Senator Paul Wellstone's plane crash

related pages: JFK - MLK - RFK - Carnahan - John Lennon Published in the May 27, 2002 issue of The Nation

Paul Wellstone, Fighter by John Nichols

www.commondreams.org/views02/0510-04.htm Paul Wellstone is a hunted man. Minnesota's senior senator is not just another Democrat on White House political czar Karl Rove's target list, in an election year when the Senate balance of power could be decided by the voters of a single state. Rather, getting rid of Wellstone is a passion for Rove, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the special-interest lobbies that fund the most sophisticated political operation ever assembled by a presidential administration. "There are people in the White House who wake up in the morning thinking about how they will defeat Paul Wellstone," a senior Republican aide confides. "This one is political and personal for them." ....

"This race is going to be a case study of whether you can maintain liberal, progressive positions and win in this country in 2002," says Wellstone ad sent by Republicans to Minnesota voters just before Wellstone's death, it resembles a death notice from the Mafia, not a campaign ad

Published on Tuesday, April 24, 2001 in the Madison Capital Times, Bush Fears Tenacious, Popular Wellstone by John Nichols www.commondreams.org/views01/0424-07.htm The Bushies despise Wellstone, who unlike most Senate Democrats has been fighting spirited battles against the new administration’s policies on everything from the environment to the tax cuts for the rich to military aid for the "Plan Colombia" drug war boondoggle. Other Democratic senators who face re-election contests in 2002 are, according to polls, more vulnerable than Wellstone. But the Bush camp has been focusing highest-level attention on "Plan Wellstone" — its project to silence progressive opposition.

Senator Wellstone was slated to win re-election

AFTER voting against George Bush's "War resolution" in Congress

www.counterpunch.org/madsen1025.html

October 25, 2002

Pappy Bush on Paul Wellstone:

"Who Is This Chickenshit?"

by WAYNE MADSEN

Before we all get sucked into George W. Bush's eulogies of the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone let us not forget what his father, Bush 41, called the Senator at a White House reception for newly-elected members of Congress in 1991.

Wellstone, who ran on a progressive platform, did not think Bush 41 cared one wit about education, health care, and workers' safety issues.

So when Wellstone met Bush in a typical White House pro forma reception line, he used the occasion to urge Bush on three different occasions to spend more time on issues like education and cautioning him against the Persian Gulf War. Of course, Bush was more concerned about fighting the war against Iraq (sound familiar?) and could care less about Wellstone's issues.

After Wellstone violated Bush 41's sanctimonious White House protocol, Bush was overheard saying, "Who is this chicken shit?"

Now after Senator Wellstone was tragically killed in a plane crash and "General" Karl Rove is obviously busy trying to figure out how the tragedy can benefit the GOP's chances of winning control of the Senate, I think it's time to answer old man Bush's question.

Far from being a chicken shit, Wellstone actually cared for people, unlike your pathetic son who could not even find a few minutes to attend one or two funerals of his Washington, DC area neighbors who were tragically shot and killed by a couple of snipers. No, Mr. Bush 41, Paul Wellstone was not a chicken shit, that epitaph is better reserved for you and your moronic son.

Bush was entertaining a brutal dictator at his awful Texas ranch while a group of Democratic leaders -- Governors Glendening and Warner, Senators Sarbanes and Mikulski, DC Mayor Williams, County Executives Duncan and Curry were celebrating the capture of the snipers and consoling the families of their victims. And then we were told that Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash with his wife, daughter, staffers, and pilots. First confirmation of the tragedy came not from the Senator's office or that of Minnesota's governor, but from the scruffy Crawford Ranch. I wanted to puke right then and there on the spot.

Mr. Bush 43: are you the President of the United States or the President of a corporate America resident in Texas? Senator Wellstone certainly knew the answer to that question.

The best memorial for Senator Wellstone is for Democrats, moderate Republicans, and progressives everywhere to turn out the vote on Election Day and keep the Senate Democratic and give the gavel in the House back to Richard Gephardt. It is the best tribute to the late and much-admired "boat rocker" from Minnesota.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth.

History Of Assassination And Poisoning Attempts On Senator Wellstone

Surviving Assassination Attempt - Wellstone Denounces Militarization of Columbian Aid

http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0012/0044.html

State Department Briefing On Attempted Wellstone Hit

www.fas.org/irp/news/2000/12/irp-001201-col.htm

Police Thwart Colombia Attack Plan On Wellstone

www.counterpunch.org/pipermail/counterpunch-list/2000-December/004162.html

Senator Wellstone Sprayed With Herbicide...

www.americas.org/news/nir/20001210_herbicide_douses_u_s_senator.asp

www.commondreams.org/headlines/120200-01.htm

www.usfumigation.org/Literature/Press_Articles/wellstone_sprayed.htm

www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread7851.shtml

Just before the plane crash, Senator Wellstone announced that he had contracted Multiple Sclerosis, which is thought to be linked to toxic exposure such as the biocides sprayed by the US government on Senator Wellstone during his fact finding mission to Columbia.

The (Possible) Assassination of Paul Wellstone, by Ted Rall

www.questionsquestions.net/docs0209/1101_rall.html

People expressed similar fears after Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and Missouri Governor Mel Carnahandied in plane crashes--the latter weeks before facing an election challenge from future Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft but the whispers of assassination following the Wellstone tragedy are more widespread and gaining mainstream currency far beyond the usual conspiracy nuts.

The Death of Senator Wellstone: Accident or Murder?

www.wsws.org/articles/2002/oct2002/well-o29_prn.shtml

President Bush Expresses Heartfelt Non-Political Sadness Over the Passing of Leftist Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone - WHITEHOUSE.ORG

www.whitehouse.org/news/2002/102902.asp

An early article from Portland Indymedia http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=29306&group=webcast

contained one of the most apt observations about the whole affair:

Sherlock Holmes solved at least one case by noticing that something that should be present was missing. In the Hound of the Baskervilles, he solved the case by noticing that no one reported a barking dog. So what's missing in terms of the Wellstone plane crash? For the last 14 months, anytime there has been a plane crash, the media go way overboard in assuming that this must somehow be a terrorist incident. The initial reaction of the media in the first hours of the event is always now "oh my, I hope this isn't happening again. I hope this isn't another terrorist attack." Just a few days ago, there was a news story that Al-Queda may be targeting US Senators. The story referred to the possibilities of sniper attacks on golf courses. Just a few days later, a US Senator dies. So, what's missing? Sen. Wellstone's plane crashes, and there is absolutely no speculation that this is a terrorist attack. Somehow the media immediately knows that this plane crash was caused by bad weather, and this is in no way a terrorist attack. The media dog has been barking "terrorist" steadily for 14 months. Today the dog didn't bark.

Did the Stock Market Rally Because Sen. Wellstone Died?

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2073185&device=

Was Wellstone Murdered?

www.onlinejournal.com/Media/Ramares110702/ramares110702.html

www.realhistoryarchives.com/collections/conspiracies/waswellstonemurdered.htm

Was Paul Wellstone Murdered?

This was rescued from Google's cache after the original AlterNet piece disappeared from the 'net.

By Michael I. Niman, AlterNet

October 28, 2002

Paul Wellstone was the only progressive in the U.S. Senate. Mother Jones magazine once described him as, "The first 1960s radical elected to the U.S. senate." He was also the last. Since defeating incumbent Republican Rudy Boschowitz 12 years ago in a grassroots upset, Wellstone emerged as the strongest, most persistent, most articulate and most vocal Senate opponent of the Bush administration.

In a senate that is one heartbeat away from Republican control, Wellstone was more than just another Democrat. He was often the lone voice standing firm against the status-quo policies of both the Democrats and the Republicans. As such, he earned the special ire of the Bush administration and the Republican Party, who made Wellstone's defeat that party's number one priority this year.

Various White House figures made numerous recent campaign stops in Minnesota to stump for the ailing campaign of Wellstone's Republican opponent, Norm Coleman. Despite being outspent and outgunned, however, polls show that Wellstone's popularity surged after he voted to oppose the Senate resolution authorizing George Bush to wage war in Iraq. He was pulling ahead of Coleman and moving toward a victory that would both be an embarrassment to the Bush administration and to Democratic Quislings such as Hillary Clinton who voted to support "the president."

Then he died.

Wellstone now joins the ranks of other American politicians who died in small plane crashes. Another recent victim was Missouri's former Democratic governor, Mel Carnahan, who lost his life in 2000, three weeks before Election Day, during his Senatorial race against John Ashcroft. Carnahan went on to become the first dead man to win a Senatorial race, humiliating and defeating the unpopular Ashcroft posthumously. Ashcroft, despite his unpopularity, went on to be appointed Attorney General by George W. Bush. Investigators determined that Carnahan's plane went down due to "poor visibility."

Carnahan was the second Missouri politician to die in a small plane crash. The first was Democratic Representative Jerry Litton, whose plane crashed the night he won the Democratic nomination for senate in 1976. His Republican opponent ultimately captured the seat from his successor in November.

While an article in the New York Times on Saturday pointed out the danger politicians face due to their heavy air travel schedules, the death of a senator or member of Congress is still relatively rare, with only one other sitting U.S. Senator, liberal Republican John Heinz, dying in a plane crash since World War II. Heinz, who entered office as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, later emerged as a strong proponent of health care, social services, public transportation and the environment. He also urged reconciliation with Cuba. He died when the landing gear on his small plane failed to function, and a helicopter dispatched to survey the problem crashed into his plane.

One former senator, John Tower, also died in a small plane crash. Tower was best known as the chair of the Tower Commission, which investigated the Reagan/Bush era Iran/Contra scandal.

Another member of a prominent government commission who died in a small plane crash was former Democratic representative and House Majority Leader Hale Boggs. Boggs was best known as one of the seven members of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting alone when he killed the president. Boggs, it turns out, had "strong doubts" that Oswald acted alone, but went along with the commission findings. Later, in 1971 and 1972, he went public with his doubts. He was presumed dead after the small plane carrying him and Democratic Representative Nicholas Begich disappeared in 1972.

Texas Democratic Representative Mickey Leland also died in a plane crash. In his case, the six-term member of Congress and outspoken advocate of sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa, died while traveling in Ethiopia. Another American politician to die overseas in a plane crash was the Clinton administration's Commerce Secretary, Ronald Brown, whose plane went down in the Balkans.

Anyone familiar with my work knows that I'm certainly not a conspiracy theorist. But to be honest, I know I wasn't alone in my initial reaction at this week's horrible and tragic news: that being my surprise that Wellstone had lived this long. Perhaps it's just my anger and frustration at losing one of the few reputable politicians in Washington, but I also felt shame. Shame for not writing in my column, months ago, that I felt that Paul Wellstone's life, more so than any other politician in Washington, was in danger. I felt that such speculation was unprofessional and would ultimately undermine my credibility. In the end, my own self-interest triumphed, and I never put my concerns into print. Neither did any other mainstream journalist, though I know of many who shared my concern.

When I heard Wellstone's plane went down, I immediately thought of Panamanian General Omar Torrijos, who in 1981 thumbed his nose at the Reagan/Bush administration and threatened to destroy the Panama Canal in the event of a U.S. invasion. Torrijos died shortly thereafter when the instruments in his plane failed to function upon takeoff. Panamanians speculated that the U.S. was involved in the death of the popular dictator, who was replaced by a U.S. intelligence operative, Manuel Noreiga, who previously worked with George Bush Senior.

There is no indication today that Wellstone's death was the result of foul play. What we do know, however, is that Wellstone emerged as the most visible obstacle standing in the way of a draconian political agenda by an unelected government. And now he is conveniently gone. For our government to maintain its credibility at this time, we need an open and accountable independent investigation involving international participation into the death of Paul Wellstone. Hopefully we will find out, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that this was indeed an untimely accident. For the sake of our country, we need to know this.

Dr. Michael I. Niman teaches journalism and media studies at Buffalo State College.

Copyright © 2002 Alternet

Reprinted for Fair Use Only

Cheryl's Daily Diatribe: Wednesday, October 30, 2002

The Murder of Paul Wellstone: Is It the Beginning of the End for America?

by Cheryl Seal

www.unknownnews.net/cdd1030.html

The moment I heard the news that the unabashedly liberal, gloriously conscientious Senator from Minnesota Paul Wellstone had died in a plane crash, I could feel in my bones, in my heart, and in my soul that he had been murdered. Maybe not by the CIA (Bush has managed to alienate even this group, whose best advice is routinely ignored or slighted), but at the very least by GOP operatives. A serious accusation? Damn right, and I mean it, in all seriousness. I only half-seriously wondered if Mel Carnahan, running against John Ashcroft in Missouri in 2000, had been murdered. Remember him? His death occurred under almost identical circumstances: right before an election, at the height of a close race in which the victim had started to pull ahead, a popular, well-loved senator — suddenly dead in a plane crash. To the GOP's shock, the Missouri voters elected Mel anyway, and his wife Jean stepped in and took his place in Congress. Now Wellstone has been killed, another voice of Democracy silenced by those who would murder not just good men, but Democracy herself. The only difference between the Carnahan and Wellstone tragedies is that this time, the perpetrators made sure to get the wife, too.

CIA will investigate Wellstone plane crash

National Transportation Safety Board www.ntsb.gov/Abt_NTSB/bios/carmody.htm

CAROL J. CARMODY - MEMBER Ms. Carmody served as Acting Chairman from September 16, 2002, to January 18, 2003, and also served in this capacity from January 22 through September 23, 2001. ....

Her career includes: .... serving at the Central Intelligence Agency;

Democrats twice as likely [as Republicans] to die in plane crashes

www.scoop.co.nz/archive/scoop/stories/1c/83/200211201748.9b4c3d66.html

www.questionsquestions.net/docs0209/1101_wellstone.html

Was Wellstone assassinated? The first question really was, how could anyone be crazy enough NOT to ask the question seriously? It has become quite fashionable to heap instant disdain and superior ridicule on any talk of foul play and conspiracy in high places as a sign of "mania" or "paranoia", but as some have pointed out, the fact that so many people were quick to raise suspicions is nothing but a healthy sign, regardless of what the story turns out to be! Perhaps the public is starting to wake up to reality and understand, "it DOES happen here"? What is undeniable is that politics by airplane crash is an old tradition and has been practiced around the world. Many people quickly recalled other shady "accidents" from the past. Some pointed out by Mike Ruppert: Rep. Hale Boggs, D-La., was killed in 1972 and had been an outspoken member of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of JFK. Various sources reported that he had openly expressed doubts about the commission's findings. Rep. Jerry Litton, D-Mo., was killed while campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat from Missouri nearly two months before the 1976 election. This was exactly the same fate that was to befall Missouri Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan twenty-four years later. Rep. Larry McDonald, D-Ga. and the national chairman of the John Birch Society and creator of a private intelligence operation called Western Goals, was killed on KAL 007 after it had mysteriously veered off course on a flight to South Korea and ventured several hundred miles into Soviet territory. The plane was shot down by the Soviet air force. At the time, McDonald's Western Goals was being exposed in an LAPD intelligence scandal linked to massive domestic spying, the CIA and covert operatives like Gen. John Singlaub. Rep. Larkin Smith, D-Miss. was killed in a private plane crash in 1989. At the time he had been working with veterans of U.S. Army Special Forces looking into the deaths of five Green Beret colonels, all of whom had been connected to a covert CIA drug operation known as Watchtower. [Details of Smith's death are included in the FTW package "The Tyree Papers."] Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, a Democrat, was killed in a plane crash in Croatia on April 3, 1996. There are many unresolved mysteries with this incident, not the least of which is a color photograph of a post mortem Brown, which is frequently displayed by comedian/activist Dick Gregory, clearly showing a bullet wound in the back of his skull. John Tower, a recently retired Republican senator from Texas known for his heavy drinking, was writing a book about the Iran-Contra affair when he was killed in a plane crash in 1991. Tower had reportedly been extremely unhappy when he had been denied an appointment as secretary of defense by President George Herbert Walker Bush. Tower had also been the chairman of a Reagan-appointed independent commission investigating Iran-Contra. In a recent investigative piece at FTW, Ruppert draws the following conclusions, which are supported by other researchers: • icing or adverse weather conditions were not to blame.

• pilot error was very unlikely. Two very experienced pilots were on board.

• the King Air 100 is a remarkably reliable and safe aircraft. Also, Ruppert reports off-the-record Congressional sources who believe Wellstone was murdered.

It should be remembered that Wellstone also was the chairman of the new securities reform committee. And it was Wellstone who was attempting to block the nomination of the notorious William Webster, former CIA and FBI head and the Best Friend of Big Business and the Big Accounting Firms, to be the new chairman of the SEC/ Accounting "Oversight" Commission. If the Republicans wanted to take anybody out, this was THE guy.

-- Al Martin (Iran-Contra whistleblower) www.almartinraw.com/column77.html

Sherman Skolnick - the Secret History of Airplane Sabotage

www.skolnicksreport.com/shistory.html

How Very Convenient... by John Bottoms

www.strike-the-root.com/columns/Bottoms/bottoms25.html

http://members.shaw.ca/rb.ham/articles/02-10-28-coincidencetheory.htm

It has become standard technique for debunkers of conspiracy theories to counter with the coincidence theory. The coincidence theory assumes that if an act or series of acts seemingly benefits certain individuals and ideologies, it's all explainable as random chance or an act of God.

I'm sure that the unelected President Dubya's Christian base firmly believe that God himself is felling Democrats from the sky with righteous anger. Mel Carnahan, JFK Junior, Paul Wellstone. No doubt, God himself also mailed the anthrax to Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy.

The obvious comparisons to the death of Mel Carnahan, the Missouri Democrat who was running against John Ashcroft two years ago, have been avoided like the plague by the mainstream media. Also, Mr. Wellstone died 11 days before the election. If he had died 10 days before, the Democratic Party could have left his name on the ballot. He would be a shoe-in as a sympathy vote, then the Dems could find someone later to take his seat. As it is now, the Dems must replace Wellstone. This might be how Karl Rove envisions a Republican victory.

Coincidentally, this time the wife of the prospective Democratic Senator has also died. Fat chance of Mrs. Wellstone running in the place of her husband, as Jean Carnahan did in Missouri.

My belief is that if too many coincidences happen too many times, concurrently and benefiting a select group of sunsofbitches - then coincidence theory goes out the window. Conspiracy is afoot, my friend, and those involved have become emboldened by their deceitful successes since the stolen election and the 9-11 (The great deception) terror attack. Now they have become so arrogant as to be blatantly obvious.

American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone

by Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer

www.drenchkiss.com/wellstone_conference.html

A good summary of the basic evidence that Senator Paul Wellstone was assassinated just before the 2002 elections. Wellstone was predicted to win re-election, had voted against the invasion of Iraq, and was hated by the Bush family (one of his first acts in DC after winning election in 1990 was giving President Bush the First a tape of Minnesotans urging that there not be a war on Iraq).

"American Assassination" was edited and published by Sander Hicks, author of "The Big Wedding," a good book about 9/11 foreknowledge that included a mention that the "Pentagon no plane" claim is not true.

Co-author Fetzer is a long time conspiracy theorist promoting a mix of good and not-so-good "research" on various conspiracies.

His "Assassination Science" website promotes most of the false 9/11 conspiracy claims (no plane at Pentagon, the "pod") and there's even a link at the top of the page to a site pretending that the moon landing was faked.

It is a good thing this book was edited well, but that is a separate issue from the credibility of this co-author.

Fetzer is the main person behind the "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" group which mixed together some good claims with disinformation, attracted lots of media attention (nearly all of it negative) and most of the people who joined split to form a rival group Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. The latter was more careful to avoid the looniest claims, but did not achieve the hoped for attention and credibility.

http://drenchkiss.com/wellstone_conference.html

Wellstone Was Murdered.

In "American Assassination," two professors explain how.

Who Killed Senator Paul Wellstone?

New Book Presents Damning New Research,

Authors, Publisher Call for Senate Investigation

Monday, October 25th (2004), 12 Noon

National Press Club * Holeman Lounge

529 14th St NW * Washington, DC

Two years ago, all eyes were on the Senate race of Senator Paul Wellstone. In the wake of the defection of Jim Jeffords, the White House hand-picked Norm Coleman to attempt to unseat the populist Wellstone. But Coleman still trailed Wellstone late in the campaign. On October 11th, Wellstone voted against the President's war on Iraq, despite a dire personal warning of "severe ramifications" from Vice President Cheney. As the result of his vote, Wellstone's popularity soared.

Then tragedy struck. Just ten days before his probable re-election, Senator Wellstone was killed in the mysterious crash of his small aircraft. On October 25, 2002, the American people suffered the loss of a leader for peace and justice. Some folks harbored suspicions. And some remember how the media blamed the weather.

After two years of research, James Fetzer, Ph.D. and Don "Four Arrows" Jacobs, Ph.D., prove that the weather did not kill Senator Wellstone. Nor were the two pilots incompetent, as the final report of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) would claim.

With impeccable logic, these two highly-lauded university professors ask the hard questions: Why the mysterious cessation of communication from the airplane right before the crash? Why did a passer-by experience cell phone interference at the exact time the pilots lost control? How did the FBI arrive at the crash scene, only an hour or so after the first responders, and eight hours before the NTSB?

At the time of Senator Wellstone's death, 69% of Minnesotans polled said they had a hunch a "GOP Conspiracy" was at play. Now, a new book makes the case that the common people were right all along..

On October 25th, on the two year anniversary of Wellstone's crash, Authors Jim Fetzer and Four Arrows will join Publisher Sander Hicks in Washington to reveal about what really happened that day. At the National Press Club, they will announce publication of American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone.

"With new evidence and scientific rigor, Drs. Fetzer and Jacobs systematically appraise the alternative explanations for the death of a United States Senator. Their conclusion-that Paul Wellstone was the target of an assassination-is very disturbing. It should motivate authorities to launch a formal inquiry into the death of this remarkable American."

-Donald T. Phillips

Author, Lincoln on Leadership

"Meticulous research...rigorous analysis. Their efforts lead us to only one conclusion."

-David Gabbard

Professor, East Carolina University

Professor James Fetzer is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. He has published more than 20 books in the philosophy of science and on computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. Three of his books examine the death of JFK: Assassination Science, Murder in Dealey Plaza, and The Great Zapruder Film Hoax.

Four Arrows, aka Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D. is an associate professor at Northern Arizona University. Author of 12 books on critical thinking and wellness, he is the 2004 recipient of the Martin-Springer Moral Courage Award. Of Cherokee/Creek/Scots/Irish ancestry, he has been a staunch activist for American Indian rights, as was Senator Paul Wellstone.

American Assassination is published by Vox Pop, the debut title of this imprint of the Drench Kiss Media Corporation. DKMC was founded recently by Sander Hicks. Hicks is the "punk of publishing" featured in the documentary Horns and Halos (broadcast recently on Cinemax) which detailed his republication of the prescient Bush biography Fortunate Son.

AMERICAN ASSASSINATION:

The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone

Vox Pop #1 * DATE OF PUBLICATION: October, 2004

ISBN: 0-9752763-0-1 * $14.00 * Paperback * 235 pp * 5 x 8.1

http://raintaxi.com/online/2004winter/assassination.shtml

AMERICAN ASSASSINATION

The Strange Death Of Senator Paul Wellstone

Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer

Vox Pop ($14)

by Bradley E. Ayers

American Assassination challenges the reader to render careful, critical judgment about the causation of Paul Wellstone's death, when his chartered plane went down in a remote area of northeastern Minnesota in October 2002. Was the crash an accident, a bizarre twist of fate on the eve of the fiery, outspoken liberal Democrat's predicted reelection to the narrowly divided U.S. Senate? Or was the plane's destruction the work of threatened right-wing forces determined to sabotage our country's elective process for political gain?

Authors Four Arrows (aka Donald Trent Jacobs) and Jim Fetzer passionately assume the latter, but not without making a powerful case. Their thesis is structured around the fundamental, time-honored considerations when appraising any crime: did a potential perpetrator have the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the act, and is there human testimony or physical and circumstantial evidence to support each of these criteria? .... Editor's Note: Bradley E. Ayers is a former Army special operations officer and author of The War That Never Was: An Insider's Account of CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba (Bobbs-Merrill, 1976). As a former commercial air charter bush pilot, he has flown into Eveleth, MN, the site of the Wellstone plane crash, many times under all varieties of weather conditions

www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.asp?id=309

Target Wellstone

BY RUSS WELLEN

BOOKS | 9.7.2004

American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone

By Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer

Vox Pop, 199 pages, $14.00

So fierce is the competition in the crime fiction market today that only the cozy genre of mystery can still get away with a single murder victim. In padding the body count, however, authors lose sight of the first rule of a good crime novel: reanimate the corpse. In other words, the reader must get to know and care about the deceased.

When the plane carrying Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone to the funeral of a state lawmaker's father crashed, his wife, daughter, three staff members, and two pilots died as well. By writing American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone (on Sander Hicks's new Vox Pop imprint), Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer honor all the victims. But demonstrating that a crime--massacre actually--was committed requires showing how Wellstone's Senate career constituted a monument to humanitarianism that demanded to be toppled as sure as Saddam's statue in Firdos Square, Baghdad.

Unfortunately, sniping from the left that he failed to hew to the party line obscured Wellstone's achievements (documented in an appendix to the book). In fact, his comprehensive approach to progressive causes, from reforming American farm policy to opposing GATT and NAFTA, paralleled how the right leaves no stone unturned in its relentless quest to roll back any legislation that could conceivably be called enlightened.

In light of the suspicious circumstances under which he died, you can't help but think that the right saw him as not one, but a plague of gadflies that had to be eradicated. He was in fact exposed to aerial spraying--intentionally, the authors maintain--while inspecting the effect of glycophospate on Colombian coca fields. With each vote, Wellstone more and more resembled a man marching to his doom.

Not only the mainstream, but also most of the independent media has used Wellstone campaign manager Jeff Blodgett's profession of certainty that pilot error was at fault to back off from allegations of foul play. In other words, don't let them tar you with that darn conspiracy theory label because when you try to peel it off your skin comes with it.

But conspiracy theories don't only play with the Generation X-Files crowd; now they're scrutinized by the ever-more-credentialed, such as Dr. David Ray Griffin, the author of The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11. Like Griffin, Jim Fetzer is a professor of philosophy (at the University of Minnesota, Duluth) and he's polished his philosopher's stone with three books on the death of JFK. Co-author Four Arrows is an associate professor at Northern Arizona University. (Though the authors fail to describe the division of duties, the interviews Arrows conducts suggests he's the leg man.)

Applying the principles of philosophy to the crime, Fetzer claims that when an investigator examining a hypothesis violates "the requirement of total evidence," "special pleading"--intentionally selecting evidence to create a biased result--occurs.

Excluding, and perhaps removing, evidence is exactly what official bodies seem to have set out to do. Only an hour after first responders arrived on the crash site at 11 a.m., the FBI materialized on the scene. In other words, they would have departed from St. Paul at 9:30--when Wellstone's plane was taking off.

After possibly spiriting away the cockpit voice recorder, the FBI announced the crash wasn't the work of terrorists. Meanwhile, the National Traffic Safety Board's lead investigator, Frank Hildrup, when asked why there was no public hearing, responded that they were reserved for "high profile cases."

As for the cause, at first the NTSB blamed icy conditions. However, when the plane didn't land at the Eveleth-Virginia (Minnesota) Airport, its assistant manager, Gary Ulman, had no qualms about immediately taking off to search for the crash site. Others, such as National Center for Atmospheric Research meteorologist Ben Bernstein, downplayed the icing theory as well.

Besides, the Beechcraft King Air A-10 boasted an elaborate de-icing system--you learn a lot about aviation in this book--such as pneumatic de-icing boots that inflate and deflate to break ice from the leading edges of the wing and tail. And when the King Air's maintenance records turned out to be in order, mechanical problems, along with the icy conditions, were disqualified as causes.

The NTSB then turned to the highly rated pilot, Richard Conry, a favorite of Wellstone's who had passed an FAA flight check two days before. Sixty seconds after his last conversation with the ground, during which he reported no problems, the King Air began drifting south, whereas a normal landing would have continued straight west. In other words, discounting his turn in the opposite direction before crashing, the NTSB adopted the conclusion that Conry and co-pilot Michael Guess's approach was too slow, stalling the plane and causing it to crash.

But even if the pilots failed to check airspeed and altitude--an almost unimaginable lapse--they would have been alerted by an alarm in plenty of time to regain speed. In other words, by arriving at this conclusion the NTSB demonstrated the same lack of concern for public scrutiny as the FBI did when it arrived early at the crash scene. More likely, the authors maintain, the King Air lost airspeed and altitude because the pilots were unable to control it.

Understanding the crash, they believe, requires establishing why the King Air suddenly stopped communicating. Another man on his way to the funeral, driving within a couple blocks of the airport at the time of the crash experienced otherworldly cell-phone interference. He reported hearing a sound "between a roar and loud humming voice...oscillating...screeching and humming noise."

Most responsible for narrowing the authors' search for a cause was the blue smoke typical of electrical fires that streamed out of the King Air's sheared fuselage for hours after the crash.

In an arresting passage, the authors cite a Time magazine article describing microwave weapons the US is developing to knock out enemy electronics. Supposedly they're capable of unleashing in an instant as much power as the Hoover Dam cranks out in a day. The authors report, among other accidents, an F-111 that crashed or aborted due simply to the radio transmissions (electromagnetic pulses) of other US military aircraft.

Suddenly the idea of electronic-jamming equipment sending a decoy VOR (landing guidance system) signal to the King Air becomes plausible. Obeying instrumentation that's tricked into believing the plane is several degrees off course, the pilot follows the signal straight into the ground.

Possible means mapped out, what about more specific motives than the general pugnaciousness of this former wrestler's progressivism? First, at the time of the crash the Republicans' Senate majority was in jeopardy because Vermont's Jim Jeffords had bolted the party. In an attempt to redress the balance, they threw all their support behind Norm Coleman, Wellstone's opponent in the upcoming election. When Wellstone voted against granting the president power to invade Iraq, his popularity surged.

Wellstone reported that before the Senate vote on Iraq, Dick Cheney had warned him that bucking the administration could result in severe consequences for both him and the state of Minnesota. Neither was the vice president happy about the legislation Wellstone had introduced to improve protection against asbestos poisoning. Cheney had left Halliburton in a position to be sued by its insurer for asbestos claims staggering in their potential for remuneration. Only his assumption of the vice presidency granted him immunity from deposition.

After Wellstone's funeral, you may remember how Republicans claimed the event was partisan, essentially garnering Democrats free campaign airtime. This, of course, stood in contrast, to the heartfelt way the Republican party grieved--by transferring money designated to fight Wellstone to defeating Democratic Georgia Senator Max Cleland. Corporate America was equally broken up: From the instant Wellstone's death was reported by AP--the rise in corporate fortunes that a Republican Senate signified needed no spelling out to investors--the Dow rose steadily.

By unraveling the conditions under which he died, Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer have not only paid tribute to Paul Wellstone, they've brought to light the facts surrounding yet another suspicious plane crash in a lineage that extends back to Governor Mel Carnahan and Senators John Tower and Hale Boggs.

Finally, let us recall the prescience Wellstone demonstrated in his statement to the Senate on Iraq: "The United States should unite the world against Saddam and not allow him to unite forces against us."

Maybe Senator Wellstone's plane was shot down by an electronic weapon, maybe not. Assertions are not the same thing as provable evidence. If it was a federal crime, then it has "plausible deniability" built into it and it is extremely unlikely there will ever be a criminal investigation. It is unfortunate the media, both corporate mainstream and "alternative," chose not to look at these concerns critically, which left the issue to the "conspiracy" subculture that often is more interested in emotional appeals than documented evidence. In these sorts of crimes of state, there are usually false leads planted to misdirect the critics -- the government is not trying to keep everyone from thinking these thoughts but to ensure that those who accuse the government will never be able to make positive political change.

Duluth News Tribune

Duluth, MN

Opinions

Disturbing circumstances around crash of Wellstone plane raise questions of conspiracy

www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/news/opinion/7297928.htm

Posted on Wed, Nov. 19, 2003

Point of View by JIM FETZER

Disturbing circumstances around crash of Wellstone plane raise questions of conspiracy



Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone was a serious man who cared profoundly about his fellow citizens. He took courageous stands against an administration that he viewed with profound suspicion, arguing eloquently against tax cuts for the rich, the subversion of the Constitution, and violating international accords. He would have led the opposition to the war in Iraq if only he had had the chance. Everyone knew it and he may have died because of it.

For nearly a year now, evidence has been accumulating about the event that ended the life of this magnificent human being. Whatever caused the crash was not the plane, the pilots, or the weather. In spite of what you may have heard, the plane was exceptional, the pilots well-qualified, and the weather posed no significant problems. Even the National Transportation Safety Board's own simulations of the plane, the pilots, and the weather were unable to bring the plane down.

This means we have to consider other, less palatable, alternatives, such as small bombs, gas canisters or electromagnetic pulse, radio frequency or High Energy Radio Frequency weapons designed to overwhelm electrical circuitry with an intense electromagnetic field. An abrupt cessation of communication between the plane and the tower took place at about 10:18 a.m., the same time an odd cell hone phenomenon occurred with a driver in the immediate vicinity.

This suggests to me the most likely explanation is that one of our new electromagnetic weapons was employed.

The politics of the situation were astonishing. The senator was pulling away from the hand-picked candidate of the Bush machine. Its opportunity to seize control of the U.S. Senate was slipping from its grasp. Its vaunted "invincibility" was being challenged by an outspoken critic of its most basic values. Targeted for elimination, he was going to survive. Here's one man's opinion: Under such conditions, the temptation to take him out may have been irresistible.

Among the striking indications that something was wrong with the NTSB in its inquiry into the causes of the crash is that Carol Carmody, a former employee with the CIA, the head of the team, announced the day after that the FBI had found no indications of terrorist involvement. Yet it is the responsibility of the NTSB to ascertain the cause of the crash, which has yet to be determined to this very day.

So how could the FBI possibly know?

The FBI's prompt arrival was peculiar. As Christopher Bollyn of American Free Press reported (<http://www.rumormillnews.net>www.rumormillnews.net, Oct. 29, 2002),

"According to Rick Wahlberg, sheriff of St. Louis County, a team of FBI agents was quickly on the crash site about noon, less than an hour after (assistant manager Gary) Ulman and the (fire) chief had first located the site and found a way to access the wreck. This FBI team had come from the distant Twin Cities in record time!"

When Bollyn "asked Ulman if he had notified the FBI about the accident, Ulman said he had not spoken with the bureau at any time. Asked how the FBI got to the site so quickly, Ulman said that he assumed they had come from Duluth. AFP contacted the Duluth office of the FBI and was told that the team of 'recovery' agents had not come from Duluth but had traveled from the FBI office in Minneapolis."

I calculate that this team would have had to have left the Twin Cities at about the same time the Wellstone plane was taking off. Gary Ulman confirmed to me that the FBI had been on the scene no later than 1 p.m.

I have reviewed the log books maintained by the Sheriff's Department at Eveleth and have discovered that they are grossly incomplete and cannot confirm when the FBI showed up.

The FAA has told me that its records of private aircraft arriving in Duluth that morning have been destroyed, even though they might verify the FBI's early arrival. And the NTSB has canceled sessions where it would ordinarily take input from the public.

Michael Ruppert (fromthewilderness.com, Nov. 1, 2002) has reported, "The day after the crash I received a message from a former CIA operative who has proven extremely reliable in the past and who is personally familiar with these kinds of assassinations. The message read, 'As I said earlier, having played ball (and still playing in some respects) with this current crop of reinvigorated old white men, these clowns are nobody to screw around with. There will be a few more strategic accidents. You can be certain of that.' "

If you think that's a stretch, consider: Hundreds of young Americans have been put in harm's way by a war that was promoted on the basis of lies about weapons of mass destruction, collaboration with Osama bin Laden, and Sept. 11.

Some 3,000 Americans were killed when the Twin Towers collapsed, and yet the president and the vice president of the United States have done everything they can to obstruct a open and honest investigation of the causes of that traumatic event. And when a leak from his own administration leads to the exposure of a CIA operative concerned with weapons of mass destruction, the President tells us "we may never know."

This is a corrupt administration.

One of the oddest events since the election is that Wellstone's successor in the U.S. Senate, Norm Coleman, has been placed in charge of the Senate Investigations Committee.

That is an extraordinarily sensitive responsibility to be placed upon a freshman senator with no previous experience. My guess would be that it has never happened before. But the reasoning behind it may not be that difficult to fathom: Would anyone be less inclined to pursue the Wellstone death?

One man's opinion: The evidence presented here and elaborated elsewhere in detail establishes a prima facie case that this death was no accident, that the motives were political and begs the question: Was the White House involved?

An investigation by the St. Louis County prosecutor would be most welcome.

In the chorus of memories for a man who made a difference, let us bear in mind that truth is our only defense against an onslaught of lies that have dominated a media that appears too weak or too complicit to resist.



JIM FETZER, a professor in the philosophy department at University of Minnesota Duluth, is the editor of three books on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy: "Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out on the Death of JFK" (October 1997); "Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now that We Didn't Know Then" (August 2000); "The Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and Deception in the Death of JFK" (September 2003).

www.liberalslant.com/jt123003.htm

Latest government report on Wellstone 'accident' finds its scapegoats, many questions remain

By: Jackson Thoreau - 12/30/03