Counter-Intelligence (2013)
Director: Scott Noble
Runtime: around 330 min
Exceptional five-part documentary series which aims to show through in-depth analysis how the current world order, dominated by the USA as an imperial power, is maintained primarily by (public or concealed) organized violence of huge proportions and the threat of violence, destruction, torture and death of a large number of those who would potentially rebel or resist against it.
The focus is primarily put on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and black operations it has carried out for decades around the world, ignoring all laws and without any real control. This documentary wants to show how the entire U.S. (and global) system is structured according to the interests of big business, which always aspires towards ever-larger profits, how political authority is tasked with obtaining legitimacy and consent of the citizens, or, if unable to do so, ensuring the internal stability of the system with the aid of various intelligence agencies, while the CIA is present and active around world.
This documentary deals with the creation of the CIA and its development to the world’s most powerful secret service, as well as the development of other U.S. intelligence agencies that now make up the U.S. “Intelligence community“. In the first years of the Cold War, the CIA was formed by intelligence officers from World War II – mostly powerful lawyers, bankers and other members of the elite, while new operatives were recruited from elite U.S. universities. Its main task was the fight against communism and the defense of American “national interests”.
The CIA has adopted the doctrine of “plausible deniability” which means that politicians are not familiar with its black operations, so that they could avoid any liability, while operatives themselves are given only the most essential information, on a need-to- know basis, so that as few people as possible could bear any potential responsibility. The next step were operations carried out with no name at all or under a false flag so it becomes possible to deny any accusations, or operations in which other agencies, groups, organizations are used. These operations included support of authoritarian regimes in different countries, training of death squads, organizing coups d’etat, military coups, kidnappings, killings, etc. In the event that something gets out to the public, a simple formula is applied: deny everything, admit nothing and make counter accusations. Another topic are operations that were organized with the intention of blaming someone else for crimes, murders and terrorist attacks – usually the left and social movements within some country or inconvenient government, etc.
Considerable attention is devoted to the collusion of organized crime and intelligence services, as well as the highest levels of government and business. From the fact that the agencies use organized crime to crackdown on their political opponents, to other deals. Since the business can be divided into legal and illegal, it is obvious that the biggest players that are above the law, such as intelligence agencies, some corporations and banks, can cooperate unchecked with players who work illegally, in order to make profit from the trafficking, money laundering, and so on. The question of using illicit profits to finance many of the CIA operations is particularly interesting. The issue at hand is primarily heroin and cocaine trafficking, or to be more precise – control of the majority of the world’s drug market. If we bear in mind that the annual revenue of global drug trafficking is valued at 320 billion dollars, which is more than the annual budgets of countries like Sweden or Norway, or which is more than the sum of the total gross domestic product of over 80 of the world’s poorest countries. And, if bear in mind that today more than 90% of all heroin comes from Afghanistan, and that during the 1960s and 1970s a similar amount of heroin was produced in Southeast Asia, where at that time there was a strong presence of U.S. forces and the CIA, it is not difficult to connect the dots and realize from which sources the CIA provided the money for some of its black operations. In addition, there are also various financial machinations with huge military and security budgets, from falsifying the costs made by private security companies, to money that no one can account for.
The topic of public and hidden ideological or political motivation is discussed thoroughly in each segment of the film, and specific mechanisms are drawn to the light of day. In the end, we are warned about the drastic restrictions of human rights in the United States, which in some respects have gone as far as the abolition of certain human rights, as well as huge technological advancement that is placed in the service of monitoring, controlling and killing, primarily through unmanned aerial vehicles, armed with machine guns and rockets.
All in all, this is a very, very interesting documentary that everyone should watch. You could find yourself, as I have, cursing and swearing out loud as you rewind the video to make sure that some of the things are actually being said. And, as the quote from the Bible written on the entrance to the first CIA headquarters says: “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” John VIII-XXXII
Watch Counter-Intelligence online: