Allow me to present a little bit of my background here so readers can more readily understand the point I am trying to make. The point I am not trying to make is teaching history to readers. Also, certainly I am not about to present a concise treatise on American military history. That said, the reader will be exposed to a brief review of our military tradition.
Back about a half century ago, as a tenth grader, I became enthralled with the subject of American military history. I have been a student of the topic ever since, and, true to form, I hold a degree in history and became an educator in the field of (naturally) American history with a self-described specialty in our military encounters. True to the faith of my background, I later, in 1971, volunteered for the United States Marine Corps during a major conflict, the Vietnam War. My interest in American military history was not purely academic. It is a part of who I am. Today, I am still fighting for my country. My weapon - the pen.
I am going to bypass the era of Manifest Destiny, thus the Mexican War, the Indian wars, and the Spanish/American War. These wars represent American imperialism, and, thus, the subject of another story and is far from the subject of this article.
The subject of this article is American heroism and might when our form of government and our way of life have been imperiled by others. Notice I did not say "other nations" or "foreign powers," because the first subject of this brief historical review is our own brutal and destructive Civil War. This war began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter near Charleston, S.C. The goal of the Confederate States of America was to split our country in two, and President Lincoln would have none of that. For the first seventeen months of the war everything seemed to go the way of the Confederates, and even our capital was threatened. That all changed on Sept. 17, 1862, when Confederate forces were roundly defeat at Antietam, Maryland. In July, 1863, General Lee's forces were once again defeated at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Miss., fell, splitting the Confederacy in two. For the United States, the turning of the tide toward victory required a mere seventeen months. The Civil War lasted almost four years to the day.
The War to End All Wars, otherwise known as World War One was ignited for the most ridiculous of reasons, the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by a Serb assassin on July 28, 1914. Various alliances between the major powers of Europe caused them to fall into the abyss of war like lemmings over a cliff. The trench warfare was brutal, thousands dying for a yard of dirt and northeastern French cities and towns were reduced to rubble. The eastern front involving Russia was no less brutal. To simplify matters, the United States entered this war on the side of Great Britain and France on April 6, 1917, due to Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare, which was sinking neutral ships, to include American ships. By this time, Britain and France were nearly bankrupt from the war. Most historians agree that once the U.S. entered the war victory for the Triple Entente (Britain, France, and Russia) was virtually assured. Immediate gains were made. Without American help, Paris might have become a German provincial capital and Britain a German island colony. Our involvement in this war lasted one year and seven months.
The seeds of World War Two, the most destructive war in the history of mankind, were sown by World War One. Victorious Britain and France wished to subjugate the losers, Germany and the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire. The proud people of Germany and Austria, known for their militarism, did not take kindly to subjugation by foreign powers and turned to fascism created by the Italian ruler, Mussolini. Germany, led by a fanatic named Adolf Hitler, created its own version of fascism and called it Nazism, a blend of super powers by the central government in alliance with huge private corporations who benefited by monstrous military spending, played a role in governance, and controlled the media. The war began with the German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, although arguments have been made that the war began in 1937 with Japan's invasion of Manchuria. Most historians prefer the September date, however. Once again in the early stages of the war, everything went the way of the aggressor nations, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Their successes were stunning, and with France's surrender on June 22, 1940, Britain was alone in trying to restrain the mighty Nazi war machine. It was a dark moment for democracies.
Incredibly, Japan made an egregious strategic error of the first magnitude. On Dec. 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy," the Imperial Japanese navy attacked Pearl Harbor without the benefit of first declaring war on the United States. The massive industrial power of the United States, who could build the tools of war in enormous amounts without being hindered by bombing raids, was added to the equation. The tide began to turn rather quickly for the Allies. On May 4-8, 1942, the U.S. navy scored a victory over the Japanese navy at Coral Sea. A short month later, June 4-6, the American navy delivered a knockout punch on Japan at Midway. Four extremely valuable and irreplaceable Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk along with the loss of hundreds of Japan's best and equally irreplaceable pilots. Germany's reverses began as well in 1941. Most historians agree that once the U.S. entered the war victory for the Allies was virtually assured. Germany finally conceded in May 1945. Millions died in the European fight, and a vital and industrious nation was totally destroyed. Japan followed suit on Aug. 14th after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on her homeland. This mother of all wars lasted three years and eight months insofar as U.S. involvement is concerned.
Would the madness of war finally end following the unparalled brutality of World War Two and the use of a destructive weapon only the devil could conceive? Would the Earth's community of nations finally agree that in war the enemy is war itself?
Sadly, the answer is no. A brief five years after World War Two ended, Communist North Korea attacked her democratic neighbor to the south on June 25, 1950. The world was again plunged into a disastrous war. This one could easily escalate into a confrontation between the Western powers led by the United States and the Communist lethal war machines of Red China and the Soviet Union. Mother Earth sighed again. Not to be repetitive, again the aggressor had all the successes early on. The North Korean divisions nearly pushed the South Korean and American divisions into the Korean Strait. However, once the U.N. forces led by the U.S. launched their offensive the tide turned quickly. By November the N.K. armies were pushed back to the Yalu River, their northern border. Their neighbors to the north were Red China and the Soviet Union. On Nov. 26, 1950, China reacted by sending in one million soldiers to aid her N.K. friends. Back down they came on the Korean peninsula to the 38th Parallel, the original boundary between Korea, South and Korea, North. There the opposing forces fought to a stalemate until a truce was finally declared on July 27, 1953. This war, sometimes dubbed the Forgotten War, was unusual in a few respects. First of all, it ended the American string of stirring victories in major combat operations, because the war historically is labeled a stalemate. This is offset by the fact that the only way to end this war in victorious terms was to attack China. At the time, all agreed that was a disastrous course of action except the ever popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who President Truman fired on April 11, 1952. The war was not a war at all. Congress never declared war on North Korea or anyone else for that matter. The conflict is called a "police action." No treaty was ever signed between North and South Korea. To this day, technically speaking, the two countries are still at war. The Korean War spanned a period of three years one month.
All this is pretty heady stuff for a high school grad, class of '61, later a college grad (1965), still later a young educator and, later yet, a young Marine officer. I was fully convinced American military prowess had no equal. So it is then that the current military situation in Afghanistan and Iraq saddens me greatly and sickens the heart. My beliefs regarding benevolent American might are being assailed by events and shame, not the least of which is American violations of the Geneva Convention and the use of military expediency to deny Americans basic rights under the Constitution. This shatters not only my childhood beliefs in the sanctity of America, but also the adult version of the same beliefs but tempered by reality. Two reviews follow, the first not so good, the second a glorious revival of American military mastery.
To present a capsule view of the Vietnam War, of which I had a role, still another undeclared war, is impossible. It had its beginnings during the Eisenhower administration of the late '50's and did not end until the Nixon administration of the early '70's. That's a bit too much ground to cover in a paragraph. So, I will skip to the conclusion of this complicated conflict. It can be argued with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight that Vietnam was a precursor to our current difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the latter experiencing a resurgence of the Taliban and the ruthless al Qa'ida, the former a military debacle and a strategic disaster created by an American invasion based on lies and distortions emanating from the White House. Vietnam illustrated an American weakness. With all our tremendous military prowess, our high tech weaponry which can defeat any army, any air force, any navy in the world, we seem to have a great deal of trouble defeating an insurgent militia with small arms, small artillery, hand-held rockets, IED's, and suicide bombers. This was true in Vietnam. It is true today in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many historians agree that America was defeated in Vietnam. Reluctantly, I agree with two caveats. American military forces never lost a major engagement in Vietnam. Speaking as a Marine, the politicians in Washington would not allow us to win this war. We could not attack the enemy because he was on the wrong side of a river. I understand. Many would disagree with the last two statements, but they are mine, and I stand by them. They are also beyond debate. Life is too short.
Following the Vietnam conflict, the American military was totally demoralized. They suffered defeat before an enemy that just kept coming despite enormous losses. We withdrew from the field of battle. Ignominiously, we quit. Can you say shame. Vietnam vets were reviled by our citizenry who viewed them as child killers while fighting doped up on opium and heroin readily available in Saigon. Even federal government agencies abandoned the Vietnam vets as not being true war veterans. The Marine Corps kept its head above the waters of derision, keeping its pride, only because it was so small. The draft was abandoned, and the American military became an all-volunteer force. That was a beginning. By any standards this war was very long and very dubious in terms of results. Today we are faced with a similarly disheartening scenario in terms of longevity and results. Pray that I am wrong.
Then came the Gulf War. Remember the yellow ribbons? Remember the pride in our military? Remember the adulation for our President? This was a righteous war fought against an aggressor nation that invaded another. The world supported the war with a huge coalition, and historians generally regard it as the most efficient war in man's history. As wars go, this was a good war, primarily because it was so short and lofty goals were achieved quickly. On Aug. 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Kuwait. It took President George H.W. Bush some time to line up U.N. support, the huge coalition, but mostly getting the troops in place a half a world away. On Jan. 17, 1991, Desert Storm was launched consisting of a devastating air attack on Iraqi forces and their command and control centers. Ground operations began on Feb. 24th. By end of February it was all over. When it all began, the Iraqi armed forces were rated the fourth most powerful in the world. In less than two months, Iraq was suddenly a minor power, if that. Following the Gulf War, a malignant world power was reduced to a mere shell of itself and posed no threat to anyone. U.N. embargoes and the Northern and Southern No-fly zones monitored primarily by U.S. and British aircraft ensured that Iraq's impotence would continue as long as Saddam's heinous regime existed.
September 11, 2001. Having carefully monitored events since that fateful day, having pride in our great country and its past heroic military achievements, it is painful to the extreme to recount events since that day. The horrific mistakes made in the name of our country; the torture mills, the near total ineffectiveness of our troops through no fault of their own, and assaults on our very Constitution by the Executive Branch with the duplicity of the Legislative Branch is enough to make a grown man cry. Indeed, there are times I do.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qa'ida led by Osama bin Laden, quartered in Afghanistan and under the protective umbrella of the Taliban rulers there, attacked the United States. With meticulous planning over a period of years, perhaps dating back to their failed bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, Al Qaida terrorists flew two airliners into the WTC, a third airliner struck the Pentagon, while a fourth never reached its target, perhaps the White House or the capitol. The latter crashed near Shanksville, Penn. Notwithstanding the enormous impact of this attack, all things considered, things went rather well at first. America received enormous sympathy and support from around the world, and President Bush's popularity soared to heights Presidents only dream about. He was our Commander-in-Chief. We were viciously attacked by a wicked enemy. Enormous anger replaced enormous sadness, and Americans sought vengeance. Soon, we got it. A huge coalition of forces attacked Afghanistan on Oct. 7. The Taliban was soon routed, and al Qa'ida was on the run. The search for the most wanted man on Earth was on. Victory and closure was imminent. Earlier, mistakes were mentioned. Because of them, six and a 1/2 years later, we are still there, still fighting, and Osama is still happily producing videos and audios while secure in his Pakistani hideaway. Worse, both the Taliban and al Qa'ida are resurging. How could this be? The answer is our military strength was diverted toward a nation that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 and "posed no threat to anyone," least of all, America.
The very first crucial step in war is proper enemy identification. As the reader has seen, ordinarily, that does not require a doctorate's degree. That crucial step, however, has proven to be an insurmountable task for Bush. Columnist Robert Scheer writes, "In the name of fighting the 9/11 terrorists, the Bush administration overthrew the one Arab government most adamantly opposed to the Saudi financiers of that son of their system, Osama bin Laden. Instead of confronting the royal leaders of a kingdom that supplied 15 of the 19 hijackers, we invaded a nation that supplied not a single one. While Bush overthrew Saddam Hussein, who had no ties to the hijackers, he embraced the leaders of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the only three nations in the world that had diplomatically recognized and supported the Taliban sponsors of al-Qaida." It should be added that Saddam was a virulent enemy of al Qa'ida, because the latter was a deadly threat to his regime. Saddam simply did not allow the presence of al Qa'ida in Iraq.
Equally shameful, is why we attacked Iraq. Most know now what I and a few others knew in March 2003. There was virtually no reason to attack Iraq. There was a plethora of reasons not to. And with the war now over five years old, those reasons are raising their ugly head. We commenced the ruthless invasion of Iraq based on false premises rooted in manipulated intelligence and lies from the White House. Do not allow anyone, Tenet's memoirs, Rumsfeld's memoirs, Bush, Cheney, Rice -anyone- tell you that that the intelligence was flawed other than to agree it was flawed because it was manipulated, put a different way, manufactured. Lies? For years after March 2003 a vast majority of Americans thought Iraq had some hand in 9/11. Incredible, but why? Because Bush and Cheney said so, many times.
So, here we are over five years later. We are no closer to ending this thing then when Baghdad fell in early April 2003 or the "mission accomplished" fiasco in May. I am afraid the matter is actually worse than ever. Muqtada al-Sadr's bunch, the Mahdi Army, may soon declare war on the Iraqi government, ending only with liberation from American occupation. Al Qa'ida of Mesopotamia is resurging, trying to prove Bush's surge was an utter failure. Also, characters in Iraq, al-Sadr, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, al Qa'ida, even the mullahs of Iran could determine the outcome of the American Presidential elections. The National Defense University, the Pentagon's own premier military educational institute, has labeled Iraq "a major debacle" and the outcome "is in doubt." It can be argued that Bush made an egregious strategic blunder similar to Japan's outrageous strategic blunder at Pearl.
Could matters get any worse? Where Bush is concerned, that always seems to be the case. How about turning the entire Iraqi crisis over to a theater commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus. Bush has declared that whatever David wants, David gets, even at the cost of David's immediate superior, Adm. William J. Fallon, who recently resigned, and in defiance of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are rather concerned that the army is simply worn out, too many stop/loss victims, 15-month tours in Iraq (unprecedented, by the way, even during WWII), and far too many tours in Iraq while the states' militia, the National Guard, are equally stressed. Politically, the surge has failed. Iraqi leaders have accomplished very little during the respite the surge provided, and that respite is about to end, if it has not already.
It is time to sensibly leave Iraq, and sooner is better than later.
During my lifetime, I have been accused of many things. To one particular charge, I plead guilty. I am a devout American patriot. I proved that by committing my life to the defense of my country. During these times, that compassion has grown even stronger. Why? I see a threat to our very existence, America as we know it. The U.S., with its criminal invasion of a sovereign nation that "posed no threat to anyone," has earned the enmity of nations. Even the mighty United States cannot stand alone, and history proves the mighty have fallen, the Roman Empire, the Egyptian Empire, the British, French, Spanish, so many empires. Each fell from within, destroyed by its leadership. The Iraq war is costly from every standpoint, human tragedy and the spending of funds we do not have, making us financially subservient to nations like Red China. Our economy could collapse - is collapsing - and the Iraq war is serving no purpose other than to enrich the corporate powers supporting the Bush administration, some of whom have transferred their corporate headquarters to tax haven nations. In the meantime, the corporate media cooperate by teaching Americans to be ignorant. By both omission and commission, the mass media is turning Americans into mushrooms, living in the dark and surviving on excrement.
What a way to fight a war.
Sandy Shanks is the author of The Bode Testament and Impeachment and is also a retired columnist who specialized in political/military affairs.
I am the author of two novels, "The Bode Testament" and "Impeachment." I am also a retired columnist who keeps a wary eye on other columnists.
I agree with your historical presentation of American military engagements, which was very thorough and well-written. I disagree with some of the nuances you expressed with respect to the ongoing Operation Iraq Freedom (aka the Iraq War).
But I do concur that unless the Iraqi government (and more realistically - its people) decides to move forward with the political process and address the religious issue once and for all, it may be time to declare that Iraq was just a bridge too far.
I think we should continue to operate at current troop levels through this calendar year's end. But if the Iraqi government is unable to secure some sort of tenable peace across the differing factions (especially after about 18 months of increased American support), we should start discussing withdrawal options.
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Tom Murphy (3 articles, 4 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 1708 comments)
on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 9:01:52 AM
Yes, Bia. I know. We will be in Iraq for a very long time. 100 years? The wish of many is that our force there will be reduced to 10,000 to 30,000 troops, and it will not be engaged in combat, merely training and guarding our interests there. The complete withdrawal of all American troops is a fantasy. Thank you for pointing this out to me, allowing me to clarify.
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Sandy Shanks (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 37 comments)
on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 2:35:51 PM
Tom, thank you for your thoughts re my latest article. As for my "nuances" with respect to the war in Iraq, please note that I said a sensible withdrawal. Besides, you are going to get your wish. After the additional five brigades (for the surge) leave by the end of July, there will be no further withdrawals under this President.
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Sandy Shanks (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 37 comments)
on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 2:28:20 PM
I'd like to thank you for your service to our country (since no one else will) & for this article. And ask for your permission to reprint at www.votestrike.org
THANKS!! well said.
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chris rice (57 articles, 32 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 163 comments)
on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 11:50:26 AM
Perhaps the strategical thinkers (a/k/a George and his Dick....Cheney that is) are simply positioning Patraeus for his next debacle...i mean, uh.....mission: invading Iran.
I think the most mind-boggling thing, and I wish SOMEONE would ENLIGHTEN ME, is, are these guys really that stupid or is there some hidden agenda that is actually having some positive result somewhere in their deep dark world?
My conclusion is 1) George W. Bush being the underachieving, power-hungry, but charming, moron that he is, was able to weasel his way into the White House by leading the likes of Dick Cheney to believe he was capable of fullfilling his agenda, all the while not fully comprehending that what he was about to do is unconstitutional, immoral, illegal, unethical, etc.; 2) Dick Cheney and his war-mongering neo-con business associates found an "idiot" to use as a front-man in their illegal business dealings, somewhat like a shield, to protect them from any prosecution or accountability because he "wouldn't know any better."
I think where they (being Dick Cheney and his associates) failed, once again in their planning and strategizing, is to consider what the consequences would be if this moron were to actually believe he was in charge and knew what he was doing.
There's nothing wrong with letting a 3-year old sit behind the wheel of a car under the supervision of an adult and pretend he's driving, but when the adult puts the keys in the ignition and starts the engine with the 3-year old behind the wheel, they're asking for a DISASTER!
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Viki (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 47 comments)
on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 3:28:13 PM
Viki, I find your reply very intuitive. I can hardly disagree with anything you said because I share the same thoughts, to include Bush is merely a dupe, or a dope, to provide shelter for the super aggressive neocons. I am aware, too, of the probability of war with Iran. That would be a disaster, and that must not happen. I wonder, if Bush gave the orders on that one, if the Joint Chiefs might rebel.
I read an interesting article a while back that suggested that the neocons have already achieved success. One just has to adjust to the meaning of success in neocon terms. Think about it. They have acquired powers way beyond the constraints of the Constitution. They have threatened those clauses in the Constitution that are not in line with the powers of a unitary executive. True to the neocon charter, the U.S. has ventured out on its own to serve its interests and the interests of other nations, including our allies, can be damned. They have made it easy for Bush/Cheney to declare martial law, almost at the drop of a hat, and the very foundation of any free society, habeas corpus, has been threatened. Are the neocons already successful? Something to ponder.
Thank you for your insight.
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Sandy Shanks (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 37 comments)
on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 2:59:39 PM
Thank you for your excellently written article. And thank you for following your lifes' pull in honor of your country both in your youth and as you continue today. Such diligence is inspiring.
My own knowledge not being as deep as yours, I am nevertheless of the mind that part of what we are watching is the painful birth of a new corporate run international movement that has and is close to securing a new definition of state. Soveriegn countries with their own currencies are not allowed. Central Banks. The UN Resolutions 3201 and 3202 call for soveriegn states, not countries. The possible difference is compelling.
I am not learned of Sadrs depth of place to his people but it does not surprise that we have misjudged or abused the truth in yet another way.
I don't understand how in our defining the enemy as we have, we could have come to any other obstacle than we have, namely, defining our own way of life and law as not able to handle the battle. That we have begun to dismantle our very own constitutional tenants suggests it is a far deeper change that has already occured.
I am no constitutional lawyer but it looks like at 200+ years the experiment in liberty is close to being aborted. I pray I am incorrect in my pessimism, but the idea of accountability, which seems clear in our constitution, is pretty muted these days.
I wish I could do something more than what I do to make a difference. I'll keep trying.
You words are so well written. Your attitude is fair and your intent clear. Thank you.
peace
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mikel paul (10 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 388 comments)
on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 7:11:09 PM
Mikel, thank you for your heartwarming praise of my article. On one particular point, however, I differ with you. You have a pretty deep understanding of the issues involved.
As far as any international movement is concerned, that is a possibility. My take is this, however, we have a numbskull for a President, our Constitution is being threatened, we are involved in two losing wars, our economy is going in the tank, and the dollar is beginning to resemble the peso. Put a different way, personally, I already have enough on my plate. BTW, I hope you are wrong, too.
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Sandy Shanks (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 37 comments)
on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 3:11:00 PM
Where To begin? First, the country which you revere as the bastion of freedom and liberty to the world is based on the conquest, seizure, and theft of the territory on which it is located from the original inhabitants of this continent, the Indians. The conquerers developed the territory they had stolen with the forced labor of the people they had kidnapped from Africa. That is not a reason for the present citizens of the United States to abase themselves in guilt since we are not morally responsible for what our ancestors did before we even existed. To be morally responsible for something, there would have to have been something we could have done to prevent it, and it is IPSO FACTO impossible to prevent something that happened before we were even around to prevent it. However we should be aware of the paradox that the country which professes to be exceptional in being a beacon of liberty and democracy and "liberty and justice for all" was brought about through genocide, armed conquest and alavery. And just as an heir cannot be prosecuted for the armed robbery his ancestors committed but can be sued by the victims for some of the property his ancestors stole, we as the enjoyers and possessors of our ancestors ill gotten gains are morally obligated to give reparations to the victims of our ancestors.
Second, I dont know if you a familiar with the concept of false flag attacks in which a government attacks its own citizens while making the attack seem like it is by another country. Hitler arranged for an attack on German citizens by people disguised in the uniforms of the Polish army prior to Germany's invasion of Poland. The burning of the Reichstag in 1933 is thought to have been done by the Nazis in order to blame it on the Jews so they could implement their "final solution." Many of the massacrees of Allegians that the fundamentalist Islamic rebels against the military government are alleged to have committed were actually committed by the Algerian military and blamed on the rebels. One of the alleged rebel massacrees was committed within hearing distance of a major Algerian military base. And the blowing up of apartment buildings in Russia were committed by secret police agents of the Russian government and blamed on the Chenchens in order to give the Russian government a pretext to reconquer Chechenya.
I mention this to establish that false flag attacks are a strategem oft resorted to by many government. And it turns out that the United States had deciphered the code used by the Japanese military and had picked up ample warning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The excuse given is that the U.S. could not send a radio warning to Pearl Harbor without letting the Japanese lear that not only were we aware they were going to attack but that we had deciphered their code. It was possible for Washington to contact Pearl Harbor by telephone through the undersea cable, but the excuse is given that the attack was during the weekend, that the military headquarters office at Pearl Harbor was closed during weekends so there was no one there to answer the phone. IF THERE IS ANYONE WHO BELIEVES THAT THE UNITED STATES MILITARY WAS SO INCOMPETENT THAT THEY WOULD LEAVE THEMSELVES NO WAY TO COMMUNICATE WITH A MAJOR FORWARD MILITARY BASE FOR TWO DAYS EVERY WEEK, I WOULD LIKE TO SELL YOU THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE! SEND ME THE PURCHASE PRICE BY CASHIERS CHECK. And even if we assume that the United States military was so mind boggledly incompetent, they must have had the home phone numbers of all the military officials on the island. And the phone company could have told them the phone numbers of all the civilian government and police on the island. And even if we assume that they were unable to find a single one of these phone with anyone there to answer, and even though the percentage of people who had phones in 1941 was much lower than it is now, there would have still been many phones on the island throught which to send warning. There is no alternative to the charge that Rosevelt needed an excuse for the United States to enter World War II and he was willing to let several thousand Americans die in order to get that excuse.
The rulers of this country took advantage of your mistaken idealism is using your services in their invasion of Vietnam. The alleged freedom and democracy the U.S. alleged to be defended was represented by the undemocratic and distatorial Diem regime and, when Diem became an embarassment to the United States, the U.S replaced him with a series of coups that established a series of milita juntas. There was no interests of the vast majority of U.S. citizens served by the invasion of Vietnam and, after the U.S. had sacrificed 58,000 American troops, had killed a million Vietnamese, and 500,000 troops had been unable to defeat the National Liberation Front, the United States began to pull out anter Westmoreland said he needed a million troops to defeat the insurgents. The U.S. military also realized it had to pull out when more and more dfaftees started fragging their offices by throwing live grenades into their tents.
The United States actually set up Saddam Hussein to be invaded in the first Gulf War. National Public Radio broadcast a recording of U.S. ambassador tellin Hussein that the U.S. had no interest in his conflict with Kuwait when he asked in te United States would object to his invadint Kuwait. After he invaded, the U.S. whipped up an international coalition against him and attacked. Even after the U.S. set up a turkey shoot of the fleeing Iraquis, burning them alive by targeting their fleeing tanks with missiles, the Iraquis would have still greeted the Americans as liberators if they had completed the job by overthrowing Saddam. If the U.S. had not tried to make Iraq a colony but has stayed only long enough to arrange a truly free election of the new government, the majority of Iraquis would still look on the Americans as their liberators. Instead the coalition armies halted when they were within 100 hours of victory, left the revolting Shites in the South, Sunnis in the center, and Kurds in the noth at the mercy of Saddam as he suppressed the revolt, and put Iraq under a trade embargo that the United Nations estimated resulted in the death of 500,000 Iraquis.
And the pretext for the invasion of Iraq in the second Gulf war were equally bogus. Far from being in league with Saddam in the attack on the World Trade Center, Al Qaida consided Saddam one of the apostate rulers in league with the Western crusaders, while Saddam outlawed Al Qaida as dangerous revolutionaries who would overthrow and execute him if given the chance. The more reputable press at the time reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that the reports that there were were based on forged documents, and that the Bush/Cheney regime was pressuring their itteligences services to come up with the reports of wmd's in Iraq that they wanted. Even after U.S. forces have had access to all of Iraq for over five years now, no wmd's have been found, although biological and chemical weapons factories, as well as nuclear reactors, are large, bulky and hard to hide.
Saddam, although a brutal and murderous dictator who was known as the butcher of Bagdhad, had started out and been promoted as a U.S. client and had served as the U.S. proxy in attacking Iran. Why did the U.S. decide to set up and turn on and ultimately execute their valued client? In the years before the first Gulf War, the press would report several times a year that Saddam was within years, or even a year, of developing nuclear weapons. Perhaps, the ruling circles within the U.S. government decided that Saddam was getting too big for his britches and needed to be taken down a peg or two. And that in any event, he could not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
If we look at the plans of the Project for a New American Century, published in the early 1990's, well before the Second Gulf War, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was part of the U.S.'s plans to appropriate a supply of the world's dwindling supplies of oil. However, since the U.S. is now mired in the same type of guerrilla war it got sucked into in Vietam, and Iraq has more people and area than Vietnam, the U.S. will be unable to conquer Iraq, even if it increased its troops in that country to one million. And since the American Empire has been unable to digest Iraq, if Bush-Cheney are foolish enough to attack Iran and Syria, not to mention the seven countries they originally talked of "taking out in six months." they will be even more fatally overextended.
And finally, 9/11, which Bush/Cheney and the neo cons used as a pretext to invade both Afghanistan and Iraqm was itself another false flag attack, like Oearl Harbor, as is proved by the many unanswered questions about the official conspiracy theory that an Islamic terrorist organization, headquartered in Afghanistan, sent 19 men with box cutters to infiltrate the United states to hijack four plane and wreak appalling destruction by crashing them into buildings.
The first question about the official story is that since the World Trade Center had already been attacked by terrorists once before in 1993, and it remained the one place where a successful terrorist act would make the greatest impression, why was there no attempt to guard the WTC or prepare defenses? I remember thinking in 1993 that the terrorists had to only be successful once while we had to be successful every time.
Second, the U.S. government received at least eleven warnings from foreign intelligence services about Al Qaida's plan for a big attack on the United States before they struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Again, why were no counter measures prepared?
Third, the Minneapolis FBI tried to obtain approval from the FISA Court to look at Zacarias Moussaoui's computer after he was arrested for being in the country illegally. But as Minneapolis FBI agent Coleen Rowley testified to a Senate hearing, the National FBI Office even rewrote the Minneapolis Office's request to FISA so it failed to be approved.
Fourth, the Phoenix FBI Office had noticed the large number of Middle Eastern men enrolling for flight training. Someone from the Phoenix Office pointed out to the National Office that a plane could be used as a weapon.
Fifth, there is the mind boggling incompetence of both the civilian air traffic control systems and the military North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The civilian air traffic control system's radar can detect a plane going off course immediately, as soon as it deviates from its flight plan. Boston Air Traffic Control detected American Airlines Flight 11 going off course as soon as it deviated from its flight plan at 8:14 A.M. on September 11, 2001. But it did not notify several other air traffic control centers until 8:25 A.M., eleven minutes later. And it did not notify NORAD until 8:40 A.M. The two F-15 Eagles that were eventually scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base in Falmouth, Massachusetts, which was 153 miles northwest of the World Trade Center and which had a top speed of over 1875 miles per hour, could have reached the WTC in seven minutes with more than enough time to intercept AA 11 if the F-15's had been in the air soon after 8:14 A.M or even 8:25 A.M. However, 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 A.M. If NORAD had been informed and had the F-15's in the air soon after AA 11 was detected going off course at 8:14 A.M., there would have been far more than enough time to intercept it.
At 8:41:32 A.M., there was a suspicious radio transmission from United Airlines Flight 175 which sounded something like "everyone stay in your seats." Boston Air Traffic Control informed NORAD that UA 175 had been hijacked at 8:43 and there would have been more than enough time for the two F-15"s, which were air borne by 8:52 A.M. to intercept UA 175 before it hit the South Tower at 9:02:54 A.M. That is there would have been more than enough time if the two F-15's had not been flying at only 23.9% of their top speed!
AA 77 hit the Pentagon at 9:37 A.M. At their top speed, the two F-15's could have intercepted AA 77 twenty-four minutes before it hit the Pentagon.
At 9:55 A.M., United Airlines Flight 93 went of course near Cleveland and began a 135 degree turn over Ohio and Northern Kentucky. It crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:06:05 A.M.
If the police officer pursuing fleeing criminals drove her or his squad car at only 23.9 percent of the car's top speed, the most probable conclusion would be that the officer intended to let the criminals escape. Human stupidity can account for a lot and even mount to civil or even criminal negligence. But when there is a series of one incredible, mind boggling stupidity after another, there has to be a malign intent to bring about the opposite of what officials are supposedly trying to achieve, in this case to ensure that the hijackers succeed. But there's more!
Six, why did the government officials ship most of the steel from the World Trade Center out of the country, even though it is a felony to remove evidence from a crime scene. In the October 6, 2005 issue of NEW CIVIL ENGINEER, Dave Parker writes in "WTC Investigators Resist Call For Collapse Visualization" that nearly all the WTC steel was shipped out to Asia and melted down for recycling.
Seven, Why did the Bush Administration fight against having public hearings on 9/11 for nearly 18 months although public hearings on Pearl Harbor were held within weeks after the event? 9/11 hearings were not held until the relatives of those killed at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon exerted enough lobbying pressure to force the hearings to be held, and even then, only one-tenth of the questions they submitted were answered And eight, why did the government not even allow the visitors to the site of the World Trade Center to even take photographs of the ruins and why did the government confiscate photos and videos of the attack on the Pentagon? Could both seven and eight be part of an attempt to hide evidence of government complicity?
In his editorial, "Selling out the Investigation," in the January, 2002 FIRE ENGINEERING, William Manning wrote that "Fire Engineering has good reason to believe that the 'official investigation' blessed by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) ... is a half baked farce that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests, to put it mildly, lie far afield of full disclosure." Manning also criticized the investigation in another editorial, "The Twisted Brush of 9/11 Politics" in the September, 2004 FIRE ENGINEERING.
Robert Berhinig, P.E. states in "Protecting the Foundation of Fire-Safety," in the July/August, 2002 IAEI (International Association of Electrical Inspectors, the definitive magazine for electrical inspectors) that "the FEMA report states further that until the attack on the WTC, no protected steel framed buildings had been known to collapse as a result of a fire." Yet on 9/11, after steel framed buildings had been around for over a hundred years, since the late 1800's, three protected steel framed buildings, WTC 1, 2, and 7, had collapsed, supposedly because of fire.
Three of the experts who testified before the House Committee On Science May 1, 2002 Hearing On the Collapse of the World Trade Center said the there had NEVER BEFORE been a collapse of a protected, steel framed building because of fire. Dr. W. Gene Corley, American Society of Civil Engineers and Chair of the Building Performance Assesment Team reviewing the WTC disaster said on page 76 of the hearing record that "prior to these events, no protected steel frame structure, the most common form of large commercial construction in the United States, has ever experienced a fire-induced collapse." Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology said on page 103, "The Twin Towers and WTC 7 are the only known cases of total structural collapse where fire played a significant role." So we have here an admission by a spokesperson for NIST that allegedly accounted for the collapses that fire had never before brought about such a collapse of a protected, steel framed building. And Dr. Jonathan Barnett, Professor of Fire Safety Studies at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute said on page 133, "Up until 9/11, we never had a collapse of a protected steel building." On page 163 he said, "This was the first time we had the collapse of a protected steel structure." Dr. Bement said on page 169, "... there have been instances where buildings have had major fires that have burned to completion without the buildings collapsing." And on page 172, Dr. Barnett said of the partial collapse of WTC 5, "But building 5 was a normal building and it had a fire and it had a major collapse. This has never happened before."
The August 25, 2007 issue of SCIENCE NEWS had an article about the collapse of the World Trade Center on pages 122 - 24 entitled FIRE INSIDE: STRUCTURAL DESIGN WITH FIRE SAFETY IN MIND by Carolyn Berry. The paragraph in the first column on page 124 is particularly significant in evaluating the NIST computer simulation of the collapse of WTC 7:"The NIST simulation, like all models of building failures to date, couldn't follow the 9/11 collapses through to the end. No computer is yet powerful enough to follow the chaotic sequence of events that ensues when components break apart and a building falls, but this is where research is headed."
In other words, the much vaunted NIST simulation which purported to dispose of the arguments of we conspiracy theorists didn't actually demonstrate how fire caused the buildings to collapse; they just waved their hands when the computing power currently available had took them as far as it could and said: "This is far enough; the buildings collapsed somewhere about here." Of course we all know we have accounted for how the buildings probably collapsed once we have gone this far. It HAS to be the probable explanation because the only alternative explanation is those NUTTY, WACKO CONSPIRACY THEORIES! We know a priori that that CAN'T be true!
I might as well add the statement of Allen Hay, chief fire safety officer of the New York City Fire Department, about WTC 7. "We just expected it to burn out -- we didn't expect it to fall down." "It's the only building I know in New York City to ever collapse (strictly) from fire."
But I want to return to the repeated Congressional testimony that a protected, steel framed building have NEVER BEFORE collapsed because of fire. And never afterwards either. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, we have a purported fact about the behavior of protected, steel framed buildings in fire that dare not be true again!
There are many other suspicious anomalies about 9/11. Only a few are, nine, all three World Trade Center buildings collapsed at nearly free fall speed, i.e. almost as fast as it would take an object dropped from one of the WTC building's roof to reach the ground. The resistance of the massive steel columns and concrete would have slowed the fall considerably if it had been a matter of the floors pancaking and falling on the floors below. And ten, fire would have unlikely to have been equally intense at every point in the buildings so that every point failed simultaneously and they fell onto the surface area they stood on, i.e. on to their footprint. Eleventh, although fire had never caused the girders in protected steel framed buildings to become ductile or loose sufficient strength to result in a building collapse, pools of molten steel remained at the bottom of the wreckage for 100 days. And twelve, although an ordinary building collapse would produce chunks of broken concrete, the steel, concrete and asbestos in the three World Trade Center buildings was mostly converted to a fine dust which flowed out from the WTC through the streets of Manhattan in the manner of the pyroclastic flows produced from volcanoes. And Thirteen, although the buildings were not even observed to move at all when the planes crashed into them, nearby geological observatories detected seismic tremblors as if there had been massive explosions at ground level when the buildings collapsed. And while WTC 7 had not even been struck by a plane, all the phenomena previously mentioned accompanied its collapse also. And fourteen, while the Environmental Protection Agency said that the air around the World Trade Center was safe to breath after 9/11, we now know that our government lied yet again because of all the deaths from asbestosis and other respiratory diseases among both the humans and dogs who were involved in the WTC cleanup. And fifteen, while it is standard procedure for the secret service to hustle the President away from the scene immediately whenever there is a hint of danger, George Bush remained in the Florida elementary school reading "The Pet Goat" for nearly a half an hour, even though there was supposedly no assurance that there would not be an attempt to crash a plane into the school.
And although the Bush Administration attempted to ship all the steel from the World Trade Center to China and Korea, some of the steel girders were saved by 9/11 investigators. And the massive amounts of metal in the dust which surged out from the WTC collapse provided additional metal for investigators to study. Brigham Young University Professor of Physics, Steven E. Jones obtained some of the metal containing dust after he had published his first paper about 9/11 online in November, 2005. Janette Mackinlay had returned to her apartment on the fourth floor of 113 Cedar Street, which was about 100 meters, or 328 feet, away from the South Tower, about a week after her apartment had been flooded with dust to clean up. She had saved some of the dust in a plastic bag and mailed some of it to Jones after he published his first paper online. Later, he traveled to MacKinlay's new residence in California and obtained a second sample of WTC dust in the presence of other scientists.
In his subsequent online paper, "Revisiting 9/11, 2001 -- Applying the Scientific Method," Professor Jones reported that the dust contained clear traces of thermate. Thermate is an explosive used to melt and cut steel in controlled building demolitions. It is a well mixed powder of iron, aluminum and sulfur. The sulfur lowers the melting point of iron, or steel, and cuts right through it. Sometimes other metallic powders are mixed in to fine tune the characteristics of the explosives. Doctor Jones found all of these substances in the dust.
David Heller, who has degrees in physics and engineering, makes many of the same points Dr. Jones made in Heller's article, "TAKING A CLOSE LOOK; HARD SCIENCE AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER," in the June 18, 2007 GARLIC AND GRASS. After he states that the collapse of all three World Trade Center buildings was a controlled demolition brought about by pre-planted thermate explosives, he states that it would seem impossible for Al Qaida to preplant the explosives, especially since WTC 7 housed the offices of the FBI, CIA, and OEM(Office of Emergency Management). But he says that recently he learned that President George Bush's brother, Marvin Bush, is a part owner of the company that provides security for not only the World Trade Center buildings but also both United and American Airlines, the two airlines whose planes were hijacked on 9/11. He also pointed out that the owner of the World Trade Center, Larry Silverstein, had received a $3.55 billion insurance settlement after 9/11 and was suing for an additional $3.55 billion on the grounds that the airplane crashes into the Twin Towers constituted two separate incidents.
However, regardless of Silverstein's motives, it is unlikely that he could have played a major role in planting the explosives in the building containing the offices of the FBI, CIA and OEM. Only the United States government could have carried that off and Silverstein, at most, could have played no more than a subsidiary role.
The final step in a criminal investigation is asking who had the motive to do the crime. Whose poll numbers shot up into the stratosphere after 9/11 and who gained the popular support to enable the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, abolish habaeus corpus and, at least, the de jure power to lock anyone up for life without a trial or even telling them why they were being imprisoned? Only the neo cons and the Bush Administration, although Bush may be only a front man and Dick Cheney the real power behind the throne. It was the neo con Project for a New American Century who proposed that the U.S. seize the lands where the world's dwindling supply of oil is located and who were quoted in NEWSWEEK as saying that the American people may need a new Pearl Harbor to wake them up.
But if enough people realize in time just how bad our government is, we can counter them before it is too late.
Rhalfhill, thank you for your many comments. Other than saying you are welcome to your opinion as I am welcome to mine, I demure from replying. I have the best of reasons. You raised a plethora of issues beyond the scope of my article, and I want to go watch golf.
by
Sandy Shanks (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 37 comments)
on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 3:19:37 PM
