Friday, January 25, 2008

Ray McGovern and the art of limited hangout



I like Ray McGovern. He says all sorts of good things. But he's also ex-CIA. And you can take the boy out of the CIA but you can't take the CIA out of the kindly old grandfather. Recently McGovern has been shocking people with the story of the USS Liberty. It was an act of arch Israeli wickedness, says he. And he's right of course. It is exactly that. If you don't know about it, start googling. The BBC's Dead in the Water on googlevideo is the single unmissable summary. The concentrated significance of the USS Liberty cannot be underemphasised. And don't miss the leading role played by John McCain's father - arch villain of the cover-up! He actually threatened the surviving crew with death.

For those who already know about the Liberty, it is my solemn duty to inform you that McGovern is practising the fine art of limited hangout. Limited hangout is a technique where a secret is revealed but with crucial parts of the story missing - invariably to protect a guilty party. McGovern seeks, in his telling of the Liberty incident, to point attention away from the US administration and solely at Israel. In doing so he ironically lessens the crime and weakens his own case.


The bit McGovern crucially ignores is the launching of Cairo-bound, nuke-laden Skyhawks. LBJ and Robert McNamara launched the mission - wait for it - before they were even meant to have known who the culprit was. But, horror of horrors, the Liberty failed to sink with all hands, and the planes had to be recalled. The people of Cairo were spared mass death by nuclear firestorm. How to explain the nukes? Best not to - mistake, mumble, mumble. And the final murderous truth about the Liberty is that it was sent to the Levant deliberately for this grand charade. It had to be the Liberty because it was perhaps the only ship in the navy that couldn't defend itself and was not a fleet support vessel. Which is to say, it could be on its own, without any witnesses, and in range of Israeli bombers and torpedo boats.

In order to support his limited hangout thesis, McGovern must leave the 'why' question unasked. He shrugs his shoulders and defers to others. Time for the small-concession crowd to misdirect: perhaps the Liberty had evidence of an Israeli atrocity against the Egyptians? A perfect example of limited hangout. It concedes the wickedness of the Israelis but in a useless, go-nowhere fashion. Otherwise as an explanation for the attack it's prima facie crap. If the massacre of US servicemen could be successfully covered up for forty years, do we really think anyone would bat an eyelid about a who-gives-a-shit massacre of Egyptians? And they did massacre Egyptians - in the hundreds. And we know and we don't give a shit. Honestly, like such small-time bullshit would warrant the sinking of a US vessel and the machine-gunning of the crew.


McGovern cannot mention nuke-laden Skyhawks because that would lead to a whole other discussion. The Skyhawks were launched impossibly early. Actually they were on time under the Israeli schedule, but the crew of the Liberty had fucked the schedule up. Spoilsports! The early nuke mission means LBJ was in on the gag. From the get-go. Wow. And then we wonder - LBJ wanted to bomb Cairo? Why? How could this possibly be in the interest of the US? It's not, obviously.

Absurdly, McGovern's limited hangout actually diminishes Israel's wickedness. Says he, Israel launched a small operation, all on their own and who knew? They are tricksy, ungrateful shitheads but happily for all they're small-time, clumsy and unsuccessful. Um, yes and no. The unspeakable truth is that the Israelis had reached into the Whitehouse and gripped LBJ by the balls. And McNamara too. So great was their power, they could force a US president and his secretary of defence to sacrifice a US naval vessel and visit Hiroshima-like death and misery on a people guilty of nothing other than being on Israel's shit-list. Remember, none of this wicked enormity could possibly have been in the US's interests. And the question has to be asked - How the fuck could they force the President of the United States to do this? Guesses are all we've got.


Money? Would LBJ fuck his country over and nuke another for a sum of money? I don't buy it. And did he suddenly get rich? Which is to say, richer? How about blackmail? Run of the mill sex-blackmail is good for extorting tens of thousands of bucks - but this is nukes. It's my opinion that getting sprung for sleeping with another woman, or with a man, or even with some mad gimp-outfit scat-king is insufficient to sell out your country. Any one of these and LBJ could have slunk off and remained untarred, unfeathered, and unlynched.

There's only two things that come up to scratch, for mine. One is some variety of kiddy porn/snuff movie. A photo of an eight year old chomping his choad would have had magical powers. And cost pennies - you gotta love that! The other possibility is proof of LBJ's involvement in the murder of JFK. A recording of him congratulating the assassins would do it. Tricky though - it's a weapon of mass destruction, if you know what I mean. Whatever it was, the blackmail had to be so unspeakable that it was capable of forcing LBJ to commit a nuclear holocaust. Just what did that shitty little country have on him? And what do they have now on the current congress? Whatever it is now, it ain't a rap for JFK.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, well, another time another place mate.
What about here, recently, in our wide brown land? Personally!
A new political area had been deemed and the local LabRep was visiting just before the last election.
Kick back have a beer and a burger with the next LabRep for the district.
A solicitor. Knows when to spruik, when to keep mum.
"Want us to fire up the barby?"
"Nah! She'll be right".
Blah! Blah! for a bit. Then, "Kevin's lined up the OK with Rupert then?"
"Wadayamean?", LabRep.
The story then about Kev visiting the States, for a whole day conflab with Rupert re 'am I going to get the OK to win the next election, etc.’.
"Oh! I don't know about that", says the Rep. with a smile in his eyes.
"Well we do and when you get in the only thing we want is for you lot not to lie to us, that pisses us all off more than anything else."
"Oh! I don't know about that", says the Rep.
"And stop trying to frighten us with your terrorist and security crap. You might be able to do that with the people in the city but we don't frighten as easily in the country. I'll bet you a carton that you win the elections." (Big wager).
"Oh! I don't know about that but I hope you're right".
"You will, it's been preordained by Rupert".
The LabRep then squares up, looks me straight in the eyes and says, "It's hard being a politician you know", very serious.
Confirmation - Kevin won.
Tony

Peter said...

I gotta say, I love your frankness. I've known of the Liberty incident for years, but this is actually the first time I've heard of the Skyhawks. Care to share some extracurricular reading? And connecting this incident with the assassination, hmm icing I say.

nobody said...

The skyhawks are right there on the BBC doco. Crew members discussing the erecting of screens and other shenanigans. Like I said, it's unmissable.

Tony - Where you been? Re nailing local pollies, you should have bailed him up on Kev's message to the reserve bank. Wayne Swan is in taking his marching orders right now, ha ha.

kikz said...

headscratch<
hubz and i hav questioned the nature of this velvet gloved iron grip also....
obvious/overt control points aside.....

numerous fwd deployed nukes, brought in under cover of diplomatic immunity, maybe combined w/Massively Destructive Weaponry of Intel; gleaned from mainline access to secure/strategic COM systems, courtesy of our gifting of no bid contracts?
it's beyond me.... sigh..

there is definitely covert leverage being exerted....it's the only viable answer...

nobody said...

Kikz, if you'll forgive me for asking, but are you a chick? Not that there's anything wrong with that...

But yeah, it's a mystery ain't it? I know about the embassy 'nukes' but doubt that such intolerable threats to innocent Americans could be borne by any leader. And the use of such would render all other threats and enticements moot. Not forgetting Israel would, must, get nuked in return. Hmm... thinks...

annemarie said...

Cia, mossad, et al...all bloody tentacles of the same bloody monster, if you ask me.

death and bones whoreshippers.mo'fuckers. same diff.

yup agin nobody, about RMcG et al that is. limited "hangout" is correctamundo baby. hanging who out to dry exactly? grrrrrrrrr

ta mate,

from the comments:
nobody,
what u mean by this in your comment to kikz:

I know about the embassy 'nukes' but doubt that such intolerable threats to innocent Americans could be borne by any leader.

You're joking, right? Or else I'm reading that sentence wrong?

ok, ciao fer now :)

nobody said...

Well I did say, 'hmm... thinks...'

But otherwise some things are beyond the pale. Everyone needs to justify things to themselves. A commander will order his men to go on insane missions in illegal wars with the justification that: they knew what they signed up for; they have each other; they got guns and can fight their way out of it etc. But no US commander would have ordered, and no US troops would have carried out, the Liberty attack. Only Israelis could do that. The Americans however would kill Egyptians. Nobody eats their own kids, remember.

An Israeli threat to explode a nuke in a US city wouldn't force coercion. Any leader would instantly see this as a challenge to his authority. He would HAVE TO act against it. With staggering resources. It's the kind of stand-up fight he can win. And don't forget, if the Israelis were to do it anything else they had against the pres would become ashes in their mouths, which is to say rendered useless.

With crimes of malice aforethought there is always a point, however horrendous and extreme, that will not be crossed. Doesn't matter if it's duress, fear, lust. Nothing will do it. It doesn't matter how wicked you are, no one, not even the twelve families, eats their own children.

You know what I mean?

annemarie said...

No, I must be thick,cuz I don't know what you mean.

As for this:
Nobody eats their own kids, remember.


well, I unfortunately know and know of plenty of parents who have eaten their own.

anyhow... later eh ;)

nobody said...

Sorry,

I had a feeling I wrote about this already. Or maybe I wrote it and deleted it. Can't remember.

But anyway, it's from Hungry Ghosts by Jasper Becker. It's about The Great Leap Forward which in spite of Billy Bragg, was not anything good. It was the mass starvation of 1959-1961. Somewhere between 30 million and, who knows, 80 million dead. Maybe more.

Anyway, an ancient Chinese phrase, born of starvation came back into it's own in this time. Swap your children so you can live/eat. Not too sure of the end there. And they can be similar in Chinese. The point of the saying is that when starvation maxes out and the kids are dead and there's nothing to eat, you swap your dead/dying kids with another family and you eat theirs and they eat yours. Because no one can eat their own kids.

So even at the absolute maximum, where it's cannibalism time, there's still a line that can't be crossed. No matter what you're prepared to stoop to, eventually there will be something that is beyond the pale. Every wicked villain of history would have eventually arrived at something even he would have found too much. You know what I mean?

This is all about whether LBJ would have let the Liberty be sunk because of Israeli nukes hidden in their embassy in Washington. If someone can make a case for how the mental justification process would have worked I'm up for it. But at this point I just can't see it as an effective tool for coercion.

Coercion after a certain point becomes self-defeating. 'You have to bomb Cairo of we'll bomb Washington'. If you have no resources to attack the threatmaker maybe you comply. But LBJ had serious resources. None seriouser. Eventually he'd have just thought, 'Fuck it, I ain't short of nukes. I'll just threaten 'em back'. Or 'I'll take their embassy. Arrest everyone. Bomb Tel Aviv.'

It's overdoing it. A single photo would be so infinitely more elegant as a solution.

kikz said...

good point inre "won't eat their own kids".......

but there was an indigenous tribe in MS., once who upon death of its members, would leave them on raised platforms for a time, then the tribe "bone-picker/shaman" would perform his duties and the tribe would share in the "spirit" of the departed thru the flesh.. ewww just typin that made me wince..
anyway.........

i used the fwd deployed, scattered/hidden nuke(s) scenario... as sort of the far-end point of where my mental meanderings have taken me in the dark of night... more likely, its intel related... dossier type scandals, etc... at least i hope.... that's all it is...

clearly though we agree that pressure has been and is being exerted... in some manner...
guess you're right... on threats......diminishing returns if no room is left to maneuver or retreat.

errrr.. and yea, mate...
i'm a chick :) and once upon a time, before i passed my prime, not half bad to look at :) before the telcom crash, bankruptcy, losing my home, and other indignities such as dealing w/my... horRoRmonally challenged, twin teenage girls and their (10yr -goin on 20something) hellion baby sister....ruined my looks :)

glad that you were only able to discern it from my "tell" inre "hubz"

oh and anne, thanks for heads-up in PrincessBride/cloak comment.. never noticed it b4 either.

hope i didn't put either of you, nor les off.. the other day w/my Casablanca rantings.. paine was gettin on my last good nerve.

i just tire of the jewtaboo, of "those who must not be named or their loyalties questioned" and of being shoooooshed into submission to it. fuk that.. ya know?

nobody said...

Oh yeah, I can dig it.

I got paine, wendigo and ironman pegged as that variety of limited hangout, why can't-we-all-be-nice conversation stoppers. They dominate the discussion, pile in and agree with each other and subtly send us all in the misdirection. I used to be confused but no longer. Now I see 'em coming a mile away.

And otherwise, re-nukes, all things are worth considering. I ain't tossing the idea out bathwater-style by any means. It is part of the picture and no mistake. I'm generally given to thinking it's the Samson option. Which is to say, a final petulant foot-stamping tantrum/punishment of god. Which would preclude it as a bargaining chip. To me it says, 'Cop this you bastards! Didn't know about that did you? Know our greatness'. Ha ha ha. Wait, is that funny?

Then again the nukes could be there for a false-flag and the final trigger for the shift to martial law.
Hard to know.

Otherwise I groove on Canadians and chicks with their thinking caps on. The only woman I wanted to marry was both. But never mind. Wherever she is I wish her well. And I'll gladly concede she made the right choice.

kikz said...

yea.. wendigo (wingding)as i affectionately call it...... is a known.. i see it blathering on ICH(clearinghouse) comments all the time... it's got a website, where it rants.. eyeroll... color me not impressed...


the Samson Option...

well, it could be petulant posturing.. but israel has said, on the record, if they go, they will take everybody w/em. can't get more "fuk u all, i'll blow up the planet" than that. even considering dimona...
can they?

in that vein..

the big if.. israel hits iran
alone....(as this week, bolton stated a US pullback on the issue in his best "toy 8 ball" manner - results cloudy try again next yr)

russia will green glass israel, which i could definitely dig.....in a way. if i had disposable income, i'd put it in hazmat/halliburton. ha!
solve a lot of probz in one fell swoop no?

israel, according to a pbs special (i saw the tag for this wknd) has found their new home.. the us.. sigh... ??

but then will the us hit russia in retaliation? i hope we wouldn't be that fukin stupid.
they've said we would..
but that could be posturing too. maybe Mutually Assured Destruction/Deterence has been tweaked, maybe now there is a list of acceptable targets for limited nuke exchg - btwn russia/us.....
will Pak and India sit this one out? hmm.. wonder which way the radioactive winds would blow?

so... having grown up on the gulf coast of the us, top 10 of ground zero for the entire cold war, by virtue of SAC/TAC airforce installations, shipyards, oil refineries, etc..

i now have a new dark question i never had to worry about before... what if.. after?

the north 40, just outside dallas in the burbs, w/the closest nuclear facility more than 80mi away.. might not get me in a kill zone. even if the world does hate tx., by virtue of it being home to the bush's evil empire west...

some variant of maad maxx for me and mine?
reserve enuff ammo to spare us all the indignities of rad sickness or starvation?

immediate disintegration sounds more pleasant....

i guess to step back, would the Powers that BE allow anybody to ruin "zbig's grand chessboard" and fuk up their game?

guess we'll see......

nobody said...

It's the US? I've always thought it was here in Oz. Bondi where I used to live is choked with Russians, South Africans and Israelis. Even this bullshit beach town I live in, one can hear all the aforementioned accents. I wonder if the US isn't the nominal and Oz the actual.

Australia is vitually impregnable to anything. I doubt it could be conquered by any force. 97% of it is the most inhospitable landscape imaginable. It eats people alive. And of course we have a small population strung out along 3000km of the eastern seaboard. It would be difficult for a tiny minority and their proxies to be swamped by sheer unstoppable numbers like in North America. And Australians aren't much given to dissent and rebellion. By the same token they're not much given to oppression or wanton cruelty either. But we're changing. TV is turning us into belligerent chest-beaters.

Also the money that's being hauled out of the States and rendering it bankrupt is to a certain degree coming here. We have been awash in money for years now. And nothing's changed. The streets are full of absurdly expensive cars and house prices are still impossibly high.

Interesting fact - In the UN vote on the Illegality of the apartheid wall, five countries voted against. Israel, the US, Australia and the Marshall Islands and Palau. That was Howard, but nobody said anything agin it neither. In fact, no one said anything at all. I can't wait for an opportunity for Rudd to publicly show where he stands.

annemarie said...

israel, according to a pbs special (i saw the tag for this wknd) has found their new home.. the us.. sigh... ??

Hey kikz,

I saw that too. and went oy fucking vey! What else is new/s! But mayhaps the U.S and everywhere else for that matter is "code" for "Israel". After all, god gave all the land to them, right! fuuuuck.

Related...ever see that 80s flick with Melanie Griffiths and Harrison Ford, Working Girl? Check out the theme song by Carly Simon. It's a Zionists wet dream song. In fact, New York City is referred to as *The New Jerusalem* over and again.

Nobody!

It's the US? I've always thought it was here in Oz.

Ha! And many Canucks think it's Canada.

Put that in yer pipes and exhale. Pls remember to exhale ;)

Don't ferget they do everything by way of fuckin' deception!

Btw, in ref to what you wrote about Oz, the late Joe Vialls wrote about a big Oz connection to "neocons". Something about how they were buying up expensive real estate down under, planning to be/hide somewhere safe, whilst they were planning something god-awful nefarious to strike the rest of us. Anyhow.

kikz said...

geeezie anne, you don' miss much >:)

ha.... workin girl... carly simon song.. i 'membr...

new home.. guess it is... their world, we just live here....

in oz?... i've heard s. america..
right next door to some fundixtianut... they're buyin up all the land that constitutes some huge aquifer down there... paraguay? cripez, hadta google...
GUARANI Aquifer.. borders 4 states......
anyway....

what they don't own, the UN does.......dig into "UN Bio-reserve" designations.. they've got em scattered all over the globe. those are surrounded by larger bufferzones, which then are surrounded by more buffer "sustainable developments".
http://www.unep-wcmc.org/

i'm all for rainforests and the like.. but.. shouldn't the sovereign country in which the site exists, have ultimate control of it?

yoro, you mentioned zion's on your beach.. yea, we hav a friend who travels alot.
he says they are everywhere.
even in bali.. obnoxious too, especially the ones you can tell, all pump'd up... are on leave aftr finishin' their TOD w/IDF.

we have plenty here of everybody in dallas.. israeli included... 'member the art-student scandal awhile back, shadowing/harassing fed employees.....? some of that here..

in the malls too, hawking stuff out of kiosks...

a few ruskies, many; pak, indian, mexicans, stupid texans, some chin.