On August 10, 1964, the United States Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The resolution gave then-President Lyndon Johnson full authority to engage the North Vietnamese in an all-out war. That war lasted until the United States declared defeat and left Vietnam in April 1975.
The resolution was passed in response to an attack by North Vietnam on two American naval ships, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy. The resolution was passed in direct response to perceived North Vietnamese aggression against American naval vessels.
Only one problem: the reported attack against the two naval ships never happened. In his book, FOG OF WAR, the then-defense Secretary Robert Macnamara admitted that the entire basis for going to war never happened.
Go back to Pearl Harbor. The entire country was shocked by the secret attack of the Japanese against the American Naval fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. Numerous historians now contend that the Americans knew of the “surprise ” attack but chose to do nothing about it because they knew that only such an attack would motivate the American public to permit entry into the war in Europe and the Pacific.
Go back further to World War I: The Americans wanted no part of a European war. In truth, more Americans favored the Germans than the British but all favored neutrality. Then, the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat. America entered the war.
Go forward to 9/11. I, like so many, remember the day and the event as if it were yesterday. I remember falling asleep the nite before on the sofa with the television on the Angels baseball game (I am a California refugee). I woke up to a screaming reporter with a live video showing the first of the Twin Towers on fire. I thought at first it was a movie, but then I realized it was live news. Just as I woke, I saw what most of the country saw-the second plane drove itself right into the second tower.
I, like most, was shocked, shocked in a way that has never happened before or since. I was glued to the news for the next several days and weeks. Reports came in regarding another plane that was trying to fly itself into the Pentagon but which was taken down by the passengers.
In response, the United States invaded Iraq.
Then, we invaded Afghanistan.
Questions began to arise: why are we invading Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11? Why did we spend trillions in Afghanistan when no evidence ever surfaced the Taliban had anything to do with 9/11?
Many years ago, a husband and wife team of college professors- Cloward and Picken- came up with a concept that has become the darling of the ruling class in Washington, D.C.
The duo studied “crisis” events and found a pattern: a crisis occurs; people become enraged and fearful and demand Government intervention; the government intervenes, and then a major change in policy occurs to change the “cause ” of the crisis and prevent it from happening again.
Cloward and Picken became rather famous when they published an article setting forth this discovery. They became even more famous darlings of the ruling class. They energetically advocated a simple thought: why should we wait for a crisis to happen?
If we want to cause a change of policy, why don’t we create the crisis that then leads to the change we want?
If a political group wants to change a policy, why not just create the “Crisis” and then allow the people to demand government intervention then the Government can swoop in and institute the policy they wanted anyway, empowered by the fear and anger they created from the crisis they initiated.
To my eye, every time the ruling class wants to institute a policy that only they benefit from, they seem to follow the Cloward and Picken model.
Climate change? No problem. Many times, have you heard the ruling class assert that unless we do as they say regarding carbon, food, cars, water heaters, etc, we will all die? They claim that the earth is dying because of our pollution. No matter what the scientists say to the contrary. The sky is falling, and we are going to die unless we get out of their way as they steal us blind and destroy everything ordinary Americans prize. It’s Cloward and Piven: to institute the policy and controls they want, they invent a crisis; the people out of fear and anger generated by the crisis, demand Government intervention; the Government does intervene and institute the policy they want.
Does this Cloward and Picken model not also apply to IRAQ?
To Afghanistan?
To the Gulf of Tonkin?
To Pearl Harbor?
It’s scary to me indeed, frightening- the thought that the Folks in Washington DC who run our government would follow Cloward and Picken. It’s frightening and scary because it seems to be at least in part supported by the evidence.
What is happening in ‘Israel” is horrible. It is truly a “crisis.”
People are being murdered in the streets for no good reason by crazed lunatics who are driven by hate and malice. But don’t despair because the ruling class never wastes a good “crisis.” The military-industrial complex makes huge fortunes off of the endless wars we engage in, and guess what- this crisis in Israel looks like it is going to save their day: it looks like the war we lost in Afghanistan and the war we are losing in Ukraine is going to get new life in the middle east.
I hope my thoughts are wrong. Maybe I am having them just because I am tired of all the wars and the killing and the atrocities. It’s a hard pill to swallow to think that world leaders create a “crisis”- a crisis that involves killing thousands of people and destroying whole countries- to advance some policy they think is good and necessary for their own power and control.
But think: the news folks want you to believe that the Israeli intelligence corps- Mossad- and the American intelligence corps were unaware of the presence in Gaza of 5000 to 7500 missiles aimed at Israel. They want us to believe that the Israeli army stationed on the border with Gaza- probably the most dangerous and active war zone border in the world- was asleep and had no sentries out to alert the troops to wake up and fight back. And they want us to believe that this attack by Hamas – a Pearl Harbor type of attack- should be a basis for Israel to go to war with Iran.
If Mossad and the Cia had alerted the Israelis of the attack they knew was coming and if the Israelis had been put on high alert, and if the Israeli forces attacked rather than surrendered, no “crisis” would have occurred, and Cloward and Piven’s strategy would have no legs. We would still hate Iran. But we would not be going to war.
My God- I cannot get it out of my head that Mossad and perhaps our own CIA knew all about the Hamas attack well before it occurred but decided to let it happen, even standing down the defense forces to allow the atrocities so that they would have the Cloward and Picken crisis they needed to do what they wanted to do all along-bomb Iran into the stone age.
One Israelite leader summarized all this very well- He proclaimed, ” This is Israel’s 9/11.”
Did he mean by that statement that this is Israel’s “false flag” designed to enrage the world into supporting Israel’s planned strike on Iran to end Iran’s nuclear program?
Israel and the United States have long stated that they would never let Iran get nuclear missiles. Netanyahu told the United Nation’s full assembly not so many years ago that Israel would use all means necessary-including military attack- to end Iran’s nuclear program. Is it possible that they feel that the time is now and made the decision to allow the attack from Hamas so that they would have their Cloward and Picken crisis that would make you and me and the Israeli public demand that Israel bombs Iran? Netanyahu said in a speech little heralded by the press that after he finishes Hamas and Hezbollah, he is going to take the war to Iran.
All I can say is that the world would be a much better place if Cloward and Piven had never been evil and or born.
