NSA bosses feared releasing Gulf of Tonkin intel would draw ''uncomfortable comparisons'' with Iraq

[Octafish]

One of the reasons to be wary when Washington uses secret intelligence as a basis for war.

Tonkin Gulf Intelligence "Skewed"
According to Official History and Intercepts

Newly Declassified National Security Agency Documents Show Analysts Made "SIGINT fit the claim" of North Vietnamese Attack

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 132 - Update

John Prados
National Security Archive

EXCERPT...

New York Times reporter Scott Shane wrote that higher-level officials at the NSA were "fearful that (declassification) might prompt uncomfortable comparisons with the flawed intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq."

CONTINUED...

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/press20051201.htm

Anyone ever hear OPLAN 34-A mentioned on tee vee or in history class?

Caro’s Flawed Tale of LBJ’s Rise

Exclusive: Author Robert Caro has labored through decades of his multi-volume study of Lyndon Johnson’s life, only now reaching LBJ’s presidency in The Passage of Power. But the much-praised book misses – or misrepresents – many of the key events, writes Jim DiEugenio.

By Jim DiEugenio
ConsortiumNews July 28, 2012

EXCERPT...

Caro mentions OPLAN 34A, the plan for covert operations against North Vietnam. The seed for this plan was approved by Johnson as part of NSAM 273 in late November of 1963. Caro actually calls it a “reaffirmation.” (Caro, p. 403) If what he means is a reaffirmation of Kennedy’s policies, then this is just wrong.

CONTINUED...

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/07/28/caros-flawed-tale-of-lbjs-rise/

Me, I'm all for war if it's to defend the United States and the Constitution from any and all enemies, foreign and domestic. Other than that, I'll try peace first.

[Mnemosyne]

1. It always should be peace first, Octafish. Always. nt

[Octafish]

3. Absolutely peace first. When we're the strongest nation in history...

...we already call the shots, so it should be a given.

What bothers me, though, is the warmongering. Always the warmongering...

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

SUBJECT: White House Staff Meeting, 5 August 1964

EXCERPT...

Some one asked what would happen if the ChiComs brought
their air power on the DRV. Bundy cautiously said that our people
thought we could handle them. He then looked at me and said,
"General LeMay doesn't think in terms of teh enemy, does he? He
assumes they won't be there." I made some response to the effect
that General LeMay assumes some of his people wil take care of the
enemy for him; he doesn't have to worry too much about that. All
this was said in good humor, and the matter dropped.

[font color="blue"]Referring to the President's meeting with Congressional
"leadership" yesterday, Bundy commented that "leadership" was a
funny word in this case, in that there was little Congressmen could
do in the way of leading in a situation in which the President's role
was so primary.[/font color]

SOURCE: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/tonkin.pdf

War first is how the warmongers see things, the War Party, the BFEE. Contrast with JFK:

Even though they knew their invasion plans were compromised, the CIA and Pentagon tried to force Kennedy to make war over the Bay of Pigs.

While an attack on Soviet missile bases in Cuba and on ships at sea would escalate to nuclear war, the Pentagon and most of the Cabinet tried to force Kennedy to make war, nuclear if necessary -- the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Pentagon and the Hawks in Congress and his Cabinet recommended war in Vietnam and southeast Asia to stop the spread of Communism, Kennedy sent volunteers -- which he ordered out by the end of 1964 -- but said he would never commit U.S. draftees to fight in another country's civil war, Vietnam.

Most troublesome to me, seeing how the Hawks lied America into invading Iraq twice in the last 22 years, DCI Allen Dulles and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Lyman Lemnitzer counseled Kennedy to order an all-out nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in Fall of 1963 -- the optimal time for a successful pre-emptive war.

Of course, we all know what happened next.

PS: I know you know all this, Mnemosyne. Sorry to get all didactic, my Friend. You know, old habits...

[Mnemosyne]

20. I absolutely love it when you "get all didactic"! It spreads knowledge every time.

I can never stop educating people I meet, either, and it's very doubtful we will ever stop. It's not in our nature to stop.

Always a pleasure, Octafish!

[malaise]

26. Warfuckingmongers

That is all

[Octafish]

27. JFK upon hearing news his friend Lumumba had been assassinated...

...a few days before he was inaugurated in 1961.



We've learned since the murder was a CIA-Belgian job that eventually led to the deaths of millions and the enrichment of the richest in the world. One of the names that pops up is Frank "Carlyle Group" Carlucci.

[Drale]

2. Any smart rational person already knows that the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident

was complete bullshit and the frame work for W's lies about Iraq.

[Octafish]

4. I'd bet you're in the minority.

Over the years, I've ask at various dinner tables about the Gulf of Tonkin -- friends, family, professional.

Reckoning off the top of my head, about one in 20 people knew what happened -- if anything, less for the young set.

I've never heard the flawed NSA intel linked between the Gulf of Tonkin and the Iraq War mentioned on television. How many teachers bring this up in the classroom?

Thank goodness for the John Prados and the National Security Archive at GWU:

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/index.htm

[iemitsu]

19. I am one teacher who brings this up in class.

I also point out the glaringly obvious truth in the Domino Theory of spreading Communism. The theory suggests that if citizens of one country see a successful communist example, in another state, that they will want to adopt communism themselves. An odd admission for the rulers of the capitalist world. I would have thought that democratic/capitalist states would provide the irresistible model, that developing nations would want to emulate, not communism.

[malthaussen]

28. I think many knew it was a lie.

But it is interesting that the details of that lie are still emerging decades later.

Of course, I have no knowledge of what is being taught in school now. What has the Gulf of Tonkin have to do with STEM studies, after all?

-- Mal

[Waiting For Everyman]

6. Yes, that's why it was called an "illegal war" from the get go.

Even without "proof" (as in a courtroom sense), there was enough indication that it was phony even at the time it happened. Thinking people who were paying attention never bought it.

Actually there was much more healthy skepticism then than there is today, even though there was less information then to go on (about covert activities etc.).

[truedelphi]

5. As a loyal American, I must point out how you consistently "forget"

The Greater Good that the NSA is working toward.

Forget a conversation, or accidentally delete an important email? Tom Tomorrow sums up important NSA benefits:

http://www.alternet.org/comics/tom-tomorrow-nsa-spying

[Octafish]

8. NSA boss has got more power than any one person has held in US history...

...my source is TUC Radio:

Alfred W. McCoy

The Making of the US Surveillance State

In July 2013 an article appeared on line in TomDispatch that gave an up to date and chilling analysis of the unprecedented powers of the US Surveillance state. It’s author, University of Wisconsin, Madison, professor of history Alfred McCoy, credits Edward Snowden for having revealed today’s reality. And McCoy adds his perspective of the intriguing history that led up to this point - and he makes a few predictions as to what to expect in the near future. That article in TomDispatch caught the attention of radio host, writer and Middle East expert Jeff Blankfort who allows me to broadcast the highlights of his interview with Professor McCoy.

McCoy studied Southeast Asian history at Yale University before coming to Madison. In 1971 he was commissioned to write a book on the opium trade in Laos and discovered that the French equivalent to the CIA had financed its covert operations from the control of the Indochina drug trade. He also found evidence that after the US replaced the French the CIA took over the drug trade. Not surprisingly the CIA tried to block publication of the book The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. But after three English editions and translation into nine foreign languages, this study is now regarded as the “classic” work on the global drug traffic.

Professor Alfred W. McCoy is the author of: The Politics Of Heroin (in 1972) and A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror (published in 2006) A film based in part on that book, "Taxi to the Darkside," won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2008. McCoy’s latest study of this topic, Torture and Impunity (Madison, 2012), explores the political and cultural dynamics of America’s post 9/11 debate over interrogation.This program was first aired on July 24, 2013 at KZYX Radio in Philo, CA.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175724/

http://history.wisc.edu/people/faculty/mccoy.htm

The 35 minute version is here: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/69998

A387For a broadcast quality mp3 version click HERE

SOURCE with podcasts, links, etc: http://www.tucradio.org/new.html

Old stuff to you, truedelphi. But, it's nice for those new to such things to learn. As for Tom Tomorrow, the guy's the best. As for Gen. Alexander:

Gen. Alexander is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

[truedelphi]

9. Much of that is not old stuff for me. Thanks for all the info -

Coincidentally, I am reading a book that uses as a citation, the McCoy book "Politics of Heroin" Everything I am learning regarding the opium trade is extremely interesting. It sheds a new light on the British and how they used the opium poppies of the Indian people to enslave the Chinese and capture some tremendous fortunes.
Will try and check out more of what you have listed here. Thanks again.

[felix_numinous]

7. God forbid the NSA is 'uncomfortable'

-it takes courage to admit ones errors, but once done, we rediscover our humanity. Once we admit and face our own fallibility we actually become MORE secure, and much stronger.

It is a paradox, and counter intuitive to admit our mistakes. But this is where we are at, a crossroads where we have a choice NOT to take the same path as last time expecting different results.

This is why the archetype of the vampire casts no image in a mirror, he is a parasite thriving off the life blood of others who cannot tolerate self reflection. It is a state of being, a type of disease, of complete denial and belief in the right to exist apart from society where law and order do not apply... Not that the NSA/intelligence community are vampires or parasites, but to say that this archetypal principle applies to this BEHAVIOR, existing in the collective shadow, able to see you and wishing to be invisible and nameless themselves. No Such Agency.

Interesting this archetype has become so popular--it is evidence of an awareness in the collective unconscious that this behavior is being witnessed. But this awareness must come into the light and be dealt with, no healthy society has so many secrets, and delegates so much power--and money--to people they have no access to, while having their life blood sucked right out of them. (I was not going to add the bit about being hypnotized too, but there you have it)

Thanks Octafish, you shine light where it is most needed--the most uncomfortable truths are uncomfortable because they need to be changed.

[Octafish]

21. Are you Robert McKee?

Every word you wrote is absolute truth. Your outstanding post reminds me of that world famous University of Michigan grad and the Master of Story:

In 388 B.C. Plato urged the city fathers of Athens to exile all poets and storytellers. They are a threat to society, he argued. Writers deal with ideas, but not in the open rational manner of philosophers. Instead, they conceal their ideas inside the seductive emotions of art. Yet felt ideas, as Plato pointed out, are ideas nonetheless. Every effective story sends a charged idea out to us, in effect compelling the idea into us, so that we must believe. In fact, the persuasive power of a story is so great that we may believe its meaning even if we find it morally repellent. Storytellers, Plato insisted, are dangerous people. He was right.

-- "Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting." p 129-130

In a time of secret government, the truth is a dangerous thing. That is why we must speak it and write it and think it.

PS: You are most welcome, felix_numinous. Thank you for grokking and imagining what could be and may yet come to pass.

[felix_numinous]

25. No, thank you though

for the high compliment.

I've written my whole life, but just in journals

[AtheistCrusader]

10. Goddamn I thought this was pro-war satire at first.

OMG I need a nap or something.

[awoke_in_2003]

12. I thought it was an Onion article. nt

[Supersedeas]

31. Wink...wink...wink

[awoke_in_2003]

11. I thought this might have been the Onion..

once again, reality is stranger than fiction.

[Octafish]

22. BFEE script plays Groundhog Day without the happy ending.

Case in point:

Know your BFEE: War and Oil are just two longtime Main Lines of Business

This is the guy Ike was talking about
when he thought of making it:
“Military-Intelligence-Congressional Complex.”



Check out what U.S. Senator Prescott Sheldon Bush, wrote back in 1959,
cheerleading for Boeing, General Electric, Westinghouse, Remington,
Chevron and the rest of the war profiteers hogging at the trough of the U.S. Treasury:

To Preserve Peace Let’s Show Russians How Strong We Are

By Prescott Bush
U.S. Senator from Connecticut;
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee
The Reader’s Digest July 1959

MAN’S GREATEST danger, it is said, is ignorance. In a very real sense, the Soviet Union’s ignorance of our military strength may be the source of her gravest peril—and ours. Kaiser Wilhelm started World War I because he miscalculated Allied power. Hitler, mistakenly thinking he could blitz the world, launched World War II. Kruschev today lacks firsthand knowledge of our country; he may be given what others think he would like to hear—rather than an objective report on our actual military strength. Although it seems impossible that any sane person could start a war, we would be wise to take no chances.

Why not invite the Soviet high command to the United States for a conducted tour of our military might? We are bringing Russians to see our farms and factories, our scientific laboratories and research centers; we exchange dancers and musicians. Why not have their military leaders over for the most beneficial look of all? Our expressed policy, the aim and purpose of our entire defense system, is to deter the Kremlin from starting a war. What better way to deter than to show?

What we could show is nothing more nor less than the greatest military might ever assembled in the history of the world. If the Soviet high command could see what we have, they should be of our mind—that for them to start war today would be an act of insanity.

We could start in a Pentagon briefing room. There, with maps, globes, films and sound-projection equipment to help illustrate our points, we could give them a good hard look at the distribution of American power. Then we could fly the group to Mountain Home Air Force Base in Montana, where bombers of the Strategic Air Command are on 24-hour alert, many ready to take off within 15 minutes. We could see an awe-inspiring line of B-47’s, any one of which can, in a single mission, deliver explosive power equivalent to that of all the bombs dropped by all sides in World War II. We could invite the commander of the Soviet air force to ride in one of these planes, and see it refueled in the air, thus quietly demonstrating that, while most Soviet bombers would have to fly one-way missions, ours can strike any target in the world and return nonstop.

SNIP...

The demonstration at SAC should effectively dismiss from Soviet minds any speculation about the possibility of their gaining an advantage from all-out war any time soon. But we must face the fact that in a few years the Russians may be able to zero in our SAC bases with ballistic missiles. To drive this temptation out of their minds, we could show them other deterrents.

CONTINUES…

The Reader’s Digest
July 1959 pp. 25-30

Prescott Bush detailed how Kruschev and the head of the Soviet armed forces be our guest on nuclear submarines, demonstrations of sea- and land-launched ICBMs, operations from aircraft carriers and a cruise aboard the inter-continental strategic bomber, the B-52.

The guy was on to something. You know how much they get for a B-2 these days? Two bill? Each?



Almost forgot. Prescott also discussed the strategic importance of Iraq –
the very same right next door to Iran, the very place the CIA and MI6 had, five years earlier,
replaced a democratically elected government with a despot, the Shah. For the oil, I’d wager.

It’s fortunate for them that we want only peace with justice. Our entire record attests to that. We have no history of aggression, profess no desire for world domination, as do the Communists. Only by their continued menace have we been forced to take these measures for defense.

I ASK, “Why don’t we show the Russians many of these defense measures?” What I would not show them is any self-satisfaction on our part about the future, any slowing-up of plans to produce the new weapons which must inevitably take the place of the old ones. I believe we are in a continuing struggle to keep on top in this business of declaring war. I think that the Russians are never to be underrated. [font color="red"]I also believe that the Communists are master bluffers that they seek to put us off by arrogant threats to Berlin and to the peace of the far Pacific, and, while our people are preoccupied with these threats, they may try to take over Iraq as the Chinese Reds have conquered Tibet.[/font color]

So. At least three generations of the Bush Family Evil Empire have had their eyes on Iraq’s oil. Interesting how Prescott mentioned Tibet's destruction by China. How was he to know his namesake would one day become head of the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce? The article also shows how Prescott boosted the Cold War, way back in ’59. It’s not so odd to think that three generations of crazy petrodollar-loving warmongers would rise to the top echelons of American leadership.



IMFO, this is exactly what Ike was talking about when he mentioned being on our guard against the “Military-Industrial Complex.” The Bushes and their supporters may think they're American royalty, but all they are is a multi-generational mob of traitors.

[felix_numinous]

29. Savak was trained

By MI6, Mossad AND CIA, bad mfers. They are still mostly there, at least in training, different name.

These violent Frankenstein monsters are trained and created in order to serve outside interests, but always seem to go rogue and run amok, go figure.

This same theme is played around the world--find the worst oppressive monsters out there and then see how many of them, or their henchmen, got their training.

[johnnyreb]

13. "Analysts Made 'SIGINT fit the claim'" sounds a lot like:

..."the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Which reminds me of a song:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/lockemup.mp3

[Octafish]

32. Lock Them Up.

Thank you, johnnyreb. Dunno who the artists are, but I will keep that tune on my all-time list.

Paris wrote something that helps preserve why GW and Unka Dick and all the rest of the BFEE deserve to make little ones out of big ones for the rest of their natural days...

[WillyT]

14. K & R !!!

[Octafish]

33. Media, Propaganda and Vietnam

by Anup Shah
This Page Last Updated Friday, October 24, 2003

The “official” or commonly accepted version of how and why the U.S. was involved in Vietnam sort of goes along the following lines:

* Non-communist South Vietnam was invaded by communist North Vietnam
* The United States came to the aid of the regime in the South.
* The regime in the South was democratic

Yet, it turns out that this is untrue, and it required massive propaganda to create this standard and accepted image.

A lot of the following is a summary of part of journalist John Pilger’s book, Heroes, (Jonathan Cape 1986, Vintage 2001), mainly chapters 15 and 20, mostly written in the 1980s (and reprinted in 2001, from which the citations are taken. Where page numbers are cited in parenthesis, it is from this book unless indicated otherwise). He was in Vietnam many times, during the war, and returned on various occassions as well. He received a number of awards for his Vietnam reporting. He has generally been quite critical in his writings about power and authority.

Pilger described some studies in the 1980s where some people by then had already forgotten some of the reasons for the Vietnam war, and that “More than a third could not say which side American had supported and some believed that North Vietnam had been ‘our allies’” (p. 178.) He describes why this “historical amnesia” might occur:

"This 'historical amnesia' is not accidental; if anything it demonstrates the insidious power of the dominant propaganda of the Vietnam war. The constant American government line was that the war was essentially a conflict of Vietnamese against Vietnamese, in which Americans became 'involved', mistakenly and honourably. This assumption was shared both by 'hawks' and 'doves'; it permeated the media coverage during the war and has been the overriding theme of numerous retrospectives since the war. It is a false and frequently dishonest assumption. The longest war this century was a war waged by America against Vietnam, North and South. It was an attack on the people of Vietnam, communist and non-communist, by American forces. It was an invasion of their homeland and their lives, just as the current presence in Afghanistan of Soviet forces is an invasion. Neither began as a mistake."

— John Pilger, Heroes, (Jonathan Cape 1986, Vintage 2001), p.178 (Emphasis is original)

CONTINUED (one heckuva resource)...

http://www.globalissues.org/article/402/media-propaganda-and-vietnam

[gopiscrap]

15. As it fucking should

my father got injured and died as a result of that injury (Jan 1961) being in Vietnam when we were saying we weren't (Eisenhower Admin) and when the news came out about Tonkin, my mom immediately said the US was lying.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

18. I have been corrected here on DU for stating

the US was in Viet Nam before the JFK Admin.

[Octafish]

35. Nixon pulled a Bush on Eisenhower...

...Eisenhower, Nixon and the Dulles brothers worked like demons to protect Big Money, from Iran to Guatemala to Vietnam.

After Ike suffered a heart attack, young Tricky Dick Nixon was at the ready to stamp out the evils of communism, socialism, social security, liberalism, Democrats and democracy. Take the time he hired the Mafia to kill Castro -- lots of CIA types to the present day like to make out it was the Kennedy brothers.

When Pruneface got shot, Poppy pulled his own little coup and got busy.



From Christopher Simpson, details on how Poppy Bush started the big ball of surveillance wax after he pried control of the spyworks out of the bed-ridden Pruneface:

George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of "Counter-Terrorism"

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.

During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.

Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.

The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.

SNIP...

Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.

CONTINUED...

http://books.google.com/books?id=YZqRyj_QXf8C&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=christopher+simpson+The+Uses+of+%E2%80%98Counter-Terrorism%E2%80%99&source=bl&ots=8klB0PzATX&sig=hi9DpE3qF43Oefh7iGn79W4jXQs&hl=en&ei=zAFQTeriBsr2gAfu1Mgc&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=christopher%20simpson%20The%20Uses%20of%20%E2%80%98Counter-Terrorism%E2%80%99&f=false

Because none of this sees the light of television, the American people wonder why there's always money for war and the rich get richer and the rest get poor and poorer.

[gopiscrap]

38. Trust me I have pictures of me as a 7 year old

before a flag draped casket of his fathers to prove it!

[Octafish]

34. From John Pilger...

Ho Chi Minh was the antithesis of other emerging communist leaders in one respect: he wanted his people to open themselves out to other societies, communist, capitalist and non-aligned. Like Tito in Yugoslavia, he knew that this was the only way his people could survive as a national entity. Indeed, so anxious was Ho for American support for his fledgling republic that he addressed twelve separate appeals to President Roosevelt, to his Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, and to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Major Patti (a U.S. government liaison officer, working for the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA) later wrote that Ho “pleaded not for military or economic aid”,

...but for understanding, for moral support, for a voice in the forum of western democracies. But the United States would not read his mail because, as I was informed, the DRV Government was not recognised by the United States and it would be “improper” for the President or anyone in authority to acknowledge such correspondence. (DRV stood for Democratic Republic of Vietnam, later known colloquially by the Americans as “North Vietnam”.)

...As for relations with the Soviet Union, Ho had spent fifteen years in Moscow and expressed himself well aware of the tenuous and highly conditional nature of Soviet “friendship”. He told Patti, “I place more reliance on the United States to support Vietnam’s independence, before I could expecet help from USSR.”

— John Pilger, Heroes, (Jonathan Cape 1986, Vintage 2001), pp.180 - 181

SOURCE: http://www.globalissues.org/article/402/media-propaganda-and-vietnam

PS: I am truly sorry on the loss of your father and the suffering he must have experienced. Thank you for sharing, gopiscrap.

[gopiscrap]

37. Hey no problem, my honor

it pisses me off when repukes insist we weren't in Vietnam when Eisenhower was there. I have the pictures of me (as a 7 year old) at his father's funeral to prove it.

[Octafish]

39. Nixon was ''supposed'' to succeed Eisenhower and Vietnam...

...they're the ones who supported the French colonialists. Here's an important story Nixon never was asked about:

Nixon In the Jungle

“Did Richard Nixon—then Citizen Nixon—jump-start the Vietnam War on a secret mission to Saigon in 1964? The following piece suggests that he may have. The following story originally appeared in the anthology, Nixon: An Oliver Stone Film, edited by Eric Hamburg (Hyperion, New York, 1995).”

by Jim Hougan
July 19, 2011

Richard M. Nixon 37th President of the United States

It is one of the most mysterious incidents in the Vietnam War, and I can’t get it out of my mind.

It was the spring of 1964, and the former Vice President of the United States, who was also the next President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, was standing in a jungle clearing northwest of Saigon, negotiating with a man who, to all appearances, was a Vietcong lieutenant. Wearing battle fatigues “with no identification,” Nixon was flanked by military bodyguards whose mission was so secret that, when they returned to Saigon, their clothing was burned. (“Secret Nixon Vietnam Trip Reported,” New York Times, Feb. 17, 1985.)

At the time, Nixon had been out of public office (though not out of politics) for more than three years. After losing the Presidential election in 1960 and the California gubernatorial race in 1962, he’d gone into private practice as an attorney with the Mudge, Rose law firm, subsiding into what amounted to an enforced retirement from the world’s stage. It’s all the more surprising, then, to find this political castoff on a secret mission in the Orient – only a few months after the Kennedy and Diem assassinations.

Not that Nixon was a stranger to intrigue. On the contrary, his political career might easily be graphed as a parabola of Cold War conspiracies. As a Red-baiting congressman in the forties, he’d made the most of a lovely “photo opportunity” by uncovering stolen State Department secrets – in a Maryland pumpkin field. In the fifties, while Vice President, he’d run a stable of spooks – actually run them – in an off-the-books operation to destroy the Greek shipping tycoon, Aristotle Onassis. (Jim Hougan, Spooks (New York: Morrow, 1978), pp. 286-306. Onassis was targeted because of an agreement he’d reached with the Saudi government, monopolizing the export of oil from Saudi Arabia) In that operation, Nixon acted as a case officer to Robert Maheu (himself a linkman between the CIA and the Mafia) (Hougan, Spooks, pp. 286-300, and Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele, Empire (New York: Norton, 1979), pp. 282-285.) and a former Washington Post reporter named John Gerrity. Gerrity later recalled that “Nixon more or less invented the Mission Impossible speech, and he gave it to us right there, in the White House. You know the spiel, the one that begins, ‘Your assignment, gentlemen, should you choose to accept it. . . .” (Hougan’s interview with Gerrity.) Years afterward, when the Eisenhower Administration was drawing to a close, then Vice President Nixon served as the de facto focal point officer for the Administration’s plans to overthrow Fidel Castro. In that role, he was in regular contact with the CIA and with some of the darker precincts of the Pentagon.

It’s fair to say, then, that Richard M. Nixon knew what he was doing when it came to covert operations – but what was he doing in the jungle in 1964?

The story surfaced, briefly, some 20 years later, when the New York Times reported that Nixon, “while on a private trip to Vietnam in 1964, met secretly with the Vietcong and ransomed five American prisoners of war for bars of gold. : . .” (“Secret Nixon Vietnam Trip Reported,” p. 3.) In reporting this, the Times relied upon a report published in the catalog of a Massachusetts autograph dealer. The dealer was selling a handwritten note that Nixon had given to one of his bodyguards. The note read, “To Hollis Kimmons with appreciation for his protection for my helicopter ride in Vietnam, from Richard Nixon.”

CONTINUED...

http://jimhougan.com/wordpress/?p=98

[suffragette]

16. Interesting how the NSA is central to

All of these.

[Octafish]

30. Secret Government is un-American

Yet, those who control the secrets seem to get to have their way on matters of war and peace more often than not.

Peter Lisagor: Senator, the Constitution gives to the President of the United States the sole responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy...

Wayne Morse: ...couldn't be more wrong, you couldn't make a more unsound legal statement than the one you have just made...

Norman Solomon: Morse was only one of two Senators, the other was Ernest Gruening of Alaska, to vote against the Tonkin resolution. It was kind of an invitation to stand up and salute the flag, and anybody who refused to do so was attacked as a, was essentially treated as, a pariah, attacked as somebody who lacked requisite patriotism and military resolve...

Phillip Babich: Thirty-five years ago, the Gulf of Tonkin incident led, days later, to Congressional passage of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which gave President Lyndon Johnson backing to launch military strikes against North Vietnam. Only two senators dissented. One of them was Oregon Senator Wayne Morse. On this program we take a look at Morse's role in opposing the Vietnam war. We'll also examine what his legacy means today, as the U.S. government continues to plan for wars and work with the mass media to win-over public opinion.

I'm Phillip Babich, your host this week on Making Contact an international radio program seeking to make create connections between people, vital ideas, and important information.

On August 5, 1964, a headline on the front page of the Washington Post declared: "American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression." That same day the front page of the New York Times reported: "President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin." As it turned out, however, there was no "second attack" or "renewed attacks against American destroyers." But public perception of the events that actually took place in the Gulf of Tonkin was skewed by the mass media, and days later, on August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

No official declaration of war was ever made with regard to U.S. military action in Vietnam.

Peter Lisagor: Senator Morse, what do you mean when you call our participation in the South Vietnam war unconstitutional and illegal?

Wayne Morse: Our government has no right to send American boys to their death in any battlefield in the absence of a declaration of war, and Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution vests the prerogative of declaring war in the Congress of the United States. And no war has been declared in Southeast Asia, and until a war is declared, it is unconstitutional to send American boys to their death in South Vietnam, or anywhere else in Southeast Asia. I don't know why we think, just because we're mighty, that we have the right to try to substitute might for right. And that's the American policy in Southeast Asia. It's just as unsound when we do it as when Russia does it.

CONTINUED...

http://www.radioproject.org/transcript/1999/9941.html

Morse began as a Republican, became an Independent when Ike and Nixon got in, and became a Democrat a while later.

FTR: That's how a person who believes in democracy acts and lives.

[suffragette]

42. Yes, those who control the secrets get their way

They control the type and flow of information, whether true or misleading, and can cover up what they wish under the cloak of secrecy by calling it national security interests.

Thanks for the above info about Senator Morse's opposition.

Not enough history is being examined or discussed as being relevant or pertinent to what is going on and what should occur.

I keep thinking back to Maher Arar's rendition by us and Canada and delivery to Syria to be tortured, especially since it shows how recently our nation was ok with collaborating in such a clear human rights violation and how it has avoided responsibilty and accountability by claiming state's secrets. Also to Jane Mayer's excellent article in the New Yorker about rendition and torture.

I think that avoidance of accountability is a strong factor in the current stance that not to bomb is to do 'nothing.' In reality, there are many other options, but some of those are viewed as closed because to open the door to them (international legal process, especially) could also open the door to our own accountability as a nation for illegal and immoral acts such as the above. Instead, both our government and our media strenuously avoid even bringing these up as options since to do so could jeopardize our own nation's decision that these: are state secrets which can't be revealed, are off the table, are in the past.

[coldbeer]

17. I could write a book

I was drafted and spent 1967, 68, and 69 (2 years) in the infantry.
We discovered the Miliatary was a hoax. (FTA) ... F the army.

I learned/knew about the gulf of Tomkin

After my honorable discharge Nixon froze my wages. And then there was
Reagan and North. I preached that Bush was after oil and not WMD.

I learned/knew Colin Powel was lying in order to get his son that bona fide
job.

Bring the soldiers home and let the UN and the Middle East make amends.
And Israel was never a Jewish country until 1948. Let the UN take the
responsibility of solving their grievances ... not the USA!!!

[Octafish]

36. More from John Pilger...

According to the Pentagon Papers, the United States moved in secret to “disassociate” France from the levels of command, in southern Vietnam and to assume direct American control. This task was assigned to the newly formed CIA which, during the summer of 1954, invented a “republic of Vietnam” with Saigon as its capital. This was known by those assigned to the task as “creating the master illusion.”

— John Pilger, Heroes, (Jonathan Cape 1986, Vintage 2001), pp.183 - 184

The Dulles brothers and Nixon got a lot of people killed who shouldn't have died -- innocent people. Guess who was looking for oil in Vietnam?

CIA Helped Bush Senior In Oil Venture

By Russ Baker on Jan 7, 2007
WhoWhatWhy.com

Bush has long denied allegations that he had connections to the intelligence community prior to 1976, when he became Central Intelligence Agency director under President Gerald Ford. At the time, he described his appointment as a ‘real shocker.’

But the freshly uncovered memos contend that Bush maintained a close personal and business relationship for decades with a CIA staff employee who, according to those CIA documents, was instrumental in the establishment of Bush’s oil venture, Zapata, in the early 1950s, and who would later accompany Bush to Vietnam as a “cleared and witting commercial asset” of the agency.

According to a CIA internal memo dated November 29, 1975, Bush’s original oil company, Zapata Petroleum, began in 1953 through joint efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his agency position that same year to go into private business. The ’75 memo describes Devine as an “oil wild-catting associate of Mr. Bush.” The memo is attached to an earlier memo written in 1968, which lays out how Devine resumed work for the secret agency under commercial cover beginning in 1963.

“Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata Oil,” the memo reads. In fact, early Zapata corporate filings do not seem to reflect Devine’s role in the company, suggesting that it may have been covert. Yet other documents do show Thomas Devine on the board of an affiliated Bush company, Zapata Offshore, in January, 1965, more than a year after he had resumed work for the spy agency.

It was while Devine was in his new CIA capacity as a commercial cover officer that he accompanied Bush to Vietnam the day after Christmas in 1967, remaining in the country with the newly elected congressman from Texas until January 11, 1968. Whatever information the duo was seeking, they left just in the nick of time. Only three weeks after the two men departed Saigon, the North Vietnamese and their Communist allies launched the Tet offensive with seventy thousand troops pre-positioned in more than 100 cities and towns.

CONTINUED...

http://whowhatwhy.com/2007/01/07/cia-bush-senior-oil-venture/

And some DUers think the Bush family and the lot for whom they labor are A-OK.

[Aerows]

41. I find it interesting that they called it "shoe"

boots on the neck is the MO, apparently.

[cali]

23. From Senator Leahy's speech against the IWR on the eve of the vote:

Mr. President, that trend started many years ago, and I have gone back and read some of the speeches Senators made. For example, and I quote:

"The resolution now pending is an expression of American unity in this time of crisis."

"It is a vote of confidence . . . but is not a blank check for policies that might in the future be carried on by the executive branch of the Government . . . without full consultation by the Congress."

Those quotes were not about Iraq. They were spoken thirty-eight years ago, when I was still a prosecutor in Vermont. At the end of that debate, the Senate passed the Tonkin Gulf resolution by a vote of 88 to 2.

That resolution was used by both the Johnson and Nixon Administrations as carte blanche to wage war in Vietnam, ultimately involving more than half a million American troops, and resulting in the deaths of more than 58,000 Americans.

This is not to say that the Administration is trying to mislead the Congress about the situation in Iraq. Nor am I comparing a possible war in Iraq to the Vietnam War. They are very different countries with different histories and different military capabilities.

But the key words in the resolution we are considering today are remarkably similar to that infamous resolution of 38 years ago, which so many Senators came to regret.

Let us not make that mistake again.

[Octafish]

40. Thank you, cali! Here's another voice we sorely miss today...

Paul Wellstone on the Iraq War

Below is Paul's speech delivered on the floor of the senate October 3, 2002.

Statement by Sen. Wellstone Regarding Military Action Against Iraq

Washington, D.C. October 3, 2002

Mr. President, as we turn later today to address our policy on Iraq, I want to take a few minutes to outline my views.

The situation remains fluid, and Administration officials are engaged in negotiations at the United Nations over what approach we ought to take, with our allies, to disarm the brutal and dictatorial Iraqi regime.

Our debate here is critical because the administration seeks our authorization now for military action including possibly unprecedented, pre-emptive, go-it-alone military action in Iraq, even as it seeks to garner support from our allies on a tough new UN disarmament resolution.

Let me be clear: Saddam Hussein is a brutal, ruthless dictator who has repressed his own people, attacked his neighbors, and remains an international outlaw. The world would be a much better place if he were gone and the regime in Iraq were changed. That's why the U.S. should unite the world against Saddam, and not allow him to unite forces against us.

A go-it-alone approach, allowing for a ground invasion of Iraq without the support of other countries, could give Saddam exactly that chance.

A pre-emptive go-it-alone strategy towards Iraq is wrong. I oppose it. I support ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction through unfettered U.N. inspections, which should begin as soon as possible. Only a broad coalition of nations, united to disarm Saddam, while preserving our war on terror, is likely to succeed. Our primary focus now must be on Iraq's verifiable disarmament of weapons of mass destruction. This will help maintain international support, and could even eventually result in Saddam's loss of power. Of course, I would welcome this, as would most of our allies.

The president has helped to direct intense new multilateral pressure on Saddam Hussein to allow U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors back in to Iraq to conduct their assessment of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear programs. Saddam clearly has felt that heat, and it suggests what might be accomplished through collective action. I am not naive about this process, and much work lies ahead. But we cannot dismiss out-of-hand Saddam's late and reluctant commitment to comply with U.N. disarmament arrangements, or the agreement struck Tuesday to begin to implement it. We should use the gathering international resolve to collectively confront his regime by building on these efforts through a new U.N. disarmament resolution.

This debate must include all Americans, because our decisions finally must have the informed consent of the American people, who will be asked to bear the costs, in blood and treasure, of our decisions. When the lives of the sons and daughters of average Americans could be risked and lost, their voices must be heard by Congress before we make decisions about military action. Right now, despite a desire to support our president, I believe many Americans still have profound questions about the wisdom of relying too heavily on a pre-emptive, go-it-alone military approach.

Acting now on our own might be a sign of our power. Acting sensibly and in a measured way in concert with our allies, with bipartisan Congressional support, would be a sign of our strength. It would also be a sign of the wisdom of our founders, who lodged in the President the power to command U.S. armed forces, and in Congress the power to make war, ensuring a balance of powers between co-equal branches of government. Our Constitution lodges the power to weigh the causes for war and the ability to declare war in Congress precisely to ensure that the American people and those who represent them will be consulted before military action is taken. The Senate has a grave duty to insist on a full debate that examines for all Americans the full range of options before us, and weighs those options, together with their risks and costs. Such a debate should be energized by the real spirit of September 11: a debate which places a priority not on unanimity, but on the unity of a people determined to forcefully confront and defeat terrorism and to defend our values. I have supported internationally sanctioned coalition military action in Bosnia, in Kosovo and Serbia, and in Afghanistan. Even so, in recent weeks, I and others including major Republican policymakers like former Bush National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Bush Secretary of State James Baker, my colleague on the Foreign Relations Committee Senator Hagel, Bush Mideast Envoy General Anthony Zinni and other leading US military leaders have raised serious questions about the approach the Administration is taking on Iraq.

There have been questions raised about the nature and urgency of Iraq's threat, our response to that threat, and against whom, exactly that threat is directed. What is the best course of action that the U.S. could take to address the threat? What are the economic, political, and national security consequences of possible U.S. or U.S.-British invasion of Iraq?

There have been questions raised about the consequences of our actions abroad, including its effects on the continuing war on terrorism, our ongoing efforts to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan, and efforts to calm the intensifying Middle East crisis, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And there have been questions raised about the consequences of our actions here at home. Of first and greatest concern, obviously, are the questions raised about the possible loss of life that could result from our actions. The United States could send tens of thousands of U.S. troops to fight in Iraq, and in so doing we could risk countless lives, of U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqis.

There are other questions, about the impact of an attack in relation to our economy. The United States could face soaring oil prices and could spend billions both on a war and on a years-long effort to stabilize Iraq after an invasion.

The resolution we will be debating today would explicitly authorize a go-it-alone approach. I believe an international approach is essential. In my view, our policy should have four key elements. First and foremost, the United States must work with our allies to deal with Iraq. We should not go it alone or virtually alone with a pre-emptive ground invasion. Most critically, acting alone could jeopardize our top national security priority, the continuing war on terror. The intense cooperation of other nations in matters related to intelligence-sharing, security, political and economic cooperation, law enforcement and financial surveillance, and other areas has been crucial to this fight, and enables us to wage it effectively with our allies. Over the past year, this cooperation has been our most successful weapon against terror networks. That -- not attacking Iraq should be the main focus of our efforts in the war on terror.

We have succeeded in destroying some Al Qaida forces, but many of its operatives have scattered, their will to kill Americans still strong. The United States has relied heavily on alliances with nearly 100 countries in a coalition against terror for critical intelligence to protect Americans from possible future attacks. Acting with the support of allies, including hopefully Arab and Muslim allies, would limit possible damage to that coalition and our anti-terrorism efforts. But as General Wes Clark, former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe has recently noted, a premature go-it-alone invasion of Iraq "would super-charge recruiting for Al Qaida."

Second, our efforts should have the goal of disarming Saddam Hussein of all of his weapons of mass destruction. Iraq agreed to destroy its weapons of mass destruction at the end of the Persian Gulf War and to verification by the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that this had been done. According to the U.N. and IAEA, and undisputed by the administration, inspections during the 1990's neutralized a substantial portion of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and getting inspectors back in to finish the job is critical. The prompt resumption of inspections and disarmament, under an expedited timetable and with unfettered access in Iraq, is imperative.

Third, weapons inspections should be enforceable. If efforts by U.N. weapons inspectors are tried and fail, a range of potential U.N.-sanctioned means, including proportionate military force, should be considered. I have no doubt that Congress would act swiftly to authorize force in such circumstances. This does not mean giving the U.N. a veto over U.S. actions. No one wants to do that. It simply means, as Chairman Levin has observed, that Saddam is a world problem and should be addressed in the world arena.

Finally, our approach toward Iraq must be consistent with international law and the framework of collective security developed over the last 50 years or more. It should be sanctioned by the Security Council under the U.N. Charter, to which we are a party and by which we are legally bound.

Only a broad coalition of nations, united to disarm Saddam, while preserving our war on terror, can succeed. Our response will be far more effective if Saddam sees the whole world arrayed against him. We should act forcefully, resolutely, sensibly with our allies, and not alone, to disarm Saddam. [font color="blue"][font size="6"]Authorizing the pre-emptive, go-it-alone use of force now, right in the midst of continuing efforts to enlist the world community to back a tough new disarmament resolution on Iraq, could be a costly mistake for our country.[/font size][/font color]

SOURCE: http://www.wellstone.org/legacy/speeches/paul-wellstone-iraq-war

[Ichingcarpenter]

24. The NSA's Panopticon society

Panopticon as the model for a universal surveillance system. “All you need is a Virtual Panopticon that monitors your population. You aren't required to literally watch them all the time, but the masses have to accept that possibility and the inevitability of punishment. You need the structure, the system, the implicit threat that becomes a fact of life.”


"He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection"


I know its off topic but I'm thinking that
this fits in.

[bobthedrummer]

43. K&R + more truth to fuel those "uncomfortable comparisons"

From Ramparts April 1966 (btw these kinds of articles created the "national security" taxonomy of DOMESTIC political dissidents becoming "enemies" of the murdering US political class with criminal official targeting-this article discusses Michigan State University's role in supporting Ngo Dinh Diem et al)
The University on the Make
http://www.cia-on-campus.org/msu.edu/msu.html

Who are the "bosses" today of the increasingly PRIVATE INTELLIGENCE dominated intelligence community? Let's look at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, fwiw-it's a culture of cults imho and experience.
ODNI Leadership
http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/leadership#top

Thanks for everything you do Octafish.