Posted on 07/23/2005 10:00:02 AM PDT by SLB
Three men described as Middle Eastern-looking were seen aiming a rocket launcher at a low-flying B-1 Bomber near Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma.
Air Force security pursued the suspects, who got away, but left behind their rocket launcher, according to a July 14 Air Force staff directive obtained by WND.
The three suspects were observed outside the perimeter of the air base, looking through binoculars and aiming the weapon at chest level, according to the report.
The FBI and Air Force security are investigating the incident, which suggests a threat to military and commercial flights within the U.S. from rocket launchers – or MNAPADS, Man-Portable Air Defense Systems, as they are called.
According to Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center, "MANPADS form part of the arsenal of weapons available to almost 30 insurgent and terrorist groups worldwide, their apparent proliferation on the black market making them relatively easy and, depending on the model in question, cheap to acquire."
U.S.-made "Stinger" missiles were widely distributed by the Central Intelligence Agency among rebel Mujahedeen groups fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s. Given the weapon's record against agile military aircraft – at least 270 confirmed kills – the threat that such an advanced system poses to much slower civil aviation is obvious. Conservative estimates state that at least 100 such missiles are still in the country out of around 900 originally supplied.
I suppose you could draw a distinction between fabricating and promoting obviously false stories, but the line in pretty thin. Anyway, you may want to look for a different source of breaking news than anything coming from the likes of Farah.
very possibly...
I didnt know the roads in and around Tinker specifically so I couldnt tell you nor did I catch that...
but it would be an exercise as well....but it CERTAINLY is not official.
Sent to g2@wnd.com:
I would point you to this thread at FreeRepublic.com
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1449032/postsIn posts 38 and 41, a 'memo' is mentioned that is pretty effectively debunked in post #52.
If this is the memo you've been provided, you've been had.
This seems fairly conclusive about the interstates. http://www-ext.tinker.af.mil/maps/okcArea.htm
This seems fairly conclusive about the phone number. http://www.hilltoptimes.com/Lifetimes.asp?edition=39 (scroll all the way down)
I think your source may owe you an explanation, if this is what you've seen.
Let's see what happens.
Hill AFB appears to be a support base. They do not mention B-1 support on their website, so it doesn't sound likely that there is a simple mistake of place names.
"Anyway, you may want to look for a different source of breaking news than anything coming from the likes of Farah."
At least Farah had the guts to bring up TWA 800 and Ron Brown, unlike the people who call him names for it. If this is proven to be a prank he fell for, I'm sure it would be retracted. Big deal.
Remember Matt Drudge and Sidney Blumenthal? According to your logic, Drudge should be banned too, right?
PS, good memo. Lotta stones!
What? Is Farah's G2 Bulletin the US's version of DEBBKA?
Thanks, I'll be interested in seeing how long the story stays up. Folks can be fooled all the time, but it takes a Dan Rather to stand behind something when the wheels are off.
"Gives you an idea of SFTT and Farrah's competence when you know they didn't pick up on it."
You did good work. At the same time, Farah is being put to a much higher standard than TV news, than Matt Drudge, and than many others. If he made a mistake, he should retract, and in fact, thank you for the work you did. That's as far as it should go, IMHO.
Interesting. I would point to those two stories as just more examples of when folks like Farah and WND have been suckered by bogus stories.
"I would point to those two stories as just more examples of when folks like Farah and WND have been suckered by bogus stories."
And that is why I don't trust people who criticize Farah. TWA 800 was covered up. There's no way to hide it. And Ron Brown's crash was covered up-- I got that one dead to rights.
If the story was true, isn't it likely that aircraft anywhere within some large radius would be immediately affected by the report and would be ready to take evasive actions? Isn't it likely that there was more than just a single aircraft within such a zone?
A friend of mine related a story about a small plane in trouble in the SF Bay Area years ago. The pilot requested an emergency landing. The tower immediately responded, "You are clear to land at ANY runway". This confused the pilot because he didn't realize that the entire area can be cleared so quickly for an emergency. He was expecting to be directed to a particular runway.
Um hmmmm. You forgot "chemtrails".
...and a lot of aluminum foil...
Note I have personally heard Cogswell and Janoski on the radio. And I have seen the X-ray photographs with my own eyes and personally interviewed a radiology technician, who believes the x-rays are consistent with a gunshot wound.
http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/835_0_2_0_C/
Chief Petty Officer Kathleen Janoski, who photographed Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown's body at Dover Air Force Base, described at a recent AIM conference how the Navy punished her for raising questions about the cause of Brown's death. Janoski said she hasn't come to any conclusions about whether the former Clinton cabinet official was murdered or not. But she is certain that certain top officials didn't want the questions answered.
At the conference Janoski showed a video tape that aired on the Christian Broadcasting Network about the case. The story, narrated by Dale Hurd, noted that Brown was said to have been killed in a 1996 plane crash in Croatia. But there were several irregularities in how his death was handled. Janoski, in photographing Brown's corpse, saw a round hole in the top of his head that three pathologists said looked like a .45 caliber bullet wound. Head X-rays showed what appeared to be bullet fragments inside the head.
Recommendations by three pathologists, including Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell, that an autopsy be made were ignored and the head X-rays were destroyed. Colonel Cogswell was given what amounted to a demotion through a transfer out of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. His career was ruined. Janoski, once the head of photography at the institute, was given 32 hours to clear out of her office and her staff was taken away. Her offense was having given copies of her photos of Brown's head and the destroyed head X-rays to journalist Chris Ruddy.
Reporter Hurd asked, "is Cogswell's and Janoski's punishment by the AFIP [Armed Forces Institute of Pathology] simply because they shined the light on shoddy work and embarrassed the Pentagon? Or is there something more? Hurd found that the AFIP was continuing to lie. In a statement, it claimed that extensive forensic tests were conducted on the body. Janoski said that was completely false.
In another anomaly, Hurd said that an Indian medicine bag given to Brown by his girlfriend Yolanda Hill as a good luck charm was removed from a diplomatic pouch and destroyed. There's no explanation for why this happened. Hurd said a Maryland private investigator had gotten his hands on a government document indicating that a top-secret investigation had been conducted into Brown's death. But there's no indication of what they found. One thing is certain: the crash was not due to bad weather. The Croatian ground controller who may have been responsible for diverting the plane into a mountain allegedly killed himself before he was questioned. The death takes on added significance because of the belief that Brown, one of Bill Clinton's close associates, was about to cooperate with an investigation of corruption in the Clinton Administration.
For her part, Kathleen Janoski said she was isolated, relieved of her duties, and left to sit at a desk with nothing to do. Her colleagues were afraid to be seen with her. She said her faith in the Navy and its integrity was badly shaken. The chain of command failed her. But she has no regrets and is proud of working with Chris Ruddy to bring the facts about this bungled death investigation to the public's attention.
Reed Irvine is the former Chairman of Accuracy In Media and Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report.
The picture of the x-ray purported to be Ron Brown shows about thirty small x-ray-opaque particles in the skull. Though it was claimed that this was a contamination of the x-ray cassette, all of the particles fall within the outlines of the skull. Quite a coincidence, I thought.
It occurs to me that a person with a good frontal picture of Ron Brown's face could match the features in the x-ray with those of Brown in order to further authenticate the picture of the x-ray. Has this been done?
OK. That did it. I'm convinced.
Janoski and Cogswell were ultimately drummed out of the military, along with two other forensics specialists. The accuracy of the x-ray photographs and head photos were never disputed. Janoski was also threatened with the death penalty. Cogswell was even harassed to the point of being in trouble for speeding in a parking lot.
We need a few Joseph Farahs in the world, even if some breaking news may be as unreliable as Dan Rather at times. At least WND will be more quick to retract if it is wrong.
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