North American Truth and Accountability Commission

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North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby Project Willow » Wed Jul 21, 2010 3:30 am

Time to crow, for awhile, or a little, humble web designer that I am.

http://northamericantruth.org/

21 July 2010
For Immediate Release
Contact: Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
Tel: 805-699-5895

E-Mail: themelinda@northamericantruth.org

North American Truth and Accountability Commission Sets Sights on CIA and Pentagon Human Experimentation Programs


Florida –Organizers today announced the formation of the North American Truth and Accountability Commission for Human Experimentation (NATAC). The Commission, nearly 8 months in the making, was first proposed after a number of people had read the recently published book by H.P. Albarelli Jr., A TERRIBLE MISTAKE: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments. Albarelli’s book details a number of shocking human experiments conducted during the Cold War years. Following a number of meetings in Los Angeles and New York City to discuss both past and on-going human experiments sponsored by the government, it was proposed that a formal commission be formed to further research government-sponsored human experimentation in the United States and Canada and to advocate for the demise of all such programs.

Founding members of the Commission include: H.P. Albarelli Jr., investigative journalist and writer; Charles Bonner, Esq., attorney and author; Vincent Bugliosi, attorney and author; Bruce Caukin, activist and teacher; Judy L. Chucker, graduate student; Kelly Porter Franklin, full time researcher; Helen Garland, CEO, Earth Society; Thomas Kiely, New York talk show host; Dr. Lianne Leedom, psychiatrist and author; David Lincoln, geo-engineer and author; Steve Meyer, activist; Mark Crispin Miller, Professor at NYU and author; Edward Peck, former ambassador to Iraq; William Pepper, Human Rights Attorney; Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, author and talk show host; Jason Rimes, entrepreneur; Melissa Roddy, director of CONFLICT OF INTEREST, a series of short films on Afghanistan; Dr. Collin Ross, Founder and President of the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma; Connie Ruffley, CEO, United Republicans of California; Vera Hassner Sharav, M.L.S., Human Rights Advocate, founder and president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection; Lynn Schirmer, web designer; David Swanson, Founder, War is Crime; Jennifer Van Bergen, J.D., M.S.I.E., investigative journalist, author; Dr. Margot White, professor of bioethics, human rights activist, writer; and Richard Yensen, Ph.D. and Dr. Donna Dryer, Directors, Orenda Institute. The group sates that all Commissioners are drawn from all political viewpoints and many walks of life to provide the Commission with a depth of viewpoints and so to avoid the myopia, which too often accompanies investigations.

NATAC’s principle objectives are to research, investigate, present, examine, publicize, expose, and eventually, hopefully, to resolve the CIA’s and Department of Defense’s past and present illegal human experimentation programs involving North American citizens and military service men and women. By ‘resolve’ the Commission means “to reach closure on prior experimentation with unwitting humans by putting an end to all illegal and unethical human experimentation by government entities.”

NATAC will also explore and investigate human experiments conducted overseas by entities of the U.S. and Canadian governments, either jointly or separately, as well as investigating current torture activities and programs as related to experimentation.

Asked about the formation of the Commission, member and media relations contact for the group, Tom Kiely said, “The truth and accountability process, most notably and partially modeled on the successful efforts of South Africa, Latin America and Greensboro, North Carolina, is designed to examine and learn from a series of divisive and horrible events and incidents conducted in the past, and still conducted today, in order to build the foundation for a more ethical and humane future where human rights are regarded as essential to all facets of government operations.” Kiely stated, “The truth and reconciliation process, used extensively and quite successfully in countries where people experienced officially sanctioned trauma, has developed into an effective tool and strategy for dealing with war crimes, state sponsored torture, violence and other human rights abuses.”

The Commission’s approach seeks ‘restorative justice,’ which differs from the customary adversarial and retributive justice. The truth, accountability and reconciliation process seeks to heal by uncovering all pertinent facts, exposing lies, and allowing for acknowledgement, as well as appropriate private or public mourning, meaningful corrective action, restitution, and healing.

States the Commission’s charter: “By demanding accountability we bifurcate the role of individuals, who enabled human experimentation and torture for their own reasons, and confront their justification and immunization through government. We call into question the power of government to engage in acts, which violate the principles America was founded to affirm. Human experimentation and torture violate both our founding and our very humanity. By so doing the acts covertly carried out by the CIA and Pentagon, in coordination with and support of, select private entities and institutions, destroyed the integrity of American government, shredded the Constitution, violating the inborn rights of countless individuals. “

Said founding member H.P. Albarelli Jr.: “We, as a Commission, are ever mindful of the past and present horrors that have been and are committed in the name of the State. We are vehemently opposed to these horrors and do not see our opposition as being political or partisan in any way. I believe our opposition to human experimentation is a natural and proper human response that has nothing to do with political parties, religions, alliances, or beliefs. Reconciliation is a fundamental goal of the Commission, but before there can be reconciliation there must be truth, and then a sincere, serious, heartfelt intention on all sides to make things right by ensuring that such acts are never repeated.”

Commission spokesperson Melinda Pillsbury-Foster said, “The Commission's organizing committee is finalizing the form its inquiry will take, and the Commission will be active and proceeding with its work beginning August 1st. The Commission will then delve into the many specific instances where government-sponsored human experimentation has and is taking place for the purposes of naming those involved, and who have profited, provided cover, and other issues, which now remain unanswered.”


Participation and dissemination of information will take place through the Internet, allowing many more people to be involved through the website, which is located at: http://www.northamericantruth.org.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby Simulist » Wed Jul 21, 2010 12:35 pm

Congratulations, Project Willow. The impactful and simple design of the website highlights its obvious importance and significance.

I'll be extremely interested to hear about the work and progress of the North American Truth & Accountability Commission as it unfolds.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby hava1 » Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:52 pm

Amen and halleluya

I do hope the standards for the investigation of violations committed outside the USA are going to be as good as those applied for US citizens (victims). being unpopular in this respect here, I do hope the voice of non US citizens victims is not going to be silenced or spun, or ridiculed or over-run, as sometimes has been the case. In the case of Israel, bodies and invdividuals have been investigating as much as is possible here, those precise issues (mostly with the backing of german based Ngo'S, given the distrust of US based people/orgs ...), and i hope they are going to be advised and consulted. Vera Sharav, on board here I see, is aware of at least some of israeli scene, w/r to her line of advocacy, although to the best of my knowledge there was nothing very meaningful in these contacts.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby elfismiles » Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:59 pm

Kudos, Congrats and Thank You! :D

Project Willow wrote:Time to crow, for awhile, or a little, humble web designer that I am.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby Project Willow » Wed Jul 21, 2010 9:00 pm

Thanks Simulist and Elfis.

hava1 wrote:Amen and halleluya

I do hope the standards for the investigation of violations committed outside the USA are going to be as good as those applied for US citizens (victims). being unpopular in this respect here, I do hope the voice of non US citizens victims is not going to be silenced or spun, or ridiculed or over-run, as sometimes has been the case. In the case of Israel, bodies and invdividuals have been investigating as much as is possible here, those precise issues (mostly with the backing of german based Ngo'S, given the distrust of US based people/orgs ...), and i hope they are going to be advised and consulted. Vera Sharav, on board here I see, is aware of at least some of israeli scene, w/r to her line of advocacy, although to the best of my knowledge there was nothing very meaningful in these contacts.


Hi Hava. I hear your concerns, and while I can't speak at this point in any official capacity, I don't see any reason why the commission would use a different set of standards for non-citizen survivors. Please know you can always contact me here or in what ever way you prefer. If you think it would be helpful to consult with other groups already working in the area feel free to send that info.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby sw » Wed Jul 21, 2010 9:24 pm

That this commission exists is tremendously uplifting to me.

After searching for justice in all three branches of our govt and finding nothing, I moved outside the U.S. to international justice courts and again found no justice. After that, I went to smaller agencies like state victim agencies, ethics agencies....and...never found justice. Not even scraps of justice.

Even the teachers of history and ethics don't seem to realize that this injustice happened/ is happening. Victims are met with disdain and anger as if they somehow are the "person who destroyed our family, our church or our country." How the anger gets directed at the victim is incredible.

Nothing I have seen in the media to date shows survivors as heroic souls who thrive against all odds, against enormous evil with little to no community support or support of any type of justice agency that I've ever heard of. Survivor ranks are filled with distrust of other survivors because of the great job the dark side has done to fill the survivor ranks with undercover wolves trying to finish off survivors in the last stages of healing or beyond.

Cheers to those who survived against all odds. Cheers to those who survived and choose to fight the institutions and individuals who seem to thrive off the blood and stolen souls of the children. That stolen life force drains the vitality of society. That stolen life force drains all, for we are all connected.

Thanks for posting, pw. Good job. I hope many draft off of this.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby §ê¢rꆧ » Wed Jul 21, 2010 9:34 pm

Looks good, PW. My only suggestions might be 1) make the logo a link to the homepage, which is kind of a standard UI thing and 2) Change the rollover colors of the main menu to something more vibrant than the blue underline, perhaps the same as the rollover color of the links in the body.

I'm curious why you chose concrete as the cms/platform, and what your thoughts are about it. I haven't tried Concrete, only Joomla and Drupal.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby Project Willow » Wed Jul 21, 2010 9:57 pm

§ê¢rꆧ wrote:Looks good, PW. My only suggestions might be 1) make the logo a link to the homepage, which is kind of a standard UI thing and 2) Change the rollover colors of the main menu to something more vibrant than the blue underline, perhaps the same as the rollover color of the links in the body.

I'm curious why you chose concrete as the cms/platform, and what your thoughts are about it. I haven't tried Concrete, only Joomla and Drupal.


Hi Secrets. The logo link is on my to-do's with an upcoming addition. I'll consider changing the font color for hover in main menu. I chose Concrete because it got high ratings for security and it's the most user friendly open source CMS I've ever tested, even easier than Wordress. I needed a full service CMS that wasn't going to create a dev nightmare through each growth spurt.

Joomla is a disaster for non tech users, it actually negates itself. One of my main clients initially hired me to do the updates on his Joomla site because no one in his company could figure out how to use it, not even his graphic designer. Don't get me started on Joomla. Drupal's back end is much friendlier but it also has its moment's of dev-speak and non-intuitive layout. But I chose to avoid the Drupal learning curve altogether, as it never got high ratings for quality of code output. My background is Wordpress and MODX so that was an issue for me although concrete is not perfect by any means.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby Elvis » Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:14 am

Great step taken, and looks good. I'm forwarding the site to some interested parties.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:35 am

Kudos.

Colombia University research labs just got a wrist slap for injecting contaminants into the brains of mental patients despite warnings from regulators.

The same day as this news item on the front page of the CIA-NYTimes, the local paper, the Marin Independent Journal (also a NYTimes company rag), ran a front page story about...bluebirds.

If RI can't recognize the cover-up misdirection here, no board can.
CIA runs mainstream media since WWII:
news rooms, movies/TV, publishing
...
Disney is CIA for kidz!
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby hava1 » Thu Jul 22, 2010 4:11 am

Project Willow wrote:Thanks Simulist and Elfis.

hava1 wrote:Amen and halleluya

I do hope the standards for the investigation of violations committed outside the USA are going to be as good as those applied for US citizens (victims). being unpopular in this respect here, I do hope the voice of non US citizens victims is not going to be silenced or spun, or ridiculed or over-run, as sometimes has been the case. In the case of Israel, bodies and invdividuals have been investigating as much as is possible here, those precise issues (mostly with the backing of german based Ngo'S, given the distrust of US based people/orgs ...), and i hope they are going to be advised and consulted. Vera Sharav, on board here I see, is aware of at least some of israeli scene, w/r to her line of advocacy, although to the best of my knowledge there was nothing very meaningful in these contacts.


Hi Hava. I hear your concerns, and while I can't speak at this point in any official capacity, I don't see any reason why the commission would use a different set of standards for non-citizen survivors. Please know you can always contact me here or in what ever way you prefer. If you think it would be helpful to consult with other groups already working in the area feel free to send that info.


definitely.

i trust my intuition that this development is very positive and well intentioned. I was frustrated with this kind of activity not happening a lot sooner. but...better late...etc.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby Sounder » Thu Jul 22, 2010 7:57 am

Thanks PW, good work.

Leonard Peltier for president.

http://derekmarkham.com/statement-from- ... -forget-no

Greetings,

I want to first say thank you--thank you for taking the time and
making the commitment to come to this place--but thank you mostly
for remembering. Sometimes I sit in this cage and I find myself
wondering if anyone really remembers. Many days, remembering is
all my mind allows me to do. So, again, thank you. Thank you for
bearing witness and being a part of a living memory.

But maybe the most important thing I'd like to say is don't
forget. Not ever.

You must be the historians who keep this lesson alive because
this story isn't about one day, one event, one person, or even one
lifetime. This is a story that goes all the way back to the day a
misguided fool, whose name I won't even mention, led his troops in
an attack on innocent people at the Greasy Grass, and in the process
got himself and over two hundred of his troopers killed. And while
the victors on that day had no choice but to defend themselves,
we have been the victims of a genocidal revenge that continues
until this very moment. So don't forget. Not ever.

It is vengeance that preoccupies the mind of the colonizer. It
is this fervor to show us who is boss that led to the massacre
at Wounded Knee, the theft of the Black Hills, the establishment
of boarding schools, and the criminalization of our languages
and traditional ways. It is vengeance that armed the GOON squads,
killed our leaders, and surrounded our people at Wounded Knee again
in 1973. Revenge is why they today prosecute Indian people for the
crimes they know the government committed during their murderous
campaigns of the last generation. Vengeance is what killed Joe
Stuntz, Anna Mae Aquash, Buddy Lamont and so many others. Getting
even is what keeps me in prison. So don't forget. Not ever.

All of these events are bound together, interrelated and
interdependent. And quite clearly the lesson they intend for us
to learn is don't defend yourselves. Don't stand up for what is
right. Don't think for yourselves. Don't choose to be who you
are. Don't remember your ancestors. Don't live in defense of the
Earth. Don't you do it! Don't even think about it. If you do,
this government--this mindset of control--will unleash an attack
so vast it will even seek to destroy our genetic memories. So don't
forget. Not ever.

In days past, some among our people were induced to become
"scouts". For whatever reasons, these individuals made possible
the treacherous campaigns that resulted in the deaths of countless
innocent people. These days--sadly--there are still these types
amongst us. The government preys on the weaknesses of these people,
inducing them to turn against the rest of us. The government
uses this treachery to cover up state sanctioned murder and
terrorism. They do this and then tell us that what we remember
didn't really happen at all, as though memory or truth is something
to be shaped and molded to fit a preconceived outcome. So don't
forget. Not ever.

We gather today after decades and generations of blood and trauma. We
gather in defiance.

And we remember.

We remember not just one day or one event, because remembering what
occurred on June 25 or June 26--or any particular date--is important,
but not as important as an understanding of the ongoing campaign
of colonization. This is a continuing human drama of slaughter
and uncontrollable bloodlust and we're still here, engaged in
our running defense; praying for balance, peace and justice; and
trying to make some sense of it all. Perhaps, in the face of such
a menace, the most important thing we can do is remember. So teach
your children. Pass this knowledge. Don't forget. Not ever.

Remembering is resisting and, if we remember, then we'll be free
one day. Free of their mindset. Free of their theft. Free of their
guns and their bombs. Free of their cages. Free to be who we are.

And free of their fear. That's the truest freedom of all and true
freedom is what this is really all about, not the illusion of
freedom they offer us.

So don't forget. Not ever.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,


Leonard Peltier
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby operator kos » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:18 pm

Fantastic! I'd love to see an activism section like your other site has, PW.
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby psynapz » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:39 pm

Brilliant work, PeeDub. To quote Leonard:
Cohen wrote:May the lights in the Land of Plenty shine on the truth some day.
“blunting the idealism of youth is a national security project” - Hugh Manatee Wins
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Re: North American Truth and Accountability Commission

Postby hava1 » Thu Jul 22, 2010 5:48 pm

Project Willow wrote:Thanks Simulist and Elfis.

hava1 wrote:Amen and halleluya

I do hope the standards for the investigation of violations committed outside the USA are going to be as good as those applied for US citizens (victims). being unpopular in this respect here, I do hope the voice of non US citizens victims is not going to be silenced or spun, or ridiculed or over-run, as sometimes has been the case. In the case of Israel, bodies and invdividuals have been investigating as much as is possible here, those precise issues (mostly with the backing of german based Ngo'S, given the distrust of US based people/orgs ...), and i hope they are going to be advised and consulted. Vera Sharav, on board here I see, is aware of at least some of israeli scene, w/r to her line of advocacy, although to the best of my knowledge there was nothing very meaningful in these contacts.


Hi Hava. I hear your concerns, and while I can't speak at this point in any official capacity, I don't see any reason why the commission would use a different set of standards for non-citizen survivors. Please know you can always contact me here or in what ever way you prefer. If you think it would be helpful to consult with other groups already working in the area feel free to send that info.


i emailed you over at the website.
Briefly (FWIW for other readers here)- while the issue itself is explosive the added matrix (israel, jews, usa, nazi doctors ? Middle east etc. etc.) makes it very tricky.
My experience here has been a fine example of the potential re-depersonalizations, given the ever burning political interests w/r to israel. Also, i was taken aback by other groupings that popped up here, indirectly (the UN sponsored panels back a year or two ago, and some other groups which I felt were too politicized in the strict sense and thus placing the victims at risk "For the greater good" of other victims, or so).
HOwever, this org seems very balanced so as to remove even my initial distrust, and therefore I believe it should be beneficial to all victims, regardless of their nationality/religious affiliation. I dont know what this org is going to actually do, in terms of specific individuals or general projects etc., i support you and this endeavor and will assist the local orgs if asked to do that, in their communications.
My sense (which might be wrong) is that we here depend totally on american mainstream/inside decisions to break some of the seals of secrecy and abuse. I welcome any such development. The leverage victims have here is minimal, imho,but there are some survivors in tact, and that's something to cherish and also tap into, as far as local public debate is going to happen.
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