james walbert's Page

welcome James - glad to see you made it here

chicken

yea! I am so glad that you joined!

Krissi

Declassified MK-Ultra Project Documents: http://www.michael-robinett.com/declass/c000.htm

Don Friedman/US Secret Service

The mind control /Toruture is directly proportional to Chemtrails from NATO. NATO has been taken over since 2003 and the United Nations has been taken over since 2005 by corporations.

http://www.carnicom.com shows the chemtrails.

Morgellons are nano crystals that grow inside the human body and on the nervous system to create a human 2 way radio that is then controlled by massive Supercomputers to make people do things they noramally would not do. The antidote is massive shifts in your body PH via eating foods that are either very acidic or very basic.. one way then the other.. shift one way then the other in food intake. No water is untainted.. no processed food is untainted now with morgellons

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=morgellons+disease&btnG=Google-Suche&meta=

US Army toyed with telepathic ray gun 12:00 21 March 2008 NewScientist.com
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13513

The report titled "Bioeffects Of Selected Nonlethal Weapons" was released under the US Freedom of Information Act and is available on http://www.freedomfchs.com/usarmyrptonmicrowavefx.pdf (pdf). The DoD has confirmed to New Scientist that it released the documents, which detail five different "maturing non-lethal technologies" using microwaves, lasers and sound.

Navy research into beaming sound into people's heads
http://www.navysbirprogram.com/NavySearch/Summary/summary.aspx?pk=F5B07D68-1B19-4235-B140-950CE2E19D08

Robot arms race' underway, expert warns 12:10 27 February 2008
http://www.navysbirprogram.com/NavySearch/Summary/summary.aspx?pk=F5B07D68-1B19-4235-B140-950CE2E19D08
http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20070105.htm
From the January 2007 Idaho Observer: The "Current" state of Mind Control by Hari Heath

"The recently released book, Controlling the Human Mind: The Technologies of Political Control or Tools for Peak Performance, by Dr. Nick Begich, the co-author of Angels Don't Play This HAARP, gives a telling report on electronic and frequency warfare.
What it reveals is shocking enough, but what is most shocking is what it doesn't reveal. Dr. Begich's book is largely a compilation of excerpts and analyses of two-and- three-decades old military and government documents, patents and similarly aged research reports. This is the unclassified stuff. Much of the current state of government's mind control apparatus is classified and is likely to remain so until well after it has achieved antiquity."

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/9752 by Jonas Holmes, California Chronicle, May 19, 2006
The NSA has proprietary electronic equipment that analyzes electrical activity in humans from a distance. NSA computer-generated brain mapping can continuously monitor all the electrical activity in the brain continuously. The NSA records and decodes individual brain maps (of hundreds of thousands of persons) for national security purposes. EMF Brain Stimulation is also secretly used by the military for Brain-to-computer link. (In military fighter aircraft, for example.)
For electronic surveillance purposes electrical activity in the speech center of the brain can be translated into the subject's verbal thoughts. RNM can send encoded signals to the brain's auditory cortex thus allowing audio communication direct to the brain (bypassing the ears). NSA operatives can use this to covertly debilitate subjects by simulating auditory hallucinations characteristic of paranoid schizophrenia.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4202262.html Forget lasers, phasers and other beam weapons — radiofrequency devices are here, and they’re set to “sting.” By David Hambling Published in the December 2006 issue.
As futuristic — and frightening — as the ADS "pain ray" sounds, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research is funding an even more ambitious use of RF energy. Researchers at the University of Nevada are investigating the feasibility of a method that would immobilize targets without causing pain. Rather than heating the subject's skin, this approach would use microwaves at 0.75 to 6 GHz to affect skeletal muscle contractions, possibly by blocking the release of neuro-transmitters that carry signals to those muscles.

Space Shuttle Columbia Destroyed by directed energy weapon on Feb 1st 2003. You can see a trail of the directed energy weapon from earth. The explosion began at the tail end and not in the wheel well on the wing.

Combination Freedom Fighters for America-Manhattan Project Backstep Shilding call- Very useful please listen to the Entire show 98 minutes long 38 MB large wav file

Shielding technologies and strategies to lessen and stop directed energy.


Today there was a conf call that discussed very useful shielding technologies from a company that makes shielding for the medical industry.




http://mcvictimsworld.ning.com/forum/attachment/download?id=2301601%3AUploadedFi38%3A11881

the link above is a conf call that provides very useful solutions to solving some of the problems of directed energy.

Eric Evans of http://www.ramayes.com provides shielding for the Medical Industry, Civilians, the FAA and has ideas that can HELP America and the world.

Split Ring Ressonator

http://mcvictimsworld.ning.com/forum/attachment/download?id=2301601%3AUploadedFi38%3A12410

Phase modulation using dual split ring
resonators
Iftekhar O. Mirza*, Shouyuan Shi, and Dennis W. Prather
Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Delaware, 151 Evans Hall Newark, Delaware 19716

See the attached file below with the full Descripiton of Phase Modulation using duel Split Ring-
*iomirza@udel.edu
http://www.ece.udel.edu/
Abstract: In this paper, we studied phase modulation numerically using
metamaterials such as stacked structures of dual split ring resonators
(DSRRs). To demonstrate the modulation, a vertical and a planar design
were considered, where the wave vectors were parallel and perpendicular to
the proposed structures creating 70 degrees and 80 degrees of phase change,
respectively. In both of the designs modulation was brought about by
changing the effective index of the structure through switching between the
open and short states of the DSRRs while maintaining high transmission.
One of the attractive features of our design was the thin layers of DSRRs,
where for the vertical and planar models the DSRRs layers were 5 mm and
2.28 mm respectively. The numerical results obtained by simulation
matched well with the theoretical prediction.
© 2009 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (160.3918) Metamaterials; (060.5060) Phase Modulation; (070.5753)
Resonators.
References and links
1. V. G. Veselago, The electrodynamics of substances with simultaneously negative values of permittivity and
permeability, Sov. Phys USPEKHI 10, 509 (1968).
2. R. A. Shelby, D.R. Smith, and S. Schultz, “Experimental verification of negative index of refraction,
Science 292, 77-79, (2001).
3. Z. Lu, J. A. Murakowski, C. A. Schuetz, S. Shi, G. J. Schneider, and D. W. Prather, “Three-dimensional
subwavelength imaging by a photonic-crystal flat lens using negative refraction at microwave frequencies,”
Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 153901(4) (2005).
4. Z. Sheng and V. Varadan, “Tuning the effective properties of metamaterials by changing the susbstrate,” J.
Appl. Phys. 101, 014909-1, (2007).
5. D. K. Ghodgaonkar, V.V. Varadan, and V. K. Varadan, “Free-space measurement of complex permittivity
and complex permeability of magnetic materials at microwave frequencies,” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas.
39, 387-394, (1990).
6. K. Aydin, I. Bulu, K. Guven, M. Kafesaki, C. M. Soukoulis and E. Ozbay, “Investigation of magnetic
resonances for different split-ring resonator parameters and designs,” New J. Phys. 7, 168 (2005).
7. K. Aydin, K. Guven, N. Katsarakis, C. M. Soukoulis and E. Ozbay, “Effect of disorder on magnetic
resonance band gap of split-ring resonator structures,” Opt. Express 12, 5896 (2004)
8. A. A. Zharov, I. V. Shadrivov, and Y.S. Kivshar, “Nonlinear properties of left handed materials,” Phys.
Rev. Lett. 91, 037401 (2003)
9. H. T. Chen, W. J. Padilla, J. Zide, A. Gossard, A. Taylor and R. Averitt, “Active terahertz metamaterial
devices.” Nature 444, 597-600, (2006).
10. V. J. Logeeswaran, A. Stameroff, M. Islam, W. Wu, A. Bratkovsky, P. Kuekes, S. Wang and R. Williams,
“Switching between positive and negative permeability by photoconductive coupling for modulation of
electromagnetic radiation,” Appl. Phys. A 87, 209-216, (2007).
O. Reynet and O. Acher, “Voltage controlled metamaterial,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 1198, (2004).
11.
12. P. He, P. Parimi, C. Vittoria, “Tunable negative refractive index metamaterial phase shifter,” Electon. Lett.
43, (2007).
13. A. Velez, J. Bonache, “Varactor-loaded complementary split ring resonators (VLCSRR) and their
application to tunable metamaterial transmission lines,” IEEE Microwave and Wirel. Compon. Lett. 18, 28-
30, (2008).
#106965 - $15.00 USD Received 30 Jan 2009; revised 4 Mar 2009; accepted 13 Mar 2009; published 16 Mar 2009
(C) 2009 OSA 30 March 2009 / Vol. 17, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 5089
14. D. Smith, S. Schultz, P. Markos and C. M. Soukoulis “Determination of effective permittivity and
permeability of metamaterials from reflection and transmission coefficients,” Phys. Rev. B 65, 195104-1,
(2002).
15. H-T. Chen, J. Ohara, A. Azad, A. Taylor, R. Averitt, D. Shrekenhamer and W. J. Padilla, “Experimental
demonstration of frequency-agile terahertz metamaterials,” Nature Photonics 2, 295-298, (2008).
16. M. K. Karkkainen and P. Ikonen, “Patch antenna with stacked split-ring resonators as artificial magneto-
dielectric substrate,” Microwave Opt. Technol.Lett. 46, 554–556, (2005).
17. S. Oh, L. Shafai, “Artificial magnetic conductor using split ring resonators and its applications to
antennas,” Microwave Opt. Technol.Lett. 48, 329–334, (2006).
18. S. Maslovski, P. Ikonen, I. kolmakov and S. Tretyakov, “Artificial magnetic materials based on the new
magnetic particle: metalsolenoid” Prog. Electromag. Res. 54, 61-81, (2005).
19. N. Katsarakis, T. Koschny and M. Kafesaki, “Electric coupling to the magnetic resonance of split ring
resonators,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 2943-2945, (2004).
20. J. B. Pendry, D. Schurig, D. R. Smith, “Controlling Electromagnetic Fields,” Science 312, 1780-1782,
(2006).
21. M. Kafesaki, T. Koschny, R. Penciu, T. Gundogdu, E. Econonou and C. Soukoulis, “Left-handed
Metamaterials: detailed numerical studies of the transmission properties, J. Opt. A: Pure and
Appl. Opt. 7, S21-S22, (2005).
22. D. Dudley, W. Duncan, J. Slaughter, “Emerging digital micromirror device (DMD) applications,” Proc.
SPIE 4985, 14-25 (2003).
23. K. Aydin, E. Ozbay, “Capacitor-loaded split ring resonators as tunable metamaterial components,” J. Appl.
Phys. 101, 024911-5, (2007).
24. N. Liu, H. Guo, L. Fu, S. Kaiser, H. Schweizer and H. Giessen, “ Three-dimensional photonic
mtamaterials at optical frequencies,” Nature Materials 7, 31-37, (2008).
25. C. Balanis, Antenna Theory, third edition (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), Chap. 6.
26. T. Hand, S. Cummer, “Controllable magnetic metamaterial using digitally addressable split-ring
resonator,” IEEE Ant. Propag. Lett. (to be published).
1. Introduction
Recently metamaterials have drawn a lot of attention in the research arena [1, 2, 20]. The
ability of this class of materials to respond to an electromagnetic field and bring about
changes in a material’s fundamental properties has opened up doors for new applications such
as flat lens, antenna miniaturization and artificial magnetic conductors to name a few [3, 16,
17]. One of the advantages of these artificial materials is that they can also be tuned over a
frequency range by effectively changing the substrate properties, the geometry of the
resonating metamaterial structure, or by changing the external fields with non linear
dielectrics [4, 6, 7, and 8]. Another effective way of tuning resonating metamaterials such as
the split ring resonators is by changing the resistance properties of the rings using capacitors
that can be controlled by an applied voltage [11]. As these tunable structures are scalable with
the wavelength, they can be used for modulation for any desired frequency range. In
particular, a Terahertz modulator was demonstrated where the metamaterials were grown on a
conductive substrate and the amplitude of the incoming wave was modulated using electrical
controls to change the resistivity of the metamaterial on a GaAs substrate [9, 15]. Also
recently, another research group demonstrated phase shifting with tunable negative refractive
index metamaterials using variable external magnetic field [12]. Similar work was also done
with negative index material by means of photoconductive coupling [10]. Complementary
split ring resonators and their applicability in tuning frequency has also been studied [13].
Although these works had been successful in bringing out the idea of frequency and
amplitude modulation, little investigation has been carried out in terms of phase modulation
using metamaterials. Also a major challenge in working with metamaterials has been the
inherent loss that arises from their resonating nature. To address such issues, in this paper we
demonstrated phase only modulation using tunable metamaterials, namely the DSRRs. We
mitigated the issue of material loss by employing thin resonating metamaterials operating at
an off-resonant frequency to demonstrate a high degree of phase modulation with very
minimal loss. Particularly, in our paper we demonstrated phase modulation using two
#106965 - $15.00 USD Received 30 Jan 2009; revised 4 Mar 2009; accepted 13 Mar 2009; published 16 Mar 2009
(C) 2009 OSA 30 March 2009 / Vol. 17, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 5090
different polarizations for the DSRRs: in the first configuration, the polarization of magnetic
field, H, was perpendicular to the DSRRs as shown in Fig. 1 (a), whereas in the second
configuration, shown in Fig. 1(b), the wave vector k was perpendicular to the ring. The
DSRRs consisted of single split rings packed very closely where the adjacent rings’ split gaps
were alternated in orientation. The key advantage of the DSRRs in the first configuration was
that the rings could provide an off-resonance high permeability value when excited by the
magnetic field [18]. Whereas in the second configuration the symmetric nature of the
alternate rings could avoid electric coupling from the magnetic resonances that might lead to
cross-polarization effects [21] when excited by the electric field .The key advantages in both
of our designs were the constituent elements which could be readily manufactured using
standard lithography processes and simple electrical connections could be used to regulate
between the two states of the modulation using very thin layers of DSRRs in the propagation
direction. Compared to conventional phase modulators, metamaterial-based phase modulators
operating in transmission mode, promise to produce enhanced phase modulation in terms of
exhibiting a high degree of phase change within a small volume. Moreover, being physically
small it can ensure ease of structural integration and can offer scalability with wavelength that
can reduce design constraints while operating in different frequencies. We believe these
modulators can be the building block for spatial light modulators in the microwave frequency
regime that can add significant advantage over conventional modulators by simplifying future
Digital Micromirror Devices (DMD) and phased array antenna design by controlling each
element of the array or pixel electronically [22, 25].
The first step in the recipe to build a tunable phase modulator was to design the DSRRs
that could provide the resonant frequency around which the phase modulation would occur.
Standard numerical techniques were used to retrieve the constitutive parameters and the
effective refractive index information of the unit cell of the DSRRs for the two different states
of modulation: electrically open and closed rings [5]. The difference in the value of the
effective index for the two different states was used to calculate the phase change. We also
calculated the change in phase using the volumetric field data obtained inside the
computational region and explained the differences with the calculated theoretical result. In
the following sections we will provide the details of the numerical setup, extraction of the
relevant parameters to calculate the modulation and discuss the simulated results with a
conclusion for improvement and our plan for experimental verification.
E
k
E
k
H
H
Transmission plane Reflection plane Transmission plane
Reflection plane
3.81 mm
5 mm
z
y
x
15 mm
15 mm
y
1m
m
(a) (b)
3.63 mm
z
x
Fig. 1. (a). Configuration 1: H-field perpendicular to the DSRR. (b) Configuration 2: k vector
perpendicular to the DSRR
#106965 - $15.00 USD Received 30 Jan 2009; revised 4 Mar 2009; accepted 13 Mar 2009; published 16 Mar 2009
(C) 2009 OSA 30 March 2009 / Vol. 17, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 5091
2. Design and modeling
The DSRRs needed to be designed in such a way so that it could operate for a particular
frequency where the values of the effective permeability and permittivity of the DSRR’s
would meet the following criteria: a) numerically large to create appreciable phase change
through a change in the effective index, b) impedance matched interface, and c) minimize the
power loss. This is formalized in terms of the Figure Of Merit (FOM) = nreal / nimaginary, where
nreal and nimaginary are the real and imaginary parts of the refractive index respectively. The
goal will be to achieve a high FOM for each state for both of the configurations.
In order to meet these requirements we carried out several numerical simulation using the
commercial software HFSS to obtain an optimal design. Two different orientations of the
DSRRs with respect to the wave vector were considered: case1) wave vector, k, parallel to the
structure and case 2) wave vector, k, perpendicular to the structure. The setup in Fig. 1(a),
shows the unit cell analysis for the configuration 1 which will be discussed in the following.
The dimensions of the DSRR were 3 mm x 3 mm with a gap and strip width of 0.33 mm. The
thickness of the metal was 0.02 mm printed on a 0.25 mm thick Duroid substrate (ε = 2.2).
The unit cell of dimension 5 mm x 1 mm x 3.63 mm was placed in between the waveports
with a perfect magnetic conductor (PMC) boundary condition in the y-direction and
perpendicular to the ring and a perfect electric conductor (PEC) boundary condition in the z-
direction and parallel to the ring. By doing so, we were able to simulate a two dimensional
periodic structure along both y and z directions with minimal computation. A similar setup
was used in [4]. Based on this orientation, the DSRRs were excited by the magnetic field
which was perpendicular to the DSRRs. The dense stack of DSRRs acted as metalsolenoid
which helped to concentrate the magnetic flux inside the structure giving rise to a strong
magnetic resonance. Similar design was considered and discussed in [18] where it was
highlighted that the main benefit of this design was that a high value of permeability could be
obtained away from the resonance. The large off-resonance permeability value leads to a
large effective index at the same frequency for the DSRRs which could be exploited for
maximum phase modulation. The reflection/transmission spectra results obtained from the
simulation were used to extract the effective index of the DSRR using the formulation
described in [4, 5].
For a normally incident wave in free-space, at the air-sample boundary the scattering
parameters, namely the S11 and S21 can be related to the reflection ( Γ ) and transmission (T)
coefficients [5] as:
Γ = R ± R2 −1 (1)
where,
 S 2 − S 2 +1
R = 0.5  11 21  (2)
S11
 
and
 S + S −Γ 
T =  11 21  (3)
 1 − ( S11 + S21 )Γ 
ncomplex = nreal + nimag ,
Following this, the complex refractive index can be formulated as
2mπ − arg(T ) − log(| T |)
nreal = and nimag = . The parameter d indicates the slab
where
dk0 dk0
2π
, where λ0 is the operational
thickness in the direction of propagation and k0 =
λ0
#106965 - $15.00 USD Received 30 Jan 2009; revised 4 Mar 2009; accepted 13 Mar 2009; published 16 Mar 2009
(C) 2009 OSA 30 March 2009 / Vol. 17, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 5092
wavelength in free space. In our studies, m was set to zero as the wavelength inside the
DSRRs was larger than the slab thickness. Detailed discussion of the parameter m can be
found in [4]. The extracted data are shown in Fig. 2(a), where the real and imaginary parts of
the effective index for the open and closed cases of the DSRRs were plotted. From the graph,
at 4 GHz the real part of the effective index was 5.9 for the open state DSRRs while for the
closed state the value of the real part of the effective index was 1.6. The closed state had a flat
real part response and minimal loss since the DSRRs were off-resonance within the frequency
range of 3.5 – 4.5 GHz. The closed state for the DSRR was achieved by effectively shorting
the gaps in the DSRRs by placing a piece of metal inside the gap. Due to the large index
difference between the two states, we chose a frequency band centered at 4 GHz for our phase
modulation application. Although, at resonance the real index was at a maximum which
would provide the maximum phase modulation, the imaginary part which indicated the loss of
the structure was also very high that could potentially degrade the overall performance of the
device. In particular, the transmission data as shown in Fig. 3(a) indicated that for
configuration 1 the transmission was -1.6 dB and -2.8 dB for the open and short case
respectively. The value of the imaginary parts for both the cases at this frequency was
negligibly low and the difference in the real parts of the effective index was calculated as 5.9-
1.6 = 4.3. The calculated FOM for the open state was 5.9/0.325 = 18.2 and for the closed state
the FOM was 1.6/0.0003 = 5.3 x 103. As expected the FOM was much higher for the closed
state because of the absence of a resonance.
Freq: 4GHz

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh describes 'executive assassination ring'


http://www.infowars.com/hersh-cheney-ran-ss-style-political-assassination-unit/
http://www.myspace.com/Liepchen
http://www.alcuppett.com
http://www.stewwebb.com/investigative_reporter_seymour_hersh_describes_executive_assassination_ring031109.htm

http://www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/03/11/7310/investigative_reporter_seymour_hersh_describes_executive_assassination_ring

REUTERS/Fadi Al-AssaadJournalist Seymour Hersh speaking in Doha at an Al Jazeera forum on the media in 2007.
Photo of Sign in New Jersey

National Cremation Headquarters in North Fort Myers Florida on March 25th 2009. Investigate

At a “Great Conversations” event at the University of Minnesota last night, legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an “executive assassination ring.”




Hersh spoke with great confidence about these findings from his current reporting, which he hasn’t written about yet.

In an email exchange afterward, Hersh said that his statements were “an honest response to a question” from the event’s moderator, U of M Political Scientist Larry Jacobs and “not something I wanted to dwell about in public.”

Hersh didn’t take back the statements, which he said arise from reporting he is doing for a book, but that it might be a year or two before he has what he needs on the topic to be “effective...that is, empirical, for even the most skeptical.”

"Geheimes Ruland. Moskau -- Die Zombies der roten Zaren" "Secret Russia. Moscow -- The zombies of the red czars"]

http://www.raven1.net/russvid.htm Russian Scientist Igor Smirnov Describes Russian Psychotronic Technology ZDF German TV Documentary December 22, 1998. When Reagan asked Gorbachev to "Bring down that wall" the worst escaped to the Western world to spread Communism/Fascism. http://www.raven1.net/russvid.htm China and Russia have been ahead of the USA in the torture Industry always. Remember Russia was in Afghanastan for 30 years prior to the USA. The diamond in Afghanastan are the size of softballs and when the hills were being blown diamonds were being mined by US missles and strikes. There are 6 Countries that mine the wealth of Afghanastan. Where is that going? Is the US fighting a war for Communism/Fascism? The USA has no purpose to be in the middle east other that to clear the way for Russia. It is obvious that the USA has been taken over by Russia and that the politicians need to educate themselves as to the degree of influence that is going on and the tricks playes by the Russians to comprimise politicians. They all need to THINK and get a full body MRI to disable their implants.





The evening of great conversation, featuring Walter Mondale and Hersh, moderated by Jacobs and titled “America’s Constitutional Crisis,” looked to be a mostly historical review of events that have tested our Constitution, by a journalist and a high government official who had experience with many of the crises.

And it was mostly historical, and a great conversation, in which Hersh and Mondale talked about the patterns by which presidents seem to get intoxicated by executive power, frustrated by the limitations on that power from Congress and the public, drawn into improper covert actions that exceed their constitutional powers, in the belief that they can get results and will never be found out. Despite a few references to the Founding Fathers, the history was mostly recent, starting with the Vietnam War with much of it arising from the George W. Bush administration, which both men roundly denounced.

At the end of one answer by Hersh about how these things tend to happen, Jacobs asked: “And do they continue to happen to this day?”

Replied Hersh:

“Yuh. After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.

"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

"It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.

"In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.

"I’ve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee?’

"But they’re not gonna get before a committee.”

Hersh, the best-known investigative reporter of his generation, writes about these kinds of issues for The New Yorker. He has written often about JSOC, including, last July that:

“Under the Bush Administration’s interpretation of the law, clandestine military activities, unlike covert C.I.A. operations, do not need to be depicted in a Finding, because the President has a constitutional right to command combat forces in the field without congressional interference.”

(“Finding” refers to a special document that a president must issue, although not make public, to authorize covert CIA actions.)

Here is a tape of the full Mondale-Hersh-Jacobs colloquy, a little over an hour, without the audience Q and A. If you want to look for the Hersh statement quoted above, it’s about at the 7:30 mark.



The rest of the evening was, as expected, full of worry and wisdom and quite a bit of Bush-bashing.

Jacobs walked the two elder statesmen through their experiences of:
The My Lai massacre, which Hersh first revealed publicly and which he last night called “the end of innocence about us and war.”
The Pentagon Papers case, which Mondale called the best example of the “government’s potential for vast public deception.”
Henry Kissinger’s secret dealings, mostly relating to the Vietnam War. (Hersh, who has written volumes about Kissinger, said that he will always believe that whereas ordinary people count sheep to fall asleep, Kissinger “has to count burned and maimed Cambodian babies.”)
The Church Committee investigation of CIA and FBI abuses, in which Mondale played a major role. (He talked about the fact that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover not only spied on Martin Luther King but literally tried to drive him to suicide.)
The Iran Contra scandal. (Hersh said the Reagan administration came to office with a clear goal of finding a way to finance covert actions, such as the funding of the Nicaraguan Contras, without appropriations so that Congress wouldn't know about them. Mondale noted that Reagan had signed a law barring further aid to the Contras, then participated in a scheme to keep the aid flowing. Hersh said that two key veterans of Iran-Contra, Dick Cheney and national security official Elliot Abrams, were reunited in the George W. Bush White House and decided that the key lesson from Iran-Contra was that too many people in the administration knew about it.)
And the Bush-Cheney years. (Said Hersh: “The contempt for Congress in the Bush-Cheney White House was extaordinary.” Said Mondale of his successor, Cheney, and his inner circle: “they ran a government within the government.” Hersh added: “Eight or nine neoconservatives took over our country.” Mondale said that the precedents of abuse of vice presidential power by Cheney would remain "like a loaded pistol that you leave on the dining room table.")

Jacobs pressed both men on the question of whether the frequent abuses of power show that the Constitution fails, because these things keep happening, or whether it works, because these things keep coming to light.

Mondale stuck with the happy answer. “The system has come through again and again,” he said. Presidents always think they will get away with it, but eventually reporters like Hersh bring things to light, the public “starts smelling this stuff,” the courts and the Congress get involved. Presidents “always, in the long run, find out that the system is stronger than they are.”

Hersh seemed more troubled by the repetitions of the pattern. The “beautiful thing about our system” is that eventually we get new leaders, he said. “The evil twosome, Cheney and Bush, left,” Hersh said. But he also said “it’s really amazing to me that we manage to get such bad leadership, so consistently.”

And he added that both the press and the public let down their guard in the aftermath of 9/11.

“The major newspapers joined the [Bush] team,” Hersh said. Top editors passed the message to investigative reporters not to “pick holes” in what Bush was doing. Violations of the Bill of Rights happened in the plain sight of the public. It was not only tolerated, but Bush was re-elected.

And even Mondale admitted that one of his greatest successes, laws reforming the FBI and CIA in the aftermath of the Church Committee, were supposed to fix the problem so that “we would never have these problems again in the lifetime of anyone alive at the time, but of course we did.”

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