In a sit-down video interview recorded on Monday September 25, 2006, former Minnesota Governor, pro-wrestling star and actor Jesse Ventura told radio host Alex Jones he found it very disturbing in light of what happened on 9/11 that the U.S. government had once planned to “attack certain cities within the United States,” as a pretext for war.

Ventura was in Texas doing media events in support of independent Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman. In this interview Ventura sounds off on a number of controversial subjects and the direction in which America is heading.

Watch the full video interview with Ventura below:

“In the early sixties the Pentagon had an operation called Operation Northwoods and it never came to reality but it was on the table that our military would attack certain cities within the United States and make it look like Cuba did it to justify an invasion of Cuba,” said Ventura.

“It never happened but just the simple fact that they contemplated it and it was actually on the table in the Pentagon I find that just very disturbing - that they would even consider using our military to try to justify an invasion of another country.”

Ventura, a former Navy Seal, then cited the Gulf of Tonkin cover-up as an example of how false provocations are staged by governments to lead nations into war.

“It was very disappointing to believe in your country that they would lie to you to get into a war - that they would perpetrate a lie and that the media would go along with it - it’s a real eye opener and you realize that if they would do it in the sixties they’ll do it again - and if it works once it will work again - government very much operates that way,” said Ventura.

Ventura said that shortly after he found out the truth behind the Gulf of Tonkin, Robert McNamara paid a visit to Harvard where Ventura was teaching and he had to be “locked up in a room” so that he wouldn’t confront McNamara.

Ventura questioned the interception and tracking of Payne Stewart’s Lear Jet in October 1999 and compared the incident to the total lack of air defense response on 9/11.

“Where were our planes - when all of this was going on….to my knowledge at no time did we have any fighter planes up in the air - why?”

Citing cover-ups that led to the Vietnam war and the JFK assassination, Ventura stated that it was not “beyond reason to not at least consider that the government certainly would do things like that.”

Ventura said that it was via his 25-year research of the Kennedy assassination that he came to learn about the Gulf of Tonkin and Operation Northwoods.

“I don’t believe for one minute the Warren Commission,” said Ventura, asking that if the assassination represented the actions of Lee Harvey Oswald alone why would the information pertaining to it have to be kept secret under national security for 20 years.

“I’ve been to Dealy Plaza and I don’t think he could make the shot,” said Ventura, “it was a difficult shot with a target going away from you and dropping and not only that - he had to shoot through a tree.”

Ventura said the fact that Oswald was never proven guilty in court of law itself proves he was simply convicted by public and government opinion.

“There’s no definitive evidence that he did it in my opinion,” concluded Ventura.

Ventura was asked if an exchange of liberty for security was a reasonable price to pay and responded by highlighting the Bush administration’s mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis in New Orleans.

“The country can’t protect you - you have to protect yourself,” said Ventura.

“They had two weeks to prepare for that and couldn’t save anybody - how are they going to save you from a terrorist attack,” said Ventura, “I don’t buy that we’re any more safe than we were prior to 9/11.”

“It was very interesting that Richard Nixon had the 82nd Airborne in there when the hurricane hit back in the seventies within 24 hours and yet this President didn’t do a thing for eight days.”

“For people who say well you can’t blame President Bush - yes I fully blame him for the hurricane,” said Ventura.

“Every time the government tells you they’re going to protect you be prepared because you’re going to lose your rights,” said Ventura, saying that he would prefer dealing with terrorism rather than accepting an erosion of personal liberty.

“These were also the same people that told us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - so take it with a grain of salt - they were wrong once they could be wrong again.”

Ventura said the Democrats and Republicans were destroying the election process and allowing the elections “fall victim to a system of bribery,” but blamed the American people for sharing an apathy that means they don’t get involved and don’t care beyond their own lives. He was also cynical that another investigation of 9/11 would achieve anything.

“Has there ever been a real investigation?,” asked Ventura.

Qualifying himself in saying everything was not a conspiracy, Ventura later dismissed the possibility that Senator Paul Wellstone was killed as a result of his plane being sabotaged as “bullsh***t.”

However, Ventura was adamant that Americans should never trust their government because “the government is people” and comprises a cross section of society. [source]