Lies And Damned Lies

Uncle Sam wants YOU for WAR

Lies And Damned Lies

While it is true that “I don't know what I don't know”, it is also true that once I do know, if I turn a blind eye or fail to act I am guilty of committing the sin of ignorance upon myself and my fellow men.

– Juan Idalgo

Not long ago I saw an Air Force recruiting commercial. A black general sits on a chair inside a hanger pontificating in an excited, deep growling voice that when pilots put on their helmets and visors, it doesn’t matter whether they’re black, white, red, yellow, brown, etc…, they are all just “kicking ass” in a multicultural love fest. Wouldn’t all you young people with nothing better to do with your lives like to kick ass in respect and love, just like in a video game?

Three things about this made me cringe. 1) Pilots (men and women) may not care if the pilot next to them is another color, but they sure as hell don’t care that many of their victims are brown or black or yellow – towel heads, inferior races, enemies of freedom and democracy, etc… 2) The days of gun blazing aerial dog fights are long gone. In the age of faster jets and turbofans, the biggest threat to a pilot is radar guided or heat seeking missiles. They fly high and fast and are able to destroy a target from miles away, even from outside the battle zone. They are removed from close combat and feel no guilt over killing, and they revel in “kicking ass” from miles away. A drone pilot on the other hand may actually view the faces of those they kill from high definition cameras, and for them guilt does happen. This may also happen with close air support pilots (A-10 and attack helicopters), but to a lesser degree. But for the most part, guilt for meting out unjust death is not in the pilot’s vocabulary. 3) They are specifically reaching out to a generation of young people who have grown up playing video games, and those kids ignorantly think that is what combat is like, and the asshole general knows this and plays upon it.

Lt Col Dave Grossman, an Army psychologist, the same who posited killing being akin to sex, has blamed violent video games for creating young people who are immune to feeling guilt about killing. But once again he misunderstands the problem and dynamics. He also blames commercial interests for the production of these violent video games, and here he misses the whole truth. Young people play those games for the entertainment value – they have no idea what real killing involves; what causes the problem is that they don’t cogitate that real combat involves real pain, real suffering, and real death – there is no computer generated rebirth – and they are truly ignorant of the real consequences of battlefield actions until it’s too late. The US military has no incentive to disabuse them of their ignorance before signing them on. Further, the production of these types of video games is not solely commercial. The US military invests money in these types of games, and they even produce free versions that can be downloaded and/or played from their websites – realistic battle without realistic death and destruction. The Army, Navy, and Air Force are as much a player in the video game, entertainment, movie, and TV industries as any commercial entity.

Women as well suck up the false narratives. If you follow TV and movie trends, you’ll see the completely false narrative that women have been involved in combat and special operations since 9/11, wielding knives, automatic weapons, and krav maga all over the Middle East for decades. The media, from news to entertainment, enable and perpetuate these falsehoods. The truth of the matter is that no established force utilizes women in the field for close or front line combat (including the Israelis) – and this has nothing to do with chauvinism, and a lot to do with the fact that women just don’t want to involve themselves in war until they’ve been programmed to want it – and yet, they still suck at it. Women in rebel forces often participate in front line combat, but that’s more due to a desperate need than a want or skill – they still suck at it. Women have been allowed to become Navy SEALS since 2016, yet no woman participates in that front line combat. In Afghanistan, the US Army attempted an all woman unit (trained to a lower standard than men because they couldn’t carry the weight nor meet the physical requirements) searching for weapons and conducting house to house searches. The experiment had to be terminated early because they were firing at each other and shooting friendlies, because they were operating in panic mode. The fact is the overwhelming majority of women choose not to participate in direct proportion to the amount of combat going on at the time (Judith Stiehm, Arms and the Enlisted Woman, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1989, p100; Newsweek, 5.8.991; and Laura Miller, “Feminism and the Exclusion of Army Women from Combat”, Harvard University, John M Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, 1997-8, p19; all in The Privileged Sex by Martin van Creveld). Why is this relevant? Because it has been said that “war is a man’s thing” (I had a woman therapist say this to me), and war represents “toxic masculinity”. Because women are susceptible to the same lies fed to men regarding glory in war, of which there is none. In an insidious twist, many of the lies specifically fed to women don’t come from the military, or from men, but from other women – feminists, Karens (who may threaten to throat punch you), and heartless revenge seekers. The US feminist group, National Organization for Women (NOW), wants women to be drafted, yet not a single woman of NOW has ever faced combat, close or far away, nor will they ever. They are a privileged class of women, like virgins talking about sex, trying to steal more privilege and power at the expense of lower class women who will pay for it supremely. Women’s groups pushed to continue war in Afghanistan, for the purpose of “saving” Afghan women. Though never having to face combat or put their own lives on the line, they’ve decided that they are willing to sacrifice the lives of any amount of men and civilians to achieve their political and/or social power goals – and not by asking, but by lobbying the halls of power to force the involvement of men. “The road to women’s privilege is paved with the corpses of men… In regard to the way they are raised, the work they do, the economic support they receive, and their position vis-a-vis the law, women have always enjoyed and still enjoy considerable privileges. Likewise, when it comes to fulfilling their obligation to society, women have enjoyed and still enjoy considerable privileges. The greatest single privilege is that they are hardly ever expected to shed blood for their people.” (In the Maw of Mars: The Principle of the Thing, The Privileged Sex by Martin van Creveld, 2013, DVLC Enterprises).

Then there are the revenge seekers like Madeline Albright, ready and willing to sacrifice any amount of men and civilians (“500,000”+) in order to “free” Bosnia and fuck the Russian menace. There was Margaret Thatcher, ready and willing to sacrifice any amount of men and civilians to force a country to give back its own island. There was Golda Meir, ready and willing to sacrifice any amount of Palestinian men, women, and children via genocide and expulsion to the greater glory of the return of the Israeli kingdom (stolen from the inhabitants now and centuries ago). Recently, there are Kamala (Cabala) Harris, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ginnie Thomas (yes, the Supreme Court justice’s wife), Lauren Boebert, Marine La Pen, and Trumpettes – psychobitches from Donald Trump’s harem of loony women, ready and willing to start Civil War. War and its causes truly know no boundaries of sex. Ignorance, greed, and the lust for power abounds in men and women. So no, war is not a “man’s thing”.

But the worst perpetrators of injustice have been US Presidents and business and international colonial powers. The Monroe Doctrine unilaterally made the US the policemen of the western hemisphere. The doctrine of Eminent Domain allowed Americans to fool themselves into thinking they had supernatural rights to other peoples’ lives and land. The US fought Mexico for control of Texas under the same pretext that Putin is using now to attempt control of Ukraine. McKinley started war with Spain over Cuba, creating a false flag with the Maine explosion to force conflict when Spain had already acceded to all US demands. A US fleet battled the Spanish fleet in the Philippines and defeated them. While the US ceded Cuba its freedom, we decided to “keep” the Philippines for colonial purposes, including coconut plantations. US Marines and volunteers, trained at the Presidio, slaughtered thousands of Filipinos for the glory of capitalism, egged on by the British and French wanting, needing, the US to take its place on the world colonial stage.

A thorough reading of history (read The Long Fuse by Lawrence LaFore) will show the French instigated WW1, attempting to play both sides and to appear as Russia’s friend, while attempting to control Alsace-Lorraine. The US became involved when the Germans, who Roosevelt and Wilson ironically disliked because of the Prussian military bearing, invaded after the French forced a mobilization of Russian and German forces and the French and English whined and complained. The war had caused the outbreak of civil war in Russia and the birth of false communism and then Stalinism. When the war was over, the French instigated and demanded the harsh terms upon the Germans which practically gave birth to Hitler.

After the bitter fighting of WW2, the world saw Stalinism as communism. They weren’t even close in meaning or effect, but the cold war was on. Soon communism would be used as an excuse for interventions everywhere. Korea was a fairly easy sell to Americans unable to read subtext and thinking we were stamping out evil – a continuation of WW2. Vietnam was a harder sell after the losses in Korea. The Dulles brothers (John Foster and Allen) perpetuated the hegemony of US power around the globe. John Foster Dulles strongly felt perpetual war would be an acceptable price to pay for capitalism (his religion). They were privileged in the worst sense – spoiled, and tied deep in corporate interests. If the President represented the gods above ground, John Foster and Allen Dulles represented the underworld. John Foster was the political demon who saw capitalism as a religion, and Allen was the much darker CIA demon. But Vietnam presented a problem after Korea. There was no real communist threat in Southeast Asia, ideas maybe, fighting for rights and stolen land, definitely, but no threat – but there was plenty of unrest due to the colonial plantations of French Indochina and the British imperial interests still going. Natives wanted their land and freedom back, but you can never tell a colonial power that they don’t own what they’ve stolen. The French whined and complained to the US that socialists (who wanted their own land and freedom back) were causing non-stop problems. The Dulles brothers, not caring about a communist threat, but caring for the colonial corporate interest, devised the insidious containment idea after WW2 to captivate ignorant Congressmen and Americans – The Domino Theory – Communism was running rampant and if one country fell to the evil, they would all fall like dominoes. They got Truman to speak this in a speech. This same argument created sufficient false fear to allow Kennedy to send “advisors” (thousands) into Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and elsewhere to assist in alleviating the “communist” threat. Lyndon Johnson created a Maine incident in the Gulf of Tonkin to expand the war. Nixon would have stayed, but he realized Americans were tired of this new splendid war, and he realized we would lose for a myriad of reasons, and he ended it after the needless loss of many lives.

But just as many Presidents do, Nixon just turned his sights elsewhere. Central and South America, victims of US corporate controlling aggression since the United Fruit Company, became a new focus of socialism and communism. In 1970 Salvadore Allende became the democratically elected President of Chile. A physician and head of the Socialist party in Chile, he had reforms in mind that were meant to help his people. A few of those reforms meant that US corporate interests (mainly in copper and wood) would have to take some losses in order for the country and its people to do better financially. US corporate interests couldn’t stand for this, and they complained to Nixon repeatedly and Nixon soon berated the communist interests and he named Allende as their leader. He ranted and raved (the phone calls are recorded), and the US via the CIA elevated General Augusto Pinochet, a right-wing zealot, to chief opponent and he led a coup using US weapons, intelligence, and financial support. Whether Allende was killed with an American bullet or not doesn’t matter. The CIA has admitted orchestrating this coup and his death, and the years of right-wing dictatorship and disappearances (kidnappings and death), is the result of American regime change. This regime change brought on years of corruption, murder, torture, and the “disappeared”.

The US has committed or attempted regime change around the world, but never more frequently than in Latin America. Almost every country in Central and South America has suffered via US regime change. Even recently the CIA has been extra busy attempting to turn over Venezuela into US hands. Cuba has endured imperialism over the years, only finally to end up staying socialist via revolution against corruption from US corporate interests. The US assassinates, or attempts to assassinate, leaders that don’t kiss US corporate ass. It has nothing to do with socialism, per se, but everything to do with US corporate money interests. Guatemala and El Salvador have suffered greatly from US intervention. Guatemala was forced into the US fold in the ‘50s, as well as El Salvador. Both countries quickly were taken over by oligarchical families stealing land and killing those who opposed them. The US has supported these death squads for decades, and even trained government leaders in death in the US. In the late ‘70s and into the ‘80s, civil wars broke out in both countries, due to the cruelty of the oligarchies supported by the US. Jimmy Carter initiated the assassination of Arch-Bishop Oscar Romero who spoke forcefully against the injustice – with the CIA paying assassins to gun him down in front of his congregation. Reagan expressed extra vehemence for Guatemala, and vowed to help destroy any socialist rebel forces and anyone who supported such – because the government forces were going to lose. To watch, as VP Kamala Harris recently traveled to Guatemala, and lectured them on corruption, and that the concern of the US may lead to more involvement is beyond the pale – her boss, Joe Biden, helped create that corruption and destabilization. Joe Biden is not the “new FDR”, he’s the old Harry Truman, and that’s a serious problem.

Reagan and Bush Sr helped create the Taliban in Afghanistan, because the CIA couldn’t help itself and funded terrorists to terrorize the Soviets on their southern border. When the Soviets had enough, after they had been promised repeatedly by the Afghans that they would put an end to the cross border incursions, they invaded and installed a leader favorable to Russia. This brought out all the stops for the CIA to fund terrorists because of the obsession with communism. They couldn’t let them fail or change on their own, the CIA had to force it. Clinton continued this policy, and started Albright’s war in Bosnia, all while continuing the policies of cruelty in Latin America.

George Bush Jr continued these same policies, lied to start war and commit torture kissing the ass of the Israeli apartheid regime by starting war in the Middle East. Because fighting Iran seemed too iffy, George Sr used the CIA and politicians and bureaucrats to mislead the Iraqi dictator, whom they formerly loved, into taking Kuwait, so that war could be initiated. Saddam Hussein was left in power initially by George Sr because he felt his absence would create instability. But the CIA and George Jr and his neocons wanted control in Iraq, that would eventually lead to Iran. George Jr and his team, including the officer who helped cover up the Mai Lai massacre, lied to the farthest extent – Iraq had WMDs (which they did not) and were planning to build nuclear bombs (which they were not), but truth never stops the demon organization and its army of sycophants. US intelligence reports have stated over and again that Iran does not possess nuclear weapons and does not plan to create them, yet kissing Israeli ass again the US makes a strawman enemy of Iran. And again kissing Israeli ass and never missing an opportunity to tweak Russia, the CIA and US policy attempt regime change over and over in Syria, going so far as to create and fund terrorist militias and move them into Syria (the Taliban all over again).

Barack Obama led more untamed missile strikes than any President, and expanded the secrecy of the state while claiming he stood for open government. Like other Presidents he complained of Israeli influence yet kissed their ass and bent over to take it up his. Donald Trump, willing to do anything for money and praise perfumed himself for the Israelis as they fucked him in psychopathic rape fashion. The amount of lies he told will never be fully counted – those who sought to count gave up under the onslaught of thousands of lies. The fear of Trump is not his legislative agenda, but the fact that he is a lover of fascism, and under such an idiot the US may see its last vestiges of democracy destroyed.

The US has placed so much money and so many weapons into terrorist hands that the vision of perpetual war of the Dulles brothers has become the reality. Allen Dulles convinced Dwight Eisenhower that covert regime change was the way to go, and Eisenhower, thinking that a bloodless coup was better than war, agreed to authorize covert operations. How a man like Eisenhower could be so fooled by such a sociopath as Allen Dulles is sad. The CIA as we know it is the Frankenstein monster created by Allen Dulles. He and his brother thought that no amount of death and killing was over the line in the furtherance of capitalism. The covert operations role has expanded exponentially to become the major activity of the CIA. The law authorizing the CIA is a ceding of the Constitutional powers of Congress to make and declare war to the CIA, at least as long as no one finds out. Secretly, clandestinely, the CIA funds student groups in “enemy” countries, stirs up the capitalist forces in politics, supports candidates who are willing to kiss US ass, and provides money and weapons to right-wing terrorists. These covert operations have expanded from bloodless coups (if ever a thing actually existed) to full scale military operations, sanctioned by their mandate under the law interpreted broadly. The CIA has authorization to call forth US military forces (special forces, WMDs, gunships, etc...) anywhere around the globe, and no amount of killing and slaughter is distasteful or enough.

The ignorance of the American people is astounding. Either they remain ignorant for lack of information for which there is no excuse; or, they remain ignorant for ignorance’ sake even after knowing the truth. Recently it has been repeatedly documented that US special forces are running the CIA war in Syria, funding and providing weapons to terrorists labeled terrorists by the US State Department. There have been multiple news articles regarding US special forces active in Africa (all over Africa). One story within the last few years was a special forces group of Army Rangers in active combat in Africa, and there were injuries and death. Does anyone stop to ask, when there is no declared conflict for the US in Africa, why the fuck are Army Rangers involved in active combat there and why are they dying? The fact is, according to former CIA intelligence analysts, the US has special forces active in ~85% of the countries around the world.

Sometimes it becomes difficult to fund all these things. The CIA figured out the solution to this problem years ago – weapon smuggling and drug smuggling and sales. Just like the British who wanted the opium trade to continue, the CIA wants the drug trade to continue. The lucrative importation of cocaine and heroin into the US, whether by Cessna or military transport (the latter I personally witnessed), provides the CIA with an unlimited slush fund from which to provide weapons where and when it likes. They helped Reagan weaponize his Contras, and they’ve helped Israel destabilize the Middle East.

This, in a nutshell, is the history of US global fascism. Pointing to the strawman of socialism, we (US and other colonial powers) have started war after war pretending to be fighting that which we created via imperialism, with the real purpose being protecting rich and powerful money interests. The documentation is everywhere, the sense to deal with it is not. US forces kill and cause destabilization around the globe on a daily basis. Every American, ignorant or choosing ignorance, is guilty of participating in this slaughter for nothing more than profits and power. Every knife I put into a brain, throat, heart, kidney, or liver; every bullet I put into the body of a human being; every strangled and mangled corpse… you are all equally guilty. The failure of Americans to reign in the CIA and the Presidents, and the failure to force elected representatives to place the check upon this behavior makes every American guilty of murder and accessory to murder.

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Rubicon spent just under three years as a military Scout. During that time he was awarded the “AF Cross, 2 Silver Stars, 4 Bronze Stars, Defense Superior Service Medal, AF Good Conduct Medal, and the CIA Distinguished Service Medal” (ODNI). When he refused to kill further, he was stripped of these awards and was abandoned with his PTSD by the military and thrown away.

Sean Griobhtha (gree-O-tah) is a combat veteran. His latest book is X Rubicon: Crossing Life, Sex, Love, & Killing in CIA Proxy Wars: An indictment of US Citizens: ignorantia non excusat, which details the life of Rubicon, another combat veteran. You can find him mostly on SubStack. He can be reached at O.Griobhtha+XRubicon@gmail.com. The Foreward (Vanguard) is important; written by a highly intelligent woman with a heart of empathetic gold; she’ll bring you in gently, which neither Rubicon nor I would ever do.