‘Our childhood is killed in Iraq. It is killed’ by Joan Chittister, OSB
04/11/06 "NCR" -- - The question to the group of women delegates from Iraq was “What would you like to see come out of this meeting?”
I was not prepared either for the answer or for its explanation: “What we need now,” one of the Iraqi woman said, “is the end of the blood-letting. Women are very necessary to this operation. Fifty-five to 60 percent of Iraqis are women. The minority is ruling ... Women must interfere in the affairs of men. We should take over.”
It was hardly a statement I expected to hear in this place from these women. But I couldn’t forget it.
“The minority is ruling.” Right. And not too well, it seems, either here or there.
When men sit down to negotiate peace treaties -- when there’s even someone to negotiate with, which, given al-Qaeda, is not a luxury we seem to have anymore -- they disband armies and guard borders and hold military tribunals and form new governments and punish old ones. But they put no faces on the victims.
When they tote up the cost of the war, they do not include the number of women raped, the number of families displaced, the number of schools bombed, or the number of babies without milk.
The victors take their spoils, monitor the guns, forget the defenseless and leave the people to clean up the rubble. War becomes the daily dirge of the anonymous victims.
But when you bring women together to discuss the effects of war, the things that need to be changed, the real problems of a war-torn society, the conversation takes a sudden turn.
At the first Iraqi-American dialogue convened by the Women’s Global Peace Initiative in New York on March 29, the differences were plain. The women’s first agenda did not concentrate on who did what or who profited or lost by the doing of it. “Take the oil. We don’t care about the oil,” one woman called across the room. “We never got any value from it anyway,” she went on. “Never mind yesterday,” another woman said in answer to the Sunni- Shi’ite tensions. “Forget who did what to whom. We must turn the page now. We must rebuild the country.”
“And what is the first thing that must be done to rebuild the country?” we asked them. I sat with my hands over the keyboard, sure that the list would be long and varied. I was wrong. To a woman, the call was clear: “Take care of our children.”
It was a sobering moment. Take care of our children. “Oh, them,” I thought. “The tiny, the forgotten, targets of this war.”
Take care of the ones who now carry within themselves the sour taste of fear that came as bombs dropped through the dark sky shaking their houses, destroying their streets. Take care of the children, the ones who went cold as stone at the loss of brothers and fathers and dead playmates.
Take care of the ones who felt the sweat of terror when the doors of the homes in which they were sure they were safe broke down in the middle of the night or the lights went out or their mothers wrapped their shawls around their heads and cried. Take care of the ones who went into psychic paralysis at the sight of blood and bodies. Take care of the ones who woke up one morning to find their lives completely disrupted for no apparent reason.
Take care of the ones to whom then Secretary of State Colin Powell was apparently referring when a reporter asked him how many Iraqis had been killed or injured at that point in the war and his answer was, “That is a number in which I have absolutely no interest whatsoever.”
But maybe he and we should all rethink that answer. Because these children do not feel “liberated” by this war; in these children the seeds of the next war have already been planted.
The Iraqi women were very clear: the most injured of all in this war are the children of Iraq. “The war has made deep wounds that have become part of our souls,” another woman said. “They can never be forgotten. The living conditions, the lack of security is affecting everything the children do. They cannot even deliver newspapers anymore.”
Their schooling has been interrupted. Even if the school buildings still stand, there are no supplies for them. And there are few people in them anyway. Teachers are dead. Classmates are gone from the area -- refugees somewhere or dead themselves. Most of all, their parents are afraid to send them out of the house even if the schools are undamaged.
“Our childhood is killed in Iraq,” a woman said. “It is killed.”
The small jobs children once held to help with family expenses are gone now. No one buys flowers on the street now. No one drives a car whose windows they can wash.
Drugs are flooding the streets now and drugs are the best and quickest way to ease the pain.
The number of street children -- children whose parents are dead, whose extended families are fractured -- have multiplied beyond anything modern Iraq has ever known.
Orphans are a commodity now in Iraq but orphanages are not. “We are taking care of the orphans, trying to give them love,” the woman said. “But they are traumatized. They don’t speak.”
Recreational programs are a thing of the past, so children are restless or rebellious or simply bored with life.
“Fifty percent of the bodies in the hospital are women and children,” the doctor said. “We are afraid that a large number of children will be affected by the depression of their mothers and the loss of their fathers and the poverty of their families.”
The future of Iraq is at stake. But it is not the banking system the women are concerned about. It is the treasure of the nation that is being squandered, they know. It is their future. It is their children.
The U.S. budget for fiscal year 2007, according to The National Priorities Project, earmarks 51 percent of all discretionary spending for military use. “Spending on the Iraq War in fiscal year 2006 alone will reach $96 billion,” the Project reports. (www.nationalpriorities.org)
The Bush budget calls for the elimination or reduction of 141 domestic programs. Among other things, we cut the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children by $200 million and the department of education by 9 percent and eliminate vocational education. “Level funding” is provided for other domestic programs.
The overall cost of the war in Iraq for the United States is already being estimated at at least a trillion dollars. But so far not a penny of it is specified for the children. Neither theirs nor ours.
“We see the prisoners’ rights,” another delegate said sadly, “but where are the rights of the children.”
From where I stand, I can’t help but wonder that if we sold some of our weapons and used the money to buy crayons, food, houses and schools for Iraqi children, we could stop worrying about being terrorized ourselves. Indeed, the minority is ruling. Maybe the Iraqi woman’s idea about what to do about it wouldn’t be a bad one after all.
Editor’s Note: From Where I Stand is normally posted to NCRonline.org Thursday afternoons, but Sr. Joan Chittister’s heavier than usual schedule of speaking engagements in April has disrupted our posting routines. We are sorry for the delays and ask you patience.
A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Joan Chittister is a best-selling author and well-known international lecturer on topics of justice, peace, human rights, women's issues, and contemporary spirituality in the Church and in society. She presently serves as the co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women, a partner organization of the United Nations, facilitating a worldwide network of women peace builders, especially in the Middle East. A speech communications theorist, Sister Joan's most recent books include The Way We Were (Orbis) and Called to Question (Sheed & Ward), a First Place CPA 2005 award winner. She is founder and executive director of Benetvision, a resource and research center for contemporary spirituality in Erie.
Terrorism Prevention and Treatment Starts With Accurate Diagnosis An Editorial by Award Winning Public Health Author Leonard G. Horowitz, D.M.D., M.A., M.P.H.
If you are as stunned as most Americans by the horrifying social, economic, and political realities currently unfolding in the aftermath of the "terrorist" attacks on America's icons-the World Trade Center and the Pentagon-don't be fooled. This is history repeating. These events were predictable and predicted by a careful study of history, science, and economics. Much like the ghastly attack on Pearl Harbor that initiated America's involvement in World War II, the September 11, 2001 "Attack on America," and news coverage of its aftermath, is fueling a new world war mentality, global economy, and calls for unprecedented social controls. These controls are reminiscent of the fascist controls of Nazi Germany, and consistent with a long developing globalistic agenda.
Obviously, this could not have been the intended result of suspected Islamic fundamentalists. Are we to believe that such sophisticated intelligence operators, capable of hijacking four planes within minutes of one another, from different airports, and precisely flying these airborne menaces directly into America's most populated and powerful economic and military icons, would have missed predicting what was so predictable?
That is, the outcomes of this day's catastrophes run strikingly contrary to what experts have presumed terrorists typically intend. That is, to win international political favor for their assorted causes.
Recall that in the days and weeks prior to the "Attack on America," world opinion of America and Israel had been seriously degraded. Internationally, leaders voiced outrage over Israel's position concerning the Palestinians. The fallout from the United Nations World Summit on Racism was seriously anti-American and pro-Palestinian. The global community rallied to the side of the Arab world. The American-Israeli alliance was globally condemned.
Would intelligent Islamic military leaders, cunning enough to evade all security enroute to pulling off the greatest and gravest civilian attack in world history, have jeopardized the substantial political concessions they gain during the weeks preceding the attacks? Could these attacks have been authorized simply for the Satanic satisfaction of seeing American civilians bleed, or gaining revenge in a "Holy War" as media spin directors want us to believe?
One could rationalize such an attack against the Pentagon. But against thousands of innocent civilians? Many, if not most of these victims were foreign speaking and born. Many of Islamic or Black. Have you been to New York recently? There are certainly more foreigners driving taxis, working in stores, and running concessions, than stereotypic white Americans.
This simply does not add up.
In order to effectively treat this terrorism problem, or prevent this type of devastation in the future, we need to accurately diagnose the root cause of the problem.
And if Arab world leaders are denying their involvement in these attacks, and other suspects need to be considered, who else remains suspect in this tragic conspiracy.
"The ends justify the means" This phrase is well known. So is the edict, "All is fair in love and war." Aldous Huxley broached these related topics when he wrote, "The nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end."
Ask yourself, "What social, political, and economic outcomes have resulted from this gravest tragedy?"
Officials and legislators are insisting on levying greater social controls over all people across America. The military and security industries are getting a heavy infusion of support for corporate and investor profits. Global meltdown of U.S. and allied currency markets are prompting calls for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and leading bankers to establish greater economic controls. Oil prices are soaring.
Who wins by all of this? Islamic fundamentalists? Not particularly. Especially since OPEC was established and continues to be largely controlled by the British and American petrochemical consortium. The Islamic people in general certainly don't win. But key globalists absolutely and entirely do.
In a book published a few months ago entitled, "Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism and Toxic Warfare" (Tetrahedron, LLC, 2001; 1-888-508-4787) I precisely identified certain "white collar terrorists" fully capable of such attacks. I critically examined historic records linking petrochemical industrialists, leaders in the globalistic transition, to contemporary terrorist groups.
I conclude, EVEN IF radical Islamic groups orchestrated these horrific attacks, it is urgent that we, as a nation and world, consider the economic and political powers behind such groups. It is apparent and unnerving that certain petrochemical global industrialists, who manipulated the markets and politicians leading up to World War II; whose families and industries profited then from such managed chaos, are the only ones clearly profiting in the aftermath of this "Attack on America."
Who Am I To Make Such Claims?
Let me briefly summarize my training. In 1977, I received my doctorate in medical dentistry from Tufts University in Boston. I later received several advanced degrees... One in public health from Harvard University. I joined the faculties at Tufts University and Harvard. I directed an alternative health center for more than a decade. In the early 1980s, the Associated Press featured my work as a trendsetter. My clinic integrated dentistry with general medicine, acupuncture, chiropractic, nutrition, massage, homeopathy, and other "alternative" methods of healing.
In 1999, I won the prestigious "Author of the Year Award" from the World Natural Health Organization for my tenth book. This became my first best-seller, Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola-Nature, Accident or Intentional? This book is said, by government health officials, to be largely responsible for America's growing anti-vaccination movement.
Suffice it to say, I have been extremely critical of petrochemical/pharmaceutical industrialists for suppressing more information than they have been telling... Including potentially lifesaving information that could stem the rising epidemics of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and much, much more.
Economic and Political Motives for "Managed Chaos"
Over the years I have gathered and published documented evidence that the military, medical, pharmaceutical, and petrochemical industries are intimately linked-economically and administratively-by a virtual cartel of special interests. These, might best be called "white collar terrorists." The threat they pose is adequately demonstrated by the recent "Attack on America." This day may seem like an extreme aberration. In fact, it is more rationally diagnosed as a symptom of global politics. Like World War II, those who funded Hilter's rise to power, those insulated corporate collaborators, simply MANAGED CHAOS.
This political diagnosis and prescription is, after all, written in Latin on the back of every U.S. dollar bill--"Annuit Coeptis Novus Ordo Seclorum." Literally translated this means, "Announcing the Birth of the New World Order Without God," or "Announcing the Birth of a New World Order Out of Chaos."
This seemingly outrageous explanation and conclusion in not simply a "conspiracy theory." As a journalist with dozens of scientific peer reviewed publications to my credit, my conclusions are based on meticulously documented intensive investigations. I've identified organizations, institutions, and individuals instigating, and profiting from, such globally managed chaos. I'll cite some examples.
Your Reality Check into Terrorism
Did you know that our government's and media's greatest perceived nemesis, said to be responsible for most terrorist attacks against the United States-Osama bin Laden-took his direction and money from the CIA. This implicates also the British Oligarchy's MI6. (See story at http://www.msnbc.com/news/190144.asp#BODY)
Likewise, did you know that the George H.W. Bush administration supplied Sadam Hussein with the majority of his military armaments, chemical weapons, and biological warfare agents, just weeks prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait? Included in this war-making arsenal was the West Nile virus. This bioweapon was shipped by, the Congressional Record reported, Rockefeller University President, Dr. Joshua Lederberg. He is also the curator of the American Type Cell Culture Collection. This is among the world's leading bioweapons suppliers. Oddly, this virus too, struck New Yorkers first.
If you didn't know the above facts, you might be additionally dismayed to learn that the British Secret Service's top-secret alphanumeric (letter/number) code translates the name "New York" into the number "666!" Here's a reality check for you.... The MI6 uses the Pythagorean-based code transcribing the multiples of six (6) where A=6, B=12, C=18, and so on through Z=156. Do the math. The sum of "New York's" letters total "666." That is the Bible's prophesied "Mark of the Beast."
Knowledge is power and ignorance is no longer bliss. Today ignorance is deadly! For instance, based on the above knowledge, three years ago, I moved my family from Boston and New York where I used to work. We moved to a place I felt my children could grow in peace and safety. During the past three years, I have consistently lectured audiences nationwide during television and radio interviews, and live presentations, about the urgent need to "move away from Metropolis"-that is, the corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston. Obviously, my advice still holds.
You remain at greatest risk by remaining in denial about these facts. Elizabeth Kubler Ross's "Death and Dying" model predicts this risk in reaction to a horrific threat or loss. A normal first reaction is denial. Thus, it is natural for you to want to dismiss my writings and warnings as "foolish conspiracy theory," "religious fanaticism," or even random coincidence. But, believe me, this terrorism is no such thing.
Personal Prayers For Victims and Our Families
Our hearts and prayers go out now to the thousands of people who were sacrificed, as I insist, for economics and political advantage in this new world war against humanity. Millions of people now pray for the victims, their families, our great nation, our deceived and deceptive political leaders, and our rapidly changing world. Whether you want to admit it or not, our global family has been attacked. Other forms of "white collar terrorism" continue to threaten, maim, and kill us. The death toll resulting from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks simply pales by comparison to the historic and ongoing atrocities.
A True Story To Learn From the Past
Let me explain how my family, and likely yours as well, has been victimized by these same global conspirators. This is a true story. It should make my counsel to you very clear and urgent. . . It should also demonstrate that this message is about saving lives. . . Your loved ones included.
At Nazi gunpoint, in 1938, my mother scrubbed the streets of Vienna. She, like other holocaust victims, became slave labor. How? The petrochemical company largely directing the Third Reich had a labor shortage. This company was called I.G. Farben. To solve their problem, they simply forced white European Jews and political prisoners to labor.
Massive killings occurred in "showers" under the guise of "PUBLIC HEALTH" and "DISINFECTION."
This story reflects what is secretly happening today in our country pertaining to contemporary acts of "terrorism." Keep reading...
By sheer miracle, my mother escaped. She fled to America and settled in Boston. I was reared in America's medical Mecca.
In 1993, my mother died of cancer. Initially, she was struck down by a simple flu shot. She developed a common vaccine injury. Surprisingly, viral proteins in vaccines often cause immune cells to attack and destroy nerves. My mother became weaker. Then paralyzed. With her immune guard down, she developed cervical cancer. A few months later, after a few radiation treatments, she died.
The sad thing is, had my mother integrated this lesson, it's likely she would be alive today to watch my children play.
The critical deadly fact that my mother failed to learn, and we are all at risk for learning "the hard way" is . . .
TODAY'S BIOCHEMICAL WEAPONS, VACCINE, AND DRUG INDUSTRY IS PART OF THE SAME GLOBAL PETROCHEMICAL-PHARMACEUTICAL CARTEL THAT HAS SPONSORED NUMEROUS ACTS OF TERRORISM. THIS LIKELY INCLUDES THE MOST RECENT DEBACLES IN THE UNITED STATES. THIS CARTEL IS A DIRECT DESCENDANT OF THE ROCKEFELLER/I.G. FARBEN MONOPOLY THAT INSTIGATED THE HOLOCAUST.
Please stop what you are doing, and link to my publisher's website at http://www.tetrahedron.org/. Review the articles, news stories, and intelligence reports I have posted to share potentially lifesaving knowledge. You will see that I am not making this up.
The Vast and Silent Threat Continues
The threat my mother escaped by miracle in 1938 apparently killed her in 1993. She entrusted medical deities for their knowledge and vaccine prescriptions. She trusted mainstream media's messages. This was a great and grave mistake.
I, like other doctors, trained under certain academic standards. The question is, who set these standards? Documents prove that "scientific" organizations, individuals, and pharmaceutical interests, heavily influenced by Rockefeller relatives, set these standards. Conduct a simple library investigation. You will learn this family, and its British cohorts, largely control the news media and entertainment industry as well.
With such varied resources for committing, concealing, and profiting from "white collar terrorism," its no wonder so many are being intoxicated and killed today. With millions of people in hospitals, and thousands now in emergency rooms... Today's physicians' offices, public health units, and hospitals, are effectively like the killing camps of yesteryear. Millions of Americans will go to their early graves this year, like my mother. Members of your family could be struck down similarly. This, as the result of doing what millions of holocaust victims did during World War II. They simply followed authoritative and coercive direction. The direction was given under the guise of "PUBLIC HEALTH," "PUBLIC SAFETY," "RACIAL DISPARITY," and even "DISINFECTION!"
The AIDS and Cancer Terrorists
In case you don't know, the Rockefeller family created the cancer industry in the 1920s. Today, the world's leading AIDS research facility is the Aaron Diamond Research Center affiliated with Rockefeller University. AIDS, in fact, is a very bizarre form of cancer. The AIDS virus (HIV) is a cancer virus associated with immune suppression. It leads to three types of cancer: leukemia, lymphoma, and sarcoma. In Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola, I exposed for the first time that these types of viruses were man-made during the 1960s. That's before the modern age of gene splicing! Another Rockefeller-linked company, Litton Industries, directed this research and development through their medical subsidiary, Bionetics. Contaminated hepatitis B vaccines, given to gay men in NYC, and central African Blacks, in 1974, best explains the first AIDS cases. This vaccine was partially prepared by growing hepatitis B viruses in contaminated chimpanzees shipped by Bionetics to New York. There, the Merck Pharmaceutical Company, also financially tied to staggeringly large Rockefeller investments, produced the vaccine that apparently triggered AIDS. Today, the pandemic and profit-making continues.
The Choice to Diagnose and Treat a Horrifying Reality
We have a choice to correctly diagnose, and because of this, successfully treat, a horrifying reality, or be killed by it. Much like the undermining of American "public health," drug-based medicine, and U.S. National Security, our country is being attacked by multinational corporate profiteers. These people alone have prospered, and should be blamed, for the recent "Attack on America."
Indeed, knowledge is powerful. But ignorance, or inaccurate intelligence, is deadly. Before we blame the Arab nations and people, retaliate against perceived Islamic threats, and declare World War III, I believe we need to carefully diagnose what ails our planet. Diagnosis means to "see through." It is a requirement for correct and successful treatment of every disorder. It requires accurate intelligence.
I believe we have the intelligence to make an accurate diagnosis to guide treatment. What's missing, by political and economic design, and by effect of the media, is widespread awareness of this intelligence. Without this, the will of the people cannot be exercised to correct what ails us.
If I am right, the thorn in America's side is a symptom of what's on our dollar bill--"Annuit Coeptis Novus Ordo Seclorum." We are being managed through chaos to birth a New World Order. I believe that people around the world want to live in peace. Everyone wants a new world order as opposed to an old world of managed chaos.
"This aggression will not stand," President Bush and the past two American presidents have periodically warned. Proudly, our dollar bill also declairs, "In God we trust." The Bible predicts a new world order too, heralding a thousand years of world peace. I just don't think a planet being "peacefully" managed by multinational corporate fascist population controllers who earn vast revenues from humanity's suffering is what God has in mind. I believe this Father of all nations will ultimately make good on our presidents' repeated warnings. "This aggression will not stand."
About the author: Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz is an internationally recognized authority in public health education. One of healthcare's most captivating speakers, Dr. Horowitz's tenth book, Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola--Nature, Accident or Intentional? became a national bestseller in 1998. His latest book, Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism and Toxic Warfare, released in June 2001, by the non-profit Tetrahedron, LLC, is previewed at http://www.tetrahedron.org/. More information may be obtained by calling 1-888-508-4787.
Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed A multimedia report on television newsrooms' use of material provided by PR firms on behalf of paying clients by Diane Farsetta and Daniel Price, Center for Media and Democracy April 6, 2006
In Brief
Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) documented television newsrooms' use of 36 video news releases (VNRs)—a small sample of the thousands produced each year. CMD identified 77 television stations, from those in the largest to the smallest markets, that aired these VNRs or related satellite media tours (SMTs) in 98 separate instances, without disclosure to viewers. Collectively, these 77 stations reach more than half of the U.S. population. The VNRs and SMTs whose broadcast CMD documented were produced by three broadcast PR firms for 49 different clients, including General Motors, Intel, Pfizer and Capital One. In each case, these 77 television stations actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. In almost all cases, stations failed to balance the clients' messages with independently-gathered footage or basic journalistic research. More than one-third of the time, stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety.
Report highlights include:
- KOKH-25 in Oklahoma City, OK, a FOX station owned by Sinclair, aired six of the VNRs tracked by CMD, making it this report's top repeat offender. Consistently, KOKH-25 failed to provide any disclosure to news audiences. The station also aired five of the six VNRs in their entirety, and kept the publicist's original narration each time.
- In three instances, TV stations not only aired entire VNRs without disclosure, but had local anchors and reporters read directly from the script prepared by the broadcast PR firm. KTVI-2 in St. Louis, MO, had their anchor introduce, and their reporter re-voice, a VNR produced for Masterfoods and 1-800 Flowers, following the script nearly verbatim. WBFS-33 in Miami, FL, did the same with a VNR produced for the "professional services firm" Towers Perrin. And Ohio News Network did likewise with a VNR produced for Siemens.
- WSJV-28 in South Bend, IN, introduced a VNR produced for General Motors as being from "FOX's Andrew Schmertz," implying that Schmertz was a reporter for the local station or the FOX network. In reality, he is a publicist at the largest U.S. broadcast PR firm, Medialink Worldwide. Another Medialink publicist, Kate Brookes, was presented as an on-air reporter by four TV stations airing a VNR produced for Siemens.
- Two stations whose previous use of government VNRs was documented by the New York Times, WCIA-3 in Champaign, IL, and WHBQ-13 in Memphis, TN, also aired VNRs tracked by CMD. The March 2005 Times article reported that WHBQ's vice president for news "could not explain how his station came to broadcast" a State Department VNR, while WCIA's news director said that Agriculture Department VNRs "meet our journalistic standards."
Summary
Although the number of media formats and outlets has exploded in recent years, television remains the dominant news source in the United States. More than three-quarters of U.S. adults rely on local TV news, and more than 70 percent turn to network TV or cable news on a daily or near-daily basis, according to a January 2006 Harris Poll. The quality and integrity of television reporting thus significantly impacts the public's ability to evaluate everything from consumer products to medical services to government policies.
To reach this audience—and to add a veneer of credibility to clients' messages—the public relations industry uses video news releases (VNRs). VNRs are pre-packaged "news" segments and additional footage created by broadcast PR firms, or by publicists within corporations or government agencies. VNRs are designed to be seamlessly integrated into newscasts, and are freely provided to TV stations. Although the accompanying information sent to TV stations identifies the clients behind the VNRs, nothing in the material for broadcast does. Without strong disclosure requirements and the attention and action of TV station personnel, viewers cannot know when the news segment they're watching was bought and paid for by the very subjects of that "report."
In recent years, the U.S. Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, journalism professors, reporters and members of the general public have expressed concern about VNRs. In response, public relations executives and broadcaster groups have vigorously defended the status quo, claiming there is no problem with current practices. In June 2005, the president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), Barbara Cochran, told a reporter that VNRs were "kind of like the Loch Ness Monster. Everyone talks about it, but not many people have actually seen it."
To inform this debate, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) conducted a ten-month study of selected VNRs and their use by television stations, tracking 36 VNRs issued by three broadcast PR firms. Key findings include:
- VNR use is widespread. CMD found 69 TV stations that aired at least one VNR from June 2005 to March 2006—a significant number, given that CMD was only able to track a small percentage of the VNRs streaming into newsrooms during that time. Collectively, these 69 stations broadcast to 52.7 percent of the U.S. population, according to Nielsen Media figures. Syndicated and network-distributed segments sometimes included VNRs, further broadening their reach.
- VNRs are aired in TV markets of all sizes. TV stations often use VNRs to limit the costs associated with producing, filming and editing their own reports. However, VNR usage is not limited to small-town stations with shoestring budgets. Nearly two-thirds of the VNRs that CMD tracked were aired by stations in a Top 50 Nielsen market area, such as Detroit, Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. Thirteen VNRs were broadcast in the ten largest markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston.
- TV stations don't disclose VNRs to viewers. Of the 87 VNR broadcasts that CMD documented, not once did the TV station disclose the client(s) behind the VNR to the news audience. Only one station, WHSV-3 in Harrisonburg, VA, provided partial disclosure, identifying the broadcast PR firm that created the VNR, but not the client, Daimler Chrysler. WHSV-3 aired soundbites from a Chrysler representative and directed viewers to websites associated with Chrysler, without disclosing the company's role in the "report."
- TV stations disguise VNRs as their own reporting. In every VNR broadcast that CMD documented, the TV station altered the VNR's appearance. Newsrooms added station-branded graphics and overlays, to make VNRs indistinguishable from reports that genuinely originated from their station. A station reporter or anchor re-voiced the VNR in more than 60 percent of the VNR broadcasts, sometimes repeating the publicist's original narration word-for-word.
- TV stations don't supplement VNR footage or verify VNR claims. While TV stations often edit VNRs for length, in only seven of the 87 VNR broadcasts documented by CMD did stations add any independently-gathered footage or information to the segment. In all other cases, the entire aired "report" was derived from a VNR and its accompanying script. In 31 of the 87 VNR broadcasts, the entire aired "report" was the entire pre-packaged VNR. Three stations (WCPO-9 in Cincinnati, OH; WSYR-9 in Syracuse, NY; and WYTV-33 in Youngstown, OH) removed safety warnings from a VNR touting a newly-approved prescription skin cream. WSYR-9 also aired a VNR heralding a "major health breakthrough" for arthritis sufferers—a supplement that a widely-reported government study had found to be little better than a placebo.
- The vast majority of VNRs are produced for corporate clients. Of the hundreds of VNRs that CMD reviewed for potential tracking, only a few came from government agencies or non-profit organizations. Corporations have consistently been the dominant purveyors of VNRs, though the increased scrutiny of government-funded VNRs in recent years may have decreased their use by TV newsrooms. Of the VNRs that CMD tracked, 47 of the 49 clients behind them were corporations that stood to benefit financially from the favorable "news" coverage.
- Satellite media tours may accompany VNRs. Broadcast PR firms sometimes produce both VNRs and satellite media tours (SMTs) for clients. SMTs are actual interviews with TV stations, but their focus and scope are determined by the clients. In effect, SMTs are live recitations of VNR scripts. CMD identified 10 different TV stations that aired SMTs for 17 different clients with related VNRs. In only one instance was there partial disclosure to viewers. An anchor at WLTX-19 in Columbia, SC, said after the segment, "This interview ... was provided by vendors at the consumer trade show," but did not name the four corporate clients behind the SMT.
In sum, television newscasts—the most popular news source in the United States—frequently air VNRs without disclosure to viewers, without conducting their own reporting, and even without fact checking the claims made in the VNRs. VNRs are overwhelmingly produced for corporations, as part of larger public relations campaigns to sell products, burnish their image, or promote policies or actions beneficial to the corporation.
www.globalresearch.ca June 1 2004
North America is now suffering its seventh year of conspicuous and dangerous aerosol and electromagnetic operations conducted by the U.S. government under the guise of national security. Concerned citizens watch in fear as military tankers discolor the skies with toxic chemicals that morph into synthetic clouds.
We continually witness bizarre meteorological occurrences as powerful electromagnetic devices manipulate both the jet stream and individual storm fronts to create artificial weather and climatic conditions. Black operations projects embedded within these aerosol missions are documented to sicken and disorient select populations with biological test agents and psychotronic mind/mood control technologies.
Part of what is happening in the atmosphere above us involves the Pentagon's secret space weapons program, designed for strategic, operational and tactical levels of war. NASA missions will soon be transferred to Pentagon control. The Air Force Space Command declares that, in order to monitor and shape world events, it must fight intense, decisive wars with great precision from space. Air Force Secretary James G. Roche has stated: "Space capabilities are integrated with, and affect every link in the kill chain."
A glimpse into new death technologies under construction is in legislation introduced by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinch. His unsuccessful Space Preservation Act of 2001 was intended to ban space deployment of:
- electronic, psychotronic and information weaponry
- high altitude ultra low frequency weapons
- plasma, electromagnetic, sonic and ultrasonic weapons
- laser weapons
- strategic, theater, tactical or extraterrestrial weapons
- chemical biological, environmental climate or tectonic weapons
- chemtrails (this item was stricken from a later version, suggesting duress)
In their quest to remain top dog in the kill chain, the purveyors of perpetual war have deliberately dimmed earth's life-giving sunlight, and reduced atmospheric visibility with lung-clogging particulates and polymers. This ecological terrorism has severely compromised public health, according to thousands of testimonials. Years of mass appeals to legislators, media and military officials for information, and for cessation of catastrophic atmospheric degradation, have fallen on deaf bureaucratic ears. Public awareness of what befalls us remains as murky as our skies because those "in the know" are muzzled by national secrecy laws and Americans have no authority to challenge matters of national security. Left to gather clues, we know this much so far:
1. At least part of the aerosol project has been dubbed Operation Cloverleaf, probably due to its multi-faceted operations, which include: weather modification, military communications, space weapons development, ozone and global warming research plus biological weaponry and detection testing.
2. Dumping tons of particulate matter from aircraft has geo-engineered our planetary atmosphere into a highly charged, electrically-conductive plasma useful for military projects. The air we breathe is laden with asbestos-sized synthetic fibers and toxic metals, including barium salts, aluminum, and reportedly, radioactive thorium. These materials act as electrolytes to enhance conductivity of military radar and radio waves. Poisonous on par with arsenic and a proven suppressant of the human immune system, atmospheric barium weakens human muscles, including those of the heart. Inhaled aluminum goes directly to the brain and medical specialists confirm that it causes oxidative stress within brain tissue, leading to formation of Alzheimer's like neurofibrillary tangles. Radioactive thorium is known to cause leukemia and other cancers.
3. Only a small percentage of the military's atmospheric modification projects are visibly obvious. What we can't see is equally dangerous. The ionosphere, the earth and its inhabitants are continually bombarded with high frequency microwaves used to manipulate the charged atmosphere for weather modification, information gathering and for tectonic (earthquake-producing) weaponry. Independent chemtrail researcher Clifford Carnicom confirms that we are also continuously subjected to extremely low electromagnetic frequencies (ELF) pulsing at 4 hertz multiples, frequencies known to profoundly affect human biological and mental functioning.
4. There is a well-documented biological component to continuously ongoing atmospheric studies in which nations and regions are furtively inoculated via specially designed delivery systems with combinations of viruses, bacteria, fungi, mycoplasma, desiccated blood cells and exotic biological markers so that testmasters can assess human, animal and plant response.
5. The multi-organizational megalith perpetrating these bio-chem projects against humanity includes the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and its research arm DARPA, plus the Department of Energy (DOE) with its huge network of national labs and universities. Private defense contractors and pharmaceutical companies are heavily involved. Cooperating governments of other nations and probably some United Nations agencies are complicit, since the aerosol projects are global in scope.
Gross chemical and electromagnetic pollution is only part of the horrific realities we endure. The sociopaths who brazenly pervert skies, climate and weather for power and profit are the same madmen who have waged four limited nuclear wars since 1991. Radioactive weaponry, declared both illegal and immoral by the entire civilized world, has been used by the Pentagon in Desert Storm, the Balkans campaign and the on-going occupation-wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. Few Americans understand the extent of carnage inflicted in their name across the planet.
By scientific definition, the missiles, tank penetrators and bunker busting bombs unleashed against Iraq and Afghanistan by U.S. and British forces in the so-called war on terror are nuclear weapons. Refuse from radioactive weaponry does not disperse, but remains in the atmosphere organotoxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic to all living flesh for 4.5 billion years.
Inhabitants of the Pentagon's two newly "liberated" nations are now slowly dying of radiation and heavy metal poisoning. Victims of U.S. weaponry used in Afghanistan have a concentration of non-depleted uranium isotopes in their bodies never before seen in civilian populations. Tons of depleted and non-depleted uranium contaminating their land, air, food and water guarantee their painful demise. Using data from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), nuclear scientist Leuren Moret calculates that the estimated 2,500+ tons of depleted uranium used against Iraq in 1991 and 2003 is sufficient to cause 25 million new cancers. Is it a coincidence that the population of Iraq, according to the CIA, is 25 million?
The quarter million U.S. and British fighting forces who have helped the Pentagon deliver this holocaust also face inevitable radiological death by slow burn. Rotated into atomic war zones since 2001, coalition troops have inhaled and ingested millions of tiny invisible ceramic uranium particles which emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation as they embed in lungs, kidneys, blood, lymph and bone. Radiation exposure to a single internalized U-238 (uranium) alpha particle is 50 times the allowable whole body dose for one year under international standards. As U-238 decays into daughter isotopes, it becomes ever more radioactive, causing cell and organ destruction to escalate over time. Uranium contamination leads to incapacitating, multi-organ system disorders identical to illnesses suffered by thousands of Gulf War I vets. Bodily fluids poisoned with uranium isotopes sicken spouses and visit upon offspring a genetic Armageddon.
Who knows what a disabled and prematurely dying military population will mean to future stability and safety of USA? Yet Senator Chuck Hagel (R- Neb.) now demands that America provide more fodder for its atomic battlefields by reinstating the military draft so that "all of our citizens...bear some responsibility and pay some price" in order to "understand the intensity of the challenges we face."
Despite disingenuous denials that biological harm will result from atomic warfare, the Pentagon knows full well the gruesome realities of uranium weaponry by virtue of its own voluminous studies spanning 60 years. Pentagon documents confirm that America's war establishment knowingly exposes its own troops to dangerous levels of radiation. The resulting illness of those now returning from the war zones is already making headlines.
Because our military-industrial overlords brazenly poison the very grunts who make their war games possible, we must logically conclude there is virtually nothing they would not secretly and sadistically do to the rest of us. Military officials lie as perniciously about chemtrail operations as they do about effects of DU weaponry. If people were to consider the published science regarding chemtrails and DU, they would understand that we are all in mortal jeopardy.
Both the Pentagon's aerosol operations and its limited nuclear wars are deeply interconnected. We can trace the beginnings of Operation Cloverleaf right to the Strangelove brain of Dr. Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb and proponent of nuking inhabited coast lines to rearrange them for economic projects.31 Before he died in 2003, Teller was director emeritus of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where plans for nuclear, biological and directed energy weapons are crafted. In 1997, Teller publicly outlined his proposal to use aircraft to scatter in the stratosphere millions of tons of electrically-conductive metallic materials, ostensibly to reduce global warming.
Shortly after Teller's presentation, the public began seeing frenetic chemtrailing. In 2000, CBS News admitted that scientists were "looking at drastic solutions for global warming, including manipulating the atmosphere on a massive scale." CBS confirmed that the plan to load the air with tiny particles would "deflect enough sunlight to trigger global cooling."
Teller estimated that commercial aircraft could be used to spew these particles at a cost of 33 cents a pound. This gives credence to a report by an airline manager, forced by a compulsory non-disclosure agreement to remain anonymous, that commercial aircraft have been co-opted to assist the military in consummating Project Cloverleaf. A 1991 Hughes aircraft patent confirms that sunscreen particulate materials can be run through jet engines. A science textbook now used in some public schools discusses the sunscreen project by showing a large orange-red jet with the caption, "Jet engines running on richer fuel would add particles to the atmosphere to create a sunscreen." The logo on the plane says "Particle Air." The implications of this crucial information should not be understated. A program to make America's millions of annual jet flights a source of specially designed particulate pollution is serious business.
Cloverleaf particles and polymers saturating the air we breathe are smaller than 10 microns (PM 10) and are invisible to the human eye. By comparison, a human hair is 60 to 100 microns in thickness. Scientists and the EPA report that because PM and sub-micron pollution particles bypass lung filters and enter the blood stream, they cause radical changes in the endocrine and nervous systems. They can trigger high blood pressure and cause heart attack within two hours of inhalation. They cause the blood to become sticky, making it tougher for the heart to pump and increasing the risk of blood clots and vessel damage. Now researchers in Taiwan document "a significant increase" in the number of stroke victims when PM pollutant levels rise. The American Lung Association confirms that we are breathing more toxic air than ever. No wonder nationwide asthma rates have been soaring in recent years.
Tiny synthetic filaments called polymers are part of the brew. In 1990, a NATO report detailed how high-flying aircraft can modify the atmosphere by spraying polymers to absorb electromagnetic radiation. U.S. patent number 6315213 describes how cross-linked aqueous polymers dispersed into a storm diminish rain.
Polymer chemist Dr. R. Michael Castle has studied atmospheric polymers for years. He has found that some of them contain bioactive materials, which can cause "serious skin lesions and diseases when absorbed into the skin." He has identified microscopic polymers comprised of genetically-engineered fungal forms mutated with viruses. He says that trillions of fusarium (fungus)/virus mutated spores, which secrete a powerful mico-toxin, are part of the air we breathe. Allergies anyone?
We can safely bet that into our particle-enriched air, experimenters are also dumping nanoparticles, developed for a variety of military and industrial uses. These engineered carbon molecules, as small as one-thousandth the diameter of human hair, display bizarre chemical properties and are known to trigger organ damage. A recent study at Southern Methodist University found that fish exposed to one type of nanoparticle suffered severe brain damage after only 48 hours.
The military's aerosol operations have been climate altering to the extreme. Air traffic is a huge source of greenhouse pollution. Increasing that traffic exponentially in order to scatter tons of heat-trapping metallic particulates and heat-liberating barium salts have undoubtedly led to accelerated global warming. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide, have reached a record high this year. As carbon dioxide levels rise, oxygen levels decrease.
In 1996, Scientists for Global Responsibility compiled a report contending that dangerous geoengineering, as proposed by Teller and the Global Change Research Coordination Office, would be absolutely ineffective in mitigating global warming. The report noted that climate engineering research is funded by industry with a vested interest in continued high consumption of fossil fuels. The hair-brained scheme of particle engineering was contrived to ensure that industry polluters will never be forced to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions. But because warming and pollution trends have worsened drastically since the aerosol projects began, we must suspect that the warming mitigation program is a hoax and that chemtrailing is really intended, among other things, to create a series of "hobgoblins."
The establishment's modus operandi for maintaining a fierce and lucrative hold upon the collective American mind has been defined precisely by satirist H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) who wrote: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and thus clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
In The Report from Iron Mountain published in 1967, just as the Pentagon's lucrative Vietnam War was being revved into high gear, establishment braintrusters confirmed that perpetual war is absolutely vital for controlling and manipulating the masses. The document even suggested a number of options for creating fictitious enemies, noting that perpetual war induces populations to give blind allegiance to political authority.
Since the 1930s, when the Eastern Establishment, including the Bush family, used its New York banks and oil companies to secretly fund Hitler's German Nazi party, our controllers have employed FEAR, the concept of ENEMY and WAR to keep us in bondage. Chemtrailing is a manifestation of the Fourth Reich, an era of corporate fascism ushered in by a powerful military juggernaut, which manufactures enemies and unleashes fake terror attacks to scare us into voiceless submission.
Both Saddam Hussein and the al Queda networks have long been nourished with U.S. government and corporate funding and groomed by U.S. military and corporate advisors to play useful roles as "enemies." Former German Technology Minister Andreas von Bulow recently confirmed on U.S. radio that hijacked planes were able to fly around the eastern U.S. on 9/11 unimpeded by military interdiction because those attacks were part of a carefully-orchestrated "covert operation" designed to coerce America into perpetual conflict with the Muslim world.
Now, a "secret" Pentagon report has been conveniently leaked to the media. It contends that abrupt climate change is the most fearful hobgoblin yet. Authored by change agents with ties to the CIA and the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the report contends that abrupt climate change will lead to a global catastrophe of monumental proportions, including nuclear war and natural disasters, as whole nations disappear beneath the encroaching sea and survivors fight for dwindling food, water and energy supplies.
Yet the Pentagon has been involved for decades in the drastic manipulation of weather, climate and atmospheric conditions. The U.S. used a chemical agent dubbed Olive Oil during Operation Popeye to induce heavy rains in Vietnam 40 years ago. The Air Force document titled "Weather As a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" lists its weaponized agenda for creating abrupt climate change including: Storm creation and modification, fog and cloud creation, precipitation enhancement, precipitation denial, drought inducement and artificial creation of "space weather." This document also states that the military's radical weather modification agenda will "become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications."
Weather weapons are now routinely used in war zones. A citizen reporting from Serbia noted that during NATO operations in the Balkans, black clouds suddenly materialized out of blue skies, hailstones were the size of eggs, and surreal thunder and lightening terrified the people. He reported that scientists found that the electromagnetic field over Serbia had been punctured, causing rain systems to circumvent the region. In addition to manufactured drought, scientists also predict that Serbia will suffer 10,000 cancer deaths from DU weaponry used there.
According to University of Ottawa Professor Michael Chossudovsky, the military's High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), operating in Alaska as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative, is a powerful tool for weather and climate modification. Operated jointly by the U.S. Navy and Air Force, HAARP antennas bombard and heat the ionosphere, causing electromagnetic frequencies to bounce back to earth, penetrating everything living and dead.
HAARP transmissions make holes in the ozone, creating yet another hobgoblin. HAARP inventor Bernard Eastlund described in his original patent how antenna energy can interact with plumes of atmospheric particles, used as a lens or focusing device, to modify weather. HAARP is capable of triggering floods, droughts and hurricanes, much to the chagrin of both the European Parliament and the Russian Duma.
HAARP also generates sweeping pulses through the ULF/ELF range. In 2000, independent researchers monitored HAARP transmissions of 14 hertz. They found that when these signals were broadcast at high output levels, wind speeds topped 70 miles per hour. They watched as these same transmissions dispersed a huge weather front approaching the west coast from California to British Columbia. Although precipitation had been originally forecast, the front was seen shredding apart on satellite photos and rain did not materialize. The hobgoblin drought can be an enriching and empowering tool for certain corporate and governing entities.
HAARP is not only capable of destabilizing agricultural and ecological systems anywhere on the planet, but its effects can target select regions to affect human physical, mental and emotional responses during non-lethal warfare projects. HAARP frequencies beamed at specific targets can generate catastrophic earthquakes, exactly like the quake last December which killed thousands of people in Iran, a nemesis nation according to the Bush administration.
The Pentagon's warning about climate catastrophe is surely nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to prepare the masses for the bizarre atmospheric upheavals we can expect as the military continues to brutalize our planet and near space with its grotesque toys. And we ain't seen nothing yet. Dr. Eastlund and his ilk have developed plans for solar power satellites designed to modify the weather with electromagnetic beam output that dwarfs the present HAARP system. As abrupt climate change is increasingly orchestrated, we will surely need additional fascist agencies, an ever-growing military budget and more poison-particle projects that just happen to ensure population reduction as a side benefit.
Despite visual evidence that every aspect of our physical environment is being manipulated and damaged for war games, some Americans cannot accept that dangerous covert operations are being conducted by a government they still believe to be a virtuous defender of freedom. Their stumbling block is a numbing belief that their own officials would never perpetrate dangerous experimentation on humanity since "they have families too." History and the release of declassified government documents disprove such naiveté.
Although "they" had families too, the U.S. government and its defense contractors exposed citizens of the northwest U.S. to huge and deliberate releases of radioactive iodine 131 from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation where plutonium was produced for nuclear bombs. Those Cold War releases unleashed radiation illnesses upon thousands of downwinders, some of whom received up to 350 rads of radiation when a maximum safety dose is set at .025 rads annually. Between 1949 and 1952, radioactive pellets, dust and particles were tested on the hapless citizens of Utah and New Mexico.
By 1963, 1,200 nuclear weapons tests conducted at the Nevada test site had exposed every person in the U.S. to deadly radioactive fallout, causing millions of fetal deaths, spontaneous abortions, stillbirths and birth defects. The U.S. government also conducted over 4,000 radiation experiments on individual human test subjects without their informed consent. The delayed effects of decades of radiation exposure from weapons testing are today demonstrated by a U.S. population plagued with epidemic cancer and heart disease, neurological disorders, low fertility, chronic fatigue, obesity (thyroid involvement), immune system dysfunction and learning disabilities. Approximately half of all pregnancies in the U.S. result in prenatal or postnatal death or an otherwise less than healthy baby. As military tankers spew white chemical plumes across America at a cost of $3,448 per hour per tanker, we are reminded of Dr. Leonard Cole's 1994 testimony before a Senate Committee regarding 45 years of open air testing during which military aircraft sprayed American cities with bacteria, fungus and carcinogenic chemicals. Between 1962-1973, the U.S. Navy conducted hundreds of bio-chem tests known as Operation SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense). SHAD projects like Autumn Gold and Copper Head exposed 10,000 navy personnel to aircraft spray laden with biological and chemical warfare agents, including sarin nerve gas. The cocktails used in those genocidal "tests" are now linked to cancer, heart and lung problems suffered by surviving guinea pigs.
We are told that defense officials perpetrated these atrocities so that scientists could learn about how to "protect" Americans from attack. So why, in the late 80s, would our "protectors" fall all over themselves to supply Saddam Hussein's war machine with 90 shipments of chemical and biological weaponry, including sarin, anthrax, botulism, brucella and West Nile Virus?
It will likely be years before Americans are told what is being tested upon them during our present chemtrail/space wars era. The Hanford downwinders did not learn until 1986 what had been unleashed upon them some 30 years earlier; SHAD victims filed suit in 2003 to learn the extent to which they were intentionally exposed to dangerous substances in the 60s.
To understand how our nation has arrived at this doomsday corruption, we must recall that immediately after WWII ended, the U.S. government initiated Operation Paperclip through which a large number of German Nazi scientists were imported to the United States. Once issued new identities, these death industry pros were employed in U.S. military laboratories to develop a dazzling array of secret weaponry projects. With congressional funding, the crowning achievement of this nexus was the creation of ghastly new bioweapons, including the AIDS virus and an incapacitating chronic fatigue agent engineered from mycoplasma and brucella.
The military is empowered to continue lethal experimentation by devious wording of Section 1520a Chapter 32 of U.S. Code Title 50. The law states that the Secretary of Defense may NOT conduct any chemical or biological test or experiment on civilian populations, unless such tests are for medical, therapeutic, pharmaceutical, agricultural, industrial purposes or for research in general or for protection against weapons or for law enforcement purposes, including riot control. So DOD may not use us for guinea pigs, unless it is for any "good" reason under the sun! The law states that human subjects must give informed consent. But a nasty loophole in Section 1515 of Chapter 32 allows informed consent to be suspended by executive order during a period of national emergency, a situation under which this nation perpetually labors by deliberate hobgoblin design.
Few American test rats realize that the Pentagon's boys in Congress have now:
- appropriated millions of dollars for the manufacture and testing of new "mini nukes" and bunker buster bombs.
- authorized the DOE to resume nuclear testing in Nevada.
- exempted DOD and DOE from landmark environmental laws in the development of these new weapons.
America's 70,000 nuclear weapons manufactured since 1945 are not sufficient! As DOE gears up to develop and test fourth-generation nukes, numerous reports continue to surface about the agency's sordid corruption and mismanagement. DOE's habitual cover-up of site contamination and its devious efforts to downplay serious illnesses suffered by many of its nuclear workers are among recent scandals.
When new "low yield" nuclear weapons (defined as being smaller than 5 kilotons) are tested in Nevada, downwinders might like to know that a mini .5 kiloton nuclear warhead would have to burrow 150 feet to eliminate atmospheric fallout. No weapon yet developed can penetrate more than 40 feet into the earth. A tested nuclear warhead that burrows to only 40 feet will throw a million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the atmosphere.
The Pentagon's new nuke era is in the capable hands of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has so ably presided over the pre-emptive nuclear incineration of Middle Eastern Muslims. Rumsfeld has never adequately explained why his Department was unable to defend the Pentagon building despite a full hour's notice that hijacked planes were in the air. Should Rumsfeld be replaced due to the Pentagon's Iraqi torture scandal, we are assured that his Bush-appointed successor will share his have-nuke-will-travel ideology.
Working closely with Rumsfeld is a coven of pro-nukers, including his advisor Keith Payne, a vocal advocate of pre-emptive nuclear war. Payne has written that an "intelligent" nuclear offensive launched by the U.S. would result in only 20 million U.S. casualties, "a level compatible with national survival and recovery."
Now that we have tied together the historical and political realities for which we mindlessly wave our flags, we still hope that sufficient numbers of American lab rats will miraculously awaken from their collective stupor and take stock of our appalling situation. After all, rodents have a notoriously short life span and are always killed when no longer useful to those conducting research. The irony of this horror story is that we rats are being plundered to finance our own demise. Our national debt of 7.2 trillion grows by $1.8 billion a day. The Pentagon cannot account for $2.3 trillion of its shadowy transactions. The radioactive operations in Iraq are costing $3.7 billion a month, those in Afghanistan $900 million a month. No one knows how many $billions are being flushed into Operation Cloverleaf and other hobgoblin projects. The U.S. spends $11,000 per second on weapons, according to calculations of celebrated author William Thomas.
So, while we await the great awakening, have a wonderful, barium-dried summer under a synthetic tarpaulin of aluminum-white, particle-laden, electrically-charged aviation scum that passes for sky. Endure well your respiratory and ocular difficulties while staring at huge oily sun rings and smeary sundogs, the patent signature of chemical assault. Don't forget to salute and click your heels when you see tanker formations patriotically saturating the atmosphere with such a dense, micro-particulate brew that they cast black shadows alongside or ahead of themselves.
As you witness the noxious drama in the skies, remember, it's all just part of the "kill chain."
