Operation Northwoods

Today I have read something quite interesting, which I am somewhat ashamed to admit I was previously ignorant of. It is a proposed covert operation from 1962 known as "Operation Northwoods."

This did not come through the CIA as you might expect, but rather from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was a plan to stage terrorist attacks against American citizens in Cuba in order to stir up support for an invasion of Cuba and the deposing of Fidel Castro. Long regarded as a "conspiracy theory", this has actually been verified since the Freedom of Information Act. The one portion of the plan that was presented to the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, involved the crashing of a "drone airliner." To his credit, McNamara rejected the plan. President John F. Kennedy then re-assigned the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyman Lemnitzer, to a different position. He also fired the CIA Director, Allen Dulles (who would later serve on the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of Kennedy).

The most troubling parts to me so far are the somewhat obvious connections to other events since 1962. For starters, why is a man that was fired by President Kennedy, the previous year, selected to be on the Warren Commission investigating his assassination? This is a man who was the CIA Director when they were planning and assassinating heads of state, lost face when Kennedy withdrew support for the Bay of Pigs invasion late in the game, had recruited Mafia members to aid his CIA assassination attempts, oversaw the CIA mind control experiments known as Mk-Ultra, as well as overseeing Operation Mockingbird which was about exerting influence on American media companies. All of this regarding Allen Dulles is known fact at this point. I have intentionally avoided unverified conspiracist claims.

Dulles was a friend of Prescott Bush, the father of George H. W. Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush. It is interesting to note that George H. W. Bush ascends to be the CIA Director as well. So, there are some connections between Dulles and Bush, although they may not mean much (at least that is known to be true at this point).

Another troubling point is the crashing of a drone airliner to instigate support for war, given the events of September 11, 2001. There has been no shortage of conspiracy theories about the events of that day. It is disturbing to know that there had already been a proposal to stage terrorist attacks against US citizens to instigate a war/invasion of another nation specifically involving an airliner. Roughly 39 years later they may have finally pulled it off. I don't actually believe that this was a staged event by the US government, but it certainly seems a little more plausible knowing that "Operation Northwoods" actually exists. I'm more inclined to think they allowed it to happen, rather than having a hand in the implementation. It would then do what "Northwoods" was supposed to do, which was gain support for war and invasions of foreign nations. Cuba was not the boogeyman. It was Afghanistan that had been taunting us for a while, and then of course Iraq that had been taunting us for more than a decade. The loss of a few thousand people is a minor detail stacked up against the chance to funnel record revenues and profits to companies that profit from war (with direct ties to the current administration) and an opportunity to settle the score with a Bush Family enemy (Saddam Hussein). Whether a conspiracy exists or not, there is enough verified evidence available to suggest it is possible.

The actual approved portion of "Operation Northwoods", involving the drone airliner, called for the claim to be that the 'airliner' was full of "college students off on a holiday."