In the “Operation Northwoods” James Grippando uses some of the facts from the declassified documents about the actual “Operation Northwoods”, which was a proposed operation against the Cuban government that shaped within the Department of Defense in 1960, and using it to justify a war against Cuba, which was rejected by president Kennedy on that time, to construct his fiction and he tries to connect the current incidents in his story to the some of the details in Yawn Hockel’s documents. Some of the details that were mentioned in the “Operation Northwoods” story, “The idea was for the U.S. military to stage terrorist activities at Guantanamo and blame them on Cuba, which would draw the United States into war with Cuba." And “The first wave was to have friendly Cubans dressed in Cuban military uniforms start riots at the base, blow up ammunition at the base, start fires, burn aircraft, sabotage a ship in the harbor and sink a ship near the harbor entrance." …show more content…
It seems in the story the reason of incident of “plane crash” is getting rid of those six hundred detainees as Theo in “Operation Northwoods” by James Grippando told "A plane crash on the base, a few U.S. casualties, and voila! The burning question of what to do with six hundred terrorists is finally
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States was incredibly eager to strike back at the nations thought to be responsible for this horrific tragedy. These attacks were quickly attributed to the terrorist group al-Qa’ida, led by Osama bin Laden, and to the Taliban-run government of Afghanistan, which had provided sanctuary to al-Qa’ida. In response, Washington approved a covert plan led by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to directly attack those responsible in their Middle East safe haven. Initiated on 26 September 2001 with the approval of the warlords of the Afghan Northern Alliance, with whom the CIA had formed an intelligence liaison relationship, Operation Jawbreaker resulted in the fall of the Taliban regime, the killing and capture of a significant amount of al-Qa’ida leadership, and elimination of a terrorist safe haven by early December 2001. Moreover, the Taliban’s collapse denied al-Qa’ida a pseudo-nation-state partner, serving to reduce the organization’s sanctuary to areas residing along the Pakistani border. Operation Jawbreaker, one of the first post-9/11 covert operations carried out by the United States in support of its national security interests, had proved successful. Word of the operation’s swift success astounded those back in Washington; dubbed the CIA’s “finest hour,” it signified the first of many victories by deposing the Taliban’s control of Northern Afghanistan.
The story focuses on the conflict between the two giant atomic nations, the United States and the Soviet Union. On October 16, 1962, the U.S. had suspicion that Russia was placing missiles and atomic weapons in Cuba. It also seemed as if the Russian's were constructing a large naval shipyard and a base for submarines. The two Kennedy's at first thought it was just a football field, but when U-2 planes got more detailed pictures the two were outraged! The photos indicated that the missiles were being directed at certain American cities. It was estimated that within five minutes of them being fired, eighty million Americans would be dead! RFK later finds out that Russia sent these weapons to Cuba because they thought the U.S. was interested in overthrowing the Cuban government. In response to this rumor, the Soviets wished to help Cuba protect itself.
One day, in the early 60s the US Government discovered that the Soviet Union had a nuclear missile on the island of Cuba. So, the US government asked the Soviets to get rid of them. It was a bold thing to do because anything could have happened. Things between the US and the Soviets were already tense because of the cold war. For fourteen days, tension grew between the nations. Not knowing if this missile aimed and ready to fire at the US. Kennedy decided to give this speech the “Cuban Missile Crisis Address”. The address was used was to announce there will be a naval blockade on Cuba until the crisis is solved. This address was very effective because Kennedy did not say he was going to start
It seems that the United States has been one of the most dominant, if not the most dominant, countries in the world, since the Declaration of Independence. Yet, on Monday, April 17, 1961, our government experienced incredible criticism and extreme embarrassment when Fidel Castro, dictator of Cuba, instantly stopped an invasion on the Cuban beach known as the Bay of Pigs. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, his advisors, and many Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials, made the largest error of their political careers. Once the decision was made to invade Cuba, to end Castro and his Communist government, Kennedy and his administration were never looked at in the same light nor trusted again. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev was affiliated with Castro, and the two countries made many military decisions together. As Kennedy and the United States tried to stop Cuba and Russia from becoming a threat to the world, an invasion was planned out and executed. The results were a disaster. The Bay of Pigs invasion was the largest military mistake ever made by the United States government and the CIA in the 20th century and brought America to the brink of war with Cuba and Russia. The Bay of Pigs invasion was not a quick decision, many hours of meetings and conferences occurred before President Kennedy gave permission for the attack. President Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20, 1961, and immediately wanted to take the initiative with the Soviet and Cuban governments (Pearson 12). Russia was already under Communist control, and Fidel Castro took over the Cuban government with heavily armed troops and policeman. Castro’s policemen filled the streets, and he ran the newspapers, as well as many assembly buildings (Frankel 60). At the beginning, Castro did not run a Communist government, but once he began to meet with Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, Castro started a Communist government (Crassweller 23). Max Frankel, writer for the New York Times, summarizes the situation in Cuba by saying, “Little by little, the vise tightened. Little by little the free people of Cuba came to realize it could happen there. The grim facts of life on an island that became a police state” (Frankel 59). Every day, Castro came closer to controlling every aspect in life in Cuba. Fidel Castro even took control of the schools in Cuba, throwing out any teacher who he thought...
These thirteen days were the time period in which the fate of the world was decided. The focus of the book was on the decision of both the United States and Russia. The United States had to come to an agreement on what measures would be taken in order to prevent further establishment of Russian missiles in Cuba. No one could really agree on what actions to take "And so we argued, and so we disagreed- all dedicated, intelligent men, disagreeing and fighting about the future of their country, and of mankind."¹ The missiles were being brought to Cuba by Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, who guaranteed President Kennedy that the missiles would never be used as a weapon against the United States. This was a lie. Khrushchev fully intended to use the missiles as a mechanism of defense against the United States and as a way to further pursue a relationship with Fidel Castro who was the President of Cuba at the time. The United States needed to find a way to stop the development of missile sites without causing a break out of violent warfare.
Cuba was recovering from the Bay of Pigs invasion. They held off the American forces and were able to avoid the invasion. They weren’t sure if the United States would attack again. Cuba’s dictator (Castro) wanted to convert Cuba into communism. In doing this they allied themselves with the USSR while being dangerously close to the “enemy,” the USA. Cuba was now in the middle of the Cold War. Although they believed getting involved with the USSR would protect them, at the same time it put them in more danger. Castro did not think it would get Cuba tangled into the Cold War. In an interview he said, “Our problem is above all of national sovereignty. Cuba does not mean to get involved in the Cold War.”(Beck 551)
The U.S. had just elected President Kennedy two years prior to this very threatening occasion, and every nation thought he was a weak leader who just craved attention. During this time, the Soviets and the U.S. were right in the middle of the Cold War (1947-1991): the period of time when both nations were trying to spread their type of government and become superior, making us enemies. Just a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. had made a failed attempt at invading Cuba at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow their communist dictator, Fidel Castro. Once Russia caught wind of this failed invasion, they quickly jumped at their chance at becoming allies with Castro, and started building nuclear bombs in Cuba. Kennedy had recently placed bombs in Turkey, Russia’s neighbor probably leading the soviets to place some of theirs in Cuba, because of how close it was to America; one nuclear bomb could reach Washington D.C. in 30 minutes.
On New Year’s Day, 1959, Cuban Rebel forces, led by Fidel Castro, overthrew the existing government led by Fulgencio Batista. Castro immediately reformed Cuba’s economic policy, reducing the power of American companies over Cuba’s industry, as well as threatening American profits and influence in the area. This greatly irritated the United States as a whole, and caused the government, under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, to turn hostile towards Castro. Just a year after Castro’s rise to power, President Eisenhower was convinced that if the best interests of the United States were to be fulfilled, the new Cuban government would have to be abolished. On March 17, 1960, he approved the Central Intelligence Agency’s plan, entitled “A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime.” This program’s purpose was to “bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban people an...
In part one section two Kinzer describes the invasion on Cuba. Kinzer notes Spain’s hard work to solve the Cuban crisis peacefully and “any president with a backbone would have seized this opportunity for an honorable solution. Such a solution, however, would have denied the United States the prizes they sought. They could be won only by conquest. McKinley understood this and on April 11 he asked congress to authorize ‘forcible intervention’ in Cuba” (Kinzer 37). When McKinley authorized ‘forcible intervention’ in Cuba the world knew this was nothing less than a declaration of war. The harsh reality is that Spain was willing to negotiate peacefully with the United States but McKinley had other plans. Kinzer later says that the CIA attempted to depose him but failed miserably. Eighteen months later, the Soviets deployed offensive missiles in Cuba, thus bringing the Soviets and the America to brink of nuclear combat war (Kinzer 90). This was one of the reasons why the Soviets went from being our ally to being our enemy.
Operation Northwoods was perhaps known to be a false flag used to help the U.S. get the power they wanted from different counties. Although the year of 1962 seemed to busy, on March 10 Lincoln E. Bloomfield of MIT turned in a a report entitled “A World Effectively controlled by the United Nations: A preliminary study of one form of a Stable Military Environment” (Grigg). General Lyman Louis Lemnitzer, a worker of the joint chiefs, filed and said that “Operation Northwoods,” was intended to create pretexts providing justification for U.S. military intervention in Cuba. Using a false flag, such as Operation Northwoods, the government has the ability to play to get what they want by using fake attacks, hijacking airplanes, torching a naval base,
At 8:19 am – Flight attendants aboard Flight 11 (Boston’s Logan International Airport en route to Los Angeles) alert ground personnel that the plane has been hijacked; American Airlines notifies the FBI. Around 8:24 am – Hijacker Mohammed Atta makes the first of two accidental transmissions from Flight 11 to ground control in an attempt to communicate with the plane’s cabin. Following this, twenty-four minutes later – The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) alerts North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) about the suspected hijacking of Flight 11. In response, NEADS call upon two fighter planes located at Cape Cod’s Otis Air National Guard Base to locate and tail Flight 11; they are not yet in the air when Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower. Next in this crucial timeline, at 8:46 am – Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 crash the plane into floors 93-99 of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the
The tropical island of Cuba had been an object of empire for the United States. Before the Missile Crisis, the relationship between Castro and the US were strained by the Bay of Pigs occurrence in 1961. This was where counterrevolutionary Cubans were American funded and tried to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro. However, the counterrevolutionaries failed. Castro then found an alliance with the Soviet Union and an increase of distrust that Castro had on the US. On January 18, 1962, the United States’ Operation Mongoose was learned. The objective would be “to help the Cubans overthrow the Communist regime” so that the US could live in peace. Consequently, Castro informed the Soviet Union that they were worried about a direct invasion on Cuba, thus longed for protection against th...
Introduction Operation Anaconda was the first major joint combat operation against the war on terror that the US was committed to winning. This operation would test our military’s readiness for joint operations against a hardened and willing adversary. The primary mission was to kill/capture Taliban/Al Qaeda forces occupying towns and villages in the vicinity of Shahi Khot in order to gain control of the valley.1 The US needed the towns, villages, mountains, and more importantly, the intricate and hard to access caves cleared of enemy fighters. Units participating in the operation included elements of the 101st Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division, Special Operations Forces (SOF), and Coalition forces from seven nations including Afghanistan.2 With so many different nations fighting along with our own branches of military, it would test our ability to conduct joint operations on multiple levels. History On September 11, 2001, Osama Bin Laden decided to “wake the sleeping giant.”
By the early 1960’s the U.S. had cut off ties with Cuba and was engaging to overthrow the Castro regime. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a fumbled CIA attempt to crush the government, inflamed
The story of the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs , located on the southern coast of Cuba about 97 miles southeast of Havana, was one of mismanagement, poor judgment , and stupidity ( " Bay Pigs " 378). The blame for the failed invasion falls directly on the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and a young man by the name of President John F. Kennedy. The whole purpose of the invasion was a communist assault Cuba and Fidel Castro ended . Ironically , thirty nine years after the Bay of Pigs , Fidel Castro remains in power . First, we need to analyze why the invasion happened and then why it did not work .