Flyby News Home - Flyby News Archives - Casinni NoFlyby - Flyby Links

Flyby  News

"News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era"




FastWarming * AbleDanger * Oil * Atonement


22 November 2005

Greenland's glaciers have begun to race towards the ocean..
the most alarming manifestations of climate change to date -
suggest that the ice cap is melting far more rapidly than scientists
had thought, with immense consequences for civilisation and the planet.


Geoffrey Lean

1) Global Disaster Will Follow If the Ice Cap on Greenland Melts
2) Able Danger: Uncovering the 9/11 Cover-up

- - More Than Half of House Reps. Wants Hearings on Able Danger
3) Iraq's Oil: The Spoils of War
- - Former Delay Aide Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy
- - Kucinich Calls For Congressional Hearings On Vice President
4) Give Thanks No More: It's Time for a National Day of Atonement
- - National Day of Mourning in Plymouth dedicated to Peltier

Editor's Notes:

This issue opens with an another alarming item on global warming. "Greenland's glaciers have begun to race towards the ocean.." Item two is on Able Danger, and on a US government cover-up on 9/11. U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, has sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed by over half of the House of Representatives requesting that he allow "former participants in the intelligence program known as ABLE DANGER to testify in an open hearing before the United States Congress." The letter has 246 signatures, including senior members and leadership on both sides of the isle.. Item three is a brilliant article exposing the deceit in wrestling resources from Iraq. "Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year." The old colonial rule trick is evident, to destroy and make a country pay for its rebuilding, as the rich get richer, and the hatred of the West grows bigger, too. Turning around such actions and policies are critical for any chance for peace and freedom from terrorism to exist. The fourth item, also, is on ending the destructive habits of the US empire, and raising a greater consciousness for a national holiday.



1) Global Disaster Will Follow If the Ice Cap on Greenland Melts

Published November 20, 2005 by the lndependent/UK
The Big Thaw:
Global Disaster Will Follow If the Ice Cap on Greenland Melts
Now scientists say it is vanishing far faster than even they expected.
by Geoffrey Lean

Greenland's glaciers have begun to race towards the ocean, leading scientists to predict that the vast island's ice cap is approaching irreversible meltdown, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Research to be published in a few days' time shows how glaciers that have been stable for centuries have started to shrink dramatically as temperatures in the Arctic have soared with global warming. On top of this, record amounts of the ice cap's surface turned to water this summer.

The two developments - the most alarming manifestations of climate change to date - suggest that the ice cap is melting far more rapidly than scientists had thought, with immense consequences for civilisation and the planet. Its complete disappearance would raise the levels of the world's seas by 20 feet, spelling inundation for London and other coastal cities around the globe, along with much of low-lying countries such as Bangladesh.

More immediately, the vast amount of fresh water discharged into the ocean as the ice melts threatens to shut down the Gulf Stream, which protects Britain and the rest of northern Europe from a freezing climate like that of Labrador.

The revelations, which follow the announcement that the melting of sea ice in the Arctic also reached record levels this summer, come as the world's governments are about to embark on new negotiations about how to combat global warming.

This week they will meet in Montreal for the first formal talks on whether there should be a new international treaty on cutting the pollution that causes climate change after the Kyoto protocol expires in seven years' time. Writing in The Independent yesterday, Tony Blair called the meeting "crucial", adding that it "must start to shape an inclusive global solution". But little progress is expected, largely because of continued obstruction from President George Bush.

The new evidence from Greenland, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, shows a sudden decline in the giant Helheim glacier, a river of ice that grinds down from the inland ice cap to the sea through a narrow rift in the mountain range on the island's east coast.

Professor Slawek Tulaczyk, of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told the IoS that the glacier had dropped 100 feet this summer.

Over the past four years, the research adds, the front of the glacier - which has remained in the same place since records began - has retreated four and a half miles. As it has retreated and thinned, the effects have spread inland "very fast indeed", says Professor Tulaczyk. As the centre of the Greenland ice cap is only 150 miles away, the researchers fear that it, too, will soon be affected.

The research echoes disturbing studies on the opposite side of Greenland: the giant Jakobshavn glacier - at four miles wide and 1,000 feet thick the biggest on the landmass - is now moving towards the sea at a rate of 113 feet a year; the normal annual speed of a glacier is just one foot.

The studies have found that water from melted ice on the surface is percolating down through holes on the glacier until it forms a layer between it and the rock below, slightly lifting it and moving it toward the sea as if on a conveyor belt. This one glacier alone is reckoned now to be responsible for 3 per cent of the annual rise of sea levels worldwide.

"We may be very close to the threshold where the Greenland ice cap will melt irreversibly," says Tavi Murray, professor of glaciology at the University of Wales. Professor Tulaczyk adds: "The observations that we are seeing now point in that direction."

Until now, scientists believed the ice cap would take 1,000 years to melt entirely, but Ian Howat, who is working with Professor Tulaczyk, says the new developments could "easily" cut this time "in half".

There is also a more immediate danger as the melting ice threatens to disrupt the Gulf Stream, responsible for Britain's mild climate. The current, which brings us as much heat in winter as we get from the sun, is driven by very salty water sinking off Greenland. This drives a deep current of cold ocean southwards, in turn forcing the warm water north.

Research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts has shown, that even before the glaciers started accelerating, the water in the North Atlantic was getting fresher in what it describes as "the largest and most dramatic oceanic change ever measured in the era of modern instruments".

Even before these discoveries, scientists had shortened to evens the odds on the Gulf Stream failing this century. When it failed before, 12,700 years ago, Britain was covered in permafrost for 1,300 years.

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

###
This article is posted:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article328217.ece
and
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1120-03.htm


For FN's resource page, see:

Mounting Evidence of Global Warming!



2) Able Danger: Uncovering the 9/11 Cover-up

- - More Than Half of House Reps. Wants Hearings on Able Danger


Able Danger: Uncovering the Cover-Up
by Barbara Anderson

November 21, 2005 - Writing for the Wall Street Journal's opinion page, former FBI Director Louis Freeh has become the most recent critic of the 9/11 Commission's investigation into the terrorist attacks that killed 3,000 Americans. He also leveled criticism at the 9/11 Commission Report, which he says is flawed because it is incomplete.

Able Danger, a relatively small data-mining operation, claims it identified several terrorist cells in this country and elsewhere before the 9/11 attacks. It also claims that members identified Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers in mid-2000. They further claim that they warned defense officials about activity in Aden, Yemen. They advised against entering the Port of Aden two days before the attack on the U.S.S. Cole on October 12, 2000, which left seventeen American sailors dead.

According to Able Danger participants, this vital information about terrorists in our midst was never allowed to get to those who may have used it to thwart the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They claim they tried three separate times to present it to the FBI and were barred three separate times from doing so by attorneys for the Clinton administration.

When LTC Anthony Shaffer of Able Danger went public with his allegations, appearing on talk shows, retaliation was swift. Representative Curt Weldon, who has gone to bat for Shaffer, relates: "They have gagged the military officers. They have prevented them from talking to any member of Congress. They have prevented them from talking to the media. And the Defense Intelligence Agency has began a process to destroy the career and the life of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer." In other action, according to Representative Weldon, one day before the Lieutenant Colonel was to testify before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, in uniform, they permanently removed his security clearance. The Defense Intelligence Agency told LTC Shaffer's attorney they planned to seek a permanent removal of his pay and his health care benefits for him and his two children. Reports are that this punishment has been lightened somewhat, but we still may not hear from LTC Shaffer. He has been effectively muzzled.

Why did this information never get to the FBI? Former Director Freeh has remarked that the Able Danger information was the kind of intelligence that could have prevented the hijackings. What the 9/11 Commission did show was the lack of communication between the different agencies because of a "firewall" set up to hinder such communication. It has been charged that the person responsible for that wall was none other than Jamie Gorelick, who was part of the Clinton administration, and who was the lead Democrat on the 9/11 Commission.

Congressman Weldon has called for a criminal investigation into what he says is the most important story of our lifetime. He says he has support from 202 fellow lawmakers from both parties, noting on Thursday, November 17, that their goal was to force Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to allow "former participants in the intelligence program-known as Able Danger-to testify in an open hearing before the United States Congress." However, Congressman Weldon has encountered resistance for such a criminal investigation from some on the 9/11 Commission. Slade Gorton appeared on Lou Dobbs Tonight to say there is nothing to the reports about Able Danger and they are not important enough to consider further action. Tim Roemer has chimed in that Able Danger presented no helpful information for the 9/11 Commission to consider.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh disagrees. He charged that the 9/11 Commission ignored or "summarily rejected" the most critical evidence that could have prevented the horrible deaths of 3,000 of our fellow citizens. Evidence collected by Able Danger, if true, is "undoubtedly the most relevant fact of the entire post-9/11 inquiry…" However, the 9/11 Commission concluded, and members have publicly stated, that it was "not historically significant". Thus was valuable information dismissed. Thus was Able Danger rendered irrelevant.

In righteous anger Congressman Weldon has noted that "in two weeks with two staffers, I've uncovered more in this regard than they did with 80 staffers and $15 million of taxpayers' money!" He also claimed that "there's something very sinister that's going on here that really troubles me."

Freeh says that new revelations point out that it is "a good time for the country to make some assessments of the 9/11 Commission itself." Freeh has commended the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Arlen Specter, for examining some of these matters. Able Danger was not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. Weldon has claimed, "There's a cover-up here. It's clear and unequivocal". Freeh makes a good case for an investigation, saying "The Joint Intelligence Committees should reconvene and, in addition to Able Danger team members, we should have the 9/11 commissioners appear as witnesses so the families can hear their explanation why this doesn't matter." Many other Americans would like to hear that explanation, also.

For article source, see:
www.therant.us/staff/guest/anderson/11212005.htm

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

- - More Than Half of House Reps. Wants Hearings on Able Danger

MORE THAN HALF OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WANTS OPEN HEARINGS ON ABLE DANGER

WASHINGTON, Nov 18 - U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, has sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed by over half of the House of Representatives requesting that he allow "former participants in the intelligence program known as ABLE DANGER to testify in an open hearing before the United States Congress." The letter has 246 signatures (144 Republicans, 101 Democrats, and one Independent), including senior members and leadership on both sides of the isle.

"The full story of ABLE DANGER deserves to be heard by the American people," said Weldon. "Secretary Rumsfeld must understand that the will of Congress is behind allowing members of the ABLE DANGER effort to testify in an open hearing about the work they were doing prior to 9-11 to track the linkages and relationships of al-Qaeda worldwide.


--- For a full text version of the letter and list of signatories, see following URL:
http://curtweldon.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=37076

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For updated resources on this issue, see:

www.abledangerblog.com

www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=&topic=8

www.911truth.org


For FN's updated resources, see:
The Bush Conspiracy and 9/11 Investigative Reports,
looking into the unanswered questions.




3) Iraq's Oil: The Spoils of War

- - Former Delay Aide Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy
- - Kucinich Calls For Congressional Hearings On Vice President

Iraq's Oil: The Spoils of War
Published November 22, 2005 by the Independent / UK
Iraq's Oil: The Spoils of War
by Philip Thornton

Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an "old colonial trap" if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. The report is certain to reawaken fears that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure its oil came under Western control.

The Iraqi government has announced plans to seek foreign investment to exploit its oil reserves after the general election, which will be held next month. Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proved oil reserves, the third largest in the world.

According to the report, from groups including War on Want and the New Economics Foundation (NEF), the new Iraqi constitution opened the way for greater foreign investment. Negotiations with oil companies are already under way ahead of next month's election and before legislation is passed, it said.

The groups said they had amassed details of high-level pressure from the US and UK governments on Iraq to look to foreign companies to rebuild its oil industry. It said a Foreign Office code of practice issued in summer last year said at least $4bn would be needed to restore production to the levels before the 1990-91 Gulf War. "Given Iraq's needs it is not realistic to cut government spending in other areas and Iraq would need to engage with the international oil companies to provide appropriate levels of foreign direct investment to do this," it said.

Yesterday's report said the use of production sharing agreements (PSAs) was proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted by the Coalition Provisional Authority. "The current government is fast-tracking the process. It is already negotiating contracts with oil companies in parallel with the constitutional process, elections and passage of a Petroleum Law," the report, Crude Designs, said.

Earlier this year a BBC Newsnight report claimed to have uncovered documents showing the Bush administration made plans to secure Iraqi oil even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US. Based on its analysis of PSAs in seven countries, it said multinationals would seek rates of return on their investment from 42 to 162 per cent, far in excess of typical 12 per cent rates.

Taking an assumption of $40 a barrel, below the current price of almost $60, and a likely contract term of 25 to 40 years, it said that Iraq stood to lose between £74bn and $194bn. Andrew Simms, the NEF's policy director, said: "Over the last century, Britain and the US left a global trail of conflict, social upheaval and environmental damage as they sought to capture and control a disproportionate share of the world's oil reserves. Now it seems they are determined to increase their ecological debts at Iraq's expense. Instead of a new beginning, Iraq is caught in a very old colonial trap."

ARTICLE TRUNCATED

For the complete article, see:
www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1122-03.htm

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

- - Former Delay Aide Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy
Published November 22, 2005 by the Associated Press
Former DeLay Aide Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy
by Pete Yost

WASHINGTON - Michael Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to bribe public officials and agreed to cooperate in a widening criminal investigation of members of Congress.

He has been cooperating with the Justice Department since June, one of his attorneys, Plato Cacheris, said after the plea.

For the complete text of this article, see:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1122-09.htm

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

- - Kucinich Calls For Congressional Hearings On Vice President

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NOVEMBER 21, 2005

CONTACT: Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Doug Gordon 202/225-5871(o); 202/494-5141(c)

Kucinich Calls For Congressional Hearings On Vice President
Cheney's False Statements On The War

Sends Letter To Chairman Of House Government Reform Committee

For letter and press release, see:
http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=37221



4) Give Thanks No More: It's Time for a National Day of Atonement

- - National Day of Mourning in Plymouth dedicated to Peltier

Give Thanks No More: It's Time for a National Day of Atonement
Published November 21, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Give Thanks No More: It's Time for a National Day of Atonement
by Robert Jensen

One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.

In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.

Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits -- which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States.

That the world's great powers achieved "greatness" through criminal brutality on a grand scale is not news, of course. That those same societies are reluctant to highlight this history of barbarism also is predictable.

But in the United States, this reluctance to acknowledge our original sin -- the genocide of indigenous people -- is of special importance today. It's now routine -- even among conservative commentators -- to describe the United States as an empire, so long as everyone understands we are an inherently benevolent one. Because all our history contradicts that claim, history must be twisted and tortured to serve the purposes of the powerful.

One vehicle for taming history is various patriotic holidays, with Thanksgiving at the heart of U.S. myth-building. From an early age, we Americans hear a story about the hearty Pilgrims, whose search for freedom took them from England to Massachusetts. There, aided by the friendly Wampanoag Indians, they survived in a new and harsh environment, leading to a harvest feast in 1621 following the Pilgrims first winter.

Some aspects of the conventional story are true enough. But it's also true that by 1637 Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop was proclaiming a thanksgiving for the successful massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children, part of the long and bloody process of opening up additional land to the English invaders. The pattern would repeat itself across the continent until between 95 and 99 percent of American Indians had been exterminated and the rest were left to assimilate into white society or die off on reservations, out of the view of polite society.

Simply put: Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers.

Article Truncated, for the complete article, see:
www.commondreams.org/views05/1121-22.htm

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

- - National Day of Mourning in Plymouth dedicated to Peltier

36th NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING
Thursday, November 24, 2005
12 Noon - Coles Hill
(The hill above Plymouth Rock)
Plymouth, Massachusetts

The 36th National Day of Mourning
is dedicated this year again to support
Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier..

For More Information Contact:
United American Indians of New England/LPSG
Phone: (617) 232-5135
E-mail: uainendom@earthlink.net

Website: http://home.earthlink.net/~uainendom



Updated @ FlybyNews.com - Free Leonard Peltier -

"Amnesty International considers Leonard Peltier to be a political prisoner whose avenues of redress have long been exhausted....Amnesty International recognizes that a retrial is no longer a feasible option and believes that Leonard Peltier should be immediately and unconditionally released." Documents show that although the prosecution and government pointed the finger at Peltier for shooting FBI agents at close range during the trial in 1976, for three years the prosecution withheld critical ballistic test results proving that the fatal bullets could not have come from the gun tied to Leonard Peltier. This trial also denied evidence of self defense. The U.S. Prosecutor, during subsequent oral arguments, stated: "we can't prove who shot those agents". The Eighth Circuit found that "There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government's case." Yet, a new trial was denied. Judge Heaney, who authored the denial now supports Mr. Peltier's release, stating that the FBI used improper tactics to gain Mr. Peltier's conviction. A good way to learn about Leonard Peltier is to read his book: Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance. For excerpts under item 2: Time for Human Rights on Native Ground.

For FN resource links:
Free Leonard Peltier!



Translate this Page!


The views expressed herein are the writers' own and not necessarily those of Flyby News.
A "Fair Use Policy" that describes Flyby News' use of copyrighted material is posted at flybynews.com.
Your feedback for story suggestions and networking Flyby News are welcomed and appreciated.
You can write to the publisher/editor Jonathan Mark via email: info@flybynews.com


Flyby News is educational and nonviolent in focus, and has supported critical campaigns
for a healthy environment, human rights, justice, peace, and nonviolence,
since the launching of NASA's Cassini space probe in 1997.

=====News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era====>

= = = = = = www.FlybyNews.com = = = = =



Email address: