History Bytes

Cannabis, Medicine and Democracy - an open letter

2012-01-25T12:14:00.003+11:00

Mary Wooldridge MP
2/1020 Doncaster Road,
Doncaster East, 3109

Dear Minister for my Health,

I write to protest the imposition of yet another law that Victorians did not clamour for. I am one of those Victorians (aged 14 years and over) who has used cannabis at some stage in their lifetime, one of the extraordinary number of disobedient civilians refusing to comply with the ban on cannabis, as described in your press release of Monday 29th of August 2011.

The immoral and irrational crusade against the humble water pipe, a.k.a., bong, by the current government, does not serve or represent my interests, nor those of that honest one third of Victorians you spoke of, and legislated against, as if the were mentally-deficient children.

I smoked my first bong at the tender age of 17, only to wake the next morning feeling refreshed, healthy, and happy. On comparing this sublime state to the pool of vomit and suffering induced by my encounter with the legal and lethal drug alcohol, I considered it likely that our government and our media were exaggerating and confabulating the risks associated with cannabis while ignoring the benefits.

While researching the matter in detail in subsequent years, I discovered that my initial hunch was supported by a staggering volume of evidence.

Cannabis (hence, canvas), the fabric of our lives for millennia, the panacea of choice for Queen Victoria, the plant endorsed, promoted and grown by Thomas Jefferson, was outlawed not to protect us from ourselves, but to protect Hearst and Du Pont from the threat of a New Billion Dollar Crop.

Mayor Garcia of New York commissioned a study on the effects of cannabis use in the 1930s. The findings confirmed the reports of most users, that smoking the plant was relatively safe and innocuous.
And so the federal government of the United States destroyed every copy of that report.

But does that even bother you? (that’s a rhetorical device, not a question I expect you to answer) …

“Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants”
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Patent # 6630507

Cannabis might cause new cell growth in the brain
http://dx.doi.org/10.1172/JCI25509

Cannabis may help keep arteries clear
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18624956.000-cannabis-may-help-keep-arteries-clear.html

Cannabis may help 'stave off' Alzheimer's
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/06/alzheimers_research/

Marijuana could improve your memory
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1483091.htm

Cannabis extract makes brain tumors shrink, halts growth of blood vessels
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/12088.php

Cannabis Shrinks Brain Tumors; Government Knew in '74
http://www.alternet.org/story/9257

Two year old, Cash Hyde uses cannabis to battle brain tumor:
Brain tumor dies, Cash lives.
(note that at the end of this story the reporter dispenses ethical advice on how to give children cannabis):

Mitt Romney tells a cannabis patient that his treatment options should be limited to the use of corporate owned products:
PATIENT: I have to take medication, or I’ll die. Right now I weigh less than eighty pounds: I have for all my life.
I have the support of 5 of my doctors saying I am living proof that medical marijuana works
I am completely against legalising it for everyone, but…

ROMNEY: And you have synthetic marijuana that’s available and other pain medications
PATIENT: It makes me sick. I have tried it and it makes me throw up. I have tried all the medications there are, and all the forms that come in after stimulation from steroids. I have muscular dystrophy. That’s completely against my DNA.
ROMNEY. I’m sorry to hear that. (tries to walk away)
PATIENT: My question to you is, will you arrest me and my doctors if I get medical marijuana …
ROMENY:I, I’m not in favour of medical marijuana being made legal, I..
PATIENT: So will you have me arrested if I…
ROMNEY, Hi! How are you? (turning to someone else, ignoring the plea of the dying man)

Cannabis improves night vision:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2004/jul/07/sciencenews.research

"Cannabis makes you a better driver - more evidence."
The AGE, 21 October 1998 pA5;
& CANBERRA TIMES, 21 October 1998 p4

"Cannabis is good for driving skills, as people tend to overcompensate for a perceived impairment."—Professor Olaf Drummer, a forensic scientist at the Royal College of Surgeons, Melbourne, 1996 -- http://www.ccguide.org.uk/driving.html

I have a few questions relating specifically to the pursuit of health and happiness in our so-called “democracy,” and I would like to publish your answers to my questions online for the benefit of all Victorians.

1. At what point did you consult the Victorian community or conduct a poll to ascertain the wishes of the people regarding a “bong ban?”

2. Do you feel any moral obligation to consult with the community before framing legislation?

3. Have you considered publicizing the health benefits of cannabis? Have you ever researched the topic?

4. What would have been the “right message” for Cash Hyde’s parents, in your view?
What would have been your answer to the muscular dystrophy patient?

5. Can you think of any rational reason why Peter Mac and the Cancer Council of Victoria show no interest in directing charitable funds toward research on:
i) cannabis extracts for the treatment of cancer, and/or
ii) dichloroacetate (DCA) for the treatment of cancer - ?

6. Do you think it likely that the lack of intellectual property “rights” to be had from cheap and abundant molecular structures impedes research into therapeutic value, as suggested by New Scientist in their 2007 report on DCA, “A Cheap Safe Drug Cures Most Cancer”? Would that explain why Australian media refused to report the findings?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10971-cheap-safe-drug-kills-most-cancers.html

7. What is the approximate annual death toll in Victoria typically attributed to:
a) paracetamol poisoning
b) tobacco
c) alcohol
e) car “accidents” (fatal errors)
f) industrial “accidents” (fatal errors)
g) cancers associated with chemotherapy
h) cannabis

8. What are your thoughts on the patent granted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the therapeutic application of cannabinoids for protection of neurons? (U.S. patent #6630507) Do you feel that Victorians should have a right to know about this patented therapy, and also a right to exploit it for health benefits?

9. Finally, how should I go about replacing my beautiful glass bong if it is ever broken?

Yours precisely,

AlreadyPublished of Victoria

Life from Petroleum

2011-01-31T00:36:00.077+11:00

moved to here: living-petrol.blogspot

Rainfalls are now just a thing of the past

2011-01-20T11:46:00.019+11:00

by Chully Onion
January 11, 2010

Australia's summer ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: rain is starting to disappear from our lives.

Farming precariously on the barren landscape, collecting water in dams, and jumping puddles are all a rapidly diminishing part of Australia's culture, as drier weather - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer wet Christmases, but fewer wet Januaries and Februaries.

How bad is it? One Australian newspaper is reporting:

"DROUGHT will become a redundant term as Australia plans for a permanently drier future, according to the nation’s urban water industries chief…. "The urban water industry has decided the inflows of the past will never return," Water Services Association of Australia executive director Ross Young said. "We are trying to avoid the term ‘drought’ and saying this is the new reality."
(The Age, 2007)

"Drought is too comfortable a word," said John Williams, the New South Wales state Commissioner for Natural Resources. "Drought connotes a return to normal. We need to be adjusting."
(Cosmos, 2007)

"Australia is the harbinger of change," said paleontologist Tim Flannery, Australia's most vocal climate change prophet. "The pattern that we're seeing now in the weather in Australia is very much the pattern was predicted by computer models as much as a decade ago.We will have to get by with less water. The CSIRO's telling us that. We're seeing it now, in the evidence before our eyes in our rivers and creeks, and of course the computer models in the global models have been predicting just this now for some years. I think all evidence says that this is our new climate and we have to get by with less water than we've ever had before."
(Interview, 2007)

"Ultimately", he says, "Australian children could have only virtual experience of water. Via the internet, they might wonder at river scenes - or eventually feel virtually wet."

Hopefully Australia will see the value and urgency in taking climate action before the last puddle dries up, since unrestrained greenhouse gas emissions are projected to accelerate drought and desertification.
climateprogress.org/...australias-facing-worst-drought-for-1000-years/

Clips from Cumulus (1)

2010-11-17T02:57:00.001+11:00

From the NIST "cumulus" video database, compiled by NIST and released under FOI to IC911Studies:

Change-Blindness at WTC1 (v1)

2010-09-25T18:37:00.016+10:00

Could you tell me exactly why the pressure pulse from the massive fuel-air explosion from the impact of UA 175(at WTC2) could not be responsible for the observed phenomena?(at WTC1)
SnowCrash
===================================

1) a pressure pulse will push things, not pull.

2) the classic air-fuel explosion producing a vacuum over a wide area (and subsequent implosion) typically requires dispersal of the fuel in a mist over a large area prior to ignition, and that is not what occurred.
In any case, a classic fuel-air explosion would not account for what we see, since the effect is isolated to a few specific regions. The effect on clouds of a shock wave propagating in all directions from its source should make that point clear:

3) a flash immediately precedes ejection of black smoke from a new area:

4) the smoke peeling upwards in regions above and surrounding the smoke puffs remains unaffected, and

5) a flame blows out a window on the opposite face, while the smoke peeling upwards on that side remains unaffected:

6) the jet-fuel explosion has barely had a chance to expand before these things occur:

Conclusion: the smoke is not pulled from the windows by the explosion next door, but pushed from within.

The Naked Core, Cutter Charges Flashing

2010-09-13T02:45:00.007+10:00

(58fps at half speed, deinterlaced)

from this raw footage, 37Mb, at:
href="http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YS0XHA8B
(best viewed at fullscreen in VLC media player, with de-interlacing on and set to "bob", for a clear and sparkling 60 frames per second)

Explosions, Flash at WTC1

2010-09-11T03:47:00.005+10:00

(choose 480p, full screen)

extracted from extraordinary high-resolution footage at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwKQXsXJDX4

Cutter Charge Flashing in WTC2

2010-09-06T21:31:00.012+10:00

========================================

An "Intriguing" explosive ejection from 77th floor window:

The video shot from the WTC plaza captured an intriguing event at 9:37:04 a.m. A jet of air, dust, and a large piece of debris was ejected from a window, 77-355, on the 77th floor at an extremely high velocity. [...] A long distance video shot from the south showed that fire and smoke were pushed from multiple locations on the south face at the same time the strong jet occurred on the 77th floor of the east face.
-NIST NCSTAR 1-5A, WTC Investigation (p. 346)

New video release, via 911Blogger:

Cutter charge from the previous clip, stabilized and repeated three times:

(Note the "streamer" that seems to peel off from the column along the same line that subsequently ignites.)

stabilized and cropped for focus:

other flashy stuff also accompanied by "streamers":

The Abiogenesis of Rock Oil

2010-03-28T18:27:00.015+11:00

The evolution of multicomponent systems at high pressures

ABSTRACT

[...]

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

"The spontaneous genesis of hydrocarbons that comprise natural petroleum have been analyzed by chemical thermodynamic-stability theory. The constraints imposed on chemical evolution by the second law of thermodynamics are briefly reviewed, and the effective prohibition of transformation, in the regime of temperatures and pressures characteristic of the near-surface crust of the Earth, of biological molecules into hydrocarbon molecules heavier than methane is recognized. For the theoretical analysis of this phenomenon, a general, first-principles equation of state has been developed by extending scaled particle theory and by using the technique of the factored partition function of the simplified perturbed hard-chain theory. The chemical potentials and the respective thermodynamic Affinity have been calculated for typical components of the H–C system over a range of pressures between 1 and 100 kbar (1 kbar = 100 MPa) and at temperatures consistent with those of the depths of the Earth at such pressures. The theoretical analyses establish that the normal alkanes, the homologous hydrocarbon group of lowest chemical potential, evolve only at pressures greater than ≈30 kbar, excepting only the lightest, methane. The pressure of 30 kbar corresponds to depths of ≈100 km. For experimental verification of the predictions of the theoretical analysis, a special high-pressure apparatus has been designed that permits investigations at pressures to 50 kbar and temperatures to 1,500°C and also allows rapid cooling while maintaining high pressures.
=====================================================

Rift Zones: New Understanding Of Incredible Forces, Oil And Gas Reserves Beneath The Earth’s Surface
ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2009)

[...]
Rift zones are also important for oil exploration as many oil rich areas have arisen as a result of rift processes. This is true, for example, of the area around the Central Graben in the North Sea which is a former rift zone whose development halted. The Central Graben is the location where the countries bordering the North Sea obtain most of their oil. It is therefore important to understand the processes that lead to rift formation, as it may give us an opportunity to pump more oil up from underground.
=====================================================

Finding New Oil In Long-Exhausted Oil Wells

ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2008) — Under contemporary conditions, it is more economically sound not to look for new oil fields but to overhaul old ones. Oil reappears from time to time in old deposits and long ago exhausted oil wells.
=====================================================

Fossils From Animals And Plants Are Not Necessary For Crude Oil And Natural Gas, Swedish Researchers Find

ScienceDaily (Sep. 12, 2009) — Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm have managed to prove that fossils from animals and plants are not necessary for crude oil and natural gas to be generated. The findings are revolutionary since this means, on the one hand, that it will be much easier to find these sources of energy and, on the other hand, that they can be found all over the globe.

“Using our research we can even say where oil could be found in Sweden,” says Vladimir Kutcherov, a professor at the Division of Energy Technology at KTH.

Together with two research colleagues, Vladimir Kutcherov has simulated the process involving pressure and heat that occurs naturally in the inner layers of the earth, the process that generates hydrocarbon, the primary component in oil and natural gas.

According to Vladimir Kutcherov, the findings are a clear indication that the oil supply is not about to end, which researchers and experts in the field have long feared.

He adds that there is no way that fossil oil, with the help of gravity or other forces, could have seeped down to a depth of 10.5 kilometers in the state of Texas, for example, which is rich in oil deposits. As Vladimir Kutcherov sees it, this is further proof, alongside his own research findings, of the genesis of these energy sources – that they can be created in other ways than via fossils. This has long been a matter of lively discussion among scientists.

“There is no doubt that our research proves that crude oil and natural gas are generated without the involvement of fossils. All types of bedrock can serve as reservoirs of oil,” says Vladimir Kutcherov, who adds that this is true of land areas that have not yet been prospected for these energy sources.
=====================================================

Methane Rain Formed New Lake on Saturn Moon

National Geographic, via NASA
=====================================================

pe·tro·le·um
–noun
an oily, thick, flammable, usually dark-colored liquid that is a form of bitumen or a mixture of various hydrocarbons, occurring naturally in various parts of the world and commonly obtained by drilling: used in a natural or refined state as fuel, or separated by distillation into gasoline, naphtha, benzene, kerosene, paraffin, etc.

Origin:
1520–30; < rock oil, equiv. to L petr(a) [rock] + oleum [oil]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/petroleum

28 Percent of Soldiers (A Holocaust Story)

2010-02-07T21:28:00.006+11:00

Nearly three decades of war, brutal totalitarianism, invasion, occupation and ~~insurgency~~ [resistance] in Iraq have left behind AT LEAST A MILLION WIDOWS - and several million children without fathers.

That was the CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATE IN EARLY 2009 by Iraq's acting minister for women's affairs, Narmeen Othman.
She believes there may even be TWO MILLION WIDOWS. BBC

(How SBS Television reported the Iraqi Holocaust.)

The majority, 77%, of soldiers deployed to Iraq reported shooting or directing fire at the enemy, 48% reported being responsible for the death of an enemy combatant,
and 28% reported being responsible for the death of a noncombatant.
Veteran Affairs

Weather Anomolies - pt1

2009-07-14T22:16:00.003+10:00

"Arctic blast brings London earliest snow for 70 years"

"Spokane, Washington., residents cope with record snow"

"'Brutal' Prairie cold snap to continue until Christmas"

"Flights axed as Las Vegas hit by rare snowstorm"

"Climate scientists say 2008 will be coolest year of decade"

"Recent cold snap helping Arctic sea ice, scientists find."

"The Alps have best snow conditions 'in a generation'"

"Snowstorms cause chaos across Europe's ski resorts"

"Winter's second wind: Don't put your overcoat away yet... it's going to be very cold and very wet"

"The day the sea froze: Temperatures plunge to MINUS 12C and forecasters say it won't warm up until Sunday"

"Early falls hit ski resorts"

"Winter snow earliest, heaviest since 2000"

A Pharmacy of Cannabis

2009-05-26T02:24:00.006+10:00

Kannabis
kannapum
haenapum
haenup
hemp

may help keep arteries clear
may help 'stave off' Alzheimer's
may improve your memory
shrinks brain tumors
improves night-vision
may prevent BSE
improves road safety

Cannabis may help keep arteries clear
16 April 2005

EATING low doses of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, helps prevent arteries clogging up, at least in mice.

THC binds to two receptors in the body. One is found mostly on brain cells and is responsible for the chemical's psychotropic effects. The other receptor is found mostly on immune cells, and THC has been shown to suppress the immune response to infections and cancer.

François Mach at University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, wondered if this effect might also help prevent the build-up of fatty deposits in arteries, or atherosclerosis, by reducing the inflammation associated with this process. Sure enough, when his team fed 1 milligram of THC per kilogram of bodyweight - a low dose that should not have any psychotropic effects - to mice susceptible to atherosclerosis, it greatly slowed the progress of the disease (Nature, vol 434, p 782).

The results are striking, says Michael Roth of the University of California, Los Angeles, who wrote a commentary for Nature. He stresses that the findings do not prove that smoking cannabis will prevent atherosclerosis, pointing out that the mouse study suggests the effect is dose-dependent and too little or too much THC has no protective effect.

Rather than feeding people THC, Roth says, researchers should try to develop drugs that bind only to the cannabinoid receptor found on immune cells.

From issue 2495 of New Scientist magazine, 16 April 2005, page 19

The Register Science >> Biology
Marijuana may help 'stave off' Alzheimer's
Here you go, grandad, have a toke on that
By Lester Haines
Published Friday 6th October 2006 13:53 GMT

New research into Alzheimer's disease suggests the active ingredient of marijuana may help "stave off" the disease, as Reuters puts it.

Specifically, scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in California discovered that delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) can prevent breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine - a process which leads to progressive "memory loss, impaired decision-making, and diminished language and movement skills".

THC is also, the team found, "more effective at blocking clumps of protein that can inhibit memory and cognition in Alzheimer's patients".

Its report is published in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1483091.htm]

Last Update: Saturday, October 15, 2005. 2:29pm (AEST)
Marijuana could improve your memory: researchers

Canadian researchers have discovered that smoking marijuana could improve a person's memory and mood.

A team at the University of Saskatchewan headed by Xia Zhang found that injections of a potent HU210 synthetic substance that mimics the active ingredients in cannabis increases the production of neurones in the hippocampus area of the brain in rats. The region is associated with learning and memory, as well as anxiety and depression.

Mr Zhang and his colleagues believe that these negative emotions are caused by a lack of cell growth in this region of the brain. Other recent studies showed growth in brain cells in the hippocampus lessened anxiety and depression.

In contrast, other recreational drugs such as alcohol, nicotine, cocaine and heroine suppress growth of new brain cells.

"The implication is that smoking marijuana is a good thing," Mr Zhang told AFP. The discovery may eventually lead to the next blockbuster anti-depressant drug treatment, he says. "It is possible this might overtake Prozac," he said.

Of course, it has only been proven in rats so far. And, HU210 is a purified substance 100 times stronger than the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in marijuana. The study will be published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in November.

- AFP
© 2008 Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Cannabis extract makes brain tumors shrink, halts growth of blood vessels
Category: Cancer/Oncology News
Article Date: 15 Aug 2004

Researchers in Spain have discovered that a cannabis extract makes brain tumors shrink by halting the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumors with life. Cannabis has chemicals called cannabinoids, these are the chemicals that could effectively starve tumors to death, say the researchers. The study was carried out at the Complutense University, Madrid, Spain. The team used mice to demonstrate that the cannabinoids block vessel growth.

Cannabis Extract - Parke Davis

You can read about this latest research in the journal Cancer Research.

Apparently, the procedure is also effective in humans. The Spanish team, led by Dr Manuel Guzmán, wanted to see whether they could prevent glioblastoma multiforme cancer from growing by cutting off its blood supply. Glioblastoma multiforme is one of the most difficult cancers to treat – it seldom responds to any medical intervention, such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery.

The scientists knew that cannabinoids will block the growth of blood vessels (to tumors) in mice – they wanted to find out whether the same thing would happen with humans. The mice were given a cancer similar to the human brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme). The mice were then given cannabinoids and the genes examined. The genes associated with blood vessel growth in tumors through the production of a chemical called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) had their activity reduced.

Cannabinoids halt VEGF production by producing Ceramide. Ceramide controls cell death. Dr Guzmán said: "As far as we know, this is the first report showing that ceramide depresses VEGF pathway by interfering with VEGF production." They then wanted to see if this would also happen with humans.

They selected two patients who had glioblastoma multiforme and had not responded to chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery. The scientists took samples from them before and after treating them with a cannabinoids solution – this was administered directly into the tumor. Amazingly, both patients experienced reduced VEGF levels in the tumor as a result of treatment with cannabinoids.

The researchers said that the results were encouraging. In order to be sure about their findings they need to carry out a larger study, they said.

Dr Guzmán said "The present findings provide a novel pharmacological target for cannabinoid-based therapies."
© 2003-2005 MedicalNewsToday

Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in '74
By Raymond Cushing, AlterNet.
Posted May 31, 2000.

In 1974 researchers learned that THC, the active chemical in marijuana, shrank or destroyed brain tumors in test mice. But the DEA quickly shut down the study and destroyed its results, which were never replicated -- until now.
http://www.alternet.org/story/9257

When spliff gets in your eyes...

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Wednesday July 7, 2004
The Guardian

We knew it gave people the munchies and made them giggle. Now researchers claim to have found a new property in cannabis - it helps us see in the dark.

Scientists made their discovery after becoming intrigued by Moroccan fishermen who not only failed to lose their sense of direction after smoking generous amounts of local kif, a mixture of cannabis and tobacco, but seemed to navigate better on dark nights. "They attribute their ability to see to the consumption of kif that they spend entire hours smoking before getting into their barques," one of the research team, drawn from the US, Spain and Morocco, reported.

Jamaican fishermen have reportedly shown a similar reaction, suggesting that there may be something medically useful in cannabis apart from the pain-deadening properties already spotted by doctors treating cancer patients.

Equipped with a machine for measuring night vision, the researchers headed for the Rif valley, the centre of Morocco's flourishing cannabis trade. "High-grade sifted cannabis was mixed with tobacco in a 2:1 ratio and smoked as kif by subjects employing a traditional sebsi pipe," the team write in the latest Journal of Ethnopharmacology.

Three "kif-experienced" Moroccan volunteers were then invited to make "numerous inhalations". The volunteers demonstrated "consistent improvements" in tests, leading the researchers to suggest that further studies should be conducted.

The researchers admit that the results have turned the ancient wisdom of Persian and Arab scientists, who suggested that cannabis made vision fuzzier, on its head.

But their results backed up claims by the Observer columnist Sue Arnold, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa and is officially registered blind. She noticed several years ago that drawing on strong Jamaican skunk suddenly and temporarily enabled her to see things clearly. But Ms Arnold has since warned of side-effects that could impede night-time navigation. "Only trouble was," she said, "I couldn't stand up."

Marijuana Ingredient May Prevent Mad Cow Disease
Sunday, September 16 2007 @ 11:05 AM EDT
Edited by: Michael Hess

Cannabidiol May be Effective in Preventing Bovine Spongiforme Enzephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease)

BBSNews 2007-09-16 -- (IACM) According to basic research of scientists of the National Centre for Scientific Research in Valbonne, France, cannabidiol (CBD) may prevent the development of prion diseases, the most known being BSE (bovine spongiforme enzephalopathy), which is often called mad cow disease. It is believed that the BSE may be transmitted to human beings. In humans, it is known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

The infectious agent in prion diseases is believed to be a specific type of misfolded protein called prion. Misfolded prion proteins carry the disease between individuals and cause deterioration of the brain. The French researchers reported that the non- psychoactive cannabis constituent CBD inhibited the accumulation of prion proteins in both mouse and sheep prion- infected cells, whereas other cannabinoids were either weak or not effective. Moreover, after infection with mouse scrapie, a prion disease, CBD limited accumulation of the prion protein in the brain and significantly increased the survival time of infected mice. CBD inhibited the nerve damaging effects of prions in a concentration-dependent manner. Researchers noted that CBD may be a promising agent for the treatment of prion diseases.

(Source: Dirikoc S, Priola SA, Marella M, Zsuerger N, Chabry J. Nonpsychoactive cannabidiol prevents prion accumulation and protects neurons against prion toxicity. J Neurosci 2007;27(36):9537-44.)
###
http://bbsnews.net/article.php/20070916110536662

CANNABIS MAKES YOU A BETTER DRIVER - MORE EVIDENCE

The AGE 21 October 1998 pA5;
CANBERRA TIMES 21 October 1998 p4

THE LARGEST STUDY EVER DONE linking road accidents with drugs and alcohol has found drivers with cannabis in their blood were no more at risk than those who were drug-free. In fact, the findings by a pharmacology team from the University of Adelaide and Transport SA showed drivers who had smoked marijuana were marginally less likely to have an accident than those who were drug-free. A study spokesman, Dr Jason White, said the difference was not great enough to be statistically significant but could be explained by anecdotal evidence that marijuana smokers were more cautious and drove more slowly because of altered time perception. The study of 2,500 accidents, which matched the blood alcohol levels of injured drivers with details from police reports, found drug-free drivers caused the accidents in 53.5 per cent of cases. Injured drivers with a blood-alcohol concentration of more than 0.05 per cent were culpable in nearly 90 per cent of accidents they were involved in. Drivers with cannabis in their blood were less likely to cause an accident, with a culpability rate of 50.6 per cent. The study has policy implications for those who argue drug detection should be a new focus for road safety. Dr White said the study showed the importance of concentrating efforts on alcohol rather than other drugs. This information was posted by the library of The Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia (ADCA). Requests for copies of newsclips can be directed to the library by phone 02 62811002, fax 02 6282 7364
or e-mail library@adca.org.au.

=====================================

From ":MARIJUANA AND ACTUAL DRIVING PERFORMANCE"
U.S. Department of Transportation,
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(DOT HS 808 078), Final Report, November 1993:

"This program of research has shown that marijuana, when taken alone, produces a moderate degree of driving impairment which is related to the consumed THC dose. The impairment manifests itself mainly in the ability to maintain a steady lateral position on the road, but its magnitude is not exceptional in comparison with changes produced by many medicinal drugs and alcohol. Drivers under the influence of marijuana retain insight in their performance and will compensate, where they can, for example, by slowing down or increasing effort. As a consequence, THC's adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small."

=====================================

"Compared to alcohol, which makes people take more risks on the road, marijuana made drivers slow down and drive more carefully....
Cannabis is good for driving skills, as people tend to overcompensate for a perceived impairment."
-Professor Olaf Drummer, a forensic scientist at the Royal College of Surgeons, Melbourne, 1996
http://www.ccguide.org.uk/driving.html

16 Unusual Orbits

2009-05-04T22:00:00.010+10:00

16 unusual orbits

1) pre-collapse metal fire

2) pre-collapse ejection of a "large piece of debris" at "an extremely high velocity."

The video shot from the WTC plaza captured an intriguing event at 9:37:04 a.m. A jet of air, dust, and a large piece of debris was ejected from a window, 77-355, on the 77th floor at an extremely high velocity. Longer distance videos show that puffs of smoke and/or dust appeared simultaneously on the east face from several open windows near the center of the 78th floor and from open windows on the north side of the 79th floor. Interestingly, the smoke flow from the windows on the west sides of the 79th and 80th floors, which had decreased markedly by this time, did not increase. Within 14s of this release, a large fire either grew or became visible near the center of the east face on the 82nd floor.

A long distance video shot from the south showed that fire and smoke were pushed from multiple locations on the south face at the same time the strong jet occurred on the 77th floor of the east face.
-NIST NCSTAR 1-5A, WTC Investigation (p. 346)

September 2010 Update, FOI release of video by NIST to the International Center for 911 Studies:

3) a pre-collapse cascade of brightly glowing molten metal

At 9:57:21 a.m., shortly after another pressure pulse, the bright light reappeared at the top window, 80-255, on the 80th floor from which the flow of molten metal had been observed earlier. Almost immediately, it appeared to jump one window to the east, i.e., to window 80-256. Five seconds later a light flow of molten metal began pouring out of window 80-256. The flow of material from this window would now be nearly continuous until the tower collapsed. At 9:57:32 a.m. there was a fairly intense pressure pulse within the tower. The flow rate of the molten metal increased dramatically at this time.
(NIST NCSTAR1-5A_chap_9-AppxC)

4) post-collapse pools of molten steel under bldgs 1,2,6, and 7

"Left: Thermal Imagery of the progression of molten steel hotspots from September 18 to September 25 "
GeoNews, October, 2001
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/ees/october2001.pdf
(dead link)

5) persistence of (4)

6) red-hot beams

Red Hot Debris.

The removal of debris from the collapsed area requires the safe lifting and maneuvering of very heavy steel beams, often twisted and tangled from the force of the collapse.

Some beams pulled from the wreckage are still red hot more than 7 weeks after the attack, and it is suspected that temperatures beneath the debris pile are well in excess of 1,000°F.
http://www.liro.com/lironews.pdf

7) almost resistance-free rate of explosive collapse (Sth & Nth)

8) almost resistance-free rate of structural 'implosion' (bldg 7)

9) smoke billowing profusely from both ends of rapidly ejected neatly-cut column sections during collapse

10) explosions evident in Nth twr during collapse of the Sth,
explosions evident in Nth twr at Sth tower impact:

11) jubilant explosives-tainted men with "maps linking them to the bombing plot"
(Bergen Record- September 12, NYT-Sept 14, Haaretz, Sept-19, etc)

12) "explosions" - multiple firefighters (NYT, Oral Histories)

13) "We were told" - Mayor Rudolf Guiliani, Sept 11 live interview

14) "high officials just left....like they had information that we didn't" - Chief Joseph Pfeifer (NYT Oral Histories)

15) "we decided to pull it" - Lucky Larry (PBS interview)

16) sulphur emissions exceeding levels registered downwind of the Kuwait oil fires

one incendiary solution at the center

Stories for a Changing Climate

2009-04-30T17:30:00.006+10:00

============================================
Antarctic ice melting faster than expected
Tom Arup
April 6, 2009

http://www.theage.com.au
"The report shows that the Antarctic Peninsula alone has decreased by 27,000 square kilometres in the past 50 years."
=============================================
17 days later.....
=============================================
Antarctic ice spreading
http://www.abc.net.au
AM - Thursday, 23 April , 2009 08:15:00

Scientists in the United Kingdom have produced a study which shows ice has grown by 100,000 square kilometres each decade over the past 30 years and perversely (!) the increase is being put down to the hole in the ozone layer.
============================================

Climate change threat to alpine ski resorts
By Graham Tibbetts
Last Updated: 6:28PM BST 21 May 2008
[...]
In some years the amount that fell was 60 per cent lower than was typical in the early 1980s, said Christoph Marty, from the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, who analysed the records.
"I don't believe we will see the kind of snow conditions we have experienced in past decades," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk

====================================
6 months later in the same newspaper:
====================================

The Alps have best snow conditions 'in a generation'
Heavy storms this week mean that skiers will enjoy records amounts of snow in Alpine resorts this Christmas.
By Peter Hardy
Last Updated: 4:02PM GMT 19 Dec 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
===================================

'Quiet Sun' baffling astronomers
By Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News
The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8008473.stm

A Kind of Metal Fire

2009-04-27T20:29:00.009+10:00

Thermite/thermate is a kind of
(1) metal fire that produces
(2) a plume of white/grey smoke and
(3) a stream of molten iron.

NOTA BENE: All the salient features of thermite/thermate can be seen at the 81st floor of the south tower in the minutes preceeding its collapse.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
METAL FIRE + WHITE SMOKE

The intense fire in the northeast corner opening of the 81st floor is still present. An unusual flame is visible within this fire. In the upper photograph in Figure 9-44 a very bright white flame, as opposed to the typical yellow or orange surrounding flames, which is generating a plume of white smoke, stands out. The intensity of this flame is considerably brighter than normal flames. It was easily indentified in numerous photographs and videos shot from long distances at which the surrounding "normal" flames were not visible. The brightness of the flame, along with the white smoke, suggests that some type of metal is burning. Aluminum will burn, but in normal fires it usually melts instead because the metal surface is protected by an oxide layer that must be breeched before ignition can take place. Aluminum oxide melts at high temperatures (2054C) that are not typically reached in normal fires. There were limited quantities of other metals on the aircraft that might also burn. Whatever the metal, the ignition of a metal fire is an indication of the significant heating of debris that took place in the northeast corner of the 81st floor due to the prolonged intense burning in this area following the aircraft impact.
NISTNCSTAR1-5A_chapter_9_AppxC - p. 344. (pdf p.48 - 55Mb)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

MOLTEN IRON

Thermite/thermate is a kind of
(1) metal fire that produces
(2) a plume of white/grey smoke and
(3) a stream of molten iron.

21 Points for Posterity

2009-04-23T02:29:00.006+10:00

1) David's Dowry: 200 Filistine foreskins - 1 Samuel (18:25),

2) 1886 PreZionist Palestine - The first moving pictures
Lumier Bros. footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vaIK8wlAl0

3) 1936 footage of a Palestinian spokesman on Arab fear of displacement by Jews:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfEtocgxCsQ

4) Letter To The New York Times, co-signed by Albert Eistein, 1948

5) the modern day Biblical claim to Palestine at the Zionist Virtual Library:
http://www.usisrael.org/jsource/History...
6) from a horses mouth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ8stZ9_Udg

7) NOTES TO CHAPTER IX
referenced summary of the history of the establishment of the modern state of Israel:
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop...pdf
(Truman Library Archives, Recognition of Israel)

8) Religion at War:
images.google/war+soldiers+praying
9) http://www.nobeliefs.com/religiouswars.htm
(citing Harris, Dennett and Dawkins.)

10) President Woodrow Wilson's 1919 King-Crane Commission Report.

11) Swarthmore college presentation of "Stalin's Forgotten Zion":
http://www.swarthmore.edu/Home/News/biro/

12) "Women are sold at public auctions"
- BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4380067.stm

13) The Holocaust of Shepardim:
http://web.israelinsider.com/views/3998.htm

14) Israeli eugenics:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/...

15) Ministry of Religion, Chief Rabbinate and Marriage Law:
google-Israel+Chief+Rabbinate
google - Israel, "Ministry of Religious Affairs"
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/...
google, Israel, marriage law

16) Apartheid Citizenship Law:
haaretz

17) Colin Blakemore and Richard Dawkins:
Guardian, July 2002

18) Gilad Atzmon on the hot new Israeli topic of The Invention of the Jewish People:
http://palestinethinktank.com/...
19) A University text from the 70s on the same old topic:
(The World To 1500, John A. Garraty and Peter Gay, 1972, p.216)

20) "Rich Forer...a former member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)"

21) Jewish Autonomous Region. The official government website.
http://www.eao.ru/eng/
today is 17.04.2009

===========================================
Let’s live in peace and friendship
8.7.2007 Birobidzhaner Shtern
-------------
Greeting participants of the forum vice-chairman of the JAR Government Maria Zhirdetskaya has noted that the Jewish Autonomous Region is the region on which territory about a hundred of nationalities live. Therefore the regional traditions are based on respect of customs of various public groups.

Living in peace assumes presence in each person of such qualities as restraint and tolerance.
===========================================

The Living Bible

2009-04-21T18:31:00.005+10:00

DEUTERONOMY

(7:5) But thus shall ye deal with them:

ye shall destroy their altars

and break down their images,

and cut down their groves,

and burn their graven images with fire.

(7:6) For thou [art] an holy people unto the LORD thy God:
the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself,
above all people that [are] upon the face of the earth.
http://www.birthrightisrael.com

Extreme Makeover

2006-11-02T21:56:00.005+11:00

Don't mention the war: Israel seeks image makeover
By Dan Williams, Reuters
Thu Oct 26

After decades of battling to win foreign support for its two-fisted policies against Arab foes, Israel is trying a new approach with a campaign aimed at creating a less warlike and more welcoming national image.

ADVERTISMENT

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has argued that the protracted conflict with the Palestinians is sapping Israel's international legitimacy, this week convened diplomats and PR executives to come up with ways of "rebranding" the country. ...

A Terrorist Cell

2006-10-13T03:32:00.001+10:00

Lavon Affair

A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist.

Notes To Chapter IX

2006-10-11T15:11:00.001+10:00

328

NOTES TO CHAPTER IX

1. The controversy over the creation of the State of Israel in 1947, the policies leading to this historical event and its implications in terms of explosive developments in the Middle East, have been the subject of thousands of books, articles and pamphlets, as well as innumerable diplomatic exchanges among the great and small powers directly or indirectly interested in this problem. The following summary of events, it is hoped, will throw some light on the major factors leading to the creation of the State of Israel.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, assimilation of Jews in Western European countries and their acceptance within the social, cultural and political life of each nation resulted in an influx of Jews from Eastern Europe who sought a better life in Austria, Germany, France, England and the United States. The emigration of large numbers of Jews to Western Europe and their economic and commercial success resulted in a wave of racial tension and anti-Semitism which came to a climax, in the twentieth century, in the Nazi movement in Germany. Certain Jewish leaders, particularly Moses Mendelssohn (1829-86) and Theodore Hertzl (1806-1904), alarmed at the process of assimilation in Western Europe, looked upon it as a threat to Jewish traditions and culture and took advantage of existing racial difficulties to preach the gospel of Jewish nationalism and to seek a solution to Jewish problems through the creation of a Jewish State. In 1896, Hertzl wrote in his Der Judenstaat: "The Jews have but one way of saving themselves--a return to their own people and a return to their own land." Modern Zionism, with its political and nationalistic ambitions, aimed at the creation of a Jewish State, gained support from the oppressed European Jews and its first Congress, held in Basel in 1897, formalized the program which eventually led to the creation of the State of Israel. And yet not all the Jewish leaders agreed on Palestine as being their goal. The so-called Territorialist Zionists, led by Dr. Israel Zangwill, were willing to settle for a Jewish home regardless of its geographical location, while the Zionists proper, under Dr. Chaim Weizmann, argued in favor of a Jewish State in

329

Palestine--then a part of the Ottoman Empire. The Zionist Congress, which at first met annually and after 1901 every second year, received an offer from the British government in 1903 to permit Jews to settle in the African territory of Uganda as an autonomous community within the British Empire. Both Hertzl and Zangwill favored acceptance but they were opposed by Dr. Weizmann, who successfully maneuvered against the Territorialists; the Congress declined the offer and Palestine became the official target of the Zionist Organization. During the years that followed the 1903 decision, the Zionist movement undertook a world-wide campaign in order to bring more Jews into active participation in the movement and to gain political support from Western governments in general, and the British government in particular. Their campaign was without outward visible success until 1917. The beginning of World War I and the alliance between the Ottoman Empire and Germany marked a decisive turn of events in favor of the Zionist movement. The Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1915 (see chapter V, note 6), secretly negotiated between Britain, France and Zsarist Russia (made public and denounced by the Soviet government in 1917) divided the Ottoman Empire between the three power, giving Syria and Lebanon to France, Constantinople and the Dardanelles, under certain conditions to Russia, and Iraq and Palestine to Great Britain. This was followed, on November 2, 1917, by the so-called Balfour Declaration in which Sir Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, wrote to Lord Rothschild on the sympathy of the British government with the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Palestine, with 97 per cent of its population Arab, was a part of the projected Arab State under the McMahon correspondence (note 7, below) which was now being violated by the Balfour Declaration. In response to protests from Arab leader Sherif Husein, the British government issued a clarification in which Nation Home was distinguished from National State and the Foreign Office denied that the British government supported the creation of a Jewish National State. Nevertheless, the endorsement of the Declaration by Italy, France and the United States, its acceptance at the San Remo Conference of April 26, 1920, and its inclusion in the projected Treaty of Sévres (1920), which was aimed at the defeated Ottoman government (this was later replaced by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne,

330

which recognized the Turkish Republic under Ataturk) made the Balfour Declaration an integral part of the British Imperial Policy in the Middle East. The implementation of the Sykes-Picot Treaty through the legal device called the mandate system made Palestine a British Mandate, opened its gates to Zionist immigration and resulted in terrorist activities of both Arabs and Zionist Jews, which form the bloody history of Palestine throughout the mandate period.

During the Cairo Conference of 1921, called to plan the future course of the British Imperial policy in the Arab world, Winston Churchill, the Colonial Secretary, carved out the autonomous state of Transjordania, reportedly over a bottle of brandy and a cigar, to satisfy the disgruntled Hashemite family of Sherif Husein. Husein's son Abdullah, was declared the ruler of the new state and his grandson, King Husein, is currently ruling the area, which since 1947 has been called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Thus, the Cairo Conference established a de facto basis for the division of Palestine into Jordan and Israel which was consummated in 1947. For more information see Nahum Sokolow, History of Zionism, 1600-1913, 2 Vols (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1919); H.M. Kallen, Zionism and World Politics (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Co., 1921); C.I. Janowski, The Jews and Minority Rights, 1848-1919 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933) and F.F. Andrews, The Holy Land under Mandate, 2 Vols (Boston: Houghton MIfflin Co., 1932). For the texts of documents on British policy in Palestine and the creation of Transjordania see J.C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and the Middle East, 2 Vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1956), Vol.II, pp101-111, 156-159.

2. The Hebrew University at Jerusalem was opened by Lord Balfour on April1, 1925. For information on the University see Facts About Israel (Jerusalem: The Government Press OFfice, 1961), pp130-134.

3. Besides Uganda there were a number of other proposals for the settlement of Jews and the creation of an autonomous Jewish National Home. These ranged from the Island

331

of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean to Mesopatamia, Sina(?) and even Argentina. Dr. Hertzl, even after being committed to Palestine through the decision of the Zionist Congress mentioned above, was still ready to consider the possibility of colonization in other areas. The split over Uganda resulted in the creation of the Jewish Territorial Organization (ITO) under the leadership of Dr. Zangwill; the purpose of ITO was to dissociate itself from the Zionist Organization and "...to acquire a territory on the basis of autonomy for those Jews who cannot or do not wish to remain in their present countries of residence." For details see Ben Halpern, The Idea of the Jewish State, Harvard Middle Eastern Studies No. 3 (Cambridge, Maa.: Harvard University Press, 1961), pp 152 ff.

4. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a Russian born Professor of Chemistry at the University of Manchester, and Nahum Sokolow, a Russian born journalist and a member of the Zionist Executive Committee who had come to England in 1914, were the two leading Zionist spokesman who were pressing to obtain the support of the British government for the Zionist cause. In March 1917 Sokolow went to Paris and Rome seeking endorsement of the Zionist program from France and Italy and he returned to London in June 1917 with a favorable letter from Jules Carbon, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. On July 18, 1917, Lord Rothschild submitteed to the British Foreign Office the Zionist draft and declaration of policy to be considered by the cabinet. After days of heated discussion, the draft was adopted in its revised form known as the Balfour Declaration and was part of a letter written by Sir Arthur to Lord Rothschild on November 2, 1917. The text of the letter was published in The TImes of London on November 9, 1917. See Hurewitz, op. cit., Vol. II pp. 25-26.

5. In May 1917, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sir Arthur Balfour, paid a visit to the United States and tried to get the support of the American Government for the Zionist ambitions in Palestine. Sir Arthur discussed the question with Justice Brandeis, who was both a Zionist and a close adviser to the President. His attempt, supported by leading American Zionists, brought favorable

332

response from such prominent officials as William J. Bryan, the former Secretary of State; Robert Lansing, currently Secretary of State; Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War; Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy; Col Edward House; Norman Hapgood; and many influential members of the Congress. Even President Wilson showed enthusiastic support when, in the course of a discussion with Brandeis, Frankfurter and Wise, he referred to himself a a Zionist. Not being at war with the Ottoman Empire at the time, the President did not wish to make public his views, but on October 16, 1917, President Wilson instructed Colonel House to approve, on the part of the United States government, the Zionist draft declaration which was being considered by the British government. After the declaration was issued, the Zionists concentrated their campaign on winning the support of other Allied governments; in this they were quite successful. France gave its formal approval on February 11, 1918 and Italy followed suit on February 23, 1918. On October 29, 1918, President Wilson gave his open support to the declaration in a letter addressed to Rabbi Stephen B. Wise. The Congress gave its support to the Balfour Declaration through a joint resolution signed by President Harding on September 21, 1922. See Lenozowski, The Middle East in World Affairs 3rd ed. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962), pp. 77-93 and notes. For the text of the joint resolution endorsing the Declaration see Statutes of the United States: 1921-1922, Part I, p. 1012.


	6. The term Zionism, as explained in note 1, refers to a definite political and nationalistic movement and, as the author states, cannot be equated with Judaism any more than the term Arab could be equated with the religion Islam. A number of Jews—both before and after the declaration of Balfour,—have publicly opposed the Zionist movement. The grounds for opposition have not always been the same but public statements by anti-Zionist Jews contradict the contention of the Zionists that their political movement is identical with Judaism and the Jewish people in the world. See, for example, J.M.N. Jeffries, Palestine: The Reality (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1939), pp. 141-147; Lenozowski, op. cit., pp. 77 ff. and Rabbi Elmer Berger,

333

Who Knows Better Must Say So (new York: American Council for Judaism, 1955). When President Wilson finally gave his support to the Balfour Declaration (note 5, above), Dr. Chaim Weizmann called the action "one of the most important individual factors in breaking the deadlock created by the British Jewish anti-Zionists." Chaim Weizmann, Trial [&] Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann (New York, Harper, 1949), p. 208.

7. At the outbreak of World War I one of the aims of Arab nationalism was emancipation from Ottoman rule and Sherif Husein of Hojaz [sp?], the head of the Hashemite family and the Governor of Mecca, was one of the most enthusiastic leaders of the Pan-Arab movement. In February, 1914, a series of negotiations started between Abdullah, the second son of Husein, and Lord Kitchener, then British Agent and Consul General in Egypt, for British support of Arab national ambitions against the Ottoman government. Upon the Ottoman involvement in the war, the negotiations became the basis for the McMahon Agreement reached in a correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, acting on instruction of the British government, and Sherif Husein, which resulted in a military alliance between Arabs and the British. The Alliance provided for the formation of an Arab Army to fight against the Central Powers in return for which the British government promised to support the independence of the Arabs in the area bounded on the north by Turkey, on the east by the Iranian border down to the Persian Gulf and on the south by the Arab principalities of the Persian Gulf. As to the Western boundaries, Husein demanded the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; but the British government, while accepting the Red Sea boundary, excluded the coastal belt of Syria from the pledge; for the French Government had sought this territory since 1860. The McMahon Agreement never went into effect and apparently the British government never intended to honor its obligation under it, for—apart from the Balfour Declaration of 1917—while the Arab side of the agreement was being implemented, the British government was busy negotiating the secret Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916 (note 1, above), under which the area covered by the Agreement was divided between England and France. For the text of the letters exchanged between Sherif

334.

Husein and Sir Henry McMahon see Hurewitz, op.cit., Vol II, pp.13-17. For additional information see G. Antonius, The Arab Awakening (New York: E. Hamilton, 1918); P.L. Hanna, British Policy in Palestine, (Washington: American Council on Public Affairs, 1942); Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, Vol. XXX, Cmd. 597L, 1939 and 5 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), COXLV (19382939), 2032, 3769.

8. In 1917 the total population of Palestine was 600,000, of whom 13,000 (3%) were Jews. By 1922, owing to the opening of the gates to Zionist immigration, the number of Jews in the country had reached 33,790. The Arab agitation against the British policy provoked Mr. Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, to write his well known 'Churchill Memorandum' in which he reassured the Arabs that the Balfour Declaration was not intended to turn Palestine into a Jewish State and that the Jewish immigration would be permitted to the extent justified by the economic capacity of Palestine. This, however, did not satisfy the Arabs and, moreover, Zionist immigration continued so that in 1939, when the British government decided to impose restrictions by cutting it down to 75,000 more for the ensuing five years, the Jewish population of Palestine had reached 445,457, or almost one-third of the total population, which was at the time 1,501,693. For detailed statistical information on Palestine see the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Great Britain and Palestine, 1915-1945, information paper No. 20 (London: The B.I.I.A., 1946). See also Lenozowski, op. cit., Vol II, pp.103-106.

9. As stated before (Chapter V, note 6), the secret agreements of World War I providing for the division of enemy territories among the victorious powers were in violation of public statements made by various leaders of the Allies Powers on "self-determination" and the "rights of small nations" during the war years. To find a legal formula through which the imperialistic ambitions of the victorious powers could be satisfied, Article 22 of the League Covenant was devised; this made

335.

the advanced countries of the West the caretakers of the inhabitants of the former enemy territories. This was attributed to the facts that these people were not, as yet, "able to stand by themselves" and "the well being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation." Under agreements concluded later between the Allied and Associated Powers the former enemy territories were classified into A, B and C mandates in conformity with the categories mentioned in Article 22 of the Covenant. See [Great Britain] Parliamentary Papers, Vol II, Treaty Series No. 11, Cmd. 964, 1920, pp. 11-12. For a scholarly discussion of the Versailes Treaty up to 1929, see Quincy Wright, Mandates Under the League of Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930). For the full text of the Mandate Agreement on Palestine see the Royal Institute of International Affairs, op. cit., p. 152.

10. see note 8, above.

11. The stormy history of Palestine throughout the mandate period and the hostile reaction of other Arab countries to the British policy in Palestine forced the British government to set up a number of commissions to find a solution to the problem of Palestine. Each commission turned in a voluminous report and then a White Paper would be issued by the British government. Thus, for example, after the Wailing Wall incident of August 1929, when the first large scale attacks on the Zionists was undertaken by the Arabs, the British government set up the Shaw Commission on Palestine. After investigation, the Commission attributed the incident to "Arab hatred of the Jews and the disappointment of Arab hopes for independence." This was followed by the Hope-Simpson Commission of 1930 upon whose report was based the Passfield White of October 20, 1930, proposing a temporary stop to Jewish immigration and a ban on land purchase by Zionists in Palestine. There were a number of other commissions and White Papers, the most important of which was the Royal (Peel) Commission mentioned by the author, set up as a result of the crisis precipitated by the formation of the Arab High Committee in April 1936 and a general strike called by the Committee which

336

lasted from August to October of that year. The Peel Commission Report, published by the British government on July 8, 1937, proposed that, since Arabs and Jews could not possibly get along together, the mandate system should be considered unworkable and abandoned in favor of a partition plan dividing Palestine into three states: (1) a Jewish State, comprising approximately one-third of the total territory; (2) an Arab State united with Transjordania; and (3) a British mandated territory comprising a strip from Jaffa along the raliway to Jerusalem, including both Jerusalem and Bethlehem. For the texts of documents and related papers see Abraham Tulin, Book of Documents, compiled and annotated on instructions of the Jewish Agency for Palestine (The Jewish Agency for Palestine , 1947), pp. 53-215.

12. The Peel Report was accepted by the Wold Zionist Congress on August 2, 1937, on the condition that it be revised in favor of the Zionist demands for more territory. A minority of the members of the Congress voted against it and it was generally condemned by the Zionists outside the Congress as a violation of the Balfour Declaration. The permanent Mandate Commission adopted the Report on August 20 and the British government also stated its agreement to the partition plan. On September 8, 1937, the Pan-Arab Congress at Bludan, Syria, voted overwhelmingly against the Report and demanded the termination of the mandate, the establishment of an independant Arab State of Palestine allied with Great Britain, and end to Jewish immigration and the abandonment of the prospective Jewish National Home, instead of which the Jews would have the status of a guaranteed minority within the Arab State. The split of the Zionists over the Peel Report and its rejection by the Arabs resulted in the postponement of the partition plan and the creation of a new Commission on January 4, 1938, under Sir John Woodhead to study the Peel Report further. See The New York Times, October 6, 13, and November 10, 1938. For the texts of the documents see Tulin, op.cit., pp. 35-38, 49-52, 97-99, and 100-111 and The Monthly Summary of the League of Nations (Cenova, Switzerland: The Information Section, League of Nations, 1937), Vol. VII, No. 8 (August 1937), pp 167-174. See also the following note.

13. The Woodhead Commission, after spending five months (April-August, 1938) in Palestine, reported to the British government that partition was impracticable. On November 9, 1938, the British government announced the findings of the Woodhead Commission, abandoned the partition plan and called a Zionist-Arab Conference to discuss the Palestine problem in London. The conference met in London in February, 1939 and lasted until March 17. Despite the efforts of non-Palestinian Arabs to effect a compromise, the Conference did not accomplish anything and closed on March 17 without reaching a settlement. This having failed, the British government issued its famous White Paper of May 17, 1939, which provided (1) an independent Palestine in which both Arabs and Jews would share in the government would be created within ten years; (2) during the transition both Arabs and Jews would be appointed as heads of government departments with British advisors; (3) after five years a constitution would be drafted providing for a Jewish Home; (4) immigration of Jews would be terminated within five years, during which period 75,000 new immigrants would be permitted to come into Palestine; and (5) the sale of new land to immigrants would be prohibited immediately. The British government approved the plan on May 23, 1939, but it was rejected unanimously by the Zionists, as well as by the great majority of Arabs. The outbreak of World War II created a temporary armed truce which flared up in new fighting and acts of violence in 1945. For the text of the documents and a discussion of events see J.C. Hurewitz, op. cit., Vol. II, pp.218-226 and The Struggle for Palestine, (New York: Norton Book Co., 1950), pp. 67-111. See also Lenowski, op. cit., pp. 316-326.

14. During World War II the world Zionist movement began gradually to shift its reliance for support from London to Washington. On May 11, 1942, the Zionist Organization met in New York and adopted the so-called Baltimore Program presented to it by David Ben Gurion. The program called for the creation of a Jewish Army, the repudiation of the 1939 White Paper, and unlimited immigration into Palestine. Next the Zionists began to put pressure on Congressional leaders and high government

338.

officials for support of the Baltimore Program, and in February, 1944, a resolution was introduced into both Houses of Congress which, if passed, would have made the Baltimore Program the official policy of the United States government. It was the intervention of General Marshall, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that postponed the vote on the resolution at the last moment. General Marshall, on the basis of reports from the Middle East, informed Congressional leaders that such a resolution at that time would impair the war efforts of the Allied Powers. Despite this setback official Washington was generally in favor of the Zionist program and on August 31, 1945, President Truman sent a message to Prime Minister Atlee asking for admission of 100,000 Jewish refugees into Palestine. In reply, the British Prime Minister proposed the formation of an Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine to study the matter. The American government accepted the proposal and the Committee completed its inquiry on April 20, 1946, and presented its Report to the two governments. See Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XIV, No. 388 (May 13, 1946), pp.783-787. For the text of the Report see The Anglo-American Committe of Inquiry: Report to the United States Government and His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, Department of State Publication 2536, Near Eastern Series 2 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946). See also Lenowski, op.cit., pp.326-332. For the British and the American members of the Committee see Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XIII, No. 388 (December 16, 1945), pp. 958-959. See also note 20, below.

15. For the text of the executive order establishing the cabinet level committe discussed by the author see Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XIV, No. 364 (June 23, 1946), p. 1089-1090.

16. See Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XV, No. 372 (August 18, 1946), p.334, and No. 380 (October 13, 1946), pp. 669-670.

339

17. The Grady Committee flew to London on July 10, 1946, and after negotiation with its British counterpart submitted its report to President Truman on July 24, 1946. The Report, known as the Grady-Morrisson Plan, provided for provincial autonomy leading ultimately to a bi-national federal state. This proved unacceptable to Mr. Truman. Mr. Truman rejected the proposal due to opposition of "members of the major political parties in the United States" and proposed substantial immigration of Jews into Palestine without waiting for a solution to the problem. He pledged American assistance to make immigration possible. The President also supported the Zionist proposal for "the creation of a viable Jewish State in control of its own immigration and economic policies in an adequate area of Palestine."

According to James Reston of The New York Times, Mr. Truman's Palestine policy was attributable to political considerations. Two Democratic candidates, Mr. Mead and Mr. Lehman, were campaigning for the two highest political posts in the state of New York. Mr. Mead was seeking governorship and Mr. Lehman was after a seat in the United States Senate. The two candidates informed the White House that a statement favoring Zionism must be made if they were to win the election. On October 4, 1946, Mr. Truman issued the requested statement. Thus a vital question of foreign policy was decided of the basis of partisan political considerations. Mr. Bevin, the Labour Secretary for Foreign Affairs, subsequently deplored the fact that the Palestine issue had become the subject of local elections in the United States. According to C.L. Sulzberger of The New York Times, the British government was well on the way towards a solution of the Palestine problem on a cantonal basis "when President Truman upset the apple cart by making his speech demanding the immediate entry of 100,000 Jews." For Mr. Truman's rejection of the Grady-Morrison Plan, see Basic Documents, pp. 816-817. For Mr. Bevin's statement see The New York Times, February 26, 1947. For an evaluation of Mr. Truman's policy see Kermit Roosevelt, The Partition of Palestine: A Lesson in Pressure Politics, The Middle East Journal, Vol. II, No. 1 (January 1948), pp.1-16. The views of Mr. Reston and Mr. Sulzberger are from The New York Times, October 7, 1946, and December 8, 1947, as cited by Roosevelt, op. cit., pp.12-13.

340

18. See note 15, above.

19. See notes 11-12, above.

20. On August 31, 1945, President Truman sent a letter to Prime Minister Atlee in which he informed the Prime Minister of the recent mission of Mr. Earl G. Harrison to inquire into "the present condition and the future fate" of displaced Jews. In his report to the President, Mr. Harrison, former United States Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization and at the time American representative on the Intergovernmental Commission on Refugees, recommended arrangements for immediate of Jews in Germany and Austria to Palestine. The report was the basis of President Truman's insistence upon the admission of 100,000 new Jewish immigrants into the country. The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (note 14, above) in supporting the Harrison recommendation for the immediate admission of 100,000 new immigrants, also recommended (Recommendation No. 3) that Palestine "shall be neither Jew nor Arab" and that Arabs should not dominate Jews nor Jews Arabs. The recommendation urged the creation of a state in which the rights of both Jews and Arabs could be protected. Dr. Grady's reference to the proposal as the "Harris Plan" apparently refers either to the Harrison Report and the recommendations of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry partially based on it, or to the report prepared by the British Civil Servant mentioned by the author. The plan is officially known as the Grady-Morrison Proposals or the Morrison Plan. For the text of the Harrison Report see Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XIII, No. 334 (November 18, 1945), p. 790. For a discussion of the plan see Hurewitz, op. cit., 272-273.

21. For an enlightening discussion of similar pressures used by the Zionist lobbyists to change the votes of those members of the United States who opposed partition, see K. Roosevelt, op. cit., pp.13-15.

22. see note 17, above.

341

22. On April 2, 1947, the government of the United Kingdom requested the calling of a special session of the General Assembly to consider the entire problem of Palestine. The General Assembly met on April 28 and May 15, 1947, and set up a United Nations Special Committee on Palestine composed of eleven members (Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay and Yugoslavia) under the presidency of the Swedish delegate. The Committee was given "the widest powers to ascertain and record facts, and to investigate all questions and issues relevant to the problem of Palestine," and to report its recommendations, not later than September 1, 1947, to the regular session of the General Assembly. The Committee completed its work by September, 1947 and presented two plans for the settlement of the Palestine problem to the General Assembly. Both plans recommended the establishment of ann independent and economically unified Palestine at an early date but there were sharp differences on other matters. The majority plan, recommended by seven member of the Committee (Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, the Netherlands, Peru, Sweden and Uruguay) recommended the partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state with the city of Jerusalem internationalized and administered by the United Nations. The minority plan, proposed by India, Iran, and Yugoslavia, advocated a federated state of Palestine composed of two autonomous states, Jewish and Arab, and recommended that immigration into the Jewish section be permitted for three years with a committee formed of three Jewish, three Arab, and three United Nations representatives determining the number of immigrants in accordance with the absorptive capacity of the Jewish State. The Arabs favored the minority plan while the Zionists expressed willingness to accept the majority plan. On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly adopted the majority plan with some modifications. The Palestinian Arabs, supported by all the Arab states, refused to recognize the partition plan. The United Nations documents on Palestine are too numerous to be cited here. For a summary of the proceedings at the special session of the General Assembly convened at the request of

342

the United Kingdom, see The Yearbook of the United Nations: 1946-1947 (Lake Success, N.Y.: UN Department of Public Information, 1947), pp. 276-303. For proceedings at the regular session of the Assembly (September-November 1947) and a summary of the majority and minority reports of U.N.S.C.O.P. and the final decision to partition Palestine see The Yearbook of the United Nations: 1947-1948, pp. 16, 27-28, 30, 227-281, 307, 402-451, 552, 622 and 917.

23. See the United Nations, Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Final Report of the UN Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East, UN Doc. AAC35/6, Dec. 28, 1949.

24. On February 16, 1956, the Special Subcommittee on Refugees and Escapees of the Senate Judiciary Committee was empowered to study the problem of refugees and make the necessary recommendations to the Senate. Subsequent to the report prepared by the subcommittee, the United States Congress, on March 2, 1957, authorized the Department to make available visas to displaced persons who qualified under the provisions of the Refugee Relief Act of Congress. See Subcommittee to Investigate Problems Connected with the Emigration of Refugees and Escapees, Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, 85th Cong. 1st Sess., 1957, Report No. 129, pp. 1 ff. See also Congressional Record, 85th Congress, 1st Sess., 1957, CIX, part 3, p. 2954.

Title: "Summary of major events leading to the creation of the nation of Israel"
Truman Library - Documents on the Recognition of Israel

Master Races

2006-10-09T01:42:00.001+10:00

41% of Israel's Jews favour segregation

Poll reveals widespread anti-Arab sentiment
Academics warn of racism 'becoming mainstream'

Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Friday March 24, 2006
The Guardian

A poll of attitudes among Israel's Jews towards their country's Arab citizens has exposed widespread racism, with large numbers favouring segregation and policies to encourage Arabs to leave the country.

The poll found that more than two-thirds of Jews would refuse to live in the same building as an Arab. Nearly half would not allow an Arab in their home and 41% want segregation of entertainment facilities.

The survey also found 40% of Israel's Jews believe "the state needs to support the emigration of Arab citizens", a policy advocated by some far-right parties in the run-up to next week's general election.
... guardian.co.uk/israel/...

Central Commitment

2006-10-08T22:46:00.001+10:00


	Protecting innocent civilians is a central commitment of our war plan. Our enemy in this war is the Iraqi regime, not the people who have suffered under it. G.W., March 26, 2003

Not Sacred, Abhorrent

2006-10-08T22:03:00.001+10:00

from U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's 1919 King-Crane Commission Report, re:

ZIONISM

E. We recommend, in the fifth place, serious modification of the extreme Zionist program for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking finally to making Palestine distinctly a Jewish State.

(1) The Commissioners began their study of Zionism with minds predisposed in its favor, but the actual facts in Palestine, coupled with the force of the general principles proclaimed by the Allies and accepted by the Syrians have driven them to the recommendation here made.

(2) The commission was abundantly supplied with literature on the Zionist program by the Zionist Commission to Palestine; heard in conferences much concerning the Zionist colonies and their claims; and personally saw something of what had been accomplished. They found much to approve in the aspirations and plans of the Zionists, and had warm appreciation for the devotion of many of the colonists and for their success, by modern methods, in overcoming natural obstacles.

(3) The Commission recognized also that definite encouragement had been given to the Zionists by the Allies in Mr. Balfour's often quoted statement in its approval by other representatives of the Allies. If, however, the strict terms of the Balfour Statement are adhered to -favoring "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights existing in non-Jewish communities in Palestine"-it can hardly be doubted that the extreme Zionist Program must be greatly modified.

For "a national home for the Jewish people" is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the "civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conference with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase.

In his address of July 4, 1918, President Wilson laid down the following principle as one of the four great "ends for which the associated peoples of the world were fighting"; "The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery."
If that principle is to rule, and so the wishes of Palestine's population are to be decisive as to what is to be done with Palestine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of Palestine-nearly nine tenths of the whole-are emphatically against the entire Zionist program. The tables show that there was no one thing upon which the population of Palestine were more agreed than upon this. To subject a people so minded to unlimited Jewish immigration, and to steady financial and social pressure to surrenderthe land, would be a gross violation of the principle just quoted, and of the people's rights, though it kept within the forms of law.

It is to be noted also that the feeling against the Zionist program is not confined to Palestine, but shared very generally by the people throughout Syria as our conferences clearly showed. More than 72 per cent-1,350 in all-of all the petitions in the whole of Syria were directed against the Zionist program. Only two requests-those for a united Syria and for independence-had a larger support This genera] feeling was only voiced by the "General Syrian Congress," in the seventh, eighth and tenth resolutions of the statement. (Already quoted in the report.)

The Peace Conference should not shut its eyes to the fact that the anti-Zionist feeling in Palestine and Syria is intense and not lightly to be flouted. No British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than 50,000 soldiers would be required even to initiate the program. That of itself is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist program, on the part of the non-Jewish populations of Palestine and Syria. Decisions, requiring armies to carry out, are sometimes necessary, but they are surely not gratuitously to be taken in the interests of a serious injustice. For the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a "right" to Palestine, based on an occupation of 2,000 years ago, can hardly be seriously considered.

There is a further consideration that cannot justly be ignored, if the world is to look forward to Palestine becoming a definitely Jewish state, however gradually that may take place. That consideration grows out of the fact that Palestine is "the Holy Land" for Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike. Millions of Christians and Moslems all over the world are quite as much concerned as the Jews with conditions in Palestine especially with those conditions which touch upon religious feeling and rights. The relations in these matters in Palestine are most delicate and difficult. With the best possible intentions, it may be doubted whether the Jews could possibly seem to either Christians or Moslems proper guardians of the holy places, or custodians of the Holy Land as a whole.


	*The reason is this: The places which are most sacred to Christians-those having to do with Jesus-and which are also sacred to Moslems, are not only not sacred to Jews, but abhorrent to them*.

It is simply impossible, under those circumstances, for Moslems and Christians to feel satisfied to have these places in Jewish hands, or under the custody of Jews. There are still other places about which Moslems must have the same feeling. In fact, from this point of view, the Moslems, just because the sacred places of all three religions are sacred to them have made very naturally much more satisfactory custodians of the holy places than the Jews could be. It must be believed that the precise meaning, in this respect, of the complete Jewish occupation of Palestine has not been fully sensed by those who urge the extreme Zionist program. For it would intensify, with a certainty like fate, the anti-Jewish feeling both in Palestine and in all other portions of the world which look to Palestine as "the Holy Land."

In view of all these considerations, and with a deep sense of sympathy for the Jewish cause, the Commissioners feel bound to recommend that only a greatly reduced Zionist program be attempted by the Peace Conference, and even that, only very gradually initiated. This would have to mean that Jewish immigration should be definitely limited, and that
the project for making Palestine
distinctly a Jewish commonwealth
should be given up.

Metal Fire

2006-09-27T02:51:00.006+10:00

The intense fire in the northeast corner opening of the 81st floor is still present. An unusual flame is visible within this fire. In the upper photograph in Figure 9-44 a very bright white flame, as opposed to the typical yellow or orange surrounding flames, which is generating a plume of white smoke, stands out. The intensity of this flame is considerably brighter than normal flames. It was easily identified in numerous photographs and videos shot from long distances at which the surrounding "normal" flames were not visible. The brightness of the flame, along with the white smoke, suggests that some type of metal is burning. Aluminum will burn, but in normal fires it usually melts instead because the metal surface is protected by an oxide layer that must be breeched before ignition can take place. Aluminum oxide melts at high temperatures (2054C) that are not typically reached in normal fires. There were limited quantities of other metals on the aircraft that might also burn. Whatever the metal, the ignition of a metal fire is an indication of the significant heating of debris that took place in the northeast corner of the 81st floor due to the prolonged intense burning in this area following the aircraft impact.
NISTNCSTAR1-5A_chapter_9_AppxC - p. 344. (pdf p.48 - 55Mb)

Dialysis

2006-09-24T16:49:00.002+10:00

Don't blame the Afgans for all out drug problems
April 10, 2001
By Rory Cahill

Lefty and Yank Basher

A good mate of mine, Jack Barton, (from News Views and Abuse too!) just got back from a trip to Afganistan, where he met, among other Afgan identities, Ahmed Shah Masood, "Tiger Of Panjshir" and the military leader of the Northern Alliance that is fighting those sculpture-vultures the Taliban. Jack works as a freelance journalist and has travelled widely, including many "hotspots" such Croatia in 1991 and Chiapas State, Mexico in 1994, when the Zapatistas under Subcommandante Marcos occupied the entire province.

To say he knows his shit is an understatement.

The Sunday Herald Sun printed a number of his stories while he was in Afganistan but the best and biggest story for mine, well, just isn't being told.

Afganistan produces about 60-70% of the worlds heroin, supplying all of Western Europe, Russia and increasingly Australia. Shah Masood has done a deal with the Russians to stop trading smack and opium and in return the Russians are arming him to fight the goat-loving peasants that are the Talibs. This is undeniably a good thing.

But in the 90% of Afganistan held by the Taliban, a strange thing has occured. Desperate to win international aid and have Clinton's limited 1998 sanctions removed, the Talibs actually cut opium production by 97% in 2000-01, mainly by burning crops and confiscating farming equipment.

This has resulted in about 100,000 poor peasants, denied the one cash crop that grows in the harsh Afgan soils, becoming refugees and heading to Pakistan to join 1.5 million of their compatriots who have been sheltering in squalid camps since the Russians invaded in 1979.

This season there will be no opium harvested in Afganistan and thus a major drop in world-wide heroin supplies, with accompanying crime waves as addicts steal more and more to pay for more expensive, less pure heroin.

One would think the Americans would be over-joyed by this, especially seeing as George Dubya "Coke And Whisky And Coke For Me Thanks" Bush is now resting his boots on the Oval Office table, especially as not-so-subtle messages were sent indicating the US would drop the sanctions if the Taliban cut the drugs.

Alas, no! Due to its racist and inept ways, the US is convinced hepatitic old Usuma bin Laden personally directs ALL international terrorism from his cave near Kandahar, despite the fact he is on dialysis and the Taliban have taken all his satellite communications equipment away.

That there are 2 billion Muslims on Earth and some of them, like the Chechen Mujahideen currently defeating the Russian Army for the second time in five years, are the best guerilla fighters in the world, seems to elude the US - clearly Usuma bin Laden and his 500 ageing supporters are the root of all evil!

So, because the strictly Muslim Talibs won't betray their culture, religion and nation by giving bin Laden up to the Yanks to be tried by a kangaroo court in Washington, the US has jacked yet harsher sanctions onto poor old Afganistan.

The result? The Taliban are feeling, quite correctly, that the Americans cannot be trusted to keep their promises and have now embarked on a massive, industrial scale preparation for Season 2001-2. They are going to grow more opium and sell more smack to more Western kiddies than in anybody in human history. Jack saw new heroin labs and opium storage sheds being constructed!

What a great result all around. The Taliban will never, ever again bother with anything the West says, hence their glee in blowing the Buddhas at Bamiyan. Usuma bin Laden will never be brought to trial for his ALLEGED involvement in the 1998 embassy bombings and the world will be flooded with yet more smack. [...]
Crikey.com, April, 2001 (Aust.gov pandora archive)
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July 02, 2001
MUSHARRAF, BIN LADEN & THE LASHKAR
by B.Raman

[...] Independent reports from Islamabad and Peshawar suggest that :

Bin Laden, who suffers from renal deficiency, has been periodically undergoing dialysis in a Peshawar military hospital with the knowledge and approval of the Inter-Services Intelligence, (ISI) if not of Gen.Pervez Musharraf himself.
The recent circulation of copies of bin Laden's video cassette showing him and his followers undergoing training in Afghan territory and the interview of Bakr Atyani, a correspondent of the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) with bin Laden and his aides Abu Hafas al-Masri and Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of Egypt's outlawed Jihad group, were organised by Pakistani military and ISI officers manning the Taliban's newly-created intelligence agency, which has replaced the Khad, the intelligence agency of the Najibullah regime. In this interview, during which bin Laden was present but did not speak, his two aides warned that "the coming weeks will hold important surprises that will target American and Israeli interests in the world." The interview was reportedly recorded by a camera supplied by the ISI officers of the Taliban's intelligence agency since the correspondent was not allowed to carry any recording equipment when he transited Peshawar on his way to Kandahar to interview bin Laden and his aides.

[...] However, the Taliban has questioned the authenticity of the video cassette and the claims of the journalist to have interviewed bin Laden's aides. Despite this, William B. Milam, the outgoing US Ambassador in Islamabad, contacted the Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan, Abus Salaam Zaeef , on June 29 and reportedly warned him that in case of a new terrorist attack against American interests by groups associated with bin Laden, Washington would hold the Taliban directly responsible, hinting thereby that any retaliatory strike by the US could be directed against the Taliban's headquarters.
South Asia Analyst Group, July, 2001
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September 19, 2001
Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view

Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the world’s foremost terrorist masterminds: the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing Osama Bin Laden.
http://www.janes.com/....shtml
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Nov 01, 2001
Ailing bin Laden ‘treated secretly for kidney disease’
ADAM SAGE IN PARIS; OVERSEAS NEWS
London Times

KIDNEY stones rather than Stealth bombers could deal a mortal blow to Osama bin Laden it appeared yesterday after reports that the al-Qaeda leader recently smuggled himself into an expensive Gulf hospital. Needing urgent treatment for his ailing kidneys, bin Laden, 44, is said to have checked into the American Hospital in Dubai in July. {and/or a peshwar military hospital] Among those with him, it is thought, was Dr Ayman Zawahiri, who as well as being his personal physician is al-Qaeda's second-in-command.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/011101londontimes
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77 and 93 on 911

2006-09-15T04:04:00.004+10:00

"unlike everything else that has been reported" - Daily Press

The statements of the witnesses, the FAA administrator, the Pentagon employees and the C-130 pilot, condensed into the following compendium of industrial-strength extracts, were not selected because they are the most frequently ignored testimonies (which they are); but because they are mutually-compatible, non-contradictory, and convergent on a highly-plausible explanation of flights 77 and 93 that was already published in July of 2001 by James Hatfield:

[...] According to counter-terrorism experts quoted in Germany's largest newspaper, [Bin Laden's] attack on Dubya might be a James Bond-like aerial strike in the form of remote-controlled airplanes packed with plastic explosives. James Hatfield, July 3, 2001

Concordant also with the vast majority of Pentagon witness reports (including those lacking a C-130) and with the apparent rarity of debris in high-resolution post-impact images, this remote-controlled and explosives-packed hypothesis was, for me, "like a domino effect"---a really bad day for planes near Steve.

77 + C-130

'Horrific' Image Still Haunts Surry Woman Disaster Viewed From Arlington by Terry Scanlon, Daily Press September 14, 2001

The image of a jet slamming into the side of the Pentagon continues to haunt Pam Young and Keith Wheelhouse. The brother and sister had just finished burying her brother-in-law at Arlington National Cemetery when they witnessed the final seconds of American Airlines flight 77.

"The ball of flames just sticks in your mind, and all you think about is those people inside the building," said Young, of Surry County. "And you're standing in the middle of Arlington cemetery, and you don't know what's coming next."

Next was a wave of heat as the roughly two dozen stunned funeral attendees froze briefly before scurrying out of the wide-open graveyard. "It was a ball of fire and all you smelled was diesel. And the smoke was incredible," Young said. "It was horrific."

Perhaps more remarkable is her insistence that a second plane was flying near and along the same path as the hijacked jet. Her brother, Wheelhouse, of Virginia Beach, spotted the planes first.

The second plane looked similar to a C-130 transport plane, he said. He believes it flew directly above the American Airlines jet, as if to prevent two planes from appearing on radar - while at the same time - guiding the jet toward the Pentagon.

Wheelhouse's account of a second plane is unlike everything else that has been reported about the attack. Some initial reports on television said a second airliner might be headed for the Pentagon, but authorities later dismissed that. A Norfolk-based FBI agent interviewed Wheelhouse Wednesday evening.

A possible explanation for the second plane could be a plane landing at nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport. The Pentagon is between the cemetery and the airport. But Wheelhouse insists he was not confused by other air traffic.After the attack on the Pentagon, reporters in Washington saw Air Force planes patrolling the skies over the capital.

Wheelhouse said it's possible the second plane was a military plane, but the military has not said it had a plane shadowing the hijacked jet.

Regardless, the image of the two planes taking aim at the Pentagon is fixed in Wheelhouse's mind. And even though he returned to work Thursday, like his sister, he's struggling to forget Tuesday's terrorist attack. And living near Oceana Naval Air Station hasn't helped soothe his nerves."I do have a tendency to look up," he said.

Hampton Roads Woman Says She Too, Saw Plane Following Jet That Hit Pentagon by Terry Scanlon, Daily Press, September 15, 2001

Another Hampton Roads native says she saw a second plane in the air over the Pentagon as a hijacked jet plunged into the five-sided military fortress Tuesday. Kelly Knowles, a First Colonial High School alumnus who now lives in an apartment a few miles from the Pentagon, said some sort of plane followed the doomed American Airlines jet toward the Pentagon, then veered away after the explosion. Her account of the attack is similar to that of a Surry woman and her Virginia Beach brother, who were at Arlington National Cemetery at the time.

"Thank God somebody else saw that. There was most definitely a second plane," Knowles said. "It's so frustrating because nobody knows about the second plane, or if they do they're hiding it for some reason."

FBI spokesmen say they have not heard about it, although both Knowles and Keith Wheelhouse, the Virginia Beach man, were interviewed by FBI agents. A Pentagon official said late Friday no other plane was flying with the jetliner. But he said it was possible a military plane was in the area at the time of the attack.

Tuesday morning, Knowles, 22, was watching the stunning live images of the of the World Trade Center burning from her apartment building about four miles west of the Pentagon. From behind the wall of windows in her 14th-floor bedroom she has an unobstructed view of the five-sided military fortress and the capital city directly behind it.

Planes never pass over her Fairfax County apartment, she said, so when a low-flying, high-speed plane buzzed the high-rise, she jumped up, ran to the windows and saw the rear of a jet heading toward Washington, D.C. A few seconds later, a second plane that seemed to be chasing the first passed over at a slightly different angle, she said.

Northern Virginia resident John O'Keefe was one of the many commuters who witnessed the attack on the Pentagon. [...] "The first thing I did was pull over onto the shoulder, and when I got out of the car I saw another plane flying over my head, and it scared ...me, because I knew there had been two planes that hit the World Trade Center. And I started jogging up the ramp to get as far away as possible. "Then the plane -- it looked like a C-130 cargo plane -- started turning away from the Pentagon, it did a complete turnaround. New York Lawyer, September 12, 2001 (web archive)

USAToday.com Editor Joel Sucherman saw it all: an American Airlines jetliner fly left to right across his field of vision as he commuted to work Tuesday morning. [...] Off to the west, Sucherman saw another plane climb steeply and make a sharp turn. "I thought, 'Is this thing coming around to make a second attack? If there is another explosion, we're toast.'" e-Week, September 13, 2001 (web archive)

My [Scott P. Cook] office is located on the fifth floor of the Portals building, at 1280 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington DC. It's the southernmost building at the end of 14th Street, right at the Tidal Basin and Maine Avenue.[...] As we watched the black plume gather strength, less than a minute after the explosion, we saw an odd sight that no one else has yet commented on. Directly in back of the plume, which would place it almost due west from our office, a four-engine propeller plane, which Ray later said resembled a C-130, started a steep decent [sic] towards the Pentagon. Cloth Monkey, September 2001

Philip Thompson: ...on my way to work Sept. 11, I saw an American Airlines jet come overhead and slam into the Pentagon [...] I was sitting in heavy traffic in the I-395 HOV lanes about 9:45 a.m., directly across from the Navy Annex. I could see the roof of the Pentagon and, in the distance, the Washington Monument. I heard the scream of a jet engine and, turning to look, saw my driver's side window filled with the fuselage of the doomed airliner. It was flying only a couple of hundred feet off the ground - I could see the passenger windows glide by. The plane looked as if it were coming in for a landing - cruising at a shallow angle, wings level, very steady. But, strangely, the landing gear was up and the flaps weren't down. I knew what was about to happen, but my brain couldn't quite process the information. Like the other commuters on the road, I was stunned into disbelief. The fireball that erupted upon impact blossomed skyward, and the blast hit us in a wave. [...] Then a gray C-130 flew overhead, setting off a new round of panic. I tried to reassure people that the plane was not a threat. All around me people began to panic, fleeing for their lives. http://www.militarycity.com/sept11/911_1068139.html, September 2002

Albert Hemphill: Within moments there was a very loud bang, which seemed to come from the direction of Henderson Hall. At least, all the heads turned towards Henderson. It is possible that this was a secondary explosion from the Pentagon or possibly an F-16 going supersonic. [...] The only large fixed wing aircraft to appear was a gray C-130, which appeared to be a Navy electronic warfare aircraft, he seemed to survey the area and depart in on a westerly heading. Our Net Family, September 2001 [web archive]

Allen Cleveland: 10/28/2001 12:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time (From E-Mail) Dear Mr. King, I recently read your book "The Final Mission: Spooky 8". Had I known it existed I would have read it a long time ago. I know that you personally do not care whether a reader believes your story or not, but I would like you to know that I Personally believe what you have written for the most part. I,unlike yourself do not have any past history with Special Ops, but I do have a pretty keen mind for the way that our Government works as a whole. I just wanted to tell you that I Loved your book and was able to read it in 3 days time on the metro rail here in DC. I honestly believe that your book is probably one of the best I have ever read. I do prefer Non-fiction over Fiction, so I more than likely will not be reading your second book.(I hope you don't take offense to that.) I think you're a great Author and a soldier deserving respect.Whether people believe your story or not. I was also stationed at Fort Sill OK. 133rd Ord.Co.(I had a 111 GT score which would have allowed me to go else-where, but my MOS was needed there(MLRS-Repair/Maint) I will also add that I knew atleast 3 other people with GT scores of above 120 whom I served with on active duty while there.) Pretty sad that this DON guy believes, you have to be some kind of genious to do work that takes more heart and commitment than anything else. You've earned my respect by just being in the military. I was also stationed at Redstone Arsenal AL. with the EOD and Electronics School Toftoy Hall. I know this is a long e-mail, but I would also like to tell you a little info on the Septmber 11th terrorist attacks which occured as you know not far from where I am writing this to you now. I live in Woodbridge VA.(I'm sure you are aware of the geography) I was on my way into work on the 11th. Riding the metro-rail from Springfield VA. to DC.. I had just gotten off the phone with a close friend of mine who let me in on the details of the World Trade Center incidents which had taken place a few moments earlier. I was approaching the national airport stop, when I looked off to the right (I was facing backwards on the train)When I saw a large jet approaching Crystal city.(I was one of very few people that actually saw the Plane at the pentagon prior to its actual impact) I noticed that it's flight pattern was different than others I had come to recognize over riding the rail for many years. I knew that it was not headed for a landing strip. I actually had to look over my shoulder to see if I was mistaken and I unfortunately realized all too soon that I was about to witness one of the most historic moments of our lifetime. I watched as the plane disappeared behind the line of buildings that make up Crystal city and watched as an incredible mushroom cloud appeared on the horizon. I shouted HOLY SHIT!!! as the other passengers looked at me I pointed out the window to let them know what had happened. That is when it all set in and everyone realized what happened.No one else on my Car had seen what I saw. The reason I am telling you this is because the [reported] details of this one crash were not accurate from what I witnessed first hand and what I have gathered from others whom I know, saw what I saw.

Soon after the crash (Within 30 seconds of the crash) I witnessed a military cargo plane (Possibly a C-130) fly over the crash site and circle the mushroom cloud. My brother inlaw also witnessed the same plane following the jet while he was on the HOV lanes in Springfield. He said that he saw a jetliner flying low over the tree tops near Seminary RD in Springfield, VA. and soon afterwards a military plane was seen flying right behind it. I think this was also a reason for the false threat of another plane about to crash which caused rescuers to have to evacuate for a short time after the initial crash. I have done my research onthis and according to time magazine it took 24 minutes before Norad was supposedly notified about this particuliar jet and fighters were scrambling to intercept at that time. Isn't it odd how there is Not a single mention of this aircraft in ANY of the articles written about this crash? Also if you had not noticed... There is not a single picture or live footage of the actual jet prior to its crash at the Pentagon. Nor is there any of the one that crashed in Pennsylvania. But if Anyone who rides the metro-rail knows, there are plenty of Video cameras all around National airport at the parking Garages and the high level security buildings found all around Crystal city. (3 of which I have personally found pointed directly towards crystal city which would have given a great line of site shot of that jet prior to the crash as well as any other plane which might have been following it. I personally believe that the government new full well that this was about to happen and they are hiding something a lot bigger than they are willing to let out. I was interviewed at Washingtonpost.com and gave them my full story, but they did not print it as I have told you [*].

I also find it interesting that one of the planes engines in the pennsylvania crash was supposedly found 5 miles prior to the crash site (This information I'm unsure of). The only thing that I'm aware of that might cause that would be a heat seeking missle. A weapon which I am pretty familiar with form Ord.training. I'm not saying that the government new exactly what was about to happen, but I do believe that they are definitely hiding something here. Many of my friends in intelligence have said the same. I work in a Gov. building in DC., but my heart is right there with you and your team. I hope you and those who served with you are doing well. Take care. Allen Cleveland [web archive]

* On a Metro train to National Airport, Allen Cleveland looked out the window to see a jet heading down toward the Pentagon. "I thought, 'There's no landing strip on that side of the subway tracks,' " he said. Before he could process that thought, he saw "a huge mushroom cloud. The lady next to me was in absolute hysterics." washingtonpost, September 12, 2001

Another Arlington [Cemetery] worker who declined to be interviewed in front of the media told a story that the military historians had not heard in the 244 interviews they had conducted through last week. The man said a mysterious second plane was circling the area when the first one attacked the Pentagon. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 12, 2001

"We didn't know - it was classified!" (October Surprised)

C-130 Crew Saw Pentagon Strike, Official Confirms TERRY SCANLON and DAVID LERMAN DailyPress; Newport News; Oct 17, 2001

[Keith Wheelhouse] and at least two other witnesses to the Pentagon attack were troubled that Pentagon spokesmen had until now said they were unaware of a C-130 being in the area at the time. In the days immediately following the Sept. 11 hijackings, the Pentagon had no knowledge of the C-130's encounter, because all reports were classified by the Air National Guard, [!] [Lt. Col. Kenneth McClellan] said.

'We have planes. Stay quiet' - Then silence Michael Ellison in New York The Guardian, October 17, 2001

[...] At 9.36 the national airport [Dulles] instructs a military C130 (Golfer 06) that has just departed Andrews air force base to intercept the flight and identify it. At 9.38 AA77 crashes into the south-west side of the Pentagon.

Explosives Evident

A personnel attorney at the Pentagon, [Gilah] Goldsmith was riding a shuttle bus to work on Tuesday, Sept. 11, when she learned of the attack on the World Trade Center. [...] "We saw a huge black cloud of smoke," she said, saying it smelled like cordite or gun smoke. Jewish Bulletin News, September 21, 2001 [web archive]

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- The airliner crashed between two and three hundred feet from my office in the Pentagon, just around a corner from where I [Don Perkal] work. I'm the deputy General Counsel, Washington Headquarters Services, Office of the Secretary of Defense. A slightly different calibration and I have no doubt I wouldn't be sending this to you. My colleagues felt the impact, which reminded them of an earthquake. People shouted in the corridor outside that a bomb had gone off upstairs on the main concourse in the building. No alarms sounded. I walked to my office, shut down my computer, and headed out. Even before stepping outside I could smell the cordite. Then I knew explosives had been set off somewhere." Timothy McSweeney's, September 19, 2001

Did Not Capture

Hotel employees sat watching the film in shock and horror several times before the FBI confiscated the video as part of its investigation. It may be the only available video of the attack. The Pentagon has told broadcast news reporters that its security cameras did not capture the crash. Gertzfile, September 21, 2001 [web archive]

Velasquez says the gas station's security cameras are close enough to the Pentagon to have recorded the moment of impact. "I've never seen what the pictures looked like," he said. "The FBI was here within minutes and took the film." National Geographic, December 11, 2001 [web archive]

CNN's Jamie MacIntyre: "witnesses told me the day this happened that the plane -American Airlines Flight 77 - came in extremely low, but I'm not sure I realized how low it was until I saw these sequence of pictures that CNN obtained rom....uhhhh.....that were taken by a Pentagon security camera." CNN, March, 2002

Lazy Holding Pattern?

New radar evidence obtained by CBS News strongly suggests that the hijacked jetliner which crashed into the Pentagon hit its intended target. "Radar shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete circle and dropping the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes." .... "That is not the radar data that we have seen," Fleischer said, adding, "The plane was headed toward the White House." CBS, September 21, 2001

On Flight 77: 'Our Plane Is Being Hijacked' By Marc Fisher and Don Phillips Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, September 12, 2001 About an hour after takeoff from Dulles International Airport yesterday morning, Flight 77, a Boeing 757 headed for Los Angeles with 64 people aboard, became a massive missile aimed at the White House. The target would change suddenly, but the symbolism was equally devastating. [...] just as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. The plane circled 270 degrees to the right to approach the Pentagon from the west, whereupon Flight 77 fell below radar level, vanishing from controllers' screens, the sources said.

Aboard the hi-jacked planes, Reporter: Mark Easton, CHANNEL 4 NEWS [webarchive] September 13, 2001 [...] In the skies over the city flight AA77 was heading straight for the White House when at 9.38 it suddenly veered 270 degrees to right away from White House and headed towards the Pentagon, It crashed into the west side two minutes later. Just before the crash a civilian plane was filmed over the city apparently banking hard and there were reports of a military plane circling the US capital. Moments later, the Department of Defense was hit.

The Day the FAA Stopped the World TIME, Sep. 14, 2001 By SALLY DONNELLY [...] At approximately 9:37 am, controllers in the tower at Washington's National Airport likely used their secure hotline phone that reaches the Secret Service contact in charge of protection of the White House and informed them that an unidentified plane was hurtling towards the area.

Bush: "We're At War" By Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball, NEWSWEEK [prisonplanet archive] Sept. 24 [2001] --- [...] At the White House on that beautiful, clear morning, the occupants were running for their lives. Vice President Dick Cheney had already been hustled into a bunker designed to withstand the shock of a nuclear blast when, at about 9:30 a.m., Secret Service men told staffers leaving the West Wing to run, not walk, as far away as possible. "There's a plane overhead, don't look back!" shouted a policeman. Agents were yelling at women to shed their high-heeled shoes so they could run faster. Several staffers saw a civilian airliner, reflecting white in the bright sunlight, appearing to circle nearby. Perhaps unable to spot the White House [!], the hijackers at the control of American Airlines Flight 77 dive-bombed the Pentagon instead.

America's Chaotic Road to War by Dan Balz and Bob Woodward Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, January 27, 2002 [...] Meanwhile, American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 that had taken off from Dulles International Airport, turned away from the White House and flew back across the Potomac River, slamming into the Pentagon at 9:39 a.m.

C-130 witness, Scott P. Cook: "It was a 757 out of Dulles, which had come up the river in back of our building, turned sharply over the Capitol, ran past the White House and the Washington Monument, up the river to Rosslyn, then dropped to treetop level and ran down Washington Boulevard to the Pentagon." (op.cit.)

C-130 witness, Allen Cleveland: My brother inlaw also witnessed the same [C-130] following the jet while he was on the HOV lanes in Springfield. He said that he saw a jetliner flying low over the tree tops near Seminary RD in Springfield, VA. and soon afterwards a military plane was seen flying right behind it. (op.cit.)

Tom Hovis (ref) Being a former transport type (60's era) I cannot understand how that plane hit where it did giving the direction the aircraft was taking at the time. As most know, the Pentagon lies at the bottom of two hills from the west with the east side being next to the river at 14th street bridge. One hill is at the Navy Annex and the other is Arlington Cemetery. The plane came up I-395 also known as Shirley Hwy. (most likely used as a reference point.) The plane had been seen making a lazy pattern in the no fly zone over the White House and US Cap. Why the plane did not hit incoming traffic coming down the river from the north to Reagan Nat'l. is beyond me. Strangely, no one at the Reagan Tower noticed the aircraft. Andrews AFB radar should have also picked up the aircraft I would think. Nevertheless, the aircraft went southwest near Springfield and then veered left over Arlington and then put the nose down coming over Ft Myer picking off trees and light poles near the helicopter pad next to building.

93 + C-130

Business jet, military cargo plane were in area of hijacked United Flight 93 By Bill Heltzel and Tom Gibb

Two other airplanes were flying near the hijacked United Airlines jet when it crashed in Somerset County, but neither had anything to do with the airliner's fate, the FBI said yesterday. In fact, one of the planes, a Fairchild Falcon 20 business jet, was directed to the crash site to help rescuers. The request for the jet to fly low and obtain the coordinates for the crash explains reports by people in the vicinity who said a white or silver jet flew by moments after the crash. A C-130 military cargo plane was also within 25 miles of the passenger jet when it crashed, FBI spokesman Bill Crowley said yesterday, but was not diverted. Post-Gazette, September 16, 2001 [renamed original]

Unanswered questions: The mystery of Flight 93 Independent.co.uk, August 13, 2002 [web archive]

The fate of United Airlines Flight 93 ... holds no mystery for Lee Purbaugh. He saw what happened with his own eyes. He was the only person present in the field where, at 10.06am, the aircraft hit the ground.

"There was an incredibly loud rumbling sound and there it was, right there, right above my head --- maybe 50ft up," [-] "It was only a split second but it looked like it was moving in slow motion, like it took forever. I saw it rock from side to side then, suddenly, it dipped and dived, nose first, with a huge explosion, into the ground. I knew immediately that no one could possibly have survived."

[...] Some conspiracy theorists will say that the plane was shot down by a missile, perhaps a heat-seeking missile that honed in on one of the plane's engines – a theory possibly substantiated by the 2,000yd flight of the 1,000lb engine part, but arguably refuted by consistent eye-witness accounts, including Lee Purbaugh's, that when last sighted the plane was not emitting smoke.

Others might say, as they have done about a TWA flight that fell to the sea in 1996 after taking off from New York, that the plane was a victim of electromagnetic interference. In the case of the TWA flight, the argument, put forward in a series of exhaustive articles written in the New York Review of Books by the Harvard academic Elaine Scarry, is that it happened accidentally. However, as Scarry's articles relate, documentation abounds showing that the Air Force and the Pentagon have conducted extensive research on "electronic warfare applications" with the possible capacity intentionally to disrupt the mechanisms of an aeroplane in such a way as to provoke, for example, an uncontrollable dive. Scarry also reports that US Customs aircraft are already equipped with such weaponry; as are some C-130 Air Force transport planes. The FBI has stated that, apart from the enigmatic Falcon business jet, there was a C-130 military cargo plane within 25 miles of the passenger jet when it crashed. According to the Scarry findings, in 1995 the Air Force installed "electronic suites" in at least 28 of its C-130s – capable, among other things, of emitting lethal jamming signals.

THE DOMINO EFFECT

Lt. Col. Steve O'Brien started his day at the controls of a Minnesota [Air] National Guard C-130 cargo plane. He and his crew were heading back to the Twin Cities after moving military supplies around the Caribbean. About 9:30 a.m., O'Brien throttled the lumbering plane down a runway at Andrews Air Force Base, just southeast of the District of Columbia.

T
O

At 9:25, [Jane] Garvey [FAA], in an historic and admirable step, and almost certainly after getting an okay from the White House, initiated a national ground stop, which forbids takeoffs and requires planes in the air to get down as soon as reasonable. The order...applied to virtually every single kind of machine that can takeoff - civilian, military, [and] law enforcement.

Time, September 14, 2001

"When we took off, we headed north and west and had a beautiful view of the Mall," he said. "I noticed this airplane up and to the left of us, at 10 o'clock. He was descending to our altitude, four miles away or so. That's awful close, so I was surprised he wasn't calling out to us.

"It was like coming up to an intersection. When air traffic control asked me if we had him in sight, I told him that was an understatement - by then, he had pretty much filled our windscreen. Then he made a pretty aggressive turn so he was moving right in front of us, a mile and a half, two miles away. I said we had him in sight, then the controller asked me what kind of plane it was.

"That caught us up, because normally they have all that information. The controller didn't seem to know anything."

O'Brien reported that the plane was either a 757 or 767 and its silver fuselage meant it was probably an American Airlines jet. "They told us to turn and follow that aircraft - in 20-plus years of flying, I've never been asked to do something like that. With all of the East Coast haze, I had a hard time picking him out.

"The next thing I saw was the fireball. It was huge. I told Washington the airplane has impacted the ground. Shook everyone up pretty good. I told them the approximate location was close to the Potomac. I figured he'd had some in-flight emergency and was trying to get back on the ground to Washington National. Suddenly, I could see the outline of the Pentagon. It was horrible. I told Washington this thing has impacted the west side of the Pentagon."

O'Brien asked the controller whether he should set up a low orbit around the building but was told to get out of the area as quickly as possible. "I took the plane once through the plume of smoke and thought if this was a terrorist attack, it probably wasn't a good idea to be flying through that plume." [!]

He flew west, not exactly sure where he was supposed to land. [!]

Somewhere over western Pennsylvania, O'Brien looked down at a blackened, smoldering field. "I hoped it was just a tire fire or something, but when I checked with Cleveland center, he told me he'd just lost a guy off the scope pretty close to where we saw it. By then, we were able to patch in AM radio, so we heard about all the planes. It was like a domino effect - a really bad day for airplanes." Minnesota Star-Tribune, September 11, 2002

More Molten Metal Magic

2006-09-12T17:16:00.004+10:00

1
Recovery worker reflects on months spent at Ground Zero
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
May 29, 2002

[...] When [Joe] O'Toole signed on for trade center duty in January, he thought it would be a 30-day assignment. But after one month, he volunteered for another. And another. And another. And another. [...] Underground fires raged for months. O'Toole remembers in February seeing a crane lift a steel beam vertically from deep within the catacombs of Ground Zero. "It was dripping from the molten steel," he said.
cache
----------------------------------------------------------

2
[...] A veteran of disasters from the Mississippi floods Mt. St. Helens, [Ron] Burger said it reminded him most of the volcano, if he forgot he was in downtown Manhattan. "Feeling the heat, seeing the molten steel, the layers upon layers of ash, like lava, it reminded me of Mt. St. Helen's and the thousands who fled that disaster," he said. "It could have been a tornado or an avalanche or a volcano."

Ground Zero was a disaster site like no other---with hazards everywhere. Shards of steel lay upon shards of steel, shifting and unstable, uncovering red hot metal beams excavated from deep beneath layers of sub-floors, exposing further dark crevasses.
http://www.neha.org/9-11%20report/index-The.html
----------------------------------------------------------

3
Ironworkers' Job of Clearing Ground Zero Is Over, but the Trauma Lingers
By COREY KILGANNON
November 11, 2002

[...] The four men sat on a sunny sidewalk in Greenwich Village on a recent workday and ate their lunch staring at the steel skeleton of a building going up on West Third Street. One of them commented on how much easier it was to eat a sandwich in front of steel that was strong and straight and new, not molten and mangled and laden with debris.
NYT
------------------------------------------------------------

4
Reflections in the Wake of September 11:
Visit to Ground Zero, New York City
by Father Edward A. Malloy, CSC

[...] Eddie and I walked down into the depths of the South Tower, Building Two, which was the first to collapse. Large front end loaders were engaged in their task. Gigantic cranes were lifting pieces of steel weighing tons, some of which were being placed on the back of semi trucks. Firefighters atop a number of ladder trucks were spraying in the areas of greatest smoke. The average temperature beneath the rubble is said to be 1500 F. so that when steel is brought up it is molten and takes two or three days to cool down.
http://www.nd.edu/~ndmag/reflect/malloydiary.html
------------------------------------------------------------

5
RICH GARLOCK: Going below, it was smoky and really hot. We had rescue teams with meters for oxygen and carbon dioxide. They also had temperature monitors. Here WTC 6 is over my head. The debris past the columns was red-hot, molten, running.
PBS, September 2002
------------------------------------------------------------

6
TWO WEEKS AT GROUND ZERO
By Guy Lounsbury

[...] My particular part was to help maintain security in and around the perimeter of the site.
[...] Two weeks after the attack, one fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers' remains.
home.nycap.rr.com
------------------------------------------------------------

7
At Ground Zero
NIH'ers Respond to Tragedy in NYC
By Rich McManus
Photos by Van Hubbard, Susan Orsega, Rich McManus

[...] Ed Pfister's Diary: [...] I spent several hours tonight, walking "the pile" and attempting to soak it all in for the last time and find a bit of closure...deep below ground a portion of the pile was still on fire and boiled with molten material. Sometimes, open flame would erupt as a crane pulled debris out and air rushed in. Fire hoses constantly poured streams of water causing huge billowing steam clouds to rise up over the site into the huge lights above.
http://www.nih.gov/news/NIH-Record/10_30_2001/story01.htm
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8
Reluctant hero narrates horror of N.Y. mission
September 11, 2002

[...] Interim Bryan Fire Department Chief Mike Donoho was one of those sent to "ground zero," as the World Trade Center site quickly became known. [...] Here is Donoho's story, as told to Eagle staff writer John LeBas:

[...] What you had were large columns of steel that were just stuck into massive amounts of molten steel and other metals, that had just fused together from the heat and bonded together from the strength of the collapse.

We dug and we dug and we dug, and we cut and we cut and we cut, and we did not see anything that resembled any type of furniture, any type of personal belongings. We found some pieces of things like a telephone, things like that. I think we found credit cards a few times, and we found a couple of stuffed animals. But you would expect to see, like, a bunch of desks, a bunch of chairs. The only way I can explain it is, if you take a car and put it in one of those machines where they crush it and make it look like a cube, and you can't recognize what it is, that's what the whole area looked like. It looked like a massive, molten mess that had been fused together, like a car that had been cubed and crushed.

With all that heavy, heavy stuff, there were wires, rebar, concrete. Most of it was just steel. A lot of what we were walking on was just molten steel.
http://www.theeagle.com/septanniv/091102firefighter.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------

9
MAGIC AT GROUND ZERO
by Ben Robinson
edited by David Groves
October 17, 2001

On October 4, I was called to do an indoor street performance by the New York City police department.
[...] Turns out, after someone works at Ground Zero, their clothes are trashed, and they put on these interim clothes that are piling up in donations. The workers go through three pairs of rubber boots a day because they melt in the three-week-old fire of molten metal and jet fuel.
The health hazards are everywhere: the fire, molten metal, the lack of breathable air and 3000+ decomposing bodies. And, I'm working for these brave souls
http://www.illusiongenius.com/11-01.html
------------------------------------------------------------

10
It is 4 a.m. in New York City as four researchers from the School enter the site of the World Trade Center disaster on foot. Each is lugging from 50 to 90 pounds of air-monitoring equipment onto Ground Zero. In the dark, the tangled pile of wreckage takes on a distinctly hellish cast.

"Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense," reports Alison Geyh, PhD. "In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel."
John Hopkins Public Health, Late Fall 2001 Magazine
-------------------------------------------------------------

11
They came to help at Ground Zero. What they experienced they can't forget
By Marci McDonald

[...] Lee Turner, a bewhiskered paramedic, leads a tour with a mix of pride and disdain. For six years, he helped build it, corralling old culvert pipe, rusted refrigerators, and even a wrecked school bus. For six years, he and 185 other members of a federal urban search and rescue squad known as Missouri Task Force 1 (MO-TF1) had trained on it, unpaid, waiting for the call to be deployed.

[...] In the predawn darkness of September 12, barely 18 hours after MO-TF1 got the order for its first deployment, he jumped off an Army truck at the World Trade Center site and stared at a smoldering rubblescape that stretched as far as he could see. "There was nothing but acre after acre of twisted steel and this sticky white dust," he recalls. "We'd never seen anything like it."

[...] Turner himself crawled through an opening and down crumpled stairwells to the subway, five levels below ground. He remembers seeing in the darkness a distant, pinkish glow–molten metal dripping from a beam–but found no signs of life.
usnews
---------------------------------------------------------------

12
Red Hot Debris. The removal of debris from the collapsed area requires the safe lifting and maneuvering of very heavy steel beams, often twisted and tangled from the force of the collapse. Some beams pulled from the wreckage are still red hot more than 7 weeks after the attack, and it is suspected that temperatures beneath the debris pile are well in excess of 1,000°F.
http://www.liro.com/lironews.pdf
---------------------------------------------------

13

"Thermal Imagery of the progression of molten steel hotspots from September 18 to September 25"
GeoNews, October, 2001
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/ees/october2001.pdf

The Iraq Deconstruction Project

2006-09-12T17:16:00.003+10:00

Kurdish leader threatens Iraq secession
By YAHYA BARZANJI,
Associated Press Writer
Sun Sep 3, 2006

The leader of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq threatened secession Sunday as a dispute over flying the Iraqi flag intensified.

Massoud Barzani on Friday ordered the country's national flag to be replaced with the Kurdish one, sparking harsh words in Baghdad.

"If we want to separate, we will do it, without hesitation or fears," Barzani, president of the Kurdish region, said during an address to parliament.

He tempered his comments slightly by saying that Kurdish leaders already have voted to remain in a united Iraq. But government leaders in Baghdad fear the Kurds are pushing for independence from the rest of Iraq.
----------------------------------------------

John Pilger Detects the Salvador Option
Newstatesman
Thursday 4th May 2006

[...] Now that al-Zarqawi has been replaced by "sectarian violence" and "civil war", the big news is the attacks by Sunnis on Shia mosques and bazaars. The real news, which is not reported in the CNN "mainstream", is that the Salvador Option has been invoked in Iraq. This is the campaign of terror by death squads armed and trained by the US, which attack Sunnis and Shias alike. The goal is the incitement of a real civil war and the break-up of Iraq, the original war aim of Bush's administration.
----------------------------------------------

Biden: Split Iraq Into 3 Different Regions
Sen. Joseph Biden Proposes Partitioning Iraq Into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni Regions
By LIBBY QUAID, The Associated Press
Mon May 1, 6:06 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee proposed Monday that Iraq be divided into three separate regions Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni with a central government in Baghdad.
----------------------------------------------

Bus Bomb Disrupts Iraq Calm
CBS,
March 4, 2006

Quote: "Iraqis were living in harmony until the occupiers and those who came with them arrived in this country. They are responsible for igniting sectarianism."
- Cleric Ahmed Hassan al-Taha
----------------------------------------------

Sectarian cleansing in Baghdad neighborhoods
Retaliation between Sunnis, Shiites seen as another indication of civil war
MSNBC, March 1, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The sectarian cleansing that drove 68-year-old Abbas al-Saiedi from his home may be as alarming a sign of a country on the brink of civil war as the killings that have swept Iraq in the past week.

Masked gunmen carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers and automatic rifles kicked down the gate at his house, fired into the air and told the Shiite he had 48 hours to get his family out of the predominantly Sunni neighborhood in west Baghdad.

Al-Saiedi’s story, a tale of fear and desperation told to The Associated Press on Wednesday, represents a growing phenomenon of religious cleansing in which members of each Muslim sect are driving the others from neighborhoods where they have long lived side by side. [...]
----------------------------------------------

Daniel Pipes
February 28, 2006

Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition's responsibility nor its burden. The damage done by Saddam will take many years to repair. Americans, Britons, and others cannot be tasked with resolving Sunni-Shiite differences, an abiding Iraqi problem that only Iraqis themselves can address.

The eruption of civil war in Iraq would have many implications for the West. It would likely:

Invite Syrian and Iranian participation, hastening the possibility of an American confrontation with those two states, with which tensions are already high.
Terminate the dream of Iraq serving as a model for other Middle Eastern countries, thus delaying the push toward elections. This will have the effect of keeping Islamists from being legitimated by the popular vote, as Hamas was just a month ago.
Reduce coalition casualties in Iraq. As noted by the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Rather than killing American soldiers, the insurgents and foreign fighters are more focused on creating civil strife that could destabilize Iraq's political process and possibly lead to outright ethnic and religious war."
Reduce Western casualties outside Iraq. A professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Vali Nasr, notes: "Just when it looked as if Muslims across the region were putting aside their differences to unite in protest against the Danish cartoons, the attack showed that Islamic sectarianism remains the greatest challenge to peace." Put differently, when Sunni terrorists target Shiites and vice-versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt.

Civil war in Iraq, in short, would be a humanitarian tragedy but not a strategic one.
----------------------------------------------

Op-Ed: The Three-State Solution
November 25, 2003
New York Times

Leslie H. Gelb, President Emeritus and Board Senior Fellow Council of Foreign Relations

President Bush's new strategy of transferring power quickly to Iraqis, and his critics' alternatives, share a fundamental flaw: all commit the United States to a unified Iraq, artificially and fatefully made whole from three distinct ethnic and sectarian communities. That has been possible in the past only by the application of overwhelming and brutal force.

President Bush wants to hold Iraq together by conducting democratic elections countrywide. But by his daily reassurances to the contrary, he only fans devastating rumors of an American pullout. Meanwhile, influential senators have called for more and better American troops to defeat the insurgency. Yet neither the White House nor Congress is likely to approve sending more troops.

And then there is the plea, mostly from outside the United States government, to internationalize the occupation of Iraq. The moment for multilateralism, however, may already have passed. Even the United Nations shudders at such a nightmarish responsibility.

The only viable strategy, then, may be to correct the historical defect and move in stages toward a three-state solution:

Kurds in the north,
Sunnis in the center
and Shiites in the south.

[...] This three-state solution has been unthinkable in Washington for decades. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, a united Iraq was thought necessary to counter an anti-American Iran. Since the gulf war in 1991, a whole Iraq was deemed essential to preventing neighbors like Turkey, Syria and Iran from picking at the pieces and igniting wider wars.

But times have changed. The Kurds have largely been autonomous for years, and Ankara has lived with that. So long as the Kurds don't move precipitously toward statehood or incite insurgencies in Turkey or Iran, these neighbors will accept their autonomy. It is true that a Shiite self-governing region could become a theocratic state or fall into an Iranian embrace. But for now, neither possibility seems likely.

[...] A strategy of breaking up Iraq and moving toward a three-state solution would build on these realities. The general idea is to strengthen the Kurds and Shiites and weaken the Sunnis, then wait and see whether to stop at autonomy or encourage statehood.
----------------------------------------------

A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties
by Oded Yinon

This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14--Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.
[...]

Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets.
Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul,

and Shi'ite areas in the south
will separate from
the Sunni
and Kurdish north.

The goal is the incitement of a real civil war and the break-up of Iraq, the original war aim of Bush's administration.
- John Pilger

Molten Metal Migration

2006-09-02T20:33:00.004+10:00

These photos were taken at Ground Zero, the World Trade Center site in New York, on September 13, 2001. They were taken by someone named "Ed" who was allowed into the area by a member of the emergency response crew, at a time when all civilians -- including most journalists -- were forbidden to enter the area. As a result, these photos are just about the only close-ups ever taken of the World Trade Center site so soon after the 9/11 attacks.

Red Hot Debris.

The removal of debris from the collapsed area requires the safe lifting and maneuvering of very heavy steel beams, often twisted and tangled from the force of the collapse.

Some beams pulled from the wreckage are still red hot more than 7 weeks after the attack, and it is suspected that temperatures beneath the debris pile are well in excess of 1,000°F.
http://www.liro.com/lironews.pdf

"Left: Thermal Imagery of the progression of molten steel hotspots from September 18 to September 25 "
GeoNews, October, 2001
http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/geonews/october2001.pdf

Are You Confused?

2006-09-02T19:00:00.001+10:00

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, left, stands with Mark Bingham during McCain's presidential campaign visit last year to the Bay Area. Bingham, 31, of San Franisco, was aboard hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 which crashed outside southwest Pennsylvania. Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. McCain is one of 15 senators co-sponsoring a bill that would award the 44 passengers and crew members with the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress' highest civilian honor.
(AP Photo/Oakland Tribune)
http://web.knoxnews.com/web/kns/news/breaking/wtc/1101.html
Senator McCain's introduction to Popular Mechanic's "Debunking 9/11 Myths"
Debunking the debunkers - Charles' Goyette Show, Wednesday August 02 (mp3 - 5.5Mb)

Mohamed Atta, a 65-year-old lawyer and the father of Mohamed Atta, the 33-year-old man who has been named by the FBI as one of the suspects aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center, displays the Arab newpaper Al-Awsat showing a video grab showing his son entering the departure gate at Boston's Logan airport Sept. 11, 2001. The elder Atta said he spoke to his son a few days after the suicide attacks, but was confused over the exact timing and would provide no details.
(AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
http://web.knoxnews.com/web/kns/news/breaking/wtc/1283.html