talknationradio.com

Talk Nation Radio for June 10, 2010
BP Tries to Disperse Concern amid Calls for Prosecutions and Reform, Dr. Ira Leifer, Flow Rate Tech Group, Scott West, Retired EPA Special Agent

Transcript below:

Breaking News Update: The White House has announced that they have received a new flow rate assessment about the BP spill. The company is now promising an ability to contain as much as 60,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil per day from their leaking pipe in the Gulf of Mexico. Here is a paragraph from the statement that arrived via the White House list serve to Talk Nation Radio: “The Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) cap that is currently in place can capture up to 18,000 barrels of oil per day. At the direction of the federal government, BP is deploying today a second containment option, called the Q4000, which could expand total leak containment capacity to 20,000-28,000 barrels per day. Overall, the leak containment strategy that BP was required to develop projects containment capacity expanding to 40,000-53,000 barrels per day by the end of June and 60,000-80,000 barrels per day by mid-July”.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said: “This estimate brings together several scientific methodologies and the latest information from the sea floor, and represents a significant step forward in our effort to put a number on the oil that is escaping from BP’s well.”

They are now claiming that they have planned for contingencies to deal with a worst case scenario, which is exactly what our guest last week, Dr. Ira Leifer of the Government’s Flow Rate Technical Group, indicated was the best approach. We transcribed our interviews for last week’s show and you can read them below.

Dori Smith, talknationradio@gmail.com

Dr. Ira Leifer speaking about BP’s shear and cap effort to stop the flow of oil coming from their blown pipe in the Gulf of New Mexico: ‘What I would argue from looking at the videos is however much oil is coming out its large enough relative to 15,000 that it did not make an appreciable dent in it. That means it’s certainly more than double that and the amount is something that we should be able to figure out within a day with the results of the new data’. (more below)

Produced by Dori Smith
TRT: 29:00
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here and at Radio4all.net and Archive.org

Dr. Ira Leifer, an associate researcher at the Marine Science Institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Flow Rate Technical Group, Scott West, former Special Agent in Charge, EPA

BP gives out low numbers on flow from broken pipe. We hear better analysis. If the DOJ and Bush administration had backed EPA official’s call for criminal prosecution, safety might have improved. Plus Nalco, manufacturer of chemical dispersant. See: BP Tries to Disperse Concern amid Calls for Prosecutions and Reform.

Transcript: Talk Nation Radio, June 9, 2010
Producer/host: Dori Smith

‘I’m quite confidence that in the long term, that basically the truth will out’.

Dr. Ira Leifer joins us to talk about his assessment as part of the government’s flow rate technical group analyzing the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the BP/Transocean spill.

‘And BP, which is able to afford a great number of attorneys can just simply overwhelm the federal government with its legal representation’.

Then, former EPA investigator Scott West joins us to go over BP’s history of criminal negligence and catastrophe. We look at the problem of getting good information from BP or the government, as a pattern has been forming. BP tries to disperse public concern by offering low numbers and the Obama administration reinforces them.

In May, NPR’s Richard Harris asked Dr. Steven Wereley, at Purdue University, to study the videotape of the oil flowing out of the pipe and use his technique for calculating low rate from speed of particle movement. ‘We’re talking more than a factor of 10 difference between what I calculate and the number that’s being thrown around’.

BP had said 5,000 barrels of oil were flowing from the pipe per day. Wereley told NPR that the flow rate was more like 70,000 barrels a day. Other researchers also got the much higher numbers.

At a press conference June 9th, the National Incident Commander on the spill, Admiral Thad Allen, said between 19 and 25,000 gallons were coming out of the pipe per day at this point:

Admiral Thad Allen: ‘We have a bunch of technical experts got together and they came up with two ranges; of 12,000 to 19,000 and 12,000 to 25,000. Until we get better data that becomes the rebuttable uh assumption on flow and everything else’.

That after the pipe was sheared to accommodate a containment cap. The company had trapped 15,000 barrels during the previous twenty-four hour period and hoped to double that in the coming weeks. But again, NPR wanted more clear information. Where the numbers came from, BP or the government? ‘My knowledge was it was the task group but I will check back and if I misunderstood it I will make a clarification on it. They are going to be looking at that again they have high-resolution video that was taken after the riser pipe was cut, that’s been brought back on hard disk and that’s exactly what the group is analyzing right now’.

When we spoke with one of those technical experts working for the government’s team, Dr. Ira Leifer, he confirmed his assessment based on BP’s own data, that the flow could be more like their worst-case scenario of 100,000 barrels per day. We asked him to confirm the reports in McClatchy and then Reuters, citing the 100,000 figure:

Dr. Ira Leifer: Let me just say what I had intended to say which is that in the absence of good quality data which was our situation until very recently, the flow clearly had increased significantly. The question is how much. And there are two ways two ways to do go about that. One is you get data and you analyze it, that’s called science. The other way was to just take BP’s own estimate of a worst case scenario of freely flowing pipes and just put that out there: This is what BP thinks would happen when a pipe freely flows from that reservoir, now by pipe I mean the pipe that is the problem with this well, into the ocean. And BP’s number was 100,000 barrels per day. It does not mean that I think 100,000 barrels per day is flowing out, it could be less it could be more. The whole point of science and being a scientist and agencies working on this and the people is to actually come up with a number. And again, previously BP was very reticent about providing data, not letting us do our work. Now they have become much more helpful and forward looking at providing the data. I assumed they kind of realized that they don’t like their own number very much and they would actually finally like for us to be able to come up with a good number.

Dori Smith: Well Dr. Leifer we heard this morning from Admiral Thad Allen that BP captured 15,000 barrels overnight in 24 hours. That still leaves 85,000 according to your estimation.

Dr. Ira Leifer: I would just point out again its BP’s worst case scenario. The question is, is the flow from that well worst case? Is it even worse than that? Or is it not as bad. So what I would argue from looking at the videos is however much oil is coming out its large enough relative to 15,000 that it did not make an appreciable dent in it. That means it’s certainly more than double that and the amount is something that we should be able to figure out within a day with the results of the new data.

So the amount of oil that still remains to be captured could be conceivably within another mere expansion to 30,000 total but it also could be larger. And this is where we need to know by analyzing data and I think what has come out of including BP’s own worst case scenario is that they are much more cooperative and forward looking now and helpful so that we can actually do out job so that the efforts that go on are done safely.

Dori Smith: And of course NOAA is testing deeper samples of water to try to discover oil there, but why is it so difficult to assess this and does it have to do with the Corexit, the Nalco product that was used to disperse the oil. And if so would that affect the tests that are now being sent to laboratories like ALPHA here in New England.

Dr. Ira Leifer: the challenge is, it’s hard enough to figure out where the oil is going to go at the sea surface where you actually can look at it from an airplane or boat and track it. In the three dimensions of the ocean it is far more difficult challenge to find where hit has gone. Because the other thing is that the ocean is vast. If the oil is dispersed throughout the water column, that’s the idea behind dispersants, then the concentrates go down to very small amounts. That should not have anything to say with whether or not those very small amounts are problematic to the ecosystem. Very small amounts of petroleum hydrocarbon in the water column are known to cause all sorts of problems with fish and so on. But because the amounts are so small, they are hard to find. It’s not easy to find when something gets so diluted. And there was a lot of word done on this particular aspect after the Exxon Valdez because scientists were in fact able to take a look at the effects on fish and other life forms in the ocean from the petroleum hydrocarbon dose, even years later from he sediment into the water column.

Dori Smith: Well we were concerned when one of NOAA’s tests turned out to establish that there was a similarity between oil they found at more than 3,000 ft down and the oil spewing from the spill but then on later follow tests they couldn’t establish that. Then we read that there may be a conflict of interest with the labs or that even BP is doing some of these tests themselves.

Dr. Ira Leifer: In that regard I’m quite confident that in the long term, that basically the truth will out. It is not possible for anyone to have a complete control of all of these oil samples from the ocean and I think the laboratories know that if they did not do a very high quality analysis that other entities with own boats collecting water samples would very rapidly be releasing information that would be in contradiction to their laboratory. The one thing that these laboratories value above everything else is their reputation and I would imagine that in order to protect their reputation they would, realizing that other people would also be collecting and analyzing water samples, would be very honest in that regard. I certainly can’t promise that but I imagine that they would want to do that because this is such a large spill, there are so many people who are going to be trying to understand what happened, and so on, that you can’t hide things for very long when so many people are looking.

Dori Smith: Dr. Ira Leifer is a well-known scholar at the Marine Science Institute of the University of California. We turn now to Scott West, an EPA agent in the criminal division, he took calls from workers complaining that BP’s pipeline in Prudhoe Bay Alaska, was vulnerable.

Scott West: What I did with the EPA, I was a criminal investigator with the criminal investigation division and in Seattle I was special agent in charge up until I retired in October of 2008. The State of Alaska fell under my area of responsibility. And in 2005 I received information from some employees working on the North Slope up at Prudhoe Bay that a particular transit line was full of sludge and they had grave concerns about erosion causing the pipeline to rupture. They had brought these concerns to their officials, supervisors and other officials at BP and they were ignored and even chastised. So they came to me and there wasn’t much we could do until March of 2006 when that pipeline did indeed rupture and cause the second largest oil spill in Alaska.

We started a criminal investigation immediately and carried it forward for the next year and a half. It was a robust investigation enjoying a great deal of support by the EPA and the Department of Justice. Then unexpectedly in August of 2007 I was informed that the Justice Department had decided to grant BP’s wishes to settle this case along with the cases involving an explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City, and a propane trading violation in Chicago.

They wanted to wrap these all up together and so the Justice Department shut down my investigation, worked out the misdemeanor plea with the company for the Alaska case and that was that. And so when the rig exploded in the Gulf, and once I found out it was BP’s rig, I felt that nothing had changed within the criminal corporate culture that we had found and indeed that this was no accident, it was the result of criminal decisions.

Dori Smith: And of course, the U.S. Justice Department, once again investigating British Petroleum, we’re reading about a lot of money…

Scott West: …They’re not investigating British Petroleum.

Dori Smith: OK, correct me.

Scott West: Yeah, the Attorney General Last Tuesday came out publicly and under I believe pressure that’s been coming on from the public about why isn’t there a criminal investigation? And he made the statement that indeed there is an investigation and he cited the statutes that one would expect: The Clean Water Act, the Rivers and Harbors of the Refuse Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Now short of calling the Attorney General a liar I’m going to say he practiced the art of deception. There is an investigation underway by the Department of the Interior, Office of Inspector General, having to do with some improprieties at Mines and Minerals Service. By all logic the EPA Criminal Investigation Division has indeed gone into the computer system and officially opened a file for an investigation into BP. But in terms of their being an actual investigation under way, there is none.

Dori Smith: Let’s talk about first the Prudhoe Bay spill and then Texas because I know by the time the Texas spill [refinery explosion] happened you were already aware of safety violations. Walk us through the series of events.

Scott West: Well that’s correct and because the corporation was charged the only things you can do to a corporation is take money away from it and put it under scrutiny. Corporations though do not make the decisions that led to these events. Individuals within them do.

What had been my aim using the criminal tool had been to carry the investigation to the point where we could determine if we could charge individuals for those decisions. And that’s what we wanted to do was to hold individuals accountable and hopefully that that would change the corporate culture. A $20 million dollar fine, which is ultimately what BP had to pay, it was $12 million in fines and then $8 million in restitution, but essentially it was a $20 million dollar deal, is a rounding error when you look at the amount of money that they pulled off the slopes and certainly worldwide. It wasn’t enough to get their attention and they were at that time had already been convicted of felony hazardous waste violations up on the North Slope. Then with the Texas City, also the Clean Air Act, they became serial environmental criminals.

Dori Smith: What were some of the aspects of the Prudhoe Bay Alaska spill that BP did wrong, that contributed to the disaster happening in the first place.

Scott West: It was the cost cutting, and ignoring the concerns raised by its own engineers that was the problem.

Dori Smith: And how could this leak have gone on for a number of days undetected by this company?

Scott West: (chuckles) Well they operate a quite elaborate system of leak detection equipment and they are quite known for having false reports all the time so the alarm goes off and its summarily ignored. That’s what happened here. The alarms were going off, and because they had gone off so often they weren’t paying much attention. It wasn’t until one of the workers was driving down one of the roads along the pipeline and he actually smelled crude, and so he got out and looked around and that’s how the leak was discovered.

Dori Smith: Can you explain where the criminal negligence was in that case.

Scott West: The criminal negligence was in the fact that the company was not following industry standard practices in terms of maintaining that pipeline. They had internal knowledge from their own employees and experts that they had a serious problem. They chose to ignore that problem saying that they didn’t have the money to address it and it was low on their priority list. They had other concerns. This sort of thing: That’s how you get from an unfortunate series of events turns into criminality when people who have the responsibility to keep up with these things fail to do so.

Dori Smith: And then let’s go to Texas where BP again their plant blue up, I believe it was 15 workers killed and 170 injured. That of course also linked to safety violations at their facility Again, they got placed on probation, pretty much walked away and went on to Deep Ocean drilling.

Scott West: That’s correct. I wasn’t involved in the investigation into Texas City but I was talking to my counterparts who were and we found an awful lot of similarities between BP operating in Alaska and then BP operating at that refinery in Texas, City. It was a whole host of cutting corners, saving money, trying to stretch every penny which is very difficult to understand when you look at the size of the profits that this company was making worldwide and continues to make worldwide as to why they would risk these catastrophic events for nickels and dime. But yet they do, and they did, and now we are seeing that the same sort of behavior most likely led to what happened out in the Gulf.

Dori Smith: The Deep Water Horizon explosion in April, there was someone killed on board that rig and he had been very concerned, his name is Jason Anderson. He was a rig manager and prior to dying had spoken t about his concerns, was shut down by the industry, they were in a hurry, why don’t you take it from there.

Scott West: Well I certainly wasn’t on the rig and I did not speak to Mr. Anderson at any time prior to his death, but what you just told me is certainly consistent with what I had learned about BP when I was investigating them criminally up in Alaska and what my counterparts found in Texas City is that time is money, they are always in a hurry, and workers concerns are often ignored and more so than ignored many workers fear retaliation for speaking out.

They certainly watched a number of their friends get fired or blacklisted from the industry for raising concerns. Then it was also something that we saw that BP would often blame the dead guy. I don’t mean to be crude here but that was what some employees shared with us and that’s how he put it is that when something went terribly wrong and there were deaths it was often the company’s way to say that those individuals that were killed had done something at fault.

Dori Smith: What about BP’s response to accusations of criminal negligence? I assume given the way they lobby in Congress that they came up with a very bold plan to counter such charges.

Scott Well they did but the fact remains that they pled guilty in Alaska to negligence, which led to the rupture of that pipe and the discharge of oil onto the tundra. They pled guilty to felony Clean Air Act in Texas City which led to the explosion and then the deaths of those workers. They pled guilty in Alaska earlier to illegally handling hazardous waste. There’s only so much they can claim when indeed they come into a courtroom and please guilty to these crimes.

The other thing to look at here, and I don’t totally blame BP: They are from my experience the worst of the oil companies operating in the United States, but I blame the Department of Justice for being so lenient with BP in the past that they’ve allowed them to believe that they can continue to operate this way without sanctions.

Dori Smith: Scott West, you are making these charges as a retired Special Agent in Charge at the EPA Environmental Protection Agency. You work in the Department of Intelligence and Investigations, what is that?

Scott West: That’s for Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, it’s a non-government entity but we enforce international law on the high seas, Marine Conservation Law, where other nations fail to do so. So bringing in a criminal investigative element was a move on the part of Captain Paul Watson to strengthen what we do in terms of dealing with crimes on the seas.

Dori Smith: Financial concerns were really on the minds of many of the politicians who for years argued in favor of drilling in the ANWR, drilling in the ocean, and also on the North Slope. People up there needing jobs, needing money, were divided over whether or not this was a good idea. But talk about the environmental risks first of all from these big oil pipeline systems and then from deep water drilling and what that means to us as citizens of this planet.

Scott West: We’ve certainly seen the risk from deep water drilling, there’s no question about that. Then, also these major pipelines that carry the oil and of course with the Exxon Valdez, the ships that carry the soil: They are inherently dangerous, inherently pose significant environmental risks. However, there is a great deal of technology out there that if employed properly can reduce those risks considerably. This is what’s causing me the most concern with this particular company is that by my experience investigating them, and then certainly what we are seeing in the Gulf, is that they are not taking advantage of that technology.

Dori Smith: We heard from Attorney Patti Goldman last week, of Earth Justice, that their complaint now in litigation is that BP did not provide the government, MMS, (Minerals Management Service) with an adequate plan to deal with a blow out scenario like the one that happened.

Scott West: Yeah well what your suggesting is that the regulators failed in doing their job and insuring that the operators followed the law. And I think that that’s probably an accurate assessment. I was never involved in the regulatory side of these rigs, and certainly not the Deep Water Horizon spill. We’ll have to see what comes out of that but I would not be at all surprised if we find that there was inadequate oversight, that people either chose to look the other way or simply were not qualified to even understand what was being presented to them in these documents.

Dori Smith: Just summarize the EPA, how it works and what does or does not work about it.

Scott West: That’s the big question. I worked for the EPA for just under 19 years, the entire time as a criminal investigator. It’s a large bureaucracy, it certainly has issues related to that, but I do have to admit I did find it to be quite effective, at least from my perspective in what I was doing, I was proud to work there, and I felt it was a good use of my time and talent towards protecting the environment. I did run into some concerns with the Alaska case when my own management failed to back me up and fell into lock step with the Department of Justice. I did have some concerns back shortly after 9/11 when within the criminal program it seemed to forget all about protecting the environment and wanted to jump on the bandwagon of homeland security. But a lot of those issues I understand have been resolved, or at least are being addressed significantly, so in terms of how the greater part of the agency functions, that was kind of on the other side of the door from where I was as a criminal investigator.

Dori Smith: As it turns out BP was fined [by OSHA] for their Texas operation, 87.45 million, it was the largest find in agency history, for failure to repair potential safety hazards. They also issued notifications, 270 of them, plus another 449 willful violations; there you are talking about worker safety.

Scott West: Correct.

Dori Smith: So what’s the difference essentially in terms of the enforcement capacity of either EPA or OSHA today?

Scott West: A different type of regulations, but we can look at how the EPA, the civil side of the House of Representatives have been able to address the conditions and the actual results of the oil spill in Alaska. They certainly have been trying to bring about fines and BP, which is able to afford a great number of attorneys can just simply overwhelm the federal government with its legal representation and essentially just tie it up in court for years. The EPA is still trying to get some kind of civil resolution to the oil spill of 2006 up on the slope and the BP attorneys just seem to keep overwhelming them and bullying them in meeting after meeting and its not going anywhere. So that’s of concern to me.

Dori Smith: How can an agency that’s had two instances of being put on probation..

Scott West: Three!

Dori Smith: Oh OK three. Well how can they move on to do this deep ocean drilling at this incredible depth, I think its 5,000 feet, and the Bush administration and the MMS, Minerals Management Service, they gave them permission.

Scott West: Well we’d have to ask those officials, those are the ones that grant permission for the drilling and they need to be quizzed as to with this abysmal criminal record, environmental criminal record, and worker safety record, why was not more care taken to make sure that things were being done right before they granted those permits? That’s where you will have to go for that answer.

PRESS ADVISORY FOR COMMUNITY RADIO, TV, AND PRINT:

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/MEDIA.582663.PDF Press Advisory:” This correspondence serves as a written reminder to all parties involved, in any matter whatsoever, and at any level of the response organization, that media shall, at all times, be afforded access to the response operations and shall only be asked to leave an area when their presence is in violation of an existing law or regulation, clearly violates the written site safety plan for the area or interferes with effective operations”. National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen.

SEARCH FLOW RATE TECHNICAL GROUP HERE

Greetings, we are installing a new web site. We hope this will improve your ability to find programming and listen to weekly broadcasts. Thank you for your patience while we are upgrading our services.

Dori Smith

Talk Nation Radio for June 2, 2010
BP Spill litigation, Earth Justice Attorney Patti Goldman,
Plus ADHD and other Affects from Pesticides

UPDATE 6/16: The President was very critical of MMS, Minerals Management Service, and a new leader has been appointed to head the agency. Here we see part of the nature of the problem. There was a sense of emergency to get oil resources for the US, and MMS appears to be doing PR for the general idea of how good an idea this deep water drilling was. Note the paragraph on: “Massive blowout preventers, some 45 feet high and weighing 320 tons, are installed on the ocean floor to protect the environment from the threat of an accidental deep water oil release. Remotely controlled robots operate effectively in the high pressure, cold and dark environment of the ocean bottom to construct, maintain and repair costly drilling equipment. New drill ships capable of carrying the tons of necessary pipe and other drilling equipment have been constructed to support deep water operations. These ships are specially equipped with thrusters controlled by computers and geospatial positioning systems to maintain their position and reduce tension on their riser systems”. — They were 100% bought in, and clearly part of the problem as Attorney Patti Smith said during our interview below.

UPDATE: Under pressure from EPA and Earth Justice as well as others, Nalco released the list of ingredients in their Corexit product being used in the Gulf of Mexico. NYT: Marine Biologist Rick Steiner expresses concern re safety testing on Corexit here.

Patti Goldman, Vice President for Litigation, at Earth Justice Environmental Law. (Blog here).

In this report: Corexit, BP, Oil Spill, Earth Justice, link between pesticides with organophosphates and ADHD, pesticide drift, roadside spraying, government ties between oil companies like BP, and companies that profit from manufacturing pesticides.

Produced by Dori Smith
TRT: 29:00
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org.
Music by Fritz Heede

The BP Spill, litigation, and health dangers from Pesticides

Earthjustice attorney Patti Goldman here uses her 4-foot tall son Martin to “measure” a tree in Siskiyou National Forest. The grove harboring this tree was saved by her work with Earthjustice.

Patty Goldman,Vice President of Litigation at Earth Justice Environmental Law, joins us to talk about litigation involving British Petroleum, BP. Earth Justice filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Friday, May 29, 2010, (see FOIA below) seeking the full contents of the Corexit chemical dispersant being poured into the Gulf of Mexico by BP. The manufacturer, Nalco, and BP, have not made all of the ingredients in Corexit public, but has released the information that it may contain cosmetic products and/or stain blocker chemicals in Corexit. (See this page for health risks.)

The chemical is supposed to break up the oil that has been destroyed fishing along Louisiana’s coast. Yet, some scientists worry that it may be more dangerous over the long run than the oil itself. Concerns have also been raised that the dispersant chemical has sent the oil much further into the ocean surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. Presently, the oil is moving toward the Florida coast.

BP is under criminal investigation by the US Justice Dept., and its not the first time. After a spill in Prudhoe bay in 2006 because of pipeline corrosion, and a faulty shut down valve, the company was fined put on probation for three years. A year later 15 workers died and 170 were injured in an explosion linked to safety violations at a BP facility in Texas, again BP was placed on probation. You can read more about the history at Truthout.org in a May story by Jason Leopold.

UPDATE re Jason Anderson, manager killed on Deep Water Horizon. He was worried about safety, felt pressured. “Jason Anderson talked of his concerns about BP putting rising pressure on the crew to bypass safety precautions during the seven-day shore visits he was allowed between three-week stints aboard the Deepwater Horizon, said Billy Anderson, who’s been involved in the oilfield-services equipment industry for 35 years”.

Patty Goldman has also been working on a longer standing crisis created by the massive use of pesticides throughout America. Old data showed them to be dangerous to neurological systems, a new study showed the presence of markers for organophosphates in the urine of children with ADHD.

FOIA, EARTH JUSTICE pages:

“The FOIA seeks the identities of all chemical ingredients in the dispersants eligible for use in the Gulf spill. It also seeks all health and safety studies and data and potential adverse effects reports for the chemical ingredients in the dispersants and unredacted correspondence between BP and EPA about dispersants in connection with the Gulf spill”. From Earth Justice, 28 May 2010, 12:26 PM
Terry Winckler, “What’s In Oil Spill’s Toxic Stew? We Demand An Answer
Earthjustice files action to discover what’s in chemical dispersant” at “Unearthed”.

Listeners might also wish to go to the web site for Earthbeat Radio, which has been covering the BP spill extensively. The host, Daphne Wysham is excellent.

Also Related to this program: The University of Connecticut has strong ties to Monstanto. Thus, when we learned that state residents were using the site to decide on which herbicides/pesticides to select for home and business use we contacted them. We were given detailed, lengthy, verbal instructions, on how to click many ‘tabs’ on their web page to locate safety requirements. Clearly, their disclaimer that the school does not endorse use merely because they list all of these products is not working.

UCONN’s financial ties to Monstanto are here.

web sites of interest: Clean the Gulf Now here.

Crisis at Sea, Gaza Ships attacked by Israeli Commandos
Produced by Dori Smith
Talk Nation Radio special

UPDATE 6-7-10 Video, in French, is clearly different from video provided by Israeli Military. See it here

6-4-10, recorded public opinion in Hartford, CT and will edit for the show. People were very concerned, and also angry. There was a reading of the names of those killed on board the Turkish aid ship that was part of the Gaza freedom flotilla.

Nora Barrows Friedman writes “Four days have passed since the outrageously illegal and lethal Israeli raid on the humanitarian aid flotilla, as the blood dries, the facts are boiling to the surface. And they don’t look good for Israel”. She posted a few paragraphs of a piece by Max Blumenthal from Tel Aviv:

“Statements by senior Israeli military commanders made in the Hebrew media days before the massacre revealed that the raid was planned over a week in advance by the Israeli military and was personally approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak. The elite Israeli commando unit known as Unit 13 was tasked with carrying out the mission and its role was known by the Israeli public well before the raid took place. Details of the plan show that the use of deadly force was authorized and calculated. The massacre of activists should not have been unexpected”.

“On May 28, three days before the raid, top Israeli military officials revealed details of their strategy to Maariv, Israel’s most widely circulated paper. The caption of the Maariv article reflected the military command’s plan to use force: “On the way to violence; one of the boats is on its way”. See, The Flotilla Raid was Not Bungled, Max Blumenthal.

Updating 6/3/10 (write talknationradio@gmail.com with information)
Sheikh Raed Salah was wounded on board the Turkish ship, and there was fear of an even deeper crisis had he died. He has survived his wounds and is discussing what happened.

Alternet and other publications now publishing eye witness accounts of Israeli commando attack on passengers on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, the Turkish ship: here and here as well as here.

Will Israel ‘permit’ an independent investigation? Their record on this involving both the Gaza attacks on the UN compound and killings of internationals and journalists is not good.

From Jodi Evans at Codepink, 5 Actions you Can Take here in Response to Israel’s Attacks on the Gaza Flotilla.

Interview with Dr. Stephen Zunes, U. San Francisco, expert on the Middle East here at Archive.org and at Radio4all.net or click/play here:

TRT: 29:29
Produced by Dori Smith

5:30 PM EST: We will be conducting interviews as long as people contact us to provide them, during this international emergency in the Middle East. We are preparing to upload audio of interviews with Dr. Stephen Zunes, and Frank Barat, of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.

Freedom Flotilla Attacked by Israel, troops land shooting. as of 4:49 PM Eastern Time, an update here at Truthout.org. Also note that Mosaic, LinkTV, and Democracy Now will be covering this story intensively, check their sites for video updates.

“We expected that they might try to stop us, they might try to board us. We never expected that they would shoot. What they didn’t understand is that when they came on board the Turkish ship we had live streaming video. So when they landed, and they came off the helicopter, you can see them come off the helicopter, turn around, look at each other and start to shoot. Now, this is at 4:30 in the morning this morning when everybody is asleep. There was no resistance, there was nobody there who was threatening them…” Greta Berlin, a founder of Free Gaza Flotilla.

Even Israel has backed down on earlier comments that there were weapons, according to Free Gaza’s, Greta Berlin.

They repel down to Italian vessel, at least 9 DEAD, (some reports have said 16 to 20) with many wounded.. we hear from Greta Berlin, founder of Free Gaza, as she give us breaking news on events on board the Turkish passenger ship, the Mavi Marmara, and a European vessel, both attacked, and towed by Israel. Some 700 people detained by Israel. They did not have weapons, states Berlin. And Israel has confirmed that this is the case. No weapons. Broadcast available here. This interview includes part of a longer interview with Prof. Stephen Zunes, (length: 29 min) upload asap on that.

TRT: 20:12
Download at Archive.org and Radio4all.net

Confirms, European Campaign Vessel also attacked, no word on casualties. Sheik Salah

We are trying to get whatever information we can for a Talk Nation special on events in international waters off Gaza. As many as 15 people are said to have been killed, dozens wounded, after Israeli commandos stormed an Italian vessel with the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Democracy Now has an interview here.

Obama administration concerned about Gaza “incident”.
Photo from AP, partial caption: “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, shakes hands with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, during their meeting in Jerusalem, Wednesday, May 26, 2010. President Barack Obama’s chief of staff has invited the Israeli prime minister to the White House next week”.

The US State Dept. is working on a statement now, after receiving messages in “bits and pieces” out of Tel Aviv, according to spokesperson Fred Lash. He said he was not in a position to confirm that Turkey has withdrawn its ambassador from Israel.

See: ANKARA, Turkey — “Turkey’s deputy prime minister says Turkey is withdrawing its ambassador to Israel, canceling three joint military drills and calling on the U.N. Security Council to convene in an emergency session about Israel”.

Quotes: PRIOR to the shootings

“This is nothing more than media provocation and has nothing to do with actually providing aid to residents of the Gaza Strip,” said military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovitch. “They have everything they need.”

Speaking at a Monday news conference in Tel Aviv, Ehud Barak called the aid flotilla a “political provocation” by anti-Israel forces. He said the sponsors of the flotilla are violent.

Al Jazeera video, Live Coverage here: their reporter on board Gaza Freedom Flotilla ship says Israeli commandos still shooting. White Flag Raised. As many as 16 people may be dead. 1:59pm: The Israeli army has released its first official version of today’s events, including an aerial video of the first commandos landing on the Mavi Marmara. The IDF statement says the commandos “first employed riot dispersal means, followed by live fire.”

Haaretz updates: Muslim leader Raed Salah may be among the dead. see Maan New Agency here too that he was shot on the head. Earlier reports listed him as wounded, Israeli officials saying he lived injuries sustained when Israelis opened fire.

Live image from the flotilla shows that Israeli soldiers from the helicopter and a number of speedboats boarded one of the ships at night. Activists wearing life vests were treating what appeared to be injuries for unknown reasons.– Israeli navy on Sunday night sighted the pro-Palestinian “Freedom Flotilla” bound for the Gaza Strip and ordered the convoy to dock at an Israeli harbor. — The flotilla, originally made up of nine ships from Turkey, Britain, Ireland, Greece, Kuwait and Algeria, were carrying around 10,000 tons of aid including cement, water purification systems and wheelchairs. One of the ships had not arrived and two others had been damaged.

Earlier this morning:

Al Jazeera reporter on board ship says as many as 16 people may be dead. Israeli commandos reportedly lowered themselves onto the ship and opened fire. Peace activists deny anyone attacked the Israelis.

Al Jazeera reporter notes, the white flag has been raised, a woman can be seen carrying a ‘white flag’ (it was a white cloth deck chair) that is stained with blood.

more soon, as we hope to conduct interviews.

Smith talknationradio@gmail.com

Talk Nation Radio for May 27, 2010

Jim Naureckas cites double standards for Democrats versus Republicans on military service, slips of the tongue, or worse.
He cites a case involving what Ronald Reagan said about visiting Hitler’s death camps in Europe during WWII as one example. He didn’t! Yet the press gave this story a pass. The press also tended to ‘correct’ glaring mistakes by former V.P. Dan Quayle, among many others not to mention George W. Bush.

Produced by Dori Smith
TRT: 29:00
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here if a member or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org

Jim Naureckas of the media watch group FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, joins us for a look at questions of fairness and double standards in media coverage about the military service records of Democrats versus Republicans. We discuss media coverage of Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal who is running for U.S. Senate. He has been under scrutiny for remarks he made about serving in Vietnam, he didn’t.

But in this, and other stories involving Republicans it has been a case of double standards, according to Jim Naureckas. The media seems happy to critique the military service records of Democrats during campaigns, yet tend to pass on stories about the service of Republicans. Jim Naureckas compares coverage when Democrats versus Republicans torture words and or the truth.

First a review of the Richard Blumenthal story. Throughout his career, the Connecticut Democrat has made it clear to voters and veterans that he didn’t serve in Vietnam, but served stateside. Was he trying to intentionally misrepresent his record? Even Rob Simmons, who has just withdrawn from the race against Blumenthal, didn’t think so. Simmons said he never thought Blumenthal was actually trying to get away with a lie. But the press quoted him on many occasions attacking Blumenthal for his “in Vietnam” comments.

Conventional political wisdom here had it that Simmons would benefit from Blumenthal’s misspeak on Vietnam, Simmons is after all someone who served in Vietnam. But it was Linda McMahon who garnered points for the Blumenthal story. The media became fixated on the story through the coverage of primary races and conventions. All other issues fell by the wayside, especially the matter of Richard Blumenthal’s long successful record, and Linda McMahon’s lack of one.

Democrats are now trying to bring the conversation back to Blumenthal’s record as an Attorney General, since 1990. He is well liked, and has not been shy at taking on big corporations on behalf of state voters: Big tobacco, utility companies, health care, Lyme Disease treatment, charity fraud, the list is long and it includes work on behalf of veterans.

FOX 61, now part of a state conglomerate with The Hartford Courant, nevertheless gave Republicans, Simmons and McMahon, endless opportunities to express outrage about a comment from Blumenthal shown on the New York Times web site alongside a damning story: “We have learned something very important since the days that I served in Vietnam. And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call Afghanistan or Iraq, we owe our military men and women unconditional support. And we owe it to them not only while they are away but when they come home. And that is why your effort is not only important for the physical comfort that you bring to those men and women who come home, whatever their condition, severely wounded or over in the battlefields now, but as a message to others”. The question of resources for wounded veterans fell by the wayside.

Using a family fortune earned through running the World Wrestling Federation, Linda McMahon bought daily spots on Fox 61 and other channels like NBC’s channel 30 here. Her name recognition as a media personality has gone a long way toward preparing voters to hear what she has to say. A chill fell over the story after this additional segment of the damning Norwich video was posted on both McMahon’s web site and the New York Times web site: “But I really want to add my words of thanks as someone who served in the military during the Vietnam era, in the Marine Corps”.

While press coverage is dying down a bit, this issue is sure to come up again during the election. McMahon has been seen in negative terms given that she was the one who gave the tape to the New York Times, and seemed to withhold the first part where Blumenthal said he didn’t serve in Vietnam, but during. She did pull ahead of other challengers just after the tape incident, pushing Rob Simmons out of the race, but she has not been able to dominate Blumenthal in the polls. He is up by 25% as of the latest Quinnipiac University Poll. The AG has enjoyed a 78% or higher approval rating.

This story may yet have a few new twists to be revealed. McMahon and her husband Vince McMahon who took over the World Wrestling Federation when she stepped down as CEO, have a history of federal investigations over violations of steroid laws. And Vince McMahon is more than colorful. An interview by Oakland sports reporter Joel Drucker, was peppered with Vince McMahon quotes where he used the F word liberally and seemed to disdain authority. As a teen, Vince McMahon was the first student ever courts martialed from his former military school, after he used threatening language to an official there. He went on to attend East Carolina University, during the 1960s, possibly on a student deferment of some kind.

Ultimately, McMahon will also likely face more questions about accusations that she tried to buy votes. The scandal was written off to her inexperience, but McMahon launched then withdrew a voter registration effort where University of Connecticut Republicans were offered $5 bonuses for registering new Republicans during an on-campus voter drive.

McMahon‘s fellow Republican candidate Peter Schiff called her tactic “ACORN-ish” this a reference to the non profit group that helps voters register, largely poor voters under served by their own voting systems. ACORN was ironically also accused by Republicans, but was cleared accusations of fraud and one set up involving a man posing as a pimp who tried to implicate them on tape. A court has completely cleared the organization, but the damage to them was severe. They are trying to regroup.

Jim Naureckas of Fair, says the coverage of Republican candidates has been highly different in general, and particularly in terms of war records. In Extra, the magazine published by Fair, he says the media tends to overlook the gross errors, even lies, of Republicans, like for example former President Ronald Reagan, who spoke emotionally about having visited Hitler’s death camps during WWII, but he didn’t.

Jim Naureckas writes: “It is commendable to hold misleading politicians to account. Our question is how universal this concern is at the New York Times”. We discuss the media’s campaign coverage of the two leading parties, in general.

HISTORICAL, Dori Smith: ‘How well I remember two things in my own experience at looking into media stories, and following the lead of your group FAIR, in fact, at a workshop on the media at the Hartford Public Library, April 1st, 1989. We were following the Latin America tour of the inimitable Vice President Dan Quayle, and I’ve got the story here, the New York Times headline February 4th was: ‘Quayle in San Salvador, Discusses Human Rights‘. The author of the piece, Lindsey Gruson, quoted Quayle, saying of the El Salvadorean Government: ‘We expect them to work toward the elimination of human rights, the elimination of human rights in accordance with the pursuit of justice’. He left out the word, violations, twice.

The Hartford Courant reported February 4, p A7 that, ‘Quayle said that the United States expects the Salvadoran military to work toward the elimination of human rights violations’.

Talk Nation Radio for May 20, 2010

Produced by Dori Smith
TRT: 29.00 music fades
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here if a member, or at Archive.org and Radio4all.net

‘There are countless CIA people in Afghanistan who are on the front lines, who are actually fighting’. Author H.P. Albarelli, Jr.

There have been messages in solidarity from students all over the world so I think the message is out there and its powerful and I think the government will have to listen now because now they are looking bad. General Strike May 18, 2010.

UPDATE Student media has continued to be a source for information on the general strike. An online newspaper, UPR, links to Radio Huelga, a radio station created by the students and transmitting directly from the strike. there are also videos. Now they are transmitting a demo with music!

University of Puerto Rico Administrator RESIGNS: The Chancellor of Arecibo, one of the campuses, was asked by the president of the university to resign. As a result the deans of all schools resigned in solidarity!!!

More from H.P. Albarelli on the CIA. Then reports from the University of Puerto Rico on a General Strike that has caught the imagination of students all over the world. The students are camped out at The University of Puerto Rico after an unsuccessful attempt to get the administration and governor to drop plans for a tuition hike that would likely end the educational dreams of some 60% of the student body, this, the mostly poor people in college in Puerto Rico.

H.P. Albarelli Jr., is author of the book, A Terrible Mistake, The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments. He describes what key people at the CIA have created. They were fervent anti communists, and had wealth and privilege, and saw themselves as modern day Knights Templar, above known laws.

On page 42 of ‘A Terrible Mistake’ H.P. Albarelli Jr., writes about the start up of a biological warfare project at then new Fort Detrick, (Detrick Field) in early 1942. The Roosevelt Administration ordered the DOD to ‘take whatever measures were necessary to bring the United States up to speed with Axis and Allied powers’.

‘In response, the War Department created the War Research Service (WRS), and installed George Wilhelm Merck as its director. Merck was a natural for the job, as he was already a high ranking consultant to the War Department on biological warfare. He was also head of Merck & Co., one of the oldest and largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The firm had its beginnings in the late-1600′s in Darmstadt, Germany as the E. Merck chemical factory. In 1891, George Merck, George Wilhalm’s father, left Germany to establish Merck & Co., in New York City. His son, George Wilhelm Merck, born in West Orange, New Jersey and a Harvard graduate, had assumed control of the company in 1925. The younger Merck dynamically guided the company to become the largest full-line producer and distributor of pharmaceuticals in the world. Merck & Co. has since been responsible for countless innovations in the drug industry, including many in the controversial areas of enthnogenic products and shamanic inebriants’.

‘In 1914, Merck’s German operation was the first company worldwide to synthesize and patent methylene dioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA. As readers shall see, MDMA, a semi-synthetic psychoactive drug popularly known today as Ecstasy, was tested in the early-1950′s under the codename EA-1475 at the Army’s Edgewood Arsenal’.

TRT: 29:04
Produced by Dori Smith, Storrs, CT, part 2

Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org.

Part 1: H.P. Albarelli Jr. on his book, A Terrible Mistake, the Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Cold War Experiments

Previous portions of this interview are here part 2 and here part 3

… ‘So he seeks to stop us, to claim our treasure for himself. Pure madness. Let him try, every angel can fall…. Why do you not join us brother’. The Hollywood version of, The Knights Templar, a film – at that particular moment in the film, a Knight has been stabbed in the back. Frank Olson was likewise stabbed in the back, killed in fact, after being dosed with LSD without his knowledge. He was pushed out a window, according to this groundbreaking new book by H.P. Albarelli, Jr.
(See clip of film we used by that name here.)

The creators of the CIA had a fascination with the crusades and other Knights Templar stories involving the Middle East, with stories of the Ark of the Covenant, Soloman’s Temple, and the visions of Ezekiel, important to Jewish mystics.
In Hank Albarelli’s book, A Terrible Mistake, we find that the men who created the CIA had a by any means necessary attitude about their version of national security, but they were also after corporate and political power. There was Allen Dulles, an oil industry executive, Dr. Sidney Gottleib, head of the TSS Technical Services Division that researched all means of controlling human beings, John Mulholland, an expert at sleight of hand and deception, and the former OSS officers, William Colby, Frank Wisner, and others, who saw themselves as modern day saints, saving Western civilization from the dark forces of communism.

Hank Albarelli is an investigative journalist who studied law, and worked in the Carter White House before turning to the study of financial institutions, unions, and biological and chemical warfare operations. His web site is www.albarelli.net

Rene Vargas, a law student on the negotiating committee at the University of Puerto Rico. He explained that they are worried about dramatic budget cuts and what would amount to an end to education for thousands of students. We hear a portion of a video by Alberto Bartelemi, filmed in the streets outside the campus full of people, parents, siblings, and others, handing food over the gate where police stood guard. Students had been camped out at the school since early April.

More than 60% of the student body could lose the ability to attend college altogether. During her interview at the University of Puerto Rico May 18, 2010, Rene Vargas explained that initially the school board refused their requests for meetings, then, when they were given a meeting little came of it, As the students learned more about what the school administrators plan to do, they wanted information but were shut out of the process. Now they accuse the school board and government of a lack of transparency.

The widespread support for the students in Puerto Rico stems from the way they have been treated. First, the seriousness of their requests has been downplayed. and finally, the Governor delivered a state of the union address in which he chastised students, telling them their educations were inexpensive anyway.

The General Strike involved many different levels of students, and also some government workers. The Unions have negotiated a separate agreement with medical students as they work with patients.

www.talknationradio.org
write to us at talknationradio@gmail.com

The Outer Limit of CIA Crime, LSD and Murder, H.P. Albarelli Jr on Talk Nation Radio

H.P. Albarelli, Jr., ‘A Terrible Mistake, The Murder of Frank Olson, and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments‘, 2009, Trine Day.

TRT: 29:04
Produced by Dori Smith, Storrs, CT

Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org.

Part 1: H.P. Albarelli Jr. on his book, A Terrible Mistake, the Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Cold War Experiments

We continue our discussion with H.P. Albarelli Jr., author of the ground breaking book, ‘A Terrible Mistake, the Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments’. We are discussing top-secret operations involving mind control and the use of LSD and other chemicals. There was MKULTRA, Artichoke, Bluebird, and MKNAOMI: They were criminal, and they left a trail of victims in US mental hospitals, prisons, and military bases.

Frank Olson was a top-level researcher for the Army involved in chemical warfare projects and aerosol delivery systems. On November 28, 1953, the cold war scientist went flying out of a window and fell 170 feet to his death. He had been unwittingly dosed with LSD and for decades people thought he had been affected by the hallucinogen and committed suicide. H.P. “Hank” Albarelli proved that Olson was murdered. He identifies the killers and calls for accountability. (Read first pages here.)

: (clips: O.B.I.T., a team of paranoid military leaders has deployed OBIT throughout America, and ultimately, a security breach leads to murder. O.B.I.T. is a first computer) We take a look back at a 1963 episode of the TV show, The Outer Limits, and how producers of the show examined the moral questions involved in government and military mind control experiments with “O.B.I.T.” a device introduced to US officials by an alien. It lets them to watch people, read their minds, and even kill them. What would it do to the project, and to the researchers themselves? Much like the real life CIA and Army experiments we discuss with Hank Albarelli, in the TV version, people left spouses, became alcoholics, and committed suicide.

The experiments Hank Albarelli writes about seemed like science fiction to early CIA and Army researchers. Ultimately though, their efforts would form the foundation for later technical developments.

This program is part of our series on accountability for the US and Israel, policies involving assassination, war, and misuse of the public trust. We’ll be looking at the origins of CIA projects that most Americans know nothing about, projects that helped shape the way the US Government conducts security policy and war, and deals with the worlds biggest corporations on matters involving billions, trillions, in profits and untold fortunes in US tax dollars.

In his ground breaking book published in 2009 by Trine Day, H.P. or Hank Albarelli’s provides shocking new detail about a top level researcher who was part of a CIA and Army chemical warfare project involving among other things, LSD. How he was secretly dosed with LSD just prior to falling 170 to his death. For decades people thought he committed suicide, Hank Albarelli proves that he was murdered, identifies the killers, and calls for accountability.

On November 28th 1953, Frank Olson, a top level researcher involved in US chemical warfare projects including those with LSD, was secretly given the hallucinogen. While it was in his system he fell 170 feet to his death. For years people thought he committed suicide. H.p., Hank, Albarelli’s book documented the case as a murder. His book takes us through the history of America’s premier intelligence agency, as cold warriors used their experiences garnered during WWII to conduct experiments rivaling what the Nazis did. Their argument was that this was for national security purposes. Yet, small children were secretly and repeatedly dosed with LSD. They were orphans, and they were sequestered at Harvard University for extensive research.

US soldiers, patients in mental hospitals, thousands of individuals had their lives ruined or even taken by these experiments. The US also conducted experiments in France using aerosol spray delivered LSD and poisons. It was part of a psychotic warfare effort where there were no holds barred, but it has continued.

We show the link between the lack of accountability for crimes against humanity and war crimes, and the fact that the CIA, Army and other branches, have continued to develop horrific poisons, toxins, hallucinogens, and other ‘weapons’ that are in use for both warfare and interrogation of prisoners detained in the so-called, “war on terror”.

Pakistani Journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai on Faisal Shahzad and breaking news and events in Pakistan, North Waziristan, and the USA

Talk Nation Radio for May 5, 2010

Produced by Dori Smith, Storrs, CT
Total Running Time: 28:52
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport, Archive.org and at Radio4all.net

The Week’s Sprouts, Pacifica available at Audioport here.
Produced by: Dori Smith of Talk Nation Radio
Reedited from this week’s Talk Nation interview, contains news feature
Interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai, in Peshawar, Pakistan
Left KU Channel
Thursday, May 6, 2010, 3PM EST
TRT: 29:00
Download here or go to Weekly Shows and choose sound file: “Sprouts: Times Square Bomber Faisal Shahzad
download here from full list of programs.

We speak with journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, resident editor of The News in Peshawar. He joined us May 5th, as news reports were just coming in about the Pakistani family of would be Time Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad. Rahimullah Yusufzai talks about reaction from Faisal Shahzad’s family in the Peshawar region.

Faisal Shahzad is charged with making the homemade explosive device found in the Nissan Pathfinder left running, and on fire, in Time Square. He has been charged with some five terrorism related counts.

Some residents of Peshawar expressed suspicion that a deeper intrigue may be going on. In Pakistan, Rahimullah Yusufzai offers us a portrait of a man from a liberal secular family. They are expressing confusion as they try to absorb the shock of what has happened.

Details about Faisal Shahzad have been unfolding here in Connecticut where the 30 year old naturalized citizen attended college, and worked for several companies including Affinion Group in Norwalk, a finance and marketing company that also does work on identity theft and data breach resolutions for clients. Network affiliate TV stations here have said authorities investigating the case dropped their original thought of a politicially motivating right wing attack, focusing instead now on the international travels of Faisal Shahzad who acknowledged to authorities that he had visited Waziristan.

There have also been some people arrested in Pakistan in connection with the attempted bombing including Sheikh Mohammed Rehan, who has been said to have ties with a group called, Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Faisal Shahzad’s parents attended his graduation in 2001 from Southeastern University in Washington DC, after which he tranferred to the University of Bridgeport to study computer science and engineering.

Bio: Based in Peshawar, Rahimullah Yusufzai is the world’s leading authority on the politics of the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier. As the world’s attention has increasingly shifted upon the region, amid all the hyperbole Yusufzai’s voice has once again emerged as an indispensable corrective to the ignorance and propaganda that confuses debate. His reputation for fairness and accuracy is such that voices on all sides of the political spectrum defer to his authority. Yusufzai is the the Executive Editor of the Pakistani daily The News‘s Peshawar bureau. For all serious journalists and scholars seeking informed opinion on developments in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theatre, Yusufzai’s Peshawar office is usually the first stop.

Talk Nation Radio for April 28, 2010
H.P. Albarelli Jr. on his book, A Terrible Mistake, the Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Cold War Experiments

Special series on accountability for the US and Israel: the intelligence world.

H.P. Albarelli Jr. joins us to talk about his 2009 book, A Terrible Mistake, the Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Cold War Experiments. You can read the first chapter here.

Produced by Dori Smith
TRT: 29:04
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org

H.P. Albarelli shares his story of a ten year long investigation culminating in a book that proves that Olson was murdered, and at the same time takes us on a journey through the many crimes, cover ups, and attempts at accountability, that is America’s secret intelligence legacy.

The CIA, Central Intelligence Agency, grew out of the intelligence office that fought against the Nazis during the Second World War. Secretly, toward the end of that war, the OSS and then CIA began to work with some of the world’s most unsavory people, including Nazis, helping thousands of Nazi leaders escape prosecution, and even incorporating the kind of military experimentation that the Nazis might have used into secret US operations.

There is a long history of complete impunity for the CIA for crimes including murder and secretly dosing US Military Personnel, patients in mental hospitals, even children under age ten, with LSD. We consider how a lack of prosecution for the early crimes of the CIA helped lead the Bush/Cheney administration down a similar path as they institutionalized policies like torture and rendition and authorized the CIA to work domestically in the United States.

“Between five and six hundred people basically, as a result of the experiment, went stark raving mad for a day and four committed suicide”. H.P. Albarelli

H.P. Albarelli Jr. or “Hank” is an investigative reporter and writer for over 20 years. He had been doing articles on biological warfare and intelligence when he stumbled across documents about a case dating back to CIA and Army projects of the 1950s known as MKULTRA, Artichoke and Bluebird. He had found reason to believe the notorious case involving the suicide of former Army Special Operations Division official, Frank Olson, should have been investigated as a murder. That becomes important as we realize that the CIA had entered into a dark age of assassination during the years of Olson’s death, one that has been covered up carefully, but has nevertheless been impacting US foreign and domestic policy over decades.

Documents published in, ‘A Terrible Mistake’ show that former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were also linked to the cover up of these early CIA crimes. See documents and photos here but you should be warned that some photos are graphic and upsetting.

Next time we’ll hear more on the CIA’s secret operations, CIA contractors and the impact of Artichoke and Bluebird on America’s past, present and future.

Biography: H.P. Albarelli Jr. is a writer and investigative reporter who lives in the Tampa Bay area of Florida . He has written numerous feature articles about the 9/11 anthrax attacks; the history of biological warfare; the mysterious death of Dr. Frank Olson; the Cuban revolution; and social and political affairs. Some of these articles can be found on the World Net Daily, Pravda, Cubanet, Counterpunch, and Crime Magazine websites.

Albarelli has also written feature articles for Tampa ‘s alternative newspaper, The Weekly Planet . His work has been acknowledged and cited in American History magazine, and in books by many distinguished authors, including: The Biology of Doom by Ed Regis (Henry Holt and Co., 2001); Alston Chase’s classic, Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist (W.W. Norton, 2003); and The Eighty Greatest Conspiracies of All Time by Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen (Citadel Press, 2004). An accomplished scriptwriter and playwright, Albarelli’s LIFE GOES ON , written with his brother, Dean Albarelli, was published by Witness, a literary journal; in 1995 he produced and directed a regional production of Academy Award winner’s Steve Tesich’s play, On the Open Road . (Brilliantly scored by composer Sam Geppi.)

Albarelli’s six-year investigation into the controversial death of Army biochemist Dr. Frank Olson was the focal point of an hour long television documentary, Mind Control Murder , produced by London’s award-winning Principal Films (David Presswell, director) for A&E’s Investigative Reports, and by independent film producer, Scott Calonico, for the short film LSD a Go-Go shown at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Albarelli is a graduate of Antioch Law School and has traveled extensively throughout Europe, South Africa , and Asia. He is a noted expert on the history of the CIA’s behavior modification and assassination programs of the 1950s.

See articles: Truthout.org The Real Roots of the CIA’s Rendition and Black Sites Program, Wednesday 17 February 2010

Counterpunch, March 13, 2002, Anthrax Investigation Provokes Charges of Cover-Up, By H.P. Albarelli Jr.

Talk Nation Radio for April 21, 2010

Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, provide their expert news analysis on Afghanistan and Pakistan. The threat to these journalists from War Lord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s U.S. representative.

And in Pakistan, journalist Muhammad Khurshid describes threats to civilians, journalists, political figures, and others, as a month of April terror continues to unfold in Pakistan. Journalists are being threatened by various forces including government ones, he says, and he blames the US, and US dollars to corrupt actors in the region and leaders is adding fuel to the fires of war.

Produced by Dori Smith
TRT: 29:08
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here if a member, or free at Radio4all.net and Archive.org.

The well known writing team of Gould and Fitzgerald are the co-authors of the book, Invisible History, Afghanistan’s Untold Story, are working on a new book. According to Paul Fitzgerald Fitzgerald the name has special meaning: “Crossing Zero, that’s the term used by the US defense establishment for the line between Pakistan and Afghanistan”.

Pre-Order, “Crossing Zero: The AfPak War at the Turning Point of American Empire” (City Lights Open Media) here. See biographical material on the authors here.

Articles by Gould and Fitzgerald:
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Messiah of Darkness, Huffington Post, April 5, 2010: “It’s not everyday that an American citizen living in the USA gets an email from the representative of a legendary terrorist warning that they may face legal action for writing well documented criticisms of his boss. But on January 25, 2010 Mr. Daoud M. Abedi of the Hesb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) emailed us on behalf of Afghanistan’s longest running warlord, drug trafficker and terrorist, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar”.

“Abedi was reacting to our blog, In Afghanistan: Embracing Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Is No Method at All, posted that day. We had addressed the insane possibility that terrorist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar might be considered as a “sane” solution for the mess the U.S. has gotten itself into in Afghanistan. Since Hekmatyar was listed on February 18, 2003 by the United States State Department and the United States Treasury as a global terrorist under Executive Order 13224 (which freezes his assets and criminalizes any U.S. support for him) and has been the object of a Predator drone strike, and recently claimed credit for a deadly attack on French NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan, we thought that a terrorist maintaining a high public profile in the U.S. would be a disadvantage. So it came as a surprise that Hekmatyar and his political party Hesb-i-Islami are not only out in the open in the United States, but are issuing threats (just the way they do in Afghanistan) to anyone who tries to get the word out about their past”.

October 8, 2009, The Gathering Storm: Dark Omens for the US in Afghanistan here

Book Review by Anthony Fenton, Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story by Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, From: The Reality of Life in Afghanistan, RAWA. (here) “As Gould stated in an interview with Asia Times Online, Charlie Wilson’s War “is a complete flip flop of the reality”.

“As such, one of the concerns that Gould and Fitzgerald are seeking to address is the problem that “there are still people in administration positions, in journalistic positions, in academic positions who still believe the fundamentals of Charlie Wilson’s War”. As Fitzgerald added, “every line cook and bottle washer in and around Washington is now an expert on Afghanistan”, reflecting a popular discourse that is “far detached from reality”.

A Talk Nation Radio news update with Dori Smith, April 20, 2010

TRT:10:27
Download at Radio4all.net Archive.org

A Week of April Terror in Peshawar, Pakistan, leaves civilians scrambling for safety. An influx of US dollars has been feeding corruption at the top levels of government in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Civilian populations are caught between rival factions. We interviewed Muhammad Khurshid, a resident of the Bajaur Agency area, at the Pak/Afghan border.

During a week of April terror in Peshawar Pakistan. The death toll has risen to over a hundred with hundreds seriously wounded. The terror attacks carried out in busy market places or bazaars including the Storyteller’s Bazaar, and the Board Bazaar region where a five year old was among the dead in a blast near a police school.

On Tuesday the 20th, a blast tore through a crowd protesting frequent power cuts in Pakistan killing dozens. The protest said to have been organized by an extreme right wing religious group called, Jamaat-e-Islamiya. Several police and political officials are among the dead.

We spoke with journalist Muhammad Khurshid just hours after one of the blasts. He described a situation of chaos in which people view both the Pakistan and Afghan governments as collapsing, and find themselves trapped between rival militant groups and war lords. He blames the crisis overall on an influx of US dollars.

We will be discussing these developments with Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald on this week’s Talk Nation Radio. You can read reports from Muhammad Khurshid at OPED news and other outlets and he has plans to write a book about the collapse of Pakistan’s government system and regional violence.

Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald are authors of Invisible History, Afghanistan’s Untold Story, see book at City Lights. In this week’s Talk Nation Radio half hour we discuss their soon to be published book, Crossing Zero, “the line between Pakistan and Afghanistan is known by the defense establishment and the intelligence community as zero line,” (Paul Fitzgerald, 4/19/10 interview).

Week of April Terror in 1979, Pakistan’s Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was assassinated.

From Invisible History: “For twenty years, Brzezinski and the CIA maintained the cover story that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a naked act of aggression while arming the so-called mujahideen rebels was simply an act of self-defense. In the 1998 interview with a French news magazine Le Nouvelle Observateur, Brzezinski changed that story, admitting for the first time that the program had begun fully six months before as part of a plan to “draw the Russians into the Afghan trap.” 25 Whether Brzezinski’s single act of arming the rebels was the deciding factor in pushing the Soviets to invade six months later is irrelevant at this late date. In hindsight it is easy to see how his manipulations triggered the last phase of an elaborate scheme already set in motion by Nixon, Kissinger, and an axis of interests working to lure the Soviets into a confrontation wherever they were certain to lose. Setting the tone for the horror that was about to begin, on April 4 Pakistan’s leader General Zia-ul-Haq executed deposed president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. 26 That spring President Carter was provoked to cut all aid to Pakistan’s military by the revelation of Zia’s efforts to develop an atomic bomb.” (From, PART II: AFGHANISTAN FROM THE 1970s TO 2001, Invisible History, Afghanistan’s Untold Story.)

Talk Nation Radio for April 15, 2010
Francis A. Boyle, Nanjundiah Sadanand, Accountability for US and Israeli Leaders: A complaint to ICC on Bush et al and it’s US Politics as usual re Israel and Palestine

TRT:29:16
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here or go to Radio4all.net and Archive.org

Politics before Peace

We continue our special series on accountability for the US and Israel with International law expert Francis A. Boyle, author of Breaking all the rules, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, and the Case for Impeachment, and many other books. We discuss Attorney Boyle’s complaint to the ICC, International Criminal Court, filed against former President George W. Bush, and members of his Cabinet, ex-Vice President Cheney, ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonazles, and former CIA Director George Tenet. (ACLU, Rendition, the Movie here)

The complaint was submitted directly to The Honorable Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor for the ICC. You can read the cover letter and learn more here at Bushtothehague.org.

Professor Nanjundiah Sadanand, of the Physics and Earth Science Department at Central Connecticut State University talks about the way Connecticut Democrats Joe Courtney (2nd District) and Chris Murphy (5th District) have explained their yes vote on H. Res. 867, Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.

Professor Sadanand coordinates a wide ranging human rights and political lecture series at CCSU. See. Professor Sadanand here, here.

Palestinians get little if any coverage in the corporate US press, and their leaders are increasingly divided over gaining support from the West in exchange for concessions on land, the right of return, and allowing Israel to illegally acquire Jerusalem. with billions of US dollars going to Israel annually, it’s easy to see why Palestinians feel slighted by the world.

Israel is the new Silicon Valley, gaining acquiring defense contracts for high tech weapons, surveillance technology and drone guidance systems. Peace activists like Dr. Sadanand have also challenged Connecticut Democrat, Joe Courtney, on his yes vote on H. Res. 867, and he too said the official UN investigation and report by Judge Goldstone was not helpful. Joe Courtney has relied on the progressive Democratic vote, but is clearly under pressure over job loss in Connecticut. His previous campaigns have disintegrated into debates about building more nuclear submarines in Groton, CT. On April 7th his trade mission to Israel came under scrutiny by peace activists.

Democrat Joe Courtney in Connecticut’s second district also voted yes on the resolution against the Goldstone report. He too explained to peace activists that the report was not helpful. (Information about the Goldstone Report here.)

Courtney said defense industry giant UTC would be participating in the trip, this as UTC and Lockeed Martin are working to finalize plans to send 25 advanced F-35 warplanes to Israel at a cost of 80 million a piece. The US has already finalized plans to send three new Hercules C-130J aircraft to Israel at a cost of $70 million per plane. It’s difficult to see how this deal with help the US economy though. The planes are to be paid for with U.S. Foreign Assistance Funds. London’s Rolls Royce builds the C-130s, with some manufacturing done in Indiana.

January 2010, Germany sells Israel more Dolphin Subs
“In 2006, the deal was finalized at a total of $1.27 billion, with the German government picking up 1/3 of the cost.”

U.S. Can’t Afford Military Aid to Israel, Josh Ruebner “Data published recently by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation shows that U.S. military aid to Israel comes at a financial and moral price that this country cannot afford to pay. Its website reveals that this same $3 billion earmark for Israel could be used instead to provide more than 364,000 low-income households with affordable housing vouchers, or to retrain 498,000 workers for green jobs, or to provide early reading programs to 887,000 at-risk students, or to provide access to primary health care services for more than 24 million uninsured Americans.

If U.S. weapons were going to Israel for a good purpose, then perhaps a coherent guns versus butter debate would be appropriate. However, Israel repeatedly misuses U.S. weapons to commit grave human rights abuses against Palestinians who are forced to live under its illegal 42-year military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.”

Global Security, Military Industry, Israel, There are approximately 150 defense firms in Israel, with combined revenues of an estimated $3.5 billion. The three largest entities are the government-owned IAI, IMI and the Rafael Arms Development Authority, all of which produce a wide range of conventional arms and advanced defense electronics. The medium-sized privately owned companies include Elbit Systems and the Tadiran Group, which focus mainly on defense electronics. The smaller firms produce a narrower range of products. In all, the industry employs close to 50,000 people, all of whom share a commitment to high levels of research and development and the ability to make use of the IDF’s combat experience.

Israeli page, Israeli Defense Industry, “born of necessity”.

Connecticut lawmakers plead with UTC not to send CT jobs overseas.

Workers fight plant closures at UTC, CBS

Courant: Judge orders UTC not to send CT jobs overseas.

Connecticut offers UTC $100M of incentives to keep Pratt & Whitney jobs, y Maria Welych
September 03, 2009, 6:36PM

“HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell offered $100 million worth of incentives Thursday to jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney to prevent the possible loss of about 1,000 jobs.

The five-year plan includes lifting a cap on tax credits for parent corporation United Technologies Corp., providing training assistance, and establishing a job retention tax credit. It also includes investments in machinery and equipment and the building of an Engineering Center for Excellence for engineers at Pratt & Whitney and other aerospace companies.”

Israeli Arms Industry Produces Giant UAV, Israel’s arms industry produces giant UAV, by Staff Writers Tel Aviv, Israel (UPI) Feb 22, 2009

Talk Nation Radio Special for April 7, 2010
Frank Barat, Russell Tribunal on Palestine, Accountability Special: Israel, the EU, the USA, War Crimes Violations in Palestine

TRT: 29:29
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here if you are a member or at Archive.org and Radio4all.net.

This is the first of our series on accountability, global efforts to prevent war crimes and repressive policies in a decade of war and occupation in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. Stephane Hessel welcomed Russell Tribunal on Palestine members to session. Stephane Hessell fought with the French Army and the Resistance during World War II. He was imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, and after the war he served as a French and UN diplomat. In 2006 he was named a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor: “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine seeks to Reaffirm the Primacy of International Law as the basis for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which has been ongoing for many years. The occupation of their land is the main obstacle to to the recognition of the legal rights of the Palestian people and consequently to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

Ken Coates was an organizer and co chair of the first Russell Tribunal, on Vietnam. He is a British politician, anti nuclear activist and writer as well as the chair of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. Here he described the impact of that first tribunal. According to Coates, Bertrand Russell had pointed out that while they lacked force majeure, legal standing to enforce their findings on war crimes in Vietnam, they nevertheless had an advantage. They were completely free to document violations of international law and convey them to the people of the world, educating, and stimulating work toward accountability. In the same way, The Russell Tribunal on Palestine has released its findings to the world, they are open source and available online in video and text here in French andhere in English.

This Week’s Clips: Justice Richard Goldstone, Yale University, New Haven, CT, February 2, 2010, Ken Coates, Russell Tribunal,Stephane Hessell, Russell Tribunal, Prof. Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, Palestinian and international protesters stand on one side of razor wire, Israeli soldiers/police on the other. The protesters are peaceful, yet as the protest winds down and people begin moving off they shoot concussion grenades which make an enormous sound. Professor’s car windshield smashed.

The March 2010 Russell Tribunal on Palestine is also intended to reinforce other efforts, both official and non official, toward holding Israel (and its partners) to the same standards of International law that other countries must adhere to. Israel has demanded that the laws be changed to accommodate them, according to the UN’s investigation team leader on Gaza, Judge Richard Goldstone. At a speech at Yale University, February 2, 2010, he said Israel is trying to have laws on proportionality changed, these have to do with the rationale for attacks that kill civilians. Justice Richard Goldstone is former Chief Prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and later inquiry into Kosovo.

The Israeli rights group B’Tselem documented 3 Israeli civilians killed by Qassem rockets during the Gaza war, six members of the security forces, and four soldiers who were killed by Israeli friendly fire. They found 1,387 Palestinian deaths, the majority of them, 773, non combatants, but 248 were police men who were also not engaging in hostilities. They said 36 were unknown. The Palestinian Human Rights organization said 1,434 Palestinians died, 1199 of them civilians, with 235 of them combatants. Between 5,000 and 5500 Palestinians were wounded. Their report in PDF format here

According to Frank Barat, coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, the tribunal’s work moves on from Barcelona to London where they are taking up the question of corporate accountability, corporations in the USA and EU that supply weapons to Israel. We will provide an update on that portion of the tribunal’s efforts in upcoming programs. We will provide their written findings on our web site shortly.

Background/Update Accountability
The Israel–Palestinian Conflict:

Various rights groups report over 1,400 Palestinians were killed in Operation Cast Lead, the majority of them civilians, 5300 were wounded. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reported 3 Israeli civilians killed by Qassem rockets during the Gaza war. Six members of the security forces, and four soldiers who were killed by Israeli friendly fire.

For decades, MidEast peace talks have taken a back seat as rhetoric about ‘security’ has dominated world reporting on Israel and Palestine. As a result of the emphasis on security, Israel has not been held accountable for illegal settlement construction in the West Bank and lately East Jerusalem.

After the Gaza war, US peace activists increased efforts to get Washington and the new Obama administration to make US aid, especially military aid to Israel, contingent on ending the blockade of Gaza.

March 2010 presented an ideal opportunity. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had embarrassed the visiting Vice President, Joe Biden, a staunch supporter of Israel, by announcing 1,600 new settlements would be constructed in Arab, East Jerusalem. The old city, Jerusalem, was to be shared in a corpus separatum by Jews and Palestinians under the original partition orders 181 that created the State of Israel.

President Obama did say the US is officially opposed to the settlements, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarked on daylight between the US and Israel on them, but there was not much agreement in general behind the scenes according to journalist Laura Rozen, writing for Politico. She said a source told her there really was no crisis and media reports on that had been wrong. She also learned, Dan Sharpiro, the National Security Council’s Middle East, Senior Director, said cutting US aid was not even on the table.

Haaretz Exclusive: ‘Despite row, U.S. and Israel sign massive arms deal‘, By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent, March 25, 2010. ‘As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week absorbing the full wrath of the Obama administration, the Pentagon and Israel’s defense establishment were in the process of sealing a large arms deal’.

‘According to the deal, Israel will purchase three new Hercules C-130J airplanes. The deal for the three planes designed by Lockheed Martin, is worth roughly a quarter billion dollars. Each aircraft costs $70 million’.

(Smith cont) When a ‘sale’ to Israel is really a gift from American Taxpayers to Israel:

Even as media reports suggested tensions between the US and Israel, the Pentagon and Israel’s defense establishment were finalizing major weapons deals. Contracts may have been signed when Netanyahu was in Washington in March, ostensibly to present his argument for continuing with 1,600 illegal settlements in occupied Jerusalem.

The conversation likely turned to the delivery to Israel of three new Hercules C-130J aircraft. The price tag for each plane is $70 million, but the money won’t necessarily help the US economy. The planes are to be paid for with U.S. Foreign Assistance Funds. London’s Rolls Royce builds the C-130s, with some manufacturing done in Indiana.

Also pending is a 2009 request from Israel for 25 F-35 warplanes, at $80 million a piece. They could be delivered by 2015 if not sooner, and are advanced F-25 fighter jets. Lockheed Martin makes them under joint contract with UTC, United Technologies, of Connecticut.

The contracts have energized Connecticut’s defense industry, where UTC has been embroiled in labor union and worker disputes over lay offs and plant closings. UTC has been criticized for moving more and more of its production abroad.

In an April meeting with peace activists worried about the Israeli occupation of Palestine and new settlements, Congressman Joe Courtney, a 2nd District Democrat, said he realized that the trips former 2nd District Congressman (D-2nd dist) Sam Gejdenson made to Israel, had split the Democratic vote, contributing to a 2006 loss to Republican Rob Simmons. (See article in The Jewish Ledger for interesting background.)

Rep. Courtney defended his 2010 trip saying it would be funded by the US State Department, not taxpayers. He explained that UTC, has offices in Israel in addition to China. The trip will also involve efforts to help the Connecticut Casino industry set up tourism to Connecticut casinos, he said.

One by one peace activists urged him not to go and pointed out that the trip sends the wrong signal to Israel at a time when there has been no accountability for the Gaza War, or illegal settlement construction. Courtney disappointed activists in the state when he voted in support of H. Res. 867, ‘Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the “Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” in multilateral fora’. (See Justice Goldstone’s response to the resolution here and Congressman Baird speaks out in defense of resolution here. Baird on HR 867: ‘This is about whether it is right to restrict the movements and hopes of more than 1 million people every single day’ By Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, November 3, 2000)

(Full Disclosure, I was at the meeting in Storrs, CT with Rep. Joe Courtney, and offered my opinion against his trip to Israel. My views are based on reporting about the MidEast that I’ve done in Connecticut since 1991. The Congressman graciously agreed to accept two texts I offered to give him, the first is by Palestinian legislator Dr. Hannan Ashrawi, This Side of Peace: A Personal Account (Paperback) and the second is by Prof. Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, Sharing the Land of Caanan, 2004, Pluto Press. Those books will hopefully be received by Congressman Courtney in the next week.

Finally, having watched the violence conducted against Israel over the years since my father worked on this issue, when I was in High School during the 1970s, I can’t help but share a sense of despair about the fact that members of U.S. Congress would take a vote on a UN investigation into possible war crimes of Israeli and Hamas leaders in Gaza. The fact that members of Congress took it upon themselves to vote on a good faith United Nations investigation conducted under the leadership of the distinguished, Justice Richard Goldstone, reflects a lack of understanding about the importance of international legal constraints designed to protect civilians in war zones.

The Obama administration’s failure overall to pressure Israel to come to the table for talks is of even more concern. The President, Vice President, and Secretary of State, said the US is against Israeli plans for 1,600 more settlements in East Jerusalem. America’s failure to push Israel on the settlements, thereby encouraging peace talks, is a grim reminder of the reasons this crisis has gone on so long.

Hanan Ashrawi, page 118, This Side of Peace,” after Israeli government officials say she and her fellow Palestinian representative, Faisal, are not to be part of official negotiations because, “the Israeli delegation must not be subjected to Palestinians carrying Jerusalem identity cards.”

James Baker: “We will continue to meet with you. Everybody will know who is leading and directing the negotiations, but the Israelis cannot be forced to meet with people they find unacceptable.”

Hanan Ashrwwi: “We’re kosher enough for you but not for the Israelis? We have to take all the risks and undertake all the responsibility, and then self-negate?”

James Baker: “You will officially be invited to the White House to meet with President Bush”.

Hanan Ashrawi: “We don’t want consolation prizes, and we’re not interested in ego gratification. The real issue is the status of Jerusalem. According to international law and your own policies Jerusalem is occupied territory. What you’re asking us to do is illegal.”

James Baker: “It’s only temporary. Right now, you may have a Palestinian residing in Jordan from a prominent Jerusalem family on the Jordanian part of the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation in order to finesse the issue of Jerusalem. The Letter of assurance will state that clearly and we will reiterate our policy on Jerusalem.”

Hanan Ashrawi: “The convolution is quite tortuous and unsatisfactory. The Baker suit is a worse fit than we thought. But in effect, you’re willing to distort the law and your policy to appease Shamir. Even West Jerusalem by law is not Israeli; according to U.N. Resolution 181 of 1947, all of Jerusalem is a corpus separatum.”
Baker hit the ceiling.

James Baker: “You’re pulling out a forty-five-year-old resolution now and telling me it’s valid?”

Hanan Ashrawi: “Of course. That resolution created the state of Israel. All countries, including the United States, abide by its provision on Jerusalem. Why else do you think no single state has moved its embassy even to West Jerusalem, but kept them in Tel Aviv?” –Baker turned to Dennis Ross for verification. “Is that true?” –Dennis hemmed and hawed but had to admit the truth.

Hanan Ashrawi: “We also think that what you’re asking us to do is illegal. According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, a people under occupation cannot be made to sign an agreement with their occupier that would prejudice their rights and land. The PLO is the only legal body empowered to negotiate, and to sign, and Israel–as belligerent occupant–is obliged to talk to them and not to us.”
Baker desperately tried to control his temper, but we could almost see wisps of smoke begin to rise. “After seven months you’ve decided that the whole thing is illegal! The PLO is out for now. We have suspended our dialogue with them and Israel won’t talk to them. You’re all we have and you may not even mention the PLO in any way, shape, or form. Are you in or out?”

Hanan Ashrawi: “We can’t tell you now. We have to get the decision from the PLO. What about the flag? If there are any flags, we should have ours as well.” I could almost sympathize with Baker’s frustration and exasperation.

James Baker: “No, no, no. No PLO, no flags whatsoever!”

Hanan Ashrawi: “Do we get to chose the Israeli delegation, since they’re choosing ours by categories of acceptable and unacceptable Palestinians? To us a settler is an unacceptable Israeli who’s living on land stolen from us. Any Israeli who has been involved in the torture or killing of any Palestinian is also unacceptable.”

James Baker: “You cannot do that. There are no preconditions. Shamir has told us that his delegation will walk out if there are any PLO members or Jerusalemites on your side. You may walk out if there are Israelis you don’t want to sit with, but you’ll have to bear the consequences. We can’t afford to have them walk out, and you can’t afford to walk out.”

And so the “peace talks” have gone interminably over years of frustration, death, and occupation. Israel is clearly in the top position, and throughout her book Ashrawi shows how they manipulated events surrounding the talks so that there could be no advantage for Palestinians or a fair agreement. Let me suggest that any member of Congress who voted against allowing the UN to investigate both sides in the Gaza War for war crimes, read books like that of Hanan Ashrawi and also Mazin B. Qumsiyeh. You can read his book in full here, and again I’d challenge members of Congress to read it in full. When Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before AIPAC, in March, he claimed a ring found by the Western Wall and loaned to him by an Israeli ministry was evidence that Jews had been building Jerusalem for 3,000 years. He said the ring had the name “Netanyahu” on it, and that it also had the name of other Israeli leaders. What was he driving at? He’s mentioned this ring, and other antiquities before, as have other Israelis arguing in favor of expanding Israel, expelling Palestinians from Jerusalem, and taking firm control of holy sites the UN General Assembly designated to be shared by people of all faiths. Israelis are digging under the Al Aqsa Mosque right now, hoping to find some piece of “evidence” to be used in the argument that the mosque site should be controlled permanently and legally by Israel.

Their arguments and plans depend heavily on ignoring centuries of scholarly research about the Holy Land, and especially Jerusalem. Hopefully, the White House and members of Congress will take Netanyahu’s statement about his “ring” as their cue to research the history of all of the various peoples that have inhabited this hauntingly beautiful yet troubled land. It is well worth learning about and could help prevent further war.

Mazin B. Qumsiyeh: (Chapter 2, Sharing the Land of Canaan)

Chapter 2. People and the Land
Sharing the Land of Canaan

“The land of Canaan was never “a land without a people for a people without a land” as was articulated by some early Zionists. To understand the conflict and thus begin to articulate a solution we must begin by understanding these people and their origins. The understanding of people also helps us understand their inter-connectedness, that is intentionally or unintentionally hidden which keeps us segregated and thinking tribally. The evolution of these civilizations and their relationships to each other and to outside forces reveal that many perceptions and views of this history currently expressed for political purposes simply have no basis in fact. Understanding the history of the people and the land of Canaan is key to shaping a future of peace for all its current and displaced inhabitants. For example, a simple examination of history shows that Canaanitic groups developed the first alphabet and evolved related language from the original Western Semitic language of Old Aramaic and Syriac to the new and thriving languages of Arabic and Hebrew. This organic connection is easily forgotten and many times dismissed by those who have a stake in maintaining that there is a clash of Arabic and Hebrew cultures and civilizations”.

Palestinian History:

Palestinians are the endogenous people of the Southern Land of Canaan and the Western Part of the Fertile Crescent, the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan. Key milestones in human civilization occurred in this Land of Canaan: animal and plant domestication, development of the alphabet, and development of laws and religions.

Key historical periods:

5000-1500 BC: Canaanites develop agricultural communities and city-states from cave dwellers hunters and gatherers. Phoenician Canaanites develop commerce and shipping around the Mediterranean.

1500 BC-500 BC: Palestine is an amalgam of small kingdoms and tribal ruling groups representing multi-religious communities of Canaanites (Jebusites, Amurites, Nebateans, Hebrews, Phoenicians, Philistines). Predominant languages are Aramaic (most dominant, Arabic and Hebrew
scripts evolving from Aramaic in Palestine) and Phoenician.

500 BC-765 AD: Palestine remains an amalgam of small tribes and religions but now ruled by empires (Assyrian, Persian, Egyptian, Byzantine, Roman). Christianity develops under the Roman Empire in Palestine and becomes the predominant religion among the natives by 300 AD (some Jews and others
remain).

765 AD-1919 AD: Natives largely convert to Islam but large segments of the population (some 15-20%) remain Christians and native Jews represent 2-3%. All speak and adopt the dominant Arabic language (itself evolved from Aramaic).

1516: Palestine becomes a province of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

1845: British Empire and some sympathetic Jews embark on a program for Ashkenazi (European) Jewish colonization in Palestine, with the aim of establishing a Jewish state/homeland (political ideology called Zionism). First Zionist settlement established 1880. First Zionist Congress in Switzerland held 1897.

1916: British and French secretly agree to divide the Arab world while publicly claiming support for independence and self-determination.

1917: French and British Empires issue proclamations in support of Zionism (Jules/Balfour Declarations).

1919: After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI, Britain occupies Palestine and lobbies for a “Mandate” from the League of Nations to rule Palestine and implement Zionist program (contrary to the League’s charter which supported self-determination). 1920s and early 1930s: Palestine under rule of Zionist British commissioner Herbert Samuel arms underground Zionist forces buttressed by British troops. Non-violent Palestinian resistance IS suppressed by lethal force. “Inter-religious” violence is also initiated, claiming the lives of innocents of all religions.

1936-1939: Palestinian uprising against British rule and Zionist Colonization is crushed violently. Most leaders of the liberation movement are killed or deposed.

1947: In 1919 population is 94% Muslim and Christian, 6% Jewish. By 1947 it is 68% Muslim and Christian and 32% Jewish. Native Jews are opposed to Zionism. UN Partition Resolution 181 pushed for by the US is adopted recommending partition. Natives of all religions reject UNGA 181 because it
violates UN Charter’s fundamental premise of self-determination of peoples and because of the inherent unfairness of giving sovereignty and rule to Zionists over 55% of the land when Jews represent only 32% of the population and own less than 7% of the land (most were new immigrants).

1947-1949: UNGA 181 is a recommendation that was never implemented. Zionist forces, well equipped by the British begin a process of removing non-Jews in November 1947. Half the Palestinian refugees were ethnically cleansed before May 1948 when Britain withdrew its forces and Israel declared its independence. Between Winter 1947 and Summer 1949, over 530 Palestinian towns and villages are completely destroyed and their residents fled and/or expelled (70% of the native Palestinian Christian and Muslims become refugees). To Palestinians, this is Al-Nakba-” the catastrophe” of loss of their homes and lands. Aida Refugee Camp near Bethlehem is one of dozens of refugee camps in the Middle East where these villagers end up.

1948: December 11, UN passes Resolution 194 reaffirming international law — including Universal Declaration of Human Rights — that Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to their homes and lands and be compensated for losses.

1949: May 11, Israel admitted to UN?its second application–after agreeing to relevant UN resolutions (including 181 and 194).

1967: “Six Day War”: Israeli forces (IDF) attack and occupy parts of Palestine they did not occupy before (West Bank including East Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Gaza, 22% of Palestine). They also occupy the Syrian Golan Heights and Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. The international community unanimously regards these occupations AS illegal and demands an Israeli withdrawal (e.g. UN Security Council resolution 242). Contrary to International Law (Geneva Conventions), Israel instead embarks on a new phase of colonial
settlement activity including near Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem.

1987-1993: Large scale non-violent uprising–intifada–suppressed brutally by the Israeli occupation army.

1991-2000: Oslo Process initiated, facilitates further violation of Geneva Conventions and institutionalization of Israeli control over Palestinians (“bantustanization” of Palestinian population centers via closures, checkpoints, Jewish-only bypass roads, de-development of Palestinian economy)

2000-2005: “Al-Aqsa” intifada begins; Israeli army respond brutally. Thus far, nearly 4000 Palestinians (800 Children) and nearly 1000 Israelis (nearly 100 Children) have been killed. Every human rights organization reporting on this has condemned Israeli army and settlers for wide scale targeting of Palestinian civilians and other human rights abuses (also condemned suicide bombings by some Palestinian groups).

2004: The International Court of Justice rules that Israeli settlements/colonies in the occupied areas (including Jerusalem) are illegal and that the Wall Israel is building on Palestinian land is also illegal. This decision is supported by over 160 countries.

Today: 9 million Palestinians worldwide, nearly 2/3rd of whom are refugees and displaced persons. Meanwhile the US government sends $3-5 billion of our taxes every year to Israel. The US also vetoed 35 UN Security Council resolutions that attempted to bring peace based on International Law and Human Rights. The “Road Map” advocated by the US is 2218 words but lacks these four words: International Law, Human Rights.

For More Information: Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle by Mazin B. Qumsiyeh (Pluto: 2004)

NOTES:

Federal Contracts/Spending to Connecticut under Sam Gejdenson, Rob Simmons, Joe Courtney, here.

The UN Mine Action Team recovered 340 unexploded Israeli bombs and shells, including 84 white phosphorous shells, in Gaza. Much of the weaponry including the white phosphorus was provided by the USA. The unexploded bombs have killed ten Gazans in the year since the war.

Israeli has been termed, the “new Silicon Valley” due to the scale of new technical companies now doing business in places like Tel Aviv. Israeli companies in Israel such as RADA Electronic Industries Ltd., build navigational parts for aerial drones and other weapons.

This week on Sprouts: Easter in Israeli-Occupied Jerusalem

Produced by Dori Smith, Talk Nation RAdio
Left KU Channel
Thursday, April 1, 3PM EST
Total time 28:59
Download as broadcast quality .mp3: here

Or, go to Weekly programs at Audioport.org and click on: “Easter in Israeli-Occupied Jerusalem” Or search Sprouts

See: Russell Tribunal on Palestine .net
Also download at Archive.org here and Radio4all.net

For years Palestinian Muslims have been locked out of Jerusalem’s holy Al Aqsa Mosque. They have been unable to freely practice religion in a city that was supposed to be shared freely under the General Assembly vote that partitioned Jerusalem into an Arab and Jewish section, East and West.

After years of claiming that their settlement construction advanced security needs, Israelis have entered into a bolder discussion about
land rights to Jerusalem, asserting that they can build wherever they want, and expel Palestinians in the process. We hear about the
international legal questions, and the ongoing peaceful resistance in Palestine where protests are held against the separation wall every
week.

We also hear from Christian Palestinians unable to travel between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, as they join in peaceful protests. The
resistance effort against the separation wall goes on weekly, as Christian, Muslim, and other Palestinians, join Jewish peace activists
from Israel and internationals.

Also in this episode of Sprouts:

Attorney Francis A. Boyle, Harvard Scholar and author of the new
book, “Palestine, Palestinians and International Law.”

Professor Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, formerly of the University of Tennessee, Yale, and Duke, he now does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. Professor Qumsiyeh is a well known expert on Middle East genetics and author of “Sharing the Land of Canaan, Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle.” (Sharing)

Frank Barat, coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine held in early March. The tribunal found EU states in breach of international and internal European Law with respect to protection of Palestinian human rights. At issue too is the matter of who provided the weapons to Israel that were used during attacks on Gaza in 2006.

British Lawmakers have called for a reevaluation of weapons deals with
Israel.

Music from YouTube recorded at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,
Franciscan choir, Orthodox Christian choir, and Procession through
Jerusalem as well as the Bells of the Church of Holy Sepulcher,
Golgotha

Sprouts is a weekly program that features local radio production and
stories from many radio stations and local media groups around the
world. It is produced in collaboration with community radio stations
and independent producers across the country. The program is
coordinated and distributed by Pacifica Radio and offered free of
charge to all radio stations. For information, or if you would like to
feature your work on Sprouts, contact Ursula Ruedenberg at
ursula@pacifica.org.