The New Bush/Dulles Free Trade World Order and the Assassination of JFK, December 1, 2013
Herbert L. Calhoun
Introduction
On page 317, of this book, “Who Really Killed Kennedy 50 years later: Stunning new revelations about the JFK assassination,” the author, Jerome R. Corsi, summarizes the consequences of a nation willing to sit idly by and accept as a permanent fait accompli, having their elected leader shot down in cold blood, as follows:
“After fifty years of US government disinformation and deliberate stonewalling, researchers are just at the edge of discovering the truth about how and why JFK was assassinated in one of the greatest crimes in US history — a coup d'etat in which rogue groups, including the highest intelligence services in the land, conspired to remove JFK from the presidency and to place LBJ in the White House. The consequence of this conspiracy are immeasurable, if only because a group of traitors successfully flouted the constitution and got away with it.”
Corsi goes on to say that: ” … History will need to be rewritten to condemn those responsible as traitorous criminals. While prosecutions may no longer be possible simply because so many of the involved parties have already died, justice can be served by setting the historical record straight. At this late date, any attempt by the US government to withhold from the public documents pertaining to the JFK assassination should be deemed by Congress to be a continuation of the traitorous act that killed JFK.”
Vague references to the ‘war on terror’ and the ‘threat to national security’ are frequently used by venal politicians to cover-up criminal associations and covert illegal activity, ranging from money-laundering, narcotics trafficking, abduction and murder to the wholesale slaughter of non-combatant civilians. Their detritus is glibly dismissed or erased from mainstream media coverage of state terror around the world. But an awareness of what intelligence agencies are doing in the shadows is necessary if we are ever to grasp the true reality of momentous public events we wrongly think we understand. .
The issues in Understanding Shadows include how the bloody and brutal end of ‘democratic Islam’ in Algeria has facilitated the “fear and loathing” which has dominated the West’s security agenda since 9/11. The arrogance and political hubris of former British PM, Tony Blair, and the corrupt use of intelligence, took the UK to war in Iraq, and was a factor in the lonely death of WMD specialist, Dr David Kelly, while ‘off stage’ Israel continued its colonization of occupied Arab lands and upgraded its collective punishment of Gaza.
There is an account of the curious journey the CIA’s USSR ‘dangle’, Lee Harvey Oswald, made across Cold War Europe in June 1962, while the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa provided an opportunity for self-serving, power-hungry ANC politicians to ‘feather their own nests’ at the expense of the impoverished majority of their fellow citizens – a depressing example of a righteous liberation struggle turned sour. Meanwhile, the ‘long war’ continued.
4.0 out of 5 stars5 fpr content, 3 for editing, 4 on balance — a unique book that could have been better, November 23, 2013
My review itemizes the highlights. This is a valuable book that is unique in its summary of both the historical misdeeds of the CIA and the fast forward current misdeeds of the past two Administrations (Bush-Cheney and Obama-Biden). However, this book could have been better. I recommend a second edition with vastly more attentive editing and a moderate inclusion of sub-titles and visualizations.
Three big points up front:
01 The author has chosen not to include mind-control in this book, nor does he include active ties with criminal organizations including the Boston to NYC to DC pedophile rings as well as the Catholic Church as enabler. So the book might better be titled “Most But Not All of the Family Jewels.”
02 By its nature, focusing on blatant mis-deeds, the book does not — nor should it be expect to — address the larger misdeeds of the CIA, such as being worthless or wrong most of the time [I've served in three of the four directorates, I continue to believe that CIA can and should be saved, but right now it is a basket case]. Under my signature below are four online references on this point.
03 This is a book about the CIA, which is the “runt” of the intelligence litter when compared to ODNI, NSA, NGA, and defense intelligence. I consider NSA to be vastly more criminal, vastly less constitutional, and vastly more worthless than CIA — the return on investment for CIA is perhaps 20%, for NSA less than 2%. For direct access to most of my reviews of intelligence books here at Amazon, seek out < Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Intelligence (Most) >.
The book is organized into a summary review of each of the following, with each chapter concluding with modern-day equivalents and prognostications that I consider a real value-added.
5.0 out of 5 starsWell-Regarded in Afghanistan, A Real Gem, November 22, 2013
This book is in our J-2 Library in Afghanistan, and it is a very well-regarded gem.
This is a vitally important book. The author drives the value-proposition home with his Afterword, entitled “Truth as a Casualty of COIN.” His core point: lies kill military efficiency (including military learning). Those who would cite the vast spectrum of presidential and DoD directives and concepts and so on clearly are as out of touch with reality as the well-intentioned dolts that signed off on all that junk. Prior to reading this book I articulated — and had checked by colleagues at the US Army Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) and across Special Forces — some harsh comments in my summary critical review of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One.
Being a strong critic of defense idiocy and corruption myself, coming off 20 years of trying to get the US Intelligence Community to actually produce ethical evidence-based decision-support, this book by a former commander who is now teaching history at West Point should be required reading in all the schools from entry-level to war college.
The author opens early with his view that the COIN understanding of “the population” is delusional (he is being kind). The population is indeed the center of gravity, but if one is going to substitute technology for thinking, ideology for policy, and corrupt puppets for indigenous leadership, then one should expect to implode. As I have lectured here are there, including to civil affairs cannon fodder at Fort Bragg, “no amount of tactical excellence can make up for strategic decrepitude.” (see the definition of the latter term of art in my review of Clausewitz and Contemporary War).
The book focuses on the disconnect between a military trained, equipped, and organized to fight wars, and the “light infantry” variant that pretends to win hearts and minds while kicking down doors and running air strikes on civilians. The fact is that if there is no Whole of Government endeavor, if the Department of State is the Department of Nothing as Andrew Cockburn recently slammed Boffo Haircut (who gave up his integrity when looking into CIA's role in Iran Contract and the cocaine crack explosion), then the military is on a fool's errand at great expense in terms of blood, treasure, and spirit.
I am reminded of DIME by the early portion of the book. We need all four — diplomatic, informational, military, and economic. The fact is that we have a military that is dysfunctional and corrupt to the bone across strategy, policy, acquisition and operations, and a “paper tiger” across the other three domains.
There are five short quotes I have selected that capture the essence of the book, which I will follow with a final comment and eight other recommended books.
QUOTE (117): “When a state gets its strategy right in war, tactical problems tend to be subsumbed and improved within it.” This is an entire book waiting to be written — and the obverse of my comment to the civil affairs gladiators.
QUOTE (118): “But sometimes, in a war that involves limited policy airms, there may well be alternatives to victory.” Here I would point out that until last year the morons in DC conflated Al Qaeda and the Taliban — I do not make this stuff up. These are the same people that did not know Iraq was a Sunni minority ruling over a Shi'ite majority.
QUOTE (127): “The counterintelligence narrative posits that savior generals have game-changing effects, but it over-states their influence on the course of the war.” Yes, to which I would add, it is not helpful to have a Zionist bimbo sharing your bed and a G-2 without the balls the call a counterintelligence foul when he sees one.
QUOTE (128): “…hearts and minds counter-insurgency carried out by an occupying power in a foreign land doesn't work, unless it is a multigenerational effort.” To understand the details, search for my Marine Corps University short paper (summary of a 1976 thesis), < 1992 MCU Thinking About Revolution >. No one in DC gets any of this.
QUOTE (132): “American strategy has failed in Afghanistan because it became tapped by the promise that counterinsurgency can work only if it is given enough time…” See my summary review of Colin Gray's utterly gripping Modern Strategy — time is the one strategic variable that cannot be bought nor replaced. The corruption of US foreign and national security policy, deepened by the assassination of John F. Kennedy 50 years ago by a mix of Texas energy, New York money, CIA, and out of control elements of the rest of the US government, has wasted 50 years and destroyed the Republic. Time matters. So does integrity.
I am not going to summarize the most precious part of the book, pages 133-135, read these in the library or a bookstore if you cannot take the time to ingest the entire book.
I've had to work my way through multiple generations of flag officers divorced from reality and inattentive to the public interest. I dare hope that the serving Chief of Staff of the US Army is paying attention, and that this particular colonel might rise to be one of the thinking generals. Certainly I cannot count more than five in my lifetime out of the sixty or so I have known (Zinni is one of best and on record as saying that the US IC provided him “at best” 4% of what he needed to know as CINCENT). Consider helping me with the following SSI monograph under development, search for < 2013 ON REVOLUTION — Helpng Transform the US Army Consistent with CSA Guidance >
Buy this book, read it, display it, and share it. Let that be your act of loyal dissent this week.
Semper Fidelis,
Robert David STEELE Vivas INTELLIGENCE for EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability
5.0 out of 5 starsThe best collection in English — bold, innovative, essential, October 31, 2013
Routledge's managing editor for this collection, and the contributing editors themselves, one of whom I know personally, have created the single best collection in the English language, and explicitly superior to the Oxford counterpart that is lacking in scope of coverage and diversity of authorship. This is the first book to fully satisfy me in one book (for the five volume standard in the field see Strategic Intelligence [5 volumes] (Intelligence and the Quest for Security) (v. 1-5).
The book is opened by Loch Johnson, long one of my heroes (and with Britt Snider, one of two people to serve on both the Church and Aspin-Brown Commissions). His section concludes that intelligence studies still lacks deep credible understanding of how intelligence does (or does not) influence policy (and strategy and acquisition and operations), when intelligence works or does not, and how, exactly intelligence producers an consumers get on. I have my own answers, shared with General Tony Zinni, USMC, among others: intelligence does NOT influence anything of substance; it costs too much for what little it produces (4% “at best”), and it ignores 90% of the potential consumers of intelligence (see my free online article, “Intelligence for the President — AND Everyone Else.”
From Lock we move to Michael Warner on theories of intelligence, this is a seminal piece both a stellar and nuanced definition of what intelligence is, and consideration of intelligence risk. In this section I am also captured by R. Gerald Hughes on “Strategists and Intelligence,” this is a thoughtful read to which I would add the opening of Ada Bozeman's Strategic Intelligence and Statecraft: Selected Essays (Brassey's Intelligence & National Security Library).
The Long Journey to Dallas Texas, October 31, 2013
Herbert L. Calhoun
The Long Journey to Dallas Texas
Spoiler alert: This is neither the shortest version, nor the shortest route to understanding the JFK assassination. But it is as close to the complete canonical text and understanding of the assassination as there is ever likely to be. It is told by an insider, the high priest of understanding about the JFK assassination if you ask me (or Oliver Stone), one who has been around long enough, and has resided deep enough inside the bowels of the US government to know where all the skeletons are buried.
Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty was also a member of “The Secret Team,” which he wrote a very revealing book about, of the same name. It has proven to be a critical part of the unfolding of the 50-year old drama of the JFK assassination. (Read my Amazon review of it.)
Is this the Penultimate CIA hangout position, or just another “Case Closed?”, October 22, 2013
Herbert L. Calhoun
This is an interesting theory. In fact it is a slightly more robust and sophisticated off-shoot of the “renegade CIA officers did it” theory. However, the critical element — of linking it to Clint Murchison — shows up here as being mostly rhetorical, and thus is weak at best. The language used on page 155 is that “Murchison could have easily arranged the meeting between Cord Meyer and LBJ.” However, is it unfair to point out that the authors are way too far down the road and into the weeds to be using as the finally linking connection, a “mealy-mouth” phrase such as “could have easily been arranged?”
In any case, the LBJ/Cord Meyer angle is an E. Howard Hunt death bed concoction. Which raises another fair question to ask: Who in their right mind would believe anything that E. Howard Hunt would say, especially since he never admitted being the third “faux tramp” taken from a train in full view of the world and arrested only yards away from the Grassy Knoll the day of the assassination? Is that what he refers to as being a “bench warmer?” And with the exception of “Poppy Bush,” and Richard Nixon, Hunt is also the only man in the known universe who did not know where he was on the day JFK was murdered? (Did he not lose a million dollar law suit to the Liberty Lobby and Spotlight Magazine on the basis of lying about where he was on that fateful day?) And did his son, St. John Hunt, not confirm that Court verdict by insisting that his mom had told him “that daddy is on a business trip to Dallas” — as well as recognizing his father unmistakably as being the third tramp in the picture shown across the world on that fateful day?
The New Bush/Dulles Free Trade World Order and the Assassination of JFK, December 1, 2013
