Have we ever been told the truth about anything?

Stan Dane wrote:There's an article that suggests the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 might not have been what we were told it was. The Germans always claimed that the Lusitania was secretly carrying explosives earmarked for the WWI front-lines. Britain vehemently denied it. The sinking was crucial in whipping up support for the war and getting the US involved in it. But new documents just released showed that "British Government officials feared the secret of the tragedy would 'blow up on us' when a group of divers planned to search the wreck."
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2617701/Revealed-How-British-officials-feared-secret-sunk-Lusitania-spark-diplomatic-crisis-US.html
 
I don't know how true this is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is. It fits the pattern.

Has there ever been a foreign war that can be justified by its historical justification?

The United States sought out war with Mexico, not the reverse.  There was never any evidence that Spain sank the Maine.  The Philippines didn't benefit from U.S. occupation.  The Lusitania was known to be carrying troops and arms.  The Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened.  Iraq didn't take any babies out of incubators.  The Taliban was willing to turn bin Laden over to be tried in a neutral court.  Libya wasn't about to kill everyone in Benghazi.  Et cetera.  Even wars that people like to imagine as justified, such as World War II, were nonetheless packaged in lies; FDR's tales about the Greer and the Kearney and supposed secret Nazi maps and plans were a step on the steady trajectory from Woodrow Wilson to Karl Rove.

We've also been hearing that President Obama has no choice.  He's painted himself into a corner.  War simply must happen now, for better or worse.  This is nonsense, of course.  If Kennedy could back off from a nuclear pissing match with Khrushchev, then surely Obama can accede to the opinion of the United States and the world on the matter of Syria.  Had Kennedy prioritized stupid machismo, we wouldn't admire him more. We wouldn't do anything at all.  We'd all be dead or never born.  Wars, despite a common lie, are not inevitable.

The CIA was rewarded with greater autonomy because it produced intelligence predicting trouble in Bolivia during the 1948 Pan-American Conference that did not transpire – to wit, a potential threat to Secretary of State, George Marshall. What it failed to produce was even one sentence on the potential for the threat that did come about – the assassination of Gaitán, the subsequent Bogotazo and ten years of blood-soaked power struggles.

           It was the perfect result all round for US intelligence.

          The CIA was not just granted greater autonomy.  A liberal leader who could have proved troublesome to US business interests, and who could not be bought off, was taken out, and the crime and riots that followed were blamed upon communists by people of considerable influence. These events in turn had the effect of underlining the need for Latin America to get behind the US and its anti-Communist union of nations. The CIA effectively muted criticism for its “intelligence failure” by simply blaming it all on a lone nut.  To answer why this tactic works to negate criticism, let’s go back to what was said in the introduction to this book: A committed lone nut, in the absence of sheer luck, is an unstoppable force, while government law enforcement and intelligence agencies can detect a conspiracy by various means and take appropriate steps, such will often not be the case with a determined solo effort.

            The message was out, and it was effective. The last role you should aspire to in the dramatis personae of US foreign policy protectors is that of independent liberal. 

The Korean War Intelligence "Failure"

             The undeclared war began on June 25, 1950 when the North Korean Army crossed the 38th Parallel that divided the Soviet backed north from the US backed south. 

        The official story has barely wavered. The aggressors were the North Koreans and the CIA had failed to foresee imminent danger. This obstinately obtuse view is encompassed best in a story broadcast by National Public Radio (NPR) to mark the 60th anniversary of the conflict. In fact, it takes a leaf out of the Warren Commission's ode to vitiation (officially known as The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy) by citing the very CIA documents to support its case that could and should have been used to destroy it.           

  One clear example of this comes from a CIA memo dated January 13, 1950 which states inter alia:

 

Troop build-up. The continuing southward movement of the expanding Korean People's Army toward the thirty-eighth parallel probably constitutes a defensive measure to offset the growing strength of the offensively minded South Korean Army. The influx of Chinese Communist trained troops... [is] further bolstered by the assignment of tanks and heavy field guns ... [yet] despite [these increases] in North Korean military strength, the possibility of an invasion of South Korea is unlikely unless the North Korean forces can develop a clear cut superiority over the increasingly efficient South Korean Army.

The CIA is then excused for this (supposed) completely dumbfounding and appallingly bad misreading of both North Korean intent and South Korean military superiority because it was "just three years old and lacked resources." This excuse completely ignores the fact that the CIA had been granted greater autonomy (and probably resources) after its "failure" in Bogotá. It also ignores the fact that despite being a mere three years old, the CIA was heavy with former OSS and SIS agents with many years of experience in the field. There was no misreading. It was an accurate assessment.

Stan Dane wrote:Everything runs on bullshit.

terlin wrote:

Stan Dane wrote:Everything runs on bullshit.

Sad, soooo sad.
And that's only because it's true.

At least as far as anything the government touches.
Most regular people don't seem to, and it is that alone that makes life worth much.

terlin wrote:Government is merely the window dressing for the goons in the back room having their way with the victims.

terlin wrote:Government is merely the window dressing for the goons in the back room having their way with the victims.

Indeed.  Which reminds me of this cartoon:



I think you are right about Jefferson.  And we should also recall JFK's own words:  "those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."

Albert Rossi wrote:I don't recall which documentary it was that I saw (I believe it was about a Stanford anthropologist) which described how a baboon society was radically transformed by an accident -- the contamination of a garbage dump they were raiding which, because of the fact that they are the ones at the top of the food chain, killed off all the alpha males.  That particular group of primates then reorganized itself around a cooperative model where the males bonded with the females and there were few outbreaks of violence.

Perhaps we need similarly to help natural selection along, but in the opposite direction from that contemplated by the Ayn-Randian social Darwinists. 

terlin wrote:The majority of people in the world just want to work at a job they can feel satisfied with, have enough to cover food and shelter for their family and a bit more for leisure activities.

terlin wrote:But in every human endeavor there are those who want what the neighbors have, want more than anyone else, and cannot even be satisfied with hundreds of billions of dollars. There are also people who want to abuse other people, torment other people and feel superior. That's what makes them satisfied and if they have to bend the framework of society a bit to get it, so be it.

terlin wrote:One of the flaws I have always seen with capitalism is its inherent reliance on slavery. Investors do, in effect, hold a corporation hostage forever more. It also tend to create an idol wealthy class and who needs that, huh?

Any form of government I have encountered in history sounds really good on paper but does not include those other people in the program.

greg parker wrote:There is no "ism" that I would ever be fully satisfied with.