Unmasking
Obama and the Unmaking of America
a
Review by Hugh Murray of
UNMASKING
OBAMA: THE FIGHT TO TELL THE TRUE STORY OF A FAILED PRESIDENCY
(New
York, Nashville:Post Hill Press, 2020) by Jack Cashill
Cashill's
Unmasking – concerning scandals of the Obama Administration – is
published at an awkward age, for on one level it appears as stale
news, yet it is not quite old enough to be “history.” Still,
there is a need for a book like this. Cashill quotes the old adage
that newspaper articles are the first draft of history. What is
different today is that now major newspapers, like the New York
Times and the Washington Post; the major television
networks, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, are all quite liberal and some
have strong connections to the Democratic Party. The dissidents: Fox
News, talk radio, and smaller outlets may be ignored when “official
histories” are written. This is especially true in that most
official histories are written by academics, and universities are now
notorious for their purges of conservatives to create an atmosphere
of stultifying political correctness. Worse, the ever more left-wing
partisanship of social media, evidenced by their open censorship
meant to sway the 2020 Presidential election – in which they
smothered the New York Post expose of the corruption of Hunter
Biden and his father Joe in dealings in China. The Bidens apparently
profited from these dealings by several million dollars from firms
connected to the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The story broke
shortly before the official election day of November 3, 2020, but the
main social media refused to allow it on its sites, so most Americans
who did not intentionally seek out conservative media were likely
unaware of Joe Biden's dirty deals.
Because
in today's world of left-wing, biased media, the first draft of
history may become “the” official version. Cashill's unmasking
of the Obama Administration, will, hopefully, make it harder for
historians of the future to white-wash Obama's misdeeds.
As
a starting point, Cashill begins with several quotations concerning
scandals during Obama's term in office. “I am proud...that we
will... leave this administration without significant scandal.”(p.
5) Obama declared this as his term neared an end, 14 November 2016.
In 2018 Obama told an audience directly, “I didn't have
scandals.”(5) Cashill adds that Obama's assessment was seconded by
Jonathan Alter in Bloomberg, David Remnick, editor of New Yorker,
and an Obama biographer, as well as David Brooks, New York Times
columnist and PBS Newshour “Republican.”
Cashill's
book reminds us of little known facts meant to shatter that image.
And he succeeds. Relying not only on the major media, Cashill
acknowledges the real contributions to history, to the exposures of
Obama, by the unofficial journalists, those who write the American
samizdats, or those who, reporting the truth for major media, like
Sharyl Attkisson at CBS, had her files ransacked, and work erased,
and then her stories on CBS reduced until she was forced to leave.
In was probably no coincidence that David Rhodes, then News Director
at CBS, was brother to Ben Rhodes, a major campaign advisor to Pres.
Obama, when Attkisson was dumped and had to rebuild her journalistic
career in the far less lucrative world of the independent researcher,
or samizdat writer.
The
case of Lara Logan was similar. She was sexually assaulted while
covering the Arab Spring celebrations in Cairo, and worked on “60
Minutes.” But when her “controversial” story on Benghazi
conflicted with the Clinton-Obama account, she apologized and slowly
faded from view. Cashill does not mention Obama in connection to her
case, and Obama's Administration may not have directly intervened.
Still, she too was dumped by CBS. And it was not merely CBS.
Obama's FBI listened to phone calls of James Rosen at Fox, with the
federal agency even going after the reporter's father. This abuse of
and by the FBI, turning it into a political police was not new in
America, for Democratic Pres. Franklin Roosevelt often used federal
agencies to make his political opponents squirm and suffer in the
1930s. Obama was simply carrying on the totalitarian state
traditions of FDR. Obama updated those policies, but the update was
on a smaller scale. The reason: in the 1930s most newspapers were
Republican, but under Obama, most of the media were with him.
After
two years of Obama's leadership there was a political rebellion in
the Republican ranks, which resulted in the creation of a loose-knit
Tea Party movement. The IRS allowed tax exempt status to many
“non-partisan” organizations, like the NAACP, which invariably
promoted the Democrats Such partisanship could even be blatant: in
1948 Democratic Pres. Harry Truman addressed the NAACP, but that year
W. E. B. Du Bois refused to endorse Truman for re-election and
supported another candidate instead. Du Bois was quickly fired by
the organization he helped found. Obama's IRS now went after the Tea
Party petitioners with a vengeance, trying not only to destroy newly
created “non-partisan” conservative organizations, but to harass
their sponsors, their private businesses and make their lives a
living hell of constant IRS inspections and persecutions.(10-15)
One
aspect of this government treatment is unmentioned by Cashill – it
was not merely to satisfy Obama that this occurred. Some right-wing
spokesmen alleged that moderate Republican leaders like soon-to-be
Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Leader Mitch McConnell were also
opposed to the conservative Tea Party and were pleased when the Obama
IRS violated its rules, misused it powers, and persecuted those
trying to do legally what others had done for years. In the end,
after treating many taxpayers cruelly because of their politics, Lois
Lerner, the then leading figure in this campaign against the Tea
Parties, was allowed to retire from the IRS with a substantial bonus.
Cashill notes that over 90% of the IRS bureaucrats who contributed
to campaigns, gave to the Democrats. When a reporter asked Pres.
Obama about the IRS persecutions of Tea Partiers, the President
replied that he had only just then heard of it from the media.
Clearly, not an Obama scandal! So he said.
I
am not going to recount Cashill's discussion of all the Obama
scandals. One short paragraph gives a hint of the book's contents
when Cashill writes that journalists unwilling to ask Obama about the
anomaly of his social security number, “were not about to ask him
where he was on the night the Benghazi consulate was ransacked, what
he knew about the IRS war on the Tea Party, or how he came to
authorize 'Fast and Furious,' let alone what role he played in
protecting Hillary Clinton from prosecution or in spying on Donald
Trump's campaign.”(21) Cashill discusses many more scandals
including Solyndra(134), dropping charges against New Black Panther
Party thugs in Philadelphia (66-68), the persecution of George
Zimmerman,(85-98), and others. Cashill also rates the attempt to
frame Trump by Obama's various agencies as ”the crime of the
century.”(191) Not only does Cashill discuss many scandals of the
Obama Administration, but he includes footnotes that will lead the
interested reader to fuller revelations. Sadly, he does not include
an index. Having read this book, there is little doubt that the
Obama Administration was scandal ridden.
THE
CRIME OF THE CENTURY? So much has happened since Obama's Presidency,
I suggest that Cashill may have overlooked one major Obama scandal
entirely. And this omission may be related to Cashill's most serious
accusation against Obama.
On
29 and 30 May 2020 a large Black Lives Matter (hereafter, BLM) and
AntiFa group protested in Lafayette Square across the street from the
White House. They returned several hours later as a mob, became ever
more belligerent, pushing against barricades, confronting officers,
then throwing frozen water bottles at them. Stones and bricks, and
using bats, sticks and other weapons, the mob pressed on. Because
the projectiles were getting closer to the White House itself,
because several police were injured, and a few suffered broken bones,
the officers began to wonder if the mob might invade the White House.
On the color scale, officers rated this a red alert, the highest.
Secret Service leaders made the decision to escort Pres. Trump and
his family from the living quarters of the White House to a secret
underground bunker. They considered the situation that serious. To
borrow the terminology of the January 6, 2021 Democrats, the Trump
White House had been under siege by BLM/Antifa “insurrectionists.”
About 60 officers were injured by the mobs, most not seriously, but
11 had to be taken to hospital on the night and early morning hours
of 29-30 May 2020.
Saturday
night the 30th of May, there were more protests in the
area, this time expanding into commercial areas. Many stores were
looted and burned, as were autos and there was general mayhem. This
may have been a response to a tweet earlier in the week by Pres.
Trump: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” But,
unfortunately, there were no police to shoot the looters on Trump's
watch; the rioters got away their crimes.
The
following afternoon, Trump responded by having Lafayette Square and
the surrounding area cleared of the “peaceful protestors” (and of
the weapons they left behind). Once the enlarged security zone was
safe, Trump then left the White House accompanied by Attorney General
Barr and several military leaders; they walked through the now
peaceful park. They crossed the street to St. John's Episcopal Church
(also known as “the church of the Presidents” because every
president has attended at least one service there since it was built
in 1816), which the rioters the previous night had sought to torch
beginning in its parish house. Trump stopped, posed for media's
cameras in from of the church rectory as he lifted his arm and held
up a Bible.
The
major media criticized the President for violating the civil rights
of the “protestors” by clearing Lafayette Park, for cowardly
hunkering down in his bunker, for misusing the Bible, and just for
being Trump. Even the pastor of the church that the mob had sought
to burn now criticized Trump. Perhaps, she thought that was a way to
win the hearts of the hate-Trump arsonists.
` However,
the insurrectionists of spring 2020 had a more flagrant reply – to
Trump's clearing of the mob from the park - they replied with power,
political power. The anti-Trump Democratic Mayor of Washington, DC,
Muriel Bowser, announced that a major street leading to the White
House, 16th Street, would henceforth be know as Black
Lives Matter, and those words would be painted in huge letters upon
the street. And where that road came to touch the White House lawn,
that space would be known as BLM Plaza! The mayor renamed an area
beside the White House, which had been besieged the night before, in
honor of the insurrectionists! BLM was a racist, Marxist
organization. Though Mayor Bowser said she did not endorse the
organization, she chose to name a prominent part of the city in honor
of that organization. She seemed to care not when the mobs defaced
the Lincoln Memorial and the Memorial to Americans who fought in
WWII. In effect, the mayor of the US Capitol city, was declaring her
sympathies with revolution.
At
this moment, Pres. Trump should have sent in troops, deposed Mayor
Bowser and the elected government of DC. The District is a special
area created by the US Constitutions and for most of its history had
no elected government. Not until 1974 was DC's first elected mayor,
inaugurated, and its second electedd, Mayor Marion Barry in time was
seen on video snorting coke. That did not dissuade voters, who
re-elected Barry. Washington. DC was a one-party town, often voting
Democratic by over 90%. Sometimes that mattered little, as when in
the 1972 election for President, Dem. George McGovern carried DC and
Massachusetts. Republican Richard Nixon, however, carried all the
other 49 states. Sometimes it did matter. When newly elected Pres.
Ronald Reagan was shot and nearly killed in March 1981, the jury to
try the assassin, John Hinckley, Jr., came from the DC., so the
attempted murderer of a president who also shot several others,
causing brain damage to Reagan's Press Secretary, would be tried in a
city that voted against Reagan by over 90%. Despite all this damage
done, Hinckley was not executed, but merely sent to a mental
hospital. By 2005, he was allowed to visit his parents' home, and in
2016, released. Had someone nearly killed the newly elected
president Obama, do you think the attempted assassin would have
merely been sent to a mental ward by a DC jury? Mayor Bowser had
done little to stop riots, implicitly encouraged them, and allowed
some of our most sacred monuments to be jeopardized. She should have
been deposed, removed from office. The local government showed no
interest in protecting private property, the White House, or even
some of the nation's most treasured monuments.
It
was time for Trump to ACT! He didn't. Why? And later in 2020 when
Trump held the GOP National Convention on the White House lawn,
delegates could overhear the Democratic mobs in the background
shouting, insulting, threatening. The video of Sen. Rand Paul and
his wife as they departed the conclave, revealed they were physically
threatened by the Democratic mobsters, even with police beside them
trying to protect them.
Trump
may have thought that this helped him with voters for it exposed the
mob threats of violence. No, it showed that the US under Trump's
watch, refused to crack down on insurrectionary violence in numerous
Democratic led cities, from Seattle and Portland, to St. Louis, and
Kenosha, to Minneapolis and Madison to New York and DC. Why did
Trump do nothing? Oh, he made speeches denouncing violence, but he
DID nothing.
I suspect that
Trump, being a reasonable man, wanted to do and sought to do a
crackdown on Bowser and other insurgents. I suggest that Trump did
propose action to his advisors about a crackdown, but those advisors
vetoed any such action. I recently found information to confirm my
suspicions. Trump and Vice President Pence did want to invoke the
insurrection act and bring in the military to quell the riots. The
Dept. of Justice, with its left-over left wing bureaucracy would
certainly advise against restoring law and order in DC and other
Democratic-run cities. Atty Gen. Barr was opposed. Both Trump's Sec.
of Defense Mark Esper and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley were also
opposed. -- “ Invocation
of the Insurrection
Act to
deploy active-duty military forces was discussed and favored by Vice
President Mike Pence but opposed by Attorney General Bill Barr and
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.
The
act was last invoked in 1992 at California's request in response to
the Rodney
King riots.
It has also been used during the Civil
rights movement to
enforce school
integration and desegregation.
. . .At
a Pentagon press conference on June 3, Defense Secretary Mark Esper
declared his opposition to using active-duty military to quell
domestic unrest: "The option to use active-duty forces in a law
enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and
only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of
those situations now. . .” .
. . In
the days after the photo op, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark
Milley—who had accompanied Trump under the belief that he intended
to review troops outside Lafayette Square—expressed anger to Trump
over what had occurred. On
June 1, Milley and Trump had a "heated discussion in the Oval
Office over whether to send active-duty troops into the streets"—a
demand by Trump that Milley strongly opposed.
Milley
publicly said he opposed invocation of the Insurrection Act .
. .”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_photo_op_at_St._John%27s_Church,
there are many stories re the protests during those days, some
stress, the burnings, others the officers clearing the park of
protestors still peaceful in late afternoon. Wiki is usually
left-leaning, but its descriptions cover several days.)
But the role of the military is what is important for any discussion
of Obama Administration scandals. I would suggest there was a silent
coup under Obama – not only in the top echelon of the CIA (John
Brennan), the FBI (James Comey, Peter Strzok, Louis Freeh, and other
hate-Trumpers), and the Director of National Intelligence (James
Clapper), but also in the military, so that it was now led by
left-leaning big brass. Both Esper and Milley were opposed to
invoking the insurrection act in June 2020, yet it had been invoked
during the Rodney King riots and civil rights protests. Getting the
President's family to the White House bunker did not occur on those
previous occasions. This was worse! Yet the military brass did not
want to support Trump in a crack down. The creeping political
correctness, the seeping leftism had now tarnished the military
brass. And this corrupt leftism was visible in other ways. The
Health Departments in many cities and states were urging lock downs,
wearing masks, and social distancing (staying 6 feet away from other
people). Yet, many of these same government health authorities,
while urging lockdowns because of the Wuhan virus, also declared it
was ok to participated in protests concerning the death of George
Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May 2020, These health officials proved
themselves more politicians than health advocates, more ideologues
than scientists. More and more commissars seemed to inhabit
governmental bureaucracies.
In
October 2020 Trump ordered the US forces to get out of Syria, where
we had been involved in a long-running rebellion against the
Soviet-backed government of Bashar al-Assad. Apparently, one of our
allies in this anti-Assad coalition was the Islamic extremist ISIS.
Seemingly, forging together revolutionary coalitions, like politics
generally, can make strange bedfellows. The point is, the US
military informed Trump that we had withdrawn the American troops
from Syria. This was a lie – we had not withdrawn!
(warontherocks.com 2020/10) If this report be true, if the military
does not obey the elected Commander in Chief, who does it obey? Is
it still the American military, or is it a military under some
American war-lords, in defiance of the Constitution?
Also
in 2020, along with its indoctrinations in schools, universities, and
corporations, the media revealed that the anti-white, racist,
Critical Race Theory was being taught inside the military! Clearly,
this could not have happened without the support of higher ranking
officers. When CRT became an open issue toward the end of his term,
Trump banned it. But it had already been in place! The left-wing
infiltration of the leadership of the US military – obvious after
the appointments by the new President Biden in 2021 of Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin III, and one of Speaker Pelosi's favorite
military men, Lt. General Russel Honore, - these left-wing leaders
had already had long, successful careers in the military. Perhaps,
if the FBI had not tricked Gen. Flynn at the onset of the Trump
Administration, perhaps Trump could have received informed background
about the military, and welcomed better advice on what to do. But
the Deep State had tricked Flynn and had allowed DoJ Deputy Atty.
Gen. Rod Rosenstein to appoint Robert Mueller with vast powers and
purse to pursue the Russian hoax smear and keep the Trump
Administration on the defensive for years. So I contend that one of
the most important, but overlooked aspects of the Obama
Administration was the installation of left wingers into power in the
most important agencies of the US Government.
Americans
generally ignore the political side of the military. There have been
various influences on the US military from the beginning, and the
military has influenced the government. Our first President was
General Washington, and many generals followed him in that post. My
point here is not to present the long history of the US government
and military. I will note some interesting cases of more recent
vintage. This year Public Broadcasting telecast a 5-hour Masterpiece
Theatre program, “Atlantic Crossing.” It concerns WWII and
Norway. Strangely, the most common Norwegian word in the US at that
time was never once mentioned in the 5-hour saga – 'Quisling.' The
attractive Crown Princess Martha and her family had escaped her
German occupied homeland and arrived in Washington, DC. The slow,
soap drama concerns, can she use her charms in a years-long
flirtation with American President Franklin Roosevelt to benefit
Norway? In the process, she has marital problems with her husband
Olav, then stationed in England. There are many scenes in the White
House, and a minor character, who then resided there, makes a rare
appearance on TV, Harry Hopkins.
Hopkins
lived in the White House because he was a major advisor to FDR and
one of the most influential men in America. Gen. Marshall once said
in advising the President, he was to present the American view, and
Hopkins the Soviet position. Diana West in her American Betrayal
(pp.142, 183-84) asserts that Hopkins may have been the most powerful
figure after FDR. She also blames Hopkins for permitting the US to
send uranium to the USSR as part of Lend Lease, and believes that
under Hopkins' Lend Lease rules, the Soviets had higher priority than
the needs of American troops. She gives other examples of his
actions to conclude that Hopkins was a traitor. Hopkins also chose
the American military officials to be sent to Moscow to oversee US
Lend Lease supplies. Before the war Col. Faymonville had been
stationed in Moscow and earned the suspicious title “the Red
Colonel,” and was ordered back to the States. But Hopkins got him
re-assigned to handle Lend Lease in Moscow during the war. West says
they were both working for the Soviets. In his MA Thesis, Steven M.
Thompson provided a more sympathetic interpretation of Faymonville,
“The Bolshevik? The Faymonville Controversy in the 1930s and
1940s.”(Texas State U. - San Marcos, 2012, p. 66 and conclusion.)
Surely, Faymonville would not have power while in Moscow to arrange
for shipments from the US of uranium to the USSR. Hopkins would have
the power to override the prohibition on such shipments established
by Manhattan Project (A-bomb) leader, Major Gen. Leslie Groves. Or
were both Faymonville and Hopkins merely following FDR's policies?
About
the same time in another war theater, America's military envoy to the
Republic of China detested Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek, and
looked more favorably on the “agrarian reformer” Mao Zedong.
After Japan surrendered, Truman sent Gen. Marshall to oversee things
in China, and he demanded that Chiang form a coalition government
with Mao if the US were to provide any aid. Chiang rejected the
coalition with the Communists. The US cut off military aid to
Chiang during much of the civil war that ensued following Japan's
surrender ending WWII. While the Soviets supplied Mao with captured
weapons, Chiang was on his own. The Nationalist cause began to
shrink and then sink as red covered more of the map of China. Some
in the American government had been so disappointed with Chiang, that
we had at least two plots to assassinate the Nationalist leader.(
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/03/assassinating-chiang-kai-shek-china-taiwan-japan-world-war-2/
, or see my amazon 2 star review of Rana Mitter's, Forgotten Ally:
China's World War II, 1937-1945) Without American aid, the
balance shifted so much so that Mao in a speech in Beijing in 1949
was able to proclaim the establishment of the Peoples' Republic of
China..
Herbert
Aptheker had been an officer in an artillery unit with Black troops.
They fought in Europe, successfully. Before joining the army,
Aptheker had earned a Ph. D. from Columbia U. in history, and after
the war, he had an office in the Pentagon to write American military
history. Also before the war, he had joined the Communist Party,
USA, and wrote articles in party publications. On 25 June 1950 North
Korea invaded its southern neighbor, and despite earlier US policy
statements declaring South Korea to be outside of our defense
perimeter, Pres. Truman decided to send American troops to help
defend the invaded South. In August 1950, two months following the
North's invasion, an article appeared written by Aptheker in which he
praised the peoples' democratic accomplishments of North Korea.
Though officially the US was not at war with Norht Korea, it was
called a police action and the UN approved the intervention of the US
and several allies, still American forces were fighting in battles
against Nort Korea (and later Chinese “volunteers”). It does not
seem too surprising that Aptheker lost his commission with the army,
but accomplished in a bureaucratic manner; he failed to fill out some
forms. A decade later, he was often referred to in the media as the
leading theoretician of the American Communist Party. In the early
1970s as a young research assistant to Aptheker, Anthony Flood asked
his boss about attitudes during WWII. Aptheker acknowledged that
many in the army knew he was a Communist, but “we were fashionable
then.” Communists became much less fashionable after WWII with the
Cold War and then the hot war in Korea.
In 1953 Irving Peress received a promotion in rank in the army, and
Sen. Joseph McCarthy led an inquiry into who promoted Peress, an army
dentist and alleged Communist, serving at at Fort Kilmer, New
Jersey. There was some suspicion at this base that secret radar
information had been relayed to the Soviets. This became part of the
Army-McCarthy hearings that were nationally televised (a rare event
when there were only 3 networks). During the Cold War, the American
draft system inducted many Americans, inducting a wide spectrum of
political, religious, and other views. Though there were forms
inquiring about membership in the KKK and the Communist Party, some
members of these tiny groups might still be recruited, but if they
were open about their views and memberships, it is unlikely they
would be promoted. By the 1950s left-wing influence in the military
was reduced if not practically erased.
One
reason Republican Dwight Eisenhower won the election of 1952: he
pledged to end the war in Korea. Once President, Eisenhower kept his
word and worked for the end of fighting. It was not easy, for
officially we were there as part of the UN force, part of a police
action.; it took some time, and a peace treaty was never signed –
but a cease fire armistice was agreed to on 27 July 1953 (Ike was
inaugurated in January). This armistice has continued for about 70
years. The Cold War against communist expansion continued on other
fronts with the US usually supporting conservative regimes against
radical rebels. The New Year's 1959 rebel victory brought Fidel
Castro to power in nearby Cuba, and soon many Cubans were fleeing
their island to come to the US. Under Ike, a plan to use some of the
anti-Castro exiles in an invasion of Cuba was prepared. (The US had
already essentially overthrown the leftist government in Guatemala in
1954 with little trouble or outcry. Cuba, he concluded, should be
just as easy.)
The
new plan to oust Castro was prepared by the CIA for spring 1961, and
the planners assumed the man in charge would be Richard Nixon, for
they believed that the Vice President would defeat his Democratic
opponent in the November 1960 election. However, when Nixon lost,
the CIA planners took their plan to the new president, John Kennedy
inaugurated 20 January 1961. JFK approved it, as the CIA explained
it to him.
I
was listening to the radio that spring day, not some rock and roll
station, but WWL, a 50,000 watt, clear-channel station, owned by
Loyola U. of the South, a Jesuit institution, and an affiliate to the
CBS network. Breaking news reports burst on the airwaves about the
uprising then occurring in Cuba. Some had heard that Raul Castro,
brother of Fidel, had been killed by the freedom fighters. Some
anti-Castro exiles may have landed on the island to aid the uprising.
The people of Cuba had risen against Castro's Communist regime.
Fighting on-going. I do not recall all the details of the 17 April
1961 broadcast, but the station and network I trusted most – was
reporting nothing but propaganda and lies. This was probably to
prepare us for the next step in the CIA's plans.
There
was a battle going on – in the Bay of Pigs and in Washington. The
CIA created invasion force of Cuban exiles had landed in the Bay if
Pigs area, where the terrain made it difficult to make quick headway.
But it was also difficult for Castro's forces to clear them out.
According to some, the reason that area was chosen was to land
anti-Castro troops, hold a short time, then fly in from Florida some
anti-Castro politicians who would announce Castro defeated and in
retreat, declare that they are the new, legitimate government, and
request American military aid in restoring law, order, and
anti-Communism on the island. The Castro Communist threat to the
hemisphere would be over.
However,
the entire plan depended upon American help in the early stages. The
President may not have been informed that this was a crucial part of
the plan. The CIA now demanded immediate air support to help its
exile army in the Bay of Pigs. Pres. Kennedy and Defense Sec.
McNamara both said NO. The CIA, Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay and
other military leaders said YES. Kennedy made the final decision –
no air support. Without such aid, the Castro forces killed or
captured the invasion force of exiles. Kennedy made deals for the
return of the prisoners, and Castro claimed a major victory. Kennedy
believed he had been deceived by the CIA concerning this invasion,
only a few months after his inauguration. He vowed to smash the CIA
into a thousand pieces. Meanwhile, anti-Castro Cubans and many
right-wing Americans felt betrayed by a weak, “pro-communist”
Kennedy.
In
October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, some of the same
fissures in the American government reappeared. While Pres. Kennedy
and Sec. McNamara approved the “quarantine” (blockade) against
Castro's Cuba, Air Force Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay was
less enthusiastic. Quarantine or not, Le May wanted to invade and
destroy the missile sites on Cuba.
In
September 1960 with six others, I was arrested in the first lunch
counter sit-in in New Orleans. A new organization in the city, the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) had trained some of us who wanted
to act directly against legal segregation, while other, older
organizations were opposed. After we made page-1 news, I moved from
my parents' home, thinking it would be easier on them, but they
continued to receive nasty phone calls and threats in the middle of
the night. My dad borrowed a pistol and bullets to protect the home.
I moved in with another civil rights worker, and we received no such
calls as we could not afford a phone. My uncle Jim, to restore honor
to the family, sent $20 to George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi
Party. That was a nice sum in 1960, the equivalent of $180 today.
My uncle and I certainly did not agree on current events, but
families somehow manage to be civil with each other. Whatever his
sympathies during WWII, he did his job on ships sending goods and
weapons to the Allies, on countless Atlantic crossings, sometimes on
newly minted cement ships. One German torpedo and those would have
sunk like a ton of cement. Jim was a seaman, an engineer on a ship,
but sometimes took off to stay with his wife and work in the city
driving a taxi. He would visit my parents and we would talk. His
opening to me was, “How are the burr heads doing?” This always
caught me off guard, but we talked generally. At one point he
brought up the recent event with Jackie Kennedy; she had lost a baby.
Jim said, “You know what happened? They killed it because it was
Black.” And he laughed. I did not share his sense of humor. As
time went on, he would say, “That Bobby! They're going to get that
Bobby.” Attorney General Robert Kennedy was involved in various
desegregation disputes, and I assumed that was what he was referring
to.
In
1963 a US Marine, who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959,
returned to his native New Orleans. He tried to establish a
pro-Castro chapter of the national Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and
he was interviewed for an hour on WDSU's public service program one
summer afternoon. His appeal for peace with Castro was undermined
when suddenly another guest appeared on the program, an anti-Castro
activist who then informed the radio audience that Oswald had
defected to the USSR and was thus a Communist and no good American
should listen to him.
Few
at that moment were aware that the pro-Castro FPCC leaflets were
printed in the offices of Guy Banister. Banister, former FBI leader
in Chicago, former acting Superintendent of the New Orleans Police
Dept, was now a detective who paid young people to spy on possible
left-wing activities in NO. Banister believed that integration was
part of the Communist effort to divide and destroy America, and
wanted information on suspected integration efforts. He also had
dealings with pilot David Ferrie, who had been in charge of a NO
chapter of the Civil Air Patrol unit when Oswald was a teen and a
member. Ferrie, active with the anti-Castro Cubans, had allegedly
flown to Cuba on anti-Castro missions. He also worked for local
Mafia boss, Carlos Marcello. Marcello was vehemently anti-Kennedy
because of Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy's attempts to destroy the Mafia.
In the early 1960s RFK had Marcello arrested and deported,
illegally, to Central America to be released into a jungle where he
nearly died. Some say Ferrie flew him back into the US.
The
so-called Communist Oswald was connected to strongly anti-communist,
anti-Kennedy people in New Orleans. Therefore, I should not be
surprised if the dispute over the father of Sen. Ted Cruz, Rafael
Cruz, who came to the US as an anti-Castro refugee, that he would be
seen handing out pro-Castro leaflets along with Oswald. But if the
leafleteer in the video distributing FPCC flyers with Oswald is
Rafael Cruz, there is no contradiction for they were both
anti-Communists and anti Castro. A history professor. Matthew Kurtz
claims he saw anti-Castro and anti-Communist Guy Banister AND Lee
Oswald together giving right-wing presentations at LSUNO (now, the
Univ. of New Orleans) on two occasions there in the summer of 1963.
North of NO, across Lake Pontchartrain, there was a training camp
developed, apparently for another CIA invasion of Cuba. In the fall
of 1963, the FBI raided this camp, trying to prevent another Bay of
Pigs. According to various accounts, including a Newsmax series,
Oswald was part of this anti-Castro, preparation for a new invasion
of Cuba. When this training camp was raided and shut down by the
Feds, by the Kennedys, one can assume resentment grew more intense.
I
have never been to Dallas, but I distrust the New York Times,
Dan Rather, the Warren Report, and the whole list of
supporters of the official line on the murder of JFK. Decades later,
when Oliver Stone was preparing to open his epic film on the topic,
“J. F. K.”, the NYT, the voice of the establishment,
printed and promoted Tom Wicker's assault on the movie. I have no
proof of details, but am convinced that the “Deep State” killed
John Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963. While still president in
1960, Ike asserted that the new leader of independent Congo, Patrice
Lumumba, should be eliminated. The CIA had two plots to do so, but
in the end simply supplied his murderers with the weapons to do so
when they killed Lumumba, 17 July 1961.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba scroll down to
American involvement) I certainly do not mean that the US is alone
in employing assassins, but I think it foolish to believe that we are
exempt from such doings.
It
may have been around Christmas of 1963 when Uncle Jim came by to see
my folks. At some point, he said to me, “What did I tell you?
What did I tell you, huh?” I had no idea what he was talking
about. “Didn't I tell you they were going to get him?” Then it
hit me – Dallas! I gasped. This time, rather than ignore him, I
replied, “You said they were after Bobby.” “Well, they got the
other one instead.” Finally I asked, “Who is this 'they' you
keep talking about?” “The mob out in the parish.” Carlos
Marcello was the NO mob leader and he owned places in the adjoining
up-river county, Jefferson Parish. This was a month or so after
Dallas, and no one was talking about any Marcello involvement in the
Kennedy assassination. I simply rolled my eyes and left the room.
Jim had little formal education. The training he got for shipping
was on the job. My dad finished 3rd grade, but would
fudge and tell people he finished the 5th. I had an MA
from Tulane University when far fewer attended university. Uncle Jim
seemed like my 'crazy' uncle. When he made his remark about the
Mafia, I had no idea that the American intelligence groups had worked
with the American Mafia to ease the American invasion of Mussolini's
Sicily during WWII. Nor was I aware of more recent cooperation
between the Mafia and the FBI and CIA in plots to assassinate Fidel
Castro in the early 1960s. Now that I am old, I regret not taking
Uncle Jim seriously, listening carefully to his stories. I do not
mean that I should have adoped his politics, but still, I might have
learned a lot. Unfortunately, arrogance can lead to the worst kind
of ignorance, the kind when you think you know it all, when you know
nothing of the reality.
Not
since the days of JFK had relations between a president and the Deep
State been so fractured as during the presidency of Donald Trump. At
the Helsinki conference of July 2018, Trump said he believed Putin
rather then US Intel agencies concerning alleged Russian interference
in the 2016 US election. Indeed, at the outset of his Presidency,
Democratic Sen. Minority Leader Charles Schumer made a ominous
remark:
“Let
me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six
ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC's
Rachel Maddow. “So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed
businessman, he's [Trump's] being really dumb to do this.”(Mallory
Shelbourne, The Hill, 1/3/17)
President
Trump announced he would release all the files on the John Kennedy
assassination in October 2017, but he failed to do so. He released
some, but not all. I assume the still hidden files are not meant to
protect Fidel. I suspect Trump was pressured by the Deep State to
protect ITS interests. A sad day when Trump backed down on this
attempt to be transparent nearly 60 years after the assassination in
Dallas. I guess it is still too sensitive, - but too sensitive to
whom? And the Deep State is no friend of Trump's.
In
March 1968 President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek
re-election. His Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, a liberal from
Minnesota, received Administration support for the Democratic
nomination. Because of the unpopular war in Vietnam, two challengers
joined the race for that nomination, another liberal from Minnesota,
Sen. Eugene McCarthy, and now Sen. Robert Kennedy of New York. Both
were critical of the war. The three competitors vied in those states
which held popular primaries, but no one was knocked out of the race.
The final primary was California, and there Kennedy won a victory
over McCarthy. At a hotel to celebrate with his supporters, Kennedy
decided to visit the crowded hotel kitchen where shots were suddenly
fired and Bobby was killed by a young man. Another man heard the
shooter say why he did it. The observer told a tv camera in
disbelief, the shooter said, “He did it for his country!” The
Kennedy fan, could not comprehend the words of the assassin as he
looked at the TV news camera. What the fan failed to understand is
that the young man was born a Palestinian. At the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago, Mayor Daley's police fought
protestors, and Humphrey received the nomination.
Richard
Nixon, who had lost a narrow (some say stolen) election to John
Kennedy in 1960, and a more crushing defeat for the Governorship of
California in 1962, still seemed like the safest, moderate choice for
the GOP following Goldwater's big loss to LBJ in 1964. But there was
a 3rd choice on the ballot in many states. Gov. George
Wallace of Alabama, nominally a Democrat, had formed the American
Independent Party. When Wallace was inaugurated governor in 1963 he
declared he was for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow,
segregation forever.” As his vice-presidential running mate, he
chose retired Gen. Curtis LeMay. LeMay was born in Ohio, and was
known as a hero in WWII and he had been Air Force Chief of Staff
until 1965. Yet he agreed to run with Wallace. However, while
Wallace had asserted, that once in office, if we do not win the war
in Vietnam in 90 days, then he pledged to withdraw immediately.
LeMay seemed to have other views, mainly using nuclear weapons to
win, bombing them back to the stone age if necessary. Many Americans
were surprised by LeMay joining the Wallace ticket. My point is
military men do have political views, and LeMay certainly did. Nixon
won a rather close race, but Wallace received 13% of the popular
vote, and more electoral votes than any third party candidate since
1912. The American military has had liberals, conservatives,
Communists, and those who agree with LeMay.
However,
by the time of the Trump presidency, many, if not most, of the Deep
State had swung Left. We know now of FBI leaders determined to
prevent Trump's elections in 2016, and/or spike his administration if
somehow he should win. We know now of how the FBI tricked Gen. Flynn
into committing the “crime” of lying to the FBI to neutralize him
at the onset of Trump's Administration. (And the loss of Flynn's
informed advice, I view as a major factor in Trump's failure).
Basically,
Cashill is right. The Obama Administration committed the crime of
the century when they met: Obama, Biden, Susan Rice, and others to
subvert and obstruct Trump in every way, create the Russian collusion
hoax, and a few years later, work with elite billionaires to buy,
steal, and subvert our election process. If their “fortification”
of our democracy, if their revised election “regulations” and
laws are not repealed, we will likely hereafter nevere have a fair
election again. Furthermore, many of these revisions were not
changes in the laws of the states, but regulations imposed, often in
defiance of the state laws. If these “laws” and regulations are
not overturned, we will become a 1-party dictatorship, the end of
free speech, the end of equal rights and equal opportunity, and some
form of socialist tyranny.
It
is noteworthy that the Deep State did not physically assassinate
Trump. It sought to smear him as few have been smeared, and the big
tech corporations, like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, could even hide
the revelations of the Biden family's corruption in Ukraine and in
China simply by deleting the New York Post story from social
media several days before the official election. Worse, Zuckerber of
FaceBook has been revealed to have spent huge sums in Wisconsin (and
probably other states with large city Democratic Party machines) to
make cozy deals with election officials to allow Democratic Party
“non-partisan” front groups to take over the handling of absentee
ballots, placing of drop boxes, daily count of absentee return
ballots, and the right to cure such ballots. Just as George Soros
invested millions to elect “get-out-of-jail-free” District
Attorneys and Atty. Generals, now all of Big Tech, big corporations,
the Deep State, big media, were all on board to defeat Trump, by hook
or by crook, “to fortify democracy.” (Molly Ball, “The Secret
History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election”,Time
Magazine, 4 Feb. 2021)
Perhaps,
this time the Deep State was so confidant it could control the
election of 2020, and prevent the re-election of Trump, that they saw
no need for an assassination – this time. So they did not
assassinate Trump. Instead, in 2020 they assassinated the American
election process. If this billionaire-dominated new election system
continues, in alliance with the Democrats, the academedia complex,
the new purged military and intel comlex, then the plot begun in
Obama's last days in office will have succeeded in crushing the
freest, most innovative, wealthiest, fairest major nation ever to
exist. Their plot would be more than the crime of the century, it
will be the crime of all times.