New Chomsky Interview: "U.S. Is A Leading Terrorist State"

[The_Baron]

Approved by the Joint Chiefs. Okay, what exactly was approved? An Implementation Study? A Feasability Study? Mission Tasking? Order of Battle? War Order? Operations Order?
Saying the JCS approved it doesn't say what action was approved. While I have no doubt we've had Chairmen of the JCS who've been fundamentally evil, I do know that they're universally inclined to covering their asses. Did JCS approve a Mission Development Team and then rescind the order? Did they approve the actual deployment of personel and materiel assets?
As I said before, I don't have the documents Bamford used and I seriously doubt he has all of the documentation involved in the operation development. Just as an example, when the 1/509 Airborne Combat Team deployed to Germany for their winter training exercies in 1982, I was exiled to the S2(Intelligence) shop for several days. The Batallion secure document index listed something like 14,500 separate pages of formal, written documentation. That was just the stuff that was classified high enough that it had to be stored or destroyed under direct supervision of the Bn. S2. Counting personel rosters, equipment maintanence orders, shipment orders and all of the rest of the paper crap needed for a batallion sized military operation, there was literally a stack of paper four or five sheets wide and over six feet tall. Several hundred pounds worth. And this was for an operation that takes place yearly and is prescheduled literally a decade in advance.
If you've got a list of Bamford's actual resources, I'd like to take a look at them.
As an aside, in 1983, there was an operation approved by the JCS as well as NATO High Command and the liaisons of non-affiliated nations to include the UN's Security Council.
I'm not certain of the operation's name though I believe it was , "Pipecap Racer". This operation mandated the deployment of a NATO aircraft sortie of four aircraft to deliver two B-61(Mod-7) set for yield onto Caserme Ederle, the SETAF Basic Load Storage Area and each of the Nike missile sites in northern Italy. This was to be followed on by a B-61(Mod-7) set to the highest yield fused for air burst to disperse the, "surviving infrastructural remnants", after the first bombs. That's something like 26 10kt nukes dropped at five to seven minute intervals in and around Vicenza and Verona, Italy. These were to be followed by 13(not sure how many missile sites there were so don't hold me to the exact number of warheads) 340+/-kt nukes dropped as air bursts five to seven minutes after the last of the ground bursts went off. Their purpose was to "sterilize" the NATO/SETAF facilities to prevent them from providing equipment or intelligence to Soviet forces in the event of an invasion. That's almost fifty low to medium yield nuclear bombs that were to be dropped on Italian population centers. This was not only approved by the Italian government, but was actually mandated by them. They were willing to accept the losses from the operation in question rather than risk the invading Soviet forces aquiring the equipment and personel assigned to those sites.
While I've never seen the Operation Plans, I have very little doubt there are equivalent operations laid out for every strategic military facility in the continental US. Given a government that will advocate the nuking of one of its allies as well as its own troops to prevent compromise by opposition forces, I have no doubt that somewhere in that government there are people who advocate lesser acts of aggression in order to precipitate a military action against an opposition force that's perceived to be developing a larger and more virulent threat.
Regardless, approval by the JCS doesn't say much more than somewhere in the E-Ring of the Pentagon, a signature went onto a piece of paper. What that paper was actually proposing is still up for grabs. For whatever it's worth, organizations such as the Rand Foundation are awarded tens of millions of dollars a year to do nothing but play, "what if", and then send their what-ifs off to some Colonel or General to develop a counter strategy. It's part of the nature of government since man first banded his clans and tribes into nations.
I'm not saying Bamford is wrong, he's very possibly right. I'm saying I don't have enough information to make a judgement as to exactly what it is that he's "exposed" to the people of the United States.

[brad]

basically it was a covert operation (note covert operation) to destroy US military equipment and personnel as well as US civilians in order to blame it on the cubans as the basis for an invasion of cuba.

approved by JCS who said hey, lets do it, who sent it up to sec def who vetoed it.

if you search web you can find documents and everything i dl'ed pdf file. (778k)

anyway youre right its just a preliminary thing but hey so was gulf of tonkin setup at one time and look what happened with that.

doesnt bother you that top military said, heh, lets kill americans to get everyone behind the (coming) war with cuba? they said lets do it, we're ready to implement, lets go. (and recommended they (jcs) be controlling agency in charge of (large covert and overt) operation)

[IrishHand]

Just once I'd like to hear Chomsky loudly condemn Castro, China, North Korea, the Palestinian terrorist organizations, etc. Just once.

What for? To make you feel better? God knows the Cubans, Chinese, North Koreans and Palestinians don't care what Chomsky says or thinks. The only people he has any reasonable hope of affecting in any way are Americans (and Canadians, I suppose - but we'll ignore that for the moment since they aren't on your 'evil-doers' list).

As he says in that above transcript, it's far more important to take ownership of your own actions than it is to start trying to control other countries into doing what you want. Of course, as we've seen, it's a lot easier (and far more profitable for wealthy Americans) to convince Americans that others do horrible things we need to put a stop to than it is to convince them that America does horrible things that we need to put a stop to.

In the end, you can make yourself a better person. You can try and force someone else to be a better person, but ultimately they need to make that choice for themselves.

Irish

[MMMMMM]

Well I believe you, it's just that everything I've ever seen of his seems pretty one-sided. I guess I somehow missed the other stuff.

[MMMMMM]

So Chomsky thinks Sakharov shouldn't criticize the USA and we shouldn't criticize the USSR, more or less? That's pure hogwash. We, and they, should criticize those most worthy of criticism...period. The worst human rights offenses should be criticized, wherever they occur.


Chomsky says his view is that we should give more attention to one priest we've killed than to 100 priests they've killed. What an arrogant, insensitive, non-empathetic view. The priest(s) don't care who killed them. My God. Empathize with the victims, for heaven's sake, Chomsky. And consider too that we just moight be able to stop them from killing the next 100 priests--if we apply some pressure.


Chomsky's view is a touch akin to this situation: you're walking home one evening and you see a little old lady being physically abused and intimidated by a young thug, who seems likely to rob and/or injure her. You have no cell phone and the streets seem pretty empty and you don't see any pay phones or open businesses nearby. Do you intervene? Or do you say to yourself you'd better find some way to improve yourself, since after all you've done some bad things lately, and it's only your actions you really have control over.

Granted, we can't right every wrong in the world or depose every petty tyrant. But we can call attention to the worst abuses and abusers, and put diplomatic pressure on them, and sometimes even use force if their evil is great enough and our power is sufficient. So Chomsky's attitude sounds great, but it doesn't really apply when the stakes get really high. It's one thing to shrug off a rude driver or an obnoxious drunk, and to take pleasure in our own resolve to be better ourselves. But when that drunk starts beating on a woman or a child out on the sidewalk in front of his house, and you're just standing right there, what do you do?

Chomsky's attitude is a cop-out. The worst tyrants require the loudest criticism and pressure--from everybody. Otherwise they will just go their merry way slaughtering, torturing, repressing, etc.

What was that quotation we've seen somewhere? Something like: All that tyranny needs in order to succeed is a tacit acquiescence.

[MMMMMM]

If it were just "making one's self a better person", I would agree with you close to 100%. But when it involves allowing the worst tyrants to abuse people on truly massive scales (through silence, indifference, or inaction), I have to differ.

[The_Baron]

Nowhere did I say it didn't bother me. It bothers the hell out of me. Regardless, having looked at the PDF file, I don't see the documentation necessary for official support of an operation as has been described. I'm not saying it didn't happen or it doesn't matter. I'm saying I don't have enough information to show that it ever amounted to anything beyond the JCS submitting something to SecDef and being told, "NO".
What I see is that the Commandant of the Marines mentioned that the plan was under the auspices of Title 10, 141(c) of the US Code which at the time covered the disclosure of identity of intelligence assets. The sheet indicates that this was applied and followed and the recommendation of the JCS to SecDef was limited to Paragraph 8 which discusses who's not supposed to see the document.
Again I'll say that I'm not saying it's not possible that such a plan actually evolved but from reading the documents you indicated, it shows that it hit JCS, was read and the only part of it that was approved was the part describing who doesn't get to see it. There's nothing there about which agency or organization would have overall control. There's nothing there about implementing any of the other paragraphs of the plan. In short, it gives some irksome suggestions as to how to provoke war with Cuba and stay in the good graces of the UN but nowhere does it say that any of these suggestions were even moved to the active planning stage.

[mattyou]

[andyfox]

No, it's not a narcissistic outlook. The government that was murdering its own citizens was the government of South Vietnam, the government we were defending. We aided a despotic and tyrannical government. My government lied to us, telling us we were defending freedom and democracy in a place where there was no freedom nor democracy.

Precisely because the world is full of bastards, precisely because Communists and Facists and other absolutists have ignored the welfare of people in order to "remake" society--this is the reason I want my country and its government to act in accord with its principles. Otherwise what difference would it make who won? If we act like Communists (or worse than Communists, as we did in Vietnam), we become unworthy of victory.

Lyndon Johnson campaigned as the peace candidate. Richard Nixon claimed he had a secret plan to end the war. They lied to us, murdering hundred of thousands of people deliberately and wantonly. Stalin and Mao and Ho Chi Minh didn't ask for my vote. Johnson and Nixon did. I have no say-so in whether or not Kim Jong-Il stays in power or exercises his power in accord with what I see as good and moral. Living in a democracy, I do have a say in whether or not George Bush stays in power or exercises his power in accord with what I see as good and moral.

It doesn't take much courage to criticize a Stalin or much perspicacity to recognize the evil of a Hitler. It does take both to recognize, and call out, when your own government is perpetrating the very evils we assume are only the province of the Stalins and the Hitlers. That's precisely what our government did in Vietnam. Chomsky was instrumental in revealing the nature of that evil.

[MMMMMM]

Our government might well have done much evil in Vietnam. I'm not a historical scholar of Vietnam so I can't say for sure to what degree.

I don't think it is appropriate to refrain from condemning other governments who do even worse than we do--after all, with enough international condemnation and pressure, we just might effect some changes over there-- even without having the vote in those countries. The people of those countries don't care how "moral" we are, they just want and need relief. Ignoring their silent suffering by virtue of our own silence shirks our human responsibilities, I believe.

We should try to change things, and policies, for the better right here at home where we have the most influence, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to change things elsewhere too, even with having lesser influence--especially if the sufferings caused by certain governments are great. I'm not saying to ignore our responsibilities to examine and reform in some ways, but I think focussing exclusively on our own end of things is a grave imbalance as long as there are Saddam Husseins and Kim Jong-ils in charge of countries: murdering, kidnapping, repressing and torturing their own citizens on a massive scale. Oh yes, and starving them to death too. To fail to address these horrific acts of enormous scale is an avoidance of our human responsibilities in my opinion.

If our past policies resulted in some large-scale abuses and tyrannies, then we should be glad to become made more aware of this. However that doesn't mean we should ignore other (even greater) current abuses and tyrannies--again, look to the people who are suffering under these conditions.

It is the common call of higher human values to resist brutality and tyranny, and I believe this call transcends national boundaries and racial and cultural distinctions.