The CIA often asks American citizens and international leaders to believe some extraordinarily high-stakes claims. From warning countries around the world not to invest in Huawei technology ‘compromised’ by Chinese state security funding to asserting that Moscow meddled in the elections and pushing Trump to expel Russian diplomats, it would seem that maintaining integrity and confidence would be a high priority for the intelligence agency.

Here it is right out of the horse’s  mouth:

None of this is really a surprise. CIA backed right-wing terrorists in Europe under Operation Gladio so that they could do terrorist acts in order to make it look as though it was the Left who was doing the attacks.

Within the Gladio operation, NATO worked with Guido Giannettini, an Italian secret service agent who himself was a nationalist (being a member of Young Italy). Giannettini was involved in the Bologna Massacre in 1969 in which dozens of people were slaughtered in a massive bombing attack (See Ganser, NATO’s Secret Armies, ch. 9, p. 120). Giannettini worked closely with NATO and in 1961 even gave a lecture in the United States at the Naval War College entitled, “Techniques and Possibilities of a Coup d’Etat in Europe.” As Italian researchers Calvi and Laurent write:

“In November 1961, at the invitation of General Delvalle, commander of the Annapolis Marine School, in the United States, to hold a seminar of three days ‘on the techniques and possibilities of a coup d’état in Europe’, involving representatives of the Pentagon and of the CIA.”

People within the CIA will talk about fighting terrorism. But the CIA has been actively backing terrorism for decades. Back in the 1990s, during the Balkan wars, the CIA was actively working to recruit mujahideen fighters through the Al-Kifah Center in Brooklyn, to fight for the Bosnians against the Serbs. And lets not forget that it was the CIA who backed Abdel Rahman years before he directed the first World Trade Center attack.

While people will talk about how the Iranian government facilitated the crossing of al-Qaeda operatives through Iran, it was the CIA that brought the Blind Sheikh into the United States where he committed his terrorist attack. As Kristen Breitweiser writes:

in 1993, at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan it was a CIA officer who signed the May 1990 visa request that allowed Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman— the Blind Sheikh—to enter the United States. In fact, “Central Intelligence Agency officers reviewed all seven applications made by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman to enter the United States between 1986 and 1990 and only once turned him down because of his connections to terrorism.” Three years later, the Blind Sheikh carried out the first World Trade Center attack killing six people and injuring more than a thousand. The CIA was not held accountable.

Moreover, it was the CIA who protected two of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al Mihdar and Nawaf al Hazmi, when they facilitated their travel into the US by withholding their visa information from the FBI, not putting their names on a watch list and preventing law enforcement from detaining them when they were even in the country and considered “armed and dangerous” just four days before the 9/11 attacks. As Breitweiser recounts:

Undeterred, the CIA went on to also help “facilitate the travel” of (at least) two 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al Mihdar and Nawaf al Hazmi by purposefully withholding their visa information from the FBI and failing to “watchlist” the two terrorists for a full eighteen months before the 9/11 attacks. Moreover, four days before the 9/11 attacks, even though these two men were considered “armed and dangerous” and “potentially participating in terrorist acts” that might have included the use of weapons of mass destruction, the instructions to law enforcement was to let these terrorists go because they were part of an ongoing investigation.

Forces within the US government have also wanted terrorism within the United States. This is evident in the reality of Operation Northwood, which was a plan to do terrorist attacks — hijackings and bombings — and then blame them on the Cuban government as a way to spark anti-Communism and nationalism. The plan stated:

“The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere.” 

Operation Northwoods was signed by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer and sent to the Secretary of Defense. But President Kennedy rejected the operation. The CIA, as we learn from former CIA agent Robert Baer, was behind exploiting tensions between Serbs and Bosnians, to get them to kill each other. As Baer said in an interview: “There was one overall task and that was to incite hatred and nationalism through television and for differences between the people to really stand out.”

So yes, Pompeo’s are to no surprise for us. But still, his words should make those who are clueless and who easily fall for the propaganda to think about the bigger picture and what is occurring beyond the headlines.