Freshly Declassified CIA Documents.
The week after his January 1961 inauguration, JFK told his National Security Council that he wanted black ops to start immediately in North Vietnam, with the CIA DCI Allen Dulles and his Saigon station chief William Colby as the executive agents. William Colby argued for romantic black teams to set up secure bases in the North. Other CIA agents, veterans of the failed black entry operations in China in the 1950s, protested Colby's scheme and complained about Colby that "he thought it was like Norway." (Colby was a veteran of the OSS Jedburgh program that ran operations in Norway during the Second World War.) The CIA launched a singleton agent in the Spring of 1961, and then its first black airdrop Team CASTOR on 27 May. It was compromised in four days, given away by a radar installation in the flight path of the C-47 delivery aircraft and by a village only a kilometer from the drop zone. Ignorant and only slightly suspicious, the CIA dropped Team ECHO on June 2; it was swiftly compromised. A third Team DIDO was dropped on June 29. Soon all three were detained; however the CIA continued to believe in Colby's genius. Langley reported positively to the White House. Washington did want Colby in Saigon to demonstrate more confidence, and on August 21 cabled,
"Can we state with
as much certainty as [you] indicate that all four
teams [are] free of enemy control?
The Comic Tragedy Continued Another 14 Years.
What is also presented in this new document, "The Way We Do Things: Black Entry Operations into North Vietnam," is that there never was any success with black entry operations in all of Asia. Not in China, 1950 and 1951, not in North Korea, 1952 and 1953. Not in Vietnam 1961 to 1975, under four presidents. There was no record of success with black entry anywhere on Earth other than briefly in Europe during the Second World War, and then because of the close cooperation of the French and others on the ground. The National Security Council and the CIA chose and engineered a policy that was blind, uncontrollable, inert, and stupid. Why? Because the new president asked for it. And because William Colby pushed the case against the resistance of China hands. Colby's reward for his hardheadedness was that Allen Dulles brought him home to Langley in 1962 as the Deputy and then the Chief of the Far East Station. Colby's career path was launched. He became DCI in 1971 for Richard Nixon, and he was present for all the romantic folly in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Argentina, Watergate. In 1975, Colby retired, so that youthful Ambassador George H. W. Bush (right with Colby and President Gerald Ford) could replace him. The 2005 CIA historical report of Colby's beginnings in 1961 observes dryly:
Whatever the considerations that led to its application in North Vietnam, no sign has
been found that they conducted a serious search for an alternative. Indeed, there may
have existed no such alternative, using either human or technical means. There are
things that, in a given place at a given time, are simply impossible.
The Question Today.
Yes, I am wondering out loud what orders the young President Obama has given to his National Security Council within a week of the inauguration. And I am puzzling what pressures the NSC and CIA are already feeling? Find common ground with Tehran? Examine the PLA at Shanghai as an ally in peace-keeping? Share military exercises and operations with the IRGC to avoid conflict? Or the opposite? Launch black operations in DPRK? Infiltrate Khartoum and Mogadishu? Mount joint operations with the KGB? My imagination spins. Who could have argued effectively in March 1961 that JFK had launched a covert war on Hanoi? That was supposed to be LBJ's gamesmanship when he decided to turn up the heat on the war in August 1964 in order to run up his national security vote against Barry Goldwater. Instead, we know now that LBJ just continued the brutish and futile folly. It intrigues me that Mr. Obama is said be be like JFK. Leon Panetta is nothing like Allen Dulles. William Colby? Anything goes.
(1)
Maybe- "Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane!"
NO! It's a PREDATOR armed with missiles!!
Good shot!!!
from your lips to God's ears Mr. Batchelor... one would like to assume The president of the US and leader of the free world would be so prepared as to have at a least an inkling of a thought in regard to covert operations. But i fear we are looking at Carter 2.0 and I think we believe know what folly that can lead to.
I do find it a bit funny that JFK was a beloved Democrat President though juxtaposed with today's tenure of the party he would be sidelined with Joe Lieberman.
It is pretty astounding how figures such as Colby continue to surface throughout geopolitical history... men who rise to positions far greater than the effort that they provided to be considered... full of hubris and bluster grandiose visions while only observing things that kneecap level.
“Never let a (good) crisis go to waste.” This amounts to a tacit admission by this administration that any crisis - either manufactured or real - is good. It represents the first step of revolutionary intent as described by Marx. Our present government appears determined to re-set the parameters of America. It can therefore not be its intention to mitigate any possible pain caused by crisis or to forestall even greater suffering (and dislocation), but to exploit same to advance its own ends. Of what consequence is America’s suffering, they would argue, when put along side the suffering of the millions in Africa, ravaged by the slave and diamond trades?
From what we can tell, current policy would appear to be pay-back for past sins. This would include the re-directing of the nation’s wealth away from the productive to the feigned, long-oppressed (less productive) minorities; and, of course, consolidating raw post-fiscal power.
In foreign policy too, the emphasis seems to favor alignment with our enemies while abandoning our friends. It’s a strategy that may not bear live fruit in the real world, but makes total sense on paper to the exalted class of ivory tower logicians - the very same that erstwhile was allowed to draw random lines on maps and then force random populations to consecrate these scribbles with their blood.
DCI Allen Dulles' son Avery, became the greatest modern Theologist in the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul the Great named him a Cardinal. His books are mandatory reading at Catholic colleges.
Avery must have known what his Father was doing, His conversion to Catholicism and entering the Society of Jesus may have been a refutation of his Family.
-Wisdom
In looks, words, and deeds Panetta is the walking definition of "putz."
Was the report of a US drone being seen at a Pak Frontier landing strip a true tale?
Also, a few days ago there was a race and scramble to retrieve one that was down somewhere in the wilderness. The T- ban claimed they had shot it down, but, I think if they had really done that, they would have been close enough to get to it first. Anyone know result?
A first edition of Superman rakes in $300K + through an online auction site. In 1950, the owner paid 35 cents for it and rediscovered it in Mama’s basement in 1966. He thought the comic book might be worth something someday. Supposedly, there are about 100 of them known to exist. Let’s see, that’s, $30M.
I bet a lot of peeps stashed their SuperBama memorabilia in safe places and haven’t forgotten where they put it... just guessing, though.
He’s got the bit in his teeth, alright, and feeling for his stride.
*\oo/ ~~{O}~~*
More to the point: We have obviously learned very little from our adventurism in Vietnam (or since). For one thing, we have failed to grasp that failure upon failure on foreign battlefields also has domestic consequences; that two (or three, or four…) mistakes don’t add up to success. We have lost sight of the fact that lost wars abroad only strengthen the hand of the enemy within; that our only battle of consequence is our struggle to preserve democracy liberty and human dignity for our people, all under the rubric of free market competition - i.e., capitalism.
Today, no foreign enemy is even near as dangerous as the one we face here at home. He plots and schemes every waking hour to topple us. He infiltrates our institutions, weakens and twists them to suit his own purposes. His most effective weapon is (and has been) the wars we have come home from with nothing to show for but body bags. To this end, he has worked hard to undermine our efforts abroad while, at the same time, supporting the position of our enemies. I dare say, the wars we have lost or fought to a draw have been decided at home.
Barack Obama’s election to the Presidency has been the culmination of this effort. It represents our surrender to the forces of anti-capitalism. Much will change for us. Four years hence, we will find ourselves living in a nation we no longer recognize. The world too will note the difference. It will seem at peace. But the bright light that has attracted so many to these shores will have been extinguished along with the notion of American exceptionalism. Those nations on the cusp will lose their incentive to strive for what we have demonstrated to be the only credible alternative to authoritarian rule. And as such, we and all others can expect to suffer a period not unlike the Dark Ages, during which human expression and achievement was severely restricted by the limitations imposed by the meager imaginations of bullies.
In our time, we more than exceeded the sum our parts. This was a feat significantly enabled by our acknowledgment of the divine. It allowed for that leap of faith necessary to excel in the sciences and the arts. Without it, we can expect to flounder in a morass of patchwork rules and regulations by which all of us stand equally guilty at any given moment in time. With the guillotine thus poised over our heads, we will not dare attract attention by raising our heads.
Has all that much really changed since Obama took office? If you just close your eyes and listen to the rantings, it's been pretty much the same thing coming out of Washington since, oh, about August of 2008. Something doesn't ring true to me about Obama's grand design to change things. He's picking up where Bush left off, and Bush picked up where Clinton left off. (And Clinton picked up where the first Bush left off). The last leader we had of any real merit was Ronald Reagan.
"I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie."
Nothing will change until the average American wises up and says No Mas. I actually do see that happening in the next few years. Americans are pretty stupid (or uneducated, would be more accurate) but they do love their freedom, and one day they will simply wake up en masse and demand it back. Then the pendulum will swing back. And the government will say, eyuccck, what were we thinking when we bought an ownership stake in the businesses of these filthy moneylenders ..... Uh, more likely China will run out of investment capital to finance this nonsense. Something will save us, that much I'm sure of. After all, we're too big to fail!
No No No... Wrong don't get me! A comic book being written is Obama or insinuating all that, I'm not.
Business serious this is!!
Questions I as president would want the NSC to answer:
Which leaders are the Short therm threats? Long term?
Which Movements are a threat?
What are the biggest economic threats? Environmental? Disease? Food shortages? Energy?
What are the "choke points" of the world? Shipping, Transport, Energy, power, water, rail
What nations can destroy us right now? in 5/20/50 years?
Worst case for Mexico, absolute worst case.
I would want answers from Dept. Homeland Security on these questions as well.
Sapi, I don't know if you were asking or not, but:
(a) Dom Pelosi; B Netanyahu
(b) Islamic Jihadism; Isolationism; This Self Loathing Thingism
(c) Congress; Over Fishing; Flu; Rice; Ain't got None
(d) Port Inspections; Farm to Market; Ain't got Any; Obsolete Grids; Water Falls; Absolutely the Best Way to Ship on Land
(e) A United States; An Un- United States; A Confederation of Dunces
(f) PEMEX Pays US for Taking Their Oil or We Will All Move to the Riviera Maya Coast
Good summation, Peter. So Khruschev's prophecy has come true after all--they have buried us.
While we (many of us) were obsessed with our shopping mall culture and acquiring as much as possible, the hard left has been quietly marching through our institutions. Long ago they captured control of our educational institutions, especially higher education, and as the recent election has proved, they now own the major media as well. So the population younger than a certain age has been profoundly dumbed down, and they are now fed a diet of totally leftist propaganda. No criticism of Barry Soetoro is allowed to escape the lips of any talking head on any major network.
The younger generation I fear does not even understand what socialism is, and they certainly do not understand what a dismal future they have voted into existence for themselves. That is assuming our country survives at all as a free nation.
Barry Soetoro's weakness as a leader is so evident to all that I am afraid our enemies are not going to be able to resist pressing in hard. It is especially troubling that he is talking about severe cuts in America's nuclear arsenal. In effect, he is trumpeting to our enemies that he has no intention of using nukes, no matter what the provocation. If that is not inviting attack, I don't know what is.
Don't give up yet!
I cannot claim an elaborate academic pedigree. For this reason alone, this writing will likely be dismissed by the academic elite who tend to see themselves as the repository of all human knowledge. Much as the Brahmans of India once did, it is they who now determine the ‘correctness’ of said knowledge and then disseminate it in measured doses for the benefit of those who can afford it. But unlike the Brahmans, who based the root of what they purported to know on what springs from the well of divine inspiration, its western counterpart has in recent times sought to sever any spiritual ties to the human condition, including to all that pertains to thought. This, in my view, is a dangerous and shortsighted approach in that it leaves what today passes for ‘correct’ knowledge to stand precariously alone and unsupported, openly inviting the temptation to mold and shape it by political concerns with nothing but self-serving interests at heart.
No doubt, much has been written to augment our innate understanding of the physical world as well as emotional states, economic and social theory, mathematics, etc., much of it clearly at odds with itself. Debates ensue in hidden places, often concluding without clear resolution. Academe has set itself up as the final arbiter of any such dispute. Once a ruling has been rendered, all views not in strict compliance with the ideologies of the highest bidder, are labeled ‘heretical’ and summarily condemned. A current obvious example is the issue of ‘Global Warming’ (which also intimates huge policy implications). Opponents of the theory are routinely given short shrift in any public forum even though enough evidence now exists that would point to it as being a hoax. This nevertheless illustrates the unequivocal power modern academe exhibits in determining the templates favored by the moneyed classes.
In these days of fiscal crunch and overcoats, the opposition to the ‘Global Warming’ hysteria has managed to make some headway. A recent Gallup poll now shows a record high 41% of Americans who think ‘Global Warming’ is exaggerated. But hold your horses! Round two is just ahead. Look out for the “water footprint” debate! An article soon to be published by National Geographic in India states that America’s “water footprint” is 2500 cubic meters per capita annually. India’s is less than half that; same as Japan. China is at the bottom along with some African nations at about 700 per capita. I can already hear the howls as this newest finding gains traction.