Preston James: Why Didn’t We Learn from Vietnam?

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Officers Call, Threats
Preston James
Preston James

Why Didn’t We Learn From Vietnam?

Individual soldiers deserted in huge numbers, whole units refused to fight, there was rebellion in some Barracks, and numerous incidents of fragging, some preceded by warnings to officers and non-coms to back off, others not.

There were large mass demonstrations at home in America and the situation became so dire, that President Lyndon Johnson was told by his advisers and the Ruling Cabal that he must step aside and could not run for a second term.

Most of this was kept from the American public by a Controlled Major Mass Media (CMMM) which served in most cases as official USG propaganda dispensers.

Henry Kissinger was the interface between the Ruling Cabal, the Secret Shadow Government (SSG) and President Nixon and basically ran Nixon’s foreign policy.

Nixon was elected and seemed to be led around by the nose by his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger who is now viewed by many as a hardened war criminal for his many dealings in Vietnam, Myanmar and other places which directly resulted in mass death. He is also blamed for his manipulative, botched negotiations and recommendation to leave so many American POW/MIAs behind with secret plans to have them assassinated in jungle prison camps by special Observation Groups (SOGs), actually Special Operations Groups and aircraft dispensed poisonous VX gas when that failed.

It’s important to note that because JFK was Assassinated by a high military Cabal including LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, GHWB, Dulles, Lansdale, Lemnitzer, etc. that Vietnam became possible as an illegal perpetual, un-winnable war for profits in the first place. Once JFK was out of the way, the US Military and the defense industry and banks surrounding became the Secret Shadow Government, and began ruling the visible, ceremonial government which actually became a hired prostitute of the SSG.

It takes creative Psyops by the top Policy-Makers to elicit a nation’s support for any new war.

No nation’s citizens are eager to send their children to war to be maimed and die in mass, and it take special high level psychological operations (Psyops) to process the society’s group mind to motivate them adequately to want revenge against another nation or group.

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Eagle: Charles Hugh Smith on Bubble Economy – Starting with the Assassination of JFK

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government
300 Million Talons...
300 Million Talons…

Why We're Stuck with a Bubble Economy   (December 9, 2013)

Inflating serial asset bubbles is no substitute for rising real incomes.

Why are we stuck with an economy that only generates serial credit/asset bubbles that crash with catastrophic consequences? Ths answer is actually fairly straightforward.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

Let's start with the ideal conditions for an economy that depends on consumer spending.

 

1. Rising real income, i.e. after adjusting for inflation/currency depreciation, wages/salaries have more purchasing power every year.

 

2. An expanding pool of new households, i.e. young people who move away from home or graduate from college, get a job and start their own household. New households buy homes, vehicles, furniture, appliances, kitchenware, tools, etc., driving consumption far more than established households.

 

Neither of these conditions apply to today's economy. Income for the bottom 90% has been stagnant for forty years, and has declined 7% in real terms since 2000.

Read full article with more graphics.

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Stephen Lendman: Mandela’s Disturbing Legacy

01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Government
Stephen Lendman
Stephen Lendman

On December 5, Mandela died peacefully at home in Johannesburg. Cause of death was respiratory failure. He was 95.

Supporters called him a dreamer of big dreams. His legacy fell woefully short. More on that below.

“The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society.”

In 1964, he was sentenced to life in prison. He was mostly incarcerated on Robben Island. It’s in Table Bay. It’s around 7km offshore from Cape Town.

In February 1990, he was released. In 1993, he received the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with South African President FW de Klerk.

Nobel Committee members said it was “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.”

De Klerk enforced the worst of apartheid ruthlessness. In 1994, Mandela was elected president. He served from May 1994 – June 1999.

He exacerbated longstanding economic unfairness. He deserves condemnation, not praise.

John Pilger’s work exposed South African apartheid harshness. Doing so got him banned. Thirty years later he returned.

He wanted to see firsthand what changed. He interviewed Mandela in retirement. His “Apartheid Did Not Die” documentary followed.

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Patrick Cockburn: Saudi Arabia Funds Terrorism & Mass Murder — USG Silent & Therefore Complicit [While Also Approving $4B to “Train & Equip” Saudi National Guard]

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence
Patrick Cockburn
Patrick Cockburn

Mass murder in the Middle East is funded by our friends the Saudis

World View: Everyone knows where al-Qa'ida gets its money, but while the violence is sectarian, the West does nothing

Patrick Cockburn

The Independent, Sunday 8 December 2013

Donors in Saudi Arabia have notoriously played a pivotal role in creating and maintaining Sunni jihadist groups over the past 30 years. But, for all the supposed determination of the United States and its allies since 9/11 to fight “the war on terror”, they have showed astonishing restraint when it comes to pressuring Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies to turn off the financial tap that keeps the jihadists in business.

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Berto Jongman: David Ignatius Pimps “Fresh Approach” by Second String Prefects

Corruption, Government, Ineptitude
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

A fresh approach to looking at foreign threats

By ,

Washington Post, December 6, 2013

The chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees stated last weekend that the world was getting more unsafe. A few days later, the Pew Research Center reported that 52 percent of Americans think the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally,” the highest such total in the nearly 50-year history of that query. Taken together, these two items symbolize a serious emerging national problem. The crackup ahead lies in the mismatch between the challenges facing America and the public’s willingness to support activist foreign policy to deal with them. Simply put: There is a splintering of the traditional consensus for global engagement at the very time that some big new problems are emerging

. . . . . . . .

A modest proposal is that Obama should convene a younger group of American leaders: strategists, technologists, professors. It would be a learning exercise — to understand how the country should deal with the problems of the next 10 years without making the mistakes of the past 10. What has America learned from its struggles with Islamic extremism? What lessons do we take from our painful expeditionary wars? How can Americans too young to remember the Iranian revolution of 1979 engage that country, but also set clear limits on its behavior?

Happily, a new generation of thinkers could form the bipartisan group I’m imagining. If you don’t know their names yet, you should: Marc Lynch of George Washington University, known to his online fans as “Abu Aardvark”; David Kilcullen, one of the architects of counterinsurgency success in Iraq and author of “Out of the Mountains,” an iconoclastic new book on future urban conflicts; Michèle Flournoy, a clear-eyed former undersecretary of defense; and Jared Cohen and Alec Ross, two technological wizards who advised the State Department under Hillary Clinton and are now with Google and Johns Hopkins University, respectively. I’d add the administration’s own Salman Ahmed , Tony Blinken , Ben Rhodes , Wendy Sherman and Jake Sullivan .

What encourages me is that the same American public that wants the United States to mind its own business internationally also registers a two-thirds majority in favor of greater U.S. involvement in the global economy, according to the Pew poll. Young respondents were even more internationalist on this issue than their elders.

Read full opinion.

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Penguin: Fabuius Maximus on Failure to Learn

Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Peace Intelligence
Who, Me?
Who, Me?

PART I: Keep fighting! We must not learn from our wars.

Summary:  We were ejected from Iraq, gaining nothing we sought. No oil, no ally against Iran, no unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East. All but the mad hawks realize we gained nothing in Afghanistan. Now comes the post-game show, as our military’s boosters attempt to fog our vision and erase our memories, preparing us for more wars. The truth is out there, if only we would make an effort to see.

Contents

  1. We lose because we’re ignorant of history and refuse to learn
  2. Bitter fruit from our failure to learn
  3. The history of counterinsurgency by foreign armies, a history of failure
  4. A more detailed explanation of why foreign armies fail at COIN
  5. For More Information
  6. A closing note from Friedrich Schiller

PART II: Well-funded organizations inciting us to hate & fear, again. How gullible are we?

Summary: Today we examine yet another example of agitprop by well-funded organizations inciting hatred of Muslims in America.  Will we fall for this, again? A divided and fearful people are an easily led flock, a gift to their rulers. Please push back against this propaganda, and those that believe it. Being sheep is a choice.

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Stephen Aftergood: Defense Warning Network

Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, Military
Steven Aftergood
Steven Aftergood

THE DEFENSE WARNING NETWORK

The structure and functions of the Defense Warning Network were outlined in a new directive issued yesterday by the Department of Defense.

The mission of the Defense Warning Network is to provide notice “of potential threats posed by adversaries, political and economic instability, failed or failing states, and any other emerging challenges that could affect the United States or its interests worldwide.”  See The Defense Warning Network, DoD Directive 3115.16, December 5, 2013.

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