Steven Gaal

February 9, 2015

The Harper Fragment Revisited - and JFK's Head Wounds:
A Final Synthesis - Part 2 By David W. Mantik

Posted November 20, 2014.

Section 3. Critiques of Previous Reconstructions:

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http://www.ctka.net/2014-mantik/essay/Harper2.html

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But so far we have avoided a direct question: Could a posterior shot have ejected HF? The WC would have said so (had they focused on HF); and the HSCA did say so (Figure 4). Of course, each would have designated HF as parietal bone. Each of them permitted only one headshot, another distinct difference from current scenarios. But the long flight distance from Z-313 (about 117 feet), especially against the wind, to Harper's site is formidable, especially in view of Lattimer's experimental distances of 20-40 feet. Furthermore, why would a bone from the right parietal area end up 25 feet to the left of the street? This troublesome scenario is yet one more reason to question where HF actually landed; no matter whether it was occipital or parietal. But this discussion does not factor in much other evidence that HF was occipital (as discussed below). That additional evidence will decide the case.

So what do I really think? My conclusion, after reviewing all of this evidence (regarding the HF discovery site) is that we cannot now know where HF initially landed. Most likely it did not land where Harper found it. In my opinion, therefore, Harper's discovery site is useless for deciding where HF originated (in the skull). Based on his discovery site alone, we simply cannot decide between occipital and parietal. Also consider this: even if Harper had (accurately) labeled a map when he found the bone, already by then too much time (29 hours) had passed to be sure that HF had not been moved before he got there. So instead, the issue of occipital versus parietal must be decided by other criteria, which we shall soon explore.

If I were asked for my opinion of what really happened in Dealey Plaza, I would introduce the evidence for multiple headshots (Appendix K).[87] In particular, the evidence for a tangential headshot (entering near the right ear, quite possibly from the Grassy Knoll) is extremely compelling; this shot likely caused the large posterior hole in the skull, as seen by so many witnesses.[88] Clint Hill's recollection of a very late shot is now especially pertinent; he even recalled the large hole at the rear of the skull; that developed just after this final shot, as he approached the limousine well after Z-313 (see the prior footnote about Hill). And, of course, many, many witnesses recalled at least one shot after a headshot.

William "Tim" McIntyre corroborates Hill's account. He rode on the running board of the follow-up car (right behind Clint Hill). He recalls saying to Jack Ready: "What the hell was that?" McIntyre feels certain that Clint Hill left the running board and ran to the limousine before the third shot was fired.[89]

Motorcycle cop Bobby Hargis (and many other eyewitnesses, too) recalled obvious tissue debris (and even bone fragments) that flew to the left rear. A tangential shot (from the right front) is the most likely trigger for such an ejection of an occipital bone like HF. In that case, HF would have landed on the grass to the left, probably somewhere opposite the stairs to the Grassy Knoll; especially if the final headshot(s) occurred after Z-313. After that, someone moved HF to Harper's discovery site. If this did not happen, then someone will have to explain how HF was ejected from the right parietal area at Z-313 (from either a frontal or a posterior shot; take your pick) and then flew 117 feet (in violation of Lattimer's experimental evidence) against the wind to eventually land to the left of the limousine.

I leave that to others to explain. That is not my scenario.

Footnotes:

40. My initial essay on the 6.5 mm object is in Fetzer 1998, pp. 120-137.

41. Myopic eyes are wonderful for such close-up viewing. My situation was almost equivalent, for a normal pair of eyes, to using a jeweler's loupe.

42. Fetzer 1998, pp. 120-137.

43. Walt Brown (undated) quotes Robertson at http://www.manuscriptservice.com/DPQ/robert~1.htm: "The Harper fragment cannot be occipital bone, because the occipital bone is present in the x-rays."

At the AARC conference in Washington, DC, September 26-28, 2014, Robertson clarified his opinion of the frontal bone and added this e-mail message to me on September 29:

If I have ever said absolutely no frontal bone is missing it was a misstatement. I believe, as I said, that a bullet exited just in front of the coronal suture and by definition this would mean some is missing but in my opinion not a significant amount and surely not enough to allow any of the major fragments to have originated from there but maybe the smallest fragment from the limo. I usually say it is fractured but intact. In my view this is a minor point.

44. The precise position of bone islands C and D is critical, as will be seen later. That is because they define exactly how large the residual hole in the skull was. In my radiology suite, these bone islands on JFK's lateral skull X-ray could be exactly mimicked on the X-ray of my model skull (by shifting the lead wires on the model skull surface until they matched positions and sizes of C and D on JFK's lateral X-ray). The same process was used with the AP X-ray; again matching bone islands C and D from JFK's AP X-ray to the bone islands (as outlined by lead wires) on the model skull. This process was then iterated (alternating between lateral and AP X-rays) until the match was not only precise, but also consistent between the lateral and the AP. That is what I did in our fluoroscopy suite. No one else has performed this simple, yet critical, experiment. Without this critical information, bone islands C and D cannot be definitively located on the skull surface, and the risk of an incorrect reconstruction ensues. This is the trap that Randy Robertson fell into in his own reconstruction. During his AARC lecture (September 27, 2014), at my request (and to my surprise) he outlined his site for the triangular (aka delta) fragment; it was directly superimposed over bone islands C and D.

45. http://www.paulseaton.com/jfk/F8/Fox_Eight.htm. Paul Seaton has been an active online discussant at his own web site, cited here.

46. That the White Patch was indeed not part of the original X-ray set is consistent with Humes's odd reaction to these lateral X-rays during his ARRB deposition: "I don't understand why that is... You'd have to have some radiologist tell me about that. I can't make that out... I don't understand this great void there. I don't know what that's all about" (Fetzer 2000, p. 450).

47. Ironically, Dr. John Ebersole (who is a strong candidate for alteration of the JFK X-rays) told me that he wrote detective stories.

48. Robertson was also wrong to state that the 6.5 mm object was visible on the AP X-ray during the autopsy and that it represented an authentic bullet fragment (http://www.manuscriptservice.com/DPQ/robert~1.htm). By doing so Robertson ignored Larry Sturdivan's personal experience in ballistics. (Sturdivan had even testified for the HSCA.) Sturdivan had never seen a real bullet fragment (deposited on the outside of a skull) in his entire career; he concluded that the 6.5 mm object could not possibly represent metal ( The JFK Myths (2005), p. 193.) Robertson also failed to explain how an inside cross section of a bullet could cleanly dissociate itself from the ends of the bullet and deposit itself on the outside of the skull. (The nose and tail of this bullet were officially found inside the limousine.) Finally, while before the ARRB, each of the three JFK pathologists independently testified (under oath) that he had not seen anything like this 6.5 mm object on the X-rays during the autopsy. Even more ominously, when I asked Dr. John Ebersole (the JFK autopsy radiologist) about this object, he promptly changed the subject; and never again discussed the JFK case.

Riley's interpretation of the 6.5 mm object was even more fantastic: he also believed that it was authentic, but concluded that it lay in the supraorbital area; even though it obviously lies well inside the orbit ("The Head Wounds of JFK: One Bullet Cannot Account for the Injuries," The Third Decade, March 1993, pp. 1-15.) This was a colossal blunder, one that only a neophyte in radiology would make. Furthermore, such a fundamental mistake necessarily led to a new paradox, i.e., in Riley's scenario the 7 x 2 mm fragment (seen on the AP X-ray) then has no partner image on the lateral X-ray. Riley simply forgot to consider this repercussion of his interpretation.

49. Also see "Notes on JFK's Skull Fragments," compiled by Vince Palamara at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/palamara/skullfragments.html: "Dr. Randy Robertson, at COPA 1996 [DM: October 18-20; see http://www.assassinationweb.com/c96.htm], showed slides of X-rays of the Harper fragment that the FBI took..." Douglas Horne recalls seeing the HF X-ray at the Archives in May 1996 (see Appendix B here).

50. Fetzer 2000, p. 292.

51. Enemy of the Truth (year unstated), Sherry Fiester, pp. 198, 211-212, and 248-249. For more on the utility (or futility) of beveling, see footnote 352 in that brilliant and immortal essay, "How Five Investigations into JFK's Medical Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong" by Gary L. Aguilar, MD, and Kathy Cunningham (May 2003) at http://history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_6.htm#_edn351.

52. Livingstone (1995), p. 313. I have been unable to locate McCarthy's original paper. However, that beveling can occur at odd sites is suggested in these scientific citations offered by Dr. Gary Aguilar (e-mail of April 7, 2014): (A) Dixon DS. Keyhole lesions in gunshot wounds of the skull and direction of fire. J Forensic Sci 1982; 27:555-66 and ( Coe JI. External beveling of entrance wounds by handguns. Am J Forensic Med Pathol 1982; 3:215-9 and © Baik S, Uku JM, Sikirica M. A case of external beveling with an entrance wound to the skull made by a small caliber rifle bullet. Am J Forensic Med Pathol 1991;12:334-6 and (D) Donohue ER, Kalelkar MB, Richmond JM, Teas SS. Atypical gunshot wounds of entrance; an empirical study. J Forensic Sci 1984; 29:379-88 and (E) Lantz PE. An atypical, indeterminate-range, cranial gunshot wound of entrance resembling an exit wound. Am J Forensic Med Pathol 1994; 15(1):5-9.

53. In the Military Review of January 1967 the pathologists were persuaded to change their minds; they signed the document that had been prepared for them by the Justice Department. In this document a beveled exit wound was reported at the junction of the (apparent) frontal and parietal bones, at the periphery of the large skull defect. Before the ARRB, when pressed by Jeremy Gunn (at Horne's suggestion) about this change, Humes put his head in his hands, stared down at the document, and said, "I don't know who wrote this" (Horne e-mail of July 9, 2013).

54. I have often discussed this mistake (about the frontal bone) in my essays and lectures. In fact, Dr. John J. Fitzpatrick, the forensic radiologist for the ARRB, agreed with me that the frontal bone was present only up to the hairline: http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=145280&relPageId=225. See page 225 of this document, lower 1/3 of the page. The HSCA would not have welcomed our conclusion; nor would Randy Robertson. In a letter to Jack White (October 7, 1995; copy in my files) Robertson stated: "The frontal bone is intact and the large late arriving fragment CAN NOT [sic; emphasis by RR] therefore be frontal bone." Robertson was quite aware that he thereby disagreed with Angel. (Robertson e-mail of August 11, 2014: "The Delta [DM: triangular] fragment was posterior parietal...") In fact, Robertson not only disagreed with Angel and with John J. Fitzpatrick (a fellow radiologist and a consultant for the ARRB), but he has also disagreed with pathologist Boswell (who sketched some absent frontal bone; as well as absent occipital bone). Robertson has also disagreed with another radiology colleague (Gerald M. McDonnel, a consultant for the HSCA), who reported some absent frontal bone. Perhaps Robertson's unconventional views should not surprise us though; after all, Robertson disagrees with the key radiologist in the case, John Ebersole, who was the only radiologist at JFK's autopsy. It cannot be emphasized enough that Ebersole, despite seeing the JFK skull X-rays (at the autopsy), still told me that JFK had a "big" hole in the back of his head. So, on this extremely fundamental issue, Robertson disagrees with Ebersole. Remarkably, Robertson apparently does not accept any witness who reported seeing a large hole in the occiput, apparently not even any of the eight physicians at Bethesda (see footnote 31).

Regarding McDonnel, John Hunt notes at http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/ADemonstrableImpossibility/ADemonstrableImpossibility.htm: "Among other findings, McDonnel reported that there was a '[n]early complete loss of right parietal bone, the upper portion of the right temporal bone, and a portion of the posterior [rear] aspect of the right frontal bone'" [DM: Hunt's italics and brackets]. McDonnel knew full well that the posterior aspect of the frontal bone was missing. Yet Weston, Baden, and the FPP majority disregarded the opinion of the radiology/computer expert they consulted on this single point...the FPP tacitly concluded that the frontal bone was intact."

55. http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/harper1.htm.

56. For the definition (with image) of "cranial vault" see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranial_vault. The cranial vault clearly includes occipital bone.

57. Atlas and Textbook of Human Anatomy, Johannes Sobatta, edited with additions by J. Playfair McMurrich (1906), p. 44.

58. Billy Harper has recently appeared online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmFdfvDT6GQ. Particularly note his indication of the HF discovery site (he seems to point east of the site identified on his map although the camera does not track this), but also note his verbal description of HF as from the upper rear of the skull.

59. National Archives, Warren Commission CD-5. Cf. Six Seconds in Dallas (1967), Josiah Thompson, Appendix F, pp. 301-302. (Elm Street is said to be 40 feet wide.)

60. Assuming that the ejection was at Z-313, Tim Nicholson has estimated the distance (to the Harper discovery site) as 117 feet give or take10 feet. Cranor has not contacted Harper since about 1996, but Harper did later write to Vince Palamara (9/15/98): "Your letter to my uncle Dr. Jack C. Harper has been forwarded to me for response. My uncle told me that the fragment I found was from the occipital area of the skull. I have seen drawings in various publications that would indicate that it belonged to this region. With regard to the question of the existence [of] photographs, it is my understanding that my uncle gave his pictures to an assassination investigative agency" (http:mcadams.posc.mu.edu/palamara/skullfragments.html).

61. http://patspeer.com/chapter16b%3Adigginginthedirt/Drmantikandmrharper.jpg.

62. Is it just possible that the FBI meant "street" where it wrote "spot"? That is, perhaps the quotation should be "...just south of the street where President Kennedy was assassinated." If so, that curiously agrees with the distance of Harper's site from the street (as shown in this map), which seems a little eerie, although the FBI measurement report by itself would still not tell us where along the street it was found.

63. See Appendix K for a more detailed discussion of all of these issues. Cf. my review of Enemy of the Truth by Sherry Fiester at http://www.ctka.net/2013/eot_review.html. In particular, focus on a devastating depiction (Figure 5 in my review) of how the JFK X-rays flagrantly contradict a headshot (from either front or back) at Z-313, and therefore hurl the traditional single headshot scenario into chaos.

64. "The JFK Assassination Re-enactment" by Chuck Marler, in Fetzer 1998, pp. 249-261. This remarkable essay is mandatory reading. No one should ever discuss the location of the final shot without mastering this essay.

65. Fetzer 2000, David Mantik, p. 345.

66. Ibid., pp. 285-295.

67. Milicent Cranor lists those who heard a flurry of final shots (Fetzer 1998, p. 296). If only one of these witnesses is correct, a conspiracy seems unavoidable. Some have suggested though that these witnesses heard the (two, or even three) separate sounds that can sometimes be associated with a single shot. If so, though, why was a flurry heard only with Oswald's (supposed) last shot and not with his (supposed) first two shots? Cranor adds (e-mail of September 1, 2014): "A number of witnesses said there was a flurry in the beginning, not at the end. Governor Connally was the most famous of these..."

68. The following is from Post Mortem (1975) by Harold Weisberg, p. 54. "The SS engaged Dallas surveyor Robert West to prepare a map of the assassination area. On it was then marked the location of the car when each of three shots struck (WHITEWASH II, 167, 243). During its reconstruction, the SS placed a 'replica' car where it says the President's was when each of the three shots struck, then photographed it in each position (WHITEWASH II, 248). These are part of Commission File 88... Specter, however, made no reference to these SS pictures showing the President's car where it was when each of three bullets struck. Inspector Kelley was just as delicate. He remained silent about the unwelcome evidence, Specter did not enter them into evidence."

After the single bullet theory took priority, the FBI published a booklet (File 298) to explain its prior conclusions (i.e., of three successful shots, which is clearly not the single bullet theory). The FBI conclusions could not have been more explicit; they listed three successful shots and specified their distances from the "sniper's nest" as 167 feet, 262 feet, and 307 feet. This information did not appear in the Warren Report. Any suggestion of more than two successful shots was culled from the Warren Report, so that the single bullet theory could survive (Post Mortem, p. 56).

69. Furthermore, the flowers on the north side (the side of the Grassy Knoll) were widely scattered, so it would be difficult to identify the "spot" based on those.

70. See Weisberg 1966, p. 243, for an official surveyor's map. Livingstone also shows the maps and Secret Service photographs (Killing Kennedy (1993), pp. 74-75). Speer shows the map at http://www.patspeer.com/chapter2b%3Athesecretservicesecrets.

71. For Specter's starring role in the WC cover-up, see Vincent Salandria's trenchant analysis at http://www.ctka.net/2012/salandria_Specter_meet.html. In view of current geopolitical events, Salandria's comments are still on target. Robert Huber incisively described the Salandria-Specter encounter in Philadelphia Magazine (March 2014, p. 80). He also cited the Fonzi-Specter audio interviews at phillymag.com/specter.

72. The following is excerpted verbatim from Pat Speer's website at http://www.patspeer.com/chapter2b%3Athesecretservicesecrets. "The final shot, which Moore describes in his 12-11 report as the second bullet which struck the President (the third bullet fired) is recorded as a shot of 294 feet. 294 feet is 34 feet further [DM: sic] than the distance from the sniper's nest to Kennedy at the time of the head shot as determined by Agent Howlett on 11-27 (and 29 feet further [DM: sic] than the distance from the sniper's nest to Kennedy determined by the Warren Commission). 294 feet, moreover, reflects the distance of the President from the sniper's nest circa frame 343 of the Zapruder film, almost 2 seconds after the obvious head shot. This is no small mistake." [DM: Z-343 is when the FBI said that Clint Hill first placed his hand on the limousine; 30 frames after Z-313. According to the FBI, his foot did not reach the bumper until Z-368; both feet reached at Z-381.]

73. The Moorman photograph does show Hudson still standing at about Z-313. A witness who corroborates Hudson's sequence of two clearly separated shots, with the final one well past Z-313, is Clint Hill: "As I approached the vehicle there was a third shot. It hit the President in the head, upper right rear of the right ear, caused a gaping hole in his head..." (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/07/25/jfk-whos-telling-the-truth-clint-hill-or-the-zapruder-film/). Below I cite McIntyre as a witness for Hill's scenario.

74. Mary Moorman heard a shot as she took her famous photograph, and then she heard two or three more shots after that (19H487). Jean Hill also recalled that after she saw JFK's hair "ripple up" she heard more shots (6H206 and 6H214). So did Charles Brehm; he recalled that JFK's hair flew up with the second shot, and after that he heard a third shot (22H837). Likewise, Special Agent George Hickey, Jr., testified that JFK's hair flew forward with the first shot ((18H762). In other words, he heard at least one more shot after a first shot went by (or near) JFK's head. Both Connallys heard the last shot after lying down in the seat, with her head next to his (4H133 and 4H147). Chief Curry heard a shot after Officer Chaney rode up to tell him what was happening (4H161). Sheriff Decker heard a first shot when a "spray of water" arose from JFK, and then he heard one more shot (9H458). James Foster saw JFK's head wounded with a "second" shot, then he heard a third shot (CD897). Royce Skelton heard a shot after seeing JFK react to a headshot (19H496). Mrs. Phillip Willis saw JFK's head wounded on the "second" shot, and then heard a third shot (CD1245). See Milicent Cranor's analysis at http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/31st_Issue/jiggle.html.

75. Thompson 1967, p. 187.

76. The Grassy Knoll is on the north side.

77. No More Silence (1998), Larry Sneed, p. 216. Here is yet another similar report, this one from Joe Cody: "...we jumped in our car and arrived at the scene where Kennedy was shot and killed in just three or four minutes. By that time it was probably ten minutes after the shooting. While we were there, I searched the plaza and found a bone lying in the gutter that apparently came out of the back of the President's head" (ibid., p. 467).

And here is another: "A postal inspector [Holmes] picked up a piece of skull from the Elm St. pavement. He said it was as '...big as the end of my finger...' Furthermore, it was one of many: '...there was just pieces of skull and bone and corruption [sic] all over the place...' He later discarded it" (Murder from Within (1974), Fred Newcomb and Perry Adams, p. 213). Also see Appendix D here, especially the Addendum paragraph.

78. See Walt Brown's similar comments in Appendix D here.

79. Tim Nicholson has analyzed the two streaks (in Z-313) in great detail, using numerous variables. Nicholson e-mail of August 1, 2013: "The conclusion that I draw is that either fragment could have traveled the distance of 117 feet (35.66 m). It would take an exit velocity of 49.5 m/s for fragment #1 to travel that distance and 28.2 m/s for fragment #2 given the estimated drag of 30% of maximum drag. However it is more likely that fragment #2 is the Harper fragment with an exit angle of 35.4 degrees." Fragment #2 is on the right, i.e., the more horizontal one. His analysis assumes, of course, that its path was parallel to Elm St. (Any velocity component perpendicular to Elm St cannot be estimated.)

80. Kennedy and Lincoln (1980), John Lattimer, p. 251. Pat Speer quotes Lattimer: "...after the bullet had left and blew the calvarium into several fragments, many of which went upward and forward for distances as great as 20 to 30 feet, as in frame 313 of the Zapruder movie." Speer cites his source: "...a February 1976 article in Surgery, Gynecolgy [DM: sic], and Obstetrics, and then again in his 1980 book Kennedy and Lincoln..." (www.patspeer.com/chapter16%3Anewviewsonthe samescene).

I watched the online movie clips of "Inside the Target Car" (The Discovery Channel) but heard no description of how far their fragments had traveled. However, it seems that their range was short inasmuch as they describe one fragment on the trunk and another on the front of the windshield (

).

81. Likewise, many Hollywood professionals have stated that the halo at Z-313 looks more like artwork. (I have seen some of these video interviews.) As further corroboration for this, Dino Brugioni has emphasized how different the extant Z-313 (and nearby frames, too) looks as compared to the original Z-film (which he saw). This is discussed in my review of Fiester's book at http://www.ctka.net/2013/eot_review.html. Cf. Mary's Mosaic (2012), Peter Janney, pp. 287-292.

82. But see Horne, Volume III, pp. 710-711, for the widely varying witness accounts about the origin of this fragment.

83. Postal inspector Harry Holmes: "...there was just a cone of blood and corruption [sic] that went right in the back of his head and neck. I thought it was red paper on a firecracker. It looked like a firecracker lit up which looks like little bits of red paper as it goes up. But in reality it was his skull and brains and everything else that went perhaps as much as six or eight feet [DM: my emphasis added]. Just like that!" (Sneed 1998, pp. 351-371).

Jackie Kennedy and William Manchester also saw slow-moving fragments (Fetzer 1998, pp. 294, 297). Manchester should know; after all, he had watched the Z-film 75 times (The Manchester Affair (1967), John Corry, p. 45).

84. See the following website for a colorful image of an exploding lemon. That image demonstrates obvious forward and back spatter (page 1 on October 13, 2014): https://www.google.com/search?q=exploding+bullets&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=o-YoUrqzOYWSiAKtjYDoAQ&ved=0CEMQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=1048#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=w_ukJR22ViotQM%3A%3BUEdfpNYOU3yLkM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fpeople.rit.edu%252Fandpph%252Fphotofile-c%252Fhs-lemon_5028.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fpeople.rit.edu%252Fandpph%252Fexhibit-3.html%3B611%3B396.

85. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=60448&relPageId=60 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pThaUVLENMY.

86. Gary Mack cites the official weather report, taken only a short distance from Dealey Plaza: the wind blew at 15 mph, with gusts up to 20 mph ("Inside the Target Car," The Discovery Channel).

87. See Appendix K and also my review of Sherry Fiester's book at http://www.ctka.net/2013/eot_review.html.

88. See this interview report by Vince Palamara at http://karws.gso.uri.edu/Marsh/Ballistics/fragment_vince.html: "Sam [VP: Secret Service Agent Kinney] told me twice that he saw the back of JFK's head come off immediately when the fatal shot struck him." Palamara reminds us that Kinney was watching JFK's head and the rear bumper of the limousine as part of his job. Paradoxically, Palamara does not believe that HF is occipital bone. Does he not believe Kinney? But if not, why does Palamara quote him? Palamara even notes that Kinney said that "...he found the piece of the back [DM: my emphasis added] of JFK's head lying in the rear seat..." (http:mcadams.posc.mu.edu/palamara/skullfragments.html).

On November 22, 2013, at the JFK Lancer Conference in Dallas, Texas, I personally heard James Jenkins (the autopsy technician) provide astonishing evidence for such a tangential shot. (On the contrary; without any serious discussion, and despite its strong historical tradition; Fiester excludes, from the outset, such a tangential shot as an option; see her Figure 14.) At this conference, Jenkins repeatedly described a bullet entry (a 5 mm hole) very near the top of the right ear (cf. Robert Groden 2013, p. 155). The periphery of this hole was gray, which suggested to him that a bullet had entered there. Jenkins even recalled that Pierre Finck had speculated about a possible entry there, but the pathologists never closely examined this hole, nor did it enter their official report. Jenkins also saw a large opening ("somewhat larger than a silver dollar [DM: 3.81 cm]") in the posterior skull, which he attributed to the exit of this same bullet. As further corroboration for such a tangential shot, even the closest witnesses (Abraham Zapruder and both Newmans) recalled trauma near the right ear. Roy Kellerman may also have fixated on this same site near the right ear; see his testimony to the WC (2H81); he describes the wound aperture as the size of his little finger. Even the neurosurgeon, Kemp Clark, stated that a bullet had struck the right side of JFK's head and that this wound was "tangential" (6H21).

For more of Jenkins's vivid recollections of the JFK autopsy at JFK Lancer, including a cogent analysis by Douglas Horne, see http://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/10811.html. Jenkins has now lifted the last vestiges of the veil that concealed this criminal escapade. After 50 years, not only the broad outlines, but even the details of the medical whitewash, can finally be seen with unexpected clarity.

89. HSCA interview (1/31/1978): RIF#180-10082-10082-10454.

February 9, 2015

By Robert Parry
When Silencing Dissent Isn't News (LINK)

The criminal case against ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern for "resisting arrest" when he was denied entry to a public speech by retired Gen. David Petraeus appears to be nearly over, but the image of police brutally shielding the mighty from a citizen's question remains troubling, writes Robert Parry.

February 8, 2015

30 Bq/Kg of Cs-134/137 detected from pig excrement in Iwaki city to prove internal exposure of domestic animals

30-BqKg-of-Cs-134137-detected-from-pig-e

99 66 1 36

February 5, 2015

A Fukushima citizen measured a significant level of Cs-134/137 from pig excrement. This means the pork has serious amount of internal exposure.

The detected density was 29.44 Bq/Kg in total of Cesium-134/137 (Photo A). The citizen is living in Hamadori area of Fukushima prefecture.

The sample was compost of pig excrement produced in Tohno town, Iwaki city. Producing year was 2013.

Also, on 1/20/2015, this citizen measured 21.20 Bq/Kg from tangerine produced in Iwaki city (Photo .

From skirt, which was school uniform of elementary school of Iwaki city, 16.31 Bq/Kg of Cs-134/137 was detected (Photo C).

↓ Photo A

↓ Photo B

↓ Photo C

https://twitter.com/nrg34331/status/560718585803190272

https://twitter.com/nrg34331/status/557457638024155136

https://twitter.com/nrg34331/status/554609056086630401

Iori Mochizuki

_____

February 7, 2015

Jon G. Tidd

Posted Today, 05:27 PM

Has the CIA at any time made a statement, backed with facts, that Oswald visited Mexico City in late September 1963?

oooooooooooooooooooooo

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2:25 - 4:04 P.M. Interrogation of Oswald, Office of Capt Will Fritz

"My name is Lee Harvey Oswald. . . . I work at the Texas School Book Depository Building. . . . I lived in Minsk and in Moscow. . . . I worked in a factory. . . . I liked everything over there except the weather. . . . I have a wife and some children. . . . My residence is 1026 North Beckley, Dallas, Tex." Oswald recognized FBI agent James Hosty and said, "You have been at my home two or three times talking to my wife. I don't appreciate your coming out there when I was not there. . . . I was never in Mexico City. I have been in Tijuana. . . . Please take the handcuffs from behind me, behind my back.

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Did the CIA track Oswald before JFK was killed?

http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/experts/did-the-cia-track-oswald-before-jfk-was-killed/

Yes, closely and constantly.

This is one of the biggest JFK revelations of the past 20 years, and one that we need talk up in social and news media on the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination.

While the CIA assured Congress in the 1970s that its interest in Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK was killed was "routine," the newest documents tell a very different story: Oswald was monitored closely and constantly by an super-secret office within the CIA’s Counterintelligence Staff from 1959 to 1963, known as the Special Investigations Group.

The documents show that the CIA officers most knowledgeable about Oswald reported to two of the most powerful men in the agency: deputy director Richard Helms and counterintelligence chief James Angleton, both of whom thought JFK’s policy toward Cuba was weak and misguided.

John Newman’s book

The story was first documented in John Newman’s 1995 book "Oswald and the CIA." Newman is a former intelligence officer turned academic historian. Newman, who taught at the University of Maryland, traced how the CIA intercepted Oswald’s correspondence when he was living in the Soviet Union 1959 to 1962.

He showed how the CIA’s own records document growing interest in Oswald in the course of 1963, culminating in October 1963 when a group of senior CIA officials collaborated on a four-page cable assessing Oswald as a security risk. These officials assured colleagues in the CIA and the FBI that Oswald was "maturing" and thus becoming less of a threat. This happened just six weeks before JFK was killed.

Read this CIA cable — not fully declassified until 2001— from beginning to end. It shows that Oswald’s travels, politics, intentions, and state of mind were known to six senior CIA officers as of October 10, 1963. Oswald had just moved to Dallas and been taken off the FBI’s Watch List.

Because the CIA is so often caricatured in JFK discussions, some background is helpful in understanding who wrote this document and why.

Oswald in Mexico City

In the fall of 1963, Oswald, a 23-year old ex-Marine, is said to have traveled from his hometown of New Orleans to Mexico City. There a man identifying himself as Lee Oswald visited the Cuban and Soviet Embassies, seeking a visa to travel to both countries. A CIA wiretap picked up his telephone calls, which indicated the person calling himself Oswald had been referred to a Soviet consular officer suspected of being a KGB assassination specialist.

Win Scott, the chief of the CIA station in Mexico, was concerned. He asked his photo surveillance teams outside the Soviet Embassy to supply pictures of all American visitors. Scott was given a photo of the only American-looking visitor. He sent a query to headquarters: Who is this guy Oswald?

Scott’s question was referred to the agency’s counterintelligence (CI) staff. The CI staff was responsible for detecting threats to the secrecy of agency operations. The Special Investigations Group had been closely monitoring Oswald ever since he had defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959. Oswald had lived there two years, married a Russian woman, and then returned to the United States in June 1962.

Jane Roman a senior member of the CI staff, retrieved the agency’s fat file on Oswald from the SIG office which controlled access to it. The Oswald file included some three dozen documents, including family correspondence, State Department cables, and a Sept. 1963 FBI report. The FBI said Oswald was an active pro-Castro leftist who had recently been arrested for fighting with anti-Castro exiles in New Orleans.

Jane Roman and the CI staff drafted a response to the Mexico City station that said, in effect, Don’t worry. Ignoring the recent FBI report, the cable inaccurately stated the "latest HQS info" on Oswald was a 16-month old message from a diplomat in Moscow concluding that Oswald’s marriage and two year residence in the Soviet Union had had a "maturing effect" on him.

Their draft was reviewed and endorsed by five senior CIA officers, who are identified on the last page of the cable. At the same time these same also officers passed on an incorrect description Oswald to the FBI, State Department, and Navy. This peculiar series of actions has never been explained by the CIA.

The many anomalies in the story convinced Newman and other JFK authors that Oswald had been impersonated while in Mexico City. In custody, Oswald denied going to Mexico City and some researchers believe that he never went at all.

CIA Secrecy

In any case, the CIA would kept the names of these highly-regarded officers — Tom Karamessines, Bill Hood, John Whitten ("John Scelso"), Jane Roman, and Betty Egeter — secret for 30 years. These high-level aides could have — and should have — flagged Oswald for special attention. All five were anti-communists, well-versed in running covert operations and experienced in detecting threats to U.S. national security.

Karamessines was the trusted deputy to Dick Helms. Bill Hood oversaw all covert operations in the Western Hemisphere, and would later co-author Helms’s posthumous memoir. John Whitten, dogged and curmudgeonly, had built a reputation in the agency with his pioneering use of the polygraph. Jane Roman was a trusted aide to Angleton, who later told me that the cable reflected "a keen interest in Oswald held very closely on the need-to-know basis."

Their complacent assessment of Oswald had real-world consequences.

In Mexico City, Win Scott never learned about Oswald’s recent arrest or the fact that he had gone public with his support for Castro. He stopped investigating Oswald.

In Washington, a senior FBI official, Marvin Gheesling, responded to one version of the CIA’s benign assessment by taking Oswald off an "alert" list of people of special interest to the Bureau. When it came to the erratic and provocative Oswald, the CIA and the FBI were standing down in October 1963.

Conspiracy or not, the CIA blew it. Oswald had been calling attention to himself. He had clashed with anti-Castro students in New Orleans, then contacted a suspected KGB operative to arrange an illegal trip to Cuba. By standard CIA procedures of the day, he should have gotten closer attention. Instead, he got a pass from Helms and Angleton’s staffers.

Oswald returned from Mexico to Dallas where he rented a room in a boarding house under an assumed name. Six weeks later JFK was shot dead, and the allegedly "maturing" Oswald was arrested.

These same CIA officials then concealed key details about their pre-assassination interest in Oswald from the Warren Commission. But we now know what they suppressed

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February 7, 2015

06.02.2015 Author: Janet Phelan

Did the United States Department of Justice Just Lie to the U.N.?

For Americans, confidence in government is at a low. Growing numbers of people now question nearly any declaration made by the US government, particularly when its assertions are either

1) addressing terrorism or

2) addressing domestic policies.

Recent statements by David Bitkower, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, statements made during the review by that body of the US and its torture policies during the past five years, could be considered as subsumed under both of the above two categories. And sadly, Bitkower misrepresented actions taken by the US DOJ.

The statements in question were made this past November when UNCAT convened to review the torture record of the US and were subsequently included in the official UNCAT report without substantiating documents and indeed, without questions being raised as to the veracity of Mr. Bitkower’s assertions.

At a time when torture has increasingly become a concern, one might expect the US to put some spit shine on its face to the world. Bitkower was certainly in the polishing mode, as his presentation of the DOJ’s “Critical Role in Upholding US Obligations under Convention Against Torture” was rife with self congratulatory references to the attention that the US government is giving to its torture record, both internationally and domestically.

However, Bitkower went too far. While expounding on domestic prosecutions for police abuse, a subject which is always of concern when one discusses torture, Bitkower made a pronouncement that was so far from reality that one wonders how the UN could have swallowed a whopper of this magnitude without gagging.

Declared Bitkower,

“The vast majority of law enforcement officers in the United States perform their jobs with integrity and respect for the communities they serve. But when systemic problems emerge, and officers abuse their power, the Justice Department uses its authority to implement meaningful reform and hold officers accountable under the law.

In the civil context, the Department’s Civil Rights Division has opened over 20 investigations into allegations of systemic police department violations over the past five years. “

And then came the whopper. Said Bitkower, “In the criminal realm, we have prosecuted over 330 police officers for misconduct in the last five years.”

Before delving into the magnitude and implications of this patently false statement, let’s fill in some blanks here. We are going to focus here initially on people killed by police, as a worst case scenario of potential police abuse.

The numbers of people killed by police officers in the US is admittedly a cloudy figure. According to estimates, the numbers run somewhere between a thousand and two thousand a year. While the FBI is supposed to maintain a database on these killings, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal revealed the inadequacy of this database.

According to the WSJ article, local police agencies are not fulfilling their mandate to report these killings.

A non-government website, Killedbypolice.net, is tracking these killings through media reports. The first seventeen days of January saw 53 people killed by police throughout the US, according to this website. The website tracked 1103 such deaths in 2014.

In an interview this past week, Franklin Zimring, William G. Simon Professor of Law at UC Berkeley Law School, expanded upon the difficulty of obtaining an accurate headcount. In an interview last week, Professor Zimring pointed out that all the deaths at hands of the police may not get news coverage; indeed, some may not be reported at all.

So with these thoughts in mind, and understanding that the numbers reported either by the FBI or by independent calculations may be low, one might figure that the “330 prosecutions for police abuse” cited by Bitkower might be realistic.

However, as it turns out, Bitkower was blowing a huge plume of smoke up the collective behinds of the international community when he made this statement to the United Nations. According to Professor Zimring, this figure is “very suspicious. I would doubt there were as many criminal prosecutions as the fingers on one hand.”

A review of the website for the US DOJ, Civil Rights Criminal Division produced four cases in which the US DOJ successfully prosecuted police for misconduct in the past five years.

There was no mention of any unsuccessful prosecutions.

In fact, a spokesperson for the DOJ was unable to come up with a single prosecution by the DOJ for police abuse in the relevant five year time period. In response to a request for the documentation of these criminal prosecutions, George Horneado of the DOJ press office replied with a document listing the consent decrees created by the DOJ in recent years.

Consent decrees are not prosecutions. In this context, Consent decrees are arrangements between the DOJ and a local police agency wherein the policies and actions of the police agency are subject to review and modification by the DOJ—without criminal prosecution. Quoting from the document provided from Horneado:

“In the past five fiscal years, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has opened over 20

investigations into police departments, more than twice as many investigations than were opened in the previous five fiscal years.

The department has entered into 15 agreements with law enforcement agencies, including nine consent decrees.”

When it was pointed out to Horneado that a consent decree is not a criminal prosecution and that the request was for information on criminal prosecutions, Horneado declined to tender any information concerning these cases.

The police in the US seem to have tacit permission to murder US citizens. The recent uproar in both Ferguson and in New York over the separate failure to prosecute police for the murder of two unarmed black men are only the most recent incidents highlighting the latitude given police.

When the ACLU of Southern Oregon was recently approached with evidence that a local Internal Affairs department was covering for abusive police officers, the head of their legal department asserted, “The climate is not right now to address police abuse.”

If that is so, then Bitkower’s false assertions as to the record of the DOJ in criminally prosecuting police officers assumes a different dimension. If indeed abusive and murderous police are being given a pass for actions that deserve prosecution, then Bitkower’s whopper may be seen as a studied attempt to convince us otherwise.

As David Bitkower stated so earnestly to the United Nations in November:

“My colleagues from the State Department have discussed ways in which the United States has not always lived up to its values. The Department of Justice has been part of the broad, long-lasting, and comprehensive effort to examine those failures and ensure they do not happen again. “

But the failure- to- protect inherent in allowing police to abuse without culpability is happening again. And again. David Bitkower, given the nature of his position in the US government, would be fully aware of underground policies which may be de facto promoting police abuse by giving police free rein to abuse and/or murder US citizens, without culpability. His efforts to portray the situation in an entirely different light could therefore be seen as an act of deliberate– and somewhat alarming– propaganda.

==

Janet C. Phelan, investigative journalist and human rights defender that has traveled pretty extensively over the Asian region, an author of a tell-all book EXILE, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook

==
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/02/06/did-the-united-states-department-of-justice-just-lie-to-the-u-n/

February 7, 2015

POSTER

Sam McClung

12/26/11

Other recipients:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3029417&mesg_id=3029702 <begin quote> On Don Imus, a couple DUers reported hearing Michael Beschloss relate how Barbara Bush, Poppy's [george herbert walker b

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3029417&mesg_id=3029702

On Don Imus, a couple DUers reported hearing Michael Beschloss relate how

Barbara Bush, Poppy's [george herbert walker bush's] wife, told him she and

Junior [actually not jr. but george w. bush] were in Dallas that day

[november 22, 1963] to "watch the parade." [ presidential motorcade] My

guess is that Poppy would be nearby, perhaps on business.

or nearby in a hotel (the dallas sheraton or adolphus hotel?) where the cia

upper echelon had sequestered themselves, per giancana?

you can bet ghwb was not the only bonesman in dallas 11-22-63

a major unanswered question is: which bonesman (bonesmen) were in the u.s.

secret service on 11-22-63?

February 7, 2015

It seems that the CIA in Mexico City took photographs of just about everybody except Lee Harvey Oswald.

--Tommy :sun

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

Part 1 of 3 examining the Mexico-Dallas travel evidence

Started by David Josephs, Feb 02 2015 05:11 PM

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=21682&p=295714

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Gee LHO went to Mexico ??? maybe as you say in Spanish ..."NADA".

February 7, 2015

How Vaccine Hysteria Could Spark A Totalitarian Nightmare (link)

At the end of the day, the issue here is one of freedom, and freedom is the freedom to choose – even if we make a bad choice. The argument that I must vaccinate my children for the good of the community is not only scientifically questionable, it is an unethical precept. It is the argument all dictators and totalitarians have used. “Comrade, you must work tirelessly for the good of the collective. You must give up your money and property for the good of the collective, and now … you must allow us to inject your children with what we deem is good for the collective.” If American’s don’t stand up against this, then we are lost. Because we have lost ownership of ourselves. Our bodies are no longer solely ours – we and our children are able to be commandeered for the “greater good.”

February 7, 2015

NHS boss pocketed £155,000 by retiring for just 24 hours: She quit, cashed in pension, then got her job back!

An NHS chief who tried to gag a whistleblower has claimed an extra £155,000 by ‘retiring’ for just 24 hours.

Sue James, 58, used a loophole to bank the tax-free bonus as her Trust declared millions of pounds in losses.

She was then rehired a day later to continue earning her salary of almost £200,000 a year.

The executive – who once offered £250,000 of public money to silence a surgeon who spoke out about poor patient care – was last night branded ‘morally reprehensible’.

She faces being investigated by watchdogs and could be fired under new laws, if found to have been involved in ‘serious misconduct or mismanagement’. Incredibly, she has refused to apologise or hand back the money, maintaining she is ‘fully entitled’ to the payout.

February 7, 2015

Iraq Vet, Ross Caputi's View on Academy Nominated Movie - American Sniper

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www.veteransforpeace.org/pressroom/news/2015/01/21/iraq-vet-ross-caputis-view-academy-nominated-movie-american

January 21, 2015

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In photo: Ross Caputi, former Marine who participated in the 2nd Siege of Fallujah.

Chris Kyle built his reputation as a sniper during one of the most criminal operations of the entire occupation of Iraq, the 2nd siege of Fallujah.

What American Sniper offers us — more than a heart-wrenching tale about Chris Kyle’s struggle to be a soldier, a husband, and a father; more than an action packed story about America’s most lethal sniper — is an exposure of the often hidden side of American war culture. The criminality that has characterized American military engagements since the American Indian Wars, and most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, is hardly noticeable in this film. And that’s exactly my point.

Your average American viewer might be surprised to find out that Chris Kyle built his reputation as a sniper during one of the most criminal operations of the entire occupation of Iraq, the 2nd siege of Fallujah. He or she certainly won’t learn this by watching American Sniper, which doesn’t even hint that Chris Kyle ever did anything in Iraq except kill bad guys and defend America. And this speaks volumes about how little we understand the wars that our country fights around the world.

Perhaps my argument seems strange — that the most insightful part of this film is what is not in it. However, I believe that these omissions reflect more than just what the director decided to be irrelevant to the plot. These omissions reveal an unconscious psychological process that shields our ideas about who we are as individuals and as a nation. This process, known as “moral disengagement”, is extremely common in militaristic societies. But what is fascinating about American Sniper is how these omissions survive in the face of overwhelming evidence of the crimes that Chris Kyle participated in. The fact that a man who participated in the 2nd siege of Fallujah — an operation that killed between 4,000 to 6,000 civilians, displaced 200,000, and may have created an epidemic of birth defects and cancers — can come home, be embraced as a hero, be celebrated for the number of people he has killed, write a bestselling book based on that experience, and have it made into a Hollywood film is something that we need to reflect on as a society.

It is not my intention to accuse Chris Kyle of committing war crimes as an individual, or to attack his character in any way. Some critics have pointed out the many racist and anti-Islamic comments that Chris made in his autobiography (these comments are significantly toned down in the film). Others have noted his jingoistic beliefs. However, I too participated in the 2nd siege of Fallujah as a US Marine. And like Chris, I said some racist and despicable things while I was in Iraq. I am in no position to judge this man, nor do I think it is important to do so. I am far more interested in our reaction as a society to Chris Kyle, than I am in the nuances of his personality.

In both the book and the film, Chris Kyle comes off as a man who is slightly embarrassed by the labels that his comrades-in-arms and his society throw upon him, such as “legend” or “hero”. This comes off as very selfless and humble of him. But the more important point is that we are the ones who cast him into this designation as hero. And the financial success of Chris Kyle’s autobiography and Clint Eastwood’s cinematic adaptation of it reveals just how willing America is to embrace this man and his story, despite its factual inaccuracies.

Perhaps the only thing that I think is import to say about Chris Kyle the individual is that a man like Chris has the power to legitimize this sanitized version of events in Iraq that not all veterans have. Somehow in our culture, combat experience is mistaken for knowledge about a war. And Chris Kyle’s status as a Navy SEAL with mountains of medals and ribbons, multiple deployments to Iraq, and battle field accolades that are unmatched makes him an authority on the topic of Iraq to those who don’t know better.

I sympathize with Chris, because I believed many of the same things he believed while I was in Iraq: That Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. That our mission was just and good. That the people we were fighting against in Iraq wanted to kill Americans because of some irrational political ideology or fanatical religious beliefs. And that most Iraqis wanted us in their country.

Notice how within this ideological framework, the emotional turmoil that Chris goes through and the strain that his multiple deployments put on his family gets interpreted as a sacrifice that he bravely and consciously makes for a noble cause. Our mission in Iraq is, of course, understood as a peace keeping and nation building operation, not as the imposition of a political and economic project against the will of the majority of Iraqis. Similarly, “hearts and minds” become an object to be won, rather than something to be respected. The lives that Chris ends are interpreted as “confirmed kills”, not murder. And the people he kills are interpreted as “terrorists”, not as people defending their country from a foreign, invading and occupying army.

This ideological framework is America’s war culture. Absent these ideological assumptions, the suffering that Chris and his family go through, and his tally of confirmed kills, do not get interpreted as brave sacrifices or heroic acts—they can only be tragic.

Let me reiterate, I am not accusing Chris of being guilty of war crimes, nor am I saying that he was a bad person. But I am arguing that he was not a hero. He and I both participate in an illegal and immoral war and occupation, and that deserves no praise or recognition. In particular, we both have the same blood on our hands for helping to destroy the city of Fallujah.

It was not the actions of individuals that made the 2nd siege of Fallujah the atrocity that was. It was the way the mission was structured and orchestrated. The US did not treat military action as a last resort. The peace negotiations with the leadership in Fallujah were canceled by the US. And almost no effort was taken to make a distinction between civilian men and combatants. In fact, in many instances civilians and combatants were deliberately conflated. All military aged males were forced to stay within the city limits of Fallujah (women and children were warned to flee the city) regardless of whether there was any evidence that they had picked up arms against the Americans. Also, water and electricity was cut to the entire city, and humanitarian aid was turned away. Thus, an estimated 50,000 civilians were trapped in their city during this month long siege without water or electricity and very limited supplies of food. They also had to survive a ground siege that was conducted with indiscriminate tactics and weapons, like the use of reconnaissance-by-fire, white phosphorous, and the bombing of residential neighborhoods. The main hospital was also treated as a military target. The end result was a human tragedy, an event that should be remembered alongside other US atrocities like the massacres at Wounded Knee or My Lai.

But none of these documented facts come through in American Sniper. Instead, the plot is guided by Chris Kyle’s autobiography, in which his narration of his life story describes the Iraq war and occupation through the lens of a number of common, but false, beliefs—like, for example, that the people we were fighting against were evil because Islam taught them to kill Americans.

One scene shows Chris in a moral dilemma as he is on a rooftop with his sniper rifle, and through the scope he sees a woman walking with a young child next to her (presumably her son) as she carries a grenade toward a US patrol. Chris must either kill a mother and her child or leave his countrymen exposed to an attack.

In his autobiography, Chris says that this event happened in Nasiriya during the initial invasion. However, Clint Eastwood decided to situate this scene during the 2nd siege of Fallujah in 2004. Also, in the film the woman hands the grenade to her son and encourages him to rush at the US patrol, whereas in the book it is the woman who tries to throw the grenade. Did Clint Eastwood think that this is a more representative portrayal of the Iraqi resistance? It’s not. These human-shield tactics were extremely rare and were only used by the most marginal and unpopular militias.

In the film, Chris kills both the woman and her son. Although visibly conflicted about what he felt obligated to do, he comments that, “that was evil like I ain’t never seen before”.

Despite these revisions, I believe there is another moral dilemma in this scene that may not be obvious to American viewers: That woman had every right to attack the illegal, foreign invaders in her country, whether you agree with her tactics or not. We had no right to invade a sovereign nation, occupy it against the will of the majority of its citizens, and patrol their streets. Thus, Chris must either suppress legitimate armed resistance and defend an invading army, or violate his orders. This moral dilemma never once occurred to Chris Kyle. And the backlash that I’m sure this suggestion will receive attests to the war culture in our country that prevents us from seeing ourselves as Iraqis do, as the aggressor.

This is the problem with veteran narrations about their war experience—they are often told through an emotionally charged, ideological filter that reflects the misinformation told to them by their leaders. And as a society we do nothing to correct these inaccurate accounts of America’s wars. Instead, we eat them up, celebrate them as truth, and feed them to the next generation of Americans who are doomed to make the same mistakes Chris and I made.

Partly, this comes from a general confusion that supporting the troops means not challenging their perceptions about the objectives of their mission, of who they were fighting against, and why. But I think also, as a society, we want veterans to tell us heroic, bitter-sweet stories about sacrifice and bravery. Voices like Chris Kyle’s emerge and are embraced because they tell us exactly what we want to hear. They merely reaffirm preexisting beliefs about the benevolence of American wars and the righteousness of American armed service people. That’s why American Sniper has been so success. It reassures us of what we want to believe about Iraq and about our veterans, and Chris Kyle’s combat credentials make it believable.

At the end of the day, it’s the Chris Kyles who we embrace as heroes, not the Chelsea Mannings. And we will surely suffer for this as a society, but probably not before we make other societies suffer first.

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Author’s bio: Ross Caputi is a former Marine who participated in the 2nd Siege of Fallujah. Today he is on the Board of Directors of the Islah Reparations Project. He is also the Director of the documentary film Fear Not the Path of Truth: a veteran’s journey after Fallujah Ross holds an MA in Linguistics and he is working on an MA in English Studies at Fitchburg State University

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Read his blog here.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/American-Sniper-20150110-0019.html
Article courtesy of telesurtv.net

February 7, 2015

It's a shame that the Bushes can't afford to hire someone to do their dirty work for them. They had to work on that plane engine themselves. But at least they had the Mossad guys helping them out as a favor

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Ive thought that "W" was passing a test for the elites in the JFK Jr matter. Engines ?? I am sure it was as simple as using a bomb that used a magnet attachment. AS for Dallas, daddy was just a pay master ,did no dirty work himself.

February 7, 2015

David Mantik vs. Pat Speer on the JFK Autopsy X-rays: A Critique of http://www.patspeer.com/
Chapters 18a, 18b, and 19b by David W. Mantik

http://www.ctka.net/reviews/mantik_speer.html

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http://www.ctka.net/2014-mantik/essay/Harper2.html

If I were asked for my opinion of what really happened in Dealey Plaza, I would introduce the evidence for multiple headshots (Appendix K).[87] In particular, the evidence for a tangential headshot (entering near the right ear, quite possibly from the Grassy Knoll) is extremely compelling; this shot likely caused the large posterior hole in the skull, as seen by so many witnesses.[88] Clint Hill's recollection of a very late shot is now especially pertinent; he even recalled the large hole at the rear of the skull; that developed just after this final shot, as he approached the limousine well after Z-313 (see the prior footnote about Hill). And, of course, many, many witnesses recalled at least one shot after a headshot.

William "Tim" McIntyre corroborates Hill's account. He rode on the running board of the follow-up car (right behind Clint Hill). He recalls saying to Jack Ready: "What the hell was that?" McIntyre feels certain that Clint Hill left the running board and ran to the limousine before the third shot was fired.[89]

Motorcycle cop Bobby Hargis (and many other eyewitnesses, too) recalled obvious tissue debris (and even bone fragments) that flew to the left rear. A tangential shot (from the right front) is the most likely trigger for such an ejection of an occipital bone like HF. In that case, HF would have landed on the grass to the left, probably somewhere opposite the stairs to the Grassy Knoll; especially if the final headshot(s) occurred after Z-313. After that, someone moved HF to Harper's discovery site. If this did not happen, then someone will have to explain how HF was ejected from the right parietal area at Z-313 (from either a frontal or a posterior shot; take your pick) and then flew 117 feet (in violation of Lattimer's experimental evidence) against the wind to eventually land to the left of the limousine. I leave that to others to explain. That is not my scenario.

February 6, 2015

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/30/did-george-h-w-bush-coordinate-a-jfk-hit-team/ POSTSCRIPT

Remarkably, there is a figure (in the DCA film) walking off the corner of Houston & Elm and toward the Dal- Tex building, where “the oil man from Houston” (George H.W. Bush) had been arrested minutes earlier, who looks a great deal like his son, 17 year old George W. Bush. This figures ear, nose (where a crude effort to change the nose has been made in the second of these three images), bridge indent and jawline are a very close match to George W. Bush, where the preppy loafers and white sox he’s wearing are cheerleader appropriate. It looks like W. was there, too.

February 6, 2015

Sheriff charges 9-year-old autistic child with making bomb threat (LINK)

FOX 5 I-team Senior Reporter Dale Russell has been investigating a bomb threat made at one Georgia elementary school in Upson County that has some asking if “zero tolerance” has gone too far. A 9-year-old fourth grader with autism scribbled “Bone Thrat” on a bathroom wall. After evacuating the school, the local sheriff's department charged the boy with a felony: terroristic threats and acts.

February 6, 2015

VIDEO: Cancer epidemic underway in Fukushima — Rates up 6,000% says head of cancer research center — “This is definitely a holocaust… everything’s being swept under the rug” — “Very, very frightening… my family members are brainwashed”

Fukushima resident Chieko Shiina, supporter of the Fukushima Collaborative Clinic (translated by Carole Hisasue), Jan 24, 2015 (emphasis added):

At 8:00 — Already, 85 children have had surgeries for thyroid cancer, there are 112-113 children who are suspected of having cancer. When children get cancers it progresses very quickly. The former person in charge of health, Yamaxxxxa Shunichi, said it would be only a 1 in a million chance of children getting any kind of cancer because of radiation. But he was lying. Right now, it’s like 1 in 3,000 — it’s an epidemic… The head of the National Cancer Research Center estimated right now in Fukushima the rate of cancer has gone up 61 times. And yet the gov’t and also the hospitals related to the gov’t are saying this is not because of radiation… How long does the gov’t think that we’ll be silent about this? In light of this epidemic, my anger will never die down. And then to think about the parents of the small children – how worried they must be.
At 12:00 — It’s not only children. There are many things happening to adults as well. Increased rates of thyroid cancer, heart attacks, leukemia, cataracts – many, many health problems, where they are wondering… there’s something definitely wrong.
At 16:00 — I can’t forgive the gov’t, they’re murderers. This is definitely a holocaust.
At 20:00 — Media won’t report on it. Everything’s just being swept under the rug.
At 26:00 — A TV program called ‘Hodo Station’… they went to Fukushima City to interview people and they also came to my clinic… The director that made this program also made a follow up show and contacted one of the interviewees telling her, ‘We’ll be airing it soon.’ But before it was aired, it was taken off the program. This director died. This director apparently told one of the interviewees, ‘If you do hear that I died, please believe that it was not a suicide, no matter what you might hear.’ There is no truth in the media in Japan today. There are all sorts of these mysterious events happening that are still unexplained and uninvestigated.
At 43:00 — Even today the gov’t is insisting the rise in pediatric thyroid cancer rates are not due to the accident…Why are they being so insistent? It’s because the moment they admit the reality of what’s going on, then they obviously can’t restart any of the nuclear plants and must change their entire nuclear policy.

Carole Hisasue, translator (at 1:15:00): It’s disappeared from the media, it’s disappeared from people’s consciousness. There’s this big culture of denial going on outside of Fukushima. They want to pretend like it never happened. I can’t talk to my own family about radiation contamination… They don’t want to hear it. They go, ‘You don’t understand because you don’t have to live here, we have to live here.’… It’s like ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’… just trying to ignore it and pretend life is the way it was before 3/11. It’s frightening, it’s very very frightening… [My sister-in-law] is completely brainwashed by the gov’t who says, ‘Oh no, it’s fine, fine, fine’… she believes it, even though her son suffers from a lot of nosebleeds — and I think that’s a serious problem. If I mention it to her, or even to my own mother, they get very offended. They go, ‘Oh no, no. He’s always been like that. It’s nothing to do with radiation.’ Talk about denial, it just hurts my heart.

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