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Saturday, August 21, 2004

"Friendly Fire",- By Design

"Friendly fire" is an unfortunate part of pretty much any war. The fog of battle sometimes leads to soldiers firing on fellow soldiers wearing the same uniform. All of the world's militaries work towards developing procedures to avoid such tragic and wasteful mistakes but none have thus far completely succeeded in this quest.

However, according to Body of Secrets, a book authored by the investigative journalist James Bamford, in the 1960's the US military considered attacks on Americans disguised to appear perpetrated by the Cuban forces. The objective: convincing the American public of a necessity of going to war with Cuba. As David Ruppe writes in his ABC News article,
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.
That was not merely a thought that popped up in some general's head early in the morning after having a few too many drinks at an Officers' Club the night before. That appears to have been a detailed set of military plans.
America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."
...

The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba, the documents show.

Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof … that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]."

Fortunately, none of those fiendish ideas were to become reality as they were rejected by the Kennedy administration.

Many Americans think that no one in a position of power in the US would ever even contemplate intentionally harming his fellow Americans in order to create a pretext for promoting their agenda. That assertion appears to have little foundation. Some pretty powerful people within the defense apparatus are clearly documented to have been thinking along the same lines as those at many other times and in many other places throughout history who had intentionally attacked their own populace in order to convince the public of the perceived enemy's aggressive intents.

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