THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2011
A visit on May 8th, 2011 from Google Inc. in Mountain View, California (66.249.68.247) to a StevenWarRan blog titled 'Closed Shop Forensics,' came via www.google.com/reader/view, but the page it linked to was missing, and I could find no sign of a draft version or its publishing history on my Google dashboard. Knowing what I was looking for, I searched for the title, and found that the very kind Bill Giltner had it maintained over at SharedCopy, which has allowed me to repost it here below.
http://sharedcopy.com/p/d863c7b476e71b0707a6979485e49433/10839
http://stevenwarran.blogspot.com.sharedcopy.com/2008/05/d863c7b476e71b0707a6979485e49433.html
I don't know if it was the deliberate intent of someone at Google to alert me to the fact my blog page had disappeared, but I'm grateful it turned out that way. It comes at a time when I've had several other blogs taken offline by Google due to claims of copyright infringement (It is my habit to post newsworthy articles in full over at StevenWarRan Backstage, since whenever I cite some actionable intelligence from a "published" source, posting a link to it tends not to last. The Washington Post is especially egregious in using robots.txt to scrub clean the web history of certain articles when the "facts" they contain turn out to be inconvenient later on.)
Upon receiving a complaint, Google reverts an offending blog to draft status, which can at least allow for editing, but apparently Google doesn't investigate or adjudicate disputes. In this blog though, I only quoted from an official government report concerning the September 11th attack on the Pentagon, so perhaps I simply pressed the delete button inadvertently somewhere along the way. However, the point I was making three years ago seems especially relevant now, as the U.S. government will possibly make public forensic evidence that will prove Osama bin Laden was recently killed in an attack by American special forces, and subsequently buried at sea.
Remembering that the military was charged with handling all the evidence of dead bodies at the Pentagon, (and oddly enough, at the crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania as well, where the county medical examiner is the official normally mandated with conducting such an investigation, ) gives me a dim view of the recent developments in the war on terror.
Closed Shop Forensics
SUNDAY, MAY 04, 2008
I finally found a quote I was seeking, mercifully preserved for posterity and the public record on page 69 of the Arlington County After-Action Report
"Dr. Marcella Fierro, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, met with FBI and DoD officials at the JOC on September 12. She informed them that Virginia forensic laboratory and mortuary resources were prepared to go to work in support of the response. The FBI and DoD officials declined the offer, preferring to conduct forensic and mortuary activities at DoD facilities. Dr. Fierro asked for and received a letter from Attorney General Ashcroft relieving the Commonwealth of Virginia of those responsibilities."
Since the presence of bodies is a cornerstone "proof" a jetliner filled with travelers struck the Pentagon on September 11th, it would have been more believable if a broader spectrum of professionals had been allowed to do their legally mandated jobs. With the FBI and the DoJ being the sole responders in Shanksville for instance, why was the military tasked with the forensics on the bodies there? Didn't the county coroner say, "Till this day, I haven't seen a drop of blood?"
Thank you Dr. Fierro for laying a golden egg then. It will soon hatch so the chickens can come home to roost.
____________________________________
In 1962, one of the suggestions contained in "Operation Northwoods," which was just a "respon[se] to a request...for brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for U.S. military intervention in Cuba," was to "sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock victims."
While this is of course relevant to the pretexts the United States used to invade Iraq, my question seeks to parse out the meaning in the suggestion that [real] funerals be conducted for mock victims, as distinct from mock funerals for [pretend] victims.
In other words, if Operation Northwoods had become a reality, what would this suggestion have looked like? Clearly, we wouldn't hold mock funerals for the benefit of the Cubans. We could simply blow up a ship like once happened with the Maine, but that entails real funerals, which, as 9-11 proves in our time, definitely does the trick. So why didn't the joint Chief's simply suggest such a sacrifice as a kind of necessary collateral damage? The planners would do the mocking, while the unwitting wouldn't know what hit them until it was too late.
So, I am intrigued by this "mock" business.
In order to get the required emotional outrage going to feed our collective desire for revenge, we would have to have legitimately grieving families. In order to accomplish this the funeral wouldn't be so mock to the survivors. Only the planners and the individual volunteers would be in on the "mock" business, undergoing something very similar to deaths--at least as far as their grieving families are concerned.
Lets say a ship filled with mostly twenty-somethings is blown up with no survivors. That sounds like it could trigger a pretext. But to whom would these "mock deaths" mock? The family members couldn't all be in on it. That would require very good acting. So what I imagine is that any volunteers to this sort of enterprise would undergo the equivalent of social and personal annihilation, as they begin new lives elsewhere, in an adapted "witness protection" type program, perhaps in Tahiti.
Would this sort of scenario have a time limit on it? Could the records be sealed for some period like 30 years, then the truth could spill out when we were mature enough to handle it?
Off hand, what was the state of Barbara and Ted Olsen's marriage in September, 2001?
Which brings me to my point.
I have long suspected that some, if not many, of the victims of the Arlington and Shanksville portions of 9-11, may in fact be alive, sequestered away somewhere, awaiting a turn in their political fortunes perhaps.
I have no logical evidence to support this theory, only a handful of anomalous details in the narrative. Plus a sense of power imbalances on the plane manifests. I mean, Flight 93 was the frigging hero narrative flight. You don't get raw hero-myth material like that by accident. Bring it on I say.
Anybody else have any thoughts on the subject? Maybe Pinch will append a comment here. He surely has an insider background that will enable him to see the flaws in my logic.
Elitism! Secrecy! Tradition!
POSTED BY STEVENWARRAN AT 5/12/2011 12:01:00 AM
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Dave Statter
stevenwarran said...Dave, I don't mean to be rude, but are you a fool? Bri and Bob's little film has been edited to remove the second crash. Why, for heaven's sake, would they edit out the most important piece of video evidence in the history of the frigging world? And why would you proffer up their film as some important "What We Saw" kind of evidence?
- Dave Statter said...
- stevenwarran,
In answer to your first question, yes, I probably am a fool.
I have no clue if Bob and Bri's video is edited. Nor do I care.
From my experience with some home video cameras it looks more like a camera start than an edit. Appears to me they weren't rolling constantly at that point and started the camera right after the second impact. Either way, what's your point?
Are you saying that Bri and Bob "implied" they were at the WTC much as you claim I "implied" I was at the Pentagon.
Are they part of the same conspiracy you claim I am part of? I haven't met them at the club meetings. If I had, I probably would have run their video sooner.
Statter
Yes Dave, I think Bob (if not Bri originally) is/was ultimately "in on it." Bought off, like the seven billion in hush money that went to the victims---at least a few billion more could go to the co-conspirators---and that would include you, for the record, and all your Arlington firetots.
Along with about 90 percent of the "9/11 truth movement" leaders also. The false dialectics they've been sprouting has begun to wither in the dustified fields of post-9/11 America.
And yes, I realize it seems as though I think everybody else but me is a part of the conspiracy. That's not so far off base. Good people who catch glimmers of the truth turn away in horror, as it is all a bit too big for them to handle. I'm the REAL pit bull in lipstick around here my friends! Grrrrr!
Thanks for publishing my wee little comments on your blog, friend, and for driving some traffic my way on the anniversary of the "events." I don't think you're the bad guy, necessarily. The truth of that will be borne out by your behavior from here on in. Treat me with kindness in the camps is all I ask.
Dear nj steve
So, you can speak for all the firematics professionals who visit Dave's blog? How is that? Unanimity of opinion behind that "blue (or yellow) wall of silence?"
I'm not looking for sympathy. The internet is already divided up into its various camps--I've been banned from most of them. Just aiming to lend some cross cultural esprit cordial, here. It is Dave who chooses to publish my little contributions, and I'm grateful for the traffic he sends my way.
By the way, Bob and Bri's video has been online for over two years now and is very well known, although, seeing it again through fresh eyes even more truth comes across.
It is Dave's own video contributions to 9/11, along with that of his Gannett colleagues and the Arlington County firemen, that should really concern the readership here. The big guys always get away. The little guys pay the price. Good luck.
News Timeline 9/11/01
9:40am CNN chyron change to “Reports of Fire at Pentagon.”
9:41am AP reports - Pentagon evacuated due to fire
Pentagon. “We don’t know what caused this.”
9:42am CBS Roane quotes “workers report sounds and a “rumble.”
9:42am CNN Aaron Brown interviews Chris Plant about fire and helicopter circling
9:43 AP: 'An aircraft has crashed into the Pentagon, witnesses say. The West Wing of the White House is being evacuated amid terrorist threats.'
9:43 (According to C&B) AP: 'An aircraft has crashed into the Pentagon, witnesses say. The West Wing of the White House is being evacuated amid terrorist threats.'
9:43am CBS Roane says “Associated Press is quoting witnesses as saying it was an aircraft that
crashed into the Pentagon."
9:43am CNN Aaron Brown "we’re getting reports now that the White House is being evacuated
as well,"
9:46 CBS Buchanan quoting the Associated Press: “He said it was a large airliner"...“I saw the
tail of a large airliner, it plowed into the Pentagon,” according to an Associated Press
radio reporter."
9:46am, AP reports - Reports of helicopter crashing into Pentagon
crashed at the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is being evacuated."
9:48am CNN Brown concludes his interview of Chris Plant
9:48 CBS Roane interviews eyewitness, Don Chauncey, who saw a white, “Gulf- Stream-type”
commuter jet strike the Pentagon.
9:50 CBS Roane interviews Dawn Vignola, (with Mr. Tim Timmerman,)
"American Airlines 757, no doubt about it."
9:52am AP reports - Terrorist threats made against the White House
10:04am CBS Roane says, “An Associated Press reporter says he saw the tail end of a large airliner plunge into the Pentagon building.”
10:04am CBS Roane says, “these are raw footage coming back, that’s our reporter there on the scene who will be giving us stories in just a few minutes.”
10:11am Eagle1 Park Police helicopter Medivac lands on Route 27
10:11am AP reports- Large airliner crashes into the Pentagon
abandoned
10:15am CBS Dave Statter says, “Ah! Oh it collapsed right now!
10:35am AP reports - Car bomb explodes at State Department
10:39am AP report - Pentagon collapses
11:03am AP report - Car bombing outside of State Department
01:46pm CNN Bob Franken CNN interview Tim Timmerman
04:39pm FOX studio interview with Aziz ElHallan.
9:41am AP reports - Pentagon evacuated due to fire
- The Pentagon is being evacuated in expectation of a terrorist attack.
- It is believed a fire has broken out in the building.
- The White House has also been evacuated.
Pentagon. “We don’t know what caused this.”
9:42am CBS Roane quotes “workers report sounds and a “rumble.”
9:42am CNN Aaron Brown interviews Chris Plant about fire and helicopter circling
9:43 AP: 'An aircraft has crashed into the Pentagon, witnesses say. The West Wing of the White House is being evacuated amid terrorist threats.'
9:43 (According to C&B) AP: 'An aircraft has crashed into the Pentagon, witnesses say. The West Wing of the White House is being evacuated amid terrorist threats.'
9:43am CBS Roane says “Associated Press is quoting witnesses as saying it was an aircraft that
crashed into the Pentagon."
9:43am CNN Aaron Brown "we’re getting reports now that the White House is being evacuated
as well,"
9:46 CBS Buchanan quoting the Associated Press: “He said it was a large airliner"...“I saw the
tail of a large airliner, it plowed into the Pentagon,” according to an Associated Press
radio reporter."
9:46am, AP reports - Reports of helicopter crashing into Pentagon
- There are reports that a helicopter has crashed into the Pentagon.
- An eyewitness said that they saw the helicopter circle the building and after it disappeared behind it, an explosion occurred.
crashed at the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is being evacuated."
9:48am CNN Brown concludes his interview of Chris Plant
9:48 CBS Roane interviews eyewitness, Don Chauncey, who saw a white, “Gulf- Stream-type”
commuter jet strike the Pentagon.
9:50 CBS Roane interviews Dawn Vignola, (with Mr. Tim Timmerman,)
"American Airlines 757, no doubt about it."
9:52am AP reports - Terrorist threats made against the White House
- The FBI has evacuated the White House after they received what they said were "creditable threats" against the White House.
- All airports across the US have been shut down.
- Paul Begala, a Democratic consultant, said he witnessed a explosion near the Pentagon shortly after two planes crashed into World Trade Centre.
- ‘‘It was a huge fireball, a huge, orange fireball,’’ Begala said.
- He said another witness told him a helicopter exploded.
- Later a DFLP official denied responsibility for the attack.
10:04am CBS Roane says, “An Associated Press reporter says he saw the tail end of a large airliner plunge into the Pentagon building.”
10:04am CBS Roane says, “these are raw footage coming back, that’s our reporter there on the scene who will be giving us stories in just a few minutes.”
10:11am Eagle1 Park Police helicopter Medivac lands on Route 27
10:11am AP reports- Large airliner crashes into the Pentagon
- Paul Begala, a Democratic consultant, said he witnessed an explosion near the Pentagon.
- "It was a huge fireball, a huge, orange fireball," Begala said in an interview on his cell phone.
- He said another witness told him a helicopter exploded.
- AP reporter Dave Winslow also saw the crash. He said, "I saw the tail of a large airliner..... It plowed right into the Pentagon."
- Another eyewitness has said that it was a low-flying commercial airliner which crashed into the Pentagon.
- Other major government institutions, including Treasury and the State
- Department, were also evacuated.
abandoned
10:15am CBS Dave Statter says, “Ah! Oh it collapsed right now!
10:35am AP reports - Car bomb explodes at State Department
- There are reports of a car bombing at the State Department.
10:39am AP report - Pentagon collapses
- Parts of the Pentagon have collapsed after a plane crashed into it.
- There are reports that a car bomb has exploded outside the US State Department in Washington.
- Another hijacked aircraft is on its way to Washington.
- The White House, US Treasury and the Capitol as well as other major buildings in Washington and Chicago have all been evacuated.
11:03am AP report - Car bombing outside of State Department
01:46pm CNN Bob Franken CNN interview Tim Timmerman
04:39pm FOX studio interview with Aziz ElHallan.
Dershowitz on War Crimes, Ezzedeen al Qassam Brigades Information Office,
In an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, Alan Dershowitz attempted to lay out a case for Hamas' war crimes, saying, "it targets Israeli citizens with rockets, then shields its fighters behind Palestinian civilians," labeling it, "Hamas' double war crime tactic."
"This is the Hamas dual strategy," according to Dershowitz, "to kill and injure as many Israeli civilians as possible by firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian targets, and to provoke Israel to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible to garner world sympathy."
But this appears to be a libel against the Palestinians in Gaza by Mr. Dershowitz. Since Israelis so completely dominate the contemporary paradigm (acting as antagonists, as well as protagonists in many cases, obviating the need for Palestinians to even get up out of their chairs.) one must hunt to find authentic Palestinian voices. When found, they are instantly recognizable contrasted with the Jewish faux.
At the English-language web site, Ezzedeen al Qassam Brigades Information Office, Israel is only known as "the Zionist entity," so here is an authentic voice of opposition. In what they call "Statements," the military wing of Hamas archives hundreds of what appear to be scrupulous after-action reports of the military actions they undertake. A sense of purpose about their enterprise is readily apparent here, especially when contrasted with the guile and deflection so common in Israeli and American reporting. And in a clear preponderance of cases, Hamas is targeting Israeli military resources, or their equivalents.
I wasn't aware that the sort of mortar and homemade-Qassam rockets that Hamas mostly utilizes could be targeted with the kind of specificity recorded here. But judging by their level of intent as spelled out here, Hamas doesn't engage in a policy of indiscriminate firing into purely civilian areas.
In the West Bank, on Monday, 15 December 2008, an OF undercover unit extra-judicially executed Jihad Ahmed Ameen Nawahda, 21, a member of the al-Quds Brigades
(the armed wing of Islamic Jihad), in al-Yamoun village west of Jenin. Nawahda was hit by multiple gunshots to the back, the abdomen and the legs. Nine Palestinian civilians, including 3 children, were wounded when OF used force against peaceful demonstrations organized in protest to the construction of the Annexation Wall west of Ramallah.
Also 3 Palestinian civilians, including a man and his son, were wounded by Zionist settlers' gunfire in Hebron on 4 and 5 December 2008. On Sunday, 12 December 2008, a Palestinian child was seriously wounded by a gunshot to the head fired by OF troops that provided protection to Zionist settlers who attacked Palestinian civilians and property in Hebron.
OF conducted at least 38 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. During these incursions, OF arrested 50 Palestinian civilians, including 14 children and a girl, Thus, the number of Palestinian civilians arrested by OF in the West Bank since the beginning of 2008 has mounted to 2,311. OF also transformed 8 houses in Hebron into military sites. In the Gaza Strip, OF troops that had moved into 'Abassan village, east of Khan Yunis, arrested 3 Palestinian civilians, including 2 children, for some hours.
OF have continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. OF imposed a comprehensive closure on the OPT for the the Jewish Sukkot. Gaza Strip OF have continued to close all border crossings to the Gaza Strip for more than two years. The OF siege of Gaza, which has steadily tightened since June 2007, has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Power plant completely stopped operation due to the lack of energy fuel. Over the past three weeks, OF have allowed only 1,721,610 liters of energy fuel into the Gaza Strip, an amount which can operate the power plant for only 5 days.
The main concern of 1.5 million people living in the Gaza Strip is to obtain their basic needs of food, medicines, water and electricity supplies. The majority of the civilian population lack access to drinking water. Electricity is cut off for 100,000s of civilians from 8-12 hours daily, which has impacted at least 500,000 students or various stages of education who are currently having exams.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was forced to suspend it humanitarian aids program for at least 750,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip for 5 days. Thousands of Palestinian civilians have been forced to wait in long queues to buy bread. The Rafah International Crossing Point has been opened for a few days for a number of patients who received medical treatment abroad and needed to return home to the Gaza Strip.
OF have continued to close Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the face of Palestinian civilians wishing to travel to the West Bank and Zionist for medical treatment, trade or social visits.
OF have imposed additional restrictions on access of international diplomats, journalists and humanitarian workers to the Gaza Strip. They have prevented representatives of several international humanitarian organizations from entering the Gaza Strip.
OF have decreased the number of patients allowed to travel through Erez crossing to receive medical treatment in hospitals in the West Bank and Zionist entity to an average of 17 patients daily, which marks a decrease by 15% in comparison with the first quarter of 2008.
Health conditions in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated and all medical facilities have been impacted as scores of medical sets are operated by electricity. Dozens medicines have been lacking.
The lives of newly born babies, whose development has not been completed, is endangered as they need medical equipments in neonatal units that are operated by electricity. Living conditions of the Palestinian civilian population have seriously deteriorated; levels of poverty and unemployment have sharply mounted. At least 900 Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails have been deprived for family visitation for more than 16 months.
West Bank OF have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians throughout the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinian civilians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be denied access to Jerusalem. OF have established checkpoints in and around Jerusalem, severely restricting Palestinian access to the city. Civilians are frequently prevented from praying at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. There are approximately permanent 630 roadblocks, manned and unmanned checkpoints across the West Bank. In addition, there are some 60-80 ‘flying’ or temporary checkpoints erected across the West Bank by OF every week.
When complete, the illegal Annexation Wall will stretch for 724 kilometers around the West Bank, further isolating the entire population. 350 kilometers of the Wall has already been constructed. Approximately 99% of the Wall has been constructed inside the West Bank itself, further confiscating Palestinian land. At least 65% of the main roads that leads to 18 Palestinian communities in the West Bank are closed or fully controlled by OF (47 out of 72 roads).
There are around 500 kilometers of restricted roads across the West Bank. In addition, approximately one third of the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, is inaccessible to Palestinians without a permit issued by the OF. These permits are extremely difficult to obtain. OF continue to harass, and assault demonstrators who hold peaceful protests against the construction of the Annexation Wall. Palestinian civilians continue to be harassed by OF in Jerusalem, and across the West Bank, including being regularly stopped and searched in the streets by OF.
OF arrested 6 Palestinian civilians, including a child, at various checkpoints in the West Bank. OF have escalated arbitrary measures against Palestinian civilians in East Jerusalem to force them to leave the city. OF stormed and confiscated for the third a tent set up by the al-Kurd family in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It is worth noting that OF seized Fawzia al-Kurd's house on 9 November 2008 and expelled the family from it. Since that date, Fawzia al-Kurd has lived in a tent set up near the house.
OF have continued settlement activities and Zionist settlers living in the OPT in violation of international humanitarian law have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property. Zionist settlers living in "Kiryat Arba" and "Kharsina" settlements and settlement outposts in the southeast and the center of Hebron launched a series of systematic terrorist attacks against Palestinian civilians and property in nearby Palestinian residential areas in Hebron. OF provided protection for settlers, the settlers used firearms, empty bottles and stones in their attacks. A number of Palestinian civilians were injured, 4 houses were burnt, 5 vehicles were destroyed and some other property was damaged.
In the West Bank, on Monday, 15 December 2008, an OF undercover unit extra-judicially executed Jihad Ahmed Ameen Nawahda, 21, a member of the al-Quds Brigades (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad), in al-Yamoun village west of Jenin. Nawahda was hit by multiple gunshots to the back, the abdomen and the legs.
Nine Palestinian civilians, including 3 children, were wounded when OF used force against peaceful demonstrations organized in protest to the construction of the Annexation Wall west of Ramallah.
Also 3 Palestinian civilians, including a man and his son, were wounded by Zionist settlers' gunfire in Hebron on 4 and 5 December 2008.
On Sunday, 12 December 2008, a Palestinian child was seriously wounded by a gunshot to the head fired by OF troops that provided protection to Zionist settlers who attacked Palestinian civilians and property in Hebron.
OF conducted at least 38 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. During these incursions, OF arrested 50 Palestinian civilians, including 14 children and a girl, Thus, the number of Palestinian civilians arrested by OF in the West Bank since the beginning of 2008 has mounted to 2,311. OF also transformed 8 houses in Hebron into military sites. In the Gaza Strip, OF troops that had moved into 'Abassan village, east of Khan Yunis, arrested 3 Palestinian civilians, including 2 children, for some hours.
OF have continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. OF imposed a comprehensive closure on the OPT for the the Jewish Sukkot.
Gaza Strip OF have continued to close all border crossings to the Gaza Strip for more than two years. The OF siege of Gaza, which has steadily tightened since June 2007, has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Power plant completely stopped operation due to the lack of energy fuel. Over the past three weeks, OF have allowed only 1,721,610 liters of energy fuel into the Gaza Strip, an amount which can operate the power plant for only 5 days. The main concern of 1.5 million people living in the Gaza Strip is to obtain their basic needs of food, medicines, water and electricity supplies. The majority of the civilian population lack access to drinking water. Electricity is cut off for 100,000s of civilians from 8-12 hours daily, which has impacted at least 500,000 students or various stages of education who are currently having exams.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was forced to suspend it humanitarian aids program for at least 750,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip for 5 days. Thousands of Palestinian civilians have been forced to wait in long queues to buy bread. The Rafah International Crossing Point has been opened for a few days for a number of patients who received medical treatment abroad and needed to return home to the Gaza Strip. OF have continued to close Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the face of Palestinian civilians wishing to travel to the West Bank and Zionist for medical treatment, trade or social visits.
OF have imposed additional restrictions on access of international diplomats, journalists and humanitarian workers to the Gaza Strip. They have prevented representatives of several international humanitarian organizations from entering the Gaza Strip.
OF have decreased the number of patients allowed to travel through Erez crossing to receive medical treatment in hospitals in the West Bank and Zionist entity to an average of 17 patients daily, which marks a decrease by 15% in comparison with the first quarter of 2008. Health conditions in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated and all medical facilities have been impacted as scores of medical sets are operated by electricity. Dozens medicines have been lacking. The lives of newly born babies, whose development has not been completed, is endangered as they need medical equipments in neonatal units that are operated by electricity. Living conditions of the Palestinian civilian population have seriously deteriorated; levels of poverty and unemployment have sharply mounted. At least 900 Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails have been deprived for family visitation for more than 16 months.
OF have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians throughout the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinian civilians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be denied access to Jerusalem. OF have established checkpoints in and around Jerusalem, severely restricting Palestinian access to the city. Civilians are frequently prevented from praying at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
There are approximately permanent 630 roadblocks, manned and unmanned checkpoints across the West Bank. In addition, there are some 60-80 ‘flying’ or temporary checkpoints erected across the West Bank by OF every week. When complete, the illegal Annexation Wall will stretch for 724 kilometers around the West Bank, further isolating the entire population. 350 kilometers of the Wall has already been constructed. Approximately 99% of the Wall has been constructed inside the West Bank itself, further confiscating Palestinian land.
At least 65% of the main roads that leads to 18 Palestinian communities in the West Bank are closed or fully controlled by OF (47 out of 72 roads.) There are around 500 kilometers of restricted roads across the West Bank. In addition, approximately one third of the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, is inaccessible to Palestinians without a permit issued by the OF. These permits are extremely difficult to obtain.
OF continue to harass, and assault demonstrators who hold peaceful protests against the construction of the Annexation Wall. Palestinian civilians continue to be harassed by OF in Jerusalem, and across the West Bank, including being regularly stopped and searched in the streets by OF. OF arrested 6 Palestinian civilians, including a child, at various checkpoints in the West Bank. OF stormed and confiscated for the third a tent set up by the al-Kurd family in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It is worth noting that OF seized Fawzia al-Kurd's house on 9 November 2008 and expelled the family from it. Since that date, Fawzia al-Kurd has lived in a tent set up near the house.
OF have continued settlement activities and Zionist settlers living in the OPT in violation of international humanitarian law have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property. Zionist settlers living in "Kiryat Arba" and "Kharsina" settlements and settlement outposts in the southeast and the center of Hebron launched a series of systematic terrorist attacks against Palestinian civilians and property in nearby Palestinian residential areas in Hebron. OF provided protection for settlers, the settlers used firearms, empty bottles and stones in their attacks. A number of Palestinian civilians were injured, 4 houses were burnt, 5 vehicles were destroyed and some other property was damaged.
"This is the Hamas dual strategy," according to Dershowitz, "to kill and injure as many Israeli civilians as possible by firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian targets, and to provoke Israel to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible to garner world sympathy."
But this appears to be a libel against the Palestinians in Gaza by Mr. Dershowitz. Since Israelis so completely dominate the contemporary paradigm (acting as antagonists, as well as protagonists in many cases, obviating the need for Palestinians to even get up out of their chairs.) one must hunt to find authentic Palestinian voices. When found, they are instantly recognizable contrasted with the Jewish faux.
At the English-language web site, Ezzedeen al Qassam Brigades Information Office, Israel is only known as "the Zionist entity," so here is an authentic voice of opposition. In what they call "Statements," the military wing of Hamas archives hundreds of what appear to be scrupulous after-action reports of the military actions they undertake. A sense of purpose about their enterprise is readily apparent here, especially when contrasted with the guile and deflection so common in Israeli and American reporting. And in a clear preponderance of cases, Hamas is targeting Israeli military resources, or their equivalents.
I wasn't aware that the sort of mortar and homemade-Qassam rockets that Hamas mostly utilizes could be targeted with the kind of specificity recorded here. But judging by their level of intent as spelled out here, Hamas doesn't engage in a policy of indiscriminate firing into purely civilian areas.
In the West Bank, on Monday, 15 December 2008, an OF undercover unit extra-judicially executed Jihad Ahmed Ameen Nawahda, 21, a member of the al-Quds Brigades
(the armed wing of Islamic Jihad), in al-Yamoun village west of Jenin. Nawahda was hit by multiple gunshots to the back, the abdomen and the legs. Nine Palestinian civilians, including 3 children, were wounded when OF used force against peaceful demonstrations organized in protest to the construction of the Annexation Wall west of Ramallah.
Also 3 Palestinian civilians, including a man and his son, were wounded by Zionist settlers' gunfire in Hebron on 4 and 5 December 2008. On Sunday, 12 December 2008, a Palestinian child was seriously wounded by a gunshot to the head fired by OF troops that provided protection to Zionist settlers who attacked Palestinian civilians and property in Hebron.
OF conducted at least 38 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. During these incursions, OF arrested 50 Palestinian civilians, including 14 children and a girl, Thus, the number of Palestinian civilians arrested by OF in the West Bank since the beginning of 2008 has mounted to 2,311. OF also transformed 8 houses in Hebron into military sites. In the Gaza Strip, OF troops that had moved into 'Abassan village, east of Khan Yunis, arrested 3 Palestinian civilians, including 2 children, for some hours.
OF have continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. OF imposed a comprehensive closure on the OPT for the the Jewish Sukkot. Gaza Strip OF have continued to close all border crossings to the Gaza Strip for more than two years. The OF siege of Gaza, which has steadily tightened since June 2007, has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Power plant completely stopped operation due to the lack of energy fuel. Over the past three weeks, OF have allowed only 1,721,610 liters of energy fuel into the Gaza Strip, an amount which can operate the power plant for only 5 days.
The main concern of 1.5 million people living in the Gaza Strip is to obtain their basic needs of food, medicines, water and electricity supplies. The majority of the civilian population lack access to drinking water. Electricity is cut off for 100,000s of civilians from 8-12 hours daily, which has impacted at least 500,000 students or various stages of education who are currently having exams.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was forced to suspend it humanitarian aids program for at least 750,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip for 5 days. Thousands of Palestinian civilians have been forced to wait in long queues to buy bread. The Rafah International Crossing Point has been opened for a few days for a number of patients who received medical treatment abroad and needed to return home to the Gaza Strip.
OF have continued to close Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the face of Palestinian civilians wishing to travel to the West Bank and Zionist for medical treatment, trade or social visits.
OF have imposed additional restrictions on access of international diplomats, journalists and humanitarian workers to the Gaza Strip. They have prevented representatives of several international humanitarian organizations from entering the Gaza Strip.
OF have decreased the number of patients allowed to travel through Erez crossing to receive medical treatment in hospitals in the West Bank and Zionist entity to an average of 17 patients daily, which marks a decrease by 15% in comparison with the first quarter of 2008.
Health conditions in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated and all medical facilities have been impacted as scores of medical sets are operated by electricity. Dozens medicines have been lacking.
The lives of newly born babies, whose development has not been completed, is endangered as they need medical equipments in neonatal units that are operated by electricity. Living conditions of the Palestinian civilian population have seriously deteriorated; levels of poverty and unemployment have sharply mounted. At least 900 Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails have been deprived for family visitation for more than 16 months.
West Bank OF have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians throughout the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinian civilians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be denied access to Jerusalem. OF have established checkpoints in and around Jerusalem, severely restricting Palestinian access to the city. Civilians are frequently prevented from praying at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. There are approximately permanent 630 roadblocks, manned and unmanned checkpoints across the West Bank. In addition, there are some 60-80 ‘flying’ or temporary checkpoints erected across the West Bank by OF every week.
When complete, the illegal Annexation Wall will stretch for 724 kilometers around the West Bank, further isolating the entire population. 350 kilometers of the Wall has already been constructed. Approximately 99% of the Wall has been constructed inside the West Bank itself, further confiscating Palestinian land. At least 65% of the main roads that leads to 18 Palestinian communities in the West Bank are closed or fully controlled by OF (47 out of 72 roads).
There are around 500 kilometers of restricted roads across the West Bank. In addition, approximately one third of the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, is inaccessible to Palestinians without a permit issued by the OF. These permits are extremely difficult to obtain. OF continue to harass, and assault demonstrators who hold peaceful protests against the construction of the Annexation Wall. Palestinian civilians continue to be harassed by OF in Jerusalem, and across the West Bank, including being regularly stopped and searched in the streets by OF.
OF arrested 6 Palestinian civilians, including a child, at various checkpoints in the West Bank. OF have escalated arbitrary measures against Palestinian civilians in East Jerusalem to force them to leave the city. OF stormed and confiscated for the third a tent set up by the al-Kurd family in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It is worth noting that OF seized Fawzia al-Kurd's house on 9 November 2008 and expelled the family from it. Since that date, Fawzia al-Kurd has lived in a tent set up near the house.
OF have continued settlement activities and Zionist settlers living in the OPT in violation of international humanitarian law have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property. Zionist settlers living in "Kiryat Arba" and "Kharsina" settlements and settlement outposts in the southeast and the center of Hebron launched a series of systematic terrorist attacks against Palestinian civilians and property in nearby Palestinian residential areas in Hebron. OF provided protection for settlers, the settlers used firearms, empty bottles and stones in their attacks. A number of Palestinian civilians were injured, 4 houses were burnt, 5 vehicles were destroyed and some other property was damaged.
In the West Bank, on Monday, 15 December 2008, an OF undercover unit extra-judicially executed Jihad Ahmed Ameen Nawahda, 21, a member of the al-Quds Brigades (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad), in al-Yamoun village west of Jenin. Nawahda was hit by multiple gunshots to the back, the abdomen and the legs.
Nine Palestinian civilians, including 3 children, were wounded when OF used force against peaceful demonstrations organized in protest to the construction of the Annexation Wall west of Ramallah.
Also 3 Palestinian civilians, including a man and his son, were wounded by Zionist settlers' gunfire in Hebron on 4 and 5 December 2008.
On Sunday, 12 December 2008, a Palestinian child was seriously wounded by a gunshot to the head fired by OF troops that provided protection to Zionist settlers who attacked Palestinian civilians and property in Hebron.
OF conducted at least 38 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. During these incursions, OF arrested 50 Palestinian civilians, including 14 children and a girl, Thus, the number of Palestinian civilians arrested by OF in the West Bank since the beginning of 2008 has mounted to 2,311. OF also transformed 8 houses in Hebron into military sites. In the Gaza Strip, OF troops that had moved into 'Abassan village, east of Khan Yunis, arrested 3 Palestinian civilians, including 2 children, for some hours.
OF have continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. OF imposed a comprehensive closure on the OPT for the the Jewish Sukkot.
Gaza Strip OF have continued to close all border crossings to the Gaza Strip for more than two years. The OF siege of Gaza, which has steadily tightened since June 2007, has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Power plant completely stopped operation due to the lack of energy fuel. Over the past three weeks, OF have allowed only 1,721,610 liters of energy fuel into the Gaza Strip, an amount which can operate the power plant for only 5 days. The main concern of 1.5 million people living in the Gaza Strip is to obtain their basic needs of food, medicines, water and electricity supplies. The majority of the civilian population lack access to drinking water. Electricity is cut off for 100,000s of civilians from 8-12 hours daily, which has impacted at least 500,000 students or various stages of education who are currently having exams.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was forced to suspend it humanitarian aids program for at least 750,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip for 5 days. Thousands of Palestinian civilians have been forced to wait in long queues to buy bread. The Rafah International Crossing Point has been opened for a few days for a number of patients who received medical treatment abroad and needed to return home to the Gaza Strip. OF have continued to close Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the face of Palestinian civilians wishing to travel to the West Bank and Zionist for medical treatment, trade or social visits.
OF have imposed additional restrictions on access of international diplomats, journalists and humanitarian workers to the Gaza Strip. They have prevented representatives of several international humanitarian organizations from entering the Gaza Strip.
OF have decreased the number of patients allowed to travel through Erez crossing to receive medical treatment in hospitals in the West Bank and Zionist entity to an average of 17 patients daily, which marks a decrease by 15% in comparison with the first quarter of 2008. Health conditions in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated and all medical facilities have been impacted as scores of medical sets are operated by electricity. Dozens medicines have been lacking. The lives of newly born babies, whose development has not been completed, is endangered as they need medical equipments in neonatal units that are operated by electricity. Living conditions of the Palestinian civilian population have seriously deteriorated; levels of poverty and unemployment have sharply mounted. At least 900 Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails have been deprived for family visitation for more than 16 months.
OF have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians throughout the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinian civilians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be denied access to Jerusalem. OF have established checkpoints in and around Jerusalem, severely restricting Palestinian access to the city. Civilians are frequently prevented from praying at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
There are approximately permanent 630 roadblocks, manned and unmanned checkpoints across the West Bank. In addition, there are some 60-80 ‘flying’ or temporary checkpoints erected across the West Bank by OF every week. When complete, the illegal Annexation Wall will stretch for 724 kilometers around the West Bank, further isolating the entire population. 350 kilometers of the Wall has already been constructed. Approximately 99% of the Wall has been constructed inside the West Bank itself, further confiscating Palestinian land.
At least 65% of the main roads that leads to 18 Palestinian communities in the West Bank are closed or fully controlled by OF (47 out of 72 roads.) There are around 500 kilometers of restricted roads across the West Bank. In addition, approximately one third of the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, is inaccessible to Palestinians without a permit issued by the OF. These permits are extremely difficult to obtain.
OF continue to harass, and assault demonstrators who hold peaceful protests against the construction of the Annexation Wall. Palestinian civilians continue to be harassed by OF in Jerusalem, and across the West Bank, including being regularly stopped and searched in the streets by OF. OF arrested 6 Palestinian civilians, including a child, at various checkpoints in the West Bank. OF stormed and confiscated for the third a tent set up by the al-Kurd family in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It is worth noting that OF seized Fawzia al-Kurd's house on 9 November 2008 and expelled the family from it. Since that date, Fawzia al-Kurd has lived in a tent set up near the house.
OF have continued settlement activities and Zionist settlers living in the OPT in violation of international humanitarian law have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property. Zionist settlers living in "Kiryat Arba" and "Kharsina" settlements and settlement outposts in the southeast and the center of Hebron launched a series of systematic terrorist attacks against Palestinian civilians and property in nearby Palestinian residential areas in Hebron. OF provided protection for settlers, the settlers used firearms, empty bottles and stones in their attacks. A number of Palestinian civilians were injured, 4 houses were burnt, 5 vehicles were destroyed and some other property was damaged.
Rumsfeld’s Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
Some thoughts on a few favorite photo images from the September 11, 2001 staged media event at the Pentagon, otherwise known as Rumsfeld’s MUNCHAUSEN SYNDROME BY PROXY. The rational for endless wars of aggression against sovereign nations where, just by coincidence, the remaining supplies of oil are to be found.
But first, Jon Stewart’s laser-sharp spotting of another telltale slip of the tongue, from Fox Network’s recent one-hour Rumsfeld biopic special. While giving a Jackie-Kennedyesque tour of his Pentagon office, Rumsfeld points out a mounted sculptural piece on a coffee table, composed of a broken bit of fiberglass from the American Airlines Flight 77 jet, which supposedly melted into the Pentagon on 9-11. Rumsfeld describes it as a “wonderful reminder” of that important day. Stewart questions Rumsfeld’s use of the adjective, offering up “stark” or “vivid” as more appropriate. Unless, of course, you've got something to hide, or prove, or gloat over, in which case, vocabulary isn’t the only give away.
Finally, I found the source for one of my favorite thumbnail pictures--the one I thought I'd let get away! I’m not quite sure of the legality of my use of it here. Lord knows, UPI made me jump through hoops to get it posted. Converting Bitmaps into JPEG’s by emailing myself and then PayPaling a hosting service $8.95 a month for the duration, about taxes my full computer skill package.
Bush Visits Pentagon Victims in Washington Hospital Center- 13 SEPTEMBER 2001 - WASHINGTON, DC, USA: President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush comfort a family member of a victim of the Pentagon terrorist attack during a visit to Washington Hospital Center, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001. RLW/WHITE HOUSE/ERIC DRAPER UPI
To me this picture says it all through silence. The photographer, Eric Draper, works for the White House, whether technically, or not. Like the rest of his corps, he has been co-opted and manipulated through nearness to the seats of power—positioned just so, as an ass-kisser—telling lies at a thousand words a clip. Another government worker dreaming of an 80% retirement, with benefits.Who exactly is this lady being addressed by George and Laura Bush? Isn't she, her reality, personhood, dignity, maybe her name, her relationship to the wounded victim, the most important aspect of the image, the whole point? Not in Falseville Virgina at Ground Nothing it isn't! Here the anonymous BACKS OF HEADS are truthtellers. Allowed to be disseminated while being comforted her only reality, with the noxious hen Karen Hughes looking on. I wish someone would research this woman's identity. It wouldn't be hard. Only about 60 injuries occurred at the Pentagon on 9-11, with only seven serious burn victims taken to hospital, and everybody taken out in the first hour or so.
(National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, states, “One hundred six people were seriously injured and transported to area hospitals,” but they get an awful lot wrong.
Some died at the Pentagon that day too. Like the budget analysts trying to trace missing trillions in defense-budget spending, announced just a day earlier. Heavy losses also in the Navy Command Center, where underway that morning—well, hush my mouth!—were drills of mock attacks on the Pentagon by jetliners! "They were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang." The Call of the Wild by London, Jack.
Long missing from the internet but making a blessed reappearance in Scott Walsh’s Patriot Video #1, a tribute to The Twin Towers disaster, is a little snippet of uncredited cable news video footage showing Rumsfeld showing off in an awkward moment, as one of a seven-man wounded-litter-bearer team. Rumsfeld’s behavior that morning is fully documented in multiple written sources, but this visual brings home the utter incomprehensibility of his actions that morning. Just a few seconds long, it can be found at the 2:32 point, here.
Rumsfeld’s little stroll outside in the first 30 minutes after the “attack” is a pendent to Bush’s aimless sticking around in the schoolhouse, which was a venue announced on his official itinerary six days in advance and therefore highly vulnerable to ongoing terrorist attacks, and both prove the men had foreknowledge of the attacks, knew what to expect, and what not to expect. Rumsfeld’s grandstanding was a misguided attempt at heroic mythmaking, but one that proves villainy instead. Bush needed a tug on the ring in his nose.
Assistant Secretary of Defense Victoria Clarke gave an interview with Jim Mitchell of radio station WBZ in Boston on Saturday, September 15, 2001
In President Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous 1961 farewell speech to the nation, he warns us about the Military-Industrial Complex,
Text, Video with French subtitles
Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040
Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, said on September 11, 2001:
So what exactly was Osama bin Laden hoping to accomplish that day?
Let's get real folks.
________________________________________________________________________________
Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040
My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
III.
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
V.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
VI.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.
VII.
So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.
________________________________________________________________________________
In the earliest reporting out of Washington by the intrepid USAToday, September 11, 2001 (updated 07:05 PM ET,) credited only to staff and wire reports, with the headline, "I fear for my daughter," was this little tidbit:
But first, Jon Stewart’s laser-sharp spotting of another telltale slip of the tongue, from Fox Network’s recent one-hour Rumsfeld biopic special. While giving a Jackie-Kennedyesque tour of his Pentagon office, Rumsfeld points out a mounted sculptural piece on a coffee table, composed of a broken bit of fiberglass from the American Airlines Flight 77 jet, which supposedly melted into the Pentagon on 9-11. Rumsfeld describes it as a “wonderful reminder” of that important day. Stewart questions Rumsfeld’s use of the adjective, offering up “stark” or “vivid” as more appropriate. Unless, of course, you've got something to hide, or prove, or gloat over, in which case, vocabulary isn’t the only give away.
Finally, I found the source for one of my favorite thumbnail pictures--the one I thought I'd let get away! I’m not quite sure of the legality of my use of it here. Lord knows, UPI made me jump through hoops to get it posted. Converting Bitmaps into JPEG’s by emailing myself and then PayPaling a hosting service $8.95 a month for the duration, about taxes my full computer skill package.
Bush Visits Pentagon Victims in Washington Hospital Center- 13 SEPTEMBER 2001 - WASHINGTON, DC, USA: President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush comfort a family member of a victim of the Pentagon terrorist attack during a visit to Washington Hospital Center, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001. RLW/WHITE HOUSE/ERIC DRAPER UPI
To me this picture says it all through silence. The photographer, Eric Draper, works for the White House, whether technically, or not. Like the rest of his corps, he has been co-opted and manipulated through nearness to the seats of power—positioned just so, as an ass-kisser—telling lies at a thousand words a clip. Another government worker dreaming of an 80% retirement, with benefits.Who exactly is this lady being addressed by George and Laura Bush? Isn't she, her reality, personhood, dignity, maybe her name, her relationship to the wounded victim, the most important aspect of the image, the whole point? Not in Falseville Virgina at Ground Nothing it isn't! Here the anonymous BACKS OF HEADS are truthtellers. Allowed to be disseminated while being comforted her only reality, with the noxious hen Karen Hughes looking on. I wish someone would research this woman's identity. It wouldn't be hard. Only about 60 injuries occurred at the Pentagon on 9-11, with only seven serious burn victims taken to hospital, and everybody taken out in the first hour or so.
(National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, states, “One hundred six people were seriously injured and transported to area hospitals,” but they get an awful lot wrong.
Some died at the Pentagon that day too. Like the budget analysts trying to trace missing trillions in defense-budget spending, announced just a day earlier. Heavy losses also in the Navy Command Center, where underway that morning—well, hush my mouth!—were drills of mock attacks on the Pentagon by jetliners! "They were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang." The Call of the Wild by London, Jack.
Long missing from the internet but making a blessed reappearance in Scott Walsh’s Patriot Video #1, a tribute to The Twin Towers disaster, is a little snippet of uncredited cable news video footage showing Rumsfeld showing off in an awkward moment, as one of a seven-man wounded-litter-bearer team. Rumsfeld’s behavior that morning is fully documented in multiple written sources, but this visual brings home the utter incomprehensibility of his actions that morning. Just a few seconds long, it can be found at the 2:32 point, here.
Rumsfeld’s little stroll outside in the first 30 minutes after the “attack” is a pendent to Bush’s aimless sticking around in the schoolhouse, which was a venue announced on his official itinerary six days in advance and therefore highly vulnerable to ongoing terrorist attacks, and both prove the men had foreknowledge of the attacks, knew what to expect, and what not to expect. Rumsfeld’s grandstanding was a misguided attempt at heroic mythmaking, but one that proves villainy instead. Bush needed a tug on the ring in his nose.
Assistant Secretary of Defense Victoria Clarke gave an interview with Jim Mitchell of radio station WBZ in Boston on Saturday, September 15, 2001
“We were in these rooms maybe 200 feet away where we felt the concussion. We immediately knew it was something bad. We weren't sure what. When it first happened, we didn’t know what it was. But again, all the wheels were in motion. “Everybody was doing what they were supposed to be doing. The secretary [Rumsfeld] was in his office, really not that far away from the side of the building that got hit by the plane. He and another person immediately ran down the hallway and went outside and helped some of the people, some of the casualties getting off the stretchers, etc. When he came back in the building about half an hour later, he was the first one that told us he was quite sure it was a plane. Based on the wreckage and based on the thousands and thousands of pieces of metal. He was the one that told us, the staff that was in the room. So he was really the first one who told us that it was most likely a plane.”
In President Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous 1961 farewell speech to the nation, he warns us about the Military-Industrial Complex,
Text, Video with French subtitles
"A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction." (Emphasis mine.)
Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040
Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, said on September 11, 2001:
"I think most authorities agree this is something we doubt Iran, Iraq or Libya would try and do, because they know of the massive response we would have to bring down on them."
So what exactly was Osama bin Laden hoping to accomplish that day?
Let's get real folks.
________________________________________________________________________________
Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040
My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
III.
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
- and is gravely to be regarded.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
V.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
VI.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.
VII.
So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.
________________________________________________________________________________
In the earliest reporting out of Washington by the intrepid USAToday, September 11, 2001 (updated 07:05 PM ET,) credited only to staff and wire reports, with the headline, "I fear for my daughter," was this little tidbit:
"Before the plane hit, the scene at the Pentagon was already chaotic.
Sheriff's deputies were screaming at people to move along quickly. "There's a hijacked plane two minutes away. We don't know where it's
going to hit. Keep moving," they shouted."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)