History Unknown: The CIA Bought (and Changed) George Orwell's "Animal Farm"
The most insane ideas always come from Langley, Virginia.
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Those who are critical of American foreign policy are faced with a monumental challenge: Simply describing things the Central Intelligence Agency has admitted to doing makes us sound like crackpots with a tinfoil hat for every day of the week. As any justified critique of America’s foreign endeavors must include the nefarious actions of the spy agency, it’s difficult to sound sane while presenting an anti-imperialist case. Citing the proven-but-psychotic things the CIA has done will give the average listener the impression you think Alex Jones is “too moderate,” causing them to dismiss your critique altogether.
A perfect example of this phenomenon can be found in the U.S.’s ongoing war on Cuba. To explain why the blockade of our Caribbean neighbor is still in place, we have to examine America’s embarrassment at the hands of the Castro government and the too-extreme-for-a-comic-book tactics the CIA planned to overthrow the socialist government. In 1962, the CIA and Department of Defense proposed Operation Northwoods, a false flag attack that would justify an American invasion. Here are the specifics of Operation Northwoods, taken verbatim from now-declassified files.
“A ‘Remember the Maine’ incident could be arranged in several forms: We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.”
“We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities, and even in Washington. We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated).”
“It is possible to create an incident which will make it appear that Communist Cuban MIGs* have destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attack.”
*A MIG is a Soviet-style fighter jet Moscow sold to its allies.
Now, if I were to bring up in conversation with my apolitical friends that one time, the Central Intelligence Agency wanted to bomb a Navy ship filled with American sailors, build a Soviet-style fighter jet to shoot down an Air Force plane, and wage domestic terrorism in major American cities all to create public support in favor of a full-scale invasion of Cuba, they would stop inviting me over. And I wouldn’t blame them! That sounds insane! If I pitched Operation Northwoods as a movie script, producers would tell me to come back with something more realistic.
However, this far-fetched, absurd, and monstrously evil plot is 100% real and verified. Below is a PDF of the now-declassified plan, complete with instructions on which officials and government bodies it should not be sent to. Thankfully, President John F. Kennedy rejected Operation Northwoods and saw it as one of the reasons he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” A year later, he was killed by a gunman with ties to the CIA. (Weird!)
I’m telling you about Operation Northwoods so that you recognize the extreme lengths the CIA goes to to achieve its ideological goals. Without an understanding of the bat-shit-insane stuff Langley, Virginia has done, you’re likely to dismiss the story of Animal Farm as a fantasy. Unfortunately, it — along with countless other conspiracies of deception, manipulation, and murder — is entirely true. Not only do I think it is important that all Americans understand the full backstory of the propaganda many of us grew up reading, but this tale also offers important insight into how the Central Intelligence Agency distorts media to shape our minds, change politics, and, ultimately, foster geopolitical conflict.
Meet Eric Arthur Blair, a.k.a. George Orwell
American propaganda is so effective and intense that, despite being assigned many books by the Indian-born author throughout our public education, most Americans are surprised to learn George Orwell was a socialist. Born in India in 1903, Eric Arthur Blair was a journalist and novelist who wore many hats throughout his life. He served as an imperial police officer in Burma, a teacher in Paris, a reporter under the now-famous pen name, and a volunteer soldier in the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War. During his service he was shot in the neck, millimeters from his artery.
While I won’t cover the full extent of the Spanish Civil War, the crux of Orwell’s experience and the birth of his animosity towards the Soviet Union arose in June of 1938. While the fascist forces of Francisco Franco were supported by Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, the anti-fascist Republican Army was ragtag and comprised of volunteers driven by ideology. Anarchists, socialists, communists, workers, and anyone who thought military dictatorship was bad enlisted to fight the fascist threat. As leftists tend to do, the Republican Army fell into infighting. Orwell had served with the Worker’s Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), a Trotskyist party that was critical of the popular-front, anti-fascist strategy promoted by Moscow and the Communist International. Eventually, the anti-Moscow communist POUM was declared illegal by the dominant pro-Moscow communists. POUM members were arrested, tried, and some were killed. Orwell escaped Spain, but the event fostered a unique worldview. While still a socialist, Orwell spent the rest of his life highly-critical of the centralized, Leninist-style communism of the Soviet Union.
It was this ire of the Soviet Union, not a disbelief in socialism, that led him to write Animal Farm.
Spoilers for Animal Farm and Watergate
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