Holy Crap! - USA imperial crusade for Wall Street Bankers

Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought

by Jason Leopold -- truthout.org - 2007-12-21


For US Army soldiers entering basic training at Fort Jackson Army base in Columbia, South Carolina, accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior appears to be as much a part of the nine-week regimen as the vigorous physical and mental exercises the troops must endure.

That's the message directed at Fort Jackson soldiers, some of whom appear in photographs in government issued fatigues, holding rifles in one hand, and Bibles in their other hand.

Frank Bussey, director of Military Ministry at Fort Jackson, has been telling soldiers at Fort Jackson that "government authorities, police and the military = God's Ministers,"

Bussey's teachings from the "God's Basic Training" Bible study guide he authored says US troops have "two primary responsibilities": "to praise those who do right" and "to punish those who do evil - "God's servant, an angel of wrath." Bussey's teachings directed at Fort Jackson soldiers were housed on the Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site. Late Wednesday, the web site was taken down without explanation. Bussey did not return calls for comment. The web site text, however, can still be viewed in an archived format.

The Christian right has been successful in spreading its fundamentalist agenda at US military installations around the world for decades. But the movement's meteoric rise in the US military came in large part after 9/11 and immediately after the US invaded Iraq in March of 2003. At a time when the United States is encouraging greater religious freedom in Muslim nations, soldiers on the battlefield have told disturbing stories of being force-fed fundamentalist Christianity by highly controversial, apocalyptic "End Times" evangelists, who have infiltrated US military installations throughout the world with the blessing of high-level officials at the Pentagon. Proselytizing among military personnel has been conducted openly, in violation of the basic tenets of the United States Constitution.

Perhaps no other fundamentalist Christian group is more influential than Military Ministry, a national organization and a subsidiary of the controversial fundamentalist Christian organization Campus Crusade for Christ. Military Ministry's national web site boasts it has successfully "targeted" basic training installations, or "gateways," and has successfully converted thousands of soldiers to evangelical Christianity.

Military Ministry says its staffers are responsible for "working with Chaplains and Military personnel to bring lost soldiers closer to Christ, build them in their faith and send them out into the world as Government paid missionaries" - which appears to be a clear-cut violation of federal law governing the separation of church and state.

"Young recruits are under great pressure as they enter the military at their initial training gateways," the group has stated on its web site. "The demands of drill instructors push recruits and new cadets to the edge. This is why they are most open to the 'good news.' We target specific locations, like Lackland AFB [Air Force base] and Fort Jackson, where large numbers of military members transition early in their career. These sites are excellent locations to pursue our strategic goals."

Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of the government watchdog organization the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, whose group has been closely tracking Military Ministry's activities at Fort Jackson and other military bases around the country, said in an interview that using "the machinery of the state" to promote any form of religion is "not only unconstitutional and un-American but it also creates a national security threat of the first order."

A six-month investigation by MRFF has found Military Ministry's staff has successfully targeted US soldiers entering basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston, with the approval of the Army base's top commanders.

"I've said it before and I will say it again," Weinstein said. "We are in the process of creating a fundamentalist Christian Taliban and somebody has to do something to stop it now."

Weinstein points out that on Fort Jackson's Military Ministry web site, the basic training battalion commander, Lt. Col. David Snodgrass, and the battalion's chaplain, Maj. Scott Bullock, who appear in uniform in a photograph with Bussey, is a clear-cut violation of Military rules. MRFF contacted Bussey via email on Wednesday to request information about the "similar programs" he claimed Fort Jackson has for soldiers of other faiths. Bussey, responding to MRFF via email, did not provide an answer to the watchdog group's question, but, instead, he fired back a query of his own asking MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda to direct him to the place in the Constitution where it states there is a "separation of church and state."

Clause 3, Article VI of the Constitution forbids a religion test for any position in the federal government, and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights says Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion.

A spokesperson for the Fort Jackson Army base did not return calls for comment. Earlier this week, after MRFF exposed the potential constitutional violations between Military Ministry and the Fort Jackson Army base, Bussey added language to Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site in the form of a "notice to MRFF and ACLU types" in bold red letters that says the Bible study classes are strictly voluntary, not command directed in any way, allows soldiers to exercise for themselves the right of freedom of religion ... and similar programs exist on Fort Jackson for Soldiers of all faiths."

In July, the Pentagon's inspector general (IG) responded to a complaint filed a year earlier by MRFF that accused Pentagon officials of violating the federal law governing the separation of church and state. The IG did not address the church/state issue, but he issued a 45-page report admonishing several high-level Pentagon officials for participating, while in uniform and on active duty, in a promotional video sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ's Christian Embassy group. The IG report quoted one high-ranking military official as saying he believed his participation in the video was acceptable because Campus Crusade for Christ had become so embedded in the Pentagon's day-to-day operations that he viewed the organization as a "quasi federal entity."

The IG report recommended the military officials who appeared in the video be disciplined, but the Pentagon would not say whether it has in fact punished the military officers who appeared in the video.

MRFF uncovered another recent Campus Crusade for Christ promotional video filmed at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs that would appear to violate the same military rules detailed in the IG report. Cadets and academy officials appear in uniform discussing how Campus Crusade for Christ helped strengthen their bonds with Jesus.

Scot Blom, the Campus Crusade for Christ director assigned to work at the Air Force Academy, says in the video the organization "has always been very intentional about going after the leaders or the future leaders" and that's why Campus Crusade for Christ picked the Air Force Academy to spread its fundamentalist Christian message. Every week, according to the video, cadets are encouraged to participate in a Bible study class called "cru" short for "crusade."

"Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world," Blom says in the video. "They're government paid missionaries when they leave here."

Weinstein said the recent promotional video for Campus Crusade for Christ, and the photograph of US soldiers holding Bibles in one hand and rifles in the other posted on the Fort Jackson Military Ministry web site, gives the impression the Pentagon endorses the fundamentalist Christian organization and underscores that the occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan appears to be more of a modern-day fundamentalist Christian crusade. That message, Weinstein said, could lead to more "jihads" against the United States.

Indeed. Weinstein, a former White House counsel during the Reagan administration, former general counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and a former Air Force Judge Advocate General, said he had an "unexpected" telephone conversation with several senior Bush administration intelligence officials this week who encouraged him "to continue to fight for the separation of church and state in the US military" because, these senior administration intelligence officials told Weinstein, US troops are being put in harms way.

Weinstein said the senior administration intelligence officials told him they too have been tracking Islamic web sites where people have been discussing on message boards the fundamental Christianity issues Weinstein has raised within the US military. The intelligence officials told Weinstein they are concerned the fundamentalist Christian agenda surfacing in the military could lead to attacks against US soldiers. Weinstein said he could not identify the senior Bush intelligence administration officials he spoke with because they contacted him with the understanding they would not be named.

Fundamental Christianity's Influence on the Bush Administration

While Weinstein has worked tirelessly the past four years exposing the Christian Right's power grab within the military, he says the White House continues to thumb its nose at the constitutional provision mandating the separation of church and state.

Indeed. This week a US District Court judge ruled the White House must disclose its visitor logs showing White House visits by nine fundamentalist Christian leaders.

The ruling was issued in response to a lawsuit filed by the government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and could very well show how much influence fundamental Christian leaders such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer and Moral Majority co-founder Jerry Falwell have had on the Bush's administration.

"We think that these conservative Christian leaders have had a very big impact," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW. "The White House doesn't want to talk about how much influence these leaders have, and we want to talk about how much they do have."

Bush has been vocal about his fundamentalist Christian beliefs and how God has helped him during his presidency. A couple of weeks ago, the White House sent out Christmas cards signed by President Bush and his wife Laura that contained a Biblical passage from the Old Testament:

"You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you."

The inclusion of the Biblical passage caught the attention of longtime broadcaster Barbara Walters, who was a recipient of the presidential Christmas card.

Walters said she doesn't recall receiving "religious" holiday cards from past presidents and she wondered how non-Christians would receive such an overtly religious greeting.

"Usually in the past when I have received a Christmas card, it's been 'Happy Holidays' and so on," said Walters. "Don't you think it's a little interesting that the president of all the people is sending out a religious Christmas card? Does this also go to agnostics, and atheists, and Muslims?"

The Biblical passage inside the Christmas card did not amount to a constitutional violation because it was paid for by the Republican National Committee, but Weinstein said it's intolerable, nonetheless, because military officials believe they have the approval of the White House to allow fundamentalist Christian organizations and their leaders to proselytize in the military.

Recently, Bush nominated Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson, the deputy Air Force Chief of Chaplains, to replace the outgoing Air Force Chief of Chaplains, and is in line to be promoted to Major General. Richardson was quoted in a front-page, July 12, 2005, New York Times story saying the Air Force reserves the right "to evangelize the unchurched." The distinction, Richardson said at the time, "is that proselytizing is trying to convert someone in an aggressive way, while evangelizing is more gently sharing the gospel."

Weinstein filed a federal lawsuit against the Air Force in October 2005 after Richardson's comments were published alleging "severe, systemic and pervasive" religious discrimination within the Air Force. Weinstein is a 1977 graduate of the Academy. His sons and a daughter in law are also academy graduates. Weinstein's book, "With God On Our Side: One Man's War Against An Evangelical Coup in America's Military," details the virulent anti-Semitism he was subjected to while he attended the academy and the religious intolerance that has permeated throughout the halls over the past several years.

The federal lawsuit Weinstein filed was dismissed, but the Air Force agreed to withdraw a document that authorized chaplains to evangelize members of the military. Still, Weinstein said MRFF would lobby senators to oppose Richardson's nomination because of his past statements Richardson has refused to retract.

"The Military Religious Freedom Foundation will do everything in our power to convince the United States Senate to reject the nomination of Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson to become the chief of Air Force chaplains and his promotion to the rank of major general," Weinstein said in an interview. "We view Richardson as the prototypical poster child of the type of constitutional rapist we are trying to eradicate from existence within the US military."

In September, MRFF filed a lawsuit in federal court against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and US Army Maj. Freddy Welborn, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The complaint filed in US District Court in Kansas City alleges that Jeremy Hall's an Army specialist currently on active duty in Combat Operations Base Speicher, Iraq, First Amendment rights were violated when Welborn threatened to retaliate against Hall and block his reenlistment in the Army because of Hall's atheist beliefs.

"When You Join the Military, Then You Are Also in the Ministry"

The executive director of Military Ministry, retired US Army Major General Bob Dees, wrote in the organization's October 2005 "Life and Leadership" newsletter, "We must pursue our particular means for transforming the nation - through the military. And the military may well be the most influential way to affect that spiritual superstructure. Militaries exercise, generally speaking, the most intensive and purposeful indoctrination program of citizens...."

Moreover, Military Ministry's parent organization, Campus Crusade for Christ, has been re-distributing to military chaplains a DVD produced a decade ago where Tommy Nelson, a pastor at the Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, tells an audience of Texas A&M cadets and military officers when they join the military "then you are also in the ministry."

"I, a number of years ago, was speaking at the University of North Texas - it happens to be my alma mater, up in Denton, Texas - and I was speaking to an ROTC group up there, and when I stepped in I said, "It's good to be speaking to all you men and women who are in the ministry," and they all kind of looked at me, and I think they wondered if maybe I had found the wrong room, or if they were in the wrong room, and I assured them that I was speaking to men and women in the ministry, these that were going to be future officers," Nelson says in the DVD.

Jason Leopold is senior editor and reporter for Truthout. He received a Project Censored award in 2007 for his story on Halliburton's work in Iran originally published by Global Research.

The Somalia Syndrome (Chomsky)

The Somalia syndrome
BY NOAM CHOMSKY (Counterpoint)

23 December 2007

THIS poor country keeps taking one blow after another," Peter Goossens observed two months ago in an interview with The New York Times' Jeffrey Gettleman. "Ultimately, it will break." The country is Somalia, and Goossens directs the World Food Programme, which is now feeding some 1.2 million people there, 15 per cent of the population.

This tragic and tortured land is "marching right up to the edge of a crisis", Goossens said. "Any additional little thing, any little flood or drought, will push them over."

Somalia, war- and famine-torn, is beset from within and without. With a vigilance especially stepped up since September 11, the United States has reformulated its long-standing efforts to control the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia) as a front line in the "war on terror", and Somalia is at its very tip. The crisis in Somalia may be regarded partly as collateral damage from that "war on terror" and the geopolitical concerns reframed in these terms.

As Somalia sinks deeper into chaos, members of the African Union have sent small peacekeeping forces there, and pledged to send more if funding is made available. But they are unlikely to do so, "because there is no peace to keep (in Somalia) in the first place," Richard Cornwell, of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, told Scott Baldauf and Alexis Okeowo of The Christian Science Monitor in May.

By November, the United Nations noted that Somalia had "higher malnutrition rates, more current bloodshed and fewer aid workers than Darfur," Gettleman reported. Indeed, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the top UN official for Somalia, described its plight as "the worst on the continent".

The United Nations, however, lacks the capacity to reach the people who are hungry, exposed, sick and dying in Somalia, according to Eric Laroche, head of UN humanitarian operations there.

"If this were happening in Darfur, there would be a big fuss," Laroche said. "But Somalia has been a forgotten emergency for years."

One distinction, hard to miss, is that the tragedy of Darfur can be blamed on someone else, in fact an official enemy . the government of Sudan and its Arab militias . while responsibility for the current disaster in Somalia, like others there that preceded it, lies substantially in our own hands.

In 1992, after the overthrow of the Somali dictatorship by clan-based militias and the ensuing famine, the United States sent thousands of soldiers on a dubious "rescue mission" to assist with humanitarian operations. But in October 1993, during the "Battle of Mogadishu", two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by Somali militiamen, leaving 18 US Army Rangers dead, along with perhaps 1,000 Somalis.

US forces were immediately withdrawn in a manner that continued the murderous ratio. "In the final stages of the troops' retreat, every bullet fired against them was answered, it seemed, by 100," Los Angeles Times correspondent John Balzar reported. As for the Somali casualties, Marine Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni, who commanded the operation, informed the Press that "I'm not counting bodies ... I'm not interested."

CIA officials privately conceded that during the US operations in Somalia, in which 34 US soldiers were lost, Somali casualties . militiamen and civilians . may have been 7,000 to 10,000, Charles William Maynes reported in Foreign Policy.

The "rescue mission", which may have killed about as many Somalis as it saved, left the country in the hands of brutal warlords.     

"After that, the United States . and much of the rest of the world . basically turned its back on Somalia," Gettleman reports. "But in the summer of 2006, the world started paying attention again after a grass-roots Islamist movement emerged from the clan chaos and seized control of much of the country", leaving only an enclave adjoining Ethiopia in the hands of the Western-recognised Transitional Federal Government.

During their brief tenure, the Islamists "didn't cause us any problems", Laroche reports. Ould-Abdallah called the six months of their rule Somalia's "golden era", the only period of peace in Somalia for years. Other UN officials concur, observing that "the country was in better shape during the brief reign of Somalia's Islamist movement last year" than it has been since Ethiopia invaded in December 2006 to impose the rule of the TFG.

The Ethiopian invasion, with US backing and direct participation, took place immediately after the U.N. Security Council, at U.S. initiative, passed Resolution 1725 for Somalia, which called upon all states "to refrain from action that could provoke or perpetuate violence and violations of human rights, contribute to unnecessary tension and mistrust, endanger the ceasefire and political process, or further damage the humanitarian situation."

The invasion by Somalia's historical enemy, Christian Ethiopia, soon elicited a bitter resistance, leading to the present crisis.

The official reason for US participation in Ethiopia's overthrow of the Islamist regime is the "war on terror" . which itself has engendered terror, quite apart from its own atrocities. Furthermore, the roots of the Islamic fundamentalist regime trace back to earlier stages of the "war on terror".

Immediately after September 11, the United States spearheaded an international effort to close down Al-Barakaat . a Dubai-based Somali remittance network that also runs major businesses in Somalia . on grounds that it was financing terror. This move was hailed by government and media as one of the great successes of the "war on terror". In contrast, Washington's withdrawal of its charges as without merit a year later aroused little interest.

The greatest impact of the closing of Al-Barakaat was in Somalia. According to the United Nations, in 2001 the enterprise was responsible for about half the $500 million remittances to Somalia, "more than it earns from any other economic sector and 10 times the amount of foreign aid (Somalia) receives".

Al-Barakat also played a major role in the economy, Ibrahim Warde observes in "The Price of Fear", his devastating study of Bush's "financial war on terror". The frivolous attack on a very fragile society "may have played a role in the rise ... of Islamic fundamentalists," Warde concludes . another familiar consequence of the "war on terror".

The renewed torture of Somalia falls within the context of US efforts to gain firm control over the Horn of Africa, where the United States is launching a new Africa command and extending naval operations in crucial shipping lanes, part of the broader campaign to ensure its domination of the world's primary energy resources in the Gulf region and in Africa as well.

Just after World War II, when State Department planners were assigning each part of the world its "function" within the overall system of US domination, Africa was considered unimportant. George Kennan, head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, advised that Africa should be handed over to Europe to "exploit" for its reconstruction. No longer. The resources of Africa are too valuable to be left to others, particularly with China extending its commercial reach.

If poor Somalia collapses in starvation and misery, that is merely a sideshow of grand geopolitical designs, and of little moment.

Noam Chomsky's most recent book is What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World. Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass

Zionist Israel Rapture Nuclear War

in 1827

an Anglo-Irish evangelist fell from a horse
an invented the catastrophic religion of George W. Bush.

The followers believe they are BORN AGAIN and they expect that they will be ZAPPED AWAY FROM EARTH (beamed to heaven).

Because the U.S.A military and government is full of BORN AGAIN "Christians" ...
that ZAPPING will leave the USA "defenseless" and without "leadership" and unable to "protect" Israel. Therefore Israel will have to launch a nuclear war against arabs.

The Doomsday Code - Tony Robinson

In this video, a BBC documentary, Tony Robinson examines the End of Times beliefs of fundamentalist christians, jews, and muslims centered around the middle east holy land. These fundamentalist christians believe that once the Jewish Temple is rebuilt, then Jesus will return.

The Dispensational Origins of Modern Premillennialism and John Nelson Darby

By Jack Van Deventer

John Neslon Darby

The twentieth century has seen a dramatic paradigm shift in prophetic perspectives, first away from and now back toward its historic roots. This shift away from historic Christianity stemmed from a novel approach to Bible interpretation called dispensationalism which was developed in the 1830s and popularized with the 1909 publication of the Scofield Reference Bible. Dispensationalism, with its unique brand of premillennialism, has been thoroughly pervasive, being prominent in many churches, in bookstores, and among radio Bible teachers.

The distinguishing features of dispensationalism are a rigidly applied literalism in the interpretation of Scripture, a compartmentalization of Scripture into "dispensations," and a dichotomy between Israel and the Church. Dispensationalists believe "this present world system . . . is now controlled by Satan" (not by God) and will end in failure and apostasy.

Dispensational premillennialists claim that their unique doctrines have been held since the early church, but these claims have been soundly refuted. Far from being the historic position of the church, premillennialism was described in 1813 by David Bogue as an oddity of Church history. Postmillennialism was the dominant eschatology from the Reformation until at least 1859.

The doctrine of a secret rapture was first conceived by John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren in 1827. Darby, known as the father of dispensationalism, invented the doctrine claiming there were not one, but two "second comings." This teaching was immediately challenged as unbiblical by other members of the Brethren. Samuel P. Tregelles, a noted biblical scholar, rejected Darby's new interpretation as the "height of speculative nonsense." So tenuous was Darby's rapture theory that he had lingering doubts about it as late as 1843, and possibly 1845. Another member of the Plymouth Brethren, B.W. Newton, disputed Darby's new doctrine claiming such a conclusion was only possible if one declared certain passages to be "renounced as not properly ours."

Sandeen writes, "this is precisely what Darby was prepared to do. Too traditional to admit that biblical authors might have contradicted each other, and too rationalist to admit that the prophetic maze defied penetration, Darby attempted a resolution of his exegetical dilemma by distinguishing between Scripture intended for the Church and Scripture intended for Israel. . . . Darby's difficulty was solved by assuming that the Gospels were addressed partly to Jews and partly to Christians."

Thus, the doctrine of the separation of Israel and the Church, the foundation of dispensationalism, was born out of Darby's attempt to justify his newly fabricated rapture theory with the Bible. Dispensationalists believed justification for carving up the Scriptures came from 2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV) "rightly dividing the word of truth." Subsequent dispensationalists divided the Scriptures in terms of categories of people: Jew, Gentile, and Christian. Chafer taught that the only Scriptures addressed specifically to Christians were the gospel of John, Acts, and the Epistles! Pettengill taught that the Great Commission was for the Jews only.

Scofield taught that the Lord's prayer was a Jewish prayer and ought not be recited by Christians. Along with much of the New Testament, the Old Testament was described as "not for today." Ryrie dismissed the validity of the Old Testament commands to non-Jews because "the law was never given to Gentiles and is expressly done away for the Christian." Christians were even mocked as legalists for believing in the Ten Commandments! As other critics have observed, this segmentation of the Bible makes dispensationalism a Christianized version of cultural relativism.

Snowden and others traced the rise of modern premillennialism to a variety of religious splinter groups: the Plymouth Brethren (developed dispensationalism), the Millerites (became the Adventists), Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Pentecostals. Dispensational premillennialism was marketed the same way as the cultic groups.

First, historic Christianity was discredited by the claim that all the prominent commentaries, all the church fathers, and even the Reformers were deluded by "man-made doctrines." Second, new revelation was claimed. Darby claimed to have received "new truth" or at other times "rediscovered truth" that had been lost since the apostles. Third, enthusiasm was whipped up on the pretense that Christ's coming was imminent. Frequent false predictions did not seem to deter this enthusiasm.

Snowden cited increasing prophetic fervor in the early 1900's rising from (1) a "fresh interest and zeal" in interpreting the "signs of the times," (2) the Great War (WWI) which started a wave of prophetic speculation, and (3) "the fall of Jerusalem out of Mohammedan into Christian hands [which] has whipped the millennarian imagination up to its highest pitch of foresight and prognostication." This background explains the widespread popularity of the Scofield Reference Bible, published in 1909, which had a dramatic influence in spreading dispensationalism. Many well-known scholars warned that the teachings of dispensationalism were "unscriptural" (Spurgeon), "heterodox" (Dabney), "bizarre doctrine" and "grievous error" (Warfield), but the warnings went largely unheeded.

Today, dispensationalism is in a theological turmoil, having declined sharply since the 1970's because of mounting criticism. Grenz notes, "Dispensationalism today is in a state of fluidity. No longer are the rigid distinctives of the past held to with unswerving certainty. Many progressive dispensationalists are no longer certain as to exactly what are the defining tenets of the system that commands their allegiance."



John Nelson Darby was born in Westminster, London and christened at St Margaret's on 3 March 1801. He came from an Anglo-Irish landowning family seated at Leap Castle, King's County, Ireland. He was the nephew of Admiral Henry D'Esterre Darby and his middle name was given in recognition of his godfather and family friend, Lord Nelson.

Darby was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Dublin where he graduated Classical Gold Medallist in 1819. Darby embraced Christianity during his studies, although there is no evidence that he formally studied theology. He joined an inn of court, but felt that being a lawyer was inconsistent with his religious belief. He therefore chose ordination as an Anglican clergyman in Ireland, "lest he should sell his talents to defeat justice." In 1825, Darby was ordained deacon of the established Church of Ireland and the following year as priest.

Darby became a curate and distinguished himself for his successful ministry among the Roman Catholic peasants of his parish in Calary, near Enniskerry, County Wicklow; he later claimed to have won hundreds of converts to the Church of Ireland. However, the conversions ended when William Magee, the Archbishop of Dublin, ruled that converts were obliged to swear allegiance to George IV as rightful king of Ireland. A copy of the charge can be obtained from one of two nationally significant Brethren Archives: either the Christian Brethren Archive, JRULM, Manchester University or the private archive of Edwin Cross, Fountain House, London.

Darby resigned his curacy in protest. Soon after, in October of 1827, he fell from a horse and was seriously injured. He later stated that it was during this time that he recognized that the "kingdom" described in the Book of Isaiah and elsewhere in the Old Testament was entirely different from the Christian church.

Over the next five years, he developed the principles of his mature theology—most notably his conviction that the very notion of a clergyman was the sin against the Holy Spirit, because it limited the recognition that the Holy Spirit could speak through any member of the Church. During this time he joined an interdenominational meeting of believers (including Anthony Norris Groves, Edward Cronin, J. G. Bellett, and Francis Hutchinson) who met to "break bread" together in Dublin as a symbol of their unity in Christ. By 1832, this group had grown and began to identify themselves as a distinct Christian assembly. As they traveled and began new assemblies in Ireland and England, they formed the movement now known as the Plymouth Brethren.

Darby did not formally declare his separation from the Church of Ireland until 1832, at the Powerscourt Conference, an annual meeting of Bible students organized by his friend, the wealthy widow Lady Powerscourt (Theodosia Wingfield Powerscourt). That conference was also where he first described his discovery of the "secret rapture." For about 40 years William Kelly (1821-1906) was his chief interpreter and continued to be a staunch supporter until his own death. Kelly in his work "John Nelson Darby as I knew him" stated that "a saint more true to Christ's name and word I never knew or heard of".

Darby traveled widely in Europe and Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, and established many Brethren assemblies. He gave 11 significant lectures in Geneva in 1840 on the hope of the church (L’attente actuelle de l'église.) [see references] These established his reputation as a leading interpreter of biblical prophecy. The beliefs he disseminated then are still being propagated (in various forms) at such places as Dallas Theological Seminary and Bob Jones University and by authors and preachers such as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. In 1848, Darby became involved in a complex dispute over the proper method for maintaining shared standards of discipline in different assembles that resulted in a split between "Open" Brethren and "Exclusive" Brethren. After that time, he was recognized as the dominant figure among the Exclusives, who also came to be known as "Darbyite" Brethren. He made at least 5 missionary journeys to North America between 1862 and 1877. He worked mostly in New England, Ontario, and the Great Lakes Region, but took one extended journey from Toronto to Sydney by way of San Francisco, Hawaii, and New Zealand. A Geographical Index of his letters (available from Chapter Two, London) is currently available and lists where he traveled. He used his classical skills to translate the Bible from the original texts. In English he wrote a Synopsis of the Bible and many other scholarly religious articles. He wrote hymns and poems, the most famous being, "Man of Sorrows"[1]. He was also a Bible Commentator. He declined however to contribute to the compilation of the Revised Version of the King James Bible.[1]

He died 1882 in Sundridge House, Bournemouth and is buried in Bournemouth, Dorset, England with the following text engraved on his tombstone:

John Nelson Darby
As Unknown and Well Known
Departed to be with Christ
April 29th, 1882
Aged 81
2 Corinthians 5: 21
Lord, Let Me Wait For Thee Alone;
My Life Be Only This:
To Serve Thee Here On Earth Unknown,
Then Share Thy Heavenly Bliss.
JND


Darby is noted in the theological world as the father of dispensationalism, later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. He popularised, and is often credited with originating, the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the ways of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favor to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham.


Margaret Macdonald, born ca. 1815, was a Scottish-Irish woman who is well-known in Christian Eschatology (End-Times Prophecy). She is frequently credited as the originator of the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture.

In 1830 at the age of 15, while living in Port Glasgow, Scotland, Margaret Macdonald reportedly had a vision about the End Times.

Not long after her revelation, she wrote down her account of everything and sent hand-written copies of it to a number of Christian leaders. The Morning Watch, a leading British publication, quickly copied some of her distinctive notions. Her revelation was first published in Robert Norton's Memoirs of James & George Macdonald, of Port Glasgow (1840), pp. 171-176. Norton published it again in The Restoration of Apostles and Prophets; In the Catholic Apostolic Church (1861), pp. 15-18.

Historian Dave MacPherson, the one who rediscovered the Margaret Macdonald contribution of a pretribulation rapture, states that a few pretrib rapture teachers, who evidently had done little or no research on her or her novel teaching, assumed that she was really a posttrib rapturist because of her statement "The trial of the Church is from Antichrist." The same pretrib teachers obviously were unaware of the structure of partial rapturism (Macdonald's view) which has always seen PART of the church raptured before a future tribulation and the rest of the church left on earth to go through the tribulation. Leading partial rapturists including Pember and Govett have always referred to the part of the church left behind after an initial rapture as simply the "church" - the term Macdonald used. Plymouth Brethren leader John Darby, when analyzing partial rapturism, also called the ones left on earth after the initial rapture the "church" (Darby's LETTERS, Vol. 1, pp. 22-24). Even John Walvoord's THE RAPTURE QUESTION (REVISED), p. 97, refers to partial rapturists as pretribulation rapturists who see only PART of the church raptured while the rest of the church stays on earth! For further information on Macdonald and her novel idea emerging in 1830, see MacPherson's THE RAPTURE PLOT (300 pages) and his internet articles including "X-Raying Margaret" and "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" plus his web piece "Scholars Weigh My Research" (endorsements of his findings from many leading scholars). Here is Margaret Macdonald's epic statement; note the "one taken" in a rapture before "the wicked" (Antichrist) is revealed:

It was first the awful state of the land that was impressed upon me. I saw the blindness and infatuation of the people to be very great. I felt the cry of Liberty to be just the hiss of the serpent, to drown them in perdition. It was just 'no God.'

I repeated the words, Now there is distress of nations, with perplexity, the seas and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear -- now look out for the sign of the Son of man.

Here I was made to stop and cry out, O it is not known what the sign of the Son of man is; the people of God think they are waiting, but they know not what it is. I felt this needed to be revealed, and that there was great darkness and error about it; but suddenly what it was burst upon me with a glorious light. I saw it was just the Lord himself descending from Heaven with a shout, just the glorified man, even Jesus; but that all must, as Stephen was, be filled with the Holy Ghost, that they might look up, and see the brightness of the Father's glory. I saw the error to be, that men think that it will be something seen by the natural eye; but 'tis spiritual discernment that is needed, the eye of God in his people.

Many passages were revealed, in a light in which I had not before seen them.

I repeated, 'Now is the kingdom of Heaven like unto ten virgins, who went forth to meet the Bridegroom, five wise and five foolish; they that were foolish took their lamps, but took no oil with them, but they that were wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.' 'But be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is; and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.' This was the oil the wise virgins took in their vessels -- this is the light to be kept burning -- the light of God -- that we may discern that which cometh not with observation to the natural eye.

Only those who have the light of God within them will see the sign of his appearance. No need to follow them who say, see here, or see there, for his day shall be as the lightning to those in whom the living Christ is.

'Tis Christ in us that will lift us up -- he is the light -- 'tis only those who are alive in him that will be caught up to meet him in the air.

I saw that we must be in the Spirit, that we might see spiritual things. John was in the Spirit, when he saw a throne in Heaven. -- But I saw that the glory of the ministration of the Spirit had not been known. I repeated frequently, but the spiritual temple must and shall be reared, and the fulness of Christ be poured into his body, and then shall we be caught up to meet him. Oh none will be counted worthy of this calling but his body, which is the church, and which must be a candlestick all of gold.

I often said, Oh the glorious inbreaking of God which is now about to burst on this earth; Oh the glorious temple which is now about to be reared, the bride adorned for her husband; and Oh what a holy, holy bride she must be, to be prepared for such a glorious bridegroom.

I said, Now shall the people of God have to do with realities -- now shall the glorious mystery of God in our nature be known -- now shall it be known what it is for man to be glorified. I felt that the revelation of Jesus Christ had yet to be opened up -- it is not knowledge about God that it contains, but it is an entering into God -- I saw that there was a glorious breaking in of God to be.

I felt as Elijah, surrounded with chariots of fire. I saw as it were, the spiritual temple reared, and the Head Stone brought forth with shoutings of grace, grace, unto it. It was a glorious light above the brightness of the sun, that shown round about me.

I felt those who were filled with the Spirit could see spiritual things, and feel walking in the midst of them, while those who had not the Spirit could see nothing -- so that two shall be in one bed, the one taken and other left, because the one has the light of God within while the other cannot see the Kingdom of Heaven.

I saw the people of God in an awfully dangerous situation, surrounded by nets and entanglements, about to be tried, and many about to be deceived and fall.

Now will the wicked be revealed, with all power and signs and lying wonders, so that if it were possible the very elect will be deceived. -- This is the fiery trial which is to try us. --- It will be for the purging and purifying of the real members of the body of Jesus; but Oh it will be a fiery trial. Every soul will be shaken to the very centre. The enemy will try to shake in every thing we have believed -- But the trial of real faith will be found to honour and praise and glory.

Nothing but what is of God will stand. The stony-ground hearers will be made manifest -- the love of many will wax cold.

I frequently said that night, and often since, now shall the awful sight of a false Christ be seen on this earth, and nothing but the living Christ in us can detect this awful attempt of the enemy to deceive -- or it is with all deceivableness of unrighteousness he will work -- he will have a counterpart for every part of God's truth and an imitation for every work of the Spirit. The Spirit must and will be poured out on the church, that she may be purified and filled with God -- and just in proportion as the Spirit of God works, so will he when our Lord anoints men with power, so will he.

This is particularly the nature of the trial, through which those are to pass who will be counted worthy to stand before the Son of man. There will be outward trial too, but `tis principally temptation. It is brought on by the outpouring of the Spirit, and will just increase in proportion as the Spirit is poured out. The trial of the Church is from Antichrist. It is by being filled with the Spirit that we shall be kept.

I frequently said, Oh be filled with the Spirit -- have the light of God in you, that you may detect satan -- be full of eyes within -- be clay in the hands of the potter -- submit to be filled, filled with God This will build the temple.

It is not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord. This will fit us to enter into the marriage supper of the Lamb.

I saw it to be the will of God that all should be filled. But what hindered the real life of God from being received by his people, was their turning from Jesus, who is the way to the Father. They were not entering in by the door. For he is faithful who hath said, by me if any man enter in he shall find pasture.

They were passing the cross, through which every drop of the Spirit of God flows to us. All power that comes not through the blood of Christ is not of God. When I say, they are looking from the cross, I feel that there is much in it -- they turn from the blood of the Lamb, by which we overcome, and in which our robes are washed and made white.

There are low views of God's holiness, and ceasing to condemn sin in the flesh, and a looking from him who humbled himself, and made himself of no reputation. Oh! it is needed, much needed at present, a leading back to the cross.

I saw that night, and often since, that there will be an outpouring of the Spirit on the body, such as has not been, a baptism of fire, that all the dross may be put away. Oh there must and will be such an indwelling of the living God as has not been -- the servants of God sealed in their foreheads -- great conformity to Jesus -- his holy holy image seen in his people just the bride made comely, by his comeliness put upon her. This is what we are at present made to pray much for, that speedily we may all be made ready to meet our Lord in the air -- and it will be.

Jesus wants his bride. His desire is toward us. He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry. Amen and Amen. Even so come Lord Jesus."

(end of MacDonald's text)

All Charlatans and oppressors are interested in prophecy.

Knowledge is power... ha ha ha.


( plagiarised from Ernest L. Martin, Ph.D., 1976
http://www.askelm.com/doctrine/d760201.htm )


The word "Rapture" is not found in the Bible. There is also no single word used by the biblical authors to describe the prophetic factors which comprise the doctrine. Its formulation has come about by means of induction. Certain biblical passages concerning the second coming (and the role that Christians will play in that event) have been inductively blended together to establish the teaching. The modern expression "Rapture" was then invented to explain the overall teaching and the term suits the subject well. The basic tenets of the doctrine are uninvolved. Simply put, it purports that Christ will come back to this earth in two phases. He will first return invisibly to rapture His church away from this world so that they might escape (or partially escape the prophetical tribulation to occur near the end of the age, then later Christ will return in a visible advent to dispense His wrath on the world's nations. This is the general teaching.



Many details concerning these prime factors, however, are hotly debated. There is especially much argument over the chronological features associated with it. Some think the time lapse between the two phases will be 3 1/2 years, others say 7 years. Some feel that the Rapture of the church occurs before the Tribulation, others about mid-way through, Many suggest that the church will be taken to heaven for protection, but a few have proposed a geographical area on this earth. There are those who feel that only part of the church will escape, while others say all will he rescued, These variations, along with others, have multiplied the interpretations to such an extent that many diverse secondary opinions exist among those holding the belief. But all are unanimous on one point: the central theme of the Rapture shows that Christ will return to earth in two phases.

It may come as a surprise to many Christians, but the doctrine of the Rapture is not mentioned in any Christian writings, of which we have knowledge, until after the year 1830 A.D. Whether the early writers were Greek or Latin, Armenian or Coptic, Syrian or Ethiopian, English or German, orthodox or heretic, no one mentioned a syllable about it. Of course, those who feel the origin of the teaching is in the Bible would say that it only ceased being taught (for some unknown reason) at the close of the apostolic age only to reappear in 1830 A.D. But if the doctrine were so clearly stated in Scripture, it seems incredible that no one should have referred to it before the 19th century. This does not necessarily show that the teaching is wrong, but it does mean that thousands of eminent scholars who lived over a span of seventeen centuries (including some of the most astute of the "Christian Fathers" and those of the Reformation and post-Reformation periods) must be considered as prophetic dunces for not having understood so fundamental a teaching.




Its Beginning

The result of a careful investigation into the origin of the Rapture has been recently published. The book is an excellent one which deserves to be read by all people interested in the subject. Its title: "The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin" by Dave MacPherson. He catalogs a great deal of historical material which answers the doctrine's mysterious derivation. We wish to review the results of his research. In the middle 1820's a religious environment began to be established among a few Christians in London. England which proved to be the catalyst around which the doctrine of the Rapture emerged. Expectations of the soon coming of our Lord were being voiced, This was no new thing, but what, was unusual was the teaching by a Presbyterian minister named Edward Irving that there had to be a restoration of the spiritual gifts mentioned in I Corinthians 12-14 just before Christ's second coming. To Irving, the time had come for those spiritual manifestations to occur. Among the expected gifts was the renewal of speaking in tongues and of spirit-motivated prophetic utterances. Irving began to propagate his beliefs. His oratorical skills and enthusiasm caused his congregation in London to grow. Then a number of people began to experience the "gifts." Once this happened opposition from the organized churches set in. It resulted in Irving's dismissal from the Presbyterian church in 1832. His group then established themselves as the Catholic Apostolic Church and continued the teachings of Irving.



These events were the beginnings of what some call present day Pentecostalism. Indeed Irving has been called by some church historians "the father of modern Pentecostalism." What does all this have to do with the origin of the Rapture doctrine? Very much indeed. Let us look at what happened in the year 1830 -- two years before Irving's dismissal from the Presbyterian church. In that year a revival of the "gifts" began to be manifested among a few people living in the lowlands of Scotland. They experienced what they called the outpouring of the Spirit. It was accompanied with speaking in "tongues" and other charismatic phenomena. Irving had been preaching these things must occur, and now they were.



On one particular evening. the power of the Holy Spirit was said to have rested on a Miss Margaret Macdonald while she was in a state of illness at home. She was dangerously sick and thought she was dying.

The message she received during this prophetic vision convinced her that Christ was going to appear in two stages at His second coming -- and not one! The emanation revealed that Christ would first come in glory to them that look for Him and again in a final stage when every eye would see Him. It was this visionary experience of Miss Macdonald which represents the prime source of the modern Rapture doctrine as the historical evidence compiled by Mr. MacPherson abundantly shows.



The Influence of John Darby



Many people have thought that John Darby, the founder of the Plymouth Brethren, was the originator of the Rapture doctrine. This is not the case. Darby was a brilliant theologian with outstanding scholarly abilities. Even those who have disagreed with his teachings admit that he, and many associated with him, helped to cause a revival in biblical learning throughout the evangelical world (which even has been perpetuated down to our own present day).


It had long been thought by many Christians that the Rapture doctrine originated with John Darby. It is now known that this is not true. Darby only popularized it. Scofield and others who took over Darby's mantle later helped to make it respectable, Today, many of those in the evangelical sphere of Christianity are so certain of its veracity that it is accepted as the absolute truth of God. The fact is, however, John Darby received the knowledge of the doctrine from someone else. The source was the Margaret Macdonald mentioned above.



The studies of Mr. MacPherson show that her sickness during which she received her visions and revelations occurred sometime between February 1 and April 14, 1830. And by late spring and early summer of 1830, her belief in the two phases of Christ's coming was being mentioned in praise and prayer meetings in several towns of western Scotland. In these meetings some people were speaking in "tongues" and other charismatic occurrences were in evidence. These extraordinary and strange events in western Scotland so attracted John Darby that he made a trip to the area to witness himself what was going on. Though he did not approve of the ecstatic episodes that he witnessed. it is nonetheless significant that Darby, after returning from Scotland, began to teach that Christ's second coming would occur in two phases. MacPherson shows good evidence that Darby had even visited Miss Macdonald in her home. There can hardly he any doubt that the visions of Miss Macdonald are the source of the modern doctrine.


Visions and Dreams


Near the same time that Miss Macdonald was receiving her visions, Joseph Smith in America was experiencing his apparitions which brought Mormon doctrines to the world. John Wilson also had his dreams which were the spark that started the false teaching of British realism. Not long afterwards Ellen G. White received her visions that resulted in many Seventh Day Adventist teachings. And remarkably, all these individuals received revelations of doctrines which were much at variance with one another.

Pentagon Capitalism

Emotionomics: A Noteworthy "Revelation" of Market Totalitarianism
by Michael Dawson

Capitalism's apologists have always painted their allegedly history-ending system as the antithesis of totalitarianism. Totalitarianism, of course, is the sort of modern social order in which a ruling elite tries to control all aspects of life of its subject population, especially via threats and appeals to forms of propaganda-induced unreason.

Capitalism, they say, is the opposite of totalitarianism, as it is inherently not just respectful of, but actively encouraging of, the advancement of independent self-interested calculation and free choice among the masses.

Alas, they lie.

As Noam Chomsky says, in the real world, capitalists hate the kinds of competitive "markets" classically assumed by Adam Smith. Those "classic" (and purportedly still extant) situations are simply not conducive to maximizing owners' profits, as they tend to require price- and management-minimization. Because of these noisome pressures, amid the Great Depression of the 1870s-1890s, the overclass used its clout to launch the corporate age. Capitalism quickly became corporate capitalism.

By the 1920s, the overclass began to realize that diverting some of its bounteous new corporate cash flows into managing workers not just at work but also off the job could, if well and carefully done, become yet another source of ROI.

In the 1950s, accelerating movement in this direction yielded the breakthrough now known in boardrooms and business schools as "the marketing revolution." Ever since its consolidation -- most especially in the core selling zones created by a combination of early capitalist plunder and employment patterns, mid-20th-century democratic footholds, and the need to bolster the Cold War storyline -- corporate capitalists have devoted ever-growing budgets to managing the realm of what we uninformed commoners still quaintly think of as our "free time."

Needless to say, the science of capitalist behavioral management has become ever more ambitious. Take a look at Emotionomics, a new book in which corporate consultant Dan Hill reports and muses on the growing practice of corporate "neuromarketing."

Here's the overall context:

Described by marketing super-guru Philip Kotler as "a revelation," the book not only tips the hand of core big business marketing attitudes and methods, but it is indeed a "revelation" -- an especially clear, not-for-public ears enunciation of the true voice of corporate capital.

Hill's core revelation is a naked, un-self-conscious admission of the reality of market totalitarianism at the heart of corporate capitalist normalcy.

Hill, whose "blue-chip clients have included Target, Toyota, GlaxoSmithKline, Allstate, and Kellogg, among many others," counsels his audience of corporate planners to once-and-for-all stop kidding themselves about the "world's love affair with rationality":

Breakthroughs in brain science have revealed that people are primarily emotional decision-makers. . . . Emotions are central, not peripheral, to both marketplace and workplace behavior. As a result, companies able to identify, quantify, and thereby act on achieving emotional buy-in or acceptance from consumers and employees alike will enjoy a tremendous competitive advantage.

It doesn't get much plainer than that: both workers and "consumers" are objects of detailed, ongoing, essentially emotional managerial control campaigns.

As Noam Chomsky also frequently points out, big business corporations are "unaccountable private tyrannies." These days, they are also getting increasingly clear amongst themselves about the classical nature of their tyranny: Stripped of the standard self-congratulating, self-excusing managerial jargon, this nature is nothing less than pure totalitarianism.

---

Michael Dawson is a writer and sociology teacher living in Portland, Oregon, author of The Consumer Trap: Big Business Marketing in American Life (University of Illinois Press, 2005) and Automobiles Ueber Alles: Capitalism and Transportation in the United States (a book forthcoming from Monthly Review Press). Visit his blog: <www.consumertrap.com>.

======================

PENTAGON CAPITALISM

Today as always in the age of "the Pentagon system," inherently statist militarism supplies the useful function of diverting government priorities away from social needs and towards the selfish interests of the privileged few. Beneath disingenuous "free market" rhetoric disseminated to de-legitimize the undesirable direction of public resources to the broad populace, the "business community" has long (since at least the Great Depression) understood that government must play a central role in sustaining the system of private profit. It makes a critical distinction, however, between left-handed government service to social needs and right-handed government investment in the wasteful and destructive missions of militarism. The first form of government activity interferes with the authoritarian prerogatives of investors and managers and is therefore rejected as a "functional" policy option by the politically super-influential business elite.

The second form is welcomed by the domestic power elite because it provides no challenge to business rule while diverting public resources to dominant private interests. It offers added lovely benefits to the American ruling class. It encourages the manufacture of mass fear and mindless nationalistic conformity while legitimizing the use of coercion against those who dare to criticize existing social hierarchies and doctrines at home and abroad (for useful discussions, see Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy [New York: Hill and Wang, 1991], pp. 32, 81, 82, 108-109). It also underpins a global and remarkably expensive state-run empire, replete with more than 700 global bases located in nearly every country on earth (Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire [New York: Metropolitan, 2004], pp. 151-184). The costs of that empire are distributed over the entirety of American society but its profits "revert to a few within . In this respect," Noam Chomsky noted in 1969, "the empire serves as a device for internal consolidation of power and privilege" (Noam Chomsky, For Reasons of State [New York: New Press, 1970-, p. 47). It's not for nothing that big business feels repeatedly threatened by the ironic specter of peace - the terrible threat of a social-democratic "peace dividend."

Consistent with those "perverted priorities" (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) , the imperial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven to be profit bonanzas for leading "defense" and petroleum corporations like Boeing, Raytheon, Exxon-Mobil, and Conoco-Phillips (See Paul Street. "Profit Surge," Empire & Inequality Report, No. 10, ZNet [February 10, 2007], at www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=12089§ionID=10). Military spending and oil prices have risen hand in hand in the new age of permanent U.S.-led state-terrorist "war on terror" - a war that happens by more than pure coincidence to be focused on the super-strategic heart of the world's energy center.

US war crimes - EXPLICIT PHOTO WARNING

By Anwaar Hussain

11/30/07

As November 2007 draws to a close, it will be full three years since American forces razed the Iraqi city of Fallujah to ground. It was in November 2004 that George Bush’s forces played havoc with that city and its unfortunate inhabitants in the name of God. While the American media chose to remain blind to the utter horror of it all, busy as it was with keeping a close watch over the life and death of Terri Schindler Schiavo, Dr. Hafidh al-Dulaimi, the head of “the Commission for the Compensation of Fallujah citizens” reported the destruction that American troops inflicted on Fallujah.

According to the report, there were some 7000 totally destroyed, or nearly totally destroyed, homes in all districts of Fallujah. 8400 stores, workshops, clinics, warehouses, etc. were completely destroyed. 65 mosques and religious sanctuaries were demolished. 59 kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools and technical colleges were flattened. 13 government buildings leveled. Four libraries, that housed thousands of ancient Islamic manuscripts and books, were gutted completely. The number of human beings slaughtered in those buildings, of course, is any body’s guess.

“They are regarded as “accidents”. They are concealed in a criminal way by “the big circus of the information” which sends its correspondents to follow the tracks of this and that occidental vanished person, but doesn’t make a move or even turn its face to report what happens everyday in Afghanistan: dozens, hundreds of children like those burnt alive by our humanitarian operation.”

(Photo and caption source: http://www.rawa.org/nato_victim.htm)

By Pablo Ouziel

10/11/07

Shortly after the occupation of Iraq in 2003, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator Paul Bremer issued an edict granting immunity to U.S. military and civilian personnel including employees of Blackwater USA, from criminal prosecution in Iraqi courts.

On October 7th 2007, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the investigation set up by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had found Blackwater “deliberately killed” the 17 people in the September 16th shooting in western Baghdad. For this incident according to senior government sources, the Iraqi government wants U.S. security firm Blackwater to pay $8 million in compensation to each of the families of the 17 people killed.

“The crime of GWS: Governing while socialist”

Read this or George W. Bush will be president the rest of your life

December 11, 2007

by William Blum

Simulposted with www.killinghope.org

Another peace scare. Boy, that was close.

The US intelligence community’s new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) — “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities” — makes a point of saying up front (in bold type): “This NIE does not (italics in original) assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons.” The report goes on to state: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”

Isn’t that good news, that Iran isn’t about to attack the United States or Israel with nuclear weapons? Surely everyone is thrilled that the horror and suffering that such an attack — not to mention an American or Israeli retaliation or pre-emptive attack — would bring to this sad old world. Here are some of the happy reactions from American leaders:

Senate Republicans are planning to call for a congressional commission to investigate the NIE’s conclusion that Iran discontinued its nuclear weapons program in 2003.[1]

National Security Adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said: The report “tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem.”[2]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates “argued forcefully at a Persian Gulf security conference … that U.S. intelligence indicates Iran could restart its secret nuclear weapons program ‘at any time’ and remains a major threat to the region.”[3]

John R. Bolton, President Bush’s former ambassador to the United Nations and pit bull of the neo-conservatives, dismissed the report with: “I’ve never based my view on this week’s intelligence.”[4]

And Bush himself added: “Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. The NIE says that Iran had a hidden — a covert nuclear weapons program. That’s what it said. What’s to say they couldn’t start another covert nuclear weapons program? … Nothing has changed in this NIE that says, ‘Okay, why don’t we just stop worrying about it?’ Quite the contrary. I think the NIE makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously. My opinion hasn’t changed.”[5]

Hmmm. Well, maybe the reaction was more positive in Israel. Here’s a report from Uri Avnery, a leading Israeli columnist: “The earth shook. Our political and military leaders were all in shock. The headlines screamed with rage. … Shouldn’t we be overjoyed? Shouldn’t the masses in Israel be dancing in the streets? After all, we have been saved! … Lo and behold — no bomb and no any-minute-now. The wicked Ahmadinejad can threaten us as much as he wants — he just has not got the means to harm us. Isn’t that a reason for celebration? So why does this feel like a national disaster?”[6]

We have to keep this in mind — America, like Israel, cherishes its enemies. Without enemies, the United States appears to be a nation without moral purpose and direction. The various managers of the National Security State need enemies to protect their jobs, to justify their swollen budgets, to aggrandize their work, to give themselves a mission, to send truckloads of taxpayer money to the corporations for whom the managers will go to work after leaving government service. And they understand the need for enemies only too well, even painfully. Here is US Col. Dennis Long, speaking in 1992, just after the end of the Cold War, when he was director of “total armor force readiness” at Fort Knox:

For 50 years, we equipped our football team, practiced five days a week and never played a game. We had a clear enemy with demonstrable qualities, and we had scouted them out. [Now] we will have to practice day in and day out without knowing anything about the other team. We won’t have his playbook, we won’t know where the stadium is, or how many guys he will have on the field. That is very distressing to the military establishment, especially when you are trying to justify the existence of your organization and your systems.[7]

In any event, all of the above is completely irrelevant if Iran has no intention of attacking the United States or Israel, even if they currently possessed a large stockpile of nuclear weapons. As I’ve asked before: What possible reason would Iran have for attacking the United States or Israel other than an irresistible desire for mass national suicide?

The crime of GWS: Governing while socialist

In Chile, during the 1964 presidential election campaign, in which Salvador Allende, a Marxist, was running against two other major candidates much to his right, one radio spot featured the sound of a machine gun, followed by a woman’s cry: “They have killed my child — the communists.” The announcer then added in impassioned tones: “Communism offers only blood and pain. For this not to happen in Chile, we must elect Eduardo Frei president.”[8] Frei was the candidate of the Christian Democratic Party, the majority of whose campaign costs were underwritten by the CIA according to the US Senate.[9] One anti-Allende campaign poster which appeared in the thousands showed children with a hammer and sickle stamped on their foreheads.[10]

The scare campaign played up to the fact that women in Chile, as elsewhere in Latin America, are traditionally more religious than men, more susceptible to being alarmed by the specter of “godless, atheist communism”.

Allende lost. He won the men’s vote by 67,000 over Frei (in Chile men and women vote separately), but amongst the women Frei came out ahead by 469,000 … testimony, once again, to the remarkable ease with which the minds of the masses of people can be manipulated, in any and all societies.

In Venezuela, during the recent campaign concerning the constitutional reforms put forth by Hugo Chávez, the opposition played to the same emotional themes of motherhood and “communist” oppression. (Quite possibly because of the same CIA advice.) “I voted for Chávez for President, but not now. Because they told me that if the reform passes, they’re going to take my son, because he will belong to the state,” said a woman, Gladys Castro, interviewed in Venezuela before the December 2 vote which rejected the reforms; this according to a report of Venezuelanalysis.com, an English-language news service published by Americans in Caracas. “Gladys is not the only one to believe the false rumors she’s heard,” the report added. “Thousands of Venezuelans, many of them Chávez supporters, have bought the exaggerations and lies about Venezuela’s Constitutional Reform that have been circulating across the country for months. Just a few weeks ago, however, the disinformation campaign ratcheted up various notches as opposition groups and anti-reform coalitions placed large ads in major Venezuelan papers. The most scandalous was … (a) two-page spread in the country’s largest circulation newspaper, Últimas Noticias, which claimed about the Constitutional Reform: ‘If you are a Mother, YOU LOSE! Because you will lose your house, your family and your children. Children will belong to the state’.” This particular ad was placed by a Venezuelan business organization, Cámara Industrial de Carabobo, which has among its members dozens of subsidiaries of the largest US corporations operating in Venezuela.[11]

Chávez lost the December 2 vote (in part, I believe, because of his unrelenting bravado, which turned off any number of his supporters) but he’s still a marked man in Washington, which can not stomach the prospect of five more years of the man and his policies. It’s not because the United States is looking to grab Venezuela’s oil. It’s because Chávez is completely independent of Washington and has used his oil wealth to become a powerful force in Latin America, inspiring and aiding other independent-minded governments in the region, like Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador, as well as carrying on close relations with the likes of China, Russia, and Iran. The man does not show proper understanding that he’s living in the Yankee’s back yard; indeed, in the Yankee’s world. The Yankee empire grew to its present size and power precisely because it did not tolerate men like Salvador Allende and Hugo Chávez and their quaint socialist customs. Despite their best efforts, the CIA was unable to prevent Allende from becoming Chile’s president in 1970. When subsequent parliamentary elections made it apparent to the Agency and their Chilean conservative allies that they would not be able to oust the left from power legally, they instigated a successful military coup, in 1973.

Here for the record is a brief summary of Washington’s charming history in relation to such men, their foreign ideas, and their dubious governments since the end of World War Two:

¶ Attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically-elected; successful a majority of the time.

¶ Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.

¶ Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.

¶ Dropped bombs on the people of some 30 countries.

¶ Helped to suppress dozens of populist/nationalist movements.[12]

Although Chávez has spoken publicly about his being assassinated, and his government has several times uncovered what they perceived to be planned assassination attempts, from both domestic and foreign sources, the Venezuelan president has continued to take repeated flights and attend numerous conferences and meetings all over the world, exposing himself and his airplane again and again. The cases of Jaime Roldós, president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, military leader of Panama, should perhaps be considered. Both were reformers who refused to allow their countries to become client states of Washington or American corporations. Both were firm supporters of the radical Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua; both banned an American missionary group, the Summer Institute of Linguistics — long suspected of CIA ties — because of suspicious political behavior; both died in mysterious plane disasters during the Reagan administration in 1981, Torrijos’ plane exploding in mid-air.[13] Torrijos had earlier been marked for assassination by Richard Nixon.[14]

Who would have thought? Bush has been vindicated.

We’re making progress in Iraq! The “surge” is working, we’re told. Never mind that the war is totally and perfectly illegal. Not to mention totally and perfectly, even exquisitely, immoral. It’s making progress. That’s a good thing, is it not? Meanwhile, the al Qaeda types have greatly increased their number all over the Middle East and South Asia, so their surge is making progress too. Good for them. And speaking of progress in the War on Terror, is anyone progressing faster and better than the Taliban?

The American progress is measured by a decrease in violence, the White House has decided — a daily holocaust has been cut back to a daily multiple catastrophe. And who’s keeping the count? Why, the same good people who have been regularly feeding us a lie for the past five years about the number of Iraqi deaths, completely ignoring the epidemiological studies. (Real Americans don’t do Arab body counts.) A recent analysis by the Washington Post left the administration’s claim pretty much in tatters. The article opened with: “The U.S. military’s claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.” The article then continued in the same critical vein.[15]

To the extent that there may have been a reduction in violence, we must also keep in mind that, thanks to this lovely little war, there are several million Iraqis either dead or in exile abroad or in bursting American and Iraqi prisons; there must be as well a few million more wounded who are homebound or otherwise physically limited; so the number of potential victims and killers has been greatly reduced. Moreover, extensive ethnic cleansing has taken place in Iraq (another good indication of progress, n’est-ce pas? nicht wahr?) — Sunnis and Shiites are now living more in their own special enclaves than before, none of those stinking mixed communities with their unholy mixed marriages, so violence of the sectarian type has also gone down.[16] On top of all this, US soldiers have been venturing out a lot less (for fear of things like … well, dying), so the violence against our noble lads is also down. Remember that insurgent attacks on American forces is how the Iraqi violence all began in the first place.

Oh, did I mention that 2007 has been the deadliest year for US troops since the war began?[17] It’s been the same worst year for American forces in Afghanistan.

One of the signs of the reduction in violence in Iraq, the administration would like us to believe, is that many Iraqi families are returning from Syria, where they had fled because of the violence. The New York Times, however, reported that “Under intense pressure to show results after months of political stalemate, the [Iraqi] government has continued to publicize figures that exaggerate the movement back to Iraq”; as well as exaggerating “Iraqis’ confidence that the current lull in violence can be sustained.” The count, it turns out, included all Iraqis crossing the border, for whatever reason. A United Nations survey found that 46 percent were leaving Syria because they could not afford to stay; 25 percent said they fell victim to a stricter Syrian visa policy; and only 14 percent said they were returning because they had heard about improved security.[18]

How long can it be before vacation trips to “Exotic Iraq” are flashed across our TVs? “Baghdad’s Beautiful Beaches Beckon”. Just step over the bodies. Indeed, the State Department has recently advertised for a “business development/tourism” expert to work in Baghdad, “with a particular focus on tourism and related services.”[19]

We’ve been told often by American leaders and media that the US forces can’t leave because of the violence, because there would be a bloodbath. Now there’s an alleged significant decrease in the violence. Is that being used as an argument to get out — a golden opportunity for the United States to leave, with head held high? Of course not.

I almost feel sorry for them. They’re “can-do” Americans, accustomed to getting their way, accustomed to thinking of themselves as the best, and they’re frustrated as hell, unable to figure out “why they hate us”, why we can’t win them over, why we can’t at least wipe them out. Don’t they want freedom and democracy? At one time or another the can-do boys have tried writing a comprehensive set of laws and regulations, even a constitution, for the country; setting up mini-bases in neighborhoods; building walls to block off areas; training and arming “former” Sunni insurgents to fight Shias and al Qaeda; enlisting Shias to help fight, against whomever; leaving weapons or bomb-making material in public view to see who picks it up, then pouncing on them; futuristic vehicles and machines and electronic devices to destroy roadside bombs; setting up their own Arabic-language media, censoring other media; classes for detainees on anger control, an oath of peace, and the sacredness of life and property; regularly revising the official reason the United States is in the country in the first place … one new tactic after another, and when all else fails they call it a “success” and give it a nice inspiring action name, like “surge” … and nothing helps. They’re can-do Americans, using good ol’ American know-how and Madison Avenue savvy, sales campaigns, public relations, advertising, selling the US brand, just like they do it back home … and nothing helps. And how can it if the product you’re selling is toxic, inherently, from birth, if you’re totally ruining your customers’ lives, with no regard for any kind of law or morality. They’re can-do Americans, accustomed to playing by the rules — theirs; and they’re frustrated as hell.

Once is an accident; twice is a coincidence; three times is a conspiracy.

All science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided. – Karl Marx [20]

I believe in conspiracies. So do all of you. American and world history are full of conspiracies. Watergate was a conspiracy. The cover-up of Watergate was a conspiracy. So was Enron. And Iran-Contra. The October Surprise really took place. For a full year, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney conspired to invade Iraq while continually denying that they had made any such decision. The Japanese conspired to attack Pearl Harbor while negotiating with Washington to find peaceful solutions to the issues separating the two governments. There are many people sitting in prison at this very moment in the United States for having been convicted of “conspiracy” to commit this or that crime.

However, it doesn’t follow that all conspiracy theories are created equal, all to be taken seriously. Many people send me emails which I’m unable to take seriously. Here are a few examples:

If they try to access my website a few times and keep getting an error message, they ask me if the FBI or Homeland Security or America Online has finally gotten around to shutting me down.

If they send me an email and it’s returned to them, for whatever reason, they wonder if AOL is blocking their particular mail or perhaps blocking all my mail.

If they fail to receive a copy of this report, they wonder if AOL or some government agency is blocking it.

If they come upon a news item on the Internet which exposes really bad behavior of the powers-that-be, they point out how “the mainstream media is completely ignoring this”, even though I may already have read it in the Washington Post or the New York Times. To make the claim that the mainstream media is completely ignoring a particular news item, one would need to have access to the full version of a service like Lexis-Nexis and know how to use it expertly. Google often won’t suffice if the news item has not appeared on the website of any mainstream media even though it may be in print or have been broadcast, although the recent creation of Google News has improved chances of finding an item.

With every new audiotape or videotape from Osama bin Laden my correspondents are sure to inform me that the man is really dead and that the tape is a CIA fabrication. In January 2006, when bin Laden, on an audiotape, recommended that Americans read my book Rogue State, the mainstream media was eager to interview me. But a number of my correspondents were quick to inform me and the entire Internet that the tape was phony, implying that I was being naive to believe it; this continues to this day. When I ask them why the CIA would want to publicize and enrich a writer like myself, who has been exposing the intelligence agency’s crimes his entire writing life, I get no answer that’s worth remembering, often not even understandable.

“Why do you bother criticizing Bush? He’s not the real power. He’s just a puppet,” they ask me. The real power behind the throne, I’m told, is [Dick Cheney, David Rockefeller, the Federal Reserve, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberger Group, the Trilateral Commission, Bohemian Grove, et al.] Why, I wonder, are the annual meetings of the Bilderberger Group, et al., thought to be so vital to their members and so indicative of their power? To the extent that the Bilderbergerites have access to those in power and are able to influence them, they have this access and power all year long, whether or not they gather together in a once-a-year closed meeting. I think their meetings are primarily a social thing. Money and power likes to enjoy cocktails with money and power. Of course many important political and historical events are indeed the result of certain people of money and power talking to each other and secretly deciding what course of action would be most advantageous to their collective interests, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that those who hold public office are merely puppets of these interests. Bush displays his independence every day of the week — independence from Congress, the Constitution, the Republican Party, classic conservative economic policies, the American people, election results, the facts, logic, humanity. George W. is his own [sociopathic] man.

Finally, there’s September 11, 2001. Amongst those in the “9/11 Truth Movement” I am a sinner because I don’t champion the idea that it was an “inside job”. I think it more likely that some individuals in the Bush administration knew that something was about to happen involving airplanes — perhaps an old fashioned hijacking with political demands — and they let it happen, to make use of it politically, as they certainly have. But I do wish you guys in the 9/11 Truth Movement luck; if you succeed in proving that it was an inside job, that would do more to topple the empire than anything I have ever written.

NOTES

[1] Washington Post, December 7, 2007, p.8
[2] New York Times, December 3, 2007
[3] Washington Post, December 9, 2007, p.27
[4] Washington Post, December 4, 2007, p.1
[5] Washington Post, December 5, 2007, p.23
[6] “How they stole the bomb from us”, December 8, 2007, http://zope.gush-shalom.org/index_en.html
[7] New York Times, February 3, 1992, p.8
[8] Paul Sigmund, “The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics of Chile, 1964-1976 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977) p.297
[9] “Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973, a Staff Report of The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (US Senate)”, December 18, 1975, p.4
[10] Sigmund, op. cit., p.34
[11] Venezuelanalysis.com, November 27, 2007, article by Michael Fox
[12] In sequence, details of the five items can be found in Blum’s books:”Freeing the World”, chapter 15; “Rogue State”, chapters 18, 3, 11, 17; see also “Killing Hope” for further details.
[13] For further information, see John Perkins, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” (2004), passim
[14] Newsweek magazine, June 18, 1973, p.22
[15] Washington Post, September 6, 2007, p.16
[16] For a good discussion of this see the Inter Press Service report of November 14, 2007 by Ali al-Fadhily
[17] Associated Press, November 6, 2007
[18] New York Times, November 26, 2007
[19] Washington Post, December 5, 2007, p.27
[20] Capital, Vol. III

William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website at “essays”.

WTC 1 hit -- Marcus Icke

What Hit WTC1?

Dimensional Analysis Of The “Flight 11” Aircraft Seen In The “Fireman’s Video”

Introduction

In this article which should be considered an update for “Flight 11 Unveiled – The X-11 Drone” we will analyse captured frames from the famous “Fireman’s Video” in conjunction with computer simulations of the “Flight 11” aircraft’s approach to WTC1 in order to ascertain the basic dimensions and shape of the aircraft. Some of the images shown on this site have been enhanced to bring out as much detail from them as possible. While doing so I have been careful not to add or remove anything from them. Throughout the analysis and presentation I have tried to remain as objective as possible. Most of the visual exercises were carried out more than once and often used varying methodology in their conception and execution. I have assumed that this “Fireman’s Video” was recorded by Jules Naudet (below left) and that it has been transferred to DVD format from the original tape.

Picture Quality Issues

Many sceptics have criticised the “Flight 11” aircraft for being too “blurry” and have claimed that there is something wrong with the aircraft and / or there is something wrong with the video recording itself. It is true that the “Flight 11” aircraft is blurry, but having watched the 911 DVD from start to finish I have come to the conclusion that everything in the video is “blurry”, not just the “Flight 11” aircraft. In essence, the quality of the video is satisfactory, but not brilliant and it “blurs” everything it records to the same degree.

When people talk of “blurriness” or use some other abstract criticism of the video what they are really referring to is image resolution, motion blur, native blur, compression artefacts, digital noise, digital artefacts , post-production scan-interpolation, etc and other effects that degrade the quality of the picture. Coincidentally, the camera that was used for this film-footage would not be considered suitable for any type of serious documentary work:

An overview of the relevant video quality issues are discussed below using visual examples from the “Fireman’s Video”.

Image Resolution

The size of the “Flight 11” aircraft as seen in the “Fireman’s Video” is contained on average in a grid of approximately 20 pixels by 20 pixels. In an area of 400 square pixels there is not sufficient visual information to positively identify the object that is being represented by those 400 square pixels, especially when you consider other video effects that degrade the quality of the image.

In the picture below I’ve paired together two proportionately sized images of the WTC1 tower from the “Fireman’s Video”. The wide angle low resolution image is on top and a fully zoomed in high resolution equivalent image is on the bottom:

In the high resolution image there is a box like structure perched on the northern tip of the WTC1 tower which I’ve marked in a black circle. Other higher resolution images taken from different angles with different video cameras confirm the presence of this structure on the WTC1 tower top that was probably some kind of radio communication device:

In our low resolution image the box shaped structure has been reduced to what looks like a large, black, low contrast cloud hanging over the corner of the tower. This effect is a kind of optical illusion because there is insufficient visual information to positively identify the structure. To make matters worse over-exposure of the frame has caused “blooming” of the highlighted areas (areas of the image where objects in the field of view are reflecting excessive amounts of sunlight directly at the camera. Blooming will be discussed later) which not only removes even more visual information from those areas, it makes the reflecting surface look larger than it actually was in reality.

Blur Part 1 - Radial Blur

The “Fireman’s Video” seems to have a native blur that is equivalent to a radius of about 1 and a half pixels. This means that in theory if we were to focus the image with a blur radius of 1 and a half pixels using image enhancement software then we could sharpen the image to effectively remove that native blur. An ingenious software program called “FocusMagic” that can do just this.

The picture below shows two identical captured frames from the “Fireman’s Video” extracted from the original DVD at their native resolution. The entire image on the top has been focused using “FocusMagic” with a blur radius set at of 1 and a half pixels while the image below remains unprocessed:

The enhanced image looks much sharper, not only across the shape of the “Flight 11” aircraft, but across the entire field of view, especially over the brown building on the right of the frame. By definition this proves that the “Flight 11” aircraft was no more “blurry” than its surrounds. It also shows us that there is a sufficient amount of detail in the video for effective visual enhancement.

Blur Part 2 - Motion Blur

As Jules Naudet swung his camera to the left to capture the last moments of the “Flight 11” aircraft everything the video camera recorded was subject to motion blur. This is not the same as ordinary “blur” which is normally the result of the subject being out of focus or any “blur” produced by the video recording process.

In the picture below the right hand frame shows a capture taken when the video camera was at rest, and on the left is a frame captured when the video camera was in the process of turning sharply to the left. Notice that in the left hand image the WTC1 mast, the illuminated side of the WTC1 tower and the “Flight 11” aircraft itself all appear to be horizontally “stretched” and lacking in contrast. By comparison the stationary image on the right is clear and sharp. These are the effects of motion blur, in this case horizontal motion blur:

As most of the appearance of the “Flight 11” aircraft was recorded when the camera was in motion you can see why the image quality is not as good as it could have been. Not only is it suffering from the native blur induced by the video camera itself, it now has additional motion blur added on top of that. Both of these effects are in a sense obscuring detail in the image, but a great deal of that detail can be recovered with image enhancement software.

Incidentally, the motion blur began as soon as the camera started turning to the left and long before the “Flight 11” aircraft even appeared in the camera’s field of view. Below left is an image of a street lamp-post and its respective shadow cast on the background building which was captured when the video camera was in motion. On the right we have the same structure and its shadow recorded just before the camera began turning to the left:

Just as in the previous example the image that was recorded when the camera was in motion has weaker contrast and suffers from horizontal motion blur.

To end this blur sub-section I’ve enhanced an entire frame from the “Fireman’s Video”. You may recognise it because it’s the same frame I used for the introduction picture at the top of this article. In this example the image on top has been heavily processed over entire frame to remove radial blur and motion blur using “FocusMagic” and I’ve lightened the darker areas to make it look much closer to what an observer would have seen had he or she been watching the event from the same place as the cameraman:

Blooming

Blooming is caused by localised over-exposure of the video frame and it removes visual information from the picture that can not be recovered. In the background of the image below I’ve marked out a parked car and it’s surrounds in a red rectangle. The camera is in shadow and most of the shot was filmed in a shadowy area. The video camera’s aperture control would have been set to automatic and therefore it would have been adjusting itself to correctly expose the image based on the average amount of light coming into the camera’s lens. As most of the shot has been recorded shadow, the sun lit background has been over-exposed resulting in the blooming of these over-exposed areas, which in this case is the car and its surrounds. Consequently we can make out very little detail in this part of the image:

Compression Artefacts

Compression artefacts are the visual side effects of using compression technology to reduce the file size of a video recording. They typically manifest as block-like echoes over boundaries of high contrast and become increasingly more noticeable as the amount of compression is increased. In the case of the “Fireman’s Video” additional artefacts would have been introduced into the video during conversion to the MPG2 format for DVD release.

The image below has been enhanced to highlight these compression artefacts around areas of sharp contrast. Notice vertical ripples to the right of the WTC1 mast and a “chequered” effect on the WTC1 tower, the brown building to the right and on the impact event on the north face of the tower:

Compression engines introduce other visual aberrations into video recordings. In our next comparison image the CG Boeing 767-200 on the right has been deliberately compressed to show the visual side effects of compression. You can just make out a faint cloud of artefacts around the airframe and that some of the darker areas have become bloated and accentuated, but what stands out the most is that a lot of colour detail has been removed from the image of the airframe. It seems that a blue cast has covered the lighter areas, almost as if the background had bled into the silhouette of the airframe washing out the colour, distorting its outline and leaving it a darkened monochromatic blue that looks different from the original image:

Noise

In the “Fireman’s Video” you can see a lot of what looks like noise in the sky. I’ve marked the densest patch with red arrows but the whole image is affected to a greater extent:

Conclusion To Picture Quality Issues

When we consider the effects of blooming, compression artefacts, noise, blur, image resolution etc, it is technically correct to state that the “Flight 11” aircraft is “blurry” because this is exactly how we would expect a camera of this quality (Jules Naudet’s camera is shown below) to render such any object in the frame.

All of these video effects will change the way the “Flight 11” aircraft appears to the viewer in the video, but they don’t make it any less real than it actually was (assuming the video is genuine). It is possible with careful visual enhancement to bring out more detail from any given image. Under the circumstances the “Flight 11” aircraft is sufficiently sharp to perform an analysis of it without enhancement, especially when the WTC1 tower is directly behind the “Flight 11” aircraft:

Computer Simulation Of An American Airlines Boeing 767-200 Strike At WTC1

In order to analyse the “Flight 11” aircraft we need something to gauge its dimensions by. The official story tells us that WTC1 was hit by a hijacked American Airlines Boeing 767-200. If we were to use an identical camera used by Jules Naudet and could position a Boeing 767-200 at precisely the same bearing, distance, aircraft attitude and in the same meteorological conditions as the “Flight 11” aircraft seen in the “Fireman’s Video” then it would be possible to do a direct comparison between the re-created CG video and the authentic video.

As I do not have the time or resources to re-create this event in real life using Jules Naudet’s video camera and a real Boeing 767-200 I have chosen to simulate the scenario in Microsoft's “Flight Simulator 2004 - A Century Of Flight” using a high quality iFDG 767-200 freeware add-on and a custom made patch that restores the former World Trade Centre Complex to the native flight simulator scenery.

I checked the WTC patch with the iFDG 767-200 to real world dimensions. The simulated scenery and aircraft add-ons were strikingly accurate.

Next I had to position the virtual camera precisely at precisely the point where Jules Naudet was filming when the aircraft struck. I achieved this with a street map of lower Manhattan and knowing that the Jules Naudet was in Canal Street I positioned the virtual camera respectively and made fine adjustments to the position so that zoomed in shots of the tower just after it had been hit by the “Flight 11” aircraft matched as closely as possible to what could be seen from the simulated view point at the same zoom setting.

During the creation of this article I did my own work and some research in to the “Flight 11” aircraft’s flight path, attitude and the viewing angle of the camera Jules Naudet used to record the WTC1 impact.

Flight Path and Attitude datums:

Flight path - Descent path approximately 15 degrees calculated by Professor A. K. Dewdney, confirmed by the author…

…and then backed up by the 911 Omission:

Aircraft pitch - Negative at approximately 15 degrees. Deduced by the author from the “Fireman’s Video”:

Aircraft assumed to be heading directly at WTC1 hitting at a perpendicular angle to the North face of the tower.

This information is sourced from FEMA, NIST and MIT (see below):.

Camera Viewing Angles:

If positioned at the WTC1 gash looking straight out, the camera position from the observer would be:

Declination angle of approximately 19 degrees.

Relative bearing from WTC1 North face of approximately 14 degrees positive from perpendicular:

For the purposes of this exercise I have chosen the following CG Boeing 767-200 attitude datums:

CG Boeing 767-200 attitude datums:

Pitch – Approximately 15 degrees negative:

Yaw - 0 degrees.

Bank - 24 degrees port approximately – deduced from WTC1 gash photographs:

Altitude - Visually matched to the respective “Flight 11” aircraft extracted from the Naudet footage.

With the camera positioned as accurately as possible and the aircraft position / attitude adjusted to match the “Flight 11” aircraft as seen in the “Fireman’s Video” using “Flight Simulator 2004 - A Century Of Flight” we can re-create an image of what Jules Naudet’s camera should have recorded on 911 if the WTC1 tower had been hit by a Boeing 767-200.

But before we do this we’ll take a look at a frame of the “Flight 11” aircraft on its own and see what we can learn from the image without the aid of comparative CG analysis.

The “Flight 11” Aircraft – A Basic Analysis

What we have here, recorded in the “Fireman’s Video”, is most definitely an aircraft in the way most people would know an aircraft. You can clearly see the black tail fin, the black port side of the fuselage, the underside of the port wing, the underside of the port elevator and the nose tip. If you look more closely the port wing root is just visible.

The annotated airframe of the “Flight 11” aircraft shown below has been rotated 45 degrees to the right to put the airframe in an attitude that should make it easier for the reader to perceive:

The starboard side of the airframe is something of a mystery. The starboard wing is obscured by the fuselage, but where the end half of where the starboard wing should be, there is a large dark “blob” which looks like it is almost as wide as the fuselage itself. This eliminates any possibility of the “blob” being the starboard engine nacelle, it can’t be because it’s much too large, in the wrong place and the wrong colour. The object in question could be a visual blend of elements of the outer half of the starboard wing with some other kind of device attached to that wing, or mounted on the relatively darker starboard side of the fuselage.

In the next section we’ll look at different frames of the “Flight 11” aircraft from the “Fireman’s Video” and see how they size up next to our CG Boeing 767-200 and the CG WTC1 tower. This will allow us to build up a basic picture of the “Flight 11” aircraft using comparative CG analysis. All of my CG images have been matched to the original “Fireman’s Video” footage in terms of environmental conditions, blur, compression artefacts and other video aberrations native to the video camera so as to allow for as an effective visual analysis as is possible.

Approximation Of The “Flight 11” Aircraft’s Airframe Dimensions

Fuselage Length

The image below shows the CG Boeing 767-200 as close to the CG WTC1 tower as possible (right) with the same attitude as the “Flight 11” aircraft (left):

Straight away we can see that the “Flight 11” aircraft is significantly shorter than a Boeing 767-200, in fact by a factor of about 25%. This visual analysis gives the “Flight 11” aircraft’s fuselage length at approximately 36 meters compared to the Boeing 767-200’s fuselage length of precisely 48.51 meters.

Airframe Reflectivity

Out of all the frames that were captured and analysed for this article I never found anything that looked remotely like engine nacelles on the “Flight 11” aircrafts wings despite the suns position at approximately 24 degrees above the horizon and approximately 15 degrees to the left and behind of aircraft’s lateral axis that would have provided ample illumination for both engines, assuming the aircraft was indeed a Boeing 767-200:

We should note that the engines and airframe of this Boeing 767-200 aircraft were finished with a reflective black and metallic material respectively and that these finishes should have been more than adequate to reflect a sufficient quantity of light to have been registered by Jules Naudet’s video camera:

Wing Sweep-back Angle

The “Flight 11” aircraft has a different wing sweep back angle to a Boeing 767-200. The wings on the “Flight 11” aircraft almost perpendicular to the airframe by comparison. The sweep back angle on the Boeing 767-200 is 31.50 degrees as can be seen in the CG Boeing 767-200 in the image pair below. In this particular pair I’ve pasted the CG Boeing 767-200 back into the original frame from the “Fireman’s Video”:

With this wing sweep back problem in mind we can eliminate most commercial aircraft including all of the Boeing and Airbus types in service at the time of the 911 attacks.

Wing Span

Not only is the wing sweep-back angle less than it should be on the “Flight 11” aircraft, the wing span appears to be significantly shorter than that of a Boeing 767-200 (below), though this point is speculative as the wing sweep-back angle and wing dihedral angle could produce the illusion of a bigger or smaller wing span compared to the CG Boeing 767-200.

This “Flight 11” aircraft could easily be a Boeing 737-NG or similarly proportioned aircraft if it weren’t for the incorrect wing sweep back angle. The relatively small size of the “Flight 11” aircraft might go some way to explain why we don’t see any engines on the wings. Being sized in proportion to the rest of the airframe they would have been too small to show up on the video.

To conclude this section we can say with certainty that the “Flight 11” aircraft’s airframe is significantly smaller that that of a Boeing 767-200 in practically every respect. It has a shorter fuselage, a smaller wing span and a slimmer fuselage. There is some evidence to suggest that the wings of the “Flight11” aircraft were mounted to the top of the fuselage and not on the bottom. Most modern commercial passenger jets like the Boeing and Airbus types have the wings attached to the bottom of the fuselage, not on the top.

The Question Of Video Authenticity

Some sceptical members of the 911 research community have stated that:

“The object seen in the Fireman’s Video is a shapeless blob and therefore it can’t be an aeroplane of any sort.”

This is untrue as demonstrated by the previous ”The Flight 11 Aircraft – A Basic Analysis” section which identifies key airframe elements.

“The aircraft seen in the Fireman’s video does not conform to the Laws of Perspective and therefore the

Flight 11 aircraft can not be an aeroplane of any sort or the video is not genuine.”

Typically people that make this kind of sweeping statement can’t define perspective and probably have never objectively studied the WTC1 strike from the “Fireman’s Video” in its entirety. Thus this comment is a speculative one that can easily be disproven as is graphically demonstrated below using points 1 and 2 as simple definitions of perspective that were synthesised from the “Oxford Illustrated Dictionary” for the purpose of this analysis.

1 – “Increased distance from the viewer or camera produces an apparent decrease in the objects size.”

When the “Flight 11” aircraft disappeared inside the WTC1 tower it was far smaller than when it first appeared in the camera’s field of view. Despite reducing in size the Flight 11” aircraft held its shape throughout the WTC1 strike sequence:

2 – “Apparent compacting of linear spaced objects with increased viewing distance.”

As the “Flight 11” aircraft flies away from the camera toward the WTC1 tower the apparent distance between each consecutive captured image of the aircraft taken at linear time intervals appears to decrease the further and further away it flies away from the camera (see below).

This scenario is analogous an observer watching cars driving down a freeway. As the cars get further and further away from the observer they appear to get relatively smaller and smaller and the apparent distance each car gets smaller and smaller, but each individual car maintains its apparent shape as it travels away from the camera.

So in terms of perspective the “Flight 11” aircraft as it appears in the “Fireman’s Video” conforms to the Laws of Perspective just like any other moving object in an environment. This could be considered a sign of authenticity or just a sign that the video is a well made fake. If this video is fake then why didn’t the fakers use the image of a Boeing 767-200 instead of some other type of aircraft that is visibly smaller than a Boeing 767-200?

The matter of authenticity is hotly disputed, but having studied the DVD version of this video I can see no obvious signs of forgery or manipulation. This does not prove that the video has not been forged or manipulated. If the video is fake, then it is a very well made fake, and in many respects. In my view it is up to the reader to make up their own minds over the question of authenticity.

Conclusion

The “Fireman’s Video” does not provide any video evidence for a Boeing 767-200 strike at Tower 1 of the former World Trade Centre Complex in New York on the morning of September 11th 2001. As demonstrated herein images of a simulated Boeing 767-200 strike at the WTC1 tower compared to images of the “Flight 11” aircraft strike at WTC1 as seen in the “Fireman’s Video” shows little or no similarity between the “Flight 11” aircraft and the simulated Boeing 767-200. If the “Flight 11” aircraft had been a Boeing 767-200 then it should have appeared as just that in the “Fireman’s Video”.

Whatever hit WTC1 was no Boeing 767-200, it was a much smaller non-commercial aircraft of unknown origin that functioned more like a missile than a passenger jet.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Can’t We See The Nose Section Of The “Flight 11” Aircraft?

Well actually you can see the nose of the “Flight 11” aircraft as illustrated in the graphic below:

The viewer sees proportionally less the nose section because of the camera viewing angle and the attitude of the “Flight 11” aircraft that gives the viewer the illusion that the nose section of the airframe is small or absent (compare distance B to distance A in the graphic below):

Here’s a greatly exaggerated example of this optical illusion using an Airbus A340. Notice how the front half of the fuselage (A) seems to be disproportionately longer than the rear half of the fuselage (B), yet in the plan view (inset) the distances A and B are practically identical:

Poor quality versions of the video eliminate the smaller details will add to this optical illusion but in the high quality region 1 NTSC DVD version the nose section is largely self-evident throughout the entire sequence although it appears to be very small or altogether absent. The relative size and appearance of the nose section is dependant on other factors like the compression artefacts, changes in viewing angle and any other aberrations in the video recording process like blooming or noise as previously mentioned.

Here’s another way to prove that there was a significant amount of fuselage ahead of the wings. Consider frames 1 and 2 below which show the shadow cast by the fuselage of the “Flight 11” aircraft as its passes through the towers facade:

Fuselage contact occurs just before frame 1 and a significant amount of the fuselage has penetrated the façade by frame 2, yet in both frames we can clearly see the port wing. This proves that there was a significant portion of fuselage ahead of the wings. The wings vanish during the flash frame (right of frame 2) never to re-appear.

It would seem that the wings on the “Flight 11” aircraft are in roughly in the place we would expect them to be for a normal aeroplane. Below is an enlargement of frame 1, except this time I’ve marked the point where the fuselage contacts the façade with a red line, thereby allowing us to obtain a rough visual estimate of the relative position of the wings on the fuselage:

Why Can’t We See Any Engines On The “Flight 11” Aircraft?

The reason we can’t see any engines on the “Flight 11” aircraft is because it probably didn’t have any, or because they were so much smaller than the Boeing 767-200 engines that they weren’t recorded by Jules Naudet’s video camera.

In the earlier sections of the video that had favourable camera viewing angles we should have been able to identify something that looked like, or inferred, the presence of wing mounted engines on the airframe that would be consistent in size and positioning with the engines on the Boeing 767-200, but we didn’t:

The “Flight 11” Aircraft Looks Like A “Blob” And Therefore It’s Not An Aeroplane!

It has been said that the “Flight 11” aircraft recorded by Jules Naudet’s video camera is nothing more than a “blob” and therefore it can not be an aircraft of any kind, but this is precisely how Jules Naudet’s mediocre quality video camera would record an object such as the “Flight 11” aircraft given the meteorological conditions on 911, the camera viewing angle and the attitude of the “Flight 11” aircraft.

The “Flight 11” aircraft is only rendered by a small amount of pixels and is further subject to native blur, compression artefacts, digital noise and other degrading effects of the video recording process.

To illustrate this point consider the following image pair. On the left is the picture of an American Airlines Boeing 767-200 taken from a documentary about the 911 atrocities and on the right is the identical picture with the resolution dropped to the same level as the “Fireman’s Video” with the correct amount of native blur and compression artefacts added:

In the image on the right all of the aircrafts aerofoils have apparently vanished as have both its engines. It bears practically no resemblance to the original image leaving the viewer guessing or using their imagination to work out what the “blob” actually was had it been recorded at a higher resolution.

This simulated example above of the degrading effects of the video recording process are directly applicable to the “Flight 11” aircraft seen in the “Fireman’s video” and therefore the argument that because the “Flight 11” aircraft appears to be nothing more than a “blob” in the “Fireman’s Video” it can not be an aircraft of any kind is technically incorrect.

Version 1.3 - August 2006.