A new book claims that the Joint Chiefs of Staff seriously proposed a plan to the Kennedy Administration to use staged terror attacks on the US as an excuse to invade and occupy Cuba.
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.
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].”
Now, before anyone asks, I don’t believe, for a variety of reasons, that the same sort of thing is happening today, with Afghanistan and the Taliban and Al Qa’eda. But, damn, do people like this ever wonder what sort of monstrous damage such plans can have if — make it when — such plans come out? Jeez-louise, people … trust is the most delicate thing that a democracy relies upon. Blow it, and you destroy the basis for a popular government.
It’s exactly this sort of shit — even though it was kiboshed by the civilian government — that gives conspiracy theorists a factual basis for their theories. It’s never worth it. Never.
(Via 24-Hour Drive-Thru)