Bartholomew's Notes

Staying with Loonwatch, a new article at the site notes the existence of Veteran Defenders of America, an newish outgrowth of ACT! For America (it was announced in May, although its website carries a 2008 dateline). There’s a quote from “Richard Van Waes, founder and operating chair person”, who explains that:

Quite simply, unlike any period in our long history, our freedoms are in jeopardy. Our domestic borders have been silently invaded with people who intend to harm us. There are thousands of terrorists and terror cells within the United States borders who have one goal as their agenda – the destruction of America as we know it. This simply cannot take place.

…You, as a veteran, have training, skills and experience that uniquely enable you to respond to our government’s message that encourages family and community preparedness, citizen awareness and service to our families and our communities.

The “honorary chairman” of the advisory council is retired Maj. General Paul E. Vallely. However, aside from him, Van Waes, and of course ACT!’s Brigitte Gabriel, details of who else may be involved are scarce.

From googling around, though, one other name has come up: a certain ex-Navy man named Gerard Keenan. According to his Facebook profile:

Mr. Keenan is a founding member and press officer of the non-profit IC-HUMINT (Intelligence Community-Human Intelligence) organization based in Scotland & Netherlands (being relocated to Israel) (www.ic-humint.net)… and is a member of ACT America, Long Island Chapter (American Congress for Truth), NY State Sheriff’s Association Institute, US Navy Fleet Reserve Association, the Liberty Counsel, and Veteran Defenders of America.

It seems more likely that Keenan is a paying member of VDA rather than involved at an operational level, but the association is worth noting as I’ve come across “IC-HUMINT” previously: this was in 2006, when it announced a brief association with Dominic Wightman‘s “VIGIL Network”. At that time, IC-HUMINT carried a very weird notice about “a global network to form an army to fight the Evil-World to come and to serve for the glory of Jerusalem, the city of GOD!” In 2007, this was replaced with a profile of Keenan (also known as Jerry Keenan) and a list of associate members, although “only those that have requested to be included” were provided. The list included the SAS, the Israeli Defence Forces, and British Intelligence. The reference to VIGIL disappeared, and at the VIGIL website any association with IC-HUMINT was denied.

Earlier versions of the now-removed IC-HUMINT website (see on Wayback here and here) give Keenan as the “Press Officer” and a certain Sean Elias as in charge of “Oversight”;  a UK mobile phone number was given as contact for Elias. According to a potted history from a 2004 version of the site,

During the many years of real time experiences we have built a large contact group with official gov/mil members, contracts and various associates from all over the world. To be able to better serve and maintain this exclusive group, several members of the ‘British American Friends’ have centralized this group online and called it the IC-HUMINT Group.

A later version has the tagline “Monitored by the British American Friends © 2005”. The history goes on to explain that the group was founded in 1991 in North Africa, and that group members were then sent “to former Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Belgrado” as well as to “the Baltics States, Romania and Russia” . From 1997 a secured online presence was established, called the World Security Net, but following “several mass attacks” on the network it was decided to “disclose the entire section” and to change the name to IC-HUMINT. A look through various old forums brings up a certain “Steve” as the liason officer, and Elias described himself as “Head of Operations” at World Security Net (very little on Wayback). Keenan also runs “GPKeenan Co. Int’l Security Services” as a subsidiary of an outfit called Executive Assets (old Geocities website on Wayback here).

Although the IC-HUMINT dotnet website appears to be defunct, visiting a dotcom version of site brings up an empty page titled “Camp Joshua 2010” for a moment before the broken link page again appears. A few automatic sites have captured the phrase “CAMP JOSHUA 2010. Service Verification Jerusalem 2010”, whatever that might mean.

Of course, there is no indication that the VDA has any interest in any of this. However, the VDA website does carry an advert for a 2010 “Spy Cruise” organised by Vallely’s own Stand up America organisation, at which former CIA operatives and directors are billed as speakers.

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