Weather Control
and the Drug War
Weather Control and the Drug War
Deadly Silences The Hurricane Andrew Cover-Up
When the Army Owns the Weather
Weather Warfare A New World Order weapon could trigger climate change MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY
Weather Control and the Drug War
An Interview with Bob Fletcher
Background Brief:
Bob Fletcher owned a toy factory in Marietta, Georgia near Lockheed Dobbins Air Force Base in 1985. In order to expand his business, Fletcher merged with a partner, Gary Best. Later, he found Best was a high-ranking covert intelligence agent who intended to use the toy company for arms dealing. Angola, West Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Ollie North’s Contra dealings were all part of the new connections of Fletcher’s toy company.
Due to these circumstances, Fletcher was interviewed for the Iran/Contra hearings and was a deposed witness for the Christic Institute’s 24 million dollar legal proceedings against the Iran/Contra lineup which actually began in 1954. In spite of a five-year investigation, Fletcher’s 365-page deposition and a mountain of evidence including 1,500 other depositions that linked US intelligence figures to drugs, arms shipments and assassinations, the government threw the case out on the basis it was a frivolous action.
Following his ousting from the toy company, Fletcher eventually wound up in Noxon, Montana with a small group of people who began the Militia of Montana. This affiliation put him on numerous TV talk shows and before a US Senate investigation committee targeting US militia activity in 1995. A comment by Fletcher about the scientific ability to control the weather created a storm of attempted debunking by authorities, but what is the real story?
The PROBE caught up with Mr. Fletcher to ask him about weather control, new evidence of the fraudulent drug war waged by US authorities and his attempted assassination in which his left shoulder joint was shattered with a radio frequency weapon — one of those non-lethal weapons.
PROBE: After your Senate appearance in Washington in 1995, was there any more interest in what you said about weather control, particularly from the Senator from Wisconsin, Herbert Cole, who tried so hard to debunk your testimony?
FLETCHER: No, the status with that was way back in 1990, 93 or 94, I had received miscellaneous information about the possibility of weather control. I had not made it a big deal myself, because I didn’t have enough of it to be any kind of reality. I was doing a lot of other things so I put it on the back shelf. When I received other information which affirmed the possibility it could be real, I made a random statement to AP and some other press that there was the ability to alter or control the weather and it was run by governments.
PROBE: This was before the Senate hearings?
FLETCHER: Yes, it was before that. Apparently one of Senator Cole’s aides had come across that, and thought what a wonderful way to make a fool of that crazy Mr. Fletcher — he thinks that there are electronic weather control abilities. So I was ambushed by Senator Cole from Wisconsin. It obviously had nothing to do with the Patriot or the Militia movement. The intent was to ambush me and make me look like some kind of a nut case. It caught me from left field; fortunately, I had enough in my memory banks to instantly recall enough information to at least retaliate in a direct manner to his question. This included the fact that Senator Claiborne Pell several years ago had been quoted in a news story in which he had said, "now that we can control the weather, create earthquakes and tidal waves and use it as a weapon of war we need to do a treaty." Other responses at that point were sufficient to get Senator Cole to slam his briefcase closed — off camera of course, you wouldn’t have seen it unless you were there. All three of his gofers (aides) left immediately and never returned, so he was not terribly happy that Mr. Fletcher actually answered his questions.
PROBE: The way most of the media treated the question was to carefully edit out the rest of your response and leave the viewer or listener simply wondering.
FLETCHER: In truth, they didn’t make as big a deal about it as they could have, and I think it’s because with a little bit of follow up they found that Senator Claiborne Pell of the intelligence committee had made that statement and it was true and that Mr. Fletcher was accurate. My thing has always been "make my day, challenge me." After that, the truth was that spurred me to move forward to actually complete an entire report. It took a couple of years before I was ready, but time flies when you’re having fun. I generated documentation from all over the world on weather control, finished a video and a booklet that goes with it. This is a complete chronology; it includes all the dates, who, what when and where. In it are details of the treaty signed between the US and Russia in 1978. It says now that we can create earthquakes and weather, we should not use it against each other as a weapon.
PROBE: What about domestic use; using it against your own countrymen?
FLETCHER: Yeah, it’s the same old thing. There is nothing in there about using it within the country.
PROBE: You have mentioned there is actually a company in Russia that is selling this weather control technology to farmers, and it was effective for about a 200-mile radius. What about it?
FLETCHER: Sure, it’s a company called ELATE (pronounced E-Lah-Tay). ABC-TV, in 1953, took one of it’s reporters and did a live report from one of their locations where they generate weather control. On the business cards of the executives of ELATE, it says "weather made to order." The president of the company boasts the ability of what could be the equivalent of weather terrorism or extortion, when he says if someone wants to have a major event they can either pay us to guarantee good weather or we will give them bad weather.
PROBE: If they can do it and we can do it, don’t two extortions like this cancel each other out?
FLETCHER: Yeah, I guess so, maybe two tornadoes equal one earthquake (chuckles). But the other point with this (which is also totally documented), is that Russia and the United States have worked together hand in hand for twenty years in developing weather control. The Russians were here at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories cooperatively working, and received an award for some of their work on weather control.
PROBE: Is this a project that is still going on, or what?
FLETCHER: It is a project that has been done, many years ago. Additionally, we manufactured an inter-related piece of equipment, which is a gigantic magnetic motor which we made special many years ago and shipped to Russia.
PROBE: Your video on weather control has a lot of documentation in it — references to the Washington Post, Washington Times, Congress, all of that. Your references make your claims a lot stronger.
FLETCHER: Any time I do a good expose, in any area at all, I sufficiently supply all the material anybody would need to cross reference enough to where you would understand that this is real. Typically, I utilize so much documentation and do so much investigative research that we would talk about a 2,000 page book if I was to include all the garbage related to it. So if I talk about a treaty, I may just do a synopsis of the treaty that I received from the UN. I include the paperwork on that in the weather control video, I certainly try to put enough out for people that dispute it.
PROBE: Let’s address your attempted harassment for a moment.
FLETCHER: It’s called attempted murder, not harassment. Unfortunately, it falls into the category of, "I can’t prove it." I had returned nine months ago [Nov. 95] to California, which I presently call home. I was on an extended speaking engagement on the east coast, Indiana and Illinois as well and a few other areas, where I had been talking about electronic weather control and the related plasma beams, which are ray guns that are connected to this project. For the first time, because I had sufficient documentation to do it, I introduced partially into my presentations the expose of laser weapons, microwave weapons and supersonic sound weapons and those types of secret or above top secret weapons. I had included it for the first time in my public speaking.
An interesting thing happened as soon as I got back. I received one phone call from a group in New York that I had spoken with behind closed doors, not in an open forum; it was a private group. It was an interesting mixture of people including some high-powered, pretty good financial backers. The phone call was from one of those persons who said that the FBI had come in immediately after I had departed and wanted to know everything we had discussed. That is the first time in ten years, that I know of specifically, of an agency coming in directly behind my appearance.
Now two days later, which would be the third day after I was home, I went to sleep about 10:30 in the evening. The next thing I remembered, which was 1:30 in the morning, I was sitting up in bed, the lights were on in my bedroom and there were two guys in white uniforms standing at the foot of my bed. There was a little bit of blood in my mouth, my left shoulder was in unbelievable excruciating pain and my wife was telling me I was going to be OK, and telling me they were going to be taking me to the hospital. They gave me oxygen, put me on the rack and took me to the hospital, only a couple of blocks away.
PROBE: Any presence of those black helicopters?
FLETCHER: No, I don’t want to get into that, but let me back up a little. Two nights after I got home, I had joked with my wife because there was a helicopter that would come over and circle and then depart. We joked about it — that they knew where I was and all that. That is where those rumours came from. On that night, my wife was jolted out of bed when I woke up.
What took place was, she realised I was in a grand mal seizure. She turned on the light and called 911. The seizure was rather peculiar because it lasted for almost five minutes. I found out later on from the medical people in the hospital that was an extremely long period of time. Not only that, but for a person who is over fifty, it should have killed me. After riding to the hospital I asked that they give me all the tests necessary to determine the cause of the seizures. I never had anything like that, never passed out, etc., etc. They did a full CAT scan, ECG (electrocardiogram), MRI. Within the next day or so they came back and told me, "there was nothing we can see that would have caused it." They added, "There is nothing even that shows that you had one." Apparently, in some cases there is some malfunctioning of the brain or something that shows up within 24 hours after such a seizure.
PROBE: So you don’t have a problem with arteriosclerosis or congestion of the arteries or anything like that?
FLETCHER: Absolutely no, nothing. My injury had nothing to do with any of that. They had not done anything with my arm by the third day I was in the hospital. They had done X-rays, but no surgery or anything. I transferred to the Veterans Hospital because I am veteran. My brief stay was in excess of $5,700. At the VA the big point was strictly my shoulder. The entire upper part of my arm, ball of my shoulder had been blown apart.
PROBE: Not the bones crushed?
FLETCHER: Yeah, a quote from the surgeon. I had been lying on my back, the same position as I was when I went to sleep. There is no external damage at all. Once the surgeon got into the shoulder he said it looked like a bomb had gone off inside my shoulder. That was his description. He had no idea of my background or who I was; that was his response. It took them forty minutes just to retrieve small pieces of my shattered shoulder during surgery. It was a mess, the worst one they had done at the VA in Los Angeles in years.
Some of their questions were, had you fallen out of a ten story building? They removed the upper part of the bone of my arm and the entire ball, replacing it with a titanium insert, then reconnecting the tendons, muscles and tissues to the top of the fixture so I could potentially have movement. That was done nine months ago. Unfortunately, that surgery was not done correctly, so what I have at this point in time is no connections at the upper arm to my body. My arm is not connected to my body except by the external skin of my arm. The muscles have fallen loose from where they were supposed to have been and additionally, the shaft is now loose inside my arm bone. I will have surgery in the next 30 days. The surgery would have been done sooner, but they gave me the run around, their big concern being admitting it was done wrong in the first place. Coincidentally, as of a week ago, all of Mr. Fletcher’s medical records have disappeared from the hospital with the exception of what may be on the computer.
PROBE: How did you find that out?
FLETCHER: By trying to secure them. I wanted to get my records, but they just disappeared. They are looking for them now.
PROBE: You are still under their care. They need those records.
FLETCHER: They’re gone; they don’t have records on Mr. Fletcher.
PROBE: Well then, with regard to the weapon or whatever was used on you, do you think their intention was to kill or to maim?
FLETCHER: No, it was to kill. We are looking at Mr. Fletcher passing away in his sleep with a cardiac arrest. One of the microwave weapons that I spoke about earlier on the east coast was developed at the Oak Ridge Laboratories in Tennessee. It is one that brings on convulsions or grand mal type seizures. As long as it’s aimed at the persons brain interrupting the brain waves, as long as the trigger is depressed, the convulsions will continue.
PROBE: How does that affect your shoulder?
FLETCHER: Micro or supersonic-type waves are directed at the head. To answer, I’ve done extensive research on Tesla materials on weather control and all the beams, particle beams and all the rest of that, including microwave weapons. His [Tesla’s] whole thing is the basis for all of it, actually. In 1894 Tesla was making experimental demonstrations before students. Part of one of his presentations was to electro-magnetically illuminate his entire body with a charge. He would literally engulf himself entirely in what would look like flames. It was actually discharge coming out from the pores of his body, and while he was doing this he would explain what he was doing. In his actual 1894 paperwork he explained that depending on the amount of amperage, voltage etc., and how it was being applied, that the body could absorb, utilise and expel tremendous amounts of this — way beyond everybody’s imagination. Particularly if it’s applied in a lateral direction to the body. Depending on how the wave might be applied, or increased or decreased, potentially that same application could kill a person. Not like in an electric chair. Tesla pointed out that if the discharge was to go through a solid mass such as the arm bone in departing, it would cause extreme damage to that bone. Quote unquote Nikola Tesla over a hundred years ago.
PROBE: It entered your brain, triggered the seizure and exited the shoulder joint.
FLETCHER: Yes, and that’s the intent of that particular microwave unit. Tesla said over one hundred years ago that such an exit would cause extreme damage. This you’ll find interesting: when I spoke to one of the military nerve specialists in the hospital, see, everybody that looked at my X-rays and my paperwork in the hospital, every one of them questioned just how in the hell this happened. How did this damage happen to you laying in your bed at night at 1:30 in the morning.
This one nerve specialist asked the same thing, and in most cases I was not talking about my investigative work for obvious reasons. Finally, with him I thought I’m going to tell you what I think happened and I said "I don’t give a damn whether you believe me or not, I don’t care." Told him a little bit about what I had done and as I got into the story he interrupted me and said, "Wait a minute are we talking about microwaves or lasers?" So right away, he knew what I was talking about and these are two different situations and weapons. I said it was probably a microwave or supersonic type weapon because there was absolutely no external damage. Additionally, the left arm was away from the point of entry. This nerve specialist gave me a gentle, positive looking nod and later interrupted me, "do you sleep next to a window?" I said, "yes as a matter of fact. I sleep on the right side of the bed on my back, to my right side is a seven foot square sliding glass door about two feet away." Upon saying that, he nodded again, let go of a little smirk and said, "That will work, let’s just see what we can do about fixing your arm." That was the end of the conversation. Didn’t even bat an eye. I think he knew what happened.
PROBE: Do you know of other people who have had this happen to them?
FLETCHER: Just reports. I haven’t had the time to, research it. There have been hundreds of people who have experienced a variety of events like this. One of the most impressive was done during the Panamanian invasion, when Bush invaded. Witnesses there talked about a small group of Delta Force-type operatives that melted Panamanian citizens with lasers into little piles of [what looks like] maple syrup. That is similar, but it is not quite the same. It is another exotic weapon getting a test run. Just prior to this, I had been working on a video tape, an expose of these weapons which I intended to have done a couple of months ago. That plan was interrupted when I began work on the CIA’s drug connections. The CIA drug connection video was done on the request of two Congressional offices. The weapons expose will be completed soon, with footage of army lasers and other things.
PROBE: Glad you brought up the drug business. Over the years, The PROBE has had quite a lot, to say about the government’s big, but unofficial connection to this nasty business. Daniel Sheehan of the Christic Institute has filed suit, Bo Gritz went to the Golden Triangle and came back with the word from Khun-Sa, the head of one of the largest exporters of opium in the world, that he wanted to get out of the drug business. Those really investigating this business say there is no sincere interest in Washington in cutting off the drugs because of the money they get for covert operations, the "black budget" and every other unaccounted for activity. Is that changing or what?
FLETCHER: No it’s not changing; it’s never changed. It changes location, operations remain the same; sources change and vary. On the video tape on the CIA drug connections, I include everything that you had mentioned. I was a witness in Daniel Sheehan’s legal action, which included Pablo Escovar as well as Oliver North as a defendant, Richard Secord, Heine Aderholt, [John] Singlaub and others involved with my toy factory.
PROBE: General Richard Secord also was connected to your toy factory?
FLETCHER: Absolutely. And Gary Best, Richard Secord, Aderholt and Singlaub’s latest operation has been in Russia, Azerbaijan continuing with the same name they used with my toy factory, training mercenaries, shipping arms and carrying out covert operations. Taking advantage of, believe it or not, the highest level Russians which are simply functioning as double agents on both sides of the fence and most likely doing the covert arms operations for Bill Clinton. (See Bio-Brief in this article for background info on Secord and Singlaub.)
PROBE: Does this mean the Mena, Arkansas connection?
FLETCHER: No, no, no, forget that, I’m talking about the recent ones. The one’s Anthony Lake kept covered up, which is part of why Anthony Lake didn’t get approved [as CIA director]. The reason Lake wasn’t going to get approved was his FBI reports that showed him to be an active communist-Marxist for twenty or thirty years, directly connected with communist operations in the United States. Those were the FBI reports he did not want them to see. Therefore, he stepped down, but he was blamed for covertly keeping secret the arms that Bill Clinton had arranged to be shipped from Iran to the Muslim area of Croatia. This is an assumption, but the chances of it not being correct are almost nil. For those people that don’t know, this group involved in the toy factory also ran the Air America in Vietnam. Since 1992 they’ve been over there.
Believe it not Richard Secord, who is considered by most to be the most non-scrupled person that ships arms and gets involved with this stuff for years and years, claimed that he and General Aderholt actually had quit dealing with Gary Best because he was too corrupted.
PROBE: Is this like the pot calling the kettle black?
FLETCHER: The extreme pot calling the extreme kettle, yes. Always the same guys.
PROBE: Recently, there has been a heightened crescendo of awareness, particularly with Representative Maxine Water’s efforts against the drug cartels and CIA involvement in California.Your opinion?
FLETCHER: It is old, old stuff. Maxine Waters is one I originally did this report for; she appears to be wanting to do something about it. With due respects to her, I think she is rather naive, as all new Congress people are, with the idea that they can do something about this [the drug problem].
PROBE: But actually, don’t you think that to keep from being overwhelmed and intimidated from the get go you need a certain naivete.
FLETCHER: In the long run though, it wastes money, time and effort and nothing takes place. Her problem, that I pointed out to her real early, was she believed the Republicans (Ronald Reagan, Ollie North and others) had helped bring in the drugs to destroy the black community and that she could hang the blame there. What I told her during the first meeting with her people was that, in fact, poop into the fan will splatter all over the Democratic Party, Bill Clinton and everybody. They nobly told me at that time, that was okay, let the chips fall where they may. Well that’s ultimately the naiveté, in my personal opinion.
The problem everybody has by November December [1996] when everybody was so hot to trot with this, was that after the break they reshuffled the intelligence community that potentially would inquire into this. The fellow they put in charge is a Congressman from Florida, who is in fact a Central Intelligence agent, who in fact worked with Oliver North back in the old days. In fact, he probably brought down in excess of three of four hundred thousand for his own pocket, carrying out money laundering operations under covert shields for Oliver North. So the chances of this guy moving in any positive direction... it’s not going to happen. Sony Bono’s people also wanted a copy of my report and they got it.
PROBE: Speaking of Sony Bono, he said some really interesting comments when he questioned Janet Reno during the Waco hearings. The issue of CS gas being so much more potent than regular tear gas was actually bought up and took these people to task.
FLETCHER: Well, Sony is now on the intelligence committee as of January. Matter of fact, I was told they had a specific interest in two or three points of my video tape investigation. The tape includes footage of the bookkeeper of the Medellin drug cartel talking about giving Oliver North ten million dollars. It includes paperwork that I have had out of Oliver North’s safe for ten years and no one has ever seen it. [New Dawn note: In January 1998, Sony Bono died in a ski accident.]
PROBE: How did you get that?
FLETCHER: I got it very carefully. It shows actual transfers of money into drug operations for Ollie North. It shows his own individual handwritten notes saying "supply aircraft to pick up 1,500 kilos of mash." It also says, "assist in relocating refinery for the Nicaraguans." Then a handful of other drug related notes. I have interviews with three narcotics agents who landed at US Air Force bases in the United States with CIA and national security clearances. The video also includes a complete description of Barry Seal’s operation in Mena, Arkansas.
PROBE: Speaking of Barry Seal, who was shot and killed in broad daylight in New Orleans in 1982, what was he doing? We are told he turned into an informant for the DEA. I don’t think Seal was naive about the extent of the corruption, but what do you think really happened?
FLETCHER: Barry wasn’t naive, but he was between a rock and a hard place. They were going to send him away. Basically, he cut a deal to maybe assist in fingering some people, which was done cooperatively with Oliver North and DEA agents. They attempted to do it, never really went any place and he ended up dying from it. The big point of it all was that he flew the arms down to Ollie North and the drugs back. The biggest, one of the biggest, individual drug smugglers in America’s history. There was a young guy that was a continual hanger on of Barry Seal’s; his name was Roger Clinton. Roger was literally a go-fer kind of guy who was awe struck by Barry Seal. In the video we have a police surveillance tape of Roger doing a line of cocaine, three and a half ounces of it at one shot.
PROBE: Three and a half ounces, come on?
FLETCHER: Well, he makes the crack that he took that much, I don’t know if he actually did. It would have blown out of his ears if he did that much, that is on the tape, he says it, maybe he means for his pocket. Roger made the comment he had to get some of this stuff for his brother [Bill Clinton] because, quote, "he has a nose like a vacuum cleaner."
PROBE: Since the media continues to down play this whole thing of drugs, the black budget, covert operations and all that, where do you see this information getting out? What is Bob Fletcher’s plan?
FLETCHER: We keep attempting as best we can. Mainstream press is very resistant to doing this. Since 1986, I’ve been involved in this and still it’s impossible to get any serious attention by the press. Amazingly enough, I passed my tape along to a friend of mine who is an FBI station chief and he reviewed it and got back to me and said, "Where do you want me to go with it? What do you want me to do with it?" His point was that everybody was in it. Who do you turn the President in too? The FBI, drug enforcement, Central Intelligence, Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the United States have been totally involved with this stuff for decades, period. I told him if he’d like to, go ahead and send it to Washington. He said okay, if you want me to do that, put your own note on it and send it. Which he did thirty days ago [February 1997]. He told me at that time don’t expect a quick response.
PROBE: Everybody that gets involved in this whole rap of drugs, arms and this kind of thing, it’s a little like the movie Clear and Present Danger with Harrison Ford. In the end of the movie Ford, who is playing a good CIA guy, corners the president on his involvement with drug trafficking. The President simply tells him that he won’t use the evidence because now he’s got a blue chip in the game and can use it for promotions, power whatever. Naturally, our hero does the right thing, but it only happens in movies.
FLETCHER: In 1986 or 1987 as I pursued legal recourse for my toy factory that had been used as a covert front, the Justice Department, the FBI sent me a letter relating to information my lawyer was attempting to secure on personalities out of the toy factory. We received a letter about that request saying that information getting out about the toy factory would be considered to be a national security threat, classified by Executive Order of the President of the United States to be kept secret. That was the end of it.
PROBE: That is what Gritz and many others have talked about too, the protection of the drug racket is an issue of national security — their security to be able to continue to do it.
FLETCHER: Yeah, national security to protect the very people who are doing it. You know, you can kill people, overthrow governments, do arms, do drugs and classify it. End of story, it goes no place.
PROBE: What do you see for the future for Bob Fletcher? You mentioned a book you were trying to wrap up?
FLETCHER: The book is called The Animal Factory, Puppets of the New World Order. My next adventure is just to get my surgery accomplished on my shoulder and get the book in print. I’m working with NBC-TV with a possibility of getting my weather control expose on. Then the next video will be on exotic weapons, laser beams, plasma weapons and on and on. I retrieved a report relative to gene-splicing that went to George Bush in 1981 that said they could create mutants to work in certain areas. Also, they said they could splice the Negro off the face of the Earth in a few generations.
PROBE: Considering what we’ve all heard do you think there is a certain amount of racism in these kinds of actions? Although others are affected do you think they are targeting the black race?
FLETCHER: Maybe, but more flagrant is letting the blacks just starve to death in Africa and generating the AIDS virus to destroy the blacks in Africa. This is certainly more racially motivated than targeting a soft or easy target for narcotics, which is the minority communities. The idea that it is done because it is racially motivated, I disagree with that, because we have it at all the lower income levels in the US. They are the easy target regardless of whether they are black, yellow, white or whatever. Also, it has destroyed the high-level income persons because they can afford the big loads of heroin and other narcotics..
PROBE: According to the DEA, statistically the vast amount of money spent on drugs is by the white community anyway. I would think it would help if you were trying to use a divisive weapon to attack the economy of the middle class.
FLETCHER: It’s a weapon against all America. Plus, it’s a policing drain, a medical drain — but it’s very positive for the guys on the receiving end of the money.
Update: Alexander Horvat, editor of The PROBE, informs us of new developments relating to the information in the above interview. Bob Fletcher informed Alexander Horvat on 13 January 1998 that he was working with Sony Bono’s office and forwarded information on the CIA/drug connection. Bono was interested in pursuing this course. As reported in January, Bono tragically died in a ski accident. USA Today published a photo of Rep. Maxine Waters and Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, walking together in her district. A Los Angeles newspaper reports that Greenspan has pledged around two billion dollars to her district. Horvat speculates that Waters may have been paid-off to keep quiet about the CIA/drug connection.
© Copyright New Dawn Magazine, http://www.newdawnmagazine.com . Permission granted to freely distribute this article for non-commercial purposes if unedited and copied in full, including this notice.
Deadly Silences
The Hurricane Andrew Cover-upThe authorities grossly understated the death toll from hurricane Andrew, the worst natural disaster in US history, and left thousands of survivors to die in a zone contaminated by radiation.
Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 8, Number 3
PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. editor@nexusmagazine.com
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From our web page at: www.nexusmagazine.com© by k.t. Frankovich © 2000/01
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THE EMERGENCY ALERT THAT CAME TOO LATE
The largest natural disaster ever recorded in the history of the United States was hurricane Andrew, which struck South Dade County, Florida, as midnight turned the clock into August 24, 1992. Contrary to what the American news media broadcast across the United States and throughout Europe, the first outer wall of the hurricane unexpectedly slammed into South Dade, packing 214+ mph winds which quickly escalated to 350+ mph. Most of the 414,151 residents living in the danger zone were asleep when the outer wall struck. Thousands of them lost their lives, for no one in South Dade had been evacuated or even advised to evacuate. Instead, residents had been repeatedly informed by local news media that South Dade should expect to experience "50 mph winds".By 11.00 am the following morning, 8,230 mobile homes along with 9,140 apartments had vanished off the face of the Earth. The Hiroshima-like horror was beyond catastrophic. Entire families perished in ways too horrifying to describe. The stench of death had already begun to saturate miles and miles of the massive devastation; the hot humid air was reeking with foul, rotting flesh.
How do I know? Because I was in the midst of it all.
Never will I forget the frantic, last-minute "emergency alert" broadcast that was aired on television just before all hell broke loose. My son and I had the TV on, hoping to catch an updated report on the hurricane, when the screen suddenly went blank with a loud warning signal. Before we knew it, a panic-stricken voice began the announcement:
We interrupt this program to bring you an emergency alert from the National Broadcast Emergency Center. This is an emergency alert! I repeat, this is an emergency alert! The outer winds of hurricane Andrew have just reached the Florida coast. Hurricane Andrew has unexpectedly shifted five degrees south. I repeat, Hurricane Andrew has shifted five degrees south. Andrew is expected to strike South Dade within minutes. I repeat, Andrew is expected to strike South Dade within minutes. All South Dade residents should take immediate cover! I repeat, all South Dade residents should take immediate cover! This is an emergency alert!
Our tiny pre-fab apartment, which was nothing more than a glorified mobile home, had been constructed to withstand maximum wind speeds of 90 mph. The blood-curdling announcement gripped us both. Paralysed by sheer terror, our bulging eyes stayed glued to the television as the voice continued.
All South Dade residents are advised to stay put! Do not attempt to leave the area!
Within seconds, we actually heard hurricane Andrew bearing down on us, slamming into us with all the force of a speeding locomotive. The horrendous wall of winds crashed against our tiny apartment like an exploding bomb! Glasses flew off the kitchen counter, shattering onto the quaking floor. Hanging pictures plunged straight down the walls towards the ground. The huge hanging mirror crashed on top of the television set, spraying the living room with shattered glass. The entire apartment resembled a rickety old train, shaking fiercely out of control while rumbling down a railroad track. The screeching winds quickly transformed into the piercing, monotone hum of a jet engine, sounding as if it had sucked us inside! It was so deafening, all other noises ceased to exist. It felt like a monstrous earthquake-and-tornado hitting at the same time!
Before either one of us could react, the metal front door of our apartment began to peel steadily downward towards the floor, like a piece of wet, limp paper. Then the voracious jaws of Andrew attacked for the final kill. A mega-giant, two-storey-tall, solid concrete transformer pole with electrical cables attached, torpedoed right through our living room wall and roof, exploding the entire building on impact! And that was just the beginningÉ
ATROCITIES IN THE AFTERMATH
There isn't a person on the face of this Earth who will ever convince me that hurricane Andrew was a "hurricane" by any sense of the definition. Just ask any survivor of Andrew what the six-and-a-half-hour siege was like and the answer will always be the same. "We didn't have any prior warning. We heard hurricane Andrew suddenly bearing down on us like a speeding locomotive." This is the same description given by survivors of monstrous F-5 tornadoes (packing winds of 350+ mph)--the only difference being that tornadoes strike for just seconds, whereas hurricane Andrew struck and stayed for hours on end.The injuries of those who survived were mind-boggling. I had a broken jaw with eight teeth knocked out. Huge shards of glass impaled my body so deeply, they were impossible to remove without the aid of a scalpel. My head injuries were so severe that they permanently affected my eyesight.
But I was only one amongst thousands of severely injured victims who struggled to survive the aftermath. For ten long days we were roped off from the outside world by United States military forces, leaving us stranded with no food, no water, no medical supplies, no shelter. Suffering from severe shell-shock, we waited and waited for rescue teams to arrive, but that just never happened. None of the injured in the roped-off areas was ever rescued from the devastation. It was the worst gut-wrenching betrayal I have ever experienced. I saw grown men lying on the ground in the foetal position, moaning and groaning pathetically as they tried to hug and rock themselves. My son was amongst them.
Don't get me wrong. United States military forces were indeed present in the roped-off areas within hours of Andrew ending. But they were not there to help survivors. The National Guard along with the Coast Guard, the Army, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency), Metro Dade Police, state police and local police removed dead bodies and body parts as quickly as possible during those first ten days of the aftermath. Horrified survivors watched as both uniformed and civilian- clothed men searched the rubble and filled body bags, which they then stacked in military vehicles or huge refrigerator trucks normally used to transport food, only to drive off and leave the stranded injured to fend for themselves.
Not until I managed to escape the aftermath did I discover that the "thermo-king" sections of these same refrigerator trucks, jam-packed with wall-to-wall body bags, ended up being stored at Card Sound Navy Base, located in an isolated area just above the Florida Keys. The inside temperature was kept cool by portable generators until the bodies were either incinerated or just plain dumped into huge open grave pits.
Those working on the body pick-up operation were forced to take what is known as the Oath of Sworn Secrecy, which is strictly enforced by the government. Many of them plunged into shock, once exposed to the ghastly devastation and countless mutilated bodies.
The horrors were way beyond human comprehension. I can vouch for this, as I accidentally stepped on the severed hand of a young child when I initially crawled out of the debris, only to witness shortly thereafter two dead teenagers and the decapitated body of a baby girl.
Fighting mental shock became such a big problem for the body pick-up teams that a special group of psychiatrists had to be brought in to help them cope with it. I believe this in itself is the reason why many who worked on the body collection didn't comprehend the tragic consequences this would inevitably lead to in the future.
The survivors of hurricane Andrew and the rest of the American people were betrayed by their own government. But the betrayal also extended to foreign nationals. At the time Andrew struck, South Dade was inhabited by a large population of Mexican illegal immigrants. The United States Department of Immigration was fully aware of their presence but quietly turned its back on the situation, knowing full well that South Dade farmers couldn't afford to harvest their crops without the help of the Mexican illegals. The heavily populated migrant camps were situated at the edge of the Florida Everglades. The people who lived there vanished without a trace during that fated night. Many bodies were found way out in the Everglades.
When I lectured at the Clearwater Convention in Florida in 1999, a man in the audience stood up and introduced himself as Chief Petty Officer Roy Howard. He proceeded to address the audience with this exact statement, which is now a matter of public record:
Just for your information, I was called up to active duty after hurricane Andrew went through South Dade County. I spent nine weeks down there. Now I will certify for the benefit of our audience here that the death figures that were officially published are totally inaccurate. According to the information which I received from my own sources within the National Guard, the figure I was quoted when I was down there was 5,280-something. And they were quietly disposed of in incinerators that were hurriedly put together by both the National Guard and FEMA...
As the Chief Petty Officer stated, "5,280-something" bodies were confiscated by the United States National Guard. In addition to this, the Coast Guard independently confiscated "1,500 bodies" from the lakes and surrounding waters. Neither one of these figures embraces the number of dead bodies confiscated by other branches of federal and state government directly involved in the body pick-up operation. This leaves the number of dead confiscated by various US authorities in South Dade still unknown.
The total number who died during hurricane Andrew is obviously staggering, yet whenever the "official death toll" is mentioned in the media, a figure of anywhere between 15 and 59 is quoted. The population of the 21 communities annihilated by Andrew's eye-wall had been officially recorded by the Dade County Census Bureau as 415,151 before Andrew struck.
Bodies of human beings confiscated and disposed-of like rubbish, as if their lives had no more worth or meaning than a piece of discarded litter--it's horrifying to be suddenly confronted by the same kind of atrocities as perpetrated by the Nazis. Once again repeating history, a master-minded cover-up was dutifully carried out by armed military forces, right smack in the midst of horrendous human suffering.
To complete this historical comparison, in the same way that many residents who lived near Nazi concentration camps were unaware or in denial of the atrocities close by, so too were many residents who were located just outside the catastrophic devastation left behind by Andrew's eye-wall.
GOVERNMENT BETRAYAL
So what actually did take place when Andrew survivors tried to get help from those collecting dead bodies in the aftermath? Well, I for one can give a first-hand account.About the third day into the aftermath, a long line of police cars cautiously drove into my area during the late afternoon. We had not had contact with any other people from outside the devastation up until this point. There were approximately 12 to 15 police cars comprising this caravan, each marked from different locations throughout the state. Each car was driven by a man dressed in a dark police uniform and had three other plain-clothed men riding as passengers, making a total of four men in each vehicle.
Someone from our group spotted the caravan and ran to get me, knowing that I had been badly injured and urgently needed emergency medical help. My twenty-five-year-old son and one other adult male survivor helped escort me to the caravan. We hurried towards the lead car. It stopped moving when we approached the driver's side. The officer sitting behind the wheel rolled down the window. For a few moments he rudely ignored us, at one point giving us an impatient look of disgust.
This is the exact conversation and course of events that took place.
"Please, sir, I need medical help," I begged, barely able to speak.
The officer sitting behind the wheel sighed heavily. He turned his head away from me and gazed out his windshield. The other three men in the car quietly looked at me.
"Sir, please, I need to get to a hospital...," I begged frantically.
The officer took his time about reaching over to turn off the engine. With another sigh, he slowly opened the door and climbed out. He then proceeded to close the door and stood there with his legs spread astride.
"Lady, do me a favour," he answered. "Find yourself a piece of paper and a pencil. Write down your name and social security number next to the telephone number of your nearest living relative. Tuck the piece of paper in your pocket so tomorrow, when I find your body, I'll know who to contact."
"No! No!" I cried out. "You don't understand. I need to get to a hospital. I've been badly injured."
"No! You're the one who doesn't understand," he hissed back.
With that, he reached over to his holster and took out his gun. He grabbed me, forcing me up against the side of the car, and proceeded to put the barrel of the gun against my temple. I heard the hammer cock.
From the position he had pushed me into, I could see directly into the car. The man sitting in the front passenger seat looked away from me immediately, glancing down at the floor. The two passengers in the back seat turned their heads quickly, staring out the window on the opposite side of the car.
My son and the other survivor watched as the officer had pulled back the hammer on the gun. So shocked out of their minds by what they were witnessing, neither one could move!
"You don't belong here!" the officer growled, pressing the barrel into the side of my head. "Now you get the hell outta here before I blow away your ass!"
He shoved my face into the car window and then released me. Someone grabbed me from behind and whirled me around so fast, I didn't have time to think! Before I knew it, I was being thrown over a shoulder. My rescuer took off running as fast as he could! I caught a brief glimpse of my son running next to me. With one gigantic leap, he and the survivor who carried me, dove behind a pile of debris. All three of us crashed on top of each other in one tangled-up heap.
"I'll shoot your damn asses!" the officer's voice rang out.
When hurricane Andrew slammed into South Dade, the State Attorney of Florida was none other than Janet Reno. Her office was located at the Dade County Court House in the City of Miami. The President of the United States was President George H.W. Bush, and the Vice-President was Dan Quayle. Bill Clinton was running for President, and Al Gore for Vice-President. Senator Bob Graham held office, and the late Lawton Chiles was Governor of Florida. His successor turned out to be Jeb Bush, still the Governor of Florida and, ironically enough, the son of former President Bush whose other son, George W. Bush, the then Governor of Texas, has since become the "self-selected" President of the United States...
Curious how the United States Government evacuated Homestead Air Force Base just before hurricane Andrew struck, yet never released the information to the civilians of South Dade.
"This is worse than anything we saw in Saudi," said Master Sgt Lester Richardson (who had spent six months in the Middle East during Operation Desert Storm) one week into the aftermath. "These people need a miracle."
The survivors did need "a miracle", but what we got instead didn't resemble anything near it.
MEDIA UNDERSTATEMENT
While we remained roped off from the outside world by Metro Dade Police and the military, the news media reported grossly understated information from the first day onward.On August 24, 1992, the morning hurricane Andrew ended, the Miami Herald broke with:
Andrew Hits Hardest in South Dade. Five thousand people were left homeless by the storm, Metro Dade Police Director announced. They'll be moved into shelters in North Dade.Over subsequent days, the Miami Herald read as follows:
August 25, 1992:
Destruction at Dawn. Among worst hit in the Country Walk area of South Dade, few homes escaped at least minor damage and many were utterly destroyed. 10 killed in Dade.August 27, 1992:
The Toll Rises. 22 dead as the search continues. 63,000 homes destroyed. 175,000 homeless. 1 million without power.August 28, 1992:
WE NEED HELP. Relief effort collapsing due to United States inaction, Metro charges. Aid us now or more will die, Feds told. As Dade County's hurricane relief effort neared collapse Thursday, more than 1,500 airborne US soldiers were ordered into the county to cope with what is now being called the worst natural disaster in United States history. The move came after a day of bitter sniping among agencies that share responsibility for the relief effort.
United States aid official Wallace Stickler stated: "Andrew has caused more destruction and affected more people than any disaster America has ever had."
Dade County's Emergency Director pleaded for federal help, one angry voice among many that spoke in dire terms of needs unmet. Frustrated to the point of tears, Kate Hale said that the relief project was on the brink of collapse, a victim of incompetence and political games:
"Where the hell is the cavalry on this one? We need food! We need water! We need people! If we do not get more food into the south end [South Dade] in a very short period of time, we are going to have more casualties!
"We have a catastrophic disaster. We are hours away from more casualties. We are essentially the walking wounded. We have appealed through the State to the Federal Government. We've had a lot of people down here for press conferences. But Dade County is on its own. Dade County is being caught in the middle of something and we are being victimized.
"Quit playing like a bunch of kids and get us aid! Sort out your political games afterward!"
On the same day Hale made the desperate plea, Miami Herald staff writers Martin Merzer and Tom Fiedler wrote:
The question echoed through the debris Thursday: If we can do it for Bangladesh, for the Philippines, for the Kurds of northern Iraq, why in God's name can't we deliver basic necessities of life to the ravaged population of our own Gold Coast?"
The short answer: because no single person or agency is in charge.
The result: a planeload of food and equipment is still a rarity. Instead of delivering goods, helicopter pilots shuttle government officials who just sit idle. Metro police turn away individuals trying to bring in food or water to a barren South Dade.On August 29, 1992, six days into the aftermath, the Miami Herald reported:
Problems Plague Red Cross. The man on the phone wanted to donate 100 electric generators, extension cords and enough tools to build a small subdivision. But the operator who took his call at the Red Cross Command Center in Miami had no idea what to do with the offer.
"We get a call, we take a message, we give it to somebody who signs it to somebody else," said the operator, Melitta de Liefd. "We have no idea what happens to it. The whole place is being run by senior citizens and college kids."
Welcome to Red Cross headquarters--where the brains of Dade County rescue effort have been knocked almost unconscious most of the week.
Callers offering services and supplies are put on hold. Others can't get through at all. The hurt and suffering plead for help over ham radio.On August 29, 1992, one week after hurricane Andrew struck, the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel reported 250,000 people homeless in South Dade.
A NUCLEAR INCIDENT
Of course, the rather "insignificant" incident resulting from Andrew's winds bombarding the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant was not aired by the news media either nationally or abroad.
Tom Dubocq reported in the Miami Herald of September 5, 1992:Demolition crews toppled a 400-foot smokestack at Turkey Point [Nuclear] Power Plant [owned by Florida Power and Light Company], Friday [September 4]. The stack, which had a gaping 200-foot crack, was dropped without a hitch, a Florida Power and Light [FPL] spokesman said. The other smokestack at the plant will be salvaged. Turkey Point will be shut down for several months while repairs are made. The cost will exceed $90 million, according to an initial damage report
When Turkey Point was built in the 1960s, its main structures were designed to withstand 235 mph winds. Hurricane Andrew was clocked at 164 mph at the plant. FPL officials don't know why the smokestack didn't hold up...One hundred million dollars worth of damage resulted from the nuclear power plant's smokestack having been cracked wide open. The plant is situated approximately 15 miles northeast of where I lived. How well I recall the leaflets circulated several months before Andrew struck, advising all residents within a "thirty-five mile radius" of Turkey Point nuclear plant to be aware of the potential hazards involved if an event such as a natural disaster or unexpected catastrophe happened. Such a grim reminder of the Chernobyl tragedy.
Could it be more than coincidence that within 24 hours of hurricane Andrew ending, all 12 survivors in my little group, including our animals, broke out in big, raw, oozing sores which itched and burned at the same time? We suffered horrible headaches which made us so nauseous we had the dry heaves, and our stomachs cramped badly from sudden onsets of diarrhea. These symptoms lasted well over three months. Within a relatively short period of time, each one of our surviving animals died from cancer.
HURRICANE BUREAU'S FAILURE TO WARN
Speaking of coincidence, I often wonder what kind of a coincidence it is that the National Hurricane Bureau is responsible for reporting to the US Department of Commerce--especially considering that during 1992 South Florida did $31 billion worth of trade in tourism.Hurricane Andrew had barely left Florida, heading for Louisiana, when the Division of Tourism placed a $47,000 advertisement in USA Today, reading "Florida, we're still open".
"Most people have very short memories. We're all sort of banking on that," said Donald Dermody, Director of the Nova University Center for Hospitality Management.Kind of puts a big damper on belief in the human race: hide the truth, ignore the suffering, do it for a dollar!
What upsets me most is the incident that happened during the late afternoon hours just prior to Andrew striking. I had just walked out to the garbage dumpsters, located by the parking lot, to throw away some garbage. I turned to head back to the apartment when the horn of an oncoming car began blasting away. I looked up to see a familiar resident, whom I had spoken to on many different occasions, heading directly towards me. This particular individual worked at Metro-zoo. Being affiliated with wild animals, he frequently stopped by to ask me questions about the behaviour of certain species. He sped right up to me and then slammed on the brakes.
"Come here!" he whispered excitedly.
I leaned down close to him. "What's the matter?"
"Listen!" he paused to look around nervously. "You've got to get the hell outta here now!"
"Why?" I asked, puzzled by his behaviour.
"I haven't got time to explain," he whispered. "But I just came from the National Hurricane Bureau in the Gables. Gotta friend of mine who works over there; bigwig--know what I mean?"
"Yeah..." I nodded.
"Well, this isn't for public information, if you get my drift," he went on rapidly. "But the National Hurricane Bureau has known all along that hurricane Andrew is going to slam into South Dade! They're telling the public it's going to come in at Palm Beach because they want Miami Beach evacuated, and there aren't enough shelters for South Dade residents to evacuate to. They don't wanna cause panic. So they're keeping quiet. We're all a bunch of god-damn sitting ducks! You got to get the hell outta here! This is a killer hurricane! Nobody's ever seen anything like this before!"
"Holy shit!" I exclaimed, shocked out of my mind. "You mean Andrew's coming over South Dade?"
"Damn straight! That's exactly what I mean! They figure the eye of the storm is coming right in over us! Those fellas at the National Hurricane Bureau have known it all along! I'm gettin' the hell outta here now! Shit, man, this thing is a killer hurricane! Listen, I gotta run! Get your son and get the hell out now! You ain't gonna have a shot in hell once it hits!"
I ran into the apartment and called my son at work, begging him to come home so we could get out. I had no reason to disbelieve anything I had just heard. I knew my neighbour well enough to know he wouldn't fabricate anything like this. So I related the entire conversation to my son, Eric. He was stunned! Eric said he would leave work within a few minutes, but as the minutes ticked on they dragged into hours.
Another immediate course of action I took after hearing the terrifying warning from my neighbour was to phone the local CBS television station located in Miami. I called three separate times. Each time, my call went directly into the local news broadcast room of meteorologist Bryan Norcross. Although I never spoke to Norcross directly, I did manage to speak to three separate individuals working in the broadcast room.
I specifically stated: "I live in South Dade, adjacent to Metro-zoo and within walking distance of Country Walk, in a pre-fab apartment that is constructed to withstand up to 90 mph winds. Should I evacuate?"
All three individuals advised and reassured me that I was situated in a safe area. There definitely wasn't need for me to take any evacuation measures.
Meanwhile, one work catastrophe after another seemed to crash down on my son, until finally it was just too late for us to evacuate. By the time he got home it was almost midnight. Within minutes of his arrival, Andrew slammed into us with full force.
ONGOING TRAGEDIES FROM THE COVER-UPS
It's not easy dealing with the anguish I feel because of all the perpetrated lies. So much suffering resulted. It took three-and-a-half weeks before my son and I managed to escape the devastation on our own. Homeless and penniless, with no insurance to cover our losses, we slowly made our way north towards Broward County, our only possessions being the clothes on our backs and a demolished van. The long, agonising journey turned out to be another nightmare from hell.Over 4,000 people were officially listed as "Missing" in Andrew when we parted South Dade. I had lost 23 pounds during those wretched weeks of being trapped in the devastation and still had not received any medical attention. Little did I realise it would take another three weeks before a doctor would even agree to see me without any money or identification. By then, six weeks had passed since I had been injured. Most of my teeth had turned a putrid grey colour because the nerves had died as a result of fierce blows to my head, complicated by my broken jaw. The final heartbreak came when doctors discovered the optic nerve in both my eyes had begun to die off--which meant, because of the head injuries, I was going blind.
This may sound strange but, regardless, it is the truth. Today, in the year 2001, there still remain three ongoing tragedies created by hurricane Andrew cover-ups--tragedies which remain unbearable for the survivors to live with.
The first tragedy is the horrifying fact that the bodies of our loved ones were intentionally confiscated from us by our own government and then so inhumanely disposed of. Without graves, or some kind of memorial erected in their memory, we have no hope of reaching closure.
The second tragedy is the impact the cover-ups had in downplaying, dismissing and ignoring our horrendous suffering.
And the third tragedy is the great number of Andrew survivors who were inevitably forced to join the ranks of approximately 10 million other homeless Americans struggling to stay alive on the streets. With 10 million Americans homeless, and another 32 million Americans going to sleep hungry each night, the United States Government can't truthfully claim to be a government for all the people.
Maybe it's just me, but I honestly thought the world learned a lesson from the Nuremberg trials in Germany: "Evil can only be defined as absence of empathy..."
SIMILARITIES IN TURKEY
On June 20, 2000, I flew to Istanbul, Turkey, where I lectured at a major international conference. While visiting there, I was asked if there was anything I specifically wished to do or see. My simple answer came very naturally."Yes, I would like to visit the areas that were devastated by the earthquakes last August and November and spend time with the survivors."
The following day my simple wish was granted. I was graciously escorted by a medical doctor who had unselfishly devoted many hours of practice in the devastated regions. When he informed me that 20,000+ died in August 1999 during the Izmit earthquake and that another 20,000+ died in November during the Bolu earthquake, I was stunned. This was not what the news media had reported.
"Are you saying that between the two earthquakes last year, over 40,000 people died?" I asked.
His eyes filled with tears. "Yes," he nodded sadly. "Over 40,000 people perished, between the two disasters."
The horrendous destruction I saw matched every word he stated. I walked over areas where the earth had opened up, swallowing entire buildings before closing back up again, like a giant white shark gulping down its prey. I understood when weeping survivors squeezed my hand tightly, too overcome by grief to explain how they never found the bodies of their loved ones. Long pauses of silence took over when tears replaced words.
The poverty I witnessed was too startling to escape my poorly sighted eyes. Pathetic cardboard-type huts, covered by plastic sheets, greeted me everywhere I went. Then there were the bleak rows of government-funded temporary housing which lacked simple basic needs like indoor private showers.
I often wonder, now that I've returned back home, how those Turkish survivors weathered the 115° temperatures of July, since their temporary housing lacked proper insulation and air-conditioning. As the month of August began to unfold, torrential rains bombarded the country, bringing a new kind of disaster: flash flooding. How many lives were lost to this disaster?
The most pathetic survivors of all are children. Like many of the children who survived hurricane Andrew, many Turkish children whom I saw who could no longer smile or play. Shell-shock has very pronounced effects on the young; often, they stop communicating altogether.
One little girl in particular caught my attention. Her arm had been badly injured, twisted into a permanent position of deformity. She stood very still, holding her hair in her good hand, never moving or showing any signs of emotion.
"She needs medical attention," I said to the doctor.
"Yes," he agreed, "a lot of the young survivors desperately need medical attention."
His answer puzzled me. "But I thought financial aid was donated from foreign countries."
"Yes," he nodded, "but most of the money ended up in the pockets of government officials. It never reached the survivors."
How well I knew what that meant. How well indeed.
After pausing, he added, "When the earthquakes struck, one foreign country offered to construct a hospital at the devastated site. But because of political differences, our government refused the offer."
I left the Turkish people, wondering: what kind of future is man creating for himself? Only one thought came to mind: "Evil can only be defined as absence of empathy..."
Editor's Note:
This article is based on excerpts reprinted in The Unopened Files, issues 17 & 18, 2000, originally published in k.t. Frankovich's book, Where Heavens Meet (Language of Souls Publications, Inc., USA). To obtain a copy, order via amazon.com or send payment to: k.t. Frankovich, PO Box 703, Umatilla FL 32784, USA (US$24.95 + $3.20 s&h in US; £14.99 + £3.50 p&h to UK; elsewhere, US$24.95 + US$8.00 p&h). For further information, visit www.kt.cjb.net or e-mail Kfrnkovich@aol.com or Ukpoet@aol.com.About the Author:
k.t. Frankovich has had a distinguished career as a writer in film and television, winning the 1975 Gold Venus award for documentary film writing. She has devoted her personal life to rescuing abandoned, lost and abused animals. k.t. is a poet and an author of short stories and several books. She is a frequent guest on radio talk shows across the US, and is passionate about exposing the tragedies surrounding the hurricane Andrew disaster.Reproduced From NEXUS MAGAZINE
When the Army Owns the Weather
<http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12342>
Bob Fitrakis, Columbus Alive
February 5, 2002
Humans have long sought to control the weather. Early people learned how to
make fire and modify their micro-environments; rain dances and other
rituals to alleviate droughts are part of our folklore. So news that the
government is engaged in secret experiments to control the weather should
come as no surprise, especially after a long history of "cloud seeding,"
"atom splitting" and cloning revelations.
In fact, a vast majority of people would be shocked to learn that this
orphan of the cold war is still in practice. As the U.S. and former Soviet
Union spent trillions of dollars on their militaries, their commitment to
mutually assured destruction led to extensive experimentation with the use
of weather as a weapon. In 1977, the Saturday Review cited a CIA report
hinting that the U.S. government already had the power to massively
manipulate the weather for war purposes.
As the Soviet Union disintegrated, a 1993 Isvestia article suggested the
U.S. might want to partner with the Russians in peddling their top-secret
technology to the world. Oleg Klugin, a high-ranking KGB officer, bragged
of his involvement in geophysical weapons research to a London
newspaper. The grid patterns of jet chemtrails now spotted throughout the
Western world are likely the application of these technologies to new
military and civilian uses.
The military is not attempting to hide its long-term goals. "Weather is a
Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" is a white paper that can be
found on a Pentagon-sponsored website. The paper's abstract reads: "In
2025, U.S. aerospace forces can 'own the weather' by capitalizing on
emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies
towards fighting applications. Such a capability offers the war fighters
tools to shape the battle space in ways never before possible… In the U.S.,
weather modification will likely become a part of national security policy
with both domestic and international applications."
Wired magazine wrote about the paper and extensively quoted physicist
Bernard Eastlund in its January 2000 article "Activate Cloud Shield! Zap a
Twister!" The article detailed the military's plan for "made-to-order
thunderstorms" and "lightning strikes on demand."
Eastlund managed programs for Controlled Thermal Nuclear Research for the
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission from 1966 to 1974; he was a key researcher in
the 1980s' Strategic Space Initiative (aka Star Wars). Since 1996, Eastlund
served as CEO and president of Eastlund Scientific Enterprises Corporation.
The company boasts on its website that it specializes in "weather
modification" and "tornado modification" among other high-tech services.
Eastlund considers the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program
(HAARP) in Alaska a smaller version of what he envisions for weather
modification. In response to Michael Theroux of Borderland Sciences, who
asked Eastlund whether the HAARP station could affect the weather
Eastlund replied: "Significant experiments could be performed… The HAARP
antenna as is it now configured modulates the auroral electrojet to induce
ELF waves and thus could have an effect on the zonal winds."
At the Space 2000 Conference and Exposition on Engineering, Construction,
Operations and Business in Space, sponsored by the American Society of
Civil Engineers, Eastlund outlined his plan for zapping tornados with an
electromagnetic radiation beam from the proposed Thunderstorm Solar Powered
Satellite he's developing with the help of the European Space Agency and
Jenkins Enterprises.
U.S. patent number 6315213, filed on November 13, is described as a method
of modifying weather and should concern the public. A scientist from Wright
Patterson Air Force Base acknowledges that planes are spraying barium salt,
polymer fibers, aluminum oxide and other chemicals in the atmosphere to
both modify the weather and for military communications purposes. The
patent abstract specifically states: "The polymer is dispersed into the
cloud and the wind of the storm agitates the mixture causing the polymer to
absorb the rain. This reaction forms a gelatinous substance which
precipitate to the surface below. Thus, diminishing the cloud's ability to
rain."
Answering the age-old question, Who'll stop the rain?: Apparently our
government and a few of their closest friends in the military
industrial-complex. The emergence of Edward Teller promoting this startling
technology is more than scary. (Teller was the father of the H-Bomb and
grand promoter of Readi Kilowatt, our perky little radiation friend from
the '50s; one of his bright ideas from the '50s was to create harbors by
nuking our own coastline.) The April 24 New York Times reported that Teller
"has promoted the idea of manipulating the Earth's atmosphere to counteract
global warming." The computer simulations on the use of aluminum oxide to
counter global warming come from the Lawrence Livermore Weapons Laboratory,
where Teller serves as director emeritus.
There should be little doubt that this would be a priority for the
government or for for-profit military contractors. While 2001 was the
second-hottest year on record (1998 holds the record as the hottest year),
the nine hottest years on record have occurred since 1990. But why would
the government conduct anti-global warming experiments in secret?
Investigative reporter William Thomas holds that there's a link between the
recent increase in asthma, allergies and upper respiratory ailments and the
chemtrail spraying. Sound crazy? Remember, it sounded absurd when reports
first came out that the government had conducted radioactivity experiments
on U.S. citizens and released radiation from nuclear plants to test the
effect on civilian populations. It sounded bizarre when news first filtered
out that the government was engaged in the MK-Ultra mind-control
experiments using LSD. The CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency admit they
were responsible for many of the UFO sightings in the 1950s in order the
explain away experimental military technology.
From public documents to mainstream news accounts, the record is filled
with reports of weather-modifying technology left over from the Cold War.
Now we have a right to know what, if anything, the government plans to do
with it.
http://www.towardfreedom.com/mar01/weather.htm
Weather Warfare A New World Order weapon could trigger climate change
MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY
The important debate on global warming proceeding under UN auspices provides but a partial picture of climate change. In addition to the devastating impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the ozone layer, the world's climate can now be modified by a new generation of sophisticated "non-lethal weapons." In fact, both the US and Russia have developed capabilities to manipulate the world's weather.
In the US, the technology is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP) as part of "Star Wars," otherwise known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Recent scientific evidence suggests that HAARP is fully operational and has the ability to potentially trigger floods, droughts, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
While there is no evidence that this deadly technology has been used yet, surely the UN should be addressing the issue of "environmental warfare" alongside the debate on the climatic impacts of greenhouse gases. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction. Potentially, it constitutes an instrument of conquest capable of selectively destabilizing the agricultural and ecological systems of entire regions.
Owning the Weather
Despite a vast body of scientific knowledge, the issue of deliberate climatic manipulations for military use has never been explicitly part of the UN agenda on climate change. Neither the official delegations nor the environmental action groups participating in the November 2000 Hague Conference on Climate Change (CO6) raised the broad issue of "weather warfare" or "environmental modification techniques" (ENMOD) as relevant to an understanding of climate change.
The clash between official negotiators, environmentalists, and US business lobbies has centered on Washington's outright refusal to abide by commitments on carbon dioxide reduction targets under the 1997 Kyoto protocol. The protocol calls for nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent to become effective between 2008 and 2012. (For details, go to www.globalwarming.net/gw11.html .) Yet, the impacts of military technologies on the world's climate aren't an object of discussion or concern. Narrowly confined to greenhouse gases, the ongoing debate on climate change serves Washington's strategic and defense objectives.
World-renowned scientist Dr. Rosalie Bertell confirms that "US military scientists are working on weather systems as a potential weapon." As The Times of London reported on November 23, 2000, "The methods include the enhancing of storms and the diverting of vapor rivers in the Earth's atmosphere to produce targeted droughts or floods."
In the 1970s, former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski predicted in his book Between Two Ages, "Technology will make available, to the leaders of major nations, techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised ... . Techniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm."
Marc Filterman, a former French military officer, has outlined several types of "unconventional weapons" using radio frequencies. According to a 1999 report in Intelligence Newsletter, he refers directly to "weather war," indicating that the US and the Soviet Union had already "mastered the know-how needed to unleash sudden climate changes (hurricanes, drought) in the early 1980s." These technologies make it "possible to trigger atmospheric disturbances by using Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) radar."
A simulation study of future defense "scenarios," described in a report by the Air University of the US Air Force, calls for "US aerospace forces to Ôown the weather' by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications. From enhancing friendly operations or disrupting those of the enemy via small-scale tailoring of natural weather patterns to complete dominance of global communications and counterspace control, weather-modification offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary. In the US, weather modification will likely become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications. Our government will pursue such a policy, depending on its interests, at various levels."
Bombarding the Atmosphere
Based in Gokoma, Alaska, and jointly managed by the US Air Force and Navy, HAARP is part of a new generation of sophisticated weaponry under the SDI. Operated by the Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate, it constitutes a system of powerful antennas capable of creating "controlled local modifications of the ionosphere."
In The Military's Pandora's Box, Dr. Nicholas Begich, a scientist actively involved in the campaign against HAARP, describes it as "a super-powerful radiowave-beaming technology that lifts areas of the ionosphere (upper layer of the atmosphere) by focusing a beam and heating those areas. Electromagnetic waves then bounce back onto earth and penetrate everything - living and dead."
Bertell depicts HAARP as "a gigantic heater that can cause major disruption in the ionosphere, creating not just holes, but long incisions in the protective layer that keeps deadly radiation from bombarding the planet."
Although presented as a program of scientific and academic research, Begich notes that US military documents suggest HAARP's main objective is to "exploit the ionosphere for Department of Defense purposes." Without explicitly referring to the program, the Air University study points to the use of "induced ionospheric modifications" as a means of altering weather patterns as well as disrupting enemy communications and radar.
According to Bertell, HAARP is part of an integrated weapons system with potentially devastating environmental consequences. "It is related to fifty years of intensive and increasingly destructive programs to understand and control the upper atmosphere," she notes. "It would be rash not to associate HAARP with the space laboratory construction, which is separately being planned by the United States. HAARP is an integral part of a long history of space research and development of a deliberate military nature."
The military implications of combining these projects are alarming. The ability of the HAARP/Spacelab/rocket combination to deliver very large amounts of energy, comparable to a nuclear bomb, anywhere on earth via laser and particle beams, is frightening. The project, adds Bertell, is likely to be "sold" to the public as a space shield against incoming weapons, or, for the more gullible, a device for repairing the ozone layer.
In addition to weather manipulation, HAARP has a number of related uses. According to Begich, "HAARP could contribute to climate change by intensively bombarding the atmosphere with high-frequency rays. Returning low-frequency waves at high intensity could also affect people's brains, and effects on tectonic movements cannot be ruled out."
More generally, it has the ability to modify the world's electro-magnetic field. As Don Herskovitz explained in the August 1993 issue of the Journal of Electronic Defense, it's part of an arsenal of "electronic weapons" which US military researchers consider a "gentler and kinder warfare." According to Herskovitz, "electronic warfare" is defined by the US Department of Defense as "military action involving the use of electromagnetic energy."
Avoiding the Issues
According to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, "States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction." In addition, an international convention ratified by the UN General Assembly in 1977 bans "military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects."
Both the US and the Soviet Union were signatories to the convention, which defines "environmental modification techniques" as referring to any technique for changing - through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes - "the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere or of outer space." Yet, the UN, disregarding the 1977 environmental modification convention as well as its own charter, has decided to exclude climatic changes resulting from military programs from its agenda.
Responding to a report of Maj Britt Theorin, Swedish member of the European Parliament and a longtime peace advocate, the parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy held public hearings on the HAARP program in February 1998. The committee's subsequent Motion for Resolution, submitted in January 1999, "considers HAARP by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls for its legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an international independent body; [the Committee] regrets the repeated refusal of the United States Administration to give evidence to the public hearing into the environmental and public risks [of] the HAARP program."
The committee's request to draw up a "Green Paper" on "the environmental impacts of military activities," however, was casually dismissed on the grounds that the European Commission lacks the required jurisdiction to delve into "the links between environment and defense." In short, Brussels was anxious to avoid a showdown with Washington.
Fully operational
HAARP is part of the weapons arsenal of the New World Order under SDI. From military command points in the US, entire national economies could potentially be destabilized through climatic manipulations. More important, the latter can be implemented without the knowledge of the enemy, at minimal cost, and without engaging military personnel and equipment as in a conventional war.
To advance US economic and strategic interests, for example, it could be used to selectively modify climate in different parts of the world, resulting in the destabilization of agricultural and ecological systems. It's also worth noting that the US Department of Defense has allocated substantial resources to the development of intelligence and monitoring systems on weather changes.
While there's no concrete evidence that HAARP has been used, scientific findings suggest that it's fully operational. If so, it could potentially be applied by the US military to selectively modify the climate of an "unfriendly nation" or "rogue state" with a view to destabilizing its national economy.
Agricultural systems in both developed and developing countries are already in crisis as a result of New World Order policies such as market deregulation and commodity dumping. Amply documented, IMF and World Bank "economic medicine" imposed on the Third World and the countries of the former Soviet bloc has largely contributed to the destabilization of domestic agriculture. In turn, the provisions of the World Trade Organization have supported the interests of a handful of Western agri-biotech conglomerates in their quest to impose genetically modified seeds on farmers throughout the world.
In that context, climatic manipulations under the HAARP program (whether accidental or deliberate) would inevitably exacerbate these changes by weakening national economies, destroying infrastructure, and potentially triggering the bankruptcy of farmers over vast areas. Surely, national governments and the UN should address the possible consequences of this and other "non-lethal weapons" on climate change.
Michel Chossudovsky teaches economics at the University of Ottawa and is the author of The Globalization of Poverty.
