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WEEK of 7-22-07
to 7-28-07 (Updated
7-25-07) |
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From a
recent Want To Know news letter
on a new Want To Know War Information Center. Reprinted by permission. |
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This message is available online at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/warinformation
War Information
Center
This message provides links to a variety of
sources of reliable, verifiable information dealing with cover-ups
related to war and the military/industrial complex. Our most
basic material is listed first, followed by other resources which
delve deeper for those interested in more. We recommend reading
through this entire page before exploring the links provided. The
WantToKnow.info
team presents this information as an
opportunity for you to educate yourself and others, and to inspire
us to work together to strengthen democracy and build a brighter
future.
War Information Summaries: For the
best, most concise introduction to what's going on in the
military/industrial complex, we highly recommend the summary of
General Butler's book War is a Racket. That war is a racket
has been told us by many, but rarely by one of this stature. Though
he died in 1940, the highly decorated
General
Smedley Butler (two Congressional Medals
of Honor) deserves to be heralded for his timeless message. This
riveting book merits inclusion as required reading for every high
school student, and for every member of our armed forces today. For
a fascinating History Channel video on how Gen. Butler stopped a
plot to overthrow FDR,
click here
Two-page summary of War is a Racket:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/warcoverup
Ten-page summary of War is a Racket:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/warisaracket
Best Free Video Exposing the War on Terror:
The Power of Nightmares is a revealing BBC documentary that
digs deep into the roots of the war on terror, only to find that
much of the widespread fear in the post 9/11 world has been
fabricated by those in power for their own interests. The intrepid
BBC team presents highly informative interviews with top officials
and experts in combating terrorism who raise serious questions about
who is behind all of the fear-mongering. This eye-opening
documentary shows that, especially after 9/11, fear has been used to
manipulate the public into giving up civil liberties and turning
over ever more power to elite groups with their own hidden agendas.
The Power of Nightmares clearly demonstrates that the nightmare
vision of a powerful, united terrorist organization waiting to
strike our societies is largely an illusion. For all citizens who
care about the future of our world, this is a must-watch video.
http://www.WantToKnow.info/powerofnightmares
Two Other Excellent Free Videos
on War Manipulations:
The Secret Government: The Constitution in
Crisis - 20-Minute PBS Documentary
http://www.WantToKnow.info/050423secretgovernment
Former CIA Agents Reveal "Secrets of the CIA"
in Turner Documentary
http://www.WantToKnow.info/051130ciasecrets
Most Important War Information Documents:
One day before the 9/11 attacks, US Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld made the astonishing admission, "According to some
estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." This
astonishing fact is reported on the CBS website (below article
provides link). As pointed out by CBS, "$2.3 trillion — that's
$8,000 for every man, woman and child in America." Rumsfeld's
revealing quote is also posted on the Department of Defense website
(link provided). And by following a link to a PBS article, we learn
that this figure came from a report of the Pentagon's inspector
general. "Its own auditors admit the military cannot account for
25 percent of what it spends," reports CBS News Correspondent Vince
Gonzales. The timing of this admission just one day before 9/11
kept this story from making the news at the time. Yet when it was
finally reported months later, this revelation received scant
coverage. Why is this startling news not given top headlines in
large bold print on all of the nation's newspapers? Why to this day
is our press hardly mentioning this most vital issue?
http://www.WantToKnow.info/050310pentagontrillionslost
A Second War Information Document:
An ABC article at the link below describes how America’s top
military leaders drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit
acts of terrorism in US cities to trick the public into supporting a
war against Cuba in the early 1960s. Approved in writing by the
Pentagon Joint Chiefs, Operation Northwoods even proposed blowing up
a US ship and hijacking planes as a false pretext for war. Also
at this link are directions for accessing these astonishing
declassified documents on the website of the US National Archives
and Records Administration. These released documents clearly
demonstrate that our military leaders feel justified for reasons of
"national security" not only in lying to the public, but even in
sacrificing the lives of our own citizens in order to promote their
war agenda.
http://www.WantToKnow.info/010501operationnorthwoods
A Third Highly Revealing Article on
the War Machine. The below article shows how the New York
Times and other media consciously hid the devastating effects of
the first atomic bomb in order to promote weapons of mass
destruction.
Four-Page Article on Cover-up of A-bomb
Effects in New York Times
http://www.WantToKnow.info/atomicbombcoverup
Top War Information News Articles: We
have collected many news articles from highly respected media
sources which contain eye-opening information exposing various
aspects of the war cover-up. Links are always provided to the
original sources for verification. The first link below contains
one-paragraph excerpts from incredibly revealing news articles with
the most important articles listed first. The second link provides
the same article excerpts listed by order of date posted to
WantToKnow.info, while the third lists them by the article date. The
fourth link below contains a list of only headlines and links to
some of the most important articles on war. Below these four links,
headlines and links to the entire text of several of the very best
articles are also provided.
http://www.WantToKnow.info/warnewsarticles
- Highly revealing war news excerpts
http://www.WantToKnow.info/warnewsstories
- News excerpts by date posted to website
http://www.WantToKnow.info/warmediaarticles
- News excerpts listed in reverse date order
http://www.WantToKnow.info/medianewsarticles#war
- Headlines and links only
Best War Information News
Articles:
BBC News: U.S. Military Plans to Control
Internet Revealed
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060205usmilitarycontrolinternet
Antimatter Weapons Reported on San
Francisco Chronicle Front Page
http://www.WantToKnow.info/antimatterweapons
Tsunami Bomb Weapon Reported in New Zealand's
Top Newspaper
http://www.WantToKnow.info/050307tsunamibombweapon
War Information Subtopics:
Massive Corruption in the Military Uncovered
in Major Media News Articles
http://www.WantToKnow.info/corruptiongovernmentmilitary
Major Media Articles Show Dangers of
Non-lethal weapons
http://www.WantToKnow.info/nonlethalweaponsnewsarticles
Military use and abuse of Whales, Dolphins,
and Sharks Reported in Media
http://www.WantToKnow.info/dolphinswhalesnewsarticles
What You Can Do About the War Cover-up.
We have no doubt that by working together we can and will
build a brighter
future. When we step out of fear, secrecy,
and polarization, we choose to join with the ever increasing numbers
of people dedicated to working together for the good of all in our
world. You can make a difference right now by sharing this war
information with your family, friends, and colleagues. Click on the
"Email page" link at the top or bottom of any page on this website
to send an email giving the Internet address of that page. To
contact your political representatives and the media,
click here. All pages, especially our
summaries, are also designed to print well so that you can copy and
share the information given. Thanks for caring!
Final Note:
WantToKnow.info believes it is important to
balance disturbing cover-up information with inspirational writings
which call us to be all that we can be and to work together for positive
change. Please visit our Inspiration Center at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/inspirational for
an abundance of uplifting material.
Your tax-deductible donations, however large or
small, help greatly to support this important work.
To make a donation by credit card, check, or money order:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/donationswtk
Explore these empowering websites coordinated by
the nonprofit PEERS network:
http://www.momentoflove.org
- Every person in the world has a heart
http://www.WantToKnow.info
- Reliable, verifiable information on major
cover-ups
http://www.inspiringcommunity.org - Building a
Global Community for All
http://www.weboflove.org
- Strengthening the Web of Love that interconnects
us all
Educational websites promoting transformation
through information and inspiration |
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WEEK of 4-10-06
to 4-14-06 (Updated
4-11-06) |
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From
recent Want To Know news letters
on a the condition of federal accounting.
Reprinted by permission. |
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This message is available online at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060411gaousgovernmentfinances
"Until
the problems discussed in GAO's audit report on the U.S.
government's consolidated financial statements are adequately
addressed, they will...hinder the federal government from having
reliable financial information to operate in an economical,
efficient, and effective manner. The federal government's
fiscal exposures now total more than $46 trillion, representing
close to four times gross domestic product (GDP) in fiscal year 2005
and up from about $20 trillion...in 2000."
--
Government Accountability Office (GAO)
website posting of 2005 annual audit, 2/3/05
Dear friends,
The below 2005 annual fiscal report
published by the highly respected Government Accountability Office
(GAO) is undeniably one of the most neglected news stories of the
year. I invite you to try to find this shocking news on any
mainstream media website. Tasked by Congress with providing accurate
accounting of all aspects of U.S. government finances, the GAO has
not been able to satisfactorily complete its evaluation of how
effectively our tax dollars are being used for nine consecutive
years due to serious management problems at various U.S. government
agencies, most notably the Pentagon.
For a highly revealing CBS news
article describing how the Pentagon "cannot track $2.3 trillion in
transactions:"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml.
That's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America—2.3 trillion
of our tax dollars which no one can account for. So why isn't this
in the front page headlines? See
http://www.WantToKnow.info/mediacover-up
for a possible answer. Thanks to the amazing power of the Internet,
you can help play the role at which the media is so sadly failing by
spreading this critical news to your friends and colleagues. Let us
insist that we be informed of how our tax dollars are being used.
Take care and remember that together, we can and will build a
brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents Bush
and Clinton
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06406thigh.pdf
- Official .pdf version of 2005 report summary
on GAO website
http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-06-406T
- Text version of summary
Fiscal Year
2005 U.S. Government Financial Statement
Sustained
Improvement in Federal Financial Management Is Crucial to Addressing
Our Nation's Financial Condition and Long-term Fiscal Imbalance
GAO is required by law to annually audit the
consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government. The
Congress and the President need to have timely, reliable, and useful
financial and performance information. Sound decisions on the
current results and future direction of vital federal government
programs and policies are made more difficult without such
information.
Until the problems discussed in GAO's
audit report on the U.S. government's consolidated financial
statements are adequately addressed, they will continue to
(1) hamper the federal government's ability to reliably report a
significant portion of its assets, liabilities, costs, and other
information; (2) affect the federal government's ability to reliably
measure the full cost as well as the financial and non-financial
performance of certain programs and activities; (3) impair the
federal government's ability to adequately safeguard significant
assets and properly record various transactions; and (4)
hinder the federal government from having reliable financial
information to operate in an economical, efficient, and effective
manner.
What GAO Found
For the ninth consecutive year,
certain material weaknesses in internal control and in selected
accounting and financial reporting practices resulted in conditions
that continued to prevent GAO from being able to provide the
Congress and American people an opinion as to whether the
consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government are fairly
stated in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting
principles.
Three major impediments to an
opinion on the consolidated financial statements continued to be (1)
serious financial management problems at the Department of
Defense, (2) the federal government's inability to
adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and
balances between federal agencies, and (3) the federal government's
ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial
statements. Further, in our opinion, as of September 30, 2005, the
federal government did not maintain effective internal control over
financial reporting and compliance with significant laws and
regulations due to numerous material weaknesses.
More troubling still is the federal
government's overall financial condition and long-term fiscal
imbalance. While the fiscal year 2005 budget deficit was lower than
2004, it was still very high, especially given the impending
retirement of the "baby boom" generation and rising health care
costs. Importantly, as reported in the fiscal year 2005 Financial
Report of the United States Government, the federal government's
accrual-based net operating cost--the cost to operate the
federal government--increased to $760 billion in fiscal year 2005
from $616 billion in fiscal year 2004. This represents an increase
of about $144 billion or 23 percent. The federal government's gross
debt was about $8 trillion as of September 30, 2005. This
number excludes such items as the gap between the present value of
future promised and funded Social Security and Medicare benefits,
veterans' health care, and a range of other liabilities,
commitments, and contingencies that the federal government has
pledged to support.
Including these items, the federal
government's fiscal exposures now total more than $46 trillion,
representing close to four times gross domestic product (GDP) in
fiscal year 2005 and up from about $20 trillion or two times GDP in
2000. Given these and other factors, a fundamental
reexamination of major spending programs, tax policies, and
government priorities will be important and necessary to put us on a
prudent and sustainable fiscal path. This will likely require a
national discussion about what Americans want from their government
and how much they are willing to pay for those things.
We continue to have concerns about the
identification of misstatements in federal agencies' prior year
financial statements. Frequent restatements to correct errors can
undermine public trust and confidence in both the entity and all
responsible parties. The material internal control weaknesses
discussed in this testimony serve to increase the risk that
additional errors may occur and not be identified on a timely basis
by agency management or their auditors, resulting in further
restatements.
Note: For the full 20-page
GAO report on the sad state of U.S. government finances:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06406t.pdf -
Official .pdf version on the GAO website
http://www.gao.gov/htext/d06406t.html -
Text-only version
Final Note:
Remember that
with your
help, we can and will build a
brighter
future for us all. And for some deeply
inspiring stories to provide balance to all of this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
FOR WANT TO KNOW DONATIONS ONLY,
NOT FOR GCP DONATIONS.
TO DONATE TO GCP,
CLICK HERE.
Your donations, however large or small, help
greatly to support this important work.
To make a donation by mail or credit card (PayPal):
http://www.WantToKnow.info/donationswtk
FOR WANT TO KNOW DONATIONS ONLY,
NOT FOR GCP DONATIONS.
TO DONATE TO GCP,
CLICK HERE.
Explore these empowering websites coordinated by
the
PEERS network:
http://www.momentoflove.org - Every person in
the world has a heart
http://www.WantToKnow.info - Reliable,
verifiable information on major cover-ups
http://www.inspiringcommunity.org - Building a
Global Community for All
http://www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the
Web of Love that interconnects us all
Together, we are building a better world based on
love and cooperation
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WEEK of 3-27-06
to 3-31-06 (Updated
3-31-06) |
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From
recent Want To Know news letters
on a variety of topics.
Reprinted by permission. |
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This message is available online at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060327newsarticles
Dear friends,
Below are one-paragraph excerpts of important
news articles you may have missed. Each excerpt is taken verbatim
from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any
link fails to function,
click
here. These news articles include
revealing information on Iraq: Playing Football with bricks of $100
Bills, Criminal Negligence on 9/11, the Israel lobby, IRS Releases
Your Data, the GAO report condemning government accountability,
inspiring clips on MTV, and more. Key sentences are
highlighted for those with limited time.
For those interested in CNN's claims
of a government cover-up of 9/11, CNN again gave prime time coverage
Friday, March 24th. See
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/24/sbt.01.html
to read the CNN program
transcript.
Fox News
also had a six-minute 9/11 debate. And the
sophisticated weekly magazine
New
York carried a very
long, excellent 9/11 piece, of which you can
find excerpts below. For more on CNN's groundbreaking 9/11 coverage
from an earlier message:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060324cnnquestions911.
By choosing to educate ourselves and to
spread
the word, we can and will
build a
brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents Bush
and Clinton
'Iraq was awash
in cash. We played football with bricks of $100 bills'
March 20, 2006, The Guardian
(one of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1734939,00.html
At the start of the Iraq war, around $23bn-worth
of Iraqi money was placed in the trusteeship of the US-led coalition by
the UN. The money...was to be used in a "transparent manner"...for
"purposes benefiting the people of Iraq". For the past few months we
have been working on a Guardian Films investigation into what happened
to that money. A great deal of it has been wasted, stolen or frittered
away. Over the first 14 months of the occupation, 363 tonnes of new $100
bills were shipped in - $12bn, in cash. "Iraq was awash in cash - in
dollar bills. Piles and piles of money," says Frank Willis, a
former senior official with the governing Coalition Provisional
Authority. "We played football with some of the bricks of $100 bills
before delivery. It was a wild-west crazy atmosphere". The
environment created by the coalition positively encouraged corruption.
"American law was suspended, Iraqi law was suspended, and Iraq
basically became a free fraud zone," says Alan Grayson, a Florida-based
attorney who represents whistleblowers now trying to expose the
corruption. One CPA official was given nearly $7m and told to spend it
in seven days.
Note: I highly recommend this
entire article to understand some of what happens in war. For lots more
on war-related corruption written by a highly decorated US general, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/warisaracket
The Ground Zero
Grassy Knoll
March 27, 2006, New York Magazine
http://www.nymetro.com/news/features/16464
Why, if the impact destroyed the planes’
supposedly crash-proof flight-recorder black boxes, was the FBI able to
find, in perfect condition, the
passport of
Satam al Suqami, one of the...Flight 11
hijackers? How could they, an hour after the first World Trade Center
crash, allow an obviously hostile airplane to smash into the Pentagon,
headquarters of the entire military-industrial complex?
A
story in Newsweek...said these generals were
told earlier that week not to fly.
[On 9/11 a] fireman indicated the building in front of us. “That
building is coming down,” he said. At 47 stories, it would be a
skyscraper in most cities. Five minutes later, at 5:20, the
building, 7 World Trade Center, crumbled. What happened at 7
WTC might be the key to the entire mystery. The $500 million insurance
profit made by Larry Silverstein [and] the
list of 7 WTC
tenants sets conspiracy heads spinning: The
IRS, the Department of Defense, and the CIA kept offices on the 25th
floor. The Secret Service occupied the ninth and tenth. The Securities
and Exchange Commission (home to vast records of bank transactions) was
on floors 11 through 13. The 23rd floor was home to Rudy Giuliani’s
Office of Emergency Management, his crisis center. Central to the
scenario is a comment made by Silverstein in a
2002 PBS
documentary. “We’ve had such a terrible loss
of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.” “Pull it”...is the
term usually used for controlled demolition. 7 WTC is not even mentioned
in The 9/11 Commission Report.
Election
Whistle-Blower Stymied by Vendors
March 26, 2006, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032500805.html
Among those who worry that hackers might sabotage
election tallies, Ion Sancho is something of a hero. The maverick
elections supervisor in Leon County, Fla., last year helped show that
electronic voting machines from one of the major manufacturers are
vulnerable...and would allow election workers to alter vote counts
without detection. Now, however, Sancho may be paying an unexpected
price for his whistle-blowing: None of the state-approved companies here
will sell him the voting machines the county needs. "I believe I'm being
singled out for punishment by the vendors," he said. The trouble began
last year when Sancho allowed a Finnish computer scientist to test Leon
County's Diebold voting machines, a common type that uses an optical
scanner to count votes from ballots that voters have marked.
Some tests...showed that elections workers could alter the vote tallies
by manipulating the removable memory ca! rds in the voting machines, and
do so without detection. Last month, California elections
officials arranged for experts to perform a similar analysis of the
Diebold machines and also found them vulnerable -- noting a wider
variety of flaws than Sancho's experts had. A spokesman said Diebold
will not sell to Sancho without assurances that he will not permit more
such tests, which the company considers a reckless use of the machines.
Who's afraid of
the 'Israel Lobby'?
March 26, 2006, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-goldberg26mar26,1,301596.story
The idea of a powerful "Jewish lobby" that has its
gnarled fingers in the machinery of the government is an old and
repugnant canard. In the modern era, even to broach the idea of a
"Jewish lobby" is unacceptable. It's just not done in polite
society—even in situations in which there's some truth to it. That's why
it was a bit of a shock last week when a 12,000-word article by
two eminent professors—Stephen Walt, the academic dean of Harvard
University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and John Mearsheimer,
a professor of political science at the University of Chicago—appeared
in the London Review of Books under the title "The Israel Lobby."
According to the two academics, the United States' "unwavering support"
for Israel—including the $3 billion a year we give in direct
assistance—is justified by neither strategic nor moral imperatives.
Despite the common view, Israel is, in fact, the Go! liath in the Middle
East, not the David. It is not a truly democratic country, but an
avowedly Jewish state in which Arabs live as second-class citizens. "The
bottom line is that AIPAC, a de facto agent for a foreign government,
has a stranglehold on Congress," Walt and Mearsheimer contend. Public
reaction has varied. Harvard has reportedly distanced itself from the
original report. It seems silly to deny that a powerful lobby on behalf
of Israel exists. The real question is how pernicious it is. My advice
is to judge for yourself. The full article is available at
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
Note: For information on how
Harvard distanced itself from this paper:
http://www.nysun.com/article/29638. For the
mixed reaction to this paper in Israel:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0324/dailyUpdate.html
Unwelcome
Attention From Moussaoui Trial
March 25, 2006, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/25/politics/25moussaoui.html
The sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui was
supposed to have been the government's best opportunity to hold someone
accountable for the deaths on Sept. 11, 2001. But after federal
prosecutors finished laying out their case this week, even those who
strongly supported an aggressive prosecution may wonder whether the
trial has shed as much light on Mr. Moussaoui's culpability as it has on
the missteps and mistakes by law enforcement agencies. The testimony of
two prosecution witnesses, in particular, has brought renewed and
unwelcome attention to how the [FBI] dealt with early warning signs. Mr.
Moussaoui is the sole person to go to trial in an American courtroom for
the attacks. Under cross-examination...Mr. Samit acknowledged that after
the attacks he had written strongly worded reports saying his superiors
had improperly blocked his efforts to investigate Mr. Moussaoui. He
added that he was convinced that Mr. Moussaoui was a terrorist involved
in an imminent hijacking plot. He offered a devastating comment
from a supervisor who said pressing too hard to obtain a warrant for Mr.
Moussaoui would hurt his career. Mr. Samit also wrote that his superiors
did not act because they were guilty of "criminal negligence" and they
were gambling that Mr. Moussaoui had little to offer. The lost wager,
Mr. Samit said, was paid in many lives.
Researchers Shed
More Light on Bird Flu
March 23, 2006, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/22/AR2006032202043.html
Two research teams have independently discovered
explanations for the chief features of the H5N1 bird flu virus -- its
difficulty infecting humans, and the deadly effects when it does. Unlike
influenza viruses that are passed easily between people, H5N1 has a hard
time attaching to cells in the nose, throat and upper airways. But it
readily attaches to cells deep in the lungs. This suggests that
people need close and heavy exposure to the H5N1 virus for it to get
into the lungs.
Note: Yet governments have
already spent many millions of dollars stockpiling Tamiflu believing
that avian flu will mutate and cause a pandemic killing millions. And
top government officials have already made many millions of dollars on
stocks related to Tamiflu--the drug designed to combat a deadly virus
which hasn't even mutated yet to know if the drug works! Remember that
generating
fear in the public is one of the best ways to
make a profit. For lots more, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/avianflu
IRS plans to
allow preparers to sell data
March 21, 2006, Philadelphia
Enquirer (Philadelphia's leading newspaper)
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/14147002.htm
The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the
once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it
succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to
sell information from individual returns - or even entire returns - to
marketers and data brokers. The change is raising alarm among
consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of
proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS
published...where the official notice labeled them "not a significant
regulatory action." The proposed rules...would require a tax preparer to
obtain written consent before selling tax information. Critics call the
changes a dangerous breach in personal and financial privacy. They say
the requirement for signed consent would prove meaningless for many
taxpayers, especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents
before a filing deadline. The IRS first announced the proposal
in a news release the day before the official notice was published,
headlined: "IRS Issues Proposed Regulations to Safeguard Taxpayer
Information."
FBI Agent Slams
Bosses at Moussaoui Trial
March 21, 2006, CBS News/Associated
Press
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/21/ap/national/mainD8GFLTIGA.shtml
The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in
August 2001 testified Monday he spent almost four weeks trying to warn
U.S. officials about the radical Islamic student pilot but "criminal
negligence" by superiors in Washington thwarted a chance to stop the
9/11 attacks. Samit told MacMahon he couldn't persuade FBI headquarters
or the Justice Department to take his fears seriously.
Samit's complaints echoed those raised in 2002 by
Coleen Rowley, the bureau's agent-lawyer in the Minneapolis office.
Rowley went
public with her frustrations, was named a Time
magazine person of the year for whistleblowing.
Samit revealed far more than Rowley of the details of the investigation.
For each nugget of information, MacMahon asked Samit if Washington
officials called to assess the implications. Time after time, Samit said
no.
Woman With
Perfect Memory Baffles Scientists
March 20, 2006, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1738881&page=1
[AJ] remembers every day and almost every detail
of her life. James McGaugh is one of the world's leading experts on how
the human memory system works. But these days, he admits he's stumped.
McGaugh's journey through an intellectual purgatory began six years ago
when a woman now known only as AJ wrote him a letter detailing her
astonishing ability to remember with remarkable clarity even trivial
events that happened decades ago. Give her any date...and she
could recall the day of the week, usually what the weather was like on
that day, personal details of her life at that time, and major news
events that occurred on that date. Like any good scientist,
McGaugh was initially skeptical. But not anymore. "This is real," he
says. "In order to explain a phenomenon you have to first understand the
phenomenon," McGaugh says. "We're at the beginning."
Note: The human mind and spirit
are much more powerful than many scientists might imagine.
MTV's 'Spiritual
Windows' mix faith with rock 'n' roll
March 11, 2006, Chicago Sun-Times
http://www.suntimes.com/output/falsani/cst-nws-fals11.html
It was about 10 seconds long and showed gondoliers
rowing in the canals of Venice, Italy, while a Latin-sounding man's
voice said: "Your heart is where your treasure is, and you must find
your treasure in order to make sense of everything." And then more words
appeared on the screen: "Everyday grace: MTV." In late January,
MTV, the arbiter of all things hip, quietly launched a campaign of 24 of
these little films. They call the campaign "Spiritual Windows."
"We wanted to create little, short moments, almost breaths of peace, for
the channel," Kevin Mackall, the...senior vice president of on-air
promos for MTV explained. "There's a genuine appetite for spirituality
these days." According to a little-known poll...53 percent of
18-to-29-year-olds said "religion" was "extremely important" or "very
important" to their daily lives. Only 14 percent said religion wasn't
important to them at all. One spot! , with the tag line "Consume
mindfully," shows a Tibetan nun hauling two plastic garbage bags to the
curb in front of her Buddhist temple. Then there's "Everyone," with a
Chinese dragon dancing...accompanied by a voice-over that says, "We need
other human beings to be human." And one of the longer spots...shows the
sun setting over a pyramid in Egypt as the Brazilian magical realist
author Paulo Coelho's voice announces, "The desert will give you an
understanding of the world. How do I immerse myself in the desert?
Listen to your heart." Mackall...insists the "Spiritual Windows" are no
gimmick. "It really, truly is answering a call from our audience," he
said. "Hopefully it's a first step into some other content like this."
Touch-Screen
Voting Fallible, Ehrlich Says
March 6, 2006, The Guardian
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/05/AR2006030501045.html
Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) has
embraced a legislative proposal to abandon the state's touch-screen
voting machines for the coming election, in which he is a candidate, and
to lease others that provide a paper record to verify results. Ehrlich's
endorsement is the latest turn in the debate over Maryland's electronic
voting machines that were used in nearly every polling place in the 2004
election. The state has committed $90 million to the system, which
critics say is vulnerable to tampering. Last month, Ehrlich -- who
championed the Diebold machines in 2003 -- express[ed] concern about
reliability questions raised in California and Florida about those
machines. A review of California's voting systems found more
than a dozen vulnerabilities that security analysts said could be fixed.
More than two dozen states now have some requirement for vote
verification.
Note: These vulnerabilities were
discovered after the machines were used widely in previous elections.
Before those elections, voting machine manufacturers and elections
officials insisted there were no such vulnerabilities. For lots more
cover-ups around elections, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/electionsinformation
Fiscal Year 2005
U.S. Government Financial Statements
March 1, 2006, Official Website of the
GAO (Government Accountability Office)
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06406thigh.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-06-406T
GAO is required by law to annually audit the
consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government. The Congress
and the President need to have timely, reliable, and useful financial
and performance information. For the ninth consecutive year,
certain material weaknesses in internal control...continued to prevent
GAO from being able to provide the Congress and American people an
opinion as to whether the consolidated financial statements of the U.S.
government are fairly stated in conformity with U.S. generally accepted
accounting principles. Three major impediments to an opinion on
the consolidated financial statements continued to be (1) serious
financial
management
problems at the Department of Defense, (2) the
federal government's inability to adequately account for and reconcile
intragovernmental activity and balances between ! federal agencies, and
(3) the federal government's ineffective process for preparing the
consolidated financial statements. The cost to operate the federal
government increased to $760 billion in fiscal year 2005 from $616
billion in fiscal year 2004. This represents an increase of about $144
billion or 23 percent. The federal government's gross debt was about $8
trillion as of September 30, 2005. The federal government's
fiscal exposures now total more than $46 trillion, representing close to
four times gross domestic product (GDP) in fiscal year 2005 and up from
about $20 trillion...in 2000.
Note: The GAO (Government
Accountability Office) is one of the few branches of government which
works hard to prevent corruption. Why didn't this devastating report get
any press coverage? Why does the media fail to inform the public that
the Pentagon cannot account for literally trillions of dollars? (see CBS
article on this at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/050310pentagontrillionslost)
For possible answers, see our media summary at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/mediacover-up
Now the Pentagon
tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
February 22, 2006, The Observer
(One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html
A secret report, suppressed by US defence
chiefs...warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising
seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear
conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across
the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring
the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat
to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The
threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the
few experts privy to its contents. 'Disruption and conflict will be
endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again,
warfare would define human life.' The report was commissioned by
influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held
considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades.
Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a ! scientific debate to a US
national security concern', say the authors. Last week the Bush
administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected
scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy
agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. A former
whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that
suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the
White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.
Note: Though I don't agree with
these doomsday scenario predictions (the Pentagon tends to focus on
worst-case scenarios), the suppression of this report clearly does not
serve the public.
Final Note: Remember that
with your
help, we can and will build a
brighter
future
for us all. And for some deeply
inspiring stories to provide balance to all of this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
The message below is available online at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060317newsarticles
Dear friends,
Below are one-paragraph excerpts of
important news articles you may have missed. Each excerpt is
taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link
provided. If any link fails to function,
click
here. These news articles include
revealing information on weapons in space, huge war profits, a
boom in billionaires, Tamiflu riches flowing into the pockets of
a high government official, and more. Key sentences are
highlighted for those with limited time. By choosing to
educate ourselves and to
spread
the word, we can and will
build
a brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents
Bush and Clinton
Pentagon
eyeing weapons in space
March 14, 2006, Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/14/pentagon_eyeing_weapons_in_space/
The Pentagon is asking Congress for hundreds
of millions of dollars to test weapons in space, marking the biggest
step toward creating a space battlefield since President Reagan's
long-defunct ''star wars" project. The Defense Department's budget
proposal...includes money for a variety of tests on offensive and
defensive weapons. Arms-control specialists fear the tests will push
the military closer to basing weapons in space than during Reagan's
Strategic Defense Initiative in the mid-1980s -- without a public
debate of the potential consequences. The descriptions included in
the budget request mark only what is publicly known about the
military's space warfare plans. Specialists believe the classified
portion of the $439 billion budget, blacked out for national
security reasons, almost certainly includes other space-related
programs. Under President Bush, the White House has
emphasized what's known as ''! space dominance" -- the notion that
the United States must command space to defend the nation, but the
budget request marks a transition from laboratory theory to reality.
The Bush administration has sought to keep the military's options
open despite international opposition to weapons in space.
The War
Dividend: The British companies making a fortune out of conflict-riven
Iraq
March 13, 2006, Independent
(one of the UK's top newspapers)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article350959.ece
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13385
British businesses have profited by at least
£1.1bn since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein three years
ago. The company roll-call of post-war profiteers includes some of
the best known names in Britain's boardrooms. The evidence of
massive investments and the promise of more multimillion-pound
profits to come was discovered in a joint investigation by
Corporate
Watch, an independent watchdog, and The
Independent. The findings show how much is [at] stake if Britain
were to withdraw military protection from Iraq. British company
involvement at the top of Iraq's new political and economic
structures means Iraq will be forced to rely on British business for
many years to come. A total of 61 British companies are identified
as benefiting from at least £1.1bn of contracts and investment in
the new Iraq. But that figure is just the tip of the iceberg.! It
could be as much as five times higher, because many companies prefer
to keep their relationship secret. The waters are further muddied by
the Government's refusal to release the names of companies it has
helped to win contracts in Iraq. The report acknowledges
that British business still lags behind the huge profits paid to
American companies. In five years, the £1.1bn of contracts
identified in the report will be dwarfed by what Britain and the US
hope to reap from investments. Highly lucrative oil
contracts have yet to be handed out.
Note: For more powerful
information on war-profiteering revealed by a highly decorated U.S.
general see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/warisaracket
Defending the
party of Davos
March 13, 2006, CNN
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/10/news/international/pluggedin_2_fortune/
I went to hear Jeff Faux talk recently about
his new book "The
Global Class War," an account of how the
corporate elite has been selling out American workers. I don't
entirely buy his argument. Faux is founder of the Economic Policy
Institute, a Washington think tank...which I think is best described
as "gloomy." There is no economic news that the EPI can't find a way
to spin negatively. That said, the work the group does is always
meticulous and usually thought-provoking. The same can be said of
Faux's book. His main point is that there now exists a global "party
of Davos" (the Swiss ski resort where politicians, businesspeople,
journalists, and scholars gather every January for the annual
meeting of the World Economic Forum), whose members have more in
common with each other than with the peoples of their home
countries. I can tes! tify that there is truth to this. I am a
member of the junior auxiliary of the party of Davos.
Faux's point is not that people like
me are sinister and evil -- there's no Trilateral Commission/Council
on Foreign Relations/Bilderberg
Group conspiracy nonsense in his book --
just that the interests of corporate America aren't necessarily the
same as America's interests.
My chief solace is that Faux doesn't seem to have an obviously
better alternative. Or maybe that shouldn't be a solace -- because
Faux is right that a global economic system designed entirely by
corporations, without any democratic input to speak of, isn't what
anybody really wants.
Note: This is a heartening
article from one who rubs elbows with the power elite. It is also
one of the rare times I've seen the powerful Bilderberg Group
mentioned in mainstream media. If you don't know about this secret
gathering of the global elite, I most highly recommend two revealing
BBC articles you can find at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/051115secretsocietiesbilderberg
Donald
Rumsfeld makes $5m killing on bird flu drug
March 12, 2006, Independent
(one of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article350787.ece
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060313114723970
The US Defence Secretary has made more than
$5m (£2.9m) in capital gains from selling shares in the
biotechnology firm that discovered and developed Tamiflu, the drug
being bought in massive amounts by Governments to treat a possible
human pandemic of the disease. More than 60 countries have so far
ordered large stocks of the antiviral medication - the only oral
medicine believed to be effective against the deadly H5N1 strain of
the disease - to try to protect their people. The United Nations
estimates that a pandemic could kill 150 million people worldwide.
The drug was developed by a Californian biotech company, Gilead
Sciences. Mr Rumsfeld was on the board of Gilead from 1988 to 2001,
and was its chairman from 1997. He then left to join the
Bush administration, but retained a huge shareholding. The 2005
report showed that, in all, he owned shares worth up to $95.9m, from
which he got an income of up to $13m. The firm made a loss in 2003,
the year before concern about bird flu started. Then revenues from
Tamiflu almost quadrupled, to $44.6m, helping put the company well
into the black. Sales almost quadrupled again, to $161.6m last year.
Note: For many more strange
coincidences and facts around the avian flu scare, take a look at
our summary of eye-opening news articles at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/avianflu
Forbes
reports billionaire boom
March 10, 2006, BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4791848.stm
A worldwide economic boom has yielded
a record number of dollar billionaires in the past year, according
to Forbes. Their number rose by 15%. Microsoft's Bill Gates
tops the list for the 12th year running, with a net worth of $50bn
(£29bn). The combined net worth of the 793 is $2.6 trillion and US
billionaires account for just under half the amount. The figures
were conservative estimates for different reasons. While New York
has the highest number of resident billionaires with 40, Moscow is
second with 25, and London comes third with 23. Steve Forbes,
Forbes' chief executive and editor-in-chief, attributed the global
rise in the number of billionaires to an economic boom.
Note: Yet a recent New
York Times article shows that the income of 90% of citizens is
basically stagnant or even decreasing. See
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060306newsarticles#1
The Dubai
Deal You Don't Know About
March 9, 2006, Time
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1171773,00.html
Dubai Ports World, the firm at the center of
the controversy, announced today that it would give up its bid to
manage U.S. ports, agreeing to transfer the contracts to a “U.S.
entity." Yet while one Dubai company may be giving up on U.S. ports,
another one shows no signs of...giving up a contract with the Navy
to provide shore services for vessels in the Middle East. The firm,
Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS)...was sold to a Dubai government
investment vehicle for $285 million. Why is a Dubai shipping
services company doing business with the Pentagon when handing over
U.S. port operations to the emirate would supposedly compromise
national security? ISS “will be responsible for providing
all the logistics requirements of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships in
ports throughout the [Middle East] region.” The release also notes
that ISS may be asked to provide services for U.S. military training
exer! cises and “contingency operations inland.” ISS’s
partner for those services? None other than KBR, the division of
Halliburton — Vice President Dick Cheney’s old firm — that has won
billions of dollars in contracts for the Iraq war and
reconstruction. Ironically, Halliburton's name has come up
as a possible candidate to be the "U.S. entity" to take over the
U.S. ports management from Dubai Ports World.
Moussaoui
Jury Riveted by 9/11 Transcript
March 8, 2006, CBS/Associated Press
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/08/ap/national/mainD8G7AG300.shtml
The details of what happened to the four
hijacked jetliners on Sept. 11, 2001, have been known for years, but
when a prosecutor read a simple minute-by-minute account of the
attacks, the jury deciding the fate of confessed al-Qaida
conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui hung on every word. In a similar
vein, the missed opportunities of the FBI and other agencies to
prevent Sept. 11 have been known for years, but when FBI agents are
forced to admit them on cross-examination, they seem fresh to the
jury. FBI agents have been
forced to admit under cross-examination that the
FBI knew
years before Sept. 11 that al-Qaida had plans
to use planes as missiles to destroy prominent buildings. They also
had to acknowledge numerous missed opportunities in the months
before Sept. 11 to catch two of the hijackers with terror links
known to the government, even
though the pair frequently used their own names in this country to
rent cars, purchase plane tickets and even, once, to file a police
report after getting mugged.
Note: What all of the media
articles on this important case fail to mention is the laptop
computer of Moussaoui was confiscated weeks before 9/11, yet FBI
headquarters systematically undermined requests by Minneapolis FBI
agents to search the computer. See
http://www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up10pg#moussaouilaptop.
And a full two weeks before 9/11 an FBI Minnesota
supervisor said he was trying keep Moussaoui from “taking control of
a plane and fly it into the WTC," yet his investigation was
repeatedly blocked by top officials. See
http://www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up10pg#moussaoui
Battery power
as good as gas?
March 6, 2006, Toronto Star
(one of Canada's leading newspapers)
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1
&c=Article&cid=1141599010468&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851
A much-shrouded idea could give portable power
a real charge, for a change—and change, well, everything. Imagine
the day when cellphones charge up in seconds, laptop batteries never
degrade, and electric cars have the same power, driving range and
purchase price as their gas-powered cousins. Such a battery—a
superbattery—doesn't exist today, but a tiny company out of Austin,
Texas, is getting remarkably close, and the possibilities have
caught the attention of the U.S. army, the former vice-chairman of
Dell Computer, and one of the most respected venture capital firms
in North America. Among EEStor's claims is that its
"electrical energy storage unit" could pack nearly 10 times the
energy punch of a lead-acid battery of similar weight and, under
mass production, would cost half as much. It also says its
technology more than doubles the energy density of lithium-ion
batteries in most portable computer and ! mobile gadgets today, but
could be produced at one-eighth the cost. The company...is
weeks away from seeking independent verification of the product's
performance. Adding more intrigue to the story is the fact that
Colin Powell, the former U.S. secretary of state, joined Kleiner
Perkins last summer as a strategic partner.
Ministers
back 'terminator' GM crops
March 5, 2006, Independent
(one of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article349331.ece
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0305-04.htm
Ministers are trying to scrap an international
agreement banning the world's most controversial genetic
modification of crops, grimly nicknamed "terminator technology", a
move which threatens to increase hunger in the Third World. The
Government is to push for terminator crops to be considered for
approval on a "case-by-case basis" at two meetings this month; its
position closely mirrors the stance of the United States and other
GM [genetically modified organisms]-promoting countries.
Terminator technology...would stop hundreds of millions of poor
farmers from saving seeds from their crops for resowing for the
following harvest, forcing them to buy new ones from biotech
companies every year. The technique is officially known as
genetic use restriction technology (Gurt), making crops produce
sterile seeds. It could be applied to any crop, including maize and
rice, widely grown in developing countries. The UK working group on
terminator technology...says: "It could destroy traditional farming
methods, damage farmers' livelihoods and threaten food security,
particularly in developing countries." [Former UK Minister of
Environment Michael] Meacher said: "For the first time in the
history of the world, farmers would be stopped from using their own
seeds."
Note: For more on this
alarming development:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/deception10pg
Pay too much
and you could raise the alarm
February 23, 2006, Providence
Journal (the leading newspaper in Rhode Island)
http://www.projo.com/news/bobkerr/projo_20060224_frico24.1d2c026b.html
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=RAISEALARM-02-28-06
Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas
schoolteacher. What got him so upset might seem trivial to some
people who have learned to accept small infringements on their
freedom as just part of the way things are in this age of terror-fed
paranoia. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had
gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a
check for $6,522. And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The
Soehnges' behavior was found questionable. After sending in the
check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly
credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount
available for credit on their account hadn't changed. They were
told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center,
that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their
normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain
percentage higher than that normal payment, Hom! eland Security has
to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is
lifted. Walter called television stations, the American
Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see
what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called
the Bank Privacy Act. "The more I'm on, the scarier it gets," he
said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get
permission to spy."
Obsession:
Mr. Singh’s Search for the Holy Grail
October 2004, Popular Science
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/futurecar/19b09aa138b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
[Somender Singh] claims that his invention
makes an engine cleaner, quieter and colder...while using up to 20
percent less gas. So far, all Singh’s invention has earned him is a
few polite rejection letters from presidents, professors and auto
manufacturers. “I am...no man with letters after his name or fancy
institutions, and what I have invented is really very simple,” he
admits. Remember that the internal combustion engine is itself
hardly rocket science. The internal combustion engine (ICE) has been
with us for about 200 years. The basic concept—the boom that turns a
crank—has not really changed at all. The efficiency of that bang had
stalled out at around 28 percent. The vast majority of the fuel was
dissipated as engine heat or exhaust. Singh knew that...the
combustion chamber [was where] fuel was turned to bang. He modified
a motorcycle, then a two-stroke, then a four-stroke, then a car,
then 50 cars. ! Singh applied for a patent in January 1999, and the
U.S. Patent Office issued him
No.
6237579 in May 2001. Finally he was
allowed to bring his engines and hook them to a Benz EC-70
dynamometer with a five-gas analyzer and a Benz gravimetric
fuel-measuring device. At between 2,000 and 2,800 rpm,
Singh’s modified engine used between 10 and 42 percent less fuel
than its unmodified twin, with no appreciable losses in torque or
power.
Note: After
posting a
message on a group of high-school students
who achieved dramatic improvements in car engine efficiency two
weeks ago, I received emails from more than ten people claiming to
have made or know of similar inventions. The above article was sent
to me as evidence in one case. I know dozens of other cases that
could be real. For lots more, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/newenergyinformation
Final Note: Remember that
with your
help, we can and will build a
brighter
future
for us all. And for some deeply inspiring
stories to provide balance to all of this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
The message below is available online at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060306newsarticles
Dear friends,
Below are one-paragraph excerpts of
important news articles you may have missed. Each excerpt is
taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link
provided. If any link fails to function,
click
here. These news articles include
revealing information on declining U.S. salaries, bullying of
the press, GM (Genetically Modified) food problems, organic food
benefits, and more. Key sentences are highlighted for
those with limited time. By choosing to educate
ourselves and to
spread
the word, we can and will
build
a brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents
Bush and Clinton
Suit airs Able Danger claims
March 4, 2006, Sacramento Bee
(Leading newspaper of
Sacramento, Calif.)
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14225641p-15049903c.html
Two operatives at the center of the Able
Danger controversy have sued the Defense Department for denying them
contact with their lawyers during closed congressional hearings.
Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and J.D. Smith were among a dozen
intelligence officers and contractors who worked on the clandestine
program set up long before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to
track al-Qaida. They are accusing the Pentagon...of violating their
First Amendment rights by blocking their access to legal counsel
during the closed sessions. "Able Danger identified the Sept. 11,
2001, attack leader Mohamed Atta, and three of the 9/11 plot's 19
hijackers, as possible members of an al-Qaida cell linked to the
1993 World Trade Center attack or its participants," the suit said.
Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient who fought undercover in
Afghanistan, caused a stir in August when he stepped forward to say
that he and other Able Danger operatives had identified Atta as long
as 21 months before the Sept. 11 attacks. That claim - later
supported by the Able Danger team's leader, Navy Capt. Scott
Phillpott - contradicted a central finding of the commission
Congress had set up to probe the Sept. 11 attacks, which
concluded that none of the hijackers had been known to U.S.
authorities before the assault.
Note: Though the major media
once gave Able Danger good coverage, only the Sacramento Bee
has mentioned that the team's leader is one of the individuals who
stepped forward. For lots more on the vitally important Able Danger
program:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/abledanger911
Experts Call
for Release of 9/11 Evidence
March 1, 2006, Yahoo News/PR Web
http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20060301/bs_prweb/prweb352979_1
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/3/prweb352979.htm
A society of experts and scholars has now
joined with
Judicial
Watch in calling for release of videos
that are being held by the Department of Defense, which are
essential to understanding events at the Pentagon that transpired on
September 11, 2001. Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which is dedicated to
exposing falsehoods and establishing truths about the events of
9/11, has gone beyond Judicial Watch by calling for the release of
other films and evidence that, its officers maintain, are essential
to understanding 9/11. "It is outrageous that the government is
withholding this vital information", said James H. Fetzer, founder
and co-chair of the society.
They are calling for immediate release of the full
Pentagon
surveillance tape as well as
video
tapes seized by FBI agents minutes after
the Pentagon hit; a complete
inventory of the plane wreckage and debris from Flights 11, 77, 93,
175 or any other aircraft that crashed or was destroyed on September
11, 2001.
Note: Though Yahoo News
picked up this important article, no major media found it
newsworthy.
Graduates
versus Oligarchs
February 27, 2006, New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12093.htm
Highly educated workers have done better than
those with less education, but a college degree has hardly been a
ticket to big income gains. The 2006 Economic Report of the
President tells us that the real earnings of college graduates
actually fell more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2004. So
who are the winners from rising inequality? It's not the top 20
percent, or even the top 10 percent. The big gains have gone to a
much smaller, much richer group than that. A new research paper by
Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, "Where
Did the Productivity Growth Go?," gives the details. Between 1972
and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th
percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about
1 percent per year. So being in the top 10 percent of the income
distribution, like being a college graduate, wasn't a ticket to big
income gains. But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent;
income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the
99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. Should we be worried about the
increasingly oligarchic nature of American society? Yes, and not
just because a rising economic tide has failed to lift most boats.
Both history and modern experience tell us that highly
unequal societies also tend to be highly corrupt.
The Bullying
of the Press
February 26, 2006, London Times
http://timesonline.typepad.com/mick_smith/2006/02/the_bullying_of.html
I reported on eight of the
[Downing
Street] memos while working at the Daily
Telegraph in September 2004. I then moved to the Sunday Times, where
I obtained the other two memos. Why did the US newspapers take so
long to pick up on the story?
The memos were so momentous in what they told us about how Bush and
Blair went to war...that they surely had to be reported. They were
not only “the smoking gun” that proved all the lies; they also
proved the lack of planning for the aftermath; the fraudulent use of
the UN to make the war legal; and...the way in which the allies
began the war...months before they went to the UN or Congress to get
backing for war. The memo actually says...that the Prime Minister
agreed at Crawford in April 2002 to go to war, so the British needed
to "create the conditions" which would make the war legal under
international law. In the wake of 9/11, the US media were initially
prevented from any criticism of the administration. Then when the
need to criticize became unavoidable, they were cowed by
administration claims that it helped the terrorists. There is
something grotesque about Bush saying that his administration is
setting “a
forward strategy for freedom” around the
world while it is attempting at the same time to
bully the
US press back into submission at home. I
don’t for one moment believe it will succeed. But none of us can
afford to be complacent.
Midwest Oil
fined for selling gas too cheaply
February 24, 2006, Star Tribune
(Leading newspaper of Minneapolis-St. Paul)
http://www.startribune.com/535/story/267143.html
The Minnesota Commerce Department on
Thursday announced plans to fine a gas station chain $140,000 for
repeatedly selling gas below the state's legal minimum price.
The fine against Midwest Oil of Minnesota is twice as large as any
imposed on a company since 2001, when the state established a
formula based on wholesale prices, fees and taxes to determine a
daily floor for gas prices. The price law was intended to prevent
large oil companies from driving smaller competitors out of
business, but some critics argue it fails to protect consumers.
According to the Commerce Department, the Midwest-owned stations in
Anoka, Oakdale and Albert Lea sold gas below the minimum price on
293 days in 2005. Kevin Murphy, deputy commissioner of the
department, called the violations "willful, continuing, and
egregious and warrant a substantial penalty."
London Mayor
Suspended Over Nazi Remark
February 24, 2006, ABC/Associated
Press
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1657126
Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended
from office for four weeks on Friday for bringing his office into
disrepute by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration
camp guard. "His treatment of the journalist was
unnecessarily insensitive and offensive," said David Laverick,
chairman of the Adjudication Panel for England, the disciplinary
panel that ruled on the case. The mayor had told the panel that he
had not meant to offend the Jewish community when he asked Evening
Standard reporter Oliver Finegold whether he had been a "German war
criminal."
Note: For the mayor's
response:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1720442,00.html
Strangers at
the Door
February 23, 2006, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/opinion/23ervin.html
Who could have imagined that, in the post-9/11
world, the United States government would approve a deal giving
control over six major American ports to a country with ties to
terrorism? But this is exactly what the secretive Committee on
Foreign Investment in the United States has done. Since 1999, the
ports of New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities have
been operated by a British concern, P & O Ports, which has now been
bought by Dubai Ports World, a company controlled by the government
of the United Arab Emirates. While the United Arab Emirates is
deemed by the Bush administration to be an ally in the war on
terrorism...two of the 9/11 hijackers were citizens of the
emirates, and some of the money for the attacks came from there. It
was one of only three countries in the world that recognized the
Taliban regime. And Dubai was an important transshipment
point for the smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani
scientist who supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with equipment
for making nuclear weapons. Most terrorism experts agree that the
likeliest way for a weapon of mass destruction to be smuggled into
our country would be through a port. After all, some 95 percent of
all goods from abroad arrive in the United States by sea, and yet
only about 6 percent of incoming cargo containers are inspected for
security threats.
Autistic
Teen's Hoop Dreams Come True
Feb 23, 2006, CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/23/earlyshow/main1339324.shtml
It was the stuff of Hollywood, but it was
real. Senior Jason McElwain had been the manager of the varsity
basketball team of Greece Athena High School in Rochester, N. Y.
McElwain, who's autistic, was added to the roster by coach Jim
Johnson so he could be given a jersey and get to sit on the bench in
the team's last game of the year. Johnson hoped the
situation would even enable him to get McElwain onto the floor a
little playing time. He got the chance, with Greece Athena up by
double-digits with four minutes go to. And, in his first
action of the year, McElwain missed his first two shots, but then
sank six three-pointers and another shot (video), for a total of 20
points in three minutes. "I've had a lot of thrills in
coaching," Johnson says. "I've coached a lot of wonderful kids. But
I've never experienced such a thrill." The crowd went wild, and his
teammates carried the exc! ited McElwain off the court.
Note: The video of this
inspiring piece is most excellent (though you have to watch the
30-second commercial first). It is available at the above link to
CBS.
Organic Food
Fends Off Pesticides
February 20, 2006, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthology/story?id=1642533
If you are looking to banish pesticides from
your child's diet, new research suggests that organic food will do
the trick, at least when it comes to two common pesticides.
Researchers found that pesticide levels in children's bodies dropped
to zero after just a few days of eating organic produce and grains.
"After they switch back to a conventional diet, the levels go up,"
said study co-author Chensheng Lu, an assistant professor of
environmental and occupational health at Emory University. Lu said
the impetus for the new study was a previous research project that
examined pesticide levels in 110 children and only found one child
whose body was pesticide-free — a child who regularly ate organic
food. The findings were to be discussed Sunday at the annual meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in St.
Louis. The study, funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, appeared online last September in the journal Environmental
Health Perspectives. Learn more about organic diets from
CNN.com.
America's
masterplan is to force GM food on the world
February 13, 2006, The Guardian
(One of the UK's leading
newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,,1708375,00.html
Three judges emerged after years of
secret deliberation to rule that Europe had imposed a de facto ban
on GM [genetically modified] food imports between 1999 and 2003,
violating WTO rules. The court also ruled that Austria,
France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg had no legal grounds
to impose their own unilateral import bans. Actually, the judges
said much more, but in true WTO style no one has been allowed to
know what. A few bureaucrats in the US, EU, Argentina and Canada
have reportedly seen the full 1,045-page report, and an edited
summary of some of its conclusions has been leaked. But no one, it
seems, will take responsibility for the ruling, which may force the
EU to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate some of the
world's most heavily subsidized farmers, and could change the laws
of at least six countries that have imposed GM bans. It is now clear
that the real reason the US took Europe to the WTO court was...to
make it easier for its companies to...open regulatory doors in
China, India, south-east Asia, Latin America and Africa, where most
US exports now go. This is where millions of tonnes of US food aid
heads, and where US GM companies are desperate to have access,
buying up seed companies and schmoozing presidents.
Note: For an excellent
summary of the dangers of genetically modified foods that Americans
are already eating without their knowledge, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/deception10pg
Military's
Role in a Flu Pandemic
October 5, 2005, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/04/AR2005100400681.html
President Bush said yesterday that he
would consider using the military to "effect a quarantine" in the
event of an outbreak of pandemic influenza in the United States.
Bush also suggested that putting National Guard troops under
federal, rather than state, control might be one part of a response
to the "catastrophe" of an avian influenza outbreak. The president
raised the same idea after Hurricane Katrina, suggesting that he is
considering a greater role for the military in natural disasters.
Most public health experts believe it is impossible to entirely
isolate neighborhoods, towns, cities or regions during an outbreak
of disease. Instead, quarantines today generally refer to a variety
of strategies for identifying and limiting the movement of people
who are infected with a contagious pathogen or are at high risk.
That might include screening travelers for fever and flu symptoms;
prohibiting large gatherings of people, including at some
workplaces; and requiring that people exposed to infected
individuals stay at home until the incubation period for the illness
has passed. China took these measures during the outbreak of severe
acute respiratory syndrome in 2003.
Final Note:
Remember that
with your
help, we can and will build a
brighter
future
for us all. And for some deeply inspiring
stories to provide balance to all of this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
FOR WANT TO KNOW DONATIONS ONLY,
NOT FOR GCP DONATIONS.
TO DONATE TO GCP,
CLICK HERE.
Your donations, however large or small, help
greatly to support this important work.
To make a donation by mail or credit card (PayPal):
http://www.WantToKnow.info/donationswtk
FOR WANT TO KNOW DONATIONS ONLY,
NOT FOR GCP DONATIONS.
TO DONATE TO GCP,
CLICK HERE.
Explore these empowering websites coordinated
by the
PEERS
network:
http://www.momentoflove.org - Every person
in the world has a heart
http://www.WantToKnow.info - Reliable,
verifiable information on major cover-ups
http://www.inspiringcommunity.org -
Building a Global Community for All
http://www.weboflove.org - Strengthening
the Web of Love that interconnects us all
Together, we are building a better world based on love and
cooperation
|
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WEEK of 3-20-06
to 3-24-06 (Updated
3-20-06) |
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From
a recent Want To Know news letter
U.S. plans for Iraq and Iraqi oil prior to 9-11.
Reprinted by permission. |
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This message is available online at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060313secretplansoil
"The Bush
administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11
attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil,
BBC's Newsnight has revealed."
--
BBC
Newsnight, 3/17/05
Dear friends,
The below BBC Newsnight article reveals secret
plans which make clear what many have suspected for a long time.
A major reason for the war on Iraq was to control its vast oil
reserves and the huge amounts of money involved. These
secret plans were made even before the 9/11 attacks. Though this
important news was covered by BBC, few US media have given any
significant coverage. To better understand how the media is
controlled by powerful corporate interests, see our revealing
two-page summary quoting 20 award-winning journalists at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/mediacover-up.
By spreading the word to your friends and colleagues, we can make a
difference and build a brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents Bush
and Clinton
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm
- BBC Newsnight, March 17, 2005
Secret US plans
for Iraq's oil
The Bush administration made plans for
war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy
battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.
Two years ago today - when President
George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to
bomb Baghdad - protesters claimed the US had a secret plan for
Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.
In fact there were two conflicting
plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at
the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil"
executives and US State Department "pragmatists".
"Big Oil"
appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight
from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help
of American oil industry consultants.
Insiders told Newsnight that planning
began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long
before the September 11th attack on the US.
An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant, Falah
Aljibury, says he took part in the secret meetings in California,
Washington and the Middle East. He described a State Department plan
for a forced coup d'etat.
Mr. Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he
interviewed potential successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the
Bush administration.
Secret sell-off plan
The industry-favoured plan was pushed aside by
a secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, which
called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields. The new
plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to
destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production
above Opec quotas.
The sell-off was given the green light in a
secret meeting in London headed by Fadhil Chalabi shortly after the
US entered Baghdad, according to Robert Ebel.
Mr. Ebel, a former Energy and CIA oil analyst,
now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
in Washington, told Newsnight he flew to the London meeting at the
request of the State Department.
Mr. Aljibury, once Ronald Reagan's
"back-channel" to Saddam, claims that plans to sell off Iraq's oil,
pushed by the US-installed Governing Council in 2003, helped
instigate the insurgency and attacks on US and British occupying
forces.
"Insurgents used this, saying, 'Look, you're
losing your country, you're losing your resources to a bunch of
wealthy billionaires who want to take you over and make your life
miserable,'" said Mr. Aljibury from his home near San Francisco.
"We saw an increase in the bombing of oil
facilities, pipelines, built on the premise that privatisation is
coming."
Privatisation blocked by industry
Philip Carroll, the former CEO of
Shell Oil USA who took control of Iraq's oil production for the US
Government a month after the invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme.
Mr. Carroll told us he made it clear to Paul
Bremer, the US occupation chief who arrived in Iraq in May 2003,
that: "There was to be no privatisation of Iraqi oil resources or
facilities while I was involved."
Ariel Cohen, of the neo-conservative Heritage
Foundation, told Newsnight that an opportunity had been missed to
privatise Iraq's oil fields.
He advocated the plan as a means to help the
US defeat Opec, and said America should have gone ahead with what he
called a "no-brainer" decision.
Mr. Carroll hit back, telling Newsnight, "I
would agree with that statement. To privatize would be a no-brainer.
It would only be thought about by someone with no brain."
New plans, obtained from the State
Department by Newsnight and Harper's Magazine under the US Freedom
of Information Act, called for creation of a state-owned oil company
favoured by the US oil industry. It was completed in
January 2004 under the guidance of Amy Jaffe of the James Baker
Institute in Texas.
Formerly US Secretary of State, Baker
is now an attorney representing Exxon-Mobil and the Saudi Arabian
government.
View segments of Iraq oil plans at www.GregPalast.com
Questioned by Newsnight, Ms Jaffe said the oil
industry prefers state control of Iraq's oil over a sell-off because
it fears a repeat of Russia's energy privatisation. In the wake of
the collapse of the Soviet Union, US oil companies were barred from
bidding for the reserves.
Ms Jaffe says US oil companies are not warm to
any plan that would undermine Opec and the current high oil price:
"I'm not sure that if I'm the chair of an American company,
and you put me on a lie detector test, I would say high oil prices
are bad for me or my company."
The former
Shell oil boss agrees. In Houston, he told Newsnight: "Many
neo conservatives are people who have certain ideological beliefs
about markets, about democracy, about this, that and the other.
International oil companies, without exception, are very pragmatic
commercial organizations. They don't have a theology."
A State Department spokesman told
Newsnight they intended "to provide all possibilities to the Oil
Ministry of Iraq and advocate none".
Final Note: Remember that
with your
help, we can and will build a
brighter
future for us all. And for some deeply
inspiring stories to provide balance to all of this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
FOR WANT TO KNOW DONATIONS ONLY,
NOT FOR GCP DONATIONS.
TO DONATE TO GCP,
CLICK HERE.
Your donations, however large or small, help
greatly to support this important work.
To make a donation by mail or credit card (PayPal):
http://www.WantToKnow.info/donationswtk
FOR WANT TO KNOW DONATIONS ONLY,
NOT FOR GCP DONATIONS.
TO DONATE TO GCP,
CLICK HERE.
Explore these empowering websites coordinated by
the
PEERS network:
http://www.momentoflove.org - Every person in
the world has a heart
http://www.WantToKnow.info - Reliable,
verifiable information on major cover-ups
http://www.inspiringcommunity.org - Building a
Global Community for All
http://www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the
Web of Love that interconnects us all
Together, we are building a better world based on
love and cooperation
|
|
|
|
WEEK of 3-13-06
to 3-17-06 (Updated
3-15-06) |
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From
a recent Want To Know news letter
on a variety of topics.
Reprinted by permission. |
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Dear friends,
Below are one-paragraph excerpts of important news
articles you may have missed. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the
major media website listed at the link provided. If any link fails to
function,
click here.
These news articles include revealing information on an intelligence
officers revolt, 55,000 documents being reclassified, torturers going
free, concerns about aspartame, and more. By choosing to educate
ourselves now and to
spread the
word, we can and will
build a
brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents Bush and
Clinton
MI5 rebels expose Tube bomb
cover-up
February 26, 2006, London Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2059046,00.html
MI5 is facing an internal revolt by
officers alarmed about intelligence failures and the lack of
resources to fight Islamic terrorism. To illustrate their concern,
agents have leaked more topsecret documents to The Sunday Times because
they want a public inquiry into the “missed
intelligence” leading up to the July attacks
in London. They believe ministers have withheld information from the
public about what the security services knew about the suspects before
the bombing of July 7 and the abortive attacks of July 21. The
documents include an admission by John Scarlett, head of SIS, the secret
intelligence service (also known as MI6), that one of the July 21
suspects was tracked on a trip to Pakistan just months before the
attempted bombings. MI5, which is responsible for national
security, allowed the July 21 suspect! to travel to Pakistan after he
was detained and interviewed at a British airport. It stopped monitoring
him because it said “the Pakistani authorities assessed that he was
doing nothing of significance”. They are critical of Blair, who has
ruled out an inquiry saying it would distract the security services from
fighting terrorism. The assessment echoes a decision by MI5 to halt
surveillance on two of the July 7 bombers 16 months before the attacks.
Both were filmed and taped by MI5 agents as they met two men allegedly
plotting to carry out a terrorist attack in England.
Abusive G.I.'s
Not Pursued, Survey Finds
February 23, 2006, New York Time/Associated
Press
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/international/middleeast/23abuse.html
The longest sentence for any member of the
American military linked to a torture-related death of a detainee in
Iraq or Afghanistan has been five months, a human rights group
reported Wednesday. In only 12 of 34 cases has anyone been punished for
the confirmed or suspected killings, said the group, Human Rights First,
which is based in New York and Washington. Beyond those cases, in almost
half of 98 known detainee deaths since 2002, the cause was never
announced or was reported as undetermined. "In dozens of cases
documented here, grossly inadequate reporting, investigation and
follow-through have left no one at all responsible for homicides and
other unexplained deaths," it said in the report, based on military
court records, news reports and other sources. The Pentagon says it
conscientiously investigates such deaths. When asked Wednesday for a
status report on investigations and prosecutions in individual cases of
abuse, the Pentagon said it could not offer a comprehensive compilation
because the information was too scattered. Army lawyers at the Pentagon
do not "have access to the information because other Army commands have
the documents," Maj. Wayne Marotto, a spokesman, said.
U.S. Reclassifies
Many Documents in Secret Review
February 21, 2006, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/politics/21reclassify.html
In a seven-year-old secret program at the
National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public
access thousands of historical documents that were available for years,
including some already published by the State Department. The
restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously
declassified pages began in 1999, when the Central Intelligence Agency
and five other agencies objected to what they saw as a hasty release of
sensitive information after a 1995 declassification order signed by
President Bill Clinton. It accelerated after the Bush administration
took office and especially after the 2001 terrorist attacks. But because
the reclassification program is itself shrouded in secrecy — governed by
a still-classified memorandum that prohibits the National Archives even
from saying which agencies are involved — it continued virtually without
outside notice until December. Historians say the program is removing
material that can do no conceivable harm to national security. They say
it is part of a marked trend toward greater secrecy under the Bush
administration, which has increased the pace of classifying documents,
slowed declassification and discouraged the release of some material
under the Freedom of Information Act. "I think this is a travesty," said
Dr. Nelson. "I think the public is being deprived of what history is
really about: facts."
Note: More on this in the
National Security Archive:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB179
The basics of
alternative 9-11 theories
February 21, 2006, Village Voice
(alternative NY newspaper -
liberal)
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0608,murphy,72255,6.html
Operation Northwoods. This 1962 white paper
from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested possible justifications
for a war against Cuba, including a never executed idea in which the CIA
would detonate a drone aircraft to make it look like Fidel Castro had
shot down an American passenger plane.
Project for the New American Century [PNAC].
As evidence of the motives behind a government-planned 9-11, theorists
point to one 28-word passage in a September 2000 [PNAC] report written
with help from the likes of Scooter Libby and Paul Wolfowitz: "The
process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing
event—like a new Pearl Harbor. "Theorists point to Attorney General John
Ashcroft's
decision to
stop flying commercial [planes] in the summer
of 2001, as well as a
San Francisco
Chronicle report that Mayor Willie Brown
received a warning of 9-11, as evidence that some people had
foreknowledge of the attack.
World Trade
Center 7. This building—the last to fall on
9-11—is key to all controlled-demolition theories. Its sudden fall onto
its own footprint, and developer Larry Silverstein's
reference on
TV to telling the FDNY to "pull it," are seen
as evidence that WTC7 was rigged to fall. Meanwhile, a convincing
official explanation hasn't exactly been forthcoming.
Note: We generally avoid partisan
sources, but as so few are reporting the vital questions around 9-11,
we've included this article. You can find another informative article
from the same newspaper on the same day at
http://villagevoice.com/news/0608,murphy,72254,6.html.
For our highly reliable, verifiable information on the 9-11 cover-up,
see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/911information. For
an amazing free video with testimony from dozens of survivors on all
of this, see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psP_9RE0V2I
The suppression
of Able Danger
February 18, 2006, Toledo Blade
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060218/COLUMNIST14/602180351/-1/NEWS01
Mr. Kleinsmith and the two colleagues who
testified with him in [a House Armed Services Committee] open session
are convinced that had the information they developed been acted on, not
only 9/11, but also the October 2000, attack on the destroyer USS Cole
in which 17 sailors died could have been prevented. Through
computer scanning of some 2.5 terabytes of classified and unclassified
data, the Able Danger team identified five "nodes" of al-Qaeda activity.
One was in Brooklyn. Another was in the port of Aden in Yemen, where the
USS Cole was attacked. Able Danger linked Mohamed Atta and three other
9/11 hijackers to the Brooklyn cell, said Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, who was
the liaison between the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Able Danger
team. Colonel Shaffer testified he tried three times to have Able Danger
data on the Brooklyn cell presented to the FBI, but that on each
occasion Pentagon lawy! ers forbade the meeting. In a commentary in the
Wall [Street]
Journal last November, Louis Freeh, who was
FBI director at the time, said that if he had been told about what Able
Danger had learned, 9/11 likely would have been prevented. In
March, 2000, Mr. Kleinsmith was ordered to stop all work on Able Danger,
and, later, to delete all the information collected. It is clear there
is a cover-up. One would think a Washington press corps
obsessing about a hunting accident in Texas would be more curious about
it.
Note: Though Able Danger received
wide media coverage when first reported six months ago, the amazing
revelations of the recent hearings have received very little attention,
which is why we include this article from the leading newspaper of
Toledo, Ohio. For lots more reliable, verifiable information on Able
Danger, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/abledanger911
UK radiation jump
blamed on Iraq shells
February 19, 2006, London Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2047373,00.html
Radiation detectors in Britain recorded a fourfold
increase in uranium levels in the atmosphere after the “shock and awe”
bombing campaign against Iraq. Environmental scientists who uncovered
the figures through freedom of information laws say it is evidence that
depleted uranium from the shells was carried by wind currents to
Britain. Government officials, however, say the sharp rise in uranium
detected by radiation monitors in Berkshire was a coincidence and
probably came from local sources. Each detector recorded a significant
rise in uranium levels during the Gulf war bombing campaign in March
2003. The reading from a park in Reading was high enough for the
Environment Agency to be alerted. “This research shows that rather than
remaining near the target as claimed by the military, depleted uranium
weapons contaminate both locals and whole populations hundreds to
thousands of miles away,” [Liv! erpool University's Chris
Busby] said. Busby’s report shows that within nine days of the start of
the Iraq war on March 19, 2003, higher levels of uranium were picked up
on five sites in Berkshire. On two occasions, levels exceeded the
threshold at which the Environment Agency must be informed, though
within safety limits. The report says weather conditions over the war
period showed a consistent flow of air from Iraq northwards.
Note: For more on the depleted
uranium cover-up:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/050405depleteduranium
The deadly terror
lurking around the corner
may not be such a big, ominous threat after all
February 19, 2006, San Francisco
Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/19/INGDDH8E2V1.DTL
Americans receive a steady stream of warnings and
alarms about new and horrific perils that await them. Pandemics, dirty
bombs, cyber attacks, bioterror and other exotic threats are always on
the verge of being unleashed onto a shamefully unprepared republic. Yet,
judging from statistics on life expectancy, violent deaths and war, we
live in much less perilous times than any generation before us.
Avian flu, for example. We are cautioned that a pandemic...is only
months away. One World Health Organization estimate says 2 million to 7
million people will die in the next pandemic. But it is not 1918. The
WHO reports that since 2003, there have been 152 cases of avian flu,
resulting in 83 deaths. A flu pandemic has been regularly predicted
since 1997 and (knock on wood) it has never arrived. Dirty bombs --
conventional explosives mixed with radioactive material -- present
another example of overreact! ion. In 2004, experts warned in the
normally staid Wall Street Journal that a terrorist attack with a dirty
bomb was an imminent certainty. They announced: "Shame on our leaders
and on us if the lamentations of the next blue-ribbon panel will be
intoned over the graves of hundreds of thousands of Americans, the
collapse of our economy, and perhaps a fatal blow to our way of life."
But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says a dirty bomb would
contaminate "up to several city blocks." The commission's advice, if one
goes off, is to walk away and take a shower.
Note: This informative article,
by a program director of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, demonstrates clearly how the hype and fear around
terror is much more damaging than terrorism itself. For more on this
from both BBC and my own experience:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/powerofnightmares
Risk to U.S. of
withering terrorist hit is overblown
February 19, 2006, San Francisco
Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/19/INGDDH8E2T1.DTL
Conventional wisdom says that none of us is safe
from terrorism. The truth is that almost all of us are. In most years
allergic reactions to peanuts, deer in the road and lightning have all
killed about the same number of Americans as terrorism. In 2001, their
banner year, terrorists killed...one fifteenth the number killed by car
accidents. And if something far worse than Sept. 11 does occur, the
country will recover. A disaster of biblical proportions visited New
Orleans. The Republic has not crumbled. The terrorist risk to the United
States is serious, but far from existential. Human psychology leads us
to overestimate the likelihood of dangers that are novel and
uncontrollable. The news media and social interaction reinforce these
common errors. People overestimate terrorism's risk and demand excessive
protection from it. From government bureaucrats seeking larger budgets,
to contractors hawking technology,! to congressmen campaigning, danger
sells. It delivers money and votes. It also sells newspapers.
Careerist think tank and academic analysts learn that grants,
invitations to Capitol Hill and jobs are more likely to go to those who
trumpet threats and defenses against them than those who tell Americans
to worry less. America tends to exaggerate national security
dangers. Victory is persuading...regular Americans not to be afraid.
Conventional pundits of homeland security worry that the public will
become complacent. We should worry that it won't.
The Lowdown on
Sweet?
February 12, 2006, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/business/yourmoney/12sweet.html
When Dr. Morando Soffritti...saw the results of
his team's seven-year study on aspartame, he knew he was about to be
injected into a bitter controversy over this sweetener. Aspartame is
sold under the brand names Nutra-Sweet and Equal and is found in such
popular products as Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Diet Snapple and Sugar Free
Kool-Aid. Hundreds of millions of people consume it worldwide. Dr.
Soffritti...oversees 180 scientists and researchers in 30 countries. Dr.
Soffritti's study concluded...that the sweetener was associated with
unusually high rates of lymphomas, leukemias and other cancers.
The
study...involved 1,900 laboratory rats and
cost $1 million. Soffritti said he was inspired to look at aspartame
because of what he calls "inadequacies" in the cancer studies done by
Searle in the 1970's. Others have also challenged Searle's studies.
Years before the F.D.A. approved aspartame, the agency had
serious concerns about the accuracy and credibility of Searle's
aspartame studies. From 1977 to 1985 — during much of the approval
process — Searle was headed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is now
the secretary of defense. Searle was acquired by Monsanto in 1985. Dr.
Soffritti said...more research and open debate were needed on whether
aspartame was a carcinogen. "It is very important to have scientists who
are independent and not funded by industry ! looking at this."
Note: If you want to understand
the influence of big money on your health, this article is well worth
reading. Our Health Information Center at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/healthinformation
has lots more.
Bush v. Science
February 6, 2006, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/02/06/BL2006020600817.html
Bush's relationship to science can be illustrated
by the fact that he is speaking rapturously of producing ethanol from
(of all things) switch grass -- but not saying a word about what many
scientists say may be the greatest disaster facing humankind: global
climate change. [In] a Time magazine cover story...Mark
Thompson and Karen Tumulty write that "growing
numbers of researchers, both in and out of government, say their
findings -- on pollution, climate change, reproductive health, stem-cell
research and other areas in which science often finds itself at odds
with religious, ideological or corporate interests -- are being
discounted, distorted or quashed by Bush Administration appointees.
In the past two years, the
Union
of Concerned Scientists ! has collected the
signatures of more than 8,000 scientists -- including 49 Nobel
laureates... -- who accuse the Administration of an unprecedented level
of political intrusion into their world.
Says Francesca Grifo, director of the group's Scientific Integrity
Program, "'What's new is its pervasive and systemic nature. We get calls
every week from federal scientists reporting stuff to us. Rarely,
however, are they willing to put their jobs and their research grants at
risk by going public with their complaints." 29-year NASA veteran James
Hansen, who is director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
charged on the front page of the
New
York Times that he has been muzzled by the
agency.
Melissa
Block interviewed Bransby on NPR and found out
that politics played a role in Bush's mention of switch grass.
Final Note:
Remember that
with your help,
we can and will build a
brighter
future for us all. And for some deeply
inspiring stories to provide balance to all of this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
FOR WANT TO KNOW DONATIONS ONLY,
NOT FOR GCP DONATIONS.
TO DONATE TO GCP,
CLICK HERE.
Your donations, however large or small, help
greatly to support this important work.
To make a donation by mail or credit card (PayPal):
http://www.WantToKnow.info/donationswtk
FOR WANT TO KNOW DONATIONS ONLY,
NOT FOR GCP DONATIONS.
TO DONATE TO GCP,
CLICK HERE.
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WEEK of 3-06-06
to 3-10-06 (Updated
3-07-06) |
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From
a recent Want To Know news letter
on possible U.S. government involvement in the 9-11 disaster.
Reprinted by permission. |
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This message is available online at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/060223scholarsfor911truth
"Our nation was irretrievably transformed by
9/11 -- and yet there remain troubling questions about what really
happened. A group of experts and academicians devoted to applying
the principles of scientific reasoning to the available evidence
[and] 'letting the chips fall where they may,' last week accused the
government of covering up evidence that the three destroyed New York
City buildings were brought down that day by controlled demolition
rather than structural failure. The group, called Scholars for 9/11
Truth, has a website,
www.st911.org."
--
Miami Herald, 2/1/06
February 23, 2006
Dear friends,
A group of esteemed professors and
professionals, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, has recently established a
non-partisan association to investigate serious questions that the
9/11 Commission failed to address.
Members of the association
include a former
chief
economist under President Bush, a
lab
director for the 9/11 investigation who
was fired for raising questions, a
former
program chief for the US Department of
Defense, a
renowned
theologian, the
professor who manages
Project
Censored, and many other distinguished
professors and individuals willing to risk ridicule to bring this
important information forward.
Though almost no major media reported on the
formation of this ground-breaking group when it was announced a few
weeks ago, the
Miami
Herald,
Yahoo News, and a number of
local
and
alternative news sources did provide good
coverage. Below is an excerpt from the Miami Herald
article followed by the original press release from this group of
courageous individuals who are committed to revealing what
really happened on that fateful day. By spreading the word, we can
play the role at which the mainstream media is so sadly failing.
Together, we can and will build a brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents Bush
and Clinton
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/robert_steinback/13760721.htm
9/11 Attacks:
Avoiding the hard questions
(Excerpts)
The group [Scholars for Truth 9/11] asks, for
example,
• How did a fire fed by jet fuel, which at
most burns at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, cause
the
collapse of the Twin Towers, built of
steel that melts at 2,800 degrees? (Most experts agree that the
impact of airliners, made mostly of lightweight aluminum, should not
have been enough alone to cause structural failure.) How could a
single planeload of burning jet fuel -- most of which flared off in
the initial fireball -- cause the South World Trade Center tower to
collapse in just 56 minutes?
• Why did
building
WTC-7 fall,
though no aircraft struck it? Fire alone had never before caused a
steel skyscraper to collapse.
• Why did all three buildings collapse largely
into their own footprints -- in the style of a controlled
demolition?
• Why did
no U.S.
military jet intercept the wayward
aircraft?
• Why has
there been no investigation of BBC reports that five of the alleged
9/11 hijackers were
alive and
accounted for after the event?
http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/PressRelease27Jan2006.html
- Official Press Release
Scholars Repudiate Official Version of
9/11
Claim government's account violates
laws of physics and engineering
An influential group of prominent experts and
scholars have joined together alleging that senior government
officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened
on 9/11. The members of this new non-partisan association,
"Scholars for 9/11 Truth" (S9/11T), are convinced their research
proves the current administration has been dishonest with the nation
about events in New York and Washington.
These experts contend that books and articles
by members and associates have established that the World Trade
Center was almost certainly brought down by controlled demolitions
and that the available relevant evidence casts grave doubt on the
official story about the attack on the Pentagon. They
believe that the government not only permitted 9/11 to occur but may
even have orchestrated these events to facilitate its political
agenda.
The society includes U.S. and international
faculty and students of history, science, military affairs,
psychology, and philosophy. According to its spokesmen, Scholars for
9/11 Truth represents a concerted effort to uphold the standards of
truth and justice and to strengthen democracy in this nation, which
has taken a terrible hit in the aftermath of 9/11, when "everything
changed." Its function is to bring scientific rigor to the study of
9/11 phenomena.
The members of this group are dedicated to
exposing falsehoods and to revealing truths behind 9/11, "letting
the chips fall where they may." The evidence has become
sufficiently strong that they are speaking out. They are
actively devoting themselves to reporting the results of their
research to the public by means of lectures, articles, and other
venues.
The society includes numerous notable
professors and scholars, including:
Morgan Reynolds, Texas A
& M Professor Emeritus of Economics, former Chief Economist for
the Department of Labor for President George W. Bush, and former
Director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center
for Policy Analysis
Steven E. Jones,
Professor of Physics, Brigham Young University, co-chair of
Scholars for 9/11 Truth and the creator of its home page and its
forum
Robert M. Bowman, former
Director of the U.S. "Star Wars" Space Defense Program in both
Republican and Democratic administrations, and a former Air
Force Lieutenant Colonel with 101 combat missions
Lloyd DeMause, Director
of The Institute for Psychohistory, President of the
International Psychohistorical Association and Editor of The
Journal of Psychohistory
James H. Fetzer,
Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Minnesota, Duluth, author or editor of more than
20 books and co-chair of S9/11T
Andreas Von Buelow,
former assistant German defense minister, director of the German
Secret Service, minister for research and technology, and member
of Parliament for 25 years
The society, founded by Professors Fetzer and
Jones, who serve as its co-chairs, is approaching 50 members to
date. Beyond encouraging its members to vigorously express their
concerns on this score through lectures, conferences,
symposia, articles, and books as well as other
access routes that publicize their findings, the society's initial
activities, which are expected to increase in frequency and
intensity, include the following projects and endeavors:
Professor Jones is refining his
influential analysis of the physics of the collapse of buildings
at the World Trade Center.
Professor Fetzer is editing a collection
of new studies about 9/11 that will include contributions from
the members of Scholars for Truth 9/11.
A major conference is being planned for
this fall to further inform the American public about the
group's most recent findings
Studies by the society's founders and
by prominent theologian David Ray Griffin, who has taken a leading
role in exposing false claims about 9/11, are accessible from the
association's home page,
scholarsfor911truth.org.
Information for those who may want to join S9/11T can also be found
there.
For an excellent two-page summary of highly
revealing 9/11 facts taken from major media sources with links
provdied for easy verification, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up
Final Note:
Remember that
with your
help, we can and will build a
brighter
future for us all. And for some deeply
inspiring stories to provide balance to all of this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews#inspiration
Your donations, however large or small, help
greatly to support this important work.
To make a donation by mail or credit card (PayPal):
http://www.WantToKnow.info/donationswtk
xplore these empowering websites coordinated by
website founder Fred Burks:
http://www.momentoflove.org - Every person in
the world has a heart
http://www.WantToKnow.info - Reliable,
verifiable information on major cover-ups
http://www.inspiringcommunity.org - Building a
Global Community for All
http://www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the
Web of Love that interconnects us all
Together, we are building a better world based on love and cooperation
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WEEK of 10-24-05
to 10-28-05 (Updated
10-31-05) |
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From
a recent Want To Know news letter
on possible U.S. government involvement in the 9-11 disaster.
Reprinted by permission. |
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Sept. 8, 2005
Dear friends,
When four planes tragically crashed four
years ago on September 11th, the course of history was inalterably
changed. Yet questions about what actually happened on that
fateful day are asked with increasing frequency, even by some top
government officials and other respected public leaders. Read
the statements below (links to sources provided) from a former chief
economist of President George W. Bush, an assistant secretary of the
Treasury under President Reagan, a current U.S. Senator, a sitting
Congresswoman, a renowned theologian, the head of advanced space
programs for the Department of Defense under Reagan, a British
cabinet minister under Prime Minister Tony Blair, and more.
Each of these prominent leaders now claims
that there are serious problems with the official government story
of 9/11. Some of these highly respected individuals even believe
that 9/11 may have been an inside job. It can be very uncomfortable
to even consider the possibility that certain individuals within
government were involved either in allowing the attacks to happen,
or in some way facilitating them in order to forward their
hidden
agendas. Yet the facts increasingly point
in that direction.
The
mainstream media
has sadly failed to give significant coverage
to the serious questions being raised these public figures.
We invite you to have the courage to listen to their words and
explore this vital topic, and then to share this powerful
information with your friends. If we act now, we can powerfully work
together to call for a truly independent investigation and to
strengthen democracy in our nation and our world. For an abundance
of reliable, verifiable information revealing key facts on 9/11 and
what we can do about it, don't miss our compelling 9/11 Information
Center at
http://www.wanttoknow.info/911information
Thanks for caring, and may we build a brighter future for ourselves
and for our future generations.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
P.S. Our hearts and deepest wishes for support
and encouragement go out to all affected by Hurricane Katrina. If
you are interested in donating to support those affected, we have
found that Brother's Brother Foundation makes
the best use of funds donated. To make a
contribution:
http://www.brothersbrother.org
Morgan
Reynolds, Former Chief Economist under President Bush
June 13, 2005, Washington Times/
UPI
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050613-102755-6408r.htm
A former Bush team member during his first
administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of
the World Trade Center on 9-11. Former chief economist for the
Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term
Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse
of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a
controlled demolition destroyed the
Twin Towers and adjacent
Building No. 7.
http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/27302.htm
- More on Reynolds
"If demolition destroyed three steel
skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an
'inside job' and a government attack on America would be
compelling," said Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D, a former member of the Bush
team. Reynolds, now a professor emeritus at Texas A&M
University, also believes it's "next to impossible" that 19 Arab
terrorists alone outfoxed the mighty U.S. military, adding the
scientific conclusions about the WTC collapse may hold the key to
the entire mysterious plot behind 9/11. Reynolds...claims
explosives
and structural experts have been intimidated
in their analyses of the collapses of 9/11. In
a detailed analysis just released supporting the controlled
demolition theory, Reynolds presents a
compelling case.
Paul Craig
Roberts, Assistant Sect. of Treasury under Pres. Reagan
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/bios/roberts.html
- Website of Stanford's Hoover Institute
describes Roberts
The Honorable Paul Craig Roberts is a senior
fellow at the Hoover Institution. During 1981–82, he served as
assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy. He was
awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious Service Award for "his
outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States
economic policy." A former editor and columnist for the Wall Street
Journal and columnist for Business Week...the Forbes Media Guide
ranked him as one of its top seven journalists. He has testified
before committees of Congress on 30 occasions.
http://www.lasvegastribune.com/20050729/headline3.html
- Las Vegas Tribune's July 29, 2005
article on Roberts
Roberts said he hasn’t changed his political
ideology or jumped from the Republican-conservative ship but "just
can’t respect a party leadership who doesn’t respect the truth." "I
guess the real story about 9/11 is about what the people are
actually saying. I’ve gotten hundreds of emails in response to my
columns and many of them talk about not getting the truth from the
government or the media about what really happened at the World
Trade Center. I know
many qualified engineers and
scientists have said the WTC collapsed
from explosives. In fact, if you look at the manner in which it
fell, you have to give their conclusions credibility."
U.S. Senator
Mark Dayton
July 31, 2004, The Star-Tribune
(Minneapolis - St. Paul)
http://web.archive.org/web/20040811061345/http://www.startribune.com/stories/1576/4904237.html
http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=369
Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., charged...that the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the North American
Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) have covered up "catastrophic
failures" that left the nation vulnerable during the Sept. 11
hijackings. "For almost three years now, NORAD officials and FAA
officials have been able to hide their
critical failures that left this country
defenseless during two of the worst hours in our history," Dayton
declared during a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing.
Dayton said NORAD officials "lied to the American people, they lied
to Congress and they lied to your 9/11 commission to create a false
impression of competence, communication and protection of the
American people."
U.S.
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
July 23, 2005, Atlanta
Journal-Constitution (Atlanta's leading newspaper)
http://www.ajc.com/hp/content/auto/epaper/editions/saturday/news_241efd8d9666d13800b4.html
http://www.WantToKnow.info/050723ajc.mckinney
Rep. Cynthia McKinney led a Capitol Hill
hearing Friday [July 22, 2005] on whether the Bush administration
was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "What we
are doing is asking the
unanswered questions of the 9/11 families,"
McKinney...said during the proceedings.
The eight-hour hearing, timed to mark the first anniversary of the
release of the Sept. 11 commission's report on the attacks, drew
dozens of contrarians and conspiracy theorists who suggest President
Bush purposely
ignored
warnings or may even have had a hand in
the attack — claims participants said the commission ignored.
"Congresswoman McKinney is viewed as a contrarian," panelist Melvin
Goodman, a former CIA official, said. "And I hope someday her views
will be considered conventional wisdom."
Note: Though the mainstream press
largely failed to report on this important hearing, C-SPAN did air
all eight hours of testimony given on
August 31st and
Sept. 2nd (because of Hurricane Katrina,
part two was aired on C-SPAN 2), both at 8 PM.
Professor
David Ray Griffin, Renowned
Theologian in LA Times
August 28, 2005, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-crgriffin35aug28,1,3835884.story
http://www.WantToKnow.info/050828latimes911conspiracy
- LA Times Article with links for
verification
A professor emeritus at the Claremont School
of Theology, 66-year-old
David Ray Griffin...compiled a summary of
material arguing against the accepted story that 19 hijackers sent
by Osama bin Laden took the aviation system and the U.S. military by
surprise that awful day in his 2004 book "The
New Pearl Harbor." He recently followed up
with the book "The
9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions,"
a critique of the Kean commission document. "For the first year
and a half I just accepted the conventional view. When a
colleague suggested to me about a year after 9/11 that he was
convinced our own government or forces within our own government had
arranged it, I didn't accept that. Then several months later another
colleague sent me [a link to]
a website
that had
a timeline.
Once I started reading that and saw all those stories drawn from
mainstream sources that contradicted the official account, I decided
I needed to look into it more carefully, and the more I looked, the
worse it got. The fact that
Building 7 [a 47-story skyscraper in the
WTC complex] collapsed when it had not been hit by an airplane, and
collapsed in seven or eight seconds, that's a smoking gun. The fact
that standard operating procedures were not followed that morning,
and we've gotten three different stories now by the U.S. military as
to why they
did
not intercept the planes, that's a smoking
gun. There was a
Zogby poll
in New York. The question asked was, do you
believe the government had advance knowledge of the attacks and
consciously let them happen? Forty-nine percent in New York City
said yes.
Note: On May 7, 2005, Dr. Griffin, who
has authored or edited
over two dozen scholarly books, was
featured on
C-SPAN 2 giving an excellent lecture on
the 9/11 cover-up at the University of Wisconsin. To view this
revealing lecture free online,
click here. The prestigious National Press
Club also hosted him for an excellent talk on July 22, 2005. To read
a transcript of this speech,
click
here.
Robert M.
Bowman, Head of Advanced Space Programs for DOD
http://www.illinoistimes.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A4282
- Illinois Times on Bowman
In 1977, Dr. Robert M. Bowman, head of
advanced space programs for the Department of Defense [DOD],
authored a report describing a new missile-defense shield system
called the “Star Wars Defense.” Lt. Col. Robert Bowman (Ret.), a
combat pilot who flew 101 missions in the Vietnam War...ran for
president in 2000.
http://www.rmbowman.com/ssn/Secrecy.htm -
Article on Dr. Bowman's website discussing 9/11
Many people are convinced that George W. Bush
knew what was going to happen and purposely allowed it to happen so
he and his neo-conservative buddies could have the “new Pearl
Harbor” they needed to justify their wars against Afghanistan and
Iraq. Others go further. They are absolutely sure Cheney and company
actually planned and carried out the attack. What is so
disturbing is that their arguments are quite convincing. If an
enormous cloud of suspicion is not to be permanently over the head
of our government, the Bush Administration must “come clean,”
releasing information thus far withheld from the American people.
Why did
John Ashcroft and top
Pentagon officials cancel plans to fly
commercial airlines the morning of 9/11? If they knew what was about
to happen, why wasn’t it stopped? Who made all the millions of
dollars
selling short United and American Airlines
[stock] just before 9/11? Why weren’t the hijacked airliners
intercepted by jet fighters and shot down before they could fly into
the WTC and Pentagon? What did the
air
traffic controllers say, and to whom? Why
did the FBI impound the tapes of those conversations? Why has the
public never been told what was on them? Why weren’t the
congressional investigators told? If it was just a matter of
incompetence or somebody not doing their job,
why hasn’t anyone been fired or reprimanded?
Michael
Meacher, UK Minister of Environment (1997 - 2003)
September 6, 2003, The Guardian
(one of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1036571,00.html
A blueprint for the creation of a global Pax
Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald
Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy),
Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's
chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's
Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think
tank,
Project
for the New American Century (PNAC). The
information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11
was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or
FBI to assert a defence of incompetence. Fifteen of the 9/11
hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman,
the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated
that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly
issuing
visas to unqualified applicants from the
Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism
for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC,
November 6 2001). It seems this operation
continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also
reported that five of the
hijackers received training at secure US
military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek,
September 15 2001)
The conclusion of all this analysis must
surely be that the "global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of a
political myth propagated to pave the way
for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built
around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to
drive the whole project.
Catherine
Austin Fitts, Ass. Sect. of Housing For President Bush
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Austin_Fitts
- Wikipedia article describing Fitts
Catherine Austin Fitts has been a Wall Street
executive, a government official, and President of her own
investment bank. She is currently the director of
Solari.
Fitts served as Managing Director and Member of the Board of
Directors of the Wall Street investment bank, Dillon, Read & Co.,
Inc. and also as Assistant Secretary of Housing/Federal Housing
Commissioner at HUD in the first Bush Administration.
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041101130426916
Article jointly written by Catherine
Austin Fitts and Congresswoman McKinney on excellent 9/11 website
From the first, the Bush Administration
resisted investigation and disclosure.
Families of September 11 victims were forced to lobby the
administration and Congress for a full and independent inquiry. They
fought for 14 months,
blocked every step of the way by the White
House. The families demanded a full investigation, posing nearly
400 questions to the Kean Commission. The commissioners said they
welcomed these queries. But their final report ignored most of the
unanswered questions. Still
posted
on the website of the September 11 Family
Steering Committee, these questions are a stark reminder of the Kean
Commission's failures. Until the unanswered questions about 9/11 are
laid to rest, by a truly independent investigation that does not
declare legitimate avenues of inquiry off-limits, they will continue
to haunt our country.
Respected
Leaders and Families 9/11 Truth Statement
October 26, 2004, 911truth.org
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041026093059633
An alliance of 100 prominent Americans and
40 family members of those killed on 9/11 announced the release of
the 911 Truth Statement, a call for immediate inquiry into evidence
that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately
allowed the September 11th attacks to occur. The Statement's
list of signatories includes notables spanning the political
spectrum, from Presidential candidates Ralph Nader, Michael Badnarik,
and David Cobb to Catherine Austin Fitts, a member of the first Bush
administration, as well as Washington veterans like Pentagon
whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
Other signers range from peace activists like Code Pink co-founder
Jodie Evans and Global Exchange's Kevin Danaher to former US
Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq, Edward L. Peck; from
environmentalists like Randy Hayes and John Robbins to business
leaders such as Paul Hawken and Karl Schwarz, CEO of Patmos
Nanotechnologies; from populist journalist Ronnie Dugger to renowned
investigative reporter Kelly Patricia O'Meara. The Statement also
includes 43 noted authors, including New York Times #1 bestseller
John Gray, as well as 18 eminent professors, historians, and
theologians. Other notables include five-term Georgia
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, singers Michelle Shocked and Michael
Franti, and actors Ed Asner and Mimi Kennedy.
If we are willing to explore what really
happened on 9/11 and to work together to bring the facts to light,
we can and will build a
brighter future
for us all. For more reliable, verifiable
information on this vital topic, don't miss
http://www.WantToKnow.info/911information
Your donations, however large or small, help
greatly to support this important work.
To make a secure donation:
http://order.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=6CYJA
Explore these empowering websites coordinated by
website founder Fred Burks:
http://www.momentoflove.org
- Every person in the world has a heart
http://www.WantToKnow.info
- Revealing major cover-ups & working together for
the good of all
http://www.gcforall.org
- Building a Global Community for All
http://www.weboflove.org
- Strengthening the Web of Love that interconnects
us all
Together, we are building a better world based on
love and cooperation
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WEEK of 9-26-05
to 9-30-05 (Updated
10-3-05) |
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From
a recent Want To Know news letter
on the Katrina & Rita hurricanes.
The sources are quite mainstream, see for yourself below. Reprinted by permission. |
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"One
of the images, shot by photographer Dave
Martin for The Associated Press, shows a young black man wading
through chest-deep waters after 'looting' a grocery store, according
to the caption. In
the
other...a white man and a similarly
light-skinned woman also waded through chest-deep water after
'finding' goods that included bread and soda in a local grocery
store, according to the caption. Apparently,...it's not looting if
you're white."
--
Chicago Tribune, 9/5/05
Dear friends,
The media has done an admirable job of
reporting on cover-up and corruption related to Hurricane Katrina
and Rita. Below is a compilation of key excerpts from excellent
major media articles which reveal a disturbing pattern of corruption
and manipulation related to these hurricanes. Links are provided
to each highly informative article on its media website for easy
verification and more information. If any link fails to function,
click here. You can make a difference by
emailing this important information to your friends and colleagues.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info Team
Former
language interpreter for Presidents Bush
and Clinton
P.S. Our hearts and deepest wishes for support
and encouragement go out to all affected by Hurricane Katrina and
Rita. If you are interested in donating to support those affected,
we have found that Brother's Brother Foundation makes
best use of funds donated. To make a
contribution:
www.brothersbrother.org
FEMA twice
failed to give Congress plan to evacuate New Orleans
September 18, 2005, CNN/Associated
Press
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/17/katrina.evacuation.ap/
Eight years ago Congress...set aside $500,000
for FEMA to create "a comprehensive analysis and plan of all
evacuation alternatives for the New Orleans metropolitan area."
Frustrated two years later that no study had materialized, Congress
strengthened its directive. This time it ordered "an evacuation plan
for a Category 3 or greater storm, a levee break, flood or other
natural disaster for the New Orleans area." The $500,000 that
Congress appropriated for the evacuation plan went to a commission
that studied future options for the 24-mile bridge over Lake
Pontchartrain.
Going (Down)
by the Book
September 17, 2005, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/17/opinion/17tierney.html
When the Federal Emergency Management Agency's
paperwork slowed the evacuation of patients from the airport,
Acadian's frustrated medics waited with empty helicopters. "At one
point I had 10 helicopters on the ground waiting to go," said Marc
Creswell, an Acadian medic, "but FEMA kept stonewalling us with
paperwork. Meanwhile, every 30 or 40 minutes someone was dying." The
company sent in outside doctors and nurses. FEMA rejected the help
because the doctors and nurses weren't certified members of a
National Disaster Medical Team. "When the doctors asked why they
couldn't help these critically ill people lying there unattended,"
Mr. Creswell recalled, "the FEMA people kept saying, 'You're not
federalized.' "
Frustrated:
Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA
September 6, 2005, Salt Lake
Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_3004197
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090705E.shtml
Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat
down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we
doing here?" As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national
television for firefighters...a battalion of highly trained men and
women sat idle Sunday [less than a week after landfall] in a muggy
Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. Many of the firefighters,
assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed
as emergency workers. Instead, they have learned they are going...to
disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA. On Monday,
some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled
off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying
they refuse to represent the federal agency.
A Quick
Compilation of FEMA's Rejections of Qualified Help
FEMA refuses hundreds of personnel, dozens of
vehicles - Chicago Tribune, 9/2/05
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050902daley,1,2011979.story
FEMA won't let Red Cross deliver food -
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/3/05
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm
FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed
hospital on board - Chicago Tribune, 9/4/05
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509040369sep04,1,4144825.story
FEMA turns away state-of-the-art mobile
hospital from Univ. of North Carolina - CNN, 9/5/05
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/09/04/katrina.sick.redtape.ap/
FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations
- Financial Times, 9/5/05
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-00000e
FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks -
New York Times, 9/6/05
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05blame.html
FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering
diesel fuel - New York Times, 9/6/05
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05blame.html
FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from
delivering aid - News Sentinel, 9/8/05
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/12595873.htm
FEMA asks media not to take pictures of dead -
Washington Post, 9/8/05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702126.html
FEMA turns back German government plane loaded
with 15 tons of food - Spiegel, 9/12/05
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,374268,00.html
FEMA: "First Responders Urged Not To Respond"
Unless Dispatched - FEMA's own website
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18470
Finally
fooling none of the people
September 13, 2005, Los Angeles
Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer13sep13,0,2708046.column
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091305B.shtml#1
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is now
run by political hacks appointed by Bush who know zilch about
disaster relief. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," the
president said to Michael Brown a few days before the FEMA chief was
relieved of his oversight of the relief efforts. Brown, who
reportedly doctored his unimpressive resume and didn't have a
background in emergency management, resigned Monday. He had secured
this plum job because he was a college buddy of his predecessor, Joe
Allbaugh, who managed Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.
Bush allies
getting Katrina work
September 13, 2005, CNN
http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/12/news/economy/katrina_contracts.reut/
Companies with ties to the Bush White House
and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the
administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least two major corporate
clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign
manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the
battered Gulf Coast. One is...Halliburton Co. (Research) subsidiary
Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head
of Halliburton. Allbaugh formally registered as a lobbyist for
Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root in February. Allbaugh
is also a friend of Michael Brown, director of FEMA who was removed
as head of Katrina disaster relief and sent back to Washington amid
allegations he had padded his resume. Halliburton continues to be a
source of income for Cheney, who served as its chief executive
officer from 1995 until 2000. According to tax filings released in
April, Cheney's income included $194,852 in deferred pay from the
company.
Cheney orders
rural electric crews to work on oil pipeline from Texas
September 11, 2005, WKYC (Ohio NBC
affiliate)
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_fullstory.asp?id=40633
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina roared through
South Mississippi knocking out electricity and communication
systems, the White House ordered power restored to a pipeline that
sends fuel to the Northeast. That order...delayed efforts by at
least 24 hours to restore power to two rural hospitals and a number
of water systems. Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Mike
Callahan said the U.S. Department of Energy called him [stating
that] opening the fuel line was a national priority. Manager Dan
Jordan said Vice President Dick Cheney’s office called and left
voice mails twice shortly after the storm struck, saying the Collins
substations needed power restored immediately. Callahan said energy
officials told him gasoline and diesel fuel needed to flow through
the pipeline to avert a national crisis from the inability to meet
fuel needs in the Northeast. “Our concern was that...it would be a
national crisis for Mississippi,“ Callahan said.
Intricate
Flood Protection Long a Focus of Dispute
September 1, 2005, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01levee.html
The 17th Street levee that gave way and led to
the flooding of New Orleans was part of an intricate, aging system
of barriers and pumps that was so chronically underfinanced that
senior regional officials of the Army Corps of Engineers complained
about it publicly for years. Often leading the chorus was Alfred C.
Naomi, a senior project manager for the corps. Mr. Naomi grew
particularly frustrated this year as the Gulf Coast braced for what
forecasters said would be an intense hurricane season and a nearly
simultaneous $71 million cut was announced in the New Orleans
district budget to guard against such storms.
Chertoff:
Katrina scenario did not exist
September 5, 2005, CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/
Defending the U.S. government's response to
Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
argued...that government planners did not predict such a disaster
ever could occur. But in fact, government officials, scientists and
journalists have warned of such a scenario for years. Chertoff...said
government officials did not expect both a powerful hurricane and a
breach of levees that would flood the city of New Orleans. As far
back as Friday, August 26 [three days before landfall], the National
Hurricane Center was predicting the storm could be a Category 4
hurricane at landfall, with New Orleans directly in its path. The
National Weather Service prediction proved almost perfect.
Gone With the
Water (Hurricane Predicted Again One Year Ago)
October 2004, National Geographic
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/
http://205.188.130.53/ngm/0410/feature5/index.html
As the whirling maelstrom approached the
coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some
200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and
infirm. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big
Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people
were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural
disaster in the history of the United States. When did this calamity
happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched.
"It's not if it will happen," says University of New Orleans
geologist Shea Penland. "It's when."
New Orleans
is Sinking (Hurricane predicted on 9/11!!!)
September 11, 2001, Popular
Mechanics (Note the date of this article)
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/1282151.html
Emergency planners believe that it is a
foregone conclusion that the Big Easy someday will be hit by a
scouring storm surge. This watery "big one" will produce a
staggering amount of damage. Yet, this doesn't necessarily mean that
there will be a massive loss of lives. The key is a new emergency
warning system developed by...Louisiana State University. Within 30
minutes to an hour after raw data is collected from monitoring
stations in the Gulf, an assessment of storm-surge damage would be
available to emergency planners. Disaster relief agencies then would
be able to mobilize resources.
Experts blame
flooding on faulty levees
September 21, 2005, MSNBC/Washington
Post
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9419053/
Louisiana's top hurricane experts have
rejected the official explanations for the floodwall collapses that
inundated much of New Orleans, concluding that Hurricane Katrina's
storm surges were much smaller than authorities have suggested and
that the city's flood-protection system should have kept most of the
city dry. If Katrina did not exceed the design capacity of the New
Orleans levees, the federal government may bear ultimate
responsibility for this disaster.
When
sluggishness isn't OK
September 4, 2005, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0509040406sep04,1,3926343.column
E-mailers sent me copies of two news photos
that revealed an apparent double standard regarding black and white
flood victims in New Orleans.
One of the
images, shot by photographer Dave Martin
for The Associated Press, shows a young black man wading through
chest-deep waters after "looting" a grocery store, according to the
caption. In
the other,
taken by photographer Chris Graythen for AFP/Getty Images, a white
man and a similarly light-skinned woman also waded through
chest-deep water after "finding" goods that included bread and soda
in a local grocery store, according to the caption. Apparently,
quipped a cynical blogger at Daily Kos, " It's not looting if you're
white."
Third World
Scenes
September 5, 2005, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/04/AR2005090400958.html
Mullen has a schoolteacher's kindly demeanor,
so it was jarring to hear him say he suspected that the levee breaks
had somehow been engineered to keep the wealthy French Quarter and
Garden District dry at the expense of poor black neighborhoods...a
suspicion I heard from many other black survivors. And it was
surprising to hear Mullen's gentle voice turn bitter as he described
the scene at the convention center, when helicopters bringing food
didn't even land and the soldiers "just pushed the food out like we
were in the Third World." I literally stumbled into the Rev. Jesse
Jackson. He looked genuinely shaken, [saying] "this looks like the
hold of a slave ship."
Intricate
Flood Protection Long a Focus of Dispute
September 1, 2005, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01levee.html
No one expected that weak spot to be on a
canal that...had received more attention and shoring up than many
other spots in the region. It did not have broad berms, but it did
have strong concrete walls. Shea Penland, director of the
Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University
of New Orleans, said that was particularly surprising because the
break was "along a section that was just upgraded. It did not have
an earthen levee," Dr. Penland said. "It had a vertical concrete
wall several feel thick."
Earwitness
says explosives blew Industrial Canal levee (Video Clip)
September 11, 2005, ABC
http://www.total411.info/leveeboom.rm
(video clip, Real Player required -
free download)
DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS: This is the actual levee
that runs along the canal on the eastern side of the city. You can
see the massive breach here and...what the water did to the Lower
Ninth Ward. It completely destroyed neighborhoods. JOE EDWARDS, JR.,
9TH WARD RESIDENT: I heard something go "boom"!!! MUIR: Joe Edwards
rushed to get himself and as many neighbors as possible into his
truck. They drove to this bridge, where they've been living ever
since. Was it solely the water that broke the levee, or was it the
force of this barge? Joe Edwards says neither. People...in this
neighborhood...actually think the city did it, blowing up the levee
to save richer neighborhoods like the French Quarter. MUIR: So
you're convinced... EDWARDS: I know this happened! MUIR: They broke
the levee on purpose? EDWARDS: They blew it.
Bush lifts
wage rules for Katrina
September 9, 2005, CNN/Reuters
http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/
President Bush issued an executive order
Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage. In a notice to
Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused "a national emergency"
that permits him to take such action. Bush's action came as the
federal government moved to provide billions of dollars in aid. The
administration is using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut
the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and
their communities.
Bush Has Declared
Katrina-Related Emergencies in 40 States, District of Columbia
September 15, 2005, ABC
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1129802
The dire conditions created by Hurricane
Katrina may be confined to the Gulf Coast, but on paper the
emergency is all over the country. President Bush has declared that
Katrina-related emergencies exist in 40 states and the District of
Columbia. Apparently it does not take much to qualify as an
emergency.
Note: These "emergencies"
also give the president extraordinary powers to curtail civil
liberties, as shown in the previous article.
More Resources
For a highly revealing personal
account by two emergency medical personnel who were participating in
a conference in New Orleans at the time of the hurricane, see their
gripping story at
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805A.shtml.
The mainstream media has often avoided
reporting the most devastating personal stories which reveal all
that is being covered up. For more on how corporate ownership of the
media can block key stories like this, see
http://www.WantToKnow.info/mediainformation
For those who are ready to go even deeper,
read about FEMA's shady
beginnings at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84.
Then see Online Journal's revealing analysis
article "New Orleans: Dress rehearsal for lockdown of America" at
the link below.
www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/091305Baker/091305baker.html
For those interested in reliable information
on secret government weather control programs, former U.S. Secretary
of Defense William S. Cohen in a 1997 news briefing stated: "Others
are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter
the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use
of electromagnetic waves." See this quote on the U.S. Department of
Defense website at
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/1997/t042897_t0428coh.html.
Now if terrorist organizations have the
capability to set off earthquakes and other major natural disasters,
do you think that the huge military research laboratories might have
some of the same capabilities? For more, see the articles below:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/050307tsunamibombweapon
http://www.WantToKnow.info/resources#haarp
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2005-09-20-wacky-weatherman_x.htm
For a little hard-hitting humor on the CBS
website:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/08/opinion/main827633.shtml
For empowering ideas on what we can do
about all this:
http://www.WantToKnow.info/spreadtheword -
Spread the word
http://www.WantToKnow.info/brighterfuture
- Building a brighter future
http://www.WantToKnow.info/youcanhelp -
How you can help
By emailing this information to your
friends and colleagues, you can make a big difference. As
we spread this information, we are building a critical mass which
can bring positive changes to our government and world. For an
abundance of reliable, verifiable information on other major
cover-ups of which few are aware and what we can do about it, see
WantToKnow.info. Together, we can and will build a brighter future.
See our archive of cover-up news
articles at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/coverupnews
Your donations, however large or small, help
greatly to support this important work.
To make a secure donation:
http://order.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=6CYJA
Explore these empowering websites coordinated
by website founder Fred Burks:
http://www.momentoflove.org
- Every person in the world has a heart
http://www.WantToKnow.info
- Reliable, verifiable information on major
cover-ups
http://www.gcforall.org
- Building a Global Community for All
http://www.weboflove.org
- Strengthening the Web of Love that
interconnects us all
Together, we are building a better world based on love and
cooperation
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WEEK of 8-29-05
to 9-02-05 (Updated
9-1-05) |
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The magic day is finally here,
Global Consciousness Press, Inc. is now open for business!!! |
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For person-to-person GCP DVD sales
in the state of Maryland, call Deaver at 301-220-3514 |
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For 3rd party Internet of GCP DVDs
& books,
click here |
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WEEK of 7-25-05
to 7-29-05 (Updated
8-2-05) |
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Urgent Notice to all Maryland
University students & alums:
There is an University of Maryland
Activists Re-union this August 6 (THIS SATURDAY !)
Don't miss out ! |
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WEEK of 7-11-05
to 7-15-05 (Updated
7-17-05) |
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Perhaps the most interesting
broadcast conversation in years took place on
Democracy Now, 7-15-05. |
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WEEK of 5-9-05
to 5-13-05 (Updated
5-15-05) |
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FYI
- New Shorter URLs ! |
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Try
gcpweb.org
&
gcpweb.info ! |
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WEEK of 3-14-05
to 3-18-05 (Updated
3-20-05) |
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Two favored GCP links have expired,
and have been moved into retirement
(hopefully temporary in both cases).
-
Bush Recall has
stopped supporting or is having difficulty with the web publication
of their famous flash animation spoof of the "Lord of the Rings"
entitled "The Lord of the
Right Wing".
- Waging
Peace has stopped supporting or is having
difficulty with the web publication of their truly impressive
website describing the tragic possibility of global devastation by
nuclear war entitled "End
of Existence".
If you wish to see either site
restored, I advise you start by contacting the responsible organization. |
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WEEK of 11-22-04
to 11-26-04 (Updated
12-11-04) |
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New as of 12-12-04 !
Election 2004 Recount Update:
The recount efforts for Ohio, New Mexico, and Washington are moving
along ! See top of the home page for more details ! |
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Note: Update delayed to allow
precedence of 2004 U.S. Election vote fraud in the week of
11- 1 to 11- 5. See new update below in the week of 11- 1 to 11- 5
for revised details. |
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Good news for mother Earth and the
humans who inhabit her. The Bush administration suffered a loss
beneficial to all humans, including themselves. You may know that
the post 9-11 Bush plan includes much $ for R&D, production, deployment,
and open battlefield use of "tactical nuclear weapons". But did
you know that in the 11-22 to 11-26 week the U.S. Republican Congress
has de-funded the program, presumably while still in the R&D stage.
Barring a fancy, illegal Iran / Contra-like funding scheme (not entirely
unlikely as many of those criminals are in on this gig as well) this
keeps Bush with only his current bunch of low-yield tactical nukes
(depleted Uranium. clueless ?, return to home page and go to WMD for
more) which have been (and with W. and are still) used by W., H.W. &
Bill in the field. To find out more about Congress' choice to
de-fund this critically dangerous program, you can start by
reading the article "Congress Rejects
Funding For Nuke Research"
located about 2/3 way down the page at this
Democracy Now ! link. |
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WEEK of 11-1-04 to
11-5-04 (Updated
12-11-04) |
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NOTE: The article below is from a
progressive source, but the associated links are from mainstream
sources. Therefore, for more in-depth reporting on the 2004
election fraud topic, return to the top of the home page.
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Please be advised that the
post-election resources will probably return to their respective topical
categories (located deeper in the home page) once the challenges to the
2004 election are resolved. However, if the citizenry take to the
streets in a constant state of agitation due to the usurping of
"American democracy", it will be a nationwide sensation regardless of
any lacking mainstream press coverage. In such an event, something
else will most likely replace Post-Election Resources as a critical
topic taking precedence over GCP news and coalition building categories.
So, stay tuned ! |
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From
a recent Want To Know news letter
on the election 2004 vote fraud.
The sources are quite mainstream, see for yourself below. Reprinted by permission. |
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Below are links to a
powerful documentary and several revealing articles reported by
major news media exposing serious problems with electronic voting
machines. This is followed by excerpts from an excellent
article which explains core problems within the elections system.
Washington Post
- "In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost
because officials misjudged the amount of data that could be stored
electronically by a computer."
New York Times
- An article titled "Computer Voting Is Open to Easy Fraud,"
presents the troubling results of a detailed study by Johns Hopkins
University. "We found some stunning, stunning flaws."
"The systems....could be tricked by anyone with $100 worth
of computer equipment." "Ballots could be altered by anyone with
access to a machine, so that a voter might think he is casting a
ballot for one candidate while the vote is recorded for an
opponent."
Associated
Press/ABC - "Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with
electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing
their intended candidates."
Miami Herald -
An article titled "Defective Software Lost Votes" states, "Attorneys
scrutinizing the close vote on Amendment Four noticed that vote
totals changed in an unexpected way after 13,000 final ballots were
counted. Election officials quickly determined the problem was
caused by the Unity Software." "The glitch was discovered
two years ago, and should have been corrected by software
manufacturer ES&S."
CNN - "An error with an
electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in
suburban Columbus."
USA Today -
"Nearly one in three voters, including about half of those in
Florida, were expected to cast ballots using ATM-style voting
machines that computer scientists have criticized for their
potential for software glitches, hacking and malfunctioning." "Most
of the machines, including all of Florida's, lack paper records that
could be used to verify the electronic results in a recount".
"Over 20 percent of the machines tested by observers around
the country failed to record votes properly."
These are only a few of
the many problems that we know about. How many more votes were
changed or disappeared that we don't know about? We will never
know. For
more powerful information on this, the excellent documentary
Votergate takes us on a fact-finding mission
across the US revealing stunning evidence of defects and outright
fraud in electronic voting. Engaging interviews with whistleblowers
and courageous Americans, including members of Congress and top
elections officials, reveal critical information which the mass
media has given very little coverage. Don't
miss this powerful 30-minute documentary available free at
http://www.votergate.tv
The Problem Goes Deeper.
Below are excerpts from a riveting article which goes to the
very core of the problem. The author's father and
uncle uncovered serious elections fraud years ago and suffered
severely for trying to reveal the truth. In 1992,
they published the book
Votescam
which exposed major elections fraud,
only to have it effectively banned. They both died young in the
1990s. Please pass on this powerful information which is so
vital to the future of democracy. Invite all of your friends and
colleagues to forward this message, and to join together in
calling for election reform.
A Brief History
of Computerized Election Fraud in America (Excerpts)
By Victoria Collier
Squadrons of
shiny new touch screen Trojan horses are being rolled into precincts
across America. Not, as we are told, to make voting easier or more
accurate. The real reason America is being flooded with billions of
dollars worth of paperless computerized voting machines
is so that no one will be able to prove vote fraud. These machines
are not just unverifiable, they are secretly programmed.
Their software is not open to scrutiny by election officials or
computer experts. They are also equipped with modems accessible by
computer, telephone, and satellite.
We the People are responsible for taking back the control of our
democratic process. No one else will do it for us. We cannot afford
to be naive, or uneducated at this time in history. In order to
fully understand the extent of the corruption we are dealing with,
and to avoid making dangerous mistakes based on ignorance, we must
understand the history, and the power structure, behind vote fraud
in America.
I grew up with two men who spent twenty-five years investigating
vote fraud in America: James and Kenneth Collier, my father and
uncle. Their book, Votescam: The Stealing of America
was published in 1992 and immediately banned by the major book
chains, which listed the book as "out of print" and
actively worked to prevent its sale. Votescam chronicles
the Collier brother's groundbreaking investigation into America's
multi-billion dollar election rigging industry, and the corporate
government and media officials who control it. [First
five chapters available
free online]
The Votescam investigation began in 1970, in
-- surprise! -- Dade County, Florida, where Ken ran for Congress
(with Jim as his campaign manager). Ken was rigged out of the
election through a vote scam, which the Colliers later discovered
was used throughout the country for decades. It went like this: The
local newscaster would announce during the broadcast of election
returns that the election "computer has broken down." Instead of
giving official returns from the county courthouse, the networks
would be running vote "projections" for the rest of the night.
Jim and Ken, who had garnered 30 percent of
the vote, noticed that when the vote totals came back on the screen
after the announcement, they had mysteriously lost 15 percentage
points. They didn't get another vote for the rest of the night. When
they examined the "official" election results from for the September
primary, October run-off and November final election in Dade County,
the record listed a total of 141,000 votes cast for the governors
race in each election. The exact same number of total votes
were cast for three elections with a different number of candidates
running each time. The same identical figures were listed
for the Senate race in the primary, run-off and final
election. This, of course, is a statistical impossibility.
When they compared the "official" vote results with a print-out of
the vote "projections" broadcast by the TV networks on the final
election night, they found that channel 4 had "projected"
with near perfect accuracy the results of 40 races with 250
candidates only 4 minutes after the polls closed.
Channel 7 came even closer; at 9:31 pm, they "projected" the final
vote total for a race at 96,499 votes. When the Colliers checked the
"official" number . . . it was also 96,499.
The networks then made the astonishing claim that the
results from a single voting machine somewhere in Dade County were
run through a computer program in order to get these vote
projections. Elton Davis was the computer programmer responsible for
the magic formula that could convert one machine's vote results into
near perfect projected vote totals for 40 races and 250 candidates.
When Jim and Ken confronted Davis in his office at the University of
Miami, he responded: "You'll never prove it, now get out."
Finally the networks claimed that members of the League of Women
Voters were out in the field on election night, calling in vote
totals to channels 4 and 7. When the Colliers confronted the head of
the League, Joyce Deiffenderfer, she admitted that there were no LWV
members out in the field that night. She broke down crying, saying
"I don't want to get caught up in this thing.
When the TV networks claimed that the courthouse computer had
broken down, and they would no longer be reporting actual vote
totals, they were lying. They had never been reporting actual vote
totals. The final shoe dropped months later when an official press
release appeared from Dade data processing chief, Leonard White,
which stated emphatically: The county computer at the
courthouse was never down, and it was never slow.
This was the beginning. The Collier brothers had slammed
their boat into the tip of a giant iceberg. As they continued to
investigate, they were horrified to discover vote fraud collusion
among key individuals in every branch and on every level of the
American political system. Those who were not benefiting from the
fraud were too afraid to fight it. Their search for justice led to
dead-ends. Their lives were threatened. They were vilified as
conspiracy theorists by the mainstream press . . . and yet they
persevered.
The next quarter century was spent compiling a wealth of
FBI documented evidence proving that
elections in the United States have come under the tight control of
a handful of powerful and corrupt people. Jim and Ken both
died young during the 90's, as heroes to many thousands who heard
them speak on the radio and at political meetings across the
country. They helped to guide individuals and groups working for
clean elections in their communities. The Collier's last hope was
that Votescam would be used as evidence in a serious
Congressional investigation into election fraud.
Many people still in power have yet to be held accountable for
their role in aiding and abetting vote fraud. I'll give you two
important examples. Famous Miami lawyer Ellis Rubin brought the
original Votescam evidence to the Florida assistant State
Attorney at the time, Janet Reno. The evidence included the
shaved wheels of lever voting machines, forged canvass sheets, and
pre-printed vote tally sheets. Reno refused to prosecute,
claiming falsely that the statue of limitations had run out on the
crime. Years later, Rubin would tell my father that behind
closed doors Reno had stated that she could not prosecute. Why?
Because she would bring down many of the most powerful people in the
state.
Another notable Votescam criminal can now be found sitting on the
bench of the highest court in the nation. Supreme Court
Justice Antonin Scalia, while still a Federal Appeals Judge, single
handedly destroyed what would have been an historic lawsuit
filed against Justice Department lawyer Craig Donsanto, who had
refused to prosecute the extensive vote fraud evidence brought to
him by the Colliers. The evidence included videotape of the League
of Women voters tampering with ballots in a close door vote
"counting" session. The women were illegally punching holes in
already cast ballots.
I'd like to offer a brief list of important lessons learned from
twenty-five years of fighting vote fraud in the trenches.
-
Secret
vote counting is illegal. Counting faster is not a
justification for counting secretly.
-
Lever
machines were the first to appear, and they were riggable in
a number of ways. One could rig the lever machine itself, or
the electronic scanning machines that counted the ballots.
(See the
Votescam video for footage of
ballot rigging).
-
Computerized
voting machines are the easiest to rig. Their software is
not open to public scrutiny, or the scrutiny of Election
Supervisors. There are nearly infinite ways to
program the machines to count votes fraudulently.
Since they are accessible by modem, they can be controlled
from a remote, centralized location.
-
Voting
machine companies operate with no federal oversight,
certification process, standards or restrictions. Just two
companies -- Election Systems and Software (ES&S) and
Diebold Voting Systems -- now control about 80% of the vote
count in the U.S.
-
Both the
Democratic and Republican parties have been complicit in
vote rigging for decades, to their mutual benefit.
Vote rigging is NOT a partisan issue.
-
The corporate
major media networks play a vital role in perpetrating and
covering up vote fraud.
-
Election Day
media polls are untrustworthy at best.
The
gravest error of judgment these days comes from those vote reformers who
honestly believe that the answer to the butterfly ballot and hanging
chad problems in the 2000 election is to embrace the ballot-less
computerized voting machine. With the ballot-less computer, there is no
way to recount, no way to prove any discrepancy, inaccuracy or fraud.
Just the fact that companies like ES&S and Diebold would even
make a ballot-less machine should be cause for a Congressional
investigation. (There are also many other reasons to
investigate them. For a detailed examination of these sinister
corporations, check out
http://www.blackboxvoting.com )
A
most grave error of judgment also comes from those who think that
returning to a hand-counted paper ballot system is somehow impossible. An
MIT/Cal Tech study done in 2001 shows that manually counted paper
ballots are the most accurate system out of the 5 systems used in the
last 4 presidential elections. They are totally verifiable, and
first-world nations across the globe still use them, including Canada
which counted their last presidential election in four hours.
The bottom line is that a computerized vote count is a secret vote
count, and that's illegal. Technology cannot supercede the
constitutional and mandatory provisions of election law, which require
open and verifiable elections. There is no way to do a public vote count
with computers. The count must be done by hand, in public, video-taped,
aired live on television, and the results posted on the precinct wall
-- just like they used to be. Ballots should be counted on the same day
as the voting takes place, making it much more difficult to alter
ballots. Hand counted paper ballots and eternal vigilance are the only
hope left for us.
A long
time writer and political activist, Victoria Collier continues to
educate the public on the subject of vote fraud in place of her father
and uncle. She is the editor of
http://www.votescam.com
Victoria is available for interviews and can be
reached at 1-866-280-9090 and at
editor@votescam.com
For reliable, verifiable information on
other major cover-ups which directly affect our democracy, see
www.WantToKnow.info The
WantToKnow.info team is a group of dedicated researchers from around the
world who are
deeply committed to revealing information being hidden from the
public, and to designing ways that we can work together
to
build a brighter
future for us, for our children, and for our
world. To join our mailing list (one
email every two days on average), send an email to
wecare@wanttoknow.info
Together, we can and will make a difference.
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WEEK of 10-11-04 to
10-15-04 (Updated 10-17-04) |
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From
a follow-up Want To Know news letter
on "Operation Northwoods". Reprinted by permission. |
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Follow-up on
Operation Northwoods: U.S. Plans to Attack the U.S.
This
correction...is of utmost importance.
Author - Fred
Burks
I am deeply
committed to openness and transparency. For this reason, I feel
it is of the highest importance to inform you that I have
discovered that ABC almost certainly did not intentionally
remove the revealing article on Operation Northwoods because of
the first email I sent on Oct. 6th. I was able to verify myself
that ABC did a major reorganization of their website recently,
probably within the last week. The Northwoods article was only
one of many articles moved as a result of this
reorganization. The timing of this change with the sending of my
email is certainly an amazing coincidence. It is also most
strange that on moving their documents, ABC replaced them with a
page stating, "You’ve requested an
abcnews.com
page that does not exist." This certainly
is very poor wording.
I sincerely
apologize for jumping to conclusions about this in my second
email on Oct. 10th. At the same time, I know without a doubt
that key information continues to be suppressed at an alarming
rate. As a clear example of this, on Oct. 7th the FBI
seized servers in the United Kingdom which supported 20 major
independent media websites is the US. You can read an article
about this on the BBC website at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3732718.stm Though
this seizure represents an incredible erosion of our freedom of
speech, at the time of this writing, the Washington Times
is the only mainstream media source in the US that has
picked up on this important news. You can verify this yourself
by doing a Google news search using the words "indymedia" and
"seizure."
Though my
previous email may not have had the impact I thought it did, the
Operation Northwoods documents still stand as amazing, clear
evidence of how certain rogue elements in the US government have
conspired not only to manipulate public opinion, but even to
kill innocent Americans for the purpose of forwarding their war
agenda. I highly recommend reading all 15 pages of the revealing
Operation Northwoods documents at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf
in order to understand how our military
and intelligence leaders think. If you forwarded my previous
email, I believe it is only ethical to forward this correction
as well. Again, my apologies to you. Thanks for caring and you
have a good day.
With very best
wishes,
Fred Burks for the
WantToKnow.info team
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WEEK of 10-04-04 to
10-08-04 (Updated 10-11-04) |
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From
three Want To Know news letters
on "Operation Northwoods". Reprinted by permission. |
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Operation Northwoods: U.S. Plans to Attack the U.S.
Want-to-Know
"Northwoods" letter C dated 10-10-04 :
We've had quite a fascinating turn of events. On October
6th, an email went out to my entire list of over 8,000
people featuring a link to an ABC News article which
reported plans of top US military chiefs to fabricate acts
of terror on US soil in 1962. The plans, code
named Operation Northwoods, were designed to manipulate the
American public into supporting a war on Cuba. I personally
checked the link to this ABC article several hours
after sending the email. It was still active. As the email
also provided a link to the original declassified military
documents on the National Security Archives website, the
email spread rapidly in the US and even around the globe.
Within three days of this
email being sent, the ABC article disappeared from the link
provided. This is highly unusual, especially considering
that the article had been in the same place on the ABC
website since it was originally posted in 2001. Clearly,
someone does not want us to have this information. If you
click on the link, it now states, "You’ve requested an
abcnews.com
page that does not exist." However, you can easily prove
that the article did recently exist. In fact, as Google
stores every web page that it has listed for several weeks
in their cache, you can still see the article in its
original form.
To prove this yourself, go
to
http://www.google.com first.
Type in "Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize US Cities."
You should see that the first entry is the ABC News article
to which the previous email linked (see below if there are
now two ABC entries on this). If you click on the link, you
will see the ABC message stating that this page "does not
exist." Now, go back to the Google page and look at the
bottom right of that ABC entry. You will see two links,
"Cached" and "Similar Pages." Click on the
Cached
link, and you will see that the original article
recently did exist, and that you can still see and read it
in the Google cache.
The WantToKnow.info
team presents this information to inspire in you a desire to
strengthen democracy and to build a better world
together. Our website focuses on providing reliable,
verifiable facts which are being hidden from public view. By
spreading this important information, each of us can make a
difference.
Interestingly enough, the
Operation Northwoods article does still exist even on the
ABC website. Someone appears to have moved it within three
days of when the original email was sent. At least as of the
time of writing of this email, the article is available at
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662&page=1 This
moved article will likely also soon appear on the Google
search. If this is the case and there are two entries, check
the Google entry for
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html to
see the original link that was removed. The link to the
declassified military documents on the National Security
Archives website at
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf continues
to be active as of this writing. As this website is run
independently by George Washington University, this link is
less likely to disappear.
Here's a quote from the ABC article, "America's top military
brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties,
writing: 'We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and
blame Cuba,' and 'Casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would
cause a helpful wave of national indignation.'" And here's a
quote from the declassified Operation Northwoods documents:
"It is possible to create an
incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban
aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil
airliner enroute from the United States."
Even though these documents are over 40 years old, they show
without any doubt that the top military chiefs of the US
will sacrifice innocent American lives and severely
manipulate public opinion in order to achieve their military
objectives. Considering this, is it beyond comprehension
that similar tactics were used with 9/11?
Working with an
international team of researchers, I have been compiling
reliable, easily verifiable information on a 9/11 cover-up
for over two years now. Our website at
http://www.WantToKnow.info
has become quite popular because of its concise summaries
and the ease with which the information given can be
verified. If you go to our two-page summary at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up or even better,
the 10-page summary at
http://www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up10pg
you will find many revealing facts reported by the most
respected newspapers and magazines in the US. We
provide links direct to the original articles on major media
websites. This allows you to personally verify each fact
given on the 9/11 cover-up.
For everyone who received that first email on Operation
Northwoods and passed it on to your friends and colleagues,
thank you. We urge you to forward this email as well. This
will give everyone an opportunity to read the highly
revealing ABC article. It will also demonstrate how
information can even be made to "disappear" when it
threatens the to expose how rogue elements of government
blatantly manipulate the public. By working together to
build the critical mass necessary to bring these issues into
public awareness, we can make the positive changes necessary
to strengthen democracy and build a better world together.
We invite you to join in building a brighter future for us
and our children by spreading this email to your network and
posting it wherever possible. Thank you very much for
caring. Each one of us can make a big difference!
With very best wishes,
Fred Burks for the WantToKnow.info team
P.S. If you did not receive the first email which gave
details on Operation Northwoods and more, contact me at
burksf@earthlink.net
and I will send it to you. And for more on what we can do
about all this, we invite you to visit our website at
http://www.WantToKnow.info
Want-to-Know
"Northwoods" letter B dated 10-10-04 :
Four days ago I sent a special email asking you to forward an
important message on Operation Northwoods to all of your friends
and colleagues. We were highly successful in getting the message
out. We were so successful, in fact, that sometime in the last
couple days ABC removed the revealing webpage from their website
to which the email linked!
This may seem like bad news, but actually, using the amazing
resources of the Internet, we can prove to everyone that the
article was still there just four days ago, and that it almost
certainly disappeared as a result of this message being spread
around the country and world. You can still see the article in
Google's cache.
You will receive a follow-up email on this from
"Frederick Burks" or
burksf@earthlink.net later today. I think you will be amazed
when you read it. Especially for those of you who forwarded the
last email, please forward this second one to all of your
friends. This email clearly provides powerful proof of
how secret forces are trying to shut this information down. We
can use this to clearly expose what they are doing and convince
many more people to join in making a difference. Thank you very
much for helping to building a better world for us all.
With gratitude and very best wishes,
Fred
P.S. For all AOL subscribers, it is very interesting to note
that the special request I sent out four days ago did not go
through to everyone with an AOL address. I only got the bounce
message yesterday. That email was the request for you to forward
the Operation Northwoods email to your friends. Very
interesting, especially since I've heard from another person in
our network that AOL is blocking his emails. Someone is
starting to pay attention to these emails.
Want-to-Know
"Northwoods" letter A dated 10-06-04 :
A revealing ABC news article begins, "In
the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted
plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S.
cities to create public support for a war against Cuba." The
article goes on to say that the plans, code-named Operation
Northwoods, were approved in writing by the top US military chiefs.
These plans even proposed that the US military secretly blow up an
American ship and hijack US planes as a false pretext for war. Does
this ring a bell? Don't miss this disturbing article on the ABC
website at:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html
The www.WantToKnow.info
team presents this information to inspire in you a desire to
strengthen democracy and to build a better world together. Our
website focuses on providing reliable, verifiable facts which are
being hidden from public view. By spreading this important
information, each of us can make a difference.
To read the original declassified Operation Northwoods
documents posted on the National Security Archive of George
Washington University, see http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf If
you don't have time to read the 15-page declassified report, take a
look at the key excerpts below. We invite you to then ask yourself,
is it beyond comprehension that this same kind of thinking and
planning could have led to 9/11?
Remember that these
documents were approved in writing by the Joint Chiefs of Staff—the
top generals of each branch of the US armed forces—and submitted to
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1962, though never acted
upon. The plans were classified top secret so that the American
public would not know how it was being manipulated. They came to
light only because of a Freedom of Information Act request in the
late 1990s. By going to
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/ you can request these
documents yourself from the US Department of Defense.
Excerpts from Operation Northwoods Documents
Page 1 of
File (Memorandum)
13 March 1962
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Subject: Justification for US Military
Intervention in Cuba
The Joint
Chiefs of Staff have considered the attached Memorandum for the Chief of
Operations, Cuba Project, which responds to a request of that office for
brief but precise description of pretexts which could provide
justification for US military intervention in Cuba. It is assumed that a single agency will be
given the primary responsibility for developing military and para-military
aspects of the basic plan. It is recommended that this responsibility
for both overt and covert military operations be assigned the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
Page 5 of
File (page 2 of Joint Chiefs
report)
World opinion,
and the United Nations forum should be favorably affected by developing
the international image of the Cuban government as rash and
irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace
of the Western Hemisphere.
Page 10-11
of File (page 7-8 of Joint
Chiefs report)
A series of
well coordinated incidents will be planned to take place in and around
Guantanamo to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban
forces.
(1)
Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.
(2) Land friendly
Cubans in uniform “over-the-fence” to stage attack on base.
(3) Capture Cuban
(friendly) saboteurs inside the base.
(4) Start riots
near the base main gate (friendly Cubans).
(5) Blow up
ammunition inside the base: start fires.
(6) Burn aircraft
on air base (sabotage).
(7) Lob mortar
shells from outside of base into base.
(8) Capture assault
teams approaching from the sea or vicinity of Guantanamo City.
(9) Capture militia
group which storms base.
(10) Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires – naphthalene.
(11) Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims.
We could blow up a US
ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba. Casualty lists in US newspapers
would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.
We could
develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other
Florida cities and even in Washington.
Page
12 of File
(page 9 of Joint Chiefs report)
Use of
[Soviet] MIG type aircraft by US pilots could provide additional
provocation. Attacks on surface shipping and destruction of US military
drone aircraft by MIG type planes would be useful as complementary
actions. Reasonable copies of the MIG could be produced from US
resources in about three months.
Page
13 of File (page
10 of Joint Chiefs report)
Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft should appear to
continue as harassing measures condoned by the government of Cuba.
It is possible to create an incident
which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked
and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States.
The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan to cross
Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a
holiday.
An aircraft at Eglin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact
duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary
organization in the Miami area. At the designated time the duplicate
would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded
with selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases.
The actual aircraft would be converted to a drone.
The drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be
scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida. From the rendezvous
point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude
and go directly into an auxiliary field at Eglin AFB where arrangements
will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft
to its original status. The drone aircraft meanwhile will continue to
fly the filed flight plan. When over Cuba the drone will be transmitting
on the international distress frequency a “MAY DAY” message stating he
is under attack by Cuban MIG aircraft. The transmission will be
interrupted by destruction of the aircraft which will be triggered by
radio signal.
Note
from WantToKnow.info:
Remember that these and other government leaders think of this like a
chess game. Sometimes you have to sacrifice your own in order to win the
game. As a further example of this, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US
National Security Advisor and co-founder with David Rockefeller of the
Trilateral Commission, gave his 1997 book the title The Grand
Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. In
this seminal book on American foreign policy in the coming century,
Brzezinksi states that because of popular resistance to US military
expansionism, his ambitious strategy for "American global primacy" can’t
be implemented "except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely
perceived direct external threat." (The
Grand Chessboard page 211).
Consider also that in September 2000,
a neo-conservative think-tank named Project for the New American Century
(PNAC) published a "blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence and
shaping the international security order in line with American
principles and interests." Written before the 2000 Presidential
election, this revealing report was commissioned by future Vice
President Cheney, future Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, future Deputy
Defense Secretary Wolfowitz, and Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The
report shows that the Bush administration intended to take military
control of Persian Gulf oil whether or not Saddam Hussein was in
power. It advocates "regime change" in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria,
and Iran. [See article in
Sunday Herald, 9/7/02 or click
here
to download the report--Rebuilding America's Defenses]
Considering the above information, is it beyond
comprehension that tactics similar to Operation Northwoods might have
been used in relation to the 9/11 attacks in order to create "a truly
massive and widely perceived direct external threat?" Could 9/11 have
been the pretext upon which to build a War on Terror in order to
"maintain global US preeminence?"
We
invite you to explore our website at www.WantToKnow.info for
more on these and other important facts. Of particular relevance is a
two-page summary of verifiable facts taken from major media sources
which suggest a major 9/11 cover-up at
www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up or even better, see the 10-page
summary at www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up10pg.
We draw no firm conclusions with this information. We present reliable,
easily verifiable facts and information without interpretation, allowing
you to draw your own conclusions.
We
invite you to join in making a difference. By spreading this
information far and wide, we can help many others to wake up to what
is happening. We can build the critical mass necessary to strengthen
democracy, and to change this world for the better. One easy way you
can help is to forward this email to your friends and colleagues. We
also invite you to look inside yourself to see what you might be keeping
secret which is not serving the good of all, or which is in some
way manipulating others. The most powerful changes we can make are often
inside of ourselves. We thank you for caring enough to explore this
disturbing information. May we all work together to build a better world
for us all.
The
WantToKnow.info team is
a group of dedicated researchers from around the world who compile and
summarize important, verifiable facts and information being hidden from
the public. We are deeply committed to building a brighter future for
us, for our children, and for our world.
Explore these
empowering websites:
www.WantToKnow.info -
Revealing major cover-ups & working together for a better world
www.gcforall.org
- Building a Global Community for All
www.momentoflove.org
- Every person in the world has a heart
Together, we are building a better world based on love and cooperation.
Your donations, however large or small, help greatly to support this
important work.
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WEEK of 9-13-04 to
9-17-04 (Updated 9-19-04) |
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Election Resources have been added to
the top of the GCP Home page.
Don't get lost this election
season without the GCP's guide to the 2004 election campaign ghouls and
goblins.
Get the scoop on the "75"
presidential candidates as well as all the other candidates running on
the ballot you will face in November.
To inspect the candidates you can
vote for in all races:
- select the "All Candidates
You Can Vote For" link
- select "Don't Know Your 9-digit ZIP?"
located directly blow the "Enter ZIP-code" line on the left of the
project vote smart page
- Enter your address information and select "submit"
- copy your 9-digit zip-code
(highlight the full 9-digit ZIP-code, right mouse click, select
copy, return to the project vote smart page, put your cursor in the
"Enter ZIP-code" line, right-mouse click, select paste, and then
select "Go")
It's even easier than it sounds,
and you will have a marvelous sense of relief that with only a little
effort, you can plan to vote for and against candidates based on
knowledge of their records.
Try it!
Project Vote Smart is a truly
indispensable tool for informed voting. It's a must for
responsible Americans ! |
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WEEK of 8-02-04 to
8-06-04 (Updated 8-15-04) |
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WARNING -
BUSH REPETITIVELY THREATENS AMERICA ! |
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The incident on 8-5-04 (see
Bush
Verbal Gaffe) was not the first time that Bush threatened America !
Six months prior, Bush stated on 2-08-04 that the Bush Administration
intends to injure the U.S. (see end of page
Dubya at War) ! |
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WEEK of 7-19-04 to
7-23-04 (Updated 7-24-04) |
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Remember that neat Palestinian
activist
Farouk Abdel-Muhti
who the U.S. unjustly held in
solitary and
released this April? It is with great heaviness of heart that
the GCP must report that
Farouk Abdel-Muhti died
Wednesday.
For a respectful report on the
tragic event, watch the segment on
Democracy Now !.
For memorial, prayer service, and
much munch more about Farouk, see this other link at
Democracy Now
!.
Also this week past, "CIA analyst
Ray McGovern and FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds" shed much light on the
9-11 Commission Report & the crisis of U.S. intelligence constrained by
extreme political ideology in an amazing interview on
Democracy Now ! |
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WEEK of 6-28-04 to
7-2-04 (Updated 7-5-04) |
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From
a 6-30-04 Want To Know news letter, information
on news suppression. Reprinted by permission. |
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Leading Journalists Expose Major News Cover-ups by Media
Corporations
Below are some astounding statements from a
summary of the book
Into the
Buzzsaw on the informative
website
www.WantToKnow.info.
In this eye-opening compilation, 18 award-winning
journalists describe in detail how they were prevented by corporate
media ownership from reporting major, revealing news stories. These
courageous journalists have won numerous awards, amongst others several
Emmys and a Pulitzer. This message is
sent with the hope of strengthening democracy and building a brighter
future for all of us.
Kristina Borjesson—CBS, Emmy award
winner. Pierre Salinger announced on Nov. 8, 1996, that he’d
received documents proving that a US Navy missile had accidentally
downed TWA flight 800. That same day, FBI’s Jim Kallstrom called a press
conference. At one point, a man raised his hand and asked why the Navy
was involved in the investigation while a possible suspect. “Remove
him!” Kallstrom yelled. Two men leapt over to the questioner and grabbed
him by the arms. There was a momentary chill in the air after the guy
had been dragged out of the room. Kallstrom and entourage acted as if
nothing had happened. Jim Kallstrom was later hired by CBS.
Jane Akre—Fox News. After our
struggle to air an honest report on hormones in your milk, Fox fired the
general manager of our station. The new general manager said that if we
didn’t agree to changes that the lawyers were insisting upon, we’d be
fired for insubordination. We pleaded with him to look at the facts we’d
uncovered. His reply: “We paid $3 billion dollars for these TV stations.
We’ll tell you what the news is. The news is what we say
it is!” After we refused, Fox’s general manager presented us an
agreement that would give us a full year of salary, and benefits worth
close to $200,000 in “consulting jobs,” but with strings attached: no
mention of how Fox covered up the story and no opportunity to ever
expose the facts. After declining, we were fired.
Monika Jensen-Stevenson—Emmy-winning producer
for 60 minutes. Robert Garwood—14 years a prisoner of the
Vietnamese—was found guilty in the longest court-martial in US history.
At the end of the court-martial, there seemed no question that he was a
monstrous traitor. In 1985, Garwood was speaking publicly about
something that had never made the news during his court-martial. He knew
of other American prisoners in Vietnam long after the war was over. My
sources included outstanding experts like former head of the Defense
Intelligence Agency General Tighe and returned POWs like Captain
McDaniel, who held the Navy’s top award for bravery. With such
advocates, it was hard not to consider the possibility that prisoners
(some 3,500) had in fact been kept by the Vietnamese as hostages to make
sure the US would pay the more than $3 billion in war reparations.
Gary Webb—San Jose Mercury News,
Pulitzer Prize winner. In 1996, I wrote a series of stories that
began this way: A Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips
and Bloods gangs of LA and funneled millions in drug profits to a
guerilla army run by the CIA. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a
crack explosion in urban America. The story developed a momentum all of
its own, despite a virtual news blackout from the major media.
Ultimately, it was public pressure that forced the national newspapers
into the fray. The Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Los Angeles Times published stories, but spent little
time exploring the CIA’s activities. Instead, my reporting and I became
the focus of their scrutiny. It was remarkable that the four
Washington Post reporters assigned to debunk the series could not
find a single significant factual error. A few months later, the
Mercury News, under intense CIA pressure, backed away from the
story, publishing a long column apologizing for “shortcomings” in the
series. The New York Times splashed the apology on their front
page, the first time the series had ever been mentioned there. I quit
the Mercury News not long after that.
For more
on these and the eye-opening stories of other leading journalists, go to
the two-page summary of Into the Buzzsaw at
www.WantToKnow.info/mediacover-up.
Or even better, go straight to the
information-packed 10-page summary at
www.WantToKnow.info/massmediacover-ups.
If these stories were reported in headline news
where they belong, caring citizens would be astounded and demand to know
more. This has not happened, which is why we feel compelled to provide
them here.
To understand more about the impact of all this,
go to www.WantToKnow.info.
The entire website is dedicated both to
providing a concise, reliable introduction to incredibly important
information that is being hidden from us, and to inspiring us to work
together to strengthen democracy and to build a better world. You
can help to build a brighter future now by educating yourself on these
vital issues, and by forwarding this message to your friends and
colleagues and asking them to do the same. Thank you for caring.
Together we can and will build a better world for ourselves and our
children.
The
WantToKnow.info team is a group of dedicated researchers from around the
world who compile and summarize important, verifiable facts and
information being hidden from the public. You can reach us at
wecare@wanttoknow.info.
Explore these empowering websites:
www.momentoflove.org
- Every person in the world has a heart
www.WantToKnow.info
- Revealing major cover-ups & working together for
a better world
www.gcforall.org
- Building a Global Community for All
Together, we are creating a new paradigm of love and cooperation on
Earth
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WEEK of 6-21-04 to
6-25-04 (Updated 6-27-04) |
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Democracy Now ! was sure hot this
week. Lots of great interviews with:
-
Bill Clinton from election day 2000 (replayed). Revealing
and still pertinent today.
-
Noam Chomsky reviews Negroponte's legacy.
-
Michael Moore discusses Fahrenheit 9/11.
-
Mike Farrell (yep, M*A*S*H's Captain B.J. Hunnicutt ) discusses
TV, Hollywood, his human rights work, & the Iraq war.
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WEEK of 6-14-04 to
6-18-04 (Updated 6-21-04) |
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Due to a GCPer suggestion, I'd best
remind you all to see
Fahrenheit 9-11 ASAP. |
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WEEK of 5-31-04 to
6-4-04 (Updated 6-6-04) |
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Dan Frosch (of GCP's Nation
and Alternet), Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, & a host of
others speak of how the U.S. Justice Department should have and probably
did know that the advisors sent as consultants for the American
occupation forces' set up of the Abu Ghraib were known offenders in the
American prison system at
Democracy Now !
John Paul (of GCP's The
Nation & Alternet) discusses how oil is effecting international
relations in a remarkable interview at
Democracy Now ! |
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WEEK of 5-10-04 to
5-14-04 (Updated 5-14-04) |
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Joe Wilson was interviewed May
15 by Amy Goodman on
Democracy Now! For more information on the concerns Joe has, see the
movie
Uncovered and read Joe's
book The Politics of Truth. |
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And from
a letter written by a GCPer, information on the proposed military draft. Reprinted by permission.
This week's GCP HOT topics:
U.S. Military Draft bills are under consideration by congress.
MILITARY DRAFT
Bills S. 89 and
HR 163 “Universal National Service Act of 2003”
There are two
bills pending consideration on the hill for passing: S. 89 and HR 163
entitled “Universal National Service Act of 2003”. The Universal
National Service Act of 2003 provides for the common defense by
requiring that all young persons between the ages of 18 to 26 in
the United States, including
women
“perform a period of military services or a period
of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland
security, and for other purposes.”
Timing is everything.
The draft may begin as soon as Spring 2005 (just after the 2004
presidential election). The administration is attempting to get S. 89
and HR 163 passed while the public's is distracted by the 2004 election.
Deferment for
higher education will no longer be an option. Freshmen,
sophomores, and juniors selected for military service will have until
the end of the semester in which they are notified to report for duty.
Seniors will have until the end of the academic year in which they are
notified to report for duty.
Dodging the draft
will be more difficult than it was 30 years ago. In December
2001, Canada and the U.S. signed a "smart border declaration," which
enables the U.S. Federal Government to much more successfully restrict
the international travel of all Americans, particularly draft eligible
Americans. The declaration includes a "pre-clearance agreement" for
people crossing the U.S. / Canada border. Surveillance technology
unavailable 30 years ago has been installed which enables strict border
monitoring and control.
Information on these bills can be obtained at::
http://www.hslda.org/Legislation/National/2003/S89/default.asp
and
http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html
See also,
www.senate.gov (click on Committee, Armed
Services, Defense Authorization Bill),
www.workingforchange.com/activism/index.cfm.
Many people are unaware of these
bills. If you are against the bills, it is imperative that you contact
your Senators and tell them to oppose these bills. They need to know
how we feel now, since there is a war and elections are just around the
corner. Please take the time to fax, e-mail, telephone or write
to the following offices to express your concerns. It is best to fax
the information, as action can be taken that much sooner. Don’t wait--
It might be your daughter or son who will be drafted.
1.
Maryland Senators
Honorable Senator Steny H. Hoyer
1705 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-4131/202-225-4300 (fax)
Honorable Senator Barbara Mikulski
Hart Senate Office Building
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-4654/202-224-8858 (fax)
Honorable Senator Paul S. Sarbanes
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-4524/202-224-1651 (fax)
2. Senator Ernest F. Hollings
represents South Carolina and sponsored the bills. Write/call
his office informing him you oppose to these bills at:
Honorable Senator Ernest F. Hollings
125 Russell Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-6121
3. Senator Charles B. Rangel
is a representative from New York and helped introduce the bills.
Write/call his office informing him you oppose to these bills at:
Honorable Senator Charles B. Rangel
2354 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
4. Senators John Warner and Carl
Leven have oversight for the Senate Armed Services Committee. As of
5/7/04, the Committee is giving consideration to the bills and results
will be reported on the Senate web (www.senate.gov)
during 5/10 - 5/14/04 (see reference in
first paragraph above). Write and call them to oppose the bills at:
Honorable Senator John Warner
Honorable Senator Carl Leven
Committee on Armed Services
U.S. Russell Senate Office Building
Room 228
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3871//2023
5. Senator John F. Kerry is
running for presidency. Express your concern to him at:
Honorable Senator John F. Kerry
304 Russell Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-2742
Kerry’s Presidential Election Office in
Washington, DC is 202-464-2063 or 202-712-3000.
6. For a full
list of representatives (53) and websites, go to:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newseek.cgi?site=ctc&state=ca
7. Capitol Hill Switchboard:
202-224-3121.
8. The law requires all
males register at age 18 through the U.S. Selective Service. The
Service maintains information on males having U.S. citizenship and can
be used during a draft. Penalties for not registering are five years
imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. For further information, contact the
U.S. Selective Service at 888-655-1825 or 703-605-4000.
This is a serious
matter, if you believe that a U.S. Military Draft would be harmful to
America and/or the world at large do not
delay, take action
RIGHT NOW!
Thank You. |
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WEEK of 5-3-04 to
5-7-04 (Updated 5-9-04) |
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Much is out there about the American
dungeons in Iraq, if something remarkable is found, the notification
will be in User Tips.
This week's GCP HOT topics:
Radioactive Wastewater Crop Irrigation & The Plutonium Files.
Radioactive Wastewater Crop Irrigation
U.S. Intentionally Gives Radiation Poisoning to Thousands of Unknowing
American Citizens
These are serious, do not
delay, watch the
broadcasts
RIGHT NOW!
Thank You. |
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WEEK of 4-26-04 to
4-30-04 (Updated 5-2-04) |
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GCP Book Worm, Alert: Noteworthy
books:
To listen to an interview with
George Monbiot (highly recommended) visit
Democracy Now ! |
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WEEK of 4-19-04 to
4-23-04 (Updated 4-25-04) |
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This week's GCP HOT topic: Photos
of Dead U.S. Soldiers from the Iraq war. |
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Independent news sources have reported the
outing of one of this administration's many shames, U.S. Iraq war dead.
As might be imagined, many GCP sources covered the story and published
the "respectful" photos. The photos are shown by numerous GCP
links, particularly recommendable is the new GCP PRINT NEWS link
The Memory Hole
. If the link is non-functional when it is
tried, the GCP suggests that GCPers look to BUSH links for the
pictures. To see the pictures and hear quality analysis on the
subject, watch one of the streamed show files on the 4-23-04 edition of
Democracy Now ! . |
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Noteworthy Event: Would you
like some more great news ?
Democracy Now! reports
that
Mordechai Vanunu was freed !!! For more on
this outstanding development, check out the GCP
Islamic News
link
U.S. Campaign to free
Mordechai Vanunu
. |
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Noteworthy Event: Would you
like some more great news ?
Democracy Now! reports the the fight
to save the Sierra Club from the attempted racist take over
was won !!! (at least
this battle was won. As David Brower pointed out in the early days of
the Sierra Club, the war is never won, & each battle is an opportunity
to loose what was saved in prior battles). For more on
this outstanding development, check out the GCP
Green
News
link
Save the Sierra Club
to access the link for the organization known as
"Groundswell Sierra". |
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WEEK of 4-12-04 to
4-16-04 (Updated 4-16-04) |
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An article on what "W" 's second term
would be like can be found at
American Prospect . The article seems to be a probable
assessment of the predictable conditions that would result.
Readers will note that the American Prospect has a link on the GCP home page.
"A.P." is a liberal link. The GCP is generally more targeted
towards exposing readers to progressive information and candidates (for
instance Dennis Kusinich &
Ralph Nader). But the GCP advocates no candidate, and is intended to provide to
the mainstream audience alternative news that is often external to
mainstream media sources.
For more liberal, and mainstream news and analysis, the GCP suggests readers seek the all to available mainstream news
sources. For one excellent source of some GCP links, some great
research links, non-GCP news sources, and numerous links to familiar
mainstream news sources, the GCP highly recommends Dr. Serajul I. Bhuiyan's
website . |
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Noteworthy Event: Would you
like some great news ?
Democracy Now! & Free Speech Radio
News report
Farouk Abdel-Muhti was freed !!! For more on
this outstanding development, check out the GCP
Islamic News
link
Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti
. To hear post release interviews with Farouk, go
to the 4-13-04 broadcasts on Free Speech
Radio News & Democracy Now!. |
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WEEK of 4-5-04 to
4-9-04 (Updated 4-11-04) |
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| Upstaged by
the Iraqi escalation is
this week's GCP HOT topic: DEPLETED URANIUM |
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| You
may or may have not explored this subject from a GCP link or some other
source, but if you are reading this ,
you should investigate DEPLETED URANIUM, NOW! |
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| Here's the
way to find out about: |
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1) the current information about our
soldiers' exposure to D.U. from Monday's 4-5-04
Democracy Now! broadcast.
2) the scoop on D.U., what it is, it's
history... go to the
W.M.D. and
U.S. Military
links in the GCP home page. |
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| And from
a 4-5-04 Green Party U.S.A. news letter, more information on D.U. from a
variety of sources including N.Y. Daily News,
Democracy Now!, and
others. Reprinted by permission. |
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BREAKING NEWS NY Daily
News cover story:
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/180333p-156685c.html
Cover:
SHELL SHOCK: Uranium from U.S. Ammo in Sick Troops Coming
Home from Iraq
One of FIVE stories on Depleted Uranium and sick GIs in Sunday's NY
Daily News:
Poisoned? Shocking report reveals local troops
may be victims of America's high-tech weapons
By JUAN GONZALEZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, April 4, 2004
Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving
in Iraq are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from
depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops, a Daily News
investigation has found.
They are among several members of the same
company, the 442nd
Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical
ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah.
"I got sick instantly in June," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, a Brooklyn
housing cop. "My health kept going downhill with daily headaches,
constant numbness in my hands and rashes on my stomach."
A nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested nine soldiers from
the company says that four "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust
from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium.
Laboratory tests conducted at the request of The
News revealed traces
of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the
soldiers.
If so, the men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos
and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - are the first confirmed cases of inhaled
depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict.
The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York
cops, firefighters
and correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County.
Dispatched to Iraq last Easter, the unit's members have been providing
guard duty for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The
entire
company is due to return home later this month.
"These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were
military police not exposed to the heat of battle," said Dr. Asaf
Duracovic, who examined the G.I.s and performed the testing that was
funded by The News.
"Other American soldiers who were in combat must
have more
depleted uranium exposure," said Duracovic, a colonel in the Army
Reserves who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
While working at a military hospital in Delaware, he was one of the
first
doctors to discover unusual radiation levels in Gulf War veterans. He
has since become a leading critic of the use of depleted uranium in
warfare.
[Much more: please go to
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/180333p-156685c.html ]
--------------------------
The stories by Juan Gonzalez in Sunday's NY Daily News are extremely
powerful and pathbreaking. Already, Monday's newspaper reports that,
in response to the articles, the US Department of Defense has
announced that all GIs returning from Iraq will be tested for Uranium
poisoning. But on Democracy Now!, the Pacifica network's daily radio
show co-hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Doctor (and US
Army Colonel) Asaf Duracovic explained how the testing had not been
done, despite prior promises. In addition, the kinds of tests proposed
are insufficient and, indeed, are the wrong ones!
www.democracynow.org
A dozen years ago the Gulf War provided the U.S.
military with the
opportunity to test new depleted uranium weapons, nerve gas
medications and biological warfare vaccines in the field, on its own
soldiers. Inoculations - some genetically engineered and
experimental - were mandatory and generally done without the
consent and often against the will of the soldiers. These all are now
viewed by independent researchers as co-factors in the development
of Gulf War Syndrome, mysterious ailments afflicting tens of thousands
of American veterans of the Gulf war.
Next, President Clinton bombed Yugoslavia with
missiles encased in
so-called depleted uranium - weapons that are now being used
against Afghanistan and Iraq (again), irradiating soil and water, and
poisoning the land for generations. Childhood cancers have
skyrocketed in Iraq and in Yugoslavia. At long last, we now have the
first
mainstream exposé of the effects of depleted uranium on US soldiers,
something the Greens have been warning about for over a decade.
The Greens/Green Party USA has been fighting
against the
development and use of depleted uranium weapons since their first
widespread use in Gulf War I and again in NATOs bombardment of
Yugoslavia in the late 1990s. In new reports, more than 10 metric tons
of uranium particles have been found to have spread all over Kuwait
since the first Gulf war. The quarterly journal Synthesis/Regeneration,
which GPUSA sends free of charge to all members, has carried a
number of articles explaining depleted uranium and condemning its
use. So has Green Politix, our national newspaper.
In "Depleted Uranium as Low Intensity Nuclear War"
(Synthesis/Regeneration #15, Winter 1998), Mitchel Cohen wrote:
Almost all of [the US soldiers who died were] killed by so-called
"friendly fire," shot accidentally by their fellow soldiers. (1) The 14
US
M1A1 Abrams tanks destroyed in the Gulf war were knocked out by
"friendly fire" as well.
All 14 were hit by a new kind of ammunition:
shells encased in
"depleted uranium" (DU), which makes them super-hard and able to
penetrate all existing armor-plating. DU was used exclusively by US
and British forces in the Gulf, not only as armor-penetrating
ammunition by M1A1 Abrams tanks and A-10 attack planes, but as tank
armor. DU, which is 1.6 times denser than lead, proved so effective that
not a single US tank was destroyed by Iraqi fire. On the other hand,
over
the course of the two month war, 3,700 Iraqi tanks were obliterated -
1,400 of them by shells encased in depleted uranium. Thousands of
artillery pieces, armored personnel carriers, and other equipment were
destroyed by DU rounds. More than 1 million shells encased in
depleted uranium were fired. By war's end, roughly 300 tons of uranium
from spent rounds lay scattered in various sizes and states of decay
across the battlefields of Iraq and Kuwait. (2)
<snip>
Leaving more than 600,000 pounds of depleted uranium scattered
throughout the region, by war's end the US had turned the Gulf area
into a deadly radioactive grid, affecting not only US soldiers but
hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people who live and work
in the Gulf. A single molecular particle of depleted uranium will
subject
an individual to radiation at a level 800 times what is permitted by
federal regulations for external exposure. (10) As DU-artillery shells
heat up, the uranium becomes aerosolized, releasing high amounts of
radioactivity, not the low amounts the military claims for "normal"
depleted uranium. Clouds of deadly uranium dioxide swept over large
areas of Iraq and Kuwait, devastating agriculture, soil, and water. (11)
Radioactivity inflicts severe damage on the total environment while
weakening immune systems, destroying the kidneys, lungs, bones,
and liver, and rendering the human body susceptible to all sorts of
diseases that a healthy individual might have been able to ward off.
Iraqi children continue to find uranium-coated shells; they have been
coming down with all sorts of deadly illnesses associated with
radiation poisoning. Is it any wonder that many symptoms of Gulf War
Syndrome are so similar to radiation sickness? Welcome to the wave
of the future: "low intensity" nuclear war, inaugurated in the Gulf War
by
the United States.
<snip>
A secret report by the British government estimated that the use of
depleted uranium weapons in the Gulf could alone account for 500,000
deaths in the region. (13) That report was based on estimates that 25
tons of depleted uranium munitions had been used; in actuality, the
Department of Defense now estimates that the US fired more than 12
times that amount. The Pentagon threw all its new toys of mass
destruction into the slaughter, trying out new weapons, offering
ever-new justification (as the Cold War was winding down) for its
enormous "defense" budget.
The US Department of Defense has more than 1.1
billion pounds of
nuclear waste in storage from 50 years of nuclear weapons production
and nuclear power plants. The government, hemmed in by public
opposition, health and environmental movements, is always trying to
find new "acceptable" ways to dispose of it. It has apparently found
one.
Billions of dollars allotted to the Environmental Restoration branch of
the Department of Energy for cleaning up nuclear waste sites is now
being used to ship nuclear waste free-of-charge to munitions
manufacturers all over the world to be "recycled" into weapons.
Where is the cry at the United Nations to end the
manufacture and use
of such weapons before it's too late? Many countries have now begun
manufacturing weapons cased in depleted uranium. In introducing the
use of depleted uranium weapons the US government used its own
soldiers as guinea pigs, permanently destroyed the ecology of the
region, and left an ongoing legacy of childhood leukemia, birth defects
and poisoned water for civilians living in the Gulf, while making low
intensity nuclear weapons the necessary norm for all future conflicts.
Endnotes:
1. Patrick Sloyan, "For Gulf War Troops, Fire Wasn't Friendly," New York
Newsday, August 10, 1991.
2. Dan Fahey, "Collateral Damage: How U.S. Troops
Were Exposed To
Depleted Uranium During the Persian Gulf War," in Metal of Dishonor:
Depleted Uranium: How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers and Civilians
with DU Weapons, International Action Center, 1997, p. 28. Fahey is a
director of the National Depleted Uranium Citizens' Network of the
Military Toxics Project (MTP), PO Box 845, Sabattus, ME 04280; (207)
375-8482; mtp@igc.apc.org.
10. Dr. J.W. Gofman, a biomedical researcher for
the San
Francisco-based Committee for Nuclear Responsibility.
11. Lafitte & Laffite, "The Use of Radioactive
Weapons Against the 'lraqi
Enemy,'" in Le Monde Diplomatique, April, 1995. "On impact, a high
portion of the metallic mass is transformed into an aerosol whose fine
particles, easily carried by the wind, are easily absorbed."
13. British Atomic Energy Administration, printed in the London
Independent, Nov 1991. Cited by 102.Hoskins, op cit, & Messler, op cit.
- Mitchel Cohen
Co-editor, Green Politix,
and Rising Up Green! e-newsletter
[For the full article in Synthesis/Regeneration:
http://www.greens.org/s-r/15/15-20.html.
Mitchel has written extensively
on Depleted Uranium, genetically engineered vaccines and the Gulf
War, and you may write to him directly for articles on the subject at
mitchelcohen@mindspring.com.
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