#: 499666 S7/JFK Debate  [POLITICS]
    07-Mar-96  14:56:40
Sb: #Prouty Critique #7
Fm: D.T. FUHRMANN 71301,527
To: ALL

Chapter Three: The Invisible Third World War

Mr. Prouty begins Chapter III with a New York Times story about a 1985 
Spanish military exercise which involved the simulated seizure of a small 
town by guerrillas. The very short (three paragraphs, 81 words total)  
newspaper report was about two officers who were court-martialed for 
having been "over-zealous in carrying out their orders," having gone 
overboard in making the attack realistic.  Mr. Prouty clearly perceives 
far more diabolic efforts at work here, noting that such "bizarre" 
incidents take place somewhere in the world almost daily, despite the 
apparent demise of the Cold War.

Well, yes.  There are constant exercises and military maneuvers carried 
out by all states. And generally they are structured to practice the sort 
of problems that a military is likely to face. But that's not what Mr. 
Prouty is concerned with here.  In his analysis, these exercises serve a 
deeper hidden purpose, which is (and he quotes, though doesn't tell us 
who is being quoted): "they make war...out of practically nothing."  He 
informs us that thousands of troops and paramilitary forces have been 
trained around the world, forming not merely the leaders of "elite" 
forces, but also "the professionals used to breed a world of 
international terrorism." (Page 29-30).

Mr. Prouty says the Spanish incident is "the perfect case study in 
describing the methods and tactics of such units," though he notes in 
parenthesis that "for illustrative purposes, examples of operations in 
other countries will be merged with the Spanish example to portray more 
comprehensively the potential for these tactics."  So despite being "the 
perfect case study," it is necessary to embellish and improve upon the 
actual story in order to do it justice as an example.  Does Mr. Prouty 
refer us to any sources for these "examples of other operations in other 
countries"?  No need apparently.

Stating that "such clandestine operations are designed to make war--even 
when they have to play both sides at the same time," Prouty asserts that 
in the Spanish case the army first staged a mock invasion, playing the 
role of "agitators."  In Prouty's words:

"It is as if the fire department were being used to start fires, the police
department to steal and kill, and doctors ordered to make people sick, to
destroy their brains, to poison them."

Well, in fact when it comes to practicing firefighting, the fire department
does indeed start fires. And police run through exercises which teach 
them how to handle perpetrators and criminals---usually with someone 
playing the role of the criminal.  And while doctors don't make people 
sick, they do make animals sick in order to develop and test medicines. 
It wouldn't be much of an exercise if there was no one playing the role 
of the potential adversary.  Prouty, however, makes the leap from simply 
role-playing to the intentional creation of wars that don't actually 
exist.  And to justify this leap, he refers again to "Report from Iron 
Mountain"[footnoted, book title only, no  page number....the full quote is 
on page 44 of the hardcover edition of
Lewin's book for anyone interested):

"First of all, as stated so accurately in Leonard Lewin's "Report from Iron
Mountain," "allegiance [to the state] requires a cause; a cause requires an
enemy," and "...the presumed power of the enemy sufficient to warrant an
individual sense of allegiance to a society must be proportionate to the 
size an complexity of the society." (p 30-31)

What Lewin ACTUALLY wrote in his work of fiction (though no this is no 
longer mentioned by Mr. Prouty) was this:

"In general, the war system provides the basic motivation for primary social
organization.  In so doing, it reflects on the societal level the incentives
of individual human behavior. The most important of these, for social
purposes, is the individual psychological rationale for allegiance to a
society and its values.  Allegiance requires a cause; a cause requires an
enemy.  This much is obvious; the critical point is that the enemy that
defines the cause must seem genuinely formidable.  Roughly speaking, the
presumed power of the "enemy" sufficient to warrant an individual sense of
allegiance to a society must be proportionate to the size and complexity of
the society.  Today, of course, that power must be one of unprecedented
magnitude and frightfulness." [Lewin, "Report from Iron Mountain," p 44]

[A brief digression here, if the reader will bear with me.   I wonder what
this thought implies about the efforts of New World Order conspiracy 
theorists who often describe the great high cabal which directs and 
implements the evil plan of world conquest as virtually omnipotent and 
omniscient. Could it be that allegiance to a cause requires an enemy of 
unprecedented magnitude and frightfulness?  Ladies and Gentlemen, may we 
present "THE NEW WORLD ORDER"!!!!]

continued in #8.......

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