Governments being naughty...
Discussion
The latest invasion mania has brought everyone and everything out of the woodwork, but this document (pdf, a little while to download on slow modems) is a classic. And worryingly, I' don't think it's an April fools
In a nutshell, it's a declassified 1960s file from the US, showing how they intended to fake terrorist activity to justify invading Cuba... even down to faking plane crashes and civilian deaths to encourage public outcry.
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf
It's a bit boring until page 11 (out of 15 pages).
Not that Governments do this kind of stuff these days
but interesting nevertheless. Besides there's nothing like reading 'top secret' docs with 'declassified' stamped over the top of them 
>>> Edited by domster on Tuesday 1st April 15:57
Edited 'cos it lost the O/T thingammy.
>>> Edited by domster on Tuesday 1st April 16:15
On this topic, it seems obvious to me that the two recent explosions in Baghdad markets were the work of Saddam's men, not stray US missiles. Why? Because the Yanks seem to have got their precision bombing well targetted. There were no targets near these markets. I believe there were no air raids on at the time? Most importantly, they were both in Shia Muslim areas, in markets frequented mostly by Shi-ites - the opposition group to Saddam's Sunni Muslims - he wouldn't hit his own, but sod the rest. He knows it will cause an outcry, hence the emphasis on children/women casualties - it's all grossly evil, and pathetic that the world's (Western) media throw their hands up in horror, without a single journalist daring to suggest that it was Saddam killing a few more of his population for the sake of TV images and propoganda.
nubbin said: On this topic, it seems obvious to me that the two recent explosions in Baghdad markets were the work of Saddam's men, not stray US missiles. Why? Because the Yanks seem to have got their precision bombing well targetted. There were no targets near these markets. I believe there were no air raids on at the time? Most importantly, they were both in Shia Muslim areas, in markets frequented mostly by Shi-ites - the opposition group to Saddam's Sunni Muslims - he wouldn't hit his own, but sod the rest. He knows it will cause an outcry, hence the emphasis on children/women casualties - it's all grossly evil, and pathetic that the world's (Western) media throw their hands up in horror, without a single journalist daring to suggest that it was Saddam killing a few more of his population for the sake of TV images and propoganda.
I'm glad I'm not the only expounding that theory to anyone who'll listen.
Yertis, I had that theory too! It's been in our news that they suggested it was one of their own missiles that came down-- and "oddly" they have positioned missile and antiaircraft weapons near schools/hospitals etc. Because then the big bad Americans who are so cruel will have been shown to be targeting babies and all that trash.
nubbin said: ...Because the Yanks seem to have got their precision bombing well targetted...the world's (Western) media throw their hands up in horror, without a single journalist daring to suggest that it was Saddam killing a few more of his population for the sake of TV images and propoganda.
I slightly disagree about the precision bombing thing..as outside a Hollywood studio, accuracy is somewhat relative. In a fast jet, you're doing a lot of moving not to get hit, and even laser guidance is *far* from infallible: There have been numerous "blue on blue" incidents both in the first Gulf War, as well as this one. Also remember the "chemical weapons factory" which in fact produced baby milk, or in another theatre, the slight embarassment of bombing the Chinese consulate?
However, one of the most sickening images of the first Gulf War was for me the sight of the terrified boy-hostage, being patted on the head by a fat slob Saddam, trying to look benign. Anybody who thinks that made good propaganda is perfectly capable of a small massacre to improve the ratings, in my view.
Perhaps the solution is to ban all war reporting under a Helvetia-type convention, until hostilities have ceased, to avoid the temptation to massacre for effect.
Well, Nubbin and Yertis, it pains me to point out that the Indypedant disagree with you and seem to have some proof to the contrary.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=393066
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=393066
The proof: marketplace deaths were caused by a US missile
An American missile, identified from the remains of its serial number, was pinpointed yesterday as the cause of the explosion at a Baghdad market on Friday night that killed at least 62 Iraqis.
The codes on the foot-long shrapnel shard, seen by the Independent correspondent Robert Fisk at the scene of the bombing in the Shu'ale district, came from a weapon manufactured in Texas by Ray- theon, the world's biggest producer of "smart" armaments.
The identification of the missile as American is an embarrassing blow to Washington and London as they try to match their promises of minimal civilian casualties with the reality of precision bombing.
Both governments have suggested the Shu'ale bombing and the explosion at another Baghdad market that killed at least 14 people last Wednesday were caused by ageing Iraqi anti-aircraft missiles. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said yesterday it was "increasingly probable" the first explosion was down to the Iraqis and Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary, suggested on BBC's Newsnight last night that President Saddam sacked his head of air defences because they were not working properly.
But investigations by The Independent show that the missile thought to be either a Harm (High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile) device, or a Paveway laser-guided bomb was sold by Raytheon to the procurement arm of the US Navy. The American military has confirmed that a navy EA-6B "Prowler" jet, based on the USS Kittyhawk, was in action over the Iraqi capital on Friday and fired at least one Harm missile to protect two American fighters from a surface-to-air missile battery.
The Pentagon and Raytheon, which last year had sales of $16.8bn (£10.6bn), declined to comment on the serial number evidence last night. A US Defence Department spokeswoman said: "Our investigations are continuing. We cannot comment on serial numbers which may or may not have been found at the scene."
An official Washington source went further, claiming that the shrapnel could have been planted at the scene by the Iraqi regime.
On Saturday, Downing Street disclosed intelligence that linked the Wednesday attack and by implication Friday's killings on Iraqi missiles being fired without radar guidance and falling back to earth. The Prime Minister's spokesman said: "A large number of surface-to-air missiles have been malfunctioning and many have failed to hit their targets and have fallen back on to Baghdad. We are not saying definitively that these explosions were caused by Iraqi missiles but people should approach this with due scepticism."
The Anglo-American claims were undermined by the series of 25 digits and letters on the piece of fuselage shown to Mr Fisk by an elderly resident of Shu'ale who lived 100 yards from the site of the 6ft crater made by the explosion.
The numbers on the fragment retrieved from the scene and not shown to the Iraqi authorities read: "30003-704ASB7492". The letter "B" was partially obscured by scratches and may be an "H". It was followed by a second code: "MFR 96214 09."
An online database of suppliers maintained by the Defence Logistics Information Service, part of the Department of Defence, showed that the reference MFR 96214 was the identification or "cage" number of a Raytheon plant in the city of McKinney, Texas.
The 30003 reference refers to the Naval Air Systems Command, the procurement agency responsible for furnishing the US Navy's air force with its weaponry.
The Pentagon refused to disclose which weapon was designated by the remaining letters and numbers, although defence experts said the information could be found within seconds from the Nato database of all items of military hardware operated across the Alliance, "from a nuclear bomb to a bath plug", as one put it.
Raytheon, which also produces the Patriot anti-missile system and the Tomahawk cruise missile, lists its Harms and its latest Paveway III laser-guided bombs, marketed with the slogan "One bomb, one target", as among its most accurate weaponry.
The company's sales descrption for its anti-radar missile says: "Harm was designed with performance and quality in mind. In actual field usage, Harm now demonstrates reliability four times better than specification. No modern weapons arsenal is complete without Harm in its inventory."
Faced with apparent proof that one of its missiles had been less accurate than specification, Raytheon was more coy on the capabilities of its products. A spokeswoman at the company's headquarters in Tucson, Arizona, said: "All questions relating to the use of our products in the field are to be handled by the appropriate military authority."
Defence experts said the damage caused at Shu'ale was consistent with that of Paveway or, more probably, a Harm weapon, which carries a warhead designed to explode into thousands of aluminium fragments and has a range of 80km.
Despite its manufacturer's claims, it also has a record of unreliability when fired at a target which "disappears" if, as the Iraqi forces do, the target's operators switch their radar signal rapidly on and off. Nick Cook, of Jane's Defence Weekly, said: "The problem with Harms is that they can be seduced away from their targets by any sort of curious transmission. They are meant to have corrected that but there have been problems." During the Kosovo conflict four years ago, a farmer and his daughter were badly injured when a missile exploded in their village. A shard of the casing was found near by with a reference very similar to that found in Baghdad: "30003 704AS4829 MFP 96214."
The American navy confirmed that one of its Prowler jets, which is used to jam enemy radar, had been over an unspecified area of Baghdad on Friday night. A pool reporter on the carrier USS Kittyhawk was told that the Prowler squadron had fired its first Harm on Friday evening in response to an air-defence unit that was threatening two F/A-18 Hornet jets. Lieutenant Rob Fluck told the journalist that the crew had not seen where their missile had landed.
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