How Australian MPs & media banned and censored US whistleblower Philip Agee

Societal safety is crucially dependent on rational risk management that successively involves (a) accurate information, (b) science-based analysis involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses. and (c) informed systemic change to minimize risk. However this is grossly perverted in the US-beholden Western democracies (aka Murdochracies, Lobbyocracies and Corporatocracies) in which Big Money buys people, politicians, parties, policies, public perception of reality and political power and there is perverted risk management successively involving (a) censorship, intimidation, lying and slies (spin-based untruths), (b) anti-science spin involving the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position and (c) counterproductive blame and shame with state violence being a recurrent horrible outcome in a succession of Western interventions in a swathe of Muslim countries from Mali to NW Pakistan.

A recurrent example of this perversion is the persecution of whistleblowers with the maltreatment of world heroes Julian Assange and Edward Snowden being current examples. However the New Year release of formerly secret Australian Government documents sheds light on the US, Australia, UK and French persecution of American whistleblower Philip Agee whose book “Inside the Company. CIA Diary” exposed US CIA involvement in corruption, political subversion, torture and deadly terrorism in Latin America.

Australia has a “30 year rule” whereby Australian Government documents held secret for security or other reasons for over 30 years can be released on New Year’s Day. On 2 January 2014, The Guardian (Australia) published an article by Paul Chadwick entitled “Balancing security and privacy: Bob Hawke faced dilemmas familiar today”: A topical item was as follows: “When is a whistleblower a traitor, and how much should sovereign nations assist the US to impede the international travels of a person who reveals the workings of US intelligence agencies? The newly released archives show that in May 1987 the Hawke cabinet decided to refuse a visa to visit Australia to Philip Agee. Agee was a CIA officer who in the 1970s had left the agency and in his book Inside the Company: CIA Diary disclosed details of CIA agents’ identities and activities in which he participated or had knowledge. They included activities seemingly beyond the agency’s proper functions. His passport was revoked and he was expelled from several countries at the request of the US. Cabinet Minute 9604 does not give reasons for the refusal other than to say that “any public statement about this decision should make the point that both the Callaghan government in Britain and the Mitterrand government in France had refused entry to Agee, referring in particular to the statement made at the time by the Callaghan government which publicised Agee’s hostile intelligence connections. The parallels with recent events involving Snowden and David Miranda are not exact. For instance, a Soviet defector was to claim that Agee had offered his services to Soviet intelligence and, although rejected as a plant, Agee had assisted Cuban intelligence. Agee was simply denied a visa by Australia.” [1].

The Guardian (Australia) (based on the UK Guardian and an extremely welcome addition to Mainstream media in Australia which is dominated by the appalling Murdoch media empire [2]) kindly published my following comment on the article: “US patriot Phillip Agee was treated shamefully by the US lackey Australian Government. His book "Inside the Company. CIA Diary" was about his time as a CIA operative in Latin America (mainly Ecuador) running politicians and trade union CIA "assets". Relevant to the current Zionist-promoted US War on Terror that has cost Australia $125 billion in long-term accrual costs and thousands of linked preventable Australian deaths (Google "Endless War on Terror. Huge cost for Australia & America") is Agee’s revelation of how the CIA ran terrorist squads who would bomb Catholic churches in the realized expectation that socialists would [be] blamed. However sensible Australian readers can make Australian analogies and readily determine those Australian public figures likely to have been CIA "assets" i.e. agents of a nuclear terrorist, serial invader rogue state (Google "The US has invaded 70 nations since 1776"). . For a detailed summary of such betrayal Google "50 ways Australian Intelligence spies on Australia and the World for UK, Israeli and US state terrorism". [1, 3-5].

It is not just the Australian Government that tries to keep the Awful Truth from the Australian people. Thus the taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC, the Australian equivalent of the UK BBC) has an appalling record of lying by commission, lying by omission and censorship of things its Masters (neoliberal politicians, Australian Intelligence, agents of UK, Israeli and US state terrorists, and traitorous and genocidally racist Zionists) do not want Australians to see, hear, know about or think about. Thus a Search of ABC News and a Search if the “entre ABC site” for “Philip Agee” yields zero (0) results . However while a search for the misspelt “Phillip Agee” (with 2 ls) yields zero (0) results from ABC News, a “search of the entire ABC site” for the misspelt “Phillip Agee” yields 2 results, both comments on ABC program websites by Dr Gideon Polya and of which one has been subsequently sneakily completely censored out by the ABC as recorded by the website “Censorship by the ABC Late Night Live” [6]:

(1). In response to a 16 March 2013 ABC Radio National Saturday Extra segment entitled “Pope Francis and the Dirty War” [7] my following comment was published on the Saturday Extra website [8]: “Dr Gideon Polya :18 Mar 2013 3:14:02pm. Read William Blum’s "Rogue State" for US-backed state terrorism and death squads in Latin America, including Argentina. Catholic US spy Phillip Agee’s "Inside the Company. CIA Diary" describes how the US subverted Latin American unions, governments and oppositions (whence comes an Australian version?) and was complicit in the large-scale arrest, torture and disappearing of scores of thousands of Latin Americans from El Salvador to Argentina. Indeed Agee describes how US-led terrorist groups would bomb Catholic churches in Ecuador knowing that socialists would be blamed by media and the people. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity - the new Holy Father must be praised for his concern for the poor but he and his cardinal colleagues have some explaining to do over the position of the Catholic Church in relation to horrendous, murderous US-backed crimes against worker priests, other decent Catholic clergy and other progressive people serving the poor in Latin America.”

(2). In response to an attack on outstanding Australian journalist John Pilger in a comment thread on the ABC Radio National Late Night Live website re the 3 October 2012 segment “Crisis in democracy” , the ABC initially published the following comment but then sneakily completely censored it out as containing things it evidently does not want Australians to read, know about or think about [6, 9]: “DrGideonPolya : 07 Oct 2012 9:43:43am. Kerr [the US “asset” Governor General who sacked Australian Labor PM Whitlam] was a CIA "asset" and the US strongly disapproved of the Whitlam Government over Vietnam, Pine Gap and in general for not being traitorous US lackeys. For a detailed summary of US subversion in Australia in 1975 and in other countries around the world see William Blum’s best-selling book "Rogue State". Phillip Agee’s book "Inside the Company. CIA Diary" is mainly an eye-witness participant account of CIA subversion in Latin America and in Ecuador in particular, but it is glaringly obvious from the book to followers of Australian politics who the corresponding Australian "assets" are. Unfortunately the endlessly lying and deceiving American Establishment did not keep its 1977 promise to Gough Whitlam. Thus the US Ambassador Schieffer ("Sheep for brains" in Mark Latham’s book "The Latham Diaries") publicly intervened in the 2004 elections, vetoing Latham’s electoral bid over his policy to get out of Iraq (substantially US-owned Australian MSM have continued the US-initiated vilification of Latham). WikiLeaks has revealed US antipathy to Rudd who was eventually sacked (for being too pro-Australian) in the Mining Corporation-backed, US-approved, and pro-Zionist-led 2010 Coup. WikiLeaks has further revealed US "assets" within the Labor Government who would secretly report to the Zionist-headed US embassy.”

Thus there is only 1 mention of outstanding US whistleblower Philip Agee in the “entire ABC site” and that is 1 surviving comment about (misspelt) “Phillip Agee” on an ABC website by Dr Gideon Polya.

However the ABC is not alone in “disappearing” Philip Agee. Thus searches of leading Australian newspapers for “Philip Agee” also yield zero (0) reportage, these comprehensively Philip Agee-censoring Australian newspapers including The Age (Fairfax media Melbourne), The Sydney Morning Herald (Fairfax media, Sydney), The Canberra Times (Fairfax media, Canberra), The West Australian (Kerry Stokes, Perth), the Murdoch News Limited newspapers The Australian (national), The Courier Mail (Brisbane), The Mercury (Hobart), The Advertiser (Adelaide), The Herald Sun (Melbourne), Perth Now (Perth), NT News (Darwin) and the Murdoch News.com (on-line).

Fortunately for literate and curious Australians, the Australian National Library in Canberra has a copy of Philip Agee’s “Inside the Company. CIA Diary:, as also does, for example, the Borchardt Library at La Trobe University, Melbourne.
While the Australian ABC resolutely refuses to mention Philip Agee, a search of the American ABC for “Philip Agee” yields 13 articles and a search of the iconic UK BBC for “Philip Agee” yields 3 reports that variously mention his book, his expulsion from the UK and his eventual death in Cuba. In contrast, a Google Search for “Philip Agee” yields 110,000 results.

Successive US lackey Australian Governments and US-dominated Australian Intelligence have a long record of treating Australians like mushrooms (“Kept in the and fed manure”). This gross perversion of rational risk management has been deadly. Thus Australian Government and Australian Intelligence have perverted Australian public, academic and political discussion about the threats to Australia of Muslim-origin non-state terrorism ( in actuality zero Australia deaths from this within Australia in the last half century) while resolutely not mentioning UK state terrorism, Israeli state terrorism, French state terrorism, US state terrorism and the horrendous cost of the Zionist-promoted US War on Terror. Thus the US War on Terror has been associated with long-term accrual cost of $6 trillion for the US and $125 billion for Australia, with these huge fiscal perversions being necessarily linked to 16 million preventable American deaths since 9-11 and 0.8 million Australian preventable deaths since 2001 [3- 6, 10, 11].

In vain I repeatedly declaim that peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Yet Mainstream Western politician, public servant, academic and media lying is not just associated with the post-9-11 deaths of 10 million Muslims (half of them children) from violence or violently-imposed deprivation in an ongoing Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide [12] – it is also associated with the preventable deaths of millions of Westerners associated with the immense fiscal perversion of the War on Terror [3, 10, 11]. The perversion of Australian, US and Western public life through obsessive secrecy, explicit and unspoken intimidation, and massive misinformation, disinformation, lying, and censorship has come at a huge human cost. I have attempted to document part of this huge Mainstream media lying and censorship of which the Australian “disappearing” of Philip Agee is just a small part [2, 6, 8, 13-18].

With our world running out of time to deal with a worsening climate crisis (e.g. see “Are we doomed?” [19]) and 18 million people already dying avoidably each year from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease [20]. decent people on this beginning of 2014, the UN-declared Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (opposed by the US, Canada, Apartheid Israel, Australia, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Palau) [21], must resolve to follow the examples of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and the late Philip Agee to expose and oppose deadly neoliberal, corporatist, militarist, imperialist, warmonger and racist Zionist lying and censorship. Please tell everyone you can.

References.

[1]. Paul Chadwick, “Balancing security and privacy: Bob Hawke faced dilemmas familiar today”, The Guardian (Australia), 2 January 2014: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/31/balancing-security-and-privacy-bob-hawke-faced-dilemmas-familiar-today .

[2]. “Boycott Murdoch media”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottmurdochmedia/ .

[3]. Gideon Polya, "Endless War on Terror. Huge cost for Australia & America", MWC News, 14 October 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/22149-endless-war-on-terror.html .

[4]. Gideon Polya, "The US has invaded 70 nations since 1776 – make 4 July Independence from America Day”, 5 July 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya050713.htm .

[5]. Gideon Polya, “50 ways Australian Intelligence spies on Australia and the World for UK, Israeli and US state terrorism”, 11 December 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya111213.htm .

[6]. “Censorship by ABC Late Night Live”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbyabclatenightlive/ .

[7]. Geraldine Doogue (compere), “Pope Francis and the Dirty War”, ABC Radio National Saturday Extra, 16 March 2013: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/pope-francis-and-the-dirty-war/4576038 .

[8]. “Censorship by ABC Saturday Extra”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbyabclatenightlive/censorship-by-abc-sat .

[9]. Phillip Adams (compere), “Crisis in democracy”, Radio National Late Night Live, 3 October 2012: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/crisis-in-democracy3f/4293452 .

[10]. Gideon Polya, “One million Americans die preventably annually in USA”, Countercurrents, 18 February 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya180212.htm .

[11]. Gideon Polya, Gideon Polya, “American Holocaust, millions of untimely American deaths and $40 trillion cost of Israel to Americans”, Countercurrents, 27 August 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya270813.htm .

[12]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .

[13]. “Censorship by the BBC”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbythebbc/ .

[14]. “Censorship by The Conversation”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by .

[15]. “Mainstream media censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/home .

[16]. “Mainstream media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/ .

[17]. “Censorship by The Age”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by-the-age .

[18]. “ABC fact-checking unit & incorrect reportage by the ABC ( Australia ’s BBC)”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/abc-fact-checking-unit .

[19]. “Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .

[20]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, including an avoidable mortality-related history of all countries since Neolithic times and now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/ .

[21]. General Assembly, wrapping up annual consideration of question of Palestine, situation in Middle East, adopts six resolutions by recorded vote”, 2013: https://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2013/ga11460.doc.htm .