Another Sideshow, Another Black Eye for the Military

by Gordon Duff,  Senior Editor

Fox News is continually reporting that former Governor/SEAL/UDT Jesse Ventura, was “beaten senseless” in a bar brawl in 2006 by a SEAL.  The story goes that Ventura said “more SEALS need to die.”

VT Editor Jim W. Dean reminds me, “Why now, why years later, why station after station, all Neocon controlled spin and sleaze carrying this story?

Who gave the command, unleashed the media rats?”  Then we checked the web, same thing, every scumbucket site on net.  Then, of course, a “little birdie” told me that Ron Paul and Jesse Ventura, America’s political “dream team” had been talking.

True or not, the attack dogs who went after Paul are now on Ventura.

From that second onward, I knew I was listening to pure unadulterated bull from a carefully coached Neocon stooge using his military service to sell out his country.  It reminded me of watching Ollie North in his dress blues, there, in front of congress.  I wanted to puke.

There is no bigger veteran supporter than Jesse Ventura.  There is also no bigger enemy to the crooks that have used our military against our own country than Ventura.

This is why Jesse is the real hero and why he is feared.

THE MOST DANGEROUS PIECE OF JOURNALISM IN AMERICAN HISTORY

[youtube TrZ14NRbT-s]

The claim by a Kris Kyle seems a bit hollow.  Those who know Jesse claim he never would have said it.  Were I to show up on the “trash talk” circuit, I might have a witness or two, even if I had to pay them out of the reptile fund.  Sorry for going there, I tend to equate neocon’s with reptiles, don’t know how that started.  Perhaps it is their empathy level but more likely their intellect.

The story goes like this, back in 2006, Jesse Ventura went into a bar he frequents in Coronado, CA.  This “Kyle” character says Jesse was “badmouthing the war.  The mythology begins:

Kyle then claims he decked Ventura, a former pro-wrestler, and “ran out of the building.”  The run part I understand.  Everything else is unsupported.

What is supported is that “Kyle” has a book out claiming he is a great war hero, a sniper who killed hundreds of “insurgents” in Afghanistan.

I know a bit about stuff.  Part of my time in Vietnam was spent as a sniper.  In real life, and this is how we have to be, snipers are seen as “backshooting cowards” by the rest of the military.

Even with the old equipment we had, I could hit 3 people, “pink mist,” before they knew it from so far away it would take them an hour to get there, terrain as it is.

I didn’t like it, it felt “dishonorable” to me but this is just my opinion.  I never had to walk a hundred miles to kill an NVA general and evade trackers for weeks, like I read in books that I suspect are 99% fiction.

Shooting folks who are called “insurgents” in a country where every adult carries a gun may have risks but probably means that many who were killed were murdered and others who were real “insurgents” were actually patriots fighting another foreign invasion, “us.”

Thus far, 80% of dead “insurgents” are unarmed civilians, in particular women and children.  I’ve been there and have done my homework.

This, I suspect, is Ventura’s position.

There is no other position.  Anyone who buys the 9/11 and bin Laden crap is too stupid to live.  In 2006, fewer knew that it was all invented. 

By 2008 or today, all special ops guys know 9/11 was an inside job, all know bin Laden died in 2001 and if they don’t, it means nobody trusted them enough to tell them the truth.

Where Kyle, in his endless interviews, each embellished more than the last, is right, he says we fight for each other as professionals, not for the war.

Let’s talk about self defense issues.

I spent 35 years in martial arts, starting as a kid.  My earliest lessons involved fighting for lunch money as a kid in Detroit.

I studied Judo (Jujitsu), I boxed, all of it…with my last official competition well into my 50s.  I have worked with every imaginable weapon and more than a few that won’t be declassified during our lifetime.

However, as an old guy I was slow, taped up but with better upper body strength than in my 20s, much better, and frankly, more willing to cheat.  Why?  I needed to.

Back when I thought I was a big deal I had an awakening.  I got into the ring with an average professional light heavyweight boxer.  I got to hit air more than I wanted and got a lesson.  Professional boxers are to be avoided.

What I would remind Kyle of is professional wrestlers.  These guys, and many of us know they are acting most of the time, are on my ‘avoiding’ list.

I am certain of this.

Any professional wrestler, even with my 35 years of training, much of it “not amateur,” meaning trained in silent killing, would have me asking for mom to come and help in 5 minutes.

Compared to these guys, the rest of us are a joke.  I at least have the guts to admit it.

Let’s talk about SEALS.

First of all, I know many SEALS, some are friends and know their hierarchy.  I also have a gang of SAS buddies from “head honch,” being “Mike” to non coms.  It isn’t about bluster but more professionalism.

Where we get suckered is when we try to paint “honor and duty” onto things when we know better.  We just do what we do because we can, because it is our place at the table and once we lose it, we are just like anyone else.

All of us are only an inch away from a job at Home Depot or, for so many of our friends, simply deciding we can handle it anymore.  This is why we stick together because, frankly, there are days when nobody else is real.  Enough about that.

This is the best group of guys in the world.  I find them good company, which is as good a thing as any Marine can say about someone in the Navy.

Remember Vietnam?  38 SEALS died in Vietnam.  21,000 Marines died in Vietnam.  This is the link to my article on Ventura from 2010.  It has been reproduced and read more than anything anywhere that year, print or internet.  It got over 100,000 reads an hour for some time.

Marines demand respect because we earned it. What we also don’t forget is that these guys are still out there, they are part of “us”.

And when special ops guys need extraction from impossible situations, if SEALS are the ones who show up, they are the luckiest men on earth.

What bothers me is “book selling” and appearing like a trained ape on right wing TV and radio.  This has you speaking for me and you can’t speak for me.

I am a Vietnam combat vet.  I have spent decades trying to outlive what happened at My Lai, when a “military unit” executed hundreds of women and children.

Now, as one of the leaders of a rather large veterans organization, the stories come in, some anti-American propaganda but more, more than I will print certainly, speak of cowardly acts by special operations personnel and contractors, and the proof is too often on live video.

Do we damn everyone?  This is a good question, maybe we do.

What it tells me is that, when you find yourself on the wrong side of a war, where the enemy is the “good guys” and you are working with a pack of spoiled thugs, it is time for hard decisions.

Do you “shitcan” your career?  Do you walk away from your buddies?  Would real courage require standing up and refusing illegal orders as is required by the Geneva Convention to which every American soldier is a personal signatory?

Then again, I do know “fog of war.” Things aren’t clear and combat tends to blunt the decision making process.

Also, in today’s world, a military paycheck may be the only paycheck and you go or your kids are on welfare and welfare isn’t what it once was if you hadn’t noticed.

This isn’t 2001 or 2003.  I think all of us know the facts by now but just don’t know how to get out of it.

Military service is a trap, the more “special” or “secret” the bigger the trap and, as so many know, the more unstable and purely delusional those around you can get, especially “leadership” such as it is.

Anyway, who am I to judge?

What do I expect from the SEALS?  It is time someone admitted the Abbotabad fiasco.

Here is what I know:

• The US had casualties there, Abbotabad,  SEALS and aircrew, denial is disrespect.  We saw the wreckage and have proof of American bodies being picked up.  End of that lie.
• Bin Laden had died a decade ago, the mission was “political” and SEALS never should have been involved.  Obama needed a “win” and SEALS bought it for him.
• Initial stories about gunfights and “bin Laden hiding behind a hostage” were proven lies and failure by the Seal community to deny this reflects poorly
• The entire scenario, the shooting of an unarmed, unprotected old man who died ten years ago who would have been, if any of it were true, the most valuable intelligence asset in history, reflects poorly on SEALS and is, I hope a lie made up by DC bureaucrats
• The “Muslim Burial at Sea” fiasco, not only is it an obvious lie, only a moron would try to tell it.

[youtube yuC_4mGTs98]

The reason for the video is simple.  It explains the difference between real and phony, between stupid and moronic, as well as anything.  It debunks the bin Laden death about as quickly and painlessly as imaginable.

Then we get to the “old guy” thing.  I am an old guy.  Jesse Ventura is an old guy.  I have a brother 5 years older than me.

His recent gig was training our intelligence officers in unarmed combat.  I am more than certain he could take anyone around, effortlessly.  He was 67 at the time.

He is not patient like Ventura.  Hitting him would mean a month in an ICU, no matter who you think trained you.

One of my good friends and co-workers was a Special Forces, an intel guy.  His last gig was Defense Attache to Israel.

He also has 30 plus years of martial arts and is 6’5″ plus.  He is also an old guy.

I have put his tail on the ground but I remember being hit by him.  He nearly broke one of my arms, at 70 could easily drop any heavyweight to the floor.  I am sure we are both slow as hell but the Kyle story, this takes the cake.

Ventura was, on his worst day as a pro, well beyond any of us.  Hitting him with a baseball bat would be a wasted effort much less suckerpunching him and fleeing a bar where you were supposedly an invited guest at a wake?

Fishy?  No kidding.

I grew up around tough guys and the military weren’t the toughest except perhaps Harris.  Eddie Lee Harris, for those who follow such things, was rated numero uno in all martial arts in all services back in the late 60s.

He is a close friend and I was asked to be his sparring partner because I was “trained.”  Ouch!

I saw Harris invite an entire Navy crew to a boxing match on the USS Cleveland.  When he did 10 consecutive KO’s, none lasting one minute, no more takers.

In an informal confrontation, he and I against what I thought was hopeless numbers, I watched him pick up one guy by his belt and begin beating others with the body as though it were a stick.

Even Harris is an old guy now, still a brother, knee replacements, still plays softball, still tough as hell but no longer bigger than a truck.

What are the issues?  I am waiting for Kyle to challenge Ventura to a rematch.  This would be good, short but good.

I am not so sure I believe Mr. Kyle, which, since he presents himself as a SEAL, dishonors all SEALS.  Marines would have shut his lip long ago.

This “sniper” crap is just that, “crap.”  As a Vietnam Marine, working for a tenth the money and with more trigger time than a century in Afghanistan would offer, I am immune to bull.

We were starved, did 30 days a month “out” and were invariably outnumbered ten to one or more.  We had no body armour, no hot meals, certainly no pay, no calls home, no internet, no weeks of downtime, no personal belongings, just death, starvation and rain. 

One of our writers and a fellow squad member in Vietnam,  Bill Eckard, died a bit ago.  He lost two legs, part of an arm and ended up in an early grave in Arlington National Cemetery.

[Editors Note: Dear Folks, Gordon is too humble to put this link in so I will, as Bill Eckerd was in command of the flanking squad in:

The Last Bayonet Charge in Vietnam.

For those who have not caught this yet, it is being called one of the best Vietnam War pieces there is… Jim W. Dean]

To me, “Ralph” was always “Bill.”  He will always be 20 years old, he will always be my family.  This is our path, this is how we go and, for the best of us, sometimes why we fight for each other in wars we spend our lives learning were “mistakes.”

But then, we were like so many others.

Like who?

Like every other American army that ever fought in wars, from Valley Forge to Antietam to Belleau Wood to Iwo Jima.

Now we need new rules, a professional military of Christian politicians who cost millions to train and live on talk shows and TV?

I thought General MacArthur, “Dugout Doug” was bad enough.

What would a real patriot say?  No wars for my kids, not unless America is attacked.  Well, we were attacked, we were attacked by a cabal of Neocons, backed by Pentagon Princes and the Mossad and trillions were stolen.

More of us learned we were lied to.  Why did we have to learn at all, Vietnam was lesson enough but the “forgetting” set it along with phony politics, phony religion and cheap cowards who took over our government.

Our answer to being attacked by our own government?

We invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hell, I was in Vietnam.  I know stupid wars.  I was part of a generation that died in the mud, forgotten in Vietnam or who returned to a country that honored us with parades decades later when few of us were still alive.

They could have kept their parades.

When it comes down to who I respect and I have Jesse Ventura telling me our wars are wrong and America is guilty of criminal aggressive war, which is the simple truth, I respect the simple truth. I respect Jesse.  Those who have the choice and pretend to believe a lie are the real cowards.  Ventura is not.

For me it isn’t politics.  I am always on the side of the veteran, the poor sap who dies, whose wife (or husband) is with “Jody” and whose kids will grow up without a real family.

I am against those who start wars, who profit from wars, who play war politics, I think they should all be executed. As Jim Dean so often says:

“The problem with Gitmo is that they don’t send the really dangerous terrorists down there, but to Washington instead.”

I can’t say Jesse Ventura is a god.  I don’t believe everything he has done but he did the best analysis of 9/11, the landmark in American history. He is responsible for the best piece of journalism America has, certainly the most important.

For that, we owe him.  No sniper, no SEAL, no journalist comes close, Jesse…on that one day won something well beyond the medal of honor. As a veteran, Ventura stood up for the honor of all of us.  I choose to judge him for that day.

Editing:  Jim W. Dean

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Addendum Reader Submission/Commment:

Dear Gordon, a quick note to thank you for the last two articles you wrote on VT:

1. Why Are They Afraid of Jesse Ventura?

2. The Gasoline Export scam These two articles have to be as good as anything I have read in a long time, and they are hard hitting and accurate. One of my business partners worked with Jesse Ventura right after he got out of the Navy. He was 100% standup, worked harder than anyone else there and although he didn’t talk much, he was a very caring individual, taking his fellow workers to Gold’s Gym and teaching them how to weight lift and work out (Jesse worked at an auto service center in Robbinsdale, Minnesota as a tire buster, my associate was a mechanic there).

I also knew a number of folks that knew Jesse well when he was mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Same story, honest hardworking, a treasure to the community. He cut taxes and increased efficiency and overall did a great job. He was very respected there just as he was while he was Minnesota Governor. As Governor he was very popular and made it clear from the very start, no lobbyist deals and govt not for sale and he meant it and his administration was free of corruption because of it. Many of us were disappointed he didn’t run again.

As far as Kyle, rumor has it he is being promoted by the shadow govt for a homeland security role setting up a special strike force sniper team, a private mercenary force to deal with dissidents if any future hot breakdown occurs and has some very questionable current connections, and that big contracts may be pending, that he is being used to attempt to smear Jesse Ventura because the power structure is very afraid of his connections to the seals and the respect they have for him (plus he has been a source of public truth).

I have worked with some combat vets in the past and none bragged about having to fight or kill and described their experiences in war as very stressful and traumatic overall. I view war like Ron Paul as the “last option” which should be legally declared when all else fails or we are attacked, and then we should stage a 100% full spectrum effort to win completely and quickly, doing all possible to avoid harming civilians.

In most cases war seems to be tragic for most involved except the war profiteers and power brokers at home, especially these illegal, unprovoked, unconstitutional, undeclared perpetual wars (police actions for war profiteering for the big defense contractors). Those that serve their country bravely deserve to be protected from useless perpetual Vietnam style police actions which place them needlessly in harms way and seem to never be won. It seems to me that the only ones that make out on these perpetual wars are the large defense contractors.

It seems to me that all wars since WW2 have been illegal, undeclared wars that have taken advantage of the greatest service folks in the world which is tragic. As you know Jesse Ventura has always stood up for the Vets, especially the wounded vets. The fact that Kyle has been bragging about hundreds of kills publicly is tragic and misguided, IMO. Something seems to be seriously wrong with him and it sends the wrong message to young folks. And to try and smear Jesse Ventura with obvious lies is downright disgusting. Jesse is a national treasure and anyone who tries to smear him is either seriously misguided, compromised or seriously whacky, IMO.

Everybody that is anybody knows Jesse is the real deal, 100% stand up, somebody you can trust and rely on. Seems like this whole smear job against Jesse is a sophisticated PSYOP to me. This serves as a big LITMUS TEST for which publications are clean and which are dirty. Any publication that smears Jesse is dirty and following a psyops scripted by some entity, IMO. I have checked the Internet and it is easy to identify which major and minor publications are dirty (it’s the ones participating in this phoney smear job). Thanks for getting right about Jesse ventura and standing up for this great American Hero.

As far as the “The gasoline Export Scam” article, you hit another grand slam home-run with this. The information you included is well founded. Years ago I asked a high ranking oil exec I knew how serious the oil shortage was. He laughed and said that most of it was marketing and distribution issues, that there was plenty of oil in the ground, but too many rules preventing drilling inside the USA or offshore and no permission to build the necessary refineries.

I also learned about the Russian deep oil well research which proved that oil is not a fossil fuel (ie a decayed plant derivative from pre-historic times), but actually is a mineral that flows in rivers and exists in large pools deep underground at varying levels. That there is so much oil it is astounding and the world is literally afloat in it.

There is so much oil off the coast of Florida that Cuba has leased oil drilling rights to the Chinese to drill there. We should be doing the same. But of course the BP disaster was a staged disaster to create a problem with that and help keep the price up. And then the recent huge oil finds in the Bakken Range in ND, Idaho, etc. and now a huge find in the Rockies. And many know about the world’s largest find to date at Gull Island Alaska, discovered and capped by Atlantic Richfield over 20 years ago. I was also told that almost all of our Alaskan oil is shipped to Japan as part of a secret treaty.

If it came to the continental US we would have much cheaper gas. And your articles about Iran and the saber rattling to increase the oil price now that consumption is at an all time low have been right on the mark and very hard hitting. I can’t thank you enough for all these great articles which just seem to keep getting better and better. You have taken VT to the top of the pack for investigative journalism, that’s for sure. Please keep these excellent investigative articles coming. Many thanks for the great articles and getting the real truth out,

Jim Viken (retired former psychologist and Marriage & Family Therapist)

Minneapolis, MN

Gordon Duff

Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.

Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.

Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.

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