Disinfowars

The Gunpowder Plot is the most famous terrorist conspiracy in British history and one of the most famous in the world. The name 'Guy Fawkes' is familiar to almost anyone who speaks English, but this was a much larger and more complex event than we have been led to believe, particularly by Hollywood versions like V For Vendetta. In this episode I offer a background history of the conflict between the Catholic Church and the English monarchy and outline the competing theories and interpretations of what happened. Was this a genuine rebellion? An elitist uprising? A fake plot?

Martial Bourdin was an anarchist who accidentally blew himself up near the Greenwich Royal Observatory in London in 1894. This event formed the basis for a book by Joseph Conrad and a film by Alfred Hitchcock, but behind the absurdity and horror lies a familiar tale of secret agents, insider accounts and the advancement of the security state. This week we examine the mystery of the death of Martial Bourdin, the problems of the official record and the secrecy surrounding the infiltration of the anarchist movement in this period.

Was Lawrence of Arabia the first Gladio B operative? In answering this question, today's episode presents a view of World War One from the perspective of British geostrategy in the Middle East. Using a fascinating lecture as the basis for our discussion I outline how Turkey got drawn into the war, at a time when the Ottoman Empire was crumbling. The British government adopted not just a double-dealing but a triple-dealing strategy to counter the Ottomans, which bears remarkable similarities to what is happening today.

Continuing our exploration into the origins and development of false flag operations, this week we look at World War 2 and the British Double Cross System. Run by an Oxford academic, this system was set up to detect Nazi agents as they landed in Britain and turn them into double agents working for the British. To help maintain the cover the Special Operations Executive carried out false flag sabotage attacks, to give the appearance that the agents were still loyal to the Nazis and carrying out their missions.

The War on Terror in Ireland never truly ended; it simply evolved into a new, updated and more sophisticated War on Terror. In this episode I look at the connections between the black operations being run by the British deep state in Northern Ireland and the 7/7 London bombings of 2005. I offer the view that 7/7 was a 'pure false flag' and focus in on two figures - Martin McDaid, a former special forces commando who ran a radical Islamic bookshop, and Samantha Lewthwaite, who was the wife of the one of the alleged suicide bombers.

Following on from last week's show I look at how the intelligence services who were causing mayhem in Northern Ireland were protected by a culture of institutional secrecy in the British government. Via a little-known government file that was declassified in 2009 I tell the story of government policy on avowing the existence of the security services.

The War on Terror in Ireland lasted 30 years and killed thousands. In many ways it was the operational prototype for the modern War on Terror, and can be considered part of Operation Gladio. In this episode I explore The Troubles, beginning with the background of the struggle for Irish independence going back over a century. I outline how the struggle has always gone through its peaceful, political phases and its revolutionary violent phases. In every violent phase the British deep state has responded by enhancing the power of the security services.

As a keen user of the Freedom of Information Act I have filed many requests over the years. This week I delve into some of my personal experiences with FOIA requests explaining what worked and what didn't, which requests were successful and unsuccessful, and why. I discuss the latest success: getting over 1600 pages of new material from the Pentagon's entertainment propaganda office, how it came about and why it was successful. I finish up by offering some advice to people making FOIA requests, in the hope of helping to maximize their chances of getting useful material released.

From triple agents training terrorists in the mountains of Turkey to the CIA cable that was never sent, this episode examines the context around 9/11 to identify several people and part of the story of how the 9/11 attacks were a Gladio operation. I focus in on two of the supposed hijackers - Nawaf Al Hazmi and Khalid Al Mihdhar - and their connections to intelligence assets Luai Sakra and Anwar Al Awlaki, and how the CIA's failure to notify the FBI about them is a strong indication that information was being compartmentalized to enable and protect this black operation.

Tom Secker Presents Professor Lars Svendsen
In a culture that in many ways is characterized by social disintegration, fear is something we all share, a unifying perspective on existence. Political fear does not arise in a vacuum, it is created and maintained. This week we explore these ideas with Professor Lars Svendsen, the author of A Philosophy of Fear. We discuss why he wrote the book, where the modern culture and climate of fear comes from, whether philosophy has adequately confronted it, and how a politics of trust could be the antidote to the politics of fear.