Posted on 09/30/2006 10:18:39 AM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
"Global Trends 2015" Terrorism-Related Excerpts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following items are terrorism-related items from the National Intelligence Council's "Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts" report (December 2000).
Transnational Terrorism (page 50)
States with poor governance; ethnic, cultural, or religious tensions; weak economies; and porous borders will be prime breeding grounds for terrorism. In such states, domestic groups will challenge the entrenched government, and transnational networks seeking safehavens.
At the same time, the trend away from state-supported political terrorism and toward more diverse, free-wheeling, transnational networks—enabled by information technology—will continue. Some of the states that actively sponsor terrorism or terrorist groups today may decrease or even cease their support by 2015 as a result of regime changes, rapprochement with neighbors, or the conclusion that terrorism has become counterproductive. But weak states also could drift toward cooperation with terrorists, creating de facto new state supporters.
Between now and 2015 terrorist tactics will become increasingly sophisticated and designed to achieve mass casualties.
We expect the trend toward greater lethality in terrorist attacks to continue.
Reacting to US Military Superiority (page 56)
Experts agree that the United States, with its decisive edge in both information and weapons technology, will remain the dominant military power during the next 15 years. Further bolstering the strong position of the United States are its unparalleled economic power, its university system, and its investment in research and development—half of the total spent annually by the advanced industrial world. Many potential adversaries, as reflected in doctrinal writings and statements, see US military concepts, together with technology, as giving the United States the ability to expand its lead in conventional warfighting capabilities.
This perception among present and potential adversaries will continue to generate the pursuit of asymmetric capabilities against US forces and interests abroad as well as the territory of the United States. US opponents—state and such nonstate actors as drug lords, terrorists, and foreign insurgents—will not want to engage the US military on its terms. They will choose instead political and military strategies designed to dissuade the United States from using force, or, if the United States does use force, to exhaust American will, circumvent or minimize US strengths, and exploit perceived US weaknesses. Asymmetric challenges can arise across the spectrum of conflict that will confront US forces in a theater of operations or on US soil.
Threats to Critical Infrastructure.
Some potential adversaries will seek ways to threaten the US homeland. The US national infrastructure—communications, transportation, financial transactions, energy networks—is vulnerable to disruption by physical and electronic attack because of its interdependent nature and by cyber attacks because of their dependence on computer networks. Foreign governments and groups will seek to exploit such vulnerabilities using conventional munitions, information operations, and even WMD.
Terrorism.
Much of the terrorism noted earlier will be directed at the United States and its overseas interests. Most anti-US terrorism will be based on perceived ethnic, religious or cultural grievances. Terrorist groups will continue to find ways to attack US military and diplomatic facilities abroad. Such attacks are likely to expand increasingly to include US companies and American citizens. Middle East and Southwest Asian-based terrorists are the most likely to threaten the United States.
[For some reason, spreading disease comes to mind]
Escaped hamster grounds jet
INNSBRUCK, Austria -- It wasn't ''Snakes on a Plane,'' but an Austrian
Airlines jet made an unscheduled stop Friday after a passenger sneaked
a
hamster aboard and the rodent escaped.
The flight from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, to the southern Austrian city
of
Graz made a stop in Innsbruck so officials could search for the hamster
and
make sure it didn't gnaw through wiring, the airline said.
It said the flight was diverted after a passenger notified the crew
that he
had brought a hamster aboard and had lost track of it. Passengers were
ordered off the plane, and some were taken by bus to Graz. It was not
clear
how many people were aboard.
By midafternoon, a search of the aircraft still had not turned up any
sign
of the hamster, authorities said.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/77995,CST-NWS-chess30.article
Engine failures: Indian Airlines under fire
(New Delhi): National carrier Indian Airlines seems to be neck deep in
a
crisis.
Reports available exclusively with NDTV indicate that engines of the
aircraft have been failing during take offs as well as landings.
There have been a series of failures in the past year, a fact that has
remained concealed from the public eye.
Even during ground inspections, the V-2500 1A engines fitted onto A-320
aircrafts have failed.
An aircraft has two engines, and so when one fails, the other
compensates.
But an in flight shut down (IFSD) is an extreme emergency and a serious
threat to passenger safety. And it's happened on Indian Airlines
flights on:
Dec 3, 2005, when an engine failed on the Calicut-bound IC-495
On November 16, 2005, when an engine failed on the IC-563, bound for
Ahmedabad
On October 8, 2005, another IFSD on the Pune-bound IC-850
In August 2005, there were two IFSDs on IC-939 and IC-909
On July 29, 2005, one of the engines failed on the IC-976, VT ESB,
bound for
Sharjah.
"Last year there was a DGCA enquiry on this. There were two or three.
In
flight shut down is a very serious issue. Conclusions of the DGCA and
engineering department were that engines needed some refurbishment at a
proper time," said Vishwapati Trivedi, CMD, Indian Airlines.
Passenger safety
NDTV's investigation revealed that in the last seven-eight months there
have
been more than 50 serious 'incidents' including engine failures.
Though not figuring in IFSD, these were extreme emergencies. There were
serious problems like temperature shooting up, landing gear getting
stuck
etc. In at least one case there was emergency evacuation as crew
reported
fire in one of the engines.
There are more examples of how passenger safety on Indian Airlines
flights
have been under threat:
On Feburary 28, 2006, the Delhi/Jaipur flight IC-895 began its descent
when
engine number two failed and crew reported a fire in the engine.
On June 9, 2006, the Dubai-bound IC-951 took off, but one engine failed
as
it climbed.
On August 5, 2006, the Sharjah-bound IC-976 had to abandon take-off,
because
the exhaust gas temperature or EGT shot up in both engines.
On September 12, 2006, in the Delhi-bound IC-878, the EGT of engine 1
and 2
went far higher than permissible. The engine was sent for major
repairs.
But the airline continues to argue that these incidents are not as
serious.
"Extreme emergencies could have been one or two. We don't compromise
the
passenger safety. High EGT doesn't mean failure. There are engine
issues.
There are one or two incidents every day. We have a huge network," said
Vishwapti Trivedi, CMD, Indian Airlines.
"If there is a temperature rise we take it off. You can't call it
failing,
you can call it defect. But that is happening to all mechanical things.
You
can say the engines need servicing or you can call it a failing," he
added.
Failed tests
But that's not the end of Indian Airlines' problems. Four engines sent
abroad for overhauling failed during tests once they came back. Each
over
hauling costs around Rs 16 crore.
Aviation sources say, engines have a normal life of 2,50,000 cycles or
roughly 2,50,000 hours of running time. But engines have been failing
after
just 4000 cycles.
NDTV has confidential documents, reflecting just how serious the crisis
is.
In a letter to Rob Rosato, Fleet Director, M/s International Aero
Engines, P
Pradhan, Executive Director, Indian Airlines, wrote:
"Two HPC modules were outsourced to M/s IHI for complete refurbishment.
On
return these modules were used on ESN V0 281 and VO238. Both engines
failed
due to third stage blade clapper mismatch observed during post test
boroscope inspection. Such a failure has concerned us."
The letter was written on June 6, 2006. The next day, two more engines
failed tests, forcing another letter.
"We have come across yet another case - failure of three IHI
refurbished
HPCs in a row due to third stage clapper mismatch has paralysed our
recovery
programme. In the meantime another engine has also failed," it said.
When NDTV wrote to International Aero Engines, there was no response.
Aviation experts say, such incidents reflect poorly on an airline.
"Inflight shut down is a very very serious thing. Normally it shouldn't
happen. It reflects very poorly of airlines, it speaks of the state of
engines. If this happens, DGCA orders enquiry into this, but it is not
that
this doesn't happen. Afterall, this is a machine," said Kapil Kaul,
Aviation
expert, Center for Asia Pacific Aviation.
With engines failing and frequent shut downs, passenger safety is at a
greater risk and Indian Airlines has a lot to explain.
Also if the outsourced engines are failing at short intervals, someone
has
to be held accountable.
http://www.ndtv.com/topstories/showtopstory.asp?category=National&slug=IA+en
gine+failures+raise+concerns&id=20386
Flight attendant sues Joel Osteen's wife over incident last year
Victoria Osteen paid $3,000 fine to FAA
(9/29/06 - HOUSTON) - A Continental Airline flight attendant filed a
lawsuit
this week saying she was assaulted on a flight by the wife of
nationally
known pastor and author Joel Osteen.
The Federal Aviation Administration fined Victoria Osteen $3,000 for
interfering with a crew member during a Christmas vacation flight to
Vail,
Colo., on Dec. 19.
Osteen paid the fine in August to put the issue to rest, her attorney
Rusty
Hardin told the Houston Chronicle. She believes "very, very strongly"
that
she did nothing wrong, Hardin said.
But Sharon Brown, a flight manager on that trip, said in her civil suit
that
Osteen assaulted her. Brown is seeking unspecified damages for past and
future medical care, emotional pain, mental anguish, suffering and
humiliation.
The FAA report states that Osteen asked another flight attendant to
clean a
liquid on her first-class seat armrest. When that attendant said she
would
get another flight attendant, Osteen grabbed a second flight attendant
and
took her to the seat, the report said. The second attendant said she
would
call cleaning personnel and headed to the cockpit, the FAA said. Osteen
followed her and came across Brown, whom she pushed and elbowed in the
left
breast in an attempt to get to the cockpit, according to the report.
The flight attendants asked to have Osteen removed from the plane; she
and
her family left voluntarily. Osteen denies the charges of assault.
"Victoria Osteen never assaulted her," Hardin said. "This flight
attendant
just flipped out. I can't answer why. The only thing I can say is that
Victoria Osteen is the last person in the world who would assault
anyone."
Joel Osteen preaches at Lakewood Church in Houston, where more than
35,000
people flock each weekend. His book "Your Best Life Now" has sold more
than
4 million copies, and his weekly television address is broadcast
nationally
and internationally.
"Victoria Osteen sent a letter out to her congregation saying she acted
in a
Christian-like manner," said Brown's lawyer, Reginald McKamie. "We're
going
to let a jury of 12 people from Harris County decide whether she acted
in a
Christian-like manner."
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=local&id=4610795
[unknown url]
Cabin smoke prompts Delta flight evacuation; two injured
BOSTON (AFP) - Two people suffered minor injuries when a Delta Air
Lines
flight from New York to Boston was evacuated because of smoke in the
cabin,
the airline said.
Delta Flight 1908, carrying 40 passengers and four crew members, had
just
landed at Boston's Logan International Airport and was approaching the
gate
when smoke appeared in the cabin.
Passengers and crew members were evacuated using the aircraft's
inflatable
slides, said Betsy Talton, a spokeswoman for Delta.
Talton said two people suffered minor injuries but she had no further
details.
Local radio station WBZ quoted an airport spokesman as saying one
person was
believed to have sustained hip and leg injuries during the evacuation,
and
another person was believed to have a back injury.
The cause of the smoke was not immediately known, Talton said. She said
the
incident had otherwise had no effect on Delta's operations.
[unknown url]
Brazil plane plunged nose first
BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - The Brazilian passenger plane that crashed
with
155 people on board likely plunged into the ground nose first, the
president
of airport authority Infraero said on Saturday, meaning there is little
chance that anyone survived.
Jose Carlos Pereira told reporters that rescue planes found a
concentrated
wreckage site in the Amazon jungle, indicating that the plane hit the
ground
in a vertical position.
Today's Installment Of 'Wacky Behavior On Airliners'
Man Sprays Seatmate With Perfume... You Read That Right
Federal authorities had some questions for two men involved in an
altercation onboard an American Airlines flight Wednesday.
Authorities say one of the men, a 56-year-old Japanese national, acted
suspiciously even before flight 918 left Lima, Peru, bound for Miami.
The
man laid down in the aisle at one point, before asking for a glass of
water... which he then proceeded to pour over his head, before settling
back
into his seat next to a jockey in his 20s.
The Miami Herald reports the older man wasn't done, though... as about
two
hours into the flight, he then sprayed perfume on the man seated next
to
him, according to airline spokeswoman Judy Orihuela. He evidently felt
his
seatmate's hygiene was of some concern.
When the younger man took out his iPod -- apparently in an attempt to
ignore
his fellow passenger -- the older man then elbowed the younger man.
"(The older man) thought it (the iPod) was not going to be good for the
plane ... with all the rules on electronics," Orihuela said.
The flight crew eventually separated the two men, who were not
identified.
Both were questioned when the plane landed early Wednesday morning...
but
were not arrested.
Is it just us... or does this sound like something you'd see on
"Airline?"
FMI: www.aa.com
aero-news.net
China needs over 10,000 pilots
Beijing, Sep 30 (Xinhua) Chinese airlines will need an additional
10,000
airline pilots over the next five years, and the figure expected to
reach
18,000 by 2015, said a senior official of the General Administration of
Civil Aviation of China (CAAC).
CAAC deputy director Wang Changshun called for the training of more
pilots
to meet civil aviation demand, which is growing at a rate of 12 to 14
percent annually.
Zheng Xiaoyong, president of Civil Aviation Flight University of China,
also
said China needed an average 3,000 pilots each year over the next 10
years.
However, the country is capable of training only 2,000 pilots each
year, so
the problem of insufficient supply of pilots could not be resolved in a
short period, he said.
Many Chinese airlines have begun looking for pilots overseas.
Shenzhen Airlines alone has recruited nearly 60 pilots from Brazil,
Russia,
the US and other countries, Beijing Daily reported.
1987--Ellison enrolls in University of Minnesota Law School
1989--Ellison publishes the first of two articles in the University of Minnesota Daily under the alias "Keith Hakim." In the first such article, Ellison speaks up for the Nation of Islam.
1990--Ellison participates in the sponsorship of the anti-Semitic speech by Kwame Ture given at the University of Minnesota Law School ("Zionism: Imperialism, White Supremacy or Both?"). Ellison rejects the appeal of Jewish law students to withdraw sponsorship of the lecture. Ellison graduates from University of Minnesota Law School.
1992--Ellison appears as speaker at demonstration against Minneapolis police with Vice Lords leader Sharif Willis following the murder of Officer Haaf by four Vice Lords gangsters in September.
1993--Ellison leads demonstration chanting "We don't get no justice, you don't get no peace" in support of Vice Lords defendant on trial for the murder of Officer Haaf. Ellison attends Gang Summit in Kansas City with Willis.
___________________________________________________
Chief Bob Olson of Minneapolis was there and his presence conjured up memories of Jerry Haaf, a Minneapolis police officer who was shot in the back while having a cup of coffee. It happened during the early morning hours of September 25, 1992. Officer Haaf was nearing the end of his shift and he stopped by a favorite cop hangout to get a cup of coffee and finish some paperwork. He never saw the two gang members enter the dimly lit restaurant. He did not even have a chance to draw his weapon. They quickly walked up behind him, shot him twice in the back and then ran out the door. His cowardly killers did not know Officer Haaf and did not care about all of the good he had done in his life, or that he was just three months shy of retirement with his wife, Marilyn. All they knew is that they wanted to kill a cop.
http://www.nleomf.com/TheMemorial/tributes/mcc.htm
For more on this Google "Jerry Haaf"
592 09JC HMAS JERVIS BAY
http://www.google.com/search?q=09JC+HMAS+JERVIS+BAY&client=netscape-pp&rls=com.netscape:en-US
09jc, appears to be the call sign for an Australian ship.
At least it was in the Alaska area, if I am right and Barrows is up there, I keep thinking Barrows Island and think it may be a secret military base.
The link in your post, appeared to be a list of ships and their call signs, by radio, I am thinking.
This is for your post #91.................
Thank you for the link, some of them I recall, and all are heroes to me.
I am picking up an increase in cop killings, for no reason, just to kill a cop.
Is it the gangs again or the jihadi?
About 10 days ago, there was another killed in Denver, stopped in his car at a stop light, the killer is a thing named Washington, who also drove by and shot a woman.
There are lots of driveby shootings now.
Ellison would not get my vote.
John Rothman, this morning on kgo.com I get the radio station, was using the cancelled opera in Germany as a subject, he took a call from a muslim and his rant was insane.
He attacked John, and John being a pro, backed him down, with questions, until the muslim answered that to show the opera was a crime and violence would solve it.
Something along the line of "show the opera here in San Francisco and we will show you what violence is".
John had taken him past the 'be careful stage", this was not an uneducated caller, but it was a man who feels just as we read in the papers, every day.
You can listen on the computer, it is the first half hour of the first hour of the John Rothman program.
http://www.kgo.com
[This program is interesting, he has more info about the last Zawahiri tape and other information on the news of today, it is well done and should be on the radio, or tv, I managed to hear it on the computer....first time.
Last weeks will be on the homepage. granny ]
Subject: Global Crisis Watch - Oct 2, 2006
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2006 05:32:05 -0400
October 2, 2006 | Episode #32
Zawahiri's Latest Video, Curfew in Baghdad, Islamist Advances in Somalia
Global Crisis Watch calls to Washington, Baghdad and Buffalo to tackle the latest al Qaeda video featuring Ayman al-Zawahiri, the curfew and security situation in Iraq, and Islamist advances in Somalia with Dr Walid Phares, author of "Future Jihad," Omar of Iraq The Model, and Dr Abdiweli Ali, Niagara University. Co-hosted by Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail.
Link: http://www.GlobalCrisisWatch.com/gcw/gcw_061002.mp3
29.5 minutes | 13 Megs
Global Crisis Watch is an independent and weekly 30-minute current affairs and news podcast focusing on the Global War on Terror, the War of Ideas, and indigenous pro-democracy efforts around the world. Hosted by Richard Lafayette in Minneapolis and co-hosted by Bill Roggio of BillRoggio.com and Nick Grace in Washington, DC, the show features interviews with brave activists and journalists about terrorism, democratization, and indigenous efforts to promote freedom and liberty.
So, far, have not found the ship:
http://cgmix.uscg.mil/PSIX/VesselSearch.aspx
http://www.meteo.shom.fr/vos-monitoring/info.htm
Interesting list of ships at Australia:
http://www.shom.fr/cgi-bin/meteo/list_vos_country.cgi?country=AU
http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/search.phtml
Location of ships, a map, with measles:
http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shiplocations.phtml
Your next cruise ship:
http://www.geocities.com/freighterman.geo/mainmenu.html
Things you did not know:
http://www.geocities.com/freighterman.geo/info.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+find+a+ship&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&rls=com.netscape%3Aen-US
There's a difference? We are seeing alliances being formed between the narco-terrorist in Columbia and Islamists.<<<
You are correct.
Add in the prison mates that convert.
I posted a report on the prison muslim iman, that got busted for converting jehadi's, 2 or 3 days ago, as I recall, the most important part was, that they did not put him in prison, confined him to his home..........guess they did not want him in a position to freely line up the jihad converts.
I do think that a lot of the drive by shooters are jihadi.
[all your fault, you sent me to find a ship, this report is from Jan. 21, 2005, I had not read it before, were there more of these?...granny]
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005031721,00.html
CLICK HERE TO PRINT CLOSE WINDOW
Race to find kidnap ship
Disaster ... Sri Lanka
Disaster ... Sri Lanka
From STEVE GRAVENOR
in Colombo, Sri Lanka
A BOAT packed with dozens of kidnapped tsunami orphans was being hunted last night.
Police fear the kids could be sold illegally to Western couples or used in the child sex trade.
The fishing trawler left the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo a week after the killer waves struck and is believed to be heading for the Kolkata area of India.
Coastguard, navy and police boats are desperately scouring the Bay of Bengal.
Conditions on the trawler are believed to be cramped and unhygienic and aid workers are concerned the orphans may be disease-ridden by the time they arrive in India.
Police were alerted after a charity worker in Colombo saw the boat leave.
A police source said: “We were told it is full of children orphaned by the tsunami and that the criminals behind it are planning to sell them to people in the West.
“We don’t know whether it is for adoptions or for use in the child sex and porn trade.”
There have been fears that crooks would cash in on the plight of the thousands of orphans in Sri Lanka, where child abuse is a big problem.
A police spokesman said: “We are taking this matter very seriously. These children must be completely terrified and traumatised.
“We are doing everything we can but the Indian Ocean is a very big place.”
found this here:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.adoption/browse_thread/thread/4292daaaab8a1aea/59151ce489f7c993?lnk=st&q=how+to+find+a+ship&rnum=8&hl=en#59151ce489f7c993
About Gangs, Terrorist, and Cop Killings:
I was going to mention with all the recruiting they have said is being done within the prison system I would not be surprised to learn that some of these groups have merged at least in the larger areas. Not like any gangbangers really need an extra incentive for violence.
I didn't see your post at #114 Granny - we're all on the same wave-length here! LOL
Good Morning Liberty, yes, sadly, it is easy for us to be on the same wave link.
Wouldn't it be nice to not be? To think of other things.
Say Politician and I think crook.
Say prison and I think politician..........sorry had to type that.
LOL
Prisons mean jihadi to me.
"Israel Matzav
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com
" - 4 new articles
1. Anti-Semitism on the rise in Venezuela
2. A Homemade Genocide
3. Palestinian Jewish girl taken from Tulkarm
4. Congressmen: UNRWA violating regulations by helping terrorists
Anti-Semitism on the rise in Venezuela
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2006/09/anti-semitism-on-rise-in-venezuela.html
Blogger Daniel at Venezuela News and Views provides a translation of a
viciously anti-Semitic article from the Caracas daily El Diario.
Zionists, the
destructive sect of radical Jews, are again impregnating the Jewish
community
with its animosity towards humanity. The genocide they executed in
Palestine and
Lebanon is similar to the Holocaust which the Nazis executed against
them, and
they will
A Homemade Genocide
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2006/09/homemade-genocide.html
There is genocide in the Arab world. But it's not being committed by
Jews or by Israel. It's being committed by Arabs. So says Dror Ben
Yemini in
Ma'ariv, and he brings lots of examples. Here are some: Algeria: A few
years
after the establishment of the State of Israel, there began another war
of
independence. This time it was Algeria against France, between the
years
1954-1962. The number of
Palestinian Jewish girl taken from Tulkarm
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2006/09/palestinian-jewish-girl-taken-from.html
There are signs from Yad l'Achim all over my neighborhood that say
"there are many Achmed ben Sara's" (Ahmed - an Arab name - the son of
Sara - a
Jewish name). In other words, there are too many Jewish women who are
married to
Arab men. Many of these women - probably most of them - don't realize
that once
they marry an Arab man, they are virtual prisoners. If they manage to
escape, it
is almost
Congressmen: UNRWA violating regulations by helping terrorists
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2006/09/congressmen-unrwa-violating.html
Two US Congressmen - Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Steven Rothman (D-NJ) - sent
a
letter to Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice yesterday accusing the
United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) of
violating
its own regulations by not checking agency beneficiaries against a list
of known
terrorists identified by the police or Israeli government. In the
letter, Kirk
and Rothman .
The Vatican Secret Archive Has Opened a New Mine for
Historians
It is the pope’s private archive: a thousand years of
documents in eighty kilometers of shelving. Since
September 18, thirty thousand new volumes of papers
are available for consultation, for the period from
1922 to 1939, corresponding to the pontificate of Pius
XI. Including the previously unpublished diaries of
then-cardinal Eugenio Pacelli
by Sandro Magister
http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=87082&eng=y
ROMA, September 30, 2006 – Two weeks ago, the Vatican
opened another section of its Secret Archive to
scholars: it covers the time span of Pius XI’s
pontificate, from 1922 to 1939.
The new pages of documents now available total in the
millions. The scholars who have crowded the archive
since the first days of its opening have found
themselves facing 59 new volumes of catalogs alone –
and that only for the immense stock from the first
section of the Vatican secretariat of state.
The documents are indispensable for the study of the
history of the twentieth century. The dominant figure
is that of pope Pius XI. But then-secretary of state
Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII, is also featured
significantly.
The Vatican documents from that period available for
consultation do not include the ones relating to the
conclave that on February 6, 1922, elected the
cardinal archbishop of Milan, Achille Ratti. The ban
against making public the proceedings of the conclave
was established by the new Vatican legislation on the
archives, promulgated by John Paul II shortly before
his death, on March 21, 2005.
But there’s a big extra surprise in store among the
new papers made available to scholars. They are the
notes that then-secretary of state Pacelli took down
personally after every audience with Pius XI and with
the diplomats accredited to the Holy See. Cardinal
Pacelli began to compile this diary – the existence of
which was unknown until just recently – in August of
1930, or six months after taking his post as secretary
of state, and he continued to keep it until the death
of Pius XI, on February 10, 1939.
“There are thousands of handwritten pages, made in
Pacelli’s normal handwriting, which is not at all easy
to read” – explains the prefect of the Vatican Secret
Archive, Barnabite Sergio Pagano. Fr. Pagano himself
is overseeing the complete edition of this valuable
source. It will run to at least fifteen volumes, and
the first – covering the year 1930 – will be published
in the spring of 2007.
Fr. Sergio Pagano, born 58 years ago in Genoa, has
been the prefect of the Vatican Secret Archive since
1997. He is a member of the “Monumenta Germaniae
Historica,” and is author of more than 130 scholarly
publications. In his latest work, “Le carte del ‘sacro
tavolo’ [The papers of the ‘holy table’],” in two
volumes edited together with Alejandro Dieguez, he has
published the documents of the private archive of Pius
X, which shed new light on a controversial
pontificate, but one decisive for the history of
contemporary Catholicism.
Here is the exclusive interview on the opening of the
documents of Pius XI’s pontificate that Fr. Pagano
gave to the newspaper of the Italian bishops’
conference, “Avvenire.” It was conducted by Gian Maria
Vian, a Church historian and full professor of
patristic philology at the Rome University “La
Sapienza”:
“Serious scholars know that history is written with
great effort, and that archives require years of
research...”
An interview with Sergio Pagano, prefect of the
Vatican Secret Archive
Q: Twenty archivists worked for almost twenty years
just to reorganize the inventories that have been
opened: how many and what sort of documents are these?
A: This mass of documents – which have been numbered,
inventoried, collated, and ordered in the appropriate
bins – include more than thirty thousand stacks of
material (contained in folders, envelopes, and
bundles). It is impossible to go into details, but
there are four major categories that will form the
backbone of future research: the archives of the
pontifical representatives, those of the Roman curia,
the great archive of the secretary of state, and that
of the congregation of extraordinary ecclesiastical
affairs. It must be remembered that the first world
war, the dissolution of the three great empires
(Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman), the
resurgence of nationalism, and the Holy See’s new
politics of international relations, which began after
1870 and was developed by Benedict XV and Pius XI, led
to the appointment of many pontifical representatives,
with twenty-seven archives that have now been made
available to researchers for the first time. Thousands
of stacks of archived material have made necessary a
long effort of organization, restoration, sorting, and
classification; an effort that was all the more
difficult if one considers that some of the archives
did not have even the most basic indices, and that
others were jumbled and in disarray when they arrived
at the Vatican. The extremely extensive collection of
the first section of the secretariat of state deserves
an altogether particular attention, and involved
creating computer files of more than one hundred
thousand pages, which went into the creation of 59
volumes of indices alone. Finally there is the
valuable archive of the congregation of extraordinary
ecclesiastical affairs, the duties of which have been
absorbed by the current section for relations with
states within the secretariat of state.
Q: This enormous documentation concerns one of the
most difficult and eventful periods of the twentieth
century: it is a past that never seems to pass away.
In 2003, some of the German archives were opened ahead
of schedule, followed by the opening of the archives
of the Vatican office for prisoners of war covering
the period of 1939-1947: does this opening come late
in comparison with other national archives?
A: In comparison with the openings of many state
archives, the archives of the Holy See are without a
doubt behind in chronological terms, perhaps by
fifteen or twenty years. But state laws concerning
archives are usually based on chronological divisions
that are fixed according to the different classes of
documents, while the Holy See usually opens its
archives by entire pontificates, out of the need for
consistency. This involves a considerable effort of
study, organization, reorganization, and cataloguing,
plus the work of identifying documents that are
classified under Vatican legislation, as is the case
for other great public archives; it is a work that
lasts for decades and that the resources of the
Vatican archive, which are limited even though they
have grown in recent years, must address in keeping
with the ordinary workload. The archive, in fact – and
it is good to reemphasize this – is not frequented
only by researchers on the contemporary era, who seem
to be in the grip of an unusual fever to consult the
most recent documents, but above all by scholars of
the medieval and modern periods, whose needs deserve
equal attention.
Q: Media frenzies – which later were seen to be
founded upon errors and manipulations – have
accompanied the opening of the archives of the
nunciatures of Munich and Berlin for the period of
1922-1939, and then the early release of other
documents kept in France. History as seen in the
splash of the headlines has fallen back upon the
formation of historiographical interpretations, and on
January 14, 2005, you yourself told “Avvenire” that
once the archives that had been clamored for are
opened, they’re hardly of interest anymore, and they
do not modify the preformulated theories. The latest
case concerns the private papers of Pius X, which you
yourself rigorously studied and published together
with Alejandro Dieguez: how did this go?
A: I restate what I said in 2005, and I am convinced
that the same phenomenon will repeat itself with this
opening. There are some who will go immediately to
look for “revelations” on Pius XI’s last illness, the
presumed “disagreements” between the pope and cardinal
secretary of state Eugenio Pacelli over German policy,
the drafting of the “mysterious” encyclical condemning
Nazism, and so on. And then there was the frantic
expectation of nuncio Pacelli’s documents from Munich
and Berlin, which seemed to promise the revelation of
who knows what sort of behind-the-scenes activity. At
first they produced some curiosity on the part of some
scholars, but then, when the extraordinary and
astonishing papers didn’t appear, curiosity gave way
to inattention, if not to disinterest. There are in
fact some scholars – to call them this – who prefer
general judgments to long and detailed investigation
and attention to the subtleties of the documents. In
the case of popes and of the Catholic Church, these
general judgments immediately become extreme: black or
white, pardon or condemnation. But the activities of
the pontiffs and the Holy See, and the reality of the
Church, are not monolithic or solely hierarchical
realities. A different conception is needed, and a
more mature historical judgment on Pius XI as well,
one as far from empty and useless justification as
from prejudice or partiality. Serious scholars know
that history is written with great effort, that
archives are not examined in a day or even in a month,
but require years of research, and are fully aware
that documents are not to be read apart from their
context (including that of the archive), and that the
study of the context requires long research in various
directions. These scholars do not push for the
archives to be opened before they are ready, and when
the doors open, they begin serious investigations. I
recall, among other things, the edition that has been
underway since 2003 – by the Kommission für
Zeitgeschichte in Bonn and by the Istituto Storico
Germanico in Rome, under the guidance of Karl-Joseph
Hummel and Thomas Brechenmacher, in collaboration with
the Vatican archive – of the dispatches from the
nuncio in Germany, Cesare Orsenigo, from 1930 to 1939:
it will be, without a doubt, a scholarly work, the
need for which was felt in part because of the loss of
the archive of the nuncio in Germany. As for the
volumes just published by Alejandro Dieguez and myself
on the documents of the “Secretariola” [private
secretariat] of Pius X, which have been almost ignored
until now, it is not my place to judge. Of course,
some of the recent references to this work in the
press leave us perplexed, because we have read in them
judgments we never expressed, and which do not even
correspond, in point of fact, to the published
documents.
Q: Returning to Pius XI, what will be found in the
inventories that are being opened, and how much time
will we need to see historiographical results founded
upon reliable analysis of the documents?
A: The research can investigate many topics: Achille
Ratti as a diplomat of the Holy See, and then a
promoter of diplomatic initiatives; the 1922 conclave;
mission work (the encyclical “Rerum Ecclesiae” is from
1926); relations with the East (“Rerum Orientalium”
from 1928, and much more); the topic of the sciences
(with the refounding, in 1936, of the pontifical
academy of sciences); theological and biblical
culture; the social question; Catholic Action; Pius XI
and the Popular Party in Italy; the “Roman Question”
and the Lateran Pacts between the Holy See and Italy;
the international politics of the Holy See, beginning
with the famous report on the various states presented
to the new pope in 1922, taken up again recently by
historians; Pius XI and fascism, especially after the
Lateran Pacts; the racial question; Pius XI and the
Jews (in this regard the unjust judgments expressed
recently may be overturned); national socialism;
communism; the war in Spain and the pope’s attitude
toward Francoism; diplomatic relations with France;
the situation of the Church in Mexico; pope Achille
Ratti and democracy; religious life; the jubilees of
1925 and 1933-1934. Against the background of such
wide-ranging and profound pastoral and political
activity there moves the great figure of cardinal
Eugenio Pacelli, a most faithful interpreter and
executor of the wishes of Pius XI and then his
successor, perhaps secretly indicated as such by the
sacred college to the pope when, in 1936, he exhorted
him to undertake a journey to the United States on the
“world stage,” a trip about which there is
documentation. And the historians interested in the
figure of Pius XII will be able to study the
personality and work of the then-secretary of state.
Obviously, historians will compare and integrate the
Vatican documentation with other sources, whether
already known or yet to be explored. How not to think,
for example, in the case of Germany, of the
publications of the Kommission für Zeitgeschichte,
almost forty volumes of correspondence, private notes,
police reports and other material; but also of the
Akten Deutscher Bischöfe über die Lage der Kirche, the
documentation of which clarifies well the decisions of
the Holy See and of the German bishops in the face of
Nazism? As for fascism in Italy, to the Vatican
sources (which are themselves relevant) must be added
the no less interesting sources of the private
archives of the fascist leaders – the Bottai papers,
for example, have already produced results – and of
the inventories of the Italian ministers (in the
central state archive) and of the state archives. I
also would not exclude the diocesan archives, because
among other things there is yet to be an investigation
of the relationship between Pius XI and the bishops
inclined toward fascism or against it. But before
reaching well-founded evaluations of Pius XI’s
pontificate, such a vast investigation will require
years, if not decades.
Vatican Secret Archives link :
http://asv.vatican.va/home_en.htm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.