Marine veteran criticizes Pentagon's, "Corrupt, insane and ambitious true believers."
We have not truly succeeded in any of our military interventions or occupations since the classic failure of the Vietnam War. The reason for this, in the opinion of Vietnam veteran and senior editor of Veterans Today, Gordon Duff, is that our generals have consistently chosen to support the wrong side in all of those conflicts. Perhaps one may object that generals don't run our foreign policy. Mr. Duff, who has been a military insider for decades, argues that to believe they don't is simply wishful thinking.
An American officer administers the re-enlistment oath to a solider in Qalat Afghanistan, July 2015.
Always on the Wrong Side: US Vet Questions Military's Muddled Loyalties
Gordon Duff, a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War and a senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today, has recently been very critical of the US military and its top commanders. The reason for his frustration is the incompetence and the either intentional or deliberate delusion of the country’s top military commanders.
For a better understanding of what is going on in the US military, Duff recalled his personal military experience while serving in Vietnam. “I served in the US military in Vietnam, in a Marine special operations unit. There was a general consensus that America was clearly on the wrong side in Vietnam,” he recalls in his article for the New Eastern Outlook website. “The South Vietnamese government [closely supported by its principle ally, the US] was brutal, corrupt and illegal based on the Paris peace accords of 1954 and everyone knew it,” he says.
Let’s wind the clock forward to Reagan’s first year in office, the author suggests. “I was at a meeting in Miami between former members of the Garde Nationale, the Nazi death squads of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua and the US Army’s advisory group operating in Honduras.” The US “backed” contras fighting in Nicaragua were actually 100% paid mercenaries, much like ISIS (Daesh), trained, armed and led by Americans, he recalls. “I sat with maps in front of me showing infiltration routes into Nicaragua while our “Garde” friends passed on lists of those to be killed, all communists they said. The lists included teachers, nurses and, in more than one instance, personal grudges. The Americans in the room were lapping it up.”
(snip)
“If you stop someone in the Pentagon and ask them when Russia invaded the Ukraine and how many tank divisions are there, waiting to attack Western Europe, they will have an answer. That answer won’t be; “Are you friggin’ nuts.” They will take out their phones and show you photos of the Russian tanks, photos long proven to have been a decade old, long exposed as a hoax.” The author suggests that those advocating the chaos were from “secret societies and organized crime” and not the Soviet Union, something that President Kennedy rightfully pointed out long ago prior to being murdered. “Do this, ask someone in the American military how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Do it, please. Then you will understand how much I have understated here,” he urges.
(snip)
Read more at: http://sputniknews.com/us/20160118/1033319430/us-military-trust.html
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But, the South Vietnamese government was corrupt and brutal...and so was the Somoza government! And let's not forget that Saddam Hussein was our friend, at least while he was fighting the Iranians!
The US, in it's war against Communism has a track record filled with supporting brutal tyrants and dictators...and the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and now ISIL/ISIS are the results of US government incompetence!
I recall watching the Somoza soldier shooting an NBC reporter, that reporters name was Bill Stewart!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Stewart_%28journalist%29
And let's not forget our friends in El Salvador who raped and killed 4 nuns...and also murdered Bishop Oscar Romero
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Donovan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero
As far as his accusations relating to ISIS, he's just a little touched in the head...I'm more inclined to believe that ISIS is getting support from Saudi Arabia, and possibly even the ISI of Pakistan!
Col. Westhusing was in charge of training the new Iraqi army and overseeing civilian contractors. He is remembered as a good man, a brilliant man who followed the Cadet Code: "I will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.” As an instructor at West Point, the PhD colonel served as the Army's chief ethicist. So, as an honest officer in Iraq, he came to suspect something was very wrong with the conduct of some of the private military contractors in the employ of USIS. Unfortunately, before he revealed those suspicions, and just a few weeks before he was scheduled to return home to his loving wife and family, he became a suicide.
The subject was discussed on DU. One thread from 2007:
Know your BFEE: They kill good soldiers like Col. Ted Westhusing for profit...
Another from 2012, when Petraeus ran into some conduct unbecoming problems at CIA:
Is David Petraeus Dirty? Ted Westhusing Said So, and Then He Shot Himself.
Which brings me back to hearing the report of Blackwater's top manager in Iraq. Imagine the gall of the son of a bitch! To threaten the life of a U.S. citizen sent on official government business -- the People's business -- to see how our money was being spent, or in the case of the Iraq War, stolen. It seems some groups, such as the private military contractors, join their employers in Washington in thinking that they really are above the law. They certainly behave that way.
Could there be any connection between Blackwater and USIS, the once-public then privatized public employee background check organization now turned military contractor in Iraq? Of course, there are. Both are BFEE-connected for-profit outfits that are making enormous fortunes from the Iraq War.
Blackwater was owned and operated largely by one Erik Prince, darling of America's hard right and Michigan's right to inherit wealth beyond imagination class. His sister is a GOP kingmaker, including his brother in law, the once unsuccessful GOP candidate for Michigan governor. Petraeus and CIA were so enamored of the talents and abilities of Mr. Prince, CIA outsourced drone targeting to his firm.
At the time of Col. Westhusing's death, USIS was owned and operated largely by Carlyle Group, a private investment bank known for finding, buying, and flipping defense-related companies at a nice profit. They literally and figuratively are good friends and actual employers of George W Bush, his father, George H.W. Bush, Sec. of State James Baker, Sec. of Defense Frank Carlucci, Prime Minister John Major of the UK and other government insiders and players connected to the grand ol' oily chess board.
In short, both USIS and Blackwater are controlled by the "money trumps peace" crowd, the cronies and family of George W Bush. What Bartcop termed the BFEE for Bush Family Evil Empire, or what I call the War Party for short, follow the philosophy that the United States can be defended at a handsome profit and, if you apply enough media spin, quite patriotically.
As for Col. Westhusing: He, according to one officer under his command, at first very much believed in his mission. Why? Because the same BFEE liars who lied America into war also lied the good men and women at West Point and at the Pentagon into war. Until he got to Iraq and saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears, he never thought "money would trump peace."
An Army psychologist concluded that Westhusing struggled with the idea that “monetary values could outweigh moral ones in war.” This, she said, was a flaw. -- Westhusing's Flaw
Of course, the only "flaw" was in being a highly ethical person, one who would NOT "go along to get along." In short, Col. Westhusing was a man of integrity. He was the kind who stand in the way of the warmongers and war profiteers. Until the politicians who lied him and America into war are brought to justice, we just won't know how much he became their victim.
source so how do I know if they're publishing the truth?
It's clear at this point you are no liberal. You are a liar and defender of fascism. This person you claim to admire is a holocaust denying, Nazi defending, conspiracy theory pushing blogger (not a "journalist" as you falsely claim). The evidence has been presented, and you are either ignoring it or you are already aware of it and don't care (the most likely scenario). Are you a sociopath getting paid by Russia to spread lies? Are you simply lacking the mental facilities to think for yourself and have been taken in by the propaganda (i.e. a "useful idiot?"
Are you a Neonazi sympathizer which would make your latest acceptance of holocaust denial by your "admired journalist" more clear? I don't know, but whatever the case, whatever reason you use to justify your disgusting online persona, you need to be banned.
Gordon Duff, and those who defend him, don't belong at DU.
Sid
