A question for the old-timers

[The_Mule]

And I use that term with respect.

There seem to be some black ops going on in Iraq, which is the only way I can explain the undercover Brits arrested and then "released". See this thread for reference:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=104&topic_id=4820809&mesg_id=4820809

Now, I was just a young pup back then, so I don't know. Did we do a lot of this black ops shit back in Vietnam? I'd really appreciate it if some of the elders could contrast and compare now and then.

[maine_raptor]

1. Hell yes

US Destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy were backing up commando raids against North Vietnam in 1964, when they were allegedly attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. Those unconfirmed attacks were used by LBJ to get the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed as was the basis for his expansion of the Vietnam War.

[The_Mule]

2. Thanks for the info, can I have more, please?

I knew a little about the Gulf of Tonkin shit. That's bad enough, but I'm looking for something even more specific. Do you know of any operatiions post-Tonkin in order to keep the war going, like helping the North Vietnamese or hindering the South?

[maine_raptor]

4. The Pentagon Papers is a good start.

http://www.pentagonpaperstrusso.com/

Also I agree with WillPitt :hi: Phoenix Program is a good example too.

[The_Mule]

6. Thanks again.

Lots of good reading there. It's time to further my education.

:yourock: :applause:

[WilliamPitt]

3. The Phoenix Program

http://www.thememoryhole.org/phoenix/

[The_Mule]

5. Thank you, WP.

I obviously haven't had time to really dig deep into these links. This looks like some nasty shit, and I see we were into torture in Vietnam as well as Iraq. On a first read through, it looks like Phoenix was still an attempt to destroy the Viet Cong, albeit through ugly means.

Is Iraq our first military action in which we were actively involved that we tried to keep going by sowing dischord - enabling the terrorists, if you will? If so, I can think of only one reason: $$$$$.

[WilliamPitt]

7. It was more than that

It was, among other things, a program to assassinate village/political leaders in the North to destabilize the opposition. Long-range rifle shots, etc.

[The_Mule]

10. We were trying to destabilize the opposition

Is Iraq the first time we're trying to actually *help* the opposition?

And by the way, thanks again for the link. This will also help in my education.

:toast:

[WilliamPitt]

15. This time

the opposition helps us. "Us" being George and the multinationals.

Check out Nixon and Kissinger in 1968. They offered the North Vietnamese a "better deal" if they would extend the war past the election, in defiance of the Logan Act.

War has been used to further political goals for a long, long time.

[0007]

8. Hitler did a lot of that shit in the 30's

We pulled a bunch of stuff on the Indians.

Read Howard Zinn.

[The_Mule]

12. I'm about halfway through "A People's History"...

and I've had my eyes opened further than I thought they could be, especially about the genocide of the Indians.

I'm desperately looking for something, anything that will stick to this administration to bring it crashing down. Stolen elections weren't enough, pissing on the poor wasn't enough, simple buffonery wasn't enough, fiscal irresponsibility wasn't enough, torture wasn't enough, a male prostitute posing as a WH press plant wasn't enough, an illeagal war wasn't enough. I figure that maybe an illeagal war combined with proof we are helping "the other side" might just do it.

[0007]

17. Organized crime is always hard to take down, after all they

have the best brains money can buy from the top universities.

Your on the right tract my friend.

[notadmblnd]

9. you know, I've thought a long time about the so called suicide bombers

and even mentioned here once or twice that I thought many (if not all) of these people were being forced to carry these bombs. It occured to me couple of years back when that pizza driver claimed he had been forced to strap a bomb on. I couldn't believe at the time that the cops just let him sit there and explode. So today I read here, that an Iraqi claims that he was drugged and forced to strap a bomb on.

Who's behind it? Who benefits? I don't know, but at this point I wouldn't put it past our own people.

[The_Mule]

13. Thanks for tying that in as well...

I couldn't believe the drugged and forced to carry a bomb story at first. And then, when it was on the same day as this undercover soldier shit, it just makes you wonder.

Not dumb, indeed!

:hi:

[notadmblnd]

19. Hi neighbor

and welcome to DU :hi:

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

11. The British supposedly did a lot of this in India

They would put dead pigs into Moslem shrines and dead cows in Hindu shrines hoping the various factions would blame the other. It was to keep the insurgents fighting amongst themselves and not against the British. If the British undercover guys were posing as Sunnis, killing Shiites, then you have the same type of BS all over again.

[leftofthedial]

14. yeah, and the black ops was uphill both ways, sonny.

"We" have been doing this since the Battle of Hastings.

It has reached a new level of evil since Reagan and the Iran-Contra scneario, when we first began turning the Cold War apparatus against domestic and third-world targets and intermingled private sector war profiteering with foreign policy.

[The_Mule]

16. I think it's reached...

a new level of evil and in-your-face brazenness now. At least "we" tried to cover up some of the cold war shit by keeping most of our military out of it and letting our well-placed dictators do most of the dirty work.

Or, I guess I'm just naive. It hurts to read what your country has done before you were born or when you were very young, but this current shit is just surreal for me now.

[leftofthedial]

18. the current situation is as evil as ever has been

with the potential to be epically evil. Only fiction has contemplated this kind of corruption of the human spirit.

[H2O Man]

20. Two things to study

are the "early" intelligence agencies, which in large part started with railroad telegraphers breaking "codes," and eventually grew into today's various agencies; and JFK's interest in creating "special forces." All the other suggestions listed are good. They create a foundation for understanding this stuff. But keep an open mind: even the Pentagon Papers have some strange things that reveal their authors are hiding information for purposes we can only speculate on. For example, read the last week of November 1963 in the P.P., and it can be eye-opening.

[The_Mule]

22. Thank you, Mr. O'Waterman!

I will pay special attention to that spot in the Pentagon Papers.
:hi:

[Redstone]

21. Christ, yes. There were about seventeen different wars going on there

at any given time.

And it's no secret at all that the same thing is going on in Iraq.

Frankly, having seen how the "other wars" were kept fairly quiet in Southeast Asia, I am utterly astonished at how openly all the different bands of armed, civilian Americans tromp around over there in Iraq.

I started this amazement 15 years ago when I saw General Schwarzkopf walking around with civilian "bodyguards." What, soldiers can't protect generals anymore?

Redstone

[The_Mule]

23. The brazenness of operating so much in the open...

has also struck me. I guess there's no need to hide what you are doing when there is little to no accountability to pay.

Thanks, Redstone!
:toast:

[MadHound]

24. For a pretty comprehensive telling of the shit pulled in Vietnam,

Go read Alfred McCoy's "The Politics of Heroin." Absolutlely disgusting what American forces and spec ops did in order to create, and then fill orders for an illegal market. It also explains why there is still strange shit, like record poppy harvests, going on in Afghanistan.

[cassiepriam]

25. OMG, I am old enough to be called an OLD TIMER????

just because I know the answer to your question....
really, Viet Nam seems like just yesteday, I cannot be that old ....
take that you young whippersnapper .... :))