“In remembrance lies the roots of redemption and in forgetfulness the roots of destruction.”  Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Assistant Dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center

“Awareness and remembrance are in themselves acts of protest and resistance.”

https://sttpml.org/why-are-american-indians-so-fierce-unrefined-uncivilized-direct-impolite-and/

We at STTPML: Commentary on Some of the Issues of Our Times

There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e. the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state, to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.
~ Mahatma Gandhi

Those who take the meat from the table,

teach contentment.

Those for whom the taxes are destined,

demand sacrifice.

Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry,

of wonderful times to come.

Those who lead the country into the abyss,

call ruling too difficult,

for ordinary folk.

(Bertolt Brecht).

[CRAZY HORSE (His Horse Is Enchanted) 1877 said this smoking a pipe with Sitting Bull 4 days before his assassination.]
–
“Upon suffering beyond suffering: the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again. In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom. I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be one.”

We at STTPML The First Mandate: “So That The Peoples May Live”

We at STTPML are a Collective of veterans of the U.S. military and/or various government agencies of the U.S. Imperium. We are all of Indigenous heritages, who have worked together over many years on Indigenous and other issues. We are connected currently at grass-roots levels of segments the Indigenous (Reserves and Urban) and non-Indigenous worlds. We bring some parallel [and overlapping] universes and realities, backed with hard evidence,  law and reason,  that the outside “mainstream” media, intelligence services, law enforcement and public could or would never reach. We pose simple questions that the mainstream media would never dare pose. Here is an example of the type of questi0n we would ask at presidential news conference say during a Clinton Foundation announcing Billary’s humanitarian work on global AIDS:

Mr. President. As a result of your foundation’s fine work on the issue of Global AIDS awareness, prevention and eventual cure, and as a result of your contact with people whose lives have been devastated by HIV/AIDS, have you acquired new appreciation and sensitivity as to just how reckless, self-indulgent and downright dangerous–to your wife and other partners–was your obvious unprotected sexual relations (e.g. “presidue” on infamous blue dress) or whatever you call it?

And as a follow-up, was Ms Lewisnsky’s phone bugged by the Mossad, thus making your own phone-sex insecure (as revealed in Gordon Thomas’ “Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad” now 6th unrebutted edition); and did you call off an FBI mole hunt for a spy code-named “Mega” deep in the NSC, as well as pardon Mossad asset Marc Rich, possibly due to blackmail, as also alleged in the same book?

Diverse Paradigms and Experiences as Indigenous Veterans:

We attempt to see and link:  the Micro and the Macro contexts and in-between; the Micro as Macro and vice-versa; the complexities as well as simplicities; the balances as well as imbalances; stasis and dynamics. We seek to understand each phenomenon in its real-world contexts:  all that are within and shaping, the webs of life, proximate causes and effects, births and deaths, between and among all phenomena. We attempt to understand all phenomena within the wider contexts within which they occur.

We also see the world through decidedly non-“Eurocentric” and some non-capitalist lenses. Given the messes and misery that the “Eurocentric” paradigm along with neoclassical economics have caused and still cause all over the world, perhaps it is time to introduce other perspectives and narratives on the issues of the day, their interdependence, their implications. (https://sttpml.org/indigenous-epistemology-and-scientific-method/ and https://sttpml.org/why-are-american-indians-so-fierce-unrefined-uncivilized-direct-impolite-and/ and https://sttpml.org/updated-essay-u-s-china-relations-some-secret-history-and-my-fathers-memories/)

Militarism, Imperialism, “Americana”, Cognitive Dissonance and Military “Service” 

As veterans of the military or government “service”, as well as as from our respective Indigenous heritages, we know first-hand, something about: pretexts (lies) for war; rationales for war; covert and clandestine techniques of war and the real interests behind war. Some of us are pre-Vietnam, some Vietnam, some post-Vietnam Era veterans of various branches of the U.S. military and/or government service. None of us think we or anyone should accept “thank you for your service” (usually by chickenhawks who avoided military service see: http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2012/06/30/republican-chickenhawk-hall-of-fame/) without any discussion of just who, what, where, when and why and was really being “served” by our “service” and at what horrible costs on how many innocents.  https://sttpml.org/thank-you-for-your-uh-service-ramons-9-11/ and https://sttpml.org/just-war-and-the-interrelated-predicates-and-precedents-of-nuremberg/ and http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/no-i-do-not-thank-you-for-your-service-to-imperialism-and-war/ and http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/imperialism-boot-camp-and-cognitive-dissonance-3/ and https://sttpml.org/former-cia-official-bemoans-us-veterans-in-decline/ and https://sttpml.org/are-u-s-soldiers-really-this-dumb/ )

It is not enough to say “we meant well”; “we were never given the big picture”; we are all morally and legally responsible for what causes we serve–and the foreseeable effects of those causes on others. We cannot demand the right to act our of faith or conscience without any regard to or accountability for, the effects on others of our acts no matter on what basis we assert. See: https://sttpml.org/thank-you-for-your-uh-service-ramons-9-11/  , https://sttpml.org/just-war-and-the-interrelated-predicates-and-precedents-of-nuremberg/, https://sttpml.org/are-u-s-soldiers-really-this-dumb/, http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/u-s-imperialism-boot-camp-and-cognitive-dissonance-a-redux-update-also-from-4th-media/,

Should the Germans thank the remaining former Waffen SS for their “service” to the “Fatherland” as they were only following orders” and they really believed they were in a just cause? Does this metaphor to equate U.S. forces with Nazis? No, of course not; a metaphor is an invitation to make some comparisons (and contrasts) or explore the reasoning of a position; it is not an equivalence. But we know that “service” begs the questions: “In what or who’s cause?”; “Service to whom and for whom–really?”; “With what costs and benefits, how calculated and for and on whom?”. When those questions are posed for those who thank former SS for their “service”, then pro-forma fawning over the military and military service gets more exposed for what it is.

And why all the fawning over the military in “American Culture”? The percentages of the U.S. total population that has ever been in the military (including those with bad discharges) historically varies between about 6 percent up to about 13 percent. But it is a small fraction of the total population that have ever been in the military.

In fact, historically, the ones with the biggest mouths, the ones with the most macho posturing, the ones most cheerleading for wars in places whose names they cannot pronounce or spell, the ones with the most syrupy jingoism, are the very ones that were never in the military and/or were in cushy and protected places like the “Champagne Squadron” of the Texas Air Guard in 1971.

As Dr. Samuel Johnson put it: “Every man thinks less of himself for [if] not having been a solider.” This sets up cognitive dissonance angst: “If you love the military so much, if you love war so much, if you are so f-ing patriotic, why did you never “serve” in the military–Mr Obama, Gingrich, Ryan, Romney…?  or “You want to “kill commies for Jesus”, well they are waiting for you, when are you enlisting?”

This is a major contradiction for the U.S. imperium in that even with the high-tech intensive military, coupled with an openly-asserted “strategic doctrine” of global “Full Spectrum Dominance”:  There is, one the one hand, an increasing imperative for highly trained, skilled, motivated, reliable, and trusted military and civilian contractor personnel, verses, on the other hand, the reality of those with the biggest mouths, those who do the most toadying for the military, those most intent on war (sending someone else and someone else’s kids, the macho Country singers who never went into the military), are the least able to do anything except run their mouths and self-anoint/credential themselves with pure braggadocio.

Where are the world’s major military bases?

Here is a map of major U.S. allied and other-nation bases all over the world. And in close proximity to the U.S. bases, we know from experience,  in addition to “payday advance” places, fast foods joints, rent-to-own furniture and strip bars, you will find “massage” parlors,  orphanages full of unwanted “mixed-race” children, clinics for sexually transmitted diseases that will get someone an Article 15 if discovered by military doctors, there are sports bars featuring gladiator sports, higher incidents of sexual assault, and all sorts of other mind-numbing diversions. Imperialism wears many masks, hands out many “sugar-coated bullets” and leaves a wake of devastation everywhere it reaches. The U.S. presently has over 1000 military bases or facilities in over 100 countries (officially “almost 100”) not counting their black prisons and sites.

But we know as veterans also, that the real world of the U.S. military, and the real world of war are not like that idealized on TV, in movies, on video games, on recruiting posters–all designed to suck-in children as fodder for future imperial quests for “Full Spectrum Dominance“. We know from inside, that few if any enlistees in the all-volunteer military ever joined or expressed any “patriotic” reasons for joining–that rationale came later. The military recruiters use an acronym MATTRESS to stand for Money, Adventure, Travel, Training, Recreation, Education, Security and Satisfaction. There is no mention about “Killing “Commies” or “Hajis” for Jesus” as a strong motivator for recruitment.  http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/no-i-do-not-thank-you-for-your-service-to-imperialism-and-war/ 

“Look at the recruiting posters and see what they give as reasons to enlist. Do they say “Join the Army and Kill ‘Commies’, ‘Hajis’ and ‘Terrorists’ for Jesus”? Do they say come to  “West Point, or Annapolis or the Air Force Academy, institutes of ideological cloning (disguised as institutions of  higher education) for a career as an expendable tool of U.S. Imperial Power projections”? No the posters talk about MATTRESS stuff.

The patriotism and ideology, due to cognitive dissonance come later. During our time in the U.S. military and government service, and it remains the same today (many students who are Iraq and Afghanistan War returnees are open about their own motives for enlistment) the motives of MATRESS and some of MICE are still the motives that recruiters quickly spot and play upon.

In the TV series “The Unit”, advised and written for by fomer Sgt. Major Eric Haney one of the founding members of Delta force, through the character Col Tom Ryan (commander of  The Unit, ) visibly beaten up, flashing back, as he is considering a possible promotion to Brigadier General if he leaves “The Unit”,  to his own recruitment at 17 years old, as he ran away from home, visibly beaten up from an abusive stepfather who beat him all the time:

Recruiter: “I’m assuming the reason you came is you want to join the Army. Well here’s the good news. You’ve got your own birth certificate on you. When you leave this room, you will never have to go home again. Did I guess right? Here’s what’s going to happen to ya. You get to be a man which means your gonna get to use a weapon. In your travels, you will have more women than you know what to do with. And whatever son of a bitch you’ve been dealing with, should you see him again, I guaran-freaking-tee you [that] you will look upon him with pity and he will look upon you with fear. And you get to serve your country, so what the hell are you waiting for? [Colonel Tom Ryan hands him his birth certificate]. One day if the enemy don’t kill ya, or if your not blown to bits by your own forces, or knifed by a whore, or something, you may live to be a general.” 

The world of the U.S. military today, even more than the past in some ways,  is riddled with racism, misogyny, homophobia, coercive “Christian” evangelizing, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, infantile macho posturing, blind obedience, neo-fascists, gang-bangers, free-flowing alcohol and drugs, networking and schmoozing, etc. Ultra-violent video games are often the favorite pastime during off-duty hours. Recruitment standards (physical shape, criminal record, education, test scores, tatoos) fluctuate with the enlistment cycles and quotas; when demand for cannon fodder is high and supply low, recruitment standards drop and rebound a bit when the economy goes deep into recession driving enlistments up. http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-gang-assessment-us-military-2011-10

On the officer and command side you have many of the same pathologies as on the enlisted side (dressed-up in more refinements and medals) plus even more sophisticated treachery, backstabbing, old boys clubs, nepotism, cronyism, performance evaluation inflation, raw ideology and politics and perhaps even more cunning and calculating psychopaths and sociopaths than on the enlisted side. (see https://sttpml.org/schadenfreude-blog-no-1-tip-of-the-spear-petraeus-and-broadwell-all-in/ and https://sttpml.org/accused-rapist-and-abuser-of-subordinates-general-jeffrey-tip-of-the-spear-sinclair-gets-plea-bargain-rhip/ and https://sttpml.org/meet-the-americans-who-put-together-the-coup-in-kiev/ and https://sttpml.org/on-the-supposed-omniscience-omnipresence-and-omnipotence-of-the-national-security-state/ and http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/2012813114351987126.html and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/us-army-white-supremacists_n_1815137.html and https://sttpml.org/tip-of-the-spear-u-s-marines-delay-female-fitness-plan-after-half-fail/   http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2008/07/15/review-of-snakes-in-suits-when-psychopaths-go-to-work-by-paul-babiak-and-robert-hare/ )

At the prestigious military academies, West Point, Annapolis and Colorado Springs, there have been numerous scandals involving rape, sexual assault and harassment, coercive “Christian” evangelizing, racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism, psychopathic hazing, cheating on exams, cover-ups by superiors, etc. And this is where they all take the same oath: “I will not lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate those who do.” And these are not even real educational institutions as they are riddled with open nepotism [how many family dynasties?], political patronage [it takes a congressional recommendation to get in], and there are nakedly strict ideological  screening and litmus tests on faculty, curricula, and every aspect of life at the institutions.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/8/list-military-scandals/ http://www.cmrlink.org/content/sex-scandals http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2151156,00.html

This points out a number of widening and deepening contradictions in the military force structures and doctrines of the U.S. Imperium:

• On the one hand: Increasingly complex, lethal, agile, flexible, “smart”, precision and rapidly-deployed weapons, requiring very skilled military personnel versus On the other hand: progressively lower standards and capabilities of recruits to an all-volunteer and already grossly overextended, overreached U.S.  military;
• On the one hand: Increasing LICs (“Low Intensity” Conflicts) globally versus On the other hand : military, fiscal, legal, home-front support and alliance constraints and limited capabilities to respond;
• On the one hand: Increasing imperative for seasoned, non-partisan, and uncorruptable  military commanders with substance and combat experience (real leadership qualities) versus On the other hand: Military commanders that are networkers, schmoozers, ideologues, politically partisan, megalomaniacs, malignant narcissists, patronage peddlers and lacking in any real combat experience or real substance;
• On the one hand, the dangers and constraints on Imperial Overreach versus dangers and potential vacuums (to be exploited by rivals) of Imperial Underreach;
• On the one hand: Gaining home-front and  popular support for likely protracted and costly (in blood and treasure) wars abroad versus On the other hand: A culture of narrow selfishness, narcissism, triumphalism, exceptionalism and  instant gratification (to expand markets and effective profitable demand; e.g. “you can have it all and have it now”, “live for today, tomorrow will take care of itself”, etc). [Comment: A culture such that typically found in many capitalist-driven social formations,  in addition to basic individualism (not the same as individuality), selfishness, greed and materialism, is  driven by the macro and micro economic imperatives to to continually expand markets and effective aggregate demand (without which capitalism implodes in a downward and sustained death-spiral)…]

…this type of system, for its expanded reproduction, teaches and preaches that anyone can make it in and through the system if they are driven and they know, and play by, the imperatives and rules of the game. There are all sorts or promises of benefits without costs (or costs born by others–socialized); rewards without risk (or risks socialized); and costs to Americans in blood and treasure relatively low.  

American Definitions Rule: 

How does the U.S. Government and many Americans define a “democratic” or “free and fair” election? Answer: An election whose leading candidates are ideologically acceptable to the U.S. Government, and, an election whose  outcomes can be: rigged; accepted (in lieu of any alternatives); managed; shaped; structured (“acceptable” menu of “choice”); predicted; in accordance with U.S. “interests” as defined only by the U.S. government.

How else to explain the overthrow of and refusal to recognize, numerous regimes far more freely and fairly elected than anything produced in the U.S. especially in 2000 and 2004? And how else to explain all the dictators that have been installed, supported, legitimated and only to be later dumped by the U.S. Government contradicting their own previous legitimation of the regime they were now dumping?

CRS us armed forces abroad 1789 to 2014 R42738

[Iran 1953; Guatemala 1954; Chile 1973; Hizbollah in Lebanon; Hamas in Gaza; Government of Iran]? And what kind of definition of a “free election” is one whose results are acceptable to the U.S. government?

Similarly, in the name of “WE” Americans, a “War” is defined and recognized by many (but by no means all) of “US”,  as basically any overt armed conflict (clandestine and covert ops even lethal ones, even the ones outed to overt, are not counted as wars)  in which Americans are dying and being maimed (particularly the ones we know personally), taxes  or deficits/debt are visibly going up; and “WE” have to sacrifice in some visible ways. Wars end for “US”  when Americans are no longer dying, when taxes are cut or not raised, when the colors of the corpses have changed, and when “WE” can all go out and shop till we drop.

Full Spectra Dominance 

U.S. Strategic Military Doctrine openly and boldly proclaims an objective of “Full Spectrum Dominance“. The latest slogan is “To be able to ‘play’ ‘Rock-Paper-Scissors’ with any adversary or potential adversary.” The U.S. Imperium does not seek parity, or security, or equality, or equity relative to other nation-states and entities. The U.S. Imperial Oligarchy openly proclaims a “Doctrine” of Full Spectrum Dominance.”

Actually the “Doctrine” should read “Full Spectra Dominance” or dominance over many times of spectrums: arenas of conflict (land, sea, air, space, cyberspace and over human cognition and action (cognitospace); forms of warfare (conventional, irregular, cyber, psychological, information, nuclear, chemical-biological, counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, space, covert operations, special operations); weapons systems (conventional and special for all arenas and forms of warfare); sources of strategic resources ( Pentagon lists 63 critical strategic resources most found abroad); key international institutions and organizations (IMF, World Bank, UN, NATO); all forms of dominant media; etc.

And “WE” do not recognize legacies of “OUR” operations as in any way our responsibility. Out of sight, out of mind. And because actions taken in our name are all covert (source of action plausibly deniable) if not clandestine (action hidden and often not discovered), and because the real victims will never show-up on our news, we can comfort ourselves that the only wars in which we are involved are those that visible, costly and might get one of our own killed or maimed–openly. But an action that causes sabotage, assassinations, mayhem, rigged elections, etc, is not less illegal under international law or American law if done in America, because it is covert or clandestine. In fact, the whole notion of covert or source of an action hidden and plausibly deniable if discovered, is that the action, if discovered, would bring disrepute and possible legal accountability to the source of the action. And the fact that the action is designed to be “plausibly deniable” means that: a) key leaders most accountable, are deliberately kept in the dark and thus less informed that they should be in order that if asked under oath, they cannot reveal or commit perjury about what they do not know and were kept from knowing (Iran Contra). Or, it means that they want to set up to be able to serially lie about the source of the operation without anyone being able to prove lies are being told. In any case, no need to cover-up what is clean and legal only what is dirty and illegal. 

And, as a bonus, the Spinmeisters of the Imperium will insulate “US” from any cognitive dissonance angst: from the real-word costs and pain on the recipient-end of “OUR” exotic force structures, doctrines, dictators, terrorists, proxies and the like (with our compliant and access-fed “embedded “mainstream” journalists and PIOs).

doolittle_report

CRS us armed forces abroad 1789 to 2014 R42738

We will make videos, movies, TV series, video-games, concerts, military shows at county fairs, and the like, to recruit future soldier drones; and to project the omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, goodness, “Godliness”, exceptonalism and triumphalism  of the U.S. Imperium, along with the supposed “smartness” and “precision” of its weapons and special operators.  The U.S. Government will  leak more secrets, intelligence, sources and military trade-craft, than Snowden or any real traitors like Ames and Hanssen could have ever revealed; and they will do it through self-serving propaganda like “Zero-Dark Thirty” as they try to gloss-over rank imperial impotence and hypocrisy. 

Hollywood_and_the_CIA

David_Miller_and_Rizwaan_Sabir-Propaganda_and_Terrorism-2012

USReportPropaganda

sf human-terrain-handbook-2008

Some Strategic Contradictions

These imperatives set up and manifest various contradictions that severely limit the U.S. imperium or indeed any imperium driven, by its defining and unfolding systemic inner logic: to expand on the one hand, while on the other hand, also generating resistance and constraints on expansion globally while doing so.  For example:

• [alienating and terrorist-recruiting effects of] Counter-Terrorism (CT) operations [assassination, snatch and hold, renditions, torture all intended to produce visible, immediate “results” for a home-front seeking low-cost,risk, duration returns of war, and hide imperial impotence] versus parallel Counter-insurgency (COIN) operations aimed at protracted processes of “winning” [not really, mostly controlling, manipulating, co-opting, intimidating] “hearts and minds” and long-run “nation building”, building trust, etc. [Comment: It is called the CT vs COIN “paradox that first surfaced in Vietnam”: No Stability (CT ops, Seals, MAC-V SOG, mercenaries) then no soil for Long-run COIN (Special Forces A Teams nation building, winning over hearts and minds). But, on the other hand,  it hard to “win over” (or even control, manipulate, intimidate or silence) villagers who have just lost loved ones who were totally innocent due to a CT operation (assassination as in the Phoenix Program, or snatch and grab–“extraordinary rendition”, torture, etc) or a not-so-“smart” bomb or missile coming through the window or at a restaurant. The estimates, for example, of assassinations in the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, for example, vary from 27,000 (US) to around 41,000. With w bounty system and use of mercenaries as bounty hunters, just as in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere later, all sorts of innocents were tuned in, bounties collected, due to payback, revenge, family feuds, escaping debts, or just plain money incentive with no checks as to whether someone targeted deserved to be.]

• Imperative [due to globalization, force structure and bureaucratic interdependence] for increasing integration of classified data bases and assets [for increasing inter-service and interdisciplinary complementarity]  versus the ongoing Imperative for compartmentation of intelligence (to protect against leaks and infiltration; the likes of Manning, Snowden or foreign operatives) [Comment: With various targets of the Western intelligence services and armed forces increasingly non-state actors, multi-national, multi-disciplinary, agile, flexible, adaptable, trained in intelligence trade-craft and capabilities, there in an increasing imperative to develop and integrate “holistic” and high-tech systems and weapons which demand integration and complementarity of systems and assets. On the other hand, in contradiction to this imperative, is also the imperative for compartmentation, “need-to-know” protocols,  etc for protecting against massive data dumps of the kind of Manning and Snowden.]

The “Vietnam Syndrome” is still Alive and Well

Some of us were in a position to see the lies behind the Gulf of Tonkin non-incident August of 1964, used to expand the war in Vietnam to the North–openly–as they were being constructed, and with full knowledge they were lies at the time. Some of us saw some of the original documents that only later showed-up in the Pentagon papers released much later by Dr. Ellsberg. These  documents showed early-on, a “no-win” situation in Vietnam (given whatever notions of “win” they even had), serial lies and pretexts to expand the Vietnam War, false “body-counts” and metrics of “winning”,  and a mad scramble to come up with some kind of “surge”, some kind of cover over imperial impotence– as the war criminal and Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Kissinger put it: “a ‘decent interval’ between our exit and the rape of the first virgin.”

We witnessed the transition in U.S. strategic doctrine in the early 1960s from MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) to First Strike and potentially “winnable” nuclear war plus LIC (Low Intensity Conflict) and SSE (Social Systems Engineering). In the early 1960s, the doctrine and whole concept of MAD was under siege. How can you have a “winnable” nuclear war? Harry Truman was never asked if he would have dropped the bombs if the Japanese had the capability to drop two or more of their own on New York City and Washington D.C.

The doctrines of LICs, COIN, “Nation Building” and SSE emerged and in short order became dominant under Kennedy and later Johnson (who also favored conventional shock and awe, airpower superiority and carpet bombing as well as large standing armies for force irregular forces to go regular and conventional). The concept of “winnable nuclear war” developed by Reagan-Bush had not yet developed, thus it was thought that MAD meant mutual deterrence but also readiness and “launch on warning” on both sides. But it was also assumed that even with first strike there would be retaliation and no one could win a nuclear exchange. But on the horizon were many Vietnams lurking called LICs or Low Intensity [not for the victims] Conflicts.

SSE was based on the assumption that all systems can be modeled and understood in terms of their essential parameters, centers of gravity, nodal hierarchies, core interrelationships, key players, networks, etc. There was also the assumption that insurgencies were not merely events or processes, but themselves systems, also that can be modeled, understood, manipulated or smashed depending upon interests.

All sorts of psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, economists, geographers, journalists, were recruited through various grants and foundations to work on social systems engineering models and approaches. The basic intent was to “engineer the proofs” of the supposed superiority of capitalism over socialism or any other hybrid varieties. The “Cold War” is not over, it goes back to even before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, it was always about more than East v West or US and allies v USSR and allies, it is a war between ideologies and systems and the classes that represent them, and it has never been all that “Cold” or covert from the perspective of the myriad victims of imperialism and war.

While the slogans of SSE have been “Winning Hearts and Minds”; “Nation Building”; “Building Viable, Sustainable and Democratic Institutions” and such. But the early and latter exponents of American Exceptionalism, Pax Americana, Manifest Destiny and the like, never considered they would actually “win over” hearts and minds through peaceful, rational, civil, debate between systems and ideologies on the basis of performance for the greatest number, evidence, reason, law, universal human rights and constructs that do not amount to a tautology masquerading as a logically tight syllogism: e.g. US = Capitalism, Capitalism = Freedom, ergo US = ? This is what Einstein meant in his quote below. As Humpty Dumpty said in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice Through the Looking Glass”:

Humpty Dumpty:[in a scornful tone] When I use a word, it means what I choose it to mean neither more nor less.

Alice: The question is, whether one can make a word mean so many things.

Humpty Dumpty: The question is, which is to be master, that’s all.

SSE is about putting a targeted regime under siege from all directions and over the various dimensions of the social formation under attack and siege: geographical, historical revisionism, political, legal, economic,  social, cultural even use of the physical geography to amplify the effects of the siege. Through encirclement, covert provocations intended to produce overt responses, covert provocations that are both denied and then used to justify more provocations. Through missionaries, educational exchanges, embargoes of critical technologies, quarantines, proxy armies, isolation from international institutions,  etc, the target society is forced to divert precious and scarce resources from development into necessary defense.  As the quality of life of the masses suffers, as the government goes to harsh measures to deal with real external threats, as arbitrary definitions of “liberty”, “democracy”, “efficiency” are asserted by the imperium as the only possible operating definitions. The social formation is portrayed as repressive and backward and thus itself “proof” of the supposed inferiority of socialism and superiority and triumph of capitalism and imperialism.   Here is how Winston Churchill, one of the pioneers of SSE put in in 1914 with respect to the Germans and the embargoes:

“The British blockade, treated the whole of Germany as if it were a beleaguered fortress, and avowedly sought to starve the whole population–men, women and children, old and young, wounded and sound–into submission.” (“The British Blockade” by Winston Churchill quoted in “Human Smoke”, Nicholson Baker, Simon and Schuster N.Y. 2008, p2)

SSE has never been about “winning hearts and minds” over from other positions through reason, honest debate, evidence, law, science and sound critical thinking. It has always been about manipulating, controlling, co-opting, intimidating, rewarding and punishing hearts and minds. This was openly articulated by one of the early pioneers and strategists of SSE:

“The New Science of ‘human engineering’ at the ‘man-machine interface’ has brought psychology into the circle of research disciplines favored by the project/contract grant. Regional research institutes, organized at the primary initiatives of the Department of State and the private foundations to illuminate hitherto dark regions on the world map, have brought sociology and anthropology into the ambience of the Department of Defense…With funds abounding for projects in every field of learning, the university campus has come to harbor a new kind of condottieri, mercenaries of science and scholarship hooded with doctorates and ready for hire on studies done to contract certification.” (Speech of Gerard Piel of “Scientific American” to the American Philosophical Society 1965, quoted in “War Without End: American Planning for the Next Vietnams” by Michael Klare, Vintage Books, N.Y. 1972 pp. 76)

As people from Indigenous heritages, we know about the standard textbook reasons for war: global dominance; territory; resources; markets; investment outlets; ideology; evangelism; strategic blunders; historical rivalries; regime change; etc. We also know something about the usual rationales and pretexts for war: divine ordination to rule; state “feels” threatened; asserted “existential threats”; “march of civilization”; civilizing the savages; living space; “manifest destiny”; “White Man’s Burden”;  “fight them over there rather than here”;  etc. And we know something about the overt and covert trade-craft of war and propaganda: false-flag; “poison pill”;”cognitive infiltration”; NGOs and “Think Tanks”; international education; missionaries, divide-to-rule; covert provocation to trigger and justify overt responses; etc. ( https://sttpml.org/international-education-and-imperial-penetration-cooptation-and-control/ and https://sttpml.org/timeline-and-manuals-playbooks-of-cia-covertovert-atrocities/ and https://sttpml.org/some-research-materials-documents-and-sources-imperial-penetration-co-optation-control-systems-engineering-and-regime-change/ and https://sttpml.org/a-us-backed-neo-nazi-coup-in-ukraine-and-the-leaked-cia-regime-change-manual/  and https://sttpml.org/cold-war-cia-coup-templates-back-in-business-around-the-world/)

Imperialism, Colonialism and Genocide–With and Without Masks or Sugar-coated Bullets

And we know something about imperialism and colonialism, Holocaust denial, genocide and the like; and without any masks (mian zhao) or “sugar-coated bullets” (tang yi pao dan) as they put it in China–raw and naked, no pretense, no mercy. Imagine what could be more evil than Hitler? How about what “inspired” Hitler? How about what Hitler himself said and wrote as to where his “inspiration” for the possibility of genocide, for the methods of genocide, for how to cover-up and make euphemisms for genocide, for how to get mass complicity in and acceptance of genocide came from (http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/blackfoot-indictment-of-the-governments-of-the-u-s-and-canada-for-genocide/) and http://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/victims/nativeAmerican/ and https://www.4thmedia.org/category/opinion/prof-craven-omahkohkiaaiipooyii/

And from some of the earliest known forms of calculated Biological Warfare that later inspired the Nazis (from their own mouths) “Lord” Jeffrey Amherst:

“.. Captain Simeon Ecuyer had bought time by sending smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the Indians surrounding the fort — an early example of biological warfare — which started an epidemic among them. Amherst himself had encouraged this tactic in a letter to Ecuyer. [p. 108] (Carl Waldman’s Atlas of the North American Indian [NY: Facts on File, 1985]. Waldman writes, in reference to a siege of Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) by Chief Pontiac’s forces during the summer of 1763)

1763

“Sir Jeffrey Amherst noted for his deliberate use of smallpox-infected blankets as a weapon against Indians. Amherst and his British lieutenants were a marked change from the French commanders at the forts throughout the Old Northwest and Canada. He made no effort to build goodwill with Indian peoples. He had no respect for Indian leaders, treated them contemptuously, and frequently described them as ‘wretched people’. He put an immediate end to the traditional French practice of giving Indians ball and powder when they ran short; he also prohibited emergency provisions if game was scarce, and clothing or gifts of goodwill. Lord Amherst (for whom Amherst College is named) initiated a genocidal new policy:‘Could it not be contrived’ he wrote to one of his officers, ‘to send the smallpox among the disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every strategem in our power to reduce them’. Blankets were taken from the crest of the Appalachian Mountains. It delineated Indian country as west of the line; colonists lands as east of the line.” [Judith Nies “Native American History: A Chronology of a Culture’s Vast Achievements and Their Links to World Events”, Ballantine Books, N.Y., 1996, pp. 190-192]

and:

“The Seneca invaded forts in Pennsylvania. Delaware Indians attacking Fort Pitt (formerly Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg) were presented with ‘gifts’ of blankets taken from the smallpox ward of the fort’s hospital. It started an epidemic that would rage through the Delaware villages and Shawnee towns of Ohio, decimating their populations. Still, by the end of 1763, eight out of 12 British posts had been captured and their garrisons ‘massacred’… Pontiac’s War became a major topic of debate in Britain. The English enlarged Sir Jeffrey Amherst’s powers to subdue the rebellion. (The smallpox blankets of Fort Pitt had been Lord Amherst’s inspiration).” [Judith Nies, Ibid, p. 195]

 According to James Pool in his book Hitler and His Secret Partners:

“Hitler drew another example of mass murder from American history. Since his youth he had been obsessed with the Wild West stories of Karl May. He viewed the fighting between cowboys and Indians in racial terms. In many of his speeches he referred with admiration to the victory of the white race in settling the American continent and driving out the inferior peoples, the Indians. With great fascination he listened to stories, which some of his associates who had been in America told him about the massacres of the Indians by the U.S. Calvary. He was very interested in the way the Indian population had rapidly declined due to epidemics and starvation when the United States government forced them to live on the reservations. He thought the American government’s forced migrations of the Indians over great distances to barren reservation land was a deliberate policy of extermination.

Just how much Hitler took from the American example of the destruction of the Indian nations his hard to say; however, frightening parallels can be drawn. For some time Hitler considered deporting the Jews to a large ‘reservation’ in the Lubin area where their numbers would be reduced through starvation and disease.” (p. 273-274).

and:

Always contemptuous of the Russians, Hitler said: ‘For them the word ‘liberty’ means the right to wash only on feast-days. If we arrive bringing soft soap, we’ll obtain no sympathy…There’s only one duty: to Germanize this country by the immigration of Germans, and to look upon the natives as Redskins.’ Having been a devoted reader of Karl May’s books on the American West as a youth, Hitler frequently referred to the Russians as ‘Redskins’. He saw a parallel between his effort to conquer and colonize land in Russia with the conquest of the American West by the white man and the subjugation of the Indians or ‘Redskins’. ‘I don’t see why’, he said, ‘a German who eats a piece of bread should torment himself with the idea that the soil that produces this bread has been won by the sword. When we eat wheat from Canada, we don’t think about the despoiled Indians.” (James Pool, Ibid, pp. 254-255)

and:

And from a speech by Heinrich Himmler (date not given):

“I consider that in dealing with members of a foreign country, especially some Slav nationality…in such a mixture of peoples there will always be some racially good types. Therefore I think that it is our duty to take their children with us, to remove them from their environment, if necessary, by robbing or stealing them… (Telford Taylor “Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials”, Alfred A Knopf, N.Y. 1992, p. 203)

And from John Toland, preeminent biographer of Adolf Hitler:

“Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa And for the Indians in the Wild West; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the ‘Red Savages’ who could not be tamed by captivity.” (John Toland, “Adolf Hitler” Vol II, p 802, Doubleday & Co, 1976)

http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/the-horrifying-anglo-american-roots-of-nazi-eugenics/

And imagine what could be more evil than the “eugenics” policies of the Nazis and Japanese fascists? How about the Anglo-American “Eugenics Movement” and the “Race Hygiene Laws of Canada and the U.S. that the Nazis annd Japanese fascists said “inspired” them and drafted their own “Race Hygiene” laws from? This Anglo-American Eugenics Movement included not only included the likes of  white supremacists and anti-Semites like Winston Churchill, TR Roosevelt, many from Skull and Bones, the Harimans, the Rockefellers, the Bushes, etc, but also the likes of Joseph Mengele who was at some of the conferences before the war. ( https://sttpml.org/united-states-of-genocide-putting-the-us-on-trial-for-genocide-against-the-peoples-of-kore/ and https://sttpml.org/israel-completes-nazi-rassenhygiene-programme/ and https://sttpml.org/the-horrifying-anglo-american-roots-of-nazi-eugenics/ and https://sttpml.org/the-cia-and-wanted-nazi-war-criminals/)

PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENTS ON THE ANGLO-AMERICAN USE AND COVER-UPS OF “MEDICAL RESEARCH” OF JAPANESE AND NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

SEE and SEE and SEE and SEE

FINAL REPORT TO U.S. CONGRESS 2007 ON U.S. AND ALLIED COVER-UPS OF PROTECTION OF NAZI AND JAPANESE WAR CRIMINALS IN RETURN FOR “RESULTS” OF “MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS” TO DEVELOP CHEMCIAL, BIOLOGICAL AND ATOMIC WMDs CONDUCTED INCLUDING ON ALLIED POWs

 http://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/breathtaking-hubris-and-hypocrisy-the-nature-and-foundations-of-anglo-american-and-nazi-imperiums-part-i-u-s-origins-development-inspirations-and-cover-ups-of-wmds/

PLEASE SEE and SEE and SEE and SEE and SEE and SEE

Imagine that not one of the “Japanese Doctors” and few of the “Nazi Doctors” who performed barbaric “medical experiments” (including on U.S. and allied POWs) were ever prosecuted for war crimes, were given high positions in various governments and universities, in return for giving up the “research data” from their twisted “research”. And imagine that they were all inspired to look for “race-specific” and “ethnic-specific” chemical and biological WMDs that were handed over to the U.S. and allies for future and present-day developments still going on. Imagine that these war criminals were not only protected from prosecution, but wound up at some of the highest levels of the governments that protected them, some high-level politicians in their countries, and at some of the most prestigious universities to continue their “research” into ethnic-race-specific WMDs (nuclear, biological and chemical). https://sttpml.org/parts-i-and-ii-combined-breathtaking-hubris-and-hypocrisy-the-real-nature-and-foundations-of-anglo-american-imperiums/ and https://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/bush-family-values-finance-of-nazis-trading-with-the-enemy-during-wartime/ and https://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/3052/ and  OTHER VIDEOS ON LEONARD PELTIER and https://sttpml.org/some-of-the-real-history-and-meaning-of-thanksgiving/ and https://sttpml.org/cooking-the-history-books-the-thanksgiving-massacre-genocide-the-father-and-slavery-the-mother/ and https://sttpml.org/the-history-and-many-faces-and-masks-of-genocide-in-the-americas/ and https://sttpml.org/genocide-in-north-america-today-wbai-radio-interviews-with-doug-henwood-and-tiokasin-ghosthorse/ and https://sttpml.org/the-horrifying-anglo-american-roots-of-nazi-eugenics/ and https://sttpml.org/genocide-designation-challenged-at-canadian-human-rights-museum/ and https://sttpml.org/a-canadian-and-american-genocide-in-search-of-a-name/ and https://sttpml.org/parts-i-and-ii-combined-breathtaking-hubris-and-hypocrisy-the-real-nature-and-foundations-of-anglo-american-imperiums/ and https://sttpml.org/containment-of-holocaust-education-lessons-unlearned-or-never-exposed-and-learned/ and https://sttpml.org/israel-completes-nazi-rassenhygiene-programme/

The “Cold War”: Not Over; Began Before 1945; Never that “Cold”; Always More than East v West

Russians, for example, even the anti-Communist but non-fascist ones, know very well that when Soviet troops were taking the worst casualties of any nation in World War II, while they were making sacrifices that saved many thousands of allied lives, the US and British Governments were gathering-up and protecting, and putting on their payrolls, wanted Nazi war criminals being sought by other agencies of the same governments; and they know that those wanted Nazis were wanted only because of their anti-Communist and anti-Russian “credentials”. And these Nazis, who remained Nazis, fed bogus and exaggerated “estimates” and “studies” of alleged Soviet weapons, order of battle, intentions, capabilities that did not exist but exacerbated notions of a permanent threat that persist today and that fueled the arms race.

The Russians know that the so-called “Cold War” was first of all never “Cold”; it has been plenty hot if you define war not as many Americans define it (are WE dying?; and is it costing US?; and do WE really NEED this war for US?) but as war really is no matter who is doing the dying and paying. They know that it is not over and that it did not begin in 1945 but as early as 1918 with the Western troops sent to foment and decide the outcome of the Civil War  if not before under Theodore Roosevelt. Churchill described the mission as to “strangle at its birth” [the Bolshevik state and Bolshevism—Marxism].

There was never any attempt at peaceful debate of contending ideas, paradigms or systems in terms of which has the most sustainable foundations, or is best answerable to data and application . The U.S. Government openly proclaims as its “Strategic Doctrine” what they refer to as “Full Spectrum Dominance” by which they mean dominance (not parity, security, equity or sufficiency but dominance) over arenas of battle Land, Sea, Air, Space, Cyberspace. But they also seek “full spectrum dominance” over other spectra: weapons systems strategic and tactical; forms of warfare (conventional, irregular, psyops, covert); control of international institutions like UN, IMF,World Bank, NATO; global media and influence on its content; global alliances; strategic resources, trade routes, geo-strategic regions and places, investment outlets and markets.

But what kind of person or system seeks “dominance” and openly proclaims it? Most people do not really seek to dominate as they do not want to be dominated; they seek (at least they say so) fairness, equity, no double-standards, security, parity; but not outright dominance. Only psychopaths openly, proudly and with no shame proclaim they were destined to dominate and that is what they seek. Only a psychopath–individual or whole culture– has the grandiosity, malignant narcissism, megalomania, shallow affect, predation, and just plain pathology to assert his or her need, imperative, desire, intention, right and ability to dominate others rather than living in harmony and relations of mutual respect, mutual benefit, mutual cooperation, mutual exchange, mutual security, mutual equity, mutual parity. https://jimcraven10.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/review-of-snakes-in-suits-when-psychopaths-go-to-work-by-paul-babiak-and-robert-hare-2/

Social Formations and Dominant Modes of Production of the U.S. Imperium

We also know that history is alive and well in the present and shapes the present as well as the future. We know that as people, when asked why we did such and such or why we think a certain way, we always say something about our personal histories: past trauma; mentors; family structure; significant influences; fears; phobias; etc. It is no different for systems or whole cultures.

Each social formation (whole society) is composed of multiple historical and interacting modes of production[and distribution, utilization, expanded  reproduction of the means of subsistence]: “primitive” communalism; slavery; feudalism; capitalism or socialism. Only one of these modes of production is dominant and defines–names–the type of overall social formation over which it is dominant.

The social formation of the U.S., for example, is dominated by monopoly capitalism (at the stage of imperialism) as the dominant and defining mode of production. But elements of slavery still exist and in fact are increasing in human trafficking. There are elements of American-style feudalism still existing in the sharecropping systems of the rural South and in the peonage systems faced by migrant farm workers. There are  elements of indigenous communalism still exist in some parts of the far north and in some very rural indigenous communities. This is the same for all social formations: they contain remnants of past modes of production interacting with present ones and with contradictions shaping embryonic forms of new modes of production yet to emerge or take over as dominant.

But we are mindful of the aphorism common in many languages: “For the little frog in the well, the sky is as big as the mouth of the well” or “the well is the universe”. What is micro and macro depends upon ones angle, scope and depth of analysis. For example in terms of the solar system, earth is a component and micro unit out of many. But from the perspective of the whole planet, the various “spheres” within which all phenomena occur and interact (hydrosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, magnetosphere, pedosphere, cryosphere) in complex and interdependent ways, they  are the macros for many interrelated processes and phenomena within them.

We at STTPML have no doubt whatsoever that climate change is real and that human activities, have made the normal trends and vicissitudes of natural climate change worsened and not a problem for the future but now. We understand that because of gravitational pull of other planets in our solar system, the earth’s orbit goes from beiing almost circular as it is now, to being much more elliptical and then back again every 100,000 years or so. We understand about the Milankovich Cycles: a) every 22,000 years the earth’s tilt on its axis shifts; b) every 41,000 years wobbles around its axis. And eath moves from receiving more solar radiation than the average and distributed unevenly throughout the year, to another phase of receiving less solar radiation than average and distributed more evenly. We can also add to this mix two long-term geological trends over the last 50 million years: a) continental drift has push most land mass north of the equator and with one hemisphere mostly land mass and the other mostly water,  this amplifies the cyclical variations in solar radiation; b) over the same period volcanic activity has declined with less CO2 in our atmosphere than in the time of the dinosaurs and thus, over the long-run and until relatively recently, steadily cooled.

In the history of earth there have been between forty and fifty ice ages, two of which, between 190,000 through 90,000 BCE (critical period in evolution of homo sapiens) were harsh. Each time the planet “wobbled, tilted, and rotated its way back to a warmer place, and the ice retreated.” (“Why the West Rules–For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future”, Ian Morris, Picador, N.Y. 2010 p.66)

But it is a new world unlike the world of the ice ages. Globalization means not only increasing interdependence of regions, economics,  politics,  culture, wars and their effects, natural disasters, diverse populations and the like. All these activities, their impacts positively and negatively, have profound and increasingly visible impacts on the different dimensions and interdependencies between the various spheres of the physical geography of earth: Hydrosphere; Biosphere; Atmosphere; Magnetosphere; Lithosphere; Pedosphere (soils); Cryosphere (ice sheets);

More and more people are learning about industry, volcanoes,  acid rain, and the hydrologic cycle. They are learning more about ocean currents from the Tsunami in Japan sending soccer balls to Oregon. They know more about plate tectonics and earthquakes, flood planes, vulnerable sea coasts where not to build or insure. They are learning more about the the northern lights and magnetosphere that surrounds the earth’s atmosphere like a droplet of rain and helps to direct lethal solar flares downward and neutralize some of their effects.  People are learning more about how landscapes and terrain can affect cloud formation, precipitation, weather and vice-versa. And with satellites now we can see earth from space and visibly see these various spheres interacting in interesting and complicated ways.

Some say that Traditional Indigenous Peoples want to go back 200 years or more. But we argue that what modern “science” and many people are now learning about the webs of life and balance and interdependencies between the litho, bio, hydro, cryo, pedo, magneto, atmos and cognito spheres of the earth, was known by Indigenous Peoples long ago. How do you explain the Maya Calendar, 3750 BCE with an error rate of 2 hours every 500 years in terms of predicting solar eclipses and movements of planets? How to explain herbal cures for diseases known for thousands of years only now being “discovered” by western medicine?

Seattle
The only known photograph of Chief Sealth, taken 1864