Operation Northwoods | Hacker News Reader

Operation Northwoods

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82 pointsjbverschoor35 comments

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A bit off topic but also related to CIA and other gov shenanigans:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Top_Hat

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_ARTICHOKE

Much more here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentat...

Don't forget operation mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

It's worth noting that when this was presented to Kennedy, he removed the general in charge of the plan from his job.

The aluminum foil hat argument here would be that this is the only reason why this is now public, and has no incidence on whether or not further (or past) US governments have actually done that.

More specifically, the person who presented this was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he was only removed from his position as chairman. About a year later he was appointed as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

It's worth noting that when this was presented to Kennedy, he didn't have the general criminally charged.

And 18 months later Kennedy was dead and Lemnitzer was supreme allied commander of Europe

And that was the last time our intelligence agencies ever planned a false flag operation in order to sway public opinion and get their way... phew!

... and was later appointed by Ford to investigate the possibility of the CIA assassinating Kennedy.

One of the many reasons "they" assassinated Kennedy. Stuff like this is public, yet many still adamantly refuse to believe false flags occur (in general, not even any particular suspected false flag event).

It is about time to find a new term describing Conspiracy theories that are true. Once a conspiracy, always a conspiracy. It's so convenient.

All these comments make me think of the deepfakes and wonder how long until they are so good even forensics can not tell the difference and the implications that will have.

we're so fucked.

Why does it have to beat forensics? Does it matter if we find out something is a false flag after the fact? I mean how many people still think the US Government created AIDS? Even after the Russians admitted it was a disinformation campaign started by them? [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/us/politics/russian-disin...

No, sorry. No secret organization assassinated Kennedy. These operations are documents, that are easy to write up in fantasy land. The fact that they're proposed doesn't mean false flags occur, it just means the concept is understood by people who work in the government.

Stop pretending like there's this secret organization or set of organizations that's pulling the strings or setting global agenda on any relevant level. There isn't. Everything is chaos, no one knows what the fuck is going on at any given time, and nobody is in control. Period.

> No secret organization assassinated Kennedy.

I really enjoyed this book, and found it very convincing. I don't want to start a thread where we argue over conspiracy theories but just thought I'd add the link if you're interested.

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Chessboard-Dulles-Americas-Gov...

I'm generally not interested, considering I know that logic and reason are not generally great models for the world without falsifiability and predictability, and neither are abundant in conspiracy "theories".

Sounds like the only thing that would convince you is the government speaking out and saying they've been doing this, but I think it's obvious that would never happen.

We should all only believe what the government fesses up to, they'd obviously tell us if they were doing any wrongdoing. /s

No, that's simply you trying to re-create the classic lines of this argument.

You need there to be someone in control, it's the only way you stay sane, and it bothers you to no end that there simply isn't.

It's the same argument religion gives, but I doubt you fall for that one, do you? Kind of funny, how inconsistent you are.

Your assumption here is that the other commenter is projecting some kind of perfect planning, coordination, foresight and execution onto these agencies.

But they can be doing evil things which are in their interest without it being some situation of perfect control. It's simply that: evil shit they hope they can get away with, which if successful will probably be in their interests.

Throughout history, this has been the norm for any group with power but without sufficient oversight.

Groups of people doing evil things a conspiracy theory does not make. Conspiracy theories are about alternative and under-substantiated explanations of already-explained events.

"Evil shit" happens. Coordinated disinformation campaigns to misdirect the public over a long period of time by large unknown groups does not.

My "assumption" is not any kind of strawman absurdist extreme (I never said anything about perfection but nice try), it's simply the reality that conspiracy theories are hallmarked by three distinct attributes that make them categorically nonsense: lack of relevant and credible evidence, lack of falsifiability, and lack of predictiveness.

They literally meet none of the criteria of the definition of a theory, which is why they're a joke and have no place in rational conversation.

> Conspiracy theories are about alternative and under-substantiated explanations of already-explained events.

I don't believe Kennedy's assassination with Oswald acting alone has been explained, so it sounds like that's a conspiracy.

The Warren Commission would like a word, not to mention the literal JFK Records Act...

> The fact that they're proposed doesn't mean false flags occur

There is plenty of known history of false flag operations. And they are so common, that it's essentially just a tool all those three letter agencies use.

> Everything is chaos

It only looks like chaos to an uninformed observer. But it's not. Check out things like Mitrokhin Archive, it should give you some ideas of how organizations pull the strings and how much not chaos any of it is.

Sorry, but no. The global geopolitical environment is chaos, and pretending otherwise may be comforting to you, but it's a false comfort. No one is in control.

You present a false dichotomy between “everything is chaos” and “it is all controlled by one person.”

The truth is elsewhere. There are many people in control, all engaged in various cooperative and competitive activities which may to the casual observer appear to be chaos only because there is too much activity for one person to analyse in real time.

I don't present a false dichotomy at all. The conspiracies put forward by people lack evidence, predict nothing about newly released material, and refuse at all times to admit defeat.

Therefore, whatever level of "control" required is simply not there. There are not many people in control, no one is engaged in any cooperation, and the chaos observed is actually chaos, not orchestrated.

To say otherwise would be require the three criteria above, which does not exist, period.

> Everything is chaos, no one knows what the fuck is going on at any given time, and nobody is in control.

I think this makes more and more sense as you get older. After college and when you're in the work place you start to realize that no one has any idea what is going on, how to run their lives, and what they should do. Everyone is like this.

It's great how you can read about this type of stuff on Wikipedia.

It's said that there's a wealth of classified / shouldn't-be-public information (particularly on US military projects/technology) on Wikipedia. The government can't just take these pages down because there's a public record - they'd essentially be confirming the info is important.

The most amazing thing about this is that almost nobody knows about it!

approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rejected by president Kennedy

in 1962, the same year the film "To Kill a Mockingbird" appeared... contrast

Why is this flagged?

Probably for breaching this guideline:

...please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hmm ok. I thought it was remarkably similar to 9/11. And was declassified only 5 months before

My comment isn't agreeing or disagreeing with anything about that.

It's just the HN guidelines are clear that you're meant to use the original title unless it's clickbait or misleading. It's been part of the guidelines for at least as long as the guidelines have existed in their current form (over 5 years):

https://web.archive.org/web/20140702092610/https://news.ycom...

There's a very good reason for this: when people construct their own title to highlight some aspect or angle they think is important, they often get it wrong and imply something about the article that isn't actually reflected in the content - much like clickbait headlines themselves often do.

I'm not commenting on whether or not you did that, but there's a simple way to ensure you don't make that mistake: just use the original title!

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