I’d a couple of incidental encounters with marijuana in high school in the 1960s, but these had been nothing that attracted me to its use. I seem to recall it was mere matter of saying I’d ‘tried it.’ It was in Vietnam my only, serious, sustained use of the plant, had occurred. After Vietnam, I was an ‘on again, off again’ smoker of cannabis, through the 1970s. By the early 80s, I was mostly through the process of weaning myself of this plant altogether, with the rare encounter. By the time of penning this essay, I’ve not ingested this ‘drug’ in over 30 years. Here follows, is one reason why.
I’d recently encountered an anecdote that caused me recalling a story of a time I was staying at Helena, Montana, I think it was the fall season of 1980. There was a bust ongoing (undercover police work) of the local petty weed dealers and one of them panicked, brought a half pound of super-high THC content sinsemilla to an acquaintance who didn’t smoke dope but wasn’t adverse to people who did, for safe keeping. But then, this dope-dealer left town, no doubt due to the ‘noids.’ The guy holding his dope didn’t want it but knew an artist who smoked and went to drop it at his house; the intended recipient wasn’t home but the artists wife accepted the ‘gift’ and then something remarkable happened.
What the guy delivering the dope to his artist buddy didn’t realize was, the wife had had it up to her neck with her husband’s dope smoking, and his dope smoking buddies, because it was her attitude, now that they were married and had small kids, it was time to ‘get serious’ about life and stop with the dope-drain on their budget.
She put the half pound of sinsemilla, together with a couple pounds of butter, into a large wok, simmered it for some hours at very low heat, strained the now green fat through cheese cloth and made up a VERY LARGE batch of VERY STRONG chocolate (to conceal any flavor of cannabis) brownies sans any evidence of dope (included no leafy matter.) She then proceeded to send the brownies off to a large party attended by her husband’s friends, where a local political wag was to announce the formation of Montana’s new “NO-NOTHING” (correct spelling, a deliberate gag on history) political party. The platform of the party was, the Montana legislature meeting every two years for ninety days, should be changed, to meeting every ninety years for two days.
Everyone who attended that event was wrecked, for a week. And I mean wrecked. The party was on a Saturday night and it was Monday morning people showed up to work so dysfunctional, it defies description. One guy spent 40 minutes, panicked, looking for car keys which were clutched in his fist the entire time he was turning his house upside down, while looking for those very keys, in desperate attempt to get off to work.
And, no, nothing, came of the nascent political endeavor, it was as if it had been little more than a passing hallucination. It’s a pity, because, a legislature limited to meeting once in every ninety years, for two days, seemed (and still seems) like a good idea…
Disclaimer: My satire in the present genre is to be honest in the Native American way; in effect, constructing a joke story closely resembling real life, a sort of collage of facts assembled from bits and pieces of diverse experience, combined with anecdotal information to create the culturally intact inherent Native wisdom found in their humor. In other words, parts of the story consist of an autobiographical facts incorporated, multi-faceted rip-off of other peoples life stories and experience. And because unlike the White world, the Native world entertains paradox in daily approach to life, some aspects are simply made up from the imagination’s fund of plausible improbabilities –
Ok, so I read a Glenn Greenwald (with Peter Mass) article at the Intercept and my jaw dropped. I have known for quite some time the CIA is often stupid (how else could Ray McGovern be an analyst there for 27 years) but this article mentioned a case that topped the cake with some sort of artificial, chemical White cream puff stuff, passed off as ‘intelligence.’
So, a CIA officer, Alfreda Bikowsky, who was one of the agency cabal that prevented information sharing with the FBI on the cell the USA alleges was responsible for 9/11, was responsible for ongoing torture (for months) of an innocent man before they figured out the guy they’d nabbed didn’t even spell his name the same as the guy they were looking for. And, CIA analyst Alfreda Bikowsky took a personal interest in torture that produced false evidence, right down to being present as a witness:
The screen shot from Wikipedia states Alfreda Bikowski was “so excited she flew at government expense to the black site where Mohammed was held so that she could personally watch him being waterboarded”
Right off, there are red flags aplenty indicating sub-par IQ, people who get off on torture are obviously pretty fucked up, with zero mentalities, but that’s only the beginning. Now we’ll have a look at where it goes beyond incomprehensively dumb, to outright dumfoundingly stupid. While Bikowski was getting off watching Kalid Sheikh Mohammed being water-boarded, here is the false intelligence that was not only elicited, because tortured people say whatever the torturer wants to hear, to get the torture stopped, but that the CIA actually attempted to follow up:
“a single senior officer, who is still in a position of high authority over counterterrorism at the C.I.A.—a woman who he does not name—appears to have been a source of years’ worth of terrible judgment, with tragic consequences for the United States. Her story runs through the entire report. She dropped the ball when the C.I.A. was given information that might very well have prevented the 9/11 attacks; she gleefully participated in torture sessions afterward; she misinterpreted intelligence in such a way that it sent the C.I.A. on an absurd chase for Al Qaeda sleeper cells in Montana. And then she falsely told congressional overseers that the torture worked…
“…Somehow, the C.I.A. mistakenly believed that African-American Muslim terrorists were already in the United States. The intelligence officials evidently pressed K.S.M. so hard to confirm this, under such physical duress, that he eventually did, even though it was false—leading U.S. officials on a wild-goose chase for black Muslim Al Qaeda operatives in Montana”
Now, while chasing threads in this story, this is where my jaw drops. I happen to be from Montana, where most people only know of the existence of Blacks from television stereotype (ok, so this last statement is almost far-fetched.)
Montana. One million people. 0.6% Black. Zero-point-six-percent Black. Now, let me tell you about those 0.6% or about 6,000 Black people in Montana (other census data gives 3,000.) The largest concentration of them are associated with the U.S. Air Force at Malstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls. They’re called dependents. The rest are scattered and isolated, likely from out of state, in the course of employment. There is essentially NO BLACK COMMUNITY in Montana. Missoula is a big town (Montana has no real ‘cities’) by Montana standards. Use google search .. ‘how many Blacks in Missoula’ .. the top hit-answer? “239”
As well metropolitan Missoula has more Blacks than most Montana communities because it is a university town attracting out of state students and academics.
Now, of the ‘possible’ six thousand Blacks (the 3,000 figure is more likely) in all of Montana and its population of one million, how many are likely to be Muslim? 45 million Americans identify as Black. Of the 2.75 million Muslim Americans, it is estimated 632,000 (23%) are Black. Do the math. What are the chances of finding a Black Muslim in Montana’s zero-point-six-percent Black in a total one million population? Now, never mind the probability there are likely near negligible actionable al-Qaida sympathies in America’s Black Muslim community to begin with, if you could find a Black Muslim or maybe even two Black Muslims in Montana, by the CIA’s logic, they’d have to be al-Qaida because some Arab guy getting water-boarded, at a CIA ‘black site’ in Poland, said so.
Giving the CIA the most generous figure of 6,000 Blacks in Montana, together with using the government friendly PEW Research model of 9% of American Black Muslims harbor some sympathy towards al-Qaida…
…based on 6,000 Blacks (3,000 being the more likely figure) in Montana, there’s a statistical probability of approximately 7 Black persons in Montana with al-Qaida sympathies. Bearing in mind statistical probabilities and actual probabilities are not the same thing because of social & demographic anomalies such as Black Muslims who might sympathize with al-Qaida having given the USA a black eye will not often translate into willingness to take action of their own initiative (we cannot know the percentage of Blacks with al-Qaida sympathies that would actually act on those sympathies, likely very few), as well the fact of 45 million American Blacks to draw Montana’s Black population from, the statistical probability of any Black Muslims in Montana’s possible 6,000 Blacks is quite low already, where there is no Black community per se. Here is how the simple (rounded off) statistical probabilities stack up:
Montana’s Black population: ……………… 0.6%
Montana’s Black Muslim: ………………….. 0.008%
Montana’s Black al-Qaida sympathetic: ….. 0.0007%
Now, if we were to take the statistical probability one step further, to the point of how many ‘Blacks sympathetic to al-Qaida’ in Montana would be willing to carry out an actual attack, we are reduced to searching out a single body part among Montana’s 3,000 Blacks (the more likely reality) or 0.0003% probable statistic for the purposes of this essay; consequently we must conclude it’d be more likely to die from a meteor strike than terrorism due to a Black al-Qaida cell amounting to no more than a single ‘black’ hand:
With 0.0003% statistical probability of a Black al-Qaida sympathetic population to back up what amounts to a near certain reality of ZERO Black Muslims with al-Qaida sympathies actually willing to carry out terror relating to Montana, here is my report:
I probably have met more Blacks in Montana than most. I know a 1/2 Indian/Black ‘cousin’ (Native American traditional kinship relation), a woman, married to a White in Great Falls, daughter of a Black Air Force serviceman. Two Cree language fluent Black kids, foster children of a medicine man, also in Great Falls. A handful of mixed race Blackfoot Indians descended from the days a Black cavalry regiment had been stationed on their reservation (into the 1930s.) And Renoir.
Renoir was the lone Black living in Helena, Montana, in the 1980s. He spent time at the No Sweat Cafe, where once he’d been attempting to seduce a hot lesbian waitress. I was watching this, together with a Blackfoot acquaintance, and we were making a few observations in his indigenous language, so as to be discreet:
The Blackfoot: “What’s the ‘Black White Man’ think he’s going to accomplish?” (Black White Man is how ‘Black man’ translates)
Myself: “Perhaps he’ll discover his ‘White sugar’ is dangerous”
The Blackfoot: “Ah” (I see)
Myself to Renoir: “Saakks” (literally ‘you missed’ as in mistook your target)
Renoir: “What?” (he looks confused and turns to look at the waitress, as though she would understand Blackfoot language)
Hot lesbian waitress: “Couple of half-breeds” (dismissive, inaccurately referring to myself and the Blackfoot, as though that explains things)
The Blackfoot: Places his face in his palm and shakes his head
I doubt I’d ever seen ten real Blacks in Montana over the course of most of my life and I’ve just handed you all of my intelligence on the matter.
Ok, so there’s one more note-worthy item; it was during the Arab oil embargo I’d first left the northwest of Montana and traveled to Helena as a young man, this was in 1974 and I’d flown in by plane. As the plane made it’s approach over the city (of about 30,000 in those days), I happened to see the minaret that stands at the city center and it hit me…
…’the Saudis already own us.’ As it happens, and I shortly after discovered, this was Helena’s Civic Center with construction sponsored by a Montana chapter of Shriners International, a children’s charity mostly famous for driving miniature cars in parades (Montana’s style is opposite-outsized) having nothing to do with contemporary Islam:
^ Montana’s newest terror suspects
Based on the Helena Civic Center architecture, the CIA most certainly has demanded the FBI investigate the Montana Shriners as an Islamic charity front for terrorism. No wonder the CIA became convinced Montana is populated with Black al-Qaida cells; Alfreda Bikowsky must’ve flown into Montana’s capital by plane (and noticed Renoir.) The end result? The CIA had steadily PROMOTED Bikowsky towards the top of the agency food chain:
“The CIA’s “Torture Queen” is identified as Audrey Tomason in this photograph. However, as seen from her high school year book, it is actually Alfreda Frances Bikowsky Silverstein” –Wayne Madsen
stupid |ˈst(y)o͞opid|
adjective (stupider, stupidest)
1) lacking intelligence or common sense: Renoir was too stupid to understand he was hitting on a lesbian.
2) dazed and unable to think clearly: Paranoia wrecked Alfreda’s brain, rendering her permanently stupid.
Afterthought: If it’d been someone other than Bikowsky in charge of the Bin-Ladin desk at the CIA’s ‘global jihad’ unit, maybe it wouldn’t have taken nearly so long as the ten years it took to track him down… in fact Seymour Hersch reports the CIA was never able to track down Bin Ladin, actually a Pakistani intelligence officer gave Bin Ladin’s location up for the $25 million reward (in a case that amounts to CIA ‘Ghost Busters’.)
But Seymour Hersh swallowed a baited hook. His detailing of the many lies involved with the Bin Ladin raid had missed the biggest lie of all:
It would seem Bikowski had been set up by her own superiors to chase down a man dead for a decade by the time of his reported death in 2011 (with the last reliable reporting from 2001 indicating Bin Ladin required regular dialysis – imagine a man with a prognosis of two years to live, maximum, hauling his dialysis machine around the Hindu Kush on mules), to keep Bin Ladin and his myth alive. It would be no wonder Bikowski was set up to hunt for a dead man, anyone dumb enough to search for Black Al Qaida in Montana would be perfect –
Related: Facile Haspel on Mike Pompeo’s replacement at CIA
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If this were a X-Rated blog when it comes to satire, I’d put torture fans Alfreda Bikowski & Gina Haspel in a CIA honey trap’s lesbian porn video scene, produced for intra-agency blackmail purpose and…
Bill Barr: Whoa!! Look at the size of Haspel’s [redacted] !!!
Liz(ard) Kimber: Ooooh…
Mike Pompeo: Holy Jesus! What do you call one that big?!
Ricky Prado: Nuestra Señora de Atocha!
Pompeo: What’s that?
Kimber: A sunken Spanish treasure galleon, good call! Bikowsky’s face will require a diving bell with oxygen line to find Haspel’s [redacted], er, I meant the pleasure jewel in that!!
A former Special Forces Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence, Ronald Thomas West is a retired paralegal/investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption and human rights. Ronald is published in International Law as a layman (The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole) and has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s formal educational background is primarily social psychology. His therapeutic device is satire –
Ronald Thomas West 