The Extraordinary Travails of the Man who Sent a DVD to Court

A MAN IS NOW IMPRISONED IN LONDON 

FOR REVEALING INCONVENIENT TRUTHS 

THAT THE COURT REFUSED TO EVEN REVIEW

The so-called "bombers" could not have reached King's Cross because the train connection to get them there at the correct time had been canceled.  

Interviews by Dr. JAMES FETZER:

Wed, June 24, 2009

Interview with Muad'Dib:
7/7 Ripple Effect
Exposing the "false flag" London attack

Friday, July 17, 2009
Muad'Dib / Declan & Lola Heavey
"7/7 Ripple Effect" / religionandmorality.net

Authorities refuse to look at the DVD...Friday, December 4, 2009 Nicholas Kollerstrom 9/11, 7/7, and more

Friday, December 25, 2009
Rory Ridley-Duff
7/7 London Attacks: Fact or Fiction?

One small voice ...with great knowledge....Alia in Dune

Friday, January 22, 2010
Nicholas Kollerstrom
1994 False Flag Attacks in London

No home-made backpack bomb could cause the undercarriage to be forced UP through the floor--a characteristic of a bomb planted under the train's floor.  This placement provided force needed to overturn the car--which occurred.

Friday, November 5, 2010
Nickolas Kollerstrom
Formal inquiry into 7/7

"Bus bomber" identified though photo (left) July 7, show he wore blue pants and a blue shirt, not the colors described by the "witness" who identified him....Maud'Dib's DVD should be watched by everyone to understand how government "false flag" operations bring the public into control, through fear, to support their policies.

"This combination photo shows two handout images released by the Metropolitan Police on July 14, 2005. On the right is a CCTV image of Hasib Hussain seen at Luton station on July 7, 2005 and on the left is a headshot of Hasib Hussain from his driving licence. Hussain was on the No 30 bus in London which exploded on July 7, 2005 killing at least 13 people. Police found his driving licence and cash cards after searching the wrecked bus. At least 53 people were killed and 700 injured during morning rush hour terrorist attacks which were targeted at London's transport links with 3 bombs exploding on underground trains and one on a bus on July 7..."    

-- from Life Magazine, July 2005.

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MUAD'DIB EXTRADITION APPROVED BY IRELAND'S HIGHEST COURT

MUAD'DIB 

EXTRADITION APPROVED BY IRELAND'S HIGHEST COURT

Could the Court be Complicit in a 7/7 Coverup?

by Jim Fetzer

 In a stunning development, on 13 November 2010, Ireland's highest court ruled in favor of the extradition of John Anthony Hill, who also goes by the name "Muad'Dib", who produced "7/7 Ripple Effect", to England to stand trial for attempting to corrupt the judicial system. The charge is in fact quite absurd, since Muad'Dib simply sent copies of his DVD to the court in England in an attempt to preclude the miscarriage of justice that would be involved in sentencing friends of the alleged "bombers" for their complicity in the matter, which is completely unjustified, once one becomes aware of the apparent governmental complicity in staging the 7/7 attacks.

According to the official government account, four young Islamic men came by the tube to four locations in London  and blew themselves up with extraordinary synchrony, the three tube blasts being within 50 seconds of each other.  The greatest  mystery of the official account is probably the total lack of any interest amongst the four in chemistry or bomb-making: a formal Inquest has now reiterated the totally absurd black-pepper and peroxide bomb theory, and has cited a shop where the peroxide was purchased, which may not even sell it.

The Inquest has also specified the time for the first blast at Aldwich as being 8.49.00, precisely 11 minutes to 9, which has has fueled speculation as to whether a "numerical link" is being made to 9/11.

Nicholas Kollerstrom, an historian of science who has also published on the case-- http://terroronthetube.co.uk/reviews-2/reviews/ -- in seeking to confirm the official account, discovered that the 7.40 train from Luton had been cancelled and the other trains that morning had been greatly delayed, which had the inevitable consequence that the four could not have got onto the trains at King’s Cross in time. This seems to be a major reason why the police have not been able to release CCTV of the young men in London on that morning.

Although Kollerstrom had been skeptical about Muad'Dib's version of the events at Canary Wharf as presented in "7/7 Ripple Effect", he has now experienced a massive degree of corroboration of his story from the testimonials put onto his website:

http://terroronthetube.co.uk/2010/10/22/new-support-for-canary-wharf-story/

Kollerstrom, however, remains committed to his earlier view, which is that Mohammad Sidique Khan, the alleged ringleader, was not with the other three alleged "suicide bombers" that morning; because of his wife’s early pregnancy complications, Khan had decided to pull out!  

Important corroborating evidence for "7/7 Ripple Effect" is found in this interview of Muad'dib, June 24, 2009 ("...A microcosm of exactly how false flag attacks...are planned..."):

My recent interview with Nick Kollerstrom,  on November 5, 2010, provides important updates:

Were these four young men practicing "tradecraft"?

http://terroronthetube.co.uk/latest-77-articles-3/the-fate-of-khan/

What happened at Canary Wharf?  Were they shot dead?

http://terroronthetube.co.uk/2010/10/22/new-support-for-canary-wharf-story/#more-1146

While Muad'Dib had presented fifty-four points to the Court, it only considered three of them while ignoring the remainder. According to a friend of Muad'Dib, Rob,* who was present at the hearing, the judges used tortured logic and distorted language to justify their otherwise grossly improper verdict. The judges did not even bother to view his "7/7 Ripple Effect" DVD, which appears on its face to be completely unreasonable, since it was alleged to be the content of that DVD that is responsible for the extradition request. For all the judges knew, the DVD could have been a Beatles' concert or completely blank.

Currently, Muad'Dib is being held in Wandsworth Prison in South London.

The DVD of concern:  "7/7 Ripple Effect":
 






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*Interviews with Rob at radiofetzer:
http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com

Link to announcement at Truth Jihad:
http://truthjihad.blogspot.com/2010/11/muaddib-extradition-approved-by.htmlLink to announcement at nolies radio: http://noliesradio.org/archives/25176

URL for the "7/7 Ripple Effect" :
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8756795263359807776 

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The JFK "Head Shot" Paradox

The JFK “Head Shot” Paradox*

                        by Jim Fetzer
by Ralph
                 Recently by Jim Fetzer: The Place of Probability in Science

As a philosopher of science with a keen interest in the nature of scientific knowledge, I have been fascinated by the recent book by G. Paul Chambers, Head Shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination (2010). I have found several aspects of his discussion of interest, including his conclusion—that the fatal shot to JFK’s head seen in the Zapruder film was caused by a shot from the right-front (“the grassy knoll”)—which he affirms on the basis of his competence as a physicist.  He does not seem to notice that JFK’s brains and blood are blown out to the right-front in the Zapruder film, which he takes to be authentic and unaltered.  But that means there is a paradox in his analysis, since, if the film is authentic, the blow-out to the right-front contradicts his conclusion that the shot that caused this effect was fired from the right-front, which is founded on elementary laws of physics. This, in turn, implies that he has not taken into account all the relevant evidence and thereby violated a basic principle of scientific reasoning, which may be appropriate for politicians, editorial writers, and used-car salesmen, but not for him.

Sample bullet entry defect

Sample bullet exit defect

Indeed, it is precisely because the back-and-to-the-left motion of his body provides such a simple proof of a shot fired from the right-front that those who have written extensively about it, such as Robert Groden and Josiah Thompson, have been adamantly opposed to acknowledging that the film is a fabrication, which was recreated using original footage which was subjected to sophisticated techniques of optical printing and special effects.  A brilliant tutorial concerning how we know this was done has been presented by John P. Costella, another Ph.D. in physics with electromagnetism, the physics of moving objects and properties of light, among his areas of specialization.  Previous arguments of David Wrone and Rollie Zavada, which Chambers presents, have been refuted by the publication of Inside the ARRB (2009) by Douglas Horne, whose key arguments about the film are summarized in an article of mine for those who may not have time for all five volumes!


Chambers’ discussions of the Zapruder film, whose authenticity he endorses, and of the medical evidence, which he disregards as corrupt, are especially interesting.  Perhaps if he had read Assassination Science (1998), Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000), and The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003), which are devoted to taking rumor and speculation out of the case and placing its study on an objective and scientific foundation, he might have a different outlook on both.  Not the least puzzling aspect of this book is that, while his credentials as a physicist are advanced as the reason we should believe him (based upon his analysis of the motion of JFK’s head under the impact of the bullet), no one who has ever observed the film could have any serious doubt that it was fired from the right-front. The back-and-to-the-left motion of his body, which was accentuated in Oliver Stone’s “JFK”, makes that much obvious.  You don’t have to be a Ph.D. in physics to notice.

As Horne has explained, there are five physical features that distinguish the original film, which was developed in Dallas, from the film that is available to us today.  As he also remarks, the original was brought to the National Photographic Interpretation Center on Saturday, 23 November 1963, and processed by one team of experts, while a second film was brought to the NPIC the following day, Sunday, 24 November 1963, and processed by a different team of experts.  We not only know that the films are different based upon their physical properties but from the occurrence of content anomalies found in the extant film. Some the most revealing content features that indicate it is a fabrication include the driver’s head turns (looking back toward JFK and then forward after he has been killed), which, as Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason (1997), has reported, occur twice as fast as humanly possible; that no witnesses reported the back-and-to-the-left motion seen in the extant film; and that Secret Service agents were nauseated to see JFK’s brains and blood across the trunk of the limousine in Washington, which has been “tidied” up in the film.

Roderick Ryan, a Hollywood expert on special effects whom Noel consulted about the blow-out to the right-front, explained to him that it and the blood spray had been painted in.  A new group of Hollywood experts has now concluded that the blow-out itself was painted over in black to conceal the massive defect, as Horne explains in Volume IV of Inside the ARRB.  But while there are many indications that the film is a fabrication, the most important proof is the inconsistency between the impact damage to the cranium, which is the film's most stunning feature, showing brains and gore bulging out to JFK's right-front, and the medical evidence, which shows a massive defect at the back of his head just to the right of center.  Indeed, Escort Motorcycle Officer Bobby Hargis, who was riding to the left-rear, was hit so hard by the blown-out brains and debris that he though he himself had been shot.  Jackie told the Warren Commission that, from the front, he looked just fine, but that she had had a hard time holding his skull and brains together at the back of his head.  

The question thus becomes how a massive blow-out of brains and gore to the left-rear could be shown bulging out to the right-front in the film.

Recent research by another physicist, David W. Mantik, who is also an M.D. and board-certified in radiation oncology, has demonstrated that the JFK autopsy X-rays have been altered to conceal the blow-out to the back of the head. The alteration of the film and the alteration of the X-rays thus constitute mutually reinforcing deceptions complemented by the publication of frame 313 in LIFE magazine with a caption saying that the bullet had entered the back of his head and blown out the right-front—a caption that was rewritten twice after breaking the plates, an event unique in the history of American journalism—and the televised appearance by Abraham Zapruder the very evening of the assassination, during which he placed his hand to his right forehead to described a blow-out to the right-front, which did not occur. By dismissing the medical evidence as corrupt and endorsing the authenticity of the film, Chambers violated the requirement of total evidence, which insists that reasoning in science must be based upon all the available relevant evidence.

No doubt, most of us would have a difficult time mastering the use of the technique of optical densitometry, which Mantik borrowed from physics and applied to the X-rays when he studied them at the National Archives.  Since David’s report of his research, which established that the X-rays are fabrications and that there was a second shot to the head, were published in Assassination Science (1998), which Chambers cites, I have a hard time understanding why he did not discuss it in this book. He does cite Mantik twice (on pages 188 and 192), but does so in relation to his article on the Zapruder film and not in relation to his work on the medical evidence.  Rather than addressing Mantik’s work on the Zapruder film directly, as would be typical for disagreements between physicists, Chambers instead simply accepts the verdict of an historian on the work of a physicist—which may be another unique event.  He claims the medical evidence forms an “unstable data set”, which was true before Mantik sorted out the authentic from the inauthentic, as he has done in a brilliant synthesis that was published in Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000).  Indeed, there are no indications here that Chambers is familiar with the most important objective and scientific studies of the medical evidence or of the fabrication of the film, especially in The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003) and in Horne’s multiple volumes.

The study of the assassination has drawn the attention of physicists at least since David S. Lifton’s Best Evidence (1980).  As Lifton explains, he showed photos of Zapruder frames to Richard Feynman at CalTech in 1965, where the Nobel Prize laureate pointed out that there is forward movement from frames 312 to 313, which, when the back-and-to-the-left motion observed in the film is taken as proof of a shot from in front, implies that JFK was hit at least twice in the head—once from behind and once from in front—a double-hit that was meticulously diagrammed in Josiah Thompson’s Six Seconds in Dallas (1967). Chambers dismisses JFK’s forward movement as an effect of William Greer, the driver, slowing the vehicle.  More than 60 witnesses have reported that Greer slowed the vehicle dramatically or actually brought it to a halt, which is not seen in the film, but only he moves slightly forward at that point in time. The vehicle is shown as accelerating immediately thereafter, making it anomalous that the occupants’ bodies—Governor and Nellie Connally and the Secret Service agents—are thrown forward following frame 313.

Since we know that, if the shot was fired from the right-front, then his brains should have been blown-out to the left-rear and not to the right-front, which is what we observe in the film, the conclusion that the film has been faked clearly follows.  

Chambers cites work by Wrone and Zavada that has been refuted in books with which he should be familiar, but does not report that proof of something wrong with the film is present in the film itself.  It occurred to me that those who were falsifying the film might have paid so much time and attention to the head shot and its effects—as we see them now in frames 313-316—that they might have overlooked the head wound in later frames.  And, indeed, I found that it is visible in frame 374, among others, where its cashew-nut-like shape corresponds very closely to “Area P” (for “patched”) in Mantik’s analysis of the lateral cranial X-ray, as I have explained and demonstrated in “Dealey Plaza Revisited: What Happened to JFK?”

Perhaps if he had read more of Assassination Science (1998), which he cites, Chambers might have learned that Robert B. Livingston, M.D.—a world authority on the human brain and also an expert on wound ballistics, having supervised an emergency medical hospital for injured Okinawans and for Japanese prisoners of war during the Battle of Okinawa—had concluded that the diagrams and photographs of the brain stored at the National Archives cannot be authentic photographs and diagrams of the brain of John F. Kennedy.  He compared the multiple reports from experienced physicians at Parkland Hospital of cerebellar as well as cerebral tissue extruding from the blow-out at the back of the head with the photographs and diagrams at the National Archives—the brain itself is mysteriously missing—which show a wholly intact cerebellum.  Since Chambers does not know the medical evidence any better than he knows the photographic, he precluded drawing inferences about those who were involved in the cover-up and the crime itself.

The Mafia, for example, could not have extended its reach into Bethesda Naval Hospital to falsify X-rays that were under the control of medical officers of the US Navy, agents of the Secret Service, or the president’s personal physician. Neither pro- nor anti-Castro Cubans could have substituted another brain for that of JFK.  And the KGB, which may have had an ability to fabricate films comparable to that of the CIA and of Hollywood, would have had no opportunity to gain access to the original Zapruder film.  Once we know the breadth and depth of the cover-up, which was implemented in great detail to effect mutually-reinforcing forms of deception, we begin to appreciate that those who had the motive, the means and the opportunity to bring them about were at the highest levels of our own government, as James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable (2008), explains.

It not only troubles me profoundly that Chambers violates a basic principle of scientific reasoning and that evidence internal to the extant film refutes his presumption that the film is authentic but that Jefferson Morley endorses the book with the following claim:  “He dismantles the bad science at the core of Vincent Bugliosi’s flabby Reclaiming History [2007] and politely punts the fantasy that the Zapruder film was altered.” While I agree that Bugliosi’s work is indefensible, to the best of my knowledge, Morley has never studied the film and is not in a position to know whether it is authentic or not.  This is not the first time Morley has proven to be unequal to the demands of serious research about the assassination of one of the Kennedys.  Science, as we have seen, can enable us to sort out authentic from inauthentic evidence, but we have to think things through and not let ourselves be misled by pseudo-science masquerading as genuine in the search for truth.

* Thanks to David W. Mantik, John Costella, and Morgan Reynolds for their feedback.

Jim Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer who earned his Ph.D. in the history and the philosophy of science, is McKnight Professor Emeritus at the Duluth campus of the University of Minnesota.  He co-edits assassinationresearch.com with John Costella.

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Mass Assassinations Lie at the Heart of America's Military Strategy in the Muslim World

Greatly expanded U.S. military Special Ops teams, U.S. drone strikes and private espionage networks run by former CIA assassins create a threat to our security.

by Fred Branfman 

August 24, 2010  |  "[General McChrystal says that] for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies." -- "The Runaway General," Rolling Stone, 6/22/10

One of the many innocent victims of drone attacks

The truth that many Americans find hard to take is that that mass U.S. assassination on a scale unequaled in world history lies at the heart of America's military strategy in the Muslim world, a policy both illegal and never seriously debated by Congress or the American people. Conducting assassination operations throughout the 1.3 billon-strong Muslim world will inevitably increase the murder of civilians and thus create exponentially more "enemies," as Gen. McChrystal suggests -- posing a major long-term threat to U.S. national security. This mass assassination program, sold as defending Americans, is actually endangering us all. Those responsible for it, primarily General Petraeus, are recklessly seeking short-term tactical advantage while making an enormous long-term strategic error that could lead to countless American deaths in the years and decades to come. General Petraeus must be replaced, and the U.S. military's policy of direct and mass assassination of Muslims ended.

The U.S. has conducted assassination programs in the Third World for decades, but the actual killing -- though directed and financed by the C.I.A. -- has been largely left to local paramilitary and police forces. This has now has changed dramatically.

What is unprecedented today is the vast number of Americans directly assassinating Muslims -- through greatly expanded U.S. military Special Operations teams, U.S. drone strikes and private espionage networks run by former CIA assassins and torturers. Most significant is the expanding geographic scope of their killing. While CENTCOM Commander from October 2008 until July 2010, General Petraeus received secret and unprecedented permission to unilaterally engage in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, former Russian Republics, Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, the Horn of Africa, and wherever else he deems necessary.

Never before has a nation unleashed so many assassins in so many foreign nations around the world (9,000 Special Operations soldiers are based in Iraq and Afghanistan alone) as well as implemented a policy that can be best described as unprecedented, remote-control, large-scale "mechanized assassination."  As the N.Y. Times noted in December 2009: "For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the United States is not officially at war."  

This combination of human and technological murder amounts to a worldwide “Assassination Inc.” that is unique in human affairs.

The increasing shift to direct U.S. assassination began on Petraeus's watch in Iraq,where targeted assassination was considered by many within the military to be more important than the "surge." The killing of Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was considered a major triumph that significantly reduced the level of violence. As Bob Woodward reported in The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008:

"Beginning in about May 2006, the U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence agencies launched a series of top secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in extremist groups. A number of authoritative sources say these covert activities had a far-reaching effect on the violence and were very possibly the biggest factor in reducing it. Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) responsible for hunting al Qaeda in Iraq, (conducted) lightning-quick and sometimes concurrent operations When I later asked the president (Bush) about this, he offered a simple answer: 'JSOC is awesome.'" [Emphasis added.]

Woodward's finding that many "authoritative sources" believed assassination more important than the surge is buttressed by Petraeus' appointment of McChrystal to lead U.S. forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal's major qualification for the post was clearly his perceived expertise in assassination while heading JSOC from 2003-'08 (where he also conducted extensive torture at "Camp Nama" at Baghdad International Airport, successfully excluding even the Red Cross).

Another key reason for the increased reliance on assassination is that Petraeus' announced counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan obviously cannot work. It is absurd to believe that the corrupt warlords and cronies who make up the "Afghan government" can be transformed into the viable entity upon which his strategy publicly claims to depend -- particularly within the next year which President Obama has set as a deadline before beginning to withdraw U.S. troops. Petraeus is instead largely relying on mass assassination to try and eliminate the Taliban, both within Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The centrality of assassination to U.S. war plans is revealed by the fact that it was at the heart of the Obama review of Afghan policy last fall. The dovish Biden position called for relying primarily on assassination, while the hawkish McChrystal stance embraced both assassination and more troops. No other options were seriously considered.

A third factor behind the shift to mass assassination is that Petraeus and the U.S. military are also determined to attack jihadi forces in nations where the U.S. is not at war, and which are not prepared to openly invite in U.S. forces. As the N.Y. Times reported on May 24, "General Petraeus (has argued) that troops need to operate beyond Iraq and Afghanistan to better fight militant groups."

 The most significant aspect of this new and expanded assassination policy is President Obama's authorizing clandestine U.S. military personnel to conduct it. The N.Y. Times has also reported:

In roughly a dozen countries -- from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife -- the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists (Military) Special Operations troops under secret "Execute Orders" have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of civilian intelligence agencies.

Particularly extraordinary is the fact that these vastly expanded military assassination teams are not subject to serious civilian control. As the N.Y. Times has also reported, Petraeus in September 2009 secretly expanded a worldwide force of assassins answerable only to the military, without oversight by not only Congress but the president himself:

The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents. The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. Unlike covert actions undertaken by the C.I.A., such clandestine activity does not require the president's approval or regular reports to Congress. [Emphasis added]

Although sold to the American public and Congress as targeted, selective assassination aimed only at a handful of "high value" insurgent leaders, the program has in fact already expanded far beyond that. As personnel and aircraft devoted to assassination exponentially increase, so too do the numbers of people they murder, both "insurgents" and civilians.

Winning hearts and minds in North Waziristan, Pakistan

While it is reasonable to assume that expanding the number of Special Operations commandos to its present worldwide level of 13,000 will result in increasing assassinations, the secrecy of their operations makes it impossible to know how many they have murdered, how many of those are civilians, and the effectiveness of their operations. It is not known, for example, how many people U.S. military assassins murder directly, and how many they kill indirectly by identifying them for drone strikes. Much of their activity is conducted, for example, in North Waziristan in northwest Pakistan which, as the N.Y. Times reported on April 4 "is virtually sealed from the outside world." 

More information, however, has emerged about the parallel and unprecedented mass mechanized assassinations being carried out by the C.I.A. drone programs. It is clear that they have already expanded far beyond the official cover story of targeting only "high-level insurgent leaders," and are killing increasing numbers of people.

Bishop Oscar Romero: not forgotten

The CIA, of course, is no novice at assassination. Future CIA Director William Colby's Operation Phoenix program in South Vietnam gave South Vietnamese police quotas of the number of civilians to be murdered on a weekly and monthly basis, eventually killing 20-50,000 people. CIA operatives such as Latin American Station Chef Duane "Dewey" Clarridge also established, trained and operated local paramilitary and death squads throughout Central and Latin America that brutally tortured and murdered tens of thousands of civilians, most notably in El Salvador where CIA-trained and -directed killers murdered Archbishop Romero and countless other Salvadorans.

But the present CIA assassination program in Pakistan and elsewhere is different not only because it is Americans who are themselves the assassins, but because of the unprecedented act of conducting mechanized mass assassination from the air. The CIA, as Nick Turse has reported for TomDispatch.com, is exponentially increasing its drone assassination program:  "(Drone) Reapers flew 25,391 hours (in 2009). This year, the air force projects that the combined flight hours of all its drones will exceed 250,000 hours. More flight time will, undoubtedly, mean more killing." 

Not concerned about drones? Coming soon to your locale: this Microdrone is one of many kinds currently being manufactured to provide "police protection" for civilians across America, Europe and Asia.

There were already signs in 2009, when drone strikes were a fraction of what they are now, that they were striking large numbers of civilians and proving militarily and politically counterproductive. Most Pakistanis believe it is largely civilians who are being killed, and anti-American hatred is growing accordingly. A Gallup poll conducted in July 2009, based on 2,500 face-to-face interviews, found that "only 9 percent of Pakistanis supported the drone strikes." A Global Research study documented the drone murder of 123 civilians in January 2010 alone.

A particularly significant indication of the drone strikes' military ineffectiveness has come from Colonel David Kilcullen, a key Petraeus advisor in Iraq, who testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 23, 2009, that, "Since 2006, we've killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we've killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area. We need to call off the drones."

Kilcullen's testimony was ignored, however, and as drone strikes have not only been continued but exponentially increased, there are increasing signs that they have vastly increased the scope of the killing far beyond the claimed "high-level insurgent leaders." The N.Y. Times reported on Aug. 14:

[The CIA has] broadened its drone campaign beyond selective strikes against Qaeda leaders and now regularly obliterates suspected enemy compounds and logistics convoys, just as the military would grind down an enemy force.

Reuters reported on May 5 that: 

The CIA received approval to target a wider range of targets in Pakistan's tribal areas, including low-level fighters whose identities may not be known, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Former intelligence officials acknowledged that in many, if not most cases, the CIA had little information about the foot soldiers killed in the strikes.

What this means is clear: the CIA is assassinating an expanding number of "low-level" people, labeling them as "fighters," but has little if any idea of who they really are. The history of such mechanized campaigns from the air, such as Laos where I have studied the U.S. 1964-'73 air war intensively, is that increased warfare from the air inevitably becomes increasingly indiscriminate, destroying civilian and military targets alike. As the drone program continues to expand, it will inevitably wind up killing more civilians -- and, if McChrystal is right, exponentially create more people committed to killing Americans.

Numerous moral, legal and ethical objections have been raised to this program of mass assassination. Philip Alston, the United Nations special representative on extrajudicial executions, has stated that "this strongly asserted but ill-defined license to kill without accountability is not an entitlement which the United States or other states can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life and prevent extrajudicial executions."

The notion that a handful of U.S. military and CIA officials have the right to unilaterally and secretly murder anyone they choose in any nation on earth, without even outside knowledge let alone oversight, is deeply troubling to anyone with a conscience, belief in democracy, or respect for international law. It was precisely such behavior that made the Gestapo and Soviet secret police symbols of evil. Since the U.S. Congress has never reined in an Executive Branch that has routinely ignored international law since 1945, however, it is likely that the question of whether this program will be continued will be determined by its perceived effectiveness, not its morality. 

The evidence is mounting that U.S. assassinations are so ineffective they are actually strengthening anti-American forces in Pakistan. Bruce Reidel, a counterinsurgency expert who coordinated the Afghan review for President Obama, said: "The pressure we've put on (jihadist forces) in the past year has also drawn them together, meaning that the network of alliances is growing stronger not weaker."

Reidel's striking conclusion that jihadi forces in Pakistan are stronger after six years of drone airstrikes that the CIA claims are weakening them, is echoed by numerous other reports indicating that General Petraeus' strategy of using military force against Al Qaeda, Afghan and local insurgent forces in Pakistan has pushed them further east from isolated northwest areas into major cities like Karachi, where they operate freely and work together far more closely than before. The general's miscalculations regarding Pakistan are reason enough for him to be replaced.

In the long run, General Petraeus' strategy of expanding both ground and mechanized assassination throughout the 1.3 billion-strong Muslim world is likely to do the greatest disservice to his country's interests. It is true that U.S. leaders have used local forces to assassinate tens of thousands since 1945 and that while these programs were largely ineffectual, they did not lead to attacks on American soil.

But 9/11 has changed the calculus. It is clear that in today's wired and globalized world, marked by large-scale immigration, cheap telecommunications and airline travel, where crude technologies like car bombs or IEDs can be as easily detonated in New York as in Kandahar, and where America's enemies are growing increasingly technologically sophisticated even as nuclear weapons proliferate and become miniaturized, it is the height of folly to foment geometrically growing anti-American hatred in the volatile Muslim world.

A growing number of military and counterinsurgency experts support Colonel Kilcullen's belief that these assassination programs abroad are not protecting Americans at home. Both the "Underwear" and the "Times Square" bombers attributed their attempts to blow up Americans to their anger at the drone strikes. While Americans were saved by their incompetence, the U.S. may not be so lucky the next time, and the time after that. One thing is crystal clear: inflaming anti-American hatred throughout the Muslim world can only exponentially increase the numbers of those committed to killing Americans.

Such fears are increasing in Washington, as the N.Y. Times reported in the wake of the Times Square bombing:

A new, and disturbing, question is being raised in Washington: Have the stepped-up attacks in Pakistan -- notably the Predator drone strikes -- actually made Americans less safe? Are they inspiring more attacks on America than they prevent? As one American intelligence official said, "Those attacks (on two Pakistani Taliban leaders) have made it personal for the Pakistani Taliban -- so it's no wonder they are beginning to think about how they can strike back at targets here."

As General Petraeus and the U.S. military "make it personal" to increasing number of people throughout the Muslim world, they are recklessly sowing a whirlwind for which many of us, our children and grandchildren may well pay with our lives for decades to come.

It is difficult for most Americans to grasp the fact that their leaders' incompetence -- Republican and Democrat, civilian and military -- poses one of the single greatest threats to their own safety. But only when Americans do so will there be any hope of making America more secure in the dangerous years to come.

A clear place to begin protecting America is to abandon the assassination approach to war, ditch General Petraeus, end the military and CIA's focus on worldwide and mechanized mass assassination, and halt its reckless expansion of U.S. war-making into nuclear-armed Pakistan and so much more of the Muslim world.

Final Note: Duane 'Dewey' Clarridge: The True Face of U.S. Policy Toward the Muslim World

We'll intervene whenever we decide it's in our national security interest. And if you don't like it, lump it. Get used to it, world!" -- Duane Clarridge, interviewed by John Pilger in "The War on  Democracy"

As the N.Y. Times reported, Clarridge is presently advising CIA assassination efforts in Pakistan. ("Duane R. Clarridge, a profane former C.I.A. officer who ran operations in Central America and was indicted in the Iran-contra scandal, turned up this year helping run a Pentagon-financed private spying operation in Pakistan.") Watch an extraordinary three-minute video interview with Clarridge that reveals the true face of U.S. policy in the Muslim world.

Fred Branfman, the editor of “Voices From the Plain of Jars: Life Under an Air War” (Harper & Row, 1972), exposed the U.S. secret air war while living in Laos from 1967 to 1971.

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