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Experts Fear Escape of 1918 Flu from Lab
21 October 2004The 1918 flu virus spread across the world in three months and killed at least 40 million people. If it escaped from a lab today, the death toll could be far higher. “The potential implications of an infected lab worker – and spread beyond the lab – are terrifying,” says D. A. Henderson of the University of Pittsburgh, a leading biosecurity expert.
Yet despite the danger, researchers in the US are working with reconstructed versions of the virus at less than the maximum level of containment. Many other experts are worried about the risks. “All the virologists I have spoken to have concerns,” says Ingegerd Kallings of the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control in Stockholm, who helped set laboratory safety standards for the World Health Organization.
Work on the 1918 flu virus is not the only worry. Some experiments with bird flu have also been criticised as dangerous (New Scientist print edition, 28 February 2004).
Kallings and others are calling for international discussions to resolve the issues related to such work. “It is time for influenza scientists to find a consensus on containment,” she says. John MacKenzie of the University of Queensland in Australia, who investigated how the SARS virus escaped from high-level containment labs in east Asia on three occasions after lab workers became infected, agrees. “A meeting would be beneficial.”
Gene sequencing
The researchers working on the 1918 virus say their work is vital to understand what changes make flu viruses dangerous. So far five of the 1918 flu virus’s eight genes have been sequenced, using fragments retrieved from victims of the pandemic. Several teams have added one or more of these genes to modern flu viruses, or plan to – in effect partially recreating the long-vanished pandemic virus.
The latest work was done by Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His team showed that adding the 1918 gene for the surface protein haemagglutinin to modern viruses made them far deadlier to mice. The researchers also found that people born after 1918 have little or no immunity.
The team started the work at the highest level of containment, BSL-4, at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. Then they decided the viruses were safe enough to handle at the next level down, and did the rest of the work across the border in a BSL-3Ag lab in Madison. The main difference between BSL-4 and BSL-3Ag is that precautions to ensure staff do not get infected are less stringent: while BSL-4 involves wearing fully enclosed body suits, those working at BSL-3Ag labs typically have half-suits.
Kawaoka told New Scientist that the decision to move down to BSL-3Ag was taken only after experiments at BSL-4 showed that giving mice the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) in advance prevented them getting sick. This means, he says, that if all lab workers take oseltamivir “they cannot become infected”.
Contradictory results
Yet this assumes that the mouse results apply to humans. And the findings have not been published. In similar experiments, Terrence Tumpey’s team at the US Department of Agriculture’s poultry research lab in Athens, Georgia, got quite different results: they found that mice given oseltamivir still got sick and 1 in 10 died. It is not clear why Kawaoka’s mice fared better.
What is more, all the safety precautions are aimed at preventing escape, not dealing with it should it occur. If any of Kawaoka’s lab workers are exposed to the virus despite all the precautions, and become infected despite taking oseltamivir, the consequences could be disastrous.
“I experienced disbelief…regarding the decision to relocate the reconstructed 1918 influenza strain from a BSL-4 facility to a BSL-3 facility, based on its susceptibility to antiviral medication,” Ronald Voorhees, chief medical officer at the New Mexico Department of Health, wrote on ProMED-mail, an infectious diseases mailing list.
Yet Kawaoka’s decision does comply with the US National Institutes of Health guidelines for BSL-3 agents: those causing “serious or lethal human disease for which preventive or therapeutic interventions may be [its italics] available”. In fact, he is considered unusually cautious. “Kawaoka should be applauded for using BSL-4 at all,” says Richard Webby, a flu researcher at St Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Exposing monkeys
By contrast, the team in Georgia, the first to experiment with genetically engineered 1918 viruses, did all its work at BSL-3Ag. Meanwhile, Michael Katze at the University of Washington at Seattle is planning to expose monkeys to aerosols of 1918-type viruses at BSL-3, a step down from BSL-3Ag. The recent SARS escapes were from BSL-3 labs.
“We would have to do any such work at BSL-4,” says John Wood of the UK’s National Institute for Biological Standards and Control. In the US, the differing standards applied by different groups are due to the fact that experiments on engineered viruses such as the 1918 flu are approved on a case-by-case basis by Institutional Biosafety Committees (IBCs), composed of local scientists and officials. Critics say these are free to interpret the official guidelines in a way that suits them.
“There is no effective national system to ensure consistency, responsibility and good judgement in such research,” says Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project, a biosecurity pressure group in Austin, Texas. In a review of IBCs published this month, he found that many would not provide minutes of recent meetings as required by law.
He says the IBC that approved the planned 1918 flu study at the University of Washington considered only one scenario that could result in workers being exposed to airborne virus – the dropping of samples. Its solution: lab workers “will be trained to stop breathing”.
Debora MacKenzie
New Scientist" I know that most people, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth, if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others and have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives." Leo Tolstoy
Aspects of a Synthetic System of Planetary Population Management and Control
Malthusianism Totalitarianism Social Darwinism A form of government in which all societal resources are monopolized by the State, either directly or indirectly through Corporations, in an effort to penetrate and control all aspects of public life. The control is facilitated by propaganda and by advances in technology
Communism/ Democratic Socialism International Corporate Capitalism National Socialism Class System Global Socialism Class System LEFT Appearance of Dualistic
ExpressionRIGHT Democracy: Form of government in which it is made to appear that the people participate in ruling the state. Historically eventually results in totalitarian anarchy.
profound mental illness Science as a 'religion' profound mental illness Control of Population through terror, extermination, use of chemicals, drugs, biologicals and electromagnetics.
Control of Population through control of economy. Use of war. drugs, chemicals, electromagnetic technologies, allopathic 'medicine', curbed education and biologicals.
Control of Population through racial purification and eugenics, extermination, chemicals, drugs, allopathic 'medicine' curbed education and biologicals.
manipulation and fear State-Sponsored Terrorism manipulation and fear left-wing extremism profound mental illness right-wing extremism Popular Support from 'lower class' Popular support from 'middle class' "the Mob" Single Synthesis "Jackboots" Covert racism and elitism The US Political System Overt racism and elitism Collective ownership of industry Private Ownership of Industry Support Terrorism to Retain Power Support Elites to Retain Power "Democrats" "Republicans" Globalism Synthetic "One Party" System Nationalism State Socialism
Historically the precursor to
Totalitarianism
A Bush strike on Iran 'imminent'?
White House insider report
By Wayne MadsenAccording to White House and Washington Beltway insiders, the Bush administration, worried that it could lose the presidential election to Senator John F. Kerry, has initiated plans to launch a military strike on Iran's top Islamic leadership, its nuclear reactor at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, and key nuclear targets throughout the country, including the main underground research site at Natanz in central Iran and another in Isfahan. Targets of the planned U.S. attack reportedly include mosques in Tehran, Qom, and Isfahan known by the U.S. to headquarter Iran's top mullahs.
The Iran attack plan was reportedly drawn up after internal polling indicated that if the Bush administration launched a so-called anti-terrorist attack on Iran some two weeks before the election, Bush would be assured of a landslide win against Kerry. Reports of a pre-emptive strike on Iran come amid concerns by a number of political observers that the Bush administration would concoct an "October Surprise" to influence the outcome of the presidential election.
According to White House sources, the USS John F. Kennedy was deployed to the Arabian Sea to coordinate the attack on Iran. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discussed the Kennedy's role in the planned attack on Iran when he visited the ship in the Arabian Sea on October 9. Rumsfeld and defense ministers of U.S. coalition partners, including those of Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Iraq, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mongolia, Poland, Qatar, Romania, and Ukraine briefly discussed a very "top level" view of potential dual-track military operations in Iran and Iraq in a special "war room" set up on board the aircraft carrier. America's primary ally in Iraq, the United Kingdom, did not attend the planning session because it reportedly disagrees with a military strike on Iran. London also suspects the U.S. wants to move British troops from Basra in southern Iraq to the Baghdad area to help put down an expected surge in Sh'ia violence in Sadr City and other Sh'ia areas in central Iraq when the U.S. attacks Iran as well as clear the way for a U.S. military strike across the Iraqi-Iranian border aimed at securing the huge Iranian oil installations in Abadan. U.S. allies South Korea, Australia, Kuwait, Jordan, Italy, Netherlands, and Japan were also left out of the USS John F. Kennedy planning discussions because of their reported opposition to any strike on Iran.
In addition, Israel has been supplied by the United States with 500 "bunker buster" bombs. According to White House sources, the Israeli Air Force will attack Iran's nuclear facility at Bushehr with the U.S. bunker busters. The joint U.S.-Israeli pre-emptive military move against Iran reportedly was crafted by the same neo-conservative grouping in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office that engineered the invasion of Iraq.
Morale aboard the USS John F. Kennedy is at an all-time low, something that must be attributable to the knowledge that the ship will be involved in an extension of U.S. military actions in the Persian Gulf region. The Commanding Officer of an F-14 Tomcat squadron was relieved of command for a reported shore leave "indiscretion" in Dubai and two months ago the Kennedy's commanding officer was relieved for cause.
The White House leak about the planned attack on Iran was hastened by concerns that Russian technicians present at Bushehr could be killed in an attack, thus resulting in a wider nuclear confrontation between Washington and Moscow. International Atomic Energy Agency representatives are also present at the Bushehr facility. In addition, an immediate Iranian Shahab ballistic missile attack against Israel would also further destabilize the Middle East. The White House leaks about the pre-emptive strike may have been prompted by warnings from the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency that an attack on Iran will escalate out of control. Intelligence circles report that both intelligence agencies are in open revolt against the Bush White House.
White House sources also claimed they are "terrified" that Bush wants to start a dangerous war with Iran prior to the election and fear that such a move will trigger dire consequences for the entire world.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He served in the National Security Council (NSA) during the Reagan Administration and wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. He is the co-author, with john Stanton of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II." His forthcoming book is titled: "jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, and Brass Plates." Madsen can be reached at Wmadsen777@aol.com
Very Anomalous and Significantly Curious Stories
Russian Special Forces Tied to Iraq's Missing Weapons
Secrets of the Saudi Royal Family - ABC NEWS 2020 - Saudis Move Tons of Cocaine - Using Diplomatic Status, from Columbia. Wonder why Saudi's own 7% of the United States?
Oregon TV emits distress signal, triggers search TV hardly gets much better than this. An Oregon man discovered earlier this month that his year-old Toshiba Corp. <6502.T> flat-screen TV was emitting an international distress signal picked up by a satellite, leading a search and rescue operation to his apartment in Corvallis, Oregon .... 18 Oct 2004 22:27:08 GMT
September 2004: Patriot Act II Re-written in Secret Again by Congress and Bush Admin
Universal Draft To Become Law After Next Election?
Unpublicized Bush Government Plans Deliberately Kept from Media Coverage
Doesn't Matter Who Wins Election - Another Contrived "Crisis" Expected
Proposed Nazi-Like Forcible Conscription Viewed as Form of Tyrannical SlaveryUS Preparing for Military Draft in Spring 2005
by Adam StutzThe current agenda of the US federal government is to reinstate the draft in order to staff up for a protracted war on "terrorism." Pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills S 89 and HR 163) would time the program so the draft could begin at early as Spring 2005 -- conveniently just after the 2004 presidential election!
Reinstatement of the draft
Dear Friends and Family,
I urge you to read the article below on the current agenda of the federal government to reinstate the draft in order to staff up for a protracted war on "terrorism."
Pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills S 89 and HR 163) would time the program so the draft could begin at early as Spring 2005 -- conveniently just after the 2004 presidential election! But the administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed NOW, so our action is needed immediately. Details and links follow.
If voters who currently support U.S. aggression abroad were confronted with the possibility that their own children or grandchildren might not have a say about whether to fight, many of these same voters might have a change of mind. (Not that it should make a difference, but this plan would among other things eliminate higher education as a shelter and would not exclude women -- and Canada is no longer an option.)
Please send this on to all the parents and teachers you know, and all the aunts and uncles, grandparents, godparents.... And let your children know -- it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change! Please also write to your representatives to ask them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills -- and write to newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this important story.
The Draft*
$28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. SSS must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation. Please see website: http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view the SSS Annual Performance Plan - Fiscal Year 2004.
The Pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan [and a permanent state of war on "terrorism"] proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5146.htm
Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and H.R. 163 forward this year, entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the Committee on Armed Services.
Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era remember. College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the US signed a "Smart Border Declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Manley, and US Homeland Security Director, Gov. Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their cur-rent semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More Info:
The White House and the Pentagon have worked out a plan to call up all reservists and National Guard units if and when Bush is reelected. The moment that the election results are poured in concrete, orders, now drawn up and waiting, will be issued throughout the United States. I am not speaking of a few units but all US Guard and Reserve units. On the same subject, the pending Universal Draft is also a done deal. Everything is place awaiting the President’s signature. This is planned for June of 2005 and contains some real shockers. Women will be called up as well as men. There will be absolutely no deferments of any kind permitted. Persons with medical problems such as diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, chronic asthma, physical deformities such as a club foot or hunch back, vision problems, etc. will be called up! If a draftee has a medical problem but can move around, they are subject to the draft but will be assigned to non-military positions such as clerk-typists, maintenance positions and so on. There will be absolutely no deferments for someone with a family to support or who is enrolled in any kind of a school. Students may be permitted to complete their semester and will then be compelled to report at once to their nearest enlistment center. For example, as I read it, an 18 year old girl with two children and no husband to support her will be subject to the draft. There was a discussion about what to do with the children and if the family cannot raise them during the draftee’s tour of duty, then some kind of Federal Child Care center will have to suffice. The nominal ages covered are from 18 through 26 but a special exception is now in the orders for anyone with what the Army calls “technical skills” such as proficiency in computers, foreign language skills and so on. These poor jerks are subject to the draft until they are 35! Again, no deferments will be allowed unless the subject is already working for a government agency and is certified by his superiors as “vital” to whatever “war effort” the Army deems important. These orders, note, came from the desk of George W. Bush to Rumsfeld but Bush will cite a vague “national crisis” as a cover. The top brass at the Pentagon are having fits about this. Why? Because for decades they have been downsizing, closing bases and so on. I have been told by Pentagon people that they would have no place to put the anticipated great flood of draftees if and when the draft is activated. One said to me, “Where the fuck do these dimbulbs expect us to house them? In local hotels?”
Comment: Because the subject of a universal draft is Bush’s political Achilles Heel, the Administration and various governmental agencies have gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal it from the public. Nevertheless, anyone with a computer and basic skills can locate information on the upcoming draft by looking at dozens of official government sites. Admittedly, these sites are so buried in the official underbrush as to be difficult to locate, nevertheless, they are there. We have included an anti-draft article in this posting. If America’s cannon fodder do not want end up dead or mangled for life, it would be to their advantage to read these sites, organize and in November, vote en bloc against the man who would cheerfully dump them into the Imperial sausage grinder.
Would a Second Bush Term Mean a Return to Conscription?
Why Dodging the Draft Would Be Trickier Than You Think
by Maureen FarrellOne week following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, former deputy assistant secretary of defense Kurt Campbell explained why a reinstatement of the draft would be highly unlikely. "It's very hard to imagine a military operation on the scale of Desert Storm," he told ABC News, adding that "the real challenge for us is to avoid situations where we would need to use large numbers of people in a large, on-the-ground effort."
Michael O'Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution, tried to be equally reassuring. "Even if one imagines a major ground war against Iraq or Afghanistan," he said, "these are the sorts of things that we've been planning to do with our active duty force for a long time." O'Hanlon added that the only scenario under which a draft might occur would be if the US were to occupy another country for an extended period of time. "If we had a five-year occupation ... and needed to help shepherd in new governments before we could withdraw -- just as we did in Germany and Japan after World War II, then conceivably you would get into the kinds of manpower requirements that would advise in favor of a draft," he said, on Sept. 18, 2001. [LINK]
At that time, chances are neither men were privy to Donald Rumsfeld's reported decision to "go massive" and "sweep it all up, things related or not" just hours after the attacks. And in those post-911 days of patriotic fervor, it seemed unlikely that despite a threefold increase in advertising, recruitment attempts by the US military would fail to attract additional enlistees. "I hope President Bush doesn't expect to have a lot of people in the armed forces in the near future with all of these long deployments. I wanted to join the Army so bad, especially after Sept. 11, 2001. But now I don’t know," Tyrice Hudspeth wrote in Stars and Stripes, which recently conducted a poll showing how widespread his sentiments are.
"Stars and Stripes morale survey (Oct. 16-22) found that nearly half of soldiers questioned don’t plan to re-enlist," Michele Winter wrote, adding, "If troop letters to Stripes, to Lt. Col. David Hackworth and to various national newspapers are any indication, the U.S. Army can expect a hemorrhaging of its noncommissioned officer ranks. . ." Saying that a proposed $5,000 reenlist bonus proposed by the Department of Defense did little to impress, Winter reminded, "If the passage of concurrent receipt doesn't improve morale and repair damage done to recruitment and re-enlistment, anticipate the draft." [LINK]
So now that occupation "ifs" have become reality, concerns that the US military is stretched too thin are being voiced regularly. And news that the Pentagon is advertising for personnel to staff draft boards has notched up speculation. "This is significant," Dartmouth presidential scholar and former professor of strategy at the National War College in Washington Ned Lebow said. "What the department of defense is doing is creating the infrastructure to make the draft a viable option should the administration wish to go this route." Meanwhile, the Guardian openly wondered "why the Pentagon decided at this time it was necessary to fill staff bodies which had played no function since the early 1980s." [LINK]
As early as last November, however, red flags were being raised. The Journal News in New York state, for example, featured an article regarding New York's Selective Service System need for draft board members in case "a military draft would ever become necessary." And Rep. Charles B. Rangel's Dec. 31 op-ed piece in The New York Times entitled "Bring Back the Draft" caused considerable uproar, especially as it was accompanied by legislation introduced by Rangel and Sen. Fritz Hollings to do just that.
"The experts are all saying we're going to have to beef up our presence in Iraq," Rangel said in the Nov. 3, 2003 edition of Salon.com. "We've failed to convince our allies to send troops, we've extended deployments so morale is sinking, and the president is saying we can't cut and run. So what's left? The draft is a very sensitive subject, but at some point, we're going to need more troops, and at that point the only way to get them will be a return to the draft." [LINK]
As most point out, however, any mention of conscription would be ill-advised before the 2004 election. "A number of analysts said yesterday that while any public suggestion of a draft would be politically suicidal for U.S. President George W. Bush in an election year, he could find himself with few other options if he is returned for a second term and the fighting in Iraq is still raging," the Toronto Star recently reported. "I don't think a presidential candidate would seriously propose a draft," the Cato Institute's Charles Pena added. "But an incumbent, safely in for a second term -- that might be a different story." [LINK]
Moreover, though a recent Newsweek poll should that only 44 percent of American voters would like to see a second Bush term (vs. fifty percent who would not), as concerns over voter roll-scrubbing, black box voting irregularities and other election oddities raise questions about our democracy, it’s naïve to imagine that next year’s presidential election won't involve some of the same shenanigans we saw in 2000. And given the radical direction the Bush administration has taken this country since barreling into power, can you imagine what four years of Bush would be like if reelection wasn't a consideration?
And so, folks could do a lot worse than to wager that a GOP victory in 2004 would mean a return to conscription. They would, however, run into trouble gambling on ways US citizens might successfully dodge the draft. Many Americans, remembering the Vietnam-era loopholes, still erroneously believe that college and Canada are options, without understanding the differences between then and now. They are:
1) No college deferments:
In the 1960s, a young man could procure a deferment, provided he was a full-time student and was making satisfactory progress towards earning a degree. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable, which were enacted in 1971, are still in effect -- and should the draft be reinstated, students would not be allowed to defer service for four or more years. Underclassmen would now only be able to postpone service until the end of their current semester, while seniors would have until the end of the academic year.
2) Smarter borders:
In Dec., 2001, Canada and the US signed a "Smart Border Declaration," which, in addition to keeping terrorists out of America, could also be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs John Manley and US Homeland Security director Gov. Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Designed to identify and manage security risks, this plan calls for the sharing of "advance passenger information" and the development of a jointly held immigration database and programs for "joint removals of deportees."
3) Uncle Sam has your car keys
Young men have long been required under Federal law to register with selective service when they turned 18. In May, 2000, however, Delaware became the first state to enact legislation linking drivers' license applications to Selective Service registration and by Aug. 2003, 32 states, two US territories, and the District of Columbia had followed suit.
Though failure to register has always been considered a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to $250,000, the government has rarely prosecuted offenders, but opted instead to permanently ban them from government perks such as student loan eligibility and Federal employment.
Uncle Sam’s control over driving habits, however, is having an effect. As the Selective Service System's (SSS) site reports, "Although driver's license legislation is having a significant impact on improving compliance rates in those states that require registration in order to receive or renew a license or identification card, it is having minimal impact on improving compliance in states, such as Texas, which make the link with SSS registration optional."
Of course, speaking of Texas, it was just three short years ago that many Americans bought the media's depiction of George W. Bush as an affable, moderate galoot and took his election "victory" in stride. "What harm can he do in four short years?" we asked, unaware that Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and the other folks at the Project for a New American Century had already decided that America's "core mission" would be "to fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars," while using our troops as "the cavalry on the new American frontier."
Unfortunately, our soldiers are now paying the price for our fatal innocence. But if the draft is reinstated, one thing is certain: The rest of our children will pay that price, too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Debunking Conspiracy Theorists' Paranoid Fantasies About Sept. 11" "We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories
concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the
blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty.
To inflame ethnic hatred is to advance the cause of terror."November 10, 2001
- George W. Bush at the United Nations
By Gerard Holmgren
debunker@hotmail.com
Copyright Gerard Holmgren. Jan 2003.This work may be freely copied and distributed without permission as long as it not for commercial use. Please include the author's name, the web address where you found it and the copyright notice. http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=44629&group=webcast
Astute observers of history are aware that for every notable event there will usually be at least one ,often several wild conspiracy theories which spring up around it. "The CIA killed Hendrix" " The Pope had John Lennon murdered ", "Hitler was half Werewolf", "Space aliens replaced Nixon with a clone" etc,etc. The bigger the event, the more ridiculous and more numerous are the fanciful rantings which circulate in relation to it.
So its hardly surprising that the events of Sept 11 2001 have spawned their fair share of these ludicrous fairy tales. And as always, there is - sadly - a small but gullible percentage of the population eager to lap up these tall tales, regardless of facts or rational analysis.
One of the wilder stories circulating about Sept 11, and one that has attracted something of a cult following amongst conspiracy buffs is that it was carried out by 19 fanatical Arab hijackers, masterminded by an evil genius named Osama bin Laden, with no apparent motivation other than that they "hate our freedoms."
Never a group of people to be bothered by facts, the perpetrators of this cartoon fantasy have constructed an elaborately woven web of delusions and unsubstantiated hearsay in order to promote this garbage across the internet and the media to the extent that a number of otherwise rational people have actually fallen under its spell.
Normally I don't even bother debunking this kind of junk, but the effect that this paranoid myth is beginning to have requires a little rational analysis, in order to consign it to the same rubbish bin as all such silly conspiracy theories.
These crackpots even contend that the extremist Bush regime was caught unawares by the attacks, had no hand in organizing them, and actually would have stopped them if it had been able. Blindly ignoring the stand down of the US air-force, the insider trading on airline stocks - linked to the CIA, the complicit behavior of Bush on the morning of the attacks, the controlled demolition of the WTC, the firing of a missile into the Pentagon and a host of other documented proofs that the Bush regime was behind the attacks, the conspiracy theorists stick doggedly to a silly story about 19 Arab hijackers somehow managing to commandeer 4 planes simultaneously and fly them around US airspace for nearly 2 hours ,crashing them into important buildings, without the US intelligence services having any idea that it was coming, and without the Air Force knowing what to do.
The huge difficulties with such a stupid story force them to invent even more preposturous stories to distract from its core silliness, and thus the tale has escalated into a mythic fantasy of truly gargantuan proportions.
It's difficult to apply rational analysis to such unmitigated stupidity, but that is the task which I take on in this article. However, it should be noted that one of the curious characteristics of conspiracy theorists is that they effortlessly change their so called evidence in response to each aspect which is debunked. As soon as one delusion is unmasked, they simply invent another to replace it, and deny that the first ever existed. Eventually, when they have turned full circle through this endlessly changing fantasy fog , they then re-invent the original delusion and deny that you ever debunked it, thus beginning the circle once more. This technique is known as "the fruit loop" and saves the conspiracy theorist from ever having to see any of their ideas through to their (ill) logical conclusions.
According to the practitioners of the fruit loop, 19 Arabs took over the 4 planes by subduing the passengers and crew through the use of guns, knives, box cutters and gas, and then used electronic guidance systems which they had smuggled on board to fly the planes to their targets.
The suspension of disbelief required for this outrageous concoction is only for the hard core conspiracy theorist. For a start, they conveniently skip over the awkward fact that there weren't any Arabs on the planes. If there were, one must speculate that they somehow got on board without being filmed by any of the security cameras and without being registered on the passenger lists. But the curly question of how they are supposed to have got on board is all too mundane for the exciting world of the conspiracy theorist. With vague mumblings that they must have been using false ID ( but never specifying which IDs they are alleged to have used, or how these were traced to their real identities), they quickly bypass this problem, to relate exciting and sinister tales about how some of the fictitious fiends were actually searched before boarding because they looked suspicious. However, as inevitably happens with any web of lies, this simply paints them into an even more difficult corner. How are they supposed to have got on board with all that stuff if they were searched ? And if they used gas in a confined space, they would have been affected themselves unless they also had masks in their luggage.
"Excuse me sir, why do you have a box cutter, a gun, a container of gas, a gas mask and an electronic guidance unit in your luggage?"
"A present for your grandmother? Very well sir, on you get."
"Very strange", thinks the security officer. "That's the fourth Arabic man without an Arabic name who just got on board with a knife, gun or box cutter and gas mask. And why does that security camera keep flicking off every time one these characters shows up? Must be one of those days I guess..."
Asking any of these basic questions to a conspiracy theorist is likely to cause a sudden leap to the claim that we know that they were on board because they left a credit card trail for the tickets they had purchased and cars they had rented. So if they used credit cards that identified them, how does that reconcile with the claim that they used false IDs to get on to the plane? But by this time ,the fruit loop is in full swing, as the conspiracy theorist tries to stay one jump ahead of this annoying and awkward rational analysis. They will allege that the hijackers' passports were found at the crash scenes. "So there!" they exalt triumphantly, their fanatical faces lighting up with that deranged look of one who has just a revelation of questionable sanity.
Hmm? So they got on board with false IDs but took their real passports with them? However, by this time the fruit loop has been completely circumnavigated, and the conspiracy theorist exclaims impatiently, "Who said anything about false IDs? We know what seats they were sitting in! Their presence is well documented!" And so the whole loop starts again. "Well, why aren't they on the passenger lists?"
"You numbskull! They assumed the identities of other passengers!" And so on...
Finally, out of sheer fascination with this circular method of creative delusion , the rational sceptic will allow them to get away with this loop, in order to move on to the next question, and see what further delights await us in the unraveling of this marvelously stupid story.
"Uh, how come their passports survived fiery crashes that completely incinerated the planes and all the passengers? " The answer of course is that its just one of those strange co-incidences, those little quirks of fate that do happen from time to time. You know, like the same person winning the lottery four weeks in a row. The odds are astronomical, but these things do happen...
This is another favourite deductive method of the conspiracy theorist. The "improbability drive" , in which they decide upon a conclusion without any evidence whatsoever to support it, and then continually speculate a series of wildly improbable events and unbelievable co-incidences to support it, shrugging off the implausibility of each event with the vague assertion that sometimes the impossible happens (just about all the time in their world). There is a principle called "Occam's razor" which suggests that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct. Conspiracy theorists hate Occam's razor.
Having for the sake of amusement, allowed them to get away with with the silly story of the 19 invisible Arabs, we move on to the question of how they are supposed to have taken over the planes.
Hijacking a plane is not an easy thing to do. Hijacking it without the pilot being able to alert ground control is near impossible. The pilot has only to punch in a four digit code to alert ground control to a hijacking. Unconcerned with the awkward question of plausibility, the conspiracy buffs maintain that on that Sept 11, the invisible hijackers took over the plane by the rather crude method of threatening people with box cutters and knives, and spraying gas (after they had attached their masks, obviously), but somehow took control of the plane without the crew first getting a chance to punch in the hijacking code. Not just on one plane, but on all four. At this point in the tale, the conspiracy theorist is again forced to call upon the services of the improbability drive.
So now that our incredibly lucky hijackers have taken control of the planes, all four pilots fly them with breath taking skill and certainty to their fiery end, all four pilots unflinching in their steely resolve for a swift meeting with Allah. Apart from their psychotic hatred of "our freedoms" , it was their fanatical devotion to Islam which enabled them to summon up the iron will to do this. Which is strange, because according to another piece of hearsay peddled by the conspiracy buffs, these guys actually went out drinking and womanizing the night before their great martyrdom, even leaving their Korans in the bar -really impeccable Islamic behavior - and then got up at 5am the next morning to pull off the greatest covert operation in history. This also requires us to believe that they were even clear headed enough to learn how to fly the huge planes by reading flight manuals in Arabic in the car on the way to the airport. We know this because they supposedly left the flight manuals there for us to find.
It gets better. Their practical training had allegedly been limited to Cessnas and flight simulators, but this was no barrier to the unflinching certainty with which they took over the planes and skillfully guided them to their doom. If they are supposed to have done their flight training with these tools, which would be available just about anywhere in the world, its not clear why they would have decided to risk blowing their cover to US intelligence services by doing the training in Florida, rather than somewhere in the Middle East, but such reasoning is foreign to the foggy world of the conspiracy theorist , too trapped in the constant rotation of the mental fruit loop to make their unsubstantiated fabrications seem even semi-believable.
Having triumphantly established a circular delusion in support of the mythical Arabs, the conspiracy theorist now confronts the difficult question of why there's nothing left of the planes. Anybody who has seen the endlessly replayed footage of the second plane going into the WTC will realize that the plane was packed with explosives. Planes do not and cannot blow up into nothing in that manner when they crash.
Did the mythical Arabs also haul a huge heap of explosives on board, and mange to deploy them in such a manner that they went off in the exact instant of the crash, completely vapourizing the plane? This is a little difficult even for the conspiracy theorist, who at this point decides that its easier to invent new laws of physics in order to keep the delusion rolling along.
There weren't any explosives. It wasn't an inside job. The plane blew up into nothing from its exploding fuel load! Remarkable! Sluggishly combustible jet fuel which is basically kerosine,and which burns at a maximum temperature of around 800 C has suddenly taken on the qualities of a ferociously explosive demolition agent, vapourizing 65 tons of aircraft into a puff of smoke. Never mind that a plane of that size contains around 15 tons of steel and titanium, of which even the melting points are about double that of the maximum combustion temperature of kerosine - let alone the boiling point - which is what would be required to vapourize a plane. And then there's about 50 tons of aluminium to be accounted for. In excess of 15lbs of metal for each gallon of kerosine.
For the conspiracy theorist, such inconvenient facts are vaguely dismissed as "mumbo jumbo". This convenient little phrase is their answer to just about anything factual or logical. Like a conjurer pulling a rabbit out of a hat, they suddenly become fanatically insistent about the devastating explosive qualities of kerosine, something hitherto completely unknown to science, but just discovered by them, this very minute. Blissfully ignoring the fact that never before or since in aviation history has a plane vapourized into nothing from an exploding fuel load, the conspiracy theorist relies upon Hollywood images, where the effects are are always larger than life, and certainly larger than the intellects of these cretins.
"Its a well known fact that planes blow up into nothing on impact." they state with pompous certainty. "Watch any Bruce Willis movie."
"Care to provide any documented examples? If it's a well known fact, then presumably this well known fact springs from some kind of documentation - other than Bruce Willis movies ?"
At this point the mad but cunning eyes of the conspiracy theorist will narrow as they sense the corner that they have backed themselves into, and plan their escape by means of another stunning backflip.
"Ah, but planes have never crashed into buildings before, so there's no way of telling." they counter with a sly grin.
Well, actually planes have crashed into buildings before and since, and not vapourized into nothing.
"But not big planes, with that much fuel ", they shriek in hysterical denial.
Or that much metal to vapourize.
"Yes but not hijacked planes!"
"Are you suggesting that whether the crash is deliberate or accidental affects the combustion qualities of the fuel?"
"Now you're just being silly".
Although collisions with buildings are rare, planes frequently crash into mountains, streets, other aircraft, nosedive into the ground,or have bombs planted aboard them, and don't vapourize into nothing. What's so special about a tower that's mostly glass? But by now, the conspiracy theorist has once again sailed happily around the fruit loop. "Its a well documented fact that planes explode into nothing on impact."
Effortlessly weaving back and forth between the position that its a "well known fact" and that "its never happened before, so we have nothing to compare it to", the conspiracy theorist has now convinced themselves ( if not too many other people) that the WTC plane was not loaded with explosives, and that the instant vapourization of the plane in a massive fireball was the same as any other plane crash you might care to mention. Round and round the fruit. loop...
But the hurdles which confront the conspiracy theorist are many, and they are now forced to implement even more creative uses for the newly discovered shockingly destructive qualities of kerosine. They have to explain how the Arabs also engineered the elegant veritcal collapse of both the WTC towers, and for this awkward fact the easiest counter is to simply deny that it was a controlled demolition, and claim that the buildings collapsed from fire caused by the burning kerosine.
For this, its necessary to sweep aside the second law of thermodynamics and propose kerosine which is not only impossibly destructive, but also recycles itself for a second burning in violation of the law of degradation of energy. You see, it not only consumed itself in a sudden catastrophic fireball , vapourizing a 65 ton plane into nothing, but then came back for a second go, burning at 2000C for another hour at the impact point, melting the skyscraper's steel like butter. And while it was doing all this it also poured down the elevator shafts, starting fires all through the building. When I was at school there was a little thing called the entropy law which suggests that a given portion of fuel can only burn once, something which is readily observable in the real world, even for those who didn't make it to junior high school science. But this is no problem for the conspiracy theorist. Gleefully, they claim that a few thousand gallons of kerosine is enough to completely vapourize a 65 ton aircraft and have enough left over to burn ferociously enough for over an hour at the impact point to melt steel ( melting point about double the maximum combustion temperature of the fuel ) and still have enough left over to pour down the elevator shafts and start similarly destructive fires all through the building.
This kerosine really is remarkable stuff! How chilling to realize that those kerosine heaters we had in the house when I was a kid were deadly bombs, just waiting to go off. One false move and the entire street might have been vapourized. And never again will I take kerosine lamps out camping. One moment you're there innocently holding the lamp - the next - kapow! Vapourized into nothing along with with the rest of the camp site, and still leaving enough of the deadly stuff to start a massive forest fire.
These whackos are actually claiming that the raging inferno allegedly created by the miraculously recycling, and impossibly hot burning kerosine melted or at least softened the steel supports of the skyscraper. Oblivious to the fact that the smoke coming from the WTC was black, which indicates an oxygen starved fire -therefore, not particularly hot, they trumpet an alleged temperature in the building of 2000 C , without a shred of evidence to support this curious suspension of the laws of physics.
Not content with this ludicrous garbage, they then contend that as the steel frames softened, they came straight down instead of buckling and twisting and falling sideways.
Since they're already re-engineered the combustion qualities of jet fuel, violated the second law of thermodynamics, and re-defined the structural properties of steel, why let a little thing like the laws of gravity get in the way?
The tower fell in a time almost identical to that of a free falling object, dropped from that height, meaning that its physically impossible for it to have collapsed by the method of the top floors smashing through the lower floors. But according to the conspiracy theorists, the laws of gravity were temporarily suspended on the morning of Sept 11. It appears that the evil psychic power of those dreadful Arabs knew no bounds. Even after they were dead, they were able, by the power of their evil spirits, to force down the tower at a speed physically impossible under the laws of gravity, had it been meeting any resistance from fireproofed steel structures originally designed to resist many tons of hurricane force wind as well as the impact of a Boeing passenger jet straying off course.
Clearly, these conspiracy nuts never did their science homework at school, but did become extremely adept at inventing tall tales for why.
"Muslim terrorists stole my notes, sir"
"No miss, the kerosine heater blew up and vapourized everything in the street, except for my passport."
"You see sir, the schoolbus was hijacked by Arabs who destroyed my homework because they hate our freedoms."
Or perhaps they misunderstood the term "creative science" and mistakenly thought that coming up with such rubbish was in fact, their science homework.
The ferocious heat generated by this ghastly kerosine was, according to the conspiracy theorists, the reason why so many of the WTC victims can't be identified. DNA is destroyed by heat. (Although 2000 C isn't really required, 100C will generally do the job.) This is quite remarkable, because according to the conspiracy theorist, the nature of DNA suddenly changes if you go to a different city.
That's right! If you are killed by an Arab terrorist in NY, your DNA will be destroyed by such temperatures. But if you are killed by an Arab terrorist in Washington DC, your DNA will be so robust that it can survive temperatures which completely vapourize a 65 ton aircraft.
You see, these loonies have somehow concocted the idea that the missile which hit the pentagon was not a missile at all, but one of the hijacked planes. And to prove this unlikely premise, they point to a propaganda statement from the Bush regime, which rather stupidly claims that all but one of the people aboard the plane were identified from the site by DNA testing, even though nothing remains of the plane. The plane was vapourized by the fuel tank explosion maintain these space loonies, but the people inside it were all but one identified by DNA testing.
So there we have it. The qualities of DNA are different, depending upon which city you're in, or perhaps depending upon which fairy story you're trying to sell at any particular time.
This concoction about one of the hijacked planes hitting the Pentagon really is a howler. For those not familiar with the layout of the Pentagon, it consists of 5 rings of building, each with a space inbetween. Each ring of building is about 30 to 35 ft deep, with a similar amount of open space between it and the next ring. The object which penetrated the Pentagon went in at about a 45 degree angle, punching a neat circular hole of about a 12 ft diameter through three rings ( six walls).A little later a section of wall about 65 ft wide collapsed in the outer ring. Since the plane which the conspiracy theorists claim to be responsible for the impact had a wing span of 125 ft and a length of 155 ft, and there was no wreckage of the plane, either inside or outside the building, and the lawns outside were still smooth and green enough to play golf on, this crazy delusion is clearly physically impossible.
But hey, we've already disregarded the combustion qualities of jet fuel, the normal properties of common building materials, the properties of DNA, the laws of gravity and the second law of thermodynamics, so what the hell - why not throw in a little spatial impossibility as well ? I would have thought that the observation that a solid object cannot pass through another solid object without leaving a hole at least as big as itself is reasonably sound science. But to the conspiracy theorist, this is "mumbo jumbo". It conflicts with the delusion that they're hooked on, so it "must be wrong" although trying to get them to explain exactly how it could be wrong is a futile endeavour.
Conspiracy theorists fly into a curious panic whenever the Pentagon missile is mentioned. They nervously maintain that 'the plane was vapourized by it's exploding fuel load' and point to the WTC crash as 'evidence' of this behavior. (That's a wonderful fruit loop.) Like an insect which has just been sprayed, running back and forth in its last mad death throes, they first argue that the reason the hole is so small is that the plane never entered the wall, having blown up outside, and then suddenly backflip to explain the 250 ft deep missile hole by saying that the plane disappeared all the way into the building, and then blew up inside the building (even though the building shows no sign of such damage). As for what happened to the wings - here's where they get really creative. The wings snapped off and folded into the fuselage which then carried them into the building, which then closed up behind the plane like a piece of meat.
When it suits them, they'll also claim that the plane slid in on its belly, (ignoring the undamaged lawn) while at the same time citing alleged witnesses to the plane diving steeply into the building from an "irrecoverable angle." How they reconcile these two scenarios as being compatible is truly a study in stupidity.
Once they get desperate enough, you can be sure that the UFO conspiracy stuff will make an appearance. The Arabs are in league with the Martians. Space aliens snatched the remains of the Pentagon plane and fixed most of the hole in the wall, just to confuse people. They gave the Arabs invisibility pills to help get them onto the planes. Little green men were seen talking to Bin Laden a few weeks prior to the attacks.
As the nation gears up to impeach the traitor Bush, and stop his perpetual oil war, it's not helpful to have these idiots distracting from the process by spreading silly conspiracy theories about mythical Arabs, stories which do nothing but play into the hands of the extremist Bush regime.
At a less serious time, we might tolerate such crackpots with amused detachment, but they need to understand that the treachery that was perpetrated on Sept 11, and the subsequent war crimes committed in "retaliation" are far too serious for us to allow such frivolous self indulgence to go unchallenged.
Those who are truly addicted to conspiracy delusions should find a more appropriate outlet for their paranoia.
Its time to stop loony conspiracy theories about Sept 11.END
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See the major area on 911 in the Leading Edge Online Journal
For further developments relative to this issue
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War Games Were Cover For the Operational Execution of 9/11
The 9/11 attacks were the result of deliberate planning and
orchestrated efforts by identifiable leaders within the U.S. government
Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson | September 8 2004
For almost three years since 9/11 independent researchers have stockpiled individual smoking guns which prove that the official version of events was not only a lie but operationally impossible. However, no single smoking gun has yet been forwarded to explain why air defenses categorically reversed Standard Operating Procedure and failed to respond to hijacked jetliners. Until now.
It is clear that at least five if not six training exercises were in operation in the days leading up to and on the morning of 9/11. This meant that NORAD radar screens showed as many as 22 hijacked airliners at the same time. NORAD had been briefed that this was part of the exercise drill and therefore normal reactive procedure was forestalled and delayed.
The large numbers of 'blips' on NORAD screens that displayed both real and 'drill' hijacked planes explain why confused press reports emerged hours after the attack stating that up to eight planes had been hijacked. Click here for that article.
The drill scenario also explains a comment made by air traffic control personnel which was featured in a July 2004 BBC television report. Click here for that video clip and article. The controller is told that a hijacked airliner is heading for New York and responds by saying, "is this real world or an exercise?"
Alex Jones was one of the first to highlight the wargames in his documentary film 'Masters of Terror', which was released in August 2002. Click here to watch a video clip. Alex explains why the Associated Press later had to admit the fact that the CIA were running drills of crashing planes into buildings on the morning of 9/11.
What were the drills called and what was their nature?
1) OPERATION NORTHERN VIGILANCE: This was planned months in advance of 9/11 and ensured that on the morning of 9/11, jet fighters were removed from patrolling the US east coast and sent to Alaska and Canada, therefore reducing the amount of fighter planes available to protect the east coast.
2) BIOWARFARE EXERCISE TRIPOD II: Alex Jones first reported on this back in May when Rudolph Giuliani let the details of it slip in his testimony to the 9/11 Commission. FEMA arrived in New York on September 10th to set up a command post located at Pier 29 under the auspices of a 'biowarfare exercise scheduled for September 12. This explains why Tom Kenney of FEMA's National Urban Search and Rescue Team, told Dan Rather of CBS News that FEMA had arrived in New York on the night of September 10th. This was originally dismissed as a slip of the tongue. Giuliani was to use this post as a command post on 9/11 after he evacuated WTC Building 7. As we reported back in January, Giuliani knew when to leave WTC 7 because he got advanced warning that the Trade Towers were about to collapse. "We were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna collapse," Rudolph Giuliani told Peter Jennings of ABC News. How did Giuliani know the towers were about to collapse when no steel building in history had previously collapsed from fire damage?
3) OPERATION VIGILANT GUARDIAN: This exercise simulated hijacked planes in the north eastern sector and started to coincide with 9/11. Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins, NORAD unit's airborne control and warning officer, was overseeing the exercise. At 8:40am she took a call from Boston Center which said it had a hijacked airliner. Her first words, as quoted by Newhouse News Service were, "It must be part of the exercise." This is another example of how the numerous drills on the morning of 9/11 deliberately distracted NORAD so that the real hijacked planes couldn't be intercepted in time.
4) OPERATION NORTHERN GUARDIAN: The details of this exercise are still scant but it is considered to be part of Vigilant Guardian, relating to simulating hijacked planes in the north eastern sector.
5) OPERATION VIGILANT WARRIOR: This was referenced in Richard Clarke's book 'Against All Enemies'. It is thought to have been the 'attack' component of the Vigilant Guardian exercise.
Another example of how air defenses were purposefully kept preoccupied so they couldn't protect New York was reported by this website in December of 2003. The Air National Guard's 177th Fighter Wing, based at Atlantic City International Airport in Pomona, were just eight minutes away from New York and could have intercepted both Flight 11 and Flight 175.
Under NORAD procedures that date to the Cold War, two F-16 fighters from the 177th were parked around the clock on the Atlantic City runway. Pilots waited in a nearby building, ready to scramble.
But on the morning of 9/11, the F-16's were performing bombing runs over an empty stretch of the Pine Barrens near Atlantic City after being decommissioned from their usual role of protecting the skies of the east coast.
It was only after both trade towers were hit that the two F-16s landed and were refitted with air-to-air missiles, then sent aloft.
Now that we have established how NORAD were confused, delayed and distracted by the numerous wargames, the next question to ask is who if anyone was aware of which planes were 'real world' and which planes were 'exercise'? The answer to this question will provide us with the name of the individual who ran the operatonal execution of the 9/11 attack.
Dick Cheney.
As the attack unfolded, Dick Cheney was running a command bunker in what the Philadelphia Daily News describes as 'the underground Pentagon'.
Site R, a highly secure complex of buildings inside Raven Rock Mountain near Blue Ridge Summit, Pa., close to the Maryland-Pennsylvania state line and about seven miles north of Camp David, is a 53-year-old facility conceived at the start of the Cold War as an alternate command center in the event of nuclear war or an attack on Washington.
The bunker is built into a mountain hillside and is virtually camouflaged to the naked eye. The location betrays itself by the vast gaggle of satellites, microwave towers and antennae that festoon the perimeter. Inside the facility there are computer filled caverns and communication and tracking technology that would put a James Bond movie to shame.
The entire facility is guarded by heavily armed military police.
Within hours of 9/11 unfolding, five choppers had landed on the facility's helipad and top officials such as Paul Wolfowitz were ushered in to join Cheney in the command bunker.
Site R - also known as Raven Rock or the Alternate Joint Communications Center is from where vice-President Dick Cheney executed the 9/11 attack. Cheney's command superceded the orders of the Pentagon, the FAA or the White House. He is the number one suspect in the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent people.
In May of 2001, by presidential order, Cheney was handed direct control of all wargame and drill operations. This meant he was solely in charge of the overlapping NORAD drills and wargames on the morning of 9/11, that prevented Standard Operating Procedure from being implemented, and any of the hijacked planes being intercepted.
The smoking guns of 9/11 are no longer disparate jigsaw pieces that serve to just raise more questions than they answer. We now have a coherent and plausible explanation of how the events unfolded, why there was no air defense response, and a prime suspect as to who executed these actions. The facts fit this version of events.
The 9/11 truth movement has just taken a giant leap towards dismantling the lies of September 11and finally offering justice for those who lost their lives on that terrible day.
MORE INFO ON THIS: Address of Michael C. Ruppert to the Commonwealth Club also info on his new October Book.
A Brief Analysis of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, Also Known as Patriot Act II
By Alex Jones
www.infowars.com
(Posted Feb 10, 2003)Analysis of US Patriot Acts | Read Patriot Act II
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was allowed to read the first Patriot Act that was passed by the House on October 27, 2001. The first Patriot Act was universally decried by civil libertarians and Constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum. William Safire, while writing for the New York Times, described the first Patriot Act's powers by saying that President Bush was seizing dictatorial control.
On February 7, 2003 the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan public interest think-tank in DC, revealed the full text of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. The classified document had been leaked to them by an unnamed source inside the Federal government. The document consisted of a 33-page section by section analysis of the accompanying 87-page bill.
*Note: On February 10, 2003 I discovered that not only was there a house version that had been covertly brought to Hastert, but that many provisions of the now public Patriot Act II had already been introduced as pork barrel riders on Senate Bill S. 22. Dozens of subsections and even the titles of the subsections are identical to those in the House version. This is very important because it catches the Justice Department in a bald-faced lie. The Justice Department claimed that the secret legislation brought into the House was only for study, and that at this time there was no intention to try and pass it. Now upon reading S. 22, it is clear that the leadership of the Senate is fully aware of the Patriot Act II, and have passed these riders out of their committees into the full bill. I spent two hours scanning through S. 22 and, let me tell you, it is a nightmare for anyone who loves liberty. It even contains the Our Lady of Peace Act that registers all gun owners. It bans the private sale of all firearms, creates a Federal ballistics database, and much more.
There are other bills in the Senate that grant the Federal government sweeping powers. S.45 states in section one that the office for State and local government coordination for Homeland Security will no longer just oversee, but that now local cities critical functions will be headed by a Federal director. On Tuesday, February 11th, we noted a story in The Times-Picayune with the headline: Nagin announces major overhaul of City Hall --New Homeland Security office to oversee cops, firemen, emergency agency. The Federal power-grab taking place is widespread and all Americans must mobilize to resist it.
Another interesting bill is S. 16. S. 16 is a smorgasbord of Federal funding and control over local police departments and needs to be examined closely.
S. 89, The Universal National Service Act of 2003 is the hallmark of an authoritarian society. The description of the bill is, "To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." We have looked at some of the programs that the Federal government has already been setting up for service here in the "homeland" and they include East German-style tattletale squads of every type, which are just basically a super TIPS program. The nightmare goes on and on. Check it out for yourself.
The Patriot Act II bill itself is stamped "Confidential -Not for Distribution." Upon reading the analysis and bill, I was stunned by the scientifically crafted tyranny contained in the legislation. The Justice Department Office of Legislative Affairs admits that they had indeed covertly transmitted a copy of the legislation to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, (R-Il) and the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney as well as the executive heads of federal law enforcement agencies.
It is important to note that no member of Congress was allowed to see the first Patriot Act before its passage, and that no debate was tolerate by the House and Senate leadership. The intentions of the White House and Speaker Hastert concerning Patriot Act II appear to be a carbon copy replay of the events that led to the unprecedented passage of the first Patriot Act.
There are two glaring areas that need to be looked at concerning this new legislation:
1. The secretive tactics being used by the White House and Speaker Hastert to keep even the existence of this legislation secret would be more at home in Communist China than in the United States. The fact that Dick Cheney publicly managed the steamroller passage of the first Patriot Act, insuring that no one was allowed to read it and publicly threatening members of Congress that if they didn’t vote in favor of it that they would be blamed for the next terrorist attack, is by the White House’s own definition terrorism. The move to clandestinely craft and then bully passage of any legislation by the Executive Branch is clearly an impeachable offence.
2. The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship.
I challenge all Americans to study the new Patriot Act and to compare it to the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. Ninety percent of the act has nothing to do with terrorism and is instead a giant Federal power-grab with tentacles reaching into every facet of our society. It strips American citizens of all of their rights and grants the government and its private agents total immunity.
Here is a quick thumbnail sketch of just some of the draconian measures encapsulated within this tyrannical legislation:
SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the Bush administration’s “enemy combatant” definition to all American citizens who “may” have violated any provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act. (Section 802 is the new definition of domestic terrorism, and the definition is “any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law.”) Section 501 of the second Patriot Act directly connects to Section 125 of the same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that the incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act isn’t broad enough and that a new, unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.
Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The Justice Department states that they can do this because the person “had inferred from conduct” that they were not a US citizen. Remember Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or State law can result in the “enemy combatant” terrorist designation.
SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a criminal act for any member of the government or any citizen to release any information concerning the incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also states that law enforcement does not even have to tell the press who they have arrested and they never have to release the names.
SECTION 301 and 306 (Terrorist Identification Database) set up a national database of “suspected terrorists” and radically expand the database to include anyone associated with suspected terrorist groups and anyone involved in crimes or having supported any group designated as “terrorist.” These sections also set up a national DNA database for anyone on probation or who has been on probation for any crime, and orders State governments to collect the DNA for the Federal government.
SECTION 312 gives immunity to law enforcement engaging in spying operations against the American people and would place substantial restrictions on court injunctions against Federal violations of civil rights across the board.
SECTION 101 will designate individual terrorists as foreign powers and again strip them of all rights under the “enemy combatant” designation.
SECTION 102 states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes news gathering illegal.
SECTION 103 allows the Federal government to use wartime martial law powers domestically and internationally without Congress declaring that a state of war exists.
SECTION 106 is bone-chilling in its straightforwardness. It states that broad general warrants by the secret FSIA court (a panel of secret judges set up in a star chamber system that convenes in an undisclosed location) granted under the first Patriot Act are not good enough. It states that government agents must be given immunity for carrying out searches with no prior court approval. This section throws out the entire Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.
SECTION 109 allows secret star chamber courts to issue contempt charges against any individual or corporation who refuses to incriminate themselves or others. This sections annihilate the last vestiges of the Fifth Amendment.
SECTION 110 restates that key police state clauses in the first Patriot Act were not sunsetted and removes the five year sunset clause from other subsections of the first Patriot Act. After all, the media has told us: “this is the New America. Get used to it. This is forever.”
SECTION 111 expands the definition of the “enemy combatant” designation.
SECTION 122 restates the government’s newly announced power of “surveillance without a court order.”
SECTION 123 restates that the government no longer needs warrants and that the investigations can be a giant dragnet-style sweep described in press reports about the Total Information Awareness Network. One passage reads, “thus the focus of domestic surveillance may be less precise than that directed against more conventional types of crime.”
*Note: Over and over again, in subsection after subsection, the second Patriot Act states that its new Soviet-type powers will be used to fight international terrorism, domestic terrorism and other types of crimes. Of course the government has already announced in Section 802 of the first USA Patriot act that any crime is considered domestic terrorism.
SECTION 126 grants the government the right to mine the entire spectrum of public and private sector information from bank records to educational and medical records. This is the enacting law to allow ECHELON and the Total Information Awareness Network to totally break down any and all walls of privacy.
The government states that they must look at everything to “determine” if individuals or groups might have a connection to terrorist groups. As you can now see, you are guilty until proven innocent.
SECTION 127 allows the government to takeover coroners’ and medical examiners’ operations whenever they see fit. See how this is like Bill Clinton’s special medical examiner he had in Arkansas that ruled that people had committed suicide when their arms and legs had been cut off.
SECTION 128 allows the Federal government to place gag orders on Federal and State Grand Juries and to take over the proceedings. It also disallows individuals or organizations to even try to quash a Federal subpoena. So now defending yourself will be a terrorist action.
SECTION 129 destroys any remaining whistleblower protection for Federal agents.
SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their activities with toxic biological, chemical or radiological materials.
SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all their financial dealings secret, and anyone investigating them can be considered a terrorist. This should be very useful for Dick Cheney to stop anyone investigating Haliburton.
SECTION 303 sets up national DNA database of suspected terrorists. The database will also be used to “stop other unlawful activities.” It will share the information with state, local and foreign agencies for the same purposes.
SECTION 311 federalizes your local police department in the area of information sharing.
SECTION 313 provides liability protection for businesses, especially big businesses that spy on their customers for Homeland Security, violating their privacy agreements. It goes on to say that these are all preventative measures – has anyone seen Minority Report? This is the access hub for the Total Information Awareness Network.
SECTION 321 authorizes foreign governments to spy on the American people and to share information with foreign governments.
SECTION 322 removes Congress from the extradition process and allows officers of the Homeland Security complex to extradite American citizens anywhere they wish. It also allows Homeland Security to secretly take individuals out of foreign countries.
SECTION 402 is titled “Providing Material Support to Terrorism.” The section reads that there is no requirement to show that the individual even had the intent to aid terrorists.
SECTION 403 expands the definition of weapons of mass destruction to include any activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce.
SECTION 404 makes it a crime for a terrorist or “other criminals” to use encryption in the commission of a crime.
SECTION 408 creates “lifetime parole” (basically, slavery) for a whole host of crimes.
SECTION 410 creates no statute of limitations for anyone that engages in terrorist actions or supports terrorists. Remember: any crime is now considered terrorism under the first Patriot Act.
SECTION 411 expands crimes that are punishable by death. Again, they point to Section 802 of the first Patriot Act and state that any terrorist act or support of terrorist act can result in the death penalty.
SECTION 421 increases penalties for terrorist financing. This section states that any type of financial activity connected to terrorism will result to time in prison and $10-50,000 fines per violation.
SECTIONS 427 sets up asset forfeiture provisions for anyone engaging in terrorist activities.
There are many other sections that I did not cover in the interest of time. The American people were shocked by the despotic nature of the first Patriot Act. The second Patriot Act dwarfs all police state legislation in modern world history.
Usually, corrupt governments allow their citizens lots of wonderful rights on paper, while carrying out their jackbooted oppression covertly. From snatch and grab operations to warantless searches, Patriot Act II is an Adolf Hitler wish list.
You can understand why President Bush, Dick Cheney and Dennis Hastert want to keep this legislation secret not just from Congress, but the American people as well. Bill Allison, Managing Editor of the Center for Public Integrity, the group that broke this story, stated on my radio show that it was obvious that they were just waiting for another terrorist attack to opportunistically get this new bill through. He then shocked me with an insightful comment about how the Federal government was crafting this so that they could go after the American people in general. He also agreed that the FBI has been quietly demonizing patriots and Christians and “those who carry around pocket Constitutions.”
I have produced two documentary films and written a book about what really happened on September 11th. The bottom line is this: the military-industrial complex carried the attacks out as a pretext for control. Anyone who doubts this just hasn’t looked at the mountains of hard evidence.
Of course, the current group of white collar criminals in the White House might not care that we’re finding out the details of their next phase. Because, after all, when smallpox gets released, or more buildings start blowing up, the President can stand up there at his lectern suppressing a smirk, squeeze out a tear or two, and tell us that “See I was right. I had to take away your rights to keep you safe. And now it’s your fault that all of these children are dead.” From that point on, anyone who criticizes tyranny will be shouted down by the paid talking head government mouthpieces in the mainstream media.
You have to admit, it’s a beautiful script. Unfortunately, it’s being played out in the real world. If we don’t get the word out that government is using terror to control our lives while doing nothing to stop the terrorists, we will deserve what we get - tyranny. But our children won’t deserve it.
The
Tetanizing Beam Weapon
Stun Phaser Tech Goes Operational
Electrical Beam Weapon
Has Far Greater Range Than Wired Taser
1999 idea is now being operationally expanded into ever greater use
Promotes Power-Over Mentality and Abuse of Individuals
A device that can stun a person or freeze him in his tracks may no longer be the exclusive domain of science fiction, if a new idea in non-lethal weapons reaches development. The invention uses ultraviolet lasers to create channels of ionized air leading to the target, along which a high-voltage current can be transmitted for distances as great as 100 meters. Created by HSV Technologies, Inc., of Lakeside, Calif., in 1999,the idea was sent to the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Programs Directorate, Quantico, Va., for its annual call for new ideas.
The ultraviolet laser's goal is similar to the taser. But instead of using the latter's gunpowder-launched metal darts that trail wires to carry the charge, the Anti-Personel Beam Weapon (APBW) uses lasers to create electrically conductive channels [through the air]. This allows the device to project a variety of electrical charges.
When air is ionized, it turns into a plasma, which shares many of the electrically conductive properties of metals. By using lasers to create a positively charged conduit and a negatively charged one, the APBW can set up an electrical circuit with current running through the target, according to the patent for the device.
At the lowest setting, the charge would mimic the electrical impulses that the brain uses to contract muscle tissue. Eric Herr, [the] APBW's inventor and vice president of HSV, said a blast at this level would cause a person's [skeletal] muscles to contract, effectively freezing him in place.
But other charges could be used like a taser to stun someone, kill them by causing their heart to stop beating, or even halt vehicles by shorting their electrical systems.
A device with such capabilities is what the U. S. military has been looking for, said a Non-Lethal Weapons Programs Directorate official who requested anonymity. Richard Scheps, a senior researcher with the U. S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, said the idea "has a lot of viability." Scheps is not involved in the program, but has examined the patent and experimental results. If the concept is successful, Herr estimates that the device [eventually] could be produced for about $50,000 each and would be about the size of a carry-on suitcase.
The ideas for using various electric currents to achieve the results specified in the patent are well known, as is the use of lasers to ionize air, said university and government researchers. But the power required for the lasers to create electrically conductive channels is the subject of some debate.
"Once air is ionized, it is a very good conductor," said Ambrogio Fasoli, assistant professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Physics Department Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Cambridge, Mass. "But you need a powerful laser with a good beam size."
"I certainly would not stand in front of it," he added. Herr, however, argued that the type of laser used allows it to create minimally damaging energy. In experiments at the University of California at San Diego, Herr said he was able to pass a current through a plasma conduit that was weak enough for him to put his hand into the beam, causing only minor discomfort similar to a sunburn.
Scheps said that the device could incorporate a rangefinder to tailor the beam's strength to the target distance for the minimum power needed to maintain the plasma channel.According to Peter Anthony Schlesinger, of HSV Technologies Inc., "The current within these beams is a close replication of the neuro-electric impulses that control skeletal muscles." The low level of current delivered by this device is imperceptible to the target because it is very similar to his own neurological impulses. It differs only in that its repetition rate is sufficiently rapid to tetanize muscle tissue." The dictionary definition of tetany is: "an abnormal condition characterized by periodic muscular spasms and tremors that could be painful." Schlesinger says, "Tetanization, as it is employed by this device, is the stimulation of muscle fibers at a frequency which merges their individual contractions into a single sustained contraction, thus immobilizing the target."
HSV Tech has successfully tested their electrical beam weapon at the University of California at San Diego. Schlesinger says, but didn't explain, that further refinements, using novel laser designs, are forthcoming.
The current prototype is not something that could easily be carried on one's hip, as it's the size of a carryon suitcase. A handheld version, however, should become feasible in the not too distant future as advances take place in laser technology.
But we've saved the best for last. Remember the car chase we mentioned early on? Well, they're soon to be a thing of the past too, because HSV Tech is also developing an engine-disabling variation of their electrical beam weapon for use against the electronic ignitions in automobiles. The engine-disabling version should be able to operate with off-the-shelf lasers because it would be carried aboard police patrol cars.
The completion dates for both the tetanzing and engine-disabling weapons were given in 1999 to be as early as 2001, so the technology is now well into OPERATIONAL MODE - this type of technology is guaranteed, by virtue of its nature, to expand rapidly into common use by anyone desiring power over another.AUGUST 1, 2004: Pentagon Looks At Directed Energy Weapons
The interested reader is directed to the following articles:
- Max Glaskin, The Ministry of Defence
is looking at a new weapon that could immobilise gunmen,
The Sunday Times, Inovations, Sunday May 9, 1999.- Christopher May, Experimental Weapons
WHDH - TV News, Boston, Thursday, December 14, 2000- Hand, A. J., UV lasers stop people in their tracks,
Photonics Spectra, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 32-33, January 1999.- David Mulholland, Laser Device May Provide U.S. Military Nonlethal Option,
Staff writer, Defense News, June 14, 1999, p 6. Copyright, The Army Times Publishing Company.- Owen, G. P., Directed energy weapons, a historical perspective,
Journal of Defence Science, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 89-93, 1997.- Lamabares, A., et al., Absorption spectra of corneas in the far ultraviolet region,
Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Vol. 38, No. 6, pp. 1283-1287, 1997.- Pasternak, D., Wonder weapons,
U.S. News & World Report, July 7, 1997, pp. 38-46
Incredible New Documentary on 9/11
Technically Superior
Documentary Proves World Public Hoodwinked on Tower Impacts
Viewers Stunned. Film shows
aircraft with no windows (KC-135 type) and aircraft with remote control pods
hit the Twin Towers - not US Airline flights, which were diverted
to alternate destinations, and more.
9/11 VIDEO SHOCKS SACRAMENTO CITIZENS
NewsWithViews.com
A new 9-11 video was screened last night in Sacramento, California, leaving the audience stunned. '911 in Plane Site' is basically presented in two parts. The first segment is 52 minutes and designed for showing on television with the balance of a one hour time slot reserved for commercials. Part II continues with more film and analysis. This video is digitally mastered making details sharp and clear.
'911 in Plane Site' presents actual film from that fateful day and careful analysis focusing on the Pentagon and the two World Trade Center buildings. By slowing down the actual news feeds that day from networks like CNN, FOX, the BBC and others, what you see is quite different from what most people saw in "real time" that day. Live footage from the Pentagon and what was missed by most because of the smoke and confusion was captured up close by the media. Following the showing, a retired vet remarked, "How did we miss this all this time? I've seen media clips of the front of that building [the Pentagon] many times, but I wasn't really seeing what was there. I feel sick."
One particular interview that brought gasps from the audience and many looking around with shock etched on their faces was an interview conducted - live at the time - by FOX News. This intense interview with Mark Burnback, an employee of FOX News, contains the following narrative, paraphrased: Burnback was close to the path of the second plane and had a good long look at what he describes was not a commercial airliner. The plane that hit the second tower had no windows, Burnback was very clear about that. The plane had some kind of blue logo on the front near the nose and looked like a cargo plane. This point was driven to the viewer several times along with the comment from this FOX employee that "this plane wasn't from around here or anything you'd see take off from the airport."
Other footage includes several women who had a very clear view watching the second plane hit were yelling, "That wasn't American Airlines....It wasn't American Airlines going into the building." These interviews were played that morning once on FOX News, never to be replayed again, despite the massive saturation and repetition by the media for many days to come.
Other extremely disturbing segments of this video are the clear, slow motion shots of the second plane going into the towers which show a flash right before the nose of the plane hits the building and a pod attached to the bottom of the plane. This strange flash is clearly recorded from four different angles from four different cameras. While there is only one known piece of film showing the first plane hitting the first tower, in slow motion one can clearly see - as with the second plane - a flash from the nose section right before impact. What caused this?
This video raises extremely disturbing questions about the planes that hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers, but no conclusions or accusations are made by the commentator. To date, only one piece of film has been released by DoD of the front of the Pentagon. The question raised in the video is where is all the other film footage from the Pentagon? The heart beat of America's military and security, with a building and perimeter loaded with cameras, but no film for the public to view of events as they unfolded except from one camera?
According to the producers, the purpose of '911 in Plane Site' is to demonstrate that Americans saw one thing that morning that was so shocking, so horrific and so massive, the finer details weren't really being picked up. The producer reinforces to the viewer that after one broadcast of many very controversial interviews live on the spot, these particular interviews were never broadcast again, i.e. firefighters on the spot talking about the explosions and bombs inside the towers. Since 9-11, it has been reported that "Building Seven" collapsed because of the two World Trade Center towers collapsing. However, the footage on this video tells a different story and raises more questions.
'911 in Plane Site,' produced by Power Hour Productions (to order video, call: 800-955-0116), leaves one with many questions as demonstrated by a very upset senior citizen who requested her last name be withheld. Mary asked, "If these weren't commercial airliners, where are those flights? Where are the passengers? My, God what really happened that day?" Indeed, this seemed to be the biggest question expressed by viewers after the lights came back on, but for which there were no answers. Some viewers were visibly upset, angry and "want damn answers" from the Bush Administration. Others just walked out the door in silence. One upset man commented on the way out of the viewing, "It's time to get this on PBS and every investigative news program on TV. We need answers."In July of 2004, The Power Hour mailed DVD copies of "911 In Plane Site" to 20 government agencies including The DoD, The
THE DVD HAS 10 Minutes Extra Material. You'll probably want to get this before it mysteriously becomes 'unavailable'
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Planetary Water Wars and Desertification
Technologies
for the Production of Fresh Water From Sea Water Are Ubiquitous
Water Shortages Are
A Political Phenomena, Not a Lack of Technological Capability
Manipulative Control of Financial and Energy Resources Encourages
Desertification Processes . Who Benefits?
AUG 2004 India grapples with worsening nationwide water shortage..
