In November of 1946, France bombarded Haiphong, a port in north Vietnam. The French would be at war with Vietnam for the next eight years. Throughout all of it, the United States supplied the French with 300,000 small arms, and $1 billion -- 80% of the total French war effort.
A secret memo of the National Security Council in June 1952 stated:
Communist control of Southeast Asia would render the U.S. position in the Pacific offshore island chain precarious and would seriously jeopardize fundamental U.S. security interests in the Far East.
And:
Southeast Asia, especially Malaya and Indonesia, is the principal world source of natural rubber and tin, and a producer of petroleum and other strategically important commodities. . . .
A year later, a congressional study mission reported: "The area of Indochina is immensely wealthy in rice, rubber, coal and iron ore. Its position makes it a strategic key to the rest of Southeast Asia." It was also noted that Japan depended on that rice, and Communist victory there would "make it extremely difficult to prevent Japan's eventual accommodation to communism."
In 1963, Kennedy's Undersecretary of State, U. Alexis Johnson, spoke before the Economic Club of Detroit:
What is the attraction that Southeast Asia has exerted for centuries on the great powers flanking it on all sides? Why is it desirable, and why is it important? First, it provides a lush climate, fertile soil, rich natural resources, a relatively sparse population in most areas, and room to expand. The countries of Southeast Asia produce rich exportable surpluses such as rice, rubber, teak, corn, tin, spices, oil, and many others. . . .
The next year, the public was told that American destroyers had been attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in international waters. This would propel the United States into the Vietnam War. It later turned out that the Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened. The government had lied to the American public, just as it had done to justify the invasion of Cuba under Kennedy three years earlier (which Eisenhower had initially set into motion).
The American destroyers in question were in fact not in international waters at all. They were spying on the Vietnamese. So if an attack had actually happened, it would not have been "unprovoked." But no torpedos were actually fired at American ships. The 58,000 Americans who were killed in Vietnam did not die for our freedom. They died for nothing.
Why am I mentioning this on the 9/11 anniversary? Because our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are dying for the exact same reasons (or lack thereof). There seems to be this misconception among the general public that the government has learned its lesson, and doesn't do these things anymore. In fact, the exact same people continue to run our government. War criminal Dick Cheney, for example, was inside of Richard Nixon's inner circle, but conveniently not high enough to be taken down with Watergate. An ex-Powell aide stated a couple weeks ago that Dick Cheney was "president for all practical purposes" during Bush's first term. You know, when we invaded Iraq.
In 2005, 61% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was connected to terrorism. Considering the fact that the CIA leadership is made up almost entirely of racist neocon fanatics, I wouldn't be surprised if many in the government actually believed that themselves for a time. After it was shown that Saddam had no links to terrorism, and he had no WMD's, neocons latched onto their last explanation: we invaded out of the good of our hearts to spread freedom to the Iraqi people. Given how much the Bush sympathizers oppose Obama's bombing of Libya, it's pretty obvious that they don't give two shits about spreading freedom to oppressed peoples by military intervention. The cowards only give a shit when they think they're in immediate danger.
So what have we learned from all this? Not a thing. Vietnam did not teach us to be skeptical of the government, and so we had to pay for it with Iraq. I think the people who say Iraq was only about oil are oversimplifying it. There were many goals. Oil played an important role, but Iraq was definitely about establishing an American government in the reigion (turning the region pro-Israel). That's also why the west was reluctant to get behind the revolutionaries in Egypt. A democratic Egypt would actually stand up to Israel. And most of all, it was contractors. Nationbuilding is big business.
Charles Smith always enjoyed visiting US troops aboard. Though a civilian, he had worked for the army for decades, helping to run logistical operations from the Rock Island arsenal near Davenport, Iowa.
He helped keep troops supplied, and on trips to Iraq made a point of sitting down with soldiers in mess halls. "I would always ask them: what are we doing for you?" Smith told the Guardian.
Smith eventually got oversight of a multibillion-dollar contract the military had struck with private firm KBR, then part of the Halliburton empire, to supply US soldiers in Iraq. But, by 2004, he noticed problems: KBR could not account for a staggering $1bn (£620m) of spending.
So Smith took a stand. He made sure a letter was hand-delivered to KBR officials, telling them that some future payments would be blocked. According to Smith, one KBR official reacted by saying: "This is going to get turned around."
A few days later, Smith was abruptly transferred. The payments he suspended were resumed. "The emphasis had shifted. It was not about the troops. It was all about taking care of KBR," he said. . . .
[...]
What Smith had blundered into is one of the most disturbing developments of the post-9/11 world: the growth of a national security industrial complex that melds together government and big business and is fuelled by an unstoppable flow of money. It takes many forms. In the military, it has seen the explosive growth of the contracting industry with firms such as Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, or DynCorp increasingly doing the jobs of professional soldiers. In the world of intelligence, private contractors are hired to do the jobs of America's spies. A shadowy world of domestic security has grown up, milking billions from the government and establishing a presence in every state. From border fences that don't work to dubious airport scanners, spending has been lavished on security projects as lobbyists cash in on behalf of corporate clients.
Meanwhile, generals, government officials and intelligence chiefs flock to private industry and embark on new careers selling services back to government.
"The creation of this whole industry is a disaster. But no one is talking about it," said John Mueller, a professor at Ohio State University and author of Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats and Why We Believe Them.
Contractors form huge parts of the lines of supply for American troops. But they also fly planes, provide security and take on big infrastructure projects. Next year, as US combat troops draw down from Iraq, an estimated 5,000 private contractors will provide security on behalf of the US state department. That's a deployment roughly the size of an army brigade.
Worldwide, the ratio of contractors to US soldiers in uniform is about one-to-one. During Vietnam it was one-to-eight. It has speeded up since 9/11. "In the last 10 years, spending at the Pentagon has shifted enormously to contractors," said Pratap Chatterjee, a fellow at the Centre for American Progress and industry expert.
[...]
Oversight of contracting is weak or opaque – and is often contracted out, too. One recent investigation found $4.5bn of contracts awarded to firms with a history of problems or which had violated laws. A federal audit found an oil firm had overcharged the Pentagon by $204m for fuel in Iraq.
[...]
The benefits are obvious to employees. Pay is higher and some companies have offered sign-on bonuses or free cars. It is estimated that contractors from more than 100 firms make up a third of the CIA.
And as the rest of America suffers recession, this is an economic boom. The US intelligence budget last year was $80bn, more than twice 2001 levels.
[...]
I'm going to play fake psychologist. I think the Republican mindset has a difficult time with empathy. I suspect that this is in the back of the mind of every observant liberal already, but I think it needs to be said. In a study out last year,
...researchers measured both liberals' and conservatives' reaction to "gaze cues" -- a person's tendency to shift attention in a direction consistent with another person's eye movements, even if it's irrelevant to their current task -- and found big differences between the two groups.
Liberals responded strongly to the prompts, consistently moving their attention in the direction suggested to them by a face on a computer screen. Conservatives, on the other hand, did not.
Why? Researchers suggested that conservatives' value on personal autonomy might make them less likely to be influenced by others, and therefore less responsive to the visual prompts.
[...]
I don't know if that actually means anything, but I'm sure there are other studies concerning political mindsets that I'm too lazy to research. My point is that I seriously don't think conservatives are able to connect with people on an emotional level as easily as liberals do. It's why when Republicans are in power, they don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties in war. And it's why we see shit like this:
This is freaky as shit. If they remembered how they felt on that day, then they wouldn't treat 9/11 like a god damn holiday to be celebrated. I just don't think they really know how they're supposed to act, and so they imitate what they see others doing. And blind nationalism is the result.
I think this is why conservatives are much more susceptible to manipulation than liberals. Liberals can be manipulated, I'm not denying that for a second. But conservatives I feel have a much harder time reading emotions and motives, and so they're usually the first ones to fall victim to the bastards in charge. That's why they fell for fascism. It's why they fell for the Red Scare. It's why they fell for Vietnam. It's why they fell for Reagan. It's why they fell for Iraq. That's why they're so willing to give up their freedoms in the name of national security. From that article I linked above:
Those cashing in on the international "war on terror" pale beside the security boom that is taking place in the US itself. Across America, new organisations sprang up in the wake of 9/11 as the flow of money was turned on. Nine days after the tragedy, Congress committed $40bn to fortify America's domestic anti-terror defences. In 2002, the figure was a further $36.5bn. In 2003 it was $44bn. More than 260 new government organisations have been created since 2001. The biggest of all is the Department of Homeland Security, whose workforce is 230,000-strong and awaiting new headquarters in Washington, which will be the biggest new federal building since the Pentagon. It is rising up on the grounds of a former asylum.
And here's how the Patriot Act is being used. I'm not even going to get into how the "war on drugs" is another fake war being waged for profit.
9/11 truthers try to point at the Reichstag fire as a comparison to the September 11th attacks. The Nazis supposedly set fire to their own parliament building, and used that disaster to limit freedoms and civil liberties. What the truthers never mention is that to this day, nobody really knows who set fire to the Reichstag. There's no evidence at all that points to the Nazis. And there's actually a good amount of evidence to suggest that it was this mentally disturbed communist named Marinus van der Lubbe, acting entirely alone. And Hitler simply grasped at the opportunity.
Looking at it this way, I think a legitimate comparison could be made. Only a fucking moron would think the government was responsible for 9/11 (I mean, if their goal was to build up support to invade Iraq, then it probably would've been smarter to blame 9/11 on Iraq instead of terrorists). But in the aftermath of 9/11, we saw a huge surge of (Republican) politicians completely beating this disaster to death, in order to further their own careers. In closing, here's a truly disgusting video that Republican presidential candidate Hermain Cain put out the other day. That's him singing. Happy 9/11, and remember to vote Republican.
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