It wasn’t a hoax - it was a complicated situation that involved lots of confusion, ass-covering, lying about the ass-covering, and a bias in the Johnson administration to believe what they wanted to hear and ignore any other data.
I don’t think we’re on the same page. As far as an average citizen is concerned all they had to go by was President Johnson speech
That was it.
It’s absolutely irrelevant if Johnson himself knew if incident really occurred or not. The things were set in motion and he was either a tool or an instigator, still of no importance.
It’s easy and all too convenient, if not naive, to present it as “confusion”, “ass-covering” like we’re talking about some high-school kids. When it is adults in power that do this, other adults refer to it as a “false flag” operation.
Not the Gulf of Tonkin fiasco, they don’t. It wasn’t a false flag.
The captain of the Maddox thought they were being attacked on August 4. Later he realized that this conclusion was based on questionable radar reports in stormy weather, and questionable sonar in rough seas. They had apparently been attacked two days earlier, although it was minimal, so there was reason for them to be tense.
Lyndon Johnson got word that there was an attack on August 4, but he didn’t get the word that it probably wasn’t an attack. Robert McNamara didn’t bother to tell him. Also, the NSA had initially run with the attack story, and when they got the later version, they covered their ass by not passing on that info.
It’s a whole sordid tale of the sorry state of decision-making based on confusion, distortions, and exaggerations. Sort of like the reports the US had a few years ago about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program.
I’m certainly not defending the way the US handled the Tonkin fiasco, but the term “false flag” describes an event that is intentionally staged with an intent to deceive. Tonkin was NOT that. It was simply jumping to conclusions based on preliminary data and then refusing to reconsider your position when you get better data.
Speaking of which, just what are you implying about the “dancing Israelis”, Newcomer? Should be pretty easy to state. What’s our take-home-message?
Sort of like the injunction about trusting Greeks bearing gifts…never trust Israelis dancing like bears.
-XT
But we must Ask Questions. Perhaps they were not Israelis at all, but British spies posing as Israeli spies posing as Israeli movers. Isn’t it curious, and I ask this simply to Ask Questions, but isn’t it curious that no major investigation of 9/11 has analyzed where the royal family were that day, and whether or not they know any words in Arabic?
If pushed on the facts, I may even point, ominously, to the lack of reporting on the British royal family’s possible connections to 9/11.
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, or the USS Maddox Incident, are the names given to two incidents, one disputed, involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox, while performing a DESOTO patrol, was engaged by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron.[1] A sea battle resulted, in which the Maddox expended over 280 3" and 5" shells, and which involved the strafing from four USN F-8 Crusader jet fighter bombers. One US aircraft was damaged, one 14.5mm round hit the destroyer, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats were damaged, and four North Vietnamese sailors were killed and six were wounded; there were no U.S. casualties.[5]
I see no comparison between the two incidents. President Johnson was looking for an excuse to begin bombing North Vietnam, but he did not orchestrate a situation in which several thousands of Americans were killed.
n/m
Dick Cheney, * In My Time*, page 9:
Newcomer’s tactics mirror that of standard Just Asking Questions style Truthers. Unable to actually point to any conspiracy, or any facts to vindicate even the implication of a conspiracy, they point at other events in history which, they claim (sometimes even correctly) prove that conspiracies can happen, so we need to Just Ask Questions.
It’s mildly hilarious when the ‘conspiracy’ they point to is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, even funnier if they point to the Tuskegee Airmen.
Still, essentially, just a slow-motion Gish Gallop, though.
Dick Cheney, In My Time, page 417:
I’m sorry but your argument is completely unclear.
Would you mind rewriting this post so people have some understanding of what you’re trying to convey.
Are you disputing the idea that truthers are morons?
If so, do you also hold we shouldn’t ridicule Holocaust Deniers.
My argument is completely clear:
If it is acknowledged that “there were few other terrorist organizations capable of carrying out an attack of this scale” then “those who believe that possibility are not morons”.
So then are you saying truthers aren’t morons?
Beyond that, why exactly is it hard to believe a terrorist group could carry it out?
Are you saying that you find it hard to believe that Al Quaeda could have members capable of using box cutters and who could learn how to fly a plane?
Anyway for your sake I hope you get angry when people ridicule Holocaust Deniers and Birthers otherwise you look quite foolish.
n/m
How would you or anyone know exact capabilities of Al-Q? There is no single source of Al-Q facts outside of those that came with 9/11. Actually, nobody knew for such an organization prior to 9/11. So, how can anyone outside of 9/11 official investigation make an assessment like that?
[/QUOTE]
Can you state, exactly, what you believe the Mossad’s connection was to 9/11 and why it’s at all important to note that there were possible (or actual if you prefer) Israeli agents who were acting like assholes when the towers were attacked?
Special award for the most self-conscious explanation. Ever.
I wonder if some Palestinian Doper (we never hear from them, damn it) would be so galling to argue “acting like assholes” if those guys on the van were Palestinians (or anyone else for that matter). What’s also notable is that many others take that as quite a rational and self-sufficient characterization of the event. No issue there.
What strikes me is the sheer offensive odour of banality espoused by this phrase “acting like assholes”. Yeah, that’s what agents of secret organizations do all the time. Mickey Mouse, obviously CIA. Donald Duck gives up his MI5 association every time he speaks.
Hilarious.
On another question, I have no beliefs. I have a fact that investigation halted.
Silly evidence such as passports surviving in the heart of the explosion while temperature burned iron or issues with some of the hijackers’ names of the real, living people somewhere in the ME – that can only be believed because it is totally outside of the realm of possibilities to be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
That’s an awful lot of words to say “no.”
It’s par for the course for people terrified of Jewish conspiracies.
It’s to distract you while he wheels the goalposts off somewhere else.