Retired White House analyst Richard Cook has provocatively claimed that the CIA's goal is to create a “depleted population of compliant zombies” as Western elites enrich themselves amid atrocities in Gaza and around the globe.
Independent journalist Jim Kavanagh joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Friday to discuss the claim, which was dissected by analyst Jeremy Kuzmarov in an article in Covert Action Magazine.
“The most dangerous people in the world are people who are brainwashed,” said Kavanagh, referencing an infamously candid quote from former CIA director William Casey. “The American and Western people, but especially the American people, are brainwashed by the media – they're proud of it now. MSNBC is a hotbed of CIA and military people. They're proud of being the spokespersons for the deep state national security intelligence complex.”
“The twin ideologies [Americans] internalize are, ‘oh, we're all temporarily embarrassed capitalists and billionaires who will just get there someday, we have to keep that path open for us,’ and, ‘we're all part of the greatest country in the world,’” he continued, claiming Americans are indoctrinated to believe the country must “save democracy for everybody.” “We have to send our armies to fight everybody for this or send our proxies to fight everyone for that. And as long as people are held in that ideology that is the most dangerous thing in the world. “
Kavanagh claimed that Western elites maintained “a very tight control” over the promulgation of information after World War II via influence over major media outlets. Crusading investigative journalist Carl Bernstein revealed some of the CIA’s methods via a program known as Operation Mockingbird in 1977, publicizing the secretive intelligence agency’s efforts to influence coverage in major newspapers and broadcast networks.
“That was disrupted for a decade or so with the internet and with social media and people have got access to a lot more information than they had before and a lot more opinion and analysis than they had before,” said Kavanagh. “Now they're having to crack down on that because that breaks the hold and it's extremely dangerous, but this is the job.”
“A lot of work went on behind the scenes before. Now, it's all out in the open and they're trying very hard to reinstall the gates that were being kept over the American mind, and they're doing a pretty good job of it and it's gonna be hard to fight. It's gonna get worse. They're gonna be more adamant about it.”
Kavanagh claimed the depravity of the Western ruling class is best revealed by Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, which have killed over 40,000. US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders have claimed there are no “red lines” barring support for the country as it protects Western interests in the oil-rich Middle East.
“In my life I've seen, from Vietnam on, terrible atrocities created by the United States,” said the journalist. “This thing in Gaza and now in Lebanon… this is clearly a war to just exterminate and expel a whole people. And it's a deliberate slaughter of children, of doctors, of bombing hospitals.”
“It is the Western world, it's the United States that is in the forefront of this, which is not only supporting it, but doing it, providing the weapons, providing the intelligence, providing the real time support,” he continued. “And the rest of the Western world [and] European governments are supporting it. It couldn't happen without all of that.”
“This is a disgrace. It's a version of watching Auschwitz on livestream and saying, ‘we're gonna support it and there's nothing that you can do to make us not support that.’ And that's the position that the Western world is in right now. They've lost moral authority in many ways a long time ago.This is kind of just the depth of depravity… and I don't know what the result of it is going to be because I don't think it's going to change.”