BEg2 ch25 summary - forgot the most important part

Tue Mar 22 14:23:41 UTC 2022

As much as late capitalism is shouted out here and there throughout BE, I
think it is a convenient term for something else deeper going on. One can
argue capitalism doesn't exist anymore considering the radical changes to
financial markets and investment (at some point the quants are going to
make themselves extinct along with the rest of us). In essence, capitalism
has become alchemy. So, though there is an understandable hatred of 'late
capitalism', the system to use a convenient term has transcended. We
schlubs always seem two steps behind.  To tie this to BE, which I admit is
a bit of a reach on my part, is we are back to them benefiting from the
system--who are they? We are never sure in BE--sure they may be finance
people, or go getters like Gabriel Ice or the middle level goons Windust
has worked for, but that 'they' are surely only foot soldiers--who are
They? time travelers?, or those keyed into some over awesome tech that can
manipulate things on a grand scale or see patterns to exploit way above
even the highest pay grades? aliens, infesting their diabolical dna of
sorts into the human mainstream. My point as much as March Keller and
others rant about late capitalism or the horros of the US government abuses
as on the money as they are, there seems to be something bigger going on,
of which even Mr P himself can only allude to. He does it well, dont get me
wrong, and maybe this is just my take on it and Pynchon never thought these
things. But as I read BE again, it disabuses me of the previous notion I
had that Pynchon was more clear about them, the bad dudes in the later
books (well at least the last three and Vineland) being obvious. and
despite so much nonsense in BE and clutter and waste, there are some really
frightening things at the corner of the reader's eye.

rich

On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 10:09 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> I want to offer my generalized reverb to this from Rich...It tracks the
> reading I've been offering here and goes elsewhere, maybe deeper
> as stated....It is, maybe, anti-conspiracy theory in any literal plot-like
> sense,,,,,,YET BE may be the best book on the 'conspiracy' that one could
> call late capitalism?
>
> On Sun, Mar 20, 2022 at 11:40 AM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> After re-reading BE, I got the sense that the dark lords of them, some
>> within and without the intelligence community, didnt plan 9/11, just found
>> ways, like much of the country would afterwards, to make a killing in the
>> markets, and/or exploit new and existing relationships, which I would
>> argue
>> is much more important than 9/11 itself, in the novel which in many ways
>> is
>> alluded to in different scenarios and locations throughout. Even Ice, the
>> US gov't and govts are pawns. I grant there is much ambiguity over much in
>> BE.
>>
>> rich
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 20, 2022 at 10:04 AM Thomas Eckhardt via Pynchon-l <
>> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>>
>> > “Sure, blast from past, part from Stinger missile launcher.
>> > Battery-coolant receptacle cap.”
>> > (...)
>> > “This writing on the battery cap, what’s it say, can you read it?”
>> > “Pashto, ‘God is great,’ maybe legit, maybe CIA forgery to look
>> > like mujahedeen, covering up some caper of their own.”
>> >
>> > (The "caper of their own" would be a "false-flag caper" as mentioned by
>> > Windust on p. 378. "Nobody is that good.")
>> >
>> > I like Igor's matter-of-factness:
>> >
>> > "You used to get shot at with Stingers." (...)
>> >
>> > "Me, my friends, nothing personal."
>> >
>> > The historical reference is of course to Operation Cyclone:
>> >
>> > -- Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central
>> > Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan
>> > mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1992, prior to and during the
>> > military intervention by the USSR in support of the Democratic Republic
>> > of Afghanistan. The mujahideen were also supported by Britain's MI6, who
>> > conducted separate covert actions. The program leaned heavily towards
>> > supporting militant Islamic groups, including groups with jihadist ties,
>> > that were favored by the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in neighboring
>> > Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups
>> > that had also been fighting the Soviet-oriented Democratic Republic of
>> > Afghanistan administration since before the Soviet intervention. --
>> >
>> > As for the links between the mujahideen and Al-Qaeda:
>> >
>> > -- Some have alleged that bin Laden and al Qaeda were beneficiaries of
>> > CIA assistance. This is challenged by experts such as Coll—who notes
>> > that declassified CIA records and interviews with CIA officers do not
>> > support such claims—and Peter Bergen, who argues: "It's worth mentioning
>> > here that there is simply no evidence for the common myth that bin Laden
>> > and his Afghan Arabs were supported by the CIA financially. Nor is there
>> > any evidence that CIA officials at any level met with bin Laden or
>> > anyone in his circle." Bergen insists that U.S. funding went to the
>> > Afghan mujahideen, not the Arab volunteers who arrived to assist them.
>> >
>> > However, Sir Martin Ewans noted that the Afghan Arabs "benefited
>> > indirectly from the CIA's funding, through the ISI and resistance
>> > organizations," and that "it has been reckoned that as many as 35,000
>> > 'Arab-Afghans' may have received military training in Pakistan at an
>> > estimated cost of $800 million in the years up to and including 1988.
>> > Some of the CIA's greatest Afghan beneficiaries were Arabist commanders
>> > such as Haqqani and Hekmatyar who were key allies of bin Laden over many
>> > years. Haqqani—one of bin Laden's closest associates in the
>> > 1980s—received direct cash payments from CIA agents, without the
>> > mediation of the ISI. This independent source of funding gave Haqqani
>> > disproportionate influence over the mujahideen. Haqqani and his network
>> > played an important role in the formation and growth of al Qaeda, with
>> > Haqqani allowing bin Laden to train mujahideen volunteers in Haqqani
>> > territory and build extensive infrastructure there. Milton Bearden, the
>> > CIA's Islamabad station chief from mid-1986 until mid-1989, took an
>> > admiring view of bin Laden at the time. --
>> >
>> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
>> >
>> > Some see the attacks of 9/11 as "blowback" of supporting the
>> > mudjahideen. This claim, however is disputed:
>> >
>> > -- A number of commentators have described Al-Qaeda attacks as
>> > "blowback" or an unintended consequence of American aid to the
>> > mujahideen. In response, the United States government and American and
>> > Pakistani intelligence officials involved in the operation have denied
>> > this theory. Many journalists including Peter Bergen have also refuted
>> > the claim. They maintain the aid was given out by the Pakistan
>> > government, that it went to Afghan not foreign mujahideen, and that
>> > there was no contact between the Afghan Arabs (foreign mujahideen) and
>> > the CIA and other American officials, let alone the arming, training,
>> > coaching or indoctrination. --
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden
>> >
>> > Recommended reading:
>> >
>> > Steve Coll, "Ghost Wars"
>> > Lawrence Wright, "The Looming Tower"
>> > Peter Dale Scott, "The Road to 9/11"
>> >
>> > The CIA on supporting the mujahideen with Stinger missiles:
>> >
>> > https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1379437049728659459?s=20
>> >
>> > In BE, the scenario on the Deseret rooftop is one element of a
>> > conspiracy theory that, to the best of my knowledge, Pynchon invented
>> > out of whole cloth. In this fictional CT, developed by March and Maxine,
>> > there was a "dry run" for 9/11 with a manpad crew, presumably civilian
>> > contractors from the US, threatening to shoot down incoming airplanes,
>> > and a sniper as "[i]nsurance to see that they go through with it".
>> > (265-269). Maxine later learns from Igor that the DVD has a hidden track
>> > showing "young men of Arab background" building a virtual-cathode
>> > oscillator (330) at #hashlingerz.
>> >
>> > In any case, the coolant receptacle cap suggests that the events on the
>> > roof of the Deseret filmed by Reg really took place within BE's
>> > fictional world. What they mean is less clear.
>> >
>> > P.S. From the CIA's online museum:
>> >
>> > "This silver coin commemorating an anticipated (but never realized) Bay
>> > of Pigs victory features an outline of Cuba with a rebel invader
>> > advancing past a fallen member of Castro's military in the foreground."
>> >
>> > https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1397193234086957056
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>