Filed under: 1984, 9/11 Truth, Anti-War, Barack Obama, Big Brother, brownshirts, Censorship, CIA, climate change, climategate, cointelpro, Communism, Concentration Camp, conspiracy theories, corruption, CRU, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, end the fed, enemy combatant, Fairness Doctrine, False Flag, Fascism, FBI, FCC, FEMA, free speech, Global Warming, global warming hoax, government bureaucracy, government bureaucrat, government control, government crimes, Hadley CRU, hoover, Internet 2, internet censorship, internet police, JFK, journalism, Martial Law, MK ultra, MLK, nanny state, Nazi, New World Order, NWO, obama, obama czar, obama deception, Oliver North, orwell, Police State, political dissidents, progressive, Protest, provocateur, scandal, Sean Hannity, stasi, stasi tactics, Sunstein, Surveillance, tax, trilateral commission, truth movement, u.s. constutiton, warrantless wiretap, White House, ww1, WW2 | Tags: Alien and Sedition Acts, Church Committee
Obama Advisor: BAN Conspiracy Theories Against U.S. Government
Sunstein: Taxation and censorship of dissenting opinions “will have a place” under thought police program advocated in 2008 white paper
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
January 14, 2010
The controversy surrounding White House information czar and Harvard Professor Cass Sunstein’s blueprint for the government to infiltrate political activist groups has deepened, with the revelation that in the same 2008 dossier he also called for the government to tax or even ban outright political opinions of which it disapproved.
Sunstein was appointed by President Obama to head up the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an agency within the Executive Office of the President.
On page 14 of Sunstein’s January 2008 white paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” the man who is now Obama’s head of information technology in the White House proposed that each of the following measures “will have a place under imaginable conditions” according to the strategy detailed in the essay.
- 1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing.
2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories.
That’s right, Obama’s information czar wants to tax or ban outright, as in make illegal, political opinions that the government doesn’t approve of. To where would this be extended? A tax or a shut down order on newspapers that print stories critical of our illustrious leaders?
And what does Sunstein define as “conspiracy theories” that should potentially be taxed or outlawed by the government? Opinions held by the majority of Americans, no less.
The notion that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in killing JFK, a view shared by the vast majority of Americans in every major poll over the last ten years, is an example of a “conspiracy theory” that the federal government should consider censoring, according to Sunstein.
A 1998 CBS poll found that just 10 per cent of Americans believed that Oswald acted alone, so apparently the other 90 per cent of Americans could be committing some form of thought crime by thinking otherwise under Sunstein’s definition.
Sunstein also cites the belief that “global warming is a deliberate fraud” as another marginal conspiracy theory to be countered by government action. In reality, the majority of Americans now believe that the man-made explanation of global warming is not true, and that global warming is natural, according to the latest polls.
But Sunstein saves his most ludicrous example until last. On page 5 he characterizes as “false and dangerous” the idea that exposure to sunlight is healthy, despite the fact that top medical experts agree prolonged exposure to sunlight reduces the risk of developing certain cancers.
To claim that encouraging people to get out in the sun is to peddle a dangerous conspiracy theory is like saying that promoting the breathing of fresh air is also a thought crime. One can only presume that Sunstein is deliberately framing the debate by going to such absurd extremes so as to make any belief whatsoever into a conspiracy theory unless it’s specifically approved by the kind of government thought police system he is pushing for.
Despite highlighting the fact that repressive societies go hand in hand with an increase in “conspiracy theories,” Sunstein’s ’solution’ to stamp out such thought crimes is to ban free speech, fulfilling the precise characteristic of the “repressive society” he warns against elsewhere in the paper.
“We could imagine circumstances in which a conspiracy theory became so pervasive, and so dangerous, that censorship would be thinkable,” he writes on page 20. Remember that Sunstein is not just talking about censoring Holocaust denial or anything that’s even debatable in the context of free speech, he’s talking about widely accepted beliefs shared by the majority of Americans but ones viewed as distasteful by the government, which would seek to either marginalize by means of taxation or outright censor such views.
No surprise therefore that Sunstein has called for re-writing the First Amendment as well as advocating Internet censorship and even proposing that Americans should celebrate tax day and be thankful that the state takes a huge chunk of their income.
The government has made it clear that growing suspicion towards authority is a direct threat to their political agenda and indeed Sunstein admits this on page 3 of his paper.
That is why they are now engaging in full on information warfare in an effort to undermine, disrupt and eventually outlaw organized peaceful resistance to their growing tyranny.
Sunstein’s Paper Provides More Evidence COLINTELPRO Still Operational
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
January 14, 2009
Cass Sunstein’s white paper, entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” is an exclamation point in the latest chapter of a long history of government tyranny against citizens who organize in opposition to the government. Sunstein argues that individuals and groups deviating from the official government narrative on a number of political issues and events are a national security threat. The administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs formulates “a plan for the government to infiltrate conspiracy groups in order to undermine them via postings on chat rooms and social networks, as well as real meetings, according to a recently uncovered article Sunstein wrote for the Journal of Political Philosophy,” writes Paul Joseph Watson.
 FDR, an icon for many liberals, sent the FBI after citizens who opposed his war policies. |
Sunstein’s plan is a reformulation of a long-standing effort to subvert the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. Concerted government attacks against organized political opposition began soon after the founding of the republic — specifically with the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 by the Federalists — but have gained critical momentum in the modern era.
During the First World War, the government created the Bureau of Investigation, predecessor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and appointed J. Edgar Hoover as its head. Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation, with the assistance of police and the military — described as a “citizens auxiliary” — conducted mass raids against the anti-war movement of the time, according to documents released by the Church Committee in the 1970s. The Bureau, specifically designed as a national political police force, “rounded up some 50,000 men without warrants of sufficient probable cause for arrest” for the crime of opposing the First World War.
In 1920, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer conducted a massive program in 33 cities and rounded up over 10,000 people. The Church Committee report (p.384) talks of “the abuses of due process of law incident to the raids.” According to Robert Preston (Aliens And Dissenters), the Palmer Raids involved “indiscriminate arrests of the innocent with the guilty, unlawful seizures by federal detectives” and other violations of constitutional rights. The Church Committee (p.385) “found federal agents guilty of using third-degree tortures, making illegal searches and arrests, using agents provocateurs.” Palmer and Hoover found no evidence of a proposed Bolshevik revolution as they claimed but a large number of the rounded up suspects continued to be held without trial.
The Second World War brought a new wave of government terrorism against political opponents. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a 1940 issued a memorandum giving the FBI the power to use warrantless wiretaps against suspected subversives, that is to say activists opposed to U.S. involvement in the war. FDR not only unleashed the FBI on activists, but concerned citizens as well. After giving a speech on national defense in 1940, FDR had his press secretary, Stephen Early, send Hoover the names of 128 people who had sent telegrams to the White House criticizing the address. “The President thought you might like to look them over,” Early’s note instructed Hoover.
Following the Second World War, the government engineered the immensely profitable (for the military-industrial complex) Cold War and the attendant Red Scare. In 1956, the FBI established COINTELPRO, short for Counter Intelligence Program. COINTELPRO was ostensibly manufactured to counter communist subversion, but as a numerous documents reveal the program focused almost exclusively on domestic opposition to government policies.
The Church Committee explains that COINTELPRO “had no conceivable rational relationship to either national security or violent activity. The unexpressed major premise of much of COINTELPRO is that the Bureau has a role in maintaining the existing social order, and that its efforts should be aimed toward combating those who threaten that order.”
“This is a rough, tough, dirty business, and dangerous,” former Assistant to Director Hoover, William C. Sullivan, told the Church Committee. “No holds were barred.”
This “rough, tough, dirty business” included infiltration of political groups, psychological warfare, legal harassment, and extralegal force and violence. “The FBI and police threatened, instigated and conducted break-ins, vandalism, assaults, and beatings. The object was to frighten dissidents and disrupt their movements,” write Mike Cassidy and Will Miller. “They used secret and systematic methods of fraud and force, far beyond mere surveillance, to sabotage constitutionally protected political activity. The purpose of the program was, in FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s own words, to ‘expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize’ specific groups and individuals.”
After the Church Committee exposed COINTELPRO, the government claimed it had dismantled the program. However, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration legalized the tactics by signing Executive Order 12333.
“There is every reason to believe that even what was not legalized is still going on as well. Lest we forget, Lt. Col. Oliver North funded and orchestrated from the White House basement break-ins and other ‘dirty tricks’ to defeat congressional critics of U.S. policy in Central America and to neutralize grassroots protest. Special Prosecutor Walsh found evidence that North and Richard Secord (architect of the 1960s covert actions in Cambodia) used Iran-Contra funds to harass the Christic Institute, a church-funded public interest group specializing in exposing government misconduct,” Cassidy and Miller continue.
In addition, North worked with FEMA to develop contingency plans for suspending the Constitution, establishing martial law, and holding political dissidents in concentration camps. Since the false flag attacks of September 11, 2001, the government has worked incessantly to fine tune plans to impose martial law. It has also worked to federalize and militarized law enforcement around the country.
Brian Glick (War at Home) argues that COINTELPRO is a permanent feature of the government. “The record of the past 50 years reveals a pattern of continuous domestic covert action,” Glick wrote in the 1990s. “Its use has been documented in each of the last nine administrations, Democratic as well as Republican. FBI testimony shows ‘COINTELPRO tactics’ already in full swing during the presidencies of Democrats Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman. COINTELPRO itself, while initiated under Eisenhower, grew from one program to six under the Democratic administrations of Kennedy and Johnson… After COINTELPRO was exposed [by the Church Committee], similar programs continued under other names during the Carter years as well as under Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. They have outlived J. Edgar Hoover and remained in place under all of his successors.”
Sunstein’s call for authoritarian action against government critics — including outright censorship in addition to the established tactics mentioned above — reveals that COINTELPRO has indeed outlived Hoover.
“Some conspiracy theories create serious risks. They do not merely undermine democratic debate; in extreme cases, they create or fuel violence,” writes Sunstein. “Even if only a small fraction of adherents to a particular conspiracy theory act on the basis of their beliefs, that small fraction may be enough to cause serious harms.”
Sunstein’s analysis dovetails with that of the Department of Homeland Security. In its now infamous report on “rightwing extremism,” the DHS insists members of the constitutionalist movement (including Libertarians and advocates of the Second Amendment) are not only violent but also virulent racists (a conclusion provided pre-packaged by the ADL and the SPLC).
If realized, Cass Sunstein’s call for outright censorship and the absurd proposal to impose fines and taxes on people who hold political views contrary to those of our rulers will naturally result in a redoubling of political activity on the part of the truth movement (specifically mentioned as “kooks” by Sunstein) and Libertarians and Constitutionalists.
As history repeatedly demonstrates, when faced with a strong and determined political opposition government invariably turns to more brutal and violent methods to enforce its will. Our rulers understand this and that is why they are hurriedly finishing their high-tech police and surveillance grid.
Filed under: 1st amendment, army, Barack Obama, catatrophic event, civil liberties, civil rights, Civilian Security Force, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, DoD, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Economic Collapse, Economy, Empire, enemy combatant, Executive Order, Fascism, free speech, Great Depression, Homeland Security, HR 6166, Martial Law, Military, Military Industrial Complex, national collapse, national guard, Nazi, New World Order, North American Union, NORTHCOM, NWO, obama, obama deception, Oppression, Police State, Posse Comitatus, stasi, stasi tactics, Troops, u.s. constitution, u.s. economy, urban warfare, War On Terror, White House | Tags: John Warner National Defense Authorization Act, universal civil defense training
Obama Executive Order Stokes Martial Law Fears
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
January 12, 2010
An Obama executive order that creates a council of state governors who will work with the feds to expand military involvement in domestic security has stoked fears that the administration is stepping up preparations for martial law.
The order, which is entitled Establishment of the Council of Governors (PDF), creates a body of ten state governors directly appointed by Obama who will work with the federal government to help advance the “synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States”.
The governors will liaise with officials from Northcom, Homeland Security, the National Guard as well as DoD officials from the Pentagon “in order to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State governments,” according to the executive order.
In October 2008, Northcom, a Unified Combatant Command of the United States military based out of Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs, was assigned the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team returning from Iraq. An alarming September 8 Army Times report which was later denied after it sparked controversy stated that the troops would be used by Northcom to deal with “civil unrest and crowd control” in the aftermath of a national emergency.
The Obama executive order states that governors will help advise the feds on National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.
The fact that the order further blurs the lines between state and federal power, as well as greasing the skids for more military involvement in domestic affairs has stoked fears that Obama may be laying the groundwork for his promised “national civilian security force”.
Conservatives and libertarians responded to the announcement by expressing their suspicion that Obama is preparing to give governors their marching orders in targeting “anti-government” types that have long been characterized as a terrorist threat by the feds in numerous reports stretching back over a decade.
“There is a definite purpose to this,” wrote one commenter on the popular Free Republic website, “The initial steps toward a domestic “Civilian Security Force” in each state, as called for by the fascisti during the campaign. It will be coordinated at the state level, under the authority of DHS and DoD and assorted agencies. The provision will be made for it to be “federalized” in an emergency, as is the National Guard.”
“This is a concrete step toward eliminating the independent authority and dissolving the sovereignty of the several States. It lays the groundwork for the end of the United States as a Republic,” she adds.
Others warn that Obama could be preparing to cancel elections under the justification of a national emergency, a fear that was often expressed when Bush was in office but one that never materialized.
However, the executive order clearly represents another assault on Posse Comitatus, the 1878 law that bars the military from exercising domestic police powers, which was temporarily annulled by the 2006 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act before parts of it were later repealed.
Filed under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, abraham lincoln, big government, Britain, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, constitution, Detainee, Dictatorship, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Empire, enemy combatant, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, FBI, fearmongering, free speech, George Bush, government bureaucrat, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, House, john ashcroft, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Judge Napolitano, knock and talk, london, neocons, oligarchy, Oppression, Patriot Act, Police State, search warrant, Senate, slavery, supreme court, thomas jefferson, Torture, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War On Terror, warrantless search
Judge Napolitano on the Patriot Act
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 9/11, al-qaeda, Anti-War, Big Brother, Bloggers, Britain, Concentration Camp, Conditioning, Congress, Continuity of Government, Control Grid, death camps, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Empire, enemy combatant, Europe, european union, facism, Fascism, fema camp, Fema Camps, Fox News, free speech, George Bush, glenn beck, H.R. 645, halliburton, Homegrown Terrorism, Homeland Security, house senate, HR 1955, HR 6166, hr1955, internet, KBR, Martial Law, maryland, Media, Military, Nazi, obama, operation endgame, orwell, Police State, Popular Mechanics, Propaganda, Protest, Psyops, Romans 13, Ron Paul, Senate, Spy, Surveillance, thought crime, Thought Crime Bill, thought crimes, thought criminal, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War On Terror | Tags: Henry Waxman, Jane Harman, National Defense Authorization act, National Security Presidential Directive 51, NDAA, NSPD 51, Peter Dale Scott
Glenn Beck on Fema Concentration Camps
San Francisco Chronicle
February 4, 2008
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the
federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law,
arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and
detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of
“an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid
development of new programs.”
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of
single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and
Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the
United States. The government has also contracted with several
companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with
shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract
is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its
goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”
Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have
complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars
should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question
is: What kind of “new programs” require the construction and
refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the
union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?
Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA),
“Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,” gives the
executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more
than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in
response to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack
or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic
violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot
maintain public order.”
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just
before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite
imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on
a list of “terrorist” organizations, or who speaks out against the
government’s policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and
noncitizens alike.
Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security
Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure “continuity of
government” in the event of what the document vaguely calls a
“catastrophic emergency.” Should the president determine that such an
emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he
deems necessary to ensure “continuity of government.” This could
include everything from canceling elections to suspending the
Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a
single hearing on NSPD-51.
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up
with a new way to expand the domestic “war on terror.” Her Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955),
which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a
commission to “examine and report upon the facts and causes” of
so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make
legislative recommendations on combatting it.
According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her
colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a
native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping
investigative power to combat it.
A clue as to where Harman’s commission might be aiming is the Animal
Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who “engage in
sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name
of animal rights” as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could
be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists,
environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights
supporters … the list goes on and on. According to author Naomi Wolf,
the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000
“terror suspects” with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make
contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own
citizens?
The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked
power under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president
to use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
http://noworldsystem.com/2009/02/0..horizes-fema-camps-in-us/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/art..2006/240506femaplan.htm
Filed under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, army, bailout, Big Banks, Bio Weapons, Biological Attack, biological warfare, catastrophic event, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Credit Crisis, DEBT, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, enemy combatant, Fascism, free speech, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, Homeland Security, House, hr 5122, hyperinflation, Inflation, Iraq, john warner defense authorization act, liquidation, Martial Law, Military, Military Industrial Complex, national socialism, nationalization, Nazi, NORTHCOM, Nuke, occupation, Oppression, Police State, Posse Comitatus, Protest, riots, Senate, socialism, Stock Market, Troops, Uncategorized, urban warfare, us army, US Constitution, US Economy, Wall Street, War On Terror | Tags: civil disobedience, civil unrest, crowd control, Insurrection Act of 1807, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, october suprise, posse comitatus act, run on banks, soldiers, u.s. soldiers
NorthCom Denies Troops To Be Used For Crowd Control
But admits that Army will have access to weapons and tanks during homeland patrols
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
October 2, 2008
Following the alarming admission that active duty U.S. Army would be on call to deal with “civil unrest” inside the United States from October 1st, the US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) has publicly denied that troops will engage in law enforcement duties, but concedes that forces will be armed with both non-lethal and lethal weapons as well as having access to tanks.
As we highlighted last week, a September 8 Army Times report stated that active duty troops from the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team returning from Iraq would be on call as a “federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks,” for a period of 12 months from October 1st.
The purpose of the unit’s patrols, according to the article, includes helping “with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”
However, a NorthCom official, presumably responding to reports featured on this website and others, publicly denies that troops will be used to police Americans.
“This response force will not be called upon to help with law enforcement, civil disturbance or crowd control, but will be used to support lead agencies involved in saving lives, relieving suffering and meeting the needs of communities affected by weapons of mass destruction attacks, accidents or even natural disasters,” Army Col. Michael Boatner, USNORTHCOM future operations division chief, told Homeland Security Today.
We also learn that the troops will be under the operational control of USNORTHCOM’s Joint Force Land Component Command under US Army North, headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. The operational headquarters of the response force is at Fort Monroe, Virginia.
The original Army Times report also stated that the use of non-lethal weapons against Americans would be a possibility, but a retraction has now been issued stating that the forces would not use nonlethal weaponry domestically.
Use of military in quelling domestic unrest a scary sign
Amy Goodman
Seattle PI
October 2, 2008
A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. “Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months,” reported Army Times staff writer Gina Cavallaro, “the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.” Disturbingly, she writes that “they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control” as well.
The force will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced “sea-smurf.” These “sea-smurfs,” Cavallaro reports, have “spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle,” in a combat zone, and now will spend their 20-month “dwell time” — time troops are required to spend to “reset and regenerate after a deployment” — armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets.
The Army Times piece includes a correction stating that the forces would not use nonlethal weaponry domestically. I called Air Force Lt. Col. Jamie Goodpaster, a public affairs officer for Northern Command. She told me that the overall mission was humanitarian, to save lives and help communities recover from catastrophic events. Nevertheless, the military forces would have weapons on-site, “containerized,” she said — that is, stored in containers — including both lethal and so-called nonlethal weapons. They would have mostly wheeled vehicles, but would also, she said, have access to tanks. She said that use of weapons would be made at a higher level, perhaps at the secretary of defense level.
Talk of trouble on U.S. streets is omnipresent now, with the juxtaposition of Wall Street and Main Street. The financial crisis we face remains obscure to most people; titans of business and government officials assure us that the financial system is “on the brink,” that a massive bailout is necessary, immediately, to prevent a disaster. Conservative and progressive members of Congress, at the insistence of constituents, blocked the initial plan. If the economy does collapse, if people can’t go down to the bank to withdraw their savings, or get cash from an ATM, there may be serious “civil unrest,” and the “sea-smurfs” may be called upon sooner than we imagine to assist with “crowd control.”
The political and financial establishments seem completely galled that people would actually oppose their massive bailout, which rewards financiers for gambling. Normal people worry about paying their bills, buying groceries and gas, and paying rent or a mortgage in increasingly uncertain times. No one ever offers to bail them out. Wall Street’s house of cards has collapsed, and the rich bankers are getting little sympathy from working people.
http://www.elliscountypress.com/news/132/ARTICLE/2575/2008-09-30.html
Troops Patrol U.S. Streets Searching For “Civil Unrest”
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/09/26/t..eets-searching-for-civil-unrest/
Filed under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, Afghanistan, Air Force, al-qaeda, army, bailout, Big Banks, bin laden, Bio Weapons, Biological Attack, biological warfare, catastrophic event, civil liberties, civil rights, Concentration Camp, Congress, Credit Crisis, DEBT, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, enemy combatant, Fascism, FEMA, Fema Camps, free speech, George Bush, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, Homeland Security, House, HR 4986, hr 5122, hyperinflation, Inflation, Iraq, john warner defense authorization act, liquidation, Martial Law, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, national guard, national socialism, nationalization, Nazi, neocons, NORTHCOM, Nuke, occupation, Oppression, Police State, Posse Comitatus, Protest, riots, Senate, socialism, Stock Market, Troops, urban warfare, us army, US Constitution, US Economy, Wall Street, War On Terror | Tags: civil disobedience, civil unrest, Col. Roger Cloutier, crowd control, Insurrection Act, Insurrection Act of 1807, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, october suprise, posse comitatus act, soldiers, u.s. soldiers
U.S. Troops In Homeland “Crowd Control” Patrols From October 1st
3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team returning from Iraq for homeland patrols to help with “civil unrest” and “crowd control,” training in use of non-lethal weapons
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
September 24, 2008
U.S. troops returning from duty in Iraq will be carrying out homeland patrols in America from October 1st in complete violation of Posse Comitatus for the purposes of helping with “civil unrest and crowd control” – which could include dealing with unruly Americans after a complete economic collapse.
This shocking admission was calmly reported on September 8th by the Army Times website, which reports that from the beginning of next month the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team “Will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.”
The article notes that the deployment “marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.”
The purpose of the unit’s patrols includes helping “with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”
The unit will be on homeland patrol for at least 20 months before returning to Iraq or Afghanistan in early 2010, according to the report.
Training for homeland operations has already begun at Fort Stewart and at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
Ominously, the report states that, “The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.”
The unit would also be deployed to deal with hostile crowds of Americans in the aftermath of a massive economic depression, potential food riots and race riots, if one defines the term “crowd control” to match its reasonably applicable scenarios.
The open admission that U.S. troops will be involved in law enforcement operations as well as potentially using non-lethal weapons against American citizens is a complete violation of the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, which substantially limit the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement unless under precise and extreme circumstances.
Section 1385 of the Posse Comitatus Act states, “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
Under the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006, the law was changed to state, “The President may employ the armed forces to restore public order in any State of the United States the President determines hinders the execution of laws or deprives people of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.”
However, these changes were repealed in their entirety by HR 4986: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, reverting back to the original state of the Insurrection Act of 1807.
The original text of the Insurrection Act severely limits the power of the President to deploy troops within the United States.
For troops to be deployed, a condition has to exist that, “(1) So hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or (2) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws. In any situation covered by clause (1), the State shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution.”
Is the Bush administration and Northcom waiting for such a scenario to unfold, an event that completely overwhelms state authorities, before unleashing the might of the U.S. Army against the American people?
The deployment of National Guard troops to aid law enforcement or for disaster relief purposes is legal under the authority of the governor of a state, but using active duty U.S. Army in law enforcement operations inside America absent the conditions described in the Insurrection Act is completely illegal.
With the promise of an “October surprise” on behalf of Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda being bandied about by the media and the potential for civil unrest should a complete collapse of the U.S. economy unfold, the presence of U.S. troops inside America, returning fresh from kicking down doors, arresting “insurgents” and taking them to internment camps in Iraq, should put Americans on alert and provoke urgent questions about the legality of U.S. Army units engaging in law enforcement operations against American citizens.
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 2008 Election, 2nd Amendment, 4th amendment, al-qaeda, Anti-War, Barack Obama, Big Brother, Bloggers, Britain, Concentration Camp, Conditioning, Congress, Control Grid, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, enemy combatant, Europe, european union, facism, fda, free speech, Homegrown Terrorism, Homeland Security, house senate, HR 1955, internet, maryland, militarized police, Military, Nazi, obama, orwell, Police State, Protest, Psyops, re-education, s. 1959, Senate, Soviet Union, Spy, Surveillance, thought crime, Thought Crime Bill, thought criminal, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War On Terror | Tags: Ministry of Love, ministry of truth, university of maryland, Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Preventi
Thought Crimes Agenda Already Being Implemented
Lee Rogers
Rogue Government
August 8, 2008
The Department of Homeland Security is moving towards implementing a provision of the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 otherwise known as the thought crimes bill. This is despite the fact that the legislation has not been signed into law. The House version of the bill HR 1955 was passed by a margin of 404-6 where as the Senate version of the bill S 1959 is still awaiting action. One of the bill’s provisions gives the Department of Homeland Security the authority to fund a University based Center of Excellence to study ways to thwart what the government believes are extremist belief systems and radical ideologies of individual Americans. In other words, if the government doesn’t like the way you think, they are going to have teams of social scientists and behavioral experts trying to figure out the best way to deal with you. As it turns out, the Department of Homeland Security is already funding a Center of Excellence to study thought criminals in the United States at the University of Maryland. This shows that it doesn’t matter if S 1959 is defeated or not, as they are moving forward with this agenda with or without Congressional approval. In reality, Congress is nothing more than a staged circus to make people falsely believe that they actually have a say in what the government does. The Department of Homeland Security is funding research to setup an Orwellian system to deal with political dissenters under the guise of fighting terrorism and they care not if it is in accordance with what the people want. Another words, be prepared for the possibility of a future with re-education camps as a real life Ministry of Love system is implemented.
The following is taken from Security Products Online detailing the Department of Homeland Security’s funding of this Center of Excellence that will study thought crimes or as they like to call it the threat of homegrown terrorism and violent radicalization.
A team of more than 50 social scientists, armed with new federal funding, will extend its research into radicalization and the formation of terrorist groups in the United States and abroad. The researchers will also study the effectiveness of counter-terror strategies, as well as efforts to build community resilience to attacks.
Now, let’s take a look at section 899D of HR 1955 and we’ll see that what’s proposed in the bill has for all intents and purposes already become a reality.
`SEC. 899D. CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR THE STUDY OF VIOLENT RADICALIZATION AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM IN THE UNITED STATES.
`(a) Establishment- The Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish or designate a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States (hereinafter referred to as `Center’) following the merit-review processes and procedures and other limitations that have been previously established for selecting and supporting University Programs Centers of Excellence. The Center shall assist Federal, State, local and tribal homeland security officials through training, education, and research in preventing violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the United States. In carrying out this section, the Secretary may choose to either create a new Center designed exclusively for the purpose stated herein or identify and expand an existing Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence so that a working group is exclusively designated within the existing Center of Excellence to achieve the purpose set forth in subsection (b).
`(b) Purpose- It shall be the purpose of the Center to study the social, criminal, political, psychological, and economic roots of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the United States and methods that can be utilized by Federal, State, local, and tribal homeland security officials to mitigate violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.
`(c) Activities- In carrying out this section, the Center shall–
`(1) contribute to the establishment of training, written materials, information, analytical assistance and professional resources to aid in combating violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism;
`(2) utilize theories, methods and data from the social and behavioral sciences to better understand the origins, dynamics, and social and psychological aspects of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism;
`(3) conduct research on the motivational factors that lead to violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism; and
`(4) coordinate with other academic institutions studying the effects of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism where appropriate.
The Department of Homeland Security is providing roughly $12 Million over 3 years to fund this research. Among the planned research includes building a database of U.S. extremist crime, studying how social networks spread thought crime, tracking sympathy and support for terrorism in the United States among various communities, studying the phony European white Al-Qaeda threat and much more.
The government has no business funding research studying the political beliefs of people and determining who may or may not be a potential terrorist based upon a vague definition of homegrown terrorism and violent radicalization. In fact, the definitions of these terms as defined in HR 1955 and S 1959 are up to the interpretation of the government. This means that a homegrown terrorist could potentially be anybody the government doesn’t like. Not only is it unconstitutional, but it opens up the flood gates for a tyranny only theorized in novels like George Orwell’s 1984. The social scientists that are being funded in this program could potentially suggest the implementation of programs that could include the round up of people for re-education based upon any sort of criteria even if no real crime has been committed. Literally, the Department of Homeland Security is funding research to go after people who have political beliefs and ideologies that are contrary to the agenda of the establishment. Unfortunately for the American people, they are employing the services of some very smart people to do this. Who knows what these people will come up with but considering what they’ve already done, it won’t be in the best interest of freedom.
In the Soviet Union, political dissidents and intellectuals were labeled crazy and put in mental institutions or slave labor camps. Could the same thing happen in the United States? After these scientists finish their research, it very well could considering what we see with the militarization of police and growing technological spy grid here in the United States. How can we assume that their recommendations will defend liberty when everything else the government has done in order to fight this phony terror threat has been contrary to the principles of freedom?
Particularly interesting is how they are concerned about activity on the Internet. Many freedom oriented radio networks and web sites have been formed over the past decade to protest what is becoming an increasingly corrupt and criminal government. The free flow of information is a real threat to the establishment and they are scrambling for ways to determine how to put the lid on it.
In closing, it is disturbing that the Department of Homeland Security would fund a program before a bill authorizing the action is signed into law. The provisions in the thought crimes bill represent the potential for total despotism and tyranny and even if a few of the provisions are implemented like this Center for Excellence funding, it marks a severe threat for liberty. These government terrorists must be defeated and there needs to be an investigation into the funding of this research which is unconstitutional on its face.
Obama Supports Thought Crime Bill
http://noworldsystem.com/2007/12/13/obama-supports-thought-crime-bill/
Filed under: ACLU, Afghanistan, al-qaeda, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Cuba, Detainee, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, human rights, Military, mukasey, nation building, neocons, occupation, rendition, supreme court, Taliban, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House | Tags: gitmo, John Walker Lindh, US Bagram Theater Internment Facility
Leaked photo shows detainee’s lips sewn shut, wires coming out of the face
Wikileaks
July 22, 2008
Photo leaked from a military computer
Photo of a detainee held by the United States, with his face wired, lips sewn, red eyes and torso sacked. According to digital camera metadata the image was taken on Feb 9, 2003 03:49:25. The 6 Aug 2004 is also mentioned in relation to this photo. The facial wiring is clearly non-medical. The location of the detainee is unknown, possibly the US Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Afghanistan. Although there is a resemblance to the US Taliban supporter John Walker Lindh, the connection is superficial. The negative image to the right was created by Wikileaks to draw attention to certain regions of the photo on the left. Wikileaks staff have verified that the photograph came from a US military computer network.
ACLU: AG Wants Congress To Subvert Constitution
Raw Story
July 21, 2008
Attorney General Michael Mukasey prompted Congress Monday morning, during a speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute, to create new rules governing the rights of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The American Civil Liberties Union immediately responded to Mukasey’s request, calling his proposals nothing short of asking Congress to subvert the Constitution.
Mukasey “proposed that Congress subvert the right of habeas corpus with a new scheme of procedures that will hide the Bush administration’s past wrongdoing – an action that would undermine the constitutional guarantee of due process and conceal systematic torture and abuse of detainees,” the group charged.
“Mukasey is asking Congress to expand and extend the war on terror forever,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, in a media advisory. “Anyone that this president or the next one declares to be a terrorist could then be held indefinitely without a trial. This is clearly the last gasp of an administration desperate to rationalize what is a failed legal scheme that was correctly rejected four times by the Supreme Court.”
The Associated Press, acknowledging a Congress eager to transition into a busy election season, notes the rules are not likely to be approved. Mukasey’s requests come on the heels of a Supreme Court decision granting detainees the right to challenge their captivity in US federal court. Under Mukasey’s proposals, a detainee would be able to challenge their detention, but would receive no extradition to the United States for the proceedings.
According to the Washington Post: “Under the Justice plan that Mukasey talked about today, the U.S. government could hold prisoners indefinitely so long as the armed conflict with al-Qaeda persisted.”
http://rawstory.com//news/2..ps_over_opposing_0721.html
Lawyer: U.S. Military Jails Are Legal Black Holes
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US..black_holes_say_U_07202008.html
US tells lies about torture, say MPs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/20/humanrights.uksecurity
Conservative Lawyers Urge Bush To Issue ‘Pre-Emptive Pardons’ To Officials Involved In Illegal Programs
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/21/bush-preemptive-pardons/
Guantánamo children
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/20..gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 2008 Election, 4th amendment, Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, amnesty, army, Barack Obama, bill of rights, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Coup, Dictatorship, Empire, enemy combatant, False Flag, federal crime, FISA, flip flop, flip flopping, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Hillary Clinton, Iran, John McCain, left right paradigm, Military, military base, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, neocons, Neolibs, Nuke, obama, Pentagon, Police State, poll, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Saddam Hussein, Shock and Awe, Surveillance, Syria, Tehran, telco pac, telecoms, Torture, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap, WW3, ww4
The Lesson from Obama’s Cowardly Flip-Flop
Jacob G. Hornberger
FFF
July 10, 2008
Those who think that the election of Barack Obama will save the nation from its many foreign-policy/civil-liberties woes got smashed and dashed with a cold dose of reality. Flip-flopping in the finest political tradition, Obama voted in favor of President Bush’s wiretap/immunity bill, after promising to filibuster it before he secured the Democratic Party nomination.
Presumably, Obama’s thinking goes like this: “Now that I’ve secured the nomination of my party, liberals will vote for me regardless because they won’t want John McCain in power. So, I can now flip flop and taken different positions on foreign policy and civil liberties so that John McCain won’t be able to tell people that I’m soft on terrorism.”
Reminding people of what happened in 2002, when the Democrats unconstitutionally and cowardly delegated the power to declare war on Iraq to President Bush because of fear that the president would accuse them of being soft on Saddam Hussein, congressional Democrats voted to give Bush everything he wanted plus more in the wiretap/immunity bill, including civil immunity to private telecom companies for apparent felony offenses committed against their customers.
For an excellent analysis of the cowardly and craven cave-in by Obama and his fellow Democrats, see Glenn Greenwald’s blog and Jonathan Turley’s television interview, which is included in Greenwald’s June 9 blog. (Both Greenwald and Turley delivered terrific speeches at our recent conference “Restoring the Republic 2008: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties.”)
Meanwhile, the president and his associates continue to threaten Iran with a military attack without even pretending that they’re going to first ask for a declaration of war from Congress, which the Constitution requires. Keep in mind that the Constitution is the law that we the people impose on the president and the Congress. That’s the law that the president feels that he can violate with impunity.
The fact is that Americans are living under a lawless regime, one in which the president feels that constitutional constraints are illegitimate during his “war on terrorism,” which he says will last indefinitely given that there are still so many terrorists and potential terrorists in the world. Never mind that the U.S. government’s own policies generate the terrorist threat against the United States, which is then used as the excuse for the president to operate in an omnipotent and extra-constitutional manner.
That’s what his signing statements, illegal wiretaps and other searches, enemy-combatant designations, torture and sex abuse camps, cancelation of habeas corpus, wars of aggression, indefinite detentions, and kangaroo military tribunals are all about — the power to ignore constitutional restraints — omnipotent power.
The battle over the wiretap/immunity bill demonstrates a critically important point, one that every lover of liberty must ultimately confront: It is not sufficient to fight every assault on civil liberties that comes down the pike. The infringements are endless. Even if one civil-liberties battle is won, there are always three more battles to wage.
Suppose, for example, that civil libertarians succeed in getting the Pentagon’s torture and sex abuse camp at Guantanamo Bay closed down. Would that end the torture and sex abuse? Of course not. They’ll simply start sending detainees to torture and sex abuse camps in Afghanistan or to friendly terrorist regimes, such as Syria (which they still claim they don’t talk to despite the fact that the CIA somehow or another made the arrangements with Syrian torturers to torture an innocent man on its behalf).
Thus, what every American who thirsts for the restoration of a normal, free society must recognize is that there is one — and only one — solution: the dismantling of America’s standing army, especially the military-industrial complex and the CIA, which are the center of the rot of the U.S. Empire. This is what should have been done when the Berlin Wall fell and it’s what should be done today.
That’s the root of the weed. That’s what needs to be pulled out of the ground. It’s not sufficient to simply continue trimming its branches.
That would mean the closing of every U.S. military base around the world — Europe, Asia, South America, and everywhere else. It would entail bringing all those troops home and discharging them into the private sector. It would entail closing the multitude of military bases all across the United States. It would entail the abolition of the CIA. It would include the repeal of the deadly and destructive war on drugs. It would entail the end of all foreign aid. It would mean the end of the U.S. government’s meddling in the affairs of other nations. It would entail the repeal of all the taxes that fund these people and their deadly, destructive, and nefarious operations.
Barack Obama’s cowardly flip flop should remind every American that the key to our future lies not in electing different people to public office. Instead, the key to our future lies in a shift in paradigms — from one of big government in foreign (and domestic) affairs to one of limited government in foreign (and domestic) affairs.
The time has come for the American people to do what Americans in 1787 were doing: reflecting upon the principles of liberty and limited government on which this nation should be based. The time has come to end the U.S. government’s role as the world’s policeman, intervener, interloper, aggressor, welfare provider, and sole remaining empire. The time has come for the American people to restore the principles of liberty and limited government that our ancestors bequeathed to us.
Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Obama’s poll numbers plummet: Apparently betraying Americans does not pay
Newsweek
July 11, 2008
A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama’s glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month’s NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent.
Obama’s rapid drop comes at a strategically challenging moment for the Democratic candidate. Having vanquished Hillary Clinton in early June, Obama quickly went about repositioning himself for a general-election audience–an unpleasant task for any nominee emerging from the pander-heavy primary contests and particularly for a candidate who’d slogged through a vigorous primary challenge in most every contest from January until June. Obama’s reversal on FISA legislation, his support of faith-based initiatives and his decision to opt out of the campaign public-financing system left him open to charges he was a flip-flopper. In the new poll, 53 percent of voters (and 50 percent of former Hillary Clinton supporters) believe that Obama has changed his position on key issues in order to gain political advantage.
More seriously, some Obama supporters worry that the spectacle of their candidate eagerly embracing his old rival, Hillary Clinton, and traveling the country courting big donors at lavish fund-raisers, may have done lasting damage to his image as an arbiter of a new kind of politics. This is a major concern since Obama’s outsider credentials, have, in the past, played a large part in his appeal to moderate, swing voters. In the new poll, McCain leads Obama among independents 41 percent to 34 percent, with 25 percent favoring neither candidate. In June’s NEWSWEEK Poll, Obama bested McCain among independent voters, 48 percent to 36 percent.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/07/14/thi..ager-begs-for-money/
Obama sees three straight months of declining donations
http://www.washingtonpost.com/../2008/07/10/AR2008071002813_pf.html
Filed under: 5th Amendment, ACLU, Afghanistan, Britain, Canada, Child Abuse, Cuba, Detainee, Dick Cheney, enemy combatant, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, interrogation, Iraq, Military, nation building, neocons, occupation, POW, rendition, Russia, special forces, Stephen Harper, Taliban, Torture, Troops, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House | Tags: crying, gitmo, gitmo video, guantanamo video
New Gitmo Video: Child Detainee Cries During Interrogation
Current
July 15, 2008
Omar Khadr was captured as a 15-year-old after being accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan in 2002. Now his lawyers have released excerpts of a video showing their client being questioned by Canadian officials at Guantanamo Bay prison. The video is said to provide insight into the effects prolonged interrogation and detention had on Khadr.
The video was shot in 2003 over four days of interviews and is seven hours long in total. It was originally marked “Secret/No Foreign”.
Keeping America Safe: Prosecuting Children as Terrorists
Common Dreams
June 21, 2008
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the rest of the warmongers and terror-pimps in the White House would have us believe that Omar Khadr is a monster. Khadr is the 21-year-old Canadian who is facing one of the first show-trials at Guantanamo.
But let’s just step back a minute and consider Mr. Khadr’s case.
The son of an alleged Islamic fundamentalist, Khadr was sent to one of those fundamentalist madrassa schools in Pakistan back when he was 14. From there, he went to Afghanistan, to join with the Taliban in fighting against the remnant warlord backers of the Soviet Union, which had attempted to run Afghanistan as a vassal state.
Then came 9-11 and the October 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan. Young Khadr suddenly found himself fighting against the world’s most powerful military.
In 2002, after the Taliban government had fallen, Khadr was still out in the hills with the forces of resistance. The Taliban government was gone, but the war was not over. In fact it’s still not over, with the Taliban resurgent in much of Afghanistan.
In this situation, with some 20,000 US and European troops battling across Afghanistan, Khadr, by then at the ripe age of 15, found himself with a group of five older fighters in a compound up in the hills. Some US Special Forces came on the location, and, peeking through cracks in the door, saw the group, armed with AK rifles. They called on the men to surrender, but the men allegedly refused.
At that point the brave Americans called in an air strike, and clobbered the building. After that softening up, they went inside to pick up the pieces.
Someone at that point, and US military prosecutors claim it was the wounded Khadr, tossed a grenade while lying injured on the ground. The grenade killed Special Forces Sergeant Christopher Speer. Speer’s comrades opened fire, with three of them hitting Khadr.
When they went to check on him, the critically injured, yet miraculously still living Khadr reportedly pleaded, “Shoot me!” Reportedly, some of Sgt. Speer’s buddies were ready to do just that. Apparently the “clicking” of injured captives by American forces (a war crime) is not uncommon, and even has its own slang word. But a medic with the group interceded and stopped the battlefield execution, and took action to save Khadr’s life.
Khadr was eventually shipped off to Guantanamo, at the age of 15, in violation of a 2002 protocol signed by the US which extended the protection of the Geneva Conventions against imprisoning child soldiers from the prior “under 15″ standard to “under 18.” No matter, “bad guy” Khadr would be one of at least 2500 children that the US has admitted to incarcerating in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and elsewhere as “enemy combatants.”
Today, Khadr is 21. He has spent the second half of his teenage years confined in a prison camp on the naval base at Guantanamo.
This is what Bush and Cheney are really referring to when they assure us that they are holding “the worst of the worst” on the island of Cuba.
They are keeping us safe from 15-year-old boys.
And what, exactly, is Omar Khadr’s “crime”?
As far as I can tell, if he did toss that grenade (and there is testimony from American witnesses that the thrower may have been another man, who was killed in the resulting US barrage of fire), Khadr was simply demonstrating extraordinary bravery of the kind that would earn a silver star, at least, had it been a US soldier or marine doing the same thing under the same circumstances. Consider: he and his comrades-in-arms, battling in defense of their religion and, in some cases, their nation, were bombarded from the air. They were then approached by armed US troops-the very ones who had called in the air strike. This was a battle, and it was not over yet. For all Khadr knew, those US soldiers were going to kill them all. And in any event, Khadr and his fellow fighters had a right to defend themselves to the death to prevent capture. Sure it’s unfortunate that Sgt. Speer was killed, but that’s what happens in wars.
Still, a fighter killing another fighter during warfare is not the act of a “terrorist.” It may be brutal and it may be tragic, but it is the act of a soldier. That soldier, if captured, is not a criminal, but a POW. Moreover, if he is a child, the Geneva Conventions and the subsequent protocol mentioned above, require that he be treated not as a POW but as a victim of war.
Bush and Cheney don’t want to admit that the people fighting US forces in Afghanistan are legitimate soldiers, entitled to protection under the rules of war. They want us to believe that anyone who takes up a gun in defense of their homeland or of the homeland of their allies, and fights against the US military forces that are spread all over the globe like Roman Legions of old, are “terrorists,” deserving of whatever fate we hand them, by whatever rules we want to gin up.
But it’s worth remembering that this particular “terrorist,” at the time of his “crime,” was simply a scared and badly-wounded 15-year-old kid who had the balls to toss a grenade at well-armed soldiers on a search-and-destroy mission.
In an interesting twist that further highlights the absurdity of calling a 15-year-old a hardened terrorist, Speer’s widow, Tabitha, and another soldier who lost an eye in the grenade blast, sued not Khadr, but his father’s estate, claiming that his “failure to control his son” had been the proximate cause of their losses. A federal district judge, in February 2006, awarded the two $102.6 million in damages. In other words, the court concluded Khadr wasn’t responsible for his actions; his father was. And yet the US is prosecuting Omar Khadr for being a hardened terrorist at an age when he was too young to drive!
The Bush/Cheney administration’s incarceration and prosecution of this boy was a war crime. His continued incarceration and the attempt to prosecute him as a terrorist today makes a mockery of America’s motto: Home of the Brave.
We should all be ashamed.
Canadian PM brushes off evidence of Guantanamo abuse
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/..c;_ylt=ApU100eyhTE7E6X04pjztsIWIr0F
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/43453.html
Gitmo Suspect Wants Classified Docs
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200..ydW6ZuxuSioZmJznfRg.3QA
Iraqis Tortured By UK Military Settle For $6M
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080..7dWGmjBETqpCRueqUl5bbBAF
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Britain, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainees, Dick Cheney, enemy combatant, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, nation building, neocons, occupation, Oppression, rendition, Torture, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding
Neocon gets waterboarded; agrees that it’s torture
The Guardian
July 2, 2008
Late last year, the writer, polemicist and fierce proponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq Christopher Hitchens attempted, in a piece for the online magazine Slate, to draw a distinction between what he called techniques of “extreme interrogation” and “outright torture”.
From this, his foes inferred that since it was Hitchens’ belief that America did not stoop to the latter, the practice of waterboarding – known to be perpetrated by US forces against certain “high-value clients” in Iraq and elsewhere – must fall under the former heading.
Enraged by what they saw as an exercise in elegant but offensive sophistry, some of the writer’s critics suggested that Hitchens give waterboarding (which may sound like some kind of fun aquatic pastime, but is probably best summarised as enforced partial drowning) a whirl, just to see what it was like. Did the experience feel like torture.
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Britain, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainees, Dick Cheney, enemy combatant, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, john yoo, Military, nation building, occupation, Oppression, rendition, Torture, Troops, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror
Former Iraqi detainees sue U.S. military contractors
Reuters
June 30, 2008
Four Iraqi men are suing U.S. military contractors who they say tortured them while they were detained in Abu Ghraib prison, according to lawsuits being filed at U.S. federal courts on Monday.
The lawsuits allege the contractors committed violations of U.S. law, including torture, war crimes and civil conspiracy.
The scandal over the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib unleashed a wave of global condemnation against the United States when images of abused prisoners surfaced in 2004
The four plaintiffs, all later released without charge, described their experiences to Reuters on Monday at an Istanbul hotel, where they periodically meet their U.S. legal team. They gave accounts of beatings, electric shocks and mock executions.
Farmer Suhail Naim Abdullah Al-Shimari, 49, said he was caged, beaten, threatened with dogs and given electric shocks during more than four years in detention. He was released in March without being charged and without any judicial process.
“I lost my house, my family were made homeless and left without a breadwinner. I lost four-and-a-half years of my life and all they did was say sorry,” he told Reuters.
Some lower-ranking soldiers have been convicted in military courts in connection with the physical abuse and sexual humiliation of Abu Ghraib detainees.
The latest lawsuits follow a similar one launched in early May in federal court in Los Angeles by another former Abu Ghraib detainee, Emad Al-Janabi. The latest plaintiffs sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
“This litigation will contribute to the true history of Abu Ghraib. These innocent men were senselessly tortured by U.S. companies that profited from their misery,” said Susan L. Burke, one of the attorneys representing the detainees.
The lawsuits were being filed where the contractors reside. They named CACI International Inc, CACI Premier Technology, L-3 Services Inc and three individual contractors.
Cheney’s Aide Says He Didn’t Write Torture Memos
http://ap.googl..IqyDQB701JjpfgD91I5L7G0
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article4232283.ece
Filed under: 1st amendment, abc news, al-qaeda, bilderberg, brainwashing, Britain, Child Abuse, CIA, Conditioning, Dissent, enemy combatant, Europe, european union, False Flag, Fascism, Fox News, global elite, Globalism, jim tucker, Media, Media Fear, Mi5, michael hayden, Nazi, neocons, New World Order, Pakistan, Police State, Propaganda, Protest, secret meetings, Secret Societies, State Sponsored Terrorism, Uncategorized, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War On Terror
Media Hypes Blond, Blue-Eyed Terrorists
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
June 25, 2008
Following in the footsteps of Fox News, and almost word for word repeating unsubstantiated claims by the head of the CIA, ABC News ran a piece earlier this week alleging that white westerners are being trained in Al Qaeda terror camps in Pakistan with the intention of carrying out attacks in Europe and the USA.
The ABC report appeared on World News With Charles Gibson this past Monday. Gibson stated:
“Intelligence officials say it is their number one concern. Caucasians from a European country who have graduated from an al Qaeda training camp. Such potential terrorists would be dressed in western clothing, drawing little notice as they board a plane bound for the US, coming to launch an attack. There’s no indication such an attack is imminent, but this scenario is of great concern to experts in and out of the government.”
In addition, an article from the London Telegraph today relates that police in Yorkshire have identified a 12 year old blonde haired schoolboy as an Al Qaeda extremist after he sent links to beheading videos posted on the internet to his classmates.
The boy was reported to police by his school, who also indicated that he had an “unnatural interest in guns and weapons”.
Clearly the child is a hardcore terrorist.
Police revealed that they are monitoring hundreds of children in a new anti-terrorism scheme which is designed to “target al-Qaeda inspired youths”.
As we have documented, the blue eyed blonde haired Al-Qaeda line is a familiar talking point that has been pushed on Fox News and within other Neo-Con circles in an attempt to turn the anti-terror apparatus around to target dissidents, protesters and the American people in general.
The origin of the concept was based on a comment by a single MI5 source that was subsequently picked up in a Scotsman article back in January, which claimed that Al-Qaeda have recruited 1,500 white Britons to carry out attacks in the UK.
Since that time the corporate media has increasingly focused on the idea and returned to the story again and again.
This hype culminated in a March announcement by CIA boss Michael Hayden that Al-Qaeda is training new fighters that “look western” and could easily cross U.S. borders.
“They are bringing operatives into that region for training — operatives that wouldn’t attract your attention if they were going through the customs line at Dulles (airport outside Washington) with you when you were coming back from overseas,” Hayden told NBC’s Meet The Press.
“(They) look western (and) would be able to come into this country without attracting the kinds of attention that others might,” he added, with Reuters forced to point out that Hayden offered nothing to substantiate his claim.
In addition, the concept was even debated earlier this month by elitists at the secretive 2008 Bilderberg meeting.
Sources inside the meeting leaked details of elitist talking points which included the need to highlight a new phenomenon of terrorist groups, recruits and sympathizers identified as blonde haired, blue eyed westerners.
“Under the heading of resisting terrorism there were points made about how the terrorist organizations are recruiting people who do not look like terrorists – blonde, blue eyed boys – they’re searching hard for those types to become the new mad bombers,” reported veteran Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/m..008/06/23/ccview123.xml
ABC News: White European Al-Qaeda training in Pakistan
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publis..007216&docId=l:811400925&start=4
Filed under: 5th Amendment, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainees, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, Military, nation building, occupation, Oppression, poll, rendition, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding
44% Favor Torture Of Terrorist Suspects
Raw Story
June 24, 2008
A new poll of citizens’ attitudes about torture in 19 nations finds Americans among the most accepting of the practice. Although a slight majority say torture should be universally prohibited, 44 percent think torture of terrorist suspects should be allowed, and more than one in 10 think torture should generally be allowed.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/21/9787/
’Soldiers routinely abuse detainees’
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite..owFull&cid=1213794299228
Filed under: 2008 Election, 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Abu Ghraib, Alex Jones, Barack Obama, bilderberg, bin laden, bob barr, central bank, civil liberties, civil rights, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Detainees, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, Federal Reserve, Founding Fathers, gas prices, glenn beck, Great Depression, Greenback, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Inflation, Iraq, Joe Scarborough, John McCain, morning joe, MSNBC, Oil, Petrol, rendition, RNC, Ron Paul, Stock Market, Torture, US Constitution, US Economy, War On Terror, Willie Geist
Ron Paul: “Osama bin Laden loves what we have done”
Filed under: 5th Amendment, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, army, civil liberties, civil rights, Colin Powell, deaths, Detainees, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, John McCain, john yoo, lindsey graham, Military, nation building, neocons, occupation, red cross, rendition, Seymour Hersh, supreme court, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House | Tags: Jerrold Nadler, Lawrence Wilkerson
2-star General Accuses WH of War Crimes
Washington Post
June 18, 2008
The two-star general who led an Army investigation into the horrific detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of war crimes and is calling for accountability.
In his 2004 report on Abu Ghraib, then-Major General Anthony Taguba concluded that “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees.” He called the abuse “systemic and illegal.” And, as Seymour M. Hersh reported in the New Yorker, he was rewarded for his honesty by being forced into retirement.
Now, in a preface to a Physicians for Human Rights report based on medical examinations of former detainees, Taguba adds an epilogue to his own investigation.
The new report, he writes, “tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individual’s lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors.
“The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full-scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted –both on America’s institutions and our nation’s founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.
“In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. . . .
“After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
Pamela Hess of the Associated Press has more on the report, which resulted from “the most extensive medical study of former U.S. detainees published so far” and “found evidence of torture and other abuse that resulted in serious injuries and mental disorders.”
At Least 25 Detainees Murdered In U.S. Custody
Think Progress
June 20, 2008
At today’s House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights hearing on torture, Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, with up to 27 of these declared homicides:
NADLER: Your testimony said 100 detainees have died in detention; do you believe the 25 of those were in effect murdered?
WILKERSON: Mr. Chairman, I think the number’s actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108.
A February 2006 Human Rights First report found that although hundreds of people in U.S. custody had died and eight people were tortured to death, only 12 deaths had “resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official.”
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/n..etainee_dies_youre_doing_i.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/200608_b_mccain.htm
Documents confirm U.S. hid detainees from Red Cross
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/41394.html
John Yoo’s ongoing falsehoods in service of limitless government power
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/17/yoo/index.html
Filed under: 5th Amendment, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Detainee, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, fear mongering, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, John McCain, nation building, neocons, Newt Gingrich, occupation, Pentagon, rendition, supreme court, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War On Terror, waterboarding
Glenn Greenwald
Salon
June 17, 2008
Even when set against all the reckless fear-mongering being spewed in response to last week’s Supreme Court ruling — which merely held that our Government can’t abolish the constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus and must provide minimum due process to people before locking them in cages for life — this comment by Newt Gingrich on Face the Nation this weekend is in a class all by itself:
On the other hand, I will say, the recent Supreme Court decision to turn over to a local district judge decisions of national security and life and death that should be made by the president and the Congress is the most extraordinarily arrogant and destructive decision the Supreme Court has made in its history. . . . . Worse than Dred Scott, worse than–because–for this following reason: . . .
This court decision is a disaster which could cost us a city. And the debate ought to be over whether or not you’re prepared to risk losing an American city on behalf of five lawyers . . . .
We better not allow people we seek to imprison for life to have access to a court — or require our Government to show evidence before it encages people for decades — otherwise . . . we’ll “lose a city.”
Bush: Critics Of US Torture Chambers ’Slandering America’
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/06/02/gingrich-bu..-more-terror-attacks/
U.S. Abuse Of Detainees Common In Afghanistan
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/38775.html
McCain: Habeas Corpus a Privilege not a Right
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/140608_a_mccain.htm
McCain To Introduce Legislation Undermining Supreme Court Decision On Guantanamo
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/15/kristol-court-guantanamo/
Waterboarding, slapping, sensory deprivation – all on US tactics list
http://news.scotsman.com/world/..-deprivation-.4194720.jp
Pentagon Looked Into Torture Early
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy..8/06/16/AR2008061602779_pf.html
Supreme Court Restores Habeas Corpus
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/06/15/supreme-court-restores-habeas-corpus/
Filed under: 5th Amendment, Cuba, Detainee, enemy combatant, Founding Fathers, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, HR 6166, John McCain, magna carta, military commissions act, neocons, supreme court, Torture, US Constitution
Supreme Court Restores Habeas Corpus
Glenn Greenwald
Salon
June 13, 2008
In a major rebuke to the Bush administration’s theories of presidential power — and in an equally stinging rebuke to the bipartisan political class which has supported the Bush detention policies — the U.S. Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 decision (.pdf), declared Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutional. The Court struck down that section of the MCA because it purported to abolish the writ of habeas corpus — the means by which a detainee challenges his detention in a court — despite the fact that the Constitution permits suspension of that writ only “in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion.”
As a result, Guantanamo detainees accused of being “enemy combatants” have the right to challenge the validity of their detention in a full-fledged U.S. federal court proceeding. The ruling today is the first time in U.S. history that the Court has ruled that detainees held by the U.S. Government in a place where the U.S. does not exercise formal sovereignty (Cuba technically is sovereign over Guantanamo) are nonetheless entitled to the Constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus whenever they are held in a place where the U.S. exercises effective control.
In upholding the right of habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees, the Court found that the “Combatant Status Review Tribunals” process (“CSRT”) offered to Guantanamo detainees — mandated by the John-McCain-sponsored Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 — does not constitute a constitutionally adequate substitute for habeas corpus. To the contrary, the Court found that such procedures — which have long been criticized as sham hearings due to the fact that defendants cannot have a lawyer present, government evidence is presumptively valid, and defendants are prevented from challenging (and sometimes even knowing about) much of the evidence against them — “fall well short of the procedures and adversarial mechanisms that would eliminate the need for habeas corpus review.” Those grave deficiencies in the CSRT process mean that “there is considerable risk of error” in the tribunals’ conclusions.
The Court’s ruling was grounded in its recognition that the guarantee of habeas corpus was so central to the Founding that it was one of the few individual rights included in the Constitution even before the Bill of Rights was enacted. As the Court put it: “the Framers viewed freedom from unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty, and they understood the writ of habeas corpus as a vital instrument to secure that freedom.” The Court noted that freedom from arbitrary or baseless imprisonment was one of the core rights established by the 13th Century Magna Carta, and it is the writ of habeas corpus which is the means for enforcing that right. Once habeas corpus is abolished — as the Military Commissions Act sought to do — then we return to the pre-Magna Carta days where the Government is free to imprison people with no recourse.
Filed under: 4th amendment, Abu Ghraib, CIA, Detainee, DoD, Donald Rumsfeld, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, Fascism, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, john yoo, Nazi, neocons, Oppression, Pentagon, rendition, Torture, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House | Tags: David Addington
Pundit: Bush Administration Officials Will Be ’Indicted For War Crimes’
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=8076
Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved ‘Enhanced Interrogation’
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4583256
Filed under: 4th amendment, Abu Ghraib, al-qaeda, army, Child Abuse, CIA, defense department, Detainee, DoD, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, False Flag, Fascism, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, iraq deaths, john yoo, marine, Military, neocons, Oppression, Pentagon, rape, rendition, Ron Paul, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House
Above the law: the Bush crime syndicate
Washington Post
April 2, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXpavT5RCP8
The Bush crime syndicate genuinely believed that the president was above the law. It’s not hyperbole — it was an actual legal opinion:
The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.
[…]
Sent to the Pentagon’s general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president’s inherent wartime powers.
“If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network,” Yoo wrote. “In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.”
Interrogators who harmed a prisoner would be protected by a “national and international version of the right to self-defense,” Yoo wrote. He also articulated a definition of illegal conduct in interrogations — that it must “shock the conscience” — that the Bush administration advocated for years.
“Whether conduct is conscience-shocking turns in part on whether it is without any justification,” Yoo wrote, explaining, for example, that it would have to be inspired by malice or sadism before it could be prosecuted.
Torture for Profit
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/01/bush-memo.html
Top Bush Administration officials pressured underlings to use torture tactics at Guantanamo
http://rawstory.com/news/20..underlings_0402.html
Hersh: children raped at Abu Ghraib, Pentagon has videos
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/07/15/hersh-children-raped.html
Secret DOJ Memo Says Fourth Amendment Has “No Application” After 9/11
http://infowars.net/articles/april2008/030408Memo.htm
Filed under: Afghanistan, airstrikes, al-qaeda, Britain, civil war, Congress, David Petraeus, enemy combatant, Europe, George Bush, Iran, Iraq, iraq deaths, Maliki, mehdi army, military strike, Muqtada al-Sadr, nation building, neocons, occupation, Shiite, sunni, surge, Troops, United Kingdom, White House, WW3, ww4 | Tags: fallujah, greenzone, Sadr City, Sadrist movement
Shiite leader al-Sadr defies Iraq gov’t
AP
March 29, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a4s458mDMs
Iraqi authorities have given Basra extremists until April 8 to surrender heavy and medium weapons after an initial 72-hour ultimatum to hand them over was widely ignored.
But a defiant al-Sadr called on his followers Saturday to ignore the order, saying that his Mahdi Army would turn in its weapons only to a government that can “get the occupier out of Iraq,” referring to the Americans.
The order was made public by Haidar al-Jabiri, a member of the influential political commission of the Sadrist movement.
Al-Sadr, in an interview aired Saturday by Al-Jazeera television, said his Mahdi Army was capable of “liberating Iraq” and maintained al-Maliki’s government was as “distant” from the people as Saddam Hussein’s.
Residents of Basra contacted by telephone said Mahdi militiamen were manning checkpoints Saturday in their neighborhood strongholds. The sound of intermittent mortar and machine gun fire rang out across the city, as the military headquarters at a downtown hotel came under repeated fire.
An Iraqi army battalion commander and two of his bodyguards were killed Saturday night by a roadside bomb in central Basra, military spokesman Col. Karim al-Zaidi said.
The fight for Basra is crucial for al-Maliki, who flew to Basra earlier this week and is staking his credibility on gaining control of Iraq’s second-largest city, which has essentially been held by armed groups for nearly three years.
In a speech Saturday to tribal leaders in Basra, al-Maliki promised to “stand up to these gangs” not only in the south but throughout Iraq.
Iraqi officials and their American partners have long insisted that the crackdown was not directed at al-Sadr’s movement but against criminals and renegade factions — some of whom are allegedly tied to Iran.
Al-Maliki told tribal leaders that the offensive in Basra “was only to deal with these gangs” — some of which he said “are worse than al-Qaida.”
Without mentioning the Sadrists by name, al-Maliki said he was “surprised to see that party emerge with all the weapons available to it and strike at everything — institutions, people, departments, police stations and the army.”
Al-Sadr’s followers have accused rival Shiite parties in the national government of trying to crush their movement before provincial elections this fall. The young cleric’s lieutenants had warned repeatedly that any move to dislodge them from Basra would provoke bloodshed.
But al-Maliki’s comments appeared to reinforce suspicions that his government failed to foresee the backlash, including a sharp upsurge in violence throughout the Shiite south and shelling of the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, the nerve center of the Iraqi leadership and the U.S. mission.
Two American soldiers were killed Saturday when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in mostly Shiite east Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
The growing turmoil threatens to undermine White House efforts to convince a skeptical Congress and the American public that the Iraqis are making progress toward managing their own security without the presence of U.S. troops.
Iraqi police in Basra shed their uniforms, kept their rifles and switched sides
Uruknet
March 28, 2008
Abu Iman barely flinched when the Iraqi Government ordered his unit of special police to move against al-Mahdi Army fighters in Basra.
His response, while swift, was not what British and US military trainers who have spent the past five years schooling the Iraqi security forces would have hoped for. He and 15 of his comrades took off their uniforms, kept their government-issued rifles and went over to the other side without a second thought.
Such turncoats are the thread that could unravel the British Army’s policy in southern Iraq. The military hoped that local forces would be able to combat extremists and allow the Army to withdraw gradually from the battle-scarred and untamed oil city that has fallen under the sway of Islamic fundamentalists, oil smugglers and petty tribal warlords. But if the British taught the police to shoot straight, they failed to instil a sense of unwavering loyalty to the State.
“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.
“If we go back a bit, everyone remembers the fight with the US in Najaf and the damage and defeat we inflicted on them. Do you think the Iraqi Army is better than those armies? We are right and the Government is wrong. [Nouri al] Maliki [the Iraqi Prime Minister] is driving his Government into the ground.”
The reason for his apparent switch of sides was simple: the 36-year-old was already a member of the al-Mahdi Army which, like other militias, has massively infiltrated the British-trained police force in the southern oil city. He claimed that hundreds of others from the 16,000-strong force have also defected to the rebels’ ranks.Abu Iman joined the new Iraqi police force after the invasion, joining the Mugawil, a special police unit infamous for brutality, kidnapping and sectarian murders.
“We already heard two weeks ago that we were going to attack the Mahdi Army, so we were ready,” he said. “I decided to take off my uniform and join my brothers and friends in the Mahdi Army. All these years, we were like a scream in the face of the dictator and the occupation.” He said: “I joined the police because I believed we have to protect Basra and save it with our own hands. You can see we were the first fighters to take on Sadd-am and his regime, the best example being the Shabaniya uprising.”
Abu Iman said that the fighting raging in Basra yesterday was intense because the al-Mahdi Army was operating on its own turf. He was confident that the Shia militia would prevail because its cause was just.
“The Iraqi Army is already defeated from within. They come to Basra with fear in their hearts, knowing they have to fight their brothers, the sons of Iraq, because of an order from Bush and his friends in the Iraq Government. For this reason, all of the battles are going in the Mahdi Army’s favour.”
Major-General Abdelaziz Moham-med Jassim, the director of operations at the Ministry of Defence, played down reports of defections in the Basra police force. “The problem of one policeman doesn’t make up for the whole of the force,” he said.
In recent months Major-General Abdul Jalil Khalaf, Basra’s police chief, has tried to shake up the force and drive out militia infiltrators, who have wrought havoc in the past, often turning police stations into torture cells in which factions settled vendettas and power struggles with murder and abuse. But he only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt yesterday when a suicide car bomb attack in Basra killed three of his policemen. A local tribal leader said the police directorate building was later gutted by fire.
Mahdi Army holds firm as Iraqi PM risks all in battle of Basra
The Sunday Times
March 30, 2008
THE arrival of the Iraqi army supported by US warplanes did little to dent the defiance of Abu Sajad and his 22 comrades in a Shi’ite militia cell holed up in a mosque in Basra.
Alerted by a mobile phone call to the arrival of US military reinforcements, Abu Sajad calmly selected eight fighters and dispatched them to plant roadside bombs packed into red plastic fruit crates.
“We are to plant them throughout the Qaziza neighbourhood to welcome the army when they try to enter the area,” he told his men. He sent the bombers away on scooters and motorcycles which, he explained, were “quicker to move and less conspicuous . . . We have a great surprise for the army”.
As night fell after a fifth day of heavy fighting around Basra yesterday, Iraqi forces controlled by Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, were still struggling to subdue renegade Shi’ite fighters whose shifting loyalties and challenges to Baghdad rule have begun to pose a serious threat to American and British strategy.
Ragtag members of the Mahdi Army, a heavily armed militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi’ite cleric with close links to Iran, vowed to fight to the death to prevent Maliki from imposing government control on the southern port at the heart of Iraq’s potentially hugely profitable oil industry.
“We have received a shipment of Strela antiaircraft rockets,” Abu Sajad boasted to a Sunday Times reporter.
“We intend to use them to prove to the world that the Mahdi Army will not allow Basra to be turned into a second Falluja [the former centre of anticoalition resistance that was crushed by US-led assaults].” President George W Bush praised Maliki and described the clashes as a “defining moment” for the Baghdad government’s attempts to curb Sadr’s influence and assert its own authority. But despite Bush’s approval, American officials are concerned that Maliki’s military gamble may cause serious embarrassment for the coalition forces.
US officials said the Iraqi prime minister had launched the assault on Tuesday without consulting Washington, but yesterday it was the Americans under fire again after claims that eight civilians had been killed in a US bombing raid.
The SAS was in Basra alongside Iraqi commanders, calling in attacks from RAF and US aircraft on “enemy combatants” as the death toll from five days of fighting across Iraq rose above 300, with hundreds wounded.
British artillery units destroyed a militia mortar position in support of Iraqi forces yesterday, a spokesman said. The mortar, in the al-Hala district of northern Basra, was positively identified by the British before they opened fire from their base at Basra international airport.
Basra’s hospitals filled with civilian casualties and the violence continued to spread through other cities, including the suburbs of Baghdad. The coalition’s five-year effort to bolster Iraqi democracy was under threat from factional strife on a difficult urban battlefield where rebel gunmen have long held sway on streets too narrow for armoured vehicles.
Maliki had flown to Basra to take personal control of the military operation. But instead of sweeping to a decisive victory with American guns at his side, he was stumbling into something that looked dangerously like stalemate yesterday.
Having originally imposed a 72-hour deadline for rebels to hand in their weapons, he was forced to extend it until April 8. Yesterday he vowed to remain in Basra until the resistance was crushed. “This is a decisive and final battle,” he said.
Sadr issued an equally robust directive, ordering his fighters to ignore Maliki’s ultimatum.
At stake in Basra was not just the prime minister’s reputation, his prospects for provincial elections this autumn and control of the Iraqi oil fields, but also an entire coalition strategy of reduced troop levels, steady withdrawal and the turning over of Iraqi security to local troops.
If Maliki’s crackdown fails, both London and Washington may have to reassess Iraqi army capabilities and the risk of future disaster if coalition forces continue to withdraw. “This is a precarious situation,” one US official said yesterday. “There’s a lot to be gained and a lot to lose.”
Already this weekend there were reports that police officers and soldiers had left their posts, changed their uniforms and joined the Mahdi Army.
When a local journalist left his home in Basra this weekend to visit the city’s main hospital, he found the streets deserted except for cruising police vehicles whose occupants were randomly firing in the air.
He eventually hitched a ride with an ambulance carrying a 14-year-old boy whose leg had nearly been severed by a burst of machinegun fire. “Most of the injured are being hurt by gunshots and rocket shrapnel that hits their homes,” the driver said.
Inside the hospital, blood-stained bandages were scattered across the floor. A 50-year-old woman was sobbing. Doctors said she had been told three hours earlier that her daughter had died from gunshot wounds and she had not stopped crying.
In a ward on the first floor, patients were groaning in pain. Doctors had run out of pain-killers and many pharmacies in the city were closed.
“The stench was awful in the wards and corridors,” the journalist said. “Patients and family members were cursing the government in both Basra and Baghdad and some were even lamenting the ‘good old days’ of Saddam Hussein.”
The situation at another hospital was so dire that Leith Chasseb, a 36-year-old civil servant, could not find a doctor to treat his father, who had a shrapnel wound to his leg.
In the al-Tamimiyeh district, Um Hiba, a 38-year-old mother of three, was standing with two of her daughters in the garden when a mortar exploded nearby, injuring all three of them. “We called the ambulance but they couldn’t get to us,” she said. “The neighbours supplied us with bandages.”
Dr Salah Amad, director of the city’s medical operations, said hospitals were about to collapse because of exhausted doctors and a lack of supplies. “Ambulances are unable to distribute medical supplies stocked in warehouses,” he said.
There were conflicting accounts of the incident in Basra’s Hananiyah district, where two women and a child were reportedly among eight civilians killed by an air strike. Iraqi police claimed that a US aircraft had carried out the strike, but British planes were also seen in the area.
There was no immediate comment from either British or US military spokesmen. American aircraft carried out further raids yesterday, dropping two precision-guided bombs on a suspected militia stronghold north of Basra.
In a separate raid, Iraqi special forces were said to have stormed a house in Basra, killing a father and his three sons, the youngest aged 13, in front his wife.
Maliki’s decision to crack down on Basra followed at least three years of rebel subversion that British troops had quelled for long periods but never eradicated. US officers often criticised their British counterparts for their hands-off approach in Basra, but nobody in Washington was inclined last week to blame London for a crisis rooted in internal Shi’ite rivalries and almost certainly beyond any coalition-imposed solution.
Yet the British withdrawal from Basra – leaving the city effectively in the hands of Maliki’s opponents – presented the prime minister with a difficult challenge. He could ill afford to allow Iraq’s second city to remain in the hands of extremist factions. “Basra has been a mess for a long time,” one US official in Baghdad told The Washington Post yesterday, “and everyone has said to Maliki, ‘What are you doing about it?’ ” With provincial elections looming in October and his authority on the line, Maliki took advantage of the security lull spawned by the so-called “surge” – the increased US military presence directed by General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq. Under pressure to demonstrate that Iraqi forces were capable of operating without US officers holding their hands, he sent his army into battle.
Some national and local officials complained that the offensive had come as an unpleasant surprise. “Maliki did not consult the president, he did not consult the cabinet, he did not consult the parliament,” said a senior member of the government. “Nobody is happy with what’s happening.”
It was not long before US aircraft were reported to be mounting air strikes on Basra and US troops in armoured vehicles appeared to be taking the lead against Mahdi Army fighters in their vast Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City.
As rockets fell on Baghdad’s Green Zone, the comparative calm that had enveloped the city for weeks – allowing residents to sit in street cafes – was shattered. US officials insisted that this was not their fight and their only role was to provide Maliki with back-up if he needed it.
Some officials even suggested that the Basra operation would prove a model for future cooperation, with Iraqis taking the leading role and American troops adopting what Petraeus once described as “overwatch” mode.
Yet as the week wore on the American unease was palpable, not least because nobody seemed entirely sure who was fighting whom and what was the ultimate prize.
While some officials interpreted the offensive as Maliki’s “first salvo in upcoming elections”, others saw a simple power grab for oil. The intricate differences between rival Shi’ite groups in Basra and their presumed links to Iran were all minutely examined by intelligence officers. Yet on Friday one administration official admitted: “We can’t quite decipher what’s going on.”
If Maliki can somehow crush the resistance of the Mahdi Army, he may well prove to be the answer to America’s prayers for a leader with the muscle and authority to keep a lid on Sunni-Shi’ite rivalries and ultimately to allow the US military to withdraw.
Yet Mahdi warriors such as Haidar Abdul Abbas did not look too worried about defeat last week. A 24-year-old expert at firing rocket-propelled grenades, Abbas was wearing funeral shrouds, signalling his willingness to die in combat.
“The Maliki government is now fighting on behalf of the [coalition] occupiers, forgetting that history is never kind to those who oppress,” he said. “Their fate will be the same as that of Saddam.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/whitehouse/story/31825.html
Police refuse to support Iraqi PM’s attacks on Mehdi Army
http://www.independent..cks-on-mehdi-army-802361.html
British warplanes fire on Basra as civil war looms with Shia militia
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3642863.ece
Basra militants ’worse than al-Qa’eda’, says Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/m..2008/03/29/wirq229.xml
Occupations are not won. They are ended
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbGY6txzM14
Fresh US airstrike kills 8 Iraqis
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=49422§ionid=351020201
Iraq’s Maliki backs off ultimatum to militants
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080329/wl_csm/osadr
Bush: Iraq violence is a ’very positive moment’
http://rawstory.com/news/200..positive_development_0327.html
Yesterday, 225 Iraqis, 4 Americans Were Killed; 538 Iraqis Hurt, Yet “Surge” Creator Says ’The Civil War in Iraq Is Over’
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=12591
97% Of Deaths Came After Mission Accomplished
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/97_percent_of_US_death_toll_0324.html
Baghdad under 24-hour curfew as US is drawn into the violence
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/m..s/2008/03/28/wirq128.xml
Iraqi army suspected of committing mass executions
http://www.juancole.com/2008/03/dozen..lashes-mahdi-army.html
Troops To Stay In Afghanistan Until 2012
http://www.canada.com/news/story.html?id=401682
Filed under: 1984, Airport Security, Big Brother, biometrics, DHS, domestic terror, enemy combatant, Homeland Security, Oppression, police brutality, Police State, Science and technology, super weapons, Surveillance, Taser Guns, War On Terror
Police State To Shock You Into Submission?
LRC
March 23, 2008
This is perhaps one of the most kooky and creepy Security State tactics that I have come across: the EMD safety bracelet, which is being billed as the “last line of defence.” A company called Lamperd Firearm Training Systems (scroll down) is trying to commercialize this item as an “airline security product.” The company’s video that hawks this device talks about the current facial recognition system called biometrics, where cameras capture photos of people and compare those images to the images of “terrorists” in its “terrorist” database. No matter how sophisticated this technology, it can all too often allow a terrorist on board a plane, and, this technology can also have the effect of creating airport bottlenecks. Ahem. The solution? The “viable, workable answer” is an electronic ID bracelet. This bracelet will replace the need for a ticket and contain all necessary information about the person, and as a bonus, it can allow the passenger to be tracked through the terminal. Crew members would be empowered with radio frequency transmitters to subdue “hijackers.” The technology will override a person’s central nervous system and zap them down quicker than you can say “Homeland Security.” The company assures us that being dragged through the bracelet process is a “small inconvenience in order to assure your safe arrival.” In fact, its studies show that most people would “happily opt” for wearing the bracelet to “insure their own security.”
Here’s the Lamperd video on YouTube – you must watch it. Here’s the patent for this device. The patent actually reads this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7yJXhxF1mM
Upon activation of the electric shock device, through receipt of an activating signal from the selectively operable remote control means, the passenger wearing that particular bracelet receives the disabling electrical shock from the electric shock device. Accordingly, the passenger becomes incapacitated for a few seconds or perhaps a few minutes, during which time the passenger can be fully subdued and handcuffed, if necessary. Depending on the type of transmission medium used to send the activating signal, other passengers may also become temporarily incapacitated, which is undesirable and unfortunate, but may be unavoidable.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/20/air-safety-proposal.html
Filed under: 1984, AI, army, artificial intelligence, Britain, China, defense department, DoD, enemy combatant, Europe, Geneva Convention, India, Iraq, Military, Military Industrial Complex, robot, Russia, Science and technology, south korea, super weapons, Troops, United Kingdom, War On Terror
A.I. War Machines a “Threat to Humanity”
AFP
February 27, 2008
Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence told AFP.
“They pose a threat to humanity,” said University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey ahead of a keynote address Wednesday before Britain’s Royal United Services Institute.
Intelligent machines deployed on battlefields around the world — from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones — can already identify and lock onto targets without human help.
There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq, as well as unmanned aircraft that have clocked hundreds of thousands of flight hours.
The first three armed combat robots fitted with large-caliber machine guns deployed to Iraq last summer, manufactured by US arms maker Foster-Miller, proved so successful that 80 more are on order, said Sharkey.
But up to now, a human hand has always been required to push the button or pull the trigger.
It we are not careful, he said, that could change.
Military leaders “are quite clear that they want autonomous robots as soon as possible, because they are more cost-effective and give a risk-free war,” he said.
Several countries, led by the United States, have already invested heavily in robot warriors developed for use on the battlefield.
South Korea and Israel both deploy armed robot border guards, while China, India, Russia and Britain have all increased the use of military robots.
Washington plans to spend four billion dollars by 2010 on unmanned technology systems, with total spending expected rise to 24 billion, according to the Department of Defense’s Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032, released in December.
James Canton, an expert on technology innovation and CEO of the Institute for Global Futures, predicts that deployment within a decade of detachments that will include 150 soldiers and 2,000 robots.
The use of such devices by terrorists should be a serious concern, said Sharkey.
Captured robots would not be difficult to reverse engineer, and could easily replace suicide bombers as the weapon-of-choice. “I don’t know why that has not happened already,” he said.
But even more worrisome, he continued, is the subtle progression from the semi-autonomous military robots deployed today to fully independent killing machines.
“I have worked in artificial intelligence for decades, and the idea of a robot making decisions about human termination terrifies me,” Sharkey said.
Ronald Arkin of Georgia Institute of Technology, who has worked closely with the US military on robotics, agrees that the shift towards autonomy will be gradual.
But he is not convinced that robots don’t have a place on the front line.
“Robotics systems may have the potential to out-perform humans from a perspective of the laws of war and the rules of engagement,” he told a conference on technology in warfare at Stanford University last month.
The sensors of intelligent machines, he argued, may ultimately be better equipped to understand an environment and to process information. “And there are no emotions that can cloud judgement, such as anger,” he added.
Nor is there any inherent right to self-defence.
For now, however, there remain several barriers to the creation and deployment of Terminator-like killing machines.
Some are technical. Teaching a computer-driven machine — even an intelligent one — how to distinguish between civilians and combatants, or how to gauge a proportional response as mandated by the Geneva Conventions, is simply beyond the reach of artificial intelligence today.
But even if technical barriers are overcome, the prospect of armies increasingly dependent on remotely-controlled or autonomous robots raises a host of ethical issues that have barely been addressed.
Arkin points out that the US Department of Defense’s 230 billion dollar Future Combat Systems programme — the largest military contract in US history — provides for three classes of aerial and three land-based robotics systems.
“But nowhere is there any consideration of the ethical implications of the weaponisation of these systems,” he said.
For Sharkey, the best solution may be an outright ban on autonomous weapons systems. “We have to say where we want to draw the line and what we want to do — and then get an international agreement,” he said.
http://thought-criminal.org/article/node/1339
Living Neural Networks Could Drive War Machines
http://www.thought-criminal.org/article/node/1335
Robot wars ‘will be a reality within 10 years’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/m..008/02/27/scirobots127.xml
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, al-qaeda, Alberto Gonzales, Alex Jones, army, catastrophic event, Child Abuse, child sex slavery, Concentration Camps, Congress, daniel ellsberg, Detainee, DHS, Dictatorship, Dyncorp, enemy combatant, False Flag, Fascism, FBI, FEMA, Fema Camps, George Bush, Guantanamo, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Iraq, KBR, KBR detention center, lindsey graham, Martial Law, Mexico, Military, Naomi Wolf, Nazi, Nuke, Pentagon, PNAC, Rex 84, State Sponsored Terrorism, Torture, Troops, War On Terror, World Trade Center
Former Congressman Warns Of Martial Law Camps In America
San Francisco Chronicle article outlines Homeland Security ENDGAME
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
February 21, 2008
An article co-written by a former Congressman and carried by the San Francisco Chronicle has gained much attention recently as it shines light on a coordinated federal government program to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States.
“Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.” write Lewis Seiler and former Congressman Dan Hamburg of the watchdog group Voice of the Environment, Inc.
Voice of the Environment’s mission is to educate the public regarding the transfer of public trust assets into private, mostly corporate, hands.
The article continues:
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”
Seiler and Hamburg also warn of the alarming and numerous freedom killing pieces of legislation that have been passed recently, dovetailing with the build up of infrastructure of tyranny inside the US.
We have previously highlighted the shocking details behind this shining example of modern day corporate fascism.
The issue gained national attention two years ago when it was announced that Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.
The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps will also be used “as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency.”
Following the story, first given wide attention by Prisonplanet.com, the Alternet website put together an alarming report that collated all the latest information on plans to initiate internment of political subversives and Muslims after the next major terror attack in the US.
The article highlighted the disturbing comments of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who encouraged torture supporting then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to target, “Fifth Columnists” Americans who show disloyalty and sympathize with “the enemy,” whoever that enemy may be.
It is important to stress that the historical precedent mirrors exactly what the Halliburton camp deal outlines. Oliver North’s Reagan era Rex 84 plan proposed rounding up 400,000 refugees, under FEMA, in the event of “uncontrolled population movements” over the Mexican border into the United States.
The real agenda, just as it is with Halliburton’s gulags, was to use the cover of rounding up immigrants and illegal aliens as a smokescreen for targeting political dissidents. From 1967 to 1971 the FBI kept a list of persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the “ADEX” list.
According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center today holds the names of roughly 775,000 “terror suspects” with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
Discussions of federal concentration camps are no longer the rhetoric of paranoid Internet conspiracy theorists, they are mainstream news.
Halliburton, through their KBR subsidiary, is the same company that built most of the major new detention camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. KBR have been embroiled in a human sex slave trade that their representatives have lobbied to continue.
We have a company that has been handed a contract to build prison camps in America that is engaged in trafficking young girls and women. Can this horror movie get any more frightening? Sadly, yes.
A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, has recently been updated and the revision details a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.”
The plan is clearly to swallow up disenfranchised groups like prisoners, immigrants and Muslims at first and then extend the policy to include ‘Fifth Columnists,’ otherwise known as anyone who disagrees with the government or exercises their Constitutional rights.
Respected author Peter Dale Scott speculated that the “detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.”
Daniel Ellsberg, former Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense, called the plan, “preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. They’ve already done this on a smaller scale, with the ‘special registration’ detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo.”
Ex-Congressman: U.S. Government Created Al-Qaeda, Involved In 9/11
Author of San Francisco Chronicle piece warning of internment camps says government bombed its own citizens
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
February 22, 2008
A former Congressman says that the U.S. government created Al-Qaeda and was involved in bombing its own citizens on 9/11, telling a national radio show that elements of the Bush administration assisted the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.
Daniel Hamburg is a former Democratic Congressman who was elected to the 1st Congressional District of California in 1992 and also subsequently ran for Governor of California, finishing in 3rd place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O3bdCpIFAo
Hamburg co-wrote a well-received recent article carried by the San Francisco Chronicle in which he outlined the program to incarcerate American citizens in internment camps, which have already been publicly built, during a time of declared national emergency.
Appearing today on the Alex Jones Show, Hamburg said he was working on an article about missing nuclear bombs in relation to the Minot nuclear warheads mishap and agreed that it was possible the story could be used as a cover for the staged detonation of a nuke to be blamed on Al-Qaeda.
“Any government that could bomb its own citizens in the major city of the country could do anything….you can’t put anything past them,” said Hamburg, clarifying that he was referring to 9/11.
“I’m in the assisted it to happen camp – I think there was a lot of help from the inside, this whole thing was not engineered from a cave in Afghanistan,” he added.
“The evidence that Al-Qaeda is actually an arm of the U.S. government is voluminous….I know that’s true,” concluded Hamburg, citing the PNAC group’s call for a new Pearl Harbor shortly before the 2001 terror attacks.
“it’s hard for people to believe that their government could be as insidious as this one is but the evidence is there,” concluded Hamburg.
Filed under: amtrak, Brownshirt, catastrophic event, Concentration Camp, Congress, Dictatorship, enemy combatant, False Flag, Fascism, FEMA, fema camp, infragard, Iran Contra, katrina, Martial Law, Nazi, new orleans, Police State, Rex 84, Troops
FEMA: Trains To Take You To The Camps
Rogue Government
February 13, 2008
The U.S. government continues to expand its plans to setup a nationalized concentration camp system under the guise of emergency management. FEMA has already come a long way in establishing their concentration camp system, but now it looks as if they might be trying to figure out a way to transport people to these facilities. A disturbing revelation from a FEMA official confirmed that the institution is looking at ways to use passenger trains to get elderly and sick people out of harms way during an emergency situation. According to an Associated Press report, FEMA official Glenn Cannon made these revelations testifying in front of a congressional subcommittee in New Orleans. Although this might seem like a relatively minor development, it is actually very serious considering preparations the U.S. government has already made for martial law and the establishment of FEMA run concentration camps. Looking back in history, the Nazis used trains to transport large groups of Jews to concentration camps where many of them were put to death. It appears as if FEMA is moving in the direction of setting up a similar transportation system that could take not just the sick and elderly but all sorts of people to these concentration camps.
Below is the entire Associated Press report on this subject.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency may expand use of passenger trains to evacuate the elderly and sick if hurricanes threaten the Gulf Coast.
FEMA official Glenn Cannon today testified before a congressional subcommittee in New Orleans.
Cannon says FEMA is looking at passenger trains as a method to get people with physical impediments out of harm’s way.
New Orleans has become something of a guinea pig for train evacuations.
After 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, Amtrak was hired to be on hand if another hurricane struck — to evacuate people with special needs. Cannon says FEMA is now devising disaster plans for other Gulf Coast cities based on the New Orleans model.
City officials say Congress and FEMA should create a national plan to use trains in disasters.
According to this report, it appears as if New Orleans was a test model to setup train evacuations. Cannon even admits that FEMA is devising similar disaster plans based off of the New Orleans model. With city officials saying that Congress and FEMA should create a national plan to use trains to transport people in emergency situation, this should immediately draw a great deal of concern. The U.S. government and FEMA failed to help people during Hurricane Katrina, so why should we put any trust in what they are doing now with these train evacuations? Cannon says that this is only for the elderly and the sick, but can this really be believed? In fact, considering the track record of FEMA, the true purpose of this organization appears not to be a vehicle to help people during an emergency, but instead to ensure government continuity and be the administrative and executive arm of the government during a martial law scenario.
During the Iran Contra hearings in the 1980s, the existence of a plan called Readiness Exercise 84 (Rex 84) was revealed. Rex 84 outlined a plan for concentration camps which would be placed under the operational control of FEMA should martial law need to be implemented. It is a matter of public record that a number of these concentration camps do exist. In fact there are even some reports indicating that there are hundreds of these FEMA run concentration camps. Video of these concentration camps indicate that they have fences with barb wire pointing inward so people that are in the camps can’t get out. Also, many of these concentration camps are accessible via rail which will allow them to conveniently transport large amounts of people into these facilities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P-hvPJPTi4
The fact that we already have concentration camps in the United States many of which are accessible by rail makes it pretty obvious what these people have in mind. They need to have a system in place to transport large amounts of people to these concentration camps during a martial law scenario. All the evidence indicates that they are in fact setting up a concentration camp system for this purpose and it is comparable to what the Nazis setup in Germany. Whatever you do, do not go to a government run FEMA camp. If you do, you might end up dead like the Jews in the Nazi death camps.
Domestic Mercenaries
Lady Broadoak
February 13, 2008
Recent public disclosures of the InfraGard system no longer obligates silence on abuses. We’ve been following the developments behind the scenes. These are issues warranting increased public oversight at the State and Federal Level.
As reported, the InfraGard system is designed to protect the nation’s infrastructure. What has not been well discussed are the detailed operations of InfraGard, the policies, and the operational procedures used to gather intelligence.
InfraGuard has two broad functions. One is operational protection of infrastructure, the second is the intelligence gathering arm.
InfraGard members claim they are protecting the infrastructure. They’re more interested in abusing power, and using resistance to that abuse to broaden their intelligence gathering and intrusions. We need to know who is abusing their authority, end this misconduct, and ensure the public is treated with respect, not as “the enemy”.
The abuse of this intelligence gathering for non-official purposes designed to intimidate a civilian population and dissuade lawful activity, but not engage in bonafide law enforcement or infrastructure protection.
InfraGard relies on civilian contractors providing information to the State and federal authorities. What’s not been well discussed are the liberties these contractors have been taken under their deputization; and how law enforcement supports questionable InfraGard contractor conduct.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/artic..020408_shoot_americans.htm
Filed under: 4th amendment, al-qaeda, Arizona, Border Patrol, Canada, Checkpoints, Control Grid, DHS, DNA Database, enemy combatant, Fascism, FBI, florida, free speech, hate speech, Homeland Security, Internet 2, internet police, Mike Chitwood, Nazi, Police State, RIAA, US Constitution
Florida Cops Use Serial Killer as Excuse to DNA Swab Drivers
Local6
February 7, 2008
Police officers in Daytona Beach are swabbing the mouths of persons of interests during traffic stops with special DNA kits in the hunt for an elusive serial killer, sources close to the investigation told Local 6.
A profiler said the serial killer is likely clean cut and probably has a wife or girlfriend.
And, the Daytona Beach police Chief, Mike Chitwood, said detectives have the killer’s DNA.
“Genetically, we know who he is,” Chitwood said. “We have DNA evidence from the murder scenes — so, we got that. That is never going to go away. And, sooner or later, we will match the DNA to the physical person and bring closure to everything that is going on.”
Agents are using the DNA kits to collect as much DNA as possible during traffic stops and special operations in hopes on making a match.
Local 6 showed agents stopping a person of interest from Canada, who gave his DNA to officers on the street using the DNA kit.
The DNA kits are also being used in prostitution stings in the area.
Chitwood said over time, modern technology will lead to the killer.
“I can tell you that we are working really, really hard,” Chitwood said. “I can tell you that there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes.”
Checkpoint USA: Documenting Police State Power
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKDdH8xtpN4
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/..06.BCHATE06/TPStory/National
noworldsystem.com 