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U.S. Used WOMD in Viet Nam: A chemical weapon used by the US in the Vietnam war is still damaging new generations
(The Guardian, March 29, 2003)
Hong Hanh is falling to pieces. She has been poisoned by the most toxic molecule known to science; it was sprayed during a prolonged military campaign. The contamination persists. No redress has been offered, no compensation. The superpower that spread the toxin has done nothing to combat the medical and environmental catastrophe that is overwhelming her country. . . . Hong Hanh's story, and that of many more like her, is quietly unfolding in Vietnam today. . . . Hong Hanh is both surprising and terrifying. Here is a 19-year-old who lives in a 10-year-old's body. She clatters around with disjointed spidery strides which leave her soaked in sweat. When she cannot stop crying, soothing creams and iodine are rubbed into her back, which is a lunar collage of septic blisters and scabs. "My daughter is dying," her mother says. "My youngest daughter is 11 and she has the same symptoms. What should we do? Their fingers and toes stick together before they drop off. Their hands wear down to stumps. Every day they lose a little more skin. And this is not leprosy. The doctors say it is connected to American chemical weapons we were exposed to during the Vietnam war." . . . There are an estimated 650,000 like Hong Hanh in Vietnam, suffering from an array of baffling chronic conditions. Another 500,000 have already died. The thread that weaves through all their case histories is defoliants deployed by the US military during the war. Some of the victims are veterans who were doused in these chemicals during the war, others are farmers who lived off land that was sprayed. The second generation are the sons and daughters of war veterans, or children born to parents who lived on contaminated land. Now there is a third generation, the grandchildren of the war and its victims. . . . New scientific research, however, confirms what the Vietnamese have been claiming for years. It also portrays the US government as one that has illicitly used weapons of mass destruction, stymied all independent efforts to assess the impact of their deployment, failed to acknowledge cold, hard evidence of maiming and slaughter, and pursued a policy of evasion and deception. . . . Agent Orange contains one of the most virulent poisons known to man, a strain of dioxin called TCCD which, 28 years after the fighting ended, remains in the soil, continuing to destroy the lives of those exposed to it. Evidence has also emerged that the US government not only knew that Agent Orange was contaminated, but was fully aware of the killing power of its contaminant dioxin, and yet still continued to use the herbicide in Vietnam for 10 years of the war and in concentrations that exceeded its own guidelines by 25 times. . . . Most damning and politically sensitive of all is a letter, obtained by Zumwalt, from Dr James Clary, a military scientist who designed the spray tanks for Ranch Hand. Writing in 1988 to a member of Congress investigating Agent Orange, Clary admitted: "When we initiated the herbicide programme in the 1960s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. We were even aware that the military formulation had a higher dioxin concentration than the civilian version, due to the lower cost and speed of manufacture. However, because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned." . . . "We theorise that the Aluoi Valley is a microcosm of the country, where numerous reservoirs of TCCD still exist in the soil of former US military installations," says Dr Wayne Dwernychuk, vice-president of Hatfield Consultants. There may be as many as 50 of these "hot spots", including one at the former US military base of Bien Hoa, where, according to declassified defence department documents, US forces spilled 7,500 gallons of Agent Orange on March 1 1970. Dr Arnold Schecter, a leading expert in dioxin contamination in the US, sampled the soil there and found it to contain TCCD levels that were 180 million times above the safe level set by the US environmental protection agency.

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 5:10 PM

 

World Wide Tripping Day Set for December 21, 2012
In his excellent essay, "The Political Implications of Psychedelic Consciousness," Charles Hayes makes a good case for the potential a world wide tripping day has to boost human consciousness into a higher orbit. Hayes says: "The weapon that psychedelic consciousness brings to all wars is a perceptual laser that dissolves blind rage and dispels the rumor of our disparateness. . . . As for the date to do this, let's say that on December 21, 2012, to celebrate Terence's memory, among other things, as many people as possible should take the day off and ingest their psychedelic of choice."

[You can read this compelling essay in full in the Spring 2003 issue of trip: the journal of psychedelic culture]

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 2:32 PM

 

Guerrilla News Network: S-11 Redux
So, in the face of our media's shameless propaganda campaign, we have taken it upon ourselves to intuit what the intentions and goals of this war truly are. In what is surely a departure from our traditional NewsVideo format, Guerrilla News Network presents S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse. Culled from over 20 hours of television footage recorded over a one month period and across 13 networks, S-11 Redux is a sound-bite blitzkrieg that challenges the messages we have been fed from our mainstream media and the government it serves. Be warned - this video moves quickly and will require at least two viewings to digest its full impact. You may never be able to look at S-11 and its post-impact coverage the same way, ever again.

[Comment: The link above will take you to both broadband and lowband versions of this powerful collection of news clips ... and, yes, there are both PC and Mac versions available as well. This is really worth watching. Highly Recommended.]

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 3:07 PM

 

Conspiracy report rocks U.K.
(Martin Sieff, UPI, April 18, 2003)
A slim 20-page report released in Belfast Thursday has unleashed a political firebomb on Northern Irish politics and the famed British Army and security services . . . It accuses British army and intelligence officers of having secretly cooperated with Protestant unionist paramilitary organizations to single out Catholics as the victims of cold-blooded killings. . . . Stevens said, "My inquiries have highlighted collusion. The willful failure to keep records, the withholding of intelligence and evidence and the extreme of agents being involved in murder." . . . During most of the so-called Northern Irish Troubles, lasting 30 years from 1968 to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, spokesmen and supporters of the Catholic nationalist paramilitary Irish Republican Army have repeatedly accused British security forces and the old Northern Irish police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, of secretly cooperating with Protestant loyalist paramilitary groups such as the Ulster Defense Association in the terror killings of Catholics. . . . Stevens' report looks certain to revive old suspicions and reopen old wounds. The summary released Thursday focused on two specific murders -- the killing of Catholic lawyer Patrick Finucane, shot 14 times in front of his wife and three children in 1989 and the 1987 slaying of Protestant teenager Brian Adam Lambert as crimes that should have been prevented. But Stevens has also said that he and his crack team of detectives are still probing no less than 26 other murders that potentially involved collusion between British security authorities and the loyalist paramilitary hit squads. . . . Stevens' released conclusions have caused a sensation in Britain. . . . The ramifications of Stevens' revelations are therefore likely to be lasting as well as shocking. They also raise profound questions about the methods necessary to defeat terrorist insurgencies against democratic societies, and how far those societies can and should go in condoning extreme counter-measures.

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 1:20 PM

 

Something to think about
"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.
--Samuel P. Huntington

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 1:13 PM

 

The Real Objectives of the U.S. in Iraq
(Dr. Abdul Hay Zallom, Al Jazeera, 8 April 2003)
Iraq owns 11 per cent of international oil reserves, which accounts for more than 112 billion barrels of oil. Studies by the US Energy Information Administration put the reserves in excess of 200 billion barrels. An added attraction is that the cost of pumping Iraqi crude is the cheapest worldwide. . . . The US is the world’s largest oil consumer. While an US citizen consumes 28 barrels per year, his Chinese counterpart burns only two barrels per year. . . . The United States’ real objectives were revealed by Powell to Congress…when he said that Washington would carry out structural change after occupying Iraq…for us, this structural change, which would primarily depend on oil, would be the establishment of a new empire…Empires do not come into being by coincidence. . . . our Arab world is subject to a Bush-Sharon intended empire. . . . “Orbs” Magazine wrote in 1957. Its editor-in-chief was William Eliot, and after him his student Henry Kissinger…The magazine wrote that the mission of the United States was to unify the whole world under its leadership…that is to say a worldwide Empire led by the United States and stamped by the American spirit and culture. . . . oil is the pillar and the soul of such future empires . . . Iraqi oil reserves may even exceed 200 billion barrels . . . Iraq is a prey and the opportunity should be seized, especially since the United States’ oil reserves stand at just 22 billion barrels. . . . Oil for the United States is a matter of life or death…Not only Iraqi oil…Iraq will only be the first step and will be followed by other countries…the Middle East and Iran possess 65 per cent of the world’s oil reserves…that may be one of the reasons for picking off Iraq . . . The first US trade deficit was caused by its oil imports…before the . . . 1991 Gulf War, the United States used to import 45 per cent of its oil demand. Studies at that time predicted that US oil imports would increase to 60 percent by the end of the 90s and to 100 percent in the years to follow . . . if a projection was made about the United States’ complete reliance on imported oil, how would then the US trade deficit look? . . . It means that if oil was very important for the United States in the past, it will be a matter of life or death for it in the future…Oil is the Arabs’ real weapon of mass destruction. . . . The issue of the price is a matter of national security for the United States…in other words, if a state decides to increase or decrease the price in contradiction to the US interests, Washington would consider that a violation of its national security . . . this is a conflict for profit and not for ideology

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 12:17 PM

 

Bush's real goal in Iraq
(Jay Bookman, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, September 29, 2002)
The official story on Iraq has never made sense. The connection that the Bush administration has tried to draw between Iraq and al-Qaida has always seemed contrived and artificial. In fact, it was hard to believe that smart people in the Bush administration would start a major war based on such flimsy evidence. . . . It is not about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N. resolutions. . . . This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the "American imperialists" that our enemies always claimed we were. . . . Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. . . . Having conquered Iraq, the United States will create permanent military bases in that country from which to dominate the Middle East, including neighboring Iran. . . . Rome did not stoop to containment; it conquered. And so should we. . . . To address the terrorism threat, the president's report lays out a newly aggressive military and foreign policy, embracing pre-emptive attack against perceived enemies. . . . In essence, it lays out a plan for permanent U.S. military and economic domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or concern. And to make that plan a reality, it envisions a stark expansion of our global military presence. . . . To preserve the Pax Americana, the report says U.S. forces will be required to perform "constabulary duties" -- the United States acting as policeman of the world -- and says that such actions "demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations." . . . To meet those responsibilities, and to ensure that no country dares to challenge the United States, the report advocates a much larger military presence spread over more of the globe, in addition to the roughly 130 nations in which U.S. troops are already deployed. . . . Eventually, we will be forced to spend American wealth and American blood protecting the peace while other nations redirect their wealth to such things as health care for their citizenry. . . . The cost of such a global commitment would be enormous. In 2000, we spent $281 billion on our military, which was more than the next 11 nations combined. By 2003, our expenditures will have risen to $378 billion. In other words, the increase in our defense budget from 1999-2003 will be more than the total amount spent annually by China, our next largest competitor. . . . But with the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, a global empire was essentially laid at the feet of the United States. To the chagrin of some, we did not seize it at the time, in large part because the American people have never been comfortable with themselves as a New Rome. . . . Now, more than a decade later, the events of Sept. 11 have given those advocates of empire a new opportunity to press their case with a new president. . . . If we do decide to seize empire, we should make that decision knowingly, as a democracy. The price of maintaining an empire is always high.

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 11:28 AM

 

Anti-US sentiment in Arab world soars to new heights
(Al Jazeera, 25 March 2003)
United States President George W. Bush feels that a successful US-led invasion of Iraq will reduce terrorism, help promote regional democracy, bolster regional peace, and contribute to the ultimate settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute. Residents of five key Arab states vigorously disagree. . . . In a wide-ranging opinion survey of Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia conducted by a prestigious American polling firm, respondents rejected every premise the US President has laid out as justification for war. . . . [The results] are striking not only because of the unprecedented degree of unfavorable opinion of the United States, but also showing the extent to which people in the region fear that war with Iraq will impact their lives negatively . . . On the issue of whether war will reduce terrorism, an average of 83% said that war will actually increase the prospect of terrorism, including 97% of Saudis, 87% of Moroccans, 81% of Lebanese, 74% of Egyptians, and 78% of Jordanians. . . . Interestingly, the Saudis consistently showed the highest levels of frustration and anger with US policies. . . . The poll results also showed that most Arabs in the five states - all majority Muslim countries - question Washington's motives for war. They believe President Bush's war plans are motivated firstly by oil and secondarily by US support for Israel. Indeed, nearly three-quarters of all respondents feel that all U.S policy in the region is motivated either by oil or Israel, despite Washington?s oft-publicly stated stance that Iraq poses a regional threat. . . . There is an overwhelming sense that the US is not an honest broker when it comes to Middle East peace," Zogby said, "and that shows itself in every single poll we do." . . . Zogby has presented his findings at the State Department, where, according to some diplomats present, there was much head-nodding in the room. "The poll confirms what we already know," one American diplomat said. "The question is: what can we do about it?"

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 12:56 PM

 

Edward Said: Global Crisis
(Edward Said, ZNet, March 17, 2003)
As I write, much of the world is being bludgeoned into a restive submission by (or, as with Italy and Spain, an opportunistic alliance with) the US, as it readies itself for a deeply unpopular war against Iraq. But for the demonstrations and protests that have erupted at popular level around the world, the war would be a brazen act of un opposed domination. The degree to which it is contested by those many Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans and Latin Americans who have taken to the streets suggests that at last some have awakened to the fact that the US, or rather the few Judaeo-Christian white men who currently rule its government, is bent on world hegemony. What are we to do? . . . The difference between the US and the classic empires of the past is that, although each historical empire has asserted its determination not to repeat the overreaching ambitions of predecessors, this latest empire astonishingly affirms its sacrosanct altruism and well-meaning innocence. This alarming delusion of virtue is endorsed, even more alarmingly, by formerly leftwing or liberal intellectuals, who in the past opposed US wars abroad but who are now prepared to make the case for virtuous empire (the image of the lonely sentry is favoured), using styles from tub-thumping patriotism to cynicism. . . . The liberal hawks do not refer to the Christian right (so similar to Islamic extremism in its fervour and righteousness) and its massive, decisive presence in the US. Its vision derives from mostly Old Testament sources, very like those of Israel, its close partner and analogue. There is a peculiar alliance between Israel's influential neo-conservative US supporters and the Christian extremists, who support Zionism as a way of bringing all the Jews to the Holy Land to prepare for the Messiah's second coming, when the Jews will either have to convert to Christianity or be annihilated. These rabidly antisemitic teleologies are rarely referred to, and certainly not by the pro-Israeli Jewish phalanx. . . . The US is the world's most avowedly religious country. . . . There is unconditional reverence for the founding fathers, and for the constitution - an amazing document, but a human creation. Early America is the anchor of authenticity. . . . In no other country I know does a waving flag play so central an iconographical role. You see it everywhere, on taxicabs, on jacket lapels, on the front, windows and roofs of houses. It is the main embodiment of the national image, signifying heroic endurance and a sense of being beleagured by unworthy enemies. Patriotism remains the prime virtue, tied up with religion, belonging, and doing the right thing at home and all over the world. Patriotism is now represented, too, as consumer spending: Americans were enjoined after 9/11 to shop in defiance of evil terrorists. . . . It is as if no one cares whether the corporate structure, in alliance with the federal government, which still has not been able to provide most Americans with decent health cover and a sound education, needs change. News of the stock market is more important than any re-examination of the system. . . . The growing resistance to war, which the president has minimised and pretended to ignore, derives from that other and less formal US that the mainstream media (newspapers of record such as the New York Times, the broadcast networks, the publishing and magazine industries) always tries to suppress. Never has there been such unashamed and scandalous complicity between broadcast news and the government . . . Because it is managed, the consensus operates in a timeless present. History is anathema to it. In public discourse even the word history is a synonym for nothingness, as in the scornful phrase "you're history". History is what as Americans we are supposed to believe about the US (not about the rest of the world, which is "old" and therefore irrelevant) - uncritically, unhistorically. . . . If we examine the components of the impressively strong resistance to the proposed war against Iraq, a very different picture of the US emerges, more amenable to foreign cooperation, dialogue and action. . . . Many other groups and individuals who joined rallies, protest marches, and peace demonstrations have resisted the mind-deadening patriotism post-9/11. They have clustered around civil liberties, including free speech, threatened by the USA Patriot Act. Protest against capital punishment and at the abuses represented by the detention camps at Guantanamo Bay, plus a distrust of civilian authorities in the military, as well as a discomfort at the privatised US prison system that locks up the highest number of people per capita in the world - all these disturb the middle-class social order. . . . I have tried to suggest another way of seeing the US, as a troubled country with a contested reality. I think it is more accurate to apprehend the US as a nation that is undergoing a serious clash of identities, similar to other contests in the rest of the world. The US may have won the cold war, but the results of that victory within the US are far from clear and the struggle is not yet over. Too much of a focus on the US executive's centralising military and political power ignores the internal dialectics that continue, and are far from settlement. Abortion rights and the teaching of evolution are still unsettled issues. . . . Cultures, and especially the immigrant culture of the US, overlap with others; one of the perhaps unintended consequences of globalisation is the appearance of transnational communities of global interests - the human rights, women's and anti-war movements. The US is not insulated from this, but we have to go behind the intimidatingly unified surface of the US to see the disputes to which many of the world's other people are party. There is hope and encouragement in that.

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 11:16 AM

 

The damage we are doing to our relations with the Middle East could last a generation
(The Independent, 1 April 2003)
"When it is over, if it is over, this war will have horrible consequences," were the ominous words from Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian President, yesterday. "Instead of having one Osama bin Laden, we will have 100 Bin Ladens." Mr Mubarak is one of the more moderate Arab leaders. . . . Throughout the region, the streets and markets are seething. There are almost daily demonstrations in Jordan and Egypt. In Afghanistan, the Taliban, utterly vanquished more than a year ago, have begun to mount sporadic attacks. Their long-silent leader, Mullah Omar, has called for a jihad against American troops and Afghans who work with them. . . . The alliance ranged against Iraq may, as US officials insist, be more numerous than the one that fought the Gulf War 12 years ago. But the Arab countries that supported that war are now conspicuously absent. . . . All the omens suggest that Mr Mubarak is right. When the war is over, the consequences will indeed be disastrous. It is hard to see how American and British relations with the countries of the region can be mended during our lifetime.

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 10:22 AM

 

The new 'Great Game' being played out over oil
(Lutz C Kleveman, The Independent, 31 March 2003)
"No blood for oil" was a common slogan at the recent anti-war demos around the globe. Yet few people have an idea of just how momentous a strategic struggle is being waged behind the rhetoric of weapons inspections and human rights. What is at stake is nothing less than who controls the earth's remaining energy reserves. . . . This new "Great Game" (a modern variant of the imperial rivalry between Great Britain and Tsarist Russia in 19th-century Central Asia) is about to enter a crucial stage. . . . The new Great Game is being played out not only in the Middle East but also in other energy-rich regions such as West Africa and the Caspian Sea. There, too, the scramble for petrol reserves and pipeline routes is producing bloody conflicts. . . . Iraq, however, has become the linchpin in a US strategy to secure cheap oil while breaking the clout of the Arab-dominated oil cartel Opec. . . . With the help of $20bn (£13bn) of investment in new and existing facilities, Iraqi oil output could soar within a few years to seven million barrels a day. That would be roughly a 10th of global consumption. Abundant supply would lead to a price drop, which is just what lagging Western economies need. Last September George Bush's former economic adviser Larry Lindsey put the war aim bluntly when he said: "When there is a regime change in Iraq, you could add three to five million barrels of production to world supply [per day]. The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy." . . . Since the 1973 oil crisis, Opec has used oil as a pawn to gain leverage over the West. In an effort to decrease its dependency on the sheikhs, the US has sought for years to "diversify its oil supplies". . . . As long as the US needs Saudi oil and co-operation in a war against Iraq, officials in Washington proclaim their interest in maintaining good relations with Riyadh. However, a growing number of influential politicians is openly suggesting taking the war on terror to Saudi Arabia and occupying its oilfields. . . . Oil corporations are currently jockeying for the best deals in a post-Saddam Iraq. So, do the US war plans aim merely to open up Iraq for lucrative investments by US oil companies? Prima facie, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence for this view: the close connections between the Bush administration and big oil are well documented, for example. . . . It is not difficult to imagine that a regime installed in Baghdad by US forces would favour US firms in the allotment of drilling concessions. This blatant favouritism worries BP, which pioneered the discovery of petrol in Iraq in the early 20th century . . . Russian oil companies, likewise, have a lot to lose in Iraq. . . . As long as there is no end in sight to the age of fossil fuels, and the industrialised world's dependency on Middle Eastern oil continues to grow unabated, conflicts are likely to break out which are essentially about securing the earth's remaining energy reserves. . . . Political leaders would be well advised, therefore, to dilute our nefarious dependence on petrol through the promotion of renewable energy technologies. The task of protecting the climate against the greenhouse effect urgently requires these steps anyway. The events in Iraq and around the Caspian Sea demonstrate how a truly new energy policy – irrespective of its obvious ecological advantages – would also be a foresighted security policy.

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 10:18 AM

 

Noam Chomsky: Terror War ... Deep Concerns
(Noam Chomsky, ZNet.org, March 20, 2003)
At this grim moment, we can do nothing to stop the ongoing invasion. But that does not mean that the task is over for people who have some concern for justice, freedom, and human rights. . . . As for the outcomes, it will be a long time before preliminary judgments can be made. One immediate task is to lend what weight we can to more benign outcomes. That means, primarily, caring for the needs of the victims, not just of this war but of Washington’s vicious and destructive sanctions regime of the past ten years, which has has devastated the civillian society, strengthened the ruling tyrant, and compelled the population to rely on him for survival. . . . Elementary decency would call for massive reparations from the US; lacking that, at least a flow of aid to Iraqis, so that they can rebuild what has been destroyed in their own way, not as dictated by people in Washington and Crawford whose higher faith is that power comes from the barrel of a gun. . . . Opposition to the invasion of Iraq has been entirely without historical precedent. That is why Bush had to meet his two cronies at a US military base on an island, where they would be safely removed from any mere people. The opposition may be focused on the invasion of Iraq, but its concerns go far beyond that. There is growing fear of US power, which is considered to be the greatest threat to peace in much of the world, probably by a large majority. . . . Fear of the US government is not based solely on this invasion, but on the background from which it arises . . . Whatever the justifications for pre-emptive war might sometimes be, they do not hold for the very different category of preventive war: the use of military force to eliminate an imagined or invented threat. The openly-announced goal is to prevent any challenge to the “power, position, and prestige of the United States.” . . . It is worth bearing in mind that the words I quoted are not those of Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld or other radical statist extremists now in charge. Rather, they are the words of the respected elder statesman Dean Acheson, 40 years ago, when he was a senior advisor to the Kennedy Administration. . . . I bring this up as a reminder that the issues are deep-seated. The current administration is at the extremist end of the policy-planning spectrum, and its adventurism and penchant for violence are unusually dangerous. . . . The “imperial ambition” of the current power holders, as it is frankly called, has aroused shudders throughout the world, including the mainstream of the establishment at home. . . . Even before the Bush administration sharply escalated these fears in recent months, intelligence and international affairs specialists were informing anyone who wanted to listen that the policies Washington is pursuing are likely to lead to an increase in terror and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, for revenge or simply deterrence. . . . Threats are severe and mounting. The world has good reason to watch what is happening in Washington with fear and trepidation. The people who are best placed to relieve those fears, and to lead the way to a more hopeful and constructive future, are the citizens of the United States, who can shape the future. . . . Those are among the deep concerns that must, I think, be kept clearly in mind while watching events unfold in their unpredictable way as the most awesome military force in human history is unleashed against a defenseless enemy by a political leadership that has compiled a frightening record of destruction and barbarism since it took the reins of power over 20 years ago.

. . . Read more!


posted by Lorenzo 9:27 AM