : "They seemed to be taking a movie. They were like happy, you know ... they didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was strange."

Maria jotted down the van's registration and called the police. The FBI was alerted and soon there was a statewide all points bulletin put out for the apprehension of the van and its occupants. The cops traced the number, establishing that it belonged to a company called Urban Moving.

Police Chief John Schmidig said : "We got an alert to be on the lookout for a white Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration and writing on the side. Three individuals were seen celebrating in Liberty State Park after the impact. They said three people were jumping up and down."

By 4pm on the afternoon of September 11, the van was spotted near New Jersey's Giants stadium. A squad car pulled it over and inside were five men in their 20s. They were hustled out of the car with guns levelled at their heads and handcuffed.

In the car was $4700 in cash, a couple of foreign passports and a pair of box cutters - the concealed Stanley Knife-type blades used by the 19 hijackers who'd flown jetliners into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon just hours before. There were also fresh pictures of the men standing with the smouldering wreckage of the Twin Towers in the background. One image showed a hand flicking a lighter in front of the devastated buildings, like a fan at a pop concert. The driver of the van then told the arresting officers : "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem."

His name was Sivan Kurzberg. The other four passengers were Kurzberg's brother Paul, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari. The men were dragged off to prison and transferred out of the custody of the FBI's Criminal Division and into the hands of their Foreign Counterintelligence Section - the bureau's anti-espionage squad.

A warrant was issued for a search of the Urban Moving premises in Weehawken in New Jersey. Boxes of papers and computers were removed. The FBI questioned the firm's Israeli owner, Dominik Otto Suter, but when agents returned to re-interview him a few days later, he was gone. An employee of Urban Moving said his co-workers had laughed about the Manhattan attacks the day they happened. "I was in tears," the man said. "These guys were joking and that bothered me. These guys were like, 'Now America knows what we go through.'"

Vince Cannistraro, former chief of operations for counter-terrorism with the CIA, says the red flag went up among investigators when it was discovered that some of the Israelis' names were found in a search of the national intelligence database. Cannistraro says many in the US intelligence community believed that some of the Israelis were working for Mossad and there was speculation over whether Urban Moving had been "set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists".

This makes it clear that there was no suggestion whatsoever from within American intelligence that the Israelis were colluding with the 9/11 hijackers - simply that the possibility remains that they knew the attacks were going to happen, but effectively did nothing to help stop them.

After the owner vanished, the offices of Urban Moving looked as if they'd been closed down in a big hurry. Mobile phones were littered about, the office phones were still connected and the property of at least a dozen clients were stacked up in the warehouse. The owner had cleared out his family home in New Jersey and returned to Israel.

Two weeks after their arrest, the Israelis were still in detention, held on immigration charges. Then a judge ruled that they should be deported. But the CIA scuppered the deal and the five remained in custody for another two months. Some went into solitary confinement, all underwent two polygraph tests and at least one underwent up to seven lie detector sessions before they were eventually deported at the end of November 2001. Paul Kurzberg refused to take a lie detector test for 10 weeks, but then failed it. His lawyer said he was reluctant to take the test as he had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country.

Nevertheless, their lawyer, Ram Horvitz, dismissed the allegations as "stupid and ridiculous". Yet US government sources still maintained that the Israelis were collecting information on the fundraising activities of groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Mark Regev, of the Israeli embassy in Washington, would have none of that and he said the allegations were "simply false". The men themselves claimed they'd read about the World Trade Centre attacks on the internet, couldn't see it from their office and went to the parking lot for a better view. Their lawyers and the embassy say their ghoulish and sinister celebrations as the Twin Towers blazed and thousands died were due to youthful foolishness.

The respected New York Jewish newspaper, The Forward, reported in March 2002, however, that it had received a briefing on the case of the five Israelis from a US official who was regularly updated by law enforcement agencies. This is what he told The Forward : "The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it." He added that "the conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs", but the men were released because they "did not know anything about 9/11".

Back in Israel, several of the men discussed what happened on an Israeli talk show. One of them made this remarkable comment : "The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event." But how can you document an event unless you know it is going to happen ?

We are now deep in conspiracy theory territory. But there is more than a little circumstantial evidence to show that Mossad - whose motto is "By way of deception, thou shalt do war" - was spying on Arab extremists in the USA and may have known that September 11 was in the offing, yet decided to withhold vital information from their American counterparts which could have prevented the terror attacks.

Following September 11, 2001, more than 60 Israelis were taken into custody under the Patriot Act and immigration laws. One highly placed investigator told Carl Cameron of Fox News that there were "tie-ins" between the Israelis and September 11 ; the hint was clearly that they'd gathered intelligence on the planned attacks but kept it to themselves.

The Fox News source refused to give details, saying : "Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." Fox News is not noted for its condemnation of Israel ; it's a ruggedly patriotic news channel owned by Rupert Murdoch and was President Bush's main cheerleader in the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq.

Another group of around 140 Israelis were detained prior to September 11, 2001, in the USA as part of a widespread investigation into a suspected espionage ring run by Israel inside the USA. Government documents refer to the spy ring as an "organised intelligence-gathering operation" designed to "penetrate government facilities". Most of those arrested had served in the Israeli armed forces - but military service is compulsory in Israel. Nevertheless, a number had an intelligence background.

The first glimmerings of an Israeli spying exercise in the USA came to light in spring 2001, when the FBI sent a warning to other federal agencies alerting them to be wary of visitors calling themselves "Israeli art students" and attempting to bypass security at federal buildings in order to sell paintings. A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report suggested the Israeli calls "may well be an organised intelligence-gathering activity". Law enforcement documents say that the Israelis "targeted and penetrated military bases" as well as the DEA, FBI and dozens of government facilities, including secret offices and the unlisted private homes of law enforcement and intelligence personnel.

A number of Israelis questioned by the authorities said they were students from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, but Pnina Calpen, a spokeswoman for the Israeli school, did not recognise the names of any Israelis mentioned as studying there in the past 10 years. A federal report into the so-called art students said many had served in intelligence and electronic signal intercept units during their military service.

According to a 61-page report, drafted after an investigation by the DEA and the US immigration service, the Israelis were organised into cells of four to six people. The significance of what the Israelis were doing didn't emerge until after September 11, 2001, when a report by a French intelligence agency noted "according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in Miami and Hollywood, Florida, from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells".

The report contended that Mossad agents were spying on Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehi, two of leaders of the 9/11 hijack teams. The pair had settled in Hollywood, Florida, along with three other hijackers, after leaving Hamburg - where another Mossad team was operating close by.

Hollywood in Florida is a town of just 25,000 souls. The French intelligence report says the leader of the Mossad cell in Florida rented apartments "right near the apartment of Atta and al-Shehi". More than a third of the Israeli "art students" claimed residence in Florida. Two other Israelis connected to the art ring showed up in Fort Lauderdale. At one time, eight of the hijackers lived just north of the town.

Put together, the facts do appear to indicate that Israel knew that 9/11, or at least a large-scale terror attack, was about to take place on American soil, but did nothing to warn the USA. But that's not quite true. In August 2001, the Israelis handed over a list of terrorist suspects - on it were the names of four of the September 11 hijackers. Significantly, however, the warning said the terrorists were planning an attack "outside the United States".

The Israeli embassy in Washington has dismissed claims about the spying ring as "simply untrue". The same denials have been issued repeatedly by the five Israelis seen high-fiving each other as the World Trade Centre burned in front of them.

Their lawyer, Ram Horwitz, insisted his clients were not intelligence officers. Irit Stoffer, the Israeli foreign minister, said the allegations were "completely untrue". She said the men were arrested because of "visa violations", adding : "The FBI investigated those cases because of 9/11."

Jim Margolin, an FBI spokesman in New York, implied that the public would never know the truth, saying : "If we found evidence of unauthorised intelligence operations that would be classified material." Yet, Israel has long been known, according to US administration sources, for "conducting the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any US ally". Seventeen years ago, Jonathan Pollard, a civilian working for the American Navy, was jailed for life for passing secrets to Israel. At first, Israel claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but the government later took responsibility for his work.

It has always been a long-accepted agreement among allies - such as Britain and America or America and Israel - that neither country will jail a "friendly spy" nor shame the allied country for espionage. Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Boston's Political Research Associates and an expert in intelligence, says : "It's a backdoor agreement between allies that says that if one of your spies gets caught and didn't do too much harm, he goes home. It goes on all the time. The official reason is always visa violation."

What we are left with, then, is fact sullied by innuendo. Certainly, it seems, Israel was spying within the borders of the United States and it is equally certain that the targets were Islamic extremists probably linked to September 11. But did Israel know in advance that the Twin Towers would be hit and the world plunged into a war without end ; a war which would give Israel the power to strike its enemies almost without limit ? That's a conspiracy theory too far, perhaps. But the unpleasant feeling that, in this age of spin and secrets, we do not know the full and unadulterated truth won't go away. Maybe we can guess, but it's for the history books to discover and decide.