DebateGate

Our government would never let Americans be killed (or kill them) for some higher purpose, would they?


Veterans, documents suggest U.S., Israel didn't tell full story of deadly '67 incident
Special report
By John Crewdson
Chicago Tribune senior correspondent
baltimoresun.com
October 2, 2007

Bryce Lockwood, Marine staff sergeant, Russian-language expert, recipient of the Silver Star for heroism, ordained Baptist minister, is shouting into the phone.

"I'm angry! I'm seething with anger! Forty years, and I'm seething with anger!"

Lockwood was aboard the USS Liberty, a super-secret spy ship on station in the eastern Mediterranean, when four Israeli fighter jets flew out of the afternoon sun to strafe and bomb the virtually defenseless vessel on June 8, 1967, the fourth day of what would become known as the Six-Day War.

For Lockwood and many other survivors, the anger is mixed with incredulity: that Israel would attack an important ally, then attribute the attack to a case of mistaken identity by Israeli pilots who had confused the U.S. Navy's most distinctive ship with an Egyptian horse-cavalry transport that was half its size and had a dissimilar profile. And they're also incredulous that, for years, their own government would reject their calls for a thorough investigation. "They tried to lie their way out of it!" Lockwood shouts. "I don't believe that for a minute! You just don't shoot at a ship at sea without identifying it, making sure of your target!"

Four decades later, many of the more than two dozen Liberty survivors located and interviewed by the Tribune cannot talk about the attack without shouting or weeping.

Their anger has been stoked by the declassification of government documents and the recollections of former military personnel, including some quoted in this article for the first time, which strengthen doubts about the U.S. National Security Agency's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots -- communications, according to those who remember seeing them, that showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel.

The documents also suggest that the U.S. government, anxious to spare Israel's reputation and preserve its alliance with the U.S., closed the case with what even some of its participants now say was a hasty and seriously flawed investigation.

In declassifying the most recent and largest batch of materials last June 8, the 40th anniversary of the attack, the NSA, this country's chief U.S. electronic-intelligence-gatherer and code-breaker, acknowledged that the attack had "become the center of considerable controversy and debate." It was not the agency's intention, it said, "to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of this material," available athttp://www.nsa.gov/liberty .

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, called the attack on the Liberty "a tragic and terrible accident, a case of mistaken identity, for which Israel has officially apologized." Israel also paid reparations of $6.7 million to the injured survivors and the families of those killed in the attack, and another $6 million for the loss of the Liberty itself.

But for those who lost their sons and husbands, neither the Israelis' apology nor the passing of time has lessened their grief.

One is Pat Blue, who still remembers having her lunch in Washington's Farragut Square park on "a beautiful June afternoon" when she was a 22-year-old secretary for a law firm.

Blue heard somebody's portable radio saying a U.S. Navy ship had been torpedoed in the eastern Mediterranean. A few weeks before, Blue's husband of two years, an Arab-language expert with the NSA, had been hurriedly dispatched overseas.

As she listened to the news report, "it just all came together." Soon afterward, the NSA confirmed that Allen Blue was among the missing.

"I never felt young again," she said.

Aircraft on the horizon

Beginning before dawn on June 8, Israeli aircraft regularly appeared on the horizon and circled the Liberty.

The Israeli Air Force had gained control of the skies on the first day of the war by destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground. America was Israel's ally, and the Israelis knew the Americans were there. The ship's mission was to monitor the communications of Israel's Arab enemies and their Soviet advisers, but not Israeli communications. The Liberty felt safe.

Then the jets started shooting at the officers and enlisted men stretched out on the deck for a lunch-hour sun bath. Theodore Arfsten, a quartermaster, remembered watching a Jewish officer cry when he saw the blue Star of David on the planes' fuselages. At first, crew members below decks had no idea whose planes were shooting at their ship.

Thirty-four died that day, including Blue, the only civilian casualty. An additional 171 were wounded in the air and sea assault by Israel, which was about to celebrate an overwhelming victory over the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and several other Arab states.

For most of those who survived the attack, the Six-Day War has become the defining moment of their lives.

Some mustered out of the Navy as soon as their enlistments were up. Others stayed in long enough to retire. Several went on to successful business careers. One became a Secret Service agent, another a Baltimore policeman.

Several are being treated with therapy and drugs for what has since been recognized as post-traumatic stress disorder. One has undergone more than 30 major operations. Another suffers seizures caused by a piece of shrapnel still lodged in his brain.

After Bryce Lockwood left the Marines, he worked construction, then tried selling insurance. "I'd get a job and get fired," he said. "I had a hell of a time getting my feet on the ground."

With his linguistic background, Lockwood could have had a career with the NSA, the CIA, or the FBI. But he was too angry at the U.S. government to work for it. "Don't talk to me about government!" he shouts.

U.S. Navy jets were called back

An Israeli military court of inquiry later acknowledged that their naval headquarters knew at least three hours before the attack that the odd-looking ship 13 miles off the Sinai Peninsula, sprouting more than 40 antennas capable of receiving every kind of radio transmission, was "an electromagnetic audio-surveillance ship of the U.S. Navy," a floating electronic vacuum cleaner.

The Israeli inquiry later concluded that that information had simply gotten lost, never passed along to the ground controllers who directed the air attack nor to the crews of the three Israeli torpedo boats who picked up where the air force left off, strafing the Liberty's decks with their machine guns and launching a torpedo that blew a 39-foot hole in its starboard side.

To a man, the survivors interviewed by the Tribune rejected Israel's explanation.

Nor, the survivors said, did they understand why the American 6th Fleet, which included the aircraft carriers America and Saratoga, patrolling 400 miles west of the Liberty, launched and then recalled at least two squadrons of Navy fighter-bombers that might have arrived in time to prevent the torpedo attack -- and save 26 American lives.

J.Q. "Tony" Hart, then a chief petty officer assigned to a U.S. Navy relay station in Morocco that handled communications between Washington and the 6th Fleet, remembered listening as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, in Washington, ordered Rear Adm. Lawrence Geis, commander of the America's carrier battle group, to bring the jets home.

When Geis protested that the Liberty was under attack and needed help, Hart said, McNamara retorted that "President [Lyndon] Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors."


http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20071007153106368

So now we find out that the alleged reason for illegally invading Iraq was not the true reason at all.  Saddam was not a threat technically, literally or any otherally.

The United States has been scammed.

All our blood and treasure have been lost for no reason whatsoever.  4000 dead soldiers because Bush and cult wanted the oil, wanted power, they wanted anything other than to get rid of Saddam Hussein because they could have just given him a Billion and not gotten anyone killed.  Instead they chose to get a lot of people kill and turn over billions to friends and family.

Saddam asked Bush for $1bn to go into exile and not be an issue any more to anyone but Bush declined.  Whatever could be the reason?



By DAVID GARDNER

Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq, it was claimed last night.

Fearing defeat, Saddam was prepared to go peacefully in return for ?500million ($1billion).

The extraordinary offer was revealed yesterday in a transcript of talks in February 2003 between George Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the President's Texas ranch.

The White House refused to comment on the report last night.

But, if verified, it is certain to raise questions in Washington and London over whether the costly four-year war could have been averted.

Only yesterday, the Bush administration asked Congress for another ?100billion to finance the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

{R}


The total war bill for British taxpayers is expected to reach ?7billion by next year.

More than 3,800 American service personnel have lost their lives in Iraq, along with 170 Britons and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

However, according to the tapes, one month before he launched the invasion Mr Bush appeared convinced that Saddam was serious about going into exile.

"The Eqyptians are speaking to Saddam Hussein," said Mr Bush.

"It seems he's indicated he would be prepared to go into exile if he's allowed to take $1billion and all the information he wants about weapons of mass destruction."

Asked by the Spanish premier whether Saddam - who was executed in December last year - could really leave, the President replied: "Yes, that possibility exists. Or he might even be assassinated."

But he added that whatever happened: "We'll be in Baghdad by the end of March."

Mr Bush went on to refer optimistically to the rebuilding or Iraq.

The transcript - which was published yesterday in the Spanish newspaper El Pais - was said to have been recorded by a diplomat at the meeting in Crawford, Texas, on February 22, 2003.

Mr Bush was dismissive of the then French President Jacques Chirac, saying he "thinks he's Mr Arab".

Referring to his relationship with Downing Street, he said: "I don't mind being the bad cop if Blair is the good cop."

The President added: "Saddam won't change and he'll keep on playing games.

"The time has come to get rid of him. That's the way it is."

Days before the invasion began on March 22, 2003, the United Arab Emirates proposed to a summit of Arab leaders that Saddam and his henchmen should go into exile.

It was the first time the plan had been officially voiced but it was drowned out in the drumbeat of war.

A spokesman for Mr Aznar's foundation had no comment on its authenticity.

Bomb attacks killed 57 people in Iraq yesterday.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Find this story at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=484162&in_page_id=1811
?2007 Associated New Media

From One Bunker To Another: Dick Cheney To Address ?Super-Secret, Conservative Policy Group?
On Friday, Dick Cheney will leave his ?secure undisclosed location? to attend another one in Utah. The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Vice President Dick Cheney will speak to a super-secret, conservative policy group in Utah on Friday during his second trip to the state this year.

The group is called the Council for National Policy, and its mission is to plot ways to advance the right-wing agenda. The council was founded in 1981 by conservative luminaries such as the Rev. Tim LaHaye (author of the ?Left Behind? series) and Paul Weyrich (who helped found the Heritage Foundation).

The council reportedly has 500 or members who pay several thousand dollars a year to ?hear private, unvarnished presentations.? Some members include Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University, and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.

While very little is known about the secretive group, the New York Times was able to lift the veil a slight bit in 2004. The Times wrote:

?The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before of after a meeting,? a list of rules obtained by The New York Times advises the attendees.

The membership list is ?strictly confidential.? Guests may attend ?only with the unanimous approval of the executive committee.? In e-mail messages to one another, members are instructed not to refer to the organization by name, to protect against leaks.

The group apparently keeps its agenda secret for a reason ? it appears to understand it would have little support if it were shown in the light of day. From what is known about its views, CNP is vehemently anti-immigration, anti-same-sex marriage, and anti-tax. ?CNP seeded Pat Buchanan?s protest presidential candidacy in 1992.? George W. Bush spoke before the group in 1999, reportedly committing ?to appoint only anti-abortion-rights judges to the Supreme Court.? (The Bush team and CNP refused to release the audio from the event.)

Marc Ambinder reports that Mitt Romney will be attending the gathering as well.


http://thinkprogress.org/


Is Betrayus their new Smedley Butler?

Do they even need one?  'Cause they already control the nation.

Wheelchair-Bound Woman Dies After Being Shocked With Taser 10 Times Wed Sep 19, 9:38 AM ET
 


A Clay County woman's family said it's seeking justice after their loved one died shortly after being shocked 10 times with Taser guns during a confrontation with police.

The family of 56-year-old Emily Delafield said it would take the Green Cove Springs Police Department to court, according to a WJXT-TV report.

In April 2006, officers with the police department said they were called to a disturbance at a home in the 400 block of Harrison Street just before 5 p.m.

In a 911 call made to the Green Cove Springs, Delafield can be heard telling a dispatcher that she believed she was in danger:

Dispatcher: And what's the problem?

Delafield: My sister is waiting on my property.

Dispatcher: Your what?

Delafield: My sister (inaudible) is on my property trying to harm me.

Officers said they arrived to find Delafield in a wheelchair, armed with two knives and a hammer. Police said the woman was swinging the weapons at family members and police.

Within an hour of her call to 911, Delafield, a wheelchair-bound woman documented to have mental illness, was dead.

Family attorney Rick Alexander said Delafield's death could have been prevented and that there are four things that jump out at him about the case.

"One, she's in a wheelchair. Two, she's schizophrenic. Three, they're using a Taser on a person that's in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes," Alexander said.

According to a police report, one of the officers used her Taser gun nine times for a total of 160 seconds and the other officer discharged his Taser gun once for a total of no more than five seconds.

A medical examiner found Delafield died from hypertensive heart disease and cited the Taser gun shock as a contributing factor, the report said. On her death certificate, the medical examiner ruled Delafield's death a homicide.

The family said it plans to sue the Green Coves Springs Police Department now that it has all the reports regarding their loved one's death.

"We're going to try to compensate the estate and the family and try to get justice," Alexander said.

He said he believes the evidence weighs heavily in favor of Delafield's family and that justice will be served.

"I think that this evidence is going to show, along with some of the evidence we've collected outside of here, that there is no reason Emily Delafield should have died that day," Alexander said.

He said he plans to file a notice to sue sometime before the end of the year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/wkmg/20070919/lo_wkmg/14147512&printer=1;_ylt=A0WTcVYKrPJGGGoAJQ_px0QC

I've been wondering what the downside or negative is for this.  I know that there are lots of people here who just live to shoot holes in anything that may change the world for the better so I am certain that there will be lots of negativity here.

So.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6vSxR6UKFM



http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07252/815920-85.stm



Salt water as fuel? Erie man hopes so
Sunday, September 09, 2007
By David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For obvious reasons, scientists long have thought that salt water couldn't be burned.

So when an Erie man announced he'd ignited salt water with the radio-frequency generator he'd invented, some thought it a was a hoax.

John Kanzius, a Washington County native, tried to desalinate seawater with a generator he developed to treat cancer, and it caused a flash in the test tube.

Within days, he had the salt water in the test tube burning like a candle, as long as it was exposed to radio frequencies.

His discovery has spawned scientific interest in using the world's most abundant substance as clean fuel, among other uses.

Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, held a demonstration last week at the university's Materials Research Laboratory in State College, to confirm what he'd witnessed weeks before in an Erie lab.

"It's true, it works," Dr. Roy said. "Everyone told me, 'Rustum, don't be fooled. He put electrodes in there.' "

But there are no electrodes and no gimmicks, he said.

Dr. Roy said the salt water isn't burning per se, despite appearances. The radio frequency actually weakens bonds holding together the constituents of salt water -- sodium chloride, hydrogen and oxygen -- and releases the hydrogen, which, once ignited, burns continuously when exposed to the RF energy field. Mr. Kanzius said an independent source measured the flame's temperature, which exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, reflecting an enormous energy output.

As such, Dr. Roy, a founding member of the Materials Research Laboratory and expert in water structure, said Mr. Kanzius' discovery represents "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years."

But researching its potential will take time and money, he said. One immediate question is energy efficiency: The energy the RF generator uses vs. the energy output from burning hydrogen.

Dr. Roy said he's scheduled to meet tomorrow with U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Defense officials in Washington to discuss the discovery and seek research funding.

Mr. Kanzius said he powered a Stirling, or hot air, engine with salt water. But whether the system can power a car or be used as an efficient fuel will depend on research results.

"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Dr. Roy said. "The potential is huge.

"In the life sciences, the role of water is infinite, and this guy is doing something new in using the most important and most abundant material on the face of the earth."

Mr. Kanzius' discovery was an accident.

He developed the RF generator as a novel cancer treatment. His research in targeting cancer cells with metallic nanoparticles then destroying them with radio-frequency is proceeding at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and at the University of Texas' MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Manuscripts updating the cancer research are in preparation for publication in coming months, Mr. Kanzius said.

While Mr. Kanzius was demonstrating how his generator heated nanoparticles, someone noted condensation inside the test tube and suggested he try using his equipment to desalinate water.

So, Mr. Kanzius said, he put sea water in a test tube, then trained his machine on it, producing an unexpected spark. In time he and laboratory owners struck a match and ignited the water, which continued burning as long as it remained in the radio-frequency field.

During several trials, heat from burning hydrogen grew hot enough to melt the test tube, he said. Dr. Roy's tests on the machine last week provided further evidence that the process is releasing and burning hydrogen from the water. Tests on different water solutions and concentrations produced various temperatures and flame colors.

"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Dr. Roy said of salt water. "Seeing it burn gives me chills."

Yes, ladies and gents, the GOP has politicized the most horrible event in US history by deciding that it is better to have ObL out there, lurking, possibly powerful, possibly plotting than to pursue, prosecute and punish has as the main perpetrator of 9.11.

The GOP has decided that the double-edged sword is better at cutting their "opposition" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) than it is at cutting themselves.  The GOP still believes that when they have ObL produce a new tape when ObL releases a new tape that their political usage of said tape stands to gain them more (saying that ObL sounds like a "lefty blogger", going on FOX and stating that they want to make sure that it is not a "trigger" for some kind of attack thus hopefully ramping up the fear they love to monger) than hurting them (Bush can't and WON'T catch ObL).

Proof, you say?

Catching bin Laden (or not)
By: Steve Benen on Saturday, September 8th, 2007 at 5:02 AM - PDT 

Fred Thompson?s reaction to today?s Osama bin Laden tape:

    ?Bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else,? he said.

Mitt Romney on bin Laden:

    [Romney] said the country would be safer by only ?a small percentage? and would see ?a very insignificant increase in safety? if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. ?It?s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,? Romney said.

Bush on bin Laden:

    ?I truly am not that concerned about him.?


Symbolism, says Freddie Thompson.  Yes, how would that hearten Americans that the perpetrator of the single most destructive attack in the history of the US had been caught?  Would that not send a chill down the alleged millions and millions of terrorists' (who lurk everywhere) spines?  Would they not, perhaps, be wary of carrying out any other acts if they thought that the US might move heaven and earth to find the one person who pulled off another attack?  (If your answer is no, then what is the point of A) invading Iraq and B) the Death Penalty?)

A small percentage safer, say Mittie Romney.  Aren't we after any percentage of safety we can get?  Isn't that why we should all STFU about secret spying on and wire-tapping of Americans?  How much are those programs costing both financially and in terms of civil rights and liberties in America?  That small percentage more of safety could mean one less dead soldier in Iraq.  That small percentage of safety could result in Romney's sons getting to have TWO lattes a day on the campaign trail rather than the measly ONE they are having to suffer with.  Might it not?

And Bushie says he just doesn't give a crap about ObL.  Perhaps, if I were a naive moron, I might think that Bushie is out to weaken ObL's standing.  "Bushie doesn't care about ObL because ObL is impotent and has no power and doesn't know how to pull off another 9.11."  It's the kind of schoolyard taunting tactic that scared bully utilizes after being spanked by an adult on a weaker kid.  And if the bully continues, perhaps he might get spanked by the adult again or the weaker kid may get a bunch of his friends together and they all jump the bully after school and kick the shit out of him.  Either way, the bully loses.  Unfortunately, our Bully in Chief doesn't understand it.  Bullies never do.  As the DEADWOOD character, Seth Bullock once stated to a man who was trying to take over the town, "Can?t shut up! Every bully I ever met can?t shut his ******* mouth."  After a moment of silence on the bully's part, Bullock added, "Except when he?s afraid."

When Bush stops his cocky jabberjawing, I'll know we're in trouble.

The reality of all this is obvious to all of us.  ObL is a political tool. An Eastasia or Eurasia to "fight" but never conquer or defeat.

The natural progression of thought, especially based on the reality and facts of both George W Bushie and Osama bin Laden and their families is that they are in cahoots.

Eventually, we will see Bush (or Hillary, another co-conspirator) state that we have always been friends with Osama bin Laden.

It will take twenty years to repair the damage wrought by this "administration".  This is just the barest minimum of the beginning.

Karen Hughes is still haunting the State Department, but this is the last of the Texas shitbirds that came with Bush. 


Embattled Attorney General Resigns

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. A senior administration official said he would announce the decision later this morning in Washington.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/washington/27cnd-gonzales.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin