The New York Times reported that American Peter W. Galbraith, the United Nation’s number two man in Afghanistan, proposed having the White House replace Afghan President Hamid Karzai shortly after that country’s troubled presidential election.  It is unknown if the White House or the Administration was directly involved with this scheme since they have plausible deniability and have since sacked Galbraith.

This Karzai effort seems eerily reminiscent of a coup plotted by the Kennedy Administration in 1963 to overthrow then South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem.  That miscalculation was one step in the ladder that led to America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

There are other similarities between the Kennedy and Obama administrations.  Both Presidents were/are young when elected, both were/are charismatic, and both brought newcomers into their administrations with little real-world experience.

The Kennedy Administration was involved in serious international crises earlier in that presidency.  This included the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, and our entry into the Vietnam War.  The Obama Administration is now in the process of escalating the Afghanistan War and has other significant international challenges, including the North Korean and Iranian nukes.  Hopefully Obama will fare better than Kennedy did in foreign affairs.

There is a huge difference between John Kennedy and Barack Obama.  While Kennedy was a liberal by modern standards, his views were so far to the right of Obama that he would be considered a “Tea Partier” in today’s Democratic Party.  How things have changed.  The Democrats are now controlled by the radical Left and the Republicans are controlled by blind ambition.  Sad!

The Guardian reported the day before yesterday that the Central Intelligence Agency is “working closely” Palestinian security forces who are known to torture Hamas members.

Of course, this isn’t shocking. CIA has a long tradition of supporting regimes that torture, murder, and violate human rights in any number of ways. This is in Latin America, in the Middle East, around the world. In pursuit of American interests overseas, Washington is almost always willing to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses. American support for Egypt is, naturally, the first example that comes to my mind.

This isn’t to say that CIA support for Fatah torturers shouldn’t be condemned. This is important because this fits in with a pattern of torturing Islamist militants that has developed over the last eight years.

Barack Obama has said he wants to end torture and secret imprisonment. So far his movement in this direction has been slow. Despite a brief flutter of excitement over the summer when Attorney General Eric Holder said there would be an investigation, it seems clear that those who condoned and practiced torture during the Bush Administration will not be held accountable. Meanwhile, the Guantanamo prison remains open eleven months after Barack Obama took office. Just now are American policymakers seriously talking about what to do with the prisoners.

There has been no new evidence of CIA or American military torturing people in the last year (correct me on this if I’m wrong), but it could happen again. I think that during the Bush Administration, the CIA was let off the chain when it comes to torture and now they’re hooked.

Something comparable happened during the early years of the Cold War when CIA got very comfortable using covert operations to take out regimes in the Third World. Once they started they couldn’t stop, even after it became clear that the tactic didn’t always work out. See Bay of Pigs after the 1957 Syrian Crisis, for example.

The Central Intelligence Agency is prone to going rogue. I think it’s in the organization’s nature. Because much of what they do is clandestine, they are able to resist scrutiny from outside. In the 1950s and 1960s this meant that they could plot assassinations and coups with impunity. Now it means that they can torture prisoners and assist others in torture.

The exposure of CIA complicity in the torture of Hamas members in Palestine is not surprising. It is, however, yet another indication that the organization needs to be reigned in.

Over the years, the American Central Intelligence Agency has gained a reputation for being the most far-reaching, sophisticated, and effective government intelligence agency on the planet. At the same time, the CIA has also become known for its incredible paranoia and propensity to undertake costly, sometimes illegal, and often downright absurd projects in the name of gaining an edge on the competition. From spy cats to psychic hippies, the following are ten of the weirdest spy programs the government has proposed and funded over the years.

10. Acoustic Kitty

Most people wouldn’t think of the common house cat as being a potential master of espionage, but the CIA sure did. In the 1960s, American intelligence is said to have spent over $20 million on “Acoustic Kitty,” a top-secret project that used cats as recording devices. The project took a group of specially trained cats and surgically implanted microphones, antennae and batteries into their tails, and then set them loose near the Russian embassy. The idea was that an unassuming cat would be able to stride right up to groups of communist officials and listen in on their conversation, which it could then beam back to agents with its sophisticated radio equipment. The plan was eventually put into action, but the first cat sent into the field was supposedly run over by a taxi before it could make a recording, and operation ‘Acoustic Kitty” was abandoned shortly thereafter.

9. Operation Mockingbird

One of the most ambitious and downright insidious programs ever launched by the CIA was Operation Mockingbird, a propaganda project that was implemented in the early 1950s. It was a massive undertaking that saw as many as 3,000 CIA agents and collaborators attempt to gain some control of the free press by feeding select groups of reporters information and using newspapers at home and abroad to filter the kinds of stories that got to the public. At its height, the program included writers for the New York Times, Newsweek, and Time Magazine among its ranks, and was said to have a significant influence on as many as 25 major newspapers. The program had a major impact abroad, as well, as it served a major function in helping to sway public opinion in the run-up to the eventual overthrowing of Guatemala’s leftist president. Operation Mockingbird continued to have a major effect on worldwide media throughout the 50s, and it was not until the 60s that a series of reports by investigative journalists brought the program to light.

8. Operation Gold

The tapped telephone wires are presented to the press.

One of the most audacious intelligence operations of the Cold War was 1953’s Operation Gold, which was a joint effort between the CIA and the British MI6 to hack into the phone lines of the Soviet headquarters in East Berlin. This required the construction of a massive 450-meter long tunnel that would intersect with an underground telephone junction. Just preparing the tunnel took six months, and involved a substantial amount of risk and subterfuge. But when it was done, the CIA proceeded to carefully record as many as 50,000 telephone conversations over the course of nearly a year. The problem? A mole in British intelligence had tipped off the KGB about Operation Gold before the tunnel was even completed, and the Soviets had been feeding fake them information the entire time. In 1956, the Soviets raided the tunnel and shut it down, and the operation eventually caused a great deal of controversy for the American and British intelligence communities.

7. Operation Northwoods

In the early 1960s, when the Cold War was in full swing and fear of communism was rampant, a plan dubbed Operation Northwoods was proposed within the American CIA. In short, it called for the government to perform a series of violent terrorist actions in U.S. cities including bombings, hijackings, phony riots, and sabotage, all of which could then be blamed on Cuba. This would drum up support for a war against the communists and lead to an eventual military operation to remove Fidel Castro from power. The plan was drafted and signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and presented to President John F. Kennedy, who personally rejected it, and it was subsequently abandoned. For years after, Operation Northwoods existed as a rumor, but it was finally revealed to be true when top-secret documents describing the plan were made public in 1997 as part of a release of government papers relating to the Kennedy assassination.

6. Project Pigeon

One of the most seemingly preposterous military programs of all time occurred during WWII, when famed behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner was enlisted by the government to try and train pigeons for use in a missile guidance system. At the time, Skinner was known as one of the major practitioners of operant conditioning, a system that used reward and punishment as a means of controlling behavior. With these ideas in mind, Skinner placed a series of specially trained pigeons inside missiles. A camera on the front of the missile recorded its flight path, which was then projected on a screen for the pigeon to see. The birds were trained to recognize the missile’s intended target, and they would peck at the screen if it was drifting off course. This information was fed to the weapon’s flight controls, which would then be changed to reflect the new coordinates. Skinner was originally given $25,000 to get the project up and running, and he actually managed to make some minor progress with it. But government officials were never quite able to get past the obvious absurdity of the program, and it was eventually shut down. Image credit: http://www.psywarrior.com/

5. Operation Midnight Climax

In the early 1960s, the youth culture of America was first beginning to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs like LSD, and so was the Central Intelligence Agency. Operation Midnight Climax was one of the government’s most ridiculous and illegal attempts to test the possible uses of drugs like acid by administering them to unsuspecting citizens. The program was run out of a collection of safehouses in New York and California. Prostitutes were used to lure young men to the houses, at which point they were given food or drink spiked with LSD and other drugs and placed in a room with a two-way mirror where their behavior could be observed. Midnight Climax was essentially an experimental program designed to monitor the possible tactical uses of psychotropic drugs and sexual blackmail in the field, but even within the Agency it was controversial, and it was shut down after only a few years. Most of the files connected to the operation were destroyed, but a few survived, and in the early 70s the files regarding Midnight Climax and many other illegal CIA programs were brought to light in a famous story by the New York Times.

4. The Stargate Project

The $20 million Stargate Project was a blanket term used to describe a large number of psychic experiments and investigations undertaken by the U.S. government between the 70s and 90s. The biggest goal of the Stargate Project was to investigate the scientific probability of “remote viewing,” which is the psychic ability to witness events over great distances. The program, which also investigated psychic abilities like out of body experiences and clairvoyance, tested subjects on their ability to predict future events and read hidden documents. The Stargate Project usually enlisted the services of anywhere from 3 to 22 subjects at a time, many of whom managed to test with an accuracy rating as much as 15% higher than the norm. Still, although some participants claimed to have correctly predicted major world events like military attacks and hostage situations, the program found that remote viewers and so-called telepaths were still wrong nearly 80 percent of the time, and in 1995 the CIA cancelled the Stargate Project for good.

3. Operation Mongoose

In the early 60s, communist Cuba became one of the major battlegrounds of the Cold War, and its president Fidel Castro came to be considered one of the most dangerous political figures in the world. After early attempts to overthrow Castro by force failed, the CIA instituted Operation Mongoose, which was a secret war of propaganda and sabotage designed to remove the Cuban leader from power. Operation Mongoose had a remarkably wide scope, and included plans to fake attacks on Cuban exiles, provide arms to opposition groups, and destroy Cuba’s crop of sugarcane. It also included several attempts to either assassinate or discredit Castro in the press, each of which was more elaborate and ridiculous than the next. The Agency considered, among other things, poisoning Castro’s personal supply of cigars, planting explosives disguised as seashells in his favorite swimming spots, and injecting him with a deadly chemical from a hypodermic needle disguised as a pen. Even more bizarre were the plans to discredit Castro in the public eye, which included a proposal to spray a TV studio with hallucinogens prior to one of the leader’s televised speeches, and even planting chemicals in his clothes that would cause his famous beard to fall out. The near-disaster of the Cuban Missile Crisis put Operation Mongoose on hold, and following an agreement between Kennedy and the Soviets, it was more or less abandoned.

2. Project MKULTRA

One of the most downright creepy government programs and the fodder for countless conspiracy theories, Project MKULTRA was a sweeping and top-secret CIA program started in the early 1950s that included experiments in “chemical interrogation” and mind control. In short, MKULTRA was a plan that sought to use drugs, psychological stress, and bizarre interrogation methods to get information, control behavior, and even alter brain function. To this day, much of the information on the project remains classified, but what we do know is that the program involved the testing and interrogation of private citizens—often without their knowledge or consent—in the service of discovering whether or not certain drugs could be used as truth serums. This included giving subjects large doses of LSD, amphetamine, and mescaline, as well as shock therapy. In one case, subjects were supposedly dosed with acid for 77 days straight in an attempt to test the effects of long-term exposure to the drug. Conspiracy theories abide about the real goals of the project, with some saying it was a program to engineer zombie assassins through mind control and brainwashing. Some information about MKULTRA was finally brought to light in the early seventies, when news reports about CIA abuses of power led to a Congressional commission. The project was subsequently shut down, but many people claim that similar CIA programs still exist to this day.

1. The Bay of Pigs Invasion

For sheer absurdity, wastefulness, and infamy, few CIA projects compare to 1961’s failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. The program was one of the first and boldest attempts to overthrow communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro, but it was also the most disastrously unsuccessful. It started in 1960, when the CIA, under the authorization of the President, began planning an attempted overthrow of the Cuban government. In order to eliminate any link to the U.S., the attack was to be perpetrated by an army of Cuban exiles specially trained by the CIA. After a series of diversionary air strikes, on April 17, 1961, a group of amphibious troop transports landed on a beach in the Bay of Pigs and began unloading their cargo of 1,300 exile guerillas. The plan was for them to rendezvous with a smaller band of paratroops to be dropped soon after their arrival, but from the beginning their plan was tragically mistimed. For starters, Cuban intelligence was already aware of the planned invasion, and this meant that when the exile troops landed they were almost immediately under attack. To add to the force’s problems, bad weather, coral reefs, and the Cuban swamps quickly claimed most of their equipment. All told, an estimated 2,000 Cubans died during the invasion, while over 100 members of the exile army were killed in action. The remaining 1,200 were captured and imprisoned, and some were later executed on the orders of Castro. Over a year later, the rest were freed in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine for Cuban people. The effects of the Bay of Pigs were far reaching. Several American officials resigned over their involvement in it, and many have credited it with increasing the resolve of the Cuban government and encouraging a severe distrust of American foreign policy in the years that followed.

The Misconception: Problems are easier to solve when a group of people get together to discuss solutions.

The Truth: The desire to reach consensus and avoid confrontation hinders progress.

When a group of people come together to make a decision every demon in the psychological bestiary will be summoned.

Conformity, rationalization, stereotyping, delusions of grandeur – they all come out to play, and no one is willing to fight them back into hell because it might lead to abandoning the plan or a nasty argument.

Groups survive by maintaining harmony. When everyone is happy and their egos free from harm it tends to increase productivity. This is true whether you are hunting buffalo or selling televisions.

Team spirit, morale, group cohesion – these are golden principles long held high by managers, commanders, chieftains and kings. You know instinctively that dissent leads to chaos, so you avoid it.

This is all well and good until you find yourself in a group your brain isn’t equipped to deal with – like at work.

When you are in a group, you are observing the other members in an attempt to figure out what the consensus opinion is. Meanwhile, you are simultaneously weighing the consequences of disagreeing.

The problem is, every other person in the group is doing the same thing, and if everyone decides it would be a bad idea to risk losing friends or jobs, a false consensus will be reached and no one will do anything about it.

Often, after these sorts of meetings, two people will go somewhere private and reveal they think a mistake is being made. Why didn’t they just say so in the meeting?

Social psychologist Irving Janis mapped out this behavior through research after reading about the U.S. decision to invade southern Cuba – The Bay of Pigs.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy tried to overthrow Fidel Castro with a force of 1,400 exiles.

They weren’t professional soldiers. Cuba knew they were coming. There weren’t many of them. They were slaughtered. It took three days.

This led to Cuba getting friendly with the U.S.S.R and almost led to nuclear apocalypse.

John F. Kennedy and his advisers were brilliant people with nearly unlimited resources who had gotten together and planned something incredibly stupid. After it was over, they couldn’t explain why they did it.

Janis wanted to get to the bottom of it, and his research led to the discovery of groupthink, a term coined earlier by William H. White in Fortune magazine.

It turns out, for any plan to work, every team needs at least one asshole who doesn’t give a shit if he gets fired or exiled or excommunicated. For a group to make good decisions, they must allow dissent and convince everyone they are free to speak their mind without risk of punishment.

It seems like common sense, but it isn’t. You are not so smart.

How many times have you settled on a bar or restaurant no one really wanted to go to? How many times have you given advice to someone you knew wasn’t really your honest opinion? How many times does everyone decide to do Secret Santa and everyone gets crappy presents?

True groupthink depends on three conditions:

• A group of people who like each other
• Isolation
• A deadline for the decision

The recent housing market collapse, the failure to prevent the attack at Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Titanic, the invasion of Iraq – all of these can be attributed to situations  in which groupthink led to awful decisions.

When groups get together to make a decision, an illusion of invulnerability can emerge in which everyone feels secure in the group. People begin to rationalize other people’s ideas and don’t reconsider their own.

You want to defend the group’s cohesion from all harm, so you supress doubts, you don’t argue, you don’t offer alternatives – and since everyone is doing this, the leader of the group falsely assumes everyone is in agreement.

This situation can be avoided if:

• The boss is not allowed to express his or her expectations.
• The group breaks into pairs every once in a while to discuss the issue.
• Outsiders are invited periodically to evaluate the group’s decisions.
• One person is assigned the role of asshole who finds faults in the plan.
• Before a final decision is made, a cooling off period is allowed.

The research shows groups of friends who allow members to disagree and still be friends are more likely to come to better decisions. So, the next time you are in a group of people trying to reach consensus, be the asshole. Every group needs one, and it might as well be you.

Links:

Using physics to predict groupthink

How groupthink led to the invasion of Iraq

How corporate groupthink squashes talent

Many people were miffed by the decision to award the Noble Peace Prize to President Obama within days of his inauguration. Adding to this surprise is the fact that in no major hotspot in the world is closer to peace since the President took office.  North Korea has furthered its nuclear weapons program; Iraq remains violent; Israelis and the Palestinians still fight; Iran is marching towards nuclear weapons; Pakistan is a mess; and the war in Afghanistan has just been escalated with the President’s decision to send an additional 30,000 troops.

In Norway today Noble chairman, Thorbjorn Jagland, explained the Committee made its choice for the award because President Obama’s leadership (election) was a “call to action for all of us.”  That explains it, doesn’t it???

President Obama added to the confusion today during his acceptance speech in Oslo.  The President made surprising comments that included:

• “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: we will not eradicate violent conflicts in our lifetimes,”  ….  “There will be times when nations, acting individually or in concert, will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”
• “Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this, the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”
• “A decade into a new century, this old architecture is buckling under the weight of new threats,”  …..  “The world may no longer shudder at the prospect of war between two nuclear superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe.  Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsize rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale.”

Boy, that sure sounds like George W. Bush wrote those words, doesn’t it?  Given the eloquent way that the President reminded the crowd of America’s past “noble” actions in the world, one wonders why he apologized for America’s history in his earlier trips abroad?  After all of the President’s criticism of his predecessor, now he justifies American acting “”?  Is that what the Left calls “unilateralism”?

The President also singled out president John F. Kennedy with praise during the speech.  It might be helpful for a historian in the President’s staff to remind him of Kennedy’s actions in the Bay of Pigs and his role in intervening in Vietnam.

The President’s speech will make centrist and even some on the right feel more comfortable.  At the same time it will irritate many on the Left, especially those in Europe.  It seems that the realities of the world is forcing the President’s seemingly bipolar statements.  Didn’t this metamorphosis happen to Jimmy Carter too?

Lack of a cohesive foreign policy is potentially dangerous since it could cause our enemies to misread intentions.  Such miscalculations can lead to unintended conflicts.

Having been raised in West Texas, my family was a frequent visitor at Big Bend National Park (before the “no fun” policy started in the early ’70’s). We were there every month for fishing and camping, usually staying at a beautiful spot at Boquillas Crossing. Sadly, one cannot camp there anymore thanks to the new rules of camping only in “designated camp sites”. And the people of the small village of Boquillas were not very pleased with them closing the crossing, either.

One visit in the early ’60’s, I was sick and so did not get to go along with “the boys” – Dad, Granddad, uncles and my brothers – to the river to fish. Even while sick, I enjoyed the camping but I sure missed the opportunity to do some fishing.

It was my first time to stay back at camp with “the girls”: Mom, Grandma, and the aunts. And I was certainly glad I did!

One might have thought they would be discussing fashion, or cooking, or shopping, or that sort of thing. No! They discussed politics and the paranormal.

Their thoughts on politics included how the government was hiding things from us (like Area 51), lying to us (re: Bay of Pigs and Project Blue Book), and generally screwing up the country. It was a far remove from the conversations I had expected them to be having.

I had no idea!

The next trip, I made sure I spent some time in camp with the girls as well as time down on the river with the boys, who never talked that sort of thing.

We moved to Washington, DC, in 1962, and I cannot help but wonder what the chatter about the JFK assassination might have been.

Unfortunately, all the girls have since passed from this plane of existence, but their inspiration lives on.

Leslie Gelb, a former columnist for the New York Times and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, says President Obama’s recent Asia trip was so thin on accomplishment that it revealed a “disturbing amateurishness in managing America’s power.”

Gelb, writing at the Daily Beast blog, also says Obama “should stare hard at the skills of his foreign-policy team and, more so, at his own dominant role in decision-making.” He further suggests that “Obama might take responsibility himself, as President Kennedy did after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961.”

There’s no argument here with Gelb’s assessment about Obama’s foreign policy. It projects a decided whiff of amateurishness, indeed.

But on the point about Kennedy’s having taken responsibility for the Bay of Pigs debacle: Well, there’s a whiff of media myth in that claim.

As I write in my forthcoming book, Getting It Wrong, Kennedy in the aftermath of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, sought to spread the blame to the U.S. news media, particularly the New York Times. On separate occasions in 1961 and 1962, Kennedy told the Times‘ publisher and its managing editor that had the newspaper printed all it knew about the pending invasion, the country and his administration would have been spared a major foreign policy embarrassment. That is, the pre-invasion publicity would have made an assault untenable.

But as James (Scotty) Reston, the veteran Times columnist and correspondent in Washington, correctly noted, Kennedy’s comments were “a cop-out.”

The decision to press ahead with the attempt to topple Fidel Castro rested squarely with the Kennedy administration.

Kennedy’s comments, made to Publisher Orvil E. Dryfoos and Managing Editor Turner Catledge, had the effect of solidifying the media-driven myth that the Times had censored itself in reporting about the run-up to the invasion.

The purported self-censorship took place in the days before the invasion, which failed utterly in its objective of toppling Castro.

But close reading of the newspaper in early April 1961 makes it clear that the Times did not spike it reports about the pending invasion of Cuba. The newspaper did not censor itself. The Times’ coverage about preparations for the assault was in fact fairly detailed and prominently displayed on front pages in the days before the invasion force of Cuban exiles hit the beaches.

The related notion that Kennedy asked or persuaded the Times to suppress, hold back, or dilute any of its reports about the pending Bay of Pigs invasion also is utter fancy.

But the anecdote about the Times’ self-censorship lives on as a timeless lesson about why the news media should not bow or defer to power. It’s a potent, durable, and compelling tale.

It’s also apocryphal.

WJC

The principle of Cuius regio, eius religio provided for internal religious unity within a state: The religion of the prince became the religion of the state and all its inhabitants. Those inhabitants who could not conform to the prince’s religion were allowed to leave, an innovative idea in the 16th century. The phrase cuius regio, eius religio as applied to the outcome is attributed to the early seventeenth century (1612, by the jurist Joachim Stephani (1544-1623) of the University of Greifswald[9]). (via Cuius regio, eius religio: Information from Answers.com).

After war … peace

All immigrants who do not ‘fit in’ or  who don’t ‘integrate’ into the Danish ‘community’, it was decided recently, will get an incentive of 100,000 kroner. By the Danish Government, to go back to their home countries. The ‘fitting in’ and ‘integrating’ refers to Muslims in Denmark.

The Danes are not alone. The French feel let down because “immigrants were supposed to blend harmoniously into society and not exist in separate communities.”

For centuries, the settled principle in the Desert Bloc was ‘Cuius regio, eius religio’ (meaning whose land, his religion; CRER) – the ruler decided his people’s religion.

After the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), Vatican invoked the CRER principle (‘Cuius regio, eius religio’) during its brief rule over the Byzantine Empire to reject religious objections by the Byzantine subjects. Post Hussite Wars and the ‘Reformation’, establishing the CRER principle to settle Germany, giving rise to the logic of ‘ubi unus dominus, ibi una sit religio’ (One ruler, one religion). Just in case someone had religious disagreement, the logic was they could well emigrate – (ius emigrandi).

Haiti – and after

The CRER policy guideline was finally abandoned in post-bellum America and Europe after The Haiti Fright. With Haiti breaking loose, when slaves defeated all the major Euro-colonial powers, in battle after battle, slavery was doomed. More than 200 slave rebellions, revolts and conspiracies made slavery in the West impractical. Cuban slaves were the last to win their freedom – which sounded the slavery’s death knell.

Western propaganda has made slavery, an invisible factor in their ‘success.’ And they are on the half way mark, on the erasure in popular memory, about the use of colonies for Western enrichment.

Western political constructs

With an acute labour shortage, looming over the West, slavery made way for indentured labour – and America made way for immigrants from all parts of Europe, Japan, China and Philippines.

As immigrants of various colours and beliefs made their way across the world, the CRER principle was relegated into the background.

Added to this was the 1857 War in India, against Christian proselytism, which too had to take a back seat. Victoria Regina’s Colonial India Government printed leaflets in tens and thousands to proclaim that the British Crown had no intentions to dictate faith to its Indian ‘subjects’. The 1857 War also forced Euro-centric historians to change the entire drift of world history.

Faced with a reality of ‘warm-bodies-shortage’, ‘liberalism’, ‘secular’ Governments, Marxism, Socialism et al were invented in the 19th century. It is this principle which accounts for the low levels of diversity in the West – and which also accounts for the shrillness with which the West proclaims it ‘liberalism’ – facts being otherwise.

Melting pot vs Mosaic patterns

The need for ‘integration’, the concerns over the slow ‘assimilation’ of the Mexicans in the American melting pot, the Islamo-phobia, the Compulsive Jihadic Syndrome, are all sides of the same cube. The schizophrenic Christian aggression in India combined with hysterical protests against any backlash are symptoms of the same ideological thread.

While the West talks about the respect for the individual, reality is different.

Members of the Catholic Church note with anxiety (and so does the its replacement, The State) that “the continued insistence that Hispanics will soon pass through the assimilationist melting pot and be American like us is not only false, but also harmful for our Hispanic sisters and brothers, and thus for the church”.

Another study to measure ‘assimilation’ notes “Mexican immigrants are assimilating more slowly than Italian immigrants did at the turn of the last century”. Similarly, expatriate populations in the Middle East have to live with disrespect and intolerance of non-Islamic religions.

Lowest diversity vs. Biggest talk

The West today has the lowest levels of ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity – and persecutes whatever little is left, like the Roma Gypsies for example. Would critics like to mention any other country, where such a large minority Muslim population, has greater freedom and opportunity, than in India? Would you like to suggest France instead?

The language conundrum

India, has 15 official languages. (Note check comments below on exact number of languages in India).

Shameless vegetables

No other countries even had the courage to think of that. Various US state governments outlawed all languages – except English. It was only in 1923, was this finally set aside after the matter reached the US Supreme Court (read Meyer vs Nebraska). The USA gathered some courage to start timidly with more than English only after seeing India’s success with 15 languages. Switzerland has only four. Sri Lanka’s Sinhalas do not want to accept Sri Lankan Tamils as full and equal citizens – hence the 20 year old civil war.

In the thrall of One

The Western concept of nation building requires the cornerstones of Desert Bloc – One God, One Book, One Holy Day, One Prophet (Messiah), One Race, One People, One Country, One Authority, One Law, One Currency, One Set of Festivals. This tyranny of the ‘One’ is the root of most problems in the world. From this ‘Oneness’, we get the ‘One’ Currency, ‘One’ Language logic  – a fallacious syllogism. Once you accept ‘One’, you will accept all others.

EU wants to dictate rules to vegetables and fruits

For more than 20 years, EU had rules in place to allow vegetables of specified shapes and sizes to come onto shop shelves. After more than 20 years, the EU decided that it is easier to change laws than to make tomatoes, cucumbers and bananas follow EU rules.

The Indic model

Unlike the Indian social system, where differences are respected and encouraged, the position of the French Government, paraphrases the thinking of the ‘desert bloc’. Indians believe that all are वासुदेवाय कुटुम्बकम ‘vasudevaih kutumbakam’ and ईसा वास्यो मिदं सर्वं ‘isa vaasyo midam sarvam’ (meaning we are all God’s family and God is in everyone and everywhere respectively).

FILE – In a Thursday, Aug. 3, 2006 file photo, Juanita Castro, the sister of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, talks to reporters about her brother in Miami. Castro, 76, Fidel Castro’s younger sister, told Univision’s WLTV-23 station in Miami late Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009 that she collaborated with the CIA in 1964 following the Cuban revolution. She said she initially supported her brother’s 1959 overthrow of the Batista dictatorship but quickly became disillusioned by the revolution’s vast number of executions and rampant expropriation of private property. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz, File)

via The Associated Press: Castro’s sister says she collaborated with CIA.

Last week Barack Obama was given the Nobel Peace prize after only a few months in office . As the last day for nominations were twelve days after he was inaugurated , one has to assume this was a put up job . Nothing he has done since becoming President is deserving of this honour . He has reduced the amount of troops in Iraq but at the same time increased the number in Afghanistan . Iran looks like it will become the second Iraq and I hope they have better luck this time looking for WMDs . To be fair to him , he appeared rather shocked and embarrassed by the prize but didn’t refuse it .

The award to Obama follows a pattern since he first appeared as a Presidential candidate . He has been portrayed in the media as a saviour , who will lead America to the promised land .For a few months after he became President , it was almost heresy to criticise him and other world leaders competed to be seen with him . Without mentioning it directly , his publicity machine portrayed him as the Second Coming and obviously many voters in the USA agreed with this . The Nobel peace prize will only enhance this Messianic image and  I feel it is being organised deliberately , without President Obama’s approval . There are big dangers to Obama with this image and also precedents for other world figures who take on a quasi-spiritual persona .

The two figures who spring to mind are Princess Diana and President Kennedy . Firstly Princess Diana . Like Obama , she was presented to the world as someone who can do no wrong . She became known as ‘ The Princess of Hearts ‘ and every little thing she did was praised to the skies . When she died , many people would refer to her as being like a saint . She did good work with her Land mines campaign and also greatly helped individuals with Aids , when she was seen shaking the hand of an Aids sufferer , but many other well known figures also do such work without being canonised . Her personal life was a mess and she is well known for her number of boyfriends . It could be the case that I am the only man in the UK who did not sleep with her ! She continually fell out with her friends and at the end was virtually friendless , but this was ignored by the media who showed her as flawless and she was eventually snuffed out by the Templar cult as a sacrifice to their gods . This saint like persona was manipulated to ensure the reaction from the public when she died and the image of Saint Diana still goes on to this day .

President J F Kennedy was another world leader who was seen by the public through rose tinted spectacles . His presidency was compared to Camelot with JFK as King Arthur and like Obama , no mud would stick to him , even though there was a lot of mud to stick . His womanising was legendary , and probably helped with Marilyn Monroe’s suicide . His foreign policy was not impressive as can be seen with the Bay of Pigs debacle and he forced the Cuban missile crisis with the deployment of nuclear missiles in Turkey , as well as starting the involvement of the US in Vietnam . Yet , like Diana , he could do no wrong and after his assassination there was a huge outpouring of grief  and also , like Diana , he was murdered as a sacrifice but this time there was no pretence and he was shot dead in broad daylight .

I am getting the same vibes with Obama . His virtual deification follows the same pattern as Diana and Kennedy and if he should suffer an ‘ accident ‘ , the public reaction would be very similar . I would suggest , that with globalisation the effects would be even greater than with the other two . The more spiritual his image becomes the more danger he will be in and it could be that he has been deliberately manipulated towards this end .I sincerely hope no accidents befall him but I feel he needs to be very careful with the people who surround him and make sure the security guards are on his side ! 

For doubters of the strange Gods some of our World leaders worship see this Alex Jones You Tube clip .   

Been hard to get into blogging lately for some reason.  Work, softball, the new house, cutting down three trees, Caitlin getting her Master’s, just can’t seem to get into it.  So I have decided on a new segment or two.  One is going to be “People You (I) Should Know” and will be about certain figures in history a well educated person should expect to have knowledge about, and the second will be, “My House Has Taught Me,” which will be something that I have learned about houses, yards, lawnmowers, etc. 

The first People, er, Person You (I) Should Know is…

Name: Ernesto Guevara
Aliases: “Che”
Years: June 14, 1928 to October 9, 1967
Place of Birth: Rosario, Argentina
Why He His Famous: Marxist revolutionary and guerilla leader in the Cuban Revolution.
Brief Bio: Was an Argentine, Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, military theorist and major figure of the Cuban Revolution.  As Che traveled through Latin America as a young medical student, he observed the rampant poverty and terrible living conditions of the indigenous people.  He blamed these conditions on capitalism, imperialism, and neocolonialism.  His beliefs led him to support the socialist reforms of Guatemala’s President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán who was later overthrown in a CIA assisted movement.  This involvement by the CIA solidified Che’s beliefs that capitalism was the downfall of Latin America which would lead to him meeting Raul and Fidel Castro.  He joined their movement, was promoted to second in command, and was a major player in the Casto’s overthrow of US backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.  After the Castro’s victory, Che became Cuba’s national bank director and leader of Cuba’s military forces.  He was instrumental in the strategy that repelled Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and was the driving force in bringing the Soviets to Cuba which precipated the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.  On October 7, 1967, Che and a band of guerilla soldiers were captured and taken hostage by Bolivian special forces led by Felix Rodriguez, a CIA Special Activities Division operative.  On October 9th, Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered that Che be executed.  In the moments preceding his execution, Che was asked if he was thinking about his immortality.  “No”, he replied, “I’m thinking about the immortality of the revolution.” Che Guevara then told his executioner, “I know you’ve come to kill me.  Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.”  Che was shot nine times across his body to imitate gunfire taken in open combat. 

Time Magazine named Che one of the 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century, and the photo above, taken by Alberta Korda titled Guerrillero Heroico, has been proclaimed the “most famous photo in the world.”

Since his death, the photo above has become a powerful countercultural symbol and a global recognized within pop culture.

I learned a ton writing this.  I had always thought of Che as a revolutionary leader for the downtrodden people of Latin America…which he was, I guess, but I had no idea that he had such a hatred for America and for capitalism.  I find it odd that as I walk through the mall, I see Che likenesses on clothing in stores such as Journey and Buckle when the man was directly responsible for our defeat at the Bay of Pigs and almost precipated a missile strike on US soil from Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Really changes my mind on stores that will run his merchandise and the people who wear it…

Today, in Copenhagen, Denmark, the International Olympic Committee selected Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.  The four finalists were Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, and Tokyo. 

The story should be the pride that Brazil and all of South America should feel as they celebrate the continent’s first ever Olympic Games.  Unfortunately, the story in this country has become the non-sensical joy of the right-wing punditry and political class.  As soon as President Obama announced that he would be going to Copenhagen to give a presentation in support of Chicago’s bid for the Olympics, bloggers and talk-show hosts from the right were openly rooting against the bid from the United States, insulting the city of Chicago and its citizens.  Republican politicians hit the President, insinuating that he didn’t have time to speak in Copenhagen, with so many other things going on.  I guess they forgot that President Obama’s trip of less than 24 hours pales in comparison to President Bush’s four days as a spectator, last summer in Beijing.  There were not complaints from the right, or the left, for that matter, as our economy was nearing collapse.

The news that Chicago, USA was the first city eliminated by the IOC became music to the ears of President Obama’s critics and opponents.  It was as if they had just won the lottery.  They are rejoicing at the thought that our country has lost-out on the Olympics, and that President Obama has “failed.”  Openly rooting against the United States?  Some might call that un-American or anti-American.  Not only that, but to rub it in the face of those who worked so hard to bring the Olympics, once again, to the United States.  These reactions are beyond the pale, and I would be embarrassed to be connected to these opponents of our country.

No doubt, this is a disappointment, but not only for Chicago or the President.  The Olympics would have brought hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to the midwest.  I guess the question that must be asked to all of those hucksters hoping for America’s Olympic bid to fail is this:  “Why do you hate America?”

While I am disappointed that Chicago lost its Olympics bid, I am happy for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and all of South America.  All of these years, and South America has yet to have the opportunity to host an Olympic Games, Summer or Winter.  If not here, in the good ‘ole USA, then I’m glad that it was Rio.  But let’s face it; despite the oversized expectations, Rio de Janeiro was a shoe-in.  No other country could overcome the this long-overdue nod to a South American city.  I have no hard feelings toward the IOC for selecting Rio, but I do have hard feelings toward Right-Wing, USA for its actions.

Maybe Chicago officials should have pulled a Salt Lake City and paid bribes to IOC officials to secure the bid.  In fact, that embarrassment might have played a part, in the minds of voters, for denying Chicago’s bid.  Whatever the case, the right-wing hacks of America will have their fun at the expense of Chicago and the President, but President Kennedy said, after the Bay of Pigs, “There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.”  Well, this is not the Bay of Pigs, but this is a small embarrassment for the President, and one that will go away, despite the joy of Right-Wing, USA.   

Get to work Rio!

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What is life like for the millions of our globe’s population that are destined to live their entire lifespan under the threat of brutal attack?

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Do we remember the community terror instigated by the fear that Russia was going to launch nuclear weapons at America?

The following letter (link below) was sent home from public schools after the events of the Bay of Pigs April 15 – 21, 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 14 – 28, 1962.  This was the closest the world has ever gotten to all-out nuclear war — so far.

– I remember my parents sending all of us older kids outside the Jamesway where I could still clearly hear through the canvas walls mother’s rantings at father about what she wanted him to do if/when the Russians invaded.  She told him to shoot her first and then gave him the order in which she wanted him to shoot the rest of us before he shot himself.

I remember standing at the kitchen of the log house doing dishes probably in the spring of 1962.  I kept looking over my shoulder out the window at the woods in back of the house waiting for the Russians in full military regalia to appear at the door.  I knew Alaska was only two miles from Russia at the narrowest passage point, and based on the adults’ terror at this time I was quite certain that an invasion was likely.

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I could THINK about this externalized terror — and I could fear it.  I had no capacity, however,  to ever think about the terror that existed within my own home.  There was a concept for attack from ‘the outside’ enemy.  There was no concept for attack from ‘the inside’ enemy — the mother who birthed and abused me.

The entire culture surrounding me in my small childhood world feared the Russians and a devastating attack from them.  There was no culture about fearing my mother!

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*Age 10 — 1962 Civil Defense Letter from School

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In 1965 when Johnson funnelled troops into Viet Nam he thought he was right, but he actually made one serious error after another from that point on. Chairman Zero’s plans to do the same in Afghanistan are very similar. On top of that he’s flopping all over the place. He’s talking out the other side of his head about less troops and more counter terrorism operations. Personally, I wouldn’t say anything until I had a clear plan, but I guess that’s why I’m not the Chairman of the party.

I still don’t understand his fixation with this region. He keeps spouting about the taliban and what not, while having ramadan celebrations at the White House. He describes this war as the nation’s foremost military priority which to him is I quess like our neighbors kids oboe recital is to us. The U.S. commander in Afghanistan says there is an urgent need to revise our strategy. An “urgent need”. But of course Chairman Zero has more pressing issues to address.

This whimpy attitude toward wartime decisions is characteristic of the libs as demonstrated by Kennedy at the Bay of Pigs, Johnson in Viet Nam, Carter in Iran and Clinton in Somalia. What makes it worse is the tendancy to run hot and cold on the issue of the war itself. First they are gung ho to roll in and do the deed. Then they lose their taste for it and pull funding until they can’t stand to see anymore American lives lost so they roll back to the gung ho stage for a short period before they second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) guess themselves.

Personally, I think we should just pull everyone out of everywhere, close our borders for twenty years and become self sufficient. The gubmint just makes me sick. To check out the story from the Las Vegas Sun on this click below. 

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/sep/21/sources-obama-eyes-more-afghan-war-drone-strikes/

Photo: AP

AP – MIAMI — Francisco Jose Hernandez points to the boarded windows in his secretary’s third floor office. Days before, a drive-by shooter peppered the glass with bullets.

Read full story here.

Lea esta historia en español aquí.

I have not put a post up on this blog in a long time.  My hobby time has been limited and I am suffering from a “painting dry spell.”  I may get a couple of hours of painting over the long weekend if I can get a good start on a presentation for school.  Yes school is back in… I am now in the MA program.

Over the summer my collection of Schliech figure grew a bit larger.  I received three mounted and  five foot figures as gifts.  I was fortunate and found four of the blue rock holders (drop/load?) on sale at Target.

I have wood for ladders and have found an inexpensive source for foam board.  Now if I can just find the time to turn them into the siege equipment I need I will be able to put together the game I have been interested in playing.

***Also got the chance to obtain the new Osprey book on the Bay of Pigs.  It was nicely done but I would have liked a more robust TO&E and an org chart with a breakdown of the Battalions (in reality companies) to the squad level.

***News today that Strelet R is going to be putting out RCW Reds in Summer and Winter Uniforms.  I hope these sets will have a HMG included.  I would love to see an inexpensive Tchanka as well.  I am also eagerly waiting for the 76mm gun.  The guns still are not showing on Hat’s future listings…hope they make it as well as the Cossacks.

***Also looking forward to seeing more Great Northern War plastics in the near future.  I am still looking and compiling lists for this period.  Zvezda are really beautiful figures but I will still get many of the Strelets R sets.  See Wars of Louis Quator and La Grande Gurerra del Nord for some great photos.

CB

TThhiiss  iiss  bbrriilliiaanntt..

Much could be said, and probably already has been said, about the novel aspects of this new release, “Bay of Pigs,” by Destroyer. Only two tracks, stretching more than 20 minutes in total. Electronics instead of guitars.

But, to me at least, “Bay of Pigs” seems to build naturally, though importantly, on much of Destroyer’s previous work. For starters, Dan Bejar’s long songs have always been his best songs (see, for example, “Hey, Snow White” or basically anything on “Destroyer’s Rubies” from 2006). And, what’s more, the overall sound of the two new tracks on this EP would not be too far out of place on “Your Blues” from 2004 (see, for example, “It’s Gonna Take an Airplane”).

Indeed, this “Bay of Pigs” EP strikes me as the natural culmination of exactly the sort of “European Blues” that Bejar introduced us to on his 2004 lp. Look at the cover: there he stands, at the top of the stairs, looking down just like Bryan Ferry, that other great European bluesman, would. And, like all of the other great Destroyer songs, these two somehow seem to be about many things at once: politics and diplomacy in both the large and the small, failed expeditions, disastrous invasions, and houses lying in ruins. Christine — I guess she was the one who “looked ok with the others and looked great by herself” in “Painter in Your Pocket” from “Destroyer’s Rubies” — makes a return on the title track. And the Balearic instrumentation, also maybe a kind of “European Blues,”  provides the perfect backdrop to all that.

So while some will focus on the new, I like it that Dan Bejar’s still walking the city streets at night, maybe a little bit sorry and definitely more than a little bit drunk, remembering things past.

guest blogger Loise King Waller

The Kennedy Legacy