Don’t Poke the Octopus: Reading Part 4 of Whitney Webb’s Series on Jeffrey Epstein
One of the recurring themes that runs through Whitney Webb’s investigation into the world Jeffrey Epstein inhabited is unsolved murder and convenient suicide. We saw it in Part 3 of her report, when she details the mob-style gunning down of lawyer Arthur Shapiro, who became embroiled in the affairs of The Limited owner, Epstein benefactor, and National Crime Syndicate-connected Leslie Wexner. We saw it in the mysterious death of newspaper magnate, bugged PROMIS software pitchman, and likely Mossad asset Robert Maxwell.
And here in Part 4, The Genesis and Evolution of the Jeffrey Epstein-Bill Clinton Relationship, we see it in the strange death of freelance journalist Danny Casolaro, who, in the early 90s, was investigating the U.S. government theft of financial tracking PROMIS software and its subsequent spycrafty modification for use by U.S. intelligence, the Mossad, the CIA and others for purposes both marginally legitimate and radically criminal.
Incidentally, interested listeners can use these links to check out essays about and readings of previous sections of Webb’s series, published in The Ghion Journal:
As I reflect on all of the tentacles of “The Octopus”, the term coined by Casolaro to describe the vast semi-permeable network of shady businessmen, criminals, spooks and bureaucrats that operate and exert control in the background of our society, I find myself wondering what it takes for someone to gain entry into such secret and dangerous company. As Webb shows in this last installment of her series on Epstein, with someone like Bill Clinton, it’s easy. People like him are led to understand that their ambitions are un-achievable without becoming part of a tentacle. They’re absorbed rather gladly as a result.
But consider Jeffrey Epstein. What was he in the 1970s really but a college dropout with criminal sexual proclivities, a certain amount of charm, and perhaps a head for numbers and schemes. How is it that the patrician former OSS officer Donald Barr came into contact with him at all? And what led him to think it was a good idea to hire Epstein as a teacher at the exclusive Dalton School, which he ran? And hook him up with elite financial firm Bears Stearns, even after firing him?
What I do suspect (and couldn’t possibly begin to prove) is that A) intelligence operatives and officials work in those roles for life and B) they need smart, amoral people to function at the tips of the creature’s tentacles. To fill that need, I suspect they must keep their eyes out for recruits that they can train, utilize, and discard when things get hot.
Epstein, in all likelihood, was merely a tool — and when he was no longer useful or could prove a threat to the undersea creature’s health, a pathway was opened for him to make an exit he probably understood was necessary, or that exit was imposed on him. Such is the price of the life.
As we enter another election year, here’s the other thing that troubles me. Recall that, in the 1980s, Congress made it illegal to support terror groups in Nicaragua. Their legislation didn’t matter. The Octopus easily accessed other ways to keep that support going. Now suppose we get a president who genuinely wants to do things like cut the Pentagon or CIA budget, stop trying to manipulate other countries’ governments through spycraft and violence, or get money out of politics.
What does the Octopus do then, hmmm?
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