The 'Shadow/Parallel Government', The 'Enterprise', The 'Octopus'

Different names all referring to the hidden elites who represent the real power behind the 'curtain'. Sharing a Dracula-like aversion to the light of public scrutiny, they instead operate in the 'shadows' while continuing to tighten their grip over the levers of state that began with the killing of Kennedy. The post provides an "unparalleled insight into the dynamics of the Oklahoma City bombing", giving the reader a glimpse into how the Shadow Government operates - utilizing criminals to do its bidding.

Servants of the Empire

by Charles A. Burris

Previously by Charles A. Burris: Confessions of a Cultural Reactionary

"It seems fitting that in a country where people aspire to two of everything – cars, kids, and homes – we should have two histories as well. And so we do: a public chronicle, or "Disney version," so widely available as to be unavoidable . . . and a second one that remains secret, buried, and unnamed."

~ author Jim Hougan, Spooks: The Haunting of America – The Private Use of Secret Agents.

As LRC readers are well aware, I have a particular interest in this second area of "history" of which Hougan speaks, and have written about it quite extensively over the years.

Below is a fascinating chapter out of that hidden history with which most of you will not be familiar. I have been following this story of the "secret team" or shadow government, and CIA drug running and money laundering for over two decades. This account is a great summary for those new to these nefarious affairs.

One particular note regarding a person at the heart of the "secret team" discussed in the account below concerns Richard Armitage (Bilderberg group, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations) – the number two man in the George W. Bush State Department under Colin Powell, who referred to him as "my white son."

For twenty five years Richard Armitage has been my "Professor Moriarty," that elusive nemesis at the center of government perfidy from one scandal to another – from CIA-sponsored opium trafficking in the Golden Triangle and Afghanistan to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Compare and contrast Armitage with his remarkable counterpart in the Obama administration: Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the late Richard Holbrooke (Bilderberg group, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, former managing director of Lehman Brothers, and board director of AIG to July 2008 just before the bailouts).

Both began their dedicated service to the Empire in Vietnam, soiling their hands with fresh blood and fecal material. Armitage began in covert CIA operations (the murderous Operation Phoenix); Holbrooke with the CIA under cover of the AID in rural pacification of the Vietnamese. Over the course of their stellar careers serving various presidential regimes, each gained their reputation as die-hard negotiators, ubiquitous problem solvers and fixers. When their specific party was out of power, Armitage and Holbrooke exploited their inside connections to the power elite and operated lucrative consulting firms – Armitage Associates and Public Strategies. (Holbrooke's partner, James A. Johnson, was CEO of Fannie Mae, later managing director of Lehman Brothers, and presently board member of Goldman Sachs). Both of these driven, egomaniacal individuals understood power, its cold essence and often illusive nature, and how to tenaciously grasp hold of it. And now the story below:

THE OCTOPUS

by DAVID HOFFMAN

(This chapter was omitted from the printed edition of Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror by David Hoffman)

"This underground empire is controlled by a handful of people for money – that's the only secret of the temple."