Operation Northwoods

Code named Operation Northwoods (1962), 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.

This, of course, provides the much needed historical context for the attacks on 9/11. How might the public reacted to the events of 9/11 had such information been more widely known? If you knew that our government had planned such attacks in the past, might you be more receptive of such ideas now?

Originally I was going to use the quote above to delve into the many problems with the official version of events concerning 9/11, but in light of recent comments I've changed my tact. What often gets missed in discussions about clandestine government operations is "who are they being kept secret from and why?"

For instance, if the Cuban revolution was such a horrible and vile thing why the need for so much secrecy? Why must they trick us into invading Cuba? Why must they trick us into invading Iraq? Why must they lie to us again and again for the reasons we go to war? Why did Woodrow Wilson tell the American people we were entering World War I to "make the world safe for democracy" when in reality it was to maintain our preeminant trading status? Why did Kermit Roosevelt have to sneak around inside Iran to overthrow the democratically elected government for Brittish Petroleum? Why did Ronald Reagan have to utilize proxy armies in Nicaragua when he really wanted to invade? A historian sympathetic to Roosevelt, Thomas A. Bailey, has written:

Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly deceived the American people during the period before Pearl Harbor....He was like the physician who must tell the patient lies for the patient's own good...because the masses are notoriously shortsighted and generally cannot see danger until it is at their throats....

Do you believe that? Do you believe that you're just too stupid, too short-sighted to understand world events? And if our leaders and the educated elite believe we are too "shortsighted" then what does that say about our supposed love for democracy which depends upon an informed society?

When you think about it, this speaks very well of the American people. We aren't tyrants and murderers. We aren't terrorists. We actually do believe in freedom and democracy and human rights. We really are a good and gentle people. If we weren't, our government wouldn't have to lie so much; they wouldn't have to hide their true motivations.

The secret terrorist campaigns of our government are no secret to, say, the people of Nicaragua or Iran. They were no secret to people like Kermit Roosevelt, Saddam Hussein, and Manuel Noriega who carry them out. They are no secret to people like Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld who plan them. They are secret to us because if the American people truly understood what their government was doing and for whom, they'd be out on their asses in two seconds.

| +Save/Share | |