Alternative to World War III

[Raz]

Re: Alternative to World War III

There is zero hope that c1ue or I will convince the other of our positions.

Neither have you convinced me.

It seems, to me at least, that c1ue asked a very reasonable set of questions.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Alternative to World War III

There is zero hope that c1ue or I will convince the other of our positions.

C1ue and I have had our differences in the past on this forum, but I think we are thinking along similar-ish lines when it comes to this stuff.

I agree with C1ue on the aligned interests not being conspiracies.......more along the lines of convenient opportunities.

The best two I can think of(in my opinion) are:

1.) Feminism
2.) Climate change

I think we can all agree that equality for women and looking after the only planet we have are worthwhile endeavours.

But I also think both government and industry were/are strongly incentivized to embrace and leverage both movements for their OWN agendas.......

In the case of government....supporting the "liberation" of Mom to work outside the home helped mask things like inflation, offsourcing 1.0(auto/steel), and a harder to maintain quality of life and standard of living.

In the case of industry....supporting the "liberation" of Mom created a new consumer class to market to and profit from.

It also carries a built in "moat".....attack the misuse of feminism and you are easily vilified...so you have to like it.

The net result was Mom now works 2 fulltime jobs(1 outside the home as well as the same fulltime job IN the home) to help sustain the existing quality of life and standard of living, except with a bit more cr@p in the house.

Anyone remember this commercial?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X4MwbVf5OA

I see little difference with the hijacking of climate change.

It allows government to once again mask problems of its own creation and industry to market/sell a whole new set of products and services...and if you fail to embrace the movement and happily embrace a reduced quality of life and standard of living, the built in self defense mechanism can result in people easily portrayed as "hating the planet".

Here's a rather blunt example from the usually quite subtle Poms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26gc2jXW3K4

Neither of those examples require any back door dealing cabals, just some senior advisors in government able to identify the opportunity to implement some effective misdirection and misplaced blame.....and for industry to simply follow government's lead exploiting their own opportunities.

And I also agree with C1ue on the "black ops" side of the house when it comes to conspiracies....

Just look at how the Arab world perpetually blames the Israeli Mossad for pretty much everything that ever goes wrong, same was the case throughout Africa when it came to Rhodesian/South African until the 90's.....relative superiority between combatants turned into a convenient excuse to blame local incompetence.

None of those organizations were/are omnipotent or perfect...in fact often far, far from it.

Same can easily be said, as C1ue stated, of government bureaucracy.....and how on the one hand we understand government "clown car" incompetence, but on the other assume omnipotence?

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Alternative to World War III

It seems, to me at least, that c1ue asked a very reasonable set of questions.

c1ue and I contributed to one of the longer threads in iTulip history, at British Institute of Nanotechnology: Military Involved in 9/11. From that, at least, I know that there is zero hope of either of us convincing the other.

My current recommendation for someone seriously interested in the most substantial body of evidence I've seen yet on what happened to the World Trade Center Buildings is Judy Wood's "Where Did The Towers Go?". It blows holes (poor choice of words) in the thermite theory I was favoring in the above debate with c1ue.

But I'm not debating 9/11 here again. Life's too short. Read the book; don't read the book; your choice.

Other books tackle other aspects of 9/11, such as the Pentagon, Shanksville, the official response (and lack thereof), by such authors as James H. Fetzer, David Ray Griffin, Webster Griffin Tarpley, and Peter Dale Scott.

Though many of the details remain clouded in disinformation, confusion and secrecy, I am as certain as I can be that 9/11 was a monstrous false flag event.

[shiny!]

Re: Alternative to World War III

And I'll note again the mystical abilities exhibited by human black ops in contrast to the many and varied incompetencies of bureaucracies, politics and human error.

FWIW, and that's arguably not much, one of my late husband's best friends was a professional airline pilot and world-class marksman who flew black ops missions for several years. He had utter contempt for the bureaucrats you speak of, but a great deal of respect for the agents he flew- at least for their skills. He himself was no one you wanted to cross. He was always smiling, always polite, seriously twisted under the surface, and absolutely deadly. For some reason he took a great liking to my husband. Personally, I was scared to death of him. He passed away several years ago.

I watched him shoot a three-stage match: revolver, rifle and shotgun. His time was almost 2 seconds faster than the next fastest shooter (who was a seasoned competitor in his own right), yet he was so smooth it looked like he was suspending time and moving in slow motion. I've seen a lot of good shooters in my life, but he was in a class all his own. Having seen him in action, it's no mystery to me why the black-ops agents have such a "mystical" reputation.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Alternative to World War III

But I'm not debating 9/11 here again.

One more thought - debates work when there is some reasonably broad common basis of agreement - a shared world view, at least as regards the underpinnings of the matter at hand.

When the underlying world view differs too much, then debates usually become exercises in justifying sticking with one's own world view. Such exercises tend to be frustrating and fruitless.

FWIW, and that's arguably not much, one of my late husband's best friends was a professional airline pilot and world-class marksman who flew black ops missions for several years.

Good story - thanks!

In my view, black ops capabilities extend well past individual skills. Unless you have plenty of spare time on your hands, I'd not recommend going down this rabbit hole. It's actually more like Mammoth Cave than a rabbit hole. You'll end up totally rethinking your physics, history, cosmology, and more before you're done. The technology available to the black ops folks is impossible, according to "modern" physics.

[shiny!]

Re: Alternative to World War III

In my view, black ops capabilities extend well past individual skills. Unless you have plenty of spare time on your hands, I'd not recommend going down this rabbit hole. It's actually more like Mammoth Cave than a rabbit hole. You'll end up totally rethinking your physics, history, cosmology, and more before you're done. The technology available to the black ops folks is impossible, according to "modern" physics.

My husband's father and uncle worked for Dow chemical. He told me that when he was a boy, his father told him that he had personally seen a transporter device in a laboratory. This was in the 60's, I believe. According to his dad, the scientists had managed to transport a tea cup from one room to another. The problem was that it didn't arrive intact, but as a pile of dust...

Come to think of it, our friend did tell us some fantastic stories. Things like how the government was going to change the money by putting embedded technology in it (that happened) and changing its color to purple (that didn't happen). He said he had actually seen the purple money. That was about 20 years ago. When the money stayed green, I figured he was spinning tall tales... until they started putting those metal strips in the bills.

I initially doubted his story about flying black ops when he was younger, until I saw his scars and how he flew. On my wall is a picture of him standing in front of his little plane with a big grin on his face. The top of the aircraft's tail has grass stains on the edge because he had just flown over a field upside down, with the tail of the plane grazing the grass.

He was quite the philosopher when it came to physics, his favorite saying being, "Fit is a function of velocity."

[c1ue]

Re: Alternative to World War III

FWIW, and that's arguably not much, one of my late husband's best friends was a professional airline pilot and world-class marksman who flew black ops missions for several years. He had utter contempt for the bureaucrats you speak of, but a great deal of respect for the agents he flew- at least for their skills. He himself was no one you wanted to cross. He was always smiling, always polite, seriously twisted under the surface, and absolutely deadly. For some reason he took a great liking to my husband. Personally, I was scared to death of him. He passed away several years ago.

I watched him shoot a three-stage match: revolver, rifle and shotgun. His time was almost 2 seconds faster than the next fastest shooter (who was a seasoned competitor in his own right), yet he was so smooth it looked like he was suspending time and moving in slow motion. I've seen a lot of good shooters in my life, but he was in a class all his own. Having seen him in action, it's no mystery to me why the black-ops agents have such a "mystical" reputation.

There is no question that there are plenty of competent, or even ultra competent shooters.

That isn't the question though.

The question is: would your late husband's friend assassinate an American President and not speak of it ever?

Would your late husband's friend remote control a 757 into the World Trade Center buildings knowing thousands of Americans would die?

Would your late husband's friend plant WMD's in order to foment an excuse for a regime change in Iraq?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Alternative to World War III

There is no question that there are plenty of competent, or even ultra competent shooters.

That isn't the question though.

The question is: would your late husband's friend assassinate an American President and not speak of it ever?

Would your late husband's friend remote control a 757 into the World Trade Center buildings knowing thousands of Americans would die?

Would your late husband's friend plant WMD's in order to foment an excuse for a regime change in Iraq?

Agreed....and a couple key points to add:

*There are a STAGGERING number of people who CLAIM special operations experience, but are really sad posers....STAGGERING numbers of them. Whether it be claimed special operations experience in Vietnam, Desert Storm, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan...or claiming POW status, or claiming to be recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, etc...it is a literal epidemic of lies....if anyone wants evidence of these losers(including some "sources" for the conspiracy theory crowd) I'd be happy to provide links of this epidemic.

*Most folks who DO possess special operations experience are not the type of folks who would be quick and easy to share it willy nilly outside of their inner circle of family and friends once retired.

*Of the folks in the special operations community I've had the opportunity to work with, learn from, and just enjoy a few pints with the...the single word that best describes and ties them all together is INTEGRITY.

Folks without it are largely filtered out quite early on in respective nations units' selection processes.

The risk of allowing folks who lack integrity to participate in sensitive activities on behalf of their nations would be catastrophically high.

I think some people are watching too much Hollywood interpretation of "black ops".

Integrity

[shiny!]

Re: Alternative to World War III

Agreed....and a couple key points to add:

*There are a STAGGERING number of people who CLAIM special operations experience, but are really sad posers....STAGGERING numbers of them. Whether it be claimed special operations experience in Vietnam, Desert Storm, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan...or claiming POW status, or claiming to be recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, etc...it is a literal epidemic of lies....if anyone wants evidence of these losers(including some "sources" for the conspiracy theory crowd) I'd be happy to provide links of this epidemic.

*Most folks who DO possess special operations experience are not the type of folks who would be quick and easy to share it willy nilly outside of their inner circle of family and friends once retired.

*Of the folks in the special operations community I've had the opportunity to work with, learn from, and just enjoy a few pints with the...the single word that best describes and ties them all together is INTEGRITY.

Folks without it are largely filtered out quite early on in respective nations units' selection processes.

The risk of allowing folks who lack integrity to participate in sensitive activities on behalf of their nations would be catastrophically high.

I think some people are watching too much Hollywood interpretation of "black ops".

Integrity

Of his integrity I have no doubt. A poseur? Absolutely not. The things he talked about weren't common knowledge among his friends and acquaintances. I'm pretty sure that aside from his wife, my husband was the only person he told, and it was years after the fact.

There are many levels of black ops. Most don't involve the things c1ue mentioned, and I don't know how secrets like those could be kept. But there's a lot of lower level drug and arms running, cross border contacts, surveillance and yes, killing that the government wants done off the books. That he was capable of such things and temperamentally suited for the work.. I have absolutely no doubt.

[Ellen Z]

Re: Alternative to World War III

In a space of about ten years (the 1930's), while much of the rest of the Western world was in the midst of a Great Depression, Germany went from being a defeated basket case to arguably the world's strongest military power.

For some years, Germany could be perceived as a potential counterweight against the Soviet Union.

Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933; the country rejected the Versailles Treaty and began to re-arm in 1935. During the the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) Germany and the Soviet Union were on opposite sides, Hitler sent military aid to Franco while the Soviet Union backed the Spanish republic.

This alignment changes on August 23, 1939, when the Soviet Union and Germany sign a pact defining their separate spheres of interest. A week later, the Germans invade Poland. On Sept. 17 the Soviet Union invades Poland from the east, and soon after occupies Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Romania.

This alignment changes again on June 22, 1941 when Germany invades the Soviet Union.

[doom&gloom]

Re: Alternative to World War III

Of his integrity I have no doubt. A poseur? Absolutely not. The things he talked about weren't common knowledge among his friends and acquaintances. I'm pretty sure that aside from his wife, my husband was the only person he told, and it was years after the fact.

There are many levels of black ops. Most don't involve the things c1ue mentioned, and I don't know how secrets like those could be kept. But there's a lot of lower level drug and arms running, cross border contacts, surveillance and yes, killing that the government wants done off the books. That he was capable of such things and temperamentally suited for the work.. I have absolutely no doubt.

There are plenty of people who can keep a secret -- forever. I am one of them. You can tell me something in confidence and it will nevr get shared with anyone if make that an explicit request. I have personally never understood why so many people need to "run off at the mouth" with stuff others told them. Just because you know something does not mean you have to be a walking talking billboard.

So when people question whether there are people who can keep secrets forever, I could easily say yes, such people exist.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Alternative to World War III

Of his integrity I have no doubt. A poseur? Absolutely not. The things he talked about weren't common knowledge among his friends and acquaintances. I'm pretty sure that aside from his wife, my husband was the only person he told, and it was years after the fact.

There are many levels of black ops. Most don't involve the things c1ue mentioned, and I don't know how secrets like those could be kept. But there's a lot of lower level drug and arms running, cross border contacts, surveillance and yes, killing that the government wants done off the books. That he was capable of such things and temperamentally suited for the work.. I have absolutely no doubt.

If he possesses integrity and is a genuine BTDT(been there done that) kind of fella, then the possibility of him or peers who also possess integrity and faithfully fulfill their oaths of service then the odds of their being involved in conspiracy theory shenanigans is pretty low.

Just like the odds of running into genuine "black ops" ninjas who willingly discuss considerable details of their careers is fairly low....the odds of such folks being posers is quite high....not an attack on you or your friend.....but those ARE the odds...it's very easy to find or provide substantiation.

To Doom&Gloom's point of folks keeping secrets forever.....again...that plays towards integrity...those filtered for it, possess it..those that don't are filtered out....those left are far, far less likely to do things they know they shouldn't be doing and swore they wouldn't.

As to the "many levels of black ops" quote, no offense intended, but I don't think you actually possess the subject matter knowledge to make that claim and it seems irrelevant if we agree that integrity is a key/core trait for folks who pass through the various integrity and training filters to perform unconventional tasks on behalf of their nation/government.

Once again, the general public's perceptions of special operations and intelligence operations are often based on melodramatic Hollywood content and often highly inaccurate in the mass media news.

My experience and exposure to it is both 1st(limited) and 2nd hand(more broad based across a number of relevant countries) from a good number of folks within that community including a couple of mentors with considerable relevant experience.

This is my last post on this topic as I'd prefer to reduce the chance of potentially embarrassing myself in front of any of my peers who may choose to visit this forum(I've suggested this forum to many folks I know with a current or prior service background).

This is another example of where I'd really like to see a couple folks with relevant military/security subject matter expertise(far, far, far beyond my limited experience and exposure) help focus perception in an accurate direction...much as EJ has helped focus my generally parallel perspective in all things finance and economics.

I would highly recommend the Small Wars Journal forum. It's the iTulip of the forward thinking defense/security community. Very well regarded.

To be blunt...while I agree that conflict risk is rising and that the military/intelligence/defense/security community have been far from faultless in recent years....I can't help but think the perceptions here of it are at times as inaccurate as the perceptions of the general public regarding this financial crisis/process.

In my opinion, as I've stated before, this is an area of weakness on this forum.

[doom&gloom]

Re: Alternative to World War III

That Small Wars Journal forum looks interesting. Thanks for adding that and damn you for finding something yet again that will take up even more time!

[metalman]

Re: Alternative to World War III

That Small Wars Journal forum looks interesting. Thanks for adding that and damn you for finding something yet again that will take up even more time!

+1 great site. thx.

[Fiat Currency]

Re: Alternative to World War III

... a faked alien invasion, but real enough to be very scary at the time.

Well (FWIW) Paul Krugman not only agrees with you ... he said so on CNN ... a fake alien invasion would be good for the economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1Fzzs7oVaA

You can't make this stuff up.

Peace be with you TPC.