Carry on Cocking Up

Bridport author Dave Mort’s latest book “Play it Again Uncle Sam” is a satire on post war US foreign policy, the blowback from which is still being felt today, not least the ongoing bloodbath that is Iraq, soon to be spread to Iran.
His novel particularly focuses on Cuba in 1959 when the US backed Dictator, Batista, was overthrown by Fidel Castro and his supporters. No political event in modern History (up until 9/11) has thrown the CIA top brass into such a state of apoplexy than the activities of Fidel and his merry band, especially after he began to nationalise estates owned by the United Fruit Company (CIA boss Allen Dulles was on the board), sugar plantations owned by the Pepsi Cola Company and redistribute them amongst landless Cubans. He then rubbed US landholders’ noses in it by offering them a compensation package based on the value of the land they had entered on their tax return, which, of course, was a deliberately deflated figure.
Emboldened by this early success he went onto confiscate oil refineries owned by the Standard Oil Company (A Rockefeller enterprise) and the Zapata Oil Company (owned by Dubya’s father George H W Bush). He was publicly humiliating the US Government so badly they became paranoid that the rest of their puppet regimes in Latin America would also fall, so the then Vice President, Richard Nixon, decided enough was enough and secret plans were drawn up to either assassinate Castro or invade Cuba and remove him.
The problem was the hand of the United States in these illegal activities was to be hidden at all costs and scapegoats were to be found. Nixon and the CIA drew up plans for an invasion of Cuba while the contract for the hit on Castro was sub contracted to the professional killers, the Mafia.
Then came the 1960 election which everyone thought Vice President Nixon would win with ease, especially as he was up against the less experienced Senator John Kennedy. But ironically the Nixon/Bush clan had underestimated the lust for power of the corrupt Kennedy family and JFK crept home with more than a little help from his father’s cronies. The CIA, which was busy organising the last stages of the Cuba invasion plan, was freaked out by Kennedy’s victory especially when they discovered he wasn’t as committed to the invasion as Nixon and had quickly ruled out the use of US Marine and Air Strike back up, should the invasion force, made up of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, get into trouble.
And get into trouble it did. Within a matter of hours most of the 1,300 men had either been killed or captured and Kennedy was advised not to try and save them using US Forces as this would bring the Russians in on the side of the Cubans. Castro was now
cock a hoop that his little country had defeated a superpower and Kennedy had succeeded in betraying the Miami Cubans and alienating the CIA, who had planned the doomed mission. From that moment on JFK’s fate was sealed.
Castro was now public enemy number one and all manner of crazy schemes were being concocted to kill him on a daily basis but always mindful of disguising the US Government’s involvement. What was needed was a suitable scapegoat that would point the finger away from the US and towards foreign shores.
Enter stage left a young US marine who had recently returned from Moscow after having defected there three years earlier. This naïve, confused, young self-proclaimed communist didn’t appear to be over bright with a malleable persona and a young Russian bride whose uncle just happened to be a high ranking KGB official. The perfect dupe? So they thought.
Within weeks he was being manipulated into forming and joining various groups that would raise his political profile and even appeared on TV arguing his Marxist view of the world. In the September/October of 1963 he, or someone posing as him, was sent to Mexico City in order to get a visa to enter Cuba, whilst there getting into arguments with staff in the Cuban and Russian embassies thereby ensuring everyone remembered the name Lee Harvey Oswald.
But according to the authorities, he then went off the radar screen turning up a few weeks later working at the Book Depository on Elm Street Dallas, which just happened to be on the motorcade route of JFK’s visit to that city. We all know what happened next.
So Oswald and/or his backers had turned the CIA’s original plan to kill Castro and Kennedy was assassinated instead. So cock up rather than conspiracy? I think so. But what a cock up! The CIA has now spent the last 45 years covering up this nonsense and hundreds of potential witnesses have had their “suicides involuntarily assisted” to stop the truth coming out. But at least the CIA now admits to having kept a pre-assassination on Oswald. At the Warren Committee hearings of 1964 they actually perjured themselves when they said they had no record of any Lee Harvey Oswald, an unbelievably stupid claim when you consider that this young marine had defected to Moscow offering to sell them radar secrets for the U2 Spy plane, which was a CIA run mission.
In my opinion this cock up ranks alongside some of their other “biggies” their support of Saddam Hussein during the Iran /Iraq war even though it was known he had gassed Kurds. Saddam obviously thought he still had “favoured status” when he invaded Kuwait. He thought wrong and the ensuing two wars to get rid of him have killed hundreds of thousands more. Then there was the arming of the likes of Osama Bin Laden and his cronies in Afghanistan in the 1980’s in order to get rid of the Russians. God alone knows what they promised these men in return but they’re obviously still very angry.
But what, I hear you ask, has any of this got to do with the present day? I believe history is about to repeat itself. In 1960 when Nixon and the Republicans lost the election they handed Kennedy and the Democrats a poisoned chalice with the “Bay of Pigs” invasion plan, probably knowing that Kennedy wouldn’t have the stomach for it. It is highly likely the Republicans will lose the next election to Barak Obama but they are unlikely to go quietly. It is very probable that Bush, his cronies and their friends in Israel will consider launching a pre-emptive strike against supposed nuclear installations in Iran citing the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” argument that they tried to use against Iraq. Troops already in Iraq would then be used to use the threat of invasion to quell any retaliation. This “fait accomplis” will then be handed to Barak and the incoming Democrats and they and the rest of us will reap the bitter harvest, namely terrorism on a mass scale for years to come.But in the meantime don’t panic, read “Play it Again Uncle at www.playitagainunclesam.com

Birmingham Sunday by Joan Baez

Do you remember where you were and what you were doing on the 15th September 1963? The parents of Denise McNair aged 11, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley; all aged 14, certainly do. On that day a special service for children was being held in the 16th street Baptist church in Birmingham. The four girls were singing their little hearts out, full of hope for the future. Their parents were justifiably proud of them.
But a few minutes after the church service had started, a white man stepped out of a turquoise and white Chevy, and coolly and calmly placed a box under the church steps before driving off. Shortly afterwards, an explosion ripped through the chapel killing the four girls and seriously injuring dozens of others. All that was found of Denise was one of her white dress shoes, and one of her friends was decapitated by the force of the blast. Cynthia’s father could only identify his daughter by the ring a friend had given her.
Dozens of the congregation, faces dripping with blood, cut by flying shards from the stained glass windows, staggered out of the cloud of dust and debris. Two nearby cars were crushed like toys by the force of the blast and windows were blown out for blocks around.
The KKK claim to be white supremacists. Now why is that phrase such an oxymoron where they’re concerned? Superior what, intellect? I don’t think so. After all what brains does it take to place a bomb in a crowded church full of kids?
A witness later identified local Klansman, Robert Chambliss as being the man responsible for placing the explosives, but then seeing as he was known locally as dynamite Bob, that shouldn’t have been too difficult a call. He was subsequently arrested, charged with murder and possession of 122 sticks of dynamite. But unbelievably the all white jury acquitted him of the main charge, convicting him for illegal possession of explosives and fined him a $100.
As the enquiry dragged on, the distraught families of the four dead black girls quite rightly accused the FBI of dragging its feet. In fact the men suspected of aiding and abetting dynamite Bob, were still being investigated two years later when Hoover suddenly abandoned the case saying he couldn’t get a guilty verdict. And then adding insult to injury, Bull Conner, the local chief of the good ol boys, implied that Civil Rights activists had bombed their own people for the free publicity. How much more abusive and insulting could it get?
This moving song was written by Richard Farina who was the partner of Joan's sister, Mimi. It was written in response to the KKK's murder of those four young black girls. The song concludes with these words,

"On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground.And people all over the earth turned around.For no one recalled a more cowardly sound.And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
The men in the forest they once asked of me,How many black berries grew in the Blue Sea.And I asked them right with a tear in my eye.How many dark ships in the forest?
The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone.And I can't do much more than to sing you a song.I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.And the choirs keep singing of Freedom"

This song is one of sixty found in my book "Play it again Uncle Sam" details of which are available on my website, http://www.playitagainunclesam.com/

Masters of War by Bob Dylan

Bob wrote this song in 1963 and it was released on his "Freewheelin" album, probably one of the most influential albums of all time. It was created in the shadow of the virtual mushroom cloud that had almost arisen from the Cuba Missile Crisis where Russia and the USA had gone eyeball to eyeball. But according to Dylan himself, the genesis of the song was earlier, Eisenhower's resignation speech, where he referred to the disproportionate amount of power exerted on US foreign policy by the Miltary/Industrial complex, and its potential for violent confrontation around the world. This is evident in the first two verses

Come you masters of warYou that build all the gunsYou that build the death planesYou that build the big bombsYou that hide behind wallsYou that hide behind desksI just want you to knowI can see through your masksYou that never done nothin'But build to destroyYou play with my worldLike it's your little toyYou put a gun in my handAnd you hide from my eyesAnd you turn and run fartherWhen the fast bullets fly

The line, "You play with my world like its your little toy" is as relevant today as it was then, given the war in Iraq and the hawkish interest in regime change in Iran. This would be for the second time ,because in 1953, the combined forces of US and British Intelligence had removed the democratically elected Iranian Government of Mossadegh from power, as he was a threat to our oil interests in the region. In conclusion the song has reached iconic status because of ts relevance today but the world still desperately needs a new protest singer for a new generation.

Please feel free to post coments about his song or suggest others. And if you have the time visit my website, www.playitagainunclesam.com