Monday, February 27, 2006

The Maine, Tonkin, 9-11

Remember the Maine! Yes, the Maine was an American ship burned in Havana harbor, which was the pretext for attacking Spain to get Cuba and the Phillipines from them -- and to eject them from the American "sphere of influence" in the western hemisphere. So we burned our own ship and blamed them for it so we'd have an excuse to attack them.

Remember the Gulf of Tonkin! This was the incident in which the North Vietnamese supposedly fired upon an American ship off the coast. Thus attacked, Americans felt justified and morally obligated to "defend themselves" against such "unprovoked aggression." It is now clear to even mainstream historians that this incident never actually occured and was wholly fabricated by the American administration as a pretext for attacking North Vietnam.

Nothing changed on 9-11. It's the same old story of audacious lies being used to justify nefarious deeds. If you dare to doubt the comforting bullshit, check out this film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psP_9RE0V2I

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are also many who would add

that certain highly-placed individuals in the US

(quite probably) had foreknowledge that the Japanese

were planning to attack Pearl Harbor in December 1941

but kept mum as that attack would inflame public sentiment

in the US and become the pretext for US entry into WWII?

Christopher Ryan said...

Yes, I considered adding that to the list, but I'm less familiar with the details. I'd imagine a military historian could come up with dozens of examples of this. I'm sure it goes back to at least the Romans, if not Ancient Greeks. Sometimes the oldest trick in the book is the most effective. Seems nobody's reading the book!