DATELINE MONDAY NOVEMBER 12, 2001 4:14PM PST Eugene, Oregon.... I write Part XI of our ongoing series about 10 hours after the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 near Rockaway Beach, New York at 9:17AM EST. While the immediate response by the press and U.S. Government is that this crash doesn't appear to be connected to the WTC catastrophe and the new war on terrorism, there is a very uncomfortable astrological signal that this latest air disaster might actually be linked to the events of September 11th. Why? The transiting Moon at this crash is located at 14+ Libra! If you return to Part I of our story, you will see how potent that degree was. 14+ Libra was rising as the first plane on Sept. 11 -- also an American Airlines flight! -- slammed into the World Trade Center. It was also the position of Mercury (trade; business; communications; transportation) on Sept. 11 and this degree is America's natal Saturn placement (fear; limits; blocks; frustrations; our Achilles' heel as a nation) from July 4, 1776. The odds of this new plane crash taking place with the Moon at 14+ Libra and this event not being connected to Sept. 11 seems remote in my mind. Was there a hijacker or terrorist connected to Al Qaeda on board? Might an airline mechanic, stealthily sabotaging engine components before the flight took off, have caused the plane's destruction? Or could a terrorist, with fake credentials, have placed a bomb in the cargo department just before take-off? We may never know and even if our investigators sense a connection to terrorism, they may play it down to prevent a new uprising of anger and rage within the American populace. It is noteworthy that the rising degree when Flight 587 went down in a horrific explosion, killing 260 people on board, destroying four homes on the ground and injuring a number of people in the borough of Queens, was 21+ Sagittarius. At America's birth, Mars (bloodshed; strife; war) is located at 21+ Gemini. Thus, the horizon of this massive destruction of life on American soil was pointing directly at our natal Mars. This plane crash also took place on the day of an approaching Sun square to Uranus (ruling aviation)! We will keep on top of this probe in the days and weeks ahead.
This article picks up on many of the themes presented so far, but with this writing, we are going in a new and potentially scarier direction. There is a hidden agenda in all of the events occurring since the September 11th shock wave hit America. I have termed it "The Secret War" and it concerns new alliances by major world powers, a fight for oil deposits and what our leaders really know about who is behind the anthrax threats and how the war against terrorism will change in 2002 and beyond.
To really understand the secret war unfolding, you should read my article on Saddam Hussein. This was written about 5+ years ago and is posted further down on this Index Page on the web site. It includes the chart for Saddam Hussein, reveals the mysterious astro-links between him and Colin Powell, clarifies why the events of the Persian Gulf War of 1991 were never resolved and why we still have to fight Saddam Hussein at this time. For 10 years it has been clear that the West would have to confront Saddam Hussein in a major offensive; we simply delayed the inevitable from one President Bush (the elder) to another President Bush (the son). To start connecting the "dots" in this confusing and extensive planetary jigsaw puzzle concerning world terrorism, we need to begin with Iraq.
Ever since the vicious Attacks on America (Sept. 11th), our national leaders have been quick to single out Osama bin Laden, his extremist, Islamic supporters and extensive Al Qaeda international base of terrorists as the culprits. It was necessary because, on the surface, it was correct. However, along the way, reports kept appearing that one of the ringleaders of Sept. 11th -- Mohamed Atta -- met with an Iraqi governmental agent in the Czech Republic back in April. While initially denied, eventually this was corroborated and published on the front page of The New York Times (Oct. 27). Various individuals with strong credentials -- including our former CIA Director James Woolsey -- have been on national television programs pointing a finger at Saddam Hussein as the "hidden player" behind the scenes of all these atrocities, including a probable link to the anthrax distribution and ongoing scare and wave of fear. Every time this happens, our national leaders try to play this down, indicate that we really don't know, etc. However, just four days ago (Nov. 8), on the front page of The New York Times a story appeared entitled: "Defectors Cite Iraqi Training For Terrorism." The article explains that Islamic militants/terrorists have been trained at an Iraqi government camp called Salman Pak. And here is a direct quotation from the article: "The defectors said they knew of a highly guarded compound within the camp where Iraqi scientists, led by a German, produced biological agents." In addition, it is said that terrorist training is also focused on hijacking techniques by using the fuselage of a Boeing 707 aircraft.
I have reported to you in the last article (Part X) that even The Enquirer magazine (in its Nov. 6, 2001 edition) offered a cover story that "Iraq Did It!" with a picture of Saddam Hussein and a story attempting to link the anthrax bioterrorism with his agents and government. While The Enquirer is not necessarily the most reputable journal in this country, it seems to be a few steps ahead of our regular press ever since Sept. 11th. That could be because they are more free-wheeling with their information, tend to "shoot from the hip" with stories, even if they don't get it entirely correct. However, they have given out very revealing news about Osama bin Laden and his family that is extremely revealing. On Nov. 6, The Oregonian newspaper carried a story entitled "Iraq's Bioweapons Effort Proves Elusive, Resilient." This came from an excerpt from a new book called "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War." In the excerpt, it is reported that while Iraq has publicly expressed the end of their bioterrorism development, the reality is much different. The United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) had sent in teams throughout the 1990s to make sure that Iraq had destroyed their labs and facilities for making chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. However, for the last three years, Saddam Hussein has not allowed them inside his country! And the authors of the book indicate that he had hidden his arsenal of weapons from the very beginning.
We reach today (Nov. 12) where William Safire, one of the most respected journalists in America, writes his column in The New York Times. Calling his story "Prague Connection," he repeats the now well-known fact linking Saddam Hussein to the Attack on America on Sept. 11th. Safire says this: "Mohamed Atta, who died at the controls of an airliner-missile, flew from Florida to Prague to meet on April 8 of this year with Ahmed al-Ani, the Iraqi consul." Later in his story, Safire explains that the "Prague connection links Saddam and bin Laden at the agent level." What links the two leaders on a personal level is an "unpublished report" that a Dr. Mohammed Khayal, Baghdad's leading kidney specialist, was sent on a special journey to Afghanistan in mid-May to treat Osama bin Laden!
Let us not forget that the first case of anthrax occurred in Florida, very close to where Mohamed Atta and his hijacking accomplices were living. Robert Stevens, who worked for The Sun, a periodical affiliated with The Enquirer, eventually became the first person to die of anthrax on Oct. 5. Earlier, in the summer, America Media Inc. (the parent company of both periodicals) received a suspicious letter from Baghdad, which eventually set off alarms once the anthrax scare became a death-dealing reality for America in October. Once the Sept. 11th events occurred, it was approximately one week later that the letters to Tom Brokaw and Sen. Tom Daschle (oddly enough, both born in South Dakota) were sent and postmarked from Trenton, New Jersey. About a half dozen of the hijackers lived in Paterson, New Jersey -- within about 60 miles of Trenton. Nevertheless, our FBI and national investigators keep trying to pin the blame of anthrax on some kind of weird loner, disconnected to the Islamic terrorists.
So far, the "dots" in this story do the following. They strongly indicate that above, beyond and behind Osama bin Laden all along has been Saddam Hussein. If you remember Osama bin Laden's initial video, released just after America began the Air War Over Afghanistan back on October 7, he clearly expressed his outrage about Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians AND America's long-term economic and air blockade of Iraq, which he claimed has killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children during the last 10 years. In the last week, President Bush reiterated the fear that Osama bin Laden may have obtained chemical or nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden supposedly said the same thing several days ago in an interview with Hamid Mir (his biographer) on Nov. 7. Hamid Mir writes for an English-language newspaper in Pakistan called Dawn. Might Osama bin Laden's weapons -- if he has them at all -- be "gifts" from Saddam Hussein? After all, while Saddam Hussein has been trapped in Iraq all these years, Osama bin Laden has been developing his Al Qaeda network of terrorism in possibly 60 countries around the world. He has been free to roam around (until the last two months) while Saddam Hussein has been restricted to his own land.
One question we have to raise is whether the U.S. Government knows that Saddam Hussein is connected to the anthrax distribution and also if we know of his strong links to Osama bin Laden. Let's assume for a moment that our leaders do know of this. Why wouldn't they reveal it? For a very simple reason. It has taken a major and difficult effort to coordinate an international coalition to fight against world terrorism, as sponsored by Osama bin Laden and his mysterious Al Qaeda base. To simultaneously battle Iraq immediately would splinter the carefully-nurtured coalition and destroy the allied advance before it gets off the ground. After many nations -- like France and Germany -- abandoned the American and British efforts to keep Iraq isolated during the last 10 years, now we have a strong network of countries (including France, Germany, Japan and even China) fighting along side us against Osama bin Laden and in Afghanistan, to rid that nation of the oppressive Taliban. Even Russia -- fighting its own battle against Islamic militants in Chechnya (a region located strategically between the oil-rich Caspian Sea and West-leaning Turkey) -- is now on the verge of becoming a major ally with America in this international fight against Islamic terrorism. [More on this in a moment.] And even today, Secretary of State Colin Powell, at the United Nations, is helping to bring Iran (one of America's greatest enemies during the last 22 years) into the fold of supportive nations. Remember that Iraq and Iran fought a bloody 7-8 year war in the 1980s. And the Iranian religious leaders -- followers of the Shi'ite version of Islam -- are bitter opponents of the Taliban in Afghanistan, followers of the Sunni branch of Islam. This recalls the ancient Middle Eastern aphorism: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Thus, the new war against Iraq will have to wait awhile.
This all leads to what is happening this week in Washington, D.C. and at President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. President Vladimir Putin (born Oct. 7, 1952 in Leningrad, time unknown) is having a summit conference with our President. Talk about "The Secret War"! This long-awaited summit of probably the two most important, national leaders on Planet Earth takes place from Nov. 13-15 -- at a New Moon energizing 22+ Scorpio (sign of mysteries, the unknown, unconscious, secrets, hidden realms). While it is being emphasized for us not to expect major agreements at this time, it is likely that the two leaders will declare big reductions in nuclear arsenals and fundamental acknowledgment that America and Russia will work together to rid the world of Islamic terrorism. It was only a few months ago that President Bush meeting Vladimir Putin for the first time in Europe, looked into the Russian's eyes and said he could do business with Mr. Putin and that they could develop a strong friendship. Now President Putin has been taking horseback-riding lessons to prepare for his Texas experience. However, there is a secret behind the summit. And that secret concerns a double-fact: Russia is the world's second-largest producer of oil and America wants to be a part of the extraction of vast oil deposits in the Caspian Sea! Now recall that our President is a former oil developer in Texas; so was his father, President George Bush, Sr. VP Dick Cheney led and made millions from Halliburton, Inc., a company strongly aligned with oil and energy, in the 1990s, before returning to politics as the number two man on the Republican ticket last fall. Earlier this year, President Bush was determined to open up the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to oil development -- something vigorously opposed by the more liberal, environmentally-sensitive Democrats in Congress. Now the world has turned topsy-turvy and new national alliances are being formed to fight a virulent enemy.
Can the two Presidents get along astrologically? A signal that they can is that Vladimir Putin's Sun is conjunct President Bush's natal Moon-Chiron-Jupiter-Juno conjunction in Libra. In fact, Vladimir Putin -- like President Bush -- has a number of celestial bodies in Libra (Sun, Saturn, Neptune and Mercury). While the two Presidents have their Suns square each other and Putin's Sun is also on America's Saturn (fear; blocks; governmental weaknesses), they both share so many Libran planets that they are bound to connect through this sign of potential harmony, balance, equilibrium, sensitivity. And a Sun-Moon conjunction between two people -- in spite of the other challenges -- is almost always a sign of a "past-life" deep connection. Just as President Reagan and President Gorbachev had a rapport in the 1980s, and President Clinton and President Yeltsin seemed to hit it off in the 1990s, now it seems the wheel of karma has turned, linking President Bush and President Putin. It is also noteworthy that President Putin's natal Moon is in Gemini (an air sign) -- in a flowing harmony to President Bush's natal Moon. President Putin's Gemini Moon also highlights President Bush's North Node of the Moon in Gemini. This is another clear signal that the two leaders have a lot in common. One final point: President Putin's Jupiter (success; prosperity; good fortune) at 19+ Taurus is exactly conjunct America's natal Vesta (our national security and safety issues). This is an astro-tie that may be precise to the minute of arc! It may mean the guarantee that Russia, as a big-time oil producer, could come to America's aid (to secure and make safe our source of oil) if Middle East and Persian Gulf oil were blocked to our nation for months or even years, during a protracted world struggle.
So, think this through with me. The Russians have already fought a 10-year war in Afghanistan and lost thousands of troops and never defeated the Islamic enemy in that country. Now we are in battle there. The Russians continue their fight against Islamic militants in Chechnya. President Putin tried to warn us that Islamic terrorists were more powerful than we imagined. We didn't take him seriously enough and didn't prepare our intelligence services to off-set their attack plans. We were caught napping at the wheel of national defense and literally had our Pentagon partially destroyed. [See my many articles on all this in the last two months.] While earlier this year, the Russians were alarmed about our plans to scrap the ABM treaty of October 1972 (one Saturn cycle ago, when Saturn stationed at 21 Gemini and Mars conjoined Pluto in early Libra), now both leaders talk about finding a way to replace or maneuver around the treaty, so America and Russia can create a new type of missile defense system to protect our nations from rogue nuclear powers and agents of mass destruction. Can we fully trust President Putin? I don't think so -- not yet. He is a former member of the KGB and we don't really know his mind and inner plans for his country in the future. For example, note that the Scorpio New Moon occurring now at 23 Scorpio is exactly square his natal Pluto at 23 Leo. But what choice does he have right now? He cannot afford to let America be the chief national power advancing against the menace of Islamic terrorism. Since his country still fights the Chechans, he has to make some kind of alliance with us. And this can benefit his country financially, particularly if America pours in billions of dollars eventually to create some kind of oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea, to help develop the oil production in that region of the world. The Russians desperately want to be a part of the Caspian Sea oil extravaganza of the future. The problem is that the only country in the world that really has the money to afford the effort to extract that oil is America.
What we have learned in this article is that we should expect an historic American-Russian united front to eventually extract oil from the Caspian Sea. Apparently, Zbigniew Brzezinski (no supporter of Russia) -- President Carter's National Security Adviser -- wrote a book in 1997 suggesting that whoever controlled Uzbekistan would hold the key to developing the potential 50 billion barrels of oil in the Caspian Sea. And it was on October 12 that Uzbekistan declared that the U.S. could use its military bases against the Taliban in exchange for a promise of security. Listen to what was said in The New York Times on Oct. 13, front page: "...the commitment to defend a former Soviet republic signaled another major shift in the post-cold war landscape of the former Soviet Union and an expansion of American commitments into Central Asia." We have also learned that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are definitely united in their terrorist efforts -- even if our leaders still do not voice that conclusion in public. I will have a full report on Saddam Hussein's chart in a new feature shortly, but expect that a battle against Iraq will take place -- if not in 2002, sometime in the near future. This is what the hawks within the American government want; it's just that it cannot happen until alliances -- with Russia, Iran and some other countries in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria) -- are solidified over the winter.
I have included the chart for the next Full Moon of November 30 with this article. I have done so because the Sun-Moon degrees are at 8+ Sagittarius-Gemini -- exactly illuminating America's Uranus (8+ Gemini) from July 4, 1776. This is also Saturn's placement from the First Nuclear Controlled Reaction on Dec. 2, 1942. I have written about this before in our series. We should expect a new round of national shocks, surprises and revolutionary events -- possibly connected to aviation (Uranus), cyberspace (Uranus) and transportation (Uranus in Gemini) -- as November ends and December begins. And December will be another tinderbox of national fears, threats and volatility because of the Sun igniting the Pluto and Mars stations -- of March and July 2001 -- at 15+ Sagittarius on Dec. 6-7, the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Dec. 6th also contains the annual Sun-Pluto conjunction -- a merging of the center of all life (Sun) with the dark and mysterious forces of the most distant planet in the solar system (Pluto). Then we will have a powerful Annular Solar Eclipse/New Moon on Dec. 14 and another Full Moon on Dec. 30 -- both setting off fireworks on the homefront and in the war zone of Afghanistan and hotspots in the Middle East.
As we conclude this time, it is being reported that Northern Alliance forces have entered Kabul and that Taliban troops are rapidly leaving Afghanistan's capital city. This is all happening as the Sun exactly (no orb!) strikes Uranus (radical change; instability; shock waves) at 20+ Scorpio from the birth of Islamic Fundamentalism on February 11, 1979 -- a date that I have discussed before in this series of articles. Prepare yourself for many more unsettling events shaking the foundations of our nation in the weeks and months ahead. We will not only experience revolutionary Uranus crossing our natal Moon-Pallas conjunction in Aquarius several times next year, but the red planet Mars (where our Mars Odyssey spacecraft is currently orbiting) is going to gain much greater strength for America's future and destiny. Keep tuned to this web channel for all the important astro-developments of the battle against Islamic terrorism and the new secret war that will topple Saddam Hussein and allow America to tap into vast oil reserves in the Caspian Sea.
Copyright 2001 by Mark Lerner and Great Bear Enterprises, Ltd. All rights reserved.
[Mark Lerner is the publisher of Welcome to Planet Earth. Contact him by sending an e-mail to markgobear@aol.com or write to him at Mark Lerner, PO Box 12007, Eugene OR 97440. Please see our "Special Offer on Consultations and 2002 Calendars" for a variety of astrological services near the top of our Index page.]
