CON GAMES: Calling Dr. Strangelove

November 27th, 2008 at 02:52pm Michael Conniff 2

In the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction—AKA MAD—was Strangelove come to life.

Kids of my generation spent lifetimes in ridiculous bomb shelters wondering if the lead in a pencil could protect us from imminent destruction. I can still see the can of beans in our basement lined up like a Maginot Line, next to the soup before anyone told us soup is good food. At least we the pipsqueaks and our designated representatives had a plan. The only way we could keep the Soviets from blowing us to smithereens was to make sure we could blow them to smithereens...and to make sure they knew it.

With apologies to Stanley Kubrick, the truly insane truth of the matter is that MAD actually worked. We know that now beyond a shadow because no one was blown to smithereens. You could look it up.

The Cold War, like “Dr. Strangelove,” was shot in black and white. Us and them. No-Godders versus the God Squad. Capitalists and Communists. Anyone with a fourth grade education could understand smithereens meant we might have to destroy our country in order to save it.

In the decades since Slim Pickens launched and then haunched a nuclear warhead into Kubrick’s Armageddon, an even stranger thing has been happening to our nuclear debate. Smithereens is making a comeback but it’s not what you think. Before all we needed was bombs and more bombs pointed at the Russkies. Now we need bombs, mo’ better bombs, and missile shields like the world has never seen before, just because.

Because why? Because we have to feed the bulldog: those butt-ugly card-carrying descendants of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex, the one he warned about so presciently in his 1960 farewell address.

Rest assured, mutually or not: missile shields mean slapping on a nuclear condom and hoping like hell it won’t spring a leak.

The best example of Trojan shield-think comes from Brian T. Kennedy, president of the conservative Claremont Institute and a member of the Independent Working Group on Missile Defense. Kennedy says outbound President George W. Bush “will leave office with only a rudimentary system designed to stop a handful of North Korean missiles launched at our West Coast.”

That’s it? For all Ronald Reagan’s talk of “Star Wars,” more than two decades later the best we can do is protect ourselves rudimentarily for a regime known to pop out one dud after another?

Sounds like we’re up the creek, doesn’t it? With no real missile shield to begin with, how have we managed top survive as one nation under God.

Now you’re getting the picture: the ever-widening maw of the military industrial complex requires threat inflation—care for a mushroom cloud, anyone?—the notion that we could be under imminent attack from pretty much anywhere at any time at all. Not only that: for a shield to be worth the appropriation it’s printed on we have to be on perpetual alert from every potential enemy. If you thought Vice President Dick Cheney’s “one percent” policy was problem—treat a one percent chance of attack as imminent—wait until you get a look at a bill protecting the fruited plain from every enemy in the book.

No shield will be big or expensive enough to keep Fortress America wrapped up tighter than Madonna’s hammies. And if perchance said shield comes up short then the whole system will be down the crapper, and the military industrial complex can start all over again.

That’s why they call it a complex. Strange, isn’t it?

Entry Filed under: Movies, Politics, Foreign Policy

5 Comments Add your own

1. infowars.com | November 28th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

entire article and footnotes here
http://pledgeforamerica.com/2.html

"False flag terrorism" is defined as a government attacking its own people, then blaming others in order to justify going to war against the people it blames. Or as Wikipedia defines it:

False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and also have been used in peace-time.

You might say "But Al-Qaeda is different -- powerful, organized, and out to get us", right? Maybe, but take a look at this Los Angeles Times Article, reviewing a BBC documentary entitled "The Power of Nightmares", which shows that the threat from Al Qaeda has been vastly overblown. And a former National Security Adviser told the Senate that the war on terror is "a mythical historical narrative".

Did you know that the CIA is alleged to have met with Bin Laden two months before 9/11?

And did you know that, many years after the FBI first stated that it did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute Bin Laden for 9/11, the agency apparently still does not have any hard evidence linking Bin Laden to the crime.

And have you heard that the anthrax attacks -- which were sent along with notes purportedly written by Islamic terrorists -- used a weaponized anthrax strain from the top U.S. bioweapons facility, the Fort Detrick military base? Indeed, top bioweapons experts have stated that the anthrax attack may have been a CIA test "gone wrong"; It is also interesting that the only congress people mailed anthrax-containing letters were key democrats, and that the attacks occurred one week before passage of the freedom-curtailing Patriot Act, which seems to have scared them and the rest of congress into passing that act without even reading it. And it might be coincidence, but White House staff began taking the anti-anthrax medicine before the Anthrax attacks occurred.

Even the former director of the National Security Agency said "By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism - in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation"

Why Does This Matter?

A former prominent republican U.S. congressman stated that the U.S. is close to becoming a totalitarian society and that the current administration is using fear to try to ensure that this happens.

Current republican U.S. congressman Ron Paul stated that the government "is determined to have martial law", and that the government is hoping to get the people "fearful enough that they will accept the man on the white horse". He also said "a contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran".

A former National Security Adviser told the Senate that a terrorist act might be carried out in the U.S. and falsely blamed on Iran to justify war against that nation.

The former assistant secretary of treasury in the Reagan administration, called the "Father of Reaganomics", who is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service, has said: "Ask yourself: Would a government that has lied us into two wars and is working to lie us into an attack on Iran shrink from staging "terrorist" attacks in order to remove opposition to its agenda?"

"If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the "unitary executive" at home, it will have to conduct some false flag operations that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bush's declaration of "national emergency" and the return of the draft. Alternatively, the administration could simply allow any real terrorist plot to proceed without hindrance."

General Tommy Franks stated that if another terrorist attack occurs in the United States "the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government".

The Power of Nighmares video
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm

google Operations Northwoods
2. Mitch Mulhall | November 28th, 2008 at 11:19 pm

Michael,

Your Suskindian reference notwithstanding, I find your shameless swim in Eisenhower's farewell address as tedious as your tortured logic. Hopefully our new President isn't given to such vapors, for if he is, we'll be surrendering to North Korea on the 21st of January. "Beef, it's what's for dinner" will be replaced with "Care for another ox knee, anyone?" It's not complex, but it is strange...

Cheers,
3. infowars.com | November 30th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

War is a Racket
By General Smedley D. Butler

That war is a racket has been told us by many, but rarely by one of this stature. Though he died in 1940, the highly decorated General Butler (two Congressional Medals of Honor) deserves to be heralded for his timeless message, which rings true today more than ever. His riveting 1935 book War is a Racket merits inclusion as required reading for every high school student, and for every member of our armed forces today. Below is a ten-page summary of the best of this powerful exposé. For a concise, two-page version, click here.

Foreword
Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by General Smedley Butler, USMC

War is just a racket. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

CHAPTER ONE: War Is A Racket

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. [Please note these are 1935 U.S. dollars. To adjust for inflation, multiply all figures X 10 or more]

more.......

http://www.wanttoknow.info/warisaracket
4. infowars.com | December 3rd, 2008 at 6:38 pm

http://www.prisonplanet.com/pakistani-security-consultant-calls-mumbai-attacks-a-botched-false-flag.html

Pakistani Security Consultant Calls Mumbai Attacks A “Botched” False Flag

Hindu zionists and Mossad behind attacks meant to imitate 9/11

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008

A renowned Pakistani strategic defence analyst has described last week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai as a “botched” false flag operation designed to imitate the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Zaid Hamid, a security consultant who routinely appears on Pakistani television, told reporters of the News One channel that the attacks were state sponsored by Indian military intelligence and carried out by Hindu zionists aided by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.

Hamid contends that the motive is to shift attention away from India’s domestic terrorists, and to justify Western intervention in Pakistan.

“They look like Hindus. No Pakistani speaks the language they chatted in,” said Hamid , claiming that the attackers wore saffron Hindu Zionist wrist bands.

“The Americans executed the 9/11 attack perfectly.” Hamid continued. “They managed the media very well. The Indians tried to repeat the formula but goofed up. The idiots made a complete mess of it,” he argued.

Video of Hamid’s comments have been uploaded to youtube.

Hamid, who also hosts his own “Brasstacks” show on the News One channel, has long asserted that the U.S. wishes to eliminate Pakistan’s nuclear facilities which are seen as a direct threat to Israel’s sovereignty.

Hamid also told viewers that during the first five minutes of the attack, three Indian counterterrorist officers were killed by authorities in order to halt their investigations of a terror network within India’s security agencies.

One of those men was India’s top antiterrorist officer Hemant Karkare, who was shot three times in the chest as he led his men at the Taj Mahal Palace.

Karkare was on the verge of uncovering the home-grown terror franchise of the Hindu extremists. He had also received death threats just hours before the attacks.

Karkare was investigating a bomb attack that killed at least six people near a mosque in the western city of Malegaon on September 29. In early November his Anti-Terror Squad arrested senior Military Intelligence officer Colonel Srikant Prasad Purohit on suspicion of involvement in the attack which was carried out by Hindu extremists.

Colonel Purohit was also under investigation for the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings, which killed 68 people, mostly Pakistanis. Investigations into this will now likely be halted.

Analysts claim that the Mumbai bombings represent a desperate move on behalf of separatists within the Indian establishment who want to shift the country away from independence and into the new world order model.

Related Research:

Paul Watson & Alex Jones “Mumbai Terror Attacks” 12/01/08

Mumbai Terrorists Were Aided By Indian Authorities

Media Forced To Backtrack On Al-Qaeda Link To Mumbai Attacks

India, Corporate Media Moves To Frame Pakistan For Suspicious Attacks

Mumbai Attacks Blamed On Al-Qaeda As Pretext For U.S. Military Response
5. infowars.com | December 8th, 2008 at 10:19 am

False Flags are the Name of the Game.

Arrest Provides More Evidence India, Israel, and the U.S. Behind Mumbai Attacks

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
December 7, 2008

It is becoming increasingly a hard sell to pin the blame for the Mumbai attacks on Pakistan and thus set the stage for an attack on Pakistan after Barack Obama enters the White House in a few weeks. It now appears Indian intelligence played a large part in the terrorist attacks. On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that a “counterinsurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission” was arrested for illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the gunmen.

Mukhtar Ahmed is an Indian police operative who provided cell phone SIM cards to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan terrorist group blamed for the Mumbai attacks.

The counterinsurgency operative, Mukhtar Ahmed, worked for the police in Indian Kashmir. “The implications of Ahmed’s involvement — that Indian agents may have been in touch with the militants and perhaps supplied the SIM cards used in the attacks — added to the growing list of questions over India’s ill-trained security forces, which are widely blamed for not thwarting the attacks,” reports the Associated Press.

In other words, Indian intelligence had penetrated Lashkar-e-Taiba and ran a false flag operation through the terrorist group, putatively connected to Pakistan’s ISI.

entire article: http://www.infowars.com/?p=6401

____________________________________

google CIA created Al Qaeda

"Al-Qaeda" Does Not Exist
Did Osama really choose to name his terror network after potty humor or was it a computer database he used to chat with his CIA handlers?

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | October 6 2006

The origins of the name "Al-Qaeda," and its real arabic connotations prove that every time the Bush administration, Fox News, or any individual who cites the threat of "Al-Qaeda," as a mandate for war and domestic authoritarianism, they are propagating the myth that such a group ever existed.

An organization by the name of "Al-Qaeda" does not exist and has never existed outside a falsely coined collective term for offshoot loose knit terror cells, the majority of which are guided by the Pakistani ISI, Mossad, the Saudis, MI6 and the CIA, that were created in response to America's actions after 9/11 - as the recent NIE report shows.

According to the BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares , the infamous footage of Bin Laden marching around with armed soldiers was a ruse on the part of Osama himself, graciously propagated by the lapdog press, in which actors were hired off the streets, given uniforms and guns and told to look aggressive.

Note the video states Bin Laden only took on the Al-Qaeda mantle post-9/11 after the U.S. government began parroting the term. The only error is the now debunked myth that 9/11 was carried out by "Al-Qaeda."

So if the group doesn't exist, where did the name come from?

You have heard before that "Al-Qaeda" roughly translates into "the base," but were you aware that "Ana raicha Al Qaeda" is arabic colloquial for "I'm going to the toilet"?

Would hardened terrorists hell bent on the destruction of the west name their organization after a euphemism for taking a shit?

The truth about where the name "Al-Qaeda" originated explains why no would-be fundamentalist suicide martyr could have been involved in its creation.

Former Leader of the House of Commons Robin Cook, who admirably resigned in protest of the 2003 Iraq invasion, penned a piece in the London Guardian shortly before his death that shed light on the true genesis of the name.

"Al-Qaida," states Cook, "literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."

Former French Military Intelligence official Pierre Henry Bunel expands , noting that "Al-Qaeda," was an early form of intranet, which was used by Islamic nations and influential families to communicate with each other. It was also used by the "American agent," Osama bin Laden to send coded or covert messages back to his CIA handlers from Afghanistan.

It's worthy to conclude with Bunel's assertion that "Al-Qaeda" as an organization is about as genuine as George W. Bush's Texas brush clearing cowboy image.

"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the 'TV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money."