Papers show Nixon war deception
OK…tell me if this doesn’t sound familiar:
“Publicly, we say one thing,” he told aides. “Actually, we do another.”
If you’re thinking that it’s Our Glorious Leader or the Vice Torturer, you might be on the right track, but you’d be wrong- about 30 years wrong. If you’re wondering where Our Glorious Leader learned his political lessons, think Nixon- Richard Nixon. After all, how many former members of the Nixon Administration are now part of the Dubya Generation Administration? So who says the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?
Thirty years later, and it’s like deja vu all over again….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Even after Richard Nixon’s secret war in Cambodia became known, the president persisted in deception. “Publicly, we say one thing,” he told aides. “Actually, we do another.”
Newly declassified documents from the Nixon years shed light on the Vietnam War, the struggle with the Soviet Union for global influence and a president who tried not to let public and congressional opinion get in his way….
Yeah, I know…to borrow a phrase from Law and Order, “ripped from the headlines”, eh? Stay with me here; it’s just getting good.
On May 31, 1970, a month after Nixon went on TV to defend the previously secret U.S. bombings and troop movements in Cambodia, asserting that he would not let his nation become “a pitiful, helpless giant,” the president met his top military and national security aides at his Western White House in California.
Revelation of the operation had sparked protests and congressional action against what many lawmakers from both parties considered an illegal war. Nixon noted that Americans believed the Cambodian operation was “all but over,” even as 14,000 troops were engaged across the border in a hunt for North Vietnamese operating there.
Hmm…was he standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier in San Diego harbor when he came to this realization??
In a memo from the meeting marked “Eyes Only, Top Secret Sensitive,” Nixon told his military men to continue doing what was necessary in Cambodia, but to say for public consumption that the United States was merely providing support to South Vietnamese forces when necessary to protect U.S. troops.
“That is what we will say publicly,” he asserted. “But now, let’s talk about what we will actually do.”
He instructed: “I want you to put the air in there and not spare the horses. Do not withdraw for domestic reasons but only for military reasons.”
“We have taken all the heat on this one.” He went on: “Just do it. Don’t come back and ask permission each time.”
Translation: we’ll deal with the Sheeple. You handle the fighting and dying, we’ll take care of the propaganda.
Those who not understand history are…ah, fuhgeddoudit. It’s too late, anyway. Most Americans probably couldn’t even tell you who Richard Nxon was, much less what he was guilty of. Is it any wonder why Our Glorious Leader has carte blanche?
