Ever heard of Operation Northwoods?

[Natoma]

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html

To say I'm shocked is an understatement.

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years.

"These were Joint Chiefs of Staff documents. The reason these were held secret for so long is the Joint Chiefs never wanted to give these up because they were so embarrassing," Bamford told ABCNEWS.com.

"The whole point of a democracy is to have leaders responding to the public will, and here this is the complete reverse, the military trying to trick the American people into a war that they want but that nobody else wants."

One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American country so that the United States could intervene. Another was to pay someone in the Castro government to attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base — an act, which Bamford notes, would have amounted to treason. And another was to fly low level U-2 flights over Cuba, with the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a war.

Ironically, the documents came to light, says Bamford, in part because of the 1992 Oliver Stone film JFK, which examined the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy.

As public interest in the assassination swelled after JFK's release, Congress passed a law designed to increase the public's access to government records related to the assassination.

 

[PC-Engine]

OWNED!!!

 

[MrsSkywalker]

"The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40 years after," says Bamford.

Um, I think the scary thing would be if these "plans" had actually been put into action. Fortunately, wiser minds prevailed, so what's the big deal? Honestly, I don't get what's so shocking about this at all. It's no surprise the US was terrified of the idea of communism in the post-WWII decades...it was tearing up perfectly good countries all over the place, and we did not want to be next.

I would love to see what crap the brainstorming sessions from other governments produced 40-50 years ago.

 

[Tahir2]

That's all folks....

 

[LittlePenny]

Honestly, I don't get what's so shocking about this at all.

When someone actually creates this plan, people go along with it, and it actually makes it that far, thats STILL terrifying. Shouldn't you immediately fire someone that crazy? All of those people?

 

[CosmoKramer]

I don't get what's so shocking about this at all.

Actually, I think you do.

 

[MrsSkywalker]

Actually, I think you do.

No. I KNOW my government, and it's sordid, balls to the wall history. What IS shocking is that people in the US are shocked by this at all. Hello, people. Ruby Ridge, WACO, McCarthy.... this isn't shocking.

 

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

"The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40 years after," says Bamford.

Um, I think the scary thing would be if these "plans" had actually been put into action.

Scary? More like horrific. Unspeakable. And I can imagine how the conservative right would view such allegations a few decades ago: "Utter BS. As if our government would even consider harming its own people! Crazy conspiry theorists!"

Fortunately, wiser minds prevailed, so what's the big deal?

The big deal is the entire Joint Chief of Staff has their signitures approving terrorism on the American people. If you don't find this shocking in the present day context, I don't know what is. I mean, just imagine these were the plans of a 'rogue' state and try to picture the US response. Now put that in context to the fact that this happens to be your own military.

Honestly, I don't get what's so shocking about this at all. It's no surprise the US was terrified of the idea of communism in the post-WWII decades...it was tearing up perfectly good countries all over the place, and we did not want to be next.

And what were the US planning to do? Install perfectly democratic countries for the good of the native people everywhere?

Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing prolonged military — not democratic — control over the island nation after the invasion.

"That's what we're supposed to be freeing them from," Bamford says. "The only way we would have succeeded is by doing exactly what the Russians were doing all over the world, by imposing a government by tyranny, basically what we were accusing Castro himself of doing."

 

[pax]

Info on Northwoods has been out a while now. It and other little scams old and new has made me terminally doubtful of gov motives when going to war. A good thing too as no large org should be trusted completely.

 

[MrsSkywalker]

A good thing too as no large org should be trusted completely.

Totally agree!

 

[Vince]

Scary? More like horrific. Unspeakable. And I can imagine how the conservative right would view such allegations a few decades ago: "Utter BS. As if our government would even consider harming its own people! Crazy conspiry theorists!"

Grow up, seriously. The world isn't black or white, nor is it a simple place.

I love how people like Natoma or yourself live in this little bubble of ignorance and think everything is so simple, so utopian. That creating the island of stability and protection you inhabit and enjoy is insome way easy to achieve, that it's bloodless, that it's allways pure. I find it ironic I just finished watching one of my favorite movies (aswell as a classic), The Manshurian Candidiate before reading this and can't help but parrallel you to the initial American reaction that nothing sinister is happening, that no forces are at work to undermine our way of life, to rip apart the fabric of our very existence.

The disgusting truth is the world is a cesspool of evil (as relative to our standards), and since the Quantum Revolution in the 20th century, is becomming an increasingly illiterate, illogical, undereducated, and incongruous place. The masses have become the nightmare of the founders of the Constitution - a mass of undereducated and ignorant people.

In keeping with classical Machiavellian doctrine and policy, are acts like this that achieve an end state that's assumed to be posititve to the host nation-state really wrong? Granted Machiavelli never explicitly stated the much misquoted "Ends justify the means" comment, but the underlying thought is relevent... if it takes events like these to motivate an ignorant body into action that serve the greater good of the nation-state, how can the act be "Horrific" or "Unspeakable" in relation to the entity it's being preformed on - the Nation-State.


This point is something whose practical relevence is only significant in contemporary time; perhaps the harnessing of the strong nuclear force would be the turning point when these policies regained their ancestrial necessity. Cuba in the '50s served as the bastion of communism in the Western world, aswell as the only concievable way for the Soviets under the policies of leaders like Kruschev to close the immense Nuclear divide. Unbenownst to many, the US's nuclear advanatge was nearly 100% complete untill the '70s. Threw early SIGNINT and IMINT from Corona onward, we knew where the Soviet land based ICBMs where and had a SSN attack sub following everyone of their missile submarines as they left port, effectivly making what they bring to the table nullified to 0. Cuba was the only neutralizer, it was the clear and present danger to the US. The very threat of a country that could provide sanction to cheap IRBMs that could strike every damn US city with a megaton level device in under 30 minutes and circumvent the billion dollar defensive programs the pentagon implimented for national security and preventing a Soviet launch (that every indication that our intelligence at the time heard pointed towards a Soviet aggressive stance/first-strike policy) was unacceptable....

So you're damn right they thought up every fucking way to take Cuba. God I hate people like many of you; historically and geopolitically retarded. It would appear that liberal society thinks it's heading towards this utopian, large scale non-competitive game/group theory type existence if you will; little do they know that in the real world, the compitition never left.

EDIT: Also, perhaps many of you who think this is so unfounded should do some reading (God forbid) on early American Politics and their acts. Alexander Hamilton and Addams come to mind...

 

[Vince]

I would love to see what crap the brainstorming sessions from other governments produced 40-50 years ago.

Exactly, Was the United States not to think threw every possible cource of action when their fighting a Cold War, that especially in the '50s and '60s, could turn hot at any momemt with Communistic insurgencies around the globe and 300mile wide Soviet nuclear missile silo thats 15 minutes from the continential US.

They sound like those Conspiracy nuts who go crasy at the first sniff of the Government's post-Soviet Nuclear Agression plans. Don't even mention the word 'FEMA" or the new currency the government has stockpiled - because as we all know, you'd be a fool to plan for the unexpected and unlikely...

Hey, anyone up to trade collectable ALCU member cards?

 

[PC-Engine]

...and if they actually gone forward with the plan and somehow it didn't work? what then?

 

[mboeller]

It's no surprise the US was terrified of the idea of communism in the post-WWII decades...it was tearing up perfectly good countries all over the place, and we did not want to be next.

CIA did the same. They supported (rightwing-)dictators all over the world to have an "shield" against leftwing/socialist democracies all over the world, and especially in Middle-South America and Africa. So this continents are a complete mess now.

 

[DemoCoder]

There is a difference between a plan or thought experiment and something that has actually be executed. Government think-tanks have produced a staggering amount of onerous plans, since those planning have to examine all possibilities.

Nothing you can pull out of the government archives with respect to bluesky ideas would surprise me. It's only those that have been actually executed on that give me pause.

 

[LittlePenny]

It doesn't matter what other countries were doing, or what year it was, killing innocent people is WRONG! I am not utopian, this is a very simple and easy fact!

This IS something where we should raise hell, it won't change the past, but it will certainly help keep the idea from ever being discussed again.

 

[Snyder]

It doesn't matter what other countries were doing, or what year it was, killing innocent people is WRONG! I am not utopian, this is a very simple and easy fact!

<sarcasm>
Didn't you hear Vince? It's not if it is for the greater good of the Nation.
Anyone killed by such actions should be proud to have died for his country.
</sarcasm>

 

[linthat22]

Since ya'll just now heard of the Northwoods documents, might as well go to: http://prisonplanet.com

There's a lot more stuff, even the Secret Patriot Act II

 

[Natoma]

First things first. Vince and MrsSkywalker, you two really scare me. I had never heard of Operation Northwoods until yesterday. A friend of mine sent me a link to this conspiracy theory website, and frankly, I thought it was complete bunk. So I did some googling and ABCnews happened to be the top link.

My thinking was, the United States would never orchestrate the mass murder of its own citizens as a pre-text for war. I believed the people saying the US did that on 9/11 were crazy. For as much as I've got problems with this country, being worried that the US military might take me and other citizens out to start a war with another country was something that I had never considered. That's not utopian thinking. And I'm sorry, but if that's us being naive (us being the people who are expressing shock at this whole thing), then this country is in worse shape than I thought.

You honestly would not care if the current US government was plotting to blow up cities in order to start a war with, say, Iran or North Korea? If *all* of the joint chiefs signed off on it?

I'm sorry, but when people put pen to paper and place their signature on it, it's no longer hypothetical. When the entire joint chiefs of staff sign off on it, they're doing their best to make it happen.

I don't know what I'm more appalled by. The fact that this occurred at all, or the fact that you two simply don't care.

p.s.: The date for the ABCnews article is May 1st, 2001. When I realized that, I could only mutter a "dear god....." and hope that 9/11 wasn't history repeating itself, but this time drawn out to its full conclusion.

After reading about Operation Northwoods, I can no longer discount that possibility. Who's to say 40-60 years from now when we're all old fuddies that we won't hear some report come out about 9/11 being orchestrated by our own government in order to start a "war on terrorism" that would finally give us a pre-text for taking out all of our enemies without the need for traditional reasons for war?

But I guess if that were the case people would be obscenely naive for being horrified by the mere thought of the US government doing such a thing.

I'm actually pretty surprised that stuff like this hasn't surfaced in the "mainstream" media. Or maybe I really shouldn't be too surprised since, unfortunately, there seem to be intelligent people who simply don't give a damn about it. "Oh they didn't actually kill anyone, so who cares."

 

[Joe DeFuria]

After reading about Operation Northwoods, I can no longer discount that possibility. Who's to say 40-60 years from now when we're all old fuddies that we won't hear some report come out about 9/11 being orchestrated by our own government in order to start a "war on terrorism" that would finally give us a pre-text for taking out all of our enemies without the need for traditional reasons for war?

If Oliver Stone is alive 40-60 years from now, I'm sure there will be a movie about such a report, real or not. And people like you will watch it enough, that it will become "fact."