Shelton doesn't hold back. He says Donald Rumsfeld, one of the empire's demons set loose from Andrew Marshall's school, is an arrogant and selfish leader. John McCain has "a screw loose." And Al "The World is Falling" Gore, perhaps the biggest global warming alarmist, is a "supercilious grandstander." The man makes a lot of sense.
-- He was more concerned with marking his territory like a little bulldog than he was about getting down to the business of running the finest military force in the world.
-- And there was the McNamara-Rumsfeld model, based on deception, deceit, working political agendas, and trying to get the Joint Chiefs to support an action that might not be the right thing to do for the country but would work well for the President from a political standpoint.
-- It was the worst style of leadership I witnessed in thirty-eight years of service or have witnessed at the highest levels of the corporate world since then.
Shelton's remarks on Rumsfeld is the icing on the cake. The book's most explosive information springs from a conversation he had with a Clinton official when he served as the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff during 1997 - 2001. Instead of summarizing what was said, it's better to read it in Shelton's own words. From Justin Elliott's article in Salon called "Clinton aide's idea: Let Iraq shoot down U.S. plane":
At one of my very first breakfasts, while Berger and Cohen were engaged in a sidebar discussion down at one end of the table and Tenet and Richardson were preoccupied in another, one of the Cabinet members present leaned over to me and said, “Hugh, I know I shouldn’t even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event — something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough — and slow enough — so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?”
The hair on the back of my neck bristled, my teeth clenched, and my fists tightened. I was so mad I was about to explode. I looked across the table, thinking about the pilot in the U-2 and responded, “Of course we can ...” which prompted a big smile on the official’s face.
“You can?” was the excited reply.
“Why, of course we can,” I countered. “Just as soon as we get your ass qualified to fly it, I will have it flown just as low and slow as you want to go.”
The official reeled back and immediately the smile disappeared. “I knew I should not have asked that....”
“No, you should not have,” I strongly agreed, still shocked at the disrespect and sheer audacity of the question. “Remember, there is one of our great Americans flying that U-2, and you are asking me to intentionally send him or her to their death for an opportunity to kick Saddam. The last time I checked, we don’t operate like that here in America.”
It is incredibly refreshing to hear that Shelton refuted the official's request in such a forceful manner. But Shelton is wrong. Modern American leaders do operate deceptively against members of the military, and against the American people. FDR did it. Johnson did it. And Bush, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama have done it in the present era. Robert Stinnett wrote a great book called "Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor" about how the FDR administration provoked, and allowed the Pearl Harbor Attack to happen, which resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 military officers, in order for America to look like the victim and enter World War II. You can read more about Stinnett's findings in an article I wrote last week called "October 7, 1940: The Day That Should Have Lived in Infamy."
Making up excuses for war is an American tradition. The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin was another incident that never happened as it was told to the American people, but allowed the empire to enter another bloody, and profitable war without great public opposition. In 1968 prominent Senators, including the father of the former Vice-President Al Gore, raised the possibility that the American people were deceived by the White House, and America's top military leaders to get into the Vietnam war. From Elisabeth Bumiller's article "Records Show Doubts on ’64 Vietnam Crisis" that was published in the New York Times on July 14, 2010:
“If this country has been misled, if this committee, this Congress, has been misled by pretext into a war in which thousands of young men have died, and many more thousands have been crippled for life, and out of which their country has lost prestige, moral position in the world, the consequences are very great,” Senator Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, the father of the future vice president, said in March 1968 in a closed session of the Foreign Relations Committee.
In our day, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was the empire's excuse to get into another bloody, and profitable war. This time, though, the stakes were raised, so the empire didn't provoke another nation to attack it like it did in 1941, or make up a story about a ship going under in the open seas like it did in 1964, instead, it went totally haywire and actually orchestrated the attacks from scratch, killing over 3,000 Americans with the intent to blame the attacks on innocent groups, and countries in the Middle East. Soon after, a war against global terrorism was declared, and we're told that it is a war that will last a hundred years. But we know better.
Shelton's short anecdote about a suggestion by a Clinton aide to provoke a war with Saddam is part of a much larger history of America's use of false-flag attacks, and staged provocations. The American empire depends on deception to get into wars because the American people are naturally good-hearted and hard working people who don't like the idea of oppressing other people, stealing their land, and destroying their pride and honor. If it wasn't for government brainwashing the American people would never support a criminal and aggressive war. But America's tyrannical and traitorous leaders are different. They don't mind criminality and dishonesty if it serves the diabolical interests connected to the empire, and the empire's geopolitical agenda.
Shelton's remarks on Rumsfeld is the icing on the cake. The book's most explosive information springs from a conversation he had with a Clinton official when he served as the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff during 1997 - 2001. Instead of summarizing what was said, it's better to read it in Shelton's own words. From Justin Elliott's article in Salon called "Clinton aide's idea: Let Iraq shoot down U.S. plane":
At one of my very first breakfasts, while Berger and Cohen were engaged in a sidebar discussion down at one end of the table and Tenet and Richardson were preoccupied in another, one of the Cabinet members present leaned over to me and said, “Hugh, I know I shouldn’t even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event — something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough — and slow enough — so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?”
The hair on the back of my neck bristled, my teeth clenched, and my fists tightened. I was so mad I was about to explode. I looked across the table, thinking about the pilot in the U-2 and responded, “Of course we can ...” which prompted a big smile on the official’s face.
“You can?” was the excited reply.
“Why, of course we can,” I countered. “Just as soon as we get your ass qualified to fly it, I will have it flown just as low and slow as you want to go.”
The official reeled back and immediately the smile disappeared. “I knew I should not have asked that....”
“No, you should not have,” I strongly agreed, still shocked at the disrespect and sheer audacity of the question. “Remember, there is one of our great Americans flying that U-2, and you are asking me to intentionally send him or her to their death for an opportunity to kick Saddam. The last time I checked, we don’t operate like that here in America.”
It is incredibly refreshing to hear that Shelton refuted the official's request in such a forceful manner. But Shelton is wrong. Modern American leaders do operate deceptively against members of the military, and against the American people. FDR did it. Johnson did it. And Bush, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama have done it in the present era. Robert Stinnett wrote a great book called "Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor" about how the FDR administration provoked, and allowed the Pearl Harbor Attack to happen, which resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 military officers, in order for America to look like the victim and enter World War II. You can read more about Stinnett's findings in an article I wrote last week called "October 7, 1940: The Day That Should Have Lived in Infamy."
Making up excuses for war is an American tradition. The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin was another incident that never happened as it was told to the American people, but allowed the empire to enter another bloody, and profitable war without great public opposition. In 1968 prominent Senators, including the father of the former Vice-President Al Gore, raised the possibility that the American people were deceived by the White House, and America's top military leaders to get into the Vietnam war. From Elisabeth Bumiller's article "Records Show Doubts on ’64 Vietnam Crisis" that was published in the New York Times on July 14, 2010:
“If this country has been misled, if this committee, this Congress, has been misled by pretext into a war in which thousands of young men have died, and many more thousands have been crippled for life, and out of which their country has lost prestige, moral position in the world, the consequences are very great,” Senator Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, the father of the future vice president, said in March 1968 in a closed session of the Foreign Relations Committee.
In our day, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was the empire's excuse to get into another bloody, and profitable war. This time, though, the stakes were raised, so the empire didn't provoke another nation to attack it like it did in 1941, or make up a story about a ship going under in the open seas like it did in 1964, instead, it went totally haywire and actually orchestrated the attacks from scratch, killing over 3,000 Americans with the intent to blame the attacks on innocent groups, and countries in the Middle East. Soon after, a war against global terrorism was declared, and we're told that it is a war that will last a hundred years. But we know better.
Shelton's short anecdote about a suggestion by a Clinton aide to provoke a war with Saddam is part of a much larger history of America's use of false-flag attacks, and staged provocations. The American empire depends on deception to get into wars because the American people are naturally good-hearted and hard working people who don't like the idea of oppressing other people, and destroying their dignity, pride and honor. If it wasn't for government brainwashing the American people would never support a criminal and aggressive war. But America's tyrannical and traitorous leaders are different. They don't mind criminality and dishonesty if it serves the diabolical interests connected to the empire, and the empire's geopolitical agenda.
A lack of strong, honest, wise, and humane leadership is the main problem that ails America today. It can't be stated enough that this is the age of treason. The U.S. government was seized by a pack of devilish traitors, and con men. Knowing exactly when that happened is not all that important. American Treason was a gradual process, it happened in stages.
America's current political leaders don't know anything about sacrifice. In the Bush administration the men who fled from duty during the Vietnam era were leading the men who served. Rumsfeld was leading Shelton. That is the tragedy in America. The civilian leaders suck. America's military has done everything it's been asked to do by the pigheaded and treasonous politicians and officials in Washington D.C., particularly in the White House. What have they received in return? Nothing. There is talk of reducing military benefits, while insurance companies are profiting off the blood of dead soldiers. The betrayal and war profiteering is so sickening.
We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that in the last forty plus years America's Presidents and Vice-Presidents avoided combat. Did Bush II serve in Vietnam? No. Clinton? No. Gore? No. Reagan? No. Cheney? No. Did Obama serve in the Gulf War? No.
I'm not saying that serving in the military should be a prerequisite to run for elective office, that is not a good idea, but it is telling that America's current criminal wars were started, and sponsored by chicken-hawks, men who never felt what it was like to kill, and see others be killed. I think that before you send men to war you should at least have a little taste of it beforehand because you won't be so quick to send them, like America's leaders have done in the past forty years.
I want to see a President or a Prime Minister with one arm and a broken heart rather than a President or Prime Minister with two arms and no heart. A country's highest leader should be someone who knows a lot about sacrifice, and what it means to serve one's country, not a privileged politician who can charm the people, and get votes.
Anyways, the important thing to understand is that Western leadership, especially leadership in America, has failed the people in a way that is still incomprehensible to many of us, including me. There needs to be a civilizational dialogue about how governments use false-flag attacks to start aggressive wars, and gain politically so that we can all understand how it works. After coming to terms with this reality we can then move on to create a more humane world; a world without state terrorism, state secrecy, and state propaganda.
So far in the War on Terror over 7,000 Americans have died, including soldiers and citizens if you count the Sept. 11 attacks that started it all, and 176Canadians. If you add the losses suffered by Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the number of people who have died for a lie is too many to excuse. There needs to be an immediate end to the war. Some of us can't sacrifice on the false battlefield, while the rest of us just sit at home, and watch television like it is the normal thing to do. We must end the fraudulent war on terrorism if we want to save our humanity, our planet, and our beloved countries. And if that means we must sacrifice in some form or another then I welcome that sacrifice. Change never comes easy.
Read what Senator Jim Webb said about the sacrifice that every soldier makes in a war:
This quote is taken from a speech that Sen. Webb gave in 2009 in support of preserving the American Civil War battlefields. Watch the speech.
"When you step forward to serve you're turning literally your life over to the judgment of your leaders, and to the loyalties that go back generations, in many cases, in your own families. And that is something that we need to understand, much more than even the politics that go into wars, and the inscription on the Confederate Memorial, I think, says that as clearly as anything that I have ever read anywhere. It says; "Not For Fame-Or-Reward-Not For Place-Or-For Rank-Not Lured By Ambition-Or-Goaded By Necessity-But In Simple Obedience To Duty As They Understood It-These Men Suffered All-Sacrificed All-Dared All-And Died." I don't think there's a better way to say it. So whatever the political feelings are that go into the study of any war, and in particular this one in our own country, this is a great place to come and to remember what that sort of sacrifice meant, and what that sort of duty entails. Thank you very much."
Senator Jim Webb at Third Winchester Battlefield - September 19, 2009
