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| How Do You Characterize NORTHWOODS? |
| A memorandum that the President scrapped |
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35% |
[ 7 ] |
| An "operation" plotted by "govt agents" |
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55% |
[ 11 ] |
| Other (specify below) |
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10% |
[ 2 ] |
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| Total Votes : 20 |
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| Author |
Message |
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:11 pm Post subject: The Post from Page One That No One Seems To Have Read... |
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The man writing the Latin American affairs summaries at GWU's National Security Archive is Peter Kornbluh, a not-very-intellectually-sophisticated far leftist of the so-called New Left's bent who never went beyond an undergrad education and has been criticized in journals like Foreign Affairs for one-sided, U.S.-centric thinking. Apart from this, a clarification is in order. The issues remain, as they have been since the mid-1970s, centered on such questions as these:
Who creates and acts on such proposals as those we see in the NORTHWOODS memorandum? Does agency originate with the constitutionally-elected president? Or do "govt agents," working on behalf of the military-industrial complex's interests, operate on their own, as rogue elephants?
Does the Cold War context matter? Or do such proposals originate in another context? If so, what context?
If you are not familiar with the literature, you are probably familiar with how these issues have played out in popular books and film -- Oliver Stone's JFK and Nixon or the Bourne Identity films, for example. I thought The Good Shepherd also advanced the military-industrial complex case, and specifically, by name, nicely.
In any case, it occurs to me that another way to phrase this poll question, a way that might better appeal to EFL instructors, is whether readers think they ought to use the simple past or the simple present tense when characterizing NORTHWOODS and what it shows. ("It shows how the Kennedy Administration conspired" vs. "It shows how govt agents conspire," for example.)
And if you as an American believe that the American govt is as despicable, irredeemable, and indeed fundamentally evil as the present-tense analysis must conclude, then you probably have better, more meaningful things to do with your time than make it your own personal mission to stalk this or that poster on an anonymous message board and judge your life by how severely you might be able to bring discredit to his or her views. Otherwise, some might be justified in suggesting that you are not a man who stands up for his alleged principles.
I have in any case argued that this document represents a snapshot into the Kennedy Administration's thinking on Castro's Cuba, in the Cold War context, from the White House down and not the other way around, and that it represents this and only this. A unique and specific moment in time. Others remain highly committed to debunking this interpretation (indeed some of these others do not really care about the interpretation; they merely remain committed to debunking me, personally, but I will not address this) so that they might advance their own long-term continuity-based interpretations, and these interpretations tend to answer the above questions differently than I do. They also include and exclude this or that evidence to get there.
Here is some of the evidence I include...
| Gopher wrote: |
| Thomas wrote: |
| ...FitzGerald could not escape Kennedy's incessant demands. While he was out at FitzGerald's country house, his nephew Albert Francke recalled overhearing his uncle say, firmly and loudly into the telephone one Sunday afternoon in 1963, 'No Bobby, we can't do that. We cannot do that.' (Thomas, 298). |
This entirely conforms with RFK's performance at this meeting as well, which was not with CIA but State, in June 1961, when the administration reacted to Trujillo's assassination by dissident Dominicans�
| Chester Bowles wrote: |
The tone of the meeting was deeply disturbing. Bob Kennedy was clearly looking for an excuse to move in on the island. At one point he suggested, apparently seriously, that we might have to blow up the Consulate to provide the rationale.
His general approach, vigorously supported by Dick Goodwin, was that this was a bad government, that there was a strong chance that it might team up with Castro, and that it should be destroyed--with an excuse if possible, without one if necessary.
Rather to my surprise, Bob McNamara seemed to support this view. I took the opposite view that our whole world position was based on treaty rights, that it would be a catastrophic mistake to take them lightly, and that in acting in a reckless manner in the Dominican Republic, we would only be compounding the mistake of Cuba, and that while I thought it was necessary to take all possible measures for the protection of American lives, we should not move beyond that point...
The entire spirit of this meeting was profoundly distressing and worrisome, and I left at 8:00 p.m. with a feeling that this spirit which I had seen demonstrated on this occasion and others at the White House by those so close to the President constitutes a further danger of half-cocked action by people with almost no foreign policy experience, who are interested in action for action's sake, and the devil take the highmost...
Immediately following the staff meeting, I called in George McGhee, Ed Murrow, and George Ball, and told them the full story. They were startled and shocked as I was, and I was gratified to find them in full agreement on the position I had taken. Indeed, they were even more outspoken in outlining the disastrous consequences of this kind of action...
[The next day,] Bob Kennedy was in an even more aggressive, dogmatic, and vicious mood than the previous meeting. He turned directly to me and said, "What do you propose to do on the situation in the Dominican Republic...?' |
See Document No. 310 |
This is not speculation, by the way. No way to read this as speculation. This is RFK's MO, as recorded on paper by his contemporaries. Everyone who ever came into contact with the man in this context confirms this. This and this alone explains the NORTHWOODS memorandum, the preliminary proposal that never left the first-draft drawing-board stage.
After LBJ assumed the presidency, that is, immediately after LBJ assumed the presidency, this nonsense stopped. JM/WAVE closed its offices and did not reopen them, for example. Neither did it or anything like it ever start again under any subsequent president.
In any case, should other posters wish to continue to cite sensationalist secondary sources who claim that NORTHWOODS represents something timeless about the American govt or that it represents an actual operation that the American govt ran against American citizens and Castro's Cuba, that is certainly their prerogative. Indeed, they make all kinds of claims about the American govt here. A thread in the Off-Topic forum claims that the American govt forces its citizens into stateless exile and never permits them to return, although it forces them to pay taxes for ten years, for example. Michael Moore tells his audience that when Americans go to hospital, they must choose which finger. So this all represents par for the course on this message board.
Finally, one poster seems to have discovered that govt bureaucrats write codewords in capital letters when discussing them in memoranda and cable traffic. Congratulations.
This excitement notwithstanding, there really is nothing further to discuss. We will be going in circles from this point forward. Have your last word. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 8:39 am Post subject: ... |
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| Quote: |
| The man writing the Latin American affairs summaries at GWU's National Security Archive is Peter Kornbluh, a not-very-intellectually-sophisticated far leftist of the so-called New Left's bent who never went beyond an undergrad education and has been criticized in journals like Foreign Affairs for one-sided, U.S.-centric thinking. Apart from this, a clarification is in order. |
More evidence of a Far Left conspiracy?
| Quote: |
Finally, one poster seems to have discovered that govt bureaucrats write codewords in capital letters when discussing them in memoranda and cable traffic. Congratulations.
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Thank you. And let us reflect for a moment on the damning evidence we've seen that clearly shows NORTHWOODS shouldn't be called an operation:
| Quote: |
| ___________________________________________________ |
| Quote: |
The issues remain, as they have been since the mid-1970s, centered on such questions as these:
Who creates and acts on such proposals as those we see in the NORTHWOODS memorandum? Does agency originate with the constitutionally-elected president? Or do "govt agents," working on behalf of the military-industrial complex's interests, operate on their own, as rogue elephants? Does the Cold War context matter? Or do such proposals originate in another context? If so, what context? |
Plus, are US Govt. memoranda codenamed? How do you scrap a memorandum?
Unless they're happening now, it doesn't matter because they're in the past and no one invited us to comment on them., right?
| Quote: |
In any case, it occurs to me that another way to phrase this poll question, a way that might better appeal to EFL instructors, |
Hmm. I detect insinuation here.
It's a shame Latin American specialists don't have their own message boards to practice their intellectual swashbucklery. Or do they?
| Quote: |
| And if you as an American believe that the American govt is as despicable, irredeemable, and indeed fundamentally evil as the present-tense analysis must conclude, |
Yet another strawman. Don't put words in my mouth and motives in my head.
| Quote: |
| then you probably have better, more meaningful things to do with your time than make it your own personal mission to stalk this or that poster on an anonymous message board and judge your life by how severely you might be able to bring discredit to his or her views. |
Don't put words into my mouth and motives into my head.
| Quote: |
| Otherwise, some might be justified in suggesting that you are not a man who stands up for his alleged principles. |
Yes, then there's this whole matter of the Far Left conspiracy to mislabel operation NORTHWOODS (sorry, memorandum NORTHWOODS). Someone could probably write a book about it. On a much more actionable scale, someone could call out the National Security Archive in a letter to the editor or some such. On easy street, anyone who wants to can waltz over to Wikipedia and add a passage about how NORTHWOODS should not be characterized as an operation.
Get up
Stand up
Stand up for your rights
| Quote: |
| I have in any case argued that this document represents a snapshot into the Kennedy Administration's thinking on Castro's Cuba, in the Cold War context, from the White House down and not the other way around, and that it represents this and only this. A unique and specific moment in time. Others remain highly committed to debunking this interpretation |
The interpretation referred to here, in very black/white fashion, pins NORTHWOODS on Bobby Kennedy alone. Bobby Kennedy being a key player in these events has been acknowledged more than once. Decisive evidence that NORTHWOODS was his idea has not been forthcoming.
| Quote: |
| (indeed some of these others do not really care about the interpretation; they merely remain committed to debunking me, personally, but I will not address this) |
This is the second time you've brought it up in this post alone.
| Quote: |
| so that they might advance their own long-term continuity-based interpretations, and these interpretations tend to answer the above questions differently than I do. They also include and exclude this or that evidence to get there. |
Which evidence would that be?
| Quote: |
Here is some of the evidence I include...
Gopher wrote:
Thomas wrote:
...FitzGerald could not escape Kennedy's incessant demands. While he was out at FitzGerald's country house, his nephew Albert Francke recalled overhearing his uncle say, firmly and loudly into the telephone one Sunday afternoon in 1963, 'No Bobby, we can't do that. We cannot do that.' (Thomas, 298).
This entirely conforms with RFK's performance at this meeting as well, which was not with CIA but State, in June 1961, when the administration reacted to Trujillo's assassination by dissident Dominicans�
Chester Bowles wrote:
The tone of the meeting was deeply disturbing. Bob Kennedy was clearly looking for an excuse to move in on the island. At one point he suggested, apparently seriously, that we might have to blow up the Consulate to provide the rationale.
His general approach, vigorously supported by Dick Goodwin, was that this was a bad government, that there was a strong chance that it might team up with Castro, and that it should be destroyed--with an excuse if possible, without one if necessary.
Rather to my surprise, Bob McNamara seemed to support this view. I took the opposite view that our whole world position was based on treaty rights, that it would be a catastrophic mistake to take them lightly, and that in acting in a reckless manner in the Dominican Republic, we would only be compounding the mistake of Cuba, and that while I thought it was necessary to take all possible measures for the protection of American lives, we should not move beyond that point...
The entire spirit of this meeting was profoundly distressing and worrisome, and I left at 8:00 p.m. with a feeling that this spirit which I had seen demonstrated on this occasion and others at the White House by those so close to the President constitutes a further danger of half-cocked action by people with almost no foreign policy experience, who are interested in action for action's sake, and the devil take the highmost...
Immediately following the staff meeting, I called in George McGhee, Ed Murrow, and George Ball, and told them the full story. They were startled and shocked as I was, and I was gratified to find them in full agreement on the position I had taken. Indeed, they were even more outspoken in outlining the disastrous consequences of this kind of action...
[The next day,] Bob Kennedy was in an even more aggressive, dogmatic, and vicious mood than the previous meeting. He turned directly to me and said, "What do you propose to do on the situation in the Dominican Republic...?'
See Document No. 310 |
This evidence has been addressed inasmuch that RFK was clearly a firebrand.
| Quote: |
| This is not speculation, by the way. No way to read this as speculation. This is RFK's MO, as recorded on paper by his contemporaries. Everyone who ever came into contact with the man in this context confirms this. |
Yes. No one, I believe, has challenged this.
| Quote: |
| This and this alone explains the NORTHWOODS memorandum, the preliminary proposal that never left the first-draft drawing-board stage. |
No, it doesn't. I've already explained why it doesn't in great detail. RFK alone was not a proponent of false flag operations. Actually, the chairman of the JCS was as well. The memorandum came from the JCS.
| Quote: |
| After LBJ assumed the presidency, that is, immediately after LBJ assumed the presidency, this nonsense stopped. JM/WAVE closed its offices and did not reopen them, for example. Neither did it or[sic] anything like it ever start again under any subsequent president. |
Well, this proposal came to light in 1997, 35 years after it was written. It's good to know nothing like it has ever happened again. Unfortunately, one can only speculate that that is, indeed, the case.
Disclaimer: One can also speculate that it happens every day. I personally don't, but I also don't see it as any better grounded to speculate (quite forcefully, I might add) that nothing like this has ever happened again.
| Quote: |
| In any case, should other posters wish to continue to cite sensationalist secondary sources who claim that NORTHWOODS represents something timeless about the American govt or that it represents an actual operation that the American govt ran against American citizens and Castro's Cuba, that is certainly their prerogative. Indeed, they make all kinds of claims about the American govt here. |
Indeed. Speculation is speculation. Did someone actually say or point to a source suggesting that NORTHWOODS was actually carried out? Or is that just another strawman?
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| A thread in the Off-Topic forum claims that the American govt forces its citizens into stateless exile and never permits them to return, although it forces them to pay taxes for ten years, for example. |
Ooooh! I don't know anything about people being forced into stateless exile, but I do believe there is some tax-related hitch to giving up your citizenship. I think there are cases where very rich people get a second citizenship and then give up their US one for tax purposes. The government then tried to put a stop to that. But don't quote me on it. It's something I just happened upon one day while surfing. Now, what does this have to do with NORTHWOODS? Oh, nothing.
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| Michael Moore tells his audience that when Americans go to hospital, they must choose which finger. So this all represents par for the course on this message board. |
I finally watched Sicko a couple weeks ago. That's a very strawmanned version of what he says. Care to start a thread about it?
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| This excitement notwithstanding, there really is nothing further to discuss. We will be going in circles from this point forward. |
Couldn't we just slag off conspiracy theorists to keep it on the front page? |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 8:48 am Post subject: ... |
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| I just wanted add an apology to Bacasper for my earlier comment about "people like bacasper". That was used purely for argument's sake, borrowing language from another poster. I hope you don't/didn't take offense, bacasper. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:53 am Post subject: |
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Muddled thinking, indeed. Dense and burro-like is more like it. From evidence cited multiple times, this thread...
| Gopher wrote: |
| The President's advisor Richard Goodwin had suggested that "[RFK] would be the most effective commander," and the President accepted and acted on this advice (Goodwin to JFK, 1 Nov. 1961, cited in Church Committee's interim report, 139). |
That is, this: CHAIN OF COMMAND AND LANSDALE AND THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF'S PLACE WITHIN IT: RFK personally commanded all of this from the Oval Office. Everyone else working on or even merely thinking about Cuba served him. He set and then micromanaged the entire agenda -- including wanting to know the chemical composition of the sand on Cuba's beaches -- from start to finish. All roads, so to speak, lead to RFK (and, behind him, in plausible deniability's shadows, his brother, the President. This was their baby, baby. The military-industrial complex model, the model that alleges that the Joint Chiefs of Staff has set their own priorities for their own reasons, 1945 to the present, notwithstanding, there is no room to interpret this any other way. Assert and spin all you like. You are flying in the face of the evidence and living in denial just to spite me. I chuckle when I see it confirmed and reconfirmed, again and again, just how committed you are to opposing any position I take here.
In any case, what was RFK's command style and what commands did he issue State, Defense, and CIA...?
| Thomas wrote: |
| ...FitzGerald could not escape Kennedy's incessant demands. While he was out at FitzGerald's country house, his nephew Albert Francke recalled overhearing his uncle say, firmly and loudly into the telephone one Sunday afternoon in 1963, "No Bobby, we can't do that. We cannot do that." |
We have a pretty good idea what RFK was asking Bissell to do from documents like NORTHWOODS, from memoranda like Chester Bowle's, below, and from the thrust of the Church Committee investigations, depositions, testimony, and conclusions.
For example...
| Chester Bowles wrote: |
The tone of the meeting was deeply disturbing. Bob Kennedy was clearly looking for an excuse to move in on the island. At one point he suggested, apparently seriously, that we might have to blow up the Consulate to provide the rationale...
[The next day,] Bob Kennedy was in an even more aggressive, dogmatic, and vicious mood than the previous meeting. He turned directly to me and said, "What do you propose to do on the situation in the Dominican Republic...?" |
And now the guy who refuses to read and address said evidence and its obvious implications imperiously waves his hand and concludes...
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| RFK alone was not a proponent of false flag operations. |
The fact that so many here, ten, it seems, have voted for the continuity allegation only confirms that the internet community lacks critical thinking skills where antiAmericanism is at play.
So I guess I am going to have to connect the dots and explain it to you, step by step, because you reveal an inability and unwillingness to go where this evidence goes. Very well, then.
Chester Bowles's memorandum, where he records RFK's brainchild and proposal that the American govt "blow up" its own consulate and the personnel there to create a pretext to invade the Dominican Republic is dated 3 June 1961. I believe this is the first appearance of such a suggestion in the Kennedy Administration's record. And it came from one man's -- and one man's only -- mouth: RFK.
That is, RFK and RFK alone was thinking along these lines and pressuring American officials at State, Defense, and CIA to follow through at a very early date in the Kennedy Administration, especially with respect to its foreign relations in the Caribbean.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff dated their memorandum, actually, a collection of them, early March 1962 -- say, ten months later. They addressed it to RFK's SGA, specifically to Lansdale, cc'd to McNamara, both under RFK's daily direction at the White House, TO WHOM THEY WERE RESPONDING AS INSTRUCTED.
This establishes the specific origin of this kind of thinking and pressure in the American govt: the Kennedy White House and RFK. If you are going to continue this churlish path of refusing to confront this, to stress your continuity allegations, then I think you ought to produce your evidence that shows the Joint Chiefs of Staff's independently thinking along these lines, exactly along these lines ("blow up" the American consulate, perpetrate sham terrorist attacks in Miami, etc.), before June 1961 and after November 1963.
Got any?
Finally, let us return to this very weak claim...
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| RFK alone was not a proponent of false flag operations. |
Nonsense. You completely ignore or remain ignorant of a simple fact pattern: JFK placed RFK in overall command of all Cuban operations post-Bay of Pigs. He filled this role and enthusiastically played this part through November 1963. And why did the Joint Chiefs of Staff produce this memorandum in the first place? Do you truly believe they simply dreamed up on their own and for their own purposes? If not, who do you think tasked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to draft this memorandum and why, Nowhere Man?
In fact, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the rest of your "other proponents" were all either RFK's direct subordinates (such as Lansdale) or people who responded to RFK's subordinates (such as Lemnitzer). All communications and conversations originated with and then led to RFK or his desk. For your allegations to hold, you would have to show evidence that other communications and conversations originated with and led to others' desks or that institutions like the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed such operations on their own initiative and for their own purposes.
Got any?
Now. I have attempted, once again, to make sense of our relationship, Nowhere Man. I have asked myself what to call someone who remains always nearby, who always assumes a contrary, if not confrontational, position on whatever I might say, no matter the topic. I have concluded that perhaps you are not stalking me after all. In fact, you must not be Nowhere Man at all, but rather Mrs. Gopher, my internet wife. So I want you to go to your room, Mrs. Gopher, and write ten thousand times "I promise to be a more agreeable wife" and meditate on what I have told you.
Good night, Mrs. Gopher. And I think it best if I slept on the couch from now on. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:13 pm Post subject: Re: ... |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| I just wanted add an apology to Bacasper for my earlier comment about "people like bacasper". That was used purely for argument's sake, borrowing language from another poster. I hope you don't/didn't take offense, bacasper. |
NP, I didn't. And thanks for taking up the gauntlet for awhile and giving me a break. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Conspiracy theorists unite. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| The fact that so many here, ten, it seems, have voted for the continuity allegation only confirms that the internet community lacks critical thinking skills where antiAmericanism is at play. |
On the contrary, I'd consider the fact that seven out of 18 have voted for your position, while just about everyone else refers to NORTHWOODS as an "operation," as a victory for you. You have acquitted yourself quite well, ad hominems and name-calling aside. Bask in your glory. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Conspiracy theorists unite. |
Yes, that's right. Many realists, citizens, writers, historians, scholars, and a whole host of other non-psychotic people know that people actually do plan things together, and sometimes those people are, in a word of our "great" president, "evildoers." |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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Well you have certainly come quite far in your thinking if you are characterizing RFK as "an evildoer." But that is further than I would go. He and his brother were simply desperate to remove Castro. No more no less.
All the rest of this is sensationalist broughaha and muddled conspiracy-theory subterfuge. Taking a snapshot in time that privileges the Kennedy Adminstration's relations with Castro's Cuba and then allows it, or exploits it, more like it, to characterize and define the entire American govt, 1945 to the present, is bad historical thinking. Good luck with it, in any case.
And I mean "good luck with it" in the final parting sense, Bacasper.
| bacasper wrote: |
| ...I'd consider the fact that seven out of 18 have voted for your position, while just about everyone else refers to NORTHWOODS as an "operation," as a victory for you. You have acquitted yourself quite well, ad hominems and name-calling aside. Bask in your glory. |
No. You won a majority. For whatever reason they voted for your position, they did. And that is that. I am not likely to receive the four or five votes I would need. I concede that you won sufficient votes to count this as your victory. It is more than fifty percent and that is decisive. Congratulations.
Miller time, or whatever it is that you do when you walk away from something. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:31 am Post subject: ... |
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| Quote: |
| Muddled thinking, indeed. Dense and burro-like is more like it. From evidence cited multiple times, this thread... |
Ad hominem.
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Gopher wrote:
The President's advisor Richard Goodwin had suggested that "[RFK] would be the most effective commander," and the President accepted and acted on this advice (Goodwin to JFK, 1 Nov. 1961, cited in Church Committee's interim report, 139).
That is, this: CHAIN OF COMMAND AND LANSDALE AND THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF'S PLACE WITHIN IT: RFK personally commanded all of this from the Oval Office. Everyone else working on or even merely thinking about Cuba served him. He set and then micromanaged the entire agenda -- including wanting to know the chemical composition of the sand on Cuba's beaches -- from start to finish. All roads, so to speak, lead to RFK (and, behind him, in plausible deniability's shadows, his brother, the President. This was their baby, baby. |
And this proves that it was RFK's (and the President's "in the shadows") idea for the JCS to propose NORTHWOODS?
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| The military-industrial complex model, the model that alleges that the Joint Chiefs of Staff has set their own priorities for their own reasons, 1945 to the present, |
Strawman.
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| notwithstanding, there is no room to interpret this any other way. |
Black/White
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| Assert and spin all you like. You are flying in the face of the evidence and living in denial just to spite me. |
Don't put words in my mouth and motives in my head.
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| I chuckle when I see it confirmed and reconfirmed, again and again, just how committed you are to opposing any position I take here. |
Play the ball, not the player.
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In any case, what was RFK's command style and what commands did he issue State, Defense, and CIA...?
Thomas wrote:
...FitzGerald could not escape Kennedy's incessant demands. While he was out at FitzGerald's country house, his nephew Albert Francke recalled overhearing his uncle say, firmly and loudly into the telephone one Sunday afternoon in 1963, "No Bobby, we can't do that. We cannot do that."
We have a pretty good idea what RFK was asking Bissell to do from documents like NORTHWOODS, from memoranda like Chester Bowle's, below, and from the thrust of the Church Committee investigations, depositions, testimony, and conclusions.
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Speculation about a 1963 phone call, from which the only dialogue we have is: "No Bobby, we can't do that. We cannot do that." Note that, by 1963, JFK had ruled out a military intervention. Were all the incessant demands of RFK from 1961-1963 exclusively about false flag operations?
"Bobby wanted boom and bang all over the island." This does not mean that he wanted false flag operations all over the island. We have read descriptions of his anger over the failed sabotage of a mine. He wanted all kinds of things, but, as you yourself have provided, the US didn't have the assets to provide the sabotage, terrorism (some very immoral behavior), and whatnot RFK wanted. Now, was this a phone call about false flag operations to provoke an invasion of Cuba, or could it have been about any number of the other things MONGOOSE utilized to fight Castro? That's very much open to interpretation.
For example...
| Quote: |
Chester Bowles wrote:
The tone of the meeting was deeply disturbing. Bob Kennedy was clearly looking for an excuse to move in on the island. At one point he suggested, apparently seriously, that we might have to blow up the Consulate to provide the rationale...
[The next day,] Bob Kennedy was in an even more aggressive, dogmatic, and vicious mood than the previous meeting. He turned directly to me and said, "What do you propose to do on the situation in the Dominican Republic...?" |
Yes. RFK proposed blowing up the consulate in the Dominican Republic. Ergo, it is unthinkable that anyone besides him proposed NORTHWOODS.
Consider the rest of the MONGOOSE crew: Lansdale's CIA operatives, who had been involved in political assassinations, and the Pentagon, frustrated about their exclusion from the Bay of Pigs and ready to invade the Dominican Republic and then Cuba both during the missile crisis and after.
As I've already stated, I can't rule out an RFK role in NORTHWOODS. However, no proof that RFK proposed NORTHWOODS has been provided.
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And now the guy who refuses to read and address said evidence and its obvious implications imperiously waves his hand and concludes...
Nowhere Man wrote:
RFK alone was not a proponent of false flag operations. |
I read it the first time it was posted. Operation NORTHWOODS was drafted by the JCS and incorporated operations from an internal Pentagon communication entitled: POSSIBLE ACTIONS TO PROVOKE, HARRASS, OR DISRUPT (CUBA) proposed by Brig. General Craig.
Does this obviously implicate RFK?
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| The fact that so many here, ten, it seems, have voted for the continuity allegation only confirms that the internet community lacks critical thinking skills where antiAmericanism [sic] is at play. |
Thanks for not making insinuations about ESL teachers. Here comes the Anti-Americanism ad hominem. We're discussing whether the Attorney General or the JCS were responsible for proposing NORTHWOODS. Which argument, pray tell, is anti-American?
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| So I guess I am going to have to connect the dots and explain it to you, step by step, because you reveal an inability and unwillingness to go where this evidence goes. Very well, then. |
Ad hominem.
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| Chester Bowles's memorandum, where he records RFK's brainchild and proposal that the American govt "blow up" its own consulate and the personnel there to create a pretext to invade the Dominican Republic is dated 3 June 1961. I believe this is the first appearance of such a suggestion in the Kennedy Administration's record. And it came from one man's -- and one man's only -- mouth: RFK. |
1. RFK didn't invent the concept of false flag operations. I'm not sure that you're suggesting that, but I want that to be clear.
2. Blow up the embassy and its personnel? Are we now adding exaggeration to our tactics?
3.
| Quote: |
His general approach, vigorously supported by Dick Goodwin, was that this was a bad government, that there was a strong chance that it might team up with Castro, and that it should be destroyed--with an excuse if possible, without one if necessary.
Rather to my surprise, Bob McNamara seemed to support this view. |
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| That is, RFK and RFK alone was thinking along these lines and pressuring American officials at State, Defense, and CIA to follow through at a very early date in the Kennedy Administration, especially with respect to its foreign relations in the Caribbean. |
Except for Goodwin and MacNamara, of course.
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| The Joint Chiefs of Staff dated their memorandum, actually, a collection of them, early March 1962 -- say, ten months later. They addressed it to RFK's SGA, specifically to Lansdale, cc'd to McNamara, both under RFK's daily direction at the White House, TO WHOM THEY WERE RESPONDING AS INSTRUCTED. |
Yes and no. Instructed is a loaded word. As requested by Lansdale.
| Quote: |
| This establishes the specific origin of this kind of thinking and pressure in the American govt: the Kennedy White House and RFK. If you are going to continue this churlish path of refusing to confront this |
I believe I have confronted it several times now. You're hanging your whole argument now on one sentence. Just because RFK in 1961 apparently proposed bombing a consulate in the Dominican Republic does not mean that he, and he alone, must have forced, pressured, or otherwise pulled strings to make a bunch of generals keen on an invasion of Cuba propose false flag operations in 1962.
| Quote: |
| to stress your continuity allegations |
This is a strawman. Call them my JCS allegations.
| Quote: |
then I think you ought to produce your evidence that shows the Joint Chiefs of Staff's independently thinking along these lines,exactly along these lines ("blow up" the American consulate, perpetrate sham terrorist attacks in Miami, etc.), before June 1961 and after November 1963.
Got any?
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RFK proposed sham terrorist attacks in Miami?
The continuity strawman again. I have never suggested that NORTHWOODS represents a pattern of behavior stretching from past to present. Perhaps others do. You, on the other hand, propose not only a "unique point in time", but, if you will, a discontinuity argument stating that this or anything like this has never happened again. It began and ended with RFK (plus JFK "in the shadows") and the Church Committee (which wasn't even aware of Operation NORTHWOODS) fixed it so that such a thing could never happen again. My position is that we don't know. I don't have an opinion on continuity at this time. Find another label for my position. As such, I don't see how the JCS having previously or subsequently made such plans proves that the only reason they proposed NORTHWOODS was at RFK's behest. Maybe they liked Bobby's idea and ran with it. Then again, maybe Bobby rammed it down their throats. We don't know for certain, and the evidence here does not constitute proof that NORTHWOODS was RFK's idea. Considering the descriptions of Lemnitzer and the ideas of Craig, I wouldn't go for "probably". Based on your evidence, I'd go with "maybe". But maybe that's just my [insert ad hominem attack].
But let me answer your question (not that you answer mine). I don't have any evidence of a plan to blow up a consulate or create terror on the streets of Miami (not that you've produced any evidence of RFK proposing terror on the streets of Miami), but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. However, now that things are being disclassified, it seems increasingly unlikely that any more proposals of that nature will be unearthed. Especially since, per Bamford, Lemnitzer ordered the evidence of NORTHWOODS to be destroyed. He didn't like the Kennedys; if it all pointed to RFK (plus JFK in the shadows), I wonder why he would do that. Moving on, it doesn't match the false parameters you demand, but the Gulf of Tonkin becomes relevant when one is trying to pin it all on RFK.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0109/p04s01-usmi.html
And I don't think you should be calling people churls. Considering the excellent, slam dunk, evidence you claim to be offering, you sure do need a lot of invective to support it.
| Quote: |
Finally, let us return to this very weak claim...
Nowhere Man wrote:
RFK alone was not a proponent of false flag operations.
Nonsense. You completely ignore or remain ignorant of a simple fact pattern: JFK placed RFK in overall command of all Cuban operations post-Bay of Pigs. He filled this role and enthusiastically played this part through November 1963. And why did the Joint Chiefs of Staff produce this memorandum in the first place? Do you truly believe they simply dreamed up on their own and for their own purposes? If not, who do you think tasked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to draft this memorandum and why, Nowhere Man? |
The JCS thought that a military solution would produce the results the Kennedys wanted.
Lansdale tasked them. Could've been because RFK(with JFK in the shadows) told him to. Could also be that, given their lack of assets on the island, he wanted to turn pressure away from the CIA to the Pentagon. Could be he wanted to do stuff of legend so that Graham Greene could write a novel about him. I can only speculate.
And this also where your slam dunk evidence finds itself in shaky territory. If JFK (in the shadows) wanted RFK to propose via Lansdale that the US run false flag operations, then why did the proposal not make it to the President's desk but instead die out at MacNamara? Why, if NORTHWOODS was clever generals subtly pointing out the absurdity of the Kennedy boys, did it die on MacNamara's desk? If the Kennedy brothers were "cahootedly" fishing for just such a proposal, why didn't they take the plans and run with them? Why did JFK, if he and his brother wanted it, suddenly state that military intervention was off the table? If he wanted that proposal, why did he ship Lemnitzer out of DC afterward?
| Quote: |
| In fact, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the rest of your "other proponents" were all either RFK's direct subordinates (such as Lansdale) or people who responded to RFK's subordinates (such as Lemnitzer). All communications and conversations originated with and then led to RFK or his desk. |
All communications and conversations? Exaggeration. Please don't repost the bit about RFK micromanaging.
| Quote: |
For your allegations to hold, you would have to show evidence that other communications and conversations originated with and led to others' desks or that institutions like the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed such operations on their own initiative and for their own purposes.
Got any?
|
For my allegation that the JCS proposed NORTHWOODS to hold, all I have to do is show that they proposed NORTHWOODS. Here:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf
Never mind the memorandum from Craig that preceded it.
Now you've gone from the Kennedys ordering people to "think outside the box" to the Kennedys whispering in ears telling people exactly what to propose.
Again, if this is the Kennedy's baby, then who was MacNamara to put the kabosh on it?
Finally, is the RFK (plus JFK in the shadows) "lone madmen" version of NORTHWOODS your brainchild? Kind of like the "NORTHWOODS was not an operation" theory?It's been 11 years since this document was outed. I'm guessing that if some scholar has said as much that you'd have quoted it for us by now. Well?
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Now. I have attempted, once again, to make sense of our relationship, Nowhere Man. I have asked myself what to call someone who remains always nearby, who always assumes a contrary, if not confrontational, position on whatever I might say, no matter the topic. I have concluded that perhaps you are not stalking me after all. In fact, you must not be Nowhere Man at all, but rather Mrs. Gopher, my internet wife. So I want you to go to your room, Mrs. Gopher, and write ten thousand times "I promise to be a more agreeable wife" and meditate on what I have told you.
Good night, Mrs. Gopher. And I think it best if I slept on the couch from now on. |
Strawman followed by name calling. Nice. If anything else, you have totally schooled us ESL plebes on how to have a civil debate. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:43 am Post subject: |
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Your position is philosophically untenable. It makes about as much sense as it would were I to bring up Reagan -- and discount him as just an anticommunist firebrand -- John Poindexter, Oliver North, and Iran-Contra/Arms-for-hostages and take the same position. The evidence on that -- just like NORTHWOODS, right? -- clearly shows that the govt proposed these ops and then the govt carried them out. Especially North and his CIA operatives. Reagan's name does not appear in the evidence -- and, indeed, he denied all knowledge in his testimony. Therefore, Iran-Contra could not have been his brain-child or even his responsibility, either, right? Why would someone like you want to pin all of that on Reagan? ROFL.
In any event, you deny that you embrace the military-industrial complex interpretation. In fact, you deny an entire range of things -- see above, I will not continue to repeat them again and again with someone so obviously not listening. You claim that any attempt to ascribe any position that makes sense of your remarks here as "a strawman." And you seem to want to downplay JFK and RFK in NORTHWOODS, if not remove them and their relations with Castro's Cuba entirely from our interpreting this document.
Besides falling for the plausible deniability fallacy that historian Stephen Ambrose shatters in his interpretation of Eisenhower and the U-2 (which, I imagine you would dismiss as well, but whatever), your entire case is merely and simply a negative one: I am wrong; and nothing accurately represents your position. This, by the way, accounts for any post you make on any thread where I have posted. Nothing surprising about this.
But, in any case, where does this leave you? What interpretation do you offer? That "Lansdale's CIA operatives" (who exactly are you talking about?) and "the Pentagon" (you are no longer speaking of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by the way) proposed NORTHWOODS for their own reasons?
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| Lansdale's CIA operatives, who had been involved in political assassinations [which assassinations are you talking about? Be specific], and the Pentagon, frustrated about their exclusion from the Bay of Pigs and ready to invade the Dominican Republic and then Cuba both during the missile crisis and after. |
And this is not the military-industrial complex interpretation, you protest.
Very well. What exactly are you saying here? Do you even have a position on this document, other than my interpretation is wrong, that is?
The funny thing about this is that you and your allies here pat yourselves on the back for this kind of confused thinking. Unbelievable. But that seems to represent our intelligence here.
And yes, yes, yes. I have little interest in exchanging views with you civilly. You represent the worst the internet has to offer, in my view. Another BLT-style poster with little or no substance of his own. Your most consistent contribution to this forum is to come after me and systematically take apart whatever I might say, no matter the issue or the position. As far as articulating your own position, there is nothing in your own head but bitter emptiness.
Proof? This very thread and your nonposition on NORTHWOODS.
...But, actually, you do have one, no?
Here it is...
(a) NORTHWOODS was a real-life, bona fide Operation, and it was not scrapped;
(b) the govt proposed NORTHWOODS to the govt, whatever that nonsense means (you dismiss RFK and his role, merely "a firebrand," no? Big deal, right? Besides, his name does not appear on NORTHWOODS so therefore he could have had nothing to do with it; as we all know, presidents and their cabinet members put their names on memoranda that discuss covert operations; so RFK's name not appearing on NORTHWOODS tells us much about it);
(c) "Lansdale's CIA operatives, who had been involved in [unspecified] political assassinations, and the Pentagon, frustrated about their exclusion from the Bay of Pigs and ready to invade the Dominican Republic and then Cuba both during the missile crisis and after" wanted and proposed NORTHWOODS for these reasons;
(d) you do not subscribe to the military-industrial complex interpretation of American foreign relations and you do not ascribe independent agency to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, either. These are "strawmen," you protest; and
(e) although you see continuity in Lansdale and Shackley's career paths, and therefore, "the govt," you still protest that any ascription of any continuity thesis to you, and not merely the military-industrial complex one, is "a strawman," too.
And all of this makes perfect sense to you, I am sure. ROFL.
I trust you will forgive me if I decide to stick with my position that JFK and RFK -- and their man Lansdale, who they selected and appointed to his White House post as chief of MONGOOSE; but you, of course, remain uninterested in that; he was just Lansdale, the guy who, just like Oliver North!, appears at the White House, in the Special Group's situation room, of his own volition and then, for his own reasons, instructs the Joint Chiefs of Staff to produce NORTHWOODS -- pressed State, Defense, and CIA to go outside the box, and do anything and everything to get rid of Castro pronto. And they pressed them unrelentingly between 1961 and 1963. NORTHWOODS merely represents one example, a sensational one, no doubt. But no more than this.
Any other interpretation flies in the face of the preponderance of the evidence, from the Church Committee's investigation, to subsequent scholarship, and to internal evidence within the NORTHWOODS document itself.
You will no doubt stick with your vaguely-defined, non-military-industrial complex interpretation that paradoxically stresses Lansdale and the Joint Chiefs of Staff's motives and independent historical agency, and that churlishly insists that NORTHWOODS represents a real, bona fide "Operation," and with a capital "O," no less. C'est la vie. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:09 pm Post subject: ... |
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Yes, let's start an analysis proper of what's happening on this board:
| Quote: |
| Your position is philosophically untenable. |
I am supposed to be frightened of this big word "untenable" because its beyond my vocabulary. It means impossible. My position throughout this discussion is that we don't know. Apparently, we do know. Gopher knows and there's no room to not know Gopher's theory. I've called Gopher's theory well-supported. I've stated numerous times now that I acknowledge RFK's role in the discussed events. What I haven't done is accepted Gopher's interpreatation as fact. I don't see it as fact. I see it as theory. I don't think there's a black/white explanation for Operation NORTHWOODS. At least we don't have one at this point. That's not to say I haven't read all of Gopher's evidence multiple times.
I believe I have, and I am happy to address any significant points others think I haven't addressed.
| Quote: |
| You deny that you embrace the military-industrial complex interpretation. In fact, you deny an entire range of things -- see above, I will not continue to repeat them again and again with someone so obviously not listening. |
It's true. I certainly don't embrace this pile of strawman drivel:
| Quote: |
| It goes like this: a military-industrial complex, the so-called merchants of death, want and need wars and disorder in world affairs to justify inflated American military budgets so that they might perpetually profit. They will kill anyone who gets in their way. They killed JFK and RFK -- doves, they allege, who wanted to avoid the Vietnam War and bring peace elsewhere. Besides assassinating the Kennedys, they sunk the Maine, they sunk the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, they shot down their own U-2 to keep the Cold War going at a critical moment, they fabricated "threats" wherever they were needed, and they perpetrated 9/11. NORTHWOODS proves all of this, they allege. -- and so do you. |
I'd be interested in knowing what the entire range of things is that I'm denying. Is there any part of your evidence that I have overlooked and not addressed? If there is, do point it out to me. I sincerely believe I've done my best to cover all the points you've brought up, Goph.
I wish I could say the same about you. Who exactly are you to assail me for ignoring your posts while you systematically ignore the questions I pose?
| Quote: |
| You claim that any attempt to ascribe any position that makes sense of your remarks here as "a strawman." |
I must admit I'm a bit of a neophyte when it comes to logical fallacies. I won't lord it over you if one of my arguments isn't actually a strawman. I could be wrong, but to accuse me of labeling your attacks which presuppose some kindergartener's logic at play a strawman is not wrong. I haven't mislabeled all of them. Why is it so hard for you to play the ball? If you don't like me calling your arguments strawmen, don't make them.
Anyway, the proper response should not be mewling about how your argument got called a strawman. It should be showing how it isn't a strawman.
And, if I have made strawman arguments in this debate, please point them out.
| Quote: |
| And you seem to want to downplay JFK and RFK in NORTHWOODS, if not remove them and their relations with Castro's Cuba entirely from our interpreting this document. |
Strawman. I have acknowledged RFK's role numerous times now. Where have I tried to remove them?
Compared to your theory that RFK (plus his brother in the shadows) is solely responsible, I guess you could say I'm downplaying it. However, that's because I don't see the evidence that you've provided as the slam dunk, be all and end all explanation. Because of that, you have to attack me. Why? Because you have no further evidence. The same applies to your assertion that NORTHWOODS wasn't a proposed operation. You have no evidence, so you have to make snide remarks about me.
By the way, you go on accusing me of all kinds of whatnot. I do believe I've responded to all of your questions. You have yet to respond to any of mine. Have you noticed that?
| Quote: |
Besides falling for the plausible deniability fallacy that historian Stephen Ambrose shatters in his interpretation of Eisenhower and the U-2 (which, I imagine you would dismiss as well, but whatever), your entire case is merely and simply a negative one: I am wrong; and nothing accurately represents your position. This, by the way, accounts for any post you make on any thread where I have posted. Nothing surprising about this.
|
Black/white logic again. You accuse people of using black/white logic all the time. Apparently, when you use it there's nothing wrong with it. I'm not really sure how I could have more diplomatically respected the parts of your interpretation I accept. However, they are, as I maintain, an interpretation based on the information we have, which is incomplete.
| Quote: |
| But, in any case, where does this leave you? What interpretation do you offer? That "Lansdale's CIA operatives" (who exactly are you talking about?) and "the Pentagon" (you are no longer speaking of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by the way) proposed NORTHWOODS for their own reasons? |
This leaves me not knowing what happened, but let's take this moment to put this in the context of civil debate on this board.
No one knows what exactly happened, but you gave bacasper 10 posts to your own 4 to explain what NORTHWOODS was. You claimed that bacasper didn't know what he was talking about when he characterized NORTHWOODS as an operation.
You, sir, have offered nothing but insults to show that characterizing NORTHWOODS as an operation is incorrect.
I submit that Goodwin, MacNamara, and Lemitzer, among possible others (Craig first and foremost) were not averse to false flag operations.
You submit that the only tenable possibility is that RFK ordered all of this with the approval of his brother (in the shadows).
| Quote: |
Nowhere Man wrote:
Lansdale's CIA operatives, who had been involved in political assassinations [which assassinations are you talking about? Be specific], and the Pentagon, frustrated about their exclusion from the Bay of Pigs and ready to invade the Dominican Republic and then Cuba both during the missile crisis and after.
And this is not the military-industrial complex interpretation, you protest. |
Wait, is it the military-industrial complex where they kill Presidents to get them out of the way?
No. I don't subscribe to that.
Is it the continuity label you choose to plaster me with before you dismiss me offhand?
Mine is the "We don't know" argument.
Yes, that makes it difficult to label. Apparently the "realist" is your own. I'm not sure if a more self-indulgent label exists.
Why do you dwell on labels? It's because you have no further evidence.
| Quote: |
| Very well. What exactly are you saying here? Do you even have a position on this document, other than my interpretation is wrong, that is? |
Strawman. I believe I've given all the respect possible to your position. I believe I've responded to every question you've posed. I've offered to respond to any question you think I've overlooked. Have you responded to my questions?
| Quote: |
| The funny thing about this is that you and your allies here pat yourselves on the back for this kind of confused thinking. Unbelievable. But that seems to represent our intelligence here. |
Strawman. Again, I'd tend to think you're labeling ESL teachers.
If you think you've proven beyond all doubt that RFK (plus his brother in the shadows) is solely responsible for NORTHWOODS, then you're the one who is confused.
| Quote: |
| And yes, yes, yes. I have little interest in exchanging views with you civilly. You represent the worst the internet has to offer, in my view. Another BLT-style poster with little or no substance of his own. |
Ad hominem. I do honestly feel sorry for you if you think my whole purpose was to mess with you. The most interesting aspect is that I was here before you. A year.
| Quote: |
| Your most consistent contribution to this forum is to come after me and systematically take apart whatever I might say, no matter the issue or the position. |
That's a strawman.
a) I don't post enough to possibly keep up with you. It's simply untenable.
b) There are the rare occasions where I agree with you.
c) Your most consistent contribution to this board is psychoanalysis and labeling. It's very predictable. When someone disagrees with you, it's just a matter of time. You start flipping through your box of labels. Since you're the realist, their position is skewed because they subscribe to ______ position or they're not writing with a steady hand. They're too emotional to make objective observations. Yadda yadda yadda.
d) Why are we talking about me and my motives? Oh, I know. It's because I disagree with you. And because I don't accept your theory as reality, I'm some Military-Industrial Complex wingnut. I'm ignoring your evidence so I can spin this the way I want to. Because I don't accept your theory as reality, I'm just being contrary and I'm only here because I follow you around.
| Quote: |
there is nothing in your own head but bitter emptiness.
Proof? This very thread and your nonposition on NORTHWOODS. |
I think, after multiple posts now, I have a clear position on NORTHWOODS. The above is nothing more than yet another ad hominem attack.
.
| Quote: |
..But, actually, you do have one, no?
Here it is...
(a) NORTHWOODS was an operation, and it was not scrapped; |
I'm sorry you missed that, but I think I've stated that it was scrapped more than once. Where you get the (strawman) idea that it wasn't scrapped, I don't know.
| Quote: |
| (b) the govt proposed NORTHWOODS to the govt (you dismiss RFK and his role, merely "a firebrand," no? Big deal, right? Besides, his name does not appear on NORTHWOODS so therefore he could have had nothing to do with it; |
Strawman. I have certainly not said he had nothing to do with it. To be quite specific, you have argued that no interpretation other than he is solely responsible for it (aside from JFK in the shadows) is acceptable.
| Quote: |
as we all know, presidents and their cabinet members put their names on memoranda that discuss covert operations; so RFK's name not appearing on NORTHWOODS tells us much about it);
(c) "Lansdale's CIA operatives, who had been involved in political assassinations, and the Pentagon, frustrated about their exclusion from the Bay of Pigs and ready to invade the Dominican Republic and then Cuba both during the missile crisis and after" wanted and proposed NORTHWOODS for these reasons;
(d) you do not subscribe to the military-industrial complex interpretation of American foreign relations and you do not ascribe independent agency to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, either. These are "strawmen," you protest; and |
Well, Goph, you offered us possibly the most retarded version of any Military-industrial complex possible. No I don't subscribe to it. I'm not sure why I need to subscribe to anything other than for you to make a case to dismiss my views.
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| (e) although you see continuity in Lansdale and Shackley's career paths, and therefore, "the govt," you still protest that any ascription of any continuity thesis to you, and not merely the military-industrial complex one, is "a strawman," too. |
I'm not sure where I ascribed anything to Lansdale other than you being wrong-ass wrong about Graham Greene making a book about him. This, no more no less, was supposed to prove something about Lansdale. What, I ask, did it prove?
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And all of this makes perfect sense to you, I am sure. ROFL.
|
Indeed. ROFL. I think, at this point in the debate, I have the floor to ROFL Might I propose you answer my questions before you start your own ROFL? Is that too unreasonable?
| Quote: |
| I will stick with my position that JFK and RFK -- and their man Lansdale, who they selected and appointed to his White House post as chief of MONGOOSE -- pressed State, Defense, and CIA to go outside the box, and do anything and everything to get rid of Castro pronto. And they pressed them unrelentingly between 1961 and 1963. NORTHWOODS merely represents one example, a sensational one, no doubt. But no more than this. |
Yeah. Stick with it. I'm fine with that. Just don't go on some self-indulgent crusade to tell others "what [you think] really happened" without qualification.
| Quote: |
| Any other interpretation flies in the face of the preponderance of the evidence, from the Church Committee's investigation, to subsequent scholarship, and to internal evidence within the NORTHWOODS document itself. |
NORTHWOODS came out in 1997. the Church committee suposedly cleaned things up in 1975.
| Quote: |
| You will no doubt stick with your vaguely-defined, non-military-industrial complex interpretation |
Whatever I believe, it's better than the retarded suggestion that we know beyond doubt that the Church Committee fixed things they didn't even know had happened and no such naughtiness has ever occurred since.
| Quote: |
| that paradoxically stresses Lansdale and the Joint Chiefs of Staff's motives |
Strawman. I'm not stressing motives. I'm just pointing them out for context. The fairy tale version of all the poor, innocent, semper fi military men being browbeaten into writing up and signing documents proposing false flag operations by the evil, shadowy Kennedy brothers focuses on the motives of two people and two people only in a roomful of men. I say look at all of their motives and don't jump to conclusions.
Have you proven that RFK (with JFK in the shadows) wanted there to be an operation NORTHWOODS?
Nope.
| Quote: |
| and independent historical agency and [sic] churlishly insists that NORTHWOODS represents a real, bona fide "Operation," and with a capital "O," no less. C'est la vie.w |
What exactly are you on about? Someone who can't answer questions but only pose them should be careful of who they call a churl, churl. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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Gopher:
You may want to advise these people (see #7) of the misnomer. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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Where did you get this, Bacasper? Did you Google it? Do you read this often? Did someone send it to you? Is it a mainstream internet magazine?
Can you tell me about this source? |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:11 am Post subject: |
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| It was a link on another thread. |
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