Recent Articles in the Creek

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CIA Agent Gunned Down by Houston Police

BY WAYNE MADSEN/ WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

The shooting death by Houston police on April 29 of retired CIA agent and CIA contractor Roland V. Carnaby is being called an “assassination” by many intelligence professionals who knew him and his past work for the CIA.

Carnaby was shot to death by Houston police in the middle of the morning near the Galleria, Carnaby’s office, and the home of former President George and First Lady Barbara Bush. There is evidence that Israeli intelligence agents inside the Houston Police Department issued the order to shoot Carnaby.

Attention is being focused on the statement made to the press by Houston Police Department Homicide Captain Steve Jett who said that the Houston police officers who stopped Carnaby were told to “find something” on which to hold Carnaby. Investigators want to know who issued that order and why. Foreign intelligence elements who wanted Carnaby silenced may have infiltrated the Houston Police Department at a high level and issued the order to “hold” Carnaby on any charge.

Carnaby’s actions were likely those of an experienced intelligence officer who understood that he was being set up, a routine event in many hostile intelligence environments where CIA officers must be on constant guard against being detained by the police on trumped up charges.

The Houston police have not yet released their video camera footage from their patrol cars, adding to the belief that the police are engaged in a major cover-up of the circumstances of Carnaby’s shooting death. WMR has also learned that the two pistols and a shotgun allegedly found by Houston police in Carnaby’s Jeep Commander after it was impounded were “drop guns.” Drop guns are a hallmark of the Houston police,which often plants hard-to-trace weapons on the victims of police shootings.

Why Carnaby Was Killed

The Bush-Cheney administration has allowed to flourish in the United States a ruthless and brutal organized crime syndicate that has its roots in Russia and Israel and festers in its criminal dens in Brighton Beach, NY; Miami, FL; Houston, TX; London, England and other cities.

The shooting death of Carnaby was the result of a high-stakes turf war between Israeli intelligence agents livid over the CIA’s and FBI’s renewed takedown of an old Israeli intelligence network operating deep within the bowels of the US government and the CIA and FBI, which have joined forces to rout out Israeli intelligence moles.

Two weeks ago, 84-year old Ben-Ami Kadish, an accused longtime spy for the Israelis at the US Army Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, was arrested. FBI agents are trying to get Kadish to spill the beans on high-level Israeli spies inside the government. Israel’s Mossad and its allied assets inside the Russian- Israeli Mafia, have retaliated with a vengeance, according to WMR’s US intelligence sources.

On April 15, as FBI agents surveilled Kadish at his New Jersey home and the National Security Agency (NSA) had a full digital intercept on Kadish’s email and phone communications with his intelligence controller in Israel, another group had its eye on an Austin, Texas school teacher named Riad Hamad. Hamad was a significant donor to the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund. The FBI had Hamad under investigation for “supporting terrorism,” a favorite canard used against Americans who support the Palestinian cause. Hamad had been a target of the neocons for years but they could never pin anything on him.

On April 16, Hamad’s body was found in Lady Bird Lake in Austin. His eyes had duct tape over them and his hands and feet were bound. The police ruled it a suicide. However, Hamad would be the first victim in an Israeli hit on individuals who helped US back channels to the Palestinians and other groups targeted by Israel and the neo-con cell operating deep within the Bush administration, the Israeli-influenced cell that the FBI, in its arrest of Kadish, wanted to flush out.

Hamad once had a significant colleague in Austin, a University of Texas PhD student named Salam Fayyad. Fayyad is now the Prime Minister of Palestine and governs with the support of both Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah and Hamas. Recently, the US Consul General in Jerusalem handed over $150 million to Fayyad’s Palestinian government. Fayyad and Hamad represent a threat to the Israeli hardliners and their allies in the Bush administration who do not want a real peace agreement with the Palestinians and, above all, do not want to see any dialogue with Hamas.

Enter Roland Vincent Carnaby, known as “Tony” to his Houston and Langley colleagues, a retired CIA counter-terrorism and financial intelligence expert, who was operating a CIA private intelligence contractor in Houston, was involved in homeland security measures for the port of Houston and the Houston airports, was the head of the Houston chapter of the Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO), but above all, was contracted by the CIA for operating a financial intelligence group consisting of some 40 people in Rome that was tracking Russian-Israeli Mafia money flows, particularly with regard to off-shore Panamanian corporations.

WMR has been told by a knowledgeable source that Carnaby had successfully penetrated a major Israeli financial ring that was tied to various Israeli intelligence operations in the United States. Carnaby, a Lebanese-American, also had extensive contacts in the Middle East, including Lebanon and its major political force that is anathema to the Bush neo-cons and their Israeli puppet masters, Hezbollah.

But it was Carnaby’s role in identifying Israeli intelligence financing that apparently made him public enemy number one for the Israelis. WMR has been told by a knowledgeable source that Carnaby possessed detailed information about former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s relationship with convicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, information that connected DeLay and other top Republicans to pay-offs from organizations and individuals linked to the Russian-Israeli Mafia and Israeli intelligence. Specifically, the pay-offs came to the US Family Network, set up by DeLay’s former Chief of Staff Ed Buckham, from Russian oil and gas interests connected to top Russian-Israeli Mafia tycoons living under the protection of the British and Israeli governments.

Buckham headed the Alexander Strategy Group, a GOP lobbying firm that represented Group W Advisors, Inc., a defense contractor owned by Brent Wilkes. Alexander also represented Eli Lilly and Company, once headed by former Assistant Secretary of State Randall Tobias, named as one of the clients of the Pamela Martin & Associates escort firm of the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey.

Wilkes was convicted on November 5, 2007, on 13 counts of conspiracy, bribery, money laundering, and wire fraud in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham scandal. It was Wilkes who helped arrange with former CIA Executive Director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo “poker parties” at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels attended by then CIA director Porter Goss. WMR has previously reported that Washington area escorts were transported to these parties by Shirlington Limousine. WMR also learned from the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey that Wilkes phoned her from his Poway, San Diego headquarters on a number of occasions to organize escorts for these parties. Palfrey said he only used the name “Brent” when he called.

Abramoff had also been under an investigation by the US Attorney for Maryland is using Palfrey’s escorts. On October 27, 2007, WMR reported: “Shirlington Limousine and Abramoff have been linked to the investigation by fired US Attorney for Maryland Thomas DiBiagio of the use of prostitutes by the office of then-Maryland Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich, Jr. DiBiagio, based in Baltimore, was fired after his investigation leap-frogged well beyond the business of the Pamela Martin & Associates escort service and into the activities of Ehrlich and his staff.”

Carnaby, Abramoff and 9/11

WMR has learned from knowledgeable sources that Carnaby also had information on Abramoff’s Sun Cruz casino boat operation in Florida, a case that involved a mob hit on Sun Cruz’s former owner Gus Boulis, and the events of 9/11. Abramoff reportedly entertained at least two of the 9/11 hijackers, including Mohammed Atta, on a Madeira Beach, Florida casino boat days before the 9/11 attack. This editor recalls Palfrey stating over dinner that she had information from some of her escorts that involved pre-intelligence on the 9/11 attack. The intersection of Abramoff and his Russian-Israeli mob gang to knowledge possessed by Carnaby and Palfrey suggest that their deaths may have been as brazen as hits as the gunning down of Boulis on a Fort Launderdale street by hit men. That assassination was blamed on Abramoff and his associates.

Carnaby’s widow has filed a lawsuit in Houston in the US District Court for Southern Texas against the City of Houston and Houston police officers Cecil Foster and Andrew J. Washington for the shooting death of Carnaby. The complaint states that Carnaby “died of a gunshot wound to the back which caused fatal loss of blood.”

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC based investigative journalist. and author. His website is: www.WayneMadsenReport.com

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Aspartame: Sweet But Dangerous

BY ELAINE SULLIVAN / RCFP

Aspartame is one of the most controversial food additives in history. Aspartame, a combination of two amino acids phenylalanine and aspartic acid, is sold commercially under names like Nutrasweet, Equal and Candereal, and can be found in more than 5,000 foods, including sodas, chewing gum, tabletop sweeteners, diet and diabetic foods, breakfast cereals, jams, sweets, vitamins, prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Approximately 2/3 of the adult population and 1/3 of children regularly ingest this artificial sweetener. Aspartame was approved as a food additive by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981, but the debate about its safety continues.

Aspartame was discovered by a chemist working at the pharmaceutical manufacturer GD Searle in December 1965. Searle began safety tests for FDA approval in 1967. The first study conducted by Dr. Harry Waisman, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Memorial Laboratory of Mental Retardation Research and a respected expert in the toxicity of phenylalanine, studied the effects of aspartame on primates. Of seven monkeys fed aspartame mixed with milk, one died and five others had grand mal epileptic seizures. Dr. John Olney, professor of neuropathology and psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine informed Searle in 1971 that his studies show that aspartic acid, one of the main components of aspartame causes holes in the brains of infant mice. This is confirmed by one of Searle’s own researchers, Ann Reynolds.

In spite of negative results, in 1973 Searle applied for FDA approval and submitted studies claiming aspartame to be safe, with no mention of the dead monkeys or the holes in the brains of the mice. From 1973 to the present numerous studies by independent researchers have found not only that aspartame is unsafe but that Searle’s research has been faulty, at best. An FDA task force concluded in a 1976 report that they found “faulty and fraudulent product testing, knowingly misrepresented product testing, knowingly misrepresented and manipulated test data and instances of irrelevant animal research in all the products reviewed.” FDA commissioner Dr. Alexander Schmidt stated “Searle’s studies were incredibly sloppy science. What we discovered was reprehensible.”

But this did not stop Searle from continuing to try to push aspartame through the FDA approval process.

In 1977, for the first time in the FDA’s history, it requested a criminal investigation of a manufacturer. The FDA chief counsel Richard Merrill formally requested the US Attorney’s office to begin grand jury proceeding against Searle. While the grand jury investigation was underway, Sidley & Austin, the law firm representing Searle, began recruitment negotiations with Samuel Skinner, the US attorney in charge of the investigation. Skinner removed himself from the investigation, and was hired by Searle’s law firm six months later. Other conflicts of interest have followed including the hiring of Donald Rumsfeld who used political favors to help push through approval of aspartame. In 1981, as a member of the Reagan transition team Rumsfeld was instrumental in promoting Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr. to the post of FDA commissioner. Hayes then ignored the recommendations of his own internal FDA team and gave initial approval for aspartame to be used in dry products.

The FDA website gives aspartame only two short paragraphs and states: “To date, FDA has not determined any consistent pattern of symptoms that can be attributed to the use of aspartame, nor is the agency aware of any recent studies that clearly show safety problems.” Yet, an April, 1995 report by the Dept. of Health and Human Services reports that the FDA received almost 10,000 complaints attributed to aspartame, enumerating 92 different side effects. These side effects include: headache, dizziness, change in mood, vomiting, abdominal pain/ cramps, change in vision, diarrhea, seizures and convulsions, memory loss, and fatigue, to name just the top ten.

A quick search on “aspartame” on the website www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov will provide a researcher with a long list of articles about the health effects of aspartame. One of these articles is “Life-Span Exposure to Low Doses of Aspartame Beginning during Prenatal Life Increases Cancer Effects in Rats”, by Morando Soffritti, Fiorella Belppoggi, et al. in Environmental Health Perspective, 2007 September; 115(9): 1293-1297. This article is the result of a second study to better quantify the carcinogenic risk of aspartame. The researchers concluded that the results of the study confirmed and reinforced the first experimental demonstration of aspartame’s “…multipotential carcinogenicity at a dose close to the acceptable daily intake for humans. Futhermore, the study demonstrates that when life-span exposure to aspartame begins during fetal life, its carcinogenic effects are increased.” The last paragraph of this article reads; “On the basis of the present findings, we believe that a review of the current regulations governing the use of aspartame cannot be delayed. This review is particularly urgent with regard to aspartamecontaining beverages, which are heavily consumed by children.”

Aspartame proponents consistently gloss over or out right ignore any studies showing adverse health effects from aspartame. Even in the medical journals, you will find researchers defending aspartame. In a response to the Soffritti article, Eyassu Abegaz wrote in “Apartame Not Linked to Cancer”, that “The study by Soffritte et al. (2006) has major flaws that bring into question the validity of the findings.” But the beginnings of the two articles may shed some light on the disagreement. The Soffritti article states that “The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.” The Abegaz article, on the other hand, states that “The author is emploed by Ajinomoto USA, which sells aspartame.”

So the fight continues. Aspartame was approved by the FDA in 1981 and is with us still today but the process has been full of fraudulent research, conflicts of interest and manipulation of the political process. The FDA has demonstrated once again that they are more interested in the financial health of the drug companies than the health and well being of the American people.

Elaine Sullivan is health editor for the Rock Creek Free Press in Washington, DC.

For more information: “Aspartame – The Shocking Story of the World’s Bestselling Sweetener”, The Ecologist, by Pat Thomas, September 2005 

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Spanish Judge Calls for Bush to be Tried for War Crimes

Judge Baltasar Garzón, sometimes callled “Super Judge”
sits on Spains second highest criminal court.

BY VICKY SHORT

Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who sought to prosecute Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, has called for US President George W. Bush and his allies to be tried for war crimes over Iraq.

Writing in El Pais on the fourth anniversary of the invasion, Garzón stated, “Today, March 20, marks four years since the formal start of the war on Iraq. Instigated by the United States and Great Britain, and supported by Spain among other countries, one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history began.

“Breaking every international law, and under the pretext of the war against terror, there has taken place since 2003 a devastating attack on the rule of law and against the very essence of the international community. In its path, institutions such as the United Nations were left in tatters, from which it has not yet recovered.” “Instead of commemorating the war,” Garzón continues, “we should be horrified, screaming and demonstrating against the present massacre created as a consequence of that war.”

He then writes that George W. Bush and his allies should eventually face war crimes charges for their actions in Iraq: “We should look more deeply into the possible criminal responsibility of the people who are, orwere, responsible for this war and see whether there is sufficient evidence to make them answer for it.” “For many it would be merely a question of political responsibility, but judicial actions in the US are beginning to emerge, as is the case of the verdict passed on one of vicepresident Cheney’s collaborators, [I. Lewis Libby] which point in a different direction.”

“There is enough of an argument in 650,000 deaths for this investigation and inquiry to start without more delay,” he added.

Garzón then turns his scathing criticisms towards the former Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar, who followed British Prime Minister Tony Blair in supporting Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq.

“Those who joined the US president in the war against Iraq have as much or more responsibility than him because, despite having doubts and biased information, they put themselves in the hands of the aggressor to carry out an ignoble act of death and destruction that continues to this day.” Aznar still defends the invasion of Iraq. He reluctantly admitted last month that he now knows Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, but added that “the problem was not having been clever enough to know it earlier.”

Garzón answers this in his article: “If he didn’t know enough, he should be asked why he didn’t act prudently, giving United Nations inspectors more leeway instead of doing the opposite in total submission and fidelity to President Bush.”

Fearful of the extension of the insurgency in Iraq throughout the Middle East and internationally, Garzón declares that “the North American bellicose action, and that of those who supported it, has determined or at least has contributed to the creation, development and consolidation of the biggest terrorist training camp in the world…. In some way, with a terrible lack of awareness, we have been and are helping this monster grow more and more and strengthened by the minute, so that it is probably invincible.”

Garzón has investigated everything from Basque terrorism to the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings, whose alleged perpetrators are currently on trial. He led the investigation into the rightist terror group Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), whose creation was attributed to the Socialist Party (PSOE) government of the day. He also banned Herri Batasuna, the political arm of ETA—the first political party to be outlawed since the death of Franco in 1975.

Back in 1996, the Progressive Union of Prosecutors filed criminal complaints against the Argentine and Chilean military for the disappearance of Spanish citizens under the dictatorships that ruled them in the 1970s and 1980s. One year later, Garzón issued an arrest order that included Argentine Navy Captain Adolfo Scilingo, who made a televised confession in 1995 of “death flights” in which hundreds of detainees were thrown from airplanes to their deaths in the Atlantic Ocean. Scilingo was detained after travelling to Spain voluntarily.

Former Chilean President Pinochet was arrested during a medical check-up in London in 1998 based on a warrant issued by Garzón. For months the judge attempted to have the dictator extradited to Spain to be tried for heading the military coup in 1973 that overthrew the elected president Salvador Allende and the subsequent murder of thousands of students and workers. He has also signalled his intention to question Richard Nixon’s national security adviser Henry Kissinger about events in Chile, after declassified documents released by the US State Department and the CIA suggested that Kissinger was well aware of what was happening.

The fact that such a prominent international judicial figure openly speaks of bringing war crimes judgement against the leaders of the US, UK and Spain is an indication that the entire Iraq campaign is heading towarda disaster and a response to the mounting opposition around the world. Yet his statement was given only the most cursory coverage by the media in the United States and internationally. No publication chose to make an editorial comment and most simply reproduced or slightly amended a Reuters report. Such is the level of hostility to the Iraq war and occupation in Spain, however, that even sections of ex-Prime Minister Aznar’s Popular Party (PP) are publicly declaring that his attendance at the meeting in March 2003, in the Azores that supported Bush in his decision to invade Iraq was an error. Reporting on their criticism, the right-wing newspaper El Mundo commented on March 20, “The PP should not continue avoiding an auto-criticism on Iraq.”

It continues that, although the present critics were in the main opposed to sending troops to Iraq at the time, today “even if only a few dare to say it aloud … the vast majority in the PP accept in private that Aznar made a mistake. In his zeal to make Spain more of an Atlantic country, trusting Bush blindly, he only succeeded in fertilising the rank anti- Americanism of a sector of Spanish society, as well as neglecting the repercussions this would have on domestic affairs, which, as the new (PSOE) government is demonstrating, demanded more attention than our projection abroad.”

A few hours after the El Pais article by Garzón had reached the shops, the secretary of organisation for the PSOE, José Blanco, declared in an interview in Telecinco that someone had to pay the consequences for the decision to invade Iraq. And if Bush, Blair and Aznar were to be made legally accountable, then he would support this.

Vicky Short is a journalist; her articles have appeared on www.globalresearch.ca and World Socialist Web Site, wsws.org

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40 Years Since RFK Assassination, Mounting Evidence of CIA Involvement

BY MATT SULLIVAN / RCFP

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 40 years ago this month at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan B. Sirhan, a 24 year old immigrant, is the alleged lone gunman and is presently serving a life sentence.

In a new book, An Open and Shut Case, Dr. Robert Joling and Philip Van Praag have joined a growing list of people who don’t believe that Sirhan acted alone.

Joling and Van Praag, both forensic scientists, claim that after analyzing audio recordings of the assassination they have concluded that at least 13 shots were fired. The handgun Sirhan used only had the capacity to fire eight shots. They believe that there were two guns and that the fatal shot came from behind Robert Kennedy, while witnesses claim that Sirhan was in front of Kennedy. According to a March 27, 2008 ABC report by Pierre Thomas, Joling claims, “It can be established conclusively that Sirhan did not shoot Senator Kennedy. And in fact not only did he not do it, he could not have done it.”

Los Angeles Coroner Thomas Noguchi conducted the official autopsy on the body of Robert Francis Kennedy on the morning of June 6, 1968. Noguchi stated that the shot that killed RFK “had entered through the mastoid bone, an inch behind the right ear and had traveled upward to sever the branches of the superior cerebral artery.”

At a conference in Connecticut forensic scientists met to discuss their independent findings. The conference presenters argued that Sirhan Sirhan could not have fired the fatal shot that killed Kennedy. Dr. Robert Joling has studied the Kennedy assassination for nearly 40 years, he concluded that the fatal shot came from behind Kennedy, while Sirhan was four to six feet in front of the senator and never got close enough to shoot him from behind.

Philip Van Praag analyzed the Pruszynski recording (a Canadian journalist’s tape recording) and determined that 13 shots were fired while Kennedy was killed, although Sirhan’s gun only held eight bullets. This suggests that a second shooter was involved in the assassination.

Other questions regarding the assassination of Robert Kennedy have recently been voiced in a new BBC documentary by Shane O’Sullivan, which supports the conclusion that the CIA planned and executed the killing of Robert Kennedy. The result of a three year long investigation includes photographic evidence that puts three senior CIA operatives at the scene of the murder. These three operatives have been positively identified as David Morales, Gordon Campbell and George Joannides. All three men worked together in 1963 at JMWAVE, the CIA’s Miami base for its secret war on Castro.

Again the question of the murder weapon is raised. The LAPD claimed no bullets were found lodged in the “bullet holes”, and yet the doorframes in which some of the bullets had lodged were burned and two expended bullets, dug out of the wood, were found in the front seat of Sirhan’s car. Then inexplicably, the LAPD destroyed their records of the tests that had been done on the “bullet holes” in the doorframe.

Michael Ruppert, former Los Angeles Police detective, author, journalist and editor of From the Wilderness, has conducted his own investigation of the RFK assassination, using inside contacts deep within the LAPD. His investigation definitively proves that the assassination was a CIA operation, and he names Thane Eugene Cesar, a private security guard just hired out of Lockheed, as the triggerman.

As in other high profile crimes, JFK, MLK and 9/11, the investigation was bungled and evidence was destroyed. Van Praag and Joling are talking to other forensic experts around the country and lobbying for the case to be reopened. “What we would basically like to see at this point, is a new investigation certainly based on new facts that we have come up with, take a fresh look at this case and to bring the authorities in,” said Van Praag. (ABC News March 27, 2008, Pierre Thomas). Thomas ends with “The question is whether, after nearly 40 years, authorities will have any interest in reopening a painful chapter in American history.” There is no statue of limitations on murder – no matter how painful.

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Navy Releases McCain's Records

USS Forrestal, July 29, 1967 - The worst accident aboard a US Navy surface vessel since WWII

BY WAYNE MADSEN/WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

The Navy released John McCain’s military record after a Freedom of Information Act request from the Associated Press. The record is packed with information on McCain’s medals and commendations but little else. The one thing that the McCain campaign does not want to see released is the record of McCain’s antics on board the USS Forestal in 1967. McCain was personally responsible for the deadliest fire in the history of the US Navy. That catastrophe, with 27 dead and over 100 wounded trumps McCain’s record as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

WMR has learned additional details regarding the deadly fire aboard the Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Forrestal, on July 19, 1967 in the Gulf of Tonkin. The additional details point to then-Lt. Commander John McCain playing more of a role in triggering the fire and explosions than previously reported.

On January 16, 2006, WMR reported that according to a US Navy sailor who was aboard the Forrestal on the fateful day of the fire, “McCain and the Forrestal’s skipper, Capt. John K. Beling, were warned about the danger of using M-65 1000-lb. bombs manufactured in 1935, which were deemed too dangerous to use during World War II and, later, on B-52 bombers. The fire from the Zuni missle misfire resulted in the heavy 1000 pound bombs being knocked loose from the pylons of McCain’s A-4 aircraft, which were only designed to hold 500-pound bombs.”

WMR further reported, “The unstable bombs had a 60-second cook-off threshold in a fire situation and this warning was known to both Beling and McCain prior to the disaster.” WMR also cited the potential that McCain’s Navy records were used against him by the neo-cons in control of the Pentagon, “The neo-cons, who have had five years to examine every file within the Department of Defense, have likely accessed documents that could prove embarrassing to McCain, who was on board the USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967, and whose A-4 Skyhawk was struck by an air-toground Zuni missile that had misfired from an F-4 Phantom.”

WMR has been informed that crewmen aboard the Forrestal have provided additional information about the Forrestal incident. It is believed by many crewmen and those who have investigated the case that McCain deliberately “wet-started” his A-4E to shake up the guy in the plane behind his A-4. “Wet-starts”, done either deliberately or accidentally, shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft.

In McCain’s case, the “wet-start” apparently “cooked off” and launched the Zuni rocket from the rear F-4 that touched off the explosions and massive fire. The F-4 pilot was reportedly killed in the conflagration. “Wet starting” was apparently a common practice among young “hot-dog” pilots.

McCain was quickly transferred to the USS Oriskany (the only Forrestal crewman to be immediately transferred). Three months later, McCain was shot down over North Vietnam on October 26, 1967.

As WMR previously reported, at the time of the Forrestal disaster, McCain’s father, Admiral John McCain, Jr., was Commander-in-Chief of US Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR) and was busy covering up the details of the deadly and pre-meditated June 8, 1967, Israeli attack on the NSA spy ship, the USS Liberty.

The fact that both McCains were involved in two incidents just weeks apart that resulted in a total death count of 168 on the Forrestal and the Liberty, with an additional injury count of 234 on both ships (with a number of them later dying from their wounds) with an accompanying classified paper trail inside the Pentagon, may be all that was needed to hold a Sword of Damocles over the head of the “family honor”-oriented McCain by the neo-cons.

WMR has also been informed by knowledgeable sources, including an ex-Navy A-4 pilot, the “wet-start game” was a common occurrence. However, it is between “very unlikely” and “impossible” for the Forrestal “wet start” to have been accidental. “Wet starts” were later rendered impossible by automated engine controls.

Wayne Madsen reports on military and political affairs in Washington at his website, WayneMadsenReport.com

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Liberal Media Echo White House 9/11 Talking Points

BY SHEILA CASEY / RCFP

When BuzzFlash editor and publisher Mark Karlin dipped his toe into 9/11 waters, he got an earful from his readers. In a May 12 blog post, Karlin states unequivocally that “9/11 was not an inside job,” (although he does concede an 80% probability that Flight 93 was shot down over Pennsylvania).

Judging from the comments at http: //www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/ 089, his audience was not impressed. Reader after reader tries to set Karlin straight by presenting pieces from the overwhelming mountain of evidence indicating that we were sold a bill of goods about 9/11. So far Karlin has been silent. If he’s reading the reactions to his post, he gives no sign of it.

Buzzflash is a liberal news site that accepts no advertising and prides itself on being an unadulterated alternative to the whorish mainstream media. It pulls no punches in exposing the mind-boggling awfulness of the current administration— with one major exception. Like almost every other liberal outlet, it gives the Bush administration a free pass on 9/11.

The position of BuzzFlash, AlterNet, The Huffington Post, Daily Kos, The Nation, The Progressive and many other liberal outlets seems to be:

“Bush and Cheney stole the 2000 and 2004 elections and are in office illegitimately. They lied shamelessly to get us into illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, resulting in the death and injury of millions of innocents. They are torturing prisoners at Gitmo in violation of the Geneva Conventions. They have decimated the Constitution, abolished habeas corpus, and are in the process of instituting a police state. They directed the Justice Dept. to fire US attorneys who were not considered “good Bushies,” and then covered it up by flatly refusing to submit to Congressional oversight. They have spied on Americans illegally, reading our emails and listening to our phone calls without a court warrant. They let Americans die like rats in the streets of New Orleans and then lied about rebuilding the Gulf coast after Katrina.

“They’re evil. They are devils straight from the bowels of hell. But would they kill US citizens and blame it on Osama bin Laden to create a pretext for war to steal oil in the Middle East? Don’t be ridiculous. They may demonstrate all the wisdom and compassion of Attila the Hun, but surely they wouldn’t murder their ‘own people’ in cold blood. Only wacky conspiracy theorists think that. Certainly not solid, well-established liberal publications like us. Don’t lump us with them.”

Speaking of 9/11 truthers, Manuel Garcia of Counterpunch (Sep. 9, 2006) makes accusations of “wild theories fueled by paranoia,” and states that “conspiracists” “cannot accept” the real reasons for the attack, and instead must “find comfort” in an irrational hypothesis.

Sure, Manuel. It’s much too scary to believe that we were attacked by bearded men hiding in caves nine time zones away. It’s so much more soothing to believe it was our own government, the nexus of which is located just down the road, and which, at its discretion, can label me a terrorist and lock me up indefinitely. It makes me feel so warm and cozy that I tell it to my kids as their bedtime story. Media Matters for America, a nonprofit devoted to correcting conservative disinformation in the media, saw the results of a May 2007 Rasmussen poll, which found that 35% of Democrats believe that Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance, and had only one thought: this makes the Dems look bad. In an article from May 15, 2007, titled “Conservative media tout flawed poll to call Dems 9/11 conspiracy theorists,” Media Matters bends over backwards to excuse the poll results, protesting that the question was ambiguous. They bemoan the opportunity the results gave to right wing commentators to label Dems as “deranged and dangerously uninformed,” and “out of their gourds.” Media Matters faults the pundits for overstating the poll results, but never considers that Dems have nothing to fear from this. Is it so unthinkable that Media Matters might have actually investigated the evidence for themselves and reported that those 35% were so far ahead that they appear to be behind?

Even those who themselves doubt the official 9/11 story take pains to stress that they are not “conspiracy theorists.” In an August 2007 column for The Independent titled “Even I Question the Truth About 9/11,” Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk presents several aspects of the official story that bother him, such as: “What about the weird letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker-murderer with the spooky face, whose “Islamic” advice to his gruesome comrades – released by the CIA – mystified every Muslim friend I know in the Middle East? Atta mentioned his family – which no Muslim, however ill-taught, would be likely to include in such a prayer. He reminds his comradesin- murder to say the first Muslim prayer of the day and then goes on to quote from it. But no Muslim would need such a reminder – let alone expect the text of the “Fajr” prayer to be included in Atta’s letter.

Fisk wonders about the long awaited (and still pending) report from NIST about the free fall collapse of WTC 7, and the three al Qaeda “hijackers” who are still alive.

But before going into his doubts, Fisk feels compelled to first differentiate himself from the others who have such doubts. He refers to people who ask him questions about 9/11 at lectures as “ravers.” And he closes with “Let me repeat. I am not a conspiracy theorist.” In an article for the Guardian, Peter Tatchell puts forth the case for a new investigation in “9/11 The Big Coverup”, (2007) but then distances himself from 9/11 truth groups. He writes that some groups “promote speculative hypotheses, ignore innocent explanations, cite nonexpert sources and jump to conclusions that are not proven by the known facts. They convert mere coincidence and circumstantial evidence into cast-iron proof.” He states “I do not believe in conspiracy theories.”

David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation, did his level best to squash any questions about the official account in a piece for Alternet in 2002. He adopts the now predictable tone of condescension and disdain for 9/11 activists, starting his piece with: “Please stop sending me those emails. You know who you are. And you know what emails I mean…”

Corn asks: “Would George W. Bush take the chance of being branded the most evil president of all time by countenancing such wrongdoing?” From the vantage point of 2008, I can only answer: Yup.

Why have the liberal media so fallen down on the job regarding 9/11? Why do they ridicule and belittle the citizen journalists who have taken on the task that they refuse to do? There is a peculiar disconnect between the views liberal journalists purport to hold of our current leaders, and their unshakable faith that we were told the truth about 9/11. Oh, they may admit that there was a little fudging around the edges, but basically they buy the official story, hook, line and sinker. Not only do they buy it, they exhibit a nearly pathological rage at those who don’t buy it. Theoretically, journalists believe in the value of digging for truth, so there is something very odd about this situation.

What accounts for this strange state of affairs? I have a couple of ideas.

There has been an enormously successful propaganda campaign to paint conspiracy theorists in the worst possible light. According to Wikipedia, the term “conspiracy theorist” was first used in 1909, but not until the 1960s did it acquire its “current derogatory sense.”

According to Wikipedia, “The term is used pejoratively to dismiss claims that are alleged by critics to be misconceived, paranoid, unfounded, outlandish, irrational, or otherwise unworthy of serious consideration. For example ‘conspiracy nut’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’ are used as pejorative terms.” If conspiracy theorists are such wacky moon bats, then surely no conspiracies exist?

Not at all. To quote Wikipedia:

History contains numerous proven conspiracies, some of which were not the subject of any widespread speculation until they were exposed. Historical conspiracies include:
* The Pazzi conspiracy, which
included the Pope, of the late 1400s. * The Main Plot of 1603
* The Bye Plot of 1603
* The Gunpowder Plot of 1605
* The conspiracy of 1865 to assassinate U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and members of his cabinet
* The 1894 (and ongoing) French government’s attempted cover-up following Emile Zola’s accusations in the Dreyfus Affair
* The 1903 efforts by the Tsar’s secret police to foment anti-Semitism by presenting The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as an authentic text.
* The 1939 Operation Himmler and its Gleiwitz incident
* The 1948 (and ongoing) Operation Mockingbird
* The 1953 (and ongoing) MKULTRA mind control program
* The 1954 Lavon affair
* The 1962 Operation Northwoods
* The 1969 Manson Family murders
* The 1972 Watergate burglary and cover-up
* The 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack
* The 1987 Iran-Contra Affair
* The 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway

Some theorists, like Charles Pigden, argue that the reality of such conspiracies should caution against any casual dismissal of conspiracy theory. Pigden, in his article “Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom,” argues that not only do conspiracies occur but that any educated member of society will believe in at least one of them; we are all, in fact, conspiracy theorists.

Authors and publishers, such as Robert Anton Wilson and Disinfo, use proven conspiracies as evidence of what a secret plot can accomplish. In doing so, they demonstrate that the label “conspiracy theory” does not necessarily indicate that a theory is false. Theories cited in making this case include those listed above as well as:

* the Mafia
* the Business Plot to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933
* various CIA involvements in overseas coups d’état
* the 1991 Testimony of Nayirah before the US Congress to rally the support of the US public to launch the Gulf War
* the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male
* the General Motors streetcar conspiracy
* the plot by the British Secret Service to destabilize Prime Minister Harold Wilson, among others.
* the plot by some Gaullists of the French Secret Service to destabilize future president Georges Pompidou, known as the Markovic affair
* the series of incidents in Italy connected to the so called “strategy of tension”
* Operation Gladio

Despite the existence of these well documented conspiracies that were kept secret for many years, to believe in a conspiracy before it has been exposed apparently marks one as cuckoo.

When I studied the evidence about 9/11 and voiced my doubts to a friend, she immediately shot back that she wasn’t interested in “conspiracy theories.” I hadn’t advanced any theory at all, I had only said that I had questions, that things didn’t add up. But this liberal friend with a Ph.D had drunk the Kool Aid, she knew that people who said the things I was saying, were “conspiracy theorists.”

The PR efforts of the CIA and Pentagon have been enormously successful. They have convinced most Americans, and even many journalists, that only lunatic fringe nutcases doubt the official story about 9/11. The PR campaign around 9/11 has been so vast and so complete that even those who have doubts are reluctant to voice them, for fear of losing their credibility and being branded a voice lowered to a whisper “conspiracy theorist.”

That is my safe explanation.

Here’s the unsafe one: some of these journalists may be on the CIA’s payroll. The ongoing conspiracy listed above, Operation Mockingbird, involves the CIA infiltrating the media to influence the news. Rolling Stone reported in 1977 that journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time and The Miami News were doing the CIA’s bidding. Thirty years have passed since the Rolling Stone report, who is doing the CIA’s bidding now?

To be sure, there are a few wild theories in the 9/11 camp. Nature abhors a vacuum, and when there is a dearth of credible information about a major event, speculation is inevitable.

But any harm done by spurious speculation is trivial compared to the enormous force for good that serious 9/11 researchers, writers and film makers have been. If there had never been a David Ray Griffin, a Dr. Stephen Jones or a Dylan Avery, the facts about that ghastly event might never have been exposed, and our nation would be more lost, more confused and have less chance of righting itself than it has now. Those who so cavalierly dismiss their thousands of hours of research with snide and contemptuous remarks are blind to the enormous debt of gratitude owed to the 9/11 truthers, who labor tirelessly to expose this horrible wrong to the world.

Something is deeply rotten in the state of Denmark, like a metastasizing cancer on the soul of our society. Until it is diagnosed and cut out, we cannot progress and indeed will regress to an ever more animalistic state. It is sad and frightening that those who aspire to be a voice of progress and compassion—our liberal media—have failed so utterly to assist with the surgery.

Sheila Casey is a DC area journalist. Her opinion pieces have appeared in The Denver Post, Common Dreams, and BuzzFlash. She blogs at SheilaCasey.com

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Rice Directed Torture from White House

BY SHEILA CASEY / RCFP

In December 2005, Condoleezza Rice testified to Congress “The United States does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any circumstances.”

But ABC News has now revealed that during 2002 and 2003, Rice led dozens of meetings to discuss specific torture techniques with the National Security Council Principals Committee in the White House Situation Room. The committee included Vice President Dick Cheney and former Bush aides Attorney General John Ashcroft, CIA Director George Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. They approved using the “enhanced interrogation techniques” of sleep deprivation, waterboarding, sexual assault, pushing and slapping.

Comedian Jon Stewart has joked that waterboarding sounds fun, as in “I’m going to hop in my Chevy Tahoe, get a six pack, and head out for some waterboarding.” But until recently the United States considered waterboarding to be torture, and prosecuted Japanese officers for subjecting prisoners to waterboarding in World War II. In waterboarding, a prisoner is strapped to a board with his head lower than his feet, while water is poured steadily over his nose and mouth, until his lungs fill with water. Prior to death, the process is stopped and the victim revived, often to endure it yet again. It can leave victims with lung damage, brain damage and death, if they cannot be revived.

Waterboarding was designated as illegal by US generals in the Vietnam War. On January 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial photograph of two US soldiers and one South Vietnamese soldier waterboarding a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang. The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was discharged from the army. Former Navy instructor Malcolm Nance testified before Congress that “Waterboarding is misnamed. That’s just the device that we use. It should be called the drowning torture, and has been called the drowning torture in the past.”

“The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law,” says John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

Rice has made many public statements disavowing any use of torture by the United States. In January 2005, she said “[the president] has made very clear to American personnel that we will not condone torture,” and “let me be very clear. The United States doesn’t and can’t condone torture.” In December 2005, Rice testified that “Torture and conspiracy to commit torture are crimes under US law.”

According to ABC News, in the summer of 2004, Rice told the CIA, regarding the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” “This is your baby; go do it.” According to ABC, one top official said that John Ashcroft asked out loud after one of the Situation Room meetings, “Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”

Prior to airing the story, ABC reporter Jan Crawford Greenburg contacted all of the committee members. She couldn’t reach John Ashcroft, and all others replied with “no comment” through their spokespersons.

George Tenet sought to receive approval for the techniques from the highest levels so that the CIA agents conducting the interrogations would be protected. He has stated that the interrogation techniques were legal because they were approved by the Attorney General.

At some meetings with Cheney, Rice, Tenet, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, CIA officers physically acted out the tactics to make sure the group fully understood what the al-Qaida suspects would undergo. “Discussions were so detailed that the interrogations were almost choreographed,” said one source. Tenet asked the group for permission to combine several interrogation methods at a time, (such as waterboarding an already severely sleep deprived prisoner). Several in the group, including Dick Cheney, gave the okay.

The group then asked the Justice Department to examine whether using these methods would break domestic or international laws. “No one at the agency wanted to operate under a notion of winks and nods and assumptions that everyone understood what was being talked about,” said a former senior intelligence official. “People wanted to be assured that everything that was conducted was understood and approved by the folks in the chain of command.”

The Office of Legal Counsel issued at least two opinions on interrogation methods. In one, dated August 1, 2002, then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee defined torture as covering “only extreme acts” causing pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure. A second, dated March 14, 2003, justified using harsh tactics on detainees held overseas so long as military interrogators did not specifically intend to torture their captives. Both legal opinions since have been withdrawn.

In his book the The Terror Presidency, Bybee’s successor, Jack Goldsmith, writes that the torture memos had “no foundation” in any “source of law.” Yet they were prized by the administration as offering a “golden shield” against prosecution of CIA agents who used torture.

A senior intelligence official said rescinding the memos caused the CIA to seek even more detailed approvals for the interrogations. The department issued a memo in October, 2001 that sought to outline novel ways the military could be used domestically to defend the country in the face of an impending attack. The Justice Department has so far refused to release it, citing attorneyclient privilege, and Attorney General Michael Mukasey declined to describe it at a Senate panel where Democrats characterized it as a “torture memo.”

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, DMass., lambasted what he described as “yet another astonishing disclosure about the Bush administration and its use of torture.”

“Who would have thought that in the United States of America in the 21st century, the top officials of the executive branch would routinely gather in the White House to approve torture?” Kennedy said in a statement. “Long after President Bush has left office, our country will continue to pay the price for his administration’s renegade repudiation of the rule of law and fundamental human rights.” The American Civil Liberties Union called on Congress to investigate.

“With each new revelation, it is beginning to look like the torture operation was managed and directed out of the White House,” ACLU legislative director Caroline Fredrickson said. “This is what we suspected all along.”

As of this writing, the most watched video in the News and Politics section of YouTube is a two minute film by Robert Greenwald called Condi Must Go that contrasts clips of Rice making repeated statements to Congress that “we do not torture,” with the recent expose of her role by ABC News. It was viewed almost 300,000 times in the first 24 hours.

Sheila Casey is a DC area journalist. Her work has appeared in The Progressive Populist, Common Dreams and The Denver Post. She blogs at sheilacasey.com.

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Toxic Mercury in Fish

by Elaine Sullivan

The New York Times published an article on January 23, 2008 stating that high levels of mercury are found in tuna sushi. Laboratory tests performed on tuna from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants found so much mercury in tuna sushi that a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered acceptable by the EPA (49 micrograms of mercury a week). Analyzed by Dr. Michael Gochfeld, Professor of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, NJ and Dr. Joanna Burger, Professor of Life Sciences at Rutgers University, the tuna from some of these establishments had mercury levels so high that the FDA could take action to remove the fish from the market.
Mercury in fish is not a new phenomenon. In March 2004 the FDA and EPA teamed up to issue a warning to the public about mercury in fish. The joint advisory stated that although fish and shellfish are important parts of a healthy diet and are good sources of protein and other nutrients, some of us should monitor how much we eat. The FDA and EPA warning states: “…depending on the amount and type of fish you consume it may be prudent to modify your diet if you are: planning to become pregnant; nursing; or a young child.” The advisory went on to list three recommendations for selecting and eating fish and shellfish that would allow the consumer to “…receive the benefits of eating fish and shellfish and be confident that they have reduced their exposure to the harmful effects of mercury.”
FDA and EPA recomendations 1. Do not eat Shark, Swordfish, King Mackerel, or Tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury. (Tuna was not tested in this study but should also be avoided.) 2. Eat up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury. (Select animals lower down on the food chain, but not North American lobster which is very high in methylmercury.)
3. Check local advisories about the safety of fish caught by family and friends in your local lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. If no advice is available, limit consumption to 6 ounces (one average meal) per week of fish you catch from local waters, but don’t consume any other fish during that week. For a more extensive list, go to: www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/sea-mehg.html The FDA and EPA are supposed to warn the public of health risks such as this, but, the advisories don’t go far enough. They tell us to reduce our “exposure to the harmful effects of mercury”, but not how long mercury stays in our bodies or how to get rid of it.
According to Drs. Mercola and. Klinghardt in “Mercury Toxicity and Systemic Elimination Agents” an article published in the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine (March 2001), “Mercury in the central nervous system causes psychological, neurological, and immunological problems in humans. Mercury bonds very firmly to structures in the central nervous system through its affinity for sulfhydryl-groups on amino acids. Other studies have shown that mercury is taken up in the periphery by all nerve endings and rapidly transported inside the axon of the nerves (axonal transport) to the spinal cord and brainstem. Unless actively removed, mercury has an extremely long half-life of somewhere between 15 and 30 years in the central nervous system.” So, reducing exposure to the harmful effects of mercury may help you from accumulating more mercury in your system, but does little for the mercury that is already there. A process called chelation can be employed to speed the removal of mercury from the body, it uses a regimen of diet change and cleansing for several days to help flush mercury from the system.
Sources of Mercury
Mercury is a naturally occurring element in the earth. Natural sources of mercury, such as volcanic eruptions and emissions from the ocean, have been estimated to contribute about a third of current worldwide mercury air emissions, whereas humancaused emissions account for the remaining two-thirds. According to the EPA, “These estimates are highly uncertain. Much of the mercury circulating through today’s environment is mercury that was released years ago, when mercury was commonly used in many industrial, commercial, and residential products and processes. Land and water surfaces can repeatedly re-emit mercury into the atmosphere after its initial release into the environment.” Human-caused emissions are roughly split between these re-emitted emissions from previous human activity, and direct emissions from current human activity.
The EPA estimates that 83% of the mercury deposited in the US originates from international sources, with the remaining 17% coming from US and Canadian sources. Most of this mercury is from power plants and municipal and medical waste incinerators. Mercury in the air eventually settles into water or onto land where it can be washed into water. Fish and shellfish are the main sources of methylmercury exposure to humans. Once deposited, small creatures, such as plankton, convert the mercury into a highly toxic form called methylmercury. The plankton is eaten by small fish and crustaceans where it accumulates in the animals flesh. These small fish and crustaceans are eaten by larger fish which in turn are eaten by predator fish like tuna, swordfish, shark, king mackerel and others. Along this chain the mercury accumulates and concentrates; because the large fish also have longer life spans they can accumulate toxic levels of methylmercury. This, unfortunately, is passed along the food chain to us. Eating fish and shellfish that are lower on the food chain; shrimp, salmon, and tilapia can help to reduce the amount of mercury you get, but you will have to do some research to determine which fish and shellfish are safest to eat. The FDA and the EPA have extensive lists of fish and their mercury levels.
According to the EPA website US mercury emissions account for about 3% of the global total, of that about one third is deposited within the contiguous US the remainder enters the global cycle. Asia is reported to contribute 53% of global emissions with Africa following at 18%, Europe 11%, North America 9%, Australia 6% and South America at 4%. The Clean Air Network Fact Sheet of August 1999 cites “The Electric Power Research Institute calculates that up to 10% of the mercury released deposits within 62 miles of a power plant; 50% within 621 miles and the rest is transported regionally and globally.”
According to the EPA website, “The United States is leading an effort within the United Nations Environment Programme to create a program that would establish partnerships designed to help developing countries reduce mercury emissions. The partnerships will leverage resources, technical expertise, technology transfer, and information exchanges to provide immediate effective action that will result in tangible reductions of mercury use and emissions. It accelerates the work of the UNEP Mercury program, originally proposed by the US at the 2003 UNEP Governing Council meeting.”
The US has cut its own mercury emissions from 220 tons per year in 1990 to 115 tons in 1999 with the biggest changes in the municipal waste combustors and medical waste incinerators. Regulations that were issued in the 1990s to control mercury emissions burning waste require more than a 90% reduction in emissions from these facilities. However, President Bush has tried to do an end run around these regulations through the Clear Skies legislation which would allow for 3 times the amount of mercury emissions as the Clean Air Act.
In spite of attempts by the Bush administration to gut mercury emission regulations, the US remains a very small contributor to global mercury emissions. However, the whole world shares the same oceans, so reducing mercury pollution is a global, not just a national, problem. Since many types of fish are caught and sold internationally, effective exposure reduction will require reductions in global emissions. In the meantime, don’t eat the spicy tuna roll.