DeWitt Rucker: Buffalo Soldier of the M.P.E.

It was around Memorial Day 2011 that a high school friend posted a message on her Facebook page. In my hometown, there was a display on the town square honoring the veterans from Hart County who were killed in action. Predictably, there were veterans from the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, but one memorial was a mystery.

This memorial honored Private DeWitt Rucker. The conflict listed under his name was simply “M.P.E.” Since the memorial did not give the date of Pvt. Rucker’s death, my friend wondered what conflict the M.P.E was. After trying unsuccessfully to determine how and when Rucker died, she described the experience on Facebook to see if anyone else knew. Searches of the military and history websites for some clue to Rucker’s story yielded nothing. Googling “M.P.E.” did not turn up any relevant results. Eventually, with a handful of people scouring the internet, some details of how DeWitt Rucker died for his country became known.

The break came when Pvt. Rucker’s name was found listed on a memorial to Buffalo Soldiers at Ft. Bliss, Tx. The Buffalo Soldiers were black soldiers in the U.S. Army. The nickname was acquired during the Indian Wars, but all-black units of Buffalo Soldiers fought in several American wars until the armed forces were desegregated.

The key to decoding the “M.P.E.” reference was also on the website describing the Buffalo Soldiers memorial. Pvt. Rucker was among the casualties of the Battle of Carrizal, Mexico on June 21, 1916. The battle was part of a campaign known as the Mexico Punitive Expedition, the M.P.E.

The adventure into Mexico began on March 9, 1916 when Mexican bandits under Francisco “Pancho” Villa, who led one of the factions vying for control of Mexico, raided the border town of Columbus, N.M. according to the National Archives. The raid killed 10 American soldiers and eight civilians with another seven soldiers and two civilians wounded. An estimated 100 bandits were killed, seven wounded, and one captured before the remainder escaped back into Mexico. The Americans pursued the bandits several miles into Mexico, but were forced to turn back due to a shortage of ammunition and supplies.

As a result of the raid, President Woodrow Wilson, apparently without congressional authorization, ordered a U.S. force that eventually numbered 11,000 men under Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing to capture Villa. With tacit approval, but very little in the way of cooperation, from Mexican president Venustiano Carranza, the U.S. Army set out into the Mexican state of Chihuahua, south of New Mexico and west Texas. For the first time, trucks and airplanes were used in a military expedition (with less than stellar results).

Pancho Villa and his men retreated before the American onslaught, hiding in the rugged mountains of Mexico. Although the local Mexicans hated Villa, they like the Americans even less and offered little help. There were a few skirmishes with Villa’s men, but the bandit chief eluded capture.

To make matters worse, there were also skirmishes with the Mexican army. On April 13, 1916, the Mexican army attacked Americans of the 13^th Cavalry at Parral. One American was killed and one was wounded, while the Mexicans lost at least 14 men.

Other skirmishes were fought against the bandits as well. Dozens of bandit were killed or captured with few American losses, but Villa remained at large. At the same time, Mexican raiders continued to raid border towns in Texas. In May and June 1916, Congress approved activation of National Guard units to patrol the U.S. side of the border.

On June 21, American soldiers again clashed with the Mexican army at Carrizal. Acting on intelligence that Pancho Villa was in the town, Pershing dispatched the Buffalo Soldiers of C and K Troops of the 10^th Cavalry under Capt. Charles Boyd with orders “to avoid a fight if possible.” Instead of Villa, the cavalrymen ran into Mexican government soldiers who were guarding the town. Max Boot describes what happened next in his excellent book, “The Savage Wars of Peace:”

There was no good reason not to bypass the town, and that is precisely what Boyd’s civilian guides advised, but for some mysterious reason Boyd insisted on going through with it. He was not deterred even when the Mexican general commanding the Carrizal garrison informed him that if he advanced “he would have to walk over the dead bodies of Mexican soldiers.” Boyd was said to have instructed a messenger, “Tell the son of a bitch that we’re going through!” Boyd dismounted his cavalry and ordered them to advance across a grassy field toward an irrigation ditch where the vastly superior Mexican force was dug in. When the Americans were about 250 yards from their position, the Carrancistas opened fire with rifles and machine gun. Nearly all the men in Troop C were wounded. The Buffalo Soldiers fought bravely, but with bullets “falling like rain,” and their own ammunition running out, they had no chance of prevailing. All the officers, including Captain Boyd, were killed quickly. The troopers, left leaderless, were routed by Mexican cavalry. Twelve Americans were killed that day, 10 wounded, and 24 captured. The rest ran away. The Mexicans lost more men – at least 30 killed, 40 wounded – but the battle of Carrizal was an unmitigated disaster for the U.S. Army.

Pvt. DeWitt Rucker, native of Hart County and U.S. Army Buffalo Soldier, was among the dead. It was rumored that Pancho Villa watched with amusement from a hideout in the mountains as his two enemies battled, but in reality he is believed to have been wounded at the time.

At this point, the U.S. and Mexico were on the brink of war. Leaders of both countries paused. Carranza agreed to release the U.S. prisoners who had survived the battle. According to Boot, these men blamed Boyd for provoking the battle in violation of his orders from Pershing, which helped calm the situation. Eventually, the U.S. agreed to withdraw its forces from Mexico if Carranza could control Villa. The American forces in Mexico began to return home in January 1917. The conflict officially ended on February 5. The National Guard was demobilized and the troops returned home.
Army units remained along the border to protect against further raids.

In spite of the failure to capture Pancho Villa, the expedition was officially considered a success. The National Archives records the words of Secretary of War Newton Baker: “[the] objective, of course was the capture of Villa, if that could be accomplished, but its real purpose was a display of the power of the United States into a country disturbed beyond control of the constituted authorities of the Republic of Mexico as a means of controlling lawless aggregations of bandits and preventing attacks by them across the international frontier.  This purpose is fully and finally accomplished."

Only a few months after the end of the American incursion into Mexico, President Wilson and General Pershing were fighting a new enemy as the United States entered WWI. Memory of the Mexico Punitive Expedition was overshadowed by the epic struggle against the Kaiser in Europe. A 1917 silent movie, “A Trooper of Troop K,” was based on Buffalo Soldiers at the Battle of Carrizal.

Fighting continued in Mexico as it had before the Americans had arrived. Carranza fought for control of Mexico against Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Carranza was assassinated in 1920 while fleeing a coup attempt. Pancho Villa was given amnesty by the new government, but was assassinated himself in 1923. Another rumor has him saying as he died, “Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.” In reality, he is reported to have died instantly.

There are many similarities between current Mexican-American relations those of 100 years ago. Violence along the border is increasing and threatens to spill over into the United States. The National Guard has been called upon to patrol border areas. Tensions are running high between the two nations over illegal immigration and the Obama Administration’s policy of allowing guns to be smuggled to Mexican drug cartels. Perhaps, the lessons of the past can teach us to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

Originally published on Examiner.com":
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/dewitt-rucker-buffalo-soldier-of-the-m-p-e

Ron Paul’s strategy: Poach candidates from caucus winners

Ron Paul hasn’t won a single primary or caucus in Republican primary, but Rachel Maddow of MSNBC notes that Paul seem “both happy and like he has something up his sleeve.” In an interview with Paul’s senior campaign advisor, Doug Wead, Maddow explains the reason behind Ron Paul’s giddiness.

Essentially, Ron Paul’s strategy centers on the fact that votes in caucus states are not binding. After the votes are cast at the caucus, many of the voters go home before delegates are actually chosen for the state convention. Ron Paul supporters are apparently staying behind to make sure that delegates who support Ron Paul are chosen regardless of the results of the vote. This isn’t how the process is supposed to work, but it isn’t illegal either.

Maddow cites one Larimer County, Co. precinct as an example of the strategy in action. In the precinct, Rick Santorum won the straw poll with 23 percent of the vote. Ron Paul finished second with 13 percent. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich received five and two percent of the vote respectively. However Ron Paul supporters were awarded all 13 delegate slots for the precinct in spite of the fact that he lost the vote. Wead told Maddow that the Paul campaign is tracking delegates at the precinct level and believes that it has won Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado and Nevada in this manner; all caucus states where Ron Paul has lost the popular vote.

Georgia does not use the caucus system. Its 124 delegates will be distributed proportionally among the winners of the March 6 primary election.

Paul’s delegate strategy is roughly analogous to usurping the Electoral College in the presidential election. Voters actually vote for electors, who then cast their vote for president in the Electoral College. Although the electors almost always vote to reflect the will of the people of their state, they are not legally bound to do so. The strategy raises concerns that are also reminiscent of the super-delegate controversy from the Democratic primary of 2008.

The Paul campaign is open about the delegate strategy. Wead openly acknowledges what Paul supporters are doing. Wead tells Maddow, “There is nothing wrong or deceptive about this. Anybody can stay. Woody Allen says 80 percent of success is showing up. Well, our people show up and they have a right to do that and they are committed.”

An article on RonPaulSignBomb.com by Todd King, Paul’s New Mexico state leader, explains the process in detail. King describes how the goal of the Paul campaign is to get enough Paul supporters to the precinct caucuses to win there, then take control of the county and state caucuses in turn. He writes, “Gaming the system is easy for anyone who seriously wants to.”

According to King, the goal is make Ron Paul the party nominee because “typical boobus-americanus [sic] does not think for himself, and accepts the party nominee.” According to this line of reasoning, “If Ron Paul gets the party nomination, then he gets top line on the ballot during the primaries, and is almost assured a win” at the convention.

Nevertheless, although Paul may be winning delegates in spite of the will of the people, he is not winning primaries. It is highly unlikely that Paul’s supporters will be able to use their sneak attack to win enough delegates to secure the nomination, especially as supporters of other candidates become aware of what is happening.

Wead raises the possibility of a contested convention in which no candidate receives enough delegates to secure the nomination on the first ballot. Although Wead concedes that the possibility of a contested convention is remote, he points out that while some delegates might support other candidates, “Ron Paul delegates are not going to go, even if they are offered Secretary of State….” Wead hints that even if Ron Paul is not the final nominee, his delegates might be traded in exchange for “many things we want. We would like to see the Federal Reserve audited for example….” If Paul cannot win the nomination, his campaign is positioning itself to play kingmaker, most likely favoring Santorum or Gingrich over Romney.

The end result of Paul’s gambit is questionable. It is highly unlikely that most Republicans will look favorably on such questionable tactics from a man who did not endorse the Republican candidate in 2008. While Paul’s tactics are not illegal, they clearly flout the will of the people and are not likely to win Paul any friends within the Republican Party. This raises the question of how effectively he would be able to govern if he did win the nomination and the presidency.

Originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/elections-2012-in-atlanta/ron-paul-s-road-to-nomination-poaching-delegates

Contraception compromise not likely to satisfy Catholics

The brouhaha over contraception for Catholic churches and charities began with a ruling issued by Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius a few weeks ago. The ruling, as part of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), would require that all companies provide their employees with health insurance that included contraception, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization at no out-of-pocket cost.

As originally drafted, the rule exempted churches, but not religious charities, schools and nonprofit organizations. Since the Catholic Church teaches that birth control is wrong, the HHS rule put Catholic groups in the uncomfortable position of being forced to purchase a service they believed to be morally wrong, a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee against laws preventing the free exercise of religion. The controversy provides a stark example of the difference between freedom of religion and the “freedom of worship” that is often referenced by members of the Obama Administration.

The ruling also mandates that insurance policies cover abortion-inducing drugs, which many other religions besides the Catholics oppose. Ironically, the Affordable Care Act was passed because President Obama signed an executive order that convinced pro-life Democrats that federal funds would not be used for abortion. Now, under Sebelius’ ruling, federal funds are not being used, but the government is compelling religious groups to use their own money to pay for drugs that cause abortions.

The United States has a long history of including exemptions in legislation to respect the freedoms of religion and conscience. In particular, laws have been passed to protect doctors and pharmacists who believe that abortion is wrong and choose not to involve themselves in abortion procedures or fill prescriptions for abortion-inducing drugs.

Even though the Obama Administration gave the religious organizations an extra year to comply with the ruling, the result was a firestorm of opposition. Many Catholic bishops announced their intention to not comply with the HHS ruling. Religious leaders of other faiths joined them in protesting the president’s disregard for the freedom of conscience. Chuck Colson, a prominent evangelical leader, urged Christians to sign a petition asking President Obama to overturn the ruling and suggested that the time for civil disobedience may be near.

Georgia has several Catholic hospitals, including St. Joseph’s in Atlanta, which could be affected by the policy. In addition, the Catholic Church operates other charities in Georgia that include services from disaster relief to pregnancy counseling and adoptions. If the rule stands, these organizations could be forced to choose between abandoning their principles or using their money to pay hefty government fines instead of helping people.

As Democratic congressmen began to side with the religious groups against the rule, President Obama unveiled a compromise on Friday in a speech in which he equated pregnancy with an illness. In his speech, which is available on Youtube, the president proposed a compromise in which religious organizations with a conscientious objection would not have to pay for the undesired coverages. In those cases, “the insurance company, not the hospital, not the charity, will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge, without co-pays, and without hassles.”

The compromise left several questions unanswered. Most obvious is the question of who pays. President Obama’s new ruling mandates that women not be charged for the contraceptive care, but nothing is free. If the insurance companies are forced to provide the coverage and are unable to pass the costs along to the religious groups for whom the women work, they will most likely raise the cost of insurance for nonreligious groups and companies. Essentially, insurance rates will be increased so that the government can force contraceptive and abortion coverage on groups that don’t want it.

Another question is how groups that self-insure would be treated under the new law. When a group self-insures, it uses its own money to pay medical claims without purchasing insurance. Therefore, there would be no insurance company to “reach out” and provide the contraceptive coverage. In a statement on its website, the Archdiocese of Atlanta pointed out that it, like many Catholic institutions, is self-insured.

Most importantly, religious groups are still being forced to accept insurance coverages that they find immoral, even though they are not be forced to pay for them directly. Likewise, nonreligious groups would still be required to pay for the coverages, even if they find them objectionable.

Consequently, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said in a statement , “The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.” The statement continues, “We will therefore continue–with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency–our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government.” The bishops then call upon Congress to pass the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which would allow health plans to decline coverage that is against religious beliefs.

At this point, it appears unlikely that President Obama’s proposed compromise will result in a solution to the crisis of conscience. Even though most Americans support the right to use birth control, they oppose government attempts to force it on religious organizations. With Americans split on abortion, there is likely to be even less support to force abortion-inducing drugs on religious groups. A further retreat by the Obama Administration is likely in the coming weeks in order to avoid alienating Catholic and independent voters.

Originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/contraception-compromise-unlikely-to-satisfy-catholics

A Klan killing in Georgia

In the early morning of July 11, 1964, three U.S. Army officers passed through Athens to their homes in Washington, D.C. from Ft. Benning where they had been training. At the wheel was Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn, a veteran of WWII who had earned the Bronze Star for his service in the New Guinea and Philippines campaigns against the Japanese. All three officers were black.

Nine days before the men started their drive home from Ft. Benning, President Lyndon Johnson had signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. This landmark legislation banned racial discrimination in hiring and ended segregation in public places and many businesses. Local members of the Ku Klux Klan in Athens had heard rumors that Georgia might become a “testing ground” for the new law according a 2004 article from Online Athens.

Lemuel Penn and his two brothers-in-arms, Major Charles Brown and Lt. Col. John Howard, stopped to change drivers in Athens in the early morning hours of July 11. After Penn took the wheel, they resumed their journey, but caught the attention of a trio of Klansmen before they left town.

James Lackey, Cecil Myers, and Howard Sims were blue collar workers in their mid-twenties who were conducting a KKK security patrol in Athens with the intention of “scaring off any out-of-town colored people before they could give us any trouble.” They noticed the Washington, D.C license plate on Penn’s car and decided to follow it. Sims reportedly said, “I’m gonna [sic] kill me a nigger [sic]” as they began the chase.

It was about twenty miles before the Klansmen caught up with the army officers. They had driven through Colbert and then followed Ga. Hwy. 172 north toward Bowman. As they reached the Broad River, which serves as the line between Madison and Elbert Counties, the Klansmen pulled alongside Penn’s car. As Lackey drove, Sims and Myers both fired shotguns into the side of driver’s side of the car.

One blast hit clothes and luggage in the backseat, waking Brown and Howard. The other hit Penn in the jaw and neck. Brown later said, “I believe that Penn died before we managed to stop the car.”

Penn’s car ran against the concrete side of the bridge, helping Brown and Howard stop it. As they did, they saw headlights and thought the Klansmen were returning. Brown took the wheel and tried to turn around, but missed the road in the fog, causing the car to roll over.

The men got out and attempted to flag down another passing car. The driver did not stop, but apparently notified the Madison County sheriff who soon arrived with the coroner.

Almost immediately, the case received a high priority from the Johnson Administration. J. Edgar Hoover sent scores of FBI agents to crack the case. Georgia governor Carl Sanders told the public that he was “ashamed for myself and the responsible citizens of Georgia that this occurrence took place in our state” according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Suspicion quickly fell upon Lackey, Sims, Myers, Herbert Guest, the owner of Guest’s Garage, a Klan hangout, and Denver Phillips, a mechanic employed by Guest. Over the next few weeks, the FBI agents watched and followed their quarry in a friendly game of cat-and-mouse. At one point, the agents sent a birthday cake to Guest and the Klansmen invited their FBI tails to a meeting, offering to provide them with robes.

Finally, Lackey came in to talk to the FBI agents. When he complained of stomach problems, one of the agents said, “I know something's eating you, and your stomach is not going to get better until you tell me about it.” At that point, Lackey told the story of the murder.

What happened next is as shocking to a modern American as the murder itself.

Lackey agreed to testify for the prosecution and was not charged in the murder. Both Sims and Myers were brought to trial in Madison County on charges of first degree murder. At the trial in Danielsville, the men were found not guilty by jury composed solely of older white men.

The story did not end there, however. In the first case of its kind, based on the pattern of intimidation and violence by the Klan uncovered in their investigation of Penn’s murder, the FBI filed a federal case against Sims, Myers, Lackey, Guest, Phillips, and another local Klansman, George Hampton Turner. The charge was conspiring or threatening to abridge another person’s civil rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sims and Myers were convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The other defendants were acquitted.

Lemuel Penn left behind a wife and three children. His wife, Georgia, died from lupus less than a year after her husband’s murder. Her daughter has little doubt that she actually grieved herself to death.

Lt. Col. Penn’s body was flown home to Dover Air Force Base, the same base where fallen soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan often return to American soil. He was honored with a twenty-one gun salute. Penn is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia with more than 285,000 other American heroes of all races.

Epilogue

I grew up about 20 miles by road from the murder site. I have driven hundreds of times across the Broad River bridge on Hwy. 172 where Lt. Col. Penn died as I commuted to the University of Georgia and then to a job in Athens.

I was born a little more than seven years after the murder. In that time, Georgia changed dramatically and for the better. By the time I went to elementary school, my class included both black and white children and teachers. For the most part, race wasn’t something that we thought about much, if at all. For most of my life, I really had no idea how much the world had changed a few short years prior to my entering it.

After the murder of Lt. Col. Penn, the House Un-American Activities Committee launched an investigation of the Klan. As the Bible says, evil loves darkness. When the government shed light on the actions of the Klan, the domestic terror group entered a steep decline from which it has never recovered.

I can only remember seeing Klansmen once in my life. While I was in college, working part-time at a local drugstore, a small group of Klansmen, complete with white robes but without masks, got a permit to hand out literature on the town square in Hartwell, Ga. They were neither vilified nor ignored. Instead, people drove by to see the oddities, treating them with the curiosity that such moral relics are due in the modern world.

To learn more about the murder of Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn, refer to the following sources:

“Murder at Broad River Bridge: A True Story of Murder and the Ku Klux Klan,” by Bill Shipp (1981), available on Amazon.com

Time magazine subscribers can view the link the trial coverage from Sept. 11, 1964: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,830636,00.html

Online Athens article from 2004 gives a detailed account of the killing and investigation: http://onlineathens.com/stories/071104/new_20040711120.shtml

New Georgia Encyclopedia: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/ArticlePrintable.jsp?id=h-3611

Findagrave.com has photos of Lt. Col. Penn’s grave at Arlington and allows users to add flowers in his memory: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=2117

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

This article was originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/a-klan-killing-georgia

Georgia Republican primary too close to call

It is now less than one month until March 6, when Georgia and nine other states conduct their Republican presidential preference primaries. Thus far, the only constant in the Republican primary is that there is no constant. There have been a multitude of frontrunners and the states that have conducted primaries and caucuses so far have been split between Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum.

In Georgia, Newt Gingrich has held a commanding lead for the past several months. The most recent poll by Survey USA was conducted February 1-2 and showed Gingrich leading Mitt Romney by 45-32 percent. This was similar to a December poll by Mason Dixon that showed Gingrich leading Romney by 43-21 percent. A series of Insider Advantage polls from the summer shows Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann, both now withdrawn from the race, leading last summer and fall.

Although the most recent two polls show Romney rising by 11 points, the real story may be Rick Santorum. As late as December, Santorum garnered less than two percent in the Insider Advantage poll and one percent in the Mason Dixon poll.

Santorum eked out a surprise victory in Iowa on January 3, even though his victory wasn’t known until two weeks later. In the meantime, he placed a distant third in South Carolina and Florida. It was at this point that the Survey USA poll was taken that showed Santorum had jumped to nine percent. Since then, Santorum pulled a hat trick, winning all three of this week’s primaries in the states of Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado.

In the weeks remaining until Super Tuesday, there are only four states holding primaries or caucuses. Arizona and Michigan hold primaries on February 28 while Maine caucuses on February 11 and Washington on March 3.

It remains to be seen whether Santorum’s victories this week will increase his popularity in Georgia and the other Super Tuesday states. If so, he may be unable to keep up his momentum in the weeks until Super Tuesday with few elections and debates.

As Newt Gingrich’s campaign sags under the weight of his personal baggage and high unfavorability ratings, it is likely that he will not receive anywhere near the 45 percent of the vote that he received in the most recent poll. It is most likely that Santorum will be the beneficiary of disaffected Gingrich supporters as the new alternative to Romney.

At this point, factoring in the recent events, the Georgia primary is too close to call, with Romney at 32 percent and Gingrich and Santorum splitting another 60 percent, Romney looks to be the favorite. Ron Paul is unlikely to go much higher than 10 percent. The big question is whether Santorum’s rise will cause Romney as well as Gingrich voters to defect.

Originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/elections-2012-in-atlanta/georgia-republican-primary-too-close-to-call

Chemtrails or contrails?

An enduring aviation conspiracy theory is the idea of chemtrails, the belief that jet airliners are spraying mysterious chemicals as they fly over the country. The motive of these sprayers varies according to different websites and conspiracy purveyors. Some claim that the chemtrails have to do with global warming. Others claim that it is a sinister New World Order plot to kill millions of people.

“Chemtrails” are actually composed of water vapor. More accurately they are known as contrails, or condensation trails. These trails occur when the cold air at high altitudes is meets the warm exhaust of an aircraft’s engine. The fuel burned by the engine contains water. As the water in the exhaust cools, it forms ice crystals or water droplets, forming a cloud. This is similar to how fog comes from a car’s exhaust on a cold day. Keep in mind that even if the temperature is hot on the ground, it is very cold at high altitudes where jets fly. There are many pictures of WWII bombers with piston engines leaving contrails in the sky. These pictures predate jet airliners and global warming theory by decades.

Variations in wind, humidity, and temperature aloft may cause contrails to dissipate more quickly in some areas than others. A chart on SkepticsProject.com shows under what conditions contrails form. As one would expect from a natural phenomenon, contrails form under scientifically predictable conditions.

If you watch airplanes landing on a damp day, you might also see a different kind of vapor trail. On some occasions, you can see vapor trails streaming from a plane’s wingtip close to the ground. These trails can be caused by the wing of the airplane changing the pressure of the air it flies through. Vortices from the wingtips reduce pressure and allow the already humid air to condense.

There are some airplanes that really do spray chemicals. These are known as crop dusters. There are important things to notice about crop spraying operations. First, the airplane only sprays very close to the ground. The higher the chemical is released, the greater the chance that will disperse or be blown away before settling on to the crop. A crop duster normally flies and dusts from altitudes lower than telephone and power poles.

Second, you can also see that crop dusters have a lot of plumbing on the trailing edge of the wings. These lines and nozzles are where the chemicals are dispensed. Airliners and military jets have no such apparatus. A typical jet’s wing has many moving parts such as flaps, slats, and spoilers that are designed to improve handling, especially at low airspeeds, and to slow the airplane down for landing. They have nothing in the way of pipes and nozzles, however. This is true even for military tanker aircraft, which transfer fuel to other airplanes by either a single boom or hoses that trail behind the tanker.

Crop dusters have been considered as a possible terrorist weapon. It is not outside of the realm of possibility that they could be used by a terrorist group to launch a chemical or biological attack. This would require not only the skill to fly the airplane low over an urban area, but also the technical knowledge necessary to get the proper mixture of the chemical or biological agent to work with the spraying equipment. This makes such a scenario unlikely.

The lack of spray equipment isn’t the only factor limiting the use of airliners as spray planes. Fuel is a major component of the weight of an airplane, especially one that travels for long distances.  If an airliner were to carry enough fuel to fly across the country or the ocean as well as a heavy load of chemicals to spray, there would be no room left for passengers or baggage.  

In some cases, chemtrail believers claim to have discovered fibrous material that fell to the ground after “chemplanes” flew over. This is apparently the caused by a variety of material, from plant fibers to spider webs to trash. An interesting explanation is that floating strands of fibers are actually the product of ballooning spiders.

Ballooning spiders have been observed for hundreds of years. According to Australia’s Museum Victoria, occasionally thousands of spiders will ride on thin strands of web. As they land, their webs can cover the ground or stick to other objects. Spiders can ride the wind on their webs for hundreds of miles according to Live Science. An article on Metabunk.org notes that the light strands of gossamer silk used by ballooning spiders can collapse when touched, giving the appearance of dissolving.

There have been real attempts to modify the weather with aviation, typically through cloud seeding. Cloud seeding is an attempt to control where rain falls by dropping materials such as dry ice or silver iodide into clouds to promote the formation of rain. In WWII, the British experimented with cloud seeding and may have caused a flood that killed 35 people. In June 2010, Smithsonian Air & Space magazine detailed a U.S. effort to divert hurricanes. Project Stormfury began in the 1940s and lasted until the 1980s when the experiment was deemed ineffective. In 2008, the Chinese attempted to seed clouds to prevent rain during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Cloud seeding is usually performed locally rather than on long range flights.

After the 9/11 attacks, when all flights above the US were grounded for three days, scientists did have a rare opportunity to conduct a study of how contrails affect climate. They did determine that contrails affect temperature, just as other clouds do. Scientists believe that contrails help to reduce the temperature range between daytime highs and nightly lows. Ironically, some scientists believe that, because contrails are more prevalent when the sun is out, that they may actually help to reduce global warming.

In the end, there really is a chemtrail conspiracy. Like many other conspiracy theories, it is a conspiracy to separate gullible people from their money. The sites that promote the chemtrail conspiracy often sell documentaries that purport to tell the “truth” about chemtrails or devices that they claim will neutralize the chemicals being sprayed. Save your money.

Instead, go visit your local airport. Many airports have viewing areas where you can watch the airplanes taxi, take off, and land. Even many military airports are located in urban areas where you can watch their flight operations from parking lots or roads. Take a pair of binoculars or a camera with a telephoto lens and look for mechanisms that would allow any of these airplanes to spray chemicals or drop “nanotechnology fibers.” See the truth for yourself.

This article was published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/aviation-in-national/contrails-or-chemtrails

Questions for Ron Paul

Last year, the Atlanta Conservative Examiner published an article that asked several questions of supporters of Barack Obama. While well-intentioned and honestly seeking the liberal perspective on a number of issues, the response was underwhelming. Perhaps this was because there are no good answers to the questions asked.

In a similar vein, here are several questions for Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul and his supporters. Judging from the large response that typically comes from any article mentioning Ron Paul (especially when it mentions him critically), the Paul supporters are likely to have more to say in his defense than the Obama supporters did.

First, Ron Paul makes a point of saying that the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional on the grounds that the Constitution gives only Congress the power to “coin Money, [and] regulate the Value thereof….” (Article I Section 8). If this interpretation is correct, then why is it that Congress established the first private central bank, the Bank of the United States, within a few years of the ratification of the Constitution? At that point, many of the framers of the Constitution were still in Congress.

The Bank of the United States was a private company. The bill establishing it was signed into law in 1791 by none other than George Washington. After the bank’s charter expired in 1811, Congress created the Second Bank of the United States in 1816. This bank existed until 1841. At 99 years old, the Federal Reserve is the longest lasting central bank in U.S. history, but it was far from the first.

Also along economic lines, Ron Paul advocates a gold standard, which leads to another question. Paul blames fiat money and the Federal Reserve for the current economic unpleasantness, but even when the U.S. was on a gold standard the business cycle led to periods of economic depression. In fact the Federal Reserve and the gold standard coexisted for decades. The gold standard did not prevent the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in U.S. history.

The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 and the United States stayed on the gold standard until 1973. In 1933, President Roosevelt made it illegal for Americans to own gold and required them to sell their gold to the Federal Reserve at a price set by the government, but technically the dollar was still linked to gold. Roosevelt’s executive order remained in effect until the 1960s and 1970s when it was repealed piecemeal.

In the past, linking the value of the dollar to the value of gold did not prevent the boom and bust cycle. A federal gold standard did not prevent the government from manipulating the value of the dollar. Why does Paul believe that a new gold standard would be any different? Further, U.S. production of gold is declining. Would a gold standard remove the influence of unelected bureaucrats at the Federal Reserve only to replace it with a dependency on gold miners, bankers, and bureaucrats in countries like China and Russia for economic growth?

A third question involves Paul’s assertions that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war (Article I Section 8), but stops short of requiring a declaration of war. The same section gives Congress the power to “define and punish… offences against the law of nations,” arguably the power to intervene on behalf of victims of crimes against humanity, and to “provide for the common defense,” a general term that could be construed to include pre-emptive war against a hostile nation believed to be developing WMDs.

As Max Boot notes in his book, “The Savage Wars of Peace,” declared wars have been the exception rather than the rule in American history. One of the first undeclared wars occurred during the administration of none other than Thomas Jefferson against the Barbary pirates. This conflict is memorialized in the line of the Marine hymn that references the “shores of Tripoli.”

In the 20^th century, U.S. forces, almost always the Marines, essentially invaded and governed several Central American and Caribbean nations. For almost 20 years prior to WWII, the Marines ruled Haiti. Long undeclared interventions also occurred in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua, not to mention Panama. After the U.S.S Greer, an American destroyer, was fired upon by a German U-boat, President Roosevelt essentially launched an undeclared war against the Germans in the Atlantic more than a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan did not begin with a formal declaration of war, President Bush did seek and receive the approval of Congress (President Obama’s intervention in Libya is another matter). How can Paul really consider the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan illegal when both interventions were approved by Congress with Paul himself having voted to approve military action in Afghanistan?

Finally, why does Ron Paul oppose the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)? Did Paul not read Section 1021 paragraph (e) which reads “Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States?” Similarly, Section 1022 paragraph (b) (1) says, “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.”

Since the law plainly does not allow the indefinite detention of Americans but Paul opposes it anyway, does this mean that Paul opposes indefinite detention of foreign terrorists captured abroad? These are the people who the law allows the military to detain indefinitely. There are Americans who believe that these foreign-born, foreign-captured, non-U.S. citizens should be entitled to a day in American courts. Is Paul among this group?

If Paul thinks that foreign terrorists should have habeas corpus rights and access to U.S. courts, it would be the first time that prisoners of war (actually unlawful combatants under the Geneva Conventions) captured in combat outside the country have been granted access to the judicial system. Even German POWs housed in prison camps within the United States itself during WWII were not accorded constitutional rights due to American citizens. No one would have dreamed of allowing captured Nazis to challenge their detention in American courts.

Hopefully, Rep. Paul or his supporters will answer these questions and help to clear up some of the apparent inconsistencies in Ron Paul’s political platform.

This article was originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/questions-for-ron-paul