Re: Terrorism in Paris again. : Thu Dec 03, 2015 3:04 pm  

JLM32 wrote:

]

Yeah, I Think I've decided. You are the strangest man on here, not on a wind up. The way you see hoax in everything is comical.

You do realise, that these Trial runs take place all over the country on a daily basis right?

The way you disrespect those who have died in events like this, by stating it never happened is a disgrace. But then for an already banned once Homophobe like yourself, I guess you have no issues in how low you stoop.

If my post's disturb you i suggest you press the FOE button. But no you love stalking me.

Re: Terrorism in Paris again. : Thu Dec 03, 2015 4:21 pm  

FLAT STANLEY wrote:

Great post Charlie, here's an interesting statistic for you.

In the year 2000 - 7 countries without a Rothshild owned central bank:Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, N.Korea, Iran. Syria

In 2003 - 6 countries without a Rothshild Central Bank: Sudan, Libya, Syria, Cuba, N. Korea, Iran.

In 2011 - 4. countries left:Cuba, N. Korea, Iran. Syria

In 2015 - Syria is the next to go leaving, Cuba, N. Korea, Iran.

I think it's a no brainer who's next after Syria.

How much of that is definite? I'm not saying it's not possible but we, as a culture, like to assume that things like this are driven by one point of source. My feeling would be that it's very possible a connection with the banks, the lumping of this all onto the Rothschilds seems too convenient, almost anti-semetic. I'm certainly not discounting the involvement of their banks but I'd expect it to involve other big financial interests as well.

Re: Terrorism in Paris again. : Thu Dec 03, 2015 4:31 pm  

It's the easiest thing in the world to cut off ISIS revenue streams. Stop paying them.

Technically speaking the enemy here is Russia and/or China (depending on which day of the week it is). We've been fighting the Big Red Bear and the threat of Russian expansion into our geopolitical sphere of influence since the Crimean campaign and before. The "Great Game" never ended and we'd be fighting Putin's armies right now if it weren't for the darned inconvenience of nuclear weapons which immediately ended war.

I'll say that again just in case people mistake the above for a typo.

Nuclear weapons ended war.

So what are we doing right now in Syria you ask?

Genocide. Plain and simple.

Wars are fought between the standing armies of states which target each other until the resources of the state in question are exhausted. But ever since the introduction of atomic weapons "war" has increasingly become a process whereby standing armies target civilians. Take a look at the civilian casualty rates since WWI. At the turn of last century less than 10% of casualties in war were civilian. During WWII this percentage climbed into double figures (mainly through the area bombing campaigns of the Allies and Axis powers). Then in Korea & Vietnam the proportion of civilian deaths jumped dramatically to nearly fifty percent with the emergence of "Counter-Insurgency Warfare". Counter-insurgency warfare is a war against civilians.

Why target civilians you ask? Because we daren't target other states for fear of total annhilation just as we daren't STOP fighting because the profits derived from killing are the lifeblood of the global economy. Somehow we've locked ourselves into a death-spiral which WILL lead to the extinction of our species.

What's taking place right now in the Middle East is a sick and twisted parody of war whereby the superpowers (all of which are fully cognizent of this fantasy and yet enthusiastically play along anyway) are literally shoving millions of people into the meatgrinder - for profit. And if you have any doubt about the validity of this argument - the civilian casualty rate has now climbed over the 90% mark. The US military now makes no attempt whatsoever to count the number of civilians killed because of this reason.

I have some very real criticisms of Jeremy Scahill and his crowd but he did the world a service with his documentary film, "Dirty Wars" where the startling admission is made that the US ran "literally thousands" of special forces counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan which can only be described as death squads. I mean, you'd think by now people would begin to wonder how it can it be possible for so many innocent people to be wiped out at weddings and other functions by a Predator missile without wondering how "mistaken" the targetting really is ...

Just look at both the Vietnam & Korean wars. During both you saw generals on both sides PLEADING with US & Soviet leaders to deploy atomic weapons which would have ended both conflicts toot sweet. Thankfully sanity prevailed - but ONLY AT THE EXPENSE OF MILLIONS of people who were needlessly slaughtered because these campaigns were allowed to drag on FOR YEARS specifically to allow the war profiteers to earn their blood money.

Re: Terrorism in Paris again. : Thu Dec 03, 2015 4:41 pm  

FLAT STANLEY wrote:

If my post's disturb you i suggest you press the FOE button. But no you love stalking me.

It's strange how you have no response to any comments I make. Just use you and your Alter Ego Mugwumps tragic stalker angle.

Re: Terrorism in Paris again. : Thu Dec 03, 2015 5:58 pm  

McClennan wrote:

How much of that is definite? I'm not saying it's not possible but we, as a culture, like to assume that things like this are driven by one point of source. My feeling would be that it's very possible a connection with the banks, the lumping of this all onto the Rothschilds seems too convenient, almost anti-semetic. I'm certainly not discounting the involvement of their banks but I'd expect it to involve other big financial interests as well.

Oh so we're playing the race card now are we, you're stooping that low trying to silence my views and opinions, Let me make this absolutely clear from the very start, to disable the reflexes of the permanently morally outraged and the political correctness police - I do not hate Jews. Any Jew that is a good person and doesn't have a problem with me in general I have no quarrel with, and I am not encouraging hatred towards Jews. I'm addressing the word anti-Semitism and how it is deceitfully used with a political motive, rather than a genuine desire to do good.

Let's start with a little anthropology shall we. The words "Semite" and "Semitic" refer to one of the 3 sub-races of the Caucasoid race, the Semites, and their languages. Semitic peoples include Arabs, Syriacs, Assyrians, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, and more. Now, many Jews have of course mixed with White Europeans and other races over the centuries. But ethnic Jews are mainly Semitic. The word "anti-Semitism" means to be against the Semitic people and their culture (NOT Jews). I often hear Zionists accusing every high-profile Arab who stands up to them of being "anti-Semitic", but how on Earth can an Arab be anti-Semitic Arabs ARE Semites. He would have to hate his own people. It is absurd, it is like a German accusing an Englishman of being anti-European. It's devoid of logic.

The reason some people are so willing to throw around the anti-Semitic label, is simple, it's a very effective silencer. It's the same as how the word "racism" has been used wrongly so much and so often, it's now meaningless because some people don't know the meaning of the word, and misapply the word either through genuine ignorance, or through malevolence and to achieve political goals. People are terrified of being labelled racist, so they shut up and walk away from the debate, which is exactly what those who utilise this disgusting tactic so often want. Anti-Semitism is used in the same way, and I'd argue it's even more extreme than the word racism because the people who brand others as anti-Semitic imply similarities to Hitler and the Nazis. If you criticise Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, you must be anti-Semitic like Hitler and want to kill 5 million Jews. For some people with a lack of courage or conviction, or those who perhaps just desire an easy life, this is obviously daunting and they will surrender rather than be labelled as an anti-Semite. It's very fruitful, and usually works. It is used all the time to smother legitimate investigation and criticism of Zionism, or perhaps the genuinely racist and psychopathic words of the Talmud. Why should Jews be exempt from the criticisms and analysis other peoples face ?

I do not believe there is a Jewish question for sensible people., Zionism is the enemy. Not all trees in the forest are diseased
Not all Jews are Zionists, Its entirely relevant to any discussion of Zionism and Judaism, as not all Zionists are Jews.


I conclude that the word is a total sham, and it is used by those with malicious intent, and those who just want to be seen to be politically correct. It is a weapon of the intellectual weakling, and a deplorable method of suffocating debate.

Re: Terrorism in Paris again. : Thu Dec 03, 2015 6:31 pm  

Charlie Sheen wrote: What polls would these be, Jaun? https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/02/an ... kes-syria/ Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria to add to the never ending success story of Western military intervention in the Middle East. What was Einstein's definition of insanity? Instead of killing 100s of innocent people, why aren't the UK, and the West doing more to cut off IS's revenue streams? Could that be because that would mean taking Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, in particular to task on their support for IS, and refusal to take any Syrian migrants? It would, but obviously we can't go poking the Saudi's with a stick, that would be bad for business. I mean, it's not as if the Saudi's have beheaded 150 people already this year, and impose the same brutal interpretation of Wahhabism as the IS, ISIS, ISIL, Deash, or whatever other name the media is going to come up with to keep the drums of war beating. I wouldn't find this whole think quite so repugnant if it were, indeed intended to rid the world of religious fascism, but it isn't, it's to remove a regime that won't play ball with Western energy companies. Yes the same You Gov poll on Nov 17 showed 59% approval for action and 20% disapproval. This fell on Dec 1st to 48% approval and 31% disapproval a fall but a clear majority as I said. It should be noted that this same You Gov got it horribly wrong at the general election. So still no evidence that the majority of the public were against us taking action in Syria as you stated. To lump Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya together and regard this as a bad precedent fails to see that this is an entirely different conflict. Mistakes of the past should not mean you just lay down and refuse to fight or take our share of responsibility with our allies that have requested help. The RAF has been flying missions against Daesh for over a year and so far there have been no recorded civilian casualties. Testament to our tight rules of engagement, unique Brimstone missiles and the very high levels of skill demonstrated by our brave aircrews. Having said that you cannot guarantee this can continue against an enemy that uses civilians as human shields. I note you do not choose to regard as important the large numbers of innocent civilians that have been murdered by Daesh including 1000s of innocent Syrians in extremely cruel and barbaric ways. Nobody has said that bombing is a solution in its self. There are several other coordinated attempts at both political and financial strategies going on at the same time in what is a very complex mess. However to do nothing is not a sensible or moral option in my opinion as we face a clear and present danger. History should have taught us that when faced with real evil to look the other way and hope it goes away does not work. With regard to cutting off the revenue streams...well the first mission flown by the RAF last night was aimed at doing just that as they attacked one of the oil fields controlled by Daesh that funds so much of their revenue streams. I do not follow your statement about us trying to get rid of Daesh because they are not playing ball with western energy companies... whats that all about? And are you suggesting that we should poke the Saudi's with a stick? and in any case what has this to do with our limited and specific action against Daesh

Charlie Sheen wrote: What polls would these be, Jaun? https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/02/an ... kes-syria/ Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria to add to the never ending success story of Western military intervention in the Middle East. What was Einstein's definition of insanity? Instead of killing 100s of innocent people, why aren't the UK, and the West doing more to cut off IS's revenue streams? Could that be because that would mean taking Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, in particular to task on their support for IS, and refusal to take any Syrian migrants? It would, but obviously we can't go poking the Saudi's with a stick, that would be bad for business. I mean, it's not as if the Saudi's have beheaded 150 people already this year, and impose the same brutal interpretation of Wahhabism as the IS, ISIS, ISIL, Deash, or whatever other name the media is going to come up with to keep the drums of war beating. I wouldn't find this whole think quite so repugnant if it were, indeed intended to rid the world of religious fascism, but it isn't, it's to remove a regime that won't play ball with Western energy companies. Yes the same You Gov poll on Nov 17 showed 59% approval for action and 20% disapproval. This fell on Dec 1st to 48% approval and 31% disapproval a fall but a clear majority as I said. It should be noted that this same You Gov got it horribly wrong at the general election. So still no evidence that the majority of the public were against us taking action in Syria as you stated. To lump Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya together and regard this as a bad precedent fails to see that this is an entirely different conflict. Mistakes of the past should not mean you just lay down and refuse to fight or take our share of responsibility with our allies that have requested help. The RAF has been flying missions against Daesh for over a year and so far there have been no recorded civilian casualties. Testament to our tight rules of engagement, unique Brimstone missiles and the very high levels of skill demonstrated by our brave aircrews. Having said that you cannot guarantee this can continue against an enemy that uses civilians as human shields. I note you do not choose to regard as important the large numbers of innocent civilians that have been murdered by Daesh including 1000s of innocent Syrians in extremely cruel and barbaric ways. Nobody has said that bombing is a solution in its self. There are several other coordinated attempts at both political and financial strategies going on at the same time in what is a very complex mess. However to do nothing is not a sensible or moral option in my opinion as we face a clear and present danger. History should have taught us that when faced with real evil to look the other way and hope it goes away does not work. With regard to cutting off the revenue streams...well the first mission flown by the RAF last night was aimed at doing just that as they attacked one of the oil fields controlled by Daesh that funds so much of their revenue streams. I do not follow your statement about us trying to get rid of Daesh because they are not playing ball with western energy companies... whats that all about? And are you suggesting that we should poke the Saudi's with a stick? and in any case what has this to do with our limited and specific action against Daesh

Re: Terrorism in Paris again. : Thu Dec 03, 2015 7:02 pm  

You cant kill an ideology. Especially by trying to bomb it

Regards

King james

Re: Terrorism in Paris again. : Thu Dec 03, 2015 9:44 pm  

Juan Cornetto wrote:

Yes the same You Gov poll on Nov 17 showed 59% approval for action and 20% disapproval. This fell on Dec 1st to 48% approval and 31% disapproval a fall but a clear majority as I said. It should be noted that this same You Gov got it horribly wrong at the general election. So still no evidence that the majority of the public were against us taking action in Syria as you stated.

To lump Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya together and regard this as a bad precedent fails to see that this is an entirely different conflict. Mistakes of the past should not mean you just lay down and refuse to fight or take our share of responsibility with our allies that have requested help.

The RAF has been flying missions against Daesh for over a year and so far there have been no recorded civilian casualties. Testament to our tight rules of engagement, unique Brimstone missiles and the very high levels of skill demonstrated by our brave aircrews. Having said that you cannot guarantee this can continue against an enemy that uses civilians as human shields.

I note you do not choose to regard as important the large numbers of innocent civilians that have been murdered by Daesh including 1000s of innocent Syrians in extremely cruel and barbaric ways.

Nobody has said that bombing is a solution in its self. There are several other coordinated attempts at both political and financial strategies going on at the same time in what is a very complex mess. However to do nothing is not a sensible or moral option in my opinion as we face a clear and present danger. History should have taught us that when faced with real evil to look the other way and hope it goes away does not work.

With regard to cutting off the revenue streams...well the first mission flown by the RAF last night was aimed at doing just that as they attacked one of the oil fields controlled by Daesh that funds so much of their revenue streams.

I do not follow your statement about us trying to get rid of Daesh because they are not playing ball with western energy companies... whats that all about? And are you suggesting that we should poke the Saudi's with a stick? and in any case what has this to do with our limited and specific action against Daesh

How is this a different conflict to the previous conflicts mentioned? We want to overthrow the regime in another Middle Eastern country, and replace them with a western puppet state (Afghanistan-Taliban/Bin Laden, Iraq-Saddam, Libya-Gaddafi, Syria -Assad). The only difference this time is that Russia is backing Assad which makes the situation far more dangerous.
Wars cost billions, do you really think any government would go to war just because it seems like the right thing to do, or is it something more lucrative, and insidious than that? For example Tony Blair has made close to £100 million since leaving office, working primarily for the Kuwaiti government, and JP Morgan, coincidence? The Bush family are long time bedfellows with the house of Saud, who are responsible for deaths of 1000s of people, and the oppression of millions. Surely if this was about defeating religious fascism then they'd be close to the top of the list of targets? There's been genocide going on Niger for years, and Zimbabwe for years, why haven't we intervened there?
We've been playing this game for nearly 30 years, yet the region is more unstable than ever, we chop one head off the beast, and a new bogeyman miraculously appears.
The one thing we (and our "alies") haven't tried is complete withdrawal from the region. Using violence to achieve your objectives results in the opposite of what you want to achieve. Bombing the 5hit out of these countries, and killing 1000s of people and then expecting the families of those victims to accept your ideology, and values is akin to raping someone and expecting them to marry you. In other words the cycle of violence doesn't end unless you choose not participate in it.
As for these 70,000 "moderates", I reckon there's about as much chance of there being 70,000 of them as there were WMDs in Iraq, or OBL in Afghanistan, and even if there are let's not forget that ISIS were considered moderate rebels, so we decided to arm them a few years ago , and look how that turned out.

You asked about what Western energy companies have to gain... Google "Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline" I can't seem to paste the link on here from my phone. It will also explain why Russiais so keen to keep Assad in power.

Re: Terrorism in Paris again. : Thu Dec 03, 2015 11:16 pm  

FLAT STANLEY wrote:

Oh so we're playing the race card now are we, you're stooping that low trying to silence my views and opinions, Let me make this absolutely clear from the very start, to disable the reflexes of the permanently morally outraged and the political correctness police - I do not hate Jews. Any Jew that is a good person and doesn't have a problem with me in general I have no quarrel with, and I am not encouraging hatred towards Jews.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm suggesting that humans have a tendency to believe that there is always ONE answer when very often it's more complex and a number of factors. I mentioned the Rothschilds because their name gets banded around like it's the devil running the world. It isn't. There's collaboration between any number. I mentioned the anti-Semitic because very often the right-wing sites are very quick to suggest that it's Jews behind the drive for war when, as has been said by Mugwump, it's the rich and powerful that drive it. It was not a reference to your beliefs or opinions.

Re: Terrorism in Paris again. : Fri Dec 04, 2015 1:38 am  

Here's a short article written by one of the most important individuals ever to comment directly on the very issues which face us today in the Middle East - Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty. In it he discusses what "counter-insurgency warfare" actually entails - as well as offering valuable insights into why it's become the de facto mode of conflict. Just to provide some background, Prouty was the Chief of Special Operations and the primary liaison between the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency during the administrations of presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Back then the CIA had no military capacity which meant that whenever they needed men and materiel for a covert operation in somewhere such as Guatemala or Iran they requisitioned it from the Pentagon and Prouty. Since deniability is of paramount importance to any intelligence operation part of Prouty's job was to "sheep dip" the military's assets so they could not be traced back should the operation fail or be compromised (side note - this process of ship-dipping years later resulted in the tremendous scandal over the supposed refusal of the Vietnamese to return "thousands" of American POWs who in fact never existed since during the early years of that conflict they were working for the CIA and thus using phony identities). In short - Prouty was connected right up the wazoo. His security clearance was so high that when Senator Joseph McCarthy demanded that he sign an Oath of Allegiance to the United States during the HUAC investigations he told him to "get stuffed" (shortly after McCarthy was out on his ear after he thought he could get away with intimidating the military). THE WORLDWIDE INVISIBLE WAR waged by the Soviet KGB and the American Central Intelligence Agency over the past fifty years, and under the cover that these war-making organizations were in fact intelligence organizations, was being fought with novel tactics. Not only was this type of underground warfare secret, but so were its methods. Discerning readers were not surprised, then, to discover on an inside page of the New York Times on July 25, 1985, a tiny two-inch article, datelined Zaragoza, Spain, describing one of these Cold War battles, being fought with these secret tactics. TWO SPANISH OFFICERS SENTENCED FOR ROLES IN FAKE EXECUTIONS ZARAGOZA, Spain, July 24 (UPI)—Two army officers who herded villagers into a public square for mock executions were sentenced today to prison terms of four and five months, military authorities said. A military tribunal ruled Tuesday that officers, Capt. Carlos Aleman and Lieut. Jaime Iniguez, had been overzealous in carrying out orders. "They were ordered to stage a mock invasion of a town and to make it as realistic as possible, but they went too far," said a Defense Ministry spokesman, Lieut. Jesus del Monte. This bizarre incident occurred in Spain. Similar events, using the same tactics, take place somewhere in the world almost daily, despite the apparent demise of the Cold War. They have one unique characteristic, seldom if ever seen in regular warfare, that sets them apart. Incidents such as this one, reported by the Times, serve to incite warfare rather than to bring it to an end. To give the age-old concept new meaning, "They make war...out of practically nothing." The methods used in Spain are almost precisely those used by the CIA in, among other cases, the Philippines in the early 1950s and Indochina from 1945 to 1965. These will be discussed in later chapters. It is important to note that tens of thousands of foreign "paramilitary" and Special Forces troops have been trained at various U.S. military bases under CIA supervision and sponsorship. Some of this training is highly specialized, using advanced weapons and war-related matériel. Some of it takes place at American universities and even in manufacturing plants, where advanced equipment for this type of warfare is being made. Then there are the paramilitary forces of other nations that have been trained in the Soviet Union. Today these graduates, by the tens of thousands, are the leaders of the "elite" forces of many countries and the professionals used to breed a world of international terrorists. For the most part, they are not individuals or members of some small group, but participants in a most sophisticated, worldwide complex of organizations. The Spanish example is a perfect case study in describing the methods and tactics of such units. (For illustrative purposes, examples of operations in other countries will be merged with the Spanish example to portray more comprehensively the potential of these tactics.) The Spanish army's Special Forces troops had been ordered to "stage a mock invasion of a town and to make it [look and feel] as realistic as possible." The army was ordered to create a battle that would appear to support evidence of insurgency. This is one of the secret methods of the secret war. These special armed forces are used as agitators. It is as though the fire department were being used to start fires, the police department employed to steal and kill, and doctors ordered to make people sick, to destroy their brains, to poison them. Such clandestine operations are designed to make war—even when they have to play both sides at the same time. First of all, as stated so accurately in Leonard Lewin's Report From Iron Mountain,1 "allegiance [to the State] requires a cause; a cause requires an enemy," and "...the presumed power of the enemy sufficient to warrant an individual sense of allegiance to a society must be proportionate to the size and complexity of the society." Therefore, on a global scale, the Cold War required the USSR and the United States to have been enemies by need and by definition. Ever since the Bravo detonation of the hydrogen bomb, the world's political, economic, and military system has had to be bipolar. Those without massive weapons and the means to deliver them could not possibly take part effectively in such global warfare. It has been politically necessary for each major power to have an enemy, even though both major powers knew that they no longer had any way to benefit from a traditional "all-out" war. Neither one could control its own destiny or its own society without the "threat" of the other. On a lesser scale, as we shall see in the Spanish example, the existence of "insurgents" lent validity to the charge of a "Communistic-supported" insurgency, even though the scope of the "conflict"—that is, the "mock invasion of the town"—was purely local. All leaders of all nations know that, as stated in Report From Iron Mountain, "The organization of a society for the possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer. It is ironic that this primary function of warfare has been generally recognized by historians only where it has been expressly acknowledged—in the pirate societies of the great conquerors." That is the historical perspective. It has been the primary reason for the necessary prosecution of the Cold War—"necessary," that is, in the minds of those who are unable to see, or who choose not to see, that there are other reasons than conflict for the existence of Earth and man. The Spanish application of this tactic of the secret war is interesting and threatens us all. In this case, the two army officers had been ordered to attack a town, with regular Spanish troops (albeit some of them disguised as natives), and to make it look and feel realistic. As undercover warriors, they were trained to do this. (No doubt, some were trained in the United States, where many of the weapons, activities, and techniques mentioned below are used in training.) Under other conditions at other times, these same trained men might have been told to hijack a civilian aircraft; they might have been told to run a mock hostage operation. There is no difference. The only military objective of these battles, and of this type of global conflict, is to create the appearance of war itself. Now, the Spanish, for reasons of their own, had decided to teach this town a lesson. To initiate this campaign, a psychological-warfare propaganda team arrived in town. They put up posters, made inflammatory speeches in the village square and showed propaganda films on the walls of buildings at night to stir up the village, warning of the existence and approach of a band of "terrorist-trained insurgents." That night, as the movies were being shown before the assembled villagers, a firefight kit, prearranged to explode in sequence to resemble a true skirmish, was detonated on a nearby hillside. Flares and rockets filled the sky. A helicopter gunship or two joined the mock battle scenario. By the time this Special Forces PsyWar team left that town, the whole region had been alarmed by the presence of these "insurgents." The stage was set for the "mock invasion of the town," as ordered. A few nights later, these two Spanish army officers (was the CIA involved?) divided their regular force into two groups: (a) the pseudoinsurgents and (b) the loyal regular forces. The "insurgents" took off their uniforms and donned native garb, the uniform of the "Peoples' Insurgents." Then they faded into the darkness and began to attack the town. First there was sporadic gunfire. Then some buildings went up in flames. Several big explosions occurred, and a bridge was blown up. The "insurgents" attacked the town as the villagers fled into the night. There was more gunfire, more burning and explosions. The "terrorists" looted the town and fired into the woods where the townspeople were hiding. As the sun rose, an army unit in a convoy of trucks raced toward the town, entering it with guns ablaze. Above, a helicopter gunship added to the firepower. The "terrorists" were gunned down, left and right (all staged with blank ammunition). The others were rounded up and thrown into extra trucks under heavy guard. In short order, the victorious regular army captain had liberated the town. A loudspeaker in the helicopter called the villagers to return. All was safe! Fires were extinguished. Things returned to near normal. Meanwhile, the captain remained with his interrogators, questioning the prisoners. Two "insurgent" leaders were discovered with false "terrorist" papers in their pockets and led back to the village square in chains. Charges were read against them, and the villagers observed them backed against the wall and shot! No sooner had the bodies hit the ground than they were picked up and tossed into the nearest truck. Justice had been done. All trucks moved down the road. The battle was over. Before leaving, the captain turned to the town's mayor and warned him against further terrorism. The townspeople cheered the heroic captain as he left the town in command of the convoy. The forces of justice had been victorious. They drove on a few more miles, and the whole gang—loyal army and "terrorists"—had breakfast together. The "dead" men joined the feast. This was the "mock battle." Although I have added technical details to the Spanish scenario, I have been to such training programs at U.S. military bases where identical tactics are taught to Americans as well as foreigners. It is all the same. As we shall see later, these are the same tactics that were exploited by CIA superagent Edward G. Landsdale and his men in the Philipines and Indochina. This is an example of the intelligence service's "Fun and Games." Actually, it is as old as history; but lately it has been refined, out of necessity, into a major tool of clandestine warfare. Lest anyone think that this is an isolated case, be assured that it was not. Such "mock battles" and "mock attacks on native villages" were staged countless times in Indochina for the benefit of, or the orientation of, visiting dignitaries, such as John McCone when he first visited Vietnam as the Kennedy-appointed director of central intelligence. Such distinguished visitors usually observed the action from a helicopter, at "a safe distance." A new secretary of defense, such as Robert McNamara, who had never seen combat, especially combat in Southeast Asia, would be given the treatment. It was evident to other, more experienced observers that the tracks through the fields had been made by the "Vietcong" during many rehearsals of the "attack." The war makers of Vietnam vintage left nothing to chance. During the 1952-54 time period, when I flew into the Philippines, I spent many hours talking with Ed Lansdale, his many Filipino friends, such as Juan C. "Johnny" Orendain, Col. Napolean D. Valeriano, and members of his CIA "anti-Quirino" team and heard them tell these same stories. They all worked with Ramon Magsaysay in those days and related how he would divide his Special Forces into the "Communist HUKS" and the loyal military and then attack villages in the manner described above. Before long Ramon Magsaysay had been "elected" president of the Philippines, and President Quirino was on his way out. Later, when I worked in the same office with Lansdale in the Pentagon, he would relate how he and his Saigon Military Mission teammates applied similar tactics in Indochina, both North and South. Any of this seem familiar today? By the way - there are some excellent interviews with Prouty on YouTube. Here he offers his own (far more believable) opinions on why Francis Gary Powers' U2 spyplane "crashed" over Russia. Bear in mind, the U2 was one of those joint military/CIA operations which came directly under Prouty's office - so it's not like he's uninformed. You really can't go wrong listening to the guy. Definitely in my top-10 essential reading.

Here's a short article written by one of the most important individuals ever to comment directly on the very issues which face us today in the Middle East - Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty. In it he discusses what "counter-insurgency warfare" actually entails - as well as offering valuable insights into why it's become the de facto mode of conflict. Just to provide some background, Prouty was the Chief of Special Operations and the primary liaison between the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency during the administrations of presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Back then the CIA had no military capacity which meant that whenever they needed men and materiel for a covert operation in somewhere such as Guatemala or Iran they requisitioned it from the Pentagon and Prouty. Since deniability is of paramount importance to any intelligence operation part of Prouty's job was to "sheep dip" the military's assets so they could not be traced back should the operation fail or be compromised (side note - this process of ship-dipping years later resulted in the tremendous scandal over the supposed refusal of the Vietnamese to return "thousands" of American POWs who in fact never existed since during the early years of that conflict they were working for the CIA and thus using phony identities). In short - Prouty was connected right up the wazoo. His security clearance was so high that when Senator Joseph McCarthy demanded that he sign an Oath of Allegiance to the United States during the HUAC investigations he told him to "get stuffed" (shortly after McCarthy was out on his ear after he thought he could get away with intimidating the military). THE WORLDWIDE INVISIBLE WAR waged by the Soviet KGB and the American Central Intelligence Agency over the past fifty years, and under the cover that these war-making organizations were in fact intelligence organizations, was being fought with novel tactics. Not only was this type of underground warfare secret, but so were its methods. Discerning readers were not surprised, then, to discover on an inside page of the New York Times on July 25, 1985, a tiny two-inch article, datelined Zaragoza, Spain, describing one of these Cold War battles, being fought with these secret tactics. TWO SPANISH OFFICERS SENTENCED FOR ROLES IN FAKE EXECUTIONS ZARAGOZA, Spain, July 24 (UPI)—Two army officers who herded villagers into a public square for mock executions were sentenced today to prison terms of four and five months, military authorities said. A military tribunal ruled Tuesday that officers, Capt. Carlos Aleman and Lieut. Jaime Iniguez, had been overzealous in carrying out orders. "They were ordered to stage a mock invasion of a town and to make it as realistic as possible, but they went too far," said a Defense Ministry spokesman, Lieut. Jesus del Monte. This bizarre incident occurred in Spain. Similar events, using the same tactics, take place somewhere in the world almost daily, despite the apparent demise of the Cold War. They have one unique characteristic, seldom if ever seen in regular warfare, that sets them apart. Incidents such as this one, reported by the Times, serve to incite warfare rather than to bring it to an end. To give the age-old concept new meaning, "They make war...out of practically nothing." The methods used in Spain are almost precisely those used by the CIA in, among other cases, the Philippines in the early 1950s and Indochina from 1945 to 1965. These will be discussed in later chapters. It is important to note that tens of thousands of foreign "paramilitary" and Special Forces troops have been trained at various U.S. military bases under CIA supervision and sponsorship. Some of this training is highly specialized, using advanced weapons and war-related matériel. Some of it takes place at American universities and even in manufacturing plants, where advanced equipment for this type of warfare is being made. Then there are the paramilitary forces of other nations that have been trained in the Soviet Union. Today these graduates, by the tens of thousands, are the leaders of the "elite" forces of many countries and the professionals used to breed a world of international terrorists. For the most part, they are not individuals or members of some small group, but participants in a most sophisticated, worldwide complex of organizations. The Spanish example is a perfect case study in describing the methods and tactics of such units. (For illustrative purposes, examples of operations in other countries will be merged with the Spanish example to portray more comprehensively the potential of these tactics.) The Spanish army's Special Forces troops had been ordered to "stage a mock invasion of a town and to make it [look and feel] as realistic as possible." The army was ordered to create a battle that would appear to support evidence of insurgency. This is one of the secret methods of the secret war. These special armed forces are used as agitators. It is as though the fire department were being used to start fires, the police department employed to steal and kill, and doctors ordered to make people sick, to destroy their brains, to poison them. Such clandestine operations are designed to make war—even when they have to play both sides at the same time. First of all, as stated so accurately in Leonard Lewin's Report From Iron Mountain,1 "allegiance [to the State] requires a cause; a cause requires an enemy," and "...the presumed power of the enemy sufficient to warrant an individual sense of allegiance to a society must be proportionate to the size and complexity of the society." Therefore, on a global scale, the Cold War required the USSR and the United States to have been enemies by need and by definition. Ever since the Bravo detonation of the hydrogen bomb, the world's political, economic, and military system has had to be bipolar. Those without massive weapons and the means to deliver them could not possibly take part effectively in such global warfare. It has been politically necessary for each major power to have an enemy, even though both major powers knew that they no longer had any way to benefit from a traditional "all-out" war. Neither one could control its own destiny or its own society without the "threat" of the other. On a lesser scale, as we shall see in the Spanish example, the existence of "insurgents" lent validity to the charge of a "Communistic-supported" insurgency, even though the scope of the "conflict"—that is, the "mock invasion of the town"—was purely local. All leaders of all nations know that, as stated in Report From Iron Mountain, "The organization of a society for the possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer. It is ironic that this primary function of warfare has been generally recognized by historians only where it has been expressly acknowledged—in the pirate societies of the great conquerors." That is the historical perspective. It has been the primary reason for the necessary prosecution of the Cold War—"necessary," that is, in the minds of those who are unable to see, or who choose not to see, that there are other reasons than conflict for the existence of Earth and man. The Spanish application of this tactic of the secret war is interesting and threatens us all. In this case, the two army officers had been ordered to attack a town, with regular Spanish troops (albeit some of them disguised as natives), and to make it look and feel realistic. As undercover warriors, they were trained to do this. (No doubt, some were trained in the United States, where many of the weapons, activities, and techniques mentioned below are used in training.) Under other conditions at other times, these same trained men might have been told to hijack a civilian aircraft; they might have been told to run a mock hostage operation. There is no difference. The only military objective of these battles, and of this type of global conflict, is to create the appearance of war itself. Now, the Spanish, for reasons of their own, had decided to teach this town a lesson. To initiate this campaign, a psychological-warfare propaganda team arrived in town. They put up posters, made inflammatory speeches in the village square and showed propaganda films on the walls of buildings at night to stir up the village, warning of the existence and approach of a band of "terrorist-trained insurgents." That night, as the movies were being shown before the assembled villagers, a firefight kit, prearranged to explode in sequence to resemble a true skirmish, was detonated on a nearby hillside. Flares and rockets filled the sky. A helicopter gunship or two joined the mock battle scenario. By the time this Special Forces PsyWar team left that town, the whole region had been alarmed by the presence of these "insurgents." The stage was set for the "mock invasion of the town," as ordered. A few nights later, these two Spanish army officers (was the CIA involved?) divided their regular force into two groups: (a) the pseudoinsurgents and (b) the loyal regular forces. The "insurgents" took off their uniforms and donned native garb, the uniform of the "Peoples' Insurgents." Then they faded into the darkness and began to attack the town. First there was sporadic gunfire. Then some buildings went up in flames. Several big explosions occurred, and a bridge was blown up. The "insurgents" attacked the town as the villagers fled into the night. There was more gunfire, more burning and explosions. The "terrorists" looted the town and fired into the woods where the townspeople were hiding. As the sun rose, an army unit in a convoy of trucks raced toward the town, entering it with guns ablaze. Above, a helicopter gunship added to the firepower. The "terrorists" were gunned down, left and right (all staged with blank ammunition). The others were rounded up and thrown into extra trucks under heavy guard. In short order, the victorious regular army captain had liberated the town. A loudspeaker in the helicopter called the villagers to return. All was safe! Fires were extinguished. Things returned to near normal. Meanwhile, the captain remained with his interrogators, questioning the prisoners. Two "insurgent" leaders were discovered with false "terrorist" papers in their pockets and led back to the village square in chains. Charges were read against them, and the villagers observed them backed against the wall and shot! No sooner had the bodies hit the ground than they were picked up and tossed into the nearest truck. Justice had been done. All trucks moved down the road. The battle was over. Before leaving, the captain turned to the town's mayor and warned him against further terrorism. The townspeople cheered the heroic captain as he left the town in command of the convoy. The forces of justice had been victorious. They drove on a few more miles, and the whole gang—loyal army and "terrorists"—had breakfast together. The "dead" men joined the feast. This was the "mock battle." Although I have added technical details to the Spanish scenario, I have been to such training programs at U.S. military bases where identical tactics are taught to Americans as well as foreigners. It is all the same. As we shall see later, these are the same tactics that were exploited by CIA superagent Edward G. Landsdale and his men in the Philipines and Indochina. This is an example of the intelligence service's "Fun and Games." Actually, it is as old as history; but lately it has been refined, out of necessity, into a major tool of clandestine warfare. Lest anyone think that this is an isolated case, be assured that it was not. Such "mock battles" and "mock attacks on native villages" were staged countless times in Indochina for the benefit of, or the orientation of, visiting dignitaries, such as John McCone when he first visited Vietnam as the Kennedy-appointed director of central intelligence. Such distinguished visitors usually observed the action from a helicopter, at "a safe distance." A new secretary of defense, such as Robert McNamara, who had never seen combat, especially combat in Southeast Asia, would be given the treatment. It was evident to other, more experienced observers that the tracks through the fields had been made by the "Vietcong" during many rehearsals of the "attack." The war makers of Vietnam vintage left nothing to chance. During the 1952-54 time period, when I flew into the Philippines, I spent many hours talking with Ed Lansdale, his many Filipino friends, such as Juan C. "Johnny" Orendain, Col. Napolean D. Valeriano, and members of his CIA "anti-Quirino" team and heard them tell these same stories. They all worked with Ramon Magsaysay in those days and related how he would divide his Special Forces into the "Communist HUKS" and the loyal military and then attack villages in the manner described above. Before long Ramon Magsaysay had been "elected" president of the Philippines, and President Quirino was on his way out. Later, when I worked in the same office with Lansdale in the Pentagon, he would relate how he and his Saigon Military Mission teammates applied similar tactics in Indochina, both North and South. Any of this seem familiar today? By the way - there are some excellent interviews with Prouty on YouTube. Here he offers his own (far more believable) opinions on why Francis Gary Powers' U2 spyplane "crashed" over Russia. Bear in mind, the U2 was one of those joint military/CIA operations which came directly under Prouty's office - so it's not like he's uninformed. You really can't go wrong listening to the guy. Definitely in my top-10 essential reading.