Posted on 02/04/2026 1:29:09 PM PST by CharlesOConnell

My sister saw Gary Cooper in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as a teenager, so that she became a political junkie.
She watched LBJ's "Gulf of Tonkin" speech live on t.v.; she stated that she could tell he was lying because his knuckles were white clutching the podium.

History records that it was a false flag operation designed to ensure LJB's election in the 1963 Presidential Campaign, as documented in "Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973" by Robert Dallek.

This strategy was repeated in Operation Cyanide, the false flag attack upon the U.S.S. Liberty which nearly resulted in the nuking of Cairo with an approximate population of 3.5 to 4 million people, Operation Cyanide designed to ensure LBJ's re-election in 1967, as demonstrably detailed in "Operation Cyanide: Why the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War III" by Peter Hounam.

This was one of many, historically documented false flag operations designed to ensure an incumbent's election. Nixon manipulated the issue of American POW's in Viet Nam, an assertion presented with the greatest detail and most thorough footnoted documentation in "Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POWs in Vietnam" by Monika Jensen-Stevenson and William Stevenson.

The most grievous instance was the FDR Administration's foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor as similarly documented in "Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor" by Robert B. Stinnett.

Before the 1933 presidential election, John T. Flynn had been a prominent progressive journalist and financial columnist, writing for liberal publications like The New Republic, Collins Magazine and Harper’s. He was known for his criticism of big business, Wall Street corruption, and militarism, aligning closely with the ideals of the progressive movement. At this stage in his career, Flynn supported government regulation of the economy and was generally sympathetic to reformist causes—positions he would later abandon as he became a leading critic of Roosevelt and the New Deal.

"I'm glad you dug up your constitution, Joe. I can't find ours."
Flynn supported FDR in 1933, when unemployment stood at 11 million; after 4 years of "Alphabet Soup", Federal Governmental Agency expansion (CCC – Civilian Conservation Corps, WPA – Works Progress Administration, and NRA – National Recovery Administration, among many others), unemployment in the 1937 presidential campaign stood at—11 million.
A blabbermouth FDR administration official told Flynn in 1938 not to worry that Roosevelt was suffering political damage, the New Deal would use war as political salvation, focused originally on getting the U.S. involved in the war against Germany, but ultimately against Japan, against the America First sentiments of 80% of the American population (now disparaged in the oligarch controlled media and education as "isolationism").
Now the attack on Iran is on hold because Israel is telling the Administration that, while it can sustain a 700 hypersonic missile attack–the deal is contingent on the strict proviso that the Iranian political leadership must be decapitated, "you don't attack the King unless you can kill him", otherwise, the King will kill you.

In other words, the Israelis are willing to see their whole country devastated, in a repeat of their deliberate targeting of their own people, the co-called Hannibal Option, to sacrifice 100,000s or more of their own people, to take Iran to the guillotine. Likewise Israel and its American partners are potentially willing to sustain an oil price rise to $150–$200 per barrel or higher when the Strait of Hormuz is closed by Iran, as long as the operation can assure a victory in the 2026 mid-terms.
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Kiss the Boys Goodbye by Monika Jensen-Stevenson and William Stevenson presents a deeply documented case that the U.S. government knowingly left American POWs behind in Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War and then orchestrated a decades-long cover-up to conceal the betrayal.
Conclusion: The Stevensons document a cold, bureaucratic betrayal—a national scandal buried under layers of disinformation, with American lives sacrificed for political convenience.
Technical issue: it was Jimmy Stewart, not Gary Cooper.
Sidney Schanberg won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the fall of Cambodia and the rise of the Khmer Rouge. His work chronicled the atrocities committed during the Cambodian genocide and the fate of his colleague, Dith Pran, a Cambodian journalist who survived the regime's brutality.
This reporting was later adapted into the acclaimed 1984 film The Killing Fields, which dramatized the personal and political consequences of U.S. intervention and abandonment in Southeast Asia.
In his later years, Schanberg turned to investigating one of the Vietnam War’s darkest secrets: the fate of American POWs left behind in Southeast Asia.
Schanberg’s most notable exposé, “McCain and the POW Cover-Up”, was published in 2008. It was a thoroughly documented indictment of bipartisan complicity in the betrayal of captured Americans. Schanberg called it one of the greatest moral and political scandals in modern U.S. history.
Sidney Schanberg’s career spanned two of the most damning case studies in U.S. foreign policy: the Cambodian genocide and the . In both, he exposed a pattern of imperial overreach, betrayal, and official deception, backed by rigorous documentation and moral clarity.
This writer consistently has the wrong years of presidential elections. Proofreading apparently doesn’t happen here.
“In other words, the Israelis are willing to see their whole country devastated, in a repeat of their deliberate targeting of their own people, the co-called Hannibal Option, to sacrifice 100,000s or more of their own people, to take Iran to the guillotine.”
The government of Israel uses and abuses the Jewish people for their own gain.
This makes the govenrnment of Israel the worst of the anti-Semites.
All true. McCain and Kerry did all they could to deny prisoners were left behind or even investigate.
An editor should have caught that. Do they exist anymore?
I’ve got “The Killing Fields”
on DVD ain’t sure I got the stones
Anymore...
One major difference between the Senate in “Mr Smith” and today: C-SPAN2. No one actually debates in the Senate anymore; when a Senator wants to give a speech, s/he goes on the Senate floor, gives the speech in front of the camera, and then leaves. The other Senators, if they want to hear speeches, turn on the TV in their offices, or use the C-SPAN app on their smartphones. The only time you see Senators en masse is during voting, and even then they are usually milling about rather than sitting in their chairs.
Gleiwitz Incident & Gulf of Tonkin.
But when we found out it was Israel, we just winked.
Compare the U.S. death toll in Pearl Harbor with the anticipated death toll if an Iranian missile were to sink the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.
While Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack that killed over 2,400 and launched the U.S. into WWII, a modern attack sinking a U.S. aircraft carrier would be a direct act of war, likely triggering massive retaliation—possibly even involving nuclear escalation.
If such an attack were used as a pretext—whether real, provoked, or staged—it would mirror the sacrificial function of Pearl Harbor: manufacturing public and political consent for total war.
Less well known is the Racak Massacre
It’s almost impossible to sink a modern CVN. Short of a nuclear, strike a conventional attack would cause some casualties and knock her out of battle for months. Obviously you have never been in the Navy.
My mom got booted out of Bowling Green (college, university?) in Ohio her second year, 1947, for writing a piece documenting the social positions of the third Reich.
However, the summary was, every documented/footnoted program and detail was of FDR’s administrations/regime.
She wasn’t a fan.
The history professor took it as a personal attack - he practically swooned when he heard the name Roosevelt - and she refused to rewrite, edit or write another paper for the semester’s assignment. the issue was brought up to the dean and she was summarily expelled.
I’m a lot closer to the school now than I’ve been in years past, have wondered if they’d still have records in their archives somewhere if I contacted them.
She had a copy of that paper for YEARS, lost in one of several house fires.
It did not happen until August of 1964.
In fall of 1993 I was Flight Surgeon out of the 25th ID (L) AVN BDE in support of MIA-POW recovery in Cambodia. 1992 also but, in ‘93 we had reports of some very tall relatively light-skinned Hmong in a village not far above the border way the f*** up in the Dragon’s tail. We actually crossed the border by accident (stupid primitive GPS), but sent a local up ahead to check out the rumors as reported by some Christian missionaries.
Seems this one guy escaped a POW camp, worked his way west and north, settled in, had a family, went native.
We discussed this at the TOC that night. Do we inform the state department and DoD that yes, their guy was still alive and well, that he was owed 20+ years back pay, hazardous dutypay, clothing allowances, BAQ, etc., dragged back into uniform to his wife who had remarried, kids who wouldn’t remember him as they were very small when he left, etc.
What would you do?
The officer in charge of the op put it to a vote of everyone present (about 15 people, IIRC) and the decision was unanimous.
Not the guy. Some hippie draft dodger who left the country in ‘72 or whenever.
I imagine he’s still listed as MIA to this day.
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