Ghandhi and the Unspeakable looks upon the father of the Indian independence movement and examines why a prophet of nonviolence was assassinated by Hindu nationalists during a prayer meeting in New Delhi.
From James W. Douglass, the bestselling author of JFK and the Unspeakable (Orbis 2010), Ghandhi and the Unspeakable shines new light on the untimely death of Mohandas Gandhi. Following the theme of his study about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Douglass shows how the people who conspired to kill Gandhi hoped to destroy a compelling vision of peace, nonviolence and reconciliation.
By tracing the story of Gandhi's early “experiments with truth” in South Africa, Mr. Douglass shows how Gandhi confronted and overcame the fear of death. He also explains why, as with the case of JFK's death, this story matters today and what can be learned from Gandhi's truth and its opposition to the powers of his time.
Mr. Douglass is a scholar and peace activist. His book about the JFK assassination is widely acclaimed by historians and political scientists as one of the most important books written about the subject. Gandhi and the Unspeakable, according to Publisher's Weekly, “provides readers with a slim, elegant volume containing explosive insight into who conspired to assassinate the father of modern nonviolence and why.”
During World War II, most men joined the service out of a sense of duty and a sense of right and wrong. During the Vietnam war, many men, but not all, were drafted and really didn't want to be there. But they didn't want to go to prison. But men tend to join today's volunteer army so they'll have a job. These are all generalizations of course, but only for the purpose of discussion.
Ethics is a deep and complex subject. Right and wrong may seem easy to determine on most occasions, but what's not easy, at all, is to give reasonable and rational arguments for what's right and wrong on all occasions. That's why ethics is an imprecise branch of philosophy that often asks more questions than it can ever hope to answer. Some moral dilemmas are impossible to resolve.
If a man goes to war and kills out of a sense of duty, then that sense of duty may protect him from some of the psychological consequences of committing violence. He can tell himself that his heart was in the right place and his intentions were good—-and they probably were. But in the heat of battle, things happen.
It began with that monstrous young man so evil we needed to blindfold him and strap him to a board, that confusing young man who looked like Christ but cast us in the role of crucifiers, that treasonous young man who brought dark and heathen evils across linguistic and cultural borders and brought torture onto the list of accepted government actions.
When you hear the phrase “American Taliban” you probably think of a young American who betrayed his country, aided its enemies, and – like Saddam Hussein – was behind the attacks of 9-11. John Walker Lindh was an American. That part is accurate. He converted to Islam at age 16 and traveled to Yemen to study classical Arabic and Islamic theology. In 2001 he went to Afghanistan to join an ongoing battle between a political group funded by Russia and another group funded by the United States. Lindh joined the group that was backed and funded by the Bush Administration. It was called the Taliban. Lindh trained to fight the Northern Alliance, not civilians, and not the United States. But, after 9-11, the United States attacked the Taliban, and Lindh attempted to escape and return to America.
Instead he and other soldiers were captured by the Northern Alliance and beaten senseless in the presence of two CIA officers, Johnny “Mike” Spann and Dave Tyson, who interrogated Lindh and threatened him with death on the spot. When some of the other prisoners rebelled (Lindh was not involved), Northern Alliance troops shot and killed scores of prisoners, many with their arms tied behind their backs. Lindh was shot in the leg. Spann was killed. (Though he was not involved, Lindh was later charged with conspiracy to murder Spann.)
Jesselyn Radack's memoir Traitor: The Whistleblower and the American Taliban presents the moving story of a young attorney's unexpected encounter with official misconduct, and the excruciating ordeal that ensued when she decided to challenge it.
In 2001, Ms. Radack was a Justice Department attorney and specialist in legal ethics. In response to an official inquiry, she advised that the newly captured John Walker Lindh, the so-called “American Taliban,” should not be interrogated without an attorney present — which he then was anyway. When Department officials publicly denied having received any such legal advice, and even destroyed evidence to the contrary, she exposed the deception.
Ms. Radack was not looking for a fight, but only to do the right thing. For her trouble, she was forced out of her Justice Department position, put under criminal investigation, fired from her subsequent job, reported to the state bar, and put on the “no fly” list.
“Traitor” is the story of a young professional whose career is derailed because her ethical compass will not let her be silent in the face of official dishonesty. It is also the story of a political system that is seemingly incapable of tolerating honorable dissenting views within the government workforce.
UPDATE 3: Brother Duff's provocative speculation aside, this looks more and more like a four-way goat-fest. 1) Idiot prostitute tried for $800 instead of the customary $60-80. 2) Secret Service cherub lost it. 3) Colombian police were not at all cool. 4) CIA fixer was asleep. Journalists are after the Secret Service “racist bitch” that may have made all of this much much worse, her identity should be public knowledge by the week-end.
UPDATE 2: Party line is that this was a wicked party that violated no local laws but was a breach of expected professional as well as personal ethics, with 20-21 women being involved (at the Colombian rate for gringos, $60 each). It defies belief that one of the US personnel would be dumb enough to stiff the Colombia prostitute (pun intended) and allow the situation to get to the point that the police were called. There is more to this story not yet in the public domain. Congress is raising legitimate questions about counter-intelligence vulnerabilities, but since Congressional delegations are notorious for precisely the same sort of behavior, one has to wonder where this will end up. We do have to wonder at just how stupid a Secret Service person has to be to register a hooker for the night and then not pay her. Had they been nurse-maided by CIA, there would have been no records, no price disagreements, and no blowback. Meanwhile, GSA is taking a hit for $830,000 in fiesta expenses. ” It's the culture, stupid.”
UPDATE 1: From inside the Secret Service, a lot of attention being cast on a female member of the presidential detail who is a “rascist bitch” and has been looking for a way to lash out at Obama…..along with serious concerns that there really is a plot that their and US counterintelligence missed. (US CI is practically non-existent–NSA does NOT “really” change its priorities for a Presidential visit prior to or during; nor are threats against the President a national intelligence collection priority). So this makes three scenarios: real plot missed by US CI and discovered by Colombian CI, not US CI; political theater with the detail being unwitting dupes; and internal break-down of both screening and discipline. We wait with bated breath–meanwhile, White House continues to cover up US unemployment and job losses; morally and intellectually challenged Secretary of the Treasury; the Japanese melt-down (pun intended); and other failures.
Was Presidential Detail Penetrated by an Assassin?
by Gordon Duff, Senior Editor
Cartagena, Colombia (VT) The story, one a child wouldn’t believe, is that our Secret Service and Army advance teams, those that arrange for presidential security, were arrested for failing to pay one or more whores for “services rendered.”
The real deal is very probably this:
At least one of the members of the presidential detail is suspected of working with foreign nationals to arrange the assassination of President Obama.
A certain nation comes to mind, one very close to former Governor Romney, the GOP candidate hopelessly behind in the polls, a candidate belonging to a religion seen as a dangerous sect, a candidate hated by most American women and women vote.
