WEATHER WARFARE

by Bob Fitrakis

A United States Air Force document from 1996 projected one future scenario where the American World View became more Global following a major terrorist attack on the US early in the twenty-first century. This event, along with increasing concern for the global environment, was postulated to help produce a consensus that the US should act vigorously to promote stability abroad (Global US World View) despite the frustration of a Dispersed World Power Grid. This was one of six alternative futures put together by the U.S. Air Force's best and brightest and their civilian advisors.

With a goal later described as "Full Spectrum Dominance" by the year 2025, the Air Force backcasted, as opposed to forecasted what "determines the willingness and capability of the US to take the lead in international affairs." This scenario was called "Gulliver's Travails."

This chilling theme was echoed the next year by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor, in his book The Grand Chessboard. Brzezinski argues that the key to world power is in Central Asia with its vast oil deposits, but short of a galvanizing attack by foreigners or terrorists on the scale of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. public lacked the imperial will to seize world dominance.

On March 19, 1997, Dr. Arnold A. Barnes, Jr. of John Hopkins University and Senior Scientist at Phillips Laboratory described a key element of Full Spectrum Dominance at the Tecom Test Technology Symposium in his address on "The Army After Next How Will We Test? Weather Modification."  

Barnes, a consultant on the Air Force study, calmly outlined the history of the U.S. military’s weather modification programs and what would be needed for future fully-integrated weather modification capabilities. The good doctor referenced the document "Spacecast 2020," later updated in "Weather As A Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025," which noted that "Atmospheric scientists have pursued terrestrial weather modification in earnest since the 1940’s. . . . Space presents us with a new arena, technology provides new opportunities. . . "

While Spacecast 2020 had analyzed "the difficulty, cost and risk of developing a weather control system for military applications" as "extremely high," Barnes offered a different perspective. He saw "opportunities to capitalize on investment militarily [as] Medium/High" while the "Political implications/health hazards [were] Medium/Low."

In Barnes' scenario, there had already been a long history of U.S. military weather modification. During World War II, the U.S. and British military lit fires on runways to disperse fog. The U.S. Air Force History Office points out on its webpage that "for meteorologists, a major consequence of World War II was the development of a world weather network utilizing new equipment and techniques."

The British Royal Air Force and Western scientists engaged in Operation Cumulus between August 4 and 15, 1952, which, according to a August 30, 2001 BBC broadcast, was a rainmaking project that led to 35 flood-related deaths in Devon.

Declassified documents show that in 1953 the British military and their allies were experimenting in increasing rain and snow by artificial means in hopes of "bogging down enemy movement." They were also interested in "increasing the water flow in rivers and streams to hinder or stop enemy crossings."

Perhaps more shocking, the documents reveal talk concerning the possibility "to explode an atomic weapon in a seeded storm system or cloud." This would produce a far wider area of radioactive contamination than in a normal atomic explosion.

Between November 1955 and April 1956, the U.S. Air Force participated in Project 119-L, which resulted in a worldwide meteorological survey. If you're going to artificially modify the weather, you have to be able to predict it first. Barnes referred to the Air Force's ability to create "cloud holes" using first the chemical "Carbon Black" in the 50's and 60's and later silver iodide.

"From 1961 into 1980 U.S. scientists conducted extensive research into the possibility of weakening hurricanes with cloud-seeding techniques. The Project was known as Project Storm Fury," according to USA Today.

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance created a Defense Environmental Services study group in 1966 "to review the full spectrum of environmental services and R&D within the Department of Defense."

By early 1967, Operation Popeye was underway. The 54^th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron took off, in the words of one military official, to "make mud, not war." The military seeded the clouds over the Ho Chi Minh Trail to create floods and wash out North Vietnamese supply routes. Dr. Barnes pointed out that "Operation Popeye [was] run by people from our lab."

Columnist Jack Anderson broke the story about the politically sensitive operation in 1971 paving the way for a Congressional investigation that documented these and other secret weather modification warfare programs.

As public anger grew, Senator Clayborn Pell of Rhode Island, who originally believed it was better to be rained on with water than bombs, wrote an editorial in the Providence Journal Bulletin in 1975 entitled "United States and Other World Powers Should Outlaw Tampering With Weather for Use as War Weapon."

That year, the U.S. and the Soviets began negotiations to ban weather modification as a military weapon. On October 10, 1976, the UN produced the treaty "Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification" (ENMOD). It went into effect on October 5, 1978, a fact lamented by Dr. Barnes. "Since 1978 the official Air Force position has been that weather modification has little utility or military payoff as a weapon of war."

Dr. Barnes argued at the Symposium that “The official Air Force position needs to be reevaluated - especially "In the light of 19 years of scientific advances." While the U.S. and Soviet military had officially turned away from weather modification as a weapon, their partners in the private sector filled the gap for the next two decades. ENMOD had a huge loophole that allowed for the peaceful commercial use of weather modification.

In his paper "Progress in planned weather modification research: 1991-1994," Robert Czys of the Atmospheric Science Division of the Illinois State Water Survey reports "A randomized hail experiment, Grossversuch IV, was conducted in central Switzerland during 1977-1981. Research groups from France, Italy, and Switzerland participated in the experiment to test the Soviet hail suppression method." Meanwhile, back at home between 1987 and 1993, the North Dakota Cloud Modification Program, NDCMP, was underway.

As Dr. Barnes noted, there was "operational and modeling information" from a 1976 scientific paper showing how "to achieve precipitation enhancement, create cirrus clouds, and to dissipate fog and low clouds." There were, however, "risks and limitations," particularly the problem of the “creation of optimum submicron particles” which would pose a danger to health as they fell through the atmosphere.

But Barnes argued that the new "advanced weapons systems" were "more environmentally sensitive" and once again, the military should be engaging in weather modification weapons. After all, the uses were obvious. You could "Deny fresh water" to the enemy, "Induce Drought," "Increase Concealment" and "Decrease [the enemy's] Comfort Level/Morale."

Moreover, Dr. Barnes insisted that the weaponization of space is the key to warfare in the 21^st century. The United States government would later produce a document named "Joint Vision for 2020" under the auspices of the U.S. Space Command that outlines the plan for "Full Spectrum Dominance." In the years following Dr. Barnes' presentation on fully integrating high-tech weather modification into the U.S. military, so-called chemtrail sightings have occurred throughout the United States and its Western allies.

Barnes embraced the government's HAARP Project in Alaska, also managed by Phillips Laboratory, as a weapon "to enhance communications and surveillance systems, e.g., over-the-horizon (for both civilian and defense purposes)."

Weather Modification Inc. signed a contract with Thailand on December 20, 1996 to help “the southeast Asian country get a better grip on its weather - through "cloud modification."

In the November 13, 1997, the Wall Street Journal reported that the government of Malaysia had signed a contract with a Russian-owned company to create cyclones to blow pollution out to sea.

The BBC reported on March 5, 1998 that Canadian scientist Dr. Graeme Mather "believes he has found the Holy Grail of weather science, in the skies over Mexico his claim is being put to the test. “In my opinion, these convective clouds could be made more efficient by using weather modification, trying to produce more water from available clouds," Mather said.

In 1998 an American Meteorological Society report conceded that over the past 20 years "experiments had been carried out on lightning suppression." Dr. Barnes’ interest in lightning had direct military application, particularly the use of a "Laser Lightning Rod to trigger lightning." This would enhance the development of the "Airborne Laser (ABL)."

Brzezinski predicted: "Technology will make available, to the leaders of major nations, techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised. . . . Technology of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm."

The Korean Times reported on January 27 of this year that the South Korean “government is checking up on the possibility of using weather modification techniques to prevent monsoon rains interrupting the 2002 World Cup matches. The paper reports "Both the U.S. and Russia have commercialized rain and hailstorm prevention programs." Meanwhile, North Korea continues to suffer the aftereffects of a decade-long drought.

from www.columbusalive.com