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Gulf Shenanigans: No Laughing Matter
When the Tonkin Gulf incident took place in early August 1964, I was a journeyman CIA analyst in what Condoleezza Rice refers to as "the bowels of the agency." As current intelligence referent for Russian policy toward Southeast Asia and China, I worked very closely with those responsible for analysis of Vietnam and China.
Out of that experience I must say that, as much as one might be tempted to laugh at the bizarre antics of Sunday's incident involving small Iranian boats and US naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz, this is-as my old Russian professor used to say-nothing to laugh.
The situation is so reminiscent of what happened-and didn't happen-from Aug 2-4, 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin and in Washington, it is in no way funny. At the time, the US had about 16,000 troops in South Vietnam. The war that was "justified" by the Tonkin Gulf resolution of Aug. 7, 1964 led to a buildup to 535,000 US troops in the late Sixties, 58,000 of whom were killed-not to mention the estimated two million Vietnamese who lost their lives by then and in the ensuing ten years.
Ten years. How can our president speak so glibly about ten more years of a U.S. armed presence in Iraq? Wonder why he doesn't know anything about Vietnam.
Intelligence Lessons From Vietnam and Iraq
What follows is written primarily for honest intelligence analysts and managers still on "active duty." The issuance of the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran was particularly welcome to those of us who had been hoping there were enough of you left who had not been thoroughly corrupted by former CIA Director George Tenet and his flock of malleable managers.
We are not so much surprised at the integrity of Tom Fingar, who is in charge of national intelligence analysis. He showed his mettle in manfully resisting forgeries and fairy tales about Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction." What is, frankly, a happy surprise is the fact that he and other non-ideologues and non-careerist professionals have been able to prevail and speak truth to power on such dicey issues as Iran-nuclear, the upsurge in terrorism caused by the US invasion of Iraq, and the year-old NIE saying Iraq is headed for hell in a hand basket (with no hint that a "surge" could make a difference).
But those are the NIEs. They share the status of "supreme genre" of analytic product with the President's Daily Brief and other vehicles for current intelligence, the field in which I labored, first in the analytic trenches and then as a briefer at the White House, for most of my 27-year career. True, the NIE "Iraq's Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction" of Oct. 1, 2002 (wrong on every major count) greased the skids for the attack on Iraq on March 19, 2003. But it is more often current intelligence that is fixed upon to get the country into war.
The Tonkin Gulf events are perhaps the best case in point. We retired professionals are hopeful that Fingar can ensure integrity in the current intelligence process as well as in intelligence estimates.
Salivating for Wider War: Tonkin Gulf
Given the confusion last Sunday in the Persian Gulf, you need to remember that a "known known" in the form of a non-event has already been used to sell a major war-Vietnam. It is not only in retrospect that we know that no attack occurred that night.
Those of us in intelligence, not to mention President Lyndon Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, and national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy all knew full well that the evidence of any armed attack on the evening of Aug. 4, 1964, the so-called "second" Tonkin Gulf incident, was highly dubious. But it fit the president's purposes, so they lent a hand to facilitate escalation of the war.
During the summer of 1964 President Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were eager to widen the war in Vietnam. They stepped up sabotage and hit-and-run attacks on the coast of North Vietnam. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara later admitted that he and other senior leaders had concluded that the seaborne attacks "amounted to little more than pinpricks" and "were essentially worthless," but they continued.
Concurrently, the National Security Agency was ordered to collect signals intelligence from the North Vietnamese coast on the Gulf of Tonkin, and the surprise coastal attacks were seen as a helpful way to get the North Vietnamese to turn on their coastal radars. The destroyer USS Maddox, carrying electronic spying gear, was authorized to approach as close as eight miles from the coast and four miles from offshore islands, some of which had been subjected to intense shelling by clandestine attack boats.
As James Bamford describes it in "Body of Secrets:"
"The twin missions of the Maddox were in a sense symbiotic. The vessel's primary purpose was to act as a seagoing provocateur-to poke its sharp gray bow and the American flag as close to the belly of North Vietnam as possible, in effect shoving its 5-inch cannons up the nose of the Communist navy. In turn, this provocation would give the shore batteries an excuse to turn on as many coastal defense radars, fire control systems, and communications channels as possible, which could then be captured by the men...at the radar screens. The more provocation, the more signals...
"The Maddox' mission was made even more provocative by being timed to coincide with commando raids, creating the impression that the Maddox was directing those missions and possibly even lobbing firepower in their support....
"North Vietnam also claimed at least a twelve-mile limit and viewed the Maddox as a trespassing ship deep within its territorial waters." (pp 295-296)
On Aug. 2, 1964 an intercepted message ordered North Vietnamese torpedo boats to attack the Maddox. The destroyer was alerted and raced out to sea beyond reach of the torpedoes, three of which were fired in vain at the destroyer's stern. The Maddox' captain suggested that the rest of his mission be called off, but the Pentagon refused. And still more commando raids were launched on Aug. 3, shelling for the first time targets on the mainland, not just the offshore islands.
Early on Aug. 4, the Maddox captain cabled his superiors that the North Vietnamese believed his patrol was directly involved with the commando raids and shelling. That evening at 7:15 (Vietnam time) the Pentagon alerted the Maddox to intercepted messages indicating that another attack by patrol boats was imminent.
What followed was panic and confusion. There was a score of reports of torpedo and other hostile attacks, but no damage and growing uncertainty as to whether any attack actually took place. McNamara was told that "freak radar echoes" were misinterpreted by "young fellows" manning the sonar, who were "apt to say any noise is a torpedo."
This did not prevent McNamara from testifying to Congress two days later that there was "unequivocal proof" of a new attack. And based largely on that, on the following day (Aug. 7) Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf resolution bringing ten more years of war.
Meanwhile, in the Trenches
By the afternoon of Aug. 4 (Washington time), the CIA's expert analyst on North Vietnam (let's call him "Tom") had concluded that probably no one had fired on US ships in the Tonkin Gulf over the past 24 hours. He included a paragraph to that effect in the item he wrote for the Current Intelligence Bulletin, which would be wired to the White House and other key agencies and appear in print the next morning.
And then something unique happened. The Director of the Office of Current Intelligence, a very senior officer whom Tom had never before seen, descended into the bowels of the agency to order the paragraph deleted. He explained:
"We're not going to tell LBJ that now. He has already decided to bomb North Vietnam. We have to keep our lines open to the White House."
"Tom" later bemoaned-quite rightly: "What do we need lines open for, if we're not going to use them, and use them to tell the truth?"
A year or two ago, in the wake of the policy/intelligence fiasco on Iraq, I would have been inclined to comment sarcastically, "How quaint; how obsolete." But the good news is that the analysts writing the National Intelligence Estimates have now reverted to the ethos in which "Tom" and I were proud to work.
Today's analysts/reporters of current intelligence need to follow their good example. And we trust that Tom Fingar will hold their feet to the fire. For if they don't rise to the challenge, the consequences are sure to be disastrous. This should be obvious in the wake of the Tonkin Gulf experience, not to mention the more recent performance of senior officials before the attack on Iraq in 2003.
The late Ray S. Cline, who at the time was the boss of the Director of Current Intelligence, said he was "very sure" that no attack took place on Aug. 4. He suggested that McNamara had shown the president unevaluated signals intelligence which referred to the (real) earlier attack on Aug. 2 rather than the non-event on the 4th. There was no sign of remorse on Cline's part that he didn't step in and make sure the president was told the truth.
We in the trenches knew there was no attack; and so did the Director of Current Intelligence as well as Cline, who was Deputy Director for Intelligence. But all knew, as did McNamara, that President Johnson was lusting for a pretext to strike the North and escalate the war. And so, like B'rer Rabbit, they didn't say nothin'.
Commenting on the interface of intelligence and policy on Vietnam, a well respected, retired senior CIA officer addressed:
"... the dilemma CIA directors and senior intelligence professionals face in cases when they know that unvarnished intelligence judgments will not be welcomed by the President, his policy managers, and his political advisers...[They] must decide whether to tell it like it is (and so risk losing their place at the President's advisory table), or to go with the flow of existing policy by accentuating the positive (thus preserving their access and potential influence). In these episodes from the Vietnam era, we have seen that senior CIA officers more often than not tended toward the latter approach." "CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962-1968" Harold P. Ford
Bummer. I wish there were more of a sense of anger at that.
Back to Iran. This time, we all know that the president and vice president are seeking an excuse to attack Iran. There is a big difference from the situation in the summer of 1964, when President Johnson had intimidated all his senior subordinates into using deceit to escalate the war. Bamford comments on the disingenuousness of Robert McNamara when he testified in 1968 that it was "inconceivable" that senior officials, including the president, deliberately used the Tonkin Gulf events to generate Congressional support for a wider Vietnam war.
In Bamford's words, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had become "a sewer of deceit," with Operation Northwoods and other unconscionable escapades to its credit. Then-Under Secretary of State George Ball commented, "There was a feeling that if the destroyer got into some trouble, that this would provide the provocation we needed."
Good News: It's Different Now
As indicated above, we now have more integrity at the top of the intelligence community. But, in my view, the main thing that has prevented Bush and Cheney from attacking Iran so far has been the strong opposition of the uniformed military, including the Joint Chiefs. The circumstances attending the misadventure last Sunday in the Strait of Hormuz are far from clear. But the incident certainly shows that our senior military need all the help they can get from intelligence officers more concerned with the truth than with "keeping lines open to the White House" and doing its bidding.
In addition, today the intelligence oversight committees in Congress seem to be waking from their Rip Van Winkle-like slumber. It was Congress, after all, that ordered the controversial NIE on Iran/nuclear (and was among those pushing strongly that it be publicized). And the flow of substantive intelligence to Congress is much larger than it was in 1964 when, remember, there were no intelligence committees as such.
So listen, you inheritors of the honorable profession of current intelligence, don't let them grind you down. If you're working in the bowels of the agency and you find that your leaders are cooking intelligence to a recipe for casus belli, think long and hard about the oath you took to protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic." Should not that oath transcend in importance any secrecy promise you had to agree to as a condition of employment?
By sticking your neck out, you might be able to prevent ten years of unnecessary war.
Comments
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54 Comments so far
Show AllI took an Intelligence and International Relations tutorial from Ray Cline when he was teaching at Georgetown. I remember on numerous occasions his musings on the fury and wrath of LBJ when he didn't like what he was hearing- I don't think our Commander in Idiocy can come close- but perhaps the Vice Aggressor.
Our intelligence community has made many mistakes over the years, but anyone who thinks they would have the freedom to write in this community without those dedicated professionals are writers in delusion, and know nothing of the real world and its dangerous complexity.
It says something that only the generals can stop another war.
This was no Gulf of Tonkin Incident. There was no attack, and none was alleged. At worst it was "harassment" and an implied threat, but the military usually shrugs off this kind of thing. The decision to protest and publicize it was obviously part of the continuing threat campaign against Iran but hardly a bid to establish a casus belli. If anything it will make the Iranians more cautious and maybe lower the danger of a more serious incident.
Folks,
The gulf incident was setup to time with the idiots trip to the ME. He was using that incident to shore up support from the gulf states o attack Iran. The Iranian oil fields has already been divided up by Cheney in his many secret locations. But I think that this administration is still stuck in the 70s thinking that they can get away with false-flag operations without the world at large not knowing about it. They seem to forget that the internet has made the world a level playing field in terms of propaganda. You just can't get away with lies like Cheney is used to.
What a tangled web we weave.
We shot down Iran Air Flight 655 'accidently' just to show Iran that we controlled the air in the Iran/Iraq war. Then we blamed and bombed Lybia when the Iranians struck back by downing that Pan Am jumbo. Future historians will laugh themselves sick over our hubrus and silly lies. If Bush's unlawful combatants worry about a few guys in outboards then they should keep their gunboats and dreadnaughts on their own side of the world. Plundering another man's treasure is not of benefit to the American people.
Indeed, the latest Persian Gulf encounter with Iranian speedboats is not even a bit funny, no matter how odd or cryptic the voices put up on video by either America or Iran in competing versions. We just need the truth in these incidents. Thankfully today we have a lot of cameras on both sides, and we have an Internet for the pictures to go worldwide overnight.
I can just imagine if the majority of the Iranian navy was off our coast how we would react. We are threatening them by being there.
Fortunately the Bush mission to whip up anti Iranian support in the Mideast will fail. If anything it is bringing the other Middle Eastern countries closer to Iran.
What a shame LBJ engineered the Vietnam War. Think how good he would have looked in retrospect without it.
Big shot fired across Bush's bow by Saudis: "A leading Saudi newspaper on Saturday ruled out any attempt by the United States to use the oil-rich Gulf kingdom as a launchpad for a possible war on Iran over Teheran's disputed nuclear programme.
"Two days before a visit to Saudi Arabia by US President George W. Bush, the pro-government daily Al Riyadh said: 'We refuse to be used to launch wars or tensions with Iran....
"Iran's supposed danger does not minimise the real danger of Israel, which is among 10 countries in the world to have nuclear weapons..."
The harm directed at US armed forces comes from Bush/Cheney, not Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, etc. That is a truth CIA intel people must see and understand. In addition, this item reveals other changes of importance in the "game" not mentioned by M$M, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA12Ak02.html
I think most Americans still believe there is a core of truly honorable individuals in the military, intelligence communities etc. who really understand that defense of The U.S. Constitution is the ONLY thing it's about---Hopefully they will keep trying to assert themselves against the power freaks, greedbags and psychopaths who think war is a game or a noble pursuit because they've never seen or bled from it....Thank you for this article....
A Republican friend said that he was amazed at how lucid, focused, and happy Bush seemed at his recent press conference. I told him that this is a very dangerous signal, as it indicates that Bush sees an avenue toward discharging his aggression once again, the only thing that clears his head and calms his anxiety. When Bush straightens up and shows stimulated purpose, there is no doubt that more violence is in store for us.
The Gulf incident is very important among other indicators to show that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have not given up on attacking Iran. I think Ray McGovern is absolutely right, that the senior military and the JCS are right now preventing the escalation in the Persian Gulf. But they may still be confronted with a situation in which outright refusal to obey orders is the only way to prevent it. What if Bush orders an attack - never mind the intelligence, but because he is convinced that evil exists and must be resisted? As he himself put it in Israel.
http://tpzoo.wordpress.com/2008/01/12/1-1-1-war-an-attempt-at-analysis/
Iran isn't defenseless as Libya was during the early 80s, when we saw a formidable torrent of bilge from the US Cabal. So, at that time, a similar alleged 'provocation' resulted in a made for TV bombing event. Today, the mobsters are freely able to hurl tons of explosives into Mesopotamia, perhaps as casually as using the bathroom. An organization that swings like a chain of monkeys, integrity or intelligence doesn't have much to do with these typical behaviors, Hopefully, the agitated robots won't shoot down another passenger plane up "by accident".
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
On August 4, 1964, squadron commander James Stockdale was one of the US pilots flying overhead during the second alleged attack of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
In the early 1990s, he recounted: "[I] had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets—there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power." Stockdale said his superiors ordered him to keep quiet about this.
- from a wikipedia article on James Stockdale
It's clear that the Bush Administration is looking for a success in the Middle East to offset it's failure in Iraq. A lost war is easier to swallow in an environment of peace making between the Palestinians and Israel. I doubt that in an election year Republicans will allow him to withdraw aid to Israel and therefore the hammer will be removed from his hand. I remain hopeful but realistic.
Traitors of all kinds must be rooted out. Those in the press, those in the Congress, and those in the Whitehouse.
{Quote}: "So listen, you inheritors of the HONORABLE profession of current intelligence, don't let them grind you down."
Working for the criminal CIA is honorable? Since when? Come on, Ray, you know better than most the havoc that CIA operations have caused on average people the world over. The CIA doesn't exist to 'defend the Constitution' - whatever the hell that means. Its only reason for existence is to encourage or intensify world conflict in order to maintain the power of the world elite. And in order to faithfully serve these masters, individual ethics and integrity must be left behind. I wouldn't call that doing 'honourable' work.
All who work or have worked for the CIA are complicit in all of the crimes against humanity that the CIA has instigated. And by extension, every citizen of the united states is also complicit.
None of us will escape the karmic consequences of the ations of the CIA. None of us.
Once again Ray, thank you for the insights you provide.
I posted this on another string, but I thought it important
According to Wikipedia, inbound vessels must pass through Iranian waters when passing through the Strait of Hormuz. It is only 21 miles wide at the narrowest point.
"Ships moving through the Strait follow a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), which separates inbound from outbound traffic to reduce the risk of collision. The traffic lane is six miles wide, including two two-mile-wide traffic lanes, one inbound and one outbound, separated by a two-mile wide separation median. To traverse the Strait, ships pass through the territorial waters of Iran or Oman under the transit passage provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea."
Naval tradition is for vessels to pass on starboard (right-side) Therefore every vessel passing through these narrows when entering the strait, be it an oil tanker or an aircraft carrier comes to within 6-9 miles from Iranian shore.
It was a speedboat that nearly sank the USS Cole . . . This would make for some nervous and jittery seamen . . .
iOWARISH is right--Ray McGovern, functions as an official, unofficial dispenser of agit-prop disinformation for his agency the CIA.
No, Clarity, no one wants to seriously suggest that a country should not have an intelligence agency to protect its people from pssible threats. The issue here is that since the 1953 coup against Mosedec (the democratically elected leader of the Iranian people at that time) The CIA has increasingly become an American Gestapo, seeking through espinage, infiltration, and violent action to overthrow any government which does not prostrate itself before the US.
Iran, Guatamala, Panama, Chile, Nicauragua, El salvador, Vietnam, Laos, the Congo, Greece, and others too numerous to mention here, who at the time of their government's subversion and overthrow by the CIA posed no security threat to the US were nonetheless, infiltrated, compromised, and forcefully overthrown no matter what the cost in economic bondage or collateral deaths.
To sit here and read such pious self-serving pronouncements by a retired member of such a criminal enterprise, is a little like listening to Vito Corrleone (the Marlon Brando character in the movie "The Godfather") holding forth on law and order or any presidential candidate lecturing us on the importance of always telling the truth.
"Ten years. How can our president speak so glibly about ten more years of a U.S. armed presence in Iraq? Wonder why he doesn't know anything about Vietnam."
I'll tell you how, Ray:
GWB is, just like his father GHWB and his Brother and his Grandfather, a member of the Yale secret society known as "The Brotherhood of Death" or Skull and Bones. Just like field operatives who you are familiar with, or military men, Bonesmen are desensitized to death. In fact, bloody war, is the highest form of attainment for them. But being CIA, and knowing about the high population of Yale grads in the "company" you knew this already. Right? Why not blow the lid off the connection between Yale and CIA as you know it? Now is a good time, as there seems to be a rift between CIA and the Bush Admin. Expose the agency contamination by Yale aristocratic families. The country is hopelessly broken and needs somebody to dethrone these madmen. Since the Kangaroo Congress won't do it, retired citizens must preform the need for checks and balances before the poles melt us into huge human migration and possible world war. Write a book Ray, with mentors who know where the bonesmen keep their skeletons and then once it's out there, it's too late, you'll be safe.
We can't have one tribe who worships Geronimo control all three branches of government. This caused the looting of our treasury and the discredit of the defender of freedom for the common world citizen. It is our patriotic duty to fight for the country we love.
Ray, get somebody to add to this page at Wikipedia, be sure to click on the discussion and history tabs/pages to see the history of deletions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_bones
regards,
pacplyer
mairs: A Republican friend said that he was amazed at how lucid, focused, and happy Bush seemed at his recent press conference.
Yeah, he had that idiotic grin thing going on... The man has no soul.
Why are NIEs classified? Why can't American citizens be offered an unclassified intelligence appraisal on any and all enemies of the country on an annual basis, instead of all this hit-and-miss, it's classified but in this case we'll leak it or publicize it nonsense?
The United States is currently under at least three national emergencies by presidential executive order -- WMDs, Iran and terror. These ongoing "national emergencies" are unrelated to any threats, but of course the American people can't be told what, if any, the threats are.
The truth is that there aren't any significant threats to American citizens, over and above the normal threats of auto accidents, cancer, heart disease and lightning strikes, all of which are much more of a threat than anything the government dreams up.
I've not watched the video, but if the Iranian speedboats genuinely threatened some sort of suicide attack -- and if I were the captain of any of the US ships in the region -- I'd have blown them to smithereens without hesitation. I'd have my ship and crew to protect. I'd have sent them to Davy Jones' locker -- and denied the entire incident.
Do our captains have do-not-fire orders or something? Something in the texture of this story doesn't compute.
So I'm led to conclude that this is a pre-Tonkin warming up. Perhaps there will be a few more episodes like this in the next few months.
One can almost imagine an Obama or Clinton presidency in which there is an attack, but we'll never quite know whether it was genuine or not. Or whether some rogue branch of the CIA, etc. instigated it. Who knows? But we know what Obama or Hillary will do. Despite doubts, perhaps inconsistencies, perhaps even glaring evidence to the contrary, they'll act as if it were real. And we'll somehow spread our military even thinner than they are now. Onto Tehran?
"The CIA doesn't exist to 'defend the Constitution' - whatever the hell that means. Its only reason for existence is to encourage or intensify world conflict in order to maintain the power of the world elite."
iowairish is correct. I live in the Midwest as iowairish apparently does and it is difficult to believe that someone else who lives here could be so insightful. Unfortunately, most Americans are too propagandized to realize what is really going on. The only way this country will truly change is when it collapses under the weight of its Fascist ways.
Okay — Here goes. I am going to 'burn the bridge' with you all, so to speak.I have not been a frequent commenter at all, maybe 5 or 6 times in all anyhow, so it sure won't hurt this community of RIGHT folks . . .
Right. Yep. I agree with almost every single comment I read posted at the end of these here articles. You all are pretty right for the most part. I read the articles religiously. Common Dreams is my homepage and the first thing I read over coffee in the morning.
Yep.
Right.
Right, as in YOU GUYS KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW.
You are all, to a person, damn smart.
Damn negative.
Damn angry.
(So am I, believe me)
I read the stories, then scroll down to see who is saying what (Kem, you are one of the only people here that has any real wisdom and prudence, imho) and all.
I have slowly over the last few months become more and more disgusted with this 'commenting'.
It is just gross.
Ugly.
You are all 'preaching to the choir' and it makes very little if any difference at all.
I know it feels good to vent.
It feels good to be real smart and have great convictions and insight, but WTF do any of you plan to accomplish by raging back and forth endlessly???
"Gee, maybe if I say the absolutely smartest and wittiest thing, someone will get inspired and do something . . ."
Yeah, you all are so smooth, so slick, so RIGHT and so Full Of Shit too!
I am done reading the comments.
I get too depressed seeing all of you well-meaning folks talking to each other inside of this little bubble and just going around and around in circle — and wasting time and energy.
Get a life people.
Organize.
Write passionate responses on conservative websites.
Go head to head with the real deal, the people that need to hear all these insightful and angry retorts and opinions.
Or would you all rather just be cool and right amongst each other?
I'm done here.
This sucks.
Later.
Hey Now has got a point.
And the phenomenon he focuses on has been spoke of many times, by many readers.
I'll answer his very-correct observations.
"Hey Now", I think we feel safe in our little bubble. Our little bubble is not meant for the average american with below average comprehension who tunes in to Fox news and feels good that America is going to "surge." We are the alternative voice of reason. And we learn a great deal from each other's sophisticated, but very distinctly different perspectives and separate diatribes of the same event. And the regulars here are all friends. With your very limited vocabulary, it may look to you like everyone is saying the same thing. Kind of like when a dog watches the T.V. This is not meant as a slight against you; however, I read your primer style, and know that prior to self-educating myself, I was just like you.
A suggestion: Keep reading the stories on CD as opposed to the comments as they are usually geared for a more general audience. When you see verb-age that you don't understand, don't skip over it and tune out. Look it up. I do this all the time, because I'm not very smart. Use wikipedia or ask.com or google. Become better read.
When people correct you, don't take it as a person insult like our demented president does. Resolve to eat the humble pie, research carefully on the net, and become just that less dumb the next day.
Billy does this to me on every nuke post, and, although embarrassed at my ignorance, I learn every time he posts, and am extremely grateful for his time straightening me out. Many others here post material as trial balloons to see how others react to their viewpoints.
Lastly, the comments in CD are free speech, and you cannot hope to coerce others into posting what you want to read.
The raging back and forth that you see is the beginnings of a powerful movement. Yes we are in an uproar here; but that's what leads to changing the direction of the pendulum.
The same was true in 1775.
Intolerable Acts lead to great writing such as Ray's above in the form of a pamplet entitled "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine.
Absolutely. Organize locally. We are floating around in the the ether of national/international political space. Nothing is possible here except subterfuge (as Bush & Co. have demonstrated). If I didn't have a 9-5 job and family, I'd be doing more.
But preaching to the choir isn't entirely a lost cause either. Our comments here are going down for posterity. In the digital arena, things are searchable by keyword and may be separated by months, years, decades. With any luck, as time goes on, fewer people will be fooled by the age-old deceits. They need only search the warnings of generations past.
See, up there I should have typed "spoken" instead of "spoke."
Everyone is dumb. It is just a matter of to what degree and what you are going to do about it. Most well educated men and women spot my defects all the time, but realize that we are all in this together. So I invite you to stick around "Hey You" and stare at the mysterious political screen with me.
pac "wolf wolf" plyer
It's good to see the post by Bane Richter remembering Lybia and the Gulf of Sidra incident, as this seems to have been forgotten with all the comparisons to the Gulf of Tonkin and North Vietnam.
This 1986 deliberate provocation of Lybia, which claimed a "straight-line" definition across the Gulf of their territorial waters, was deliberately violated by US warships and used as an excuse to sink some small Lybian boats. Along with simillar fighter plane provocations, we later bombed Lybia in a direct attemp to kill Muammar Gaddafi (succeeding in killing his daughter).
A broadcast on Radio Free Europe warned the Lybian people of the raids, telling them that they bore "collective responsibilty" for the acts of their leaders. The broadcast was never repeated, as this is certainly a concept that Washington would never want applied to the United States.
Turning a "normal occurance," as the Iranians put it, into a "serious international provocation and threat to peace," as King George puts it, certainly demands that we be very aware of history and vigilant in refusing to repeat past "mistakes."
I thank Ray McGovern for his insight and inside information.
I'm not so sure that President Johnson didn't know the facts about the intelligence on the Gulf of Tonkin. He was just a crook among other crooks.
What surprises me--and gives rise and encourages the commission of further criminal acts involving the death of thousands—is the fact that when the crimes are subsequently exposed, perpetrator go unpunished by the American citizens and their so-called representatives. These criminals should be held answerable, tried, and prosecuted; and if they're dead, their properties should be confiscated so as to serve as a lesson to would-be criminal. This, of course never happens when the entire system is corrupt and crooked. Something to do with honor among thieves?
Keep in mind that if there are any doubts, inconsistencies, etc. with regard to the JFK assassination that the LBJ administration is the one which could have dispelled them all, released all the information, etc.
Or it could have tried burying it.
Geo the 1stler knows quite well what happened, as he directed it, and then stared J. Edgar down after framing the FBI agent - which ironically was being used to dismantle CIA - for the assassination of JKF.
No one seems to have noticed that Ray McGovern is sending a message to analysts inside CIA. Go public, blow the whistle sooner rather than later. The rest of the audience is inconsequential.
McGovern's message won't do any good. The background screening for CIA is now so extreme that nobody gets in except featureless cogs, and if any of them had any balls, they would have disqualified themselves a long time before they got to Langley.
You can't be a very, very, very good little boy or girl every second of every day for 35 years, and then suddenly develope the independence of mind necessary to stand apart from the organization.
McGovern got into CIA under a very different set of checks from the minute by minute scrutiny of now, and he isn't really very extraordinary himself, in spite of his belated conversion to full disclosure. The average Ivy League undergraduate is just as bright, and only slightly more acculturated into the culture of absolute conformity to everything that looks like a rule.
There's no way to reform the bureaucratic universe of CIA, and Chalmers Johnson is exactly right: It's time to shut it down, and Ray McGovern is just whistling in the dark if he thinks a few whistle-blowers are going to prevent the next catastrophe based on phony "intelligence."
Last Chance to Have Cindy Sheehan Deliver Impeachment Letter to Nancy Pelosi
http://peacecandidates.com/discuss/121
JACOB FREEZE -- I understand your intent when you state "featureless cogs",
but isn't that analogy going too far, as cogs and gears have to have some noticeable features (like gear teeth) to do anything but spin in the dark. I think that is the nicest picture I've ever imagined for the CIA.
Ergo, some of those otherwise faceless "cogs", will still have to have some teeth to bite the hand that was feeding them.
¿ Right ?
It's the BURGERS:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261
Dear OBL,
I've set it up so you can 'provoke' us into another war with only a speed boat and a few barrels of gasoline. I want a war with Iran, you want us in a war with Iran and so does Israel. Happy boating!
To your Health,
GWB
I thought it was somewhat amusing that the guys in the speedboats who were supposedly going to blow up the navy destroyers were wearing lifejackets.
At least with Vietnam, the domino theory still had some validity, and a large portion, probably the majority, of the South Vietnamese population wanted a western style democracy similar to that of Japan or South Korea, not a Stalinist/Maoist state. With that paradigm, the Tonkin Gulf incident, manufactured or not, was what we needed to kick off what we beleived we had to do anyway. We also had at least one fierce ally in that war. Ask any Vietnam vet about the South Koreans.
Vietnam was a terrible mistake that started with mostly good intentions. We were not preventing the iron curtain from falling over Vietnam. We were interfering with the self determination of the Vietnamese people.
Iraq and Iran are the same mistake without the clash of two world orders paradigm. Its just pure hubris and baloney. Its neocolonialism. Its "Christianofascism" with trumped up "Islamofascism" as an excuse.
I just hope the Iranians lay low, do nothing to provoke the Americans, and when the attack comes carefully record and document every minute of it, every casualty, and make sure it all plays on every television in the world.
Regarding the "tired of preaching to the choir post" above, I find CD refreshing, stimulating and great counterpoint to the BS all around me. My elederly Dad watches Fox, and one day he was telling me about how we need to bomb Iran. My "boss" at work calls the MSM the "liberal media" that tells terrible lies about our honorable administration. I have researched nuclear power and renewables... CD has really helped me crystallize my thinking.
There is no statute of limitations on Treason. Robert S. McNamara is still alive and residing in the USA.
Indict him and any other living war criminals from that era.
If the laws against treason are not enforced, then all government officials will believe that they can break any and all laws of this nations with immunity.
Good observation, 2 curious. Why didn't the media spot that?
It's high time for more CIA/NSA and other federal employees to get off their asses.
They have sworn to:
"protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic"
What are they waiting for??
Bush & Cheney are enemies of the constitution and the people. Deception is their most important friend. Tear down the empire of shame!
pacplyer: Great postings. Interesting discussion here, all in all. POET is right about the CIA, but if McGovrn is having a "born again" moment and as an insider recognizes where the organization must make changes that will help re-instate the rule of law in this nation, I for one salute his transition! Like "The Prodigal Son" each person may get to face that moment of decision when they elect to serve mammon or the Light. The momentum of past experience & performance tests the commitment to what is new. Regardless of the politics of our day, it is the rare soul who can transcend himself. Let's give him some credit!
I was reading stories elsewhere about this other voice on the video.
Here's the real world. The navy at sea is constantly analysing any signals around it. Not because they want to listen to amateur radio, but because detecting other radio and radar signals can lead to the detection of the enemy.
To me, if the Navy ships picked up this voice, and I say if because I still only see the Pentagon saying it and putting it on its video, and I don't trust anything from them without private confirmation. But lets just say for the sake of argument that those Navy ships did pick up that audio. The key point is that when they picked it up, they'd have automatically also detected and recorded the vector from which that radio signal was coming.
Now, maybe it was coming from coast directly behind the boats, so it would be hard to tell it wasn't from them. But if it was just some prankster unconnected to this who was on the radio, then it would be much more likely that it would have a different vector than the vector to the boats.
The Navy would have this info on the ships. When that message came in, someone would have been recording the direction from which it came. That might be interesting to know.
To bbr ... nice to see the old lies about Vietnam being recycled out here. I just hope most people hear are smart enough not to believe them.
The South Vietnameese might have said they wanted a Japan style democracy. But they were also very, very aware that this wasn't what the US was giving them. There'd been elections planned right after the split of the country in the late 50's. But since the US was busying setting up its puppet government in the Diem regime, and since they knew it would lose horribly in any elections, then it was the US and the Diem regime that had been refusing to hold such elections for years before the Gulf of Tonkin.
Then you combine that with the other myth that anything controlled by North Vietnam would be a 'Stalinist\Maoist' state. And even that phrase is highly misleading, as it furthers the myth that the Russians and the Chinese were combined in some global communist conspiracy (the rightwing fantasy of the time that served the same purpose as today's global islamofascist conspiracy.) when in fact Russia and China were bitter rivals and enemies. The reality that the North Vietnamese were a mostly a nationalist movement that was playing off the Russians versus the Chinese gets lost in the mists of all this phony mythology which really just rehashes US war propaganda.
At the most telling point about this is what happened after we left. Vietnam became a mostly capitalist country that today makes Nike shoes.
I just noticed CommonDreams REMOVED the link to the news item in my post. Why? Is a very good question. It's not my fault the URL is long. Here it is again, http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2008/January/middleeast_January179.xml§ion=middleeast&col=
COMarc 11:29
>> To me, if the Navy ships picked up this voice, and I say if because I still only see the Pentagon saying it and putting it on its video, and I don't trust anything from them without private confirmation. But lets just say for the sake of argument that those Navy ships did pick up that audio. The key point is that when they picked it up, they'd have automatically also detected and recorded the vector from which that radio signal was coming.
On the basis of what do you make this assertion? Assuming this was HF or VHF radio, I doubt there would be any automatic detection of a direction vector for the signal. That would require quite large antennas and would not work terribly well in the noisy environment of a ship's deck with lots of metal surfaces around. Just monitoring the radio traffic is demanding enough. Probably the ship's radio officers do have the ability to vector a VHF signal and maybe even an HF signal but my first guess is they would only do so for a signal of interest and it would take some time.
CoMarc:
Whether it was lies or self-deception, it was only a couple years afer the Cuban missile crisis and less than a decade after the Hungarian uprising, before that Korea and the Berlin wall. Almost all Americans believed in the domino theory and were not aware of all the "ugly Americanism" their tax dollars supported. They believed it was another Korea. If it was lies, LBJ told them so often he believed them himself. It was a mistake, either way you look at it.
My point is the cynical Iraq invasion and posturing with Iran have more in common with the big resource grabs of Germany invading Russia and Japan invading Manchuria during WWII, than with a cold war era misjudgement. Somehow the neocons think we're more civilized, better educated, can better distribute their resources, and have the military power to do it, so that gives us the right to invade and occupy another nation. For the Vaterland! (Oops, homeland.)
Like Vietnam today, Iraq would have eventually liberalized, within limits, on its own, and was a already bastion against Islamic fundamentalism. There are so many Iraqis with American and European educations. Women were treated more as equals than in almost any other Arab nation. Saddam would have eventually left the scene, and those two sons (Huey and Louie? Dewey?) wouldn't have lasted long, or might have just let the bureaucrats run the country while they played.
Bottom line, both wars were a waste and 60,000 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Iraqis are needlessly not with us today. Thank you JFK, LBJ, and Dubya.
Bush or Cheney neither one have killed or hurt anyone in a war. They were dropouts in the Nam killings. It is these flag waving uniform happy troops that are killing all these innocent people.