[Peace-discuss] Re: solution to a non-problem (fwd)

[Jim Buell]

Conspiracy-minded folks (like the ones at ABC News ;-)) also point to 
Operation Northwoods, the plan approved unanimously in secret by the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff and recommended to JFK in 1962 - 
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html - to 
his credit, he turned it down flat, figuring one Bay of Pigs fiasco was 
enough. To quote from that news account:

>N E W  Y O R K, May 1 — 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.
><http://media.abcnews.com/images/HP_grey_1x1_010529.gif>
>
>Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the 
>possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees 
>on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even 
>orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.
>
>The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the 
>international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new 
>leader, communist Fidel Castro.
>
>America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military 
>casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and 
>blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful 
>wave of national indignation."

Nor can we forget to Remember the Maine, the flashpoint for the 
Spanish-American War and quite likely a put-up job of one sort or another.

But the real problem with phrasing the question like the way it was put to 
Chomsky is that it's an all-or-nothing proposition. It tries to force us 
into believing either that our elected (ahem) leaders planned the whole 
thing, or that they had no idea it was coming. No doubt the truth is 
somewhere in between - as is becoming obvious, people who the public 
counted on to know better, and do better, willfully blinded themselves and 
their underlings to some pretty damned clear warning signs out of deference 
to "friends" (e.g. oil-business partners and other influential folks in 
friendly client states), and, in part inadvertently, set up the conditions 
that let 9-11 happen. (And maybe someone somewhere along the line got 
enough of an inkling of what was coming to put down big Wall Street bets 
against United and American Airlines, and maybe Bush just likes long 
vacations, and maybe Clinton and Gore just felt like being in Australia and 
Austria that day, maybe. Those bits I'll leave to the real conspiracy 
theorists.) I don't much doubt that bin Laden & Co. set up the deed - I 
just wonder who their friends and supporters were and who knew what, when, 
and why for instance the list of 19 hijackers on the planes could get 
pulled together within a day or two after 9-11, when supposedly nobody knew 
a damned thing 'til it all came down. 9-11 was obviously a conspiracy, and 
everyone agrees on that; the question is, whose?

However it happened, there's absolutely no doubt that once it did occur, 
some truly nasty ready-to-wear plans got pulled off the rack that have led 
the world to where we are now. Such as:

* the plan to invade Afghanistan, which was sitting on Bush's desk itching 
for his signature 'long about 9/10/01:
>source: http://www.msnbc.com/news/753359.asp
>
>U.S. planned for attack on al-Qaida
>
>White House given strategy two days before Sept. 11
>
>May 16 - The directive represents the game plan for an all-out diplomatic 
>and military assault on al-Qaida, sources told NBC's Jim Miklaszewski.
>
>NBC NEWS
>WASHINGTON, May 16 -President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for 
>a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have 
>the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. 
>and foreign sources told NBC News.
>
>The directive constituted a 'game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of 
>the Earth.'
>- U.S. OFFICIAL

* the Homeland Security Agency/Department that Bush (re)announced tonight 
to steal some thunder from the start of congressional hearings today, but 
was blueprinted comprehensively in a January, 2001 report by a commission 
headed up by Warren Rudman and Gary Hart
>http://www.homelandsecurity.org/sugg_reading/Phase_III_Report.pdf

* the interesting confluence of interests that puts the new US bases in 
South Asia pretty much exactly along the line that was proposed for the oil 
pipeline across Afghanistan, according to an article in this week's Nation

Another interesting bit of reading I stumbled on this evening is an excerpt 
from about 10 years back by Michael Parenti, currently featured on the 
Portland Indy Media website. It's an interesting refutation of some 
leftists', including Chomsky's, blanket denials of the possibility of CIA 
involvement in JFK's assassination (this came out about the time of Oliver 
Stone's movie). Worth a look, at 
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=11357&group=webcast . 
Here's an interesting segment from that:

>  It is an either-or world for those on the Left who harbor an aversion 
> for any kind of conspiracy investigation: either you are a structuralist 
> in your approach to politics or a "conspiracist" who reduces historical 
> developments to the machinations of secret cabals, thereby causing us to 
> lose sight of the larger systemic forces. As Chomsky notes: "However 
> unpleasant and difficult it may be, there is no escape from the need to 
> confront the reality of institutions and the policies and actions they 
> largely shape." (Z Magazine, 10/92).
>
>I trust that one of the institutions he has in mind is the CIA. In most of 
>its operations, the CIA is by definition a conspiracy, using covert 
>actions and secret plans, many of which are of the most unsavory kind. 
>What are covert operations if not conspiracies? At the same time, the CIA 
>is an institution, a structural part of the national security state. In 
>sum, the agency is an institutionalized conspiracy.
>
>As I pointed out in published exchanges with Cockburn and Chomsky (neither 
>of whom responded to the argument), conspiracy and structure are not 
>mutually exclusive dynamics. A structural analysis that a priori rules out 
>conspiracy runs the risk of not looking at the whole picture. Conspiracies 
>are a component of the national security political system, not deviations 
>from it. Ruling elites use both conspiratorial covert actions and overtly 
>legitimating procedures at home and abroad. They finance everything from 
>electoral campaigns and publishing houses to mobsters and death squads. 
>They utilize every conceivable stratagem, including killing one of their 
>own if they perceive him to be a barrier to their larger agenda of making 
>the world safe for those who own it.
>
>The conspiracy findings in regard to the JFK assassination, which the 
>movie JFK brought before a mass audience, made many people realize what 
>kind of a gangster state we have in this country and what it does around 
>the world. In investigating the JFK conspiracy, researchers are not 
>looking for an "escape" from something "unpleasant and difficult," as 
>Chomsky would have it, rather they are raising grave questions about the 
>nature of state power in what is supposed to be a democracy.
>
>A structuralist position should not discount the role of human agency in 
>history. Institutions are not self-generating reified forces. The "great 
>continuities of corporate and class interest" (Cockburn's phrase) are not 
>disembodied things that just happen of their own accord. Neither empires 
>nor national security institutions come into existence in a fit of 
>absent-mindedness. They are actualized not only by broad conditional 
>causes but by the conscious efforts of live people. Evidence for this can 
>be found in the very existence of a national security state whose 
>conscious function is to recreate the conditions of politico-economic 
>hegemony.

Hmmm, what's Oliver Stone been up to lately?

jb