A Note to New Readers of Signs of the Times

Dated 08/09/2004

As a result of the upsurge in readers brought to the Signs of the Times page by our Flash animation on the Pentagon crash, we became very aware that many first time readers are somewhat surprised by the contents of the Signs of the Times, as well the content of our other sites. Many may never have been to what has come to be known as an "alternative news site" or to a site quite like 'Signs of the Times.org'. We would therefore like to introduce ourselves and our goals to any new readers that happen to stumble upon our page. [For those interested in the Pentagon crash, please scroll down to that section of the page.]

First, what is an "alternative news site"?

Most people get their news from the mainstream media. These are the newspapers, radio networks, and television networks owned by large corporations. In the last few decades, the concentration of media has increased dramatically, so that programming is produced in a large center, such as New York, and is then fed out to the member stations. A certain amount of local news is still collected locally. However, national and international issues come from one source.

While there may be slight differences in the way the major media cover stories, by and large they are promoting the point of view of those who own them. These are wealthy people with connections with other wealthy people who own the large corporations that dominate the modern economic landscape. They are also tightly connected with the two major political parties in the US. In fact, they represent a very small stratum of the public: those who have stakes of ownership.

The news they report is coloured by their interests, and their interests are not the interests of the vast majority of their readers. And one of their principle interests is to keep the majority of their readers or viewers in ignorance over the true facts of US policy and the consequences of this policy on people overseas. There is minimal news reporting that deals with international affairs, and that reporting which is done is heavily biased from a simplistic "us and them" perspective. "Us" being the US and its allies, although the allies don't really count for much, and "them" is everyone else. "Them" used to be portrayed as in the sphere of influence of the Russians. Nowadays the French seem to be portrayed as the Bad Guys. Along, of course, with the entire Arab and Moslem world.

The mainstream news sites accept as a given the proclamations that come from the White House. In the period prior to the invasion of Iraq, the assertion's of the Bush Administration that Saddam was an immediate threat to the US, that he had stockpiled WMD that could be unleashed upon the US, was accepted without question by the mainstream news.

They are now admitting that this was not true and that they should have questioned these assertions.

That there were no WMD did not come as a surprise to those who read alternative news sites. The information was available, at least, there was enough data available prior to the invasion of Iraq to seriously put into question the "facts" given to us by Messieurs Bush, Cheney, Powell, and Rumsfeld. The data was out there, only the mainstream news did not report them.

Alternative news sites do the work the mainstream media refuse to do. They take risks by covering stories that do not get reported on CNN, Fox, or in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Coming upon a site such as this can be a shock if you have been in the protected environment of CNN or Fox. The reality they portray is far from the reality that exists. It can be difficult at first for new readers because they have never been confronted before with the world as it is. It is a powerful shock. Our leaders are lying to us -- consciously and deliberately. And they know they can get away with it because they know that most people will not take the time nor make the effort to go out and look for themselves at information from other sources. Or if they do, they will automatically discount any news that contradicts what they have been brought up to believe.

Alternative news sites exist to bring the facts and data to those who are willing to put into question their preconceived ideas, their assumptions about the nature of our society, about those that lead this society.

Different alternative news sites deliver the news from different points of view. Some are liberal, some are conservative, some are libertarian, and some are part of what is known as the Patriot movement. Each reflects the point of view of the writers of the site. Whereas the mainstream sites pretend to be "objective", reporting simply "the facts", alternative sites openly admit their affiliations and their points of view. They do not think that it is possible to be "objective". Everything is seen from a "point of view".

So what is the "point of view" of this site?

We are neither liberal nor conservative, neither left nor right. We strive to present the news from the point of view of the Soul. Our concern is how the events on the planet, not only those within the US, affect our spiritual evolution. Mankind, in a large part helped through the teachings of small-minded religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, has created a veritable Hell on Earth. No one takes the actual precepts of religion seriously: love thy neighbor; do unto others as you would have them do unto you, etc. Religion has become a means of dividing the world once more into "Us and Them". We think that religion is a control system used to keep people in their place. So when we talk of the evolution of the Soul, we are not referring to any specific religious teaching.

We also think that it is very difficult to be certain about much of what happens in the world. There is a certain amount of data that is available to us, and from this data we can build hypotheses which we can then test against new data. If new data contradicts the hypothesis, the hypothesis can be changed. Therefore, we look at the world in terms of probabilities.

This approach can also be unnerving to those who wish to see the world in the harsh terms of black and white. If they read that we criticise Bush, they immediately assume that we support Kerry. If we criticise the United States, they suggest we should go live in Russia. If we are against the invasion and occupation of Iraq, they assume we support Saddam.

In fact, we think that mankind in general is more or less mechanical in his actions. Most of us are doing everything on auto-pilot. We are programmed through our social conditioning, education, the media, and our interactions with our families and friends to live according to formulas. The struggle to survive imposes the need to work in conditions that emphasise the mechanical and uncreative aspects of our nature, to the detriment of the Creative spark we should be nourishing within.

It takes a conscious choice and much effort to lift oneself out of this environment. Both the capitalist and communist systems are based upon turning us into cogs in the machine, forcing us to conform to survive.

So what do we propose?

We think that there is an Ancient Tradition that has been passed down, sometimes coming out into the open, other times remaining hidden in the shadows, that teaches us how to master ourselves. Through this work, we can each "grow" a Soul. This work includes rooting out the programmes that have been instilled within us. It is aimed at reinforcing our Free Will so that we can see the manipulations of society for what they are and learn to avoid them. Many of the articles on this site and our related sites discuss this work in more detail.

What is fundamental is the work to see the world as it is, not caught within the assumptions, preconceptions, and prejudices of political parties or class structures, or any other dogmatisms, but rather, to see it in all its glory and horror.

Frankly, we have made a real mess of things, in spite of thousands of years of attempts by many others to improve the situation. Why has this happened?

As mentioned above, we work with probabilities. As new information becomes available, as our understanding changes, as our knowledge grows, we can reassess probabilities. Thus, nothing is ever set in stone.

We bring to this work a mixture of science and mysticism. If science is valid, then one day there may be answers to the questions that we now label "mystic". These answers will not necessarily reduce mystical or spiritual questions to materialist answers, such as the idea that our consciousness is nothing more than an epiphenomenon that emerges when matter achieves a certain degree of complexity. We think that consciousness is something real, a cause rather than an effect. But neither can it be reduced to the "God" of the monotheistic religions. It is something vaster, more wonderful and miraculous. A scientific explanation, rather than reducing God or consciousness to nothing, may well open up vistas to the marvelous that we can not yet comprehend. But for this to take place, science must also change and shed the hard-core materialist garb it has taken upon itself in the last century.

At least, this is our hypothesis.

We know that this approach will not satisfy everyone. Why should it? We are all different and unique individuals. However, those who do appreciate the possibilities in such an approach should certainly be free to undertake such investigations.

This notion of liberty of expression has taken a nose dive, unfortunately, among certain Americans who have written us recently. We even had one writer let us know that he thought our site should be "eliminated".

For those people who have written asking further questions about the Pentagon crash animation, we will do our best to answer them by way of the following articles and commentary.

Pentagate

The Signs Pentagon Crash animation has found its way across the Internet. It has been reposted at many other sites. The reaction to the animation has been split, with a large number agreeing with the point of the presentation: there are many unanswered questions and these questions point to an involvement of members of the US government in the organisation of the events of September 11, 2001.

Suggesting that members of the government, whether appointed or elected, were implicated in an attack upon American soil is not something that we do lightly. It is a horrible thing. But as we show below, the same types of operations have been carried out by the United States the world over for decades. No one is safe if he or she gets in the way of the US desire to impose its "democracy" on others. These operations are always portrayed in the compliant US media as necessary and unavoidable in the struggle to "free" people from oppressive regimes. Unfortunately, the US-backed regimes that are put into place are rarely free and democratic for those subjugated. Yes, US capital is then "free" to come in and invest and buy up the resources of said countries, but the lot of the people does not improve.

The recent (August 2004) US interference in Venezuela is an example. The coup against Salvador Allende, on the significant date of September 11, 1973, coordinated by Henry Kissinger, is one with a less pleasant outcome.

The assassination of President Kennedy shows that the people behind these covert activities have no compunction about killing American citizens. As we have seen in the period since 9/11, it is very easy to manipulate the public into seeing dissenters as "un-American" and therefore expendable.

Here we will provide the interested reader with some of the facts and some other sites where he or she can go to investigate these matters for themselves. We have no desire to impose our point of view upon anyone. What we hope is that after reading this, you will have enough questions raised to be willing to go and do further investigation yourselves. Do not believe us simply because you read something here. Make this knowledge your own by following the threads and coming to your own conclusions. We would also counsel you, however, to keep an open mind. If your mind is made up before beginning your investigation, you will see only what you wish to see.
A Little History...
Various Sources

While the arguments and criticisms expressed in the many emails to us from readers about our "Pentagon Strike" Flash Presentation were varied, it would appear that they all shared a singular, common motivating factor - emotion. Despite the accusations that were, and continue to be, levelled at us, our work is not deliberately designed to elicit an emotional response and thereby cloud judgment and the truth. Indeed, if some of the verifiable facts that we present, and the conclusions that such facts naturally lead to, provoke a negative emotional reaction in our readers, then it is more likely to be as a result of the encroachment of truth into the "bubble" of subjective reality that we all surround ourselves with, rather than any bias or divisiveness on our part. The truth is the truth after all, and, once presented, is eminently capable of standing up for itself.

In attempting then to address the vitriol and accusations which we have been receiving in great quantity recently about the truth or otherwise of our assertions about the nature and origin of the 9/11 attacks, let us look at some historical facts about the US government, its various agencies and allies (overt and covert) and their tendency to prefer deception over honesty, lies over truth and malevolence over benevolence as a way to control the population, which, in the final analysis, is their chief function.

Operation Northwoods

US Planned Fake Terror Attacks On Citizens To Create Support For Cuban War
From BODY OF SECRETS, James Bamford, Doubleday, 2001, p.82 and following
September 8, 2004

..In [Joint Chief's chair] Lemnitzer's view, the country would be far better off if the generals could take over. [JFK assassination legend has it some general presided over the fudgy JFK autopsy. --Mk]

For those military officers who were sitting on the fence, the Kennedy administration's botched Bay of Pigs invasion was the last straw. "The Bay of Pigs fiasco broke the dike," said one report at the time. "President Kennedy was pilloried by the super patriots as a 'no-win' chief . . . The Far Right became a fount of proposals born of frustration and put forward in the name of anti-Communism. . . Active-duty commanders played host to anti-Communist seminars on their bases and attended or addressed Right-wing meetings elsewhere."

Although no one in Congress could have known it at the time, Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs had quietly slipped over the edge.

According to secret and long-hidden documents obtained for Body of Secrets, the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government. In the name of antiCommunism, they proposed launching a secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own country in order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they intended to launch against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.

The idea may actually have originated with President Eisenhower in the last days of his administration. With the Cold War hotter than ever and the recent U-2 scandal fresh in the public's memory, the old general wanted to go out with a win. He wanted desperately to invade Cuba in the weeks leading up to Kennedy's inauguration; indeed, on January 3 he told Lemnitzer and other aides in his Cabinet Room that he would move against Castro before the inauguration if only the Cubans gave him a really good excuse. Then, with time growing short, Eisenhower floated an idea. If Castro failed to provide that excuse, perhaps, he said, the United States "could think of manufacturing something that would be generally acceptable." What he was suggesting was a pretext a bombing, an attack, an act of sabotage carried out secretly against the United States by the United States. Its purpose would be to justify the launching of a war. It was a dangerous suggestion by a desperate president.

Although no such war took place, the idea was not lost on General Lemnitzer But he and his colleagues were frustrated by Kennedy's failure to authorize their plan, and angry that Castro had not provided an excuse to invade.

The final straw may have come during a White House meeting on February 26, 1962. Concerned that General Lansdale's various covert action plans under Operation Mongoose were simply becoming more outrageous and going nowhere, Robert Kennedy told him to drop all anti-Castro efforts. Instead, Lansdale was ordered to concentrate for the next three months strictly on gathering intelligence about Cuba. It was a humiliating defeat for Lansdale, a man more accustomed to praise than to scorn.

As the Kennedy brothers appeared to suddenly "go soft" on Castro, Lemnitzer could see his opportunity to invade Cuba quickly slipping away. The attempts to provoke the Cuban public to revolt seemed dead and Castro, unfortunately, appeared to have no inclination to launch any attacks against Americans or their property Lemnitzer and the other Chiefs knew there was only one option left that would ensure their war. They would have to trick the American public and world opinion into hating Cuba so much that they would not only go along, but would insist that he and his generals launch their war against Castro. "World opinion, and the United Nations forum," said a secret JCS document, "should be favorably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere."

Operation Northwoods called for a war in which many patriotic Americans and innocent Cubans would die senseless deaths, all to satisfy the egos of twisted generals back in Washington, safe in their taxpayer financed homes and limousines.

One idea seriously considered involved the launch of John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth. On February 20,1962, Glenn was to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on his historic journey. The flight was to carry the banner of America's virtues of truth, freedom, and democracy into orbit high over the planet. But Lemnitzer and his Chiefs had a different idea. They proposed to Lansdale that, should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof that . . . the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba [sic.]"

This would be accomplished, Lemnitzer continued, "by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans." Thus, as NASA prepared to send the first American into space, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were preparing to use John Glenn's possible death as a pretext to launch a war.

Glenn lifted into history without mishap, leaving Lemnitzer and the Chiefs to begin devising new plots which they suggested be carried out "within the time frame of the next few months."

Among the actions recommended was "a series of well coordinated incidents to take place in and around" the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This included dressing "friendly" Cubans in Cuban military uniforms and then have them "start riots near the main gate of the base. Others would pretend to be saboteurs inside the base. Ammunition would be blown up, fires started, aircraft sabotaged, mortars fired at the base with damage to installations."

The suggested operations grew progressively more outrageous. Another called for an action similar to the infamous incident in February 1898 when an explosion aboard the battleship Maine in Havana harbor killed 266 U.S. sailors. Although the exact cause of the explosion remained undetermined, it sparked the Spanish-American War with Cuba. Incited by the deadly blast, more than one million men volunteered for duty. Lemnitzer and his generals came up with a similar plan. "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," they proposed; "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."

There seemed no limit to their fanaticism: "We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington," they wrote. "The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States.

We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). . . . We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized."

Bombings were proposed, false arrests, hijackings:

*"Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government."

*"Advantage can be taken of the sensitivity of the Dominican [Republic] Air Force to intrusions within their national air space. 'Cuban' B-26 or C-46 type aircraft could make cane burning raids at night. Soviet Bloc incendiaries could be found. This could be coupled with 'Cuban' messages to the Communist underground in the Dominican Republic and 'Cuban' shipments of arms which would be found, or intercepted, on the beach. Use of MiG type aircraft by U.S. pilots could provide additional provocation."

*"Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft could appear to continue as harassing measures condoned by the Government of Cuba."

Among the most elaborate schemes was to "create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner en route from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight."

Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs worked out a complex deception:

An aircraft at Elgin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CJA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone [a remotely controlled unmanned aircraft]. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida.

From the rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude and go directly into an auxiliary field at Elgin AFB where arrangements will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft to its original status. The drone aircraft meanwhile will continue to fly the filed flight plan. When over Cuba the drone will be transmitting on the international distress frequency a "May Day" message stating he is under attack by Cuban MiG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by destruction of the aircraft, which will be triggered by radio signal. This will allow ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organization radio stations in the Western Hemisphere to tell the U.S. what has happened to the aircraft instead of the U.S. trying to "sell" the incident.

Finally, there was a plan to "make it appear that Communist Cuban MiGs have destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attack." It was a particularly believable operation given the decade of shoot downs that had just taken place.

In the final sentence of his letter to Secretary McNamara recommending the operations, Lemnitzer made a grab for even more power asking that the Joint Chiefs be placed in charge of carrying out Operation Northwoods and the invasion. "It is recommended," he wrote, "that this responsibility for both overt and covert military operations be assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

At 2:30 on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 13, 1962, Lemnitzer went over last-minute details of Operation Northwoods with his covert action chief, Brigadier General William H. Craig, and signed the document. He then went to a "special meeting" in McNamara's office. An hour later he met with Kennedy's military representative, General Maxwell Taylor. What happened during those meetings is unknown. But three days later, President Kennedy told Lemnitzer that there was virtually no possibility that the U.S. would ever use overt military force in Cuba.

Undeterred, Lemnitzer and the Chiefs persisted, virtually to the point of demanding that they be given authority to invade and take over Cuba. About a month after submitting Operation Northwoods, they met the "tank," as the JCS conference room was called, and agreed on the wording of a tough memorandum to McNamara. "The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the Cuban problem must be solved in the near future," they wrote. "Further, they see no prospect of early success in overthrowing the present communist regime either as a result of internal uprising or external political, economic or psychological pressures. Accordingly they believe that military intervention by the United States will be required to overthrow the present communist regime."

Because of the secrecy and illegality of Operation Northwoods, all details remained hidden for forty years. Lemnitzer may have thought that all copies of the relevant documents had been destroyed; he was not one to leave compromising material lying around. Following the Bay of Pigs debacle, for example, he ordered Brigadier General David W Gray, Craig's predecessor as chief of the Cuba project within the JCS, to destroy all his notes concerning Joint Chiefs actions and discussions during that period. Gray's meticulous notes were the only detailed official records of what happened within the JCS during that time. According to Gray, Lemnitzer feared a congressional investigation and therefore wanted any incriminating evidence destroyed.

With the evidence destroyed, Lemnitzer felt free to lie to Congress. When asked, during secret hearings before a Senate committee, if he knew of any Pentagon plans for a direct invasion of Cuba he said he did not. Yet detailed JCS invasion plans had been drawn up even before Kennedy was inaugurated. And additional plans had been developed since. The consummate planner and man of details also became evasive, suddenly encountering great difficulty in recalling key aspects of the operation, as if he had been out of the country during the period. It was a sorry spectacle. Senator Gore called for Lemnitzer to be fired. "We need a shake up of the Joint Chiefs of Staff" he said. "We direly need a new chairman, as well as new members." No one had any idea of Operation Northwoods.

Because so many documents were destroyed, it is difficult to determine how many senior officials were aware of Operation Northwoods. As has been described, the document was signed and fully approved by Lemnitzer and the rest of the Joint Chiefs and addressed to the Secretary of Defense for his signature. Whether it went beyond McNamara to the president and the attorney general is not known.

Even after Lemnitzer lost his job, the Joint Chiefs kept planning "pretext" operations at least into 1963. Among their proposals was a deliberately create a war between Cuba and any of a number of American neighbors. This would give the United States military an excuse to come in on the side of Cuba's adversary and get rid of "A contrived 'Cuban' attack on an OAS [Organization of Americas] member could be set up," said one proposal, "and the attacked state could be urged to 'take measures of self-defense and request ice from the U.S. and OAS; the U.S. could almost certainly obtain necessary two-thirds support among OAS members for collective action against Cuba."

Among the nations they suggested that the United States secretly were Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobago. Both were members of the Commonwealth; thus, by secretly attacking them and then blaming Cuba, the United States could lure England into the war Castro. The report noted, "Any of the contrived situations de above are inherently, extremely risky in our democratic system in which security can be maintained, after the fact, with very great difficulty. If the decision should be made to set up a contrived situation it be one in which participation by U.S. personnel is limited only to the most highly trusted covert personnel. This suggests the infeasibility of the use of military units for any aspect of the contrived situation."

The report even suggested secretly paying someone in the Castro government to attack the United States: "The only area remaining for ration then would be to bribe one of Castro's subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on [the U.S. naval base at] Guantanamo." The act suggested--bribing a foreign nation to launch a violent attack American military installation--was treason.

In May 1963, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul H. Nitze sent a message to the White House proposing "a possible scenario whereby an attack on a United States reconnaissance aircraft could be exploited toward the end of effecting the removal of the Castro regime." In the event Cuba attacked a U-2, the plan proposed sending in additional American pilots, this time on dangerous, unnecessary low-level reconnaissance missions with the expectation that they would also be shot down, thus provoking a war "[T]he U.S. could undertake various measures designed to stimulate the Cubans to provoke a new incident," said the plan. Nitze, however, did not volunteer to be one of the pilots.

One idea involved sending fighters across the island on "harassing reconnaissance" and "show-off" missions "flaunting our freedom of action, hoping to stir the Cuban military to action." "Thus," said the plan, "depending above all on whether the Cubans were or could be made to be trigger-happy, the development of the initial downing of a reconnaissance plane could lead at best to the elimination of Castro, perhaps to the removal of Soviet troops and the installation of ground inspection in Cuba, or at the least to our demonstration of firmness on reconnaissance." About a month later, a low-level flight was made across Cuba, but unfortunately for the Pentagon, instead of bullets it produced only a protest.

Lemnitzer was a dangerous-perhaps even unbalanced-right-wing extremist in an extraordinarily sensitive position during a critical period. But Operation Northwoods also had the support of every single member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even senior Pentagon official Paul Nitze argued in favor of provoking a phony war with Cuba. The fact that the most senior members of all the services and the Pentagon could be so out of touch with reality and the meaning of democracy would be hidden for four decades.

In retrospect, the documents offer new insight into the thinking of the military's star-studded leadership. Although they never succeeded in launching America into a phony war with Cuba, they may have done so with Vietnam. More than 50,000 Americans and more than 2 million Vietnamese were eventually killed in that war.

It has long been suspected that the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident-the spark that led to America's long war in Vietnam-was largely staged or provoked by U.S. officials in order to build up congressional and public support for American involvement. Over the years, serious questions have been raised about the alleged attack by North Vietnamese patrol boats on two American destroyers in the Gulf But defenders of the Pentagon have always denied such charges, arguing that senior officials would never engage in such deceit.

Now, however, in light of the Operation Northwoods documents, it at deceiving the public and trumping up wars for Americans to fight and die in was standard, approved policy at the highest levels of the Pentagon. In fact, the Gulf of Tonkin seems right out of the Operation Northwoods playbook: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba . . . casualty lists in U.S. newspapers cause a helpful wave of indignation." One need only replace "Guantanamo Bay" with "Tonkin Gulf," and "Cuba" with "North Vietnam" and the Gulf of Tonkin incident may or may not have been stage-managed, but the senior Pentagon leadership at the time was clearly capable of such deceit.

Comment: The similarities between Operation Northwoods and the 9/11 attacks and subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are striking. Note particularly the plan to use duplicate aircraft and to replace the original aircraft and its occupants with a remote controlled "drone":

"An aircraft at Elgin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CJA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone [a remotely controlled unmanned aircraft]. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida."

And this was back in 1962! If such a plan was feasible then, with today's "modern technology", including mass media communication and control, just imagine the relative ease with which a similar "false flag" operation could be carried out today. While "Operation Northwoods" was not actually implemented, it serves as an excellent insight into the thinking of a select group of our "leaders", and while today their names may have changed, their attitude towards this planet and the people on it have not.

Despite the lengths that certain members of government are prepared to go to deceive the masses, some members of the public still credit themselves with the ability to easily recognise a government cover up. Yet the glaring contradiction in such a stance is that many of these same members of the public are UNWILLING to allow for the possibility that their governments would even attempt to deceive them, regardless of the HISTORICAL evidence pointing to the fact that governments themselves understand that they must deceive the masses in order to remain in power. When a person precludes the possibility that their government would ever lie to them, no amount of evidence will ever convince them of the contrary. Governments understand this and they also understand that the size of the lie is an important factor in facilitating this type of public disbelief - as Adolf Hitler stated in "Mein Kampf".

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, because the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad.

The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them more easy victims of a big lie than a small one, because they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell big ones.

Such a form of lying would never enter their heads. They would never credit others with the possibility of such great impudence as the complete reversal of facts. Even explanations would long leave them in doubt and hesitation, and any trifling reason would dispose them to accept a thing as true.

Something therefore always remains and sticks from the most imprudent of lies, a fact which all bodies and individuals concerned in the art of lying in this world know only too well, and therefore they stop at nothing to achieve this end."

Operation Northwoods was merely a blueprint that set the tone for many other US government backed covert and "false flag" operations.

A Timeline of CIA Atrocities
By Steve Kangas
September 8, 2004

The following timeline describes just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed by the CIA. [...]

1949

Radio Free Europe — The CIA creates its first major propaganda outlet, Radio Free Europe. Over the next several decades, its broadcasts are so blatantly false that for a time it is considered illegal to publish transcripts of them in the U.S.

Late 40s

Operation MOCKINGBIRD — The CIA begins recruiting American news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. The effort is headed by Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham is publisher of The Washington Post, which becomes a major CIA player. Eventually, the CIA’s media assets will include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more. By the CIA’s own admission, at least 25 organizations and 400 journalists will become CIA assets.

1953

Iran – CIA overthrows the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in a military coup, after he threatened to nationalize British oil. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran, whose secret police, SAVAK, is as brutal as the Gestapo.

Operation MK-ULTRA — Inspired by North Korea’s brainwashing program, the CIA begins experiments on mind control. The most notorious part of this project involves giving LSD and other drugs to American subjects without their knowledge or against their will, causing several to commit suicide. However, the operation involves far more than this. Funded in part by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, research includes propaganda, brainwashing, public relations, advertising, hypnosis, and other forms of suggestion.

1954

Guatemala — CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years.

1954-1958

North Vietnam — CIA officer Edward Lansdale spends four years trying to overthrow the communist government of North Vietnam, using all the usual dirty tricks. The CIA also attempts to legitimize a tyrannical puppet regime in South Vietnam, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. These efforts fail to win the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese because the Diem government is opposed to true democracy, land reform and poverty reduction measures. The CIA’s continuing failure results in escalating American intervention, culminating in the Vietnam War.

1956

Hungary — Radio Free Europe incites Hungary to revolt by broadcasting Khruschev’s Secret Speech, in which he denounced Stalin. It also hints that American aid will help the Hungarians fight. This aid fails to materialize as Hungarians launch a doomed armed revolt, which only invites a major Soviet invasion. The conflict kills 7,000 Soviets and 30,000 Hungarians.

1957-1973

Laos — The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections. [...]

1959

Haiti — The U.S. military helps "Papa Doc" Duvalier become dictator of Haiti. He creates his own private police force, the "Tonton Macoutes," who terrorize the population with machetes. They will kill over 100,000 during the Duvalier family reign. The U.S. does not protest their dismal human rights record.

1961

The Bay of Pigs — The CIA sends 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade Castro’s Cuba.[...]

Dominican Republic — The CIA assassinates Rafael Trujillo, a murderous dictator Washington has supported since 1930. Trujillo’s business interests have grown so large (about 60 percent of the economy) that they have begun competing with American business interests.

Ecuador — The CIA-backed military forces the democratically elected President Jose Velasco to resign. Vice President Carlos Arosemana replaces him; the CIA fills the now vacant vice presidency with its own man.

Congo (Zaire) — The CIA assassinates the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba. However, public support for Lumumba’s politics runs so high that the CIA cannot clearly install his opponents in power. Four years of political turmoil follow.

1963

Dominican Republic — The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Juan Bosch in a military coup. The CIA installs a repressive, right-wing junta.

Ecuador — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows President Arosemana, whose independent (not socialist) policies have become unacceptable to Washington. A military junta assumes command, cancels the 1964 elections, and begins abusing human rights.

1964

Brazil — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the democratically elected government of Joao Goulart. The junta that replaces it will, in the next two decades, become one of the most bloodthirsty in history.[...]

1965

Indonesia — The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Sukarno with a military coup. [...]

Dominican Republic — A popular rebellion breaks out, promising to reinstall Juan Bosch as the country’s elected leader. The revolution is crushed when U.S. Marines land to uphold the military regime by force. The CIA directs everything behind the scenes.

Greece — With the CIA’s backing, the king removes George Papandreous as prime minister. Papandreous has failed to vigorously support U.S. interests in Greece.

Congo (Zaire) — A CIA-backed military coup installs Mobutu Sese Seko as dictator. The hated and repressive Mobutu exploits his desperately poor country for billions.

1966

The Ramparts Affair — The radical magazine Ramparts begins a series of unprecedented anti-CIA articles. Among their scoops: the CIA has paid the University of Michigan $25 million dollars to hire "professors" to train South Vietnamese students in covert police methods. MIT and other universities have received similar payments. Ramparts also reveals that the National Students’ Association is a CIA front. Students are sometimes recruited through blackmail and bribery, including draft deferments.

1967

Greece — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government two days before the elections. The favorite to win was George Papandreous, the liberal candidate. During the next six years, the "reign of the colonels" — backed by the CIA — will usher in the widespread use of torture and murder against political opponents. When a Greek ambassador objects to President Johnson about U.S. plans for Cypress, Johnson tells him: "Fuck your parliament and your constitution."

Operation PHEONIX — The CIA helps South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in South Vietnamese villages. According to a 1971 congressional report, this operation killed about 20,000 "Viet Cong."

1968

Operation CHAOS—The CIA has been illegally spying on American citizens since 1959, but with Operation CHAOS, President Johnson dramatically boosts the effort. CIA agents go undercover as student radicals to spy on and disrupt campus organizations protesting the Vietnam War. They are searching for Russian instigators, which they never find. CHAOS will eventually spy on 7,000 individuals and 1,000 organizations.

Bolivia — A CIA-organized military operation captures legendary guerilla Che Guevara. The CIA wants to keep him alive for interrogation, but the Bolivian government executes him to prevent worldwide calls for clemency.

1969

Uruguay — The notorious CIA torturer Dan Mitrione arrives in Uruguay, a country torn with political strife. [...]

1970

Cambodia — The CIA overthrows Prince Sahounek, who is highly popular among Cambodians for keeping them out of the Vietnam War. [...]

1971

Bolivia — After half a decade of CIA-inspired political turmoil, a CIA-backed military coup overthrows the leftist President Juan Torres. In the next two years, dictator Hugo Banzer will have over 2,000 political opponents arrested without trial, then tortured, raped and executed. [...]

1972

Cambodia — Congress votes to cut off CIA funds for its secret war in Cambodia.

Wagergate Break-in — President Nixon sends in a team of burglars to wiretap Democratic offices at Watergate. The team members have extensive CIA histories, including James McCord, E. Howard Hunt and five of the Cuban burglars. They work for the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), which does dirty work like disrupting Democratic campaigns and laundering Nixon’s illegal campaign contributions. CREEP’s activities are funded and organized by another CIA front, the Mullen Company.

1973

Chile — The CIA overthrows and assassinates Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first democratically elected socialist leader. The problems begin when Allende nationalizes American-owned firms in Chile. ITT offers the CIA $1 million for a coup (reportedly refused). The CIA replaces Allende with General Augusto Pinochet, who will torture and murder thousands of his own countrymen in a crackdown on labor leaders and the political left. [...]

1975

Australia — The CIA helps topple the democratically elected, left-leaning government of Prime Minister Edward Whitlam.[...]

Angola — Eager to demonstrate American military resolve after its defeat in Vietnam, Henry Kissinger launches a CIA-backed war in Angola. Contrary to Kissinger’s assertions, Angola is a country of little strategic importance and not seriously threatened by communism. The CIA backs the brutal leader of UNITAS, Jonas Savimbi. [...]

"The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence" — Victor Marchetti and John Marks publish this whistle-blowing history of CIA crimes and abuses. Marchetti has spent 14 years in the CIA, eventually becoming an executive assistant to the Deputy Director of Intelligence. Marks has spent five years as an intelligence official in the State Department.

"Inside the Company" — Philip Agee publishes a diary of his life inside the CIA. Agee has worked in covert operations in Latin America during the 60s, and details the crimes in which he took part. [...]

The Rockefeller Commission — In an attempt to reduce the damage done by the Church Committee, President Ford creates the "Rockefeller Commission" to whitewash CIA history and propose toothless reforms. The commission’s namesake, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, is himself a major CIA figure. Five of the commission’s eight members are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations, a CIA-dominated organization.

1979

Iran — The CIA fails to predict the fall of the Shah of Iran, a longtime CIA puppet, and the rise of Muslim fundamentalists who are furious at the CIA’s backing of SAVAK, the Shah’s bloodthirsty secret police. In revenge, the Muslims take 52 Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

Afghanistan — The Soviets invade Afghanistan. The CIA immediately begins supplying arms to any faction willing to fight the occupying Soviets. Such indiscriminate arming means that when the Soviets leave Afghanistan, civil war will erupt. Also, fanatical Muslim extremists now possess state-of-the-art weaponry. One of these is Sheik Abdel Rahman, who will become involved in the World Trade Center bombing in New York.

El Salvador — An idealistic group of young military officers, repulsed by the massacre of the poor, overthrows the right-wing government. However, the U.S. compels the inexperienced officers to include many of the old guard in key positions in their new government. Soon, things are back to "normal" — the military government is repressing and killing poor civilian protesters. Many of the young military and civilian reformers, finding themselves powerless, resign in disgust.

Nicaragua — Anastasios Samoza II, the CIA-backed dictator, falls. The Marxist Sandinistas take over government, and they are initially popular because of their commitment to land and anti-poverty reform. Samoza had a murderous and hated personal army called the National Guard. Remnants of the Guard will become the Contras, who fight a CIA-backed guerilla war against the Sandinista government throughout the 1980s.

1980

El Salvador — The Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, pleads with President Carter "Christian to Christian" to stop aiding the military government slaughtering his people. Carter refuses.[...]

1981

Iran/Contra Begins — The CIA begins selling arms to Iran at high prices, using the profits to arm the Contras fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. [...]

1983

Honduras — The CIA gives Honduran military officers the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual – 1983, which teaches how to torture people. [...]

1984

The Boland Amendment — The last of a series of Boland Amendments is passed. These amendments have reduced CIA aid to the Contras; the last one cuts it off completely. However, CIA Director William Casey is already prepared to "hand off" the operation to Colonel Oliver North, who illegally continues supplying the Contras through the CIA’s informal, secret, and self-financing network. This includes "humanitarian aid" donated by Adolph Coors and William Simon, and military aid funded by Iranian arms sales.

1986

[...] Iran/Contra Scandal — Although the details have long been known, the Iran/Contra scandal finally captures the media’s attention in 1986. Congress holds hearings, and several key figures (like Oliver North) lie under oath to protect the intelligence community. CIA Director William Casey dies of brain cancer before Congress can question him. All reforms enacted by Congress after the scandal are purely cosmetic.

Haiti — [...] The CIA then rigs the upcoming elections in favor of another right-wing military strongman. However, violence keeps the country in political turmoil for another four years. The CIA tries to strengthen the military by creating the National Intelligence Service (SIN), which suppresses popular revolt through torture and assassination.

1989

Panama — The U.S. invades Panama to overthrow a dictator of its own making, General Manuel Noriega. Noriega has been on the CIA’s payroll since 1966, and has been transporting drugs with the CIA’s knowledge since 1972. By the late 80s, Noriega’s growing independence and intransigence have angered Washington… so out he goes.

1990

Haiti — Competing against 10 comparatively wealthy candidates, leftist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide captures 68 percent of the vote. After only eight months in power, however, the CIA-backed military deposes him. More military dictators brutalize the country, as thousands of Haitian refugees escape the turmoil in barely seaworthy boats. As popular opinion calls for Aristide’s return, the CIA begins a disinformation campaign painting the courageous priest as mentally unstable.

1991

The Gulf War — The U.S. liberates Kuwait from Iraq. But Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, is another creature of the CIA. With U.S. encouragement, Hussein invaded Iran in 1980. During this costly eight-year war, the CIA built up Hussein’s forces with sophisticated arms, intelligence, training and financial backing. This cemented Hussein’s power at home, allowing him to crush the many internal rebellions that erupted from time to time, sometimes with poison gas. It also gave him all the military might he needed to conduct further adventurism — in Kuwait, for example.

The Fall of the Soviet Union —[...] Curiously, the intelligence community’s budget is not significantly reduced after the demise of communism. [...]

1992

Economic Espionage — In the years following the end of the Cold War, the CIA is increasingly used for economic espionage. This involves stealing the technological secrets of competing foreign companies and giving them to American ones. Given the CIA’s clear preference for dirty tricks over mere information gathering, the possibility of serious criminal behavior is very great indeed.

1993

Haiti — The chaos in Haiti grows so bad that President Clinton has no choice but to remove the Haitian military dictator, Raoul Cedras, on threat of U.S. invasion. The U.S. occupiers do not arrest Haiti’s military leaders for crimes against humanity, but instead ensure their safety and rich retirements. Aristide is returned to power only after being forced to accept an agenda favorable to the country’s ruling class.

EPILOGUE

In a speech before the CIA celebrating its 50th anniversary, President Clinton said: "By necessity, the American people will never know the full story of your courage."

Clinton’s is a common defense of the CIA: namely, the American people should stop criticizing the CIA because they don’t know what it really does. This, of course, is the heart of the problem in the first place. An agency that is above criticism is also above moral behavior and reform. Its secrecy and lack of accountability allows its corruption to grow unchecked.

Furthermore, Clinton’s statement is simply untrue. The history of the agency is growing painfully clear, especially with the declassification of historical CIA documents. We may not know the details of specific operations, but we do know, quite well, the general behavior of the CIA. These facts began emerging nearly two decades ago at an ever-quickening pace. Today we have a remarkably accurate and consistent picture, repeated in country after country, and verified from countless different directions.

The CIA’s response to this growing knowledge and criticism follows a typical historical pattern. (Indeed, there are remarkable parallels to the Medieval Church’s fight against the Scientific Revolution.) The first journalists and writers to reveal the CIA’s criminal behavior were harassed and censored if they were American writers, and tortured and murdered if they were foreigners. (See Philip Agee’s On the Run for an example of early harassment.) However, over the last two decades the tide of evidence has become overwhelming, and the CIA has found that it does not have enough fingers to plug every hole in the dike. This is especially true in the age of the Internet, where information flows freely among millions of people. Since censorship is impossible, the Agency must now defend itself with apologetics. Clinton’s "Americans will never know" defense is a prime example.

Another common apologetic is that "the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all." There are two things wrong with this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly spurned alliances with defenders of democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the company of military dictators and tyrants. The CIA had moral options available to them, but did not take them.

Second, this argument begs several questions. The first is: "Which American interests?" The CIA has courted right wing dictators because they allow wealthy Americans to exploit the country’s cheap labor and resources. But poor and middle-class Americans pay the price whenever they fight the wars that stem from CIA actions, from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Panama. The second begged question is: "Why should American interests come at the expense of other peoples’ human rights?"

"The major function of secrecy in Washington is to keep the U.S. people ... from knowing what the nation's leaders are doing." John Stockwell

Comment: We find it rather incredible that there are still people out there who, having been exposed to the above information, still refuse to believe that their government and its covert agencies are not capable of deceiving them.

Moving forward in time, with a little investigation we notice that, as in Operation Northwoods when the plan was to falsely characterise the Cubans as "terrorists" to the American public in order to generate support for war, US governments over the past few decades have been carefully cultivating the "Arab terrorist" threat to wage a new type of war for a new century - a holy war without end where the enemy is, in reality, the free thinkers of this world. The chief bogeymen/CIA puppet in this new "crusade" is Osama Bin Laden, but like all other useful idiots, Osama too is simply a means to achieve the central goals of government - the subjugation through fear of the world's population.


Flashback: How the CIA created Osama bin Laden
NORM DIXON
Greenleft.org

Made in the USA

According to Ahmed Rashid, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, in 1986 CIA chief William Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI proposal to recruit from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. At least 100,000 Islamic militants flocked to Pakistan between 1982 and 1992 (some 60,000 attended fundamentalist schools in Pakistan without necessarily taking part in the fighting).

John Cooley, a former journalist with the US ABC television network and author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, has revealed that Muslims recruited in the US for the mujaheddin were sent to Camp Peary, the CIA's spy training camp in Virginia, where young Afghans, Arabs from Egypt and Jordan, and even some African-American “black Muslims” were taught “sabotage skills”.

The November 1, 1998, British Independent reported that one of those charged with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, had trained “bin Laden's operatives” in 1989.

These “operatives” were recruited at the al Kifah Refugee Centre in Brooklyn, New York, given paramilitary training in the New York area and then sent to Afghanistan with US assistance to join Hekmatyar's forces. Mohammed was a member of the US army's elite Green Berets.

The program, reported the Independent, was part of a Washington-approved plan called “Operation Cyclone”.

In Pakistan, recruits, money and equipment were distributed to the mujaheddin factions by an organisation known as Maktab al Khidamar (Office of Services — MAK).

MAK was a front for Pakistan's CIA, the