War On Terrorism Or Police State?
By Rep. Cynthia McKinney
CounterPunch.org
7-29-2
The attacks of September 11th, 2001 caused significant changes throughout
our society. For our military services, this included increased force
protection, greater security, and of course the deployment to and
prosecution of the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Sadly, one
of the first acts of our President was to waive the high deployment overtime
pay of our servicemen and women who are serving on the front lines of our
new War. The Navy estimates that the first year costs of this pay would
equal about 40 cruise missiles. The total cost of this overtime pay may only
equal about 300 cruise missiles, yet this Administration said it would cost
too much to pay our young men and women what the Congress and the previous
Administration had promised them.
In another ironic twist, the War on Terrorism has the potential to bring the
US military into American life as never before. A Northern Command has been
created to manage the military's activity within the continental United
States. Operation Noble Eagle saw combat aircraft patrolling the air above
major metropolitan areas, and our airports are only now being relieved of
National Guard security forces. Moreover, there is a growing concern that
the military will be used domestically, within our borders, with
intelligence and law enforcement mandates as some now call for a review of
the Posse Comitatus Act prohibitions on military activity within our country.
In the 1960s, the lines between illegal intelligence, law enforcement and
military practices became blurred as Americans wanting to make America a
better place for all were targeted and attacked for political beliefs and
political behavior. Under the cloak of the Cold War, military intelligence
was used for domestic purposes to conduct surveillance on civil rights,
social equity, antiwar, and other activists. In the case of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., Operation Lantern Spike involved military intelligence
covertly operating a surveillance operation of the civil rights leader up to
the time of his assassination.
In a period of two months, recently declassified documents on Operation
Lantern Spike indicate that 240 military personnel were assigned in the two
months of March and April to conduct surveillance on Dr. King. The documents
further reveal that 16,900 man-hours were spent on this assignment. Dr. King
had done nothing more than call for black suffrage, an end to black poverty,
and an end to the Vietnam War. Dr. King was the lantern of justice for
America: spreading light on issues the Administration should have been
addressing. On April 4, 1968, Dr. King's valuable point of light was snuffed
out. The documents I have submitted for the record outline the illegal
activities of the FBI and its CoIntelPro program.
A 1967 memo from J. Edgar Hoover to 22 FBI field offices outlined the
COINTELPRO program well: "The purpose of this new counterintelligence
endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, or otherwise neutralize" black
activist leaders and organizations.
As a result of the Church Committee hearings, we later learned that the FBI
and other government authorities were conducting black bag operations that
included illegally breaking and entering private homes to collect
information on individuals. FBI activities included "bad jacketing," or
falsely accusing individuals of collaboration with the authorities. It
included the use of paid informants to set up on false charges targeted
individuals. And it resulted in the murder of some individuals. Geronimo
Pratt Ji Jaga spent 27 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. And in
COINTELPRO documents subsequently released, we learn that Fred Hampton was
murdered in his bed while his pregnant wife slept next to him after a paid
informant slipped drugs in his drink.
Needless to say, such operations were well outside the bounds of what normal
citizens would believe to be the role of the military, and the Senate
investigations conducted by Senator Frank Church found that to be true.
Though the United States was fighting the spread of communism in the face of
the Cold War, the domestic use of intelligence and military assets against
its own civilians was unfortunately reminiscent of the police state built up
by the Communists we were fighting.
We must be certain that the War on Terrorism does not threaten our liberties
again. Amendments to H.R. 4547, the Costs of War Against Terrorism Act, that
would increase the role of drug interdiction task forces to include counter
intelligence, and that would increase the military intelligence's ability to
conduct electronic and financial investigations, can be the first steps
towards a return to the abuses of constitutional rights during the Cold War.
Further, this bill includes nearly $2 billion in additional funds for
intelligence accounts. When taken into account with the extra-judicial
incarceration of thousands of immigration violators, the transfer of
prisoners from law enforcement custody to military custody, and the
consideration of a 'volunteer' terrorism tip program, America must stand up
and protect itself from the threat not only of terrorism, but of a police
state of its own.
There does exist a need to increase personnel pay accounts, replenish
operations and maintenance accounts and replace lost equipment. The military
has an appropriate role in protecting the United States from foreign
threats, and should remain dedicated to preparing for those threats.
Domestic uses of the military have long been prohibited for good reason, and
the same should continue to apply to all military functions, especially any
and all military intelligence and surveillance. Congress and the
Administration must be increasingly vigilant towards the protection of and
adherence to our constitutional rights and privileges. For, if we win the
war on terrorism, but create a police state in the process, what have we won?
Cynthia McKinney represents Georgia's Fourth Congressional District.
This is article is a reprint of her remarks before the House Armed Services
Committee on H.R. 4547, The Costs of War Against Terrorism Act.
She can be reached at: cymck@mail.house.gov
*****
Excerpt from 2002 Chemtrails Over America
http://lookupabove.tripod.com/chemtrailsoveramerica/
********* U P D A T E ********** (7/28/02)
ONCE HEALTHY PLACES
In recent past years you were able to go to a natural area of high negative
ionization such as forests, mountains, beaches, and waterfalls. These were
considered healthy places. All of that has changed. The government and
military aerosol (chemtrail) activity in the atmosphere, over our cities and
world has damaged and negated the ability of natural resources to produce
healthy negative ions as before. The total effect is a great increase in
positive ions on and around your body and in your total living environment.
All things, in the past, that had impact on natural environmental production
of negative ions, for the well being of all kinds of life forms, is not of
great consequence in today's military chemtrail world. The military
activity in the atmosphere ultimately has a lethal, destructive effect on
the production of negative ions - the same negative ions humans and other
life forms depend on for their very survival.
Weather and atmosphere is important in the production of negative ions. The
Navy RFMP/ VTRPE chemtrail program uses a barium salt mixture aerosol in the
atmosphere we breathe. The Navy program started over four years ago and
hundreds of tons of barium salt has been sprayed into our air. You cannot
make negative ions in a barium salt atmosphere that is radiated and contains
an electrolyte. There are more factors making positive ions than there are
factors making negative ions.
We are coming into a time when all living life forms and our farm soil will
require negative ions to survive. Negative ions in the air decay within a
few seconds of being created.
Please visit http://ion_effects.tripod.com to learn more about the effects
of negative and positive ions. It is important that you do so.
*****
Here is the Dummy's Guide to Current Stock Market.
Bull Market - A random market movement causing an investor to mistake
himself for a financial genius.
Bear Market - A 6 to 18-month period when the kids get no allowance, the
wife gets no jewelry and the husband gets no sex.
Momentum Investing - The fine art of buying high and selling low.
Value Investing - The art of buying low and selling lower.
P/E ratio - The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the Market
keeps crashing.
Broker - Poorer than you were last year.
"Buy, Buy" - A flight attendant making market recommendations as you step
off the plane.
Standard & Poor - Your life in a nutshell.
Stock Analyst - Idiot who just downgraded your stock.
Stock split - When your ex-wife and her lawyer split all your assets equally
between themselves.
Financial Planner - A guy who actually remembers his wallet when he runs to
the 7-11 for toilet paper and cigarettes.
Market Correction - The day after you buy stocks.
Cash Flow - The movement your money makes as it disappears down the Toilet.
Call Option - Something people used to do with a telephone in ancient times
before e-mail.
Day Trader - Someone who is disloyal from 9-5.
Cisco - Sidekick of Pancho.
Yahoo - What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.
Windows 2000 - What you jump out of when you're the sucker that bought Yahoo
for $240 per share.
Institutional Investor - Past year investor who's now locked up in a nut house.
Profit - Religious guy who talks to God.
Bill Gates - Where God goes for a loan.
Alan Greenspan - God.
*****
Merrill Replaced Research Analyst Who Upset Enron Tue Jul 30, 9:14 AM ET
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. The New York Times
WASHINGTON, July 29 In the summer of 1998, when it was eager to win more
investment banking business from Enron, Merrill Lynch replaced a research
analyst who had angered Enron executives by rating the company's stock
"neutral" with an analyst who soon upgraded the rating, according to
Congressional investigators.
The move by Merrill Lynch came after two Merrill executives wrote a memo
that April to the firm's president, Herbert Allison, saying that Merrill had
lost a lucrative stock underwriting deal because Enron executives had a
"visceral" dislike of the research analyst, John Olson, and what he told
investors about Enron stock, according to documents obtained by
investigators for a Senate panel looking into the relationship among Enron
and its banks.
Merrill vigorously disputes that there was any link between its rating on
Enron and its desire to win more business from Enron.
In the memo, the two investment bankers, Rick Gordon and Schuyler Tilney,
noted that "our research relationship with Enron has been strained for a
long period of time." Mr. Olson, they said, "has not been a real supporter
of the company, even though it is the largest, most successful company in
the industry." They also said that Enron viewed his research as "flawed" and
that Mr. Olson who left for another firm in August 1998 "often makes snide
and potentially embarrassing remarks about the company in meetings with
analysts while in the presence" of Enron's top two executives, Jeffrey K.
Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay. They also pointed out that all of the
investment banks that had won a portion of the underwriting deal from Enron
had "buy" ratings on Enron stock.
In early 1999, after the new analyst took over, Mr. Tilney wrote Mr.
Allison to say that Enron's anger with Merrill's research had "dissipated"
and that "to that end," Merrill had since won Enron business that would
generate at least $45 million in fees.
Mr. Tilney wrote to Mr. Allison in an e-mail message dated Jan. 15, 1999: "I
wanted to update you on recent developments in our relationship with Enron
since you spoke to their C.E.O., Ken Lay, last spring regarding our
difficult relationship in research. It is clear that your responsive message
was appreciated by the company, and any animosity in that regard seems to
have dissipated in the ensuing months."
The exchanges among Merrill executives, captured in internal Merrill
documents and e-mail messages that have been subpoenaed by the Senate
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, highlight the debate over one of
the most contentious issues on Wall Street: To what degree do brokerage
firms adjust their ratings on publicly traded companies to try to win
investment-banking business.
To investigators with the Senate panel, which is holding a hearing Tuesday
examining Merrill Lynch's relationship with Enron, the episode suggests that
Merrill executives hoped the firm would raise the rating on Enron stock to
obtain more business from the company.
At the very least, it shows that senior Merrill executives actively
discussed the way a less-than-positive rating on Enron's stock would limit
the business that Enron executives were willing to do with the firm.
A Merrill spokesman, William Halldin, said investment bankers at the firm
never asked superiors to take action against Mr. Olson. "Our research was
not compromised," he said. Merrill also said it believed its employees
"behaved properly" in their dealings with Enron. A lawyer for Mr. Tilney,
Robert Trout, declined to comment.
Mr. Halldin said the memo simply showed that while Mr. Olson's research
prompted the phone call to Mr. Lay, the call had been focused primarily on
getting Merrill into the Enron underwriting on the basis of the firm's long
relationship with Enron and leadership in the business. He added that Mr.
Olson, after joining another firm, had also increased his rating on Enron
and that Mr. Allison's phone call to Mr. Lay had resulted in Merrill's
securing a role as co- manager for the underwriting.
Donato J. Eassey, the analyst who upgraded Enron in 1998, to "accumulate,"
angrily dismissed the idea that he had done so to help Merrill win business,
saying his decision had been based on careful research.
"It infuriates me," Mr. Eassey said. "When you go to bed at night as an
analyst, all you have is your integrity." Mr. Eassey added that in August
2001, after the surprise resignation of Enron's chief executive, Mr.
Skilling, he downgraded Enron two notches, to "neutral" months before other
analysts did the same.
Mr. Eassey said Mr. Olson had had a difficult relationship with some Merrill
investment bankers before he left in 1998. "He left Merrill because he and
the bankers didn't get along," Mr. Eassey said. "John was getting beaten up
at Merrill Lynch." Mr. Eassey declined to elaborate, but he said, "The fact
of the matter is, we didn't get any more business with John there or John
gone."
In an interview this afternoon, Mr. Olson said he took early retirement from
Merrill in August 1998 "in lieu of other options" at the firm. He declined
to elaborate, saying he needed to review whether terms of an agreement he
signed with Merrill when he left allow him to say anything more. He now
works for Sanders Morris Harris, an investment research firm in Houston.
Mr. Halldin, the Merrill spokesman, said Mr. Olson had left Merrill because
of a "consolidation in the research department." Mr. Olson's rating on Enron
or any other stock was not discussed by Merrill officials who made the
decisions about the consolidation, Mr. Halldin added.
The chairman of the Senate committee, Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said
Merrill was part of several "troubling" deals with Enron. The panel's
ranking Republican, Susan M. Collins of Maine, added that it appeared
Merrill "knowingly participated in deals that were used to make Enron's
financial position appear more robust than it actually was."
Last week, Merrill placed Mr. Tilney, now head of the firm's energy
investment-banking practice, on paid administrative leave for refusing to
testify to the Senate panel on Tuesday about the company's dealings with
Enron. A former Merrill banker, Robert Furst, will also decline to testify,
Merrill has said. Merrill said Mr. Tilney opted not to testify after
learning of a Justice Department ( news - web sites) inquiry into at least
one transaction that involved Merrill and Enron.
In addition to the episode involving Mr. Olson, the Senate committee also
plans to examine other deals by Enron with Merrill, including the firm's
role in raising money for LJM2, a partnership run by Andrew S. Fastow,
Enron's chief financial officer at the time, that played a central role in
Enron's collapse.
The panel will also examine Enron's December 1999 sale to a Merrill entity
of a part-interest in a Nigerian barge operation that investigators say
allowed Enron to book a $12 million profit.
Investigators say documents show that Enron intended to have Merrill bought
out the following summer, so the transaction was not a true sale but instead
a sham deal that allowed Enron to increase its earnings for the previous
year. One document obtained by investigators quotes a Merrill official as
saying that "it was our understanding" that Merrill would be repaid, with a
profit, by June 30, 2000.
Merrill disputes that characterization, saying it was "likely, though not
certain," that an unaffiliated third party would acquire the interest.
The Senate panel will also look at other ways Merrill sought to increase its
business with Enron, including the firm's decision to take $40 million of a
$482 million offer of Enron debt early last year in a deal called Zephyrus.
One internal Merrill document states that Enron executives had "informed
Merrill Lynch that it is at a distinct disadvantage because of Merrill's
reluctance to use its balance sheet to support Enron's business activities"
and that investing in Zephyrus was part of Merrill's efforts to "improve its
relationship." Merrill said the deal had been approved "pursuant to the
firm's applicable policies and procedures."
*****
Iran's Leader Says Iran Would Make US Regret Any Attack 7-28-2
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said
Saturday his country would make the United States regret any attack on the
Islamic Republic, which Washington has branded part of an "axis of evil."
Khamenei's latest warnings came amid calls in the United States for a change
of regime in Iran due to Washington's growing doubts about the ability of
moderate President Mohammad Khatami to deliver promised reforms.
"The Americans know that if they opt for military intervention, this nation
would give them a response to make them regret it," Khamenei told a public
meeting, quoted by the state media.
"The Americans cannot do as they did in 1953 because the Iranian people are
faithful to Islam and the revolution and alert in the face of plots," he
said, referring to a CIA-backed coup against Iran's elected prime minister
Mohammad Mossadeq to bring the former shah to power.
The shah's regime was toppled in the 1979 Islamic revolution and months
later Washington broke ties with Iran after radical Islamists stormed the
U.S. embassy in Tehran and took staff hostage.
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers said Thursday they wanted Congress to
go on record calling for a new regime in Iran, which they said posed a more
serious threat than Iraq.
They said their demand mirrored a shift in President Bush's policy toward
Iran.
The White House has denied it was dropping a five-year effort to reach out
to Khatami, elected in 1997 as a reformer, but administration officials say
their focus will be directed at Iranians pushing for change.
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