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Israel's State Terrorism * King Conspiracy Confirmed * Peltier vs FBI * HAARP Attack
04 April 2002
Since the recent offensive assault by Israel on Palestine, an immeasurable sadness has fell upon our world. The summit by Arab nations, just before the attacks, offered a new direction for a peaceful co-existence between the people Israel and Palestine. Instead, the US-supported Israeli regime has maimed the goodwill for such a peace initiative. As my friend, in one of the numerous emails trying to respond to such insanity, wrote, "Specific politics aside, opinions of Arafat aside, everything aside except straightforward self-interest as Jewish Americans - Israel's actions are on the verge of precipitating a catastrophe for all of us. A still-preventable catastrophe." With this in mind, Flyby News is endorsing the peace plan put forth by Saudi Arabia and supported by most all the Arab nations– let's go back to pre-1967 borders, let's give dignity to a people seeking their freedom, as Israel once sought a home for its peoples. The choice of domination and brutality is only heightening the violent cycle that will only end with the throngs of Armageddon trouncing on all life's dreams and chances for a peaceful co-existence with nature and humanity.
It is difficult for anyone to understand the chaos in our world since George W. and his team has taken over the White House. Noah Chomsky recently stated in an interview, published by Z Magazine: "It is convenient in the US, and the West, to blame Israel and particularly Sharon, but that is unfair and hardly honest. Many of Sharon's worst atrocities were carried out under Labor governments. Peres comes close to Sharon as a war criminal. Furthermore, the prime responsibility lies in Washington, and has for 30 years. That is true of the general diplomatic framework, and also of particular actions. Israel can act within the limits established by the master in Washington, rarely beyond."* All we know is that things are getting worse, and closer to an abyss from the use of weapons of the mass destruction to life.
Today marks the 34th anniversary since the conspiracy-slaying of Martin Luther King, Jr., which happened during an unprecedented era of three major assassinations in the US during a brief period when US policies were driven by war in southeast Asia. Item 2 covers this issue, and a civil trial that confirmed that the US government participated in the conspiracy to assassinate a beloved brother, and a part of humanity, while chaos reigns and thugs are in control of our nations' governments.
Item 3 is information released today on Leonard Peltier's new legal suit against the FBI. Following this information is a link to information on another lawsuit against the FBI, by Earth First. These justice issues are so critical for all of our survival. And item four is more on HAARP, now activated with the potential to threaten the balance of life and climate.
The question of humanity's survival and rush toward Armageddon has never been so profound. Yet what is true can never be fully concealed, and this is our tidbit for hope and for the perseverance to survive the actions of those trying to bring our world into a New World Disorder.
* The complete Noam Chomsky Text Link to ZMag.org -- http://www.zmag.org/content/Mideast/chomsky_palestine_april2.cfm
1) Israel's State Terrorism
2) Martin Luther King Assassination-Conspiracy Confirmed
3) Leonard Peltier Files Lawsuit Against FBI Today
4) HAARP and the Trigger to Climate Change
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1) Israel's State Terrorism
By Lev Grinberg
March 31, 2002
What is the difference between State terrorism and individual terrorist acts? If we understand this difference we'll understand also the evilness of the US policies in the Middle East and the forthcoming disasters. When Yassir Arafat was put under siege in his offices and kept hostage by the Israeli occupation forces, he was constantly pressed into condemning terror and combating terrorism. Israel's State terrorism is defined by US officials as "self-defense", while individual suicide bombers are called terrorists.
The only "small" difference is that Israeli aggression is the direct responsibility of Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Ben Eliezer, Shimon Peres and Shaul Mofaz, while the individual terrorist acts are done by individuals in despair, usually against Arafat's will. One hour after Arafat declared his support of a cease fire and wished the Jews a Happy Passover feast, a suicide bomber exploded himself in an hotel in Netanya, killing 22 innocent Jews celebrating Passover. Arafat was blamed as responsible for this act, and the present IDF offensive has been justified through this accusation. At the same time, Sharon's responsibility for Israeli war crimes is being completely ignored. Who should be arrested for the targeted killing of almost 100 Palestinians? Who will be sent to jail for the killing of more than 120 Palestinian paramedics? Who will be sentenced for the killing of more than 1,200 Palestinians and for the collective punishment of more than 3,000,000 civilians during the last 18 months? And who will face the International Tribunal for the illegal settlement of occupied Palestinian Lands, and the disobedience of UN decisions for more than 35 years?
Suicide bombs killing innocent citizens must be unequivocally condemned; they are immoral acts, and their perpetrators should be sent to jail. But they cannot be compared to State terrorism carried out by the Israeli Government. The former are individual acts of despair of a people that sees no future, vastly ignored by an unfair and distorted international public opinion. The latter are cold and "rational" decisions of a State and a military apparatus of occupation, well equipped, financed and backed by the only superpower in the world. Yet in the public debate, State terrorism and individual suicide bombs are not even considered as comparable cases of terrorism. The State terror and war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli Government are legitimized as "self-defense", while Arafat, even under siege, is demanded to arrest "terrorists".
I want to ask, Who will arrest Sharon, the person directly responsible for the orders to kill Palestinians? When is he going to be defined a terrorist too? How long will the world ignore the Palestinian cry that all they want is freedom and independence? When will it stop neglecting the fact that the goal of the Israeli Government is not security, but the continued occupation and subjugation of the Palestinian people?
As Israelis in the opposition, we are fighting against our government, but the international support that Sharon receives is constantly jeopardizing our struggle. The whole international public opinion must be reverted, and the UN must deploy intervention forces in order to stop the bloodshed and the imminent deterioration. Israelis and Palestinians desperately need the awakening of the international community's public opinion and a reversal in the global attitude. These are needed both in order to save our lives (literally), and preserve our hope in a better future.
[Dr. Lev Grinberg < lev@bgumail.bgu.ac.il > is a political sociologist, Director of the Humphrey Institute for Social Research, at Ben Gurion University]
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Tuesday, April 2, 2002
UrgentEyewitness report from Ramallah
Posted by The Editor
Ramallah, Occupied Palestine -- My name is Tzaporah Ryter (See url link for her picture). I am an American student from the University of Minnesota. I currently am in Ramallah. We are under a terrible siege and people are being massacred by both the Israeli army and armed militia groups of Israeli settlers. They are shooting outside at anything that moves. I am urgently pleading for as much outside help as possible to help save lives here. I arrived in Ramallah last Thursday. I had come back for a visit to the Palestinian city where I had been previously living and studying.
For the complete transcript of this personal account and response from Jean Hudon's website, see:
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000/Archives2002/Ramallah.htm
For original posting and other stories from Ramallah, see:
http://www.electronicintifada.org/diaries/index.html
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Here is a sample of the small print news, posted by
The News Insider: http://newsinsider.cjb.net
Israeli military on killing rampage hours before US orders halt
Blind children trapped as Israeli police lush out against activists
Israeli forces turn back activists trying to take food aid to Ramallah
France suggests armed interposition force for Palestine
Saddam raises suicide bomber pay to US$25,000, US claims
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Deadly Crisis in the Middle East --
AlterNet's breaking coverage continues at:
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=28
Tragically, as the Middle East boils over into a cruel war, we are stuck with leaders -- Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush -- who see brute force as the only solution to rebellion and historical disagreement. Suicide bombers and brutal occupation cannot breed peace, only future horrors. So now is not the time to get depressed. It's the time to be informed, make our voices heard and fight for a peaceful solution. With these headlines, AlterNet brings you a collection of voices to help make sense of the carnage:
* Painful dispatches from those under constant siege in Ramallah
* Biting analyses of U.S. policy
* Appeals from Palestinians and Israelis alike who refuse to give up in the search for peace
* Resources to help you protest the Bush administration's response to the Israeli invasion.
All at our constantly updated "War in the Middle East" page:
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=28
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2) Martin Luther King Assassination-Conspiracy Confirmed
Memphis jury finds that a conspiracy led to Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination
By Helen Halyard
17 December 1999
On December 8 a jury in Memphis, Tennessee returned a verdict that civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was the victim of an assassination conspiracy and did not die at the hands of a lone gunman.
The verdict followed a three-week trial of a wrongful death lawsuit which he King family filed last year against former Memphis cafe owner Loyd Jowers. According to the suit, Jowers was part of a plot to murder the civil rights leader. King was shot and killed at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968.
In a 1993 television interview with ABC News, Jowers, now 73, reported that mobsters offered him $100,000 to have King killed. Since the interview Jowers has changed his story several times. He was unable to testify at the trial due to illness. His attorney, Lewis Garrison, told the jurors they could reasonably conclude King was the victim of a conspiracy in which his client was involved, but that his role was minor.
At the end of the trial a number of jurors commented that they were convinced by the evidence that there was a conspiracy. Summing up the sentiment of the jurors, one remarked, "We all thought it was a kind of cut and dried case and that there were a lot of people involved."
The major news media paid scant attention to the trial and portrayed the verdict as having little significance. Reports on the outcome of the trial appearing in the New York Times, for example, have been dismissive of theories of a broad conspiracy involving government agencies.
A column by Nathan Lewin in the December 11 issue of the Times, entitled "Putting History On Trial," denounced civil trials as a means of judging history. Lewin, now a Washington attorney, was deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division of the Justice Department at the time of King's assassination.
While Lewin and others in the political establishment flatly reject conspiracy theories in the King assassination, a majority of the American population are inclined to believe that more than one gunman was involved, and many give credence to allegations of complicity on the part of government agencies.
Attorney William Pepper, former lawyer of James Earl Ray, who was sentenced to prison as the lone gunman in the King murder, has investigated the circumstances behind the assassination for the past 20 years. In 1995 he published the book Orders to Kill, which alleges involvement by the Mafia, the FBI, the CIA and the military in the assassination.
Whether or not one accepts Pepper's theories, to rule out a priori some form of conspiracy, including one involving elements within the state apparatus, is, at the very least, no more objective than the various conspiracy theories that have been advanced. An investigation into the killing by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 concluded that while Ray was the gunmen, there was a 95 percent probability that others were involved.
The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. took place in the midst of mass social protests and urban upheavals involving working people, youth and students who opposed racial discrimination, poverty and America's involvement in the Vietnam war. Shortly before King was killed he publicly denounced the war and began to address social issues, such as poverty, that went beyond the pervasive discrimination that confronted African Americans. He was in Memphis in 1968 to lead a march of 1,300 sanitation workers on strike for better working conditions, wages and benefits.
James Earl Ray was picked up in London several months after King's assassination and returned to the United States. He confessed to the crime in March 1969 and received a 99-year sentence. He recanted his confession three days after he made it, and for the next 29 years fought to rescind his guilty plea. State and federal courts upheld the plea on eight separate occasions. Ray met with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s son Dexter in a prison hospital shortly before he died of liver disease in 1998 and told the son of the civil rights leader that he was not responsible for his father's death.
After Ray's death William Pepper joined forces with the King family to file the wrongful death suit. Since Jowers had stated that he hired a man to do the killing, the liability charges were filed against him.
In the course of the trial 70 witnesses were presented by the defense. Among them were members of King's family; the brother of James Earl Ray; Walter Fauntroy, formerly a member of the House Select Committee on Assassinations; and New York-based attorney and media expert William Schapp.
Much of the testimony focused on the extent of operations carried out by the FBI against King and those involved in civil rights struggles. On August 25, 1967, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover approved a major counterintelligence program, Cointelpro, to disrupt and discredit left-wing organizations, civil rights demonstrators and anti-war protesters. Hoover directed operations against King in an effort to discredit his leadership and break up the movement.
Convinced that King was a communist, Hoover described him as "the most dangerous man in America, and a moral degenerate," and was obsessed with following King's activities. Dozens of internal FBI memoranda document the surveillance and harassment of King. In one incident King's alleged "sexual escapades" were used in an attempt to blackmail him. Shortly before the assassination Hoover distributed an internal memo to the FBI calling for King's "removal from the national scene."
At the trial Fauntroy testified that while he believed Ray was the shooter, he felt that Ray did not act alone. Fauntroy expressed dissatisfaction with the investigation carried out by the House Select Committee, noting that it was denied access to FBI files on the King murder and was unaware that US Army operatives had King under surveillance at the time of his death.
Following the issuance of the House Select Committee's final report in 1979, Committee Chairman Louis Stokes and Chief Counsel G. Robert Blakey ordered that all of the backup records, documents, unpublished transcripts and investigative data be locked up for the next 50 years.
Jurors saw the videotaped deposition of Jack Terrel, formerly of the US military, who testified that he had a conversation with a military operations specialist who told him that he was assigned to a triangular shoot team that had a special mission in Memphis around the time of King's death. Terrel stated that the specialist was never told about the specifics of the mission, and that the team was pulled out of Memphis at the last minute.
Attorney William Schaap explained how the media has been used historically by the government to disseminate information, or, more precisely, misinformation. According to Schapp, the FBI under Hoover's direction infiltrated newspapers around the world and persuaded them in the 1960s to run stories that discredited King. Schaap commented on the lack of media attention to the wrongful death suit, saying, "It's amazing how much psychological power the dissemination of false information has after 30 years."
Following the verdict the King family told a press conference that they were satisfied with its results. The youngest son, Dexter King, remarked, "This is what we have always wanted. This is history."
Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder told the press that the Memphis verdict would have no impact on an ongoing Justice Department review of the King assassination. The Justice Department, which initiated a review of the case last year at the request of King's widow Coretta Scott King, is expected to issue its report shortly. According to Holder it is very unlikely that criminal charges will be brought or that the government will alter its position James Earl Ray was the lone gunman and that there was no governmental conspiracy involved in the King assassination.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/dec1999/king-d17.shtml
For the Complete Transcript of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination Conspiracy Trial
http://www.thekingcenter.org/tkc/trial.html
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3) Leonard Peltier Files Lawsuit Against FBI Today
NATIVE AMERICAN ACTIVIST FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST FBI
THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 2002
Contact: Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (785) 842-5774; lpdc@freepeltier.org
NATIVE AMERICAN ACTIVIST FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST FBI
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh is named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed today by attorneys for imprisoned Native American activist, Leonard Peltier. Freeh, along with the FBI Agents Association and a long list of active FBI agents, are accused of violating Peltier's Constitutional rights by making false and unsupported statements to the public, the Department of Justice, the United States Parole Commission, and former President Clinton.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court, Washington D.C., alleges that the FBI "engaged in a systematic, and officially sanctioned campaign of mis-information and dis-information" designed to prevent Peltier from receiving fair clemency and parole reviews. The suit follows a highly controversial campaign conducted by the FBI to stop former president Bill Clinton from issuing Peltier a grant of executive clemency during his last days in office. FBI agents across the nation submitted letters to the editor, sponsored major newspaper and radio ads, and marched by the hundreds in front of the White House to discourage clemency. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh wrote searing letters to Bill Clinton and Janet Reno, to urge against Peltier's release. The campaign, which gained national attention, characterized Peltier as a cold-blooded killer who brutally shot two FBI agents at point blank range. Peltier's attorneys and supporters assert that this characterization is not only false but intentionally deceptive given the government's long held position that it cannot prove who shot the agents. Furthermore, they say it cost Peltier, now 57 years of age and in poor health, his long deserved freedom.
Peltier has served more than 26 years in prison for the deaths of two FBI agents killed in a 1975 shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Peltier's supporters claim the FBI terrorized witnesses, utilized false testimony and withheld a ballistic test proving Peltier's innocence to gain his conviction. Senior Eighth Circuit Judge Gerald Heaney, who denied Peltier a new trial based on a legal technicality, has since come forward to support Peltier's release, citing FBI misconduct. Amnesty International, the Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Corretta Scott King, and scores of Native tribes are among those who consider Peltier a political prisoner who should be freed.
(Complaint will be posted on LPDC web site on April 4. Interviews with lawyer handling case and spokespeople for the LPDC can be arranged).
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
PO Box 583
Lawrence, KS 66044
785-842-5774
http://www.freepeltier.org
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In a related issue,
Historic Trial in Bari vs. FBI begins April 8, 2002 in Federal Court in Oakland, CA
Visit http://www.judibari.org/ for details!
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4) HAARP and the Trigger to Climate Change
Washington's New World Order Weapons Have the Ability to Trigger Climate Change
by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG)
4 January 2002
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The important debate on global warming under UN auspices provides but a partial picture of climate change; in addition to the devastating impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the ozone layer, the World's climate can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated "non-lethal weapons." Both the Americans and the Russians have developed capabilities to manipulate the World's climate.
In the US, the technology is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) as part of the ("Star Wars") Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). Recent scientific evidence suggests that HAARP is fully operational and has the ability of potentially triggering floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction. Potentially, it constitutes an instrument of conquest capable of selectively destabilising agricultural and ecological systems of entire regions.
While there is no evidence that this deadly technology has been used, surely the United Nations should be addressing the issue of "environmental warfare" alongside the debate on the climatic impacts of greenhouse gases.
Despite a vast body of scientific knowledge, the issue of deliberate climatic manipulations for military use has never been explicitly part of the UN agenda on climate change. Neither the official delegations nor the environmental action groups participating in the Hague Conference on Climate Change (November 2000) have raised the broad issue of "weather warfare" or "environmental modification techniques (ENMOD)" as relevant to an understanding of climate change.
The clash between official negotiators, environmentalists and American business lobbies has centered on Washington's outright refusal to abide by commitments on carbon dioxide reduction targets under the 1997 Kyoto protocol.(1) The impacts of military technologies on the World's climate are not an object of discussion or concern. Narrowly confined to greenhouse gases, the ongoing debate on climate change serves Washington's strategic and defense objectives.
"WEATHER WARFARE"
World renowned scientist Dr. Rosalie Bertell confirms that "US military scientists ... are working on weather systems as a potential weapon. The methods include the enhancing of storms and the diverting of vapor rivers in the Earth's atmosphere to produce targeted droughts or floods." (2) Already in the 1970s, former National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had foreseen in his book "Between Two Ages" that: "Technology will make available, to the leaders of major nations, techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised... Techniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm."
Marc Filterman, a former French military officer, outlines several types of "unconventional weapons" using radio frequencies. He refers to "weather war," indicating that the U.S. and the Soviet Union had already "mastered the know-how needed to unleash sudden climate changes (hurricanes, drought) in the early 1980s."(3) These technologies make it "possible to trigger atmospheric disturbances by using Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) radar [waves]." (4)
A simulation study of future defense "scenarios" commissioned for the US Air Force calls for:
"US aerospace forces to 'own the weather' by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications... From enhancing friendly operations or disrupting those of the enemy via small-scale tailoring of natural weather patterns to complete dominance of global communications and counterspace control, weather-modification offers the war fighter a wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary... In the United States, weather-modification will likely become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications. Our government will pursue such a policy, depending on its interests, at various levels.(5)
HIGH-FREQUENCY ACTIVE AURORAL RESEARCH PROGRAM (HAARP)
The High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) based in Gokoma Alaska --jointly managed by the US Air Force and the US Navy-- is part of a new generation of sophisticated weaponry under the US Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Operated by the Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate, HAARP constitutes a system of powerful antennas capable of creating "controlled local modifications of the ionosphere".
Scientist Dr. Nicholas Begich --actively involved in the public campaign against HAARP-- describes HAARP as:
"A super-powerful radiowave-beaming technology that lifts areas of the ionosphere [upper layer of the atmosphere] by focusing a beam and heating those areas. Electromagnetic waves then bounce back onto earth and penetrate everything -- living and dead." (6)
Dr. Rosalie Bertell depicts HAARP as "a gigantic heater that can cause major disruption in the ionosphere, creating not just holes, but long incisions in the protective layer that keeps deadly radiation from bombarding the planet." 7
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For this complete Report, see:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO201A.html
Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, CRG 2002. All rights reserved.
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