Top MIT Scientist Was Subject to Defamatory Attacks and Had Article Exposing Truth About Alleged Syrian Chemical Weapons Attacks Pulled by Prestigious Scientific Journal
Fearful editors and CIA-connected hacks ganged up to defame top MIT scientist who refused to echo government propaganda. Instead, he quit his 30-year job on principle. Theodore Postol is one of the world’s leading authorities on warfare and weaponry. A physicist with a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, he is Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a former top policy adviser to the chief of naval operations.
During a career full of honors, he received the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society for “incisive technical analysis of national security issues vital for informing the public policy debate”; the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Norbert Wiener Award from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility for “uncovering numerous and important false claims about missile defenses”; and the Richard L. Garwin Award from the Federation of American Scientists “that recognizes an individual who, through exceptional achievement in science and technology, has made an outstanding contribution toward the benefit of mankind.”
Professor Postol was also a senior editorial board member of the Princeton-based Science & Global Security journal for more than 30 years—until he quit in protest over the journal’s refusal to publish an article he wrote that embarrassed the CIA and the U.S. government.
The article provided incontrovertible evidence that the murderous April 4, 2017, sarin gas attack on Syrian civilians was not the work of the Assad government but a false-flag operation by U.S.-funded jihadists designed to make it look like Assad was to blame.
Theodore Postol lectures an audience in London on his findings that contradict the UN’s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) report on chemical-weapon use in Syria. [Source: rt.com]
As the professor said in his letter of resignation
To keep Postol’s article from being published, a campaign of character assassination was mounted against Professor Postol to destroy his credibility and smear his reputation. Pressure to refuse the article was exerted on the journal’s editors (many of whom Postol had mentored) by select members of the scientific and academic community—who had long suckled at the government teat, and therefore obediently ganged up on their former colleague with defamatory articles and scandalous letters circulated secretly behind his back.
Bizarrely, in one of these cowardly letters, Gregory D. Koblentz, a Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), even compared Postol to a Holocaust denier. gregory koblentz – The Pandora Report Gregory D. Koblentz [Source: pandorareport.org]
But Professor Postol was no stranger to controversy, or to confronting and exposing U.S. government lies about its military “triumphs” and “successes.”
Following the 1991 First Persian Gulf War, Postol published an article in Science & Global Security debunking U.S. government claims about the efficacy of the Patriot missile defense system, which had reputedly shot down Scud missiles launched by Iraq over Israel.
The article prompted a congressional investigation and Postol became a minor scientific celebrity with a strong reputation for integrity. Ted Postol holds a model of a Scud missile launcher at MIT. After the Gulf War, the Patriot missile system won praise for shooting down Iraqi Scuds - until Postol spoke up. Postol featured in The Boston Globe with a replica of a Patriot missile. [Source: archive.boston.com]
Nearly 30 years later, Postol is still doing what he does best: debunking governmental narratives through cutting-edge scientific research and analysis.
However, the political landscape in America has changed—dramatically for the worse.
Not only can Postol no longer get his research published in leading scientific journals; he is now also forced to endure slanderous personal attacks in which he is labeled as a mental basket case, conspiracy theorist and crank.
In an interview with CAM, Postol said “I could not do the stuff with the Patriot missiles I did today. Nobody has the courage to publish things anymore that go against conventional wisdom on certain key topics related to national security.”
Postol added that “universities and university journals are no longer a source of truth…There is a lack of independence of thought and ability to referee exposés of this nature carefully and a betrayal of the fundamental moral obligation of scientists and academics to society to investigate and then present the truth on important matters—even when it makes people in positions of power uncomfortable.”
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