Salutations edit

Greetings. I have a day job as a computer scientist, but have interests in history, the military, and psychology—especially how propaganda and public relations succeed in inducing people to unknowingly believe what is simply not true.

My background is that I have a PhD in Computer Science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence, and have worked in the field from the early 1980s to the present. I have published a book in this area, a few book chapters, multiple conference papers—including both AAAI and IJCAI, a few journal articles, and a few patents, for altogether a total of 40+ refereed publications. During this time, I worked on several research contracts for DARPA, ONR, IARPA, ARI, along with many corporate AI research projects.

User Name edit

Years ago I worked with the programming language MacLisp, a dialect of the artificial intelligence programming language LISP. Two key constants are T, for True, and NIL, which can be interpreted as False, or the empty list. SETQ assigns variables.

If you try to assign to these constants you receive amusing error messages. Not only are you are admonished for trying to change the values of constants,

  (SETQ NIL T) also reminds you "Nihil est Nihil", i.e, "Nothing is Nothing."

...and...

  (SETQ T NIL) reminds you "Veritas Aeterna", i.e., "Eternal Truth".

In other words, you cannot change the truth, no matter how much someone may wish to deny it.

WikiProjects edit

 This user is a member of
WikiProject Psychology.
 This user is a participant in WikiProject Skepticism.
 This user considers himself a participant in all WikiProjects.

Draft Subpages edit

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft January 6th and Domestic Terrorism Sections.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft American Staffordshire Terrier Corrections.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Updated Work in Progress, Symbolic Artificial Intelligence.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Blackboard System Draft.

User:Veritas Aeterna/GOFAI 2nd Draft.

User:Veritas Aeterna/GOFAI 3rd Draft.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Work in Progress, Neuro-Symbolic Artificial Intelligence.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Work in Progress, Symbolic Machine Learning.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft, Knowledge-based Systems.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft, Test for Pasting In, Knowledge-based Systems.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft, PBAM.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft, The Pinochet File (book). Completed.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Work in Progress, Draft Work on Extremism Articles

User:Veritas Aeterna/Work in Progress, Draft Work on Jan6th Articles

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Augusto Pinochet.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Central Intelligence Agency.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft The Church Committee. Definitely need to add info on how the Church Committee was deceived.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Covert United States foreign regime change actions. Adds discussion of Track I vs Track II, newly declassified papers from the Chilean Declassification Project. Adds discussion of the 1973 coup and its aftermath. Clarifies that the Church Committee was not working with all the information so could not see the complete picture. Adds a photograph with brief description of the attack on La Moneda. Adds citations to The Pinochet File, Legacy of Ashes, and the BBC-4 documentary on Chile's 9/11.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft The ITT Scandal.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Legacy of Ashes.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Kissinger.

Chilean Socialist Party presidential candidate Salvador Allende was elected by a plurality in 1970, causing serious concern in Washington, D.C. due to his openly socialist and pro-Cuban politics. The Nixon administration authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to encourage a military coup that would prevent Allende's inauguration, but the plan was not successful.[37] The extent of Kissinger's involvement in or support of these plans is a subject of controversy.[38]

Fix: [38] relies on superseded material, that is from 1975. It is now firmly established. There is a quote on this! There is no doubt of Kissinger's involvement and we also know about his attempts to cover-up.

United States-Chile relations remained frosty during Salvador Allende's tenure, following the complete nationalization of the partially U.S.-owned copper mines and the Chilean subsidiary of the U.S.-based ITT Corporation, as well as other Chilean businesses. The U.S. claimed that the Chilean government had greatly undervalued fair compensation for the nationalization by subtracting what it deemed "excess profits". Therefore, the U.S. considered (but never actually implemented)[39] economic sanctions against Chile. The CIA also provided funding for the mass anti-government strikes in 1972 and 1973.

Fix: Puts the cart before the horse. Explain ITT's role and other corporations. See Hitchens / Kissinger article.

Fix: The US never considered economic sanctions (??) show the 'invisible blockade', with appropriate detail. Show extent of CIA operations and funding.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft The Murder of Charles Horman.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Nixon. Need to fix the section in "Latin America" to describe Nixon's efforts to overthrow Allende. Ready to go except for citations need to be added.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft René Schneider. Added quote to support US view that Schneider had to go for an Allende coup to succeed.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Roberto Viaux.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Vietnam War Nick Turse

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Salvador Allende. Described how the CIA had extensively supported anti-Allende candidates in his elections.

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft United States intervention in Chile. I have added correction to the description of Track II to sort out the roles of the Viaux and Valenzuela coup plotters, and to add more detail on the CIA, White House, and Kissinger cover-ups, using references both from the book Legacy of Ashes and the book The Pinochet File. Also need to fix part about US role in laying the groundwork for Pinochet's coup, help from Allende's election to the coup. Need to fix Black quote, 'After more than thirty years, no evidence has come to light in either country that the United States played a direct role in the overthrow of the Allende government,' and sentence 'There is no evidence that the U.S. instigated or provided material support to Pinochet's successful coup in 1973, but the Nixon administration was undoubtedly pleased with the outcome; Nixon had spoken with disappointment about the failed coup earlier that year.'

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Valenzuela. Provided more references and a larger overview of what happened.

Misc: Church committee, needs a section on dissembling to them; Rodrigo Rojas DeNegri does not have info from declassified papers included; Orlando Letelier section on Assassination has nothing on Operation Condor (it's in another section only); article Military government of Chile (1973–1990), also called Chile under Pinochet has the following quotes;

On August 22, 1973 the Chamber of Deputies of Chile passed, by a vote of 81 to 47, a resolution calling for President Allende to respect the constitution. The measure failed to obtain the two-thirds vote in the Senate constitutionally required to convict the president of abuse of power, but represented a challenge to Allende's legitimacy.

Two weeks before the coup, public dissatisfaction with Allende's government had led to protests like at the Plaza de la Constitución which had been full of Chilean women venting their rage against the rising cost and increasing shortages of food, but which had been dispersed with tear gas.[3] The military seized on such widespread discontent and on the Chamber of Deputies' resolution to then launch the September 11, 1973 coup d'état (see 1973 coup in Chile) and install themselves in power as a Military Government Junta, composed of the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Carabineros (police).

which inaccurately describe the causes of the coup, not mentioning the US role at all. Also, '...and Operation Condor, carried out with the security services of other Latin American dictatorships.' does not adequately say what the latter is. There are 8 paragraphs on Guerilla activity. In contrast the rise to power section is only 3 short paragraphs. Nothing on US lifting of 'invisible blockadge' helping the economy under a long section about the economy and 'economic miracle'. The 'Allegations of state terrorism' section refers to US terrorism but not that of Pinochet in Operation Condor. The Legacy section says,

Pinochet's supporters claim that Pinochet saved Chile from turning to Communism, even going as far as to call him the country's second liberator. They also contend that the three successive administrations following him contributed to Chile's economic success by maintaining and continuing the reforms initiated by the junta Opponents have criticized the neoliberal policies enacted by the junta, as well as its human rights abuses.

but does not present the opposing view about Pinochet as a disaster and the coup as a national tragedy.

An Example of Citing pages in sources edit

In September 1970, President Nixon found that an Allende regime in Chile would not be acceptable and authorized $10 million to stop Allende from coming to power or unseat him. As part of the Track II initiative, the CIA used false flag operatives to approach Chilean military officers, to encourage them to carry out a coup.[1] A first step to overthrowing Allende required removing General René Schneider, the army chief commander. Scheider was a constitutionalist and would oppose a coup d'etat. To assist in the planned kidnapping of Schneider, the CIA provided "$50,000 cash, three submachine guns, and a satchel of tear gas, all approved at headquarters..."[2]: 361  The submachine guns were delivered by diplomatic pouch. [3]

Kissinger would be more directly responsible for what happened in Chile than any other American, with the possible exception of Nixon himself. For three years, during which he dealt with a host of crises around the world, he never lost interest in Chile.[4]: 177 

Link to Wikipedia article subsection, Track I and Track II.

Cornell Law Library collection.[5]

== Talk Discussions

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Talk: On Nixon

User:Veritas Aeterna/Draft Talk: On Kissinger

Notes edit

  1. ^ Hinchey Report CIA Activities in Chile. September 18, 2000. Accessed online 18 November 2006.
  2. ^ Weiner, Tim (2007). Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Anchor Books. p. 361. ISBN 978-0-307-38900-8.
  3. ^ Kornbluh, Peter (2003). The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. New York: The New Press. p. 28. ISBN 1-56584-936-1.
  4. ^ Kinzer, Stephen (2006). Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York: Times Books. p. 361. ISBN 978-0-8050-8240-1.
  5. ^ "Chle Declassification Project". Cornell Law Library. Retrieved October 21, 2012.

References edit

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