NEW! Podcast: The Assassination of JFK
For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy...
Well, of course, George W. Bush says the same thing, doesn't he? The difference is, Kennedy died for saying it, Bush didn't. That suggests that Kennedy had in mind the real conspiracy, and Bush either doesn't have a clue, or is busy directing attention away from it.
John Kennedy went to Texas to lay the groundwork for the next election. Even though he had not formally announced that he would run again, it was clear that he intended to and that he knew he would have to rely on the support of the people. Earlier, in September, he had spoken in nine states in a single week, focusing on natural resources and conservation efforts, improving education, maintaining national security, and promoting peaceful relations between countries. He talked about the achievement of a limited nuclear test ban, which the Senate had just approved, and the public made it clear that they were enthusiastically behind him. The masses knew that he cared about them, their sons and daughters, and most of all, peace.
Then, in early November, Kennedy had held a political planning session for the upcoming election. At that meeting, he noted the importance of winning Florida and Texas and that's where he announced his plans to visit both states in the next two weeks. JFK was aware that a relatively small but vocal group of extremists was contributing to the political tensions in Texas and would likely make its presence felt-particularly in Dallas, where UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson had been physically attacked a month earlier after a making a speech there. As an aside, one wonders if it is just coincidence that George Bush was governor of Texas and Jeb Bush was governor of Florida during the 2000 election which it is now agreed by almost everyone who can read and think, was fraudulently stolen? The trip to Florida and Texas was Jackie Kennedy's first extended public appearance since the loss of their baby, Patrick in August which had been a cruel ordeal for her and the whole Kennedy family. Nonetheless, JFK was said to have appeared to relish the prospect of getting out among the people.
So it was that, on November 21, the John and Jackie Kennedy departed on Air Force One for a two-day, five-city tour of Texas.
On November 22nd, 1963, the 1,036th day of his presidency, a light rain was falling, but a crowd of several thousand had gathered in the parking lot outside the Texas Hotel where the Kennedys had spent the night. A platform had been set up and the President came out to make some brief remarks without a raincoat or umbrella.
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| Notice the smirky look on Lyndon Johnson's face. This will be important further on. |
"There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth," he began, "and I appreciate your being here this morning. Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself. It takes longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it." He talked about the nation's need for being "second to none" in defense and in space, for continued growth in the economy and "the willingness of citizens of the United States to assume the burdens of leadership." The audience loved him and that love was palpable as John Kennedy reached out to shake hands amidst a sea of smiling faces.
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Back inside the Hotel, he addressed a breakfast meeting of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce for about 12 minutes. His talk began, as usual, with humor and the audience loved him! He proceeded to talk about defense projects, emphasizing the role of the military in maintaining peace: ". . . to that great cause, Texas and the United States are committed."
"Committed" was his last publicly spoken word.
The 1,037th day never came.
Listen to: Remarks at the Breakfast of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, November 22, 1963
Now, let us turn to the Official History which tells us:
"The presidential party left the hotel and went by motorcade to Carswell Air Force Base for the thirteen-minute flight to Dallas. Arriving at Love Field, President and Mrs. Kennedy disembarked and immediately walked toward a fence where a crowd of well-wishers had gathered, and they spent several minutes shaking hands. The First Lady was presented with a bouquet of red roses, which she brought with her to the waiting limousine.
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Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie were already seated in the open convertible as the Kennedys entered and sat behind them. Since it was no longer raining the plastic bubble top had been left off. Vice President and Mrs. Johnson occupied another car in the motorcade.
"The procession left the airport and traveled along a ten-mile route that wound through downtown Dallas on the way to the Trade Mart where the President was scheduled to speak at a luncheon. Crowds of excited people lined the streets waving to the Kennedys as they waved back.
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The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza. Bullets struck the President's neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The Governor was also hit, in the chest." (emphasis, mine)
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As it happened, there was a spectator in the crowd at Dealey Plaza that day with a home movie camera. Abraham Zapruder, standing in the area that has come to be known as the "grassy knoll," had filmed the assassination. Let's watch it and then continue with the story.
Life magazine bought the Zapruder film and locked it up. Not even the Warren Commission viewed it as a motion picture. The magazine published staggered still frames in a cover story endorsing the Warren Report when it was issued in 1964 with captions under each frame. The caption under frame 313, where Kennedy's head explodes, said it was from a shot from the front. But that meant that Oswald could not have fired the "head shot." When Life realized its "error," it stopped the presses and rewrote the caption as a shot from the rear. The film also graphically demonstrated that the president and Texas Governor John Connally, sitting in the jump seat in front of him, were struck by bullets within three-quarters of a second of each other, which meant that there had to be more than one weapon.
The Warren Commission disposed of this problem with what has come to be known as the "Magic Bullet Theory."
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According to the Warren Commission, the bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald hit John Kennedy in the back, then went up and exited via his throat, passed through John Connally's upper right arm, went inside his body, shattered a rib, exited his body under his right nipple, entered his upraised lower right arm and shattered his wrist, crossed his body to the left and entered his left thigh.
And then, magically, the bullet itself just fell out of John Connally's body onto the stretcher at the hospital, completely intact.
That's a pretty amazing bullet, wouldn't you say? It's like the Boeing 757 that allegedly hit the Pentagon and liquified and just flowed into the building and melted away. But that Magic Bullet is even more amazing when you actually see it. And here it is:
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Yes, folks, this is the alleged actual bullet that slaughtered John F. Kennedy, and put Governor John Connally in a world of hurt.
Look at it carefully.
It's pretty shiny and sleek looking, isn't it? Looks pretty deadly.
This bullet left fragments in Governor Connally's body, too, by the way. Doesn't look like it's missing any fragments to me. How about you?
Now, let's look at some other bullets. The following selection are the exact same type of bullet, same manufacture, same caliber. They have all been fired into different objects to see how those impacts would affect the appearance of the bullet itself.
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| Above, a bullet that has been fired through cotton wadding. |
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I think we can determine that the bullet that fell out of John Connally's thigh must have been planted there. And that means that there was someone in the hospital who knew what kind of weapon was supposed to be the murder weapon and came prepared.
Now, we notice in the official history above that it says: "Bullets struck the President's neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy." They are saying that he was struck in the neck, first.
Ford jottings offer something new for JFK conspiracy theorists
By Mike Feinsilber
The Associated Press
07-02-1997WASHINGTON - Thirty-three years ago, Gerald R. Ford took pen in hand and changed - ever so slightly - the Warren Commission's key sentence on the place where a bullet entered John F. Kennedy's body when he was killed in Dallas.
The effect of Ford's change was to strengthen the commission's conclusion that a single bullet passed through Kennedy and severely wounded Texas Gov. John Connally - a crucial element in its finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman.
A small change, said Ford on Wednesday when it came to light, one intended to clarify meaning, not alter history.
''My changes had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory,'' he said in a telephone interview from Beaver Creek, Colo. ''My changes were only an attempt to be more precise.''
Can we say "an attempt to cook the data to fit the fantasy"?
But still, his editing was seized upon by members of the conspiracy community, which rejects the commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone.
''This is the most significant lie in the whole Warren Commission report,'' said Robert D. Morningstar, a computer systems specialist in New York City who said he has studied the assassination since it occurred and written an Internet book about it.
The effect of Ford's editing, Morningstar said, was to suggest that a bullet struck Kennedy in the neck, ''raising the wound two or three inches. Without that alteration, they could never have hoodwinked the public as to the true number of assassins.''If the bullet had hit Kennedy in the back, it could not have struck Connolly in the way the commission said it did, he said.
Click to enlarge and see the bullet hole in Kennedy's shirt. The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that a single bullet - fired by a ''discontented'' Oswald - passed through Kennedy's body and wounded his fellow motorcade passenger, Connally, and that a second, fatal bullet, fired from the same place, tore through Kennedy's head.
The assassination of the president occurred Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas; Oswald was arrested that day but was shot and killed two days later as he was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail.
Conspiracy theorists reject the idea that a single bullet could have hit both Kennedy and Connally and done such damage. Thus they argue that a second gunman must have been involved.
Ford's changes tend to support the single-bullet theory by making a specific point that the bullet entered Kennedy's body ''at the back of his neck'' rather than in his uppermost back, as the commission staff originally wrote.
Ford's handwritten notes were contained in 40,000 pages of records kept by J. Lee Rankin, chief counsel of the Warren Commission.
They were made public Wednesday by the Assassination Record Review Board, an agency created by Congress to amass all relevant evidence in the case. The documents will be available to the public in the National Archives.
The staff of the commission had written: ''A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine.''
Ford suggested changing that to read: ''A bullet had entered the back of his neck at a point slightly to the right of the spine.''
The final report said: ''A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine.''
Ford, then House Republican leader and later elevated to the presidency with the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon, is the sole surviving member of the seven-member commission chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren.
In spite of the fact that Ford admitted falsifying evidence in the Warren Commission report, and that the evidence shows that his changes had nothing to do with any attempts to be "precise," but rather to support the "Lone Assassin" theory , the "official sources continue to use various media outlets to propagandize their fantasy.
No JFK conspiracy, new analysis shows
October 28, 2003
The United States' ABC television network said today it conducted an exhaustive investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, complete with a computer-generated reconstruction, which irrefutably confirms that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
A two-hour special on the event is scheduled to air on ABC News in the United States on November 20, two days before the 40th anniversary Kennedy's killing.
"It leaves no room for doubt," said Tom Yellin, executive producer of the special, narrated by Peter Jennings.
He called the results of ABC's study "enormously powerful. It's irrefutable". The conclusion that Oswald alone shot Kennedy during a motorcade in Dallas mirrors that of the Warren Commission, the official government inquiry into the assassination.
Even today, public opinion surveys find that less than half of Americans don't agree with that conclusion, said Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas.
I believe that the last polls I read indicated that only about 10% of Americans believe that there was "no conspiracy."
But that reservoir of doubt, largely fed by government secrecy and Oliver Stone's movie on the assassination, is important to address, Yellin said.
You got it, buddy. And there's no way you can refute that bullet above. It is, no pun intended, the "smoking gun" evidence that the government's single assassin, single bullet theory is a total crock of horse-hockey.
ABC News worked with an expert who created a computer-generated reconstruction of the shooting based on maps, blueprints, physical measurements, more than 500 photographs, films and autopsy reports, ABC said.
It enables a person to view the scene from any number of perspectives, including what Oswald saw from the sixth floor of the former Texas school book depository, Yellin said.
"When you do that, it's chillingly clear what happened," Yellin said.
He dismisses theories that there was another gunman.
Through interviews and other documentation, ABC News also concludes that Jack Ruby, who later killed Oswald, acted simply out of his love for Kennedy.
Yeah, right!
The computer-generated technology, only available for the past few years, is now frequently used in criminal investigations, Yellin said.
While Stone's movie raised doubt in many people's minds about the Warren Commission, it also led to the release of many government documents that had previously been kept hidden and fueled conspiracy theorists, Yellin said.
Yes, those documents certainly did "fuel conspiracy theorists". It's important to remember what a "theory" is: it is a reasonable conjecture based on an assembly of facts and observations. On the other hand, the Warren Commission Report is a total fantasy.
None of the documents offer significant evidence refuting the conclusion that Oswald acted alone, Yellin said.
Still, much of Americans' cynicism about their government can be traced to November 22, 1963, making further investigation important even 40 years later, he said.
"I think it's very hard for people to accept the fact that the most powerful man in the world can be murdered by a disaffected person whose life had been a series of failures up to that point," Yellin said.
Both Yellin and Mack admit that no matter what evidence ABC News lays out, it's not likely to quiet people who believe otherwise.
"The history of this subject is pretty clear," Mack said.
"No matter what information comes out, people are going to believe what they want."
So, based upon maps, blueprints, physical measurements, more than 500 photographs, films and autopsy reports, the good folks at ABC have made a computer-generated reconstruction of the shooting that leaves no doubt that Oswald acted alone.
Glory Hallelujah! We have been saved from those evil, lying, conspiracy theorists by Lee Harvey Oswald and ABC!
Now, in addition to the Magic Bullet - you know the one that entered Kennedy's back and then jumped up and exited through his throat and went on to bounce around in Connally like a lethal pinball - there was another bullet. Let's look at what that bullet, allegedly fired by marksman Oswald, from the rear, did to John Kennedy's head:
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Next is the photo doctored by the Warren Commission for public consumption. The problem is, if the bullet that entered JFK's back, and exited through his throat, then hit John Connally, and the second bullet hit JFK in the head, where is the exit wound of the second bullet?
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Notice how he is all cleaned up. There's another shot available on the net that purports to be the back of John Kennedy's head, minus the blown-out brains that is clearly fraudulent because here are the embalmer's notes:
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The issue of the head-shot that killed Kennedy is as contentious as the current day issue of the Pentagon Strike on 9/11. The government and its apologists have produced endless "experts" to prove that a gunshot to the head from the rear can cause the head to fly violently backward - in the direction the shot came from - and, at the same time, that the shot to the rear of the skull will cause a large piece of the skull to fly off to the rear as can be seen to happen in the Zapruder film above. That is, in fact, what Jackie Kennedy is seen to be trying to retrieve. To see that poor woman watch as her husband's head literally explodes in front of her eyes, and to see her try to get the pieces to put him back together, is unbearably painful to watch.
One of the key elements of the "official explanation" for the headshot is that John Kennedy's head can be seen to first move forward, and then jerk violently backward. Somehow this is twisted into some kind of off-planet physics to be hard evidence for the shot from the rear, i.e. the Texas School Book Depository, i.e. Oswald. Never mind that there are thousands, if not millions, of cases where the point of entry is small, and the bullet tears a gigantic hole when making its exit; a hole exactly like the one on the back of John Kennedy's head.
As it happens, shortly after the assassination, Dallas resident Billy Harper was walking down the median in Dealey Plaza and found a piece of the President's skull laying in the grass. Taken together with the violent motion of the President's head, the blood spray dousing the motorcyle cops who were behind Kennedy to his left rear and then the skull pieces found in the grass opposite the grassy knoll, the debris pattern clearly indicates that the head shot came from the front. Thousands of murder cases have been prosecuted on this type of evidence. If, suddenly rules of criminal evidence were to be reversed by all the so-called experts trying to support the Warren Fantasy, then how many criminal cases might be overturned based on this newly discovered law of physics?
There is a reason that JFK's head moves forward just a fraction of a second before it moves violently back and to the left.
From the confession of James Files:
"When I got to the point where I thought it would be the last field of fire, I had zeroed in to the left side of the head there that I had, because if I wait any longer then Jacqueline Kennedy would have been in the line of fire and I had been instructed for nothing to happen to her and at that moment I figured this is my last chance for a shot and he had still not been hit in the head. So, as I fired that round, Mr. Nicoletti and I fired approximately at the same time as the head started forward then it went backward. I would have to say that his shell struck approximately 1000th of a second ahead of mine maybe but that what's started pushing the head forward which caused me to miss the left eye and I came in on the left side of the temple."
Houston Chronicle Published Nov. 22, 1963:
Dr. Kemp Clark, neurosurgeon, said: "I was called because the President had sustained a brain injury." "It was apparent the President had sustained a lethal wound," Dr. Clark said.
"A missile had gone in and out of the back of his head, causing extensive lacerations and loss of brain tissue. Shortly after I arrived, the President's heart stopped. We attempted resuscitation, initiating closed chest heart massage, but to no avail.
"We were able to obtain a palpable pulse by this method but again to no avail.
President Kennedy died on the emergency table after 20 minutes.
See: I Shot JFK. Results of a 10 year private, unbiased investigation provide the first hard evidence of conspiracy in 40 years!
Let us now return to our official history of that day:
"The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital, just a few minutes away. But there was little that could be done for the President. A Catholic priest was summoned to administer the last rites and at 1:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. Governor Connolly, though seriously wounded, would recover.
"The President's body was brought to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane took off, a grim-faced Lyndon B. Johnson stood in the tight, crowded compartment and took the oath of office, administered by U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Hughes. The brief ceremony took place at 2:38 p.m."
As I have already mentioned in a previous chapter, Lyndon Johnson had already drafted National Security Memorandum 273, dated November 21st, 1963 - the day before John Kennedy met his fate in Dallas - which suggests that LBJ knew something. So, let's have a look at the "grim-faced" Lyndon Baines Johnson taking the oath of office as described above:
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| The "grim-faced" Lyndon Johnson being sworn in as President. |
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Barr McClellan, father of former White House press secretary Scott McClellan and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Mark McClellan, wrote a book entitled: "Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K". His thesis was that former President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His book apparently includes photographs, copies of letters, insider interviews and details of fingerprints as proof that Edward A. Clark, the powerful head of Johnson's private and business legal team and a former ambassador to Australia, led the plan and cover-up for the 1963 assassination in Dallas.
Well, I don't think that LBJ was behind it, but we already suspect that he was involved - as were 90% of the pathological deviants in the United States at the time - most of whom were successful businessmen, mobsters and politicians.
The fact is, the assassination of John F. Kennedy was a form of control of the government of the United States. It is the ultimate form of control of the election process. Understanding this can lead us to understand what has happened to our country since that terrible day in November, 43 years ago. Studied carefully, the assassination of John F. Kennedy can reveal who really controls the United States and its polices, particularly foreign policy. As John Kennedy himself said:
"For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence; in infiltration instead of invasion; on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice; on guerillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined, its dissenters are silenced, not praised; no expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the cold war, in short, with a wartime discipline no democracy would ever hope to wish to match. ..."
He was right; but I think he didn't realize how far they were willing - and able - to go.
Nowadays, we know how far they are able and willing to go: just look at the events of September 11, 2001, which bear the same unmistakable stamp of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In fact, as I have mentioned before, the same gang is involved.
Today, we live in a country where the poor and old cannot afford health care, something that John Kennedy was trying to correct. We live in a country where the economy is falling apart; a country where 44 million people live on less than $12,000 dollars a year; a nation where over 2 million people are homeless; a country where the entire media system is owned by only six media mega conglomerates; the country with the highest crime rate in the world (not being at war); a country with the world's largest prison population; a society where 25% of children under 12 live in poverty; a country that gives Israel billions of dollars a year to kill and maim Palestinians while there are over 2 million homeless on our own streets; a country where the gulf between the rich and poor is wider than it is in almost all other civilized countries; a nation that supports dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and many other countries around the world; a country that spies on its own citizens, has trashed the Constitution; a country that has undertaken to torture people when it is known that no intelligence that comes from a tortured person is likely to be accurate; a country where the government is full of corruption worse than any Banana Republic; a country where 40 percent of the homeless are military veterans, in a country with the world's highest teen suicide rates; and all of these were issues that concerned John F. Kennedy, issues that he was working very hard - against a stubborn, oligarchic system - to correct.
As people throughout the nation and the world struggled to make sense of the senseless act of the slaughter of a man who had the brains and guts to solve America's problems, and to articulate their feelings about President Kennedy's life and legacy, many recalled these words from his inaugural address which had now acquired new meaning:
"All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days, nor in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration. Nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."
John Kennedy was on his way to give a speech on that Sunny afternoon in Dallas, Texas, 43 years ago. I think it is only fitting that we close this chapter with the words he planned to say, but never got the chance:
President John F. Kennedy November 22, 1963
"I am honored to have this invitation to address the annual meeting of the Dallas Citizens Council, joined by the members of the Dallas Assembly--and pleased to have this opportunity to salute the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest.
It is fitting that these two symbols of Dallas progress are united in the sponsorship of this meeting. For they represent the best qualities, I am told, of leadership and learning in this city--and leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. The advancement of learning depends on community leadership for financial and political support and the products of that learning, in turn, are essential to the leadership's hopes for continued progress and prosperity. It is not a coincidence that those communities possessing the best in research and graduate facilities--from MIT to Cal Tech--tend to attract the new and growing industries. I congratulate those of you here in Dallas who have recognized these basic facts through the creation of the unique and forward-looking Graduate Research Center.
This link between leadership and learning is not only essential at the community level. It is even more indispensable in world affairs. Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country's security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.
There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable.
But today other voices are heard in the land--voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to the sixties, doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness. At a time when the national debt is steadily being reduced in terms of its burden on our economy, they see that debt as the greatest single threat to our security. At a time when we are steadily reducing the number of Federal employees serving every thousand citizens, they fear those supposed hordes of civil servants far more than the actual hordes of opposing armies.
We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will "talk sense to the American people." But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.
I want to discuss with you today the status of our strength and our security because this question clearly calls for the most responsible qualities of leadership and the most enlightened products of scholarship. For this Nation's strength and security are not easily or cheaply obtained, nor are they quickly and simply explained. There are many kinds of strength and no one kind will suffice. Overwhelming nuclear strength cannot stop a guerrilla war. Formal pacts of alliance cannot stop internal subversion. Displays of material wealth cannot stop the disillusionment of diplomats subjected to discrimination.
Above all, words alone are not enough. The United States is a peaceful nation. And where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely to convey conviction, not belligerence. If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.
I realize that this Nation often tends to identify turning-points in world affairs with the major addresses which preceded them. But it was not the Monroe Doctrine that kept all Europe away from this hemisphere--it was the strength of the British fleet and the width of the Atlantic Ocean. It was not General Marshall's speech at Harvard which kept communism out of Western Europe--it was the strength and stability made possible by our military and economic assistance.
In this administration also it has been necessary at times to issue specific warnings--warnings that we could not stand by and watch the Communists conquer Laos by force, or intervene in the Congo, or swallow West Berlin, or maintain offensive missiles on Cuba. But while our goals were at least temporarily obtained in these and other instances, our successful defense of freedom was due not to the words we used, but to the strength we stood ready to use on behalf of the principles we stand ready to defend.
This strength is composed of many different elements, ranging from the most massive deterrents to the most subtle influences. And all types of strength are needed--no one kind could do the job alone. Let us take a moment, therefore, to review this Nation's progress in each major area of strength.
I.
First, as Secretary McNamara made clear in his address last Monday, the strategic nuclear power of the United States has been so greatly modernized and expanded in the last 1,000 days, by the rapid production and deployment of the most modern missile systems, that any and all potential aggressors are clearly confronted now with the impossibility of strategic victory--and the certainty of total destruction--if by reckless attack they should ever force upon us the necessity of a strategic reply.
In less than 3 years, we have increased by 50 percent the number of Polaris submarines scheduled to be in force by the next fiscal year, increased by more than 70 percent our total Polaris purchase program, increased by more than 75 percent our Minuteman purchase program, increased by 50 percent the portion of our strategic bombers on 15-minute alert, and increased by too percent the total number of nuclear weapons available in our strategic alert forces. Our security is further enhanced by the steps we have taken regarding these weapons to improve the speed and certainty of their response, their readiness at all times to respond, their ability to survive an attack, and their ability to be carefully controlled and directed through secure command operations.
II.
But the lessons of the last decade have taught us that freedom cannot be defended by strategic nuclear power alone. We have, therefore, in the last 3 years accelerated the development and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, and increased by 60 percent the tactical nuclear forces deployed in Western Europe.
Nor can Europe or any other continent rely on nuclear forces alone, whether they are strategic or tactical. We have radically improved the readiness of our conventional forces--increased by 45 percent the number of combat ready Army divisions, increased by 100 percent the procurement of modern Army weapons and equipment, increased by 100 percent our ship construction, conversion, and modernization program, increased by too percent our procurement of tactical aircraft, increased by 30 percent the number of tactical air squadrons, and increased the strength of the Marines. As last month's "Operation Big Lift"--which originated here in Texas--showed so clearly, this Nation is prepared as never before to move substantial numbers of men in surprisingly little time to advanced positions anywhere in the world. We have increased by 175 percent the procurement of airlift aircraft, and we have already achieved a 75 percent increase in our existing strategic airlift capability. Finally, moving beyond the traditional roles of our military forces, we have achieved an increase of nearly 600 percent in our special forces--those forces that are prepared to work with our allies and friends against the guerrillas, saboteurs, insurgents and assassins who threaten freedom in a less direct but equally dangerous manner.
III.
But American military might should not and need not stand alone against the ambitions of international communism. Our security and strength, in the last analysis, directly depend on the security and strength of others, and that is why our military and economic assistance plays such a key role in enabling those who live on the periphery of the Communist world to maintain their independence of choice. Our assistance to these nations can be painful, risky and costly, as is true in Southeast Asia today. But we dare not weary of the task. For our assistance makes possible the stationing of 3-5 million allied troops along the Communist frontier at one-tenth the cost of maintaining a comparable number of American soldiers. A successful Communist breakthrough in these areas, necessitating direct United States intervention, would cost us several times as much as our entire foreign aid program, and might cost us heavily in American lives as well.
About 70 percent of our military assistance goes to nine key countries located on or near the borders of the Communist bloc--nine countries confronted directly or indirectly with the threat of Communist aggression - VietNam, Free China, Korea, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, and Iran. No one of these countries possesses on its own the resources to maintain the forces which our own Chiefs of Staff think needed in the common interest. Reducing our efforts to train, equip, and assist their armies can only encourage Communist penetration and require in time the increased overseas deployment of American combat forces. And reducing the economic help needed to bolster these nations that undertake to help defend freedom can have the same disastrous result. In short, the $50 billion we spend each year on our own defense could well be ineffective without the $4 billion required for military and economic assistance.
Our foreign aid program is not growing in size, it is, on the contrary, smaller now than in previous years. It has had its weaknesses, but we have undertaken to correct them. And the proper way of treating weaknesses is to replace them with strength, not to increase those weaknesses by emasculating essential programs. Dollar for dollar, in or out of government, there is no better form of investment in our national security than our much-abused foreign aid program. We cannot afford to lose it. We can afford to maintain it. We can surely afford, for example, to do as much for our 19 needy neighbors of Latin America as the Communist bloc is sending to the island of Cuba alone.
IV.
I have spoken of strength largely in terms of the deterrence and resistance of aggression and attack. But, in today's world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets. The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission in the world as well as our missiles--on a clearer recognition of the virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny.
That is why our Information Agency has doubled the shortwave broadcasting power of the Voice of America and increased the number of broadcasting hours by 30 percent, increased Spanish language broadcasting to Cuba and Latin America from I to 9 hours a day, increased seven-fold to more than 3-5 million copies the number of American books being translated and published for Latin American readers, and taken a host of other steps to carry our message of truth and freedom to all the far corners of the earth.
And that is also why we have regained the initiative in the exploration of outer space, making an annual effort greater than the combined total of all space activities undertaken during the fifties, launching more than 130 vehicles into earth orbit, putting into actual operation valuable weather and communications satellites, and making it clear to all that the United States of America has no intention of finishing second in space.
This effort is expensive--but it pays its own way, for freedom and for America. For there is no longer any fear in the free world that a Communist lead in space will become a permanent assertion of supremacy and the basis of military superiority. There is no longer any doubt about the strength and skill of American science, American industry, American education, and the American free enterprise system. In short, our national space effort represents a great gain in, and a great resource of, our national strength--and both Texas and Texans are contributing greatly to this strength.
Finally, it should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society.
It is clear, therefore, that we are strengthening our security as well as our economy by our recent record increases in national income and output--by surging ahead of most of Western Europe in the rate of business expansion and the margin of corporate profits, by maintaining a more stable level of prices than almost any of our overseas competitors, and by cutting personal and corporate income taxes by some $ I I billion, as I have proposed, to assure this Nation of the longest and strongest expansion in our peacetime economic history.
This Nation's total output--which 3 years ago was at the $500 billion mark--will soon pass $600 billion, for a record rise of over $too billion in 3 years. For the first time in history we have 70 million men and women at work. For the first time in history average factory earnings have exceeded $100 a week. For the first time in history corporation profits after taxes--which have risen 43 percent in less than 3 years--have an annual level of $27.4 billion.
My friends and fellow citizens: I cite these facts and figures to make it clear that America today is stronger than ever before. Our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed. But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom.
That strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions--it will always be used in pursuit of peace. It will never be used to promote provocations--it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes.
We in this country, in this generation, are--by destiny rather than choice--the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of "peace on earth, good will toward men." That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: "except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas , November 22, 1963
Comment on this Editorial Editorial: JFK Shows The Way Joe Quinn Signs of the Times 22/11/2006 To be honest, we tire of stating endlessly that which is patently, almost absurdly obvious to anyone with two firing neurons. While we understand that it is very tempting for many people to just accept the official story that Oswald murdered Kennedy, or any of the other blatant government lies we have been asked to swallow as fact, that understanding in no way lessens our disgust at the fact that those guilty of the very worst crimes are never called to account because they are usually found in positions of almost absolute political or corporate power. This fact alone effectively prevents us (and any rationale person) from ever being able to "take the blue pill", because given the nature and intentions of these power brokers, rather than take the blue pill, we might as well swap it for a cyanide capsule and get it over with now. But just as the last vestige of hope may seem to have been squashed, we find ourselves gripped by a strangely invigorating idea: While it may be true that the vast majority of ordinary people simply do not, or are unable to care anymore, there IS one group of people that is still very much concerned about making sure their voice is heard and their message received: the very same group that was responsible for the assassination of JFK, and a host of other heinous crimes leading right up to the present day and the criminal "war on terror". From this we come to understand that there is still a battle to be joined, and success or failure can not be measured by the extent of the apathy or disinterest of the people, but rather by the evidence for the continued manipulation of the people by the "powers that be". The simple logic is that, if such "power brokers" are still exerting significant efforts to brainwash the masses and obscure the truth, then the Truth, and the exposure of it, must still pose a very real threat to the nefarious plans of these "power brokers", and hope therefore remains. Our job then, and that of any genuine "truth seeker", is not to fight to free the individual or collective mass of ordinary people per se - for each must choose for themselves what part they will play - but rather to fight for the concept, the very idea of Truth, and its existence in this world. In this way, we shine a light on the door to a different future, and each much choose whether or not they will step across the threshold. There is never a point then when we can 'throw in the towel' or decide that all is lost, for while we still have breath, we still have work to do. It has been suggested that 'the universe' (or whatever name you wish to give to the force of creation) keeps its 'options' open right up until the last moment, and while the odds may not look good at present, we are not about to shrink from our responsibility to do all we can to keep the fire of Truth alive, right up until that 'last moment'. Each tactical move that the 'control system' makes in an attempt to bury the Truth and further stack the deck in their favor, will be responded to with the Truth itself. At present there are still a handful of dedicated 'seekers after truth', but if they should fall by the wayside, then we shall carry on the task, alone if need be. Like we said, while we have breath in our bodies. Comment on this Editorial Editorial: U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 And JFK Signs of the Times 22/11/2006 Today is the 39th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 242. This resolution was passed following the war in June 1967 in which Israel invaded its Arab neighbors after claiming it had been attacked. This excuse never seems to fail. It was also the war in which the Israelis, fearing that the US government would become aware that Israeli had in fact provoked the war, attacked and destroyed the US communications ship the Liberty, killing 34 US Navy personnel.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 November 22, 1967 The Security Council, Expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East, Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security, Emphasizing further that all Member States in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter, Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:
Affirms further the necessity
Requests the Secretary General to designate a Special Representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution; Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as possible. Adopted unanimously at the 1382nd meeting. A pdf file of the original document from the UN. Israel has always refused to implement this resolution, although it is the first to scream when one of its Arab neighbors doesn't abide by the UN. It can do this because it is so consistently supported by the US.
Things have only gotten worse in the intervening years. Israel has not only refused to give up the West Bank, it has adopted policies to drive the Palestinians out for good: the apartheid wall, mass murder and brutal harassment are the daily lot of those Palestinian civilians who dare to remain in their own land. Perhaps we should not be surprised, but it is curious that two of the seminal events of this era happened on November 22, that is, on 11/22. The House Select Committee on Assassinations found in 1979 that JFK's death was likely due to a conspiracy. A far cry from the Warren Commission whitewash. Now the debunkers are coming out to put that finding into question. We shouldn't be surprised. Kennedy's assassination is a key moment in the unfolding of US history. This was the moment when the military-industrial complex made certain that they would retain control. And they needed the complicity of the US population to do it. How? By having them buy the lie. Eighty percent of the US do not believe Oswald acted alone, but what have they done about it? Of course, with all the theories, counter theories, facts and counter facts surrounding this event, many of which were put into place for the purpose of confusing the population and covering the tracks of those responsible, this event is, indeed, a "lesson in ambiguity." But our conclusions about this do not necessarily agree with those of the professor in the following article:
Comment: "Knowing more and understanding less" is certainly a stage one goes through. It is important to learn to set aside preconceptions, to look only at the data at hand. But this raises the question of how far you need to go to find new data. Ambiguity is necessary for one's own progress as an obstacle to work against, that is, learning to change one's perspective, moving in and out of a situation or event, to see longer term patterns. The Kennedy assassination, when viewed from "up close", is ambiguous. As Prof. Stone says above, "For every fact there is a counter fact." But when viewed within the context of the development of the US in the 20th century, the ambiguity dissolves like the stripping away of a thousand veils. This is why one needs to suspend judgment. One cannot make a decision about the Kennedy assassination alone, isolated from the rest. But when multiple events are viewed, such as the assassinations of JFK, his brother Robert, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, the interest of the National Security State in the phenomenon of UFOs, mind control programs, Operation Paperclip which brought over former Nazis to work in the US, the establishment of the network of former Nazis and collaborators in the "Stay-behind" network to carry out covert activities for the dark forces within the US, and the events of 9/11 and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq among others, the consistent sense of "something is very wrong with this picture" is best explained by the hypothesis of a long-term conspiracy on the part of very powerful people in positions of power. When this history is viewed in the context of the last four thousand years of human history, the hypothesis of a long-term conspiracy against the best interests of the whole of humanity becomes the best explanation. But there will remain those who argue over the "facts":
Comment: We are fond of the expression "the devil is in the details." But what are the details? That this recording of a shot has been "proven" to be something else? Or the likelihood that this type of technology is being used by the alphabet soup agencies to create phoney evidence? Or that the people who are behind this conspiracy will stop at nothing to promote the "lone nut" theory? The person who does not wish to question his firm belief that the US government is the leader of the "free world", is the "bastion of democracy," etc, will decide the "detail" is that Berkovitz "proved" the "gunshot" was something else. Those who remain unsettled by the discrepancies in this, and who take a look at the larger picture, will come away with a different conclusion. The role of television in forming false memories, in brainwashing the US population and in creating a populace where critical thinking is replaced by the need for the next, rapid-fire fix of a news "experience" (waiting for Michael Jackson's plane to arrive, anyone?), cannot be overemphasized. And once more we are taken back to the day of Kennedy's assassination...
Comment: When you consider the importance of TV in dumbing down the population, this article is saying more than the author realizes... However, consider for a moment that 80% of the US population believes there was a conspiracy. That is 4 out of every 5 people! And yet, what has changed? what have any of these individuals DONE about it? Did it cause them to look clearly at the events of 9/11 and question the Bush Reich's official story? Or does it help them to understand the recent bombings in Turkey?
Comment: See here for more.
Comment: LibertyThink was kind enough to include the full text of the article here. Sherman Skolnick makes some interesting assertions in his article Rockefeller in the White House? regarding the assassination of JFK, Jr.: A Friday after July 9, 1999, was when the Bush Crime Family benefitted from the airplane sabotage killing John F. Kennedy, Jr.(July 16, 1999). Kennedy was supposed to have kept it secret, that he was planning to announce August 1, 1999, that approaching the age similar to his late father, he was going to run for President. JFK Jr. made a mistake to inform some in the Gore campaign camp. [Using later a false item, Newsweek Magazine blunted this by stating that JFK Jr. was planning to run for U.S. Senator from New York.] Some perceived Kennedy Jr. as scandal-free, charming, and likely to pull a big successful Presidential vote in 2000 [if he survived]. [More details in our four-part series on the web, "What Happened to America's Golden Boy?"] THE LINCOLN-KENNEDY COINCIDENCES Fast-forward 40 years: Zapruder's effects on pop culture are still felt 4 decades after JFK's murder GEOFF PEVERE DALLAS, TEXAS-What if? Forty years to the day of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the event still compels one question more forcefully than any other. Let's suppose, for example, Abraham Zapruder hadn't been convinced by a persistent coworker to leave work, go home and get his movie camera that day. [...] The notoriously contentious conclusion of the Warren Commission, that the president was killed by a solitary gunman, acting alone, named Lee Harvey Oswald, would never have been cast into such enduring doubt without the questions still raised by the Zapruder film: If Oswald fired the shot that caused the fatal head wound from the rear, why does the president jerk backwards? [...] While some images provided what seemed to be the most compelling contradiction of the Warren Commission's findings, other images made iconic by the event pressed the opposite speculation. Was the shot of Oswald in his backyard - with a rifle, pistol and subversive political tract - a fake? And if it was manipulated, couldn't all images be acts of trickery? Simultaneously in the assassination's aftermath, seeing undermined believing and believing contradicted seeing. If the bullet entered from behind, why does the impact seem to explode like an exit wound? Comment on this Editorial Editorial: Pierre Gemayel Assassinated. Cui Bono? Kurt Nimmo 21/11/2006
In record time, the corporate media placed the blame for the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, Lebanese Industry Minister, and grand son of Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, the founder of the Kataeb Party, also known as the Phalange (read: fascist), on Syria. "The death of Gemayel, a Maronite Christian and son of a former president, coincides with a government power struggle. Among the stakes are Lebanon's participation in a United Nations tribunal to prosecute suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Syrian security officials are among the suspects," reports Bloomberg. Saad al-Hariri, the son of another famous assassination victim, is quoted as saying "the hand of Syria" is behind the death, according to EuroNews. "As Gemayel was an outspoken critic of Hezbollah and a member of Lebanon's anti-Syrian movement, Syrian intelligence likely staged the shooting as part of an intimidation strategy to keep the lid on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Hezbollah will use the momentum generated by the Gemayel assassination to further its plans to plunge Lebanon into a constitutional crisis," Stratfor tells us. However, in order to understand Gemayel's assassination, we need look no further than the murder of Rafik al-Hariri. "Al Hariri's assassination provides the raison d'être for severing ties with Syria and for transforming Lebanon into a US vassal," explains Mike Whitney. "This conforms nicely with Israel's ambition to surround itself with non-threatening states as well as affording access to the vital water resources of Lebanon's Wazzani River. In other words, the murder of al Hariri has created some extremely fortunate opportunities for both Israel and the US; merging seamlessly with their overall objectives in the region." Call it cui bono on steroids. Whitney continues: "The likelihood that Syria was involved in the assassination is zilch. One can hardly imagine a greater disaster for poor Syria who has been scrambling to avoid the American bludgeon for the last four years. Few people realize that Syria provided more assistance in the first year of the war on terror after 9-11 than any other nation. That's of little consequence now, as the US is on a mission to quickly integrate the entire region beneath the American standard and prove that it can be trusted with its continued stewardship of the world economy." "According to several political analysts, Al Hariri's assassination is aimed at drowning Lebanon in another civil war. Arab commentators called on Lebanon on Tuesday to unite against such threat, with some suggesting that Israel has greatly benefited from the death of Al Hariri," explained Aljazeera on February 15, 2005. "We must do as they do in other criminal cases, look at who had the most to gain from the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri," writes Sam Hamod. "The Lebanese had a lot to lose, as did the Syrians (he was close to Bashar Al Assad, the leader of Syria), as did the other Arab countries in the region who saw him as a strong leader and a stabilizing force in Lebanese politics. On the other hand, Israel has wanted chaos in Lebanon, as has America." For more detail on who benefits from the al-Hariri assassination, see the in-depth article by Bill Van Auken. Wayne Madsen wrote a few days ago that "Hariri's assassination was ordered by neo-cons in Israel and the United States who wanted to implement their 'Clean Break' policy in order to drive Syrian occupation troops out of Lebanon and then engineer wars with the Lebanese Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran. With the Iraq Study Group led by Bush 41 Secretary of State James Baker and including Defense Secretary-designate Robert Gates engaged in negotiations with Syria to work out an American military withdrawal from Iraq, the neo-con charges against Syria for the Hariri assassination are being cast aside, according to U.S. intelligence sources." Naturally, this effort by the Baker Boys runs counter to the Zionist plan to sow chaos and destruction in the neighborhood. According the Madsen, the "realpolitik" Baker Boys are a direct threat to the neocons, as they are apparently "taking steps to lay blame for the assassination on operatives linked to notorious Russian-Israeli Mafia weapons smuggler and Defense Department air transport contractor Viktor Bout. Such an assignment of blame is designed to send a friendly signal to Damascus while signaling to Jerusalem that the blame for the Hariri assassination is being laid very close but not actually on the doorstep of Israel's Mossad and their neo-con allies in the Bush administration." Predictably, the "detente with Syria and its Lebanese allies is sure to irritate the neo-cons," and thus it makes perfect sense for them, through the Mossad and its documented network in Lebanon, to muddy the waters by taking out Pierre Gemayel, as all Arabs are, of course, expendable pawns. Original Editorial: Eva Golinger's New Book - Bush vs. Chavez by Stephen Lendman 22 November 2006 Eva Golinger's eagerly awaited new book is now out - but only for those able to read and understand Spanish as it's not yet available in English. It's appropriately called Bush vs. Chavez - Washington's War Against against Venezuela published by Monte Avila Editores in Caracas. Hopefully it will soon be available in English as well. Golinger is a Venezuelan-American attorney specializing in international human rights and immigration law. She wrote her first blockbuster book published in 2005 called The Chavez Code - Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela that documented the events surrounding the 2002 US-directed failed coup against Hugo Chavez that ousted him for two days and that the people of Venezuela through their mass outrage reversed. In her first book, Golinger obtained top-secret documents from the CIA and State Department through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests showing the Bush administration had prior knowledge of and was complicit in the 2002 coup against President Chavez and had provided over $30 million in funding aid to opposition groups to help pull it off. It failed because they hadn't expected the kind of people-power that's likely to arise again in the face of trouble and support the president they love and won't give up without a fight. Golinger also showed how the US government funded the so-called National Endowment for Democracy (NED) that functions to subvert the democratic process to help oust leaders more concerned with serving their own people than the interests of wealth and power. Also involved in the coup plot was the international arm of the Republican party, the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the AFL-CIO that has a long and disturbing record of acting as an instrument of US foreign policy instead of sticking to what it's mandated to do - representing the interests of American working people it falls far short of much too often in its policy of selling out to the interests of capital for the personal gain of the union's leadership. In the Chavez Code, Golinger showed how these agencies funded and worked with the Chavez opposition beginning in 2001 cooking up schemes that led to mass-staged street protests leading up to the day of the coup. It was done with the full knowledge and approval of the Bush White House that mounted a full-scale effort post-9/11 to oust Hugo Chavez and has now tried and failed three times to do it. In her new book, Golinger picks up from her first one chronicling the Bush adminstration's focused efforts at illegal intervention in Venezuelan affairs attempting to destabilize the Chavez government leading up to another scheme to overthrow it that may be only days away following the December 3 presidential election Chavez is virtually certain to win impressively. The book documents the usual kinds of mischief directed out of Washington: -- a demonization campaign conducted through the complicit US corporate-controlled media that's likely to reach a crescendo in early December. -- financing 132 anti-Chavez groups. Golinger explains ...."the US is funding these organizations in civil society....to obtain control in all different parts of the country." She goes on to say "The US government has censored the names of organizations, but they've left the descriptions of what the funding is for....what they are proposing to do with the money; we just don't know if they're actually doing it." -- The Bush administration is making a determined effort at subversion in the run-up to the December 3 election "bringing down their best experts....political strategists, communications experts, to help them craft the entire (opposition) campaign" - of Zulia state governor Manuel Rosales who was the only governor in the country to sign the infamous Carmona Decree after the 2002 coup that dissolved the elected National Assembly and Supreme Court and effectively ended the Bolivarian Revolution and all the benefits it gave the Venezuelan people (for two days.) -- The Bush administration is conducting "diplomatic terrorism" against the Chavez government. Golinger explains "This includes sanctions against Venezuela for made-up things....claiming Venezuela is not collaborating on (curbing) drug trafficking, which is not true (as a US State Department report shows by having documented that from 1998 - 2004 Venezuela's drug seizures rose from 8.6 to 19.1 tons and Caracas claims the tonnage rose dramatically in 2005)." It also includes a "second sanction....for trafficking in persons. But there is not a shred of evidence that Venezuela is not doing everything in its power to prevent trafficking in persons." -- Most important of all, the US created a new classification in May, 2006 "and Venezuela is the only country (under it) - which is for not cooperating with the war on terrorism." Venezuela is now sanctioned and "prohibited from buying arms that have been manufactured in the US or use US parts." The Bush administration is hard-pressed explaining what this new classification means, why Venezuela in the only country accused under it, and what the Chavez government is doing. It can only say (fraudulently) "All the countries on the list are state sponsors of terrorism" even though the US has never classified Venezuela as a terrorist nation as the world community would never go along with that kind of outrage. -- a campaign of hostile rhetoric coming out of Washington has been ongoing for some time and is part of the Chavez-demonization project attempting to justify whatever schemes the Bush administration has cooked up trying for the fourth time to oust him. It comes in the harshest language and from the highest levels in the administration like Secretary of State Rice referring to Chavez as "a negative force in the region" and now fired and discredited former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld calling Chavez another Hitler and one of the most dangerous and destabilizing forces in the region. -- Golinger also explains the US Congress issued a report on border issues mentioning Venezuela and incredibly saying: "President Chavez is engaged in smuggling Islamic radicals from out of the Middle East to Margarita Island (off the Venezuelan coast) where they are training them in Spanish and giving them ID documents and sending them to Mexico, where they are crossing the border to the US." -- Golinger also covers Washington's "military front" attack directed against Venezuela including "an increased presence in the region." She explains she investigated the Pentagon's presence on the tourist island of Curacao in the Caribbean, close enough to Venezuela to see the coastline, where a US base is located. She calls this an "alarming" development, and it's being supported by the government of The Netherlands. -- Golinger also cites the Pentagon's use of anti-Chavez directed psychological warfare including the use of ugly agitprop directed against the Chavez government. -- She also explains "The use of Colombian paramilitaries by the US (as part of the "military front")....And the intervention of US Special Forces....as well." US Special Forces handle the command-and-control function directing the intruding paramilitaries who are "actors....sent over to try to assassinate Chavez." -- Further, the book covers the US "building up a secret base near the border with Venezuela, next to Apure state....a small base, but the US is building airplane hangars for spy planes (to be used as a) launching point for espionage operations and monitoring of Venezuela. They also have large amounts of high-ranking US Special Forces there" along with high and low-ranking Colombian forces all controlled by US Special Forces. Golinger shows how once again the Bush administration is funding and directing the above-mentioned agencies like NED to subvert and overthrow democracy in Venezuela as well as one other one - Sumate - a nominally non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in 2002 by a group of Venezuelans led by Maria Corina Machado functioning as an anti-governmental organization dedicated to the overthrow of Hugo Chavez and the return of the country to its ugly past ruled by the former oligarchy and the interests of capital. The book also covers possible Bush administration plans to invade the country outlined in Plan Balboa. It "was created as a military exercise jointly simulated with NATO (an arm of US interventionism) forces, supposedly realized during the month of May, 2001....but contains real satellite images, of the US institutions and precise coordinates of Venezuelan airstrips and strategic points within the territory of the country." The idea is to "come in from Colombia, Panama and from bases in Curacao....take over (oil-rich) Zulia (state) and the border area and declare it an international zone" - in other words, divide the country and steal the oil-rich part of it by force, then deal with the rest of the country. She also discusses the possibility of Colombian right wing paramilitary intervention, and she believes their mission is to assassinate Hugo Chavez. She interviewed a paramilitary leader who told her there are already more than 3000 paramilitaries in the region around Caracas alone. If paramilitaries intervene, it won't be the first time as this tactic has been used before and was foiled by Venezuelan police when a paramilitary plot was uncovered and arrests were made. Chavez has also had to combat years of paramilitary infiltration across the border conducting a wave of kidnappings and assassinations, especially in areas bordering the two countries like in Tachina state where the number of killings rose from 81 in 1999 to 566 in 2005. There's also considerable evidence Colombian right wing president and close Bush ally Alvaro Uribe had a hand in these activities as well as the present destabilization efforts to oust Hugo Chavez and possibly try to assassinate him. He has a long and ugly record supporting the interests of wealth and power in his own country and has used his paramilitary assassins to leave a long trail of blood in displacing three million peasants from their land as well as having one of the worst records of state-sponsored terrorism in the world and a well-known contempt for democracy and human rights. Golinger believes there are plans in place to overthrow the Chavez government and recently said Washington is "trying to implement regime change (in Venezuela). There's no doubt about it (even though it) tries to mask it saying it's a noble mission." Many longtime Venezuelan observers and this writer believe the next attempt at regime change will unfold around the time of the December 3 election and likely begin the day after its conclusion when Hugo Chavez is virtually certain to be declared the winner with an impressive margin of victory. Expect it to include mass-opposition street protests claiming fraud and demanding Chavez not be allowed to claim victory and another term in office. Whatever happens next, only the coup-plotters know for sure, but it's almost certain to be ugly and may include US-behind-the-scenes-directed violence, possibly extreme in a determined effort to succeed this time unlike previous attempts to oust Chavez that failed. We'll soon learn whether the coup-plotters will be any more successful this time than before. Chavez knows something is up and is prepared to act against it when it comes. It won't be long before the fireworks begin, and it now remains to be seen how the latest chapter in the saga of the Bush administration vs. Hugo Chavez will play out. Stay closely tuned. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Comment on this Editorial Wildly Exaggerating The Threat Of Terrorism Blair is wildly exaggerating the threat posed by terrorism Simon Jenkins Wednesday November 22, 2006 The Guardian What is it about a desert that drives men mad? On Monday morning the prime minister stood on the Afghan sand and said: "Here in this extraordinary piece of desert is where the fate of world security in the early 21st century is going to be decided." Tony Blair was talking to soldiers he had sent to fight the toughest guerrillas on earth for control of southern Afghanistan. He told them: "Your defeat [of the Taliban] is not just on behalf of the people of Afghanistan but the people of Britain ... We have got to stay for as long as it takes." The prime minister's brain has clearly lost touch with reality. Even under the Raj there was no conceivable way Britain could conquer and hold the arc of territory to which Blair was referring. It stretches from the Persian Gulf through Iranian Baluchistan and Afghanistan to Pakistan. No central government has come near to controlling this region, and its aversion to outside intervention is ageless and ruthless, currently fuelled by the world's voracious appetite for oil and opium. But it poses no threat to world security. The sole basis for Blair's statement is Mullah Omar's hospitality to the fanatic, Osama bin Laden, at the end of the 1990s. As we now know, this was never popular (an Arab among Pashtuns); after 9/11, when the Taliban had collaborated with the west over opium, either Bin Laden would eventually have had to leave or the Tajiks would have taken revenge for his killing of their leader, Sheikh Massoud. Even the Pakistanis were on his tail. Either way, Talib Afghanistan was no more a "threat" after 9/11 than were the American flying schools at which the 9/11 perpetrators trained. So what is Blair getting at? He once confessed to his hero, Roy Jenkins, that he regretted not having studied history at Oxford. He never spoke a truer word. The concept of world security as holistic and vulnerable to incidents such as 9/11 is nonsensical. Politics is not a variant of the Gaia thesis, in which each component of an ecosystem depends on and responds to every other. There is no butterfly effect in international relations. For want of a victory in Helmand, the Middle East is not lost, nor for want of victory in the Middle East is western civilisation lost. This is as well, since Blair's resumed war in Afghanistan is clearly not being won. We know from the former army chief Lord Guthrie that Blair, despite promising to "give the army anything it takes", has refused the extra troops and armour needed by the pathetically small expeditionary force of 7,000 in Helmand. He has already had to switch tactics from winning hearts and minds to American-style "search and destroy", blowing up villages with 1,000lb bombs (as we saw on TV last week). British commanders are describing "successes" in terms of enemy kills. They should recall that Victorian officers in the Punjab were told that such boasts would be treated as a sign of failure, not success. Such killings infuriated the population and presaged revenge attacks. Has the British army learned nothing? Blair has not been able to persuade his Nato allies in Europe of his apocalyptic world-view. The use of the word terrorism to imply some grand military offensive against the west may sound good in White House national security documents and Downing Street speeches. But terrorism is not |
LBJ
aides say JFK documentary a smear