The Rise and Rise of the Regime Renovators (Another Splendid Little Coup)

horiz-long grey

 
MAKE SURE YOU CIRCULATE THESE MATERIALS! BREAKING THE EMPIRE'S PROPAGANDA MACHINE DEPENDS ON YOU.

‘It has been a splendid little war, begun with the highest motives, carried on with magnificent intelligence and spirit, favored by that Fortune which loves the brave.’ US Secretary of State John Hay, referencing the Spanish-American War of 1898, in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt, July 27 of that year, the war ushering in America’s Imperial epoch and unambiguously heralding its hegemonic ambitions.


‘…I’ve seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate [people]….We’ve gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should be our pleasure and duty to make people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way….[I] am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.’ Comments by Mark Twain, anti-imperialist, reflecting on the real objectives of America’s war with Spain.


‘War is the continuation of politics by other means…’ Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian general, military theorist


‘Politics is the continuation of war by other means…’ Michel Foucault, French philosopher, social theorist


Synopsis: For those Americans au fait with their country’s fondness for engineering coups, ousting democratically elected leaders, and interfering in the political affairs of other nations – to all intents the perennial bedrock principle of U.S. foreign policy — Iran is a well-documented exemplar. Given the supreme ironies inherent in the political imbroglio in the U.S. attending Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential elections, along with America’s resolve to seek once again regime change in Russia’s ally Iran, it’s timely we revisit this slice of history. Doing so presents us an opportunity to view the so-called ‘Russia-gate’ furore, the Iran regime change ambitions, and the increasingly bloody war in Syria – itself an ally of both Russia and Iran — within a broader, more nuanced historical context. From there we might derive a more informed perspective on the contemporary geopolitical zeitgeist and the hegemonic forces that have fashioned it. And attending that deeper perspective should be a sure sign of the existential dangers for civilization and humanity at large of allowing our leaders in the West to continue down this path unchallenged, one that is as well-worn as it’s fraught with peril.


Bibi the Bellicose and Chief Negotiator in Transit to Middle East Peace (avec Road Map)

For those folks with the requisite sense of irony and historical perspective, many will be rolling their eyes at the rampant hysteria over the as yet evidence-free accusations of interference by Russia in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Which is to say, one of the manifest realities attending this latest Beltway blockbuster soap opera is that of America’s own track record of interference in the affairs of other countries, comprising as it does so many forms. I say “realities” rather than ironies here as “irony” almost by definition is infused with a measure of nuance and subtlety, neither of which could it be said are in abundance in this utterly contrived, self-serving political fracas.

(For a further measure of just how “contrived” and “self-serving” it is, see here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Insofar as Russia’s alleged meddling in U.S. politics goes and the animus that attends the hysteria, as Oliver Stonediscovered during his recent appearance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert – itself hot on the heels of his much publicised four hour meet ‘n greet with Russian president Vladimir Putin wherein it was earlier raised – he was at pains to impress upon his host that Israel had a much bigger case to answer than did Russia. Of course Stone was on the money here. The unalloyed reality of the power and influence that Israel exerts within and across the morally and ethically desertified landscape that is the nation’s capital is a given, with the Middle East’s only ‘democratic’ settler-colonizer apartheid regime leaving few stones unturned – and exhibiting little discretion and subtlety but equal parts chutzpah and subterfuge — in how it wields then leverages that influence to its advantage and against the interests of its principal patron and benefactor.

But that’s clearly a narrative that doesn’t bode well in the Beltway at the best of times, and more rational, clear-eyed folks know the reasons why. For one, the corporate media, for the most part doesn’t entertain such verities. Even if they were inclined, the omnipotent Israel Lobby would cut them off at the knees. And for his part, the smarmy Colbert, presumably aware which side his bread is buttered on, was reluctant to take Stone’s bait, much it seemed to his interviewee’s frustration! Beyond just interfering in U.S. politics, along with the parent Empire la perfide Albion, one of America’s steadfast partners-in-crime in the regime renovation business are the ubiquitous and iniquitous Israelis, an observation underscored by Against our Better Judgment author Alison Weir on her blog If Americans Knew.

Long targeted by Israel, for Weir, Iran especially provides an instructive example herein. With the Saudis as back-up, it is Israel — ably supported by its Praetorian Guard AIPAC and its ilk along with its shills in Congress – that’s been the hard-core driver of Washington’s seemingly irrational animus towards all things Iran. Along with underscoring Israel’s clout in Washington, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2015 Congressional dog ‘n pony show fiercely opposing the Iran Nuclear agreement then being negotiated by the Obama administration provides some of the best evidence for this. And indeed, it’s another of Washington’s worst best-kept secrets that – the nuclear agreement aside — Iran remains a high priority on the ‘to do’ list for the Regime Renovators. (See also here, here, and here.) In addition to the relentless propaganda campaign by Israel to paint Iran as the existential threat du jour, despite the fact that U.S. intelligence agencies and others in the know don’t support the allegations about its mythical nuclear weapons progam, Weir had the following to say:

‘Israel and the U.S. deployed a computer virus against Iran in what’s been called the world’s first digital weapon. Iranian nuclear physicists [were] assassinated by Israel, and the U.S. instituted a blockade against Iran that caused food insecurity and mass suffering among the country’s civilians. (Such a blockade can be seen as an act of war.) Democratic Congressman and Israel partisan Brad Sherman admitted the objective of the sanctions: “Critics of sanctions argue that these measures will hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we need to do just that.”’


What, me Worry? Russian President Vladimir Putin (aka Vlad the Derailer) — He Derailed Uncle Sam’s Regime Renovation Plans in Syria

Most folks then who don’t dine out on the McDonald’s (‘would you like lies with that?’) media diet that is the corporate news are as well aware of Uncle Sam’s recidivistic predisposition towards meddling in the affairs of other nations, engineering coups and colour revolutions, and ousting democratically elected leaders as they are of the bespoke misinformation and disinformation – the ‘real’ fake news – that’s tailored to suit the official narrative that goes with it.

Along with the ongoing Syrian War, the 2014 Ukraine coup is one of the most egregious, more recent example of this, with again Stone’s meet ‘n greet with Putin providing an alternative perspective on both counts. Yet even here the majority of Americans would attribute the Ukraine crisis to “Russian aggression” and the Syrian War largely to Bashir Assad’s despotism; it’s simply what they are told by the MSM, and insofar as they’re concerned [they] have little reason to doubt this. Much the same goes for the Iran WMD narrative, despite the fact that we’ve heard that one before with Iraq around fifteen years ago.

And all of this mayhem and chaos is premised on exporting freedom, democracy, justice, liberty, human rights, and the rule of law, all of the things that America is purportedly so accomplished in embracing on the home front, albeit more so in the breach than in the observance as they say. What makes America’s transgressions so much more brazen in this respect is the hypocritical, fraudulent and existentially dangerous nature of the umbrage and pique being directed towards countries like Iran, Syria and, especially Russia and China. And what makes the righteous animus being served up to the latter nations in particular so frightening and so portentous is that it’s wholly reminiscent of the hegemonic mindset directed towards Germany by the high-minded mandarins of the British Empire in the two decades leading up to the War to End all Wars. By 1914, even for that small cohort of folks who might’ve smelt the imperial rat, it was too late of course, for them and for so many others. In this few other imperially motivated gambits have been more consequential or more far-reaching across time and space, a conclusion we can safely draw with all the benefit one hundred plus years of hindsight brings.

As for today’s “cohort” of news consumers, it is much the same: Such awareness is embraced only by a small minority of people with most blissfully ignorant of their country’s inability or unwillingness to, well, mind its own bloody business.They are as equally oblivious to the economic, social, physical and political havoc, mayhem, and destruction it creates in the process, sometimes catastrophically so. Whilst the events of 9/11 might’ve otherwise provided a visceral reality check in this regard for most Americans of the blowback that frequently attends its own country’s meddling, very few would’ve been prepared or motivated to engage in any ‘cause and effect’ reflection therein, much less act in sync with that.

Along with the ongoing Syrian War, the 2014 Ukraine coup is one of the most egregious, more recent example of this, with again Stone’s meet ‘n greet with Putin providing an alternative perspective on both counts. Yet even here the majority of Americans would attribute the Ukraine crisis to “Russian aggression” and the Syrian War largely to Bashir Assad’s despotism; it’s simply what they are told by the MSM, and insofar as they’re concerned [they] have little reason to doubt this. Much the same goes for the Iran WMD narrative, despite the fact that we’ve heard that one before with Iraq around fifteen years ago.

And all of this mayhem and chaos is premised on exporting freedom, democracy, justice, liberty, human rights, and the rule of law, all of the things that America is purportedly so accomplished in embracing on the home front, albeit more so in the breach than in the observance as they say. What makes America’s transgressions so much more brazen in this respect is the hypocritical, fraudulent and existentially dangerous nature of the umbrage and pique being directed towards countries like Iran, Syria and, especially Russia and China. And what makes the righteous animus being served up to the latter nations in particular so frightening and so portentous is that it’s wholly reminiscent of the hegemonic mindset directed towards Germany by the high-minded mandarins of the British Empire in the two decades leading up to the War to End all Wars. By 1914, even for that small cohort of folks who might’ve smelt the imperial rat, it was too late of course, for them and for so many others. In this few other imperially motivated gambits have been more consequential or more far-reaching across time and space, a conclusion we can safely draw with all the benefit one hundred plus years of hindsight brings.

To be sure then, Uncle Sam’s “track record’ in this respect is as well documented and [as] well known as it’s abhorred by most commentators in the alternative media space and their more enlightened readers. At the same time it’s one subject that doesn’t raise an eyebrow much less a mention from those in the mainstream media (MSM) universe, no matter how pertinent it might be to the narrative in hand. It’s another of what I’ve come to calling the ‘no-fly-zones’ of conventional political discourse and public debate. Given the degree of complicity of the corporate media in facilitating these coups, proxy wars and colour revolutions, then camouflaging them as something entirely different from what they really represent is, whilst reprehensible and indefensible, understandable.


— Kermit’s ‘Sesame Street’ Coup —

Mohammad Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran 1951-53 – the CIA relieved him from the burdens of power.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]nterestingly, Rickard’s remark was prompted by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s most recent statements about the U.S. seeking regime change in Teheran as all but a matter of public policy with marginally less fervor than they are accusing Moscow o meddling in their own democratic processes in last year’s election.

Again, for those folks “in the know”, the very mention of the words “regime change” and “Iran” in the same breath will also summon pronto a profound sense of déjà vu. As with the little known 1975 Australian coup (the details of which to be unveiled in a future ‘episode’ of The Regime Renovators), it was Britain (MI6) and the U.S. (the CIA) in a tag team play that cut its teeth in such joint-venture partnerships back in Iran in 1953.

Now the much-cited Iran experience is worthy of further exploration, if only because this exercise in regime change later turned out to be doubly ironic in a ‘reap what you sow’ kinda way, but not necessarily as the received wisdom would have us believe. We’ll return to this point shortly, but for context and perspective, the 1953 Iran adventure begs for another trip down memory lane, especially given all the chatter about the U.S. returning to the ‘scene of the crime’. Placing to one side an early dress rehearsal in Syria in 1949, the 1953 Iran coup was the first post-War exercise in regime renovation upon the part of Anglo-American alliance — one which officially at least was only just admitted to by the CIA after decades of not so plausible denial – when they successfully conspired to relieve the democratically elected prime minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh from the burdens of power. The CIA and MI6 jointly embarked on a plan to stage a coup that would ensure that the West maintained control over the country’s vast oil reserves (shades of things to come). This coup is widely believed to have provided the ‘business model’ and the bravado for future coups by the CIA during the Cold War, including in Guatemala in 1954, the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1961, and the ill-fated attempted coup in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs (BOP) in 1961, where the renovators’ business model came spectacularly unstuck.

In true CIA custom, in Iran not everything went according to plan. The man who would be Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, by all accounts something of a reluctant usurper, succumbed to ‘stage fright’ at the eleventh hour and did an unexpected runner to Italy. But the CIA quickly recovered its composure and schlepped their ‘under-study’ back in time for the opening night curtain raiser of the new regime. For both the CIA and the Shah, who went on to rule his country with an iron, bloody fist avec unerring American support for almost twenty-five years, in true show business fashion, everything was ‘all right on the night’; the Shah’s show went on to enjoy an extended run with generally positive reviews. (That most of these “reviews” were written by the Iranian intelligence agency SAVAK, the Shah’s political and security muscle throughout his ‘regime’, is axiomatic, especially since writing was apparently one activity SAVAK agents both excelled at and enjoyed. Their torture manuals were as notorious for their proscribed brutality as for their invention.)

Interestingly, the CIA’s Iranian operation was directed by none other than Kermit (Kim) Roosevelt, the grandson of former Republican president Teddy Roosevelt (he of the “walk softly, carry a big stick” fame), and a not too distant cousin of former Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). At the time Roosevelt was the senior spook in The Company’s Middle-East station (he’d been recruited by no less a personality than Frank “The Mighty Wurlitzer” Wisner), and was their point man on the ground in overseeing the Iranian adventure, dubbed Operation Ajax. Despite his name, for Teddy’s ‘grand-sprog’ this was no Sesame Street romp. No sirree Bob! This was serious spy shit.

Notwithstanding the apparent success of the mission, the coup was to have profound, far-reaching, and plain scary, geopolitical, economic and national security consequences for the US and the West in general. For starters just ask Jimmy Carter for further confirmation of this, and for any still standing and in control of their meta-cognitive faculties, go from there president by president! (Although Albright sort of apologised to Iran in 2000 – possibly the closest thing to a mea culpa ever offered by the U.S. for their wayward imperial ways – it didn’t apparently count for much.)


Yet one of the most enlightening revelations about Kermit’s coup was the following. In his must-read book a Century of War, Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, F William Engdahl recounted the less familiar story that the demise of the Shah (aka the ‘Peacock Potentate’) was engineered by the same forces that brought him into power in the first place. As we know this went on to produce sizable blowback for the U.S. with the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The much reviled Shah had for a variety of reasons outlived his usefulness, with the onset of the 1979 oil crisis presenting said forces both the ideal opportunity and pretext – albeit according to Engdahl, one largely manufactured in this case — to proceed to the next phase of their (ahem) Persian renovation project.

From this then we might safely deduce the subsequent ‘79 Revolution, the storming of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, along with the kidnapping of the embassy personnel (a world changing event by any measure), was not what many have deemed an organic — nor an entirely predictable — development for those who’d decided the Shah has passed his use by date. Moreover, the reality (there’s that word again) of ‘client-dictators’ overstaying their ‘welcome’ will be one familiar to ‘buffs’ of Uncle Sam’s regime change history, with the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2002, again on prefabricated pretexts and for not dissimilar reasons, providing a most consequential exemplar thereof.

According to the author, in 1978, President Carter named diplomat George Ball to head a White House task force under the direction of Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the proud, now recently departed, father of Islamic terrorism and patron saint of jihadists. In doing so, Carter effectively gave Brzezinski the nod on opening anotherPandora’s Box in the Greater Middle East, and as the Law of Moral Causation (trade name: ‘karma’) would have it, brought about the president’s own political demise. As Engdahl explains it: 

‘Ball recommended Washington drop support for the Shah and support the fundamentalist Islamic opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini…and the CIA led a coup against the man their covert actions had placed into power 25 years earlier. The coup against the Shah, like that against Mossadegh in 1953, was run by British and American intelligence, with the bombastic Brzezinski taking public ‘credit’ for getting rid of the ‘corrupt’ Shah, while the British characteristically remained safely in the background.’


— When You’re on a Good Thing —

Notwithstanding the blowback from the Iran coup and the later blowback from the removal of the Shah, nothing has changed. The disastrous Bay of Pigs operation in 1961 and the subsequent, near catastrophic Cuban Missile Crisis the following year deriving from the failure of even that monumentally inept regime change maneuver evidently provided few lessons for the Beltway Bedlamites then or their political progeny since. At the same time it underscored in effect what had become the bedrock principle of American foreign policy and Great Power Projection. Which is to say for its part the U.S. still engages in this tried and true, one-size-fits-all foreign relations gambit, bringing to mind that old adage ‘when you’re on a good thing, stick to it!’

Whilst the motivations for the Iranian coup were nominally economic (the government of the time were making noises about nationalizing the Iranian oil industry), there was also the strategic geopolitical considerations in the West that Iran might come within the sphere of Soviet influence, thereby severely limiting the West’s hegemony in the region, an outcome one imagines would’ve delivered an unacceptable blow to the U.S.’s nascent imperial psyche. There was also a certain amount of fear that Iranian communists might gain control of the political situation, or even that the Soviets might overtake the country, either the stuff of American and British nightmares or over-egged paranoia. Certainly the Americans were never too keen on the Soviets crashing their party anywhere, especially so in this region. Like the British before them, the U.S. has always been quite territorial about other people’s territory, especially when said “territory” involved oil, or any other strategic commodity or geopolitical consideration. Whether this fear was rational given the reality at the time and the available intelligence is a subject many still debate.

As we’ve seen with this and so many others, the reasons for the coup were fuelled less by the ostensibly lofty ideological concerns related to the Cold War (freedom versus tyranny anyone?) than they were to less lofty considerations such as greed, self-preservation and national pride and one or three other Deadly Imperial Sins. To be sure it seems reasonable to assume that the Soviets – cunning devils that they were – were ‘geeing’ the Iranians up to nationalize their oil industry in order to put the wind up the British and the Americans in turn. It’s clear now that the CIA and the British, along with their fellow travellers in the then (Harry) Truman administration in the years leading up the coup, were leveraging the Cold War sentiment of the time in order to camouflage the real reasons for seeking regime change in Iran (shades of things.) At all events, then

At all events, then president Truman evidently saw the Iranian plot coming from the bottom of the ‘too-risky’ basket and didn’t drag the chain on rejecting it. Whatever his achievements, for his part the former Missouri haberdasher was always going to be known as the man who nodded the dropping of the Big Ones on Japan, and rarely demurred in claiming the bragging rights. Whether he was right or wrong in doing this is a ‘what-if’ moment for another time. Insofar as the Iran “moment” went though, for this reason he might’ve had a keen eye on how said ‘mo’ in history might be judged. Either way, by halting the CIA’s plans we might surmise that in doing so it inspired his oft-quoted dictum ‘the buck stops here’. Because it only delayed the momentum though, his ‘call’ was to no avail; said “buck” remained in play only as long as he was POTUS.

When Dwight D (Ike) Eisenhower became Republican president in early 1953, all bets were suddenly off (or on, depending on your view). Ike was more simpatico than Truman to the Iran coup, and evidently got ‘jiggy’ with it without a lot of arm-twisting. This was especially after the plotters – principally Allen Dulles, the then CIA director, and his big brother Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who was the Cabinet pitchman for the pro-coup team, played the ‘commie’ card with Ike. For his part the elder Dulles played a Richelieu-like role in U.S. affairs of the time, was once quoted as saying that “the USA doesn’t have friends, it has interests”, tantamount to a foreign policy positioning statement, and as we’ve seen one which these days – with the notable exception of Israel — still finds ample favour in and around the Beltway.


The Friendless John Foster Dulles – US Secretary of State (1953-59). A Man with lots of Interests.

In any event, Ike didn’t just take the commie bait hook, line and sinker, by all accounts he swam upstream to chow down on it. With Joe McCarthy and his ilk riding high in the polls and anti-communist fervour at fever pitch, such was the temper of the Cold War times. It wasn’t the first time the ‘commie’ card was played in this game, and it certainly would not be the last; like the one-size-fits-all terrorist threat that followed the Cold War’s end, it was used as cover for a multitude of foreign policy sins and proved a remarkably flexible rationale for the various misadventures of the CIA’s on-going regime renovation program.

 


(Interestingly, like JFK was to do with Cuba eight years later, Ike inherited, and eventually agreed to, a CIA-inspired regime transition plot that was hatched during the previous administration, but for one reason or another never got off the ground, this being one of those spooky déjà vu moments in the overall narrative of The Company, and American foreign policy. Which is to say, when Ike came to power, the coup plot du jour was Iran. With JFK, it was Cuba. Needless to say, in a ‘same horse, different cowboy’ kinda way, it underscores how little changes from one administration to the next.)In any event, Ike didn’t just take the commie bait hook, line and sinker, by all accounts he swam upstream to chow down on it. With Joe McCarthy and his ilk riding high in the polls and anti-communist fervour at fever pitch, such was the temper of the Cold War times. It wasn’t the first time the ‘commie’ card was played in this game, and it certainly would not be the last; like the one-size-fits-all terrorist threat that followed the Cold War’s end, it was used as cover for a multitude of foreign policy sins and proved a remarkably flexible rationale for the various misadventures of the CIA’s on-going regime renovation program.


— Why Do they Hate US So Much? (What’s there Not to Like?) —

As for the Iranian coup, it achieved the dubious distinction of being the first and best example of CIA intervention in the sovereign affairs of another country, an experiment that would be repeated over and over with wildly varying degrees of success (or failure, depending on one’s definition of what “success” entailed in such matters, and one’s perspective on history and political inclinations). The coup not only ushered in almost three decades of despotic, oppressive rule by the Shah propped up by American arms, money and hand-holding. It belatedly ignited the fire of Islamic fundamentalism that itself provided the US with its next great foe after the Soviets eventually threw in the towel, leaving the Americans as the reigning superpower, much like Great Britain after Napolean’s 1815 defeat at Waterloo. That it also provided an answer to a question that few people were asking themselves at the time, which was ‘why do they hate us so much?’, is axiomatic, and one which has since been a recurring motif throughout the Grand American Narrative.

There are a couple of additional considerations here in relation to the Iranian coup. One is that it was Kermit Roosevelt – scion of one of America’s most famous political dynasties – who was a driving force behind the planning and execution of Ajax. In the process he contributed to one of the U.S.’s biggest foreign policy misadventures, eventually leading to one of its most disastrous national security crises. It’s uncertain what ‘grandpa’ Teddy or ‘cuzzin’ Franklin would’ve thought of the coup, and herein we can only guess. But the knowledge one of their kin had his fingerprints all over it, especially one which ushered in such dire, enduring consequences for the empire, would possibly have at least one spinning furiously in his eternally designated bolthole.

Secondly, in using the ‘monstrous’ threat of communism as a pretext for the coup, the Americans ultimately created an even bigger monster (terrorism), although it was some time before the reality – if not the realisation – was to come home to roost for them and the rest of the world. And for those who might wonder why the US became a pariah in Iran particularly, and in the Middle East generally, one might now begin to understand. To underscore this – the notoriously brutal, vicious, sadistic SAVAK – the Shah’s internal security, secret police and intelligence organization was both feared and hated in equal measure.

That SAVAK was like a franchise of the CIA was only part of the story. As with so many other regimes and juntas, it was CIA (and Mossad) agents who mid-wifed the establishment of SAVAK, and trained their first generation of agents, including in surveillance, torture and interrogation techniques, and other security and intelligence tradecraft. By all accounts, the CIA guys were very good teachers, or the SAVAK folk eager learners. Or both.

When they were eventually shut down, one of the most egregious examples of their sadistic savagery was to be found in how-to manuals, handbooks and training videos highlighting techniques unique to torturing women. Readers can let their imaginations run wild here, but suffice it to say, the SAVAK spooks were indeed nasty, vile, brutal pieces of work. The Iranians who survived the Shah’s wretched rule have long memories and it’s in large part because of the legacy of SAVAK. To this day, many Iranians understandably still have a huge hard-on for all things Uncle Sam (although surprisingly such animus to this day is more directed at the U.S. political establishment than at the American people per se).


The Revolution Will be Televised: Miss Liberty Gets a Makeover — The New Look US Embassy in Teheran circa 1979

In any event, by 1979, the Shah’s standing with the long-suffering Iranian people was a train wreck, and the anti-American vibe was at its most virulent. At this point, the U.S. left the Shah with his (ahem) plucked Persian peacock pecker swinging in the Mediterranean sea-breeze when it was obvious they could no longer keep the store open without a change of management.

With little fanfare then, the despised potentate had his gold-leafed throne unceremoniously ‘pulled out’ from under his bling-laden, turbaned ass which he then barely managed to haul out of Teheran just before the militant ‘mullahs’ surrounded him and presented their soon-to-be former leader with less options than he was used to receiving, nearly all of which would’ve involved, at best, him getting a fleeting glimpse of Allah just outside jannah on the way to eternal damnation.

Following years then of rampant corruption, hubris, breathtaking extravagance, cronyism, human rights abuses, imperious contempt, political and religious oppression, kidnapping, torture, murder, culminating in increasingly deep-seated unpopularity, the Shah’s time had come, this being a pointer to the fate awaiting other future CIA sponsored and US favoured tin-pot tyrants, demented despots, and cut-rate client-dictators, of whom there’s rarely been any shortage. For his part, at the height of the crisis, Carter – who’d unwisely signed off on the Shah receiving medical treatment in the U.S. after a number of countries refused to accommodate his pleas for sanctuary — had his effigy burned in Tehran streets for his troubles. By the time the smoke coming out of the filmed wreckage on the six o’clock news of one of the Navy Rescue Team choppers that had crashed in the Iranian desert killing eight crewman after an audacious attempt to free the hostages went tragically wrong had cleared, the former Georgian peanut farmer turned Leader of the Free World was a lame duck, shit-out-of-luck, commander-in-chief. A Bay of Pigs Moment then? Almost certainly! But much, much worse, if one is inclined to measure “worse” by the blowback. And the BOP blowback was considerable.

In announcing to the American public and the world at large the failure of the mission, Carter – according to the dictates of the unofficial Truman ‘doctrine’ viz a viz where the ‘buck’ stops – took responsibility for the disaster, and even used eerily similar wording to that of JFK when he publicly revealed the outcome of the BOP fiasco. From then on, The Gipper had Carter by the presidential short’n’curlies. In the view of many pundits at the time, the presidential election was ‘all over Rover’, well before a single vote was cast. And though the Shah’s “ass” was no more with his death in a US hospital in mid-1980, it was ‘all over Rover’ for anyone else still standing. The Embassy ‘squatters’ in Tehran effectively held hostage Carter’s attempt to seek a second term, an outcome facilitated by Ronald Reagan’s campaign team engaging in treasonous back channel finagling with the new Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini’s henchmen to withhold releasing the hostages until after the November presidential election. The objective herein was to preclude an “October Surprise” (an early release of the hostages) that would’ve guaranteed Carter’s re-election. The rest as they say is history.

— Another Splendid Little War —

With the Gipper’s inevitable victory, it was one where not just America, but the world was never to be the same again. None of this is to suggest it ever is in these situations, of which there were few in this case anyway. The Iranian Revolution was more than a revolution then; it was a geopolitical tsunami that swamped a shit-load of people and nations in its wake. In so many respects, the waves are still rippling. And even at this point, one imagines the CIA struggled to understand that blowback of this kind was bad for business, and might continue to undermine its credibility, effectiveness, and morale if it persevered down this path.

As history would have it, this idea never really caught on though. For their part, the Islamic Revolutionaries and their ilk may or may not have had their own version of jihadist karma; if they did they doubtless weren’t averse to providing karma some earthly assistance in order for it to work its magic. The Hostage Crisis was ample evidence of that. And they (or at least their heirs apparent such as ISIS, Al Nusra, et. al.) still are apparently. That is, keen to give karma a helping hand where and whenever possible. Depending very much of course on who their paymaster(s) is/are. Allah be willing of course!

In rounding things up herein, it is perhaps best to return to William Engdahl for some insight into the contemporary significance of the preceding narrative. In a recent interview wherein he addressed the developments taking place within and across the Greater Middle East, for him Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel wasn’t just about arms sales, shoring up their respective alliances, and reasserting America’s influence in the region. It was about, ‘setting events into motion in order to fundamentally alter the present balance of power in the entire Middle East to the greater advantage of the United States and US energy geopolitics.’

By any measure that’s a big call, and not just because it would seem that the U.S. has forfeited much of its prestige, influence, and power over the past decades of its political interventions, its wars of aggression (proxy, hybrid or direct), and its unequivocal support of Israel, something that would be required in spades in order to achieve such lofty goals. For Engdahl Washington has already bitten off more than it can chew, without considering the ructions taking place between the Saudis, Egypt, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates in their bizarre Mexican standoff with Qatar.


POTUS Trump – Hangin’ out with the Headchoppers

This latter development clearly resulted from discussions during Trump’s visit and is one whose significance few observers should underestimate, at least without some understanding of the real backstory, an “understanding” which should include first and foremost the following question. Which country did Trump visit right after Saudi Arabia?

And with Turkey lining up with Iran – already a key ally of Syria — on the side of Qatar, the standoff is creating some very strange geopolitical bedfellows. None of us should be fooled by the rhetoric to be sure, because at the heart of these machinations and maneuvers is energy – both oil and gas — as it always has been. It’s certainly not about freedom, democracy, liberty (perish the thought), or America’s presumed and oft-cited “responsibility to protect”, nor is it about combatting terrorism per se, as terrorism has always served the interests of the major power players.

Of course one of the official pretexts for the demands being placed on Doha by the U.S. and the Saudis is their support for terrorism, accusations which emanating from either country is as fatuous as it comes. He had this to say:

‘We must keep in mind that all serious terrorist organizations are state-sponsored. All [of them]. Whether DAESH or Al Nusra or Mujahideen in Afghanistan or Maute Group in [the] Philippines. The relevant question is which states sponsor which terrorists[?] Today NATO is the one most complicit in sponsoring terrorism as a weapon of their geopolitical designs. And within NATO the United States is sponsor number one, often using Saudi money and until recently, ironically, Qatari funds.’

There should be no surprises here for students of Deep History, as these factors have been the driving forces of ‘full spectrum dominance’ geopolitics and geo-economics forever and a day, with the 1953 Iran narrative as we’ve seen providing hard-core evidence of this reality. It is also about the Regime Renovators pressing on regardless, which translates to isolating and then destroying Iran (a la Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria et. al.), Washington’s, Riyadh’s and Tel Aviv’s common bête noir.

Of course these considerations are not mutually exclusive by any means. On the Saudi-Qatari standoff, he had the following to say: ‘Washington wanted to punish Qatar for seeking natural gas sales with China priced not in US dollars but in Renminbi. That apparently alarmed Washington, as Qatar is the world’s largest LNG exporter and most to Asia.’ But it’s even much more complex than that. The shape-shifting allegiances, mercurial strategic loyalties, and ‘handshakes under the table’ make for unpredictable scenarios going forward to be sure. Engdahl offers us a summation of situation and circumstance that is as lucid as it is frightening.

‘The real story behind the rise of so-called Islamic Terrorism is the increasingly desperate attempt of the ‘Anglo-American Deep State to control the rise of Eurasia, especially of China in combination now with Russia, and increasingly with Iran and Central Asian republics as well as South Asian. Without understanding this, none of the recent events in the Middle East make sense. Washington strategists today foolishly believe that if they get choke point control of all Middle East oil and gas, they can, as Henry Kissinger stated back in the 1970’s “control the oil and thus, control entire nations,” especially China and Russia and also Germany and Europe. Their strategy has failed but Washington and the Pentagon refuse to see the reasons for their repeated failed wars. The hidden reality of American global power is that the American “giant” today is a bankrupt superpower, much like Great Britain after their Great Depression of 1873 up to 1914. Britain triggered a world war in 1914 to desperately try to retain their global power. They failed, for reasons I discuss in my Century of War book. Today for much the same reasons – allowing the power of US financial conglomerates [to] supersede the interests of the national industrial economy – America’s debt, national, private, corporate, is out of control. Reagan and Cheney were dead wrong. Debt does matter.’

All of this translates to one simple reality. And at some point in the not too distant future, Russia and China will – not might, not maybe — attempt to call a halt to it all. And then it will be on for young and old. Of that we can be sure. History has always been and remains our most reliable guide in this respect. Of this we can also be just as certain. Well might we say then that another “splendid little war” is in the offing.

Be that as it may, it almost certainly will qualify as the War to End all Wars. 


About the Author
 Greg Maybury is a Perth (Australia) based freelance writer. His main areas of interest are American history and politics in general, with a special focus on economic, national security, military and geopolitical affairs, and both US domestic and foreign policy issues. @gjmaybury 


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Of Treachery, Treason, Terror, Truth, and Liberty Forsaken (An American Tale) — Part One

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HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

Pox Amerikana

‘…[Did] our government put Israel’s interests ahead of our own? If so, Why? Does [it] continue to subordinate American interests to Israeli interests?…I’ve never seen a President…stand up to Israel.…If the American people understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would rise up in arms.’ — Statements attributed to Admiral Thomas Moorer, on the 1967 attack on the USS Liberty by Israel (© 2004). Adm. Moorer was Chief of U.S. Naval Operations (1967-1970), and later Chairman, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (1970-1974).


‘Everyone admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep his word, and to behave with integrity rather than cunning. Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have considered keeping their word of little account, and have known how to beguile men’s minds by shrewdness and cunning. In the end these princes have overcome those who have relied on keeping their word.’Nicola Machiavelli, The Prince


‘If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.’ – Founding Father Samuel Adams.


‘Greg, I can’t tell you when I have read a better article about our great ship Liberty and her crew [and] can’t thank you enough for this excellent [piece]…. [All] Americans should read this, read Phil’s book, and [then] demand justice once and for all…...’ — Phillip Tourney, USS Liberty Survivor, on “Of Treachery, Treason, Terror, Truth, and Liberty Forsaken (An American Tale)”



Synopsis
With the anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War (SDW) between Israel and the Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Jordan) upon us, it’s timely to take another look at the origins and causes of that pivotal war, and with that examine in some detail the deliberate attack by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) during that conflict on the US naval reconnaissance ship the USS Liberty, with the loss of 34 lives and scores of casualties. To this day, despite irrefutable evidence it was a deliberate attack, the official explanation is that it was a case of “mistaken identity”. Along with showcasing one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. military history — and from there achieve a measure of recognition, justice, redress and closure for the surviviors and their families — it presents us an opportunity to place into broader, more urgent relief, the history of America’s increasingly contentious relationship with Israel in addition to probing the role of both nations in events unfolding in and across the Greater Middle East. It moreover, invites us to reexamine the largely unexplored role played in these events by one of America’s most psychopathic and criminally inclined of Oval Officeholders, one whose political ascendancy and White House tenure may have been the most consequential of all. As our narrative herein will reveal, had things gone the way they were planned, it almost certainly would’ve triggered the most cataclysmic consequences of all for the human race. On all counts, author Phillip Nelson’s soon to be published book Remember the Liberty: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas, provides us ample context and perspective within which to contemplate all of this and more.

-*-

(Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) Ray McGovern has penned the foreword to the book, due out June 8, 2017.)


PART ONE

— The No-Fly Zones (Of the Political Zeitgeist) —

Six Day War June 1967, L-R, Yitzhak Rabin, Moshe Dayan, & Gen. Uzi Narkis, entering Old Jerusalem in Triumph after their “spontaneous” Victory

Permeating the rarefied atmosphere of the zeitgeist at any given time in American political culture, there are a number of verities — truisms, givens, shibboleths, sacred cows, myths, choose a favorite — embraced as unassailable realities by the broad spectrum of the two-party political classes and the so-called ‘body politic’. Regardless of the intrinsic rationale for doing so or the considered, informed perspective from which one might be ‘traveling’ (or would like to be seen to be “travelling” from), criticising or questioning said “verities” is almost always considered verboten, with refusing or failing to fully embrace them being especially risky for academics, teachers, journalists, researchers, and politicians.

Those people inclined to venture into these ‘no-fly-zones’ do well to be mindful of the old adage about “fools rushing in….”, with the more au courant admonition, “Don’t even think about it!” being a more salutary one to keep in mind if all else fails to dissuade one. As we’ll see, in addition to sharing much in common, along with being extolled at every turn within and right across the political, policy-making, education, media, organizational, social, economic and popular culture firmament, there are at least three of these “verities” especially germane to our narrative herein.

The first of these pertains to the sacrosanct aura that envelops the US military. Considering its less than stellar performance across any number of ‘metrics’ over several decades, the obsequious esteem in which it is held and is espoused publicly is as unfaltering as is the actual track record is unflatteringDonald Trump’s recent encomiums (“we have the best military people on Earth”) shilling the virtues of the U.S. armed forces are not untypical coming from the military’s commanders in chief. With delivering such boiler-plate panegyrics all but written into the presidential job description, the incumbent ‘Oval One’ isn’t simply fulfilling his obligation here, one that not even he would disdain. He is also underscoring both the durability and inviolability of the sentiment that attends this ritual mythologising. To be less than reverential toward or unappreciative of the mighty U.S. military — especially that of its rank and file service personnel past and present — invites knee-jerk accusations of being “unpatriotic”. At the same time, as Andrew Bacevich observes, whilst expressing reverence for those in uniform is something akin to a religious obligation….‘such bountiful, if superficial, expressions of regard camouflage a growing gap between those who serve and those who applaud from the sidelines.’

As our narrative herein reveals, this “reverence” does not always extend in turn to how the US top brass and their transient political masters treat their very own men and women in uniform, the ones whose virtues they spend a lot of airtime giving lip-service to. When if comes to bestowing substance to that age-old military bromide “we don’t leave our people behind!”, or the even more commonplace “we support our troops”, this is in fact, one of those “how not to treat your defense force personnel” case studies, an exemplar to be sure, but not of the good kind. As for this unctuous mythologising and public fetishizing about the nation’s military past — when the blighted reality of its creation, conduct, conclusion, and consequences is so vastly different from the myths we’ve been force-fed via the education system, the media, and public discourse in general — Melbourne-based Aussie  academic and geopolitical commentator Binoy Kampmark summed it up best recently: ‘Human sacrifice is the enormous tent under which political blunders and military catastrophes are subsumed, negating any questioning about decisions made and engagements undertaken in conflict.’

The second of these verities pertains to anyone openly deriding, challenging or again, even questioning, the U.S. government’s official narratives attending past and even more recent events in history. This might encompass everything from America’s entry into World War 1 in 1917, the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination in 1963, to Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Gulf War, and along to the events of 9/11, the Iraq War, the 2014 Ukrainian coup, and the recent gas attack in Syria, and many, many others before, in between and beyond. These include the official explanations for the events to be showcased herein. As a former high-school history teacher (yet now at least partially ‘rehabbed’), in these and in so many other areas I can safely say that so much of what I’ve ever taught my students over the years with requisite conviction was, as the Limeys like to opine, well, “a load of old bollocks!”

Yet, for such folks (even for “rehabbed” history teachers!) inclined toward “questioning the unquestionable” whilst exploring our historical past or even evaluating the political present (what’s real [news]?, what’s fake [news]?), doing so inevitably invites the pejorative riposte [you’re just a] conspiracy theorist”, with any so identified offenders promptly derided as potentially dangerous ‘loony-tooners’ with too much time on their hands and a fetish for aluminum millinery. Put another way, if I went back to teaching history again with what I know now and tried to teach it that way, I’d be out on my ass in a New York minute.

And the third — the most taboo of all those we’re concerned with herein — pertains to any criticism of Israel and its foreign policies in general, and most everything from its treatment of the Palestinians to the enormous, and enormously excessive, influence it wields in Washington and in the U.N., to say little of questioning the economic, financial and military assistance the country receives from the U.S. Venturing down this path almost always elicits the one-size-fits-all response: “you’re an anti-Semite!” The recent grandstanding by U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley over alleged anti-Israel bias by UN members — such perceived bias increasingly if tenuously, conflated with being “anti-Semitic” — is evidence aplenty this knee-jerk response to criticism of Israel is alive and well. In such matters both Lawrence Davidson and Guardian journalist Arthur Neslen provide us all indispensable context and perspective and from there, valuable insights, into what might define the ever moving feast of “anti-Semitic” behaviour in any given situation, how those definitions are evolving and in the process becoming increasingly proscriptive, and why this should be of considerable concern to all of us.

And for folks seeking further clarity and insight herein, then Paul Craig Roberts is your man. In a recent piece he characteristically gave short shrift to the easy tendency to label one an “anti-Semite”, and noted that in “former times”, an anti-Semite was one who actually “hated Jews”. Writers simply attempting to factually report on actual events and those involved, now risk being ‘branded an anti-Semite by the Israel Lobby’. [T]oday he says, ‘…it means anyone who makes even a mild criticism of Israel’s polic[ies]…’ .


With all this in mind then, it’s time to press on with our narrative. Over the coming weeks, Israel is preparing to celebrate an important anniversary marking what it calls the “liberation” of land it acquired during the course of its 1967 Six Day War (SDW) with Egypt, Syria and Jordan (the then United Arab Republic; UAR). This land — what more objective observers identify as the “Israeli-occupied territories” — refers to the West Bank of Palestine including the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the western Golan Heights in Syria.

Much has been written about the SDW itself – a ‘ground zero’ turning point to be sure not just in the Middle East. Notwithstanding the 1956 Suez Crisis, in addition to being arguably the most significant event since Israel’s inception in 1948, it was also an event that has had broader significance for the here and now, and will be examined in more detail in our follow-up piece. Suffice to say, few people could argue for example that the current situation in Syria – indeed in and across the Greater Middle East — does not have its genesis in the conduct and the outcome of the “spontaneous” 1967 war. All of which is to say, given that both the direct and indirect blowback of the SDW is still very much a ‘work in progress’, the import of this revelation and America’s larger involvement in the region – and by extrapolation, its relationship with Israel and that country’s own role in past and unfolding events and developments — takes on a much deeper resonance.

After noting the “huge shadow” the war cast over the Middle East and the rest of the world, Lance Selfa writes:

‘The war thrust onto the world agenda all of the issues still at the center of Middle Eastern politics today…Israel began one of the world’s longest-running military occupations, which continues to be one of the greatest sources of Arab resentment against not only Israel, but its main cheer-leader, the U.S.’

For Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook, the “liberation” celebrations will be ‘a potent reminder’ for Israelis — most of whom have never known a time before the occupation — that ‘Israel’s rule over the Palestinians seems as irreversible as the laws of nature’. But ‘the extravagance of the festivities’ he says, ‘also underscores the growth over five decades of Israel’s self-assurance as an occupier.’ Referring to documents “found recently in Israel’s archives”, Cook also deduces from the information discovered therein that Israel’s overriding concern at the outset was to ‘hoodwink the international community’ about the occupation’s motives and its overarching, long-term objectives within the region. And in that time, we can most assuredly say that Israel has been fine-tuning its “hoodwinking” strategies ever since.


— Give us Liberty, or Give us Death —

Along with reexamining the less well-known origins and causes of the War itself, it is another event during that war with which we’re concerned at this point. That event occurred on June 8, the fourth day of the SDW, when a U.S. naval reconnaissance ship the USS Liberty, operating in the Mediterranean Sea, was deliberately attacked by Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Put another way, we cannot examine the Liberty incident without a similar focus on the overarching event in which it occurred, nor could we look at the SDW without discussion of the Liberty attack. And most importantly in this case, we cannot then view these events together or separately, without affording even more attention to the principal ‘mastermind’ behind both of them, one Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), the 36th president of the United States.

But first, to the Liberty. There’s no delicate way of saying this then: The explicit objective of this attack was to kill all crewmembers and deep-six the ‘sitting-duck’ vessel and then attribute blame to Egypt. Doubtless, neither the official narrative nor the very different reality of this event is one the powers that be both in Israel and in America will be celebrating with anywhere near the same enthusiasm. The premeditated attack on the Liberty by America’s most controversial of allies was then nothing less than a false-flag attack a la the Gulf of Tonkin (GoT), the incident LBJ used to trigger America’s massive escalation of the Vietnam War just under three years earlier. Not unlike the GoT incident, the planned, yet in this instance ultimately unsuccessful, destruction of the Liberty and murder of its crew was a high-stakes gambit conceived by key figures at the highest levels of the U.S. government and carried out by the Israelis at the behest of the plotters in Washington.

If successful, this attempted ‘false-flagger’ — code named Operation Cyanide — was designed to provide a casus belli for America’s entry into the war on the side of Israel. This almost assuredly would’ve brought the Soviet Union into the war allied with the Arab states in question with all that that implies. In reality, even if we generously concede this was not the very intention of those who conceived this perfidious scheme, they would’ve known it was the inevitable aftermath. To appreciate how much it “implies”, herein one only needs to contemplate a different outcome to the recent Khan Sheikhun ‘gas attack’ in Syria. The attack — itself having all the hallmarks of a false-flag event  was still one reflexively presumed by the U.S. government and the corporate media to have been carried out by Syrian leader and Russian ally Bashar al-Assad, without any evidence to support it and prior to any investigation. We’ve heard this ‘story’ many times of course, and we will doubtless hear it again sometime soon.

As Phillip Nelson observes in his soon-to-be-published book, Remember the Liberty!: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas, whilst there are many ‘unsolved and perplexing mysteries’ in the annals of US military history, few compare to the fate of the U.S. Navy ‘sig-int’ ship that was “mercilessly attacked” by Israel, intentionally and without warning. One of the reasons he says it is still a mystery is because ‘it is the only peacetime attack on a US naval vessel that, to this day, has never officially been investigated by the Congress of the United States.Put simply, the real story, complete with full revelations of all known and knowable aspects of the attack and its aftermath, along with the reasons behind the attack and the motives of those who planned and orchestrated it, have been covered up to this day.


The USS Liberty – After the Attack, Tarted up for the Media, then Sold as Scrap-Metal

Whilst he readily acknowledges the many people whose prior work has helped illuminate this tragedy and prevent it being consigned to the dustbins of history, Nelson nonetheless deserves our eternal gratitude for bringing us what amounts to the definitive account of the events and circumstances of that day in what can be rightly termed its proper historical context and geopolitical perspective. If there’s any justice, accountability, and transparency – as well as closure – to be had over the Liberty’s fate, then that time has arrived. His account should dispel once and for all any further doubt about what happened to the Liberty, it being simultaneously, if incongruously, one of the worst ‘best-kept secrets’ in the history of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. But the basic facts on the ground on the day as follows, are paradoxically as straightforward and incontrovertible as they’re shocking and incomprehensible.

  • The USS Liberty was relentlessly and deliberately attacked firstly by unmarked aircraft manned by Israeli Defence Force (IDF) personnel;
  • its radios were jammed on both US Navy tactical and international maritime distress frequencies;
  • life rafts that were dropped over the side in anticipation of orders to abandon ship were deliberately destroyed by machine gun fire from attacking torpedo boats;
  • the torpedo boats then slowly circled the torpedoed and sinking ship while firing upon crewmen who ventured topside to help their wounded shipmates; and, last but not least,
  • Two flights of rescue aircraft subsequently launched from US Sixth Fleet aircraft carriers were ordered recalled while the ship was still under attack and calling for help;
  • After those flights were recalled, Sixth Fleet personnel listened to calls for help as the attack continued knowing they were forbidden to come to the assistance of the ship; and,
  • As part of a government cover-up, the U.S. Navy threatened to court martial and imprison any survivor who revealed details of what had actually happened on the day.

This is without doubt one of the darkest, most shameful days in U.S. military history, with the subsequent cover-up of one of the most treasonous executive actions ever taken by a U.S. president that took place in its aftermath compounding the tragedy, shame, and perfidy. To this day this “cover-up” is ongoing, with both Washington and Tel Aviv publicly refuting the attack was anything more than a case of “mistaken identity”, along with the ever-reliable mainstream media complicit in ensuring important facts about the attack would remain a “mystery” for half a century. To suggest otherwise invites accusations of anti-Semitism or conspiracy-mongering or both.

It is worth noting that Nelson collaborated in the writing of this book with three of the ship’s survivors — Phillip Tourney, Ernie Gallo, and Ron Kukal, members of one of the most proactive of the ship’s veterans’ support groups the USS Liberty Veterans’ Association — who along with many of their former shipmates alive today are still fighting for, and seeking from, the U.S. and Israeli governments no small measure of “justice, accountability, transparency, and closure” over the incident. But this task has been a long, hard road, the injustice compounded in no small measure by these individuals being subjected to abuse, derision and vilification from some surprising quarters, the details of which Nelson does not spare us. In order to convey at the outset the terror and harrowing brutality of the attack and its tragic, bloody aftermath, it’s perhaps apposite to cite just one first-hand account of the numerous disturbing, poignant of those written for the book, this one by Tourney. With ship-mate Rick Aimetti helping him, they

‘….found some fire hoses and began hosing off the deck with a “suicide nozzle” on it that sprayed water in a very concentrated, high-pressure stream. It took both of us to handle this hose, because it was like a giant python and one man could not do it alone. It was the most gruesome, heartbreaking task either of us had ever done because every piece of flesh was the remains of one of our fellow sailors, many of whom were friends. As [we] went about this ungodly task, tears streamed down our faces and I prayed to God for forgiveness in how we were forced to treat the remains of these men so sacrilegiously. In the gun-tubs we found a shoe with a foot still in it, which we put aside for collection. Many of the bloodstains would not come off, even with that special hose, because of the previous day’s heat – not just baking under the sun’s heat, but from the rockets and napalm that had been dropped on the ship by the attacking [planes]. We found out the hard way how hot our government’s most brutal weapon can burn: It can get as hot as 2,200°F, which explains why that blood could not be completely cleansed from the steel decks.’

—  On Getting Away with Murder (Open Slather) —

With no shortage of folks inclined to deny it even now, this broadly is the unvarnished, if still incomplete reality of the Liberty attack. Given that the attempt to destroy the ship – a terrorist act by any definition of the word — was not successful, had the real story become known at the time it would have shaken the U.S. political establishment to its core. Moreover, it would have shattered America’s then still fledgling relationship with Israel, one that had been hitherto greatly facilitated by president Lyndon B Johnson (LBJ). Indeed, of all the insights and conclusions one might take away from Nelson’s book – and there are many – the following might be one of the most significant: It is with Johnson’s presidency that America’s so-called Friends of Israel really came into their own, and never lost their grip. This was not happenstance! As Nelson documents it:

‘Unlike Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy – who had all endeavored to maintain a comfortable distance between the US and Israel, in order to keep a neutral position from which to promote peaceful relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors – [Johnson] moved quickly to drop all pretense of neutrality.’

With the fiftieth anniversary of the Liberty attack and the Six Day War itself looming – and taking into account the increasingly contentious, costly and questionable nature of the ongoing relationship between the U.S. and Israel, one that derives much from the events of 1967 — now is as good a time as any to pry open the closet door and let the light in. But as noted, for Washington’s so-called ‘Israel-Firsters’, whether Zionists, neoconservatives and/or liberal interventionists, or fundamentalist far-right, ultra-conservative Christian ‘end-timers’ – a considerable number of whom past and present have been, and continue to be, the driving forces behind the destruction, chaos, and anarchy in and across the Greater Middle East — this is one skeleton in the already ‘hanging-room only’ closet of U.S.-Israeli relations they’d prefer was left dangling in its darkest corners. As Ray McGovern has observed ruefully in his foreword to the book, the ‘U.S. cover-up taught the Israelis that they could literally get away with murder’. The inescapable corollary to this conclusion is that if Israel could “get away with murder” then, as later suggested by under-secretary of State at the time George Ball, it could “get away with anything” from that point on!


The Liberty attack was much more though than a treacherous terrorist act perpetrated on America by Israel, a country whose founders even before its creation were no strangers to the use of terror, violence, deception, treachery, assassination, and political extortion in order to achieve their short and long-term goals. The attack was also an undiluted act of treason upon the part of the ruling Washington establishment up to the highest levels, with the subsequent cover-up, ostensibly in the service of realpolitik, representing one of America’s greatest travesties of justice for its purportedly much-revered defense force personnel. As McGovern again puts it, amongst so many other consequential issues and challenges, all of the survivors for fifty years now have had to deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), “on steroids”. This to say nothing of what their families have had to deal with.

Both these observations have singular pertinence to our narrative herein. Although more will be said in Part Two about the origins and causes of the SDW itself, it’s important to observe here Israel’s own terror ‘rap-sheet’, one that as noted extends back many years prior to its official establishment in 1948. As to the first observation, anyone doubting such verities regarding Israel’s history – the overarching narrative, much like the SDW itself, distorted and obscured in order to portray it as the perennial underdog defending itself against the collective animus of the Arab/Muslim world into which they intruded several decades earlier — might wish to read Thomas Suarez’s 2016 book State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel. It is just one of the more recent ‘go to’ tomes for those still harbouring illusions about ‘plucky little Israel’ being an innocent surrounded by hostile forces hell-bent on its destruction, always at the ready with the standard, and in principle at least, not entirely unreasonable, refrain, “[Israel] has the right to defend itself” (against these forces).

The narrative Suarez relates for us then is of an elite Zionist cabal unwavering from the off to firstly colonize and then transform Palestine into a Jewish state. Closely affiliated with this objective was the disenfranchisement, subjugation, displacement, and then expulsion of the local non-Jewish Arab population from the region. The Zionists at the outset weren’t just perfectly willing to use violence, assassination, and terrorism to achieve their goals, even against fellow Jews themselves who resisted or simply failed to embrace their methods or their ideology. It was a necessary means to the overarching end-game. In this context its difficult to view the Six Day War as anything but part of this broader plan.

Throughout his book Suarez meticulously traces from that point the tragic history in detail. To underscore just how unequivocal and indisputable this policy was, in his introduction Suarez includes the following statement from one of Israel’s founding fathers and Zionist ‘terrormeister’ Menachem Begin, who later became a Prime Minister of Israel between 1977-83: ‘We intend to attack, conquer and keep until we have the whole of Palestine and Transjordan in a Greater Jewish State’. Who could argue that this unambiguous statement of intent has by now proven to be anything less than a self-fulfilling prophecy, albeit ably abetted in varying degrees by the United States? On this Ray McGovern provides us in his foreword some additional contemporary context and perspective. If we “fast forward” to today he says [that], U.S. policy support for illusory “moderate rebels” [in Syria] – including false-flag chemical attacks blamed on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – can only be fully understood against the mirror of U.S. acquiescence to Israeli objectives.’

To be sure Israel consistently positions itself as the perpetual victim of terrorism, violence, and aggression rather than being a perpetrator thereof. This enduring and impressively successful propaganda narrative has always been crucial to rationalizing its defense, security and foreign policies in general, and especially that of its treatment of the Palestinians. To simply say “nothing could be further from the truth” seems inadequate here. For Suárez, whose account covers the period of the British Mandate from 1920 until Israel’s creation in 1948, it was Zionist terrorism that ‘ultimately dictated the course of events [throughout this period], and it is Israeli state terrorism that continues to dictate events today.’

Insofar as the second observation goes, this treasonous plot was the brainchild of none other than U.S. President Lyndon Johnson himself – possibly the most unhinged individual ever to inhabit the Oval Office — whose singular devotion to Israel has been well documented by Nelson and many others. This “devotion” far outpaced that of LBJ’s predecessors Kennedy, Dwight ‘Ike’ Eisenhower and even Harry Truman, the latter who himself helped expedite Israel’s creation in 1948 against the vociferous advice of numerous folks in the U.S. foreign policy establishment. As we’ll see, along with documenting the myriad assortment of pathologies that occupied prime real estate in Number 36’s deepest psych-cerebral recesses, it is the primary role he played in precipitating then facilitating both the Liberty attack and the SDW that mark Nelson’s book out as a unique and essential – and to date, based on all available evidence, arguably the most complete, accurate and coherent — chronicle of the events at hand. On the fiftieth anniversary of both the war and the attack, one imagines there’s not a better time — all things equal — for such an account to be entered into the record.

Beyond the ever-present dictates of political expediency to which LBJ was in thrall throughout his tumultuous career, Nelson cites a number of factors as to why Johnson was so enamoured of Israel: his mother’s Jewish ancestry; LBJ’s own involvement in and support of the creation of Israel in 1948; and in particular, the influence many high-profile, pro-Israel, (mostly) Jewish people exerted within his inner circle such as Abe Fortas and Benjamin Cohen. Others included McGeorge Bundy, Arthur Goldberg, Lew Wasserman, Harry McPherson, Ben Wattenberg, Abe Feinberg, Arthur Krim, and the Rostow brothers, Walter and Eugene, to name just a few. These people more or less shared the same views: That of the need for pro-active, uncompromising initiatives designed to aggressively further Israel’s strategic interests, even at the expense of U.S. national interest. And as we see with this story, it did come at the expense of America’s strategic interests. That it is still doing so should already be axiomatic for all but the most blinkered of geopolitical observers and strategic analysts.

In fact, such was LBJ’s “devotion” to Israel, it chimed with his other long-held ‘magnificent obsession’, that of being the ‘greatest’ president of all. This grandiose, ultimately unrequited ambition necessitated him being re-elected in 1968 to a second full term. As it seems to be so often with American presidents, in his supremely warped imagination, being a truly great American president was synonymous with being a wartime leader. And if serendipity did not present such pretexts for war-making, then extending “serendipity” a helping hand was not out of the question. LBJ in this respect already had ‘form’ with the aforementioned Gulf of Tonkin (GoT)incident. As history tells it, the GoT false-flag precipitated the Vietnam War, thereafter igniting the whole South-east Asian conflagration. Along with being politically and socially divisive domestically and extraordinarily damaging to America’s international reputation, the latter was, at least until the 2003 Iraq invasion, ‘highly regarded’ as America’s biggest and most costly foreign policy misadventure and out-of-control military fiasco.

Even for terminal optimists, it shouldn’t require too much effort counterfactually hypothesizing the possible dire outcomes had the planets aligned on June 8, 1967, and LBJ’s grand plan in the Middle East had come off in a similar fashion to the GoT. As early as 1966, for various reasons the prospect of LBJ’s re-election was looking less likely, not least because of the Vietnam debacle. This realization was obvious even for Johnson, a man no stranger to self-delusion amongst countless other of his bespoke pathologies, all of which Nelson himself has meticulously laid bare in two earlier books on the man (see here and here). At all events, it was these twin obsessions that drove LBJ to commit the unthinkable. The inevitable result of LBJ’s dire political position at the time was, as Nelson notes,

‘….a resounding resolve to do whatever was necessary to get it corrected. Only the boldest, most dramatic, action – something so monumental that it could not be ignored or denied – to capture the attention of that political demographic would do, and nothing could stand in the way of accomplishing that objective.’


— A President With the Bark Off —

In order to convey something of the monumental treachery, treason and the tragedy of the Liberty incident, it is essential we undertake a more forensic analysis of LBJ as president and his past political ‘form’. This is a man whom in his 2012 book, LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination, Nelson convincingly charged with being the principal orchestrator of the assassination of his predecessor and the subsequent cover-up. As we might rightly opine, that’s some “form” indeed!

In this it is interesting to note the number of folks currently decrying the incumbent president’s psychological fitness for office. Based on what we’ve seen thus far, to the extent that any of us can have any authentic insight herein, we’d have to say Donald Trump is by comparison – no matter how odious such a “comparison” might be for some folks — a model of personal decorum, moral rectitude, social grace and political circumspection when placed against the reality of Lyndon Johnson at the ‘top of his game’. In fact, let’s really go out on a limb here shall we? Richard Nixon is portrayed varyingly as one of the most deranged, venal, contemptible, delusional, corrupt, paranoid, treasonous, amoral, megalomaniacal and criminally inclined presidents of all. However, as Nelson illustrates in this and his previous two books, it is LBJ who ticks all these boxes and others The ‘Trickster’ might never have dreamed of if he’d ‘done an FDR’ and served three-plus terms, and then died on the Oval Office ‘john’ with his boots on. Up close and personal, LBJ, as one observer has said, was a man to see “with the bark off”.

But for a more thorough understanding of the Liberty incident and the War in which it took place, it is as noted earlier, crucial we examine some of the then president’s pathologies both within the broader contextual framework of his tenure in office and that of the times. As indicated, this is part of what makes Nelson’s contribution so compelling and essential. As the author notes, the LBJ connection has all but been overlooked in previous accounts of the tragedy, and the events and circumstances that both precipitated it and those in which it occurred. Along with recounting the enduring, if quixotic, and invariably thankless efforts of the survivors and their families to tell their stories and then seek redress, as the author puts it, his basic job with Remember the Liberty was to attract the attention it deserves, without which little or no “redress” will eventuate. Whilst he says that ‘[P]ieces of the puzzle have taken five decades to become known….’, during that time many people have been working even harder to keep ‘the darkest secrets of the Johnson presidency under wraps’ – ably abetted by a corporate media that long ago lost any interest in the truth of the Liberty, LBJ’s “darkest secrets”, the truth surrounding the Six Day War, or even the more significant verities underpinning the U.S.-Israeli relationship — with many others continuing ‘to build the myths to create the illusion of a great president.’

In Nelson’s telling then, it is LBJ who provides the key piece that’s been all but missing from previous narratives about either the Liberty incident or the SIx Day War itself, on both counts begging the question that frequently attends any examination of presidential history: “what did the president know and when did he know it?”. As it turns out here, the president knew pretty much all the details before anyone, as he was both principal architect and orchestrator. Not only did LBJ collude with the Israelis to provoke the “spontaneous” Six Day War (the Operation so-named Frontlet 615) for possibly up to two years prior to the war’s outbreak, within that gambit was Operation Cyanide, the plot to sink the Liberty then blame it on Egypt, so as to provide the casus belli for U.S entry in the war. Only someone capable of enormous acts of self-delusion, Nelson says, ‘would even think that he could replace truths with lies, and that the lies would become the truth, could have possibly been behind this tragic story.’ He doesn’t stop there.

‘Only a person whose hold on sanity – and the last traces of rationality were intermitent and tenuous at best and completely lost at worst – could come to believe that an outrageous act of treason such as this could be politically beneficial to himself and therefore worth the risk of failure, or worse, public exposure….There was only one person who met those criteria, and he was not in the Israeli military or government. That “someone” ….could have only been the president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson. The benchmark being set for this case is simply that the perpetrator must have been someone known to have episodes of becoming “psychotic” – in this case, no other possible cause makes sense, because no one in their “right mind” could have done something so heinous. Just as there is also no known evidence to support an assertion that some lesser, maverick military officer made such a stunning and intrinsically outrageous order on his own.’

As Nelson summarizes, this is one of the least examined episodes in LBJ’s presidency: that in 1967 he “personally ordered” Israel to bomb and destroy the USS Liberty and its entire crew of 294 Americans, a false-flag attack that had been planned months if not up to two years prior! And when the mission failed and Sixth Fleet Commanders ordered the rescue of the crew, LBJ personally ordered that rescue operations be called back, “at least twice”. He wanted the ship sunk! As we’ve seen, against all odds, the plan failed. The U.S. government “accepted” Israel’s explanation, after which a massive cover-up ensued, orchestrated by LBJ and his secretary of defense Robert McNamara in league with none other than (then) Admiral John McCain Jr., (current Senator John McCain III’s father) and kept under official wraps since.

Although much more will be explored in our next installment, taken together with his previous work, what Nelson’s new book demonstrates is the following:

— the undeniable impact of LBJ’s ascension to power and the treasonous methods by which it was achieved;

— the ongoing and profound legacy of his malevolent and disastrous tenure; and

— the critical need for resolution and closure on this lamentable chapter in the history of this Sometimes Great Nation. 

That these “methods” were totally at odds with everything that America ostensibly stands for — and purportedly continues to fight for on its own behalf and that of the rest of the “free world” — makes this an existential imperative for all stakeholders if the frequently undervalued principles and ideals of the republic are to triumph over the destructive self-serving ambitions of individuals and the inevitable perversions of empire. With such imperatives in mind, the Congress firstly should demand pronto the un-redacted release of all relevant records, reports, documents, and evidence, including those relating to the Six Day War and the Liberty incident and make this information freely available in the public domain.

Secondly, they should establish a new Commission of inquiry into the Liberty incident in particular, yet with terms of reference that embrace the true origins and causes of the Six Day War itself, and LBJ’s involvement. The Commission should include members approved by public vote to ensure transparency and credibility, with the overarching terms of reference being publicly decided by an independent panel of established academics, researchers, investigators, and historians. If indeed the case of mistaken identity is upheld and then confirmed beyond any doubt — as I feel sure it will be — as a bonus, such an outcome will shut those dangerous, unpatriotic, and just plain irritating whack-job conspiracy theorists up once and for all. And whether in Washington or Tel Aviv, those folk still wedded to the official findings can have the last laugh knowing full well they were right all along. What’s not to like? Not much from where I’m standing.

But if the inquiry proves otherwise, then that’s whole different ball-game altogether, for the U.S government, Israel itself, and its supporters Stateside. At least it should be! Official acknowledgment of the reality of the Liberty – and dispelling the attendant myths — should then be the order of the day, accompanied by a rewrite of the history books, and adequate compensation for and recognition of the crew and their families accompanied by formal apologies by both the Israeli and U.S. governments. This should have a three-fold outcome.

— it should diminish some of the ‘halo effect’ Israel enjoys in Official Washington and even take down a peg or three those who like to automatically label folks “anti-Semitic” when criticizing Isreal or taking its government to task over its policies, its motives, its plans, etc.;

— it might well give some pause to those folks inclined easily to dismiss or disparage otherwise thoughtful, genuine people who legtimately and bravely query the government’s official explanations for anything as conspiracy-mongering looney-tooners; and last but not least

— come the next time we have to listen to some politician, public figure, media personality, pundit or military honcho banging on about how much respect they have for “our men and women in uniform”, some of us might even be able to convince ourselves if only briefly, their rote platitudes actually count for something.

Oh and we might get to have ourselves a bonus here. A more realistic picture of the man who occupied the Biggest Chair in Washington from November 1963 until January 1969, and the still ever so consequential nature and character of his presidency. There’s still plenty of lessons in there for all, but for now,” class dismissed” as it were! We will see you back for Part Two. If you’re up for it that is! In the meantime, don’t forget your homework, clean up your room, and be good to your mom!!



About the Author
  Greg Maybury is a Perth (Australia) based freelance writer. His main areas of interest are American history and politics in general, with a special focus on economic, national security, military and geopolitical affairs, and both US domestic and foreign policy issues.


horiz-long grey

uza2-zombienationThis is without doubt one of the darkest, most shameful days in U.S. military history, with the subsequent cover-up of one of the most treasonous executive actions ever taken by a U.S. president that took place in its aftermath compounding the tragedy, shame, and perfidy. To this day this “cover-up” is ongoing, with both Washington and Tel Aviv publicly refuting the attack was anything more than a case of “mistaken identity”, along with the ever-reliable mainstream media complicit in ensuring important facts about the attack would remain a “mystery” for half a century. To suggest otherwise invites accusations of anti-Semitism or conspiracy-mongering or both.


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