Major General Smedley.D.Butler of United States Marine Corps wrote in his book "War is racket":
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
Nobody could have ever imagined how right was Major General Butler, when he wrote this book in 1935. Society was not as much resilient and proactive as it is today. These were the years when nobody had any doubts about what their government told them. In those days people believed that Presidents don't lie, especially to the public and it was precisely this naive and gullible attitude that resulted in deaths of over 420,000 young Americans in Second World War. Manipulation and exploitation of civilians have always been an integral part of any Politician's arsenal of weapons.
Renowned Psychologist Sigmund Freud once stated "Thought process of the civilian populations is like a glass. If you try to bend it with force then it will break and you will end up cutting your hand in the process. But if you heat the glass up and then gently apply force to it, it will bend with ease". What Freud meant was that public perception cannot be dictated by force, because it will result in Public revolting against the dictator. But if you successfully create artificial crisis within the society and to solve this crisis public would have to agree to your original plan of action".
This process is also called Problem-Reaction-Solution. First you create a problem for the public, then you wait for the public to react to this problem and when public becomes desperate enough to do anything to solve this crisis, you come and apply the solution or changes that you had always intended to.. But now you can not only implement your desired changes but also win admiration of the public for solving the crisis. This is one of the favorite method of Politicians for manipulating and altering the perception of public.
Government of United States of America has time and time again lied to its citizens, in order to manipulate them into supporting some of the most controversial and outright immoral decisions. For example Americans would never have allowed such high expenditures on weapon developement had US government not scared them to death by lying about the level of communist threat posed by Soviet Union towards USA. For 45 years, US government continuously hounded its citizens with an over-exaggerated threat that Soviet Union posed post-Second World War years.
By a well designed propaganda campaign, US government brainwashed American citizens into really believing that Soviet Union was a real threat to the American people. And this perceived threat from USSR really quadrupled after Russia successfully tested its first nuclear bomb in 1954. Reality was totally opposite. After Second World War, Russia was in ruins. Every major city and town had been leveled to the ground by Nazi bombings. Russia's most important industrial hub Stalingrad was completely obliterated. Famine of 1921 and the war had claimed over 60 million Russian lives. So not only was their economy in tatters but even work force had fallen tremendously. And to assume that a country going through such hardship would still be able to attack the world's lone superpower on the other side of the world would be utterly ludicrous. Government persuaded US citizens that to keep US secure from Soviet threat we have to increase our military strength and defense capabilities and tragically people went along with it.
And this is how US government kept spending nearly 50% of its GDP on weaponisation each and every year since 1945. And these high expenditures helped to create and sustain the Military Industrial Complex. Military Industrial Complex is a multi billion dollar arms industry that exists solely because of billions of dollars that US spends to buy arms and modern warfare weapons.
Had US citizens demanded from their government to stop spending money on weapons and instead spend it on the developement of social, economical and educational sectors, then may be America would not have been in the kind of economic collapse that it is in today. Its hardly an understatement when i say that our leaders have become the masters of deception, when it comes to their abilities of coercing, manipulating and influencing the thought process of the masses into a state that is beneficial for their cause. Now lets discuss some historic and monumental lies, that US Presidents have told American people over the years, which in effect has changed the course of America's future.
The year was 1915, and Europe was completely engulfed in the first war to be fought at a global stage, the very First World War. Britain and Germany were locking horns on a daily basis. The military strength and technological advancement of Germany was proving out to be little too hot to handle for the United Kingdom. United Kingdom and its allies were on the verge of collapse. But American public was not all interested in risking their lives for saving Britishers, whome they themselves were fighting against 140 years ago. Both England and France were substancially disliked by the Americans because of the roles that these two countries played during the Colonial years of America.
This warning was printed adjacent to an advertisement for Lusitania's return voyage. The warning led to some agitation in the press and worried the ship's passengers and crew. Lusitania departed Pier 54 in New York on 1 May 1915.
On 7 May Lusitania was nearing the end of her crossing, as she was scheduled to dock at the Prince's Landing Stage in Liverpool later that afternoon. She was running parallel to the south coast of Ireland, and was roughly 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale when the liner crossed in front of U-20 at 2:10 p.m. It was sheer chance that the liner became such a convenient target, since U-20 could hardly have caught the fast vessel otherwise. Schwieger, the commanding officer of the U-boat, gave the order to fire one torpedo, which struck Lusitania on the starboard bow, just beneath the wheelhouse. Moments later, a second explosion erupted from within Lusitania's hull where the torpedo had struck, and the ship began to founder in a much more rapid procession, with a prominent list to starboard.
Almost immediately, the crew scrambled to launch the lifeboats but the conditions of the sinking made their usage extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible due to the ship's severe list. In all, only six out of 48 lifeboats were launched successfully, with several more overturning, splintering to pieces and breaking apart. Eighteen minutes after the torpedo struck, the bow struck the seabed while the stern was still above the surface, and in a manner similar to the sinking of Titanic three years earlier, the stern rose into the air and slid beneath the waves.
Of the 1,959 passengers and crew aboard Lusitania at the time of the sinking, 1,195 lost their lives that afternoon in the waters of the Celtic Sea. Just as had been seen with Titanic, most of the casualties were from drowning or from hypothermia. In the hours after the sinking, acts of heroism amongst both the survivors of the sinking and the Irish rescuers who had heard word of Lusitania's distress signals brought the survivor count to 764. By the following morning, news of the disaster had spread around the world. While most of those lost in the sinking were either British or Canadians, the loss of 128 Americans in the disaster, including American writer and publisher Elbert Hubbard, outraged some in the United States.
The day after the sinking, the New York Times published full details of the ship's military cargo. Later it was revealed that the 1250 boxes containing empty shells were in fact 1248 boxes of filled 3" shell, 4 shells to the box, totalling 103.000 pounds or 50 tonnes. Assistant Manager of the Cunard Line, Herman Winter, denied the charge that she carried munitions, but admitted that she was carrying small-arms ammunition, and that she had been carrying such ammunition for years. The fact that Lusitania had been carrying shells and cartridges was not made known to the British public at the time.
Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned because he felt the Wilson administration was ignoring Britain's actions which were in contravention of the International Law and that Wilson was deliberately leading the USA into the war. Jennings's resignation raised even more doubts about the Woodrow Wilson's real motives and about his already wavering integrity and morality as the President of United States of America. At this point Wilson realised that any decision regarding America's involvement in the war would become the last nail in the coffin of his Presidency. So he had no other choice but to wait out the storm.
President Woodrow Wilson quickly siezed the opportunity and moved to arm American merchant ships to defend themselves against German submarines which he announced were attacking US Merchant Ships regularly now. Wilson had previously tried to get Congressional approval for weaponising American Merchant Vessels once. But his proposal at that time was blocked by the same anti-war Congressmen who upto now had successfully halted Wilson's plans to shove America into the war.
In the wake of the Zimmermann Telegram controversy, Wilson siezed his opportunity and once again proposed weaponising of US Merchant ship citing their necessity to be able to defend themselves against German U-Boats which he said were attacking every vessel now. This announcement together with the Zimmerman Telegram and the resentment Americans had towards Germany for sinking of Lusitania pushed US public opinion over the tipping point and on 6 April 1917, the United States Congress followed President Wilson's request to declare war on Germany and gave him Carte Blanche authority to take any action as he deemed fit.
BOTTOM LINE: Woodrow Wilson knew that if he sent another arms shipment to Britain via Lusitania, German U-Boats would definitely torpedo it. But he allowed it to happen because he needed this kind of disaster to rally public 's support behind his decision for entering the war in Europe. His motives behind American participation in the First World War were not philosophical and humanitarian in any way, all his reasons were more to do with business and global economics than anything else. Wilson was continuously being pressurized by Rothschild, Rockefeller and Morgan banking families who were hoping to earn billions of dollars in profit by charging interest on the money that US would have borrowed from these banks to buildup its weapon arsenal before going to war. Contrary to common belief no war is started spontaneously or in the heat of the moment, there are many things that have to be taken care of before declaring war. For Example billions of dollars are required for ammunition and weapons. Millions of gallons of fuel is required for all transport and combat vehicles. Billions of dollars have to be spent for creating a logistical infrastructure needed for efficient performance of any army. And for all these expenses, Governments borrows huge sums of money from these banking Corporations. That's why it is said that every war is a banker's war. And in First World War 117,465 Americans lost their lives just so, these bankers could earn profits. Although it might have been the first global conflict perpetrated by the bankers but it for sure wasn't to be the last one.
This was all done to provoke Japan into attacking US first, so that Roosevelt could use this attack as an pretext for entering Second World War. When US Navy started to substancially expand its Pacific fleet stationed on the West Coast, this assured Japanese that US was contemplating an anticipatory attack on them in the Pacific. Hence they decided to attack this ever increasing Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour at Oahu, Hawaii. Americans at that time were totally against any kind of US military involvement in the Second World War. Roosevelt knew that if he entered the war without public's support for it, his presidency could be seriously jeopardised. So he needed Japan to attack US to sway public's perception about the war.
On 5th December, Japanese Abassador Kicisaburō Nomura visited White House. He handed over an official letter from Empror of Japan to Roosevelt, informing him that Japan is severing all diplomatic ties with United States of America.
Letter also had a warning to United Staes that a naval attack on the western coast of America was imminent in next 3-4 days. But there was no declaration of war made by either Empror or the Japanese Ambassador. And even after receiving so many verifiable and credible reports, Roosevelt, his White House Staff and Joint Chiefs of Staff decided not to inform Commander Kimmel about the impending Japanese attack.
Roosevelt could have avoided this destruction of infrastructure and life, had he passed on the intel he had about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Commander of Japanese Task Force Isoroku Yamamoto was himself shocked at the destruction. He radioed back to high command that US had not been warned about the attack, because there were no preparations done to repell the attack. He said that all the ships were conveniently anchored in the middle of the bay, which proved that they didn't knew about the coming attack.
But the Japanese leaders assured Yamamoto that US had been already warned about the attack and also that Roosevelt had been specifically told by Ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura that attack will take place on the western coast of United States. Japanese just couldn't understand why US had not heightened alert on Pearl Harbour despite the attack warnings.
Roosevelt was being constantly hounded by the Rothschild and Rockefellers to enter into the war because by staying out of the war, US was not contributing in making vast proffits for these banking families. Roosevelt knew that after the destruction of First World War, Americans will never agree to joining the war in Europe. So with the guidance of Ed Bernays, Roosevelt decided to use attack on Pearl Harbour as his weapon of manipulating the public. And by shoving US into the Second World War he literally signed the death sentence of 420,000 young Americans.
BOTTOM LINE : Franklin Delano Roosevelt was well aware of the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He had received this information from several different sources, so he knew that the intelligence was authentic and accurate. But despite this he deliberately kept this information from the commanders at Pearl Harbor. Because he knew that if several hundred naval officers died in what people would believe was a surprise attack by Japanese Empire then this will enrage Americans and as a result change the population's sentiments from anti-war attitude to a pro-war mindset. And it was precisely this kind of transformation that FDR required for people to accept and support his decision to enter the war in europe.
So when Arbenz came to power he initiated a land reform project in which he gave small patches of land free of cost to landless peasants, in order to make them self sustaining and independent from the exploitation of US Corporations.
Jacobo Arbenz also wanted to nationalise Guatemala's mining industry so that Guatemalan people could benefit from the revenues generated from selling precious metals lie gold, silver, nickel, cobalt and tin. All major Guatemalan mines in Guatemala were leased and managed by US Corporations. Previous regimes had allowed these corporation to act unilaterally. So all these Corporation were exporting all the mined materials to America by just paying a fraction of products entire value as bribe to previous regimes.
Guatemalan people were getting poor and poorer while these US Corporation were getting rich and richer by exploiting natural resources of Guatemala. This is why Arbenz wanted to nationalise mining industry in Guatemala so that Guatemalans could benefit from sale of their nation's neutral resources.
Arbenz's second goal was to turn struggling land less peasants into self sustaining and totally independent farmers to stop them from being exploited by United Fruits Co. This was a threat to United Fruit Co profiteering policies and to monopoly it enjoyed in Guatemala. Because of United Fruit Co being the only food exporter in Guatemala, farmers had no choice but to sell their products to United Fruit Co even if it meant getting a below par price from the corporation.
If more and more farmers became independent then they could export their products collectively in large quantities. If this would have happened then no farmer in his right mind would sell his products at such cheap prices to the United Fruits Co. And this would have certainly jeopardised United Fruits Co's profit making policies. Rockefeller convinced President Truman to do something about this issue.
Truman authorised newly formed CIA take necessary steps to solve this issue. CIA started a propaganda campaign against Arbenz, making him into a communist and an agent Soviet Union. Even though Guatemala didn't even had any diplomatic relations with Soviet Union at that time, but nevertheless CIA continued with their plan. Then they bribed certain corrupt generals of Guatemalan Army to overthrow Arbenz's government in a coup. And that's precisely what happened.
Backed by America Guatemalan Army overthrew Jacobo Arbenz's democratically chosen government on 27th June 1953. The new regime quickly turned everything to the way it was before Arbenz came to power. This is another example of US Government using lies and deceits to protect America's economic interests in foreign countries. Sadly this was niether the first nor the last such incident.
BOTTOM LINE : Coup in Guatemala was the earliest case of deliberate regime destabilisation in a foreign country by CIA. When these US corporations like United Fruits Co first arrived in Guatemala, they were primarily exporter of fruits which they purchased from thousands of local farmers. But slowly United Fruits Co started purchasing their own land and started growing their own fruits. Soon United Fruits Co had most of the land under their control and they were the only producers of fruits in the country. But the land reform policy of Arbenz would have once again increased the number of people growing same food products as the United Fruits Co. This would have definitely challenged the monopoly enjoyed by these US Corporations and especially United Fruits Co in Guatemala. So David Rockefeller approached his long time confidante to resolve this situation in Guatemala. Truman ordered CIA to overthrow the Arbenz regime and instead of him install some other leader who would remain loyal to the interests of US and its Corporations. And by loyal I mean, that these leaders would put the economic interests of American Corporations above the welfare and interests of his own people.
Arbenz won the election in Guatemala, another country conducted its first democratic elections ever. Iran had been suffering greatly under the monarchical regime of Shah, who was put in power by US and UK governments. Under the reign of Shah, British and American Oil Companies lik BP and SHELL were given absolute authority over vast oil reserves of Iran.
The Colonial era had ended but Britain was still adamant about keeping tight grip on natural resources of its former colonies. And wherever British interest lay, so did the America's. In 1949, there was an assassination attempt made on Shah's life. But he survived the attack and just one bullet hit him and that too just grazed past his cheek. This incident created a little sympathy in the eyes of Iranian. After Shah returned from hospital he immediately started measures to increase his own powers by amending and changing the Iranian Constitution.
And as his powers grew so did his brutality. Under the reign of Shah, Iranian people had been subjected to great oppression and brutality. While Shah along with British and American Corporation were getting rich by selling Iran's oil, at the same time Iranian people were even struggling to put food on table daily. This gave rise to protests against Shah's regime all over Iran. Gradually all these protests happening in Iran was unified into a single revolution lead by leader of National Front Political Party Mohammed Mosadegh.
Despite numerous attempts of Shah to crush the rebellion by use of force, revolution gained more and more momentum with each passing day along with its leader Mohammed Mosadegh's popularity. By 1951, opposition to Shah's regime was shaking the foundations of his monarchy. Eventually fearing for his life Shah along with his famili fled to Baghdad and from there to Rome. That same year election were conducted for the first time without the interference of the Shah.
Mohammed Mosadegh and his political party National Front won the elections with absolute majority.
Mohammed Mossadegh was sworn in as Prime minister of Iran. Mossadegh's main issue with Shah was the allowances he had given to British and American Corporations. These corporations were literally robbing Iranians off their oil. These corporations were dividing the oil shares at a ratio of 9:1. Which meant that these corporations were getting 90% of the share in revenues and Iran was given just 10% of the total revenue. Mohammed Mossadegh believed that Iranian people should be the major benefactors from the revenues generated by selling its oil.
So he wanted to nationalise oil fields of Iran to utilise generated funds by oil trade to improve lives of Iranians. Second Objective of Mossadegh was to overhaul and strengthen infrastructure of education system, health care and transport system. But his decision about nationalisation of Iranian oil was as expected not going well with BP and SHELL.
President Harry Truman once again decided to let CIA handle this problem because they had already proved their competence by secretively overthrowing Jacobo Arbenz's democratically chosen government in Guatemala just few months earlier. Heading CIA's task team for this operation was the grandson of former US President Teddy Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt.
Operation Ajax was the name given to this operation by the CIA. Decision was made to employ similar tactics that were used in successful overthrow of Arbenz's government in Guatemala. Plan was to paint Mossadegh as a communist who had close ties with Soviet Union. Second step was to pay some Iranian supporters of Shah to conduct violent protests against Mohammed Mosadegh for being a communist. Third step was to conduct several false flag operations within Iraq which were to be blamed on Mossadegh to reduce his public support.
And finally when movement against Mossadegh gained enough momentum then bribed Army officials would overthrow Mossadegh's government by force. Main architect of the this elaborate plan to overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh's government was Kermit Roosevelt.
Soon CIA operatives put the plan in motion. By paying of editors of prominent newspapers, CIA got articles alleging Mossadegh being a communist was printed on the first page of every newspaper.
Fake documents about Mossadegh meeting up with Soviet Leaders were forged and released to the newspapers. Rumour soon became like a forest fire and reached even the farthest corners if Iran.
After 3 weeks of propaganda, second step was initiated and the supporters of Shah started orchestrating riots all over Iran which gave an illusion to the Iranian that an armed revolution was underway. Although people believed that somebody was waging a revolution against Mossadegh, but they remained away from these incidents.
Majority of Iranians still supported Mossadegh and his policies. After this point thing really got violent. CIA operatives assassinated an Islamic cleric who was widely loved by Iranians. After murdering the cleric, CIA operatives left a forged letter at the crime scene which portrayed as if Mossadegh was threatening this cleric for a long time and now he had decided to eliminate him.
At this point Mossadegh's support started changing. Then finally by bribing Iranian Generals with large sums of money, CIA along with Iranian Army overthrew the government of Mohammed Mossadegh forcefully on 19th August 1953, Shah was reinstated as the monarch ruler or Iran. Shah wanted to execute Mohammed Mossadegh but Kermit Roosevelt advised him that if Mossadegh ended up dead, then rage of Iranian people will not only overthrow your rule but even lynch you outside your own palace. Shah agreed to spare Mossadegh but exiled him from Iran for life.
As soon as Shah came back to power he renewed all contracts and leases with BP and SHELL, and turned everything to the way they were before. CIA fulfilled the wishes of US Government by reclaiming authority over Iranian oil fields but this reinstatement of Shah ended up causing deaths of thousands of innocent Civilians which resulted in Shah's overthrow once again in 1979.
After the assassination of President Kennedy on 22nd November 1963, Vice-President Lyndon Baine Johnson was sworn in as President. So far Kennedy had resisted the pressure from his Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon to authorise a large scale military action in Vietnam.
Kennedy had made up his mind from the very beginning that he won't jeopardise lives of young Americans in civil war of some foreign country, half way around world. At the most he was willing to send military advisors to South Vietnam and even those were not allowed to actively engage against the guerrillas.
JFK just was not willing to send young Americans to Vietnam to fight a guerilla war in one of the most inhospitable terrain in the world. Along with sending military advisors, Kennedy also agreed to increase military and monetary aid to South Vietnam.
On 2nd August 1964, USS Maddox was conducting a signals intellegence patrol (SIP) in the northern region of Gulf of Tonkin.
USS Maddox radioed it was under attack from three North Vietnamese Navy P-4 torpedo boats 28 miles (45 km) away from the North Vietnamese coast in international waters.
USS Maddox stated she had evaded a torpedo attack and opened fire with its five-inch (127 mm) guns, forcing the torpedo boats away. Four USN F8 Crusader jets launched from the aircraft carrier USS Tecondoruga then attacked the retiring P-4s, claiming one was sunk and one heavily damaged.
USS Maddox suffering very minor damage from a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet, retired to South Vietnamese waters where she was joined by the destroyer USS Turner Joy.
The North Vietnamese claimed that Maddox was hit by one torpedo, and one of the American aircraft had been shot down. But this was a fabrication by South Vietnamese to exaggerate the impact of the attack.
This account, however, has come into sharp dispute with an internal NSA historical study which stated on page 17:
At 1500G, Captain Herrick (commander of the Maddox) ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first.
North Vietnamese interpretation of the attack was that The Maddox when confronted, was approaching Hòn Mê Island, three to four miles (6 km) inside the twelve-mile (19 km) limit claimed by North Vietnam. This territorial limit was unrecognized by the United States.
After the skirmish, President Johnson ordered the Maddox and Turner Joy to stage daylight runs into North Vietnamese waters, testing the twelve-mile (19 km) limit and North Vietnamese resolve. These runs into North Vietnamese territorial waters coincided with South Vietnamese coastal raids and were interpreted as coordinated operations by the North, which officially acknowledged the engagements of 2 August 1964. Others, such as Admiral Sharp, maintained that U.S. actions did not provoke the August 2 action.
He claimed that North Vietnamese radar had tracked Maddox along the coast, and was thus aware that the destroyer had not actually attacked North Vietnam and that Hanoi (or the local commander) had ordered its craft to engage Maddox anyway. North Vietnamese General Phung
The Tai later claimed that the Maddox had been tracked since July 31 and that it had attacked fishing boats on August 2, forcing North Vietnamese Navy to "fight back." On August 4, another DESOTO patrol off the North Vietnamese coast was launched by Maddox and the Turner Joy, in order to "show the flag" after the first incident.
This time their orders indicated that the ships were close to no more [less] than 11 miles (18 km) from the coast of North Vietnam. During an evening and early morning of rough weather and heavy seas, the destroyers received radar, sonar, and radio signals that they believed signaled another attack by the North Vietnamese navy. For some four hours the ships fired on radar targets and maneuvered vigorously amid electronic and visual reports of enemies. Despite the Navy’s claim that two attacking torpedo boats had been sunk, there was no wreckage, bodies of dead North Vietnamese sailors, or other physical evidence present at the scene of the alleged engagement.
At 01:27 Washington time, Herrick sent a cable in which he acknowledged the attack may not have happened and that there may actually have been no Vietnamese craft in the area:
"Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. No actual visual sightings by Maddox. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken".
One hour later, Herrick sent another cable, stating, "Entire action leaves many doubts except for apparent ambush at beginning. Suggest thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft.
"In response to requests for confirmation, at around 16:00 Washington time, Herrick cabled, "Details of action present a confusing picture although certain that the original ambush was bona fide." At 18:00 Washington time (05:00 in the Gulf of Tonkin), Herrick cabled yet again, this time stating, "the first boat probably launched a torpedo at the Maddox, which was heard but not seen.
All subsequent Maddox torpedo reports are doubtful in that it is suspected that sonarman was hearing the ship's own propeller beat"
t, President Johnson had decided on retaliatory attacks. Even though Captain Herrick himself had reported that due to bad weather none of alleged attacks could be verified. But this was just the kind of opportunity that Johnson was looking for to gather public support for the escalation of America's involvement in the Vietnam War.
Shortly before midnight on August 4, President Johnson made a speech by radio in which he described an attack by North Vietnamese vessels on two U.S. Navy warships, USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy and requested Congress for the authority to undertake a military response.
Johnson's speech repeated the theme that "dramatized Ho Chi Minh and North Vietnam as the aggressor and which put the U.S. into a more acceptable defensive posture."Johnson also referred to the attacks as having taken place "on the high seas," suggesting that they had occurred in international waters.
He emphasized commitment to both the American people and the South Vietnamese government. He also reminded Americans that he had no desire for war. But in this address to the nation Johnson made no indication of the nature and extent of covert land and air measures that already were operational. He didn't tell the American public that American naval vessels were engaged in covert warfare against North Vietnam at the time of attack. He totally hid the fact that US Navy ships in Gulf of Tonkin had already sunk a number of North Vietnamese patrol boats in the days leading up to the alleged attack. Johnson's statements were short to "minimize the U.S. role in the conflict; a clear inconsistency existed between Johnson's actions and his public discourse."
While President Johnson’s final resolution was being drafted, Senator Wayne Morse attempted to hold a fundraiser to raise awareness about faulty records of the incident involving the USS Maddox.
Morse supposedly received a call from an informant who has remained anonymous urging Morse to investigate official logbooks of the Maddox.These logs were not made available to Congress before President Johnson’s resolution was presented to them.
After urging Congress that they should be wary of President Johnson’s coming attempt to convince Congress of his resolution, Morse failed to gain enough cooperation and support from his colleagues to mount any sort of movement to stop it. Immediately after the resolution was read and presented to Congress, Morse began to fight it.
He contended in speeches to Congress that the actions taken by the United States were actions outside the constitution and were “acts of war rather than acts of defense." Despite numerous attempts of Senator Wayne Morse to gather enough support to block the resolution, US Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7th August 1964 with a vote of 88-2. On 10th August 1974, Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees convened a joint session to discuss the joint resolution along with Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which would give President Johnson the Carte Blanche authority.
After fewer than nine hours of committee consideration and floor debate, Congress voted in favour of a joint resolution authorizing the president "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, requesting assistance in defense of its freedom" Morse’s efforts were not immediately met with support, largely because he revealed no sources and was working with very limited information. It was not until after the United States became more involved in the war that his claim began to gain support throughout the United States government. Morse was defeated when he ran for re-election in 1968. His political career was deliberately destroyed for his attempts to reveal white lies of Lyndon Johnson.
All major news agencies in America deliberately published totally distorted accounts about the attack on USS Maddox and tried to entice American public into supporting the US action in Vietnam by appealing to their patriotic emotions. On May 4, 1964, William Bundy called for the U.S. to "drive the Communists out of South Vietnam", even if that meant attacking both North Vietnam and Communist China. Even so, the Johnson administration in the second half of 1964 focused on convincing the American public that there was no chance of war between North Vietnam and the U.S. North Vietnamese General Giap suggested that the DESOTO patrol had been sent into the Gulf to provoke a North Vietnamese attack which would give US an excuse for escalation of the war.
Various government officials and men aboard the Maddox had suggested similar theories.
American politicians and strategists had been planning provocative actions against North Vietnam for some time. George Ball told a British journalist after the war in 1976 that "at that time...many people...were looking for any excuse to initiate bombing". According to Raymond McGovern, a retired CIA officer, President Lyndon Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy all knew full well that the evidence of any armed attack on the evening of Aug. 4, 1964, the so-called “second” Tonkin Gulf incident, was highly dubious....During the summer of 1964, President Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were eager to widen the war in Vietnam.
They stepped up sabotage and hit-and-run attacks on the coast of North Vietnam". The Maddox, carrying electronic spying gear, was to collect signals intelligence from the North Vietnamese coast, and the coastal attacks were seen as a helpful way to get the North Vietnamese to turn on their coastal radars.
For this purpose, it was authorized to approach the coast as close as eight miles and the offshore islands as close as four; the latter had already been subjected to shelling from the sea.
In his book "Body of Secrets", James Bamford who spent three years in the United States Navy as an intelligence analyst, wrote:
"Primary purpose of the Maddox "was to act as a seagoing provocateur and to poke its sharp gray bow and the American flag as close to the belly of North Vietnam as possible, in effect shoving its 5-inch cannons up the nose of the Communist navy ..... The Maddox’ mission was made even more provocative by being timed to coincide with commando raids, creating the impression that the Maddox was directing those missions ..." Thus, the North Vietnamese had every reason to believe that the Maddox was involved in these actions".
But as US increased its bombing campaign on North Vietnam, it became evident to VietCong that US Planes were taking off from within South Vietnam. They were thinking that Planes were taking off from US Aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin. But quicker response time of Planes made them realise that planes were coming from Air bases much closer in proximity. Soon they located all the US Air Force Bases in South Vietnam and started regularly attacking them. One such attack resulted in deaths of 5 US Airmen and destruction of two F118 jets. After several attacks upon them, it became evident that US Air Force bases needed more protection as the South Vietnamese military seemed incapable of providing security.
ispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment.
In a statement similar to that made to the French almost two decades earlier, Ho Chi Minh warned that if the Americans "want to make war for twenty years then we shall make war for twenty years.
If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea." Contrary to what President Johnson was telling American public the primary goal of the war was to reunify Vietnam and secure its independence.
President Johnson had long argued without any concrete evidence that the policy of North Vietnam was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia. And CIA did its best to give credence to this outrageous notion by presenting an even more outrageous theory that if South Vietnam fell to communism then it will initiate a domino effect in which several South East Asian countries like Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia and even Australia will fall to communism and the whole of Asia will become a Communist Stronghold.
58,220 US Soldiers lost their lives in the Vietnam war. Approximately 3.5 million South East Asian died (including South and North Vietnamese, Laosians, Cambodians. Civilians and Soldiers both included and figure does not include Khmer Rouge victims). All Asian victims dies as a result of actions taken by US Army, Air Force, Navy and CIA.Had Lyndon Johnson decided not to escalate and expand war into North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia millions of Asian lives and thousands of American lives could have been saved.
ically chose Salvador Allende as their new President. At that time Chile had been going through tough times because of US Corporations in Chile were exploiting the natural resources, under the reign of previously corrupt US backed regimes. Allende was very proponent of nationalisation of Chilean resources because of that US Corporations in Chile were very vary of Allende and had tried their level best by to sabotage his election by pouring large sums of money to Allende's opponents.
But despite that Allende won the election by a small margin because Chilean people were striving for change in the country and their best chance of change was Salvador Allende. Salvador Allende favoured Marxist Political ideology, because of this he was at extremely good relations with Cuban President Fidel Castro and Soviet Union.
This irritated the US President Richard Nixon and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger. Moreover Nixon was being pressurised by his Corporate Wall Street friends to remove Allende from Presidency. President of the Pepsi Co and ATT were the people who were demanding immediate action against Allende in Chile.
ATT's subsidiary company ITTCorporation at that time owned 70% of Chitelco a Chilean telecommunications company and if Allende had nationalised the telecommunication industry then ATT would have lost millions of dollars. Second Corporation which felt threatened by Allende's nationalisation policies was Pepsi Co. Pepsi untill that time had been given huge subsidies and allowances by the previous US backed corrupt Chilean Governments.
And if Allende had come to power, he would certainly have removed all these illegal allowances enjoyed by Pepsi Co. So along with ATT, Pepsi Co was the other US Corporation that was pressurising Nixon to act against Salvador Allende.
A memo declassified in 1990, quoted Henry Kissinger talking about Allende regime in Chile in 1970, "I don't know why we should sit and watch another Latin American country fall to communism, just because of the stupidity of its people".
This statement clearly reveals Henry Kissinger's disregard and contempt for fee choice of South Americans to choose their own government and their democratic rights. Once Nixon gave Kissinger authorisation to overthrow Allende's government, then Kissinger took charge of the operation. Like most other country's Chile had a transitional period of 60 days for the old regime to hand over the reigns to the new President after his presidency had been confirmed by the Chilean Congress. While Allende was waiting for confirmation from the Chilean Parliament, Kissinger with the help of CIA operatives in Chile contacted corrupt Chilean Military Generals to bribe them to orchestrate a coup against Allende before he was confirmed by the Parliament.
But Chilean military replied back to Kissinger that as long as General Rènè Schneider was in charge of the Military, no such actions can be taken by Chilean Armed Forces. General Rènè Schneider was a hardcore constitutionalist and was extremely loyal to the Chilean people and Government.
To successfully overthrow the Government of Salvador Allende, General Schneider had to be dealt with. To achieve this objective Kissinger authorised a plan for kidnapping Gen.Schneider with help of local Chilean mercenaries directed by CIA operatives. Despite all the preparations that went into formulating the plan, the kidnapping attempt failed miserably. At this moment the US Embassy in Santiage got wind of the CIA operation against Allende and Schneider.
US Ambassador to Chile Nathaniel Davis personally wrote to the President that Salvador Allende posed no threat to American interests in Chile.
When he didn't receive any reply from White House, Davis threatened to resign if CIA continued with their operations against Allende and Schneider. Davis was thinking that Henry Kissinger and the CIA were conducting this operation without any authorisation or knowledge of President Nixon.
After he threatened to resign, he was called to Washington DC by President Nixon. Only after meeting President Nixon, did Davis realise that it was all the doing of Kissinger and Nixon.
Nathaniel Davis tried to persuade Nixon that Salvador Allende posed no threat to United States but little did he know the threat that was worrying Nixon was economical and not geo-political. Davis later revealed that when he met President Nixon, Nixon was punching his palms and calling Allende an insect that had to be squished before it spreads to others Latin American countries".
Nixon persuaded Nathaniel Davis that if any covert operation was launched against Allende regime, he will be notified of it beforehand. Nathaniel Davis returned to Santiago, knowing well enough what was going to happen. General Schneider who had foiled two attempts of corrupt military officers organising a coup against Allende and also an abduction attempt against him was becoming an eyesore for the corrupt Generals in the Chilean Army. Moreover these Generals were being bribed by US to overthrow the Allende regime. So now they had double reasons for eliminating General Schneider. Henry Kissinger was personally contacting CIA operatives in Chile to receive updates on the operation.
On October 22, 1970, the coup-plotters again attempted to kidnap Schneider. His official car was ambushed at a street intersection in the capital city of Santiago. Schneider drew a gun to defend himself, and was shot point-blank several times. He was rushed to a military hospital, but the wounds proved fatal and he died three days later, on October 25. The attempt to kidnap him was because Schneider was the army Commander-in-Chief and considered a constitutionalist, which in practical terms meant that he would not support a coup. This incident and his death provoked national outrage, and caused the citizens and the military to rally behind the just-elected Allende, who was ratified by the Chilean Congress on October 24.
It also helped to ensure an orderly transfer of power to Allende. Military courts in Chile found that Schneider's death was caused by two military groups, one led by Viaux and the other by General Camilio Valenzuela. Viaux and Valenzuela were eventually convicted of charges of conspiring to cause a coup, and Viaux also was convicted of kidnapping. The lawsuit asserted that the CIA had aided both groups, but the charges were never satisfactorily proven, with the expectation of tens of thousands of dollars and also machine guns given to them by the CIA.
On October 26, 1970, President Eduardo Frei Montalva named General Carlos Prats as Commander-in-Chief to replace Schneider. Ironically this happened at the same time that $35,000 were given by the CIA to the kidnappers as "humanitarian" assistance. When press questioned Kissinger about his involvement in General Schneider's murder, he replied that United States doesn't engage in assassinations of foreign officials. But later on Kissinger's every lie was revealed when the CIA operative who paid the alleged kidnappers $35,000 stated in the Chirch Committee that Kissinger was himself directing him about the operation and had every detail about the operation.
In the mean time Allende was sworn in as President of Chile. He immediately started nationalising several public services like water supply and health care. Salvador Allende started strengthening health care infrastructure in the remote regions of the Chile. Another one of Allende's major projects was of providing milk and foods to the schools so that children can be fed properly. Before Allende took office 70% of Chile's children were suffering from malnutrition and Chile had an infant mortality rate of 30%. Within a year of Allende's presidency malnutrition level of children in Chile had fallen below 15% and infant mortality rate below 10%. This was really a testament to his commitment to improving lives of people of Chile.
Salvador Allende's government introduced special projects in which landless peasants were given a small patch of their own land to farm on. Aim behind this policy was to end the stranglehold of poverty on Chile's population. Allende stopped giving all unjust allowances to US Corporation that previous governments had given them.
First company to get affected by it was Pepsi Co whose director was already shouting in the ears of Richard Nixon to do something. Allende's finance minister introduced a budget in which he completely removed all taxes of people earning less than $ 30,000 per year and increased income taxes for multinational companies and other rich industrialists. This really pissed of members of Christian Democratic Party of Chile which was a party primarily comprising of individuals who were either involved in big industries themselves or were primarily supported by those industrialists. CDP launched a public campaign against Salvador Allende's government and started asking Army to intervene and remove Allende from office.
But the main reason behind CDP's disagreement with Allende's policies was that CDP was primarily funded and controlled by US Corporate Houses like ATT, Pepsi Co, United Fruits Co etc. In 1970, the U.S. manufacturing company ITT Corporation a subsidiary of AT&T owned of 70% of Chitelco, the Chilean Telephone Company, and funded El Mercirio, a Chilean right-wing newspaper. The CIA used ITT as a conduit to financially aid opponents of Allende's government.
On 28 September 1973, ITT's headquarters in New York City, was bombed by the Weather Underground for the alleged involvement of the company in the overthrow of Allende. CIA(US) backed dissidents slowly started convincing the Military Generals that Allende had to be removed from power by a coup. Henry Kissinger personally assured General Augusto Pinochet that US would recognise him as a legitimate leader of Chile. Kissinger just asked for one thing that after siezing power, Pinochet would adopt a pro US Corporate stance in policy making and open Chilean economy for free market trading. Offcourse Pinochet agreed. On 11th September 1973, Chilean Army revolted against Allende and overthrew his government in a coup.
Just prior to the capture of La Moneda(the Presidential Palace), with gunfire and explosions clearly audible in the background, Allende gave his farewell speech to Chileans on live radio, speaking of himself in the past tense, of his love for Chile and of his deep faith in its future.
He stated that his commitment to Chile did not allow him to take an easy way out, and he would not be used as a propaganda tool by those he called "traitors" (he refused an offer of safe passage), clearly implying he intended to fight to the end.
President Salvador Allende's final address to the Chilean people, moments before he committed suicide on 11th September 1973:
"Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, the great avenues will again be opened through which will pass free men to construct a better society. Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!"
Shortly afterwards, the coup plotters announced that Allende had committed suicide. An official announcement declared that the weapon he had used was an automatic rifle. Prior to his death he had been photographed several times holding an AK-47, a gift from Fidel Castro. He was found dead with this gun. But this was not true. Allende shot himslelf in the head with a pistol just before the soldiers broke through the door.
After the death of Allende as promised US praised and recognised General Augusto Pinochet as legitimate ruler of Chile. As soon as Pinochet came to power, he immediately started an extermination campaign against Allende's friends, family and supporters. Then Pinochet changed the economic policies of Chile and turned it into a free market country which opened gates for US Corporations to flood into Chile and exploit all its natural resources at a dimes value.
Anybody and everybody who voiced his opposition against Pinochet ended up in Pinochet's own version of concentration camps where dissidents were tortured and executed.
Majority of the victims of Pinochet's barbarity were poor Chileans who were starving to death while US Corporations were getting rich by exploiting their land.
Pinochet's murderous regime lasted for 17 years in which he murdered more than 500,000 innocent people. In 1998, Spanish court issued arrest warrants against Augusto Pinochet in relation to murders of two Spanish citizens in year of 1972 in Santiago, Chile.
Augusto Pinochet had fled to UK after he was removed from power in 1990. And he was arrested by Scotland Yard and extradited to Spain. After Pinochet's arrest, in another case of murders in Chile, a French judge ordered US Government to handover all its documents about US and CIA's involvement in Coup against Salvador Allende. This really shook that old bastard Henry Kissinger because all those documents would reveal that it was he himself who carried out both operations of assassination of Gen. Schneider.
But then US President Bill Clinton pardoned Henry Kissinger of all wrong doing. And that old bastard didn't even spend a single night in prison for his involvement in deaths of Schneider, Allende and thousands of innocent Chileans.
BOTTOM LINE: Coup d'état in Chile was the same old modus operandi that CIA was famous for. They had employed similar tactics in Guatemala and Iran in 1953, in which they overthrew the democratically chosen governments. It's quite an irony that the country that considers itself a messenger of freedom and democracy and the protector of humanity, would turn out to be the biggest threat to freedom, democracy and for the whole humanity. In Chile, Salvador Allende 's government was the first ever government in the history of Chile, that was truly committed to the development and welfare of its people. Chile up to now had been plagued by corrupt Governments who had allowed US Corporations to steal the natural resources of Chile without paying a single dime to the Chilean people. Allende was adamant about changing this senseless theft of Chile 's natural resources. He wanted to nationalise Chile's vast mining and oil industry, which were currently being plundered by US Corporations. And this is why he became a target for American Government and especially an eyesore for Nixon and Henry Kissinger. And on 11th September 1973, US murdered Salvador Allende and along with him they also murdered his dream of a prosperous and rich Chile. US replaced Allende with ruthless dictatorial rule of Chilean Army's General Augusto Pinochet, whose genocidal policies ravaged Chile for next 27 years and claimed nearly 500,000 Chilean lives.
CIA trained SAVAK operatives in various techniques of interrogation and torture and above all in the art of espionage. Soon murders, broad daylight shootings, abductions, agonising screams of anguish during torture and disappearances became a norm for SAVAK. CIA's main reason behind setting up SAVAK was to keep Shah's dissidents in check and to reduce the chances of another revolution rising up in Iran to remove Shah from power, like in 1951. SAVAK is recognised as the organisation that is responsible for highest number of human right abuses in the history by the renowned UN Organisation Amnesty International. Amnesty estimates that SAVAK was responsible for deaths of over 210,000 innocent Iranian civilians and unlawful imprisonment of upto 300,000 Iranians. Cruelty and brutality of SAVAK was the main reason behind rise of another revolution in 1979.
Finally an Imam rose up against this tyrannical regime of the Shah. He was widely respected and loved by the Iranian people. His name was Ayatollah Rehollah Khomeini.
Ayatollah saw Iranian people were missing the guidance and advice that Mohammed Mossadegh gave them during 1951 uprisings. Ayatollah concluded that without an unifying leader, this uprising will not last much longer.
So he took on the role of a political, religious and spiritual leader for Iranian people.
By mid-December 1978 the Shah's position had deteriorated to such a point that he himself realised that his days of power were gone now, so only thing he was asking of revolutionaries was to allow him to live in Iran.
In late December, he requested to leave the country temporarily for medical treatment but once again his request was turned down. On January 16, 1979 the Shah and the empress were allowed to leave Iran temporarily for medical reasons. By that time Shah had already transferred his vast wealth into Swiss and American banks, so there was no logical reason for returning to Iran where he was possibly going to be executed for the atrocities that he had committed during 26 years of his reign.
So Shah fled from France to United States. Scenes of spontaneous joy and celebrations broke out all over the country and within hours almost every sign of the Pahlavi dynasty was destroyed. Eventually an interim government by the Army was setup to carry out, all day to day functions of the government untill the elections were conducted.
BOTTOM LINE: Iran completed the whole circle when it overthrew the Shah's regime in 1979. It's quite ironic that when Shah's regime was overthrown in 1949, CIA and MI6 collaborated with Shah and overthrew democratically chosen government of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. For 26 years Shah ruled with an iron fist, and this iron fist was a secret agency called SAVAK which was the brainchild of CIA. SAVAK was in all its functionality an Iranian version of Gestapo. During the reign of Shah, SAVAK regularly abused every possible human right. Human rights situation in Iran during Shah's rule from 1953 to 1979 was so deplorable that UN organisation of human rights Amnesty International stated that the human rights abuses by SAVAK were so horrible and heinous that there is no match of number of crimes committed by SAVAK anywhere in the history of United Nations. The prime self-proclaimed humanitarian countries in the world simply turned a blind eye towards the atrocities committed by their ally Shah. As long as Shah allowed Americans and Britishers an absolute authority over Iran's oil fields, they were simply not interested in what was being done to the Iranian people. And in 1979, this whole house of Shah's, America's and Britsh cards was blown away. Shah and his foreign friends fled from the country but left their henchmen(SAVAK) behind. Iranian people executed each and very SAVAK agent that they could get their hands on. I guess the price of killing thousands of innocent people just had to be their lives, which they duly paid.
On November 4, 1979, in guise of conducting a demonstration, organized by Iranian student unions loyal to Khomeini, gathered at the main gates of the Embassy. Another reason behind this attempt to occupy the US Embassy was the leverage to demand the return of the Shah to Iran for trial in exchange for the hostages.
Around 6:30 a.m. on November 4, 1979, the ringleaders gathered between 300 and 500 selected students, thereafter known as Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, and briefed them on the battle plan.
A female student was given a pair of metal cutters to break the chains locking the embassy's gates, and she hid them beneath her chador.
At first, the students' plan to only make a symbolic occupation, release statements to the press, and leave when government security forces came to restore order was reflected in placards saying "Don't be afraid. We just want to set-in". When the embassy guards brandished firearms, the protesters retreated, one telling the Americans, "We don't mean any harm". But as it became clear the guards would not use deadly force and that a large angry crowd had gathered outside the compound to cheer the occupiers and jeer the hostages, the occupation changed.
According to one embassy staff member, buses full of demonstrators began to appear outside the embassy shortly after the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line broke through the gates. When Iran's foreign minister told Ayatollah Khomeini about the situation, Ayatollah got enraged and told him to kick the students out of the embassy.
At that time Ayatollah Khomeini didn't knew that the Embassy takeover was lead by his supporters. When Ayatollah Khomeini was told that it was his avid supporters who had led the takeover of the embassy, he issued a statement supporting the seizure and calling it "the second revolution", and the embassy an "American spy den in Tehran". The occupiers bound and blindfolded the embassy Marines and staff and paraded them in front of photographers. In the first couple of days, many of the embassy staff who had sneaked out of the compound or not been there at the time of the takeover were rounded up by Islamists and returned as hostages.
Six American diplomats did however avoid capture and took refuge in the British embassy before being transferred to the Canadian Embassy, and others went to the Swedish embassy in Tehran for three months. A joint Canadian government and CIA covert operation, known as the Canadian caper, managed to smuggle them out of Iran using Canadian passports and a cover story disguising them as a Canadian film crew on January 28, 1980.
During the early days of the hostage crisis, US President Jimmy Carter refused to negotiate with the Islamic Students occupying the embassy citing the core American policy of not negotiating with the terrorists. But US public pressurised Carter to negotiate with the the Iranians as the people holding the hostages were not terrorists in any way but rather were Islamic Students.
Initially the leaders of the Students inside the embassy told American negotiators that they should not be considered kidnappers and that they only ask for the Shah to be returned to Iran to stand in trial for his atrocities against Iranian civilians. US negotiators kept telling the students that Shah was in very bad shape and any attempt to move him would cause his death.
And this was all proved when Shah died from his medical condition in July 1989. After Shah's death, students saw no reason to continue the occupation anymore and were considering withdrawal from the embassy in August 1980.
By August 1980, Iran was being invaded by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces in the west. Most Iranians believed that Saddam Hussein was encouraged to attack Iran be US Government in an attempt to mount pressure on Iranian Government for the release of the hostages.
Secondly ever since this hostage crisis began in November 1979, in an attempt to cripple Iranian authority in the region, US had requested to all European countries to halt weapons and arms sale to Iran. The invasion by Iraq combined with the weapon sale embargo, really started to hurt Iran's capability to defend itself. So when hardliners in the Khomeini camp heard about the withdrawal of students from the US Embassy, they saw an tremendous opportunity to turn the tables on America. Students in the embassy were asked to leave the Embassy and were replaced by Khomeini hardliners.
In an undestading between Ronald Reagan and Iranian it was finalised that all hostages would be released within minutes of Reagan's sworn in ceremony as the President of United States. Ronald Reagan was sworn in as 40th President of the United States of America on 20th January 1980. And as per the agreement between Regan and Iranians, all 52 of remaining hostages were released minuted after Reagan's sworn in ceremony. And with this a 444 days long ordeal, one of the longest international hostage crisis in the history ended.
By the year 1975, Anastasio Samosa and the Samosa family had become one of the richest families in all of Latin America.On the other hand by 1975, 70% of Nicaraguans were living below poverty line, 80% of population was suffering from starvation and at an average were eating one meal every two days, infant mortality rate was 50%, 90% of the Nicaraguan children were suffering from chronic malnutrition, average life expectancy of Nicarguan people was 45 years and 95% of the population was illiterate.
Anastasio Samosa was a very sadistic dictator who never shied from getting his political dissidents tortured, decapitated, kidnapped and exterminated by his very own Gestapo like force called Presidential guards. One of the Samosa's favourite methods of execution was throwing victims into the Volcano from a helicopter. Experts estimate that about 300,000 Nicaraguans lost their lives during the reign of Anadtasio Samosa. From above mentioned social conditions, human right abuses and the shear desperation of Nicaraguan people to improve their life, a revolution was born. This revolution was named after a famous Nicaraguan Revolutionary in early 1910s called Sandino who died in a battle against US Marines in 1917.
The revolutionaries called themselves Sandinistas and their main objective was to end the tyrannical regime of Samosa family and establish the very first government chosen by the people themselves. In 1979, Sandinista revolutionaries successfully defeated government forces. Anastasio Samosa with the rest of his family fled to Miami.
As soon as Sandinistas came to power they nationalised all major projects regarding natural resources of Nicaragua and kicked out all the US Corporations who had been a constant ally of Samosas in the exploitation of natural resources of Nicaragua. Sandinista government started several projects that specifically dealt with the issue of starvation and malnutrition.
Within a couple of years infant mortality dropped to below 15%, child malnutrition below 20%, starving population under 20% and population below poverty line to less than 30%. Sandinistas initiated a project of establishing medical care centers in the each and every village, so that people don't have to rush to town in case of a medical emergency.
One of the biggest projects of the Sandinistas was establishing over 5000 schools all over Nicaragua which brought the illiteracy rate below 15% from 95% two years ago. Most importantly Sandinistas started a land reform project in which poor landless peasants were given small patches of land free of cost in order to make them independent and self sustained. All these developments worried US Government that if other populations of Latin American countries saw what Sandinistas were achieving in Nicaragua, then they might also adopt similar tactics in their country. US corporations had all of South America in their stranglehold and were making billions of dollars worth of profits by robbing these Latin American people off their resources.
Poverty and hunger had become a common condition for most of the people in South America. But if these people saw how Sandinistas had successfully eradicated all these social issues, then that might motivate them to break free of US Corporate shackles too. So in mind of US President Ronald Reagan, Sandinistas had to be eliminated at any cost. And once again if you have something illegal and unethical to do then who else would you call other than CIA. CIA contacted nearly 15,000 former Presidential Guards who had all fled to Honduras fearing that they too will be put on trial for the atrocities they committed during Anastasio Samosa's reign.
CIA sent it experts to Honduras to train and rearm these Presidential guards to wage a guerilla war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. These guard were given a new name Contras, and were told to conduct small scale raids to the villages close to the border of Honduras and Nicaragua.but what CIA didn't realise was that these people were a sadistic force who took pleasure in murdering people in most horrible ways.
Soon hundreds and thousands of Nicaraguans became target of these people and ended up getting murdered by these Contras.Soon News about the atrocities committed by a CIA supported group called Contras reached Washington. Ronald Reagan tried his level best to decieve US Congress by portraying Contras as patriotic freedom fighters who were fighting for the rights and freedom of Nicaraguans. But Congress saw right through these lies and passed a Bipartisan Congressional Resolutions which outlawed all and any kind of support to the Contras whether it be weapons and arms aid, logistical and training aid or monetary aid.
And this resolution further endorsed that any kind of activity in contradiction to the resolution would be considered as treasonous act. Ronal Reagan still wanted to support Contras in their murderous activities but he was prohibited by the Congress from using Government funds to aid the Contras anymore. He had to find some other alternative method of generating funds while keeping it hidden from US Government.
BOTTOM LINE:In 1979, Sandinista revolutionaries defeated government forces and announced the victory of revolutionaries in Managua. Once again Samosa family fled to Miami along with its wealth of over 500 million dollars. This President Ronal Reagan decided to help Samosa out not by use of US military but rather by covert means. Reagan decided to aid and arm the former Presidential Guards of Samosa who had fled to neighbouring Honduras after Sandinistas entered Managua. These guards were armed and trained by CIA operatives and their name was changed to contras. These Contras mainly conducted hit and hide tactics of Guerilla Warfare. These ruthless criminals murdered nearly 400,000 Nicaraguan civilians in order to spread a wave of fear throughout Nicaragua. And even after knowing of the atrocities committed by Contras in village raids, Reagan continued to supply funds and arms to them.
As Ronald Reagan was contemplating how to generate funds for supporting Contras in Nicaragua, he was delivered the very first order list of weapons from the Iranian government. This where he realised that the deal with the Iran was a top secret operation which was secured by national security clause.
So he realised that it was nearly impossible for the contents of the deal to fall in wrong hands. Hence Reagan along with his faithfuls in CIA, Department of Defense, Whitehouse staff and handful of Military Generals decided that the profits made by selling weapons and arms to Iran, would be used to support Contras in Nicaragua. Col.Oliver North in the National Security Council was put in charge of the operation. Exact value of weapons sold to Iran is still unknown but experts believe total value of Weapons had to be around $12-18 billion dollars. And approximate proffits made from the sale would be in the range of $500-800 million.
After a leak by Iranian Mehdi Hashemite, the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa exposed the arrangement on November 3, 1986. This was the first public reporting of the weapons-for-hostages deal. The operation was discovered only after an airlift of guns was downed over Nicaragua. Eugene Hasenfus, who was captured by Nicaraguan authorities, initially alleged in a press conference on Nicaraguan soil that two of his coworkers, Max Gomez and Ramon Medina, worked for the CIA.
He later said he did not know whether they did or not. The Iranian government confirmed the Ash-Shiraa story, and ten days after the story was first published, Reagan was shocked but decided to announce his ignorance about the Nicaraguan part of the scandal.
President Reagan appeared on national television from the Oval Office on November 13, stating:
"My purpose was... to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the U.S. and Iran] with a new relationship... At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there."
The scandal was compounded when Oliver North destroyed or hid pertinent documents between November 21 and November 25, 1986. During North's trial in 1989, his secretary, Fawn Hall, testified extensively about helping North alter, shred, and remove official National Security Council (NSC) documents from the White House.
According to the New York Times, enough documents were put into a government shredder to jam it. North's explanation for destroying some documents was to protect the lives of individuals involved in Iran and Contra operations. It was not until years after the trial that North's notebooks were made public, and only after the Nationsl Security Act and Public citizens sued the Office of the executive counsel under the Freedom of Informatio Act.
During the trial North testified that on November 21, 22, or 24, he witnessed Poindexter destroy what may have been the only signed copy of a presidential covert-action finding that sought to authorize CIA participation in the November 1985 Arms shipment to Iran.
US Attorney General Edwin Meese admitted on November 25 that profits from weapons sales to Iran were made available to assist the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
On the same day, John Poindexter resigned, and Oliver North was fired by President Reagan.
Poindexter was replaced by Frank Carlucci on December 2, 1986. In one of his books author journalist Bob Woodward chronicled the role of the CIA in facilitating the transfer of funds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras spearheaded by Oliver North.
Then Director of the CIA, William J Casey allegedly admitted to Woodward in February 1987 that he was aware of the diversion of funds to the contras confirming a number of encounters documented by Woodward. The controversial admission occurred while Casey was hospitalized for a stroke. On May 6, 1987, William Casey died the day after Congress began its public hearings on Iran–Contra.
Following the passage of Resolution 1441 in United Nations, on 18 November 2002, weapons inspectors of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission returned to Iraq for the first time since being withdrawn by the United Nations.
Whether Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction or not was being investigated by Hans Blix, head of the Commission, and Mohammed Elbaradei, head of International Atomic Energy agent.
Inspectors remained in the country until they withdrew after being notified of the imminent invasion by the United States, Britain, and two other countries. In early December 2002, Iraq filed a 12,000-page weapons declaration with the UN.
After reviewing the document, UN weapons inspectors, the US, France, United Kingdom and other countries thought that this declaration failed to account for all of Iraq's chemical and biological agents. Many of these countries had supplied the Iraqi regime with the technology to make these weapons in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. On December 19, US Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that Iraq was in "material breach" of the Security Council resolution. Blix has complained that, to this day, the United States and Britain have not presented him with the evidence which they claim to possess regarding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. On January 16, 2003, inspectors discovered 11 empty 122 mm chemical warheads.
These components had not been previously declared by Iraq. Iraq dismissed the warheads as old weapons that had been packed away and forgotten.After performing tests on the warheads, UN inspectors believed that they were new. While the warheads are evidence of an Iraqi weapons program, they were in no way connected to chemical or biological weapons.
Unless some sort of chemical agent was also detected in the shells, they cannot be linked to any kind of chemical or biological weapon. No such evidence was ever found. Hans Blix believed there to be large quantities of weapons materials still unaccounted for. Other UN inspectors blamed Blix for having a biased attitude in favour of the United States and Britain's claims.
Despite finding no evidence of any biological and chemical weapons, Hans Blix was adamant about Iraq possessing WMDs and this claim was being challenged by all other UN Inspectors.
This created a big divide between Blix and rest of the team. Finally On January 27, 2003, UN inspectors reported that Iraq had cooperated with monitors and no evidence of any biological and chemical weapons was ever found. But Blix issued another statement regarding his believes that Iraq had not demonstrated a "genuine acceptance" of the need to disarm unilaterally. In addition, by the 28th, a total of 16 Iraqi scientists had refused to be interviewed by inspectors. The United States claimed that "sources" had told them that Saddam Hussein had ordered the death of any scientist who speaks with inspectors in private. No scientist has confirmed this, and Iraq has insisted that they were not putting pressure on the scientists.
All members of the weapons inspection team criticised Hans Blix about his biased approach for the inspection. But many other UN inspectors were not so conservative in their criticism of Blix. A couple of UN inspectors accused Hans Blix of being an biased investigator who was secretively working for validating claims made by US and UK governments. In the wake of all this controversy, Hans Blix gave an interview to a renowned news agency in which he clearly stated that he is absolutely sure that Iraq possesses no biological and chemical WMDs.
Furthermore he blamed George Bush and Tony Blair for trying to manipulate the findings of the UN team of inspectors. Blix denied all rumours about any kind of disagreement between him and other inspectors. Hans Blix finally stated that according to him Iraq doesn't possess any kind of Biological or Chemical weaponry and if US and UK decided to take any kind of military action against Iraq, that action would be totally illegal.
After 9/11, Colin Powell's main job was to gather as much international support for developing a coalition force to invade Iraq to destroy the alleged Weapons of mass destruction. And one of the most significant factor that would have possibly generated massive support for the invasion of Iraq was Colin Powell's presentation about Iraq's WMDs at the plenary session of United Nations Security Council. On February 6, 2003, Powell appeared before the UN to "prove" the urgency to engage a war with Iraq. Although the presentation failed to change the fundamental position of the Security Council, including France, Russia, China and Germany.
Powell alleged that these training camps had been operating with help from Iraqi agents, despite them being in the northern Iraqi Kurdistan "a no fly zone" and thus outside of de facto Iraqi control. Powell also claimed that Iraqis visited Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and provided training to al-Qaeda members, although thousands of Arabs from many countries did the same. US intellegence agencies found no evidence of any substantive collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.
While Colin Powell's statement to the UN may have been accepted as "proof" by many in the US, this was not the case in Europe, where there was widespread scepticism of any links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.The British government's intelligence services did not believe there was any link at all, given the mutual hatred between Islamists hard liners and the secular regime in Baghdad. Colin Powell even showed a Computer-generated image of an alleged mobile production facilities for creating biological and chemical weapons. These images were presented by Powell as fool proof evidence of Iraq's biological and chemical capability at the UN Security Council. Absence of more substantial proofs undermined the credibility of Powell's presentation. Russian experts have always questioned the likelihood of such mobile facilities, which are extremely dangerous and difficult to manage.
When no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, Colin Powell was asked about his statements in the United Nations Security Council. Colin Powell replied to the questions by saying that we were misled by the inaccurate intellegence reports from CIA and Military intellegence units. At the time of presentation, Colin Powell repeatedly suggested that he had studied all the WMDs related documents to the absolute limit and only made up his mind after careful evaluation of all these documents. But when asked about the WMDs in TV interview with Barbara Walters, Colin Powell claimed that everything that he was given or everything he had was inaccurate and possibly older intellegence reports.
Later in the Interview Colin Powell described the mistakes he made during his campaign to gather international support for invasion, a blot on his long illustrious career as a soldier. Even now Colin Powell was not ready to admit that he had lied in the United States Security Council, and shifted all blame towards CIA analysts who had deliberately lied to him about the intel on Iraq, probably at the behest of US President George Bush and his entourage.
Colin Powell would later admit that few claims he made in his speech at United Nations Security Council had no factual basis and were completely unreliable. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Powell contended that prior to his UN presentation, he had merely four days to review the data concerning WMD in Iraq.
A Senate report on intelligence failures would later detail the intense debate that went on behind the scenes on what to include in Powell's speech. State Department analysts had found dozens of factual problems in drafts of the speech. Some of the claims were taken out, but others were left in, such as claims based on the yellow cake forgery. The administration came under fire for having acted on faulty intelligence, particularly what was single-sourced to the informant known as Corveball (former Iraqi Army Offocer now living in exile). Powell later recounted how Vice President Dick Cheney had joked with him before he gave the speech, telling him, "You've got high poll ratings; you can afford to lose a few points."
Powell's longtime aide and Chief of Staff from 1989–2003, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, later characterized Cheney's view of Powell's mission as to "go up there and sell it, and we'll have moved forward a peg or two. Fall on your damn sword and kill yourself, and I'll be happy, too." The war that was initiated on lies led to the death of over 1.5 million Iraqi civilians.
And this number is rising every single day. But the people who are responsible for this was and deaths of 1.5 million civilians are still roaming freely and not a single one of them have been brought to justice. George.W.Bush, Dich Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleza Rice and especially Colin Powell should all be charged with war crimes and hung if found guilty. A society where one group of people are incarcerated indefinitely without showing any evidence to prove their guilt and where another group that deliberately lied and those lies led to the deaths of 1.5 million people, still roam freely, cannot be called a fair society.
In the end everything comes down to this fact that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and nor did he had any desires to own them. After the first Gulf War of 1991, US Airforce had destroyed all the majority of Iraqi civilian infrastructure deliberately to cripple Iraq.
US Forces had destroyed over 15 water treatment plants, electricity generating units, big Pharnaceutical companies which provided bulk of the medicinal requirements i.e over 80% of Iraq's medicine requirements were supplied by these companies. Another favourite target of US pilots was food processing plants. One such plant that fulfilled 75% of Iraq's requirement of milk by producing powdered milk, was completely destroyed. So quite understandable Saddam Hussein had several other more pressing issues to ponder about before any other consideration.
Mortality rate of Infants was at more than 50% and with wide spread poverty and hunger even pregnant mothers were suffering from malnourishment. There was no supply of clean drinking water, electricity, adequate food and medicine to ensure the safety of both mother and child. And this was a constant state of affairs in Iraq ever since 1991, when United Nations placed economic sanctions on Iraq halting all international aid from entering into the country.
What I don't get is what was the function of the UN sanctions on Iraq? I can understand the ban on sale of Iraqi oil, but what I simply can't understand is the need of sanctions about halting the medicine and food supply to Iraq. During the years of UN embargo on Iraq, as many as one million children mostly infants died from easilly curable diseases like diarrhea, pnemonea and viral infections. Ban on delivery of repair and reconstruction material to Iraq meant that Iraqi's were not even able to repair water treatment plants which were deliberately bombed by NATO forces. And unhealthy drinking water was the main cause of children falling ill. What did those little babies had to do with anything? There was no power supply to the majority of Iraqi rural area because most of the electricity generating plants were bombed and destroyed by NATO bombings and then tools to repair them were not allowed to be supplied to Iraqis.
This UN embargo that claimed lives of more than a million Iraqi children was a genocide and a crime against humanity and the Secretary General of UN during this embargo should be indicted for these crimes. Main purpose of UN was to establish peace and help the needy by humanitarian efforts, but this shameless institute has been reduced to nothing more than another ally of NATO. I think United Nations has lived out its usefulness for the humanity and should be dissolved now.
BOTTOM LINE: By 2003, everybody knew that Iraq had no Chemical or Biological weapons capability. Even UN inspectors who conducted elaborate inspections of key facilities in Iraq stated that Iraq had fully co-operated with them and that they were sure that Iraq possessed no WMDs. Despite this Bush administration remained adamant and defiant about their claims that Iraq still possessed WMDs. It was all for black gold "Oil" and the attitude of Washington about Oil is more the merrier. I believe that if it came out that Narnia has huge oil deposits then we'll see Obama within hours claiming that Narnia possesses weapons of mass destruction and that US is invading Narnia to free its furry creatures from oppression.....
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
Nobody could have ever imagined how right was Major General Butler, when he wrote this book in 1935. Society was not as much resilient and proactive as it is today. These were the years when nobody had any doubts about what their government told them. In those days people believed that Presidents don't lie, especially to the public and it was precisely this naive and gullible attitude that resulted in deaths of over 420,000 young Americans in Second World War. Manipulation and exploitation of civilians have always been an integral part of any Politician's arsenal of weapons.
Renowned Psychologist Sigmund Freud once stated "Thought process of the civilian populations is like a glass. If you try to bend it with force then it will break and you will end up cutting your hand in the process. But if you heat the glass up and then gently apply force to it, it will bend with ease". What Freud meant was that public perception cannot be dictated by force, because it will result in Public revolting against the dictator. But if you successfully create artificial crisis within the society and to solve this crisis public would have to agree to your original plan of action".
This process is also called Problem-Reaction-Solution. First you create a problem for the public, then you wait for the public to react to this problem and when public becomes desperate enough to do anything to solve this crisis, you come and apply the solution or changes that you had always intended to.. But now you can not only implement your desired changes but also win admiration of the public for solving the crisis. This is one of the favorite method of Politicians for manipulating and altering the perception of public.
Government of United States of America has time and time again lied to its citizens, in order to manipulate them into supporting some of the most controversial and outright immoral decisions. For example Americans would never have allowed such high expenditures on weapon developement had US government not scared them to death by lying about the level of communist threat posed by Soviet Union towards USA. For 45 years, US government continuously hounded its citizens with an over-exaggerated threat that Soviet Union posed post-Second World War years.
By a well designed propaganda campaign, US government brainwashed American citizens into really believing that Soviet Union was a real threat to the American people. And this perceived threat from USSR really quadrupled after Russia successfully tested its first nuclear bomb in 1954. Reality was totally opposite. After Second World War, Russia was in ruins. Every major city and town had been leveled to the ground by Nazi bombings. Russia's most important industrial hub Stalingrad was completely obliterated. Famine of 1921 and the war had claimed over 60 million Russian lives. So not only was their economy in tatters but even work force had fallen tremendously. And to assume that a country going through such hardship would still be able to attack the world's lone superpower on the other side of the world would be utterly ludicrous. Government persuaded US citizens that to keep US secure from Soviet threat we have to increase our military strength and defense capabilities and tragically people went along with it.
And this is how US government kept spending nearly 50% of its GDP on weaponisation each and every year since 1945. And these high expenditures helped to create and sustain the Military Industrial Complex. Military Industrial Complex is a multi billion dollar arms industry that exists solely because of billions of dollars that US spends to buy arms and modern warfare weapons.
Had US citizens demanded from their government to stop spending money on weapons and instead spend it on the developement of social, economical and educational sectors, then may be America would not have been in the kind of economic collapse that it is in today. Its hardly an understatement when i say that our leaders have become the masters of deception, when it comes to their abilities of coercing, manipulating and influencing the thought process of the masses into a state that is beneficial for their cause. Now lets discuss some historic and monumental lies, that US Presidents have told American people over the years, which in effect has changed the course of America's future.
WOODROW WILSON AND THE SINKING OF LUSITANIA
RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner, holder of the Blue Riband and briefly the title of world's biggest Ship. She was launched by the Cunard Line in 1906, at a time of fierce competition for the North Atlantic trade. As German shipping lines tended to monopolise the lucrative passage of continental emigrants, Cunard responded by trying to outdo them for speed, capacity and luxury. Lusitania and her running mate Mauretania were fitted with revolutionary new turbine engines, able to maintain a speed of 25 knots. Equipped with lifts, wireless telegraph and electric light, they provided 50% more passenger space than any other ship, and the first class decks were noted for their sumptuous furnishings.
The year was 1915, and Europe was completely engulfed in the first war to be fought at a global stage, the very First World War. Britain and Germany were locking horns on a daily basis. The military strength and technological advancement of Germany was proving out to be little too hot to handle for the United Kingdom. United Kingdom and its allies were on the verge of collapse. But American public was not all interested in risking their lives for saving Britishers, whome they themselves were fighting against 140 years ago. Both England and France were substancially disliked by the Americans because of the roles that these two countries played during the Colonial years of America.AMERICAN AID TO UNITED KINGDOM
So US President decided to send military, monetary and logistical aid to Britain and France. But by 1915, German submarines the infamous U-Boats had a huge presence in the Atlantic Ocean and were monitoring the sea traffic to and from America. Out of every 100 Supply ships sent to Britain, only 30 were reaching Britain. This was becoming a matter of huge concern for US President Woodrow Wilson, he knew that if destruction of supply ships continued then he won't be able to hide this operation from American public anymore. To safeguard the vessels supplying aid to Britain, a new plan was formulated. To avoid being attacked by German U-Boats, USA and UK decided that from now on they would used unmarked civilian ships especially large cruise liners to send supplies to Britain.
This solution worked perfectly for sometime. An international law known as Cruiser Rules, prohibited any kind of attack to be launched at a civilian vessel by the Naval vessels of any nation. Hence whenever any German U-Boat spotted a civilian ship on its way within UK and US, they stood down. But Germany was well known for their Intellegence gathering abilities, German spies were literally everywhere in Britain. So it didn't take much time for them to realise what was happening.
Soon Germany realised that US was supplying weapons and ammunition to Britain by transporting them in civilian vessels. Using civilian vessels to transport military weapons and personnel was itself an illegal activity according to Cruiser Rules. Hence U-Boats started attacking and sinking American and British Vessels which were transporting weapons and ammunitions to Britain.
ZIONIST PLAN TO DRAG AMERICA INTO THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Soon, Britain was once again crippled by the German Navy and as a result British troops fighting in Europe were at the verge of defeat. At this point seeing that Britain was desperate, a group of German Zionist Jews approached Britain and presented a proposition to them. These Zionist Jews assured Britain that they could make America enter the war, but in return they wanted Britain to handover Palestine to them. Majority of the Middle East was under British rule so they agreed to the demand. As most other international industries, a significant proportion of shipping industry was owned by Zionist Jews. These were the same guys who owned most Multinational Corporations. These people were the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Morgans, Carnegies and Warburgs. Amongst themselves these families owned 70% of the world's wealth. And they owned Cunard Line Shipping Corporation also.
These people collaborated with US President Woodrow Wilson who was their agent in America. After all it was Wilson who helped this Banker Elite to take control of US currency and economy when he helped them setup private owned Federal Reserve as the Central Bank of America in 1913
By this time German Navy had already identified Lusitania as a transport ship which was being used to deliver weapons and ammunition to Britain. During last three journeys between New York and Liverpool, Lusitania had traveled along side upto 5 destroyers and other naval vessels to protect it from U-Boat attacks. US Navy vessels provided protection to Lusitania upto 8 miles outside of British waters because British Waters had been declared warzone by Germany. British Royal Navy provided protection to Lusitania the remainder of its journey. Britishers knew that U-Boats were present in and around British Isles. So they ordered Naval Destroyers not to join up with Lusitania after US Navy Ships had turned back.
SINKING OF LUSITANIA
On 17 April 1915, Lusitania left Liverpool on her 201st transatlantic voyage, arriving in New York on 24 April. A group of German–Americans, hoping to avoid controversy if Lusitania was attacked by a U-boat, discussed their concerns with a representative of the German Embassy. The embassy decided to warn passengers before her next crossing not to sail aboard Lusitania. The Imperial German Embassy placed a warning advertisement in 50 American newspapers, including those in New York.
This warning was printed adjacent to an advertisement for Lusitania's return voyage. The warning led to some agitation in the press and worried the ship's passengers and crew. Lusitania departed Pier 54 in New York on 1 May 1915.
On 7 May Lusitania was nearing the end of her crossing, as she was scheduled to dock at the Prince's Landing Stage in Liverpool later that afternoon. She was running parallel to the south coast of Ireland, and was roughly 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale when the liner crossed in front of U-20 at 2:10 p.m. It was sheer chance that the liner became such a convenient target, since U-20 could hardly have caught the fast vessel otherwise. Schwieger, the commanding officer of the U-boat, gave the order to fire one torpedo, which struck Lusitania on the starboard bow, just beneath the wheelhouse. Moments later, a second explosion erupted from within Lusitania's hull where the torpedo had struck, and the ship began to founder in a much more rapid procession, with a prominent list to starboard. Almost immediately, the crew scrambled to launch the lifeboats but the conditions of the sinking made their usage extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible due to the ship's severe list. In all, only six out of 48 lifeboats were launched successfully, with several more overturning, splintering to pieces and breaking apart. Eighteen minutes after the torpedo struck, the bow struck the seabed while the stern was still above the surface, and in a manner similar to the sinking of Titanic three years earlier, the stern rose into the air and slid beneath the waves.
Of the 1,959 passengers and crew aboard Lusitania at the time of the sinking, 1,195 lost their lives that afternoon in the waters of the Celtic Sea. Just as had been seen with Titanic, most of the casualties were from drowning or from hypothermia. In the hours after the sinking, acts of heroism amongst both the survivors of the sinking and the Irish rescuers who had heard word of Lusitania's distress signals brought the survivor count to 764. By the following morning, news of the disaster had spread around the world. While most of those lost in the sinking were either British or Canadians, the loss of 128 Americans in the disaster, including American writer and publisher Elbert Hubbard, outraged some in the United States.AFTERMATH
The sinking caused an international outcry, especially in Britain and across the British Empire, as well as in the United States, considering that 128 of 139 US citizens aboard the ship lost their lives On 8 May Dr Bernhardt Durnburg, a German spokesman published a statement in which he said that because Lusitania was carrying weapons & ammunitions and also because it was classed as an Auxillary naval vessel, Germany had a right to destroy her regardless of any passengers aboard. Dernburg further said that the warnings given by the German Embassy before Lusitania departed from New York clearly points to the fact that all probable passengers were informed about the risk they would face if they decided to travel on it. Lusitania was indeed officially listed as an auxiliary war ship,and her cargo had included an estimated 4,200,000 rounds of rifle cartridges, 1,250 empty shell cases, and 18 cases of non-explosive fuses, which was openly listed as such in her cargo manifest.The day after the sinking, the New York Times published full details of the ship's military cargo. Later it was revealed that the 1250 boxes containing empty shells were in fact 1248 boxes of filled 3" shell, 4 shells to the box, totalling 103.000 pounds or 50 tonnes. Assistant Manager of the Cunard Line, Herman Winter, denied the charge that she carried munitions, but admitted that she was carrying small-arms ammunition, and that she had been carrying such ammunition for years. The fact that Lusitania had been carrying shells and cartridges was not made known to the British public at the time.
PLAN FALLS APART
The British Government as they were assured by their Zionist collaborators felt that the Americans had to declare war on Germany. But the real issue that Wilson was facing in America was that somehow information about British Government's deal with Zionist Jew lobby had been leaked within the US Congress. And numerous congressmen had connected the dots and realised the role Woodrow Wilson had been playing in this conspiracy. These Congressmen had warned Wilson that if he tried to get Congressional authority to enter the war than they would blow the cover off this conspiracy which would have meant a certain end of Wilson's Presidency. So Wilson continued to insist that the German government must apologise for the sinking, compensate US victims, and promise to avoid any similar occurrence in the future. The British were upset at Wilson's actions – not realising that it reflected the bind Woodrow Wilson was in at that time.Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned because he felt the Wilson administration was ignoring Britain's actions which were in contravention of the International Law and that Wilson was deliberately leading the USA into the war. Jennings's resignation raised even more doubts about the Woodrow Wilson's real motives and about his already wavering integrity and morality as the President of United States of America. At this point Wilson realised that any decision regarding America's involvement in the war would become the last nail in the coffin of his Presidency. So he had no other choice but to wait out the storm.
WOODROW WILSON GETS WHAT HE WANTED
In August of 1915, Woodrow Wilson, British Ambassador Sir Cecil Spring Rice and Zionists met in a meeting in Washington DC. During this meeting a systematic plan to generate public support for entering the war was finalised. In this plan several psychological elements like Propaganda and raising the fear factor were to be utilised upon Americans to manipulate them into supporting America's entry into the war. And during this operation a Psychological Operation called The Zimmermann Telegram turned out to be most effective. The Zimmermann telegram was a fake 1917 diplomatic proposal portrayed as having sent by Foreign Secretary of German Empire Arthur Zimmermann for Mexico. In this fake telegram Zimmermann had urged Mexico to join the Central Powers, in the event of the United States entering the war on the side of the Entente Powers. The proposal was presented as if it was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence. The plan worked perfectly as the revelation of the message outraged American public opinion.President Woodrow Wilson quickly siezed the opportunity and moved to arm American merchant ships to defend themselves against German submarines which he announced were attacking US Merchant Ships regularly now. Wilson had previously tried to get Congressional approval for weaponising American Merchant Vessels once. But his proposal at that time was blocked by the same anti-war Congressmen who upto now had successfully halted Wilson's plans to shove America into the war.
In the wake of the Zimmermann Telegram controversy, Wilson siezed his opportunity and once again proposed weaponising of US Merchant ship citing their necessity to be able to defend themselves against German U-Boats which he said were attacking every vessel now. This announcement together with the Zimmerman Telegram and the resentment Americans had towards Germany for sinking of Lusitania pushed US public opinion over the tipping point and on 6 April 1917, the United States Congress followed President Wilson's request to declare war on Germany and gave him Carte Blanche authority to take any action as he deemed fit.
HUMAN COST: 117,465 DEAD+300,000 INJURED
And Woodrow Wilson marched his troops into the War which had already set the record for being bloodiest war in the history of mankind at that time. As a result 117,465 Americans lost their lives in those muddy trenches of Europe. In the end everybody got what they wanted. Zionist Bankers earned millions of dollars worth interest on the loans they gave to both sides of the war along with Palestine. British Empire saved itself from a humiliating defeat in the hands of Germany and they also prolonged the existence of British Empire as a colonial power by 18 more years. Woodrow Wilson along with the US Congress earned huge favours from the Zionist Lobby. But American people gained nothing from this war, only thing they got from this war was the deaths of 117,465 young American.BOTTOM LINE: Woodrow Wilson knew that if he sent another arms shipment to Britain via Lusitania, German U-Boats would definitely torpedo it. But he allowed it to happen because he needed this kind of disaster to rally public 's support behind his decision for entering the war in Europe. His motives behind American participation in the First World War were not philosophical and humanitarian in any way, all his reasons were more to do with business and global economics than anything else. Wilson was continuously being pressurized by Rothschild, Rockefeller and Morgan banking families who were hoping to earn billions of dollars in profit by charging interest on the money that US would have borrowed from these banks to buildup its weapon arsenal before going to war. Contrary to common belief no war is started spontaneously or in the heat of the moment, there are many things that have to be taken care of before declaring war. For Example billions of dollars are required for ammunition and weapons. Millions of gallons of fuel is required for all transport and combat vehicles. Billions of dollars have to be spent for creating a logistical infrastructure needed for efficient performance of any army. And for all these expenses, Governments borrows huge sums of money from these banking Corporations. That's why it is said that every war is a banker's war. And in First World War 117,465 Americans lost their lives just so, these bankers could earn profits. Although it might have been the first global conflict perpetrated by the bankers but it for sure wasn't to be the last one.
HOW FDR DRAGGED AMERICA INTO THE SECOND WORLD WAR
People get very offended when I say to them that President F.D.Roosevelt was one of the most shrewd, immoral, unethical and corrupt president in the history of America. I feel this way because of the way FDR betrayed Americans time and time again throughout his 3 terms as president.FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT'S PROVOCATIONS FOR JAPAN
Despite being a neutral country thus far, President Roosevelt had been trying his best to provoke Japan. FDR tried everything he could to enrage Japan into attacking America. FDR knew it very well that Britain was at war with the Japanese in Indo-China despite this he continued to supply Britain with weapons and financial support, this in itself should have been considered as declaration of war by Japan. But Japanese Government showed a tremendous amount of restrain while dealing with America. Roosevelt had no rights to aid and support Britain while they were engaged with Japan in South East Asia. Roosevelt froze all American accounts of Japanese Corporations and Japanese nationals. Further US halted all trade to and from Japan. Roosevelt knew it very well that Japanese Economy is production based and requires constant supply of raw materials from America and other South American countries.This was all done to provoke Japan into attacking US first, so that Roosevelt could use this attack as an pretext for entering Second World War. When US Navy started to substancially expand its Pacific fleet stationed on the West Coast, this assured Japanese that US was contemplating an anticipatory attack on them in the Pacific. Hence they decided to attack this ever increasing Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour at Oahu, Hawaii. Americans at that time were totally against any kind of US military involvement in the Second World War. Roosevelt knew that if he entered the war without public's support for it, his presidency could be seriously jeopardised. So he needed Japan to attack US to sway public's perception about the war.
INFORMATION ABOUT COMING JAPANESE ATTACK
Weeks before the attack on Pearl harbour, military analysts at Pentagon had successfully broke the encryption code of Japanese encrypting machines. Now US generals were listening to all every correspondence between Japan and Japanese Embassy in Washington. And from one such correspondence on 29th November, it became apparent that a Japanese task force consisting of 6 Aircraft Carriers, 2 Battleships, 2 Heavy Cruisers, 1 Light Cruiser, 9 Destroyers, 8 Tankers, 23 Submarines, 5 Small Submarines and 414 Aircrafts, was on the way towards a Pearl Harbour. On 1st December, another correspondence between Japanese Embassy and Tokyo, made it clear that attack would happen on early morning of 7th December. Despite getting all this vital information, Roosevelt ordered his Generals to not to convey this message to Commander of Pacific Fleet Husband Kimmel. On 2nd December, Captain of a patrolling submarine in the Pacific saw the approaching Japanese Armada and reported it to the Navy Head Quarters in Washingon immediately. But even this warning didn't reach those people who needed this information most.
On 5th December, Japanese Abassador Kicisaburō Nomura visited White House. He handed over an official letter from Empror of Japan to Roosevelt, informing him that Japan is severing all diplomatic ties with United States of America.
Letter also had a warning to United Staes that a naval attack on the western coast of America was imminent in next 3-4 days. But there was no declaration of war made by either Empror or the Japanese Ambassador. And even after receiving so many verifiable and credible reports, Roosevelt, his White House Staff and Joint Chiefs of Staff decided not to inform Commander Kimmel about the impending Japanese attack.ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOUR AT OAHU, HAWAII
On early hours of 7th December 1941, first wave of 183 planes dived down on th Pacific Fleet of United States of America stationed at Pearl Harbour, Oahu, Hawaii. Within hours of the big inning of the attack, it was over. US suffered staggering losses in the attack. US Navy lost 4 Battleships(sunk), 3 Battleships(damaged), 1 Battleship(grounded), 2 Auxillary Ships(sunk), 3 Cruisers(damaged), 3 Destroyers(damaged), 3 Auxillary Ships(damaged), 188 Aircraft(destroyed), 159 Aircraft(damaged), 2503 Naval Officers(killed) and 1178 injured. And Japan lost 29 of its 414 Planes, 4 Midget Submarines(sunk) and 64 Personnel killed.
Roosevelt could have avoided this destruction of infrastructure and life, had he passed on the intel he had about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Commander of Japanese Task Force Isoroku Yamamoto was himself shocked at the destruction. He radioed back to high command that US had not been warned about the attack, because there were no preparations done to repell the attack. He said that all the ships were conveniently anchored in the middle of the bay, which proved that they didn't knew about the coming attack. But the Japanese leaders assured Yamamoto that US had been already warned about the attack and also that Roosevelt had been specifically told by Ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura that attack will take place on the western coast of United States. Japanese just couldn't understand why US had not heightened alert on Pearl Harbour despite the attack warnings.
A DAY OF INFAMY
Day after the attack i.e on 8th December 1941, President a Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his famous "day of infamy" speech at the Joint Session of Congree. He called the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbour a dastardly and a surprise. 7th December 1941 was a day that will forever live in infamy because it was a day on which an US President deliberately allowed his own soldiers to die for his own agenda. Attack of Pearl Harbour impacted the mindset of Americans so severely that on 6th December 62% of Americans were against joining the war in Europe and on 9th December more than a million young men had volunteered to go and fight in Europe.Roosevelt was being constantly hounded by the Rothschild and Rockefellers to enter into the war because by staying out of the war, US was not contributing in making vast proffits for these banking families. Roosevelt knew that after the destruction of First World War, Americans will never agree to joining the war in Europe. So with the guidance of Ed Bernays, Roosevelt decided to use attack on Pearl Harbour as his weapon of manipulating the public. And by shoving US into the Second World War he literally signed the death sentence of 420,000 young Americans.
BOTTOM LINE : Franklin Delano Roosevelt was well aware of the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He had received this information from several different sources, so he knew that the intelligence was authentic and accurate. But despite this he deliberately kept this information from the commanders at Pearl Harbor. Because he knew that if several hundred naval officers died in what people would believe was a surprise attack by Japanese Empire then this will enrage Americans and as a result change the population's sentiments from anti-war attitude to a pro-war mindset. And it was precisely this kind of transformation that FDR required for people to accept and support his decision to enter the war in europe.
COUP IN GUATEMALA (1951)
In 1951, Jacobo Arbenz was democratic
ally elected as leader of Guatemala. Up untill them previous regimes in Guatemala had favoured US Corporation operating in Guatemala. One of the biggest US Corporation in Guatemala was Rockefeller owned United Fruits Company.
ally elected as leader of Guatemala. Up untill them previous regimes in Guatemala had favoured US Corporation operating in Guatemala. One of the biggest US Corporation in Guatemala was Rockefeller owned United Fruits Company.
During previous regimes United Fruit Co had siezed the lands of several small scale farmers to such an extent that by 1951, United Fruits Co owned 41% of agricultural land of Guatemala, Landless peasants were living in sever poverty and starvation.
Jacobo Arbenz also wanted to nationalise Guatemala's mining industry so that Guatemalan people could benefit from the revenues generated from selling precious metals lie gold, silver, nickel, cobalt and tin. All major Guatemalan mines in Guatemala were leased and managed by US Corporations. Previous regimes had allowed these corporation to act unilaterally. So all these Corporation were exporting all the mined materials to America by just paying a fraction of products entire value as bribe to previous regimes.
Guatemalan people were getting poor and poorer while these US Corporation were getting rich and richer by exploiting natural resources of Guatemala. This is why Arbenz wanted to nationalise mining industry in Guatemala so that Guatemalans could benefit from sale of their nation's neutral resources.
Arbenz's second goal was to turn struggling land less peasants into self sustaining and totally independent farmers to stop them from being exploited by United Fruits Co. This was a threat to United Fruit Co profiteering policies and to monopoly it enjoyed in Guatemala. Because of United Fruit Co being the only food exporter in Guatemala, farmers had no choice but to sell their products to United Fruit Co even if it meant getting a below par price from the corporation. If more and more farmers became independent then they could export their products collectively in large quantities. If this would have happened then no farmer in his right mind would sell his products at such cheap prices to the United Fruits Co. And this would have certainly jeopardised United Fruits Co's profit making policies. Rockefeller convinced President Truman to do something about this issue.
Truman authorised newly formed CIA take necessary steps to solve this issue. CIA started a propaganda campaign against Arbenz, making him into a communist and an agent Soviet Union. Even though Guatemala didn't even had any diplomatic relations with Soviet Union at that time, but nevertheless CIA continued with their plan. Then they bribed certain corrupt generals of Guatemalan Army to overthrow Arbenz's government in a coup. And that's precisely what happened.
Backed by America Guatemalan Army overthrew Jacobo Arbenz's democratically chosen government on 27th June 1953. The new regime quickly turned everything to the way it was before Arbenz came to power. This is another example of US Government using lies and deceits to protect America's economic interests in foreign countries. Sadly this was niether the first nor the last such incident.
BOTTOM LINE : Coup in Guatemala was the earliest case of deliberate regime destabilisation in a foreign country by CIA. When these US corporations like United Fruits Co first arrived in Guatemala, they were primarily exporter of fruits which they purchased from thousands of local farmers. But slowly United Fruits Co started purchasing their own land and started growing their own fruits. Soon United Fruits Co had most of the land under their control and they were the only producers of fruits in the country. But the land reform policy of Arbenz would have once again increased the number of people growing same food products as the United Fruits Co. This would have definitely challenged the monopoly enjoyed by these US Corporations and especially United Fruits Co in Guatemala. So David Rockefeller approached his long time confidante to resolve this situation in Guatemala. Truman ordered CIA to overthrow the Arbenz regime and instead of him install some other leader who would remain loyal to the interests of US and its Corporations. And by loyal I mean, that these leaders would put the economic interests of American Corporations above the welfare and interests of his own people.
COUP IN IRAN(1953)
About the time when Jacobo Arbenz won the election in Guatemala, another country conducted its first democratic elections ever. Iran had been suffering greatly under the monarchical regime of Shah, who was put in power by US and UK governments. Under the reign of Shah, British and American Oil Companies lik BP and SHELL were given absolute authority over vast oil reserves of Iran. The Colonial era had ended but Britain was still adamant about keeping tight grip on natural resources of its former colonies. And wherever British interest lay, so did the America's. In 1949, there was an assassination attempt made on Shah's life. But he survived the attack and just one bullet hit him and that too just grazed past his cheek. This incident created a little sympathy in the eyes of Iranian. After Shah returned from hospital he immediately started measures to increase his own powers by amending and changing the Iranian Constitution.
And as his powers grew so did his brutality. Under the reign of Shah, Iranian people had been subjected to great oppression and brutality. While Shah along with British and American Corporation were getting rich by selling Iran's oil, at the same time Iranian people were even struggling to put food on table daily. This gave rise to protests against Shah's regime all over Iran. Gradually all these protests happening in Iran was unified into a single revolution lead by leader of National Front Political Party Mohammed Mosadegh.
Despite numerous attempts of Shah to crush the rebellion by use of force, revolution gained more and more momentum with each passing day along with its leader Mohammed Mosadegh's popularity. By 1951, opposition to Shah's regime was shaking the foundations of his monarchy. Eventually fearing for his life Shah along with his famili fled to Baghdad and from there to Rome. That same year election were conducted for the first time without the interference of the Shah.
Mohammed Mosadegh and his political party National Front won the elections with absolute majority.
Mohammed Mossadegh was sworn in as Prime minister of Iran. Mossadegh's main issue with Shah was the allowances he had given to British and American Corporations. These corporations were literally robbing Iranians off their oil. These corporations were dividing the oil shares at a ratio of 9:1. Which meant that these corporations were getting 90% of the share in revenues and Iran was given just 10% of the total revenue. Mohammed Mossadegh believed that Iranian people should be the major benefactors from the revenues generated by selling its oil.So he wanted to nationalise oil fields of Iran to utilise generated funds by oil trade to improve lives of Iranians. Second Objective of Mossadegh was to overhaul and strengthen infrastructure of education system, health care and transport system. But his decision about nationalisation of Iranian oil was as expected not going well with BP and SHELL.
President Harry Truman once again decided to let CIA handle this problem because they had already proved their competence by secretively overthrowing Jacobo Arbenz's democratically chosen government in Guatemala just few months earlier. Heading CIA's task team for this operation was the grandson of former US President Teddy Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt.
Operation Ajax was the name given to this operation by the CIA. Decision was made to employ similar tactics that were used in successful overthrow of Arbenz's government in Guatemala. Plan was to paint Mossadegh as a communist who had close ties with Soviet Union. Second step was to pay some Iranian supporters of Shah to conduct violent protests against Mohammed Mosadegh for being a communist. Third step was to conduct several false flag operations within Iraq which were to be blamed on Mossadegh to reduce his public support.
And finally when movement against Mossadegh gained enough momentum then bribed Army officials would overthrow Mossadegh's government by force. Main architect of the this elaborate plan to overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh's government was Kermit Roosevelt. Soon CIA operatives put the plan in motion. By paying of editors of prominent newspapers, CIA got articles alleging Mossadegh being a communist was printed on the first page of every newspaper.
Fake documents about Mossadegh meeting up with Soviet Leaders were forged and released to the newspapers. Rumour soon became like a forest fire and reached even the farthest corners if Iran.
After 3 weeks of propaganda, second step was initiated and the supporters of Shah started orchestrating riots all over Iran which gave an illusion to the Iranian that an armed revolution was underway. Although people believed that somebody was waging a revolution against Mossadegh, but they remained away from these incidents.
Majority of Iranians still supported Mossadegh and his policies. After this point thing really got violent. CIA operatives assassinated an Islamic cleric who was widely loved by Iranians. After murdering the cleric, CIA operatives left a forged letter at the crime scene which portrayed as if Mossadegh was threatening this cleric for a long time and now he had decided to eliminate him.
At this point Mossadegh's support started changing. Then finally by bribing Iranian Generals with large sums of money, CIA along with Iranian Army overthrew the government of Mohammed Mossadegh forcefully on 19th August 1953, Shah was reinstated as the monarch ruler or Iran. Shah wanted to execute Mohammed Mossadegh but Kermit Roosevelt advised him that if Mossadegh ended up dead, then rage of Iranian people will not only overthrow your rule but even lynch you outside your own palace. Shah agreed to spare Mossadegh but exiled him from Iran for life.
As soon as Shah came back to power he renewed all contracts and leases with BP and SHELL, and turned everything to the way they were before. CIA fulfilled the wishes of US Government by reclaiming authority over Iranian oil fields but this reinstatement of Shah ended up causing deaths of thousands of innocent Civilians which resulted in Shah's overthrow once again in 1979.
BOTTOM LINE: Over the years, one thing has been firmly substantiated that one of the biggest factor influencing American and British foreign policy in last 70 years is oil. Both countries have been continuously engaged in regime destabilisation covert operations in many of the Middle eastern countries which include Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Whenever a nationalistic government came to power in any of these countries and tried to nationalise their oil industry to use the revenues generated from oil trade, towards development of its people and improvement in their standard of living, CIA and MI6 immediately engaged in covert operations and overthrew that government and replaced it with their puppet regime who will allow American and British Corporations to loot their country 's natural resources. In fact the presently ongoing war on terror should be called War for oil, because that would be much accurate analogy for it or better yet "WAR OF TERROR FOR OIL".
PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON AND THE GULF OF TONKIN INCIDENT
After the assassination of President Kennedy on 22nd November 1963, Vice-President Lyndon Baine Johnson was sworn in as President. So far Kennedy had resisted the pressure from his Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon to authorise a large scale military action in Vietnam.Kennedy had made up his mind from the very beginning that he won't jeopardise lives of young Americans in civil war of some foreign country, half way around world. At the most he was willing to send military advisors to South Vietnam and even those were not allowed to actively engage against the guerrillas.
JFK just was not willing to send young Americans to Vietnam to fight a guerilla war in one of the most inhospitable terrain in the world. Along with sending military advisors, Kennedy also agreed to increase military and monetary aid to South Vietnam.
LYNDON BAINE JOHNSON
When Lyndon Baine Johnson became president, he immediately started feeling the pressure JFK had felt throughout his presidency for authorisation of a full scale military deployment in Vietnam. But Johnson was not as resilient as JFK was and his main concern was, how would American public respond to his decision of sending US troops to Vietnam to fight the communist guerrillas. Johnson's worst fear was losing the support of American public and he didn't wanted to do anything that could turn this fear of his into reality. Just like FDR in 1941, LBJ also needed a catalysing incident to fool the American public into supporting the military action in Vietnam.THE GULF OF TONKIN INCIDENT
On 2nd August 1964, USS Maddox was conducting a signals intellegence patrol (SIP) in the northern region of Gulf of Tonkin. USS Maddox radioed it was under attack from three North Vietnamese Navy P-4 torpedo boats 28 miles (45 km) away from the North Vietnamese coast in international waters.
USS Maddox stated she had evaded a torpedo attack and opened fire with its five-inch (127 mm) guns, forcing the torpedo boats away. Four USN F8 Crusader jets launched from the aircraft carrier USS Tecondoruga then attacked the retiring P-4s, claiming one was sunk and one heavily damaged.
USS Maddox suffering very minor damage from a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet, retired to South Vietnamese waters where she was joined by the destroyer USS Turner Joy.
The North Vietnamese claimed that Maddox was hit by one torpedo, and one of the American aircraft had been shot down. But this was a fabrication by South Vietnamese to exaggerate the impact of the attack.
This account, however, has come into sharp dispute with an internal NSA historical study which stated on page 17:
At 1500G, Captain Herrick (commander of the Maddox) ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first.
North Vietnamese interpretation of the attack was that The Maddox when confronted, was approaching Hòn Mê Island, three to four miles (6 km) inside the twelve-mile (19 km) limit claimed by North Vietnam. This territorial limit was unrecognized by the United States.
After the skirmish, President Johnson ordered the Maddox and Turner Joy to stage daylight runs into North Vietnamese waters, testing the twelve-mile (19 km) limit and North Vietnamese resolve. These runs into North Vietnamese territorial waters coincided with South Vietnamese coastal raids and were interpreted as coordinated operations by the North, which officially acknowledged the engagements of 2 August 1964. Others, such as Admiral Sharp, maintained that U.S. actions did not provoke the August 2 action.
He claimed that North Vietnamese radar had tracked Maddox along the coast, and was thus aware that the destroyer had not actually attacked North Vietnam and that Hanoi (or the local commander) had ordered its craft to engage Maddox anyway. North Vietnamese General Phung
The Tai later claimed that the Maddox had been tracked since July 31 and that it had attacked fishing boats on August 2, forcing North Vietnamese Navy to "fight back." On August 4, another DESOTO patrol off the North Vietnamese coast was launched by Maddox and the Turner Joy, in order to "show the flag" after the first incident.
This time their orders indicated that the ships were close to no more [less] than 11 miles (18 km) from the coast of North Vietnam. During an evening and early morning of rough weather and heavy seas, the destroyers received radar, sonar, and radio signals that they believed signaled another attack by the North Vietnamese navy. For some four hours the ships fired on radar targets and maneuvered vigorously amid electronic and visual reports of enemies. Despite the Navy’s claim that two attacking torpedo boats had been sunk, there was no wreckage, bodies of dead North Vietnamese sailors, or other physical evidence present at the scene of the alleged engagement.
CAPTAIN HERRICK ALLEGES ATTACKS MIGHT NOT HAVE HAPPENED AT ALL
At 01:27 Washington time, Herrick sent a cable in which he acknowledged the attack may not have happened and that there may actually have been no Vietnamese craft in the area:"Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. No actual visual sightings by Maddox. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken".
One hour later, Herrick sent another cable, stating, "Entire action leaves many doubts except for apparent ambush at beginning. Suggest thorough reconnaissance in daylight by aircraft.
"In response to requests for confirmation, at around 16:00 Washington time, Herrick cabled, "Details of action present a confusing picture although certain that the original ambush was bona fide." At 18:00 Washington time (05:00 in the Gulf of Tonkin), Herrick cabled yet again, this time stating, "the first boat probably launched a torpedo at the Maddox, which was heard but not seen.
All subsequent Maddox torpedo reports are doubtful in that it is suspected that sonarman was hearing the ship's own propeller beat"
PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S BLATANT LIES TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC
Within thirty minutes of the 4 August incident, President Johnson had decided on retaliatory attacks. Even though Captain Herrick himself had reported that due to bad weather none of alleged attacks could be verified. But this was just the kind of opportunity that Johnson was looking for to gather public support for the escalation of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Shortly before midnight on August 4, President Johnson made a speech by radio in which he described an attack by North Vietnamese vessels on two U.S. Navy warships, USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy and requested Congress for the authority to undertake a military response.
Johnson's speech repeated the theme that "dramatized Ho Chi Minh and North Vietnam as the aggressor and which put the U.S. into a more acceptable defensive posture."Johnson also referred to the attacks as having taken place "on the high seas," suggesting that they had occurred in international waters.
He emphasized commitment to both the American people and the South Vietnamese government. He also reminded Americans that he had no desire for war. But in this address to the nation Johnson made no indication of the nature and extent of covert land and air measures that already were operational. He didn't tell the American public that American naval vessels were engaged in covert warfare against North Vietnam at the time of attack. He totally hid the fact that US Navy ships in Gulf of Tonkin had already sunk a number of North Vietnamese patrol boats in the days leading up to the alleged attack. Johnson's statements were short to "minimize the U.S. role in the conflict; a clear inconsistency existed between Johnson's actions and his public discourse."
REACTION OF CONGRESS
While President Johnson’s final resolution was being drafted, Senator Wayne Morse attempted to hold a fundraiser to raise awareness about faulty records of the incident involving the USS Maddox. Morse supposedly received a call from an informant who has remained anonymous urging Morse to investigate official logbooks of the Maddox.These logs were not made available to Congress before President Johnson’s resolution was presented to them.
After urging Congress that they should be wary of President Johnson’s coming attempt to convince Congress of his resolution, Morse failed to gain enough cooperation and support from his colleagues to mount any sort of movement to stop it. Immediately after the resolution was read and presented to Congress, Morse began to fight it.
He contended in speeches to Congress that the actions taken by the United States were actions outside the constitution and were “acts of war rather than acts of defense." Despite numerous attempts of Senator Wayne Morse to gather enough support to block the resolution, US Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7th August 1964 with a vote of 88-2. On 10th August 1974, Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees convened a joint session to discuss the joint resolution along with Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which would give President Johnson the Carte Blanche authority.
After fewer than nine hours of committee consideration and floor debate, Congress voted in favour of a joint resolution authorizing the president "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, requesting assistance in defense of its freedom" Morse’s efforts were not immediately met with support, largely because he revealed no sources and was working with very limited information. It was not until after the United States became more involved in the war that his claim began to gain support throughout the United States government. Morse was defeated when he ran for re-election in 1968. His political career was deliberately destroyed for his attempts to reveal white lies of Lyndon Johnson.
PROPAGANDA AND DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN
Evidence was still being sought on the night of August 4 when Johnson gave his address to the American public on the incident. Messages recorded that day indicate that neither President Johnson nor Secretary McNamara was certain of an attack. Various news sources including Time, Life and Newsweek ran articles throughout August on the Tonkin Gulf incident. Time reported: "Through the darkness, from the West and south...intruders boldly sped...at least six of them... they opened fire on the destroyers with automatic weapons, this time from as close as 2,000 yards." Time Magazine stated that there was "no doubt in Sharp’s mind that the U.S. would now have to answer this attack", and that there was no debate or confusion within the administration regarding the incident.
All major news agencies in America deliberately published totally distorted accounts about the attack on USS Maddox and tried to entice American public into supporting the US action in Vietnam by appealing to their patriotic emotions. On May 4, 1964, William Bundy called for the U.S. to "drive the Communists out of South Vietnam", even if that meant attacking both North Vietnam and Communist China. Even so, the Johnson administration in the second half of 1964 focused on convincing the American public that there was no chance of war between North Vietnam and the U.S. North Vietnamese General Giap suggested that the DESOTO patrol had been sent into the Gulf to provoke a North Vietnamese attack which would give US an excuse for escalation of the war.
Various government officials and men aboard the Maddox had suggested similar theories.
American politicians and strategists had been planning provocative actions against North Vietnam for some time. George Ball told a British journalist after the war in 1976 that "at that time...many people...were looking for any excuse to initiate bombing". According to Raymond McGovern, a retired CIA officer, President Lyndon Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy all knew full well that the evidence of any armed attack on the evening of Aug. 4, 1964, the so-called “second” Tonkin Gulf incident, was highly dubious....During the summer of 1964, President Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were eager to widen the war in Vietnam.
They stepped up sabotage and hit-and-run attacks on the coast of North Vietnam". The Maddox, carrying electronic spying gear, was to collect signals intelligence from the North Vietnamese coast, and the coastal attacks were seen as a helpful way to get the North Vietnamese to turn on their coastal radars.
For this purpose, it was authorized to approach the coast as close as eight miles and the offshore islands as close as four; the latter had already been subjected to shelling from the sea.
In his book "Body of Secrets", James Bamford who spent three years in the United States Navy as an intelligence analyst, wrote:
"Primary purpose of the Maddox "was to act as a seagoing provocateur and to poke its sharp gray bow and the American flag as close to the belly of North Vietnam as possible, in effect shoving its 5-inch cannons up the nose of the Communist navy ..... The Maddox’ mission was made even more provocative by being timed to coincide with commando raids, creating the impression that the Maddox was directing those missions ..." Thus, the North Vietnamese had every reason to believe that the Maddox was involved in these actions".
LYNDON JOHNSON GOT WHAT HE WISHED FOR
Using the Carte Blanche authority given to him by US Congress, Lyndon Johnson authorised Operation Flaming Dart, Operation Arc Light and Operation Rolling Thunder. All these operations dealt with comprehensive Air bombing raids of all major North Vietnamese facilities and infrastructure. Although Johnson never publicly admitted that he had even authorised the bombing in civilian residential areas but he had authorised bombing of the city of Hanoi. These operations required a large US Air Force presence in South Vietnam. So several small airports in Vietnam countryside were converted into US Air bases. Multiple asphalted runways, bunkers, hangars and underground resting areas were constructed.But as US increased its bombing campaign on North Vietnam, it became evident to VietCong that US Planes were taking off from within South Vietnam. They were thinking that Planes were taking off from US Aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin. But quicker response time of Planes made them realise that planes were coming from Air bases much closer in proximity. Soon they located all the US Air Force Bases in South Vietnam and started regularly attacking them. One such attack resulted in deaths of 5 US Airmen and destruction of two F118 jets. After several attacks upon them, it became evident that US Air Force bases needed more protection as the South Vietnamese military seemed incapable of providing security.
AMERICAN GROUND WAR BEGINS IN VIETNAM
On 8 March 1965, 3,500 US Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment. In a statement similar to that made to the French almost two decades earlier, Ho Chi Minh warned that if the Americans "want to make war for twenty years then we shall make war for twenty years.
If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea." Contrary to what President Johnson was telling American public the primary goal of the war was to reunify Vietnam and secure its independence.
President Johnson had long argued without any concrete evidence that the policy of North Vietnam was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia. And CIA did its best to give credence to this outrageous notion by presenting an even more outrageous theory that if South Vietnam fell to communism then it will initiate a domino effect in which several South East Asian countries like Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia and even Australia will fall to communism and the whole of Asia will become a Communist Stronghold.
ESCALATION OF WAR AND INCREASE IN TROOPS. (JOHNSON 1963-1969)
1955 No soldiers + Aid worth 1 billion dollars to South Vietnam 1959 No soldiers + Additional aid of 1.5 billion dollars to S.Vietnam 1961 No soldiers + Additional aid of 700 million dollars to S.Vietnam 1962 3000 US Military advisors(non combatants) + Military aid worth 5 billion dollars. 1965 3000 advisors + 3500 US Marines + Military aid worth 3 billion dollars 1966 200,000 US Soldiers + 12 billion dollar for US infrastructure in S.Vietnam + 1 billion of aid 1967 350,000 US troops + aid worth 3.5 billion dollars to S.Vietnam + 1 billion dollars US expenses 1968 536,100 US troops in Vietnam + aid worth 10 billion dollars in Vietnamisation process 1975 95% troops withdrawn from South VietnamFINAL CASUALTIES (upto 1975)
58,220 US Soldiers lost their lives in the Vietnam war. Approximately 3.5 million South East Asian died (including South and North Vietnamese, Laosians, Cambodians. Civilians and Soldiers both included and figure does not include Khmer Rouge victims). All Asian victims dies as a result of actions taken by US Army, Air Force, Navy and CIA.Had Lyndon Johnson decided not to escalate and expand war into North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia millions of Asian lives and thousands of American lives could have been saved.
During Lyndon Johnson's presidency the total number of troops stationed in South Vietnam increased from mere 3000 to 536,100. He deployed more than half a million US soldiers in Vietnam. For an escalation that was achieved by lying to the American public, this was one of the costliest interventions for America. Basically Lyndon Johnson's lies claimed over 58,000 lives of US Soldiers. After causing so much pain and suffering for American public he behaved as if by not accepting his party's presidential nomination, he was doing American people some favour and as if he himself was making ultimate sacrifice.
Questions about Vietnam war have always been passionately debated by the both sides of the spectrum. Accepting that Vietnam War was an unjustified invasion of a sovereign nation and its people is a proposition that Vietnam veterans simply just can't accept, because agreeing to the statement that Vietnam war was an unjustified and immoral war, would also mean that all their friends, comrades and brothers in arm died for an unjustified and immoral goal. And they just can 't do that. They just can't betray the memories of their fallen brethren by saying that they died for a meaningless cause. And nor should they be forced to do so.
BOTTOM LINE: Vietnam War was just one of many conflicts that rose because of the specific geo-political policies and America's communist phobias during the Cold War. Everything during Cold War was either red(communist) or red-blue-white(USA). President Lyndon. Johnson knew that no attack had taken place in the gulf of Tonkin, but this was the just the kind of incident that he needed to distract people from real issues and shove them into a crazed frenzy of of rage and retribution. And Johnson used this momentary lapse in judgement of the people and the Congress, and got Gulf of Tonkin resolution passed. Resolution gave Johnson basically Carte Blanche authority to do whatever he deemed fit to contain the so called communist expansion in South East Asia. Johnson deliberately lied and distorted the facts about the incident in the gulf of Tonkin and it was because of his lies, that he got Carte Blanche authority, which allowed him to send US troops into South Vietnam. As far as American people were concerned, quite like Vietnamese people this war was being imposed on them too, irrespective of the fact that whether they wanted it or not. At first in 1965 Johnson deployed 3500 US Marines, by 1967 this number rose to 130,000, by 1968 there were 300,000 US soldiers in Vietnam and by the end of 1969 the number had reached an all time high during the war, 525,000. And in the end, the lies and deceits of Lyndon Johnson claimed the lives of 58,220 Americans and over 2 million Vietnamese civilians.
COUP IN CHILE(1973
In the year 1969, Chilean people democratically chose Salvador Allende as their new President. At that time Chile had been going through tough times because of US Corporations in Chile were exploiting the natural resources, under the reign of previously corrupt US backed regimes. Allende was very proponent of nationalisation of Chilean resources because of that US Corporations in Chile were very vary of Allende and had tried their level best by to sabotage his election by pouring large sums of money to Allende's opponents.But despite that Allende won the election by a small margin because Chilean people were striving for change in the country and their best chance of change was Salvador Allende. Salvador Allende favoured Marxist Political ideology, because of this he was at extremely good relations with Cuban President Fidel Castro and Soviet Union.
This irritated the US President Richard Nixon and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger. Moreover Nixon was being pressurised by his Corporate Wall Street friends to remove Allende from Presidency. President of the Pepsi Co and ATT were the people who were demanding immediate action against Allende in Chile.
And if Allende had come to power, he would certainly have removed all these illegal allowances enjoyed by Pepsi Co. So along with ATT, Pepsi Co was the other US Corporation that was pressurising Nixon to act against Salvador Allende.
A memo declassified in 1990, quoted Henry Kissinger talking about Allende regime in Chile in 1970, "I don't know why we should sit and watch another Latin American country fall to communism, just because of the stupidity of its people".
This statement clearly reveals Henry Kissinger's disregard and contempt for fee choice of South Americans to choose their own government and their democratic rights. Once Nixon gave Kissinger authorisation to overthrow Allende's government, then Kissinger took charge of the operation. Like most other country's Chile had a transitional period of 60 days for the old regime to hand over the reigns to the new President after his presidency had been confirmed by the Chilean Congress. While Allende was waiting for confirmation from the Chilean Parliament, Kissinger with the help of CIA operatives in Chile contacted corrupt Chilean Military Generals to bribe them to orchestrate a coup against Allende before he was confirmed by the Parliament.
But Chilean military replied back to Kissinger that as long as General Rènè Schneider was in charge of the Military, no such actions can be taken by Chilean Armed Forces. General Rènè Schneider was a hardcore constitutionalist and was extremely loyal to the Chilean people and Government.To successfully overthrow the Government of Salvador Allende, General Schneider had to be dealt with. To achieve this objective Kissinger authorised a plan for kidnapping Gen.Schneider with help of local Chilean mercenaries directed by CIA operatives. Despite all the preparations that went into formulating the plan, the kidnapping attempt failed miserably. At this moment the US Embassy in Santiage got wind of the CIA operation against Allende and Schneider.
US Ambassador to Chile Nathaniel Davis personally wrote to the President that Salvador Allende posed no threat to American interests in Chile.
When he didn't receive any reply from White House, Davis threatened to resign if CIA continued with their operations against Allende and Schneider. Davis was thinking that Henry Kissinger and the CIA were conducting this operation without any authorisation or knowledge of President Nixon.
After he threatened to resign, he was called to Washington DC by President Nixon. Only after meeting President Nixon, did Davis realise that it was all the doing of Kissinger and Nixon.
Nathaniel Davis tried to persuade Nixon that Salvador Allende posed no threat to United States but little did he know the threat that was worrying Nixon was economical and not geo-political. Davis later revealed that when he met President Nixon, Nixon was punching his palms and calling Allende an insect that had to be squished before it spreads to others Latin American countries".
Nixon persuaded Nathaniel Davis that if any covert operation was launched against Allende regime, he will be notified of it beforehand. Nathaniel Davis returned to Santiago, knowing well enough what was going to happen. General Schneider who had foiled two attempts of corrupt military officers organising a coup against Allende and also an abduction attempt against him was becoming an eyesore for the corrupt Generals in the Chilean Army. Moreover these Generals were being bribed by US to overthrow the Allende regime. So now they had double reasons for eliminating General Schneider. Henry Kissinger was personally contacting CIA operatives in Chile to receive updates on the operation.
On October 22, 1970, the coup-plotters again attempted to kidnap Schneider. His official car was ambushed at a street intersection in the capital city of Santiago. Schneider drew a gun to defend himself, and was shot point-blank several times. He was rushed to a military hospital, but the wounds proved fatal and he died three days later, on October 25. The attempt to kidnap him was because Schneider was the army Commander-in-Chief and considered a constitutionalist, which in practical terms meant that he would not support a coup. This incident and his death provoked national outrage, and caused the citizens and the military to rally behind the just-elected Allende, who was ratified by the Chilean Congress on October 24.
It also helped to ensure an orderly transfer of power to Allende. Military courts in Chile found that Schneider's death was caused by two military groups, one led by Viaux and the other by General Camilio Valenzuela. Viaux and Valenzuela were eventually convicted of charges of conspiring to cause a coup, and Viaux also was convicted of kidnapping. The lawsuit asserted that the CIA had aided both groups, but the charges were never satisfactorily proven, with the expectation of tens of thousands of dollars and also machine guns given to them by the CIA.
On October 26, 1970, President Eduardo Frei Montalva named General Carlos Prats as Commander-in-Chief to replace Schneider. Ironically this happened at the same time that $35,000 were given by the CIA to the kidnappers as "humanitarian" assistance. When press questioned Kissinger about his involvement in General Schneider's murder, he replied that United States doesn't engage in assassinations of foreign officials. But later on Kissinger's every lie was revealed when the CIA operative who paid the alleged kidnappers $35,000 stated in the Chirch Committee that Kissinger was himself directing him about the operation and had every detail about the operation.
In the mean time Allende was sworn in as President of Chile. He immediately started nationalising several public services like water supply and health care. Salvador Allende started strengthening health care infrastructure in the remote regions of the Chile. Another one of Allende's major projects was of providing milk and foods to the schools so that children can be fed properly. Before Allende took office 70% of Chile's children were suffering from malnutrition and Chile had an infant mortality rate of 30%. Within a year of Allende's presidency malnutrition level of children in Chile had fallen below 15% and infant mortality rate below 10%. This was really a testament to his commitment to improving lives of people of Chile.
Salvador Allende's government introduced special projects in which landless peasants were given a small patch of their own land to farm on. Aim behind this policy was to end the stranglehold of poverty on Chile's population. Allende stopped giving all unjust allowances to US Corporation that previous governments had given them.
First company to get affected by it was Pepsi Co whose director was already shouting in the ears of Richard Nixon to do something. Allende's finance minister introduced a budget in which he completely removed all taxes of people earning less than $ 30,000 per year and increased income taxes for multinational companies and other rich industrialists. This really pissed of members of Christian Democratic Party of Chile which was a party primarily comprising of individuals who were either involved in big industries themselves or were primarily supported by those industrialists. CDP launched a public campaign against Salvador Allende's government and started asking Army to intervene and remove Allende from office.
But the main reason behind CDP's disagreement with Allende's policies was that CDP was primarily funded and controlled by US Corporate Houses like ATT, Pepsi Co, United Fruits Co etc. In 1970, the U.S. manufacturing company ITT Corporation a subsidiary of AT&T owned of 70% of Chitelco, the Chilean Telephone Company, and funded El Mercirio, a Chilean right-wing newspaper. The CIA used ITT as a conduit to financially aid opponents of Allende's government.
On 28 September 1973, ITT's headquarters in New York City, was bombed by the Weather Underground for the alleged involvement of the company in the overthrow of Allende. CIA(US) backed dissidents slowly started convincing the Military Generals that Allende had to be removed from power by a coup. Henry Kissinger personally assured General Augusto Pinochet that US would recognise him as a legitimate leader of Chile. Kissinger just asked for one thing that after siezing power, Pinochet would adopt a pro US Corporate stance in policy making and open Chilean economy for free market trading. Offcourse Pinochet agreed. On 11th September 1973, Chilean Army revolted against Allende and overthrew his government in a coup.
Just prior to the capture of La Moneda(the Presidential Palace), with gunfire and explosions clearly audible in the background, Allende gave his farewell speech to Chileans on live radio, speaking of himself in the past tense, of his love for Chile and of his deep faith in its future.
He stated that his commitment to Chile did not allow him to take an easy way out, and he would not be used as a propaganda tool by those he called "traitors" (he refused an offer of safe passage), clearly implying he intended to fight to the end.
President Salvador Allende's final address to the Chilean people, moments before he committed suicide on 11th September 1973:
"Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, the great avenues will again be opened through which will pass free men to construct a better society. Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!"
Shortly afterwards, the coup plotters announced that Allende had committed suicide. An official announcement declared that the weapon he had used was an automatic rifle. Prior to his death he had been photographed several times holding an AK-47, a gift from Fidel Castro. He was found dead with this gun. But this was not true. Allende shot himslelf in the head with a pistol just before the soldiers broke through the door.
After the death of Allende as promised US praised and recognised General Augusto Pinochet as legitimate ruler of Chile. As soon as Pinochet came to power, he immediately started an extermination campaign against Allende's friends, family and supporters. Then Pinochet changed the economic policies of Chile and turned it into a free market country which opened gates for US Corporations to flood into Chile and exploit all its natural resources at a dimes value. Anybody and everybody who voiced his opposition against Pinochet ended up in Pinochet's own version of concentration camps where dissidents were tortured and executed.
Majority of the victims of Pinochet's barbarity were poor Chileans who were starving to death while US Corporations were getting rich by exploiting their land.
Pinochet's murderous regime lasted for 17 years in which he murdered more than 500,000 innocent people. In 1998, Spanish court issued arrest warrants against Augusto Pinochet in relation to murders of two Spanish citizens in year of 1972 in Santiago, Chile.
Augusto Pinochet had fled to UK after he was removed from power in 1990. And he was arrested by Scotland Yard and extradited to Spain. After Pinochet's arrest, in another case of murders in Chile, a French judge ordered US Government to handover all its documents about US and CIA's involvement in Coup against Salvador Allende. This really shook that old bastard Henry Kissinger because all those documents would reveal that it was he himself who carried out both operations of assassination of Gen. Schneider.
But then US President Bill Clinton pardoned Henry Kissinger of all wrong doing. And that old bastard didn't even spend a single night in prison for his involvement in deaths of Schneider, Allende and thousands of innocent Chileans.
BOTTOM LINE: Coup d'état in Chile was the same old modus operandi that CIA was famous for. They had employed similar tactics in Guatemala and Iran in 1953, in which they overthrew the democratically chosen governments. It's quite an irony that the country that considers itself a messenger of freedom and democracy and the protector of humanity, would turn out to be the biggest threat to freedom, democracy and for the whole humanity. In Chile, Salvador Allende 's government was the first ever government in the history of Chile, that was truly committed to the development and welfare of its people. Chile up to now had been plagued by corrupt Governments who had allowed US Corporations to steal the natural resources of Chile without paying a single dime to the Chilean people. Allende was adamant about changing this senseless theft of Chile 's natural resources. He wanted to nationalise Chile's vast mining and oil industry, which were currently being plundered by US Corporations. And this is why he became a target for American Government and especially an eyesore for Nixon and Henry Kissinger. And on 11th September 1973, US murdered Salvador Allende and along with him they also murdered his dream of a prosperous and rich Chile. US replaced Allende with ruthless dictatorial rule of Chilean Army's General Augusto Pinochet, whose genocidal policies ravaged Chile for next 27 years and claimed nearly 500,000 Chilean lives.
IRAN CONTRA CONSPIRACY
After CIA overthrew the democratically chosen government of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, Shah was reinstated as the legitimate ruler of Iran. Shah was an avid supporter of US and UK and by collaborating with them Shah was working against the welfare and interest of the Iranian people. Shah had given foreign corporations like British Petroleum and SHELL absolute control over the Iran's vast oil reserves. As long as these corporations agreed to the ratio of 50:50 for sharing the revenues generated by the sale of oil with the him, Shah cared little about what else these corporations were doing. When CIA reinstated Shah as the ruler of Iran, they advices Shah to create a secret intelligence service called SAVAK, whose only job would be to eliminate the political and social dissidents of Shah's policies and his rule. Objective of this organisation would be to induce tremendous fear in the mind of the common man.CIA trained SAVAK operatives in various techniques of interrogation and torture and above all in the art of espionage. Soon murders, broad daylight shootings, abductions, agonising screams of anguish during torture and disappearances became a norm for SAVAK. CIA's main reason behind setting up SAVAK was to keep Shah's dissidents in check and to reduce the chances of another revolution rising up in Iran to remove Shah from power, like in 1951. SAVAK is recognised as the organisation that is responsible for highest number of human right abuses in the history by the renowned UN Organisation Amnesty International. Amnesty estimates that SAVAK was responsible for deaths of over 210,000 innocent Iranian civilians and unlawful imprisonment of upto 300,000 Iranians. Cruelty and brutality of SAVAK was the main reason behind rise of another revolution in 1979.
ANOTHER COUP IN IRAN (1979)
In 1979, Iran was once again amidst a revolution. After suffering 26 years of criminal, brutal, exploitory and murderous regime of the Shah, Iranian people finally rose against the tyrant. During the reign of the Shah, his very own Gestapo known as SAVAK murdered thousands of Iranians who had courage to speak out against the Shah. For 26 years, Shah used SAVAK to purge his political enemies and public dissidents. Shah with his British and American collaborators, exploited the vast oil reserves of Iran without paying a single buck to the Iranian people. Shah continued to buil vast estates overseas in Europe and America and on other hand Iranian people kept sliding deeper and deeper into poverty.
Finally an Imam rose up against this tyrannical regime of the Shah. He was widely respected and loved by the Iranian people. His name was Ayatollah Rehollah Khomeini. Ayatollah saw Iranian people were missing the guidance and advice that Mohammed Mossadegh gave them during 1951 uprisings. Ayatollah concluded that without an unifying leader, this uprising will not last much longer.
So he took on the role of a political, religious and spiritual leader for Iranian people.
By mid-December 1978 the Shah's position had deteriorated to such a point that he himself realised that his days of power were gone now, so only thing he was asking of revolutionaries was to allow him to live in Iran.
In late December, he requested to leave the country temporarily for medical treatment but once again his request was turned down. On January 16, 1979 the Shah and the empress were allowed to leave Iran temporarily for medical reasons. By that time Shah had already transferred his vast wealth into Swiss and American banks, so there was no logical reason for returning to Iran where he was possibly going to be executed for the atrocities that he had committed during 26 years of his reign.
So Shah fled from France to United States. Scenes of spontaneous joy and celebrations broke out all over the country and within hours almost every sign of the Pahlavi dynasty was destroyed. Eventually an interim government by the Army was setup to carry out, all day to day functions of the government untill the elections were conducted.
BOTTOM LINE: Iran completed the whole circle when it overthrew the Shah's regime in 1979. It's quite ironic that when Shah's regime was overthrown in 1949, CIA and MI6 collaborated with Shah and overthrew democratically chosen government of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. For 26 years Shah ruled with an iron fist, and this iron fist was a secret agency called SAVAK which was the brainchild of CIA. SAVAK was in all its functionality an Iranian version of Gestapo. During the reign of Shah, SAVAK regularly abused every possible human right. Human rights situation in Iran during Shah's rule from 1953 to 1979 was so deplorable that UN organisation of human rights Amnesty International stated that the human rights abuses by SAVAK were so horrible and heinous that there is no match of number of crimes committed by SAVAK anywhere in the history of United Nations. The prime self-proclaimed humanitarian countries in the world simply turned a blind eye towards the atrocities committed by their ally Shah. As long as Shah allowed Americans and Britishers an absolute authority over Iran's oil fields, they were simply not interested in what was being done to the Iranian people. And in 1979, this whole house of Shah's, America's and Britsh cards was blown away. Shah and his foreign friends fled from the country but left their henchmen(SAVAK) behind. Iranian people executed each and very SAVAK agent that they could get their hands on. I guess the price of killing thousands of innocent people just had to be their lives, which they duly paid.
US EMBASSY IN TEHRAN STORMED BY REVOLUTIONARIES
In November 1979, a group Iranian students who were also avid followers of Ayatollah Khomeini decided to occupy US Embassy in Tehran for a short period of time. Their main objective was to use the media attention to spread their message to the world. Iranians stated that their motivation was fear of another American backed coup against their popular revolution, as was done in 1953. They claimed that in 1953, the American embassy acted as a "den of spies" from which the American coup was organized. Documents were later found in the embassy suggesting that some workers in the embassy were actually CIA operatives.After the Shah's entry into the United States, the Ayatollah Khomeini called for street demonstrations. 
On November 4, 1979, in guise of conducting a demonstration, organized by Iranian student unions loyal to Khomeini, gathered at the main gates of the Embassy. Another reason behind this attempt to occupy the US Embassy was the leverage to demand the return of the Shah to Iran for trial in exchange for the hostages.Around 6:30 a.m. on November 4, 1979, the ringleaders gathered between 300 and 500 selected students, thereafter known as Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, and briefed them on the battle plan.
A female student was given a pair of metal cutters to break the chains locking the embassy's gates, and she hid them beneath her chador.
At first, the students' plan to only make a symbolic occupation, release statements to the press, and leave when government security forces came to restore order was reflected in placards saying "Don't be afraid. We just want to set-in". When the embassy guards brandished firearms, the protesters retreated, one telling the Americans, "We don't mean any harm". But as it became clear the guards would not use deadly force and that a large angry crowd had gathered outside the compound to cheer the occupiers and jeer the hostages, the occupation changed.
According to one embassy staff member, buses full of demonstrators began to appear outside the embassy shortly after the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line broke through the gates. When Iran's foreign minister told Ayatollah Khomeini about the situation, Ayatollah got enraged and told him to kick the students out of the embassy.
At that time Ayatollah Khomeini didn't knew that the Embassy takeover was lead by his supporters. When Ayatollah Khomeini was told that it was his avid supporters who had led the takeover of the embassy, he issued a statement supporting the seizure and calling it "the second revolution", and the embassy an "American spy den in Tehran". The occupiers bound and blindfolded the embassy Marines and staff and paraded them in front of photographers. In the first couple of days, many of the embassy staff who had sneaked out of the compound or not been there at the time of the takeover were rounded up by Islamists and returned as hostages.
Six American diplomats did however avoid capture and took refuge in the British embassy before being transferred to the Canadian Embassy, and others went to the Swedish embassy in Tehran for three months. A joint Canadian government and CIA covert operation, known as the Canadian caper, managed to smuggle them out of Iran using Canadian passports and a cover story disguising them as a Canadian film crew on January 28, 1980.
HARDLINERS ENTER THE PICTURE
During the early days of the hostage crisis, US President Jimmy Carter refused to negotiate with the Islamic Students occupying the embassy citing the core American policy of not negotiating with the terrorists. But US public pressurised Carter to negotiate with the the Iranians as the people holding the hostages were not terrorists in any way but rather were Islamic Students. Initially the leaders of the Students inside the embassy told American negotiators that they should not be considered kidnappers and that they only ask for the Shah to be returned to Iran to stand in trial for his atrocities against Iranian civilians. US negotiators kept telling the students that Shah was in very bad shape and any attempt to move him would cause his death.
And this was all proved when Shah died from his medical condition in July 1989. After Shah's death, students saw no reason to continue the occupation anymore and were considering withdrawal from the embassy in August 1980.
By August 1980, Iran was being invaded by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces in the west. Most Iranians believed that Saddam Hussein was encouraged to attack Iran be US Government in an attempt to mount pressure on Iranian Government for the release of the hostages.
Secondly ever since this hostage crisis began in November 1979, in an attempt to cripple Iranian authority in the region, US had requested to all European countries to halt weapons and arms sale to Iran. The invasion by Iraq combined with the weapon sale embargo, really started to hurt Iran's capability to defend itself. So when hardliners in the Khomeini camp heard about the withdrawal of students from the US Embassy, they saw an tremendous opportunity to turn the tables on America. Students in the embassy were asked to leave the Embassy and were replaced by Khomeini hardliners.
RONALD REAGAN MAKES A SECRET DEAL WITH IRANIAN FOR RELEASE OF HOSTAGES
In the mean time Ronald Reagan won the presidential elections and during the government's transition period, he traveled to Tangiers in Algeria to negotiate with the Iranian delegation in a meeting mediated by government of Algeria. At this summit Iranian delegation demanded an agreement by the US Government for the multi billion dollar sale of US made weapons and arms to Iran. According to the experts Reagan agreed and signed the deal and it was agreed that sale and delivery of weapons will be done over a period of two years and will only begins after the release of all remaining hostages.In an undestading between Ronald Reagan and Iranian it was finalised that all hostages would be released within minutes of Reagan's sworn in ceremony as the President of United States. Ronald Reagan was sworn in as 40th President of the United States of America on 20th January 1980. And as per the agreement between Regan and Iranians, all 52 of remaining hostages were released minuted after Reagan's sworn in ceremony. And with this a 444 days long ordeal, one of the longest international hostage crisis in the history ended.
REVOLUTION IN NICARAGUA
For over six decades Nicaragua was ravaged by the US backed dictatorial regime of Samosa family. Samosas were put in power by US President Woodrow Wilson with the use of US Marines Corps to crush the rebellion against the Samosas in Nicaragua in the year 1917. Since that day, Nicaragua had remained under the control of Samosa family where one generation was replaced by next generation in powerful political and military positions in Nicaragua. From the year 1917 to 1978, Nicaraguans were exploited, oppressed and subjugated by the tyrannical rule of Samosa family. Samosa family aided and collaborated with notorious US Corporations in the systematic heist of Nicaragua's natural resources like copper and silver mining and large scale farming of fruits.By the year 1975, Anastasio Samosa and the Samosa family had become one of the richest families in all of Latin America.On the other hand by 1975, 70% of Nicaraguans were living below poverty line, 80% of population was suffering from starvation and at an average were eating one meal every two days, infant mortality rate was 50%, 90% of the Nicaraguan children were suffering from chronic malnutrition, average life expectancy of Nicarguan people was 45 years and 95% of the population was illiterate.
Anastasio Samosa was a very sadistic dictator who never shied from getting his political dissidents tortured, decapitated, kidnapped and exterminated by his very own Gestapo like force called Presidential guards. One of the Samosa's favourite methods of execution was throwing victims into the Volcano from a helicopter. Experts estimate that about 300,000 Nicaraguans lost their lives during the reign of Anadtasio Samosa. From above mentioned social conditions, human right abuses and the shear desperation of Nicaraguan people to improve their life, a revolution was born. This revolution was named after a famous Nicaraguan Revolutionary in early 1910s called Sandino who died in a battle against US Marines in 1917.
The revolutionaries called themselves Sandinistas and their main objective was to end the tyrannical regime of Samosa family and establish the very first government chosen by the people themselves. In 1979, Sandinista revolutionaries successfully defeated government forces. Anastasio Samosa with the rest of his family fled to Miami.
As soon as Sandinistas came to power they nationalised all major projects regarding natural resources of Nicaragua and kicked out all the US Corporations who had been a constant ally of Samosas in the exploitation of natural resources of Nicaragua. Sandinista government started several projects that specifically dealt with the issue of starvation and malnutrition.
Within a couple of years infant mortality dropped to below 15%, child malnutrition below 20%, starving population under 20% and population below poverty line to less than 30%. Sandinistas initiated a project of establishing medical care centers in the each and every village, so that people don't have to rush to town in case of a medical emergency.
One of the biggest projects of the Sandinistas was establishing over 5000 schools all over Nicaragua which brought the illiteracy rate below 15% from 95% two years ago. Most importantly Sandinistas started a land reform project in which poor landless peasants were given small patches of land free of cost in order to make them independent and self sustained. All these developments worried US Government that if other populations of Latin American countries saw what Sandinistas were achieving in Nicaragua, then they might also adopt similar tactics in their country. US corporations had all of South America in their stranglehold and were making billions of dollars worth of profits by robbing these Latin American people off their resources.
Poverty and hunger had become a common condition for most of the people in South America. But if these people saw how Sandinistas had successfully eradicated all these social issues, then that might motivate them to break free of US Corporate shackles too. So in mind of US President Ronald Reagan, Sandinistas had to be eliminated at any cost. And once again if you have something illegal and unethical to do then who else would you call other than CIA. CIA contacted nearly 15,000 former Presidential Guards who had all fled to Honduras fearing that they too will be put on trial for the atrocities they committed during Anastasio Samosa's reign.
CIA sent it experts to Honduras to train and rearm these Presidential guards to wage a guerilla war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. These guard were given a new name Contras, and were told to conduct small scale raids to the villages close to the border of Honduras and Nicaragua.but what CIA didn't realise was that these people were a sadistic force who took pleasure in murdering people in most horrible ways.
Soon hundreds and thousands of Nicaraguans became target of these people and ended up getting murdered by these Contras.Soon News about the atrocities committed by a CIA supported group called Contras reached Washington. Ronald Reagan tried his level best to decieve US Congress by portraying Contras as patriotic freedom fighters who were fighting for the rights and freedom of Nicaraguans. But Congress saw right through these lies and passed a Bipartisan Congressional Resolutions which outlawed all and any kind of support to the Contras whether it be weapons and arms aid, logistical and training aid or monetary aid.
And this resolution further endorsed that any kind of activity in contradiction to the resolution would be considered as treasonous act. Ronal Reagan still wanted to support Contras in their murderous activities but he was prohibited by the Congress from using Government funds to aid the Contras anymore. He had to find some other alternative method of generating funds while keeping it hidden from US Government.
BOTTOM LINE:In 1979, Sandinista revolutionaries defeated government forces and announced the victory of revolutionaries in Managua. Once again Samosa family fled to Miami along with its wealth of over 500 million dollars. This President Ronal Reagan decided to help Samosa out not by use of US military but rather by covert means. Reagan decided to aid and arm the former Presidential Guards of Samosa who had fled to neighbouring Honduras after Sandinistas entered Managua. These guards were armed and trained by CIA operatives and their name was changed to contras. These Contras mainly conducted hit and hide tactics of Guerilla Warfare. These ruthless criminals murdered nearly 400,000 Nicaraguan civilians in order to spread a wave of fear throughout Nicaragua. And even after knowing of the atrocities committed by Contras in village raids, Reagan continued to supply funds and arms to them.
HOW IRAN-CONTRA CAME TOGETHER?
As Ronald Reagan was contemplating how to generate funds for supporting Contras in Nicaragua, he was delivered the very first order list of weapons from the Iranian government. This where he realised that the deal with the Iran was a top secret operation which was secured by national security clause. So he realised that it was nearly impossible for the contents of the deal to fall in wrong hands. Hence Reagan along with his faithfuls in CIA, Department of Defense, Whitehouse staff and handful of Military Generals decided that the profits made by selling weapons and arms to Iran, would be used to support Contras in Nicaragua. Col.Oliver North in the National Security Council was put in charge of the operation. Exact value of weapons sold to Iran is still unknown but experts believe total value of Weapons had to be around $12-18 billion dollars. And approximate proffits made from the sale would be in the range of $500-800 million.
DISCOVERY AND SCANDAL
He later said he did not know whether they did or not. The Iranian government confirmed the Ash-Shiraa story, and ten days after the story was first published, Reagan was shocked but decided to announce his ignorance about the Nicaraguan part of the scandal.
President Reagan appeared on national television from the Oval Office on November 13, stating:
"My purpose was... to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the U.S. and Iran] with a new relationship... At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there."
The scandal was compounded when Oliver North destroyed or hid pertinent documents between November 21 and November 25, 1986. During North's trial in 1989, his secretary, Fawn Hall, testified extensively about helping North alter, shred, and remove official National Security Council (NSC) documents from the White House.
According to the New York Times, enough documents were put into a government shredder to jam it. North's explanation for destroying some documents was to protect the lives of individuals involved in Iran and Contra operations. It was not until years after the trial that North's notebooks were made public, and only after the Nationsl Security Act and Public citizens sued the Office of the executive counsel under the Freedom of Informatio Act.
During the trial North testified that on November 21, 22, or 24, he witnessed Poindexter destroy what may have been the only signed copy of a presidential covert-action finding that sought to authorize CIA participation in the November 1985 Arms shipment to Iran.US Attorney General Edwin Meese admitted on November 25 that profits from weapons sales to Iran were made available to assist the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
On the same day, John Poindexter resigned, and Oliver North was fired by President Reagan.
Poindexter was replaced by Frank Carlucci on December 2, 1986. In one of his books author journalist Bob Woodward chronicled the role of the CIA in facilitating the transfer of funds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras spearheaded by Oliver North.
Then Director of the CIA, William J Casey allegedly admitted to Woodward in February 1987 that he was aware of the diversion of funds to the contras confirming a number of encounters documented by Woodward. The controversial admission occurred while Casey was hospitalized for a stroke. On May 6, 1987, William Casey died the day after Congress began its public hearings on Iran–Contra.
INDICTMENTS
Oliver North and John Poindexter were indicted on multiple charges on March 16, 1988. North, indicted on 16 counts, was found guilty by a jury of three felony counts. The convictions were vacated on appeal on the grounds that North's 5th Ammendment rights may have been violated by the indirect use of his testimony to Congress which had been given under a grant of immunity. In 1990 Poindexter was convicted on several felony counts of conspiracy, lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and altering and destroying documents pertinent to the investigation. His convictions were also overturned on appeal on similar grounds. Arthur Liman served as chief counsel for the Senate during the Iran–Contra Scandal. The independent counsel Lawrence.E.Waldh chose not to re-try North or Poindexter. In total, several dozen people were investigated by Walsh's office.
During his election campaign in 1988, Vice President Bush denied any knowledge of the Iran–Contra affair by saying he was "out of the loop". Though his diaries included that he was "one of the few people that know fully the details", he repeatedly refused to discuss the incident and won the election. However, a book published in 2008 by Israeli journalist and terrorism expert Ronan Bergman asserts that Bush was personally and secretly briefed on the affair by Amiram Nir, counter-terrorism adviser to the then Israeli Prime Minister, when Bush was on a visit to Israel. "Nir could have incriminated the incoming President. The fact that Nir was killed in a mysterious chartered airplane crash in Mexico in December 1988 has given rise to numerous conspiracy theories", writes Bergman. On December 24, 1992, nearing the end of his term in office after being defeated by Bill Clinton the previous month, Bush pardoned six administration officials, namely Elliot Abrams, Duann Claridge, Alan Fiers, Clair George, Robert Mcfarlane, and Caspar Weinberger.
In Poindexter's hometown of Odon, Indiana, a street was renamed to John Poindexter Street. Bill Breeden, a former minister, stole the street's sign in protest of the Iran–Contra affair. He claimed that he was holding it for a ransom of $30 million, in reference to the amount of money given to Iran to transfer to the Contras. He was later arrested and confined to prison, making him, as satirically noted by Howard Zinn, "the only person to be imprisoned as a result of the Iran–Contra Scandal".
WHAT CAUSED SO MUCH UPROAR?
There were many different reasons that this Scandal caused so much uproar and outcry by the people and politicians alike.
- One of the reasons was that after the overthrow of Shah's regime in Iran, US Government and leaders including Reagan had called Iran an Islamin terrorist haven. Reagan himself had accused Iranian Imam Ayatollah Khomeini a leader of a terrorist front operating in Iran and that Iran under his leadership poses the biggest threat to the national security of USA and its allied countries in Asia and Europe. But despite all these claims Reagan willingly agreed to sell US made weapons to the Iran that according to Reagan was a threat to USA.
- Second reason was that despite knowing the facts that Contra rebels were nothing more than Samosa's very own Gestapo, CIA and Ronald Reagan decided to support and aid them to wage a war against a democratically chosen government of Sandinistas in Nicaragua. And even after getting the reports that Contras were engaged in and committed brutal, violent and most heinous crimes against humanity, Ronald Reagan Administration still continued to support them.
- Even after congress prohibited Ronald Reagan from supporting the Contra rebels who by now had murdered over 40,000 Nicaraguan civilians, Ronald Reagan autonomously decided to continue his support to the Contras by illegal means.
- Another thing that troubled many Amricans was that according to constitution US Congress is the ultimate authority in Government and nothing can supercede its position in the hierarchy of authority. But Ronald Reagan knowingly acted in total contradiction to the decision of US Congress. If a President thinks that he is entitled to supercede US Congress then what is stopping him from becoming a dictator.
- US support to the Contras resulted in deaths of over 250,000 Nicaraguan people. These people were just trying to improve their lives and break free from the oppression of US Corporations and US Government. But their vision was a little too close to the ego of American imperialism so Ronald Reagan lied and betrayed American a public to stop and eliminate these innocent Nicaraguan civilians. And tragically this cost that all South American countries are forced to pay every once a while.
IRAQ AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
The year was 2003, war was still raging on in Afghanistan. Fictional terrorist group called Al Qaeda was still engaged in a bitter war in the mountains of Hindukush. This was a time of uncertainty but even in this time of uncertainty George Bush and his cronies were certain about one thing, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The UN weapons inspector who lead an UN contingent of weapons inspectors to Iraq was refuting all claims being made by George Bush and his minions as lies. Everyday George Bush was telling a new lie about Saddam Hussein's WMDs. He was even claiming that he knows the location of these WMDs as well.UNITED NATIONS WEAPONS INSPECTIONS
Following the passage of Resolution 1441 in United Nations, on 18 November 2002, weapons inspectors of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission returned to Iraq for the first time since being withdrawn by the United Nations. Whether Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction or not was being investigated by Hans Blix, head of the Commission, and Mohammed Elbaradei, head of International Atomic Energy agent.
Inspectors remained in the country until they withdrew after being notified of the imminent invasion by the United States, Britain, and two other countries. In early December 2002, Iraq filed a 12,000-page weapons declaration with the UN.
After reviewing the document, UN weapons inspectors, the US, France, United Kingdom and other countries thought that this declaration failed to account for all of Iraq's chemical and biological agents. Many of these countries had supplied the Iraqi regime with the technology to make these weapons in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. On December 19, US Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that Iraq was in "material breach" of the Security Council resolution. Blix has complained that, to this day, the United States and Britain have not presented him with the evidence which they claim to possess regarding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. On January 16, 2003, inspectors discovered 11 empty 122 mm chemical warheads.
Unless some sort of chemical agent was also detected in the shells, they cannot be linked to any kind of chemical or biological weapon. No such evidence was ever found. Hans Blix believed there to be large quantities of weapons materials still unaccounted for. Other UN inspectors blamed Blix for having a biased attitude in favour of the United States and Britain's claims.
Despite finding no evidence of any biological and chemical weapons, Hans Blix was adamant about Iraq possessing WMDs and this claim was being challenged by all other UN Inspectors.
This created a big divide between Blix and rest of the team. Finally On January 27, 2003, UN inspectors reported that Iraq had cooperated with monitors and no evidence of any biological and chemical weapons was ever found. But Blix issued another statement regarding his believes that Iraq had not demonstrated a "genuine acceptance" of the need to disarm unilaterally. In addition, by the 28th, a total of 16 Iraqi scientists had refused to be interviewed by inspectors. The United States claimed that "sources" had told them that Saddam Hussein had ordered the death of any scientist who speaks with inspectors in private. No scientist has confirmed this, and Iraq has insisted that they were not putting pressure on the scientists.
All members of the weapons inspection team criticised Hans Blix about his biased approach for the inspection. But many other UN inspectors were not so conservative in their criticism of Blix. A couple of UN inspectors accused Hans Blix of being an biased investigator who was secretively working for validating claims made by US and UK governments. In the wake of all this controversy, Hans Blix gave an interview to a renowned news agency in which he clearly stated that he is absolutely sure that Iraq possesses no biological and chemical WMDs.
Furthermore he blamed George Bush and Tony Blair for trying to manipulate the findings of the UN team of inspectors. Blix denied all rumours about any kind of disagreement between him and other inspectors. Hans Blix finally stated that according to him Iraq doesn't possess any kind of Biological or Chemical weaponry and if US and UK decided to take any kind of military action against Iraq, that action would be totally illegal.
COLIN POWELL'S PRESENTATION AT UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL
After 9/11, Colin Powell's main job was to gather as much international support for developing a coalition force to invade Iraq to destroy the alleged Weapons of mass destruction. And one of the most significant factor that would have possibly generated massive support for the invasion of Iraq was Colin Powell's presentation about Iraq's WMDs at the plenary session of United Nations Security Council. On February 6, 2003, Powell appeared before the UN to "prove" the urgency to engage a war with Iraq. Although the presentation failed to change the fundamental position of the Security Council, including France, Russia, China and Germany.
Powell also claimed that Iraq harbored a terrorist network headed by Al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Colin Powell had no evidence to support his claim, on the other hand there was a lot of evidence pointing to the contrary of what Powell was claiming. Powell also showed photos of what he said was a poison and explosives training camp in northeast Iraq, operated by Al-Qaeda. When this camp was visited by a British journalist two days later, all that was found was a few dilapidated buildings and no evidence or signs of any terrorist activity, chemical or explosives.
Powell alleged that these training camps had been operating with help from Iraqi agents, despite them being in the northern Iraqi Kurdistan "a no fly zone" and thus outside of de facto Iraqi control. Powell also claimed that Iraqis visited Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and provided training to al-Qaeda members, although thousands of Arabs from many countries did the same. US intellegence agencies found no evidence of any substantive collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.
While Colin Powell's statement to the UN may have been accepted as "proof" by many in the US, this was not the case in Europe, where there was widespread scepticism of any links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.The British government's intelligence services did not believe there was any link at all, given the mutual hatred between Islamists hard liners and the secular regime in Baghdad. Colin Powell even showed a Computer-generated image of an alleged mobile production facilities for creating biological and chemical weapons. These images were presented by Powell as fool proof evidence of Iraq's biological and chemical capability at the UN Security Council. Absence of more substantial proofs undermined the credibility of Powell's presentation. Russian experts have always questioned the likelihood of such mobile facilities, which are extremely dangerous and difficult to manage.
SORRY NO WMDs HERE
When no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, Colin Powell was asked about his statements in the United Nations Security Council. Colin Powell replied to the questions by saying that we were misled by the inaccurate intellegence reports from CIA and Military intellegence units. At the time of presentation, Colin Powell repeatedly suggested that he had studied all the WMDs related documents to the absolute limit and only made up his mind after careful evaluation of all these documents. But when asked about the WMDs in TV interview with Barbara Walters, Colin Powell claimed that everything that he was given or everything he had was inaccurate and possibly older intellegence reports. Later in the Interview Colin Powell described the mistakes he made during his campaign to gather international support for invasion, a blot on his long illustrious career as a soldier. Even now Colin Powell was not ready to admit that he had lied in the United States Security Council, and shifted all blame towards CIA analysts who had deliberately lied to him about the intel on Iraq, probably at the behest of US President George Bush and his entourage.
Colin Powell would later admit that few claims he made in his speech at United Nations Security Council had no factual basis and were completely unreliable. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Powell contended that prior to his UN presentation, he had merely four days to review the data concerning WMD in Iraq.
A Senate report on intelligence failures would later detail the intense debate that went on behind the scenes on what to include in Powell's speech. State Department analysts had found dozens of factual problems in drafts of the speech. Some of the claims were taken out, but others were left in, such as claims based on the yellow cake forgery. The administration came under fire for having acted on faulty intelligence, particularly what was single-sourced to the informant known as Corveball (former Iraqi Army Offocer now living in exile). Powell later recounted how Vice President Dick Cheney had joked with him before he gave the speech, telling him, "You've got high poll ratings; you can afford to lose a few points."
Powell's longtime aide and Chief of Staff from 1989–2003, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, later characterized Cheney's view of Powell's mission as to "go up there and sell it, and we'll have moved forward a peg or two. Fall on your damn sword and kill yourself, and I'll be happy, too." The war that was initiated on lies led to the death of over 1.5 million Iraqi civilians.
And this number is rising every single day. But the people who are responsible for this was and deaths of 1.5 million civilians are still roaming freely and not a single one of them have been brought to justice. George.W.Bush, Dich Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleza Rice and especially Colin Powell should all be charged with war crimes and hung if found guilty. A society where one group of people are incarcerated indefinitely without showing any evidence to prove their guilt and where another group that deliberately lied and those lies led to the deaths of 1.5 million people, still roam freely, cannot be called a fair society.
UN SANCTIONS: CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
Its hardly a mystery anymore that why did US invade Iraq. No it was not to free Iraqi people. They were already free and the only hardship that was their in their lives was either due to first gulf war or due to UN embargo on Iraq. It was all done to control the vast oil reserves of Iraq. And this theory was further validated by actions of Obama administration to destabilise Libya and Syria. Because after Iraq these two countries were the biggest exporters of oil behind Saudi Arabia. It was all done for economic reasons and it had nothing to do with humanitarian reasons.
Moreover if that bastard George W Bush was so worried about the weapons of mass destruction that he alleged that Iraq still possessed than first person he should have dealt with would have been his very own Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. Because it was Donald Rumsfeld who made a deal for selling Chemical and Biological Weapons to Saddam Hussein on 20th December 1983, when he was appointed as Special Envoy for Middle East by President Ronald Reagan. Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam Hussein at a time when Iraq-Iran war was going on. So main purpose of Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad was that he wanted to discuss the prospect of Iraq becoming a crucial US ally in the Middle East to counter the Syrian and Iranian expansion of influence in other Arab countries.
Just 2 days before Rumsfeld met with Saddam, Saddam Hussein had attacked the Kurdish Villages with nerve gas which had resulted in more than 10,000 deaths of Kurdish civilians. And many even claim that the weapon that Saddam used on Kurdish rebels was supplied by US itslef. So for US to claim in 2003 that Iraq was a threat to world because of its chemical and biological weapons, which ironically US itself delivered it to Saddam, is totally a ridiculous theory and should be considered an insult by any competent person, because thinking that people would believe this nonsense certainly reflects that US government thinks that it citizens are incapable of rational thinking.
Just 2 days before Rumsfeld met with Saddam, Saddam Hussein had attacked the Kurdish Villages with nerve gas which had resulted in more than 10,000 deaths of Kurdish civilians. And many even claim that the weapon that Saddam used on Kurdish rebels was supplied by US itslef. So for US to claim in 2003 that Iraq was a threat to world because of its chemical and biological weapons, which ironically US itself delivered it to Saddam, is totally a ridiculous theory and should be considered an insult by any competent person, because thinking that people would believe this nonsense certainly reflects that US government thinks that it citizens are incapable of rational thinking.
In the end everything comes down to this fact that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and nor did he had any desires to own them. After the first Gulf War of 1991, US Airforce had destroyed all the majority of Iraqi civilian infrastructure deliberately to cripple Iraq. US Forces had destroyed over 15 water treatment plants, electricity generating units, big Pharnaceutical companies which provided bulk of the medicinal requirements i.e over 80% of Iraq's medicine requirements were supplied by these companies. Another favourite target of US pilots was food processing plants. One such plant that fulfilled 75% of Iraq's requirement of milk by producing powdered milk, was completely destroyed. So quite understandable Saddam Hussein had several other more pressing issues to ponder about before any other consideration.
Mortality rate of Infants was at more than 50% and with wide spread poverty and hunger even pregnant mothers were suffering from malnourishment. There was no supply of clean drinking water, electricity, adequate food and medicine to ensure the safety of both mother and child. And this was a constant state of affairs in Iraq ever since 1991, when United Nations placed economic sanctions on Iraq halting all international aid from entering into the country.
What I don't get is what was the function of the UN sanctions on Iraq? I can understand the ban on sale of Iraqi oil, but what I simply can't understand is the need of sanctions about halting the medicine and food supply to Iraq. During the years of UN embargo on Iraq, as many as one million children mostly infants died from easilly curable diseases like diarrhea, pnemonea and viral infections. Ban on delivery of repair and reconstruction material to Iraq meant that Iraqi's were not even able to repair water treatment plants which were deliberately bombed by NATO forces. And unhealthy drinking water was the main cause of children falling ill. What did those little babies had to do with anything? There was no power supply to the majority of Iraqi rural area because most of the electricity generating plants were bombed and destroyed by NATO bombings and then tools to repair them were not allowed to be supplied to Iraqis.
This UN embargo that claimed lives of more than a million Iraqi children was a genocide and a crime against humanity and the Secretary General of UN during this embargo should be indicted for these crimes. Main purpose of UN was to establish peace and help the needy by humanitarian efforts, but this shameless institute has been reduced to nothing more than another ally of NATO. I think United Nations has lived out its usefulness for the humanity and should be dissolved now.
BOTTOM LINE: By 2003, everybody knew that Iraq had no Chemical or Biological weapons capability. Even UN inspectors who conducted elaborate inspections of key facilities in Iraq stated that Iraq had fully co-operated with them and that they were sure that Iraq possessed no WMDs. Despite this Bush administration remained adamant and defiant about their claims that Iraq still possessed WMDs. It was all for black gold "Oil" and the attitude of Washington about Oil is more the merrier. I believe that if it came out that Narnia has huge oil deposits then we'll see Obama within hours claiming that Narnia possesses weapons of mass destruction and that US is invading Narnia to free its furry creatures from oppression.....
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