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OPERATION POPEYE

Operation Popeye

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[show] v • d • e Military engagements of the Vietnam War

Operation Popeye (Project Popeye/Motorpool/Intermediary-Compatriot) was a US military cloud seeding operation (running from March 20, 1967 until July 5, 1972) during the Vietnam war to extend the monsoon season over Laos, specifically areas of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The operation seeded clouds withsilver iodide, resulting in the targeted areas seeing an extension of the monsoon period an average of 30 to 45 days. As the continuous rainfall slowed down the truck traffic, it was considered relatively successful.^[1] The 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron carried out the operation to "make mud, not war." ^[2]

Contents [hide] 1 Project Popeye (1966) 2 The Operation's Objectives 3 Operation Popeye 4 The Operation revealed 5 Current Law and Operation Popeye 6 Sources 6.1 Published government documents 7 References 8 External links 9 Related content

[edit]Project Popeye (1966)

Project Popeye was an experiment in increased rainfall through cloud seeding jointly approved by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Defense. The technical aspects of the experiment were verified by Dr. Donald F. Hornig, Special Assistant to the President of the United States for Science and Technology. The government of Laos was not informed of the project, its methods or its goals.

Robert S. McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense, was aware that there might be objections raised by the international scientific community but said in a memo to the president that such objections had not in the past been a basis for prevention of military activities considered to be in the interests of U.S. national security.

During October 1966, Project Popeye was tested in a strip of the Laos panhandle east of the Bolovens Plateau in the Se Kong River valley. The test was conducted by personnel from the Naval Ordnance Test Station located at China Lake California. Fifty cloud seeding experiments were conducted with the result that 82% of the clouds produced rain within a brief period after having been seeded. It was claimed that one of the clouds drifted across the Vietnam border and dropped nine inches of rain on a US special forces camp over a four hour period. After the successful completion of the test phase, Project Popeye transitioned from an experiment to an operational program of the U.S. Defense department.

[edit]The Operation's Objectives

Operation Popeye goal was to increase rainfall in carefully selected areas to deny the Vietnamese enemy, namely military supply trucks, the use of roads by: ^[3]

1. Softening road surfaces
2. Causing landslides along roadways
3. Washing out river crossings
4. Maintain saturated soil conditions beyond the normal time span.

[edit]Operation Popeye

Starting on March 20, 1967 and continuing through every rainy season (March to November) in Southeast Asia until 1972, operational cloud seeding missions were flown. Three C-130 aircraft and two F4-C aircraft based at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base Thailand flew two sorties per day. The aircraft were officially on weather reconnaissance missions and the aircraft crews as part of their normal duty generated weather report information. The crews, all from the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, were rotated into the operation on a regular basis from Guam. Inside the squadron, the rainmaking operations were code-named "Motorpool".

The initial area of operations was the eastern half of the Laotian panhandle. On 11 July 1967, the operational area was increased northward to around the area of the 20th parallel and included portions of far western North Vietnam. In September 1967, the A Shau Valley in South Vietnam was added to the operational area. Operations over North Vietnam were eliminated on April 1, 1968 concurrent with conventional bombing restrictions being put into effect. The southern region of North Vietnam was added to the operational area on September 25, 1968 and then removed on November 1st of that year concurrent with a halt to conventional bombing of North Vietnam. In 1972, most of northeastern Cambodia was added to the operational area,

All rainmaking operations ceased on July 5, 1972.

[edit]The Operation revealed

Reporter Jack Anderson published a story in March 1971 concerning Operation Popeye (though in his column it was called Intermediary-Compatriot). The name Operation Popeye (Pop Eye) entered the public space through a brief mention in the Pentagon Papers ^[4] and a July 3 1972 article in the New York Times.^[5] Operations in Laos ceased two days after the publication of the Times article.

The press stories led to demands from members of the U.S. Congress, led by Senator Claiborne Pell, for more information. U.S. House and Senate resolutions in favor of banning environmental warfare were passed as Senate Resolution 71 on July 11, 1973, H.R. 116 of 1974, H.R. 329 of 1974 and H.R. 28 of 1975.

[edit]Current Law and Operation Popeye

Weather modification procedures when performed to achieve a military end now fall under the provenance of the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques.

[edit]Sources

• Weather Modification Hearing, United States Senate Subcommittee on Oceans and International Environment of the Committee on Foreign Relations, March 20, 1974

[edit]Published government documents

• Keefer, Edward C. Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-1968 Volume XXVII Laos United States Government Printing Office, 1998.

[edit]References

1. ^ "Laos, 1948-1989; Part 2". Acig.org. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
2. ^ Will Thomas Author. "Weather Warfare/Global Dominance Over Weather/Full Spectrum Dominance By Us Over Weather". Willthomas.net. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
3. ^ "ENMOD and the US Congress". Sunshine-project.org. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
4. ^ "The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 4, Chapter 2, "US Ground Strategy and Force Deployments, 1965-1968, pp. 277-604, 3rd section". Mtholyoke.edu. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
5. ^ "Rainmaking Is Used As Weapon by U.S.; Cloud-Seeding in Indochina Is Sa... - Free Preview - The New York Times". Select.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2009-07-25.

[edit]External links

• Transcript of the US Senate Hearing on Weather Modification of March 20, 1974
• Operation Motorpool Gallery
• Dr. Edwin X Berry's 1969 trip to Philippines for Operation Popeye (Berry now at www.climatephysics.com)

[edit]Related content

• WC-130 Hercules

Reagan: The Great American Socialist

Reagan: The Great American Socialist

Friday 20 March 2009

by: Ravi Batra, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Ravi Batra comments that if Democratic President Barack Obama is a "small" socialist, then Reagan was the "Great American Socialist."

Socialism has been much in the news for some months. Recently, some GOP stalwarts charged President Obama with preaching the heresy. John Boehner, the House minority leader, characterized Obama's stimulus package as, "one big down payment on a new American socialist experiment."

"Socialism" is a pejorative term in American politics and needs to be carefully examined. It usually refers to increased government control over the economy, or policies that promote the redistribution of wealth. There is no doubt that President Obama's economic measures, passed and proposed, will raise tax rates on the richest Americans to pay for increased government funding of health care, green energy and education. So the new president is indeed a redistributionist, but so was Ronald Reagan, except that Obama's plans will transfer wealth from the rich to the poor, whereas Reagan's bills transferred wealth from the poor and the middle class to the opulent. In fact, Obama's measures are puny, whereas Reagan's were massive. If the Democrat is a "small" socialist, Reagan was the Great American Socialist.

Let's go back to the early 1980's. In 1981, Reagan signed a law that sharply reduced the income tax for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. The president asserted his program would create jobs, purge inflation and, get this, trim the budget deficit. However, following the tax cut, the deficit soared from 2.5 percent of GDP to over 6 percent, alarming financial markets, sending interest rates sky high, and culminating in the worst recession since the 1930's.

Soon the president realized he needed new revenues to trim the deficit, bring down interest rates and improve his chances for reelection. He would not rescind the income tax cut, but other taxes were acceptable. In 1982, taxes were raised on gasoline and cigarettes, but the deficit hardly budged. In 1983, the president signed the biggest tax rise on payrolls, promising to create a surplus in the Social Security system, while knowing all along that the new revenue would be used to finance the deficit.

The retirement system was looted from the first day the Social Security surplus came into being, because the legislation itself gave the president a free hand to spend the surplus in any way he liked. Thus began a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class, especially the self-employed small businessman, to the wealthy. The self-employment tax jumped as much as 66 percent.

In 1986, Reagan slashed the top tax rate further. His redistributionist obsession led to a perversity in the law. The wealthiest faced a 28 percent tax rate, while those with lower incomes faced a 33 percent rate; in addition, the bottom rate climbed from 11 percent to 15 percent. For the first time in history, the top rate fell and the bottom rate rose simultaneously. Even unemployment compensation was not spared. The jobless had to pay income tax on their benefits. A year later, the man who would not spare unemployment compensation from taxation called for a cut in the capital gains tax. Thus, Reagan was a staunch socialist, totally committed to his cause of wealth redistribution towards the affluent.

How much wealth transfer has occurred through Reagan's policies? At least $3 trillion.

The Social Security hike generated over $2 trillion in surplus between 1984 and 2007, and if it had been properly invested, say, in AAA corporate bonds it could have earned another trillion by now. At present, the fund is empty, because it has been used up to finance the federal deficits resulting from frequent cuts in income tax rates. If this is not redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, what else is?

Thus, Reagan was the first Republican socialist - and a great one, because his wealth transfer occurred on a massive scale. His accomplishment dwarfs even FDR's, and if today the small businessman suffers a crippling tax burden, he must thank Reagan the redistributionist. However, FDR took pains to help the poor, while Reagan took pains to help the wealthiest like himself.

Reagan's measures were similar to those that the Republicans adopted during the 1920's, which were followed by the catastrophic Depression. More recently, such policies were mimicked by President George W. Bush and they are about to plunge the world into a depression as well. Ironically, the Reagan-style socialism or wealth redistribution is about to destroy monopoly capitalism, the very system that he wanted to preserve and enrich.

Wake up America and elect leaders with a heart - not those who would tax your unemployment benefits and cut the capital gains tax.

-------

Dr. Ravi Batra, a professor of economics at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, is the author of five international best sellers. He was the chairperson of his department from 1977 to 1980. This article is based on Batra's two books, "The New Golden Age" and "Greenspan's Fraud." His web site is Ravibatra.com.

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