Pretext Operations

On March 13, 1962, the Pentagon’s Joint Chief’s of Staff prepared a document titled Operation Northwoods containing plans to create a pretext for a US invasion of Cuba. The Pentagon intended to stage Cuban attacks on Americans to incite public opinion in support of an attack on Cuba. Jim Bamford brought the document to light in his expose of the National Security Agency titled Body of Secrets. With the torrent of propaganda coming out of the US government–to include US military live fire exercises carried on CNN and Fox, rebroadcasts of the thriller True Lies and carefully timed announcements of US troop deployments–it’s worth looking at some of the more sinister elements of that document presented to then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara.

Given the secrecy surrounding the Bush Regime–and the statements emanating from its officials–it does not seem unreasonable to assume that the US government has in play pretext-operations plans for Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Colombia and, perhaps, Cuba. It’s important to remember that the US entry into the Vietnam War came about over the August, 1964 incident in the Gulf of Tonkin in which US, South Vietnamese and Laotian military forces deliberately provoked North Vietnamese patrol boats into a fight. That resulted in the ill-fated Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which, in the end, tore the US apart for decades to come. Commenting on that event, President Lyndon Johnson would say in 1965 that “for all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there.”

In the prelude to the first Persian Gulf War in the early 1990’s, Bush I’s pretext-operations included lying to the American public about Iraqi troops massing on the Saudi Arabian border when, in fact, satellite photos would later show they were not. He also tried to convince the American public that Iraqi troops were invading hospitals and throwing infants out windows when, in fact, they were not. The US government has a long history of deception and deceit and it always is at the expense of the American people.

Does any of this sound familiar? “The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible governmentand to develop an image of a threat to peace in the Western HemisphereIn as much as the objective is overt military intervention both overt and covert operations [should] be assigned [to] the Joint Chiefs of StaffHarassment and deceptive actions to convince the Cubans of immanent invasion would be emphasized. Our posture throughout execution of the plan will allow rapid change from exercise to interventionWe could develop a Cuban terror campaignin WashingtonHijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft should appear to continueIt is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate that a Cuban aircraft has shot down a chartered civil airliner en route from the US to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or VenezuelaIt is possible to create an incident which will make it appear that Communist Cuban MIGS have destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attackIt is understood the Department of State also is preparing suggested courses of action to develop justification for US military intervention in Cuba.”

That was the plan in 1962 for Cuba. Is this plan in operation for Iraq in 2003? On February 7, 2003, one day after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Invasion Iraq presentation before the United Nations, the Bush Regime took the American public to code “Orange”–the second highest threat level–an was warned of immanent chemical-biological attacks on US soil. Precaution? Good intelligence?

Ask the Joint Chiefs or the Secretary of State.

JOHN STANTON is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com

 

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer. Reach him at jstantonarchangel@gmail.com