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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 8/1/08

9/11 Truth and the Tuskegee 40 Year Coverup

By Erik Larson  Posted by Erik Larson (about the submitter)       (Page 1 of 4 pages)   20 comments
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Some say that 9/11 couldn’t have been an “inside job” because a coverup would be impossible; someone with inside knowledge would blow the whistle on such a horrible and criminal operation. The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment is one example of policy and decision makers in US federal, state and local governments conspiring to commit and cover up crimes against humanity; the “experiment” was in progress, and kept quiet, for 40 years. 

In the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male”, the US Public Health Service (PHS) decided to use 399 Black men who had syphilis as experimental subjects in a study of racial differences in “late stage” syphilis, which can cause incredible suffering and even death. These human beings were used as research subjects without their knowledge or consent, in exchange for free medical exams, meals and burial insurance (on condition the PHS would be able to conduct an autopsy). According to the Centers for Disease Control, “The late stages of syphilis can develop in about 15% of people who have not been treated for syphilis, and can appear 10 – 20 years after infection was first acquired.  In the late stages of syphilis, the disease may subsequently damage the internal organs, including the brain, nerves, eyes, heart, blood vessels, liver, bones, and joints. Signs and symptoms of the late stage of syphilis include difficulty coordinating muscle movements, paralysis, numbness, gradual blindness, and dementia. This damage may be serious enough to cause death.” 

It was known at the time that syphilis could cause extraordinary suffering and even death, and the disease was epidemic in Alabama, where the study took place. As the name of the study indicates, those directing it had no intention of providing treatment, despite their representations that treatment would be part of the study, and despite Alabama law requiring diagnosed “venereal” disease to be promptly treated. The PHS began to administer penicillin in 1943, but it was not given to the Tuskegee victims. According to the CDC, it was “the treatment of choice” by 1945. 

According to Tuskegee University, “Beginning in 1952, the PHS began utilizing local health departments to track study participants who had left Macon County. Until the end of the study in the 1970s, local health departments [conspired] with the PHS to keep the study subjects from receiving treatment.” Victims who questioned whether they had syphilis were lied to; those who found out they had syphilis and demanded treatment were given placebos instead, or treatment at levels thought insufficient to cure the disease. During the time the experiment was being conducted, papers were published in scientific journals which acknowledged the syphilis was being left untreated, and ignored the ethical implications. 

In 1966, after PHS researcher Peter Buxtun discovered the experiment was being conducted, he wrote a letter to the director of the Division of Venereal Diseases, William Brown, but nothing was changed. He wrote a second letter to Brown in 1968; this letter also addressed the ramifications of the study in the context of the growing civil rights movement and racial unrest. Brown showed the letter to the Centers for Disease Conrol (CDC), which convened a panel discussion of the issue; they reviewed the study and decided it should continue to the end. 

The study was intended to last 40 years, and it was continued from 1932 to 1972, when Buxtun shared what he knew with an Associated Press reporter. The story broke on the front page of the Washington Evening Star July 25, 1972, and was headline news nationwide the next day and in the following weeks. Public outrage and disgust was widespread, the study was ended and reforms were enacted. A $1.8 billion class action lawsuit was filed; it was settled out of court for $10 million without wrongdoing being admitted by the federal government, and in 1997 Bill Clinton formally apologized for the US federal government’s role. It is not known how many people were infected with syphilis by the Tuskegee victims due to the conspirators at PHS and local health departments preventing them from receiving diagnosis and treatment. 

Tuskegee shows us that people in positions of authority in US federal, state and local governments and the scientific community are capable of conspiracy and committing crimes against humanity, and that many people were aware of what was going on and did nothing about it. At least 3 papers were openly published on this “experiment” in scientific journals in the 50’s and 60’s, even while the victims were suffering and dying, and being deceived and prevented from receiving penicillin, the proven safe and effective treatment that was in widespread use. These journals were not accessible by the general public, and no medical student or professional who read these articles blew the whistle. At the time, many whites didn’t consider black people to be fully human; as shocking as it may seem now, readers of the articles may have believed it was important research, or that the lives and well-being of the “research subjects” were unimportant, regardless. Indeed, in 1976 historian James Jones interviewed PHS Director John Heller and quotes him as saying, "The men's status did not warrant ethical debate. They were subjects, not patients; clinical material, not sick people." Heller was director of the Venereal Diseases unit of the PHS from 1943 to 1948 and was instrumental in the experiment’s continuation. The quote appears in Jones’ book “Bad blood: The Tuskegee syphilis experiment: A tragedy of race and medicine”, considered the definitive book on the subject. No apology was offered by anyone involved in the study (an African-American doctor and nurse were part of it as well); many of them were angry that the US government did not defend their actions. 

The Tuskegee experiment gives insight to the psychology of individuals and societies. It is revealing of how cover-ups work and how they can be maintained, and also how they can be exposed, winning needed reforms, if not true justice. Given what’s known about Tuskegee, who can say with confidence that 9/11 could not have been an inside job because it would be impossible to cover up; someone involved would have “talked” already? Tuskegee did not become known because someone who was involved in the plot blew the whistle; Buxtun learned of the ongoing study from co-workers, and less than a year after he was hired in 1965 he had written his first internal letter protesting the study. 

Is there an on-going cover up of what really happened on 9/11? A number of people have already blown the whistle on corruption, “negligence”, obstruction, dereliction of duty, “incompetence”, malfeasance, “careerism” and cover up related to the “failures” to prevent 9/11. More whistleblowers may yet come forward, including actual participants. Numerous whistleblowers have already gone public with things they witnessed that seriously contradict the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory put out by the Bush Administration and the 9/11 Commission. However, Congress seems to be doing little or nothing with their testimony, while they continue to enable the crimes of the Bush Administration. Whistleblowers have been intimidated, harassed, fired and threatened, while “incompetents” who failed to do their job and facilitated the attacks have been given raises, bonuses and even more responsibility. 

Beginning on September 11, White House staff were put on Cipro, the Anthrax antibiotic. The first Anthrax letters were mailed to the New York Post and and Tom Brokaw at NBC a week after 9/11 happened; October 9, Senators Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle received Anthrax letters. The Bush Administration had wanted the PATRIOT Act passed in a week, and Daschle and Leahy were blocking passage of the PATRIOT Act so it could be adequately reviewed. Also in early October Anthrax was discovered at The Sun, a newspaper in Boca Raton, FL, but the letter was reportedly never found. In the resulting climate of fear, uncertainty and hysteria about potential terror attacks, the PATRIOT Act was passed overwhelmingly. The Anthrax was discovered to be of the US military Aames strain, and highly refined and weaponized. When the FBI traced it back to Fort Detrick, MD, the remaining stockpiles were destroyed and ever since the FBI and DOJ have been stonewalling Congress and the public on the status of its investigation. July 31, 2008 it was reported that Fort Detrick/USAMRID Anthrax scientist Bruce Ivins had killed himself; he had been under investigation and made aware that he would soon be indicted. This is an acknowledgment from the US government that the Anthrax was from Fort Detrick, and the attacks were a “false-flag” terror attack (the letters were written to create the appearance of being from “Islamofascists”). It’s also raising a lot of new questions: see Anthrax Suspect Was Committed to a Psychiatric Hospital Shortly Before His Death and Government Tries to Bury Anthrax Story

For months after 9/11, the White House insisted there was no need to investigate 9/11- they claimed it Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were responsible and had caught the US by surprise, but offered no evidence, or valid explanations for the CIA, FBI and NORAD failures. Colin Powell promised a White Paper detailing the evidence of Bin Laden/Al Qaeda responsibility; to date, nothing has been released. The FBI even said June 2006 that it “has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11”. In 2002, after months of deflection, stonewalling and obstruction, including personal attempts by both Bush and Cheney to prevent any investigation into 9/11, the White House conceded to an investigation that would be limited to “intelligence failures”. This was the Senate-House Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry into what the NSA, FBI, CIA and other agencies knew prior to 9/11. Click here for their declassified report with 28 redacted pages, which Senator Bob Graham says contains evidence of Saudi funding and other assistance to the alleged hijackers. During the course of their inquiry someone, reportedly in Congress, leaked that the NSA had intercepted messages in Arabic between Al Qaeda operatives on September 10 that said “tomorrow is zero hour” and “the match begins tomorrow”, that these messages weren’t translated until September 12, and that there were 30 other pre-9/11 intercepts that referred to an imminent attack. 

If true the September 10 intercepts weren’t translated until the day after 9/11, by itself it may be seen to be evidence merely of incompetence, laziness and/or information and work overload. When considered in the context of 30 other warning signs it seems more likely a case for criminal negligence could be built. When considered with other facts about 9/11, it seems more likely it’s evidence of intentional obstruction, part of a larger plan by supervisors and policy makers with undisclosed interests and extra-Constitutional loyalties. A plan to facilitate the appearance, to patriotic professionals within the various intelligence, investigative, law enforcement and defense agencies, and to Congress, the media and the general public, that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by “Islamofascists”. In reality, the alleged hijackers may have only been patsies in a plot by “elites” to create the appearance of a “clash of civilizations” as a pretext for launching an endless “war on terror”, subverting the Constitution and empowering secretive “unitary executive” government not accountable to the People or Congress, engaging in imperialist wars for geo-strategic resources, suppressing dissent and setting up a national security-surveillance state in the US

The intelligence and national security environment in which the 30 messages were intercepted has been referred to as the “summer of threat” when “the system was blinking red” and DCI George Tenet was “running around with his hair on fire”. Warnings had been received for years about Bin Laden and Al Qaeda planning attacks in the US, including using planes as missiles, and the warning signs were increasing in 2001. From January 20 to September 10, Bush was briefed on Al Qaeda over 40 times by Tenet, many of them urgently warning of an impending attack. The FAA issued 52 warnings mentioning Bin Laden or Al Qaeda between April 2001 and September 10, and the 9/11 Commission left this out of their book; it was released the year after the book’s publication, as a separate “monograph”. The speculation about whether 9/11 was “allowed” or “made” to happen by parties other than Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, by people that are in the US government and have influence over the US government, is further fueled by such things as the fact that the CIA was aware of plans to strike in the US and was monitoring the alleged hijackers and people connected with them, as was the FBI. The results of 38+ SEC, and separate FBI investigations, into pre-9/11 insider trading and other foreknowledge have never been made public. The suspected insider trading and evidence of foreknowledge on the part of powerful people included a single purchase in early September 2001 of $5 billion in US Treasury Notes; traditionally a more secure investment during times of economic and social turmoil. 

The 9/11 Commission, composed exclusively of establishment insiders with financial, professional and/or political conflicts of interest, largely ignored the multiple war games and other exercises surrounding 9/11, some of which mimicked the 9/11 attacks and involved the insertion of false radar blips, while others had sent fighters up to Canada and Alaska, making them unavailable to respond. The Commission Report painted the standard air defense procedures as slow and laborious, requiring many phone calls and authorizations up and down a chain of command to get anything done. They ignored and the distorted the fact that standard FAA/NORAD operating procedures before 9/11 required them to scramble jet fighters within minutes, to respond to any flight that went off-course. See this March 12, 2001 Archive.org of Chapter 10 of the FAA’s manual, which dealt with “Emergency Determinations”, saying, “c. If the words "Mayday" or "Pan-Pan" are not used and you are in doubt that a situation constitutes an emergency or potential emergency, handle it as though it were an emergency.” The Commission also didn’t mention that in June of 2001, standard procedures were changed to require the authorization of the Secretary of Defense; in cases where lethal force might be required, as was certainly a possibility the morning of September 11. This was Donald Rumsfeld, and like many principals in the military and Bush Administration, he was behaving strangely in response to the emergencies that morning, and was out of the loop while people were trying to contact him. At 8:14 am, Flight 11’s radio button was repeatedly pushed, and it went off course at 8:20 am. Things escalated from there; soon 4 flights would be off course, with their transponders off and the pilots not responding to radio communications, although the alleged hijackers reportedly used the radio by “accident”, providing further evidence of hijacking. The Commission unquestioningly accepted DOD officials statements that the exercises enhanced the response of NORAD that morning, even though they listened to taped conversations between the FAA and NORAD personnel indicating confusion caused by the war games; statements such as “is this real world or exercise?” On the other hand, the 9/11 Commission ignored or distorted the testimony of these whistleblowers: 

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Erik Larson, Human Being and concerned Citizen. I only advocate and practice non-violent methods of social and political activism & change. Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here by me in my articles and diaries are my own. I do my best to only (more...)
 
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