Salem-News.com History articles Page 24

Former CIA Pilot Plumlee Says Reagan Administration Responsible for Death of DEA Agent

Plumlee insists the CIA did not murder Camarena as a number of news outlets have reported.

(LAS CRUCES , NM) - Robert Tosh Plumlee, a pilot who flew clandestine CIA flights, told Infowars today that Fox News, who interviewed him last September, is attempting to shift blame for the 1980s Contra resupply network to the CIA.

The network was the work of the Reagan administration, then Marine Col. Oliver North, and the NCS, Plumlee contends. The covert operation was in direct violation of the Boland Amendment, a legislative effort to prevent the United States government from funding and assisting the Contras...

Canada And The Age of Reason (at least in Europe)

Historians have noted that most Canadian treaties have funny names, but not nearly as weird as the names of some of the wars.

(DAYTONA BEACH) - The 18^th Century history of Canada is divided into three brief periods of peace, following three treaties – the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 and the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Except for the Treaties, it was pretty well war big-time, whenever the English and French weren't resting or doing wars in Europe.

There were also treaties with the Indians, but nobody but the Indians took them seriously. With one exception, which we'll get to later, just to keep you reading. (Yes, the Indians actually won one.)

Doughboys and Dumb Things Humans Have Done

The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten War by Richard Rubin is 500 pages of excellent history of World War I but without the appropriate rejection of the decision to go to war or the embarrassment one should feel for those who thought they could find glory or goodness by joining in that mass murdering madness.

(WASHINGTON, DC) - This November 11th at 11 a.m. will mark 95 years since World War I ended. Next July 28th will mark 100 years since it started.

The world war, the great war, the war for no good reason, the war of poison gas, the war to end all wars, the war of mass stupidity, the war that went on for days after the Germans agreed to end it, the war that continued until 11 a.m. as that time had been set to end it, the war whose last man killed in action was a suicidal American who ran at the Germans at 10:59...

REVIEW: Left to Right, Decline of Communism in India

“Left to Right” is a basic reference book that should be read by all practitioners or students of revolution, of socialism-communism, of Marxism.

(COPENHAGEN) - T.G. Jacob, an Indian scholar and former Maoist activist, has written a tour de force about the century-long history of India’s many communist parties.

Left to Right, Decline of Communism in India’s main contribution is its description and analysis of these parties’ failures and it does so without stooping to anti-communism or in pandering to the capitalist class.

Red Rebel and Crimea

Most young people don't know about this American who was so popular in the Soviet Union.

(SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine) - I've often said that some day I will live on a pension and write a book about all those famous men I was lucky to meet during my lifetime. 75 years have passed since the birth of the late singer, the actor and simply fighter for peace Dean Read.

In the autobiographies of the known rebel you will notice Crimea very rarely. The only mention was in September 1985, in the USSR, Crimea. Preparation was underway for a film about American Indians at the Riga film studio. But Dean Read did visit our sunny peninsula a few times.

An Evening at the Diefenbaker Awards...
Celebrating Canadian Humor

The world's humor is perhaps the highest product of our civilization... the mingled heritage of tears and laughter that is our lot on earth. -Stephen Leacock

(DAYTONA BEACH, FL) - Just a year ago, when Clint Eastwood starred at the Republican convention by mouthing obscenities to an empty chair, one Democratic observer commented "That's what you get when you cut Medicare to old geezers."

My reaction was more cosmopolitan: It suddenly dawned on me: "I don't care what they say, Canadian humor is not as bad as I thought."

Former CIA Whistle-blower Targeted by Govt. for Facebook Posts

Salem-News.com writer/photojournalist Tosh Plumlee stirs the hornet's nest by revealing truthful information about US govt. weapon running...

(AUSTIN) - William Robert “Tosh” Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot who flew arms and ammunition for the agency during the Cuban Project of the 1950s, has been targeted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for directing hard-hitting questions toward the Senate, Congress and the president on his Facebook page.

Plumlee has appeared as a guest on the Alex Jones Show several times and is highly respected for his whistle-blowing efforts...

Human Rights Tyranny

In the nearly four decades that have passed since my presentation with Five Minutes To Midnight of the everyday reality of global poverty, there has been some progress in addressing it, but not nearly enough.

(GENEVA ) - The title of my contribution to this conference is taken from paragraph three of the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. QUOTE “It is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law” UNQUOTE

The problem, I say, is that there is no universal enforcement of the rule of law to ensure and protect human rights. Why not?

Dangerous Exceptionalism

Anyone who’s been following the fate of whistleblowers Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden has surely become frightfully aware of how deceptive the NSA (National Security Agency) has been spying on people, companies and governments around the world.

(MANAMA, Bahrain) - Paul Schied, commenting in the Harvard Political Review writes, "American Exceptionalism argues that the United States is the best at everything. This isn’t true. Therefore, American Exceptionalism is bunk"

Many Americans express pride in American exceptionalism; but much of that is nothing to be proud of. We’re ignorant and indifferent, deceived and deceptive, warmongers and empire builders.

September Song For A Snowbird Stock Market

I never saw a city boy yet who was worth a damn. - Ernest Hemingway.

(DAYTONA BEACH, FL) - The lament that Walter Huston commissioned for the 1938 Broadway musical "Knickerbocker Holiday," and which Sinatra crooned as late as 1946, is an apt metaphor for a stock market laboring out of Labor Day and a foreshortened hurricane season.

The factors that have been dragging on the Dow, and the portents – according to a growing number of portenders – signal that the half-assed honeymoon since Obama's first State of the Union speech is being pelted with autumn leaves falling in the narrow canyon east of Trinity Church.