Webster Griffin Tarpley is an American author, historian, journalist, lecturer and critic of U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Tarpley is a founder of the Tax Wall Street Party.
In 1971, Tarpley was on the editorial board of The Campaigner, a National Caucus of Labor Committees' journal, according to its masthead. In 1986, Tarpley attempted to run onLyndon LaRouche's U.S. Labor Party platform in the New York State Democratic Party primary for the U.S. Senate, but was ruled off the ballot because of a defect in his nominating petitions. In 1992, Tarpley co-authored with Anton ChaitkinGeorge Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, published by LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review magazine. Since March 2006, Tarpley has hosted a weekly online talk show called World Crisis Radio, broadcast by GCNLive.com. Tarpley is a member of the "world anti-imperialist conference" Axis for Peace, of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and of a research Netzwerk of German 9/11 authors founded in September 2006. Tarpley has expounded the "Versailles Thesis" laying the blame for the great wars of the 20th century on intrigues by Britain to retain her dominance. In addition to World Crisis Radio, Tarpley also hosts the podcast, the AmericanSystem.tv. This subscription-based program airs Monday-Thursday at 9 p.m. EST. The podcast is co-hosted with Daniela Walls, the chairperson of the Tax Wall Street Party.
9/11 and terrorism analysis
Tarpley maintains that the September 11 attacks were engineered by a rogue network of the military-industrial complex and intelligence agencies as a false-flag operation. The common account about the events of 9/11 are in Tarpley's opinion in 2006 an "outrageous myth" and an "absurd fairy tale." The organisations involved in 9/11 apparently included Britain's MI6 as well as "government officials loyal to the invisible government." On November 21, 2011, while traveling to Syria, Tarpley told Syria's Addounia TV that the Syrian Civil War was a NATO–CIA ploy to destabilize Syria using mercenaries and death squads against the population and the Syrian government. On April 2, 2012, C-SPAN aired 9/11, False Flags, and Black Ops: An Evening of Debate, in which Tarpley debated his critic Jonathan Kay on conspiracy theories, specifically the truth behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. David Frum, who served as moderator between the two men, described Tarpley's "presentation as involuted as it was long-winded." During the event, Tarpley said that the Attack on Pearl Harbor was also a government conspiracy. On June 7, 2012, interviewed for the NRK regarding the 2011 Norway attacks, Tarpley said, "I believe that the evidence points to a private network, or even a NATO network, within the police that contributed the long time delay until they stormed the Island." Tarpley told Press TV on June 18, 2013 that revelations about the National Security Agency by their former computer system administrator Edward Snowden outlining global and domestic spying by US intelligence agencies might be seen as a "CIA limited hangout operation," that is, to publicize minor public manipulation operations to conceal greater covert misdeeds such as promoting war in the Middle East. He claimed such "gullibility" operations could be traced from Daniel Ellsberg to Julian Assange's WikiLeaks, with a legacy in perfidious politics and governance since the 17th century. He has said Snowden is probably a triple agent ultimately being an agent for the CIA with the aim of weakening President Barack Obama and pushing him into intervening in Syria. On January 21, 2015 Tarpley was interviewed by Guns and Butter's Bonnie Faulkner about "geopolitical terrorism and the destabilization of governments and how others like Russia and Belarus are responding".
Criticism
Critics of Tarpley have said that he still sells copies of the book on the Bush family he co-authored while working for Lyndon LaRouche. The book was criticized by David Neiwert, who wrote:
Like most Larouche texts, the Bush "biography" is a mélange of fact and distortion, written in a highly suppositional style that makes numerous leaps of logic and asserts connections where there is no real evidence to support it, at other times omitting exculpatory or contrary information that reveals a more complete picture. Sifting through it requires a great deal of work, but there are nuggets of fact woven into their text that are substantiated and which deserve proper consideration.
In February 2017, he agreed to settle a libel suit brought by U.S. First Lady Melania Trump for publishing a "false and defamatory" report In August 2016 alleging that the First Lady had been a "high-end escort" prior to meeting President Donald Trump. Terms of the settlement included providing a public apology in writing and paying a "substantial sum".
