Swordfish (2001)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244244/

For a decent synopsis of this movie go here. The specimen considered here is a rather remarkable one in that it revolves around the theme of government-sanctioned crime as ultimate and supposed means to combat and counteract terrorism.

In the movie the antagonist, Gabriel, is played by John Travolta while the protagonist, Stanley, is played by Hugh Jackman. It may be worth noting how the two contrast. Gabriel is well-dressed, well-mannered, articulate, suave, rich, authoritative, and always on top of things while underdog Stanley is badly-dressed, poorly mannered, blunt, poor and mostly obedient by necessity.

Senator Involvement

The criminal and unethical fruits of the mind of Gabriel quickly become apparent at the beginning of the movie. Halfway through the movie it also becomes clear that Gabriel either works for, or collaborates with, a US Senator named Reisman. Although Reisman tries to call off Gabriel's pet-project named Operation Swordfish, after he receives information that the FBI is closing in on Gabriel and his crew, his principled involvement with Gabriel is pretty telling as it shows that crime-boss Gabriel is linked through Reisman with the US government. Nonetheless at this point it is uncertain in regards to this unsavory connection as to what extent Reisman represents the US government. It could be that Reisman acts, for all intents and purposes, as a rogue independently from the government and that Operation Swordfish is not at all a government sanctioned operation, even it being a covert one. It will become apparent at the conclusion of the movie which alternative applies.

Misdirection

"Gabriel: What the eyes see and ears hear, the mind believes."
Misdirection, the art of directing away attention of piercing eyes from places that matter much to places that matter much less, is a vital technique used by Gabriel. One could consider this to be a 'revelation of the method', as Alan Watt would presumably call it. It should become more clear why this feature is important with regards to predictive programming.

J Edgar Hoover's "Black Cell"

"Gabriel: Against my better judgment, I'm going to tell you who I am.
Stanley: Don't bother. I know who you are.
Gabriel: Do you? I think you think I'm a bank robber. But the truth is, that I'm just like you.
Stanley: Like me? No. Because you're a murderer.
Gabriel: That I am, and worse. Much worse. But I do have ethics. Rules to which I adhere.
Stanley: Look, I have no idea why the fuck you're telling me all this.
Gabriel: Well, if you listen, then you'll know. You asked who those men were. I'm gonna tell you. J. Edgar Hoover started a secret organization in the 1950s called Black Cell. It's just to protect our freedoms in this country at all costs.
Stanley: I don't care about any of this. All I care about is my daughter.
Gabriel: I'm talking about your daughter. I'm talking about you, your daughter, and 200 million other Americans who take their freedoms for granted.
Stanley: I see.
Gabriel: You don't understand what it takes to protect those freedoms. That's my job, Stanley. To protect your way of life.
Stanley: So you and your band of lunatics are really stealing all this money just to protect little old me.
Gabriel: That's right, Stanley. Because wars cost money.
Stanley: War? Who are we at war with?
Gabriel: Anyone who impinges on America's freedom. Terrorist states, Stanley. Someone must bring their war to them. They bomb a church, we bomb 10. They hijack a plane, we take out an airport. They execute American tourists, we tactically nuke an entire city. Our job is to make terrorism so horrific that it becomes unthinkable to attack Americans."

This can easily be interpreted as the rationale for the existence of covert, but nonetheless government approved, organizations and operations aimed at thwarting, cost what it may, all those hordes of dangerous and bloodthirsty terrorists itching to kill innocent Americans. Even though it comes from the mouth of the antagonist, the viewer however is familiarized with the notion that drastic counter-terrorism measures, courtesy of the US government, may be a reasonable price to pay for maintaining 'protection'.

In addition, the movies suggests, drastic and downright illegal and unethical means of securing funding are 'obviously' a small price to pay for warranting the safety of all American citizens. Any critical reference to casualties sustained along the way may 'reasonably' be brushed off as simply being consequential to unavoidable collateral damage.

Rationalization

"Stanley: How can you justify all this?
Gabriel: You're not looking at the big picture Stan. Here's a scenario. You have the power to cure all the world's diseases but the price for this is that you must kill a single innocent child, could you kill that child Stanley?
Stanley: No.
Gabriel: You disappoint me, it's the greatest good.
Stanley: Well how about 10 innocents?
Gabriel: Now you're gettin' it, how about a hundred - how about a THOUSAND? Not to save the world but to preserve our way of life.
Stanley: No man has the right to make that decision; you're no different from any other terrorist.
Gabriel: No, you're wrong Stanley. Thousands die every day for no reason at all, where's your bleeding heart for them? You give your twenty dollars to Greenpeace every year thinking you're changing the world? What countries will harbor terrorists when they realize the consequences of what I'll do? Did you know that I can buy nuclear warheads in Minsk for forty million each? Hell, I'd buy half a dozen and even get a discount!"

A deepening of the rationale is thus articulated for the existence of radical counter-terrorism organizations. It's presented to the viewer that fighting terrorism this way is not that unreasonable. Never mind for a minute that Gabriel's line of reasoning reeks highly suspicious of a progressive state of internalized psychopathy. After all, the terrorists plainly deserve it as they continue to draw first blood, don't they?

Of course, what Gabriel conveniently doesn't say is that it just so happens, for example, that the US government trained and funded Al'Qaeda into existence (see Appendix). In fact, examples of covert US government sponsorship of terrorist organizations abound. Regarding morality, the pivotal question thus arises: to what extent is the threat of terrorism genuine, and to which is it contrived? That is, what would constitute genuine terrorism, and what would be false flag terrorism? In case of the former, harsh retaliatory may be justified to some extent depending on the nature of the socio-political circumstances that apply. In case the latter applies, any kind of retaliation is unjustified and ethically bankrupt and the real basis for retaliation has nothing to do the reasons given by the powers controlling retaliatory action.

It is interesting to note that this movie was made in 2001, right after the the alleged terror-strike by a terrorist leader who managed to outsmart America's topnotch multi-billion air-defense system while at the same time override control of 4 airplanes using 19 Arab hijackers armed with box-cutters. So if you are to believe the official government advanced fairy tale explanation of this bunch of gung-ho and incredibly lucky Muslim terrorists pulling off the most sophisticated terrorist attack to the USA known in history of man, then yeah you may appreciate the line of reasoning as presented by Gabriel. They are out to kill you so you better kill them before they do you in, right? Of course, this kind of justification hinges on the question of whether the 911 attack was genuine or simply another case of false flag terror.

Good Guy Wins and Bad Guy.... Wins Too

With 9.5 Billion dollars the richer, the antagonist does manage to get away seemingly unscathed and not soon afterwards succeeds in blowing to smithereens a presumably dangerously bloodcurdling terrorist leader. Another potential threat is thus neutralized which otherwise may have led to extremely bad things to innocent Americans.

After Stanley the good-guy happily retires, the rather unconventional ending of the movie paradoxically also honors Gabriel the bad-guy. As such, with the cancellation of a 'clear and present' terrorist threat, the existence for any 'ethically challenged' counter-terrorism organization is plainly vindicated. Or so the movie likes to make us believe anyway.

Although I would find it unlikely, considering the myriad of risks involved, that covert FBI or CIA organizations or programs secure funds through such spectacular means as portrayed in the movie, the viewer is nonetheless inculcated with the idea that normal ethics hardly apply to these organizations, and indeed may be 'justly' suspended if so desired. In other words, downright illegal means of 'fund-raising' are permissible. The use of potentially unethical and unlawful acts of misdirection, being of crucial importance to make the movie script work, is not shied away from either. After all, given the supposed value of its supposed protectorate, that being the safety of US citizens and/or their lifestyles, to such organizations the single paramount rule upheld must be that the end is considered 'sacred' enough to afford the justification of any means necessary. Everything else is of subordinate importance.

Appendices:

1.Evidence of CIA involvement in seeking illegal means for funding

Gary Webb on C.I.A. Trafficking of Cocaine

Former LA Police Officer Mike Ruppert Confronts John Deutch

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Cocaine Jet That Crashed in Mexico Part of Cowboy Government Operation, DEA Sources Claim Mexican Officials Fear the Case, if Exposed, Could Jeopardize US Funding for “Plan Mexico”By Bill Conroy Special to The Narco News Bulletin December 19, 2007 The Gulfstream II jet that crash landed in the Mexican Yucatan in late September carrying close to four tons of cocaine was part of an operation being carried out by a Department of Homeland Security agency, DEA sources have revealed to Narco News. The operation, codenamed “Mayan Express,” is an ongoing effort spearheaded by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the sources claim. The information surfaced during a high-level meeting at DEA headquarters in mid-December, DEA sources familiar with the meeting assert.

http://www.narconews.com/Issue48/article2941.html

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The CIA's Drug-Trafficking Activities The CIA's operational directorate, in other words that's their covert operations, para-military, dirty tricks — call it whatever you want — has for at least 40 years that we can document paid for a significant amount of its work through the sales of heroin and cocaine. — Guerrilla News Network's Interview with Christopher Simpson ClA-supported Mujahedeen rebels [who in 2001 were part of the "Northern Alliance" fighting the Taleban which became the core of the new Afghani government following the U.S. attack on Afghanistan in late 2001] engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society. The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and a leading heroin refiner. CIA-supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan/Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. U.S. officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operation because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies. — The Real Drug Lords The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, as is by now well-known by anyone who has cared to be informed, has long been deeply involved in the international trafficking of the addictive drugs heroin and (since the early 1980s, if not earlier) cocaine, the enormous profits from which have financed, and continue to finance, both U.S. covert operations and the U.S. military (via payments to Pentagon contractors). The main reason why this is not more widely known is that the main players in the U.S. media have always worked to protect the Agency and to keep the American public in the dark as to the nature of its activities (as documented in great detail in Carl Bernstein's article in the October 20, 1977, issue of Rolling Stone: "The CIA and the Media: How America's Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up"). The information you will find on this web page, and the web pages it links to, is not considered by the editors of the New York Times and other mainstream U.S. "news" media as proper for the public to know. By the end of the 1980's it was calculated that the illegal use of drugs in the United States now netted its controllers over $110 billion a year. — Modern Times, p.782. Covert government by defense contractor means corrupt wars of conquest, government by dope dealer. When the world's traditional inebriative herbs become illegal commodities, they become worth as much as precious metal, precious metal that can be farmed. ... Illegal drugs, solely because of the artificial value given them by Prohibition, have become the basis of military power anywhere they can be grown and delivered in quantity. ... To this day American defense contractors are the biggest drug-money launderers in the world.— Drug War: Covert Money, Power and Policy, p.318. Most of this page concerns the CIA's involvement in drug trafficking, but we should first note that this is only one part of its activities, the means by which it finances its operations in addition to the billions of dollars it gets from U.S. taxpayers courtesy of the U.S. federal government (the exact amount, of course, being kept secret from U.S. taxpayers). In addition to being the principal source of U.S. propaganda for domestic and foreign consumption the CIA is the covert operations division of the U.S. goverment and as such has engaged in many terrorist activities. In fact the CIA is a terrorist organization, funded by the profits of international drug smuggling. [...] From the days of the Vietnam War the CIA has been at the forefront of heroin trafficking. When the Reagan administration needed to finance its war against Nicaragua the CIA applied what it had learned in Vietnam to importing vast quantities of cocaine (sometimes 20 tons at a time) from Latin America, selling it to the Mafia, and using the profits to finance its "covert activities", activities so contrary to America's professed values that they must be concealed at all costs from the American people.

http://www.serendipity.li/cia.html

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TOP SECRET CIA DRUG SMUGGLING OPERATIONS · Operation Snow Cone - Parent Central American drug smuggling operation. Various operations under Operation Snow Cone include: · Operation Watch Tower - Operation Watch Tower consists of secret radio beacons stationed at remote locations between Columbia and Panama. The beacons help CIA drug pilots fly from Central America to Panama at near-sea-level without being detected by high flying U.S. drug interdiction aircraft. Pilots of the drug flights home in on the low frequency signals emitted by the beacons to reach their destination at Albrook Army Airfield in Panama. · Operation Toilet Seat - The CIA uses Boeing 727 and C-130 aircraft to haul drugs from Central and South America. The drugs are dumped out the rear ramps of the aircraft into waters offshore of the U.S. in waterproof containers. There the drugs are retrieved by boat and brought into the U.S. · Operation Whale Watch - Consists of using offshore oil drilling rigs as a cover for drug smuggling. The drugs are offloaded by ship onto the oil drilling platforms. The drugs are then flown by helicopter to nearby U.S. coastal areas. Companies owning the oil rigs included Rowan International and divisions of Zapata Corp., such as Zapata Petroleum and Zapata Off-Shore. Zapata Corp. is partly owned by former President George Bush. · Operation Buy Back - Operation involving CIA front Pacific Seafood Company. Drugs are packed in shrimp containers and shipped to various points in the U.S. This is a joint DEA-CIA operation. [...]

http://www.wethepeople.la/drugs1.htm

The list goes on and on. If you are still in doubt, help convince yourself some more with a search-engine.

2.Evidence of (US) government involvement in sponsoring false flag terrorism

False Flag Operations for Dummies

Webster Tarpley - False-Flag Operational Structure Explained

Here's a fragmented article detailing US government's penchant for nurturing false flag terrorism:

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After reading the article detailing the proposed and existing oil pipeline routes in the Middle East at http://szamko.gnn.tv/blogs/17155/Pipeline_Time then consider the following examples of “false flag terrorist operations”... where governments fund, set-up, and execute their own covert terror operations and blame scapegoat nations or “alleged” terror cells like Al Qaeda to ,muster support for further war (to ultimately dominate world economies through control of the world oil supplies).The point being that world citizens are not only the cannon fodder in the slaughter…but end up paying the tab through increased interest fees and taxation by corporate politicians for their war expenditures. 1.) British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook: “Al Qaeda” was the name of a U.S. intelligence database ... also see fabricating_the_enemy 2.) The phony (Mossad) Al Qaeda Cell in Palestine … plus more documented examples of intelligence agents impersonating and setting up Al Qaeda cell groups strategically [...] 5.) “Operation Northwoods” was a US government plan to stage the assassination of civilians and blame it on Communist Cuba. See “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba”, National Security_Archive 6.) The Japanese code was broken 9-12 days prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. Foreknowledge of Japan’s planned attack on Pearl Harbor by the US Administration was tantamount to complicity. See Source [...] 8.) London Underground Bombing Exercises Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack 9.) Explosions In London: Who Stands To Gain? Israel Diplomat Warned, Cover-up_In_Progress 10.) a confirmation of the report that Israel’s Netanyahu recieved a warning prior to the first blast in London 7/7/2005 From ABC station WTVG 36, Lexington_Kentucky Terrorism expert says at least one person tipped off to London attacks Terrorism expert Tommy Preston of Preston Global in Frankfort, Kentucky, said sources in the intelligence community reported that at least one person in London, England was warned of Thursday morning’s terrorist attacks moments before the initial blast. Preston, citing sources in the intelligence community, said former Israeli Prime Minister and current Finance Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was in London this morning for an economic forum. “Just before the first blast, Netanyahu got a call from the Israeli Embassy telling him to stay in his hotel room. The hotel is located next to the subway station where the first attack occurred and he did stay put and shortly after that, there was the explosion,” Preston said. [...] 11.) The Muslim Terrorist Apparatus was Created by US_Intelligence 12.) Another taboo subject is the longevity of the United States as both a terrorist state and a haven for terrorists. That the US is the only nation on record to have been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism (in Nicaragua ), and has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on governments to observe international law, is unmentionable. 13.) America as Terrorist Haven: “A chief terrorist with long ties to US intelligence agencies is seeking asylum in the United States. The FBI has evidence linking him to an airline bombing that killed 73 people. We’re talking about the notorious militant Cuban exile: Luis Posada Carriles.” Democracy_Now ! May 9, 2005 [...] 14.) In California, in the eighties, John Pilger (investigative journalist and writer) met four Vietnamese who had been assassins in America’s Operation Phoenix; one of them ran a fast food drive-in. He seemed a contended man. What all these people have in common, apart from their history of terrorism, is that they were either working directly for the US government or carrying out the dirty work of American policies. Operation Phoenix, for example, devised, funded and run by the CIA, was responsible for up to 50,000 murders. He states: “Much was made of al-Qa’ida’s training camps in Afghanistan, the target of American bombers. But these were kindergartens compared with the world’s leading university of terrorism at Fort_Benning in Georgia. Known until recently as the School of the Americas, it trained some 60,000 Latin American soldiers, policemen, paramilitaries and intelligence agents. Forty per cent of the Cabinet ministers who served in the genocidal regimes of Lucas Garcia, Rios Montt and Mefia Victores in Guatemala are graduates. [...] 16.) American military in Iraq plant car bombs on unwitting Iraqi civilians. See: Sick Strategies For Senseless Slaughter by John Kaminski [...]

http://deeperpolitics.gnn.tv/blogs/7329/Examples_of_documented_False_Flag_Terrorism

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The essence of false flag operations and other covert operations is that the same methods cannot be used for ever, but must be changed. In the first half of the 19th century, the British used the extreme nationalism of the Mazzini networks to destabilize their enemies. Around 1850, the main cover story for terrorism became the international anarchist movement and this was used well into the 1930s, especially for purposes of political assassination. In the 1950s and 1960s, the standard explanation for terrorism was the deranged loner, such as Lee Harvey Oswald. In the 1960s and 70s, methods radically changed, with youthful leftists and communist terrorists of college-age taking center stage: here we see the Weathermen in the United States, the Baader-Meinhof group in Germany, and the Red Brigades in Italy (this is a phase which resembles the one now starting). In the 1970s and 1980s, this was supplemented by the radical Arab and Palestinian political terrorism of Abu Nidal and Black September. Even during this period, there was also the rise of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. In the 1990s, especially in the United States, the focus shifted completely to right wing anarchist militias who wanted to destroy the government: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing are the leading example. By the late 90s the scene had changed again to focus on Al Qaeda and bin Laden. Now the credibility and usefulness of the 9/11 mythology has been exhausted, and we need to ask what will come next.

http://www.deepjournal.com/p/7/a/nl/1612.html

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But NOT the U.S.It is logical to assume that, even if other countries have carried out false flag operations (especially horrible regimes such as, say, the Nazis or Stalin), the U.S. has never done so. Well, as documented by the New York Times, Iranians working for the C.I.A. in the 1950's posed as Communists and staged bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected president (see also this essay). And, as confirmed by a former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence, NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: "You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security." Moreover, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960's, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. If you view no other links in this article, please read the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

http://www.911proof.com/

The existence of an overwhelming amount of documentation detailing various acts of false flag terrorism across the globe leaves little room for doubting the idea that governments leave no stone unturned to attain their goals of power sustenance and/or expansion.

If you still doubt the veracity of false flag terrorism, then I recommend finding out more on the subject using a search-engine and watching the many videos that have emerged over the years on the subject, most notably the ones that document the biggest and most dramatic false flag operation of them all: 911.