http://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=32361

From “The Killing Game” by Gary Webb:

As the number of people playing Counter-Strike soared into the millions, the U.S. Army could only watch wistfully. For years, Army recruiters had diligently pursued the very same demographic–middle-class male teenagers–with dwindling success.

In late 1999, after missing their recruiting goals that year, Army officials got together with the civilian directors of a Navy think tank at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey to discuss ways of luring computer gamers into the military.

Combat gamers not only happened to target the right age for the Army’s purposes but, more important, possessed exactly the kind of information-processing skills the Army needed: the ability to think quickly under fire.

“Our military information tends to arrive in a flood … and it’ll arrive in a flood under stressful conditions, and there’ll be a hell of a lot of noise,” said Col. Casey Wardynski, a military economist who came up with the idea for an official Army computer game. “How do you filter that? What are your tools? What is your facility in doing that? What is your level of comfort? How much load can you bear? Kids who are comfortable with that are going to be real comfortable … with the Army of the future.”

With the vast funding of the U.S. government behind them, the Army/Navy team began developing a game that it hoped would turn some of its players into real soldiers. “The overall mission statement … was to develop a game with appeal similar to the game Counter-Strike,” wrote Michael Zyda, the director of the Navy think tank. “We took Counter-Strike as our model, but with heavy emphasis on realism and Army values and training.”

After two years of development, America’s Army was released to the public on the first Fourth of July after 9/11. The gaming world gasped and then cheered. Contrary to expectations, the government-made shooter was every bit as good a $50 retail shooter and, in some ways, better. Plus, it was free–downloadable from the Internet at www.americasarmy.com. That, too, was a calculation, one the Army hoped would weed out people who didn’t know much about computers. The game and its distribution system were difficult by design, Zyda noted.

“That was a very key thing. First, they would have to be smart enough to download the game off the Internet. Then, they would have to become good at [the game], which isn’t easy. To attract those kinds of people, that was the mission.”

In the wake of 9/11, the public and media reactions were, in the Army’s words, “overwhelmingly positive.” Salon’s Wagner James Au, for example, gushed that the game would help “create the wartime culture that is so desperately needed now.” Most media accounts focused on the novelty of using a video game to help find recruits and carried jocular headlines like “Uncle Sim Wants You.”

There are now more than 4 million registered users, more than half of whom have completed the required preliminary weapons training and gone online to play, making it the fourth most-played online shooter. The Army says there are 500 fan sites on the Web, and recruiters have been busy setting up local tournaments and cultivating an America’s Army “community” on the Internet, hoping to replicate the Counter-Strike phenomenon.

“With respect to recruitment, actual results won’t be known for four or five years, when the current raft of 13- and 14-year-olds will be old enough to join,” Zyda wrote.

But not everyone saw the game as a good thing. A Miami attorney named Jack Thompson went on ABC News and threatened to seek an injunction, saying it wasn’t the government’s job to provide kill ’em games to youngsters. He was deluged with angry e-mail and allegedly received death threats.

“The Army and the Defense Department have a very long history of conducting unethical, illegal experiments upon soldiers and civilians,” Thompson angrily reminded players in a posting to the official Army Web site. “This ‘game’ is yet another experiment upon the unsuspecting pawns who play it. You are the latest guinea pigs.”

Thompson was more right than he knew. Recruiting computer gamers was only one of the goals behind the creation of America’s Army. The other purpose, aptitude testing of potential recruits, has gotten virtually no publicity.

Currently, Army game developers are in the process of creating a statistics-tracking system that can tell how much time a player spends online, how many kills he’s made, which battlefields he’s best at, how many kills he averages an hour and similar minutiae.

 Why would the Army spend tax dollars tracking and collecting arcane statistics about the players of its game? Because the data can be used to predict what kind of soldier they’d be.

“Suppose you played extremely well, and you stayed in the game an extremely long time,” Wardynski explained in an interview last year. “You might just get an e-mail seeing if you’d like any additional information on the Army.”

America’s Army isn’t merely a game, recruiting device or a public-relations tool, though it is certainly all of those things. It’s also a military aptitude tester. And it was designed that way from the start.

In a paper written while he was still developing the game, Navy computer expert Zyda noted that “the research focus is to determine if games can be instrumented to be able to determine the aptitude, leadership abilities and psychological profile of the game player.”

Wardynski confirmed that the aptitude testing research had been successful. “That’s as far as we’ve taken it. It’s something we’ll be moving ahead with in the coming year.”

The Army has been collecting player information in a vast relational database system called “Andromeda,” Wardynski said, that recruiters will be able to use to look up a player’s statistics if one of them shows up in a recruiting office. A version of America’s Army now in development will take that a step further, allowing players to create a “persistent” online alter ego, one that steadily progresses through the virtual ranks by taking additional training or specialized missions, generating valuable data along the way.

Recently, an updated version of the game called Special Forces was released, and there was a reason why that particular theme was chosen. “Specifically, the Department of Defense wants to double the number of Special Forces soldiers, so essential did they prove in Afghanistan and northern Iraq; consequently, orders have trickled down the chain of command and found application in the current release of America’s Army, which features Special Forces roles, missions, and equipment,” a Navy-produced booklet states.

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Officially, Gary Webb decided to put two .38 slugs into his own head just two months after publishing this prophetic, balls-out indictment of the Pentagon’s techno-seduction of children. So he did not live to see the Army Experience Center prototype become operational in Philadelphia.

 http://www.thearmyexperience.com/virtual-tour

Those who remember Webb remember how he fought the spook-media Establishment to expose the dirty-war source of crack cocaine addiction for the kids of LA–an utter corruption gone global in the tsunami of Afghan heroin now battering another generation.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-heroin26dec26,0,7339972.story?coll=la-home-headlines

www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/243554

To the last Gary Webb was the real thing–a journalist, a hero, a defender of the least among us from the depredations of the Machine.

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In seventeen years of doing this, nothing bad had happened to me.  I was never fired or threatened with dismissal if I kept looking  under rocks.  I didn’t get any death threats that worried me.  I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests.

So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn’t work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite?  Hell, the system worked just fine, as far as I could tell.  It encouraged  enterprise.  It rewarded muckraking.

And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been.  The reason I’d enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn’t been, as I’d assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job.  It turned out to have nothing to do with it.  The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn’t written anything important enough to suppress.

- Gary Webb, from Into the Buzzsaw

Remember this major news story from February? No? Search the US corporate news archives of your choice in vain.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/02/27/8560781.html

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.

And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.

“At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.

“But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.”

The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.

The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.

Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.

On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.

“It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.

The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.

People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.

Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.

While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.

That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.

There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however.

“We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred,” said Andraghetti.

“And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic.”

Baxter hasn’t shed much light — at least not publicly — on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of “just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure.”

He said he couldn’t reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter’s production process.

Andraghetti said Friday the four investigating governments are co-operating closely with the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Control in Stockholm, Sweden.

“We are in very close contact with Austrian authorities to understand what the circumstances of the incident in their laboratory were,” she said.

“And the reason for us wishing to know what has happened is to prevent similar events in the future and to share lessons that can be learned from this event with others to prevent similar events. … This is very important.”

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Now back to “reality”. Remember how the “swine” flu was first described? Mexico City, April 2009:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/25/swine-flu-mexico/print

President Felipe Calderón said his government learned only on Thursday night what kind of virus Mexico was facing after tests by specialist laboratories in Canada confirmed the outbreak as a type – labelled A/H1N1 – not previously seen in pigs or humans. Few cases have had any contact with live pigs.

The WHO said the virus appeared to be able to spread from human to human and contained human virus, avian virus and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia. It might be completely new or has only now been detected.

Five months later, we get this parenthetical from Dr. Gupta:

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/23/i-went-to-afghanistan-and-all-i-got-was-h1n1/

(The term swine flu is a misnomer, as this strain is made up of several different components, including swine, but also avian parts.)

He must have been feverish.

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Meanwhile, the dangerously incompetent Baxter International has been banned from producing and distributing flu vaccine, right? Wrong.

http://www.baxter.com/about_baxter/press_room/press_releases/2009/10_07_09-celvapan.html

DEERFIELD, Ill., October 07, 2009 — Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX) today confirmed that the European Commission (EC) has granted marketing authorization for CELVAPAN H1N1 pandemic vaccine using Baxter’s Vero cell technology. CELVAPAN H1N1 is the first cell culture-based and non-adjuvanted pandemic influenza vaccine to receive marketing authorization in the European Union.

Baxter continues to deliver vaccine to national public health authorities that have agreements with the company. Initial quantities of vaccine have already been received by a number of countries, including the UK and Ireland, for use in their national vaccination programs.

Baxter is confirming the safety and immunogenicity of CELVAPAN H1N1 in clinical trials and will supplement the licensure post-approval with data from its ongoing clinical trial program . Preliminary safety data from CELVAPAN H1N1 clinical trials in adults age 18 and older indicate the vaccine is well tolerated. The observed systemic and local reactions are similar to those generally experienced after vaccination with licensed seasonal influenza vaccines.

Immunogenicity data from the first vaccination in adults will be submitted to the European Medicines Agency within days. The current dosing schedule, as specified in the EMEA mock-up licensure for CELVAPAN using another virus strain, calls for two 7.5 µg doses of vaccine to be given 21 days apart. Baxter expects the data from the trial of healthy adults to indicate whether a single dose may be possible for CELVAPAN H1N1. This study will also determine whether a lower dose, 3.75µg, is sufficient to induce the necessary immune response.

About Baxter’s Pandemic Vaccine Development

Earlier this year, the EMEA granted mock-up licensure for CELVAPAN using a different strain with pandemic potential, which was tested in five completed clinical trials worldwide in more than 1,300 people. In addition, more than 3,500 people have been vaccinated using the same strain during an ongoing Phase III study. Mock-up licensure is a regulatory pathway for pandemic vaccines that was created by the EMEA in 2004. This pathway allows for the development, evaluation and licensure of a company’s pandemic candidate vaccine using an available influenza strain that has the potential to cause a pandemic. Once a pandemic is declared and the influenza virus strain causing the pandemic is identified, the mock-up licensure allows for fast track approval of a pandemic vaccine containing the actual pandemic strain.

Baxter received the H1N1 strain for testing and evaluation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (a WHO Collaborating Center) in early May. The company then undertook pre-production testing and evaluation of the virus strain to assess its growth characteristics in the company’s proprietary Vero cell culture technology.

Baxter initiated commercial production in early June, and made its first commercial product within 12 weeks of receipt of the virus. The company produces bulk CELVAPAN H1N1 vaccine at its large-scale commercial facility in Bohumil, Czech Republic, and then sends the vaccine to Vienna, Austria for the final formulation, fill and finish before distribution. Baxter completed production of the first batches of CELVAPAN H1N1 vaccine in late July and initiated its first delivery within two weeks. The company continues to deliver vaccine on an ongoing basis to national public health authorities.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9589897/

President Bush, increasingly concerned about a possible avian flu pandemic, revealed Tuesday that any part of the country where the virus breaks out could likely be quarantined and that he is considering using the military to enforce it.

“The best way to deal with a pandemic is to isolate it and keep it isolated in the region in which it begins,” he said during a wide-ranging Rose Garden news conference.

The president was asked if his recent talk of giving the military the lead in responding to large natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and other catastrophes was in part the result of his concerns that state and local personnel aren’t up to the task of a flu outbreak.

 “Yes,” he replied.

Pentagon in charge
After the bungled initial federal response to Katrina, Bush suggested putting the Pentagon in charge of search-and-rescue efforts in times of a major terrorist attack or similarly catastrophic natural disaster. He has argued that the armed forces have the ability to quickly mobilize the equipment, manpower and communications capabilities needed in times of crisis.

But such a shift could require a change in law, and some in Congress and the states worry it would increase the power of the federal government at the expense of local control.

Bush made clear that the potential for an outbreak of avian flu is much on his mind, and has had him talking with “as many (world) leaders as I could find,” consulting a book he read over the summer on the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed 40 million and meeting with staff and experts.

“I have thought through the scenarios of what an avian flu outbreak could mean,” he said.

He acknowledged that a quarantine — an idea sure to alarm many in the public — is no small thing for the government to undertake and that enforcing it would be tricky.

“It’s one thing to shut down airplanes,” Bush said. “It’s another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu.”

He urged Congress to give him the ability to use the military, if needed.

“I think the president ought to have all … assets on the table to be able to deal with something this significant,” he said.

As a standby precaution, Bush in April signed an executive order that added pandemic influenza to the government’s list of communicable diseases for which a quarantine is authorized. It gives the government legal authority to detain or isolate a passenger arriving in the United States to prevent an infection from spreading.

At the time the order was signed, a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the Public Health Service would probably recommend home quarantines when possible, but said they would be voluntary. It’s unclear whether the federal takeover of state and local quarantine powers that Bush discussed Tuesday would be limited just to travel or involve broader home quarantines as well.

Bush also said he has been urging world leaders to improve reporting on outbreaks of the virus, and exploring how to speed the production of a spray, now in limited supply, that “can maybe help arrest the spread of the disease.”

“One of the issues is how do we encourage the manufacturing capacity of the country, and maybe the world, to be prepared to deal with the outbreak of a pandemic?” he said.

Yet it is the pill Tamiflu, which makes symptoms less severe and shortens the duration of the illness, that is in short supply — not its harder-to-use inhaled competitor Relenza.

Experts agree there will certainly be another flu pandemic — a new human flu strain that goes global. However, it is unknown when or how bad that global epidemic will be — or whether the H5N1 bird flu strain now circulating in Asian poultry will be its origin.

Just in case, experts are tracking the avian flu, which has swept through poultry populations in large swaths of Asia since 2003, jumped to humans and killed at least 65 people.

Most human cases have been linked to a contact with sick birds, but the World Health Organization has warned the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans — changing it from a bird virus to a human pandemic flu strain.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/07/28/military.swine.flu/index.html

The U.S. military wants to establish regional teams of military personnel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, according to Defense Department officials.

The proposal is awaiting final approval from Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The officials would not be identified because the proposal from U.S. Northern Command’s Gen. Victor Renuart has not been approved by the secretary.

The plan calls for military task forces to work in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. There is no final decision on how the military effort would be manned, but one source said it would likely include personnel from all branches of the military.

It has yet to be determined how many troops would be needed and whether they would come from the active duty or the National Guard and Reserve forces.

Civilian authorities would lead any relief efforts in the event of a major outbreak, the official said. The military, as they would for a natural disaster or other significant emergency situation, could provide support and fulfill any tasks that civilian authorities could not, such as air transport or testing of large numbers of viral samples from infected patients.

As a first step, Gates is being asked to sign a so-called “execution order” that would authorize the military to begin to conduct the detailed planning to execute the proposed plan.

Orders to deploy actual forces would be reviewed later, depending on how much of a health threat the flu poses this fall, the officials said.

Brian is all over it. Yet somehow Mr. Williams and his fellow Trusted Faces and Voices in the US corporate media missed that Toronto Sun report about Baxter’s “accident”. Nevermind. Had you needed to know you would have been told.

 ”One night Pat [told Lane], ‘You know, if I get killed over here, don’t let them parade me through the street, that’s something I just — I hate to think about. I’m afraid if I die, you know they’re going to make me into this symbol and they’re going to parade through the street, you know, don’t let that happen.’” – Jon Krakauer

“We will not question the reasons for our being here or allow any personal beliefs to interfere with our job. My hope is that decisions are being made with the same good faith that Kevin and I aim to display. … I hope [this war is about] more than oil, money & power. … I doubt that it is.”

- Pat Tillman in his journal, March 13, 2003

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4815441/

Tillman, 27, was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, based at Fort Lewis, Wash. The battalion was involved in Operation Mountain Storm in southeastern Afghanistan, part of the U.S. campaign against fighters of the al-Qaida terror network and the former Taliban government along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, military officials told NBC News.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Matthew Beevers said Saturday that Tillman was killed Thursday night in a firefight at about 7 p.m. on a road near Sperah, about 25 miles southwest of a U.S. base at Khost.

After coming under fire, Tillman’s patrol got out of their vehicles and gave chase, moving toward the spot of the ambush. Beevers said the fighting was “sustained” and lasted 15-20 minutes.

Beevers said Tillman was killed by enemy fire, but he had no information about what type of weapons were involved in the assault, or whether he died instantly.

Tillman turned down a three-year, $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League to enlist in the Army in May 2002 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which killed about 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

“My great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor, and a lot of my family has … gone and fought in wars, and I really haven’t done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that,” Tillman told NBC News in an interview the day after the attacks.

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When Pat raced into his living room and switched on his television, the first thing he saw was a film clip of a Boeing 767 crashing into the World Trade Center at 590 miles per hour, sending a fluorescent blossom of fire bursting through the upper floors of the south tower. A newscaster was explaining that the footage showed United Airlines Flight 175 striking the tower an hour earlier, at 9:03 a.m. eastern daylight time, and that the entire building had just collapsed with thousands of people still inside. Another Boeing 767, American Airlines Flight 11, according to the reporter, had flown into the north tower at 8:46 EDT, and that building was now burning out of control. Twenty minutes later Pat was still staring at the screen, transfixed, when the north tower plummeted to the ground before his eyes. “I left to go to work,” says Marie, “but he sat there watching all morning, and it had a big impact on him.”…Like most Americans, Pat found it very difficult to get his mind around this. It seemed beyond belief.

- Jon Krakauer, Where Men Win Glory, p. 119

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/07/was-pat-tillman.html

Was Pat Tillman Murdered?

by Andrew Sullivan

I don’t know, but it seems increasingly conceivable. Just absorb these facts:

O’Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman was waving his arms shouting “Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!” again and again when he was killed, O’Neal said…

In the same testimony, medical examiners said the bullet holes in Tillman’s head were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.

The motive? I don’t know. It’s still likeliest it was an accident. But there’s some mysterious testimony in the SI report about nameless snipers. A reader suggests the following interpretation:

News this weekend said that there were “snipers” present and the witnesses didn’t remember their names. I believe that’s code in the Army–these guys were Delta. In the Tillman incident, these snipers weren’t part of the unit and they were never mentioned publicly before. That’s a key indicator that they weren’t supposed to be acknowledged.

If you’ve ever read Blackhawk Down, Mark Bowden explains how he grew frustrated because interviewed Rangers kept referring to “soldiers from another unit” while claiming they didn’t know the unit ID or the soldiers’ names. It took him months to crack the unit ID and find people from Delta who were present at the fight.

Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, the Delta operators who earned Medals of Honor in Mogadishu, have always been identified as snipers, too.

If my theory is correct, the Delta guys could have fired the shots – a three-round burst to the forehead from 50 yards is impossible for normal soldiers and Rangers, but is probably an easy shot for those guys. But because Delta doesn’t officially exist and Tillman was a hero, nobody in the Army would want to have to explain exactly how the event went down. Easier just to claim hostile fire until the family forced them to do otherwise.

This makes some sense to me, although we shouldn’t dismiss the chance he was murdered. Tillman was a star and might have aroused jealousy or resentment. He also opposed the Iraq war and was a proud atheist. In Bush’s increasingly sectarian military, that might have stirred hostility. I don’t know. But I know enough to want a deeper investigation.

www.thearmyexperience.com

http://tinyurl.com/yacuytd

PHILADELPHIA (Army News Service, Aug. 29, 2008) – The Army opened the Army Experience Center, a one-of-a-kind, 14,500-square-foot virtual educational facility Friday at the Franklin Mills Mall.

The AEC, central to the Army Experience Pilot Program, offers visitors the opportunity to virtually experience many aspects of Army life, while evaluating new marketing strategies.

Located near a popular entertainment facility and an indoor skate park, the AEC features a number of interactive simulations and online educational opportunities. It is manned by more than 20 Soldiers who are available to share their stories with visitors and answer questions they may have about the Army. Although the Soldiers who run the center are trained recruiters, the AEC is not a recruiting center, according to Ryan Hansen of Ignited Corporation, who partnered with the Army on the project.

“The center is an attraction tool. There is no recruiting mission here,” Hansen said. “Here it is more about changing perceptions.”

The Soldiers at the AEC don’t have quotas. They don’t wear traditional Army uniforms, but rather black Army polo shirts and khaki pants. They are from diverse backgrounds and have unique stories to tell. At first glance they seem more like tour guides than Army recruiters, and in a sense, they are. They guide center visitors through their tour of the facility.

“They are the Army,” Hansen said. And as the center’s slogan states, “The Army is more than you think it is.”

Through market research, and proven outreach tools like the “America’s Army” game and the mobile “Virtual Army Experience,” Hansen said the Army learned that the best way for people to become acquainted with their Army was for them to be able to touch, feel and see the Army in a non-threatening environment. By incorporating the lessons learned from and technologies of those outreach tools, officials believe the Army Experience Center will make the Army accessible to visitors.

“What we are doing here is reaching out to Americans, giving them the opportunity to understand their Army,” said Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, head of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command. “Oftentimes people have a negative perception of the Army, but the negatives are a very small part. Our Soldiers are well-trained, well-equipped and serving a great mission.”

The Army Experience Center, Bostick added, will help dispel many of the myths that exist about the Army.

Transparency was one of the main focuses in the design of the center, said Maj. Larry Dillard, AEC program manager. The outside is made of glass, as are the fronts of every enclosed space within the center, with the exceptions of the simulator areas, which require low light to operate.

“Everything’s transparent. We don’t want to fuel the misconception that once our Soldiers tell their great Army stories, we drag kids behind a ‘black curtain’ and they come out enlisted,” Dillard said. “We have nothing to hide. If someone wants to know more about the Army, great. If not, at the very least we will have changed their perception of the Army. The Army is a great deal and people just don’t understand that.”

The idea of the center, which cost $12 million to design and construct, was first conceived in December 2007, said Ed Walters, chief marketing officer and principal deputy secretary of the Army. “Visitors to the center will have a better idea of the training and career opportunities afforded our Soldiers, and the high-tech nature of our institution.”

Upon entering the AEC, visitors provide a minimal amount of information to register — name, date of birth, address and education level. They have the option to receive additional information about the Army, but are not obligated to do so. People of all ages are welcome to visit the center, but gaming activities are limited to people 13 and older, as the Entertainment Software Rating Board rates many of the gaming activities T for teens.

Following registration, visitors are then issued an identification card, which is swiped at each station within the center. All activities are free to participants.

“Everything in the center showcases a piece of the Army,” said Dillard.

The Global Base Locator highlights Army installations throughout the United States and abroad. The Career Exploration Area lets visitors use its touch-screen technology to learn about 179 different Army career fields. The simulator area houses three simulators, including an Apache helicopter with pilot and co-pilot experiences, Black Hawk helicopter with four door gunner positions, and an armored Humvee with driver and gunner positions.

The gaming area lets visitors play America’s Army, the Army’s official computer game, as well as other games. There are a number of Xbox 360s plus networked PCs for video games.

The Tactical Operations Center highlights Army career opportunities in communications, command and control, military intelligence and technology. The area can also be used for group presentations and online education, Dillard said.

A large lounge area fills the middle of the AEC, and there is a small retail area that offers Army-branded merchandise and snacks for sale (the Army does not receive profits from sales).

The Army will run the Army Experience Center as a pilot program for up to two years, Walters said.

“We will be analyzing results of the various areas throughout that time, and determine if any of the innovations can be used as separate entities at other locations.”

There are no plans to replicate the center in other markets at this time, Walters said.

“The Army is not all about boots and guns,” Dillard said. “We want to give people the opportunity to experience the Army for themselves, so they have an understanding of what Soldiers do, and they can be proud of their service.”

 There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

- Mario Savio, 1964

http://www.nyccan.org/NYC_CAN_Files_Legal_Memo.php

September 21, 2009

Today the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) filed its Memorandum of Law with the New York State Supreme Court, beginning a 6-day count down until the historic March For Answers to be held on September 27 at 2pm. The march will start at Battery Park and work its way towards Ground Zero, the New York City Clerk, and the State Supreme Court, before arriving at City Hall.

9/11 family members Bob McIlvaine and Manny Badillo, and Daniel Sunjata, star of Fox’s “Rescue Me”, will address thousands of supporters of the proposed referendum to establish a new 9/11 investigation. Other speakers will be announced over the coming days.

NYC CAN’s 52-page legal memo comes nine days before a final determination will be made as to whether the referendum for a new 9/11 investigation will be on the NYC ballot this November. So far 80,000 New Yorkers have signed the petition calling for the voters to be able to create a local commission to conduct an impartial investigation of 9/11.

Download Legal Memo

On September 27, 2009, let us take to the streets in the THOUSANDS on behalf of the families, first responders and survivors of September 11th and the 80,000 New Yorkers who signed the petition. As the climate ripens and public opinion continues to swing in favor of a new investigation, this is our opportunity to send a message like never before. If we stand together, we can alter the course of history.

Even as the US Establishment and its spooky corporate media chorus go through the motions of emoting moral outrage like burned-out stage actors, they breathe easy in the greenroom knowing that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s appeal is dead.

Why? Because defaming the humane Scottish justice system as “soft on terrorism” and stoking the grief of the victims’ families is just so much more convenient than exposing a CIA black op/patsy frame-up for all the world to see.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/22/fbi-director-outraged-by_n_266198.html?page=6

Mueller recounted his own emotional experiences leading the investigation – seeing a teenage victim’s single sneaker, a Syracuse University sweatshirt, toys in the suitcase of a businessman heading home to see his wife and children for Christmas.

“Your action,” he wrote MacAskill, “makes a mockery of the grief of the families who lost their own on December 21, 1988. You could not have spent much time with the families, certainly not as much time as others involved in the investigation and prosecution.”

He ended the Lockerbie letter with a frustrated question: “Where, I ask, is the justice?”

President Barack Obama on Friday called the elaborate homecoming in Libya for the freed bomber “highly objectionable.”

And yet, wandering the forbidden wood, one finds these fragments:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1099166/New-forensic-evidence-free-Libyan-convicted-Lockerbie-bombing.html

Fresh evidence has cast doubt on the conviction of a Libyan for the Lockerbie bombing 20 years ago that killed 270 people.

New forensic analysis on a fragment of the timing device alleged to have triggered the bomb that brought down Pan Am jet 103 on December 21, 1988, is said to have found no trace of explosive residue.

Lawyers acting for Abdelbasset Al Megrahi, the 56-year-old Libyan jailed for life for the bombing in 2001, will present the evidence at a forthcoming appeal into his conviction.

His legal team says the new information supports claims the timer was planted by investigators in a politically-motivated attempt to incriminate Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.

Sources close to his defence team say the tests should have revealed significant traces of explosive residue caused by the blast.

The fragment was said to have been found by police in a singed shirt 25 miles from the Scottish town where the New York-bound Boeing 747 came down.

Last night, a source close to the investigation said: ‘The only piece of forensic evidence in the chain that pointed to Libyan guilt has never been near the seat of an explosion.’

Megrahi is suffering from prostate cancer. Doctors said in October that he had less than a year to live.

www.cjpf.org/blogweblinks/scotsman083105.htm

A FORMER Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.

The retired officer – of assistant chief constable rank or higher – has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.

The police chief, whose identity has not yet been revealed, gave the statement to lawyers representing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, currently serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison.

The evidence will form a crucial part of Megrahi’s attempt to have a retrial ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). The claims pose a potentially devastating threat to the reputation of the entire Scottish legal system.

The officer, who was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, is supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses “wrote the script” to incriminate Libya.

Last night, George Esson, who was Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway when Megrahi was indicted for mass murder, confirmed he was aware of the development.

But Esson, who retired in 1994, questioned the officer’s motives. He said: “Any police officer who believed they had knowledge of any element of fabrication in any criminal case would have a duty to act on that. Failure to do so would call into question their integrity, and I can’t help but question their motive for raising the matter now.”

Other important questions remain unanswered, such as how the officer learned of the alleged conspiracy and whether he was directly involved in the inquiry. But sources close to Megrahi’s legal team believe they may have finally discovered the evidence that could demolish the case against him.

An insider told Scotland on Sunday that the retired officer approached them after Megrahi’s appeal – before a bench of five Scottish judges – was dismissed in 2002.

The insider said: “He said he believed he had crucial information. A meeting was set up and he gave a statement that supported the long-standing rumours that the key piece of evidence, a fragment of circuit board from a timing device that implicated Libya, had been planted by US agents.

“Asked why he had not come forward before, he admitted he’d been wary of breaking ranks, afraid of being vilified.

“He also said that at the time he became aware of the matter, no one really believed there would ever be a trial. When it did come about, he believed both accused would be acquitted. When Megrahi was convicted, he told himself he’d be cleared at appeal.”

The source added: “When that also failed, he explained he felt he had to come forward.

“He has confirmed that parts of the case were fabricated and that evidence was planted. At first he requested anonymity, but has backed down and will be identified if and when the case returns to the appeal court.”

The vital evidence that linked the bombing of Pan Am 103 to Megrahi was a tiny fragment of circuit board which investigators found in a wooded area many miles from Lockerbie months after the atrocity.

The fragment was later identified by the FBI’s Thomas Thurman as being part of a sophisticated timer device used to detonate explosives, and manufactured by the Swiss firm Mebo, which supplied it only to Libya and the East German Stasi.

At one time, Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, was such a regular visitor to Mebo that he had his own office in the firm’s headquarters.

The fragment of circuit board therefore enabled Libya – and Megrahi – to be placed at the heart of the investigation. However, Thurman was later unmasked as a fraud who had given false evidence in American murder trials, and it emerged that he had little in the way of scientific qualifications.

Then, in 2003, a retired CIA officer gave a statement to Megrahi’s lawyers in which he alleged evidence had been planted.

The decision of a former Scottish police chief to back this claim could add enormous weight to what has previously been dismissed as a wild conspiracy theory. It has long been rumoured the fragment was planted to implicate Libya for political reasons.

The first suspects in the case were the Syrian-led Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), a terror group backed by Iranian cash. But the first Gulf War altered diplomatic relations with Middle East nations, and Libya became the pariah state.

Following the trial, legal observers from around the world, including senior United Nations officials, expressed disquiet about the verdict and the conduct of the proceedings at Camp Zeist, Holland. Those doubts were first fuelled when internal documents emerged from the offices of the US Defence Intelligence Agency. Dated 1994, more than two years after the Libyans were identified to the world as the bombers, they still described the PFLP-GC as the Lockerbie bombers.

A source close to Megrahi’s defence said: “Britain and the US were telling the world it was Libya, but in their private communications they acknowledged that they knew it was the PFLP-GC.

“The case is starting to unravel largely because when they wrote the script, they never expected to have to act it out. Nobody expected agreement for a trial to be reached, but it was, and in preparing a manufactured case, mistakes were made.”

Dr Jim Swire, who has publicly expressed his belief in Megrahi’s innocence, said it was quite right that all relevant information now be put to the SCCRC.

Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the atrocity, said last night: “I am aware that there have been doubts about how some of the evidence in the case came to be presented in court.

“It is in all our interests that areas of doubt are thoroughly examined.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0408-01.htm

THE United Nations has savaged the Crown Office’s handling of the Lockerbie trial claiming the outcome was rigged through the unfair suppression of evidence; it was politically influenced by the USA; and the court had no grounds to return a guilty verdict.

Dr Hans Kochler, who was handpicked by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to act as the international observer during the trial in Holland, hinted that the trial was rigged, claimed the guilty verdict handed down in February to Abdelbasset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi was “arbitrary” and “irrational” and gave his tacit support for an acquittal at the planned appeal. Megrahi’s co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was found not guilty.

And all the while:

www.cfr.org/publication/13532

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Oil major BP PLC /quotes/comstock/13*!bp/quotes/nls/bp (BP 51.92, +0.04, +0.08%) could spend as much as $25 billion developing oil and gas fields in Libya, The Middle East Economic Digest, a financial magazine, reports.

BP signed a seven-year exploration and production agreement with Libya’s state-owned National Oil Corporation. The deal includes an option for extension, calls for a minimum exploration commitment of $900 million, covering 17 exploration wells, and the acquisition of 30,000 square kilometers of 3-D seismic and 5,500 kilometers of 2-D seismic exploration.

“Our intention is to spend well over the minimum commitment,” MEED reports, citing an unnamed BP executive. “We are planning a further 20 appraisal wells,” he told MEED.

“If the project is as successful as we hope, we are looking at multiple LNG [liquefied natural gas] trains to supply clean energy to Europe,” the executive said. “Based on present train sizes, we would be looking at about four trains,” he added.

Options include a single LNG terminal at Marsa el-Brega or Ras Lanuf in the Northeast, or a terminal at Melitah in the Northwest, to process gas from Ghadames, and a second terminal for the liquefaction of Sirte gas, MEED reports.

www.enquirerherald.com/366/story/814519.html

TRIPOLI, Libya  A delegation of U.S. senators led by John McCain met with Libya’s leader Friday to discuss the possible delivery of non-lethal defense equipment.

The visit and Washington’s offer of military equipment was another sign of the improving ties between the former longtime adversaries.

“We discussed the possibility of moving ahead with the provision of non-lethal defense equipment to the government of Libya,” McCain said at a news conference. He gave no details on the kind of military equipment Washington is offering.

A halting, five-year rapprochement between the two countries began in 2003 when Moammar Gadhafi renounced terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Earlier this year, Washington posted an ambassador to Libya for the first time in 36 years.

Senator McCain, however, said the U.S. remained concerned about Libya’s record on human rights and political reform.

“As we move ahead with the many ways in which the United States and Libya can work together as partners, there remain areas where real work needs to be done,” McCain said. “The status of human rights and political reform in Libya will remain a chief element of concern.”

The U.S. State Department’s 2008 human rights report on Libya says problems include reported disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests and the detention of political prisoners. The report also cites a lack of civil liberties, restrictions on freedom of religion and discrimination against women and ethnic minorities.

Still, McCain said, “ties between the United States and Libya have taken a remarkable and positive turn in recent years.”

The American delegation also included Senators Joseph Lieberman, Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham.

http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/green/TheAssassinationOfJFKJr.html

Summary of Evidence:  John F. Kennedy, Jr. checked in with the FAA Tower at Martha’s Vineyard at 9:39 p.m. on July 16, 1999.  This check-in activates two alarm systems: one if the plane thereafter descends below 100’ outside the landing area, another if the plane fails to land within five minutes.  Each alert should trigger an alarm and a search, but no focused search was begun for 15+ hours.  The delay was required by his killers to find the downed plane and remove the battery from the cockpit voice recorder, remove the Flight Log that listed all passengers, and remove the body of the Certified Flight Instructor who was on the plane.   Contrary to procedure, the Pentagon took control of the civilian crash and “disappeared” crucial evidence.  Even after honest FAA employees used Kennedy’s unique transponder identity to construct an N-Tap Radar Analysis of his entire flight from departure to crash – showing a vertical nose-dive at the precisely located crash point — the Air Force lied by pretending that the radar showed a normal descent, did not show where the plane went down, and that they could not be sure that the radar of the (crashed!) plane was the one they were looking for.  Members of the establishment media were variously complicit in the cover-up of the murder, or else first intimidated into silence, and then conscripted to smear Kennedy as reckless and irresponsible.

http://www.boston.com/news/packages/jfkjr/index.shtml#anchor1

http://www.boston.com/news/packages/jfkjr/jurkowitz.htm

John F. Kennedy Jr. may have carved out a niche as a new breed of Kennedy who eschewed the family calling and published the first “post-partisan” magazine of politics. But it was up to the older journalistic and political hands to bring context and gravity to news of his missing plane yesterday.

In the sometimes frantic, sometimes thoughtful wall-to-wall television coverage that pre-empted network programming in Boston yesterday, veteran Kennedy watchers from Mike Wallace to Doris Kearns Goodwin fleshed out latest chapter in the tragic history of America’s star-crossed political dynasty.

And as a kind of grim family linkage, file footage of John F. Kennedy Jr.’s famous salute to his father’s passing casket in 1963 filled the airwaves, as did references to Kennedy as “John John,” a nickname that emanated from the “Camelot” days of his father’s prematurely terminated presidency.

In his role as special correspondent to WCVB-TV (Ch. 5), longtime political observer Clark Booth called the Kennedys a “family like no other in American history” and said news of the downed plane was “the stuff of fiction not fact.” On WBZ-TV (Ch. 4) veteran political correspondent John Henning — citing everything from the assassination of President Kennedy to the skiing accident that claimed Michael Kennedy — said that every time the family tries to recover from such a tragedy, “somebody throws another thunderbolt at them.”

Speaking on CBS from Martha’s Vineyard, a clearly distraught Wallace lent a sense of history to the events by recalling warm conversations he’d once had with Richard Nixon about President Kennedy, who defeated Nixon in the very bitter 1960 election. In an interview with MSNBC’s Brian Williams that aired on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7), historian Doris Kearns Goodwin recounted a poignant conversation with matriarch Rose Kennedy. Even given the extent of her family’s turmoil, Goodwin noted, Kennedy was sure that her children and grandchildren “would still choose to be who they were because of the adventure, the excitement and the hugeness of the lives they led.”

The gravity of yesterday’s news was apparent early in the morning when CBS anchor Dan Rather — who gained fame as the young reporter who frantically reported word of Kennedy’s November 1963 death in Dallas — somberly noted that “tragedy just seems to follow this family.”

By early afternoon, two of NBC’s heaviest hitters, anchor Tom Brokaw and Washington bureau chief Tim Russert, were trying to fit John F. Kennedy Jr.’s life into the family history. Noting that the young Kennedy had already been approached to run for governor, senator and mayor of New York, Russert said that “those closest to him believed that ultimately, he would find his way back to public service.”

But reminiscing about the Kennedy legacy — and thus justifying the extensive coverage — proved the easy part of television’s task yesterday. The more difficult challenge was sorting out and making sense of the fragmentary and unverified information filtering in in the hours before the fate of Kennedy’s plane became clear.

There were numerous stories — including the presence of a flight instructor on board — that were reported and later corrected during the day. There was considerable confusion over the possibility of a locator beacon being activated. Shortly after noon, when Channel 7 was reporting an active five-state search, Channel 5 was saying that the search for the plane was confined largely to the Martha’s Vineyard area. At around 12:30, Channel 7 aired a CNN report that plane debris had been spotted near the Vineyard only to note a few minutes later that the debris had actually sighted near Long Island.

The media’s ravenous appetite for instant information in a crisis situation was painfully obvious to viewers who watched beleaguered Kennedy spokesman Brian O’Connor field questions from anxious reporters not long after noon. “I’m sorry, I don’t have much to add,” he said, in response to the barrage of queries. “There’s just so little information right now.” At the Pentagon briefing that began shortly thereafter, a spokesman told eager journalists that “I must remind you that first reports are [often] wrong.”

But as the afternoon dragged on and reports surfaced of luggage and debris being connected to the downed plane, a sense of resignation began emerging on the airwaves.

“As time goes by, the situation grows more grim,” declared Channel 5’s Heather Kahn from the studio. “This has turned into a watch now, almost a death watch at the compound,” intoned Henning from the Kennedy compound.

Perhaps the most ironic note of the day was struck by Russert, who explained how John F. Kennedy Jr. hated the idea of the Kennedy family “curse” and particularly disdained the “notion of wall-to-wall media coverage.”

“Now suddenly [he's] the focus of all this media attention” on “a Kennedy curse.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/206300

But in late June Holder asked an aide for a copy of the CIA inspector general’s thick classified report on interrogation abuses [the "Holy Grail" of torture reports, whose public release is being delayed by the CIA and the Defense Department]. He cleared his schedule and, over two days, holed up alone in his Justice Department office, immersed himself in what Dick Cheney once referred to as “the dark side.” He read the report twice, the first time as a lawyer, looking for evidence and instances of transgressions that might call for prosecution. The second time, he started to absorb what he was reading at a more emotional level. He was “shocked and saddened,” he told a friend, by what government servants were alleged to have done in America’s name. When he was done he stood at his window for a long time, staring at Constitution Avenue.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002441—-000-.html

“(a) Offense.– Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.”

“(A) Torture.— The act of a person who commits, or conspires or attempts to commit, an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.

 (B) Cruel or inhuman treatment.— The act of a person who commits, or conspires or attempts to commit, an act intended to inflict severe or serious physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions), including serious physical abuse, upon another within his custody or control.”

http://action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/102405/

“47 year old white male detainee died while in US custody. Cause of death: Blunt Force Injuries and Asphyxia; Manner of Death: Homicide. Autopsy revealed deep bruising of the chest wall, numerous displaced rib fractures, bruising on the lungs, hemorrhage into the mesentery of the small and large intestine. Examination of the neck structures revealed hemorrhage into the strap muscles and fractures of the thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone. History of asphyxia, secondary to occlusion of the oral airway. Pleural and pulmonary adhesions. Hypertensive cardiovascular disease. According to report provided by the US army CID, the detainee was shackled to the top of a doorframe with a gag in his mouth at the time he lost consciousness and became pulseless. The severe blunt force injuries, the hanging position, and the obstruction of the oral cavity with a gag contributed to this individual’s death. DOD 00329 refers to this case as “gagged in standing restraint” DOD 003329 refers to this case as “1 blunt force trama and choking; gagged in standing restraint.” DOD 003324 refers to this case with a note indicating “Q[uestioned] by OGA [Other Governmental Agency - non-military, often refers to CIA], gagged in standing restraint.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-05/how-many-were-tortured-to-death/

A simple fact is being overlooked in the Bush-era torture scandal: the number of cases in which detainees have been tortured to death. Abuse did not only involve the high-profile cases of smashing detainees into plywood barriers (“walling”), confinement in coffin-like boxes with insects, sleep deprivation, cold, and waterboarding. To date approximately 100 detainees, including CIA-held detainees, have died during U.S. interrogations, and some are known to have been tortured to death.

http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/874-senate-panels-report-links-detainees-murders-to-bushs-torture-policy.html

A combination of “enhanced interrogation” techniques approved by high-level Bush administration officials coupled with a series of brutal beatings administered by military interrogators were directly responsible for the December 2002 deaths of two detainees at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, according to a report released last week by the Senate Armed Services Committee. The report classified their deaths as homicides. In other words, the two prisoners were tortured to death.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html?ref=fp1

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would’ve provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush’s main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime.

So what’s it going to be, Mr. Holder?

http://www.nyccan.org/contact.php

Donna Marsh O’Connor, Mother of Vanessa Lang Langer

As the world moves further and further away from the actual events of 9/11/2001 both in time and spirit, and as 9/11 effaces into yet another simple story cast in history, as the parent of Vanessa Lang Langer lost as the towers fell, I want to let it go. I want to stop talking about 9/11. I am tired of the questions unasked and unanswered. I am tired of the effort to burst yet another happiness bubble in our collective American psyche. And, too, I am tired of talking about Vanessa’s death. Better for my family, in the immediacy of trying to live out our present days, to focus on Vanessa’s life. To laugh at her memories and revel in pictures of her beautiful face. If it were only for the present and the joys I can still share with my children, my family and my fellow citizens, not just of this country but the world, I would let it go. I would so let it go.

But there is, after all literally, the future. And the future never relied so heavily on redress of questions unanswered in the present. To first ask and then answer what happened that day. Who committed this crime? Who should be held accountable? That is why I support the NYC CAN Ballot Initiative, and I ask for your support as well. It is beyond time for an investigation. It is beyond time.

———————————————————————–

Dear 9/11 Truth Movement Supporters,

As authors of the recent mainstream scientific articles relating to events at the World Trade Center, we urge you to support a tremendous opportunity for getting the truth out about 9/11.

On Wednesday, June 24, 2009, the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) filed a petition containing 52,000 signatures calling for a referendum on the creation of a New York City independent commission to begin an investigation with subpoena power. Unlike the first 9/11 Commission, this one will consider all of the evidence, including evidence for the use of explosives in bringing down the buildings.

This is what many of us have been working toward for years. With a new commission, our scientific evidence can be used to achieve real results.

NYC CAN now needs only 20,000 more signatures to override City Council if the referendum is vetoed. If NYC CAN gets the signatures the referendum will go on the ballot, and surely New York City will vote in favor of a new investigation. Please donate now so that this new investigation can happen: http://nyccan.org/donate.php

If everyone reading this donates at least $10, or the full amount they are able, we will raise enough to not only collect the signatures, but also to launch a summer PR blitz that will ensure all of New York City will be watching if Mayor Bloomberg and City Council try to kill the effort.

There are some true heroes on the NYC CAN Executive Council, and together with them, we have never been this close to giving 9/11 Truth a real chance. This is your opportunity to alter the course of history.

Please donate now: http://nyccan.org/donate.php

Sincerely,

James Gourley
Niels Harrit
Steven Jones
Brad Larsen
Frank Legge
Gregg Roberts
Kevin Ryan

http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/23/washington.metro.crash.victims/index.html

Retired Maj. Gen. David F. Wherley Jr. and his wife, Ann, both 62, were killed along with seven others Monday in the most deadly train crash in the history of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

“He was as fine a public servant, as dedicated to the United States of America … as anyone I have ever met,” Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty told reporters Tuesday.

On the morning of the September 11 attacks, Wherley, commander of the 113th Fighter Wing at Andrews Air Force Base, deployed pilots with orders from then-Vice President Dick Cheney to protect the White House and take out any aircraft that threatened the Capitol, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.

“They said challenge them, try to turn them away; if they don’t turn away, use whatever force is necessary to keep them from hitting buildings downtown,” Wherley told the Washington Post in a 2002 interview.

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=david_wherley

http://shoestring911.blogspot.com/2008/08/andrews-air-force-base-stand-down-how.html

At the time the 9/11 attacks began, many of the pilots with the District of Columbia Air National Guard (DCANG) were in the headquarters of the 121st Fighter Squadron at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. They had been suspicious upon learning of the first crash in New York, but when a second plane hit the World Trade Center the emergency became obvious. “We’re under a terrorist attack!” someone yelled. One DCANG officer at the base exclaimed, “Well, holy shit, if this is a terrorist attack, we need to get something in the air!” According to Lt. Col. Steve Chase, who was at the operations desk there: “People just launched into action. There was a buzz in the unit.” [1]

Andrews Air Force Base is a huge military installation in Prince George’s County, Maryland. [5] It is the home of the 113th Wing and associated units of the DC Air National Guard, including the 121st Fighter Squadron. [6]

Andrews Air Force Base is located just 10 miles southeast of Washington, DC, and has been described as “one of the most modern bases in the Air Force.” [2] Yet the first fighter jet did not take off from there until well after the time the Pentagon was hit–possibly as late as 10:38 a.m.–and this was armed only with training ammunition. [3] The first properly armed jets took off at 10:52 a.m. [4]

Why did the units at Andrews perform so badly? Why did this base fail to protect the nation’s capital and prevent an attack on the nearby Pentagon? Despite the absence of any serious official investigation of these questions, evidence already available indicates that a number of subtle but effective measures may have been used to deliberately sabotage the emergency response and render the DC Air National Guard useless.

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE AND THE DC AIR NATIONAL GUARD

According to a book published by the 1st Air Force, the 113th Wing “is not part of the NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command] air sovereignty force and did not have an alert mission” in 2001. [7] However, evidence clearly indicates it still should have been involved in defending the Washington area in response to the 9/11 attacks. Shortly before September 11, the “DC Military” website stated that the 113th Wing’s mission included providing “capable and ready response forces for the District of Columbia in the event of a natural disaster or civil emergency.” [8] The day of 9/11, Knight Ridder reported, “Air defense around Washington, DC, is provided mainly by fighter planes from Andrews Air Force Base.” [9] Indeed, the DC Air National Guard was known as the “Capital Guardians.” [10] And while he has said, “We’ve never been an air defense unit,” Lt. Col. Phil Thompson–the chief of safety for the 113th Wing–admitted, “We practice scrambles [i.e. taking off as fast as possible, to inspect enemy aircraft], we know how to do intercepts and other things.” [11]

Why then didn’t Andrews AFB successfully defend Washington? The following five key pieces of evidence suggest its ability to respond to the attacks may well have been sabotaged:

1) ONLY SEVEN PILOTS WERE AVAILABLE FOLLOWING THE ‘RED FLAG’ TRAINING EXERCISE

The 121st Fighter Squadron had recently participated in a massive training exercise in Nevada. “Red Flag,” an exercise held four times a year at Nellis Air Force Base, ran from August 11 to September 7, 2001, and the 121st FS only returned from it on September 8. [12] Most of the DC Air National Guard pilots are involved with the unit on a part-time basis, while flying commercial jet planes in their civilian lives. [13] Apparently as a result of Red Flag, most of the 121st FS’s pilots were back at their usual airline jobs, and the unit only had seven pilots available on September 11. [14] Prior to taking off in response to the attacks, some of these pilots had been uploading onto disks the flight data they would need once airborne, such as navigational waypoints, maps, and frequencies. Reportedly, these disks “still contain[ed] all the Nellis data from the Red Flag training exercise they just returned from.” [15] This raises the question of whether the job of replacing the exercise data delayed the takeoffs.

2) THREE ANDREWS JETS WERE AWAY ON A TRAINING MISSION IN NORTH CAROLINA

Furthermore, when the 9/11 attacks began, three F-16s belonging to the 121st FS were 207 miles away from base, flying a training mission in North Carolina, where they’d gone “to drop some bombs and hit a refueling tanker.” [16] Therefore, three of the squadron’s seven pilots were unavailable to respond to the attacks. Critically, the F-16s were out of radio range with the base. So when weapons officer Major Daniel Caine wanted to recall them, he had to contact a tanker refueling plane they were scheduled to meet and ask its pilot to pass on an urgent “return to base” message. [17] The three fighter jets did not arrive back at Andrews until after the Pentagon was hit. [18]

3) THE SECRET SERVICE SAID IT DIDN’T NEED HELP

Unlike other Air National Guard units, the DC Air National Guard reported to the president rather than a state governor. The president, in turn, had delegated that authority to the Department of Defense. Also, because of its responsibility to protect the president, the Secret Service had a level of authority over the DCANG, and 121st FS officers had a close relationship with Secret Service agents who worked at Andrews Air Force Base. [19]

After the second attack in New York, at 9:03 a.m., Daniel Caine called a contact in the Secret Service that he was friends with. He asked: “Do you have any additional information? Are you guys going to need some help?” Even though it was now obvious the U.S. was under attack and that Washington was a likely target for terrorists, the agent responded, “No, but I’ll call you back if that changes.” Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville, the commander of the 121st FS, has claimed: “At that time, we weren’t thinking about defending anything. Our primary concern was what would happen to the air traffic system.” [20]

It wasn’t until after 9:34 a.m., when the Secret Service learned of an unidentified aircraft approaching the White House, that an agent at the White House Joint Operations Center called Caine to request help. He asked: “Can you guys do anything? Can you get some fighters in the air as soon as possible?” [21] This was more than half an hour after the second plane hit the WTC. However, the emergency response was delayed even further. Caine has recalled, “Then [the Secret Service agent] told us to stand by and that somebody else would call.” The 113th Wing’s maintenance section started getting several F-16s armed and ready to fly. Finally, in a subsequent phone call, the Secret Service ordered Andrews AFB, “Get in the air now!” [22]

4) THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE WAS UNABLE TO GET INFORMATION

The DC Air National Guard’s ability to respond to the attacks may also have been hindered because it was being denied the information it needed about what was happening, and had to rely instead upon CNN. At around 9:30 a.m., its intelligence officer went onto the SIPRNET–the Department of Defense’s classified version of the Internet–in search of pertinent information, but to no avail. He phoned anyone he could think of who might be able to help, including the Air Combat Command Intelligence Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, the 9th Air Intelligence Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, Washington’s FBI field office, and the White House Joint Operations Center. Yet he was unable to find out anything more than what he’d learned from television. Author Lynn Spencer has claimed, “As DCANG is a general purpose F-16 unit, no one [was] specifically tasked with keeping the squadron informed.” [23]

The question to be investigated is whether this apparent agency-wide information blackout can be dismissed as the result of mere confusion, or was it due to sabotage?

5) THE SLOW REACTIONS OF GENERAL DAVID WHERLEY

The actions of Brigadier General David Wherley Jr. are particularly notable. As the commander of the DC Air National Guard, Wherley surely had a crucial role to play in responding to the attacks. However, although accounts are vague and sometimes contradictory, descriptions of what he did give us serious cause for concern.

Wherley was in the headquarters of the 113th Wing the morning of September 11. Yet reports indicate he only started taking action after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was hit. According to the Washington Post, Wherley’s “first inkling that the attacks would go beyond New York was when one of his officers, whose husband worked at the Pentagon, saw on television that the building had been hit and began shrieking.” [24] After taking a moment to comfort the officer, he “raced out of his office and ran several hundred yards to the headquarters of the DC Guard’s 121st Fighter Squadron.” But then, upon learning that the Secret Service wanted Andrews to launch fighter jets, Wherley told squadron officers he wanted more explicit authorization, saying: “We have to get instructions. We can’t just fly off half-cocked.” [25]

Wherley talked over the phone with the Secret Service, which wanted the DCANG to establish a combat air patrol (CAP) over Washington. Yet he seemed reluctant to help. He told the Secret Service agent, “I would feel more comfortable receiving such an order from someone higher in the chain of command, preferably in the military.” He was given the number for the Presidential Emergency Operations Center–a bunker below the White House–which he then called. The Secret Service agent who answered implored Wherley: “We want you to put a CAP up over the city. We need some fighters now.” Yet Wherley was “not very comfortable taking orders from a Secret Service agent. That’s just not how things are done.” He asked, “Is there anybody else there from the military available to talk?” As there was not, he asked, “Is the vice president available?” The vice president was on the phone with the president. Only after further reflection did Wherley finally agree to help, saying: “Okay, then. What exactly do they want me to do?” [26]

Wherley then had to wait for the Secret Service to determine “exactly” what it wanted. According to the Washington Post, the instructions came “within a half-hour.” Again, another delay. [27] The Secret Service agent who got back to Wherley said he had received instructions that came from the vice president. The guidance was “to send up the aircraft, with orders to protect the White House and take out any aircraft that threatened the Capitol.” If the 9/11 Commission is correct, these instructions were not passed on to the first fighter jet that took off from Andrews, but instead only to “the pilots that launched at 10:42 and afterward.” By that time, of course, the attacks were long over. [28]

ANDREWS JETS ONLY TOOK OFF AFTER THE PENTAGON ATTACK

Taking into account these five pieces of evidence (and presumably there are other relevant details that we are as yet unaware of) it is unsurprising that the DCANG was so slow in responding to the 9/11 attacks. The first fighter jet to take off from Andrews Air Force Base in response was an F-16 piloted by Major Billy Hutchison–one of the aircraft that had been away on a training mission in North Carolina and had just returned to the base. Hutchison’s was the only one of the three returning jets with enough fuel remaining to take off again immediately, though he had just 2,800 pounds, which is equivalent to one-eighth of a tank in a car. He had no missiles and only training ammunition. He took off “without afterburner to conserve fuel, go across the White House over the Georgetown area and continue northwest up the Potomac.” [29]

The time when Hutchison took off is unclear. Different accounts have said he did so “Within minutes of American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon,” [30] some time roughly around 10:00 a.m. [31], or “about 50 minutes after the Pentagon was hit.” [32] According to 113th Wing operations desk records, he did not take off until 10:33 a.m. [33], and, according to the 9/11 Commission, he was not airborne until 10:38 a.m. [34]

Hutchison has recalled that he circled low over the Pentagon some time after taking off. [35] Many witnesses who were on the ground have recalled seeing the first military jet arriving over the Pentagon following the attack there at around 10:40 a.m., or “closer to 11″ o’clock, according to the New York Times. In other words, the first Andrews jet to reach the Pentagon in response to the 9/11 attacks only arrived an hour or more after it had been hit–far too late to have been any use in preventing the attack there. Understandably, upon seeing the F-16 above, one firefighter exclaimed: “Thank God that guy’s there! Where has he been?” [36]

The next two F-16s to launch from Andrews took off at 10:42 a.m. These also had no missiles, and only non-explosive training rounds for their Gatling guns–”hardly enough to bring down an airliner,” the pilots have conceded. Finally, at 10:52 a.m., the first fighters armed with live ammunition and AIM-9 air-to-air missiles took off. [37] Their pilots were instructed to establish a combat air patrol over Washington and intercept any incoming aircraft. [38]

So, although the DC Air National Guard is meant to have realized, “We’re under a terrorist attack!” when the second plane hit the World Trade Center, and immediately to have “launched into action,” its first properly armed fighters did not take off until more than an hour after the Pentagon was hit, and more than two hours after the first attack in New York.

OTHER UNITS AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

The information currently available on Andrews Air Force Base and what happened there on 9/11 is vague, often contradictory, and only serves to raise new questions. For example, we know that, as well as the 113th Wing, there were other units at the base with fighter jets available. These included Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 321, which flew the sophisticated F/A-18 Hornet, and Naval Air Facility, Washington, DC, which provided “Naval air operations support for the Naval District of Washington,” and also had F/A-18 Hornets available. [39] Yet little is known about these units’ activities on September 11 and what they could have done to defend the capital.

It seems logical to assume, however, that fighter jets from Andrews should have been in the air protecting Washington and the Pentagon long before the Pentagon was hit. The question of why they failed to do so needs to be part of a serious and unrestrained new investigation of the 9/11 attacks.

NOTES
[1] Steve Vogel, “Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital.” Washington Post, April 8, 2002; Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 123.
[2] “Andrews AFB, Maryland.” GlobalSecurity.org, March 3, 2002.
[3] NBC Nightly News. NBC, September 11, 2001; Steve Vogel, “Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital”; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Authorized Edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 44.
[4] Steve Vogel, The Pentagon: A History. New York: Random House, 2007, p. 446.
[5] “Andrews Air Force Base: Welcome.” DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001; “Andrews AFB, Maryland.”
[6] “Andrews Air Force Base: Partner Units.” DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001; “113th Wing.” GlobalSecurity.org, October 21, 2001.
[7] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, p. 76.
[8] “Andrews Air Force Base: Partner Units.”
[9] Steve Goldstein, “Focus of Training for Terrorist Attacks has Been Chemical, Biological Warfare.” Knight Ridder, September 11, 2001.
[10] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 122.
[11] William B. Scott, “F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93.” Aviation Week & Space Technology, September 9, 2002.
[12] “Photo: Exercise Routine.” Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 22, 2001; Steve Vogel, “Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital”; William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 476.
[13] Steve Vogel, “Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital.”
[14] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 156.
[15] Ibid. pp. 236-237.
[16] William B. Scott, “F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93″; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 79.
[17] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 124.
[18] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 79; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 216-218.
[19] Steve Vogel, The Pentagon, p. 445; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 122-123.
[20] William B. Scott, “F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93″; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 124.
[21] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 9; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 156.
[22] William B. Scott, “F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93″; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 78.
[23] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 79; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 155-156.
[24] Steve Vogel, “Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital.”
[25] Steve Vogel, The Pentagon, pp. 445-446.
[26] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 184-185.
[27] Steve Vogel, “Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital.”
[28] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 44.
[29] Steve Vogel, “Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital”; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, pp. 79-81.
[30] William B. Scott, “F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93.”
[31] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 216-220.
[32] Steve Vogel, “Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital.”
[33] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, pp. 81 and 89.
[34] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 44.
[35] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, pp. 81-82.
[36] David E. Sanger and Don Van Natta Jr., “In Four Days, a National Crisis Changes Bush’s Presidency.” New York Times, September 16, 2001; Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11. New York: Presidio Press, 2008, pp. 130-131.
[37] William B. Scott, “F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93″; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, pp. 82-84; Steve Vogel, The Pentagon, p. 446.
[38] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 238.
[39] “Andrews Air Force Base: Partner Units.”