Over the past decades, many writers have done careful and painstaking research -- often using the Freedom of Information Act -- which has revealed shocking instances of US Government actions which can only be called "conspiracies:" multiple people planned them and carried them out in secret, and they were illegal or seriously subverted the principle of government by consent of the governed. In many cases they hurt or killed the very people government is supposed to protect. Despite this, most leading figures in the "progressive" press -- and Pacifica is no exception -- avoid or actively trash important stories which they deem "conspiracy theories" -- even when there is no theorizing involved, just straight-up reporting. This makes it impossible to fulfill our mission of giving our listeners the best information we can find to empower meaningful democracy and social change.

In order to move the people to support the US entry into World War II, the US Government deliberately provoked the Japanese into attacking: it cut off Japan's oil supplies, steel, and credit while leaving the Pacific Fleet exposed in Hawai'i. Naval Intelligence had broken Japan's military codes and tracked Japanese warships all the way there. The Washington brass hobbled the Pacific Fleet commander's reconnaissance efforts, didn't tell him of the attack force bearing down on him, and told him to prepare for propaganda and sabotage, not an air attack.[1]
In the 1950s the US Army marched hundreds of thousands of soldiers to within hundreds of yards of atomic blasts minutes after the fireballs burned out, to test how they would perform on the "atomic battlefield." This wasn't secret; the Army simply maintained that the radiation levels were safe. The US Government and the nuclear power industry said that below a certain "threshold" radiation was harmless, harassing dissident scientists and suppressing their work when they could. But government scientists had known of radiation's effects for decades and, unlike the soldiers, kept seven miles away from the blasts and wore protective suits and respirators.[2]

Starting in the 1940s and continuing for several decades, various US Government agencies injected unwitting subjects with uranium and plutonium, fed them radioactive substances, or otherwise exposed them to test radiation's health effects and suitability for chemical weapons.[3]
From 1932 to 1972 US Public Health Service officials deliberately gave placebos to almost 400 African-American men with syphilis while telling them that they were getting "treatments" for "bad blood." They knew that penicillin could cure syphilis.[4]

The provocation of the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" and fabrication of the North Vietnamese "torpedo attack" are well known. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also planned a false-flag attack on the US base at Guantanamo in the 1960s to "justify" a war with Cuba.[5]
Since World War II US "clandestine services" have aided and protected drug dealing in Southeast Asia, Central America, and Central Asia to fund its proxy armies; the CIA has actually admitted doing so in Central America.[6]

These are just some of the better-documented examples. Given this history, no-one can reasonably dismiss the possibility of US Government involvement - if only by looking the other way - in the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. And yet this is just what the overwhelming majority of Pacifica programming staff do.

Taking their cues from Norman Solomon, Chip Berlet, Steve Rendall et al., and without bothering to look at any evidence as far as I can tell, they pooh-pooh some of the best research around and endorse a smear campaign against Mike Ruppert, one of the most honest, hardworking researchers I know. They do this despite serious input from their own reporters (including me) and repeated calls from listeners.

In short, ignore the evidence, ignore their own reporters, ignore their own listeners, they're gonna kill the story if they possibly can, citing vague concerns about "credibility." For years Larry Bensky has cut off callers who raised issues ranging from Federal Reserve chicanery to 9-11 coverups. I have heard from another reporter that decades ago he had given Philip Maldari tape of a US Special Forces operative talking about the CIA's protection of Central American drug smuggling. The tape never aired, nor did Maldari ever respond. I'm told that Kris Welch told a caller that KPFA's Program Council, on the advice of people they "respect," decided that the issue of foreknowledge/complicity in 9-11 within the US Government was not worth airtime. (They were referring specifically to Ruppert's work, but reducing the issue to "Mike Ruppert" is ridiculous. There are lots of good sources; it is the issue, not the personalities, which counts.). I have emailed both Bensky and Welch, but have received no response.

Kellia Ramares and I have distributed 50 copies of an open letter to KPFA staff addressing the issue (which may have contributed to the survival of "Guns and Butter," one of the few exceptions to the culture of denial). I have spoken with Mark Mericle and Aileen Alfandary in person about the obscene attacks on Ruppert, and I know that neither had actually read the work they were panning. Aileen admitted it, and Mark's screechings revealed that he didn't know what he was talking about; he was merely parroting the party line as handed down by Solomon. The News Dept.'s written policy says that controversies within the station or network will get covered just like any other story; I approached Mark months ago pointing out that by that logic they needed to cover the furor over the 9-11 story, and he handed it off to Max Pringle. I haven't heard a peep out of either since.

I don't know what pressures they may be under. Undoubtedly if they step outside the box of "credibility" (defined for them by the Solomon/Korn/Berlet/Rendall camp) they will be mercilessly slammed by all of their supposed allies. But their behavior keeps important information off the air. As long as they and their ilk have any significant influence on programming, its integrity will suffer. If Pacifica is to be anything more than a chic cover for our government's worst abominations, it must face - and broadcast - reality. How can we make this safe?

In sadness,
Ed Rippy
KPFA News
(Much of my 9-11 research is at http://erippy.home.mindspring.com. "9-11 and US-Led Global Fascism" & "War Is Still a Racket" are outlines of the overall picture; the rest are more detailed treatments of specific points.)
ENDNOTES:
1 Robert Stinnett, Day of Deceit (New York: Touchstone 2000), 22, 37f, 121, 150, 173ff, 194ff.
2 Leslie J. Freeman, Nuclear Witnesses (New York: W.W. Norton & Company 1981), 22- 49, 50-77,78-114, 173-177.
3 Arjun Makhijani and Ellen Kennedy, Human Radiation Experiments in the United States (http://www.ieer.org/sdafiles/vol_3/3-1/humanex.html), R. C. Longworth, Injected! (http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1999/nd99/nd99reviews.html).
4 THE TROUBLING LEGACY OF THE TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS STUDY (http://hsc.virginia.edu/hs-library/historical/apology/); Jennifer Heilbronner, "Last surviving member of controversial study speaks," The Yale Herald 2/22/02 (http://www.yaleherald.com/article-p.php?Article=363).
5 Pentagon Proposed Pretexts for Cuba Invasion in 1962, The National Security Archive 4/30/01 (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/).
6 Ed Rippy, Guns and Drugs: The CIA's Admissions (http://erippy.home.mindspring.com/Guns_and_Drugs_The_CIA%27s_Admissions.html).