Chapter 2
The History of Tyrants - A Lesson From the Past
History is replete with examples of tyrants, dictatorships and even
apparently accountable governments using the Hegelian Dialectic
discussed in the introduction. None of them can resist killing
innocent people to further a political agenda. In this context,
ruling authorities, in order to ruthlessly centralize power into
their own hands have used a tactic conventionally ascribed to
terrorists.
Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned
Nero Claudius Caesar was, by far, one of the most infamous Roman
emperors ever. His rule of Rome lasted from AD 54 to 68. A little
known fact is that Nero actually began his reign as a fairly popular
leader, banning capital punishment, reducing taxes, and letting
slaves bring lawsuits against their masters.
However, after around five years, Nero’s temperament fell apart. His
senior advisors began to die and his overbearing ego came to the
fore. Absolute power began to corrupt absolutely.
Even before Rome
burned, Nero passed a series of treason laws, which put anyone to
death who was considered a threat. This enabled him to eliminate his
political rivals and even his own wife and mother. Nero needed a
pretext to justify turning the new laws against the civilian
population and specifically the Christians who, although still
relatively unpopular, were rising in prominence. The Christians
lambasted the empire for its decadent practices and Pagan worship.
On the night of July 18, 64 AD, a fire started that would, after a
week, turn 70% of Rome to ash. Historians differ as to whether or
not Nero was actually in Rome when the disaster began. Certainly,
Nero returned to his palace as the fire roared at its peak. He
composed poetry and sang as his people burned to death. This is
where the saying ‘Nero fiddled while Rome burned’ came from.
While Nero fiddled, he had ordered his guards to patrol the streets
making sure efforts to extinguish the blaze were thwarted. Attempts
to do so were prevented by Nero’s menacing gangs. Torches were
openly thrown in to fan the flames, by men crying that they acted
under orders.
These actions caused a rumor to circulate the city, namely that Nero
himself had started the blaze. Whether he had given the order to
start it or simply let it burn is debatable but the consequences are
not. Nero immediately blamed the Christians for setting the fire.
His only evidence was that Christians had identified other
Christians as the perpetrators. This was after they were brutally
tortured to make such a confession of course. Since the fires began
in the poor area of the city, it isn’t logical to suspect the
Christians. They lived in those poor areas. If they wanted to make a
statement why would they burn down their own homes and not Nero’s
palace?
Nero was the only person who stood to gain from setting the city
ablaze. He hated the disjointed layout of the city and wanted to
rebuild it in his own image. As soon as the fires were put out, work
began on a total redesign of the city along with several new palaces
in Nero’s honor. Meanwhile, the Christian scapegoats were ripped
limb from limb by the lions in the circus and used as human torches.
Nero had achieved two aims by burning Rome or at least allowing it
to burn. He had completely renovated the city and eliminated an
underground threat to both his authority and his ego. Nero’s
short-term future was secured. However, his act of tyranny brought
about divine retribution. The horrific treatment of the Christians
turned them into martyrs, such as Peter and Paul.
The people of Rome
began to sympathize with their suffering and Nero’s empire
self-destructed after his suicide in AD 68.
Diocletian’s Unity in the Empire
The Roman Emperor Diocletian came to power in 284 AD. He was an army
general with a repressive disdain of his subjects. Diocletian ran
his government as a general runs an army, giving orders and
expecting them to be carried out. He believed that only severe
restrictions on personal freedoms could bring order to the empire.
By 301 AD, after the conclusion of conflicts with the Germans and
the Sassanids, Diocletian needed a new enemy to justify his
tyrannical form of government.
At the same time, the Emperor
declared the economy to be in crisis and implemented astronomical
taxation increases. Amongst the people there surfaced a gradual
unrest towards Diocletian’s economic policy. The Emperor needed a
new enemy to regain the support of his pseudo-slaves.
After the earlier successful persecution of the Manichaeans,
Diocletian slowly turned his head in the direction of the
Christians, his thumb pointing down. This came despite the fact that
he had largely ignored them for the past fifteen years. Across the
empire, Christians made up around ten percent of the population,
their number having doubled in about fifty years. Two kings had been
converted: the king of Osroene in northeastern Mesopotamia and the
king of Armenia. Christians were serving in Rome’s armies, and they
were working as civil servants in local government or in lowly
positions on the imperial staff. Diocletian could see his scapegoat.
I n the autumn of 302 AD Diocletian visited Antioch in Syria for an
official engagement. Prior to this of course, there had to take
place the customary Pagan sacrifice. However, this time there was a
problem. As the bloodletting ritual began, so did the vocal
denouncements of the on-looking Christians. Many made cross signs to
ward off the evil influence of the sacrifice. Prominent amongst
these brave dissenters was a Christian named Romanus.
Diocletian
fumed,
In the first, while Diocletian was sacrificing in public, the
chief interpreter of the victims’ organs reported that he could not
read the future in them because of the hostile influence of
Christians standing around. Diocletian burst into a rage, insisting
that all in his court should offer sacrifice, and sent out orders to
his army to follow suit.1
1 Ramsey McMullen – Constantine – page 24 – Dial Press - 1969
This provided Diocletian with the perfect
opportunity to launch his persecution. Romanus had his tongue cut
off and languished in agony for over a year after in jail.
Meanwhile, the Emperor demanded the Christians sacrifice to the gods
of the state or face execution. Many refused and further retreated
underground in the hope of avoiding the manic dictates of this mad
general.
Diocletian’s vice-emperor, Galerius, didn’t have a hard time in
persuading him that if a Palace were just to burn down, Diocletian
could really accelerate his crusade against the Christians. Just by
coincidence, twice within sixteen days toward the end of February,
Diocletian’s palace in Nicomedia burned. The Christians were
immediately blamed.
FIG 2.1
[CAPTION: The Emperor Diocletian needed a crisis to
put the purge of the Christians into overdrive.
This was
accomplished when he had his guards set fire to his own palace in Nicomedia on two different occasions at the end of February 303 AD.]
A monumental crackdown then occurred as Diocletian issued four
edicts against the Christians. Christian assemblies were forbidden.
Bibles were confiscated and burned, and churches were destroyed.
Christians were torn limb from limb in the arena, the animals goaded
on by a mindless population who had accepted at face value the guilt
of the Christians. Others were imprisoned and offered release if
they appeased the Emperor’s sick Pagan blood lust and made one
sacrifice. The majority refused, yet Diocletian wanted disunity
within the Christian ranks and so had some marked down as having
made a sacrifice, even though they didn’t.
The purges slowly and intermittently dragged on into the year 305,
but by now the Christians had become too numerous across the empire
to be wiped out. The despot Diocletian retired through illness in
305 AD. The vice-emperor in the east, Galerius, began a joint rule
of the empire with the vice-emperor in Rome and the west:
Constantius. Constantius died in battle in 306 AD and his son,
Constantine, succeeded him. The thousands of Christians butchered by
Diocletian in the purge had not died in vain. Constantine was to
change the world by becoming the first Christian emperor.
Balance of Power – Hitler and the Reichstag
Adolf Hitler knew that he could never overthrow the existing German
Republic and name himself Fuhrer without the aid of a carefully
stage managed crisis. In early 1933 the German Weimar Republic was
awash with different parties lobbying for control. Although the
Nazi’s had the majority, this was not enough to give Hitler the
unchallenged and unaccountable office he craved. Furthermore, the
Nazi’s were losing momentum in the months preceding the election,
which was set for March 1933.
When Herman Goering took control of the Prussian state police, he
replaced officers loyal to the Republic with officers loyal only to
Hitler. These SA and SS were trained to despise so-called enemies of
the state and after raiding Communist headquarters in Berlin they
acquired a full roster of Communist Party members. The round up list
was already in place. Hitler had erected the police state he would
later put to use in anticipation of the imminent burning of the
Reichstag.
I n February of 1933, Herman Goering, Joseph Goebbels and Hitler
finalized a plan to cause chaos by burning the Reichstag parliament
building and then blaming it on their political adversaries, the
Communists. The three had obviously studied the actions of Nero
hundreds of years before. In the week preceding February 27, a
mentally retarded Dutchman named Marinus van der Lubbe wandered
around Berlin attempting to set fire to government buildings. The
state police, now under Hitler’s control, refused to arrest him.
After stalking the area all day, on the night of February 27, van
der Lubbe somehow managed to break in the guarded Reichstag. He
removed his shirt and set it on fire, vainly attempting to spread
the relatively confined blaze to a wider area within the building.
He received a large dose of help when Hitler’s storm troopers, led
by SA leader Karl Ernst, used an underground passageway that
connected Goering’s cellar with the cellar in the Reichstag. They
entered the building and scattered gasoline and incendiaries to feed
the flames. Once they had suitably increased the blaze they escaped
back through the tunnel.
Hitler and Goebbels, his propaganda minister, immediately rushed to
the scene of the fire and screamed at German news reporters that the
Communists were to blame. Hitler stated, “You are now witnessing the
beginning of a great epoch in German history... This fire is the
beginning,” and from this moment onwards the official story of the
‘Communist plot’ was repeated ad infinitum across the world’s media.
Hitler called for the activation of the round-up plans he had
arranged before the burning, “The German people have been soft too
long.
Every Communist official must be shot. All Communist deputies
must be hanged this very night. All friends of the Communists must
be locked up. And that goes for the Social Democrats and the Reichsbanner as well!”2
2 ‘The Reichstag Burns’ – The History Place
– 1996 -
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm
The very next day, Hitler was able to pass an emergency decree,
Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which stated, Restrictions on
personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion,
including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and
association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic
and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches,
orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are
also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.3
3 ‘The Decrees of 1933’ -
http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob60.html
As
the Communists and other ‘enemies of the state’ were arrested and
tortured, Hitler turned his attention to the March 5th elections.
Despite massive waves of propaganda, the Nazis only achieved 44 per
cent of the total vote.
Hitler needed a two-thirds majority in order
to legally dismantle the Republic and install himself as Fuhrer.
FIG 2.2
[CAPTION: The Reichstag burns, Hitler takes
control.]
After the elections, Hitler used his emergency decree,
along with the SS and SA, to raid the offices of local government
and throw out anyone unsympathetic to the Nazi regime, replacing
them with those loyal only to him. This is how he would subsequently
achieve the majority he needed to become dictator. In the meantime,
Hitler pressured President Hindenburg to sign more draconian edicts,
making it an offence to criticize the Nazis and setting up military
tribunals where the defense is afforded no jury or legal counsel.
These measures steamrolled many Reichstag members into intimidation
and ensured their support through fear.
On March 23 the newly elected Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House
in Berlin and passed Hitler’s Enabling Act. This allowed Hitler to
basically abolish the German constitution and proclaim himself legal
dictator. Hitler’s carefully managed brutal police state tactics had
ensured more than two thirds were frightened enough to pass the act.
The Nazis had the majority they needed and could now build the
dreaded Third Reich. This dictatorship would never have occurred if
Hitler hadn’t eliminated his enemies and the German Republic by
burning the Reichstag in February 1933.
Treason at Pearl Harbor
On the Sunday morning of December 7 1941, against the Pearl Harbor
naval
base in Hawaii, Japanese Adm. Chuichi Nagumo’s Operation Z carrier
task force
launched its attack that destroyed nearly 200 American aircraft,
sank five
battleships, severely damaged three cruisers, three destroyers and
three
auxiliaries, and killed 2,476 U.S. servicemen and civilians.
In 1941 the U.S. believed that war with Japan was inevitable and
that the United States should provoke it at a time that suited its
own interests. Analysts recommended an eight-point plan, known as
the McCollum Memo, designed to provoke a Japanese attack. The plan
included military provocations and a recommendation to completely
embargo all trade with Japan in collaboration with a similar embargo
by the British Empire.
The US cited Japan’s continued wars on the Asian mainland as the
reason for placing embargoes (mainly oil) on them. The real reason
behind such measures was that America knew this would force Japan
into an attempted seizure of oil and mineral riches in Indonesia. In
order to do this, the Japanese would have to nullify the threat of
the American fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. In order to enrage the
American public into supporting the war effort that the American
government sought to engage in, President Franklin Roosevelt needed
to ensure that Japan’s first strike seemed as dramatic, surprising
and bloody as possible.
As a consequence, Roosevelt kept many in the
dark as to what his administration was hatching. Even some of his
own commanders in Hawaii never knew what was coming, that way Pearl
Harbor would be written into the history books as one of the most
shocking and unprovoked acts of war. As the world went about its
unwitting business, the propaganda was being carefully prepared for
the events that were about to take place. Soon enough, the
psychological war would also kick into operation on American soil,
and the mindset of the American public forever altered.
To emphasize how desperate the Roosevelt administration were to
enter the second world war, the Scotsman reported that hundreds of
former prisoners of war in the Philippines were deliberately blocked
from leaving the country by order of the then American President, so
their capture by the Japanese could be used as propaganda in the
U.S. to stoke war fever. A former prisoner has uncovered papers in
the US National Archive that she claims prove the government
restricted the travel of 7,000 American citizens from the
Philippines, while at the same time encouraging evacuation of
Americans from other potential Japanese targets in China and
south-east Asia.
A federal lawsuit filed yesterday in Washington, DC, alleges that
the government at first wanted to keep Americans in the Philippines
to discourage Japanese aggression, but later used them as a
political tool.
A group of 500 former prisoners claim the plan was devised by the US
wartime leader, Franklin D Roosevelt, with the approval of Winston
Churchill, Britain’s Prime Minister, to cause outrage among American
citizens unwilling to back a war on Japan.
Americans were denied passport and travel documents to let them
flee. They were later captured by the Japanese and held in notorious
camps under appalling conditions. Marcia Fee Achenbach, one of those
captured, was four when her camp was liberated by US soldiers in
1944. She discovered the papers while doing research in the National
Archive. Among the evidence uncovered was a telegram that Francis
Sayre, the high commissioner of the Philippines, had sent to the US
state department urging an evacuation plan.
The state department’s
confidential reply read:
“Visualise the remaining of Americans
generally in the Philippines in an emergency, and plan accordingly.”
Other evidence includes a letter from one of the commissioner’s
secretaries indicating that
officials were not to issue passports. The secretary states that she
wrote more than 5,000 letters
rejecting passport applications during the build up to Japan’s
attack on Pearl Harbor.4
4 ‘US prisoners claim Roosevelt left them in Philippines
deliberately’ – David Cox – The Scotsman – July 30 2002 -
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=820792002
De-classified documents show that the Pentagon had prior knowledge
of the
attack on Pearl Harbor, indeed, that they provoked and instigated
the
“unprovoked” attack and did nothing to stop it.
A July 22 1941 report by Admiral Richmond Turner read,
It is generally believed that shutting off the American supply of
petroleum will lead promptly to the
invasion of Netherland East Indies… it seems certain that she
(Japan) would also include military
action in the Philippine islands which would immediately involve us
in a Pacific war.5
5 ‘The Possible Effects of an Embargo’ - The Director of the War
Plans Division of the Navy Department (Turner) to the
Chief of Naval Operations (Stark) - July 19 1941 – available at
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/admiral_turners_report.html
Also, a Top Secret Army Board report of October 1944 clearly states
that in the
period leading up to Pearl Harbor, the US military received
information regarding
the intentions of the Japanese to declare war, including specific
details of when
the attack on Pearl Harbor would occur,
In this period numerous pieces of information came to our State, War
and Navy Departments in
all of their top ranks indicating precisely the intentions of the
Japanese including the probable
exact hour and date of the attack.6
6 ‘Top Secret Report of Army Pearl Harbor Board’ – Memo To The
Secretary of War – October 20 1944 – available at
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/army_board_report.html
On November 24th, 1941, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sent a radio
message to
Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, Commander of the Pacific Striking Fleet,
which read,
The task force, keeping its movement strictly secret and maintaining
close guard against
submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and
upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet
in Hawaii and deal it a mortal
blow.7
7 ‘The Bones of Station H’ -
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/SH.html
This message was intercepted in Hawaii at a radio intercept station
known as
“Station H” overlooking Kaneohe Bay on windward Oahu. The
information was
passed on to Lieutenant Commander George Pease of the Office of
Naval
Intelligence on December 4 1941, three days before the attack. Now
that the
venue and immediacy of the attack were known, President Roosevelt
ordered the
older ships in the harbor to be lined up in tight rows and the
aircraft to be
arranged nose tip to nose tip. The newer ships and aircraft were
removed from
the scene.
Further evidence to debunk the fallacy that
the attack was a
surprise emerged in late August of 2002 when a 78ft two man Japanese
midget submarine was found a few miles from Pearl Harbor.
Researchers concluded that the vessel was sunk by the destroyer USS
Ward just hours before the aerial bombardment by the Japanese.8
8 ‘US ‘fired first shot’ at Pearl Harbor’ – Rupert Cornwell – London
Independent – August 30 2002 -http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=328705
FIG 2.3]
[CAPTION: The Japanese submarine found at a depth
of 1200 feet proves the Pearl Harbor attack was known about and
provoked by the U.S. Navy.]
Why weren’t navy personnel warned that an attack was imminent unless
the devastation and death that occurred on that day was needed as a
pretext for America to enter world war two?
Operation Northwoods – Lies, Provocation and the Masterminding of
Terror
It has been officially revealed via declassified government documents
that the US
military and government has covertly planned to perpetrate acts of
terror upon
innocent civilians in order to justify an engagement in conflict
that would have, at
the time, benefited the government’s wider geopolitical agenda. In
1962 at the
height of the Cold War, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the
chairmanship of
General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, drew up plans to create and launch a war
on Cuba
based solely on a fabric of lies. These lies revolved around the
murder of
hundreds of Americans.
According to ABC News,
In the early 1960s, America’s top military leaders reportedly
drafted plans to kill innocent people
and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support
for a war against Cuba.9
9 ‘Friendly Fire’ – David Ruppe – ABC News – May 1 2001 -
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html
Long hidden documents, uncovered in 2001 by former ABC News
investigative
reporter James Bamford, code-named
OPERATION NORTHWOODS, put a
haunting perspective behind the events of September 11.
The Joint
Chiefs of
Staff (JCS) documents propose launching a secret and violent war of
terrorism
against their own country in order to condition the people of the
USA into
supporting an intended war against Cuba. These sickening plans
called for
innocent American civilians to be shot, for Cuban refugees to be
blown up, for
violent and continued acts of terrorism to be perpetrated in major
American cities,
for innocents to be framed for bombings, and for planes to be
hijacked.
This
would then be blamed on Fidel Castro and Cuba, thus inciting hatred
for him and
Communism, and instigating the public backing that the JCS needed as
an
excuse to launch the pre-planned war.
FIG 2.4
[CAPTION: ABC News reports on Operation Northwoods.]
The first instance of deception on the part of the JCS
was to the new president, John F. Kennedy, telling him that America
should press ahead with an invasion of Cuba that would trigger an
internal uprising against Fidel Castro, thus ensuring his speedy
downfall. This was a total lie. The CIA itself had reports that
stated that the majority of the Cuban public looked upon Castro as a
hero after he had ousted the excessive and repressive regime of
Batista two years previously.
Those people were unaware of the
future horrors Castro had planned for them but the point is that any
uprising against Castro was very unlikely at this time. Indeed, Lemnitzer himself knew this to be the case and would later refer to
the CIA Bay Of Pigs operation that followed as ‘The Cuban debacle’.
Nevertheless, at the time Lemnitzer and the JCS submitted a positive
recommendation for the operation, possibly knowing that the CIA led
invasion would fail and that he could then push for a more active
involvement in Cuba and around the world, for himself, the Pentagon
and the JCS.
After the inevitably bungled Bay of Pigs operation, responsibility
for dealing with Cuba was shifted from the CIA to the Pentagon,
where the project would be known as OPERATION MONGOOSE. Under the
guise of Lemnitzer and Air-Force One star General Edward G.
Lansdale, the Pentagon saw its opportunity to further remove itself
from civilian authority, particularly that of JFK who was seen by
many generals as a ‘no win chief’ who did not understand military
judgments. Military officials craved for the good old days of
jurisdiction under the military mind of president Eisenhower, and
many government elites were also this way inclined.
By February 1962 it was clear that an uprising in Cuba was highly
unlikely. In addition, it was generally accepted that Castro had no
desire to attack America or anything belonging to America. Lansdale
had also been told to drop all anti-Castro efforts by Robert
Kennedy, and the JCS saw their opportunities slipping away. There
was only one option left for Lemnitzer and Lansdale, and that was
NORTHWOODS.
The strategy of NORTHWOODS was outlined,
US military intervention will result from a period of heightened
US-Cuban tensions which place
the United States in the position of suffering justifiable
grievances. World opinion, and the United
Nations forum should be favorably affected by developing the
international image of the Cuban
government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and
unpredictable threat to the peace
of the Western Hemisphere.10
10 ‘Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba’ – Joint
Chiefs of Staff Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense –
March 13 1962 – p5 – available at
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/northwoods.pdf
It is clear that Lemnitzer and the JCS had gone over the edge. They
admitted
that the operation would mean a surge in both Cuban and American
casualties, but that they intended to go ahead with it anyway.
The Northwoods
document
goes into extensive detail about the proposed actions that the
operation would involve,
(1) Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio. (2) Land friendly Cubans in uniform “over the fence” to stage attack
on US base. (3) Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base. (4) Start riots near the base main gate (friendly Cubans) (5) Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires. (6) Burn aircraft on air base (sabotage) (7) Lob mortar shells from outside of base into base. Some damage to
installations. (8) Capture assault teams approaching from the sea or vicinity of
Guantanamo City. (9) Capture militia group which storms the base (10) Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires - - naphthalene (11) Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock
victims.11
11 Ibid p10-11
The later sections of the report begin to outline the
plots of terror that the U.S. Government would covertly instigate
upon innocent people. The first suggestion was to re-create an
incident of 1898 when a mysterious explosion aboard the battleship
Maine in Havana Harbor killed 266 US soldiers and sparked the
Spanish-American war. The horrific explosion influenced more than a
million volunteers for duty and is now widely considered to have
been an act of treason where the U.S. attacked itself to create an
enemy and a pretext.
The Northwoods document continues,
A Remember
the Maine incident could be arranged in several forms:
a. We could blow up a ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba. b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned vessel) anywhere in the Cuban
waters…The presence
of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the
vessel could be fairly compelling
evidence that the ship was taken under attack…Casualty lists in the
newspapers would cause a
helpful wave of national indignation…We could develop a communist
Cuban terror campaign in
the Miami areas, in other Florida cities and even in Washington…the
terror campaign could be
pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We
could sink a boat load of
Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster
attempts on lives of Cuban
refugees in the United States…12
12 Ibid p11
The JCS then go on to discuss how they could actually shoot down a
mock
chartered civil aircraft and blame Cuba,
Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft should appear
to continue as harassing
measures condoned by the government of Cuba…It is possible to create
an incident which will
demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot
down a chartered civil air
liner en-route from the US to Jamaica, Guatemala, Venezuela or
Panama. The destination would
be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The
passengers could be a group of
college students off on a holiday, or any group of persons with a
common interest to support-chartering a non-scheduled flight…13
The plan was to replace said aircraft with an identical drone, flown
by remote control, and land the original plane at an air force base
where passengers, boarded under prepared aliases, would be
evacuated. The drone would then fly the route and when over Cuba,
emit a distress signal before being destroyed by radio signal.
A further plan concerning a plane involved a USAF craft appearing to
be shot down by Cuban MIGs in an ‘unprovoked attack’ over
international waters. The pilot would broadcast that he was under
attack and then cease all transmission. He would then fly back to a
base where the plane would be given a new tail number and the pilot
would resume his real identity. Then a US submarine would disperse
some destroyed plane parts in the water. Thus the result is a
missing plane, pilot and wreckage in international waters after
reports of an attack by MIG aircraft.
I
would emphasize that before these documents became well known,
government officials denied their very existence, even though they
had been
unclassified and released by the National Security Archive. Anyone
with Internet
access can read them and yet Robert S. McNamara, Kennedy’s defense
secretary states,
“I never heard of it. I can’t believe the chiefs were talking about
or engaged in what I would call CIA-type operations.”14
13 Ibid p13
14 ‘New book on NSA sheds light on secrets’ – Scott Shane and Tom
Bowman – Baltimore Sun – April 24 2001 -
http://www.baltimoresun.com/bal-te.md.nsa24apr24.story
As a caveat,
if Northwoods had the hallmark of the CIA then what has that
particular agency carried out that we are not aware of?
Operation Northwoods reminds us, as if it were needed, that
governments owe no allegiance to the people that elect them. The cry
that ‘they’d never do that’ can be dismissed with hard evidence –
government documents. The Joint Chiefs would have carried out the
plan if Kennedy hadn’t blocked it.
This outright rejection was one
of the reasons behind Kennedy’s assassination little over a year
later.
The Gulf of Tonkin – Organized Deception
The Vietnam War killed one million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans.
It was
launched after two incidents in August 1964, the first of which was
provoked and
the second never happened. With careful avoidance of the facts, then
president
Lyndon Baines Johnson was able to ram through the Gulf of Tonkin
resolution,
denouncing those who raised suspicious voices as anti-American, and
receiving
a validation for war.
Section two of the resolution stated,
The United
States regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace
the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast
Asia. Consonant with the Constitution of the United States and the
Charter of the United Nations and in accordance with its obligations
under the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the United
States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take
all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any
member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Treaty
requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.15
On August 2,
North Vietnamese forces in Russian-made Swatow gunboats had attacked
the USS Maddox, a destroyer conducting ‘reconnaissance’ in the Gulf
of Tonkin. The ship was actually attacked because it was part of a
joint CIA-South Vietnamese covert intelligence operation called
‘Operation Plan 34ª.’ The CIA-South Vietnamese covert force
conducted airborne, maritime and overland agent-insertion operations.
South Vietnamese covert operatives were to gather intelligence,
recruit support, establish bases of resistance and carry out
psychological operations behind enemy lines.
The maritime operation
began as an infiltration operation. But beginning in June 1962, with
the loss of the vessel Nautelas II and four commandos, it evolved
into hit-and-run attacks against North Vietnamese shore and island
installations by South Vietnamese and foreign mercenary crews on
high-speed patrol boats. 16 Far from being an ‘unprovoked attack’ as
President Lyndon Johnson had stated, the attack was an expected
retaliation as a result of aggressive CIA-South Vietnamese
maneuvers. Johnson himself acknowledged Operation Plan 34ª in
recently released White House tape recordings,
“There have been some
covert operations in that (Tonkin Gulf) area that we have been
carrying on - blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads
and so forth. So I imagine (the North Vietnamese) wanted to put a
stop to it.” 17
15 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - Public Law 88-408; 78 Stat. 384 –
August 7 1964 -
http://www.uiowa.edu/~c030162/Common/Handouts/War/Tonkin.htm
16 ‘New Light on Gulf of Tonkin’ - Captain Ronnie E. Ford, U.S. Army
– July 28 1997 –
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/54/106.html
17 ‘Tonkin incident might not have occurred’ – Bob Richter – San
Antonio Express News – August 3 2002 -
http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlc=775859
The second incident occurred two days later on
August 4. The USS Maddox and the USS C. Turner Joy reported a second
attack, this one occurring within 17 hours of 34-Alpha raids on
North Vietnamese facilities at Cap Vinh Son and Cua Ron. Earlier
that day the National Security Agency had warned that an attack on
the Maddox appeared imminent. The early reports stated that four
unidentified vessels had approached the Maddox at high speed and
launched 20 torpedo missiles. The U.S. responded by firing 249
5-inch shells, 123 3-inch shells and four or five depth charges.
Around two hours later, Adm. U.S. Grant “Oley” Sharp, commander of
the U.S.
Navy’s Pacific Fleet, informed Air Force Lt. Gen. David Burchinal of
the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, “many of the reported contacts and torpedoes fired
appear
doubtful,” and blamed the erroneous reports on “overeager sonar men”
and
“freak weather effects on radar.” James Stockdale, a navy aviator,
squadron
commander and future vice-presidential candidate was scrambled to
survey and
protect the US vessels as the ‘attack’ unfolded.
In his 1984 book he
stated,
“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
but black water and
American firepower.” 18
In 1965, Lyndon Johnson stated,
“For all I know, our Navy was
shooting at
whales out there.”19
If this was all the President knew, and
numerous intelligence
cables throughout the day indicated that no attack had taken place,
why on the
evening of August 4 did he declare,
“The initial attack on the destroyer Maddox, on August 2, was
repeated today by a number of hostile vessels attacking two U.S.
destroyers with torpedoes. The destroyers and supporting aircraft
acted at once on the orders I gave after the initial act of
aggression. We believe at least two of the attacking boats were
sunk. There were no U.S. losses.”20
18 Ibid
19 ‘30-Year Anniversary: Tonkin Gulf Lie Launched Vietnam War’ –
Jeff Cohen
and Norman Solomon – Media Beat – July 27 1994 -
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/940727.html
20 Transcript of LBJ speech broadcast across America on the night of
August 4 1964 -
http://www.tamu.edu/scom/pres/speeches/lbjgulf.html
There were no U.S. losses
because no U.S. ships were under attack. The whole incident was
staged. Some argue that commanders did initially believe they had
been attacked. If this is so then why, nine hours after it had been
established that no attack took place, did the President sound the
war cry to millions of American people? The plan to launch a war on
a fabric of lies had clearly been in place for many weeks or months.
This was the reward after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution passed
almost unanimously just days after the ‘attacks’. Another
manufactured crisis set the scene for the slaughter of millions of
unwitting troops on both sides of the subsequent conflict.
The history of tyranny is the history of ruthless individuals and
ruling elites, who launch wars against both countries and
populations by creating acceptable justification. This excuse is
only made possible because those seemingly ‘under attack’ have in
fact attacked themselves and identified a useful scapegoat. It is
important to understand that while the real story behind these
events was confined to being regarded as rumor at the time in some
instances, subsequent historical record and government documents
confirm all of the details.
Be it fortunate or unfortunate, we will not have to wait 40 years to
discover that our own governments were perpetrating terror against
us today, the evidence is in front of us right now.
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