Movies that present hard-hitting dramatisations about the horrors of war, the ravages of drug addiction, the brutality of prostitution or even the Marquis de Sade's torture fantasies have all found corners to defend within popular culture. They have either been applauded or heavily criticised as artistic endeavours, irrespective of the subject matter.
The subject matter alone doesn't usually make or break the critical acclaim or disdain for a film. However, such is not the case with the thriller Sound of Freedom. Many critics, such as Rolling Stone's Miles Klee, appear to have a problem with the subject matter itself.
I haven't seen Sound of Freedom. Nor, as a British citizen, am I likely to anytime soon. That's because there are currently no plans to show it in UK cinemas. Hopefully, this will change.
The film was originally completed in 2018, and a distribution deal was struck with 20th Century Fox. However, after Fox was bought out by Disney in 2019, the finished project was shelved.
At that point, the independent Angel Studios tried to wrestle the distribution rights off Disney—a process hampered by the pseudopandemic. Finally, Angel prevailed. It released the film in selected theatres in the US on the auspicious date of July 4th—America's Independence Day.
Perhaps Klee is right to opine that the film suffers from "a near-total absence of procedural logic.” Maybe it is inflicted by a "muddled approach" or is artistically flawed by its "relentless messaging.” This could be fair criticism of what indeed might be a terrible film.
Other critics don't agree. Of course, disagreement among film critics is nothing new. Owen Gleiberman, for one, describes the work as a "compelling movie that shines an authentic light on one of the crucial criminal horrors of our time."
Facts Unaffected By Quality Of Movie
As I haven't seen it, I can't comment on the artistic merits of Sound of Freedom. However, I don't need to watch the film to ask this question: Why are so many reviewers using blatant propaganda techniques to persuade people that the scale of the child trafficking and the destination of trafficked children depicted in Sound of Freedom is a lie?
Sound of Freedom seeks to expose the horrific reality of the global child sexual exploitation and abuse industry. I have no idea whether it does this well or whether it is rather the worst kind of ham-fisted, if well-intentioned, proselytising. But what is most striking about Klee's and many other critical reviews published in the mainstream media is their claim that the film's depiction of child trafficking is inaccurate.
Klee claims that the film grossly exaggerates the "epidemic" of child trafficking (his cynical quotation marks, not mine) and that it funnels people down "conspiracist rabbit holes." He also alleges that it is "delusional" and that it foments "moral panic." He ultimately considers its theme "implausible."
Directed by Alejandro Monteverde, Sound of Freedom stars Jim Caviezel in the role of Tim Ballard, the founder of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.). While "based on true events," it is not intended to be a documentary. As O.U.R.'s website points out, some fictional elements have been added for dramatic effect.
Since its inception, O.U.R. has put an emphasis on telling the stories of survivors in order to spread awareness of the brutal and disturbing prevalence of human trafficking and exploitation. This is why we place so much importance on film.
The objective of the film is to use a dramatic narrative—a thriller—to draw public attention to the global child trafficking industry. The production team openly states its hope that we, as a society, will wake up and do something proactive to stop this horrendous crime. The thinking is: The more of us who learn about the unimaginable scale of the problem, the better.
Film critic Gleiberman, who writes for Variety, observes:
One of the purposes of a movie like Sound of Freedom is to sound the alarm, in the way that a dramatic feature film can do and that journalism often can’t.
The idea is that once we are "aware" of the scope of this industry, we can collectively demand that global child trafficking networks be dismantled and the traffickers arrested and convicted. We can compel law enforcement to make this issue a top priority. We can ensure that the children are recovered and are provided with all the resources and support they need to start their lives anew.
Most importantly, the hope is that we can stop this evil industry in its tracks and prevent more children from being abused, tortured and even murdered to satisfy the vile perversions, deranged beliefs and callous disregard of certain "sick" adults. I rarely talk in terms of something being "evil," but it seems an appropriate adjective to use when discussing the global child trafficking network.
If, as Klee and others claim, Sound of Freedom is "implausible," what are the facts? What role has Ballard and the O.U.R. really played in trying to tackle this despicable trade?
The Appalling Reality
What we are about to discuss may come as a shock, but it is necessary to bring the details of this obnoxious industry into the light, as the makers of Sound of Freedom are attempting to do. Why so many are opposed to highlighting the plight of child suffering on such a monumental scale is hard to fathom, absent nauseating suspicions.
While many of the figures and statistics we will look at (below) are historical, there is absolutely no evidence that they have improved. On the contrary, the evidence points toward a worsening situation.
According to the United Nations' International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and another UN agency, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in their most recent Global Estimates of Modern Slavery (GEMS) report, on any given day on our planet, an estimated 50 million people are slaves. Of these, around 6.3 million are sex slaves and, of those, around 1.7 million are children.
To put the numbers in plain English: Some 1.7 million children are savagely assaulted and tortured for the gratification of paedophiles every single day.
In 2014, the ILO estimated that sex slavery of adults and children generated approximately $99 billion in annual trafficker profits globally. This means child sex slavery alone was worth at least $27 billion to traffickers that year. I say "at least" because children garner a premium, making trafficking children more lucrative than trafficking adults. The ILO figures include additional profits from child sexual abuse material (CSAM)—also known as child pornography—but exclude the money earned from the child sexual abuse tourism trade.
The GEMS report cited above focuses on "forced labour." These statistics relate to the provision of children for sexual assault and rape by known commercial operations. If we then consider the projected scale of unknown—and, as yet, unreported—child abuse, research estimates reach as high as 10 million tortured children.
In their definition of "commercial sexual exploitation of children” the IOM and ILO include "the use, procuring, or offering of children for the production of child sexual abuse materials." The GEMS report notes, "COVID–19 has greatly amplified the risk of online child commercial sexual exploitation."
Of course, the respiratory disease itself wasn't the culprit. It was the policy response of governments to the so-called "pandemic" that "greatly amplified the risk of online child commercial sexual exploitation."
The GEMS report also cites a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) that looks more broadly at child sexual exploitation and abuse. This more extensive trafficking includes the online grooming of children for both CSAM and domestic sexual abuse. The EIU study considered a mix of both commercial and non-commercial child abuse when it found:
Every year, over 400 million children around the world are exposed to child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA).
Every Child Protected Against Trafficking (ECPAT) is an international global network of 102 civil society organisations and coalitions in 93 countries. The network is coordinated from ECPAT headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand. Its goal is to eradicate child trafficking and sexual abuse.
Interpol is the world's only international policing agency. It maintains an International Child Sexual Exploitation Database (ICSE), which contains more than 4.3 million images and videos of child abuse, torture and murder.
In 2018, ECPAT and Interpol teamed up to publish a study, funded by the European Union (EU), of the ICSE database.
For more than two years, they analysed a million randomised ICSE files—less than a quarter of the total catalogued. From those files they determined that child sexual exploitation (CSE) was indeed a global problem, but that less than half of all nations had submitted evidence to the ICSE database. There is "significant scope for many more countries to contribute data," they observed.
ECPAT and Interpol researchers concentrated their efforts on 800 image series and videos. From those files, they concluded:
- 64.8 per cent of unidentified media files depicted female children, 31.1 per cent depicted male children, and 4.1 per cent depicted both male and female victims.
- 76.6 per cent of the series they analysed featured white children, 10.1 per cent Hispanic or Latino children, 9.9 per cent Asian children, and 2.1 per cent black victims. A small proportion of the categorised series (1.3 per cent) depicted children of multiple ethnicities.
It's worth pointing out that, though the ethnicity of victims in the database may be a proxy indicator for the location of the abuse or exploitation, it does not necessarily paint an accurate picture of the ethnicity of victims globally, because many countries do not contribute images and videos to the ICSE Database. - 56.2 per cent of cases depicted prepubescent children, 25.4 per cent were pubescent children, and 4.3 per cent were very young children (infants and toddlers). Another 14.1 per cent of cases featured children in multiple age categories.
As horrific and hard to accept as all these statistics are, we are failing our children if we don't look this evil square in the face. Thus, we cannot shy away from the specific types of child exploitation cited in the GEMS report:
Exploitation may take various forms, including sexual exploitation, forced labour, forced begging, organ removal, and slavery and slavery-like practices.
Organs
At this time, the data on harvesting children's organs is relatively scarce, making global estimates of child murder for organ removal problematic. But we know this much from a 2016 study by researchers at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences:
The demand for human organs has grown far faster than the supply of organs. This has opened the door for illegal organ trade and trafficking including from children. Organized crime groups and individual organ brokers exploit the situation and, as a result, black markets are becoming more numerous and organized organ trafficking is expanding worldwide. [. . .] Child organ trafficking, which was once called a ‘‘modern urban legend’’, is a sad reality in today’s world [. . .]
[T]his paper emphasizes that child organ trafficking is no longer a myth but a reality which has to be addressed. [. . .] In the confirmed cases of child organ trafficking, harvesting of organs from those trafficked or kidnapped children cost their lives. [. . .] The confirmed cases of child organ trafficking are missing children who have been found dead with transplantable organs removed from their body.
Citing the numerous UN and WHO reports and resolutions supposedly intended to tackle or stop the illicit organ trade, the Tehran study notes that "official" efforts to address the problem have so far been next to useless. One of the problems in tackling the issue appears to be that many members of the medical establishment are implicated. As the study put it:
The technical requirements of transplantation are so formidable that to conduct such activities in a clandestine manner is a practical impossibility unless healthcare professionals are involved.
On the same subject, the UN's Inter-Agency Coordination Group Against Trafficking In Persons (ICAT) reported:
Current official figures of its [human organ trafficking's] prevalence certainly under-represent the magnitude of this phenomenon. Notably, there are a series of difficulties associated with detecting and adjudicating this crime, such as its characteristic occurrence in legitimate medical settings where it can thus be easily disguised.
And the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) wrote of organ trafficking:
In 2011 it was estimated that the illicit 'organ trade' generated illegal profits between $600 million and £1.2 billion per year.
On 17 October 2018, Greece's then-Minister for Foreign Affairs Nikos Kotzias resigned from the position he had held for three years. A month later, Kotzias gave an interview in which he said:
I sent some diplomats to the prosecutor who ended up in prison because they were giving visas to unaccompanied children, which means organ trading. [. . .] We sent 93 cases to the Prosecutor, highly evaluated ambassadors went to jail, but the press did not write about them. Because the person who gives a visa in Constantinople [Istanbul] to an unaccompanied child is not just a criminal, he is traitor. A visa for a 14-month-old unaccompanied baby and they tried to cover it up for him.
Of Kotzias' revelations, Gatestone Institute's Maria Polizoidou wrote:
He [Kotzias] has revealed that a network of government officials, doctors and organ buyers, all of whom facilitate and profit from illegal organ trafficking—is something very real; its size may be beyond our imagination. According to Kotzias, children are being sacrificed; this is a reality no one has the courage to admit or even talk about. How deeply is Greece involved? And how deeply involved is the rest of Europe?
The aforementioned ICAT report refers to hundreds of "proven" cases of organ trafficking. To more fully appreciate the likely scale of the illegal organ trade, we can look to a Harvard Medical School paper, published in 2009, which estimates that approximately 10% of all transplant operations are sourced from illegal organ harvesting.
The industry appears to have grown since UNODC reported in 2011. A decade later, in 2021, the US Congressional Research Service reported:
As with many clandestine activities, estimating the financial scale of international organ trafficking is complicated by a lack of information. The nongovernmental organization (NGO) Global Financial Integrity (GFI) estimates that the annual value of organ trafficking globally ranges from $840 million to upwards of $1.7 billion. [. . .] GFI estimates that approximately 12,000 illegal transplants occur each year.
An unknown number of these organs were harvested from murdered children. It is indeed a very profitable business.
Ritual Abuse
In addition to organ trafficking, there is a fairly common and similarly lucrative business known as child harvesting—sometimes referred to as "baby factories." These are often back street "clinics" or "slave holding pens" where expectant mothers, who are often children themselves, produce babies to order.
In 2020, The Guardian, a Nigerian newspaper, reported:
[T]here is an upsurge in baby factories in the South-South and Southeast of the country. Sale of infants appears to be a booming business in the two regions, with traffickers network within zones cashing in on what is now a lucrative trade. The babies are usually sold to either childless couples or ritualists.
In 2011, journalist David Smith in the Johannesburg office of the UK-based Guardian reported that 32 young mothers had been rescued from a child harvesting operation in the Nigerian city of Aba. The girls were said to be aged between 15 and 17, but police sources claimed "some [of the girls] belong in secondary, even in primary school."
According to Smith, Abia state police commissioner Balia Hassan told reporters:
We rescued 32 pregnant girls and arrested the proprietor, who is undergoing interrogation over allegations that he normally sells the babies to people who may use them for rituals or other purposes.
Similar rescue operations have taken place in Ghana, where a "baby harvesting" syndicate was reportedly broken, and in Kenya, where babies and children are stolen—often, reportedly, for child sacrifice rituals.
The Tanzanian Government has set up protective accommodation for albino children, many of whom have had their limbs hacked off for use in rituals. Child sacrifice and ritual mutilation is also a persistent problem in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere.
The problem of ritual killings in Uganda has been acknowledged for years. Children and their body parts are used in the rituals. This practice led the Ugandan Government to pass the Prevention and Prohibition of Human Sacrifice Act of 2020, which could see convicted ritualistic child murderers and traffickers facing the death penalty.
The Ugandan Government report informing the legislation stated:
Human sacrifice is a growing concern to law enforcement agencies, parents, child rights activists and the general public. Records from the Uganda Police Force show that human sacrifice cases have been steadily increasing for the last several years.
Ritualistic child abuse is a global scourge. In 1993, the American Bar Association conducted a survey that found that 26% of prosecutors across the US had worked on cases involving ritualistic abuse. The list of cases the ABA found across nearly every state makes for difficult reading.
Child harvesting is not restricted to Africa or Oceania. European "baby factories" have also been exposed by law enforcement.
Ukraine has taken child harvesting to new heights. So-called "surrogacy” rates have exploded in the country of late. The lack of official scrutiny is often blamed for the many reports of expectant mothers forced to endure awful conditions. Such an environment is ripe for baby harvesting organ traffickers, as recent arrests have illustrated.
Destination West
The evidence shows that the global child trafficking trade is operating on an almost unimaginable scale. As O.U.R. highlights, the world's leading destination for babies and child slaves is the United States, closely followed by the EU.
The UN states that a combination of factors—everything from the minimal resources of reporting bodies to the shame and stigma associated with these practices—drives people's reluctance to report cases. This means that "the true scale of the crimes committed against children is unknown."
In the UK, for example, more than 70,000 children go missing every year. A full 10% of children in state institutions disappear annually. A quarter of previously trafficked children who are subsequently placed in state care vanish for lengthy periods, often on multiple occasions. Many of these children return periodically, but their whereabouts and activities while unsupervised remain unknown.
The European Commission published a report in 2021 on the numbers caught in the EU slave trade. The report recognised that the "actual number is likely to be significantly higher[,] as many victims remain undetected." That being said, the researchers stated:
According to the latest available data, between 2017 and 2018, there were more than 14,000 registered victims within the European Union. [. . .] Nearly half of the victims of trafficking within the European Union are EU nationals and a significant number of them are trafficked within their own Member State. The majority of the victims in the EU are women and girls trafficked for sexual exploitation. Almost every fourth victim of trafficking in the EU is a child.
All these facts and figures highlight another important aspect of child trafficking. Thus far, we have primarily discussed the statistics relating to the international child trafficking industry. However, as pointed out by UNICEF, the bulk of child trafficking occurs within national borders. UNICEF calls it "domestic" or "transregional" trafficking.
Refugee children are particularly vulnerable to domestic trafficking. Between 2018 and 2020, for instance, authorities across EU member states permanently lost an estimated 18,000 children. Many concerned charities reiterated that this number was based upon extremely limited data and that the true number was "significantly higher."
Poster holding child sex traffickers to account, Laos. Photo: Bikepacking Adventure CC0 | public domain
The Apparently Senseless Denial
When all parties go to great lengths to hide a global criminal network from detection, it is not surprising that consequent projections of the numbers involved are invariably underestimates. This fact has been consistently acknowledged in all official reports and statistical analyses.
Nevertheless, based upon what limited data is known, the UN reported in January 2021:
North America is a destination for significant flows from countries in Central America and the Caribbean. These flows are mainly directed to the United States and Mexico. [. . .] North America is also the destination for one significant transregional trafficking flow, where victims are trafficked across vast distances. This flow originates in East Asia and is mainly directed to the United States. [. . .] Trafficking victims detected in North America also originate from a wide variety of countries in Africa, Europe, South Asia, and South America. Victims of 96 different citizenships have been detected in this subregion.
Measured as a percentage of global slave traffic, the UN found that 8% of the victims are from East Asia and the Pacific and 9% from Central America and the Caribbean. While 8% crossed the US border from Mexico, 7% entered the US from Europe and from the rest of the world. The remaining 68% of US slaves were trafficked solely within US borders.
Based on these UN figures, the strong possibility is that tens of thousands of children are trafficked into the US every year and that the vast majority are sexually abused. To corroborate this assessment, UNODC reported that 100,000 unaccompanied children were intercepted crossing the Mexican/US border in 2017. It is worth emphasising that these numbers reflect only the children who were discovered. How many remain hidden from authorities?
In 2005, the UN reported:
2 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion-dollar commercial sex industry.
This is the figure cited by the Sound of Freedom promoters. To their credit, O.U.R. and the Sound of Freedom production team have taken great care to reference nothing but official statistics in their promotional material for the film. Given everything we've discussed thus far, though, we can consider these estimates very conservative.
So, to circle back to critic Klee, we have to wonder why he deceptively claims that O.U.R.'s expression of concern about the "epidemic" of child sex trafficking is "grossly exaggerated"—especially when, if anything, the word "epidemic" fails to convey the staggering extent of this evil. That Klee is resoundingly wrong is indisputable.
It is impossible to know Klee's motivation, but it would seem that he is engaged in some sort of senseless denial. The same can be said of Charles Bramesco, who writes for the Guardian. Bramesco claims that Sound of Freedom is based on "deep-dish delusion" and that it "cudgels" its audience into stepping blindly into a "snare of wild-eyed falsehoods."
A piece in the Washington Post by Herb Scribner and Will Sommer makes the same broad allegations. The journalists assert there is "no evidence" to support Tim Ballard's claim that 10,000 children are trafficked yearly into the US for child rapists to defile. Yet Ballard's estimate is based on solid evidence, and he errs on the side of caution with a very circumspect figure.
The crux of the Scribner/Sommer accusation is that Ballard said these statistics came from the US Department of State. In 2004, the State Department estimated that between 300,000 to 400,000 children are trafficked across international borders every year. But because these figures cannot be verified for all the reasons we've discussed, the Washington Post co-authors insinuate that Ballard is a fraud.
Let's do a breakdown. If we average the UN's assessment of the percentage of the children trafficked into the United States at just 5% and if we take the lower State Department estimated 2004 total of 300,000, this suggests that at least 15,000 children are successfully trafficked across borders into the US every year. Ballard has chosen to use a conservative and highly plausible estimate of 10,000—fully one-third less than 15,000—yet Scribner and Sommer accuse him of deception, apparently without making any effort to ascertain if he is telling the truth.
Meanwhile, Cable News Network (CNN) has turned to a self-styled "debunker of conspiracy theories," Mike Rothschild, to attack Sound of Freedom's subject matter. Rothschild said:
In terms of child trafficking, we know that child trafficking is real, we know it has real victims, no one is denying that. But these films are created out of moral panic, they are created out of bogus statistics, they're created out of fear. And with something like Sound of Freedom it is specifically looking at QAnon concepts of these child trafficking rings that are run by the high level élites. [. . .]
Only people like Tim Ballard, and only people like Jim Caviezel [. . .] can help bring these trafficking rings down. [. . .] You are not just going to see a movie [. . .] you are helping to bring down these paedophile rings and save children. Now, it's not true but it is a very comforting and it is a very warm feeling to have.
We will discuss Rothschild's mention of "QAnon concepts" shortly, but suffice to say the social media posts from people who have seen Sound of Freedom do not reveal any evidence of an audience that feels "comforted." On the contrary, nearly all the comments that I've seen are from people who are disturbed, angered and frustrated by the fact that the global child slave trade is of the magnitude depicted—and that it exists at all.
Sound of Freedom is not based upon "bogus statistics." The numbers it cites are not created "out of fear." Rather, as we have seen, the statistics are from intergovernmental bodies, global NGOs and national law enforcement agencies around the world.
In other words, the numbers have been "created" out of real investigation and real research and real statistical analysis. Moreover, the objective of Sound of Freedom is not to cause "moral panic" but to enable people to confront gut-wrenching reality in the hope that public opinion will bring about substantial, permanent change.
Sure, criticise the film for its perceived theatrical failings all you want. But to attack the intent of the filmmakers and Ballard makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Especially in light of the fact that the horrendous problem it depicts is painfully real.
It doesn't matter if Sound of Freedom is the worst film ever made. What matters is that it is attempting to highlight arguably the most important issue facing humanity: the desecration and destruction of innocent children everywhere.
Why are Rothschild, Klee, Bramesco, Scribner, Sommer and others of their ilk evidently "denying" this horrendous crime—even while hypocritically claiming they believe it is real? What is it about revealing the full scale of the child sex trafficking industry that they wish to suppress? What's wrong with them?
Whatever their excuse, each of them is apparently spreading disinformation.
Tim Ballard and O.U.R.
In 2015, the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs met to discuss the plight of sex trafficking victims. The committee chairman introduced Tim Ballard thus:
Mr. Ballard has worked at the Central Intelligence Agency and as a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security where he was assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children [ICAC] Task Force and deployed as an undercover operative for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team. He has worked every type of case imaginable in the United States and in multiple foreign countries in the fight to dismantle, disrupt, and bring to justice these terrible child trafficking rings, so thank you.
Tim Ballard is one of the world's leading experts on child trafficking, sexual exploitation and abuse. Why, then, is he continually maligned and his motives suspected by certain “officials” and the news media? It would seem that the attacks on him largely centre on his faith, his belief system and his business activities.
For example, Scribner and Sommer wrote:
In Utah [where O.U.R. is based], the Davis County Attorney’s Office spent two and a half years investigating Operation Underground Railroad for alleged communications fraud, witness tampering and retaliation, according to the Deseret News. The investigations ended with no charges in May.
That alleged investigation was led by Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings. After nearly three years of finding nothing at all, the Utah Attorney's Office statement concerning closure of the case read:
In sum, the Davis County Attorney's Office does not believe that the decision to pursue charges against O.U.R. or any individuals associated with O.U.R. is prudent.
In other words, there was no case. It seems the prosecution was part of a witch hunt. So why, then, did the Washington Post journalists bother mentioning it again?
We know from Ballard that the completely unfounded allegations harmed O.U.R.'s reputation. Thus, though the charges were found to be without merit, it appears Scribner and Sommer were purposely flogging it to continue to damage O.U.R.
From the questionable to the ridiculous
Other attacks on Ballard and O.U.R. have been equally ridiculous. Here's one illustration: In the midst of the witch hunt, the Utah newspaper The Herald Journal criticised O.U.R. because it had been raising funds for the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) officer wellness program. The programme helps police manage their mental health when they are investigating the most sickening crimes—a toll that Tim Ballard understands all too well.
When funding for the wellness program was cut, O.U.R. stepped in to keep it afloat. The Herald Journal's Taylor Hartman declared O.U.R.'s support to be nothing more than "self-promotion" and a means of "fundraising."
The additional allegations, chiefly fomented by Rawlings, were that O.U.R. was falsely taking credit for ICAC operations but had little direct involvement. This was abject nonsense.
In truth, O.U.R. reported openly that it only offered financial support. It did not take any credit for ICAC operations:
O.U.R. is grateful for the many opportunities to support them [ICAC] to increase their capabilities of saving children. [. . .] Their efforts in Utah communities have resulted in many successes in their fight against child exploitation. [. . .] Support provided to Utah ICAC by Operation Underground Railroad within the last 3 months has led to the arrest of 7 more individuals for sexual exploitation of children. [. . .] [W]e are grateful for their [ICAC's] outstanding efforts.
Again, citing the vacuous Rawlings' case and his comments—but without naming him—the New York Times wrote a disgusting article in 2020 that included an attack on O.U.R. In it, the “journalist” Michael Winerip told the story of a man who thought he had arranged to meet a 13-year-old girl in order to subject her to bondage and rape. Somehow, Winerip managed to portray the paedophile as the victim.
The man was met by officers from Washington State Patrol (WSP) and was one of among 300 paedophiles arrested in WSP's Net Nanny operation. For having contributed to many successful legs of the operation, O.U.R. frequently received plentiful thanks from WSP:
16 dangerous sexual predators who targeted children in Yakima County were removed from the streets. [. . .] The funding for this operation was made possible due in part by support from the public as well as a generous donation from Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.).
To a great extent, this kind of work is why Ballard formed O.U.R. It unabashedly engages in self-promotion, with the aim of fundraising, precisely because it provides financial support to organisations like ICAC and operations like WSP's Net Nanny.
Yet, for—or despite—its good deeds, O.U.R. has been consistently attacked by some in the mainstream media. The non-profit and its founder have faced perpetual and completely baseless litigation and have been publicly accused of everything from lying to fraud.
Beyond the USA
Keep in mind that O.U.R. doesn't just support US-based operations against child sexual exploitation. Much of its work takes place in other countries. Since establishing O.U.R. in 2013, Ballard has led it to a number of notable successes. Even these "wins" are attacked by egregious elements of the mainstream media.
With his constant focus on raising awareness, Ballard uses the media wherever he can to promote the O.U.R. cause. For instance, he often takes journalists with him on the sting operations he orchestrates with national law enforcement. The O.U.R. team films these stings for evidential purposes.
Granted, O.U.R. operations aren’t faultless. Legitimate concerns are sometimes raised about the potential for exposing the identity of trafficked children. Also, local care services are often ill-equipped to deal with the recovered children, so many of them quickly cycle back into trafficking and exploitation. This is why O.U.R. also focuses upon supporting rehabilitation, which it calls aftercare. The social, economic and political reasons for CSEA and trafficking are deep-rooted.
Nor is the O.U.R. approach anything new. The FBI and organisations like the International Justice Mission (IJM) pioneered the sting operation techniques favoured by Ballard and O.U.R.
Critics of O.U.R., such as Anne Gallagher at the Huffington Post, raise some valid concerns. Questioning O.U.R.'s strategy, Gallagher wrote:
The task of eliminating human trafficking is not amendable to such an approach. It requires hard work; a tolerance for incremental, sometimes almost imperceptible success; and an unwavering commitment to justice and the rule of law.
Of course, if we hope to end human and child trafficking, the solutions are diverse, ranging from societal to economic to legal to political. O.U.R. cannot possibly resolve these problems single-handedly. Not that Ballard has any illusions: he freely admits that O.U.R. is trying to combat a global multi-billion-dollar criminal enterprise on a relative shoestring.
Our governments should be committing every resource they can muster to stop child trafficking. But they aren't. And that is why O.U.R. has collaborated with Angel Studios to produce Sound of Freedom. The whole point of the film is to raise public awareness to a place where the necessary social, economic, legal and political response is elicited.
In 2019, Ballard was appointed to the US Government's Public-Private Partnership Advisory Council to End Human Trafficking. Given the opportunity, Ballard and O.U.R. engage in the political process wherever they can. What more is O.U.R. supposed to do?
Politically, Ballard supports the Republicans. He is a former CIA and Homeland Security agent who advocates many government and government-linked organisations and NGOs.
Tim Ballard. Photo: Gage Skidmore | licence: CC BY-SA 2.0
Ballard is also an author, consultant and public speaker with his own for-profit business and allegations have been made that Ballard is using O.U.R. and Sound of Freedom to funnel charitable donations to his profit making ventures. No evidence has been presented to substantiate these accusations—which are largely based upon claims about “secret” meetings where strict non-disclosure agreements were enforced, making any reported evidence (or, indeed, refutation) an unlikely prospect.
Independent journalist Lynn Packer, who—like me—hasn’t watched Sound of Freedom, criticises the film for presenting a false depiction of the child trafficking industry. He observed that by reportedly focusing upon children being kidnapped and trafficked, Sound of Freedom increases the danger to children.
Packer rightly points out that child traffickers more commonly acquire the children by coercion or buy them from the child’s family. He also correctly highlights that children are far more likely to be abused by a family member or someone close to them.
Packer therefore asserts that Ballard and O.U.R.’s collaboration on the Sound of Freedom is an attempt to obfuscate, rather than reveal, the reality of child trafficking. In particular, that Ballard is portrayed as “the hero.”
We have already discussed that the film is a thriller intended to engage audiences. Film critics such as Gleiberman have explained why artistic license is taken in screenplays that are “based upon true stories” and tackle serious subjects. It is difficult to imagine how a thriller would work at all without an heroic protagonist.
The problem with Packer’s associated criticism of Ballard and the O.U.R. is that he apparently believes the film has been marketed as if it were a documentary. That is not the case. Furthermore, O.U.R. openly states that the film does not show what “trafficking typically looks like” and points frankly to the shortcomings in the screen adaptation:
The film [. . .] shows security camera footage of several different kidnappings. This is real footage, and while this type of human trafficking exists, it isn't the majority. [. . .] The film also depicts children in shipping containers. It is important to note that Hollywood took creative license in portraying the different ways that children can be trafficked. While cases exist where children are transported in various vehicles, most trafficking happens through a manipulative grooming process. Sound of Freedom illustrates this well in the child modelling scenes.
It is all very well for Packer, the Huffington Post's Gallagher and others to point out the broader solutions; but these are not forthcoming at the moment. Perhaps a film like Sound of Freedom will contribute to breaking the stalemate. In the meantime, though, Gallagher, for example, not only attacks O.U.R., she also expresses personal animosity toward Ballard—and repeatedly misspells his name in the process, turning him into a traffic-calming installation.
Consider:
Bollard's operations say much about the man: they are arrogant, unethical and illegal.
The operation in the Dominican Republic—one of the O.U.R. collaborative stings Gallagher criticises in her article—resulted in the recovery of 13 trafficked children and the conviction of seven traffickers. Gallagher doesn't mention this or any of the other O.U.R.-assisted recoveries or convictions. Apparently, recovering trafficked children, supporting their aftercare and providing evidence to convict child traffickers doesn't even warrant a mention from Gallagher as she denigrates the people engaged in the effort.
Having attracted to its ranks other former agents, law enforcement officers and volunteers over the past decade, O.U.R. claims to have participated in over 1,000 operations, to have recovered more than 6,000 child survivors, and to have assisted in the prosecution of at least 4,000 traffickers and paedophiles.
These claims are difficult to verify, and obviously, given the horrendous child trafficking statistics discussed above, O.U.R. operations alone cannot make a significant dent on such a massive, global industry. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that O.U.R. has contributed to recovering trafficked children, funding their aftercare, prosecuting offenders and highlighting the issue of child trafficking wherever and whenever possible.
In 2014, O.U.R. assisted a joint Columbian-US team in recovering 55 survivors and prosecuting 11 traffickers in three cities. In order to pull off this operation, Tim Ballard arranged child sex tourism package deals between wealthy US paedophiles and the child traffickers. Working undercover in both the US and Columbia as a child sex broker, he and the O.U.R. team willingly exposed themselves to considerable personal danger to conduct that sting—and they have continued to do so for nearly a decade.
In a more recent example, O.U.R. worked with the UNODC, Interpol and the Office of the Attorney General of Thailand (OAG) in 2021 to train Thai prosecutors in digital evidence-gathering. In addition, O.U.R. collaborated with the Australian and New Zealand governments, Interpol and the FBI to assist the Thai authorities to destroy a CSAM ring operating through a "modelling agency."
Of that operation, the Bangkok Post wrote:
One of the country's biggest global distributors of child pornography was arrested at his child modelling agency in Pathum Thani. [. . .] The man who ran Nene modelling, Danudetch Saengkaew, 23, reportedly had half a million nude photos of children—some aged as young as two years old—stored in his computer. [. . .] The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) said victims included Thai children as well as thousands of children from other countries.
O.U.R. recovery operations cost money, and people need to be paid for their work. O.U.R. fastidiously publishes all of its financial records. Though numerous allegations have been made by Rawlings and others about financial irregularities, none of these charges have been substantiated.
O.U.R. had revenue of just over $42.3 million in 2021. The executive board of the O.U.R. paid themselves well. Ballard declared earnings of more than $520,000. Executive salaries, including Ballard’s, accounted for just over $2.7 million. A further $5 million was paid in salaries to O.U.R. agents and staff. In the same year, O.U.R. gave a little over $12 million in grants to law enforcement and others. Its total operational costs, including grants and salaries, were approximately $31 million, leaving it with a net gain of nearly $11 million for the year.
The sin of being paid
Not surprisingly, Ballard and O.U.R. have been attacked in hit pieces for “drawing a salary.” The accusations are largely based upon Rawlings’ groundless prosecution and are invariably presented without evidence. In a fascinating interview with Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, Ballard unintentionally addresses these criticisms [scroll to 01:17:44 in the interview] when Peterson asks him about the lost pension he walked away from:
My accountant came to me and showed me how many millions of dollars [. . .] I was walking away from. [. . .] Success bred success, donations started coming in. [. . .] Frankly, I think I’ll be better off financially, as a look at my future, than I would have been otherwise.
Perhaps some feel that Ballard's annual drawn salary of more than £400,000 (sterling equivalent) is excessive. We know some have criticised O.U.R. for raising millions of dollars to fund enforcement operations and aftercare for recovered children. But, contrary to the allegations made against Ballard and O.U.R., there appears to be nothing underhanded about O.U.R.’s financial position. Having full access to all of its financial records, people can choose either to support O.U.R. or decline.
Ballard discussed with Peterson why he believes his strong faith was a factor his recruiters considered when they first approached him to investigate child trafficking [scroll to 26:45 in the interview]. He recounted that he had been recruited by the CIA out of university, and he then transferred to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Within six months of that move, as Ballard tells it, he was asked to join the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force.
The "supervisor" who recruited him to ICAC reportedly told Ballard:
You are a young agent but you are a person of faith. We know that about you, and that is a requirement, or your soul will be crushed.
This is anecdotal, but there is good reason to believe it. Regardless of anyone's opinion about religion, it is logical, from the recruiter's perspective, to seek potential agents who possess a strong faith. A philosophical or theological grounding that helps the agent cope with the unavoidable trauma is an obvious desirable quality.
In the Peterson interview, Ballard recounted his first exposure to CSAM in 2002. The graphic material he saw was the kind of content he would go on to study and investigate for the rest of his career.
The first CSAM he had to watch was a seized video showing three prepubescent boys being raped. In an effort to try to convey the impact that prolonged exposure to this horror has on a human being, Ballard tried to describe the CSAM he has forced himself not only to witness but to scrutinise and analyse in detail:
To watch children's bodies actually break in the act of sexual assault, acts that your mind couldn't conjure up if you tried to conjure it up, and that it's real, that is so shocking to the system, it changes your life forever. I tell people, I feel like I had a million holes burned into my brain because I have watched thousands of hours of that kind of material. [. . .]
Not only watching it but writing it, in detail, for the court to see, for prosecutors to see, and raising children at the same time that are the very same age. [. . .] I would superimpose my children's faces and persons onto these children. [. . .] That led to the PTSD, I'll be honest. [. . .] I was determined not to quit, so I just sought more help, and I won't quit.
The inevitable post-traumatic stress, explored in some depth in the Peterson interview, is the price that Ballard and his family were willing to pay. As Ballard underscores, mental torment is what facing evil has cost him, but it is nothing compared to the excruciating agony suffered by trafficked children.
I have worked in some very challenging environments and have seen things I wish I hadn't, but I cannot even begin to comprehend where a man like Ballard gets his admirable strength from. If it is his faith, as he affirms, then who am I, who are any of us, to question him?
I am just thankful that Tim Ballard and others like him exist. I am not religious, but after more than two decades of withstanding these abominations, that Ballard’s soul has not been crushed is testament to the man and his faith.
It is evident that Ballard has paid a high emotional and psychological price. Yet still he persists. Clearly, his compulsion to act is rooted in his faith, as is Caviezel's determination to see the Sound of Freedom project succeed.
Why anyone has a problem with these two men's motives is difficult to understand. To be frank, who cares what their motivations are? It is the work Ballard does—and Caviezel's portrayal of that work—that matters. As a result of collaborating on Sound of Freedom, Ballard and Caveizel have been scorned and derision heaped upon them. What possible reason can anyone have for doing this? One wonders what their tormentors have done to save anyone.
QAnon concepts
Allegedly, Vladimir [Ilyich Ulyanov] Lenin said:
The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.
It seems unlikely that Lenin ever uttered these words. However ,New York University Professor Mark Crispin Miller quoted a relevant Facebook post by Mike Champine in a December 2020 blog post:
Whoever said it, this is exactly what the “élites”, “the establishment” [. . .]—whatever you want to call them—[. . .] believe, and practice. Controlled opposition is one of their most effective weapons, because it’s a psychological weapon. The establishment uses mind tricks and plays mind games on genuinely good people that are genuinely opposed to their attacks on our civil liberties and their crimes against humanity.
Running "controlled opposition" operations has been openly acknowledged by the intelligence agencies for years. For example, CIA infiltration of the terrorist cell responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was so extensive—to the extent of leading the cell's activities—that the CIA admitted to being “partly culpable” for the killing of six people. The psychological objective was to convince citizens to fear a terror threat that may otherwise have been negligible or possibly nonexistent.
Throughout the 1960s and into the early '70s, the FBI ran the COINTELPRO program in the US. Its agents infiltrated activist groups and in many cases were complicit in crimes or actively led the commission of crimes. Again, the objective was to create threats that could then be used to justify further FBI funding and tougher national security legislation.
In 2003, following a 14-year investigation, the UK's Sir John Stevens released his final recommendations report into the activities of British intelligence during "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland. He made this stark observation:
I conclude there was collusion in both murders and the circumstances surrounding them [. . .] through to the extreme of agents being involved in murder. [. . .] Informants and agents were allowed to operate without effective control and to participate in terrorist crimes.
What Sir John was saying, hard as it may be to swallow, is that British state agents were acting as terrorists. But this shouldn't surprise us. After all, controlled opposition is a common strategy in intelligence operations.
The controlled opposition game is also played by media giants. The BBC recently revealed that it operates a number of online troll accounts to investigate and manipulate information flows on social media.
"QAnon" has all the hallmarks of a controlled opposition operation. It first emerged in 2017 on the internet site 4Chan in the form of a series of alleged leaks from a supposed intelligence "whistle-blower." The anonymous account holder, who claimed to have Q clearance, went by the name "Q Clearance Patriot"; "Q" for short. Supportive of then-President Donald Trump, "Q" promoted the idea that Trump was in a battle royal with the "deep state."
QAnon encompassed a wide gamut of so-called pro-Trump "conspiracy theories." Pointedly, "Q's" unnecessarily cryptic clues and "secret" messages—presumably intended to foster additional intrigue—claimed Trump was waging a secret war against paedophile networks in government, business and the media. But there is no evidence to suggest that Trump was engaged in any "secret war" against child trafficking. As a "secret" cannot possibly be known, this shouldn't surprise anyone.
Two separate teams of investigators, one based in France, the other in Switzerland, used stylometry techniques to track down "Q's" possible origin. They each independently identified the South African software developer Paul Furber as the potential original "Q." And both alleged that Ron Watkins took over as "Q" from Furber in 2018.
Both analytics teams independently averred that other evidence, such as the continuity of unique password-protected tripcodes, pointed towards Furber and Watkins. Both men deny they are or ever were "Q."
The enigma cannot be further investigated. For example, Swiss firm OrphAnalytics, one of the teams that conducted the research, has no legal authority. It can't liaise with international law enforcement partners to interview either Furber or Watkins unless invited to do so. No law enforcement agencies have taken any serious interest in pursuing their investigation. "Q's" identity remains a mystery.
FBI documents reveal that, regarding QAnon, the bureau considered there was a "factual basis to believe that an activity constituting a federal crime has or may have occurred." Consequently, the FBI decided to "open a preliminary investigation" into QAnon. The FBI was granted the power to subpoena witnesses, including "highly sensitive intelligence sources," and was free to deploy the full technological capability of the FBI's Cyber Division in its investigation.
The FBI's investigation report concluded that it couldn't identify "Q" and thus couldn't proceed:
No criminal subject was identified after logical and reasonable preliminary investigation. [. . .] FBI New York has taken all logical and reasonable investigative steps warranted by the situation.
Despite private cyber analytics firms offering sufficient evidence to seemingly warrant the further investigation of named individuals, the FBI's "logical and reasonable" steps did not include interviewing any potential suspects. This is surprising, to say the least.
The FBI can supposedly infiltrate and disrupt highly sophisticated cyber warfare operations run by the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation, and yet, apparently, it can't identify someone, or some group, posting on a public social media platform. This barely seems credible.
It suggests the possibility that the FBI doesn't want to identify "Q" publicly.
It is the manner in which the mainstream media exploit QAnon that provides the clearest indication that QAnon is controlled opposition. QAnon is notable for its tendency to incorporate many so-called "conspiracy theories"—some plausible, some not.
Speaking of conspiracy theories, Mike Rothschild opined on CNN:
The most durable and the most believable conspiracy theories are not entirely false. There is something in them that is true and the rest of it is false. But the believers point to the one true thing and say, "Oh! You don't believe that this particular thing is true?"
Rothschild went on to suggest that "conspiracy theorists" cite crimes and events that are supported by evidence and use this evidence to extrapolate that related accusations are therefore equally valid by association—despite the lack of supporting evidence for their additional claims. As previously mentioned, Rothschild asserts that this tactic is how QAnon followers make the supposedly illogical leap from known child trafficking operations to the existence of "child trafficking rings that are run by the high-level élites."
The objective of running a controlled opposition information operation is to reverse the process described by Rothschild. For instance, by lumping well-founded and baseless suspicions together, and labelling them all as "QAnon conspiracy theories," it is possible to easily discredit the absurd and then, by association under the QAnon umbrella, dismiss credible allegations one might wish to bury.
This appears to be exactly how QAnon is deployed by the mainstream media. For example, Charles Bramesco of the Guardian has claimed to be "tuned in to the eardrum-perforating frequency of QAnon." He wrote:
The first rule of QAnon: you don’t talk about QAnon where the normals can hear you. Caviezel has saved that for his promotional media appearances. [. . .] [He] parroted falsehoods about Pizzagate and other underground cells subsisting on human blood, all of it pointing back to a foundation of conspiratorial thought targeting the Jewish and transgender communities.
In an article entitled "Sound of Freedom is an anti-child trafficking fantasy fit for QAnon," Jezebel journalist Rich Juzwiak wrote:
[H]ow distant can Ballard (and by extension his organization) be from QAnon when the guy who’s playing him, with whom he’s been promoting Sound of Freedom, has been using the press opportunity to peddle QAnon theories about adrenochrome and organ harvesting? Sound of Freedom was finished back in 2018 (about two years after Pizzagate put QAnon into the public eye).
Pizzagate smears
Pizzagate is a speculative 2016 "conspiracy theory" based upon leaked e-mails, supposedly "proving" that John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager at the time, was central to a network of "élite" paedophiles. There is no such "proof" in the e-mails. Evidence in the e-mails of possible treason and global financial criminality is stronger, but the mainstream media like to portray Pizzagate solely as a QAnon paedophile conspiracy theory.
While it is true that Pizzagate was frequently discussed on the QAnon forum discussion boards, it did not originate as a "QAnon conspiracy theory," despite the insistence of Juzwiak and others. The initial Hillary Clinton e-mail dumps, which underpin people's Pizzagate suspicions, were revealed by Julian Assange's Wikileaks, not by Q. Such facts are seemingly secondary to the mainstream media, whose sole apparent objective is to associate the Pizzagate revelations with QAnon.
Once the news media has attached the entire Pizzagate narrative to QAnon, numerous aspects of it can easily be "debunked," leaving any and all other claims ascribed to QAnon, whether legitimately or not, to be arbitrarily dismissed. This avoids the need to examine and report any of the more credible evidence.
In short, as long as readers fall for this controlled opposition exercise, the alleged journalist’s job is done. They can flatly deny child "organ harvesting" by slapping the "QAnon conspiracy theory" labels on the evidence. The same holds true for the "adrenochrome conspiracy theory."
Regarding the latter claim, there appears to be no hard evidence of what Rothschild calls "child trafficking rings that are run by the high-level élites" drinking young children's blood to imbibe adrenochrome. Sadly, though, there is a lot of evidence of children being trafficked to developed nations for blood-drinking rituals.
By labelling all evidence as part and parcel of the ever-expanding "QAnon conspiracy theory," the mainstream media's likely disinformation agents falsely associate the very real practice of ritual child sacrifice and blood-drinking with the unrelated "blood libel" accusation that led to European Jews being persecuted in the Middle Ages.
Here's an example. Forbes' Conor Murray wrote:
The adrenochrome conspiracy, a bizarre theory with antisemitic roots, posits that Satan-worshipping global and Hollywood élites run a massive child trafficking ring to drain their blood and harvest the chemical adrenochrome to stay young.
Thus, activists like Ballard, because he highlights the proven fact that children are trafficked and murdered by individuals who hold all manner of unhinged beliefs, can be unjustly accused of antisemitism by unscrupulous propagandists. The probable intention is to convince the reading public to disregard everything he says—and the Sound of Freedom—without assessing the evidence themselves.
Murray, who smeared Ballard accordingly, discussed Ballard's interview with Peterson:
Ballard said they have "condemned the majority of what they see with conspiracy theories," though he reaffirmed his belief in the adrenochrome blood harvesting theory.
This isn’t true at all. This kind of propaganda relies on readers never checking the evidence for themselves. If you watch the interview, you see Peterson reporting that Ballard has been accused of failing to disabuse himself and O.U.R. of the "QAnon conspiracy theory." Then Peterson, noting that QAnon encompasses a whole range of alleged conspiracy theories, asked Ballard [scroll to 09:17 in the interview]:
Is there a particular conspiracy theory you were criticised for refusing to condemn?
To which Ballard replied:
They might be referring to the fact that there is something called adrenochrome. They're taking children's blood and devouring it and so forth. I have explained my experience with that. I just did. In West Africa and other places—we've seen this in several parts of the continent in Africa, it's very real, this witch-doctory. They take these children, they take their organs, they take their blood, they drink it! [. . .]
These are real things. And then I might say something like that and they connect it to something that a QAnon person says about, you know, a celebrity that must be doing this too. But there's no evidence to back that, and so they make a false connection there.
As long as Murray's readers don't think critically, any reference he makes to QAnon enables Murray, and like-minded journalists, to falsely assert that Ballard is presenting an antisemitic "conspiracy theory." In reality, Ballard made no reference to the "blood libel" trope or to any other "conspiracy theory." Everything he said was supported by hard evidence and by his personal witness testimony. His testimony is solid enough to have contributed to the conviction of paedophiles and traffickers the world over.
Adrenochrome
One of the most ludicrous arguments proffered by the mainstream media, meant to "debunk" the adrenochrome allegations, is that "adrenochrome is a relatively mundane chemical compound created by oxidizing adrenaline." Therefore, mainstream media reporters argue, there is no reason for suspected "élite" adrenochrome junkies to drink child blood.
Right! And there's no reason for them to rape children either. When we're talking about paedophiles and child murderers, we're referring to individuals who have abandoned reason and sanity. It doesn't matter if consumption of adrenochrome from the blood of a terrified child is a practical proposition. It only matters that twisted lunatics believe it is.
The attacks on Ballard extend to social media. Memes attributing fake quotations to Ballard have been circulating. Again, the objective appears to be to discredit him and O.U.R.—in this case by insinuating that he and his group are part of the alleged attempts to microchip humanity.
The immediate suspicion is that people who deny or downplay the scale of child trafficking may be behind these propaganda assaults on O.U.R. But there is another potential culprit.
Governments around the world are attempting to to control the public’s access to online information by passing censorship legislation under the pretense of protecting children. Ballard and O.U.R. do not advocate state censorship as a child protection tool.
Their approach, at odds with many governments, is to promote responsible parenting. They offer an online training tool that empowers parents to protect their children by talking to them and educating them about the online risks.
Online safety is about educating children and teens to help navigate those risks and know when to talk to someone they trust. [. . .] While settings and content blockers can be helpful, they can’t ensure that children are completely protected online. [. . . ]
The most effective prevention is an educated child. The best tool for keeping children safe is open, continuous conversation about online safety. It’s up to parents and guardians to start this conversation so kids can navigate the online world safely and responsibly.
Governments do not support this approach to online child safety. They want to legislate to control access to the internet, not educate children about the risks. Governments also appear to have an added motive to discredit Ballard and O.U.R.
Murray, Klee, Bramesco et al. concede that child trafficking happens. None of them have denied that developed nations such as the US, the UK and EU member states are the primary destinations for commercial child trafficking. They are, however, apparently eager to whitewash the known scale of the problem.
But the size of the trafficking industry is not the primary focus of their denial. Rather, all of them allege that there is no evidence substantiating the allegation, made in Sound of Freedom, that trafficked children are sold to "élite paedophile rings."
Why do these evident propagandists insist that it is only us rabble, never the so-called élites, who are capable of being paedophiles? Do paedophiles hide out only among the working and middle classes? Are the "élite" angelic by comparison?
All of the propaganda tactics we’ve discussed are combined in one article, written by Kaitlyn Tiffany and published in The Atlantic. The title of the article was unsubtle enough: The Great Fake Child Sex Trafficking Epidemic.
It seems the entire mainstream media would have us believe, when it comes to child torture and abuse, that the “élite” are beyond reproach. Unlike every other demographic group, they are magically immune from having paedophiles in their midst. Any and all evidence that suggests otherwise is invariably cast as a “QAnon conspiracy theory.”
Epstein
Given the relatively recent Jeffrey Epstein scandal, it's hard to understand how supposedly intelligent journalists can create such nonsensical drivel and expect anyone to take them seriously. Epstein was a billionaire financier who counted royalty, global bankers, leading politicians, academics and philanthropists among his friends. He was "deeply enmeshed in the highest social circles."
Epstein was one of the "élite." In addition to evidently committing many global financial crimes, Epstein ran an enormous "élite" paedophile network.
The accusation of child sex trafficking is why Epstein was awaiting trial—before he was suicided. His fellow "élite" business partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, was subsequently convicted of child sex trafficking, for crying out loud. She wasn’t pimping the children to anyone other than élites. How do people like Klee think Epstein obtained the client list in his "little black book" (first published by Nick Bryant, author of The Franklin Scandal)?
One wonders how many élite paedophile rings need to be publicly exposed before the likes of the Washington Post, the Guardian, Forbes and Rolling Stone will admit such rings exist. Why are media executives and criminal prosecutors completely uninterested in Epstein's client list? Are they guilty of repeating a lie ad nauseam—the propagandist's dictum—in hopes it will somehow turn into the truth?
To say there are no provable "child trafficking rings that are run by the high-level élites" is an absurd contention. It's an established fact, not a "conspiracy theory." Slapping the QAnon label on this truth does not make such ludicrous denials believable.
In 1995, Tim Fortescue, chief whip for the UK Government led by then-Prime Minister Edward ("Ted") Heath, gave an interview in which he explained how his office helped politicians out of compromising scandals in exchange for "brownie points" (merits in the party system). Fortescue would then use the “dirt” he held on the compromised politicians to control their votes and policy decisions.
In that interview, Fortescue outlined the types of scandals he was referring to—saying, in part:
[I]t might be a scandal involving small boys.
In 2015, ten years after Heath's death and after having received a swath of "credible allegations" over the years, Wiltshire Police conducted Operation Conifer. The force investigated the many allegations that Heath was a prolific paedophile and found sufficient evidence, relating to seven historical cases, to conclude:
If Sir Edward Heath had been alive, he would have been interviewed under caution [i.e., threatened with arrest to obtain compliance] in order to obtain his account in relation to the allegations made against him.
In 2019, the third most-powerful US politician, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (1999–2007), was sentenced to just fifteen months in prison after admitting that he sexually abused children during the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1996, Belgian Marc Dutroux was arrested for, and eight years later convicted of, the abduction, torture, and sexual abuse of six girls between the ages of 8 and 19—and the murder of four of them. That arrest followed Dutroux's paroled release in 1992, after he had served just three years for the abduction and rape of five young girls.
The subsequent investigation, instigated by Dutroux's arrest, became known as the Dutroux Affair. It went to the very top of the Belgium and European establishment. More than 20 people attached to the case "died" suddenly under highly suspicious circumstances. Like Epstein, their deaths were invariably ruled "suicides." Judges trying the associated cases were removed if they were too competent. Witnesses had to be escorted in armoured vehicles.
Dutroux was a relatively inconsequential figure in a much wider European “élite” child torture and murder network. The evidence of the extent of the cover-up by criminal gangs in collusion with the Belgian authorities [Warning! The next link contains distressing accounts and photographic evidence] was truly staggering. Names were named. A copious book on the details of the affair that were censored by Belgian police, prosecutors, courts and mainstream media was published in Dutch and French.
This much is incontrovertible
Given the amassed evidence we have cited, we can state a number of proven facts:
- Children are trafficked, tortured and abused by the million to satisfy the depraved appetites of degenerate adults. Many of them are murdered.
- Children are murdered in significant numbers in order to remove and sell their organs.
- Children are farmed like cattle in child harvesting operations the world over.
- Children are sacrificed and mutilated and their blood is consumed in rituals that occur on every continent.
- Children are purchased for these perverted purposes by, among others, élite paedophile rings.
For all I know, Sound of Freedom may be a poor movie. It is also true that Tim Ballard's O.U.R. operations have only a limited impact on the global child trafficking industry, but if so, it is not for want of trying.
Both the filmmakers and everyone involved in O.U.R. are determined to do everything they can to stop the most despicable evil imaginable. As Ballard attests, it is not even imaginable—it is beyond imagination.
While some criticisms of Ballard and O.U.R. may be valid, whoever tries to deny the reality that the plot of Sound of Freedom is attempting to highlight should be regarded with due suspicion.
The so-called “journalists” and commentators who have denied the facts are spreading disinformation. In doing so, whether intentionally or not, they are protecting paedophiles, supporting the child trafficking industry—in all its vile forms—and covering up for élite paedophile rings.
By contrast, the objective of Sound of Freedom is to expose paedophiles, stop the global child trafficking industry and bring an end to all paedophile rings. Including those operated by the “élite.”
Remember that, for whatever reason, certain elements within the Establishment, the media, the judiciary, law enforcement and the intelligence agencies have been used by “higher-ups” to protect paedophiles. Those Establishment figures are complicit in the global child trafficking industry. Hardly any of them have been brought to justice.
It is, therefore, unrealistic to expect controlled "authorities" to take any meaningful action to end this horrific global crime. All lawful and peaceable pressure must be brought to bear to force the necessary institutional change.
If distribution of Sound of Freedom is suppressed, it will be up to us to screen it for as many people as possible. It is our responsibility to demand an end to child rape and torture. It is our responsibility to force people in the seats of political power to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to paedophilia and the child trafficking industry that feeds them and to actively investigate, prosecute and sentence the guilty to full life imprisonment.
If we wish to retain our humanity, we have no choice but to stamp out paedophilia and the child traffickers. It is incumbent on us. The children of the world are depending on us.
