RationalWiki.org site and Operation Northwoods

I was just reading this site when I checked my mail and saw I got my invitation approved. Since this is momentarily on my mind, I'll address this issue.This site claims to be

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Free speech isn't free. Fighting pseudoscience isn't free.
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Then on the 9/11 issue, they say this about Operation Northwoods.

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Truthers like to cite false flag operations ...as "precedent" for the 9-11 conspiracy
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Operation Northwood was a plan for a false flag attack.
Rebuttal: This made it into the second cut of Loose Change, which alleges that a plan to blow up drone planes as part of a false flag operation to justify the invasion of Cuba is a precedent for a 9-11 false flag. This plan was proposed by a few members of JFK's Department of Defense. JFK and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara dismissed it as batshit crazy. If anything, this is a precedent for the president discounting such false flags

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9/11 - RationalWiki and their unsupported claim that only "a few members" of the government were involved in an isolated plan that presidents always opposed got my attention because I happen to have just gotten a copy of James Bamford's authoritative book which covered this issue in 12 pages. I'll show some of what he had to say and let you decide if this "rationalist" site is using good science/observational skills.

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Body Of Secrets
by James Bamford
(2001)
pp.80-81

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...the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot down on American streets;...for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving...public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.
The idea may actually have originated with President Eisenhower in the last days of his administration.
...on January 3 [1961] he told Lemnitzer and other aides in his Cabinet Room that he would move against Castro before the inauguration if only the Cubans gave him a really good excuse. Then, with time growing short, Eisenhower floated an idea. If Castro failed to provide that excuse, perhaps, he said, the United States "could think of manufacturing something that would be generally acceptable." What he was suggesting was a pretext - a bombing, an attack, an act of sabotage- carried out secretly against the United States by the United States.

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p.89
Even after Lemnitzer lost his job, the Joint Chiefs kept planning "pretext" operations at least into 1963.

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p.90
Lemnitzer was a dangerous - perhaps even unbalanced - right-wing extremist in an extraordinarily sensitive position during a critical period. But Operation Northwoods also had the support of every single member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even senior Pentagon official Paul Nitze argued in favor of provoking a phony war with Cuba. The fact that the most senior members of all the services and the Pentagon could be so out of touch with reality and the meaning of democracy would be hidden for four decades.

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I'm not sure this rationalist site was 100% accurate in their presentation of the "false-flag" type of plans during the early 1960s. And Lemnitzer went to lead NATO within months after he left the Joint Chiefs. There are rumors I hear about something called "Operation Gladio" but I can't find any definitive source which details exactly whether these "NATO false-flags" actually happened.I do know that the Watergate hearing presented us with the only evidence to date that the CIA targeted an American civilian (journalist Jack Anderson) on American soil for death. But that was a "black letter" which was against a former employee who was spilling secrets. So in 1972, the CIA was performing operations against American civilians. It isn't the "false flag" issue though it does show that both the U.S. military and CIA have targeted civilians on American soil for death.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Welcome to the fray, LamarkNewAge. My personal opinion is that conspiracy theories arise when people have trouble comprehending what has occurred, particularly when it is counter to firmly held beliefs (such as belief that the US is on the side of good so why would anyone attack). See cognitive dissonance for similar.Enjoy

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This plan was proposed by a few members of JFK's Department of Defense. JFK and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara dismissed it as batshit crazy

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.the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

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Do you understand that these two sources are not in disagreement. The Joint Chiefs of Staff is about six dudes at the top of the Defense Department. You seem to diminish the original statement from "a few members of the JFKs Defense Department" to 'a few members of the government' so you can trash it with the revelation from the book you believe in. Let's not forget that in the United States, civilians control the military, and Rational Wiki correctly states that the civilians in charge dismissed the idea. Sigh.

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NoNukes
Do you understand that these two sources are not in disagreement. The Joint Chiefs of Staff is about six dudes at the top of the Defense Department. You seem to diminish the original statement from "a few members of the JFKs Defense Department" to 'a few members of the government' so you can trash it with the revelation from the book you believe in. Let's not forget that in the United States, civilians control the military, and Rational Wiki correctly states that the civilians in charge dismissed the idea.

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"the book" I "believe in" is from an author that nearly went to prison in the 1980s for his first book on the NSA (Puzzle Palace). He got documents and then the Reagan administration reclassified the documents and said he wasn't allowed to even discuss them. However,his book ended up (by the late 1990s) being something of a textbook for students the CIA recruits and trains, and he became an honored person that the CIA would invite to speak before people. Very ironic. Bamford was tipped off to Northwoods while it was still classified (by somebody who was in a position to consider releasing classified material) in the mid-1990s, and he wrestled to get it released. Bamford said (in a C-Span interview) that the CIA wanted to edit and censor his book Body of Secrets before it was released (because of his unusual access in looking at things that still aren't available to the public), but he refused saying he was under no legal agreement to bend to their oversight.Anyway, how was Lemnitzer so "crazy" if he got promoted to head NATO AFTER Northwoods, as the site seemed to imply. (implication was he was just some crazy----NATO promotion ignored!)Eisenhower didn't set any trend in promoting attacks on civilians but Kennedy is the example that settles the issue?Btw, the website didn't mention Lemnitzer by name (nor his premier position), and didn't mention Eisenhower's ideas at all.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : edited to clarify that site simple mentioned a "crazy" idea but didn't detail Lemnitzer at all. no more edits.

Who said Kennedy is an example that settles the queestion? What I indicated was that the Kennedy example does not support your theory and not that it disproves your theory. You completely failed to address any of that and instead focused on a side issue.

From the site

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If anything, this is a precedent for the president discounting such false flags

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I felt it was shifty to mention Kennedy's opposition to the plan and THEN for the site to not mention Eisenhower's support for a like-minded plan.My "theory" is that people that call themselves "skeptics" like to pick and choose what they respond to. FYI

The RationalWiki article addressed the specific conspiracy theory that Operation Northwood was an example of evil and dismissed it appropriately as a possible counter example. I don't see the shiftiness on RW's part.Ultimately we know that Eisenhower's plan did not become reality either.

How does one nearly go to prison?

Classified material is a very serious issue.It isn't public domain!The penalties for possessing that material might be worse than an American in Arizona (or wherever) being found with kiddie-porn.It depends on how one got it though. The ex-post facto issue saved Bamford.

I'm not really sure what it is you are trying to convey because you haven't asked any questions. What is it that you are trying to convey? The (il)legitimacy of False Flag operations?

I'm getting a little bit tired of this "the government would never think of doing anything so crazy", while the critics fail to cover all the relevant information.I'll give 2 examples. I'll use this Northwoods coverage and the RationalWiki handling of it. Then I will show you a positive example of how a controversial issue should be handled.Understand that the 9/11 issue has many theories. The "conspiracy theories" range from the more-mild issue of "prior knowledge" (by elements involved with western intelligence agencies usually though sometimes Presidential foreknowledge is alleged) all the way to the extreme "inside job" views. And the "inside job" theories often (but not always) center around debating whether Global Hawk (ie "drone") type of technology was possibly used by NORAD and/or the CIA on 9/11.9/11 theorists that advocate the possibility of "prior knowledge" are treated like radical extremists who are 100% absurd. But the amazing thing is that the much more extreme "9/11 drone" conspiracy theories actually do have a precedent: Operation Northwoods.(I found the full text of Bamfords pp.80-92 on the web so quotes will be easy to make. The link to Alex Jones' site is ONLY because he has the entire Bamford Northwoods text, so please don't debate me about Jones.)
http://www.infowars.com/flashback-operation-northwoods/

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An aircraft at Elgin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CJA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone [a remotely controlled unmanned aircraft]. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida.

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From the rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude and go directly into an auxiliary field at Elgin AFB where arrangements will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft to its original status. The drone aircraft meanwhile will continue to fly the filed flight plan. When over Cuba the drone will be transmitting on the international distress frequency a "May Day" message stating he is under attack by Cuban MiG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by destruction of the aircraft, which will be triggered by radio signal. This will allow ICAO

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Every last word above is from the declassified U.S. document. None of it is Bamford's words! But it was quoted in his book (see the Jones link).

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I'm not really sure what it is you are trying to convey because you haven't asked any questions. What is it that you are trying to convey? The (il)legitimacy of False Flag operations?

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The illegitimacy of those who ridicule people by saying "the government wouldn't think of doing such a thing to its own citizens, especially our fine one". Past plans should be looked at.Remember that the 1993 WTC attack was a "sting operation". Why wasn't that mentioned by RationalWiki? The October 28 1993 (or October 31) New York Times admitted that the Salem transcript (where he was secretly recording conversations with his FBI bosses after the Feb 26, 1993 attack) put the FBI "in a far better position to stop the attacks" than they were previously admitting. (that is a close paraphrase). Salem talked to the FBI agents about how they gave him directions on buying the explosives and where to park the truck and how bad he felt that the attack wasn't stopped (by the FBI). FBI agent Nancy Floyd didn't dispute his history but seemed to accept it as accurate. She was secretly recorded responding to Salem, "it wasn't like you didn't try" or something like that (I'm paraphrasing).Why wasn't that issue covered by RationalWiki?Here though is an example of productive criticism (this is the JFK issue.Closer Than That | The New YorkerIt's a long article, and it is very critical of JFK conspiracy theorists. But it also corrects those who say that the government couldn't do such a thing (as Vince Bugliosi says). This article even admits (albeit briefly) that Oswald might have closer connections to the CIA than the government claims, and references soon to be declassified material (the George Joannides 2017 files).I'll use the New Yorker article as an example of the way things ought to be covered.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

GoogleHere is one of the New York Times articles
Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast - The New York TimesEdited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

EDIT Links below don't work Use THIS ONE
Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast - The New York Times(these don't work below above one works)Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade ...Not Found - The New York Times-...The New York TimesOct 28, 1993 - Another agent, identified as Nancy Floyd, does not dispute Mr. Salem's account, but rather, appears to agree with it, saying of the New York ...Bomb Informer's Tapes Give Rare Glimpse of F.B.I. Dealings ...Not Found - The New York Times...The New York TimesOct 31, 1993 - "Let them give me a car to run the investigation," Mr. Salem says. .... agent, Nancy Floyd, tells a Government informer, Emad A. Salem, that she ...Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.