email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

The foreskin is the hood of skin which covers the head of the penis. When penises are discussed in formal circles, and let’s have more of that, the foreskin is called the prepuce and the penis head is the glans. Circumcision sees the removal of this piece of skin. According to the Canadian Pediatric Society, between 69 and 97 percent of males in the United States were circumcised in 1970. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, circumcision was carried out upon 56 percent of boys in 2006 but only 32.5 percent in 2009. These numbers do not include procedures performed outwith hospitals, and so do not include Jewish rituals or circumcision not covered by insurance.

Racially, circumcision in the United States is more common among white males than black, and more common in black males than Hispanic ones. Geographically, it is most common in the north central regions of the United States and least common in the western states.

A circumcision being performed in Central Asia, possibly Turkmenisatan

The procedure is uncommon in Canada, Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Asia. Circumcision was little-known in South Korea prior to the Korean War, but after the country hosted so many GIs, half of males are now circumcised. In Africa, things are a little more complicated.

In Kenya, it is estimated that 85 percent of men are circumcised, but it is less common in other countries: 70 percent in Tanzania, 35 percent in South Africa, 25 percent in Uganda, 13 percent in Zambia, 8 percent in Swaziland, and 4.5 percent in Rwanda.

Uncircumcised Xhosa males cannot inherit a father’s wealth,

Xhosa males are circumcised

preside over ritual ceremonies or marry. An uncircumcised male past the standard age of 18 could be overpowered by others and circumcised against his will. The Ndebele are similar. Legend has it that when an uncircumcised man was elevated to the cabinet, Ndebele men circumcised him against his wishes. The Abagishu people of Eastern Uganda circumcise males as late as in their twenties. The operation is very painful, which is considered an ideal preparation for marriage as it demonstrates courage. Among the neighboring Bukusu people, a man cannot be buried unless he is circumcised, and the operation will be carried out post mortem, if necessary.

Many males have died or lost their penises in botched circumcision operations in Africa, mostly in impoverished communities. Unregistered surgeons often carry out circumcision to make money. One with a dreadful safety record was given a suspended jail sentence of three years, but carried on chopping. In the last five years he killed almost 20 males and obliged another 15 to have their penises amputated. In 2009, there were 91 deaths from circumcision just in the Eastern Cape Province of Seth Effrika.

Circumcision in Africa is performed at initiation schools. Often, blunt and unsterilized knives are used. Severe beatings are given as punishment for forgetting parts of rituals, from which deaths have resulted. In 2004, officials met with traditional leaders to discuss the alarming number of deaths and injuries from circumcision-gone-wrong. The chairman of the National House of Traditional Leaders said, “We cannot just sit back and fold our arms.”

Are there any medical benefits from circumcision?

It is often claimed that cut dicks are cleaner, but an uncircumcised glans is more moist and sensitive. It has nature’s own lubricant, and this is not a dirty thing.

Circumcision lessens the risk of urinary tract infection (UTI) tenfold. Four percent of boys suffer from this condition, mostly in the first year of life, and 55 percent of these are hospitalized. According to the Australasian Academy of Physicians, 111 circumcisions would be required to prevent one case of UTI, which is a lot of penis. Circumcision has been shown to reduce the incidence of penile cancer, but this affects less than one man in 100,000. Surveys in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia found circumcision to have no effect on the risk of sexually-transmitted infection. Some studies found that circumcision reduced the risk of prostate cancer, but the relationship was not consistent and was not confirmed by further review. There were widely publicized reports that uncircumcised males were 1.5 times more likely to acquire human papillomavirus (HPV), but the relevant studies examined only the glans, and ignored those sites which are associated with the greatest chance of infection. These studies also failed to take account of the greater risk of infection during recovery from circumcision. Researchers at the University of Washington found no connection between circumcision and HPV infection.

HIV up close

Circumcision does, however, provide protection against HIV. The World Health Organization stated so in 2007, based on three randomized clinical trials in Africa which found that circumcised men were 60 percent less likely to have HIV. The WHO panel charged with dealing with the matter said, “research evidence is compelling.”

Anaerobic bacteria are abundant in an uncircumcised penis, but almost non-existent in a circumcised one. It is thought that these bacteria can provoke inflammation in the genitalia, attracting Langerhans cells – immune cells – which can be infected by the HIV virus. Targeted antibiotics or antiseptics could be developed to afford protection in this case.

Ronald Gray, one of circumcision’s most forceful advocates, said that part of the protective effect of circumcision upon HIV is that, without a foreskin, a penis grows extra layers of skin, which reduces the amount of cells which can be infected with HIV. What effect will these extra layers of skin have upon sexual sensitivity?

Two of the most common anaerobic organisms found in uncircumcised penises are prevotellaceae and clostridiales. These are associated with bacterial vaginosis, an uncomfortable condition which is the most common vaginal infection in women of child-bearing age. Rather than cut away a section of somebody’s penis, it might be considered preferable for a woman to avoid the condition by not being a skanky ho: douching reduces the risk of this condition, while multiple sex partners increase it.

It is accepted that complications arise in between 0.2 and three percent of circumcisions, usually minor bleeding and local infection. One of these was two year-old Jamaal Coleson, Jr., who died at Manhattan’s Beth Israel Hospital in 2011. The boy awoke from anesthesia, and asked for food and a drink before complaining of stomach pain. He died ten hours later. The boy’s uncle told the New York Post that he had been given a general analgesic instead of a local one.

Jewish ritual circumcision

Some Orthodox Jews practice metzitzah b’peh, the suction of blood from the cut penis by the mohel who performs circumcision. In 2003 and 2004, a boy in Staten island and twins in Brooklyn contracted Type 1 herpes after being subjected to the practice. One of the twins died. Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, the mohel in all three cases, was the subject of a court order to not perform the ritual in New York City.

Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organization said the Orthodox community would continue to use the technique and there has been a clamor that it is a “commandment from G-D!” It is thought that metzitzah b’peh is performed more than 2,000 times every year in New York City. Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a professor of Talmud and a microbiologist, countered that one of the foremost rules of the Torah is that a risk to health cannot knowingly be taken unless it is truly justified.

Dr. Phillip Leveque, the medical adviser of the Salem News newspaper, told of an incident of electric cautery where the machine was inadvertently set to “high” rather than “low,” and fried the penis of one young male. He said if he undertook circumcision in this manner, he would have to be extremely careful, “…or some young man in about twenty years would be looking for me with fire in his eyes.”

Chubby boys who are circumcised experience the phenomenon of "hidden penis." Photo: FBellon

One alarming drawback of circumcision is the phenomenon of the “hidden penis.” It is normal for chubby baby boys to have a roll of fat above their genitals, which causes a circumcised penis to be sucked in. The condition disappears with age, but is greatly disconcerting to parents until then.

While chopping off the foreskin has been put on a par with female circumcision, this is something of an exaggeration. Douglas Diekema, director of education for the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Hospital, said, “The anatomic female equivalent of the male foreskin is the clitoral hood.” Who would obey if they were instructed to cut off their daughter’s clitoral hood? Diekema continued: “Most forms of female genital cutting involve excision or far more than the clitoral hood, often excising the clitoris with or without portions of the labia. The male equivalent of those would be removal of the penis with or without the scrotum.”

But circumcision is still genital mutilation, and that is plenty bad. It desensitizes the penis. The study, Fine-touch pressure thresholds in the adult penis, published in the British Journal of Urology, used a device known as a Semmes-Weinstein monofilament touch-test sensory evaluator, which yields the most accurate, non-invasive evaluation of skin sensation. 163 subjects were studied, both circumcised and not, all 18 years-old or more. The most sensitive parts of the penis were found to be the tip and the inside surface of the prepuce, parts which are lost to circumcision.

Another study published by the British Journal of Urology in 1996 stated: “The foreskin contains 85% of the sexually receptive nerve endings of the penis.” It also said that the end of the foreskin, the preputial sphincter, is the most sensitive point of an unmutilated male’s body, holding 20,000 Meisner’s corpuscle nerve endings, the nerve endings which sense light touch, and are found in the anus or lips. They also occur in very concentrated patterns on the the sole of the foot and the palm of the hand and. The study said that the difference in feeling between an uncircumcised and a circumcised penis was like gently sliding a finger over the palm and the back of the hand.

Another study was conducted in South Korea by JoongAng University professor Bang Myeong-geol and Seoul National University professor Kim Dae-sik. Bang said, “We can make the conclusion that circumcision poses a negative impact on [enjoyment of] sex by damaging peripheral nerves.” It has been proven that circumcised men last longer in bed, and this is surely because they experience less pleasure.

Circumcision is the result of a conspiracy by the plutarchical rulers of the United States to reduce male sexual pleasure. As the otherwise lunatic conservative website, henrymakow.com, put it, thanks to circumcision: “The minds of men would be free to study the law or learn war.” America’s ruling class is attempting to protect itself because it knows just how many politicos got into trouble because they were thinking with their cocks.

Think of the dozens of political sex scandals there have been in the last decade. Philip Giordano, the mayor of Waterbury, Conn., was convicted of sexually assaulting two girls of eight and ten years-old.

Herman Cain was a frontrunner to be the Republican presidential candidate, but got into trouble for thinking with his cock. Photo: johntrainor

Sen. Larry Craig was arrested by an undercover police officer during an investigation of salacious goings-on in the men’s restroom of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. It was humorously suggested by the cartoon strip, Doonesbury, that this was a ploy by the right-wing to either unalterably associate homosexuality with public sex, or to show that the GOP was the only place for self-hating homosexuals. Sen. John Ensign and Gov. Mark Sanford both called for Bill Clinton to resign in 1998 over his extra-marital naughtiness, but declined to do so when their own came to light. Senate candidate Jack Ryan’s former wife, Jeri, alleged that he compelled her to attend sex clubs and have public sex with him, although the allegations have not been corroborated. After his little bastard was revealed, Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger proved as impervious as his various screen personae would suggest. Herman Cain was a frontrunner for the Republican nomination to president until four wimmen claimed that he sexually harassed them during his time at the helm of the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s. His fate was sealed when a further woman came forward to tell of her 13 year affair with Cain. He “suspended” his run for the Republican nomination.

The circumcision conspiracy is not only the work of politicians anxious not to lose colleagues. The medical profession is in on it, purveying an unnecessary surgical procedure to rake in more cash now that “elective tonsillectomies” have been outlawed. The lawyers are in on it, too. A measure to criminalize the severance of part of an unconsenting baby’s penis was present on a ballot in San Francisco after resident Lloyd Schofield and a group of “intactivists” collected the required 12,000 signatures. The measure was removed because it would violate a Californian law which leaves regulation of medical procedures a state, and not a city, matter. In Sacramento, Calif., Governor Moonbeam signed bill AB768, a bill which prevented local governments from banning male circumcision.

The association of circumcision with Judaism goes back several millennia, to Genesis 17:10: “This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.” Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), known to Jews as רמב“ם, the Rambam, was a Torah scholar who is one of the key figures of Jewish history. He revealed the reason for circumcision: it reduces sexual pleasure and hence masturbation.

This torch was picked up in the West at the end of the 19^th century. In 1891, the Royal College of Surgeons of England released On Circumcision as Preventive of Masturbation. It was said that as well as masturbation, the foreskin caused incontinence, epilepsy, and hysteria. Another doctor, P.C. Remondino, said that ‘Circumcision is like a substantial and well-secured life annuity …it insures better health, greater capacity for labor, longer life, less nervousness, sickness, loss of time, and less doctor bills.” Female masturbators were given cliterodectomies. This was still recommended as late as 1936 by L.E. Holt, author of pediatric textbooks.

William Kellogg, who gave us cornflakes, was all for circumcision.

In the United States, William Kellogg of Cornflake fame made the case for circumcision to reduce masturbation. He was a major philanthropist, and very powerful. He said that circumcision would leave the skin covering the penis tight, which would hamper or even eradicate masturbation. He recommended that the operation be performed without anesthetic “so that pain during an operation may affect the mind.” In the real world, this would cause post-traumatic stress disorder. He advised that clitorises be cauterized with carbolic acid so that women could “combat the perverted ways of getting sexual pleasure.” He also said that eating Kellogg’s Cornflakes would reduce the dreadful toll of self-pleasuring.

Circumcision is described as elective surgery, but baby boys do not give consent. As a result, KNMG, the Royal Dutch Medical Association, called circumcision “a violation of human rights,” and encouraged the country’s parliament to ban it.

If a man has been circumcised, all is not lost. Ron Miller is a

People protesting against circumcision

member of the National Organization for Restoring Men. He said, “I’m pissed off about the 40 years of wasted sex I’ve had,” and addresses meetings of the increasingly popular Organization. One of the most popular methods of foreskin restoration propounded by the group is known as T-tape. Tape and paper are employed to create a sleeve which covers the end of the penis. The sleeve is secured to the middle of the penis shaft using around an inch of surgical tape. The sleeve’s open end if closed with the clip of a suspender belt. Tension is applied to the penis to stretch it. The procedure should be discontinued if the penis changes color or temperature. Further down the line, weights can be used. Surgical procedures are available, but are not popular.

Miller took an interest in foreskin restoration when he felt he had lost all sensation during intercourse. Viagra was no help. He said circumcised versus uncircumcised sex is as different as an old black and white television set is from HDTV.

Dr. Leo McCafferty, a plastic surgeon at the UPMC Shadyside hospital in Pittburgh, said, “One snowflake doesn’t make a winter. It’s hard to draw conclusions from anecdotal experiences” – although anecdotes can be highly persuasive, as in this case. He also said that the matter was subjective, as pleasure cannot be measured – although as has been seen, sensation can, and circumcision reduces it. Dr. Carl Bruning, a urologist in Monroeville, near Pittsburgh, said that erectile dysfunction is usually caused by pelvic surgery, diabetes, and artherosclerosis rather than by loss of sensation.

The truth of the matter is that circumcision reduces a penis to a dried, insensate husk. It is not needed by men who do not reside in Swaziland, with the world highest rate and HIV, and who steer clear of intravenous drug-using ladies of negotiable affections.

Bibliography

“’We want answers’: Devastated parents accuse hospital of botching simple circumcision which led to two-year-old son’s death.” Daily Mail. 5 May 2011. 31 October 2011. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1383844/Jamaal-Coleson-Jrs-parents-accuse-Manhattan-hospital-fatal-botched-circumcision.html.>
“AFRICA: Tracking the male circumcision rollout.” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. n.d. 31 October 2011. <http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=88286.>
“Circumcision in Africa.” Economy News. n.d. 31 October 2011. <http://www.economynews.us/economy/circumcision-in-africa/.>
“Circumcision of Infant Males.” Royal College of Australasian Physicians. 1 September 2010. 31 October 2011. <http://www.kids.vic.gov.au/downloads/male_circumcision.pdf.>

“Circumcision reduces sexual satisfaction: study.” Hankyoreh. n.d. 31 October 2011. <http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/180947.html.>
“Circumcisions kill 20 boys in South Africa.” BBC. 18 June 2010. 31 October 2011. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10350471.>
“In Sex Scandals, GOP Trumpts Democrats.” The Daily Beast. 29 March 2010. 31 October 2011. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/03/30/which-party-has-more-sex-scandals.html.>
“Mass circumcision: cornflakes magnate vs. masturbation.” Pravda. 27 March 2006. 31 October 2011. <http://english.pravda.ru/health/27-03-2006/77873-circumcision-0/.>
“Ridged Band.” Doctors’ Medical Opinion. n.d. 31 October 2011. <http://www.doctorsmedicalopinion.com/wiki/Ridged_band.>
“South Africa circumcision deaths.” BBC. 15 July 2003. 31 October 2011. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3069491.stm.>
Conley, Mikaela. “Proposed Circumcision Ban Struck From San Francisco Ballot.” ABC News. 28 July 2011. 31 October 2011. <http://abcnews.go.com/Health/san-francisco-circumcision-ban-striken/story?id=14179024.>
Esman, Abigail R. “Circumcision Makes You Crazy. So Holland Moves To Stop It.” Forbes Magazine. 19 September 2011. 31 October 2011. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/abigailesman/2011/09/19/circumcision-makes-you-crazy-so-holland-moves-to-stop-it/.>
King, Tim. “Circumcision is a Real Killer in America.” Salem News. 17 October 2010. 31 October 2011. <http://www.salem-news.com/articles/october172010/circumcision-madness.php.>
Newman, Andy. “City Questions Circumcision Ritual After Baby Dies.” New York Times. 26 August 2005. 31 October 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/nyregion/26circumcise.html.>
Pheneth, Victoria. “SA considers circumcision dangers.” BBC. 25 May 2004. 31 October 2011. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3745513.stm.>
Snowbeck, Christopher. “Local men restoring their foreskins.” Post Gazette. 25 April 2000. 31 October 2011. <http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20000425hnorm2.asp.>
Sorrells, Morris L., Snyder, James L., Reiss, Mark D. Eden, Christopher, Milos, Marilyn F., Wilcox, Norma, and Van Howe, Robert S. “Fine-touch pressure thresholds in the adult penis.” National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers. 22 October 2006. 31 October 2011. <http://www.nocirc.org/touch-test/bju_6685.pdf.>
Storrs, Carina. “Clean-Cut: Study Finds Circumcision Helps Prevent HIV and Other Infections.” Scientific American. 13 January 2010. 31 October 2011. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=circumcision-penis-microbiome-hiv-infection.>

Mr. Stubblebine claims to have extensive experience in intelligence operations, and used his analyzing skills to determine it was no plane:

I was responsible for all of the Army’s Strategic Intelligence forces around the world… I had responsibility for the signals intelligence, photo intelligence, counter-intelligence, human intelligence… They all belonged to me.

…I don’t know exactly what hit it, but I do know, from the photographs that I have analyzed and looked at very, very carefully, it was not an airplane.

Where were the wing marks?

Stubblebine supports his claim by the fact that no airplane wing marks were found on the Pentagon. “The nose penetrated far enough that there should have been wing marks on the wall of the Pentagon… Did this vessel, vehicle, or whatever it was, have wings? Apparently not, because if it had had wings, it would have made marks on the side of the Pentagon.”

What if the plane’s tilt accounted for the missing wing marks?

His theory is challenged by the possibility the plane hit the Pentagon at a tilt, which would account for the missing wing marks. But if that’s the case, where was the wing that would have broken off on collision with the ground, and the other wing that would have broken off and projected in the air?

I accepted what was being said [before I saw the photographs] after I looked at it, no way.

"Japan Apocalypse" attraction at the Adobe of Chaos

The Fukushima disaster released more radiation than reported by the Japanese government. A study was carried out that combined radioactivity data from across the world and concluded that the amount released in March was much greater than what the Japanese government had said.

Comparison of Radiation Release Estimates

Xenon-133:

• Japanese government: 1.1 x 1019 Bq
• New study: 1.7 x 1019 Bq

Caesium-137:

• Japanese government: 1.5 x 1016 Bq
• New study: 3.5 x 1016 Bq

In addition to reporting these low radiation release estimates, TEPCO’s failure to take prompt action following the accident resulted in the unnecessary release of long-lasting contaminant caesium-137. This is a big safety concern because caesium-137 is absorbed by the body, and remains in the environment for decades.

Tokyo Spared from Disaster

The new study also shows that Tokyo could have suffered far worse if the wind was blowing a different direction after the accident. In the first few days the wind was blowing out to sea, but on the afternoon of March 14th the wind turned inland and blew radioactive caesium-137 rain clouds into the country. Japan’s central mountain regions and the area Northwest of the Fukushima plant received radioactive rain, while Tokyo was lucky enough to escape the fallout.

The study is available online as a PDF link.

In an eery foreshadowing of what would be the fate of the twin towers on September 11th, a person on November 30th, 2000 wrote the following in an Internet forum:

When the two towers that make up the World Trade Center were built, they were designed to withstand the impact of the largest airliner of the day, the Boeing 707 Intercontinental. The Empire State Building survived a B-25 medium bomber crashing into it on a very foggy day. It was during the weekend when most people weren’t there, but still, 14 people died.

Anyone wanna bet that the World Trade Center could survive an 767-300 impact?

As everyone is aware, the towers did not withstand the impact of a Boeing 707. The forum poster was sure that the towers could absorb a huge amount of damage without falling over, but it did anyways. This could be proof for some that bombs were planted inside the buildings to destroy the support structures that would have kept the towers standing in the air.

Games and TV Shows Predict Terror Attacks

Some other foreshadowing regarding the fate of the Twin Towers is also included in video games and TV shows. In the 2000 PC game Deus Ex, the towers were absent from New York, because according to the story they were destroyed by a terrorist attack (in reality, they were absent from the game because the graphical computing power was not there).

The pilot episode of the TV show “The Lone Gunmen” centered on a plot by terrorists to fly a hijacked airplane into the Word Trade Center. In the story, the attack was actually coordinated by an American weapons manufacturer, intending to start a war that would lead to increased weapon sales. The episode first aired March 4th, 2001.

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

Part of Terminal 5 of John F. Kennedy Airport, from which TWA Flight 800 departed

Around 2019 eastern daylight time on July 17, 1996, Trans World Airlines, Inc (TWA) Flight 800, a Boeing 747-131 airliner with tail number N93119, was delayed for just over one hour at John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) in New York because there was a mismatch between passengers and baggage. This resolved, the aircraft took off bound for Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris. Aboard were two pilots, two flight engineers, 14 flight attendants, and 212 passengers. At 2031, when at a height of 13,760 feet 8 miles from East Moriches, New York, TWA 800 exploded and its remains landed in the Atlantic Ocean 30 seconds later.

The 230 souls on board were most likely killed by what is described by medical examiners as “phenomenal whiplash,” caused by impact with objects inside the cabin or deceleration. Although many of the bodies were burned, it is believed this occurred after death.

The captain, Steven Snyder, had completed over 17,000 flying hours and was so famed for his conservation of fuel that flying an airplane efficiently came to be known as “Snyderizing.” It would have been co-pilot Ralph Kevorkian’s final flight before being certified as a captain. The aircraft had left the factory on July 15, 1971, the day before flight engineer Oliver Krick was born. Andy Krukar had a diamond ring in his pocket, which he planned to place upon the finger of his fiancée, Julie Stuart, at the Eiffel Tower. Stuart wears the ring to this day. Joe Lychner of Austin, Texas, missed the flight due to a last-minute business appointment, and was not killed with his wife Pam and daughters 10 year-old Shannon and 8 year-old Katie.

Montoursville Area High School

16 students from the Montoursville High School French club and five chaperones were killed. One was Rance Hettler, a 6’3” track star who planned to attend Northeastern University’s School of Criminal Justice and desired to become an FBI agent. The FBI posthumously made him an honorary FBI agent, and gave an FBI baseball cap to his parents, which was buried with him. The Montoursville children were described as “the best of the best,” and they had toiled all year to fund the trip, selling candy, cookies, pizza, and hoagies, and performing car washes. One resident remarked, “This is not a wealthy community.”

Ana Maria Shorter was the wife of jazz saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, whom she was traveling with her niece to meet in Italy, where he was touring. Michel Breistroff, 25, was a member of the French national hockey team who was expected to participate in the 1998 Winter Olympics. Edwin B. and Ruth D. Brooks has been married for more than 56 years and spent a minimum of four months of every year traveling.

11 year-old Ludovic Chanson from a small town near Versailles had just completed his second summer as an exchange student. He had acquired a collection of New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls memorabilia and was particularly fond of pistachio ice cream with sprinkles. Flight attendants Melinda Tucker and Ray Lang were engaged to be married.

The first recorded witness to the explosion was Captain David McClaine, flying an Eastwind Airlines Boeing 737 near the coast of Long Island. At 2032.01, he was recorded saying, “We just saw an explosion up ahead of us here something [like] about sixteen thousand feet [altitude] or something like that. It just went down—to the water.”

The official explanation is that one center wing fuel tank exploded because of an electrical spark caused by a short circuit in an undetermined component. It is the only time a fuel tank ever exploded without a clear cause during flight, and, strangely, aircraft survive lightning strikes. There are other explanations. An article co-authored by Ian Goddard and JFK’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger, suggested that the aircraft was destroyed by a missile from a U.S. Navy ship, which would have required the silence of an untold number of people for more than a decade-and-a-half. Goddard later described his actions as “reckless and a mistake,” a product of his desire to inflict a “black eye” upon the government. He said that “TWA 800 was just a vehicle for my larger agenda.” Salinger died in 2004 after suffering from dementia, but he is survived by “Pierre Salinger Syndrome,” the belief that everything found on the internet is true.

A P3 Orion airplane was in the vicinity of Flight 800 when it exploded.

Another possibility is electromagnetic interference from nearby U.S. military elements: a P3 Orion, a C-130, a Black Hawk helicopter, a C-141, a C-10, the Coast Guard cutter Adak, and the warships Normandy, Trepany, Albuquerque, and Wyoming. NASA and the Joint Spectrum Center investigated and dismissed the idea. The Joint Spectrum Center solves problems arising from the electromagnetic spectrum. On the internet can be found the case for the explosion having been caused by a particle beam, but a better proposition is that responsibility falls to a man-portable air defense system (MANPAD) – a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile (SAM).

Terrorist possession of a MANPAD is not inconceivable. In January 2010, authorities seized a cargo airplane in Bangkok which contained 35 tons of North Korean weapons. Amongst the weapons were Chinese HN-5 MANPADs, less capable than the MANPAD Iran manufactures itself. A sound explanation is that the MANPADs were to be given to terrorists, allowing Iran plausible deniability. TWA 800 was lost on July 17, which was the Iraqi National Liberation Day, the day the Ba’ath party took power. This date could have been chosen to implicate the government of Saddam Hussein.

Since 1973, 30 civilian aircraft have been brought down and 920 civilians killed by MANPADs, which are cheap and relatively small. Many U.S. Stingers were given to Afghans fighting the Soviets and several are known to be in the possession of Iran. Stinger’s operation has been likened to that of a point-and-shoot camera. On the open market, a low-end MANPAD costs $5,000 while the most capable, the Chinese Vanguard, costs $50,000. The Vanguard is based in part on the Stinger but has a superior range and better tracking. In 1994, a French Mistral MANPAD on a tripod was found by Maryland State Police beneath a busy air corridor near Westminster, Maryland.

Bill Clinton levied trade sanctions against Iran in 1995. The Iranians termed the Iran/Libya Sanctions Act an act of war. Shortly after, Iranian proxies bombed U.S. troops at Khobar Towers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Eye witnesses to the destruction of TWA Flight 800 spoke of a streak of light.

96 eye-witnesses saw the explosion from the Long Island shore, boats, and a nearby helicopter and jet. Interviewed by the FBI, they told of a streak of light that traveled from the Earth to the aircraft, which exploded. Many at first thought it was a firework, except the explosion was too large. An FBI agent documented that one witness saw “what he thought was a shooting star traveling west to east, coming from the south shore, over Fire Island.” The object seen moved faster than an aircraft.

Another witness said she saw what she thought was a contrail travel from the ocean to the aircraft. Other witnesses agreed that the light stream originated from a boat. To a news camera, Lou Desepoli said he saw something that was “a bright, reddish orange color” which looked like a flare. The light seen by witnesses lasted for around six seconds, approximately as long as a MANPAD’s rocket burns.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) claims these witnesses saw burning jet fuel released as TWA 800, still featuring wings, climbed 3,000 feet after the nose detached and weight was lost. It is widely believed that this contravenes the laws of physics and nobody saw the airplane climbing, including pilots who saw it from above. The CIA produced a video to explain the theory, an unusual step to take after a commercial air disaster. It was shown by many news channels. It was made after the CIA received only 244 of 755 accounts. While data from various satellites and radars was employed, it largely used only one eye-witness. This witness had at first maintained that the streak of light originated from ground level, and only gave the version used by the CIA during his third interview. FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom said the video was “conjecture, based on a lot of evidence.” The NTSB Witness Group said the streak of light seen by so many did not match the flight path of TWA 800, and highlighted the CIA’s divergence from the account of so many people.

On March 15, 1999, the train Spirit of New Orleans derailed after hitting a steel truck on a railroad crossing in Bourbonnaise, IL. In order to prove that the truck had driven around a safety gate, the NTSB called for witnesses, whom it chose to believe on this occasion.

The FAA said that pilots who saw a missile when Flight 800 went down saw the launch of a Trident from a submarine - 2000 miles away.

Pilots of US Airways, Delta, and Northwest flights all reported what they believed to be missile sightings. The FAA claims that they saw two D-5 Trident missiles launched from the submarine USS West Virginia off the coast of Florida on a night of clear visibility, leading Navy Captain Michael Doubleday to comment that “It stretches the imagination that anybody could see 1,900 to 2,000 miles, no matter what altitude they are flying at.”

The Associated Retired Aviation Professionals (ARAP) was created early in June 1997 to independently investigate the crash of TWA Flight 800. Some members were experienced crash investigators, including ARAP’s head, who was employed by the Navy. Assistance was received from people within the NTSB investigation. The organization claims to have testimony to the effect that Bill Clinton called an FBI command post concerned with the Olympics and told them the airplane was shot down with a MANPAD. It also says there are witnesses prepared to testify that George Gabrial, a senior FBI agent, said he believed he had observed a missile.

It was reported by the Free Republic and ARAP that a Freedom of Information Act petition by retired United Airline captain Ray Lahr revealed a document dated six days after the crash:

“On Tuesday, July 23, 1996, a representative from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) advised [the FBI] that after a visual analysis of both the videotape as well as a number of still photographs taken from various portions of the tape, the phenomenon captured by [redacted] appeared to be consistent with the exhaust plume from a MANPAD missile.”

Ray Lahr can be contacted through www.findagrave.com.

TWA 800 had been carrying a shipment of small, pet turtles, corneas for transplant and 800 pounds of glitter. First responders found the glitter coating the calm surface of the Atlantic. The fumes from burning jet fuel made it difficult to breathe. There were thousands of pieces of yellow insulation, some the size of a palm and some as large as car doors. There was a postcard of the Statue of Liberty, a piece of unchewed gum, a box of Cheerios, a woman’s black leather jacket, and a white teddy bear. 39,600 items of personal effects were eventually recovered.

A flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder

Officially, the aircraft black box flight recorders were found at 2330 on 24 July, one week after TWA 800 crashed, by divers Chief Petty Officer Kevin Oelhafen and Petty Officer Douglas Irish of the USS Grasp.

ARAP says the official account of the discovery of the black boxes contradict divers ARAP interviewed, who put it more than 24 hours earlier. The boxes ought to have been found in the tail cone section of the aircraft, or at least within its debris, but instead they were found 30 feet apart away from any debris – just as if they had been dropped from a boat. This would have allowed NTSB/FBI officials to examine the boxes earlier, and withhold them if they showed evidence of a missile attack. Although polygraph tests are as reliable as reading animal entrails, they impress the U.S. government. A witness who has passed one and sworn an affidavit says an NTSB manager informed him that the black boxes were found by 20 July.

The voice recording of the black boxes revealed 11-and-a-half minutes of routine conversation. Immediately before the silence was a “brief, fraction-of-a-second sound” very similar to those heard on the recorder of two airplanes downed by bombs, an Air India flight off Ireland and Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. Usually, a structural break-up causes several seconds of immense noise as metal is torn. An airplane has never, ever been destroyed instantaneously. There would have been unusual changes to other variables.

The FBI conducted a dredging operation from November 1996 to April 1997. Team members found two commercial fishing vessels had picked up and then discarded what appeared to be the first stage of a MANPAD, the missile’s ejector-motor can. This is roughly as large as a Coke can, and separates from the main unit when the second stage booster ignites.

A soldier with an SA18 MANPAD

A crewmember of the Alpha Omega had found one such can early in October while trawling for scallops approximately two nautical miles from where TWA 800 exploded. FBI agents showed the crewman photographs of three Stinger parts, which elicited the reply that one had been found and disposed of. The most obvious features the found item had in common with that photographed were two distinctive ignition wires connected to the can. Special Agents Otto and Bongardt then took a live Stinger ejector-motor can to show the crewman, and during hours of interrogation the crewman insisted his find was similar yet somehow different to one photograph. This suggests the component the crewman obtained was for the Russian SA16/18 missiles or the Vanguard.

Data supplied to the FBI by China Lake Naval Air Weapons Facility indicated that a MANPAD launched from a low forward direction would head for the three air pack exhaust ports, directly beneath the center wing tank.

Jet fuel is 700 times as dense as air. The fragments of a MANPAD warhead would be brought to a halt by a few feet of fuel, avoiding damage to aircraft components by high velocity fragments. Fragments of this nature are what alerted investigators to the likelihood that Pan Am 103 was brought down by a bomb in December 1988: pieces of the radio-cassette player containing the bomb had impacted upon the cargo container carrying it, with a force that could only be explained by a bomb explosion. When Kalstrom announced the results of the FBI’s investigation into the explosion of TWA 800, he said the lack of these fragments showed that a missile strike did not bring down the airplane. James Kalstrom is fulloshit.

Kalstrom shut down the criminal investigation into TWA 800 from November 1997. A fast-moving boat captured on radar a mere 2.9 nautical miles from where the airplane had exploded was never identified, as Kalstrom’s successor Lewis Schiliro told Congressman Traficant. After retiring, Kalstrom was recorded saying this boat was actually a helicopter, but since the object was tracked at a speed under 35 knots for 35 minutes, even FBI agents find this inconceivable.

A 93 foot section of TWA Flight 800 was reassembled.

Almost a million pieces of TWA 800 were recovered – 96 percent of the aircraft. A 93 foot section of the airplane was reassembled in a hangar in Calverton, N.Y. which formerly produced shining Grumman fighters. It was the largest and most complex jigsaw puzzle in the world, taking 100,000 work hours and $500,000. Christened the “jetosaurus rex,” it now resides at the new NTSB Academy in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, where it is used in the teaching of crash investigations. Only three other reconstructions of this kind have ever been carried out, of which one was a 65 foot section of Pan Am 103.

In rows 17-19 of the cabin was a reddish-orange trail. Independent investigator James Sanders says it became a hot topic for investigators after the FBI took samples but declined to share the results with NTSB staff. Sanders had a sample analyzed by the Los Angeles commercial laboratory West Coast Analytical Services, whereupon the substance was, according to Sanders, found to be the exhaust residue of a solid fuel missile. The headline of California’s Riverside Press-Enterprise bellowed “New Data Show Missile May Have Nailed TWA 800.” The FBI countered that the substance was adhesive. Proceedings against Sanders were initiated for the theft of evidence, under a Federal law to deter scavengers that was instituted in 1996 after a Floridan truck driver was accused of removing a fragment from the wreckage of the May 1996 Valujet crash.

TWA 800 clearly fell victim to a man-portable SAM. Iran has shown an apparent willingness to pass these onto terrorists, and certainly had the motivation. Responsibility for the attack was never claimed by Iran or assigned by the United States because war would ensue.

The investigation into TWA 800 was, according to FBI Deputy Director Shirillo, the largest in the history of the FBI and the aviation industry. More than 1,000 agents were deployed. It took four years and cost $50-60 million. It’s something of a shame that it was quite so wrong.

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email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

A Boeing 747–100 similar to Pan Am 103.

At 7:03pm on the bitterly cold evening of 21 December 1988, a bomb detonated aboard Pan Am Flight 103, almost directly below the “P” in “Pan Am,” as it flew over Scotland. The aircraft splintered into thousands of pieces, many aflame, which rained onto the town of Lockerbie below. Debris was strewn for miles around. Burning fuel was spread over a divided highway, incinerating autos. One wing plowed through the village, killing everyone in one street. All 259 passengers and crew and eleven of the town’s residents were killed. 66 of the dead were children. The victims included 189 Americans returning to the United States for Christmas.

An investigation published in 2007 by The Firm, Scotland’s independent law journal, found evidence that the airliner had been destroyed by the accidental detonation of illegally carried explosives on the aircraft. Others have speculated that the cause was an electrical fault, as with other crashes of Boeing 747s. On television on 22nd December 1988, Scottish Secretary Malcolm Rifkind described Lockerbie as an “accident,” but let’s not go there.

Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi

No organization took responsibility for the blast, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Federal Aviation Authority eventually came up with the names of Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, two Libyan intelligence officers, as the guilty men. Megrahi had been chief of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, putting him in a position to carry out the bombing. For eleven years, Colonel Qaddafi resisted all entreaties to turn the men over, and faced United Nations trade sanctions as a result. In addition to the $48 billion dollar cost of these, Libyans were prevented from traveling abroad, overseas Libyan bank accounts were frozen, and the import of spare parts required by the nation’s oil industry was forbidden.

Then, on 5 April 1999, after extensive backroom diplomacy involving South African president Nelson Mandela, Qaddafi agreed that Libya would pay $2.7 billion without admitting guilt and surrender the men to be tried under Scottish law in a neutral country – Holland. The money amounted to $10 million for each victim, with the final payment made in 2008. Lawyers took a third of it. In February 2004, the Libyan prime minister said $2.7 billion was the “price of peace.” After a trial that lasted 18 months and cost $80 million, Fhimah was found innocent and Megrahi, guilty. Was Megrahi truly guilty?

A missile released from the forward launcher of Vincennes during a 1987 exercise. The same launcher was employed in the downing of Iran Air 655.

In July 1988, the USS Vincennes had shot down Iran Air Flight 655, believing it to be a suicidal Iranian F-14, although no records justify this. 254 people died and crew-members received Combat Action Ribbons. Two days later, Iranian minister of the interior Ali Akbar Mostashemi said that “blood would rain down from the skies” in retaliation. The threat was less than idle given that Mostashemi had been ambassador to Damascus from 1982-84 and had established close relations with terrorists, particularly Abu Nidal of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and Ahmed Jibril of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.

The CIA acknowledged that it possessed intelligence stating that Ahmad Jibril, leader of the Syrian-based PFLP-GC, had met with Iranian government officials and proffered his services in the gaining of revenge. Since the 1970s, the methodology of the PFLP-GC had been the planting on airplanes of bombs cleverly concealed in transistor radios which were triggered by a barometric pressure switch. In 1986, Jibril had declared “There will be no safety for any traveler on an Israeli or U.S. airliner”.

CIA Middle Eastern specialist Robert Bauer worked on the early stages of the Lockerbie investigation. He said in the press and on television that “Grade A intelligence” showed Iran requesting and funding a bombing: Ahmad Behbahani, a former member of the Iranian National Revolutionary Guard, personally admitted to meeting with Hafez Dalkamoni, Jibril’s right hand. A retired CIA agent said on record that two days after the bombing, a bank transfer of $11 million from Iran to the PFLP-GC occurred.

Frankfurt Airport, which PFLP-GC members observed

On 27 October 1988 in the course of what Germany’s internal security service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, called Operation Herbstlaub (Autumn Leaves) arrests were made of PFLP-GC cell-members. Dalkamoni and known IED-maker Marween Khreesat were arrested as they visited electrical shops in Frankfurt. In the trunk of Dalkamoni’s car was a Toshiba cassette recorder containing Semtex connected to a time delay and barometric switch mechanism. U.S. Intelligence officials later confirmed that group members had been observing Pan Am’s facilities at Frankfurt airport. Dalkamoni admitted that bombs had also been built into a second Toshiba unit, a TV monitor and two radio tuners, and the last three of these devices were recovered in German police raids four months after Lockerbie. Dalkamoni was sentenced to 15 years in jail, of which he served eight. Startlingly, Khreesat was released, ostensibly for lack of evidence. Later it was revealed that he was acting for both the CIA and the Jordanian GID.

Interpol distributed warnings of the PFLP-GC bombs on 9 November 1988. Heathrow Airport issued a warning telling security staff that it was “imperative that when screening or searching radios, radio cassette players and other electrical equipment, staff are to be extra vigilant.”

Warnings were received ahead of the bombing. One read “team of Palestinians not associated with PLO intends to attack U.S. targets in Europe. Time frame is present. Targets specified are Pan Am Airlines and U.S. military bases.” The PFLP-GC is not associated with the PLO.

The U.S. Air Force warned its civilian contractors that Iran was expected to strike “in a tit for tat fashion” in such a way as to inflict “mass casualties.” The warning said Europe was the most likely target because there were so many Americans and “established terrorist infrastructures.”

The embassy of the United States in Moscow

Sixteen days before the bombing, a man telephoned the U.S. embassy in Helsinki, Finland, to deliver a coded warning of a bomb on a Pan Am airplane flying from Frankfurt to the United States. The 1990 U.S. President’s Commission report on aviation security stated that “thousands of U.S. government employees saw the Helsinki threat.” Many staff of the U.S. embassy in Moscow customarily traveled by Pan Am to return to the States for Christmas. Per the British Guardian newspaper, every single one canceled their booking after a note was posted warning of a terrorist threat. Flora Swire, traveling to New York to spend Christmas with her boyfriend, found it unusually easy to obtain a ticket, as did 32 students of New York’s University of Syracuse.

The German newspaper, Die Zeit, reported that South Africa’s foreign minister, Pik Botha, had intended to fly on Pan Am 103 but was warned off and flew on an earlier flight. Die Zeit‘s story has never been proven wrong or right, but Botha called it “absurd and far-fetched”. Bengt Carlsson, UN negotiator for Angola, was not warned, possibly because Washington disliked him.

The nose of the airplane, Clipper Maid of the Seas

At the scene of the crash, funny business was afoot. On the night of the disaster, volunteers searching the area found a large object beneath a red tarpaulin. Upon approaching it, there were warned off by a gunman in the doorway of a hovering, unmarked helicopter, one of a number to be observed.

The day after the crash, two coach-loads of American personnel arrived at the scene, many of whom were in plain clothes and knew little of Pan Am or aircraft. Among their baggage was a coffin which has never been explained. A local doctor had identified and labeled 59 bodies but the Americans had re-labeled and tagged only 58. U.S. agents removed items found.

Farmer Innes Graham was warned by U.S. investigators to stay away from a small, wooded area several miles east of the crash site.

Farmer Jim Wilson discovered amongst the debris in his fields a suitcase jam-packed with cellophane packets of white powder. A local police officer told him it was undoubtedly heroin. He surrendered the suitcase but never received an official explanation. It later transpired that the name seen on the suitcase by Mr. Wilson was not present on Flight 103′s passenger list. More heroin was reportedly found on Lockerbie’s golf course. Officially, no drugs turned up, beyond a small amount of cannabis.

Major Charles McKee was one of four CIA operatives returning to the United States from an abortive hostage rescue mission. He was vehemently anti-drugs. Time magazine, newspapers including the British Daily Telegraph and Guardian and Toronto’s Sunday Star, and the New York corporate investigative company Interfor reported that McKee and another CIA operative, Matthew Gannon, the deputy CIA station chief for Beirut in Lebanon, were going to report that legitimate or rogue elements of the CIA were permitting drug smuggling from Europe to the United States in exchange for help in releasing U.S. hostages. The Star’s article was informed by ten unnamed sources from the intelligence organs of four governments.

The undertaking was named Operation Corea. The leading Pan Am investigator, ex-Mossad agent Juval Aviv, claimed the CIA protected certain suitcases from airport security, allowing the bomb to get on board. Gannon’s suitcase was in the same baggage holder – 4041 – as the bomb.

McKee’s suitcase was found to have had a hole cut in its side after the crash, and the clothes within showed no trace of explosives. Months later, reports emanated from Lebanon to the effect that McKee’s travel plans had been passed to terrorists. McKee’s mother’s final conversation with him convinced her that his superiors were not aware of his return.

At least four large quantities of U.S. dollars were discovered, and it has been suggested that McKee’s team – himself, Gannon and two bodyguards – would have possessed large cash amounts to pay informants. When barnstorming Member of Parliament Tam Dalyell asked a parliamentary question about the cash in 1995, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, a government minister, told him that only “what might ordinarily be regarded as personal money” had been found.

Two PFLP-GC personnel and a great number of western intelligence sources claim the bomb was in the baggage of Khalid Jaafar, a Lebanese-American. Ten days after the disaster, the story found its way onto the front page of the British Daily Express newspaper, citing “FBI and Scotland Yard” sources. The Interfor report also identified Jaafar as the bomb’s carrier. Jaafar, 20, was said to have been a member of a drug-producing family in the Bekaa Valley who was instructed by Hezbollah to carry heroin to the United States. This would explain the Hezbollah T-shirt allegedly found at the crash scene. One theory holds that the PFLP-GC swapped his suitcase for the one with the bomb.

In March 1989, less than three months later, the British Secretary or State for Transport, Paul Channon, lunched with five journos at the Garrick club. Indiscreetly, he revealed that expert detective work by Britain’s smallest police force, Dumfries and Galloway, would shortly lead to arrests for the Lockerbie bombing. The next day’s newspapers spoke of “a cabinet minister” who had said that the identity of those who perpetrated the bombing had been determined and they could look forward to imminent arrest.

George I advised Margaret Thatcher to keep things “low key” regarding Lockerbie.

It was reported by the Washington Post that at exactly the same time, President George I had discussed Lockerbie with Margaret Thatcher and advised her to keep the matter “low-key,” to avoid hindering negotiations with Iranian and Syrian-backed groups which held Western hostages in Lebanon.

Three months following the bombing, Dumfries and Galloway police published a report which concluded that is was the work of the PFLP-GC.

The families of victims established UK Families Flight 103, which clamored for a genuine inquiry into the bombing. The group met with Channon’s immediate replacement, Cecil Parkinson, who promised a full judicial inquiry. As he went out the door, as an afterthought, he added, “Just one thing. I must clear permission for a public inquiry with colleagues”. He was overruled by Thatcher, and returned shame-facedly two weeks later to tell of it, as he recounted in a television interview five years later. Instead of a judicial inquiry, there was a Fatal Accident Inquiry lacking the power to subpoena, which declined to address how the bomb made its way onto the aircraft on the grounds that it would interfere with police efforts.

Toward the end of 1989, an arrest again appeared imminent. The British Sunday Times newspaper is known to be close to police and the security service. It reported that “the net was closing” on the Lockerbie bombers and said definitively that the bombing was committed by the PFLP-GC cell in Germany.

The guilty party was Abu Talb, a member of Dalkamoni’s PFLP-GC cell who was then awaiting trial for other offenses in Sweden. The Sunday Times predicted his extradition. This report was the first to say the bomb was put aboard in Malta, where Flight 103 originated, rather than Frankfurt. Clothes made in Malta had been in the suitcase where it was believed the bomb was planted, and a search of Talb’s home found Maltese clothes in his possession. The Sunday Times said two documents had been recovered: a breakdown of the process of automated baggage handling for Flight 103 in Frankfurt, and a handwritten page from one of the stations from which baggage entered the system. Being official information, journalists must have obtained it from investigators.

An NBC news report of October 30 1990 said that Pan Am flights from Frankfurt had been used previously and repeatedly by the Drug Enforcement Agency as part of a sting operation to apprehend dealers in Detroit. The report said that the DEA was looking into the possibility that a young man who resided in the United States and regularly visited the United States – Khalid Jaafar, sort of thing – had unknowingly brought the bomb aboard Flight 103.

For a while, Iranian and PFLP-GC responsibility for Lockerbie accorded well with United States and United Kingdom Middle East foreign policy. The two countries had broken ties with Syria for its persistent sponsorship of terrorism and both had supported Iraq in its war with Iran. Things changed, however, in August 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Sheikhdoms. Nearly 10 percent of U.S. oil supplies were endangered. The Syrians had to be brought on board, which was accomplished: Syrians joined Western Troops in the retaking of Kuwait. Libya, meanwhile, was the only country to support Iraq.

A cassette player similar to that used in the Lockerbie bombing

The trial took place at Camp Zeist, a disused U.S. Air Force base. Forensic scientists determined that the 20lb bomb had been in a black, single-speaker Toshiba Bombeat 453 radio/cassette player in a brown Samsonite briefcase containing a pair of men’s checked, brown trousers whose label was that of Mary’s House, a small shop in a narrow street close to the seaside in Sliema, Malta. A central pillar of the prosecution case was the identification of Megrahi by Tony Gauci, who managed the shop in conjunction with his brother and had sold a shirt whose remnants were found at Lockerbie.

Gauci was interviewed 17 times by Scottish and Maltese police and often gave conflicting testimony: he said Megrahi “had been to the shop before and after”; “had been there only once’; that he ‘saw him in a bar months later.” Gauci said the man he saw was 6’0” and 50 years old, when Megrahi was 5’8” and 37. At first, Gauci did not recognize a photograph of Megrahi, but later pointed him out and said he was “similar” but “younger” to the man he saw. During a line-up at Camp Zeist immediately before the trial, Gauci pointed to Megrahi and said, “Not exactly the man I saw in the shop…”

Gauci said Megrahi was “perhaps like him but not fully like him,” “similar but not identical,” and most alarmingly, “like the man in the Sunday Times.” That man was Mohammed Abu Talb, the Palestinian terrorist whom the defense claimed was the real bomber and whose photograph Gauci’s brother had shown him. Gauci told police that Talb “looks like him” (the clothes-buyer). The CIA traced a payment of $500,000 to Talb on April 1989. Talb testified that he was in Sweden on 7 December but could not prove that he was also there on 23 November. He was given lifelong immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony at Camp Zeist.

Police transcripts show Gauci’s brother, Paul, recalling to investigators that the probable date of purchase of the clothes was November 23. He remembered staying home in the evening to watch a soccer game between Dresden and Rome, which occurred on that date. Giving testimony, Gauci said the clothing was purchased on either 23 November or 7 December. The prosecution insisted on 7 December. Gauci testified that Megrahi had purchased clothes before Christmas decorations were mounted, but the then-Tourist Minister, Michael Refalo, said he switched the lights on one day before the alleged purchase. Gauci said it was raining heavily at the time of the purchase and the clothes-buyer had also bought an umbrella. The defense called nearby Luqa airport’s chief meteorologist to say there was no rain on 7 December but there was on 23 November. Megrahi was outside Malta on 23 November.

On 23 October 2005, Lord Peter Fraser, then Scotland’s Solicitor General, the chief law officer, said “Gauci was not quite the full shilling. I think even his family would say (that he) was an apple short of a picnic. He was quite a tricky guy, I don’t think he was deliberately lying but if you asked him the same question three times he would just get irritated and refuse to answer.”

A Strathclyde Police Witness Protection Report of June 10 1999 said Gauci had “a clear desire to gain financial benefit from the position he and his brother are in.” On October 3 2007, the Guardian reported that Gauci was offered $2 million in advance by U.S. authorities for his testimony This is supported by the diary of police officer Detective Chief Inspector Harry Bell. A letter of April 19 2002 spoke of a meeting with the U.S. Department of Justice where a $2 million reward was again mentioned. When considering an appeal by Megrahi, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said that both Gaucis were paid under the DoJ’s “Rewards for Justice” program. The brothers are now believed to have been re-settled in Australia.

The judges at Camp Zeist

The other central feature of the prosecution was the bomb’s timer. It was manufactured by MEBO, a Swiss company which claimed it sold them only to Libya. MEBO shared offices in Zurich with the Libyan company, ABH, and the two were closely involved. Edwin Bollier, the manager of MEBO, was called to state that such boards had only been sold to Libya. Sales to other parties were uncovered. The defense described Bollier as an “illegitimate arms dealer with morals to match.” He was connected to many intelligence services, including those of Libya and the United States. The judges declared that Bollier’s testimony was “self-contradictory” and “inconsistent.”

After the trial, evidence emerged which would have been used in an appeal by Megrahi: a former MEBO employee who testified, Ulrich Lumpert, told a Swiss court that in 1989 he stole a timing board from MEBO and passed it to a person involved in the Lockerbie investigation. He said he was offered $4 million if he could link the timer to Libya.

Bollier confirmed Lumpert’s story in an interview with RFI in 2007. He added that that particular timing device was not sold to any customers as it was defective. In 2005, a former Scottish police chief signed an affidavit claiming that the timer fragments had been planted by the CIA.

A fragment of a circuit board was found in a piece of shirt collar and analyzed by Thomas Thurman of the FBI. This was from the bomb’s timer. Thurman boasted of his role on television on 15 November 1991, one day after indictments against the two Libyans were issued.

The expert quality of Thurman’s testimony is attested to by his disbarment from work as an expert witness: a review of a generous number of criminal investigations by Michael Bromwich, the U.S. inspector general, found that Thurman possessed no formal scientific qualifications, had circumvented procedures, had fabricated evidence, and had testified in areas of expertise for which he was unqualified.

A barometric timer has the advantage that it will not operate if the airplane is delayed. Seven or eight minutes would elapse before air pressure dropped sufficiently for the device to operate. The Toshiba bomb of the Frankfurt PFLP-GC cell, when tested, ran for 30 minutes after initiation. Flight 103′s bomb exploded 38 minutes after take-off. It is unlikely that terrorists would risk a premature explosion by putting the package onto an Air Malta flight.

Thomas Hayes, a scientist from the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment, did not perform the standard test for explosive on the timer fragment or make the customary drawings. At first he said the bomb had been on the second layer of a luggage container within the airplane, and so must have come from Frankfurt. This was supported by the testimony of Heathrow’s chief baggage handler, John Bedford, but Hayes revised his opinion at the trial. Hayes had been prominent in high profile trials for IRA bombings that resulted in wrongful convictions. When the first parliamentary investigation into RARDE’s conduct at these trials was announced, Hayes became a chiropodist. The results of these investigations were published in 1992 and 1996. In the case of the Maguire Seven, it was found that Hayes deliberately withheld a notebook from the court and was involved in the ignoring of forensic tests showing the Maguires’ innocence, In the case of Judith Ward, data was withheld or misrepresented to create “a false and distorted picture.”

The judges found it proven that the suitcase with the bomb came from Malta and escaped detection at three airports. The British Granada television company broadcast a documentary asserting this as fact, showing a dramatic reconstruction where a bag was loaded onto an Air Malta airplane by a suitably evil-looking Arab. Air Malta litigated. Granada settled out of court.

Another prosecution witness was Abdulmajid Gialka, formerly a colleague of the accused pair, who testified that he had seen them handling the bomb. He also said he had seen Semtex in a desk drawer in Megrahi’s office, but only disclosed this to the CIA after two-and-a-half years. The prosecution could present no evidence to substantiate his claims. At the time of the trial, Gialka was living under witness protection in the United States. He had already been paid $320,000 by his American keepers and stood to gain $4 million in the event of a conviction. His CIA connections went back to earlier than 1988. His evidence was dismissed.

The judges accepted the identification of Megrahi by Gauci, although they considered it “not absolute.” When Megrahi was found guilty, Dr. Hans Köchler, the United Nations observer, called the verdict “incomprehensible.” Köchler said the verdict was ‘arbitrary, even irrational’ and that it carried an “air of international power politics.”

MP Tam Dalyell said, “My deep conviction, as a ‘professor of Lockerbie studies’ over a 20-year period is that neither al-Megrahi nor Libya had any role in the destruction of Pan Am 103.” He thought, instead, that the U.S. Government wished to avoid complications with Iran and Syria. Another high-profile MP, George Galloway, said, “I’ve always been close to the Palestinian cause, so I know what I’m talking about when I say the Pan Am airliner was downed by a Palestinian splinter-group, the PFLP.”

The highly-esteemed Professor Robert Black, QC, emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University and the man who concocted the trial at Camp Zeist, called the conviction “an absolute and utter outrage.” He said that it was extremely hard to believe a Scottish judge would convict anybody, “even a Libyan,” on the basis of “a very, very weak circumstantial case.”

On February 4, the Scottish Sunday Herald newspaper said, “Last week you would have been hard-pressed to find an Edinburgh lawyer willing to bet on any guilty verdict being reached at Camp Zeist. The same belief was evident, it is reported, in Whitehall.”

Michael Scharf, a law professor at the New England School of Law, is quoted in the New York Times of 2 February saying, “It sure does look like they bent over backwards to find a way to convict, and you have to assume the political context of the case influenced them.”

UK Families Flight 103 chairman Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, said, “I don’t believe for a moment that this man was involved.”

Lockerbie today

An appeal on behalf of Megrahi in 2001 claimed that a newly-revealed break-in at Heathrow Airport the night before the bombing allowed for the possibility of planting a bomb. The appeal was rejected. When the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi’s second appeal to the High Court, the grounds were Gauci’s identification, the prosecution’s failure to disclose certain information, and issues concerning the forensic evidence. A second appeal would have included the information that no trace of explosive had been found on the bomb’s timer.

While it is highly incongruous to find the words “Libya” and “innocent” in the same sentence, it would appear that the guy from Libya was innocent.

Bibliography

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Oil Spill Halliburton Conspiracy

Only 11 days before the disaster, the Halliburton company bought an oil-spill cleanup business that made hundreds of thousands of dollars cleaning and assisting oil recovery sites. It is believed by a large number of people that the Deepwater oil rig was purposefully sabotaged by Halliburton in order to scoop up profit from the dirty seas. Even as early as the construction phase of the rig was in development, Halliburton could have had a hand in its future demise. The company was responsible for doing cement work on the well, which then busted when a strong gusher came up from below the depths seafloor.

If Halliburton is a company that wants to make money, it knows how to do it. Not only did it make money constructing the well, but it also made money with its destruction. Halliburton could have sought to maximize profits by building a weak structure that was sure to break under any amount of significant stress, and then get paid to clean up the spill when it happened.

Knowing the history of Halliburton, one would not be surprised that such a company could be involved in such a plot. It is a tragedy when 11 people die and thousands of animals are killed. It is murder when preventions are intentionally ignored to seek earnings.

Sabotage of US Shrimping Industry

A former worker at Halliburton was interviewed shortly after the events took place and gave some damaging evidence that suggests the company was in on the spill for financial gain. “They could have stopped it the first day”, he stated. He was concerned a gripe between Halliburton and the shrimping industry caused the disregard of all shrimp farmers and marine life in the region. In regard to the oil spill, priority was maximizing revenue, not cleaning and restoring the area to its former status.

Record Revenue and Profits

Facts speak for themselves. Halliburton’s profit soared during the spill, jumping an unbelievable 83% in second quarter alone. Revenue increased 26% from the year before. While the rest of the world was in mourning over the disruption and destruction of wildlife in the area, Halliburton was laughing all the way to the bank.

Who is to blame?

Depending on the news source, responsibility of the accident falls on everyone from BP executives to North Korean operatives. We may never who is really to blame for the oil rig blast, but perhaps the higher-ups at Halliburton do..

The Cover Up

There has never been an independent inquiry into the events of 9/11. Despite two years of repeated attempts by the families of the victims of 9/11, there has never been an independent investigation of what really happened on that day. This is one of the reasons why conspiracy theorists tend to believe there was a government cover up. Also,

• both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney took extraordinary steps to limit any investigation into the events of 9/11;
• all of the steel from the Twin Towers was shipped out of the country before any investigation was held;
• the NTSB never held inquiries into any of the 4 plane crashes, as required by law, and the FBI is withholding the data from the airliner’s flight recorders.

The media says that Osama bin Laden carried out the 9/11 massacre from the caves of Afghanistan, yet after a supposedly thorough investigation, the FBI says they have not uncovered a single piece of paper that mentioned any aspect of the September 11 plot.

8 of the hijackers were not even on the planes and another 7 of them were alive and well after the 9/11 attacks. Many of them were even trained at US Military bases.

There are strong ties between bin Laden and the US government. According to CIA expert Mike Ruppert: “Historically, it is extremely well documented that Osama bin Laden is and was a creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980′s when he joined with Mujahedeen Freedom fighters in Afghanistan.” Even more, George W. Bush was a close business associate with the bin Laden family.

The conclusion is that there were strong ties between Osama bin Laden and the US government.

The Twin Towers Collapse

The Twin Towers didn’t collapse, they exploded outwards; parts of the buildings were ejected as far as 70m before they began to fall, and the buildings’ concrete was reduced to fine dust. This guides us to the next question: What really made the Twin Towers collapse?

• no steel structured skyscraper in history has collapsed due to fire;
• the steel support columns in the sub-basement of the Twin Towers were melted, and five weeks later, were still pools of molten steel;
• the temperatures measured at the core of the rubble, five days later, exceeded the maximum temperature of a kerosene fire;
• the maximum temperature of a kerosene fire is insufficient to melt steel; to use jet fuel to melt steel would be an amazing discovery.

WTC Building 7 Collapse

The 47 story World Trade Center Building Number 7 was leveled in 8 seconds. Seven hours after the Twin Towers collapsed the WTC 7 building collapsed. The WTC 7 was not hit by any plane, nor sustained any significant damage during the collapse of the two towers before. So, why did building 7 collapse?

• photos taken before the collapse show that there was no major fire in the building;
• the building near WTC 7, Verizon’s building, had minimal damage although it was the same distance away from the Twins;
• the videos recorded clearly show that instead of a collapse caused by fire it looks suspiciously like a controlled demolition.

The Pentagon Attack

They say an airliner crashed into the Pentagon. If this is what happened, why isn’t there airliner debris in the photos of the pentagon crash? The answer is: the Pentagon attack was not from a Boeing.

• the FBI is withholding 2 videos that may show what really hit the Pentagon, and the photos from the DoD Pentagon security camera have been falsified;
• there was no airliner debris at the Pentagon, and the deep and focused damage to the building could not be from an airliner crash;
• the entire plane and its contents was consumed by fire, which would be the first time in aviation history, and defy laws of physics.
• the FBI rushed to seize video recorded of the crash at a gas station within minutes of the attack.

These are only a few pieces of the 9/11 conspiracy puzzle. There are thousands and thousands of other facts and clear evidence that show that the events are questionable. All of these make conspiracy theorists very suspicious and rightfully so.

Are these all coincidences? Unlikely. The Patriot Act followed after the 9/11 events, and the War on Freedom begun.

A list of the symptoms of the Gulf War Syndrome illustrate how grueling it can be: sweat during the night, nervous system disorders, tumors, severe weight loss, diarrhea, insomnia, chronic fatigue, intense joint pain, strange rash, disturbing personality changes, and loss of blood. The syndrome is a serious and virulent disease, which not surprisingly leads many patients to severe depression and even suicide.

Although it seems obvious that the soldiers had contracted the disease while fighting for their country, the existence of Gulf War Syndrome is denied by governments, including the United States. Risking their life in what many consider to be a war conducted more for oil than for human freedom, these soldiers see themselves now abandoned by their governments.

In 2003, the fear of Gulf War Syndrome was so strong among British soldiers getting ready to go to the Gulf invasion of Iraq that many of them had refused to be vaccinated for anthrax. Many have also declined other vaccines. Their concern was so big that they were willing to be vulnerable to a biological attack than to trust in the Defense Department that said all vaccines were safe.

Although he may not have had many notable weapons of mass destruction in the Second Gulf War, Saddam Hussein certainly did have them in the first war. He tested and used biological weapons against his enemies – especially the Kurdish people, destroying entire villages. Some believe that he used biological weapons against coalition forces with Scud missiles armed with lethal doses of toxins. Deadly substances may be coming from the reeky ruins of the chemical plants and of Iranian weapon bunkers, led by the wind through the desert to contaminate the coalition’s soldiers. It is possible that Hussein got his own soldiers infected, hoping that their lifeless bodies would transmit the disease to those who will bury them.

Preparing for a biological attack – which according to the U.S.A never happened, soldiers were forced to take drugs and get vaccinated. Medicines, probably Bromide Pyridogstigmine, and vaccinations against anthrax, were more experimental. If that was not a direct cause of the Gulf war Syndrome, it is believed that the inoculation has clearly helped to spread it.

The number of soldiers contaminated speaks for itself. Estimates place the number of sick soldiers for more than 150,000 and about 10,000 being dead already because of the syndrome. (Estimates may be optimistic). A study of the Gulf War Syndrome clearly shows it to be a virus that is not natural, but that has all the features of one created in the lab. One of the main suspects for the syndrome is an artificial agent called Microplasma fermentans (unknown origins). It contains most of the HIV genes, suspected to have been added through laboratory amendments. Of all the countries involved in Gulf War coalition, only France refused the inoculation. Until recently, there weren’t any reported cases of the syndrome among French soldiers.

Many soldiers have thought that Gulf War Syndrome was caused by exposure to radiation. When Stephen Childs, veteran of the Gulf War died of cancer in 2002 he left written in his will that the coroner should investigate the causes of his death. However, he did not respect the will enough to investigate if multiple inoculations and presence in an area contaminated with uranium caused cancer. He also refused to try to discover why, since it entered the conflict, sweating children began to smell like latex.

It all boils down to money. Governments continue to deny that they were using biological agents in the Gulf and refuse to admit that forced inoculation can be blamed for Gulf War Syndrome. If they admit it, they would have to legally respond. This will not happen!