Colombia: Deadly Welcome for American President... (Aug 31, 2000)

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TiM GW Bulletin 2000/8-10

Aug. 31, 2000

Global Arms Sales Soar to $30 Billion

Colombia: Deadly Welcome for American President

Ted Turner Attacks Christianity at UN "World Peace Summit"; CNN's Audience Drops; Rainbow Flag Not Welcome in Peru; Retired 747 Pilot on TWA 800 Conclusions: “A Smoke Screen to Cover Up Real Cause;” Al Fayed Sues CIA, NSA over Diana’s, Son’s Death

Washington 9. Clinton Backs Off Missile Defense Shield DecisionSep., 1, 2000

Florida 10. Cheney Vows to Bring Home U.S. Troops from the BalkansSep., 1, 2000

Text Box:
Bombed out bank in Santander de Quiliho, Colombia

Dead policeman’s body being removed from the riot scene in Bogota

CARTAGENA, Aug. 30 - At least 20 people were killed since Tuesday in clashes between protesters and Colombian police as the American president flew in to the coastal resort town of Cartagena for whirlwind visit on Aug. 30.

“This is not Vietnam, nor is it Yankee imperialism,” Bill Clinton said as he tried to defend the $1.3 billion U.S. military aid to the Colombian government, ostensibly intended for its fight against drug cartels.

But that was a hard sell in a country where a civil war has already claimed about 35,000 lives in the last 10 years, according to a Reuters report. And coming from the former Arkansas governor with an alleged shady role in the Iran-Contra affair that involved drug-smuggling through the Mena airport in Arkansas, according to the 1994 book and video, “Clinton Chronicles.”

Union and student groups in Bogotá protested the president's visit on the ground that the nation's war will just go on longer with the new aid. A riot policeman was killed in the capital when hooded students threw a homemade explosive during running battles outside the National University.

A police spokesman said that of the 20 people killed, 11 were civilians, three guerrillas and six police officers.

But perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of Clinton’s visit was that it took 5,000 Colombian troops, 350 U.S. agents, an unspecified number of helicopter gunships, and an American aircraft carrier to provide security for his nine-hour stay in Colombia.

Boy, don’t they love Gringos in Latin America! The American president can’t even give away $1.3 billion of taxpayers’ money without causing riots and deaths, not to mention additional costs to U.S. taxpayers.

NEW YORK, Aug. 29 - CNN’s Ted Turner, one of America’s richest media magnates who in 1997 pledged $1 billion to the United Nations, denounced his own childhood Christian faith and attacked Christianity’s alleged intolerance in a speech at this week’s United Nations’ “World Peace Summit,”

“It (Christianity) taught we were the only ones going to heaven. That confused the devil out of me since that would have left heaven a very empty place," he said on Tuesday (Aug. 29) to a hooting approval of some 1,000 delegates assembled at U.N. General Assembly hall.

Among a small group of conservative Christians monitoring the event, Darren Logan, foreign policy analyst for the Washington-based Family Research Council, called Turner’s speech "the most blasphemous thing I have ever heard in my life," according to a NewsMax.com report.

Logan said Turner advanced the notion of "reductionism," which suggests that all religions are essentially the same. "Turner believes true tolerance means doing away with the uniqueness of all faiths and marginalizing all faiths that profess an exclusive component, like Christianity and Islam," said Logan.

Contrasted with the enthusiastic reception for Turner s anti-Christian remarks, the delegates gave an icy reception to the Orthodox Christian Patriarch of Ethiopia, who urged protection for unborn children, the NewsMax.com said. The same cold reaction greeted the assistant secretary general of the Muslim World Congress when he urged delegates to recognize only marriage between "a man and a woman" and denounced all "abnormal sexual activities."

As the TiM has already reported, “the United Nations responded to the ‘sensitivities’ of China by excluding the Dalai Lama from a world conference of religious leaders, the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Thursday” (Aug. 24 - see http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2000/tim2000-8-8.html).

Evangelical Christians had only one representative from their ranks attending this leftist liberals’ anti-Christian bash at the U.N, the Rev. Billy Graham s daughter, who also appeared at the podium.

ATLANTA, Aug. 31 - CNN audience has shrunk to its lowest level in at least a decade, the New York Times reported today in a story about a forced exit of Richard Kaplan, the head of CNN’s U.S. operations. CNN is now indirectly owned by AOL, which acquired Time Warner, CNN’s parent, in a blockbuster deal last January.

The Times ran the article on the front page of its business section, along with a clever graphic depicting the CNN logo fading away, looking like an electro-cardiogram when a patient’s heart stops beating.

TiM Ed.: Guess lying and deceiving an audience has become much more challenging at a time when Internet publishers can provide alternative truthful news just as quickly as the New World Order media, such as CNN. That’s good news for truth and liberty lovers; bad news for Ted Turner and his leftist U.N. pals.

LIMA, Aug. 31 - The days may be numbered for the rainbow flags that fly in the mountain breezes of Cuzco, Peru's tourism mecca and ancient capital of the Inca Empire.

Cuzco Mayor Carlos Valencia and members of the City Council want it scrapped. Valencia s concern is not with the rainbow itself, but with a similar rainbow flag used to symbolize gay pride.

"Cuzco's emblem has been usurped by the gay community. We have called together a commission of intellectuals and noteworthy citizens to debate the issue and help design a new flag," Valencia said.

The rainbow had deep meaning for the Incas, whose empire extended from the Peruvian Andes south to Argentina and north to Panama until the early 16th century. The famed Coricancha Temple in Cuzco has a room honoring the god of rainbows. Some historians argue that rainbow was actually the banner of the empire.

Valencia's second-in-command, Councilman Gustavo Infantas, said the city urgently needs to change the flag or run the risk of becoming known as a "gay city." "We need to avoid the moral deterioration of Cuzco's society," Infantas said when comparing the two flags.

Infantas says there are also economic reasons for changing the flag, because heterosexuals may think that stores and restaurants flying the rainbow flag only cater to homosexuals. The mayor says he has wanted to change the flag since New Year's Day, when he watched a group of tourists parade around cuichi the Quechua name for Cuzco's seven-stripe flag thinking it was the gay banner.

Why not license the Cuzco rainbow flag to the San Francisco City Council? For "mucho dollares" in gay-lesbo royalties. Or sue the bastards if they your flag without a license?

After all, every reasonable heterosexual judge in the western would surely agree that the Inkas have a prior copyright claim than the New World Order "gay pride?"

Guess the "gay pride" people weren't too careful about whom they have messed with. First Africa, now Latin America. They should have never touched the Inkas, the unperverted American culture.

And the world was supposed to take this "gay pride" parade at face value as being smart and sophisticated? Who did they think they were they kidding? Maybe some globalist producers in Hollywood or at the United Nations? Like Ted Turner or Jane Fonda perhaps?

For, they are surely fooling no real Inkas' descendants. As the Cuzco rainbow flag flap has shown.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 - International arms sales surged last year to nearly $30.3 billion, the highest level since 1996, and the United States solidified its position as the world's biggest arms dealer, according to a report by Congressional Research Service (CRS), an arm of the Library of Congress, cited in an Aug. 21 New York Times story.

American “death merchants” sold $11.8 billion in weapons in 1999 - more than a third of the world's total and more than all European countries combined ($10.9 billion).

Russia and China also benefited from increased defense spending, each roughly doubling their weapons exports from the year before (Russia to $4.8 billion; China to $1.9 billion).

U.S. arms sales were still below the peaks reached in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war in 1991, but the United States has steadily increased its sales in the last few years, from $7.7 billion in 1997 and $10.3 billion in 1998, the report found.

Furthermore, the Kosovo war and other U.S. military deployments, in which over 200,000 American soldiers are serving in various countries around the world, are likely to extend the U.S. “death merchants” bonanza this year, and over the next five to seven years. The Clinton-Gore administration has just seen to it, as the Pentagon received an unexpected $16 billion budget boost between 2002 and 2007, the Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 23.

With George W. Bush vowing to dramatically increase military spending, the American “death merchants” future seems very bright indeed no matter who wins in November. Wish one could say the same about the outlook for mankind.

As in the past, roughly two-thirds of all 1999 arms were sold to developing nations. The U.S. again led the way in this market with $8.1 billion in sales, followed by Russia with $4.1 billion.

In recent years, the hungriest buyers among the developing countries have been Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel. In 1999, however, South Africa emerged as the leading buyer in the developing world, with $3.3 billion in weapons purchases. Much of that was driven by S.A.’s agreement to buy four patrol corvettes and three diesel-electric submarines from Germany.

With NATO nations being forced into buying weapons from the United States or other EU producers, China and India are likely to remain Russia's most lucrative customers in the years to come. Already nearly half of Russian sales last year came from an agreement to sell China 40 to 60 SU-30 fighter jets. Russia also provided a number of advanced weapons to India. .

The CRS report attributed most of China's increase to relatively small weapons deals in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, with Pakistan “a key Chinese client,” without providing any details of China's sales to Pakistan. But a separate analysis sent to Congress by the CIA earlier this month said that China had increased its efforts to provide Pakistan with “missile-related technical assistance” last year. It also said China had provided similar assistance to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

TiM Ed.: Yet the Clinton-Gore administration and some American universities, such as Harvard, are helping the Chinese military learn our military secrets, and acquire our most sophisticated computer and military technology. Who then in turn support America’s worst enemies - by the same Clinton-Gore administration’s definition.

A dichotomy? Yes, in a normal world. But such illogical and treasonous acts are perfectly normal behavior in a “perpetual war for perpetual commerce”-New World Order in which the only rule is that money rules.

FLORIDA, Aug. 31 - We received the following letter from a retired Boeing 747 pilot who finds the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) conclusions flawed about the causes of the TWA 800 tragedy in July 1996. Captain Richard Russell of Florida further charges the media with complicity through a news blackout of the press conference in which he participated last week in Washington, DC:

“On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week (Aug. 22-23), I was in Washington, DC, to attended the final NTSB hearing about TWA 800. On Monday, a group of professional accident investigators asked me to participate in a news conference. The purpose was to point out a number discrepancies in the NTSB's findings.

Dr. Tom Stalcup, president of the Flight 800 Independent Research Organization (FIRO), stepped up to the dais and faced at least 8 video cameras and microphones representing most of the media. Several FIRO members made short presentations followed by a question and answer period.

That night, not a single source dared to air any of the news conference. It was completely "blacked out!" Can you believe that this could happen in our "free society" in a country where we "enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of the press?"

My experience dates back when the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was the agency to investigate aviation accidents. In 1958, the Congress created an independent National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and charged them with this chore. They quickly developed an excellent reputation and high credibility.

Board members are political appointees but very few are technical people. The Board is supposed to be unbiased in their reports. The job of the five members is to review the recommendations of their technical staff and accept their reports. It was a frustrating exercise for me to watch NTSB Chairman Jim Hall's introductory speech. He expressed his displeasure about anyone who would dare to question the NTSB findings.

In my humble opinion, it appears that the approach used by the NTSB in this accident is flawed. First, they announced the cause of this tragedy, then the investigators were supposed to fashion their reports to support this "adopted" cause.

It was, also, interesting to watch chief investigator, Bernard S. Loeb exercise his authority over the assembled NTSB investigators. It is obvious that he rules the agency with an iron fist and any investigators wishing to keep their jobs should not dare to disagree with him.

During a break, retired airline pilot and accident investigator, Captain Ray Lahr approached the aerodynamics expert to ask some questions. Mr. Loeb interjected himself into the conversation and an unfortunate heated exchange ensued.

Dr. Tom Stalcup, president of FIRO, approached the restricted area to speak with the NTSB radar expert about his finding. The security agent told him to write a note and that he would pass it to him. The individual was standing just 15 feet away. Upon reading the note the NTSB radar expert wadded it up and threw it into the trash. These are the actions of our public servants in whom we are supposed to place our trust.

The FBI conducted ALL the witness interviews, and would not allow any other agencies to participate in this phase. The FBI withheld these reports, even from the NTSB. When the interview reports were turned over, three years later, it was learned that the agents had failed to ask proper questions.

Trained aviation accident investigators would have asked the correct questions. After the review process was completed these four-year old reports were declared invalid and useless in the investigation! Timely witness information is extremely important. Can you imagine attempting to work a jigsaw puzzle when someone is hiding some of the pieces? It is not only difficult but almost impossible to get the big picture.

At an earlier hearing in Baltimore, experts attempted to prove the CWT explosion theory. They admitted that they had difficulty in getting the jet fuel to explode. First, they installed a high-energy jet engine igniter in the tank without success. Next, propane was introduced into the tank but still it would not work. Finally, out of desperation, they added enough hydrogen to make it explode!

It is amazing to me that such a theory is accepted by the public. A hijacked B-747 aircraft sat in the torrid desert for days with its air-conditioning packs operating and little or no fuel in the center wing tank. The CWT didn't explode either on the ground or after takeoff. Hundreds of B-747 flights are conducted each day under similar conditions and they don't blow up.

One fix, that the NTSB is demanding, is to introduce nitrogen into an empty fuel tank to preclude an explosion. It has not been done because of the cost and weight penalty and the fact that it is unnecessary. The airlines have adopted the manufacturer's recommendation to leave approximately 50 gallons of fuel in a tank to keep the seals from drying out. If this procedure is determined to be a problem, it could be solved by pumping ALL the fuel from the center wing tank into one of the other tanks.

The design of the tanks and quantity measuring systems eliminate the chance of an ignition spark. If the remaining fuel is pumped from the CWT tank this removes the second leg of the combustion triangle and eliminates the problem.

If the FAA mandates these changes, at this late date, they have dropped the ball by allowing these dangerous aircraft to continue to fly for the past 4 years. We have operated the B-747 for over 30 years using the same procedures without any problem.

In my opinion, the Boeing B-747 is a safe aircraft and the proposed modifications are unnecessary. I further believe that concentration on the exploding fuel tank premise is merely a smoke screen to cover up the real cause. The original report that TWA 800 was shot down by a missile has yet to be disproved.”

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 - Mohamed Al Fayed, who owns London's Harrods department store, filed a lawsuit on Thursday (Aug. 31) in a U.S. federal court against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) to gain access to secret documents he says may prove his son and Britain's Princess Diana were murdered in a Paris car crash exactly three years ago today (see Weep for Worthier Heroes, Heroines, a TiM editor's Washington Times column).

The wealthy Egyptian-born businessman has also accused Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, of directing British secret services in organizing the crash that killed the couple, and has since announced that the prince is to be barred from Harrods.

“Evil and racist forces working through the British Security services murdered my son and Princess Diana,” the Harrod’s chief of security read from Al Fayed’s statement, according to a Reuters report. “The car crash that took the lives of these two lovely people has been portrayed as a traffic accident caused by a drunk driving at high speed. The reality is that it was murder.”

“The Royal household... would never have accepted my son, a naturally tanned, curly-haired Egyptian being married to the mother of the future king of England, and becoming his stepfather,” he also said.

Al Fayed charged that U.S. intelligence agencies had used the most sophisticated satellite systems to spy on Diana, possibly during her time with his son Dodi, and this information had allegedly been passed on to MI6. “I believe they are withholding some of the documents at the request of the British Secret Services,” he said.

“There are at least 39 documents, consisting of 1,054 pages held by the NSA alone,” Al Fayed said in a statement. “I will never rest until the truth is discovered. Those responsible for the murders must be brought to justice.”

Al Fayed’s lawyers said they were looking in particular, for documents about the Justice Department’s decision not to investigate people who had tried to extort money from Al Fayed in exchange for CIA documents that later turned out to be bogus.

Speaking outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a U.S. lawyer for Al Fayed told reporters, “We know the NSA has documents regarding Princess Diana although they've indicated there's nothing pertaining to the tragedy itself.”

Fayed has unsuccessfully tried to subpoena the U.S. documents through another U.S. court case and will now sue for them under the Freedom of Information Act. Court officials said the lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

PHOENIX, Aug. 31 - Now with all the august amounts blood and gore being shed around the world during the month of August, we thought that perhaps the TiM readers would appreciate some lighter fare for the last day of August. And so, here it is… from an unknown author, highly edited by the TiM - for your smile J:

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse being dumped in it.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present, except if in a wallet.

TiM Ed.: If you’re not a native English speaker, and are perhaps befuddled with some of this funky English fuddy-duddy fiddle-faddle fiddlesticks, you’ve just proven the point of our headline. And if you are a native English speaker, and are still befuddled with some of it, you’ve just proven the same point - in spades. Not the gardening variety.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 - Bill Clinton backed off his controversial Missile Defense Shield plan in a speech at Georgetown University today, saying he would leave it to his successor to decide about it (see Dangerous Nuclear Saber-rattling in Washington, Moscow and Beijing, Apr 29).

The fact that both adversaries in an eventual conflict, Russia and NATO, applauded the move, is a good indication of how flawed this program is. Yet both Al Gore and George W. Bush are said to back it.

Russia, which has said that Clinton’s proposed missile shield would violate its 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, welcomed Clinton’s reversal. President Vladimir Putin said in a statement today that Clinton’s move “is seen in Russia as a well thought-out and responsible step.”

Interestingly, NATO also applauded Clinton’s reversal. Its secretary-general, George Robertson, described Clinton's decision as “prudent.” No wonder. For, some major NATO countries, such as Germany or France, are dead set against it. Both fear it would spark a new nuclear proliferation race around the world.

And then there is the infamous “death merchants” incompetence. Remember the $500 hammer they sold the Pentagon in the 1980s?

Well, this time, the missile shield's so-called “kill vehicle” has failed at least two out of three test firings, prompting questions about the system's feasibility.

By putting off the initial step, Clinton in effect has pushed back the target date to fully deploy a working system from 2005 to at least 2006, giving mankind more hope for survival till then.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Aug. 31 - Sounding more like a Pat Buchanan than a Republican vice presidential candidate, Dick Cheney said in an Aug. 31 speech at Fort Lauderdale, FL, that if he and George W. Bush were elected next November, they would “look at crafting an exit strategy to get the U.S. troops out of the Balkans.”

“We have global commitments, they don’t,” Cheney said, referring to the U.S. European “allies” (read patsies), whom he expected to pick up the slack, and volunteer more of their soldiers as the Balkans shooting targets.

TiM Ed.: Sounds good, but Americans or the Serbs should not get their hopes up. Not only because another U.S. Bush-league president (the “Sr.”) was the first to send American soldiers to the Balkans (see "Like Watergate, Cover-up Worse Than Original Crime", June 1998). But because overseas deployments, such as those in the Balkans, have been music to the American “death merchants” ears. Of which Cheney is one. And in whose service “Dubya” is. Just as are Clinton and Gore, if not more so.

For, Cheney’s Dallas-based oil- and defense-services company, Halliburton, for example, that the would-be Veep had run since 1995, has received more than $2 billion in federal contracts as a result of “Clinton’s” Balkans deployments that the hopeful Republican candidate is now criticizing (see “Weep Mankind”, Jul. 26).

In other words, it’s a charade. Yet these globalist interventionists are playing with the lives of thousands of American GI’s as if they were poker chips.

At the present time, there are about 4,600 U.S. troops within some 22,000 international “peacekeepers” that are currently occupying Bosnia. Plus there are another 6,200 American GI’s among the 44,000 KFOR soldiers that have snatched Kosovo from Serbia. And who are now potential shooting targets for the local residents.