Friday 19 September 2014

The Zionist-WASP Split of 1991 - The Coup


"We were not surprised" - John Major

"I think Boris Yeltsin is the West's man" - Dave Emory, 1991

" Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin... was a controversial ruler to whom the Russian people owe a debt of gratitude. 

The U.S. will remember Boris Yeltsin as someone who, despite his limitations, meant well and worked to bring his country back to the family of nations, to freedom and humanity, which have been so often lacking in Russia's tortured history. " 
Ariel Cohen PhD., 
- The Heritage Foundation





MOSCOW — Here is Vice President Gennady I. Yanayev's statement announcing to world leaders that he had taken over the Soviet presidency from Mikhail S. Gorbachev:

At the instruction of the Soviet leadership, I hereby notify that a state of emergency is introduced in individual localities of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for a period of six months from Aug. 19, 1991, in keeping with the constitution and laws of the U.S.S.R.

All power in the country is transferred for this period to the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the U.S.S.R.

The measures that are being adopted are temporary. They in no way mean renunciation of the course towards profound reforms in all spheres of life of the state and society.

These are forced measures, dictated by the vital need to save the economy from ruin and the country from hunger, to prevent the escalation of the threat of a large-scale civil conflict with unpredictable consequences for the peoples of the U.S.S.R. and the entire international community.

The most important objective of the state of emergency is to secure conditions that would guarantee each citizen personal safety and the safety of his or her property.

It is envisaged to liquidate anti-constitutional, ungovernable and essentially criminal military formations spreading moral and physical terror in several regions of the U.S.S.R. and serving as a catalyst for disintegration processes.

The entire range of measures adopted is directed at the earliest stabilization of the situation in the U.S.S.R., the normalization of socioeconomic life, the implementation of necessary transformations and the creation of conditions for the country's all-round development.

Any other way would lead to enhanced confrontation and violence, to the innumerable sufferings of our peoples and the creation of a dangerous focus of tension from the viewpoint of international security.

The temporary emergency measures in no mean affect international commitments assumed by the Soviet Union under existing treaties and agreements.

The U.S.S.R. is prepared to develop further its relations with all states on the basis of universally recognized principles of good neighborliness, equality, mutual benefit and non-interference in internal affairs of each other.

We are convinced that our current difficulties are transitory in character and the Soviet Union's contribution to preserving peace and consolidating international security will remain substantial.

The leadership of the U.S.S.R. hopes that the temporary emergency measures will find proper understanding on the part of the peoples and governments and the United Nations organization.







In preparation for their war against Communism, and in the years leading up to the failed – or faux – coup of August 1991 which initiated the last days of Gorbachev and the rise of Yeltsin, Bush and a cadre of rogue KGB officials built a complex international network of banks and holding companies that would be used to takeover ownership of the Soviet economy. Over 300 of these KGB traitors who supported this operation would later be re-located to the US in the early 1990s and pensioned. [111] Periodic CIA reports to Congress would review KGB and organized crime complicity in the takeover of Russia by criminal elements, but all mention of the formidable role of the U.S. would be expunged from Congressional oversight and the public record. [112]

In the first phase of the economic attack on the Soviet Union, George Bush authorized Leo Wanta and others to destabilize the ruble and facilitate the theft of the Soviet/Russian treasury. This would result in draining the Russian treasury of between 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes of gold bullion, ($35 billion at the time). [113] This step would be critical to prevent a monetary defense of the ruble and destabilize the currency. The gold was ‘stolen’ in March of 1991, facilitated by Leo Wanta and signed off by Boris Yeltsin’s right hand man. The majority of the leaked reports from the CIA and FBI suggest the theft of the Russian treasury was a KGB and Communist party operation, but what those reports omitted was the extensive involvement of Boris Yeltsin, the U.S. CIA and the U.S. banking industry.

A key player on the Soviet side of this theft with Wanta was Gregori (a.k.a. Georgy, Georgii) Matyukhin, former KGB official who had been made the first Chairman of the Central Bank, and after the collapse of the economy, was made to resign “for health reasons”. [114] In fact, it was Matyukhin who authorized large capital transfers to Chechnya, the source of the Chechen ‘advice notes’ that Kozlov attributed to as the source of the theft of the Soviet Treasury.

“It all began in the summer of 1991 when Ruslan Khasbulatov, First Deputy of Boris Yeltsin who was then Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, decided to help his fellow countrymen and instructed head of the Central Bank of the RSFSR Grigory Matyukhin to provide peasant farms in Chechnya with credits…. after the fulfilment of Khasbulatov's assignment, the tiny republic became the largest issuer in the RSFSR. The share of the incomes of the population paid through money printing exceeded 40% (17% on average across the country). The cash sums received by co-operatives in banks exceeded the cash which they returned by 50 times, which was also far above the level of other territories.” [115]

Later, it was discovered that Matyukhin was actually working for the CIA. [116] In the second phase, Wanta, George Soros and a group of Bush appointees would begin to destabilize the ruble. There were two major operations: the largest was coordinated by Alan Greenspan, Oliver North, and implemented by Leo Wanta. They are accused of fronting $240 billion in covert securities to support the various aspects of this plan. [117] These bonds were created (in part or in whole) from a secretive Durham Trust, managed by ex- OSS/CIA officer, Colonel Russell Hermann. This war chest had been created with the Marcos gold and possibly augmented by illegal inverted yield curve gains on the collateral held by the U.S. during the global debt resettlement on 1989. [118]

The coup would be the third phase. The KGB was well aware of President Bush’s eagerness to see a collapse of Gorbachev. Many who observed the coup described it as faux coup, which was never intended to succeed Yeltsin himself writes in his memoirs that the coup was actually a veiled, pro-Yeltsin coup. [119] The generals who conducted the coup said the same. [120]

The 1991 coup against Gorbachev was engineered by KGB General Vladimir Kruchkov [121] who reported to General Victor Cherbrikov. Both of these men were business partners with Robert Maxwell, a British financial mogul, a documented Israeli secret service agent, and a representative of U.S. intelligence interests. Maxwell assisted Cherbrikov in selling military weaponry to Iran and the Nicaraguan Contras during the course of the Iran Contra deals, and made hundreds of millions of dollars available to Cherbrikov’s Russian banks. [122] 



Shortly before the attempted coup of 1991, Maxwell met with KGB General Vladimir Kruchkov on Maxwell’s private yacht. [123] A year earlier, it had been Maxwell that initiated the dialogue about a coup with Kruchkov. [124] 

In the same month as the coup, Maxwell was in Russia and received $780 million dollars from the CIA via the Israelis to pass on to General Kruchkov. [125] Maxwell’s chief U.S. connection was Senator John Tower, who was long time confidante of George H.W. Bush and participant in the October Surprise. 


After his Senatorial career, Tower actually worked for Maxwell on the Board of one of Maxwell’s smaller publishing firms - Pergamon-Brassey. In this operation, Maxwell was supported by a former four star general, a retired U.S. Air Force General and a retired British Major General.[126] 

It was Tower who released a statement exonerating Bush from involvement in the October Surprise before the Tower Commission had interviewed even a third of the scheduled witnesses. This statement is now seen as all the more brazen in that the commission was provided with eye-witness testimony from two individuals who said they saw Bush at the meeting, as well as being provide a list of 16 more witnesses and a video-tape. [127] [128] 

Tower had arranged for the Israeli government to provide a $1 billion dollar loan to Maxwell in 1988, [129] and given the generosity of U.S. financial aid to Israel, it might be fair to argue this was a pass-through loan. [130] 



Tower had introduced Maxwell to George Bush in 1976, for the sole purpose of using Maxwell as an intermediary between Bush and the Soviet Intelligence. [131] Shortly after the coup, Maxwell died mysteriously on his yacht after attempting to blackmail the U.S. and Israeli intelligence operations. It is widely rumored that he was assassinated by either CIA or Mossad agents in lieu of them delivering his expected blackmail payment. Maxwell’s link back to George Bush died just as mysteriously. 



Senator Tower died in a plane crash and under suspicious circumstance in April of 1991. Maxwell’s wife was advised by a CIA agent to discourage any investigation into her husband’s death if she valued her life. [132] The audio tapes he kept of his phone calls with Kruchkov disappeared. [133]

The coup was presented by the media as the haphazard, poorly organized effort of dissident hard-liners, suggesting a group of senior, hardened military officials got drunk, and in a moment of absent-mindedness, decided to overthrow the government.

“The accounts reportedly given by the three imprisoned plotters suggest that their coup was haphazardly planned. Mr. Pavlov, for example, said the plotters simply hoped that the Supreme Soviet would approve their action and that afterward "things would be worked out." Mr. Yazov said that at a key meeting on Aug 18 at which the coup was planned, he, Mr. Kryuchkov and a third plotter, Boris K. Pugo, former Interior Minister, who later committed suicide, were all drunk. Mr. Pavlov told his interrogators that he also consumed "quite a decent amount of alcohol" at that meeting. “ [134]

It was widely reported that three of the nine primary conspirators committed suicide after the failed effort. What was rarely mentioned was that two of these senior veterans were thrown out of windows, and a third – Boris Pugo, shot himself in the head three times.

“What's the hardest way to kill yourself? Three bullets to the head certainly ranks. According to Moscow police sources, that was the actual cause of death for coup conspirator Boris Pugo, the Soviet Interior Minister who was officially described as having "committed suicide" when the August putsch fizzled. As for two other top Communist officials reported to have killed themselves by leaping from windows, sources say they probably were pushed in order to silence them. They apparently knew too much about the smuggling of Communist wealth out of the country as the party collapsed.” [135]

The only individual officially linked to the death of Boris Pugo was Viktor Erin, the KGB officer personally involved in the ‘arrest’ of Boris Pugo [136] Erin would later become a General Director for Bank Menatep, and be accused of loan fraud and theft, as part of Putin’s crackdown on the Yeltsin gang. [137] Rather than being a coup about ‘policy and honor,’ like so many events linked to Project Hammer, the coup was all about the money. The CIA was moving hundreds of millions of dollars to the Generals before the coup through Robert Maxwell. [138] The people who could best explain the transactions were apparently murdered. The group responsible for the murders are then later linked via Bank Menatep to the financial groups that funded the coup. As for the other traitors in the coup, they were all released from prison two years later by Yeltsin. [139]

The coup actually seems to have been a long time in the making, with Yeltsin having discussed the coup with Bush during his visit to the United States in June of 1991. [140] That same summer, Yeltsin dined ‘discretely’ with the Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, Gerald Corrigan, while the rest of the Moscow mission dined with Gorbachev. [141] The discussions prompted by Maxwell with Kruchkov regarding Kruchkov’s interest in a coup are dated to the summer of 1990. [142]

The coup began the dissolution of the Soviet Union [143] and the beginning of the reign of Boris Yeltsin and his ‘family’ of Russian Mafiya Oligarchs, and President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. At that point, the two out of three votes required to dissolve the Soviet Union were in the pocket of President George H.W. Bush, those being the votes of Yeltsin and Nazarbayev.

In the final phase, a series of operatives assigned by President George H.W. Bush would begin the takeover of prized Russian and CIS industrial assets in oil, metals and defense. This was done by financing and managing the money-laundering for the Russian oligarchs through the Bank of New York, AEB and Riggs Bank. All of them, notably Blackstone Investment, would be out to line their own pockets. [144] Blackstone would ultimately turn out to be the investor behind Larry Silverman’s purchase of Building 7 of the WTC six weeks before the September 11 attack. [145] By controlling financial interest in the loss of the WTC, this group could quiet any investment community demand for investigations into the criminals behind the WTC attack.

A closer look at other activities leading up to these phases makes it clear that is was a U.S. orchestrated intelligence effort from the beginning. The economic war also involved Gerald Corrigan of the NY Federal Reserve Bank, George Soros, an international currency speculator who was responsible for crashing the British pound a few years earlier, former Ambassador to Germany R. Mark Palmer, and Ronald Lauder- financier and heir to the Este Lauder estate. Palmer and Lauder would lead a group of American investors in an Operation called the Central European Development Corporation, and combine forces with George Soros and the NM Rothschild Continuation Trust. [146] This group ending up controlling Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant, while the Riggs group ended up controlling Yukos, the oil giant. Ownership for both remains largely ‘hidden’ today, and its front men enduring the hardships of the Russian wrath by spending time in prison.

In 1988, Riggs Bank, under the direction of Jonathon Bush and J Carter Beese, would purchase controlling interest in a Swiss company named Valmet. Stephen Curtis, a lawyer from Dubai, controlled Valmet. Curtis died in a helicopter crash in 2005, shortly after telling a friend that if he died in the near future, it would not be an accident.[147] In early 1989, the new subsidiary of Riggs called Riggs-Valmet would initiate contact with a group of KGB officers and their front-men to start setting up an international network for moving money out of the former Soviet block countries. [148] In 1989, Jonathon Bush as an ‘official’ representative of his brother, would tour Eastern Europe and the Ukraine. In November 1989 George H.W. Bush appears to have arranged for Alton G. Keel Jr, a former National Security Agency Director and a minor player in the Iran-Contra scandal, to go to work at Riggs Bank, where Jonathon Bush – George’s brother was an executive Vice President. Keel would head up the International Banking Group. [149] This bank would later be used to funnel money to mujahedin terrorists in Bosnia by Richard Perle, [150] but for now, its target was to become the controlling owner of a small Swiss bank operation known as Valmet. The Riggs-Valmet operation, as it became known, would become the ‘consultants’ to the World Bank and to several KGB front operations run by future Russian oligarchs Khordokovsky, Konanykhine, Berezovsky and Abromovich. The Riggs-Valmet agents would advise the top four oligarchs in how to construct their vast money laundering schemes, and would provide guidance to western investors by touring Russian oil and gas operations to provide guidance on investing. [151] These soon to be Russian oligarchs had been set-up as front men by KGB Generals Aleksey (a.k.a. Alexei) Kondaurov; and Fillipp (a.k.a. Phillip) Bobkov, who would also sponsor Anton Surikov, also reported as an agent for Western Intelligence. [152] Both Kondaurov and Bobkov previously reported to Victor Cherbrikov, who worked with Robert Maxwell. Both Bobkov and Kruchkov (the August coup leader) were ideologically aligned [153], and worked together on structuring the Communist Parties economic activities starting in October 1990. [154] Kondaurov and Alexandre Konanykhine would bring a here-to-fore unknown politician and construction foreman named Boris Yeltsin from the hinterlands of Russia to the forefront of Russian politics through generous campaign financing, providing 50% of Yeltsin’s campaign funding. In the meantime, Riggs Bank was quickly solidifying banking relations with a couple more of the old Iran-Contra scandal participants: Swiss bankers Bruce Rappaport, and Alfred Hartmann. It is through this group that George Soros was engaged, who then opened a second front assault on the ruble. Rappaport and Hartmann would also extend their operations network to include of the Bank of New York, and from Israel, The Eisenberg Group. It is at this stage of the operation that three more groups would be brought into the plan by Rappaport and Hartmann: The Russian Mafiya, the Israeli Mossad, and the Rothschild family interests represented by Jacob Rothschild.

Soros and Rapport would ensure that the Rothschild financial interests would be the silent backers for a number of the undisclosed deals. By example, ten years later when Vladimir Putin sent Khordokovsky to prison for money laundering and tax evasion, Khordokovsky would identify Jacob Rothschild as his major silent partner, and ‘sign over’ his shares in the oil giant Yukos to Rothschild before he went to prison. [155] The Rothschild interests would also been seen on the board of directors of Barrick Gold, which may have been used to launder Russian and Philippines treasury gold, and later on the Board of the mercenary operation Diligence whose Russian arm would be a Russian mercenary operation known as Farwest Ltd. [156] Farwest was controlled by Anton Surikov, another ex KGB/CIA agent sponsored by Bobkov and Kondaurov.

Rappaport would also introduce an American gentleman named “Bob Klein” to the Russians and his Bank of New York partners. Klein worked with the operation for several years, and when the Feds began its inquiries into the Bank of New York money-laundering scandal in the late 1990s, no one could prove Bob Klein ever existed, and he simply vanished. [157] No one ever thought to suggest that the presence of this “spook” indicated this was an intelligence operation from the very beginning.

In the fourth phase of the secret war, the Enterprise worked on several fronts to take over key energy industries. On the Caspian front of this economic war, James Giffen was sent to Kazakhstan to work with President Nazarbayev in various legal and illegal efforts to gain control of what was estimated to be the world’s largest untapped oil reserves -Kazak oil in the Caspian. Despite much testimony to the contrary, the U.S. government would deny that Giffen was working on its behalf. [158]Giffen would later be tried in the U.S. for money laundering and corrupt practices. Giffen was convicted but apparently never sentenced. This is a common technique used by the U.S. Department of Justice where the silence of the convicted party is required. The illegal flow of money from the various oil companies would reach a number of banks. These same oil interests would engage March Rich and the Israeli Eisenberg Group, owned by one of the Mossad’s key operatives, Shaul Eisenberg, to move the oil. (The Eisenberg Group would at some point own almost 50% of Zim Shipping, which mysteriously and inexplicably moved out of the World Trade Center a few weeks before the September 11, attacks.)

Meanwhile, across the Caspian Sea, Bush had assigned a wide array of former Iran-Contra operatives to take a role in Azerbaijan, with the thought of

  1. disrupting the flow of oil to Russia,
  2. creating an opportunity to build a pipeline from the Caspian to the Black Sea, and
  3. taking over rights to oil plots on the western shelf of the Caspian.

Initially, he sent in the covert operatives Richard Armitage and Richard Secord who worked with their old colleague from the Mossad, David Kimche, and their old arms running colleagues Adnan Kashoggi and Farhad Azima to hire, transport, and train several thousand Al Qaeda mercenaries to fight on behalf of the Azeri freedom fighters! [159]Osama Bin Laden was reported to have been part of this mercenary force set up Armitage and Secord. [160] Osama Bin Laden had been retained by the CIA to recruit Afghan mercenaries starting in 1979. [161] The recruiting role would later be transferred from Bin Laden to a company called the Allied Media Corp. [162] Coincidentally, the Allied Media Corp. would be linked through the Moroccan American Chamber of Commerce to Hassan Erroudani, a Florida business partner of Mohammed Atta, the agent reportedly responsible for the September 11th attacks. In a second wave of the Azeri operation, Bush would support the creation of the US Azerbaijan-American Chamber of Commerce and its Advisory Board which included Dick Cheney, Richard Armitage, Richard Perle and Karl Mattison of the Riggs Bank. [163]

Those were the major operations launched to collapse the Soviet economy and take over it’s key assets. These operations were assisted by a range of allies of the Bush strategy, and traitors to the Soviet Union. As the Soviet Union collapsed, they would line their own pockets, and those of their western backers. On the Soviet – Russian side of these activities, the record shows that the early oligarchs were sponsored and protected by two KGB Generals:

  • Generals Aleksey (a.k.a. Alexei) Kondaurov;
  • Fillipp (a.k.a. Phillip) Bobkov.

These generals, in turn, would be sponsors for the Yeltsin family oligarchs and indirectly accused of arranging for Muslim terrorist activities to enhance the political future of the Yeltsin family. [164] The individual sponsored by them to coordinate private military activities was Anton Surikov.” He would be a founder of the Russian private military group named Farwest Ltd. Farwest was an ex-KGB/Russian military operation which would be reported to be used by the Yeltsin family to hire phony “Muslim terrorists” for the purpose of enhancing the Yeltsin family control on the Russian economy. Members of Far West would be reported by French and US agencies to have dealings with Shamil Basayev, who was trained at CIA funded camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[165] Besides his connections to Afghanistan, Basayev was an associate of the Al Qaeda operative Abu Hafs. [166] According to local reports, Abu Hafs was allowed to escape by American forces, and according to one report, was actually captured and released by American forces in Georgia. [167]


Basayev would be reported to be paid by Far West to wage Muslim attacks on Russian civilians. [168]Adnan Khashoggi was reported to be the intermediary for that arrangement, with the meeting taking place at his villa on the Mediterranean. Farwest is financially linked to Alexei Kondaurov and Khordokovsky through The Institute of Globalization Studies (IPROG) for which Surikov works. Far West has received clearance from the CIA to work for Halliburton and Diligence. [169]

Diligence and its sister company New Bridge would demonstrate the Western political and financial muscle working with the Yeltsin family. Its key members would include:

These men, with Halliburton, would become the employers of Far West . In doing so, they would demonstrate their willingness to hire and retain political terrorists. Ultimately the Bush organization partnership with Farwest demonstrates:

  • that Adnan Khashoggi, a key participant in multiple aspects of the 9/11 motive and planning, clearly had no hesitation to facilitate operations which result in political terror and mass murder, and a documented track record of doing just that!
  • that the Bush family financial apparatus, including Dick Cheney, conducts on-going business with an organization (Farwest) that arranges contract political terror using Muslim terrorists with the same background as Al Qaeda, and is a major drug conduit!
  • that the Russian/Israeli Mafiya family (the Yeltsin Family in particular) that has reaped billions of dollars from Bush largesse since 1991 uses the same political terrorist professionals as the Bush led intelligence operations!
  • that the Bush apparatus belli had other channels besides Armitage and Secord to hire Al Qaeda trained mercenaries!


Chernobyl AIDS

According to EuroNews today, 5% of teenage prostitutes in Western Ukraine generally test anti-body positive to HIV and a quarter of 14-15 year old girls in Odessa today are selling themselves on the streets (in part, often as the only means by which they may gain access to medical services).

This first part is not true.

In 1990, the Belorussians, Ukrainians and Russian Doctors developed the term or diagnosis of "Chernobyl AIDS" - the children growing up in the zone of fall-out or in proximity to the Dead Zone, their immune systems would suddenly spontaneously collapse, and many would develop AIDS Complex infections and many would die.

It's not the virus, it's the radiation.



They were also saying, in 1990, "Multivitamins are VERY important - to rebuild the immune system".

The Russians know what time it is.

The Zionist-WASP Split of 1991 - The Highways of Death

"Put some Hate in your hearts" - Orders Issued on the Flight Deck to US Navy Aviators upon launch
Two Iraqi T-54/55 tanks lie abandoned near Kuwait City on February 26, 1991

Note - if this is February 26th, and it's still daylight - this is NOT an image of the Highways of Death.

The carnage only began well after nightfall, since the Iraqi column set out from Kuwait City around midnight, and was only attacked following departure - an attack which then lasted for two continuous days.

An Iraqi T-54, T-55 or Type 59 and T-55A lie abandoned on the Basra-Kuwait Highway near Kuwait City after the release of Iraqi forces from the city during Operation Desert Storm.

I quote The Enemy:

"During the United Nations coalition offensive in the Persian Gulf War, American and Canadian aircraft and ground forces attacked retreating Iraqi military personnel and others attempting to leave Kuwait on the night of February 26–27, 1991, resulting in the destruction of hundreds of vehicles and the deaths of many of their occupants. U.S. attacks against the Iraqi columns were actually conducted on two different roads. 

Between 1,400 and 2,000 vehicles were hit or abandoned on the main Highway 80 north of Al Jahra (the "actual" Highway of Death). Several hundred more littered the lesser known Highway 8 to the major southern Iraq military stronghold of Basra.

Iraqi forces including the elite Iraqi Republican Guard's 1st Armored Division Hammurabi were trying to either redeploy or escape on and near Highway 8 east of Highway 80.

They were engaged over a much larger area in smaller groups by U.S. artillery units and a battalion of AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships operating under the command of General Barry McCaffrey. Hundreds of predominantly military Iraqi vehicles grouped in defensive formations of approximately a dozen vehicles were then systematically destroyed along a 50-mile stretch of the highway and nearby desert.

This engagement was not publicly known until almost two weeks later and remains relatively obscure; although most of the graphic images of scorched corpses considered among the iconic images of the war, and attributed to the Highway of Death, were actually taken on Highway 8 rather than Highway 80.

The PDA estimated the number killed there to be in the range of 300-400 or more, bringing the likely total number of fatalities along both highways to at least 800 or 1,000.

A large column composed of remnants of the Hammurabi Division attempting to withdraw to safety in Baghdad were also engaged and obliterated deep inside Iraqi territory by Gen. McCaffrey's forces a few days later on March 2 in a controversial post-war "turkey shoot"-style incident known as Battle of Rumaila.


" Postwar studies found that most of the wrecks on the Basra roadway had been abandoned by Iraqis before being strafed and that actual enemy casualties were low. Further, opinion surveys showed that American support for the war was largely unaffected by the images. (Arab and Muslim public opinion was, of course, another matter, about which Powell may have been rightly concerned.) "

This is a LIE.

This is Highway 8:



And this is Highway 80:


Demolished vehicles line Highway 80, also known as the "Highway of Death", the route fleeing Iraqi forces took as they retreated fom Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. The tank visible in the center of the picture is either a Type 59 or a Type 69 as evidenced by the dome-shaped ventilator on the top of the turret and the headlamps on the right fender.


"The first reason why we bombed the highway coming north out of Kuwait is because there was a great deal of military equipment on that highway, 

This is a LIE - look at the picture, there is ONE tank in the convoy.


98 % of the Highway 80 convoy were "Kuwaiti civilian vehicles filled with loot". And also people. Mostly teenaged Iraqi Conscripts.

Only 2% of the vehicles on Highway 80 counted afterwards were found to be Iraqi military equipment.

and I had given orders to all my commanders that I wanted every piece of Iraqi equipment that we possibly could destroy. 

And certainly all the teenaged Iraqi Conscripts.

Secondly, this was not a bunch of innocent people just trying to make their way back across the border to Iraq. 

This is a LIE.

This was a bunch of rapists, murderers and thugs who had raped and pillaged downtown Kuwait City and now were trying to get out of the country before they were caught."

This is a LIE. They were running for their lives 



"I want to give testimony on what are called the "highways of death." These are the two Kuwaiti roadways, littered with remains of 2,000 mangled Iraqi military vehicles, and the charred and dismembered bodies of tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, who were withdrawing from Kuwait on February 26th and 27th 1991 in compliance with UN resolutions. [...] 

This one-sided carnage, this racist mass murder of Arab people, occurred while White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater promised that the U.S. and its coalition partners would not attack Iraqi forces leaving Kuwait. [...] 

How did it really happen? On February 26, 1991 Iraq had announced it was complying with the Soviet proposal, and its troops would withdraw from Kuwait. 

According to Kuwaiti eyewitnesses, quoted in the March 11, 1991 Washington Post, the withdrawal began on the two highways, and was in full swing by evening. Near midnight, the first U.S. bombing started. Hundreds of Iraqis jumped from their cars and their trucks, looking for shelter. 

U.S. pilots took whatever bombs happened to be close to the flight deck, from cluster bombs to 500 pound bombs. 

Can you imagine that on a car or truck? U.S. forces continued to drop bombs on the convoys until all humans were killed. So many jets swarmed over the inland road that it created an aerial traffic jam, and combat air controllers feared midair collisions."

The Suicidal Nationalism of Ukraine


Full text of President George H.W. Bush's speech, later dubbed the "Chicken Kiev speech" by commentator William Safire, to a session of the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine, 1 August 1991.

This speech was authored by Condileeza Rice.

Well, first, thank all of you for that warm welcome. And may I take this opportunity to thank all people of Ukraine that gave us such a warm welcome, such a heartfelt greeting. Every American in that long motorcade -- and believe me, it was long -- was moved and touched by the warmth of the welcome of Ukraine. We'll never forget it.

Chairman Kravchuk, thank you, sir. And to the Deputies of the Soviet, Supreme Soviet, may I salute you. Members of the clergy that are here, members of the diplomatic corps, representatives of American pharmaceutical and health care corporations who I understand are with us today, and distinguished guests all. Barbara and I are delighted to be here -- very, very happy. We have only one regret, and that is that I've got to get home on Thursday night -- I can still make it. And the reason is, our Congress goes out tomorrow, finishes their session they're in now, and I felt it was important to be there on that last day of the final session.

This beautiful city brings to mind the words of the poet Alexander Dovzhenko: "The city of Kiev is an orchard. Kiev is a poet. Kiev is an epic. Kiev is history. Kiev is art."

Centuries ago, your forebears named this country Ukraine, or "frontier," because your steppes link Europe and Asia. But Ukrainians have become frontiersmen of another sort. Today you explore the frontiers and contours of liberty.



Though my stay here is, as I said, far too short, I have come here to talk with you and to learn. For those who love freedom, every experiment in building an open society offers new lessons and insights. You face an especially daunting task. For years, people in this nation felt powerless, overshadowed by a vast government apparatus, cramped by forces that attempted to control every aspect of their lives.

Today, your people probe the promises of freedom. In cities and Republics, on farms, in business, around university campuses, you debate the fundamental questions of liberty, self-rule, and free enterprise. Americans, you see, have a deep commitment to these values. We follow your progress with a sense of fascination, excitement, and hope. This alone is historic. In the past, our nations engaged in duels of eloquent bluff and bravado. Now, the fireworks of superpower confrontation are giving way to the quieter and far more hopeful art of cooperation.

I come here to tell you: We support the struggle in this great country for democracy and economic reform. And I would like to talk to you today about how the United States views this complex and exciting period in your history, how we intend to relate to the Soviet central Government and the Republican governments.



In Moscow, I outlined our approach: We will support those in the center and the Republics who pursue freedom, democracy, and economic liberty. We will determine our support not on the basis of personalities but on the basis of principles. We cannot tell you how to reform your society. We will not try to pick winners and losers in political competitions between Republics or between Republics and the center. That is your business; that's not the business of the United States of America.

Do not doubt our real commitment, however, to reform. But do not think we can presume to solve your problems for you. Theodore Roosevelt, one of our great Presidents, once wrote: To be patronized is as offensive as to be insulted. No one of us cares permanently to have someone else conscientiously striving to do him good; what we want is to work with that someone else for the good of both of us. That's what our former President said. We will work for the good of both of us, which means that we will not meddle in your internal affairs.

Some people have urged the United States to choose between supporting President Gorbachev and supporting independence-minded leaders throughout the U.S.S.R. I consider this a false choice. In fairness, President Gorbachev has achieved astonishing things, and his policies of glasnost, perestroika, and democratization point toward the goals of freedom, democracy, and economic liberty.

We will maintain the strongest possible relationship with the Soviet Government of President Gorbachev. But we also appreciate the new realities of life in the U.S.S.R. And therefore, as a federation ourselves, we want good relations -- improved relations -- with the Republics. So, let me build upon my comments in Moscow by describing in more detail what Americans mean when we talk about freedom, democracy, and economic liberty.

No terms have been abused more regularly, nor more cynically than these. Throughout this century despots have masqueraded as democrats, jailers have posed as liberators. We can restore faith to government only by restoring meaning to these concepts.

I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing, but let's begin with the broad term "freedom." When Americans talk of freedom, we refer to people's abilities to live without fear of government intrusion, without fear of harassment by their fellow citizens, without restricting other's freedoms. We do not consider freedom a privilege, to be doled out only to those who hold proper political views or belong to certain groups. We consider it an inalienable individual right, bestowed upon all men and women. Lord Acton once observed: The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.

Freedom requires tolerance, a concept embedded in openness, in glasnost, and in our first amendment protections for the freedoms of speech, association, and religion -- all religions.



Tolerance nourishes hope. A priest wrote of glasnost: Today, more than ever the words of Paul the Apostle, spoken, 2,000 years ago, ring out: They counted as among the dead, but look, we are alive. In Ukraine, in Russia, in Armenia, and the Baltics, the spirit of liberty thrives.

But freedom cannot survive if we let despots flourish or permit seemingly minor restrictions to multiply until they form chains, until they form shackles. Later today, I'll visit the monument at Babi Yar -- a somber reminder, a solemn reminder, of what happens when people fail to hold back the horrible tide of intolerance and tyranny.

Yet freedom is not the same as independence. Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local depotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.

We will support those who want to build democracy. By democracy, we mean a system of government in which people may vie openly for the hearts -- and yes, the votes -- of the public. We mean a system of government that derives its just power from the consent of the governed, that retains its legitimacy by controlling its appetite for power. For years, you had elections with ballots, but you did not enjoy democracy. And now, democracy has begun to set firm roots in Soviet soil.



The key to its success lies in understanding government's proper role and its limits. Democracy is not a technical process driven by dry statistics. It is the very human enterprise of preserving freedom, so that we can do the important things, the really important things: raise families, explore our own creativity, build good and fruitful lives.

In modern societies, freedom and democracy rely on economic liberty. A free economy is nothing more than a system of communication. It simply cannot function without individual rights or a profit motive, which give people an incentive to go to work, an incentive to produce.

And it certainly cannot function without the rule of law, without fair and enforceable contracts, without laws that protect property rights and punish fraud.

Free economies depend upon the freedom of expression, the ability of people to exchange ideas and test out new theories. The Soviet Union weakened itself for years by restricting the flow of information, by outlawing devices crucial to modern communications, such as computers and copying machines. And when you restricted free movement -- even tourist travel -- you prevented your own people from making the most of their talent. You cannot innovate if you cannot communicate.

And finally, a free economy demands engagement in the economic mainstream. Adam Smith noted two centuries ago, trade enriches all who engage in it. Isolation and protectionism doom its practitioners to degradation and want.

I note this today because some Soviet cities, regions, and even Republics have engaged in ruinous trade wars. The Republics of this nation have extensive bonds of trade, which no one can repeal with the stroke of a pen or the passage of a law. The vast majority of trade conducted by Soviet companies -- imports and exports -- involves, as you know better than I, trade between Republics. The nine-plus-one agreement holds forth the hope that Republics will combine greater autonomy with greater voluntary interaction -- political, social, cultural, economic -- rather than pursuing the hopeless course of isolation.

And so, American investors and businessmen look forward to doing business in the Soviet Union, including the Ukraine. We've signed agreements this week that will encourage further interaction between the U.S. and all levels of the Soviet Union. But ultimately, our trade relations will depend upon our ability to develop a common language, a common language of commerce -- currencies that communicate with one another, laws that protect innovators and entrepreneurs, bonds of understanding and trust.



It should be obvious that the ties between our nations grow stronger every single day. I set forth a Presidential initiative that is providing badly needed medical aid to the Soviet Union. And this aid expresses Americans' solidarity with the Soviet peoples during a time of hardship and suffering. And it has supplied facilities in Kiev that are treating victims of Chernobyl. You should know that America's heart -- the hearts of all -- went out to the people here at the time of Chernobyl.

We have sent teams to help you improve upon the safety of Ukrainian nuclear plants and coal mines. We've also increased the number of cultural exchanges with the Republics, including more extensive legal, academic, and cultural exchanges between America and Ukraine.

We understand that you cannot reform your system overnight. America's first system of government -- the Continental Congress -- failed because the States were too suspicious of one another and the central government too weak to protect commerce and individual rights. In 200 years, we have learned that freedom, democracy, and economic liberty are more than terms of inspiration. They're more than words. They are challenges.



Your great poet Shevchenko noted: Only in your own house can you have your truth, your strength, and freedom. No society ever achieves perfect democracy, liberty, or enterprise; it if makes full use of its people's virtues and abilities, it can use these goals as guides to a better life.

And now, as Soviet citizens try to forge a new social compact, you have the obligation to restore power to citizens demoralized by decades of totalitarian rule. You have to give them hope, inspiration, determination -- by showing your faith in their abilities. Societies that don't trust themselves or their people cannot provide freedom. They can guarantee only the bleak tyranny of suspicion, avarice, and poverty.

An old Ukrainian proverb says: When you enter a great enterprise, free your soul from weakness. The peoples of the U.S.S.R. have entered a great enterprise, full of courage and vigor. I have come here today to say: We support those who explore the frontiers of freedom. We will join these reformers on the path to what we call -- appropriately call a new world order.

You're the leaders. You are the participants in the political process. And I go home to an active political process. So, if you saw me waving like mad from my limousine, it was in the thought that maybe some of those people along the line were people from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or Detroit where so many Ukrainian-Americans live, where so many Ukrainian-Americans are with me in the remarks I've made here today.

This has been a great experience for Barbara and me to be here. We salute you. We salute the changes that we see. I remember the French expression, vive la difference, and I see different churnings around this Chamber, and that is exactly the way it ought to be. One guy wants this and another one that. That's the way the process works when you're open and free -- competing with ideas to see who is going to emerge correct and who can do the most for the people in Ukraine.

And so, for us this has been a wonderful trip, albeit far too short. And may I simply say, may God bless the people of Ukraine. Thank you very, very much.


Halcion - SWEET DREAMS OR NIGHTMARE?

Halcion - It's the Most Widely Prescribed Sleeping Pill in the World.

But is it Safe?



SWEET DREAMS OR NIGHTMARE?

The most popular sleeping Pill in the world
faces a mounting challenge over its safety


When officer Reg Browne walked into the room, 83 year-old Mildred Coats was stretched out on her bed clutching a cheery birthday card in her left hand. Several towels had been placed gently around her head to absorb the blood spilling from eight gunshot wounds. Anticipating a heated domestic dispute, Browne had donned a bullet- proof vest before leaving the sheriff's office in Hurricane, Utah. But he didn't get a chance to use it. The old woman's daughter, 57- year-old Ilo Grundberg, was waiting calmly to hand him a written confession. "I didn't kill her because I didn't love her," Grundberg explained. "I love her very much."
Grundberg was arrested, charged with second-degree murder, jailed and then moved to a Salt Lake City mental hospital for psychiatric testing. But she never had to stand trial. After examining her, a pair of court-appointed psychiatrists testified that Grundberg had been involuntarily intoxicated when she killed her mother. Like more than 7 million other Americans, she had been taking the prescription drug Halcion to help her sleep. Though the drug is intended only for short-term use, her doctor had prescribed it for much of the preceding year, and she had grown increasingly agitated and paranoid while taking it. Because she had no clear motive for the murder and little memory of it, the experts concluded she hadn't acted voluntarily. Prosecutors responded by asking the court to dismiss the case. On Feb. 7, 1989, Ilo Grundberg went free.
Out of custody and off the drug, Grundberg got herself a lawyer. In a $21 million civil suit, she and her daughter, Janice Gray, charged that Halcion is a "defective drug" and that Upjohn, its Michigan based manufacturer, failed to warn regulators and the public of its "severe and sometimes fatal adverse reactions." The company responded that it was "in no way negligent" and that the murder was "in no way caused by the drug Halcion." But last week, on the eve of a trial that would have brought a long, public airing of Halcion's disputed safety record, Upjohn blinked. In a terse press statement, the company announced it had "reached a resolution" with Grundberg and that the "details of the resolution shall remain, confidential." The settlement spares the company what could have been a bruising battle with an unhappy customer. But it won't quiet the controversy surrounding the most widely prescribed sleeping pill in the world.
Sold in more than 90 countries, Halcion is Upjohn's second biggest money-maker (after the closely related tranquilizer Xanax). The drug is marketed under the name Somese in South America, Singapore and Malaya. It has annual sales of $250 million-$100 million in the United States alone. US pharmacists fill roughly a half million Halcion prescriptions every month. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared Halcion safe and effective in 1982, and many doctors and patients obviously like it. The question raised by the Grundberg case-one that sleep specialists have debated bitterly for more than a decade-is whether the drug is more dangerous than other drugs in the benzodiazepine family, a group that includes Valium and Xanax and such popular sleep aids as Dalmane and Restoril. Halcion's critics say there is no question it poses special hazards. They claim it is more likely than similar drugs to cause such nervous-system disturbances as amnesia, anxiety, delusions and hostility. And they charge that neither Upjohn nor the FDA has done enough to protect the pill-taking public. "This is a very dangerous drug," says Dr. Anthony Kales, head of psychiatry at the Penn State University medical school. "No other benzodiazepine has such a narrow margin of safety. The only justification for keeping it on the market is to ensure the company's profitability. From a public- health standpoint, there is no reason at all."
Upjohn, for its part, maintains that Halcion is no more likely than any other sleeping pill to cause adverse reactions. "I don't think that we view the side-effect profile of this product as being any different from other benzodiazepines," says pharmacologist Robert Straw, Upjohn's director of project management. "The vast majority of studies back us up on that point." Many sleep specialists who have studied and prescribed the drug share that view. "If used properly," says Dr. Thomas Roth, chief of the division of sleep-disorders medicine at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital, "this is a very, very safe hypnotic."
When the first benzodiazepines hit the market back in the early 1970s, they revolutionized the treatment of sleep disorders. These new agents were much less likely than the others then in use (the barbiturates) to cause death in overdose. But like the older drugs, they had a way of overstaying their welcome. People who took them at night were often too groggy to function efficiently, or drive safely, the next morning. The advent of Halcion seemed to solve that problem. Clinical trials showed that while it knocked people out in a hurry, it cleared the body so quickly that users experienced virtually no grogginess the next day. "Very reasonably, physicians jumped at the chance to have a benzodiazepine free of its major side effect," says Dr. Wallace Mendelson, director of the Sleep/Wake Study Program at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.
Belgium and Holland approved Halcion at doses of up to a full milligram in 1977, but the drug soon ran into trouble. Dr. Graham Dukes, a drug-policy expert who was then vice chairman of Holland's drug-regulatory agency, recalls that by early 1979 a handful of users had reported "peculiar psychiatric changes." In television appearances and letters to medical journals, one Dutch psychiatrist, Dr. C. van der Kroef, described seeing some of his own patients become depressed or chronically anxious while taking the drug. He also described instances of amnesia, hallucinations, paranoia and verbal and physical aggression.
In August 1979 Dutch authorities suspended the drug's license for six months to study the problem, and the reports kept mounting. By the end of the year Dutch doctors had reported 1,100 such reactions. In early 1980, the Dutch government reauthorized a quarter-milligram dose but permanently banned higher ones; Upjohn chose simply to leave the Dutch market (Halcion was reintroduced there last year). Researchers who had studied the drug rallied in support of the company. In a letter to the British medical journal Lancet, a dozen experts noted that in trials involving 5,000 Halcion recipients, "no symptom clustering similar to that described by van der Kroef was recorded." 
No FDA comment: During these years, Halcion was making its way through the government-approval process in the United States. No one at the Food and Drug Administration is now talking about Halcion for the record, but publicly available documents reveal a long history of concern about the drug. In 1980 Dr. Theresa Woo, the medical review officer handling Halcion's application, wrote a series of evaluations recommending against approval. Citing the Dutch experience and results from Upjohn's own trials, she concluded that Halcion had a narrower margin of safety than other benzodiazepines (healthy young men were unable to tolerate as little as two milligrams) and was "associated with a greater number of adverse effects." When Woo's superiors decided to approve the drug despite her concerns, she argued for limiting the dose to a quarter of a milligram. But she eventually backed down, admitting that the "evidence for efficacy" was based primarily on the higher dose. Upjohn got its license in November 1982, and in early 1983 the half-milligram dose hit the American market.

Since new drugs don't always reveal their full character in initial trials, the FDA maintains a system of "post-marketing surveillance." Doctors and drug companies file brief reports, describing adverse reactions to the drugs they prescribe or sell, and experts within the agency monitor the reports for signs of unforeseen hazards. The spontaneous-reporting system is by all accounts a crude instrument. Many adverse reactions never get reported to the FDA, and those that do aren't always caused by drugs. A drug's record can also be skewed by such factors as its manufacturer's reporting practices, the kinds of patients who happen to take it, even the amount of publicity it receives. For all their limitations, though, spontaneous reports provide a vital early-warning system.
Dr. Peter Mendelis, a researcher at the FDA, tracked Halcion's adverse-reaction reports during its first year on the US market, and he perceived a troublesome pattern. The nervous-system side effects reported for Halcion "appear to have a singular intensity," he wrote in an unpublished manuscript in early 1984. Americans were receiving only half the dose first approved in Holland. Yet their experiences- ranging from "purposeful activity without recall" to "personality changes," "inappropriate emotional expression" and "unaccustomed aggression" had a familiar ring.
Alerted to these findings, Dr. Paul Leber, head of the FDA's Division of Neuropharmacological Drug Products, requested a more extensive study. For the next few years FDA staffers Diane Wysowski and David Barash compared Halcion's adverse-reaction reports with the reports for two other benzodiazepines, Dalmane and Restoril. The differences were startling. In a 1987 report, Wysowski and Barash noted that during its first three years on the US market, Halcion had racked up 8 to 30 times as many adverse-reaction reports as Dalmane and Restoril combined, even though it was still less widely used than either of them. Knowing how fallible the spontaneous reporting system can be, Wysowski and Barash had searched their data for biases. They corrected for differences in the companies' reporting habits, and they tested the possibility that different types of patients were receiving the different drugs. But they found nothing that could account for the patterns they were seeing.
Halcion's high complaint rate wasn't unique to the United States. Alarmed by similar reporting, French and Italian regulators forced the half-milligram tablet from their market in the spring of 1987. A few months later, Upjohn voluntarily lowered the recommended starting dose from a half milligram to a quarter in the United States. Under pressure from the FDA, the company also acknowledged in a revised package insert that "bizarre or abnormal behaviour, agitation and hallucinations" might possibly be dose-related responses, not simply freak occurrences. By the summer of 1988, Germany had joined France and Italy in blocking the sale of the half-milligram tablet, and Upjohn had decided to stop producing it at all. The idea, says Upjohn pharmacologist Straw, was simply to "strengthen the concept of lowest effective dose."
The story might end there if a San Francisco novelist named Cindy Ehrlich had not received a prescription for Halcion in 1987. During the six months Ehrlich took the drug, she became depressed and anxious and ended up "convinced that the world was on the brink of nuclear war or invasion from space." In the fall of 1988, in a two- part article for California magazine, she told her story and went on to question the FDA's original approval of the drug. The piece prompted a flurry of publicity, plus yet another study of the adverse-reaction reports. At Leber's request, a team of FDA epidemiologists took another look at the spontaneous-reporting system. The number of Halcion users reporting severe nervous-system side effects was still going up, despite the lower recommended starting dose. So Leber convened an outside advisory committee to consider official action.
On Sept. 22, 1989, the FDA's Psychopharmacological Drugs Advisory Committee met outside Washington to hear the evidence. Dr. Charles Anello, the FDA official who'd overseen the latest review, explained that his team had examined six years' worth of reports on six different side effects: amnesia, anxiety, confusion, hostility, psychosis and seizures. Depending on the reaction, Halcion had generated 8 to 45 times as many reports as Restoril. Like Wysowski and Barash, Anello's team had searched for factors that might have skewed -the results-and like Wysowski and Barash, they had failed to find any. There was nothing about the patients, nothing about the circumstances in which the drugs were prescribed, nothing about the reporting practices of the manufacturers that could account for Halcion's higher rates.
New labelling: The committee agreed that Halcion should carry a stronger amnesia warning (the label now states that amnesia "may occur at a higher rate with Halcion than with other benzodiazepine hypnotics"). But after hearing several Upjohn representatives dismiss the value of spontaneous reports and deny knowledge of any corroborating clinical evidence, the members voted not to require any other special measures. "Given the limitations of the information we had," committee chairman Daniel Casey explained after the meeting, "we did not sense [Halcion] had a special problem with side effects."
Naturally, Upjohn officials felt vindicated. "You've got to rely on science," says Thomas Webber, the firm's marketing director for central-nervous-system products. "Anecdotal evidence doesn't cut it." Straw adds that the firm has "not documented" unusual behavioural reactions in its large clinical trials. That's true. But critics say the relevant studies were not designed to detect unusual problems. In 1984, for example, researchers analyzed results from 45 Upjohn trials and found that Halcion was no more likely than other treatments to cause "excessive adverse reactions." But the analysts counted only the first side effect reported by any given patient (which, even with Halcion, is usually a morning hangover). By using that approach, says Dr. Frank Ayd Jr., one of the experts who defended Halcion during the 1979 Dutch controversy, the study failed to detect reactions that have since been "well documented."
Aside from amnesia, the best-documented reactions are "rebound insomnia" and "rebound anxiety." Any sedative can leave a person feeling wired as it wears off and the body continues to fight it. But several controlled studies have found that Halcion causes harsher rebound reactions than slower-acting benzodiazepines. Dr. lan Oswald of Edinburgh University found in 1982 that while a benzodiazepine called loprazolam left patients less anxious than usual by day, Halcion left them more so, especially after more than a week's use. Since then, Kales and his colleague Dr. Edward Bixler have shown that Halcion causes more daytime anxiety than Doral (quazepam). Researchers in Wales have obtained similar results by comparing Halcion with a drug called chlormethiazole. And Oswald has advanced on his earlier study. After randomly assigning 120 patients to Halcion or the benzodiazepine lormetazepam, Oswald found that the Halcion takers "became more anxious on self ratings, were judged more often to have had a bad response by an observer, more often wrote down complaints of distress, and suffered weight loss."
Professor Ian OswaldDr. Ian Oswald found
that Halcion patients
became more anxious
than subjects on
other sleep
medications.
That doesn't make Halcion a bad drug; some people no doubt prefer a little nervousness to the heavy hangovers other sedatives can cause. But if patients don't expect some rebound anxiety, they may perceive it as their own problem and return to the medicine chest for relief. Cindy Ehrlich, the San Francisco novelist, recounts that after two weeks on Halcion, "my heart pounded and I was on the verge of tears much of the time. The slightest danger, such as having to make a left turn in traffic, put me in a sweat." Her therapist, having heard only the good news about Halcion, never considered taking her off the drug. Instead, she added a prescription for Xanax, Halcion's close chemical cousin.
Delusions and strange behaviour are less common problems than amnesia or anxiety. As a result, they're harder to study in controlled settings. No one has shown conclusively that Halcion users are more likely than people on other drugs to become paranoid or delirious or to wear overcoats in August. Upjohn may believe such reactions are flukes, no more likely with one benzodiazepine than another, but the company has never convincingly explained Halcion's remarkable ability to generate weird stories. The stories abound, not only in FDA surveillance reports but in the medical journals and in doctors' private conversations.
In one 1987 case report, Dr. John Patterson of Columbia, Mo., describes episodes of delirium, sleepwalking and amnesia in five elderly hospital patients who were receiving as little as an eighth- of-a-milligram dose. One man was "found attempting to perform somersaults in his room." Others wandered the wards or tried to flee the hospital in their pyjamas. None of them remembered their escapades in the morning. Dr. Philip Westbrook, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, thought his mother-in-law had Alzheimer's disease until he learned she was using Halcion and martinis to help her sleep. "She became extremely anxious and confused, and her husband gave her more Halcion during the day to help her," Westbrook recalls. "I thought for all the world she had a rapidly progressing dementia until I saw the pill bottles. We took her off it and she recovered beautifully."
It probably isn't a coincidence that so many of these anecdotes involve older people. Studies by Dr. David Greenblatt, a professor of pharmacology, psychiatry and medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, show that age has a lot to do with people's sensitivity to Halcion. In elderly patients, he reported recently, a given dose has roughly twice the effect it has on young adults. But Greenblatt sees no special risks to older patients as long as doctors prescribe the drug carefully.
If Halcion's role in bizarre behaviour is still mysterious, its role in violent outbursts is more so. Drug-induced violence has never been documented in controlled, clinical studies. But Ilo Grundberg isn't the first person to lash out while taking Halcion. Last year, when FDA analysts tallied the numbers of hostile acts reported in association with 329 different prescription drugs, Halcion ranked No. 1, followed by Xanax. In British Columbia a 63 year-old taxi driver with no history of mental illness ransacked a schoolhouse while taking Halcion. A San Diego man started setting fires. A woman in Virginia Beach, Va., shot her husband when he rebuffed her. And Ron Petty of Kalamazoo, Mich., a police officer with no criminal record, stabbed his wife in the heart, nearly killing her.
Night rage: Petty recalls taking two half-milligram Halcion tablets (twice the dose his doctor had prescribed) at about 11 p.m. on Feb. 24,1984. He also recalls getting in his car at about 2 a.m. and driving 30 miles to the Battle Creek apartment where Jennifer Petty Bradley, then his wife, was staying while they were separated. But he says he has no recollection of breaking down the door with a tire iron, finding her with another man and attacking her. Petty was convicted of assault with intent to commit murder and sentenced to n. After seeing a television magazine show in which Cincinnati pharmacologist Martin Scharf described Halcion's possible side effects, Petty grew more convinced that the drug had fueled his middle-of-the-night rage. He contacted Scharf, hired a lawyer, got a retrial and eventually won his freedom. He now works as an electrician.
Scharf, who has served as an expert witness in several such cases, has little doubt that the drug sometimes turns repressed anger into homicidal rage. Some users' actions are "completely unusual in contrast to their normal behaviour," he says. But Scharf's is a minority view. Most experts resist the notion that Halcion can steal a person's volition. "I do believe that benzodiazepines can be dangerous drugs," says University of Chicago psychiatry department chairman Dr. Stuart Yudofsky, a neuropsychiatrist who studies aggression. "They can affect memory. They can affect concentration. They can affect attention. They can affect mood. They can affect spatial perception and discrimination. But I don't believe that they cause people to murder other people." Far more people become violent on alcohol than on Halcion, Yudofsky says, but we don't excuse their behaviour and blame the distilleries. If we did, he says, "the implications would be unimaginable."
Upjohn's critics have assumed wrongly that the only acceptable risk is no risk at all. Halcion may pose dangers not found with other drugs. But for many people, it has clear advantages over its longer- acting relatives. And horror stories aside, it's far less dangerous than a barbiturate. "The general public is expecting a drug that doesn't cause any side effects," says Mark Mahowald, director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center at Hennepin County Medical Center and president-elect of the American Sleep Disorders Association. "If you take a medication, you are implicitly accepting a risk."
Still, the FDA has been slow to ensure that users really understand the drug's potential hazards. Nowhere does the label note that Halcion generates more adverse-reaction reports than any other benzodiazepine. Nowhere does it stipulate that the drug becomes largely ineffective after two weeks' use. The Public Citizen Health Research Group, a Washington-based consumer-interest organization, has petitioned the FDA to request those changes.
The question is whether doctors would even notice them. Many of Halcion's horror stories involve patients who were prescribed excessive doses-and who were kept on the drug long after they should have been taken off. Halcion is approved, labeled and promoted only for the short-term management of insomnia. Yet Ilo Grundberg took it for months at a time, and her physician raised her dose when its effect dwindled. "These really bad cases result from doctors continuing to do something that's damn stupid," says one federal health official who insists on anonymity. "If a patient doesn't do well on a medication, stop it."
Upjohn, for its part, has also done less than it could have to promote caution. It has resisted labeling changes and has attacked unflattering research rather than face its possible implications. It has also worked assiduously to prevent full public disclosure of the data on reported side effects. As the Grundberg trial approached, the company tried to copyright and seal documents that it admitted contained no trade secrets. "It appears," US District Judge J. Thomas Greene wrote in rejecting the move, "that Upjohn intended to use the copyright laws to thwart accessibility to the public of information ... which may be offered into evidence in court proceedings."
The lesson for consumers should be clear. Sedatives are powerful drugs-and Halcion, for all its advantages, is not the elixir its name implies. Neither Upjohn nor the FDA nor your doctor can guarantee it's right for you. So think before you swallow.
Newsweek - August 19, 1991

GEOFFREY COWLEY with KAREN SPRINGEN in Kalamazoo,
DORIS IARAVICI in New York and
MARY HAGER in Washington

Thursday 18 September 2014

The Scottish Police Federation Publicly Attacks 5 and NATO - Full Press Release


SPF Media Release – Independence Referendum

SCOTTISH POLICE FEDERATION
5 Woodside Place, Glasgow, G3 7QF

MEDIA RELEASE

The Scottish Police Federation represents all police officers in the ranks of constable, sergeant, inspector and chief inspector, police cadets and special constables, over 18,500 people, 98% of all police officers in Scotland.

To: News Editor
Date: 17 September 2014
Subject: Independence Referendum

In response to increased press reports and comment implying increased crime and disorder as a consequence of the Independence Referendum Brian Docherty, Chairman of the Scottish Police Federation said;

“The Police Service of Scotland and the men and women who work in it should not be used as a political football at any time and especially so in these last few hours of the referendum campaign.

As I have previously stated the referendum debate has been robust but overwhelmingly good natured.

It was inevitable that the closer we came to the 18th of September passions would increase but that does not justify the exaggerated rhetoric that is being deployed with increased frequency. Any neutral observer could be led to believe Scotland is on the verge of societal disintegration yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Scotland’s citizens are overwhelmingly law abiding and tolerant and it is preposterous to imply that by placing a cross in a box, our citizens will suddenly abandon the personal virtues and values held dear to them all.

At this time it is more important than ever that individuals be they politicians, journalists or whoever should carefully consider their words, maintain level heads and act with respect. Respect is not demonstrated by suggesting a minority of mindless idiots are representative of anything. One of the many joys of this campaign has been how it has awakened political awareness across almost every single section of society. The success enjoyed by the many should not be sullied by the actions of the few.

Police officers must be kept free from the distractions of rhetoric better suited to the playground that the political stump. If crime has been committed it will be investigated and dealt with appropriately but quite simply police officers have better things to do than officiate in spats on social media and respond to baseless speculation of the potential for disorder on and following polling day”

ENDS

For further information contact Lesley Stevenson at 5 Woodside Place, Glasgow, G3 7QF Telephone: 0141 332 5234 Mobile: 07967 104173 Fax: 0141 331 2436