America's Shadow Government
During the 1960s the MIC (as reported by the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 3/21/93) covertly fought to undermine the civil rights and anti-war movements. The 20th Special Forces Group, stationed in Alabama, provided paramilitary training to the Ku Klux Klan in exchange for information on the civil rights movement. The 113th Military Intelligence Group based at Fort Sheridan in Illinois provided tear gas, electronic surveillance equipment, and funding to civilian groups attempting to undermine the anti-war movement. City police in Baltimore, Maryland received funding from the 109th Military Intelligence Group to harass "black radicals." One such "radical," Marshall "Eddie" Conway, remains imprisoned to this day, despite doubts about his guilt and overwhelming concern about the fairness of the trial used to convict him. And, on the eve of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, agents from the 111th Military Intelligence Group were shadowing the movements of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In addition, conspiracy theories still abound about the role the MIC played, either by act or omission, in the assassination of John F. Kennedy after Kennedy sought to scale back American military involvement in Vietnam. But regardless of whether Kennedy was murdered by a group of conspirators or a "lone gunman," the MIC celebrated as Kennedy's replacement, Lyndon B. Johnson, committed more troops and resources to fight a prolonged "war of attrition" in Vietnam -t he type of war that brings immense profits to the MIC. This escalation was continued by Johnson's successor, Richard M. Nixon, and Nixon's reward was gaining the MIC's permission to let his hand-picked lackey, Gerald Ford, "pardon" him for the crimes he committed during the Watergate scandal.
But the MIC miscalculated the outrage the American people felt over Nixon's pardon, and, much to its chagrin, an interloper named Jimmy Carter was elected to the United States Presidency in the mid-1970s. But this was a minor setback, and was quickly resolved when the MIC arranged the Iranian hostage crisis to mar Carter's presidency - a "crisis" that conveniently ended after Ronald Reagan was "elected."
Reagan was the ideal puppet for the MIC. By mugging for the cameras, acting in accordance with the script provided him, and espousing "down home" virtues, Reagan successfully diverted the attention of most of the American people while the MIC ran rampant throughout the world, supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa, murdering bishops and nuns in Central America, training dictators and despots at the infamous "School of the Americas," and resurrecting domestic spying programs, such as the FBI's infamous COINTELPRO operation. The illusion worked not only to get Reagan "elected" twice, but also to place the first Bush dictatorship into power.
This dictatorship endeavored to reward the MIC by invading Panama. When this did not sufficiently fill MIC coffers, Bush encouraged America's ally, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, to invade Kuwait. This led to the first Gulf War, and the "rallying around the flag," which gauged how easily Americans could be duped into obsequiously supporting war.
But once again an interloper, William Jefferson Clinton, was elected.
Thinking him destined to be a one-term failure, the MIC's efforts to undermine his presidency were subdued until his reelection. Suddenly the MIC, coupled with its political wing the Republican Party (hereinafter GOP), labeled Clinton a murderer, spent billions trying to "investigate" his misdeeds, and ultimately attempted to impeach him for lying about an affair he had with a White House intern.
Yet, despite all the MIC and GOP venom, a majority of the American people elected Clinton's Vice President Al Gore to be Clinton's successor. This was something the MIC would not tolerate. So it was forced to expose its corrupting influence by orchestrating the coup of 2000, and, in the process, subjecting the nation, over two hundred years after the American revolution, to the madness of another King George.
Unlike Reagan, who managed to maintain some sense of decency, George W. Bush makes the perfect puppet for the MIC: He is ignorant, bigoted, hypocritical, cowardly, megalomaniacal, bloodthirsty, avaricious - in short the personification of humanity's basest instincts and everything the MIC craves.
The hypocrisy that would mar Bush's early months in office was evidenced when the GOP, which elevated hate speech to new levels during the Clinton years, suddenly began whining about the alleged "hate speech" directed against their corruptly-appointed lackey. When this didn't work, the MIC borrowed a page from Hitler's rise to power by orchestrating, again through acts or omissions, America's version of the burning of the Reichstag - the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Suddenly Bush became a "wartime president," which in turn permitted him and his fellow war criminals to lie unabashedly about the supposed "imminent threat" posed by the nation of Iraq, and the "weapons of mass destruction" it allegedly possessed. Yet, unlike Clinton, Bush's lies did not result in a much deserved impeachment, but instead in platitudes about "faulty intelligence."
Moore's documentary asks two key questions. The first is why are Americans so supportive of cowards and hypocrites who promote and profit from wars, yet are unwilling to place themselves or their loved ones in harm's way?
Moore touched upon this question by asking Congressional lawmakers who had voted in favor of the war against Iraq to enlist their teenage children in the military so they could directly participate in the war effort. While the reactions Moore received were humorous, they were also disturbing, because they openly demonstrated how readily these liars and hypocrites will sacrifice children other than their own. Moore pointed out that even Commander-in-Thief George W. Bush has daughters of military age, yet they apparently have no intention of supporting "daddy's" war effort by enlisting in the military.
With the demise of the military draft, the Iraqi war has exposed the plethora of "chicken hawks" (those who promote wars, but were/are too gutless to fight in them) that are now formulating American policy. Dick Cheney received numerous deferments to avoid serving in Vietnam (because, as he stated, he had "other priorities"); Tom Delay, the ethically-deprived hypocrite from Texas claimed that his failure to fight in Vietnam allegedly occurred because "too many minorities had already enlisted"; Commander-in-thief Bush, who "bravely" tells Iraqi insurgents to "bring it on" from the safety of the most fortified building in the world, used his "daddy's" influence to perform some murky National Guard duties during the Vietnam era; Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing's favorite drug addict, whose rants are carried on Armed Forces Radio, avoided Vietnam because of a cyst on his posterior; Bill O'Reilly, the loudmouth on Fox "News" (i.e. Propaganda) Network, told Moore he would "sacrifice himself" for the Iraqi war effort, but has yet to give up his cushy job to do so; Toby Keith and Kid Rock have both enhanced their careers by hawking the Iraqi war, and were cheered by a crowd attending the NBA (National Basketball Association) finals in Detroit.
Yet nobody asked why these two warmongers were sitting in expensive court side seats (that the average soldier could never afford), instead of fighting in the war they so actively promoted; Sean Hannity, John Ashcroft, Dennis Miller, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove and countless others have all demonstrated both a willingness to hawk the Iraqi war, and an unwillingness to fight and die in it. Meanwhile, as Moore's documentary so vividly illustrated, plush, air-conditioned boardrooms throughout America are now filled with corporate executives salivating over the profit-potential of the Iraqi war, while soldiers continue to suffer in the heat of the desert.
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