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Thursday, September 5, 2013
Obama DOJ in $2.5 Million Sandy Hook Payout
Under the plan administered by Attorney General
Eric Holder and the Department of Justice, the Connecticut State Police
are slated to collect $663,444, the Town of Newtown will take in
$602,293, the Town of Monroe will receive $602,293 and more than two
dozen other agencies from the surrounding area will get $296,836. The
funds originate from the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Edward Byrne
Justice Assistance Grant Program.
Aside from bureaucratic boilerplate there is no
immediate explanation as to why the federal government would make such a
substantial disbursement to agencies partaking in the incident.
“Providing support to the law enforcement agencies that responded to the
horrific scene that awaited them at Sandy Hook Elementary School is one
small action we can take to bring healing to a community that’s been
devastated,” Attorney General Holder remarked in a press release. “Just
over eight months after this senseless tragedy, those who lost their
lives, and those who continue to grieve, remain in our thoughts and
prayers.”[1]
On November 27, less than three weeks before the
Sandy Hook massacre, Attorney General Holder appeared at a news
conference in New Haven, Connecticut alongside Connecticut Governor Dan
Malloy to announce Project Longevity, a joint venture by the Justice
Department and State of Connecticut. The endeavor was described by one
law enforcement officials as “a statewide approach that targets repeat
criminals, creates alternatives for potential gang members and rallies
neighborhoods against violence.”[2]
On December 20 Holder made an unannounced visit to
Newtown to meet with State and local law enforcement and emergency
responders shortly after a meeting in Washington with Vice President Joe
Biden, presumably to discuss forthcoming attempts at gun control
legislation.[3]
Because there are so many inconsistencies and
missing information in the case where the findings have not been made
public, the large payout appears especially suspect. In August the Hartford Courant
conducted an investigation of overtime pay being generated by
Connecticut State police assigned to the Sandy Hook tragedy. Eight State
Police detectives received $139,000 in overtime pay for work on the
investigation since January 1, 2013. Almost half has gone to two
investigators claim to have put in over 500 hours of work beyond their
scheduled duties.[4]
Such extensive federal funding will likely draw out
the investigation for many more months— perhaps years—while keeping
relevant law enforcement officials very pleased in the interim.
[1]
Department of Justice, “Attorney General Eric Holder Announces $2.5
Million to Connecticut Law Enforcement For Costs Related to Sandy Hook
School Shootings” (Press Release) PDF, August 28, 2013.
[2] Dave Ingram, “Project Longevity: Justice Department, Connecticut State Officials Target Gun Violence,” Reuters/Huffington Post, November 27, 2012.
[3] Frederic J. Frommer, “Holder to Meet with First Responders in Newtown,” Associated Press/Hartford Courant, December 20, 2012.
[4] Dave Altimari, “Overtime for Sandy Hook Investigators Nears $140,000 Since Jan. 1,” Hartford Courant, August 16, 2013.
Groundhog Deja Clusterf@#k//The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Groundhog Deja Clusterf@#k: John McCain refuses to let the Syrian crisis interrupt his video poker game.
What Happened to the “Global War on Terrorism”? The U.S. is “Fighting for Al Qaeda” in Syria.
ALL you fucked in the head dummycocks & republipubes THIS IS WHAT YOU VOTED INTO OUR GOV. aren't THESE the scum that '9/11'd " U.S. & NOW YOU are supporting THIS !!! ...what's the PLAN folks ? we just gonna BURN the WHOLE FUCKING World until you kooky natty fucked in the head reds& blues ..finally wake the fuck up ! "they" the ass pipes you VOTED in !!! & "their" elite inbred kooks !! .............R RUNNING U.S. down the wrong path ...& you's just KEEP watching idol & yer fantasy team .... only took 125 yrs ...awl fuck it ..you nuts will blame the independent's ...every fucking body ... but the nit~wit staring back at u in the mirror ...... you's goofy fucks
Americans have been repeatedly told that Al Qaeda under the helm
of the late Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Formulated in the wake of the tragic events of september 11, 2001, the U.S. and its allies launched a “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) directed against the numerous “jihadist” Al Qaeda affiliated terror formations in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia and South East Asia. The first stage of the “Global War on Terrorism” was the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan.
In the wake of 9/11, the” Global War on Terrorism” served to obfuscate the real economic and strategic objectives behind the US-led wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The Patriot legislation was implemented. The national security doctrine stated unequivocally that the American Homeland was to be protected against “Islamic terrorists”.
For the last 13 years, war on terrorism rhetoric has permeated political discourse at all levels of government. Al Qaeda related threats and occurrences are explained –by politicians, the corporate media, Hollywood and the Washington think tanks– under a single blanket “bad guys” heading, in which Al Qaeda (“the outside enemy of America”) is casually and repeatedly pinpointed as “the cause” of numerous terror events around the World.
But somehow, in the last few months, this “Al Qaeda paradigm” has shifted. The American public has become increasingly skeptical regarding the validity of the “Global War on Terrorism”
In recent months, with the unfolding events in Syria, something rather unusual has occurred, which has had a profound impact on the public’s perception and understanding of Obama’s “Global War on Terrorism”.
The US government is actively and openly supporting Syria’s Al Nusrah, the main fighting force affiliated to al Qaeda, largely composed of foreign mercenaries.
Tax dollars are relentlessly channeled to the “rebels”. In turn, Secretary of State John Kerry meets with rebel commanders who oversee the Al Qaeda affiliated entity.
Is this part of a “new normal”: the unity of opposites whereby “terrorism” and “counter-terrorism” are merged into a single foreign policy focus?
Is it “politically correct” for a US Senator to mingle with leaders of a terrorist organization, while at the same time paying lip service to the “Global War on Terrorism”?
While this may be “business as usual” for the US Secretary of State, American servicemen and women are now “refusing to fight” a war in favor of terrorism under the emblem of the “Global War on Terrorism”.
Channeling money and weapons to Al Qaeda in Syria is carried out “in the open”, via the US State Department and the Pentagon rather than in the context of a covert CIA operation.
John McCain enters Syria illegally and poses for photo ops with Al Qaeda leaders.
Hawkish
US Senator John McCain (C) poses with infamous kidnapper in Syria,
Mohamed Nour (seen with his hand on his chest and holding a camera)
The Movement within the US Armed Forces
Needless to say, this mingling of politicians and terrorists strikes at the very foundations of the “Global War on Terrorism”.
Despite the tide of media disinformation, people are increasingly aware that these US sponsored rebels are not “revolutionaries” and that US military aid is being channeled to the terror brigades.
A spontaneous movement on social media networks has emerged involving active members of the armed forces.
“Our government tells us that we are fighting a war on terrorism.”
That is what is taught to new recruits in the Armed Forces. “We’re
spreading democracy by combating terrorism”.
Yet in recent months, millions of Americans have become aware of the fact that the Obama administration is lying.
Supporting the Terrorists
Barack Obama and John Kerry are not fighting terrorism. Quite the opposite: They are actively supporting Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria, who are responsible for the most despicable crimes, killings and atrocities directed against the civilian population.
These crimes have been amply documented. Beheadings, executions of children. The most gruesome massacres.
The Al Nusrah brigades have performed thousands of executions. A recently released video reveals how two young boys are executed following the reading of a death sentence.”In the video can be seen a terrorist reading death sentence to the boys, gunfire is heard, boys fall dead.”
Are these the people who are being supported by the US government?
The terrorists are directly recruited by the Western military alliance. They are trained in Saudi Arabia and Qatar in liaison with the US and NATO.
These are the rebels who, according to CNN, have also been trained by Western special forces in the use of chemical weapons. And they have used chemical weapons against innocent Syrian civilians.
US servicemen and women are adamant. “I did not join the army to fight for al Qaeda.”
We were recruited to wage a “Global War on Terrorism” and now our government is collaborating with Al Qaeda.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich said “striking Syria would make the U.S. Military ‘Al-Qaeda’s Air Force’”.
The concept which is spreading across the land is that the Obama administration is supporting Al Qaeda.
It’s a bipartisan consensus: the Republican leadership in the US Congress and the Senate have endorsed support and financial aid to the al Nusrah brigades in Syria.
In the eyes of public opinion, the Global War on Terrorism has, so to speak, fallen flat.
Who is Supporting Whom? Who is Waging a War of Aggression?
The spontaneous movement in the armed forces is based on the notion that the “US government is supporting al Qaeda”.
The corporate media has failed to reveal the nature of the longstanding relationship between Al Qaeda and the US government, which goes back to the Soviet-Afghan war.
Al Qaeda –the “outside enemy of America” as well as the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks– is a creation of the CIA. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are often referred to as “intelligence assets”
From the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war in the early 1980s, the US intelligence apparatus has supported the formation of “Islamic brigades”.
Propaganda purports to erase the history of Al Qaeda, drown the truth and “kill the evidence” on how this “outside enemy” was fabricated and transformed into “Enemy Number One”.
The Global War on Terrorism is not geared towards curbing the “Islamic jihad”. The significant development of “radical Islam” in the wake of the Cold War was consistent with Washington’s hidden agenda. The latter consists in sustaining rather than combating international terrorism, with a view to creating factional divisions within countries and destabilizing national societies.
The numerous al Qaeda affiliated entities are routinely used in CIA covert operations. They are recruited, trained and indoctrinated under the supervision of the CIA and its intelligence counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Qatar and Israel. Unknown to the American public, the US has spread the teachings of the “Islamic jihad” in textbooks “Made in America”, developed at the University of Nebraska
Al Qaeda is an intelligence asset which serves the interests of the US administration.
With regard to Syria, the US government is not “supporting Al Qaeda” Quite the opposite, the Al Qaeda mercenaries in Syria, recruited and trained in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are “supporting the US government”. They are being used by the US military intelligence apparatus. They are paid killers.
Their actions are implemented as part of a military agenda; they are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance. The atrocities committed by the terrorists are the direct result of paramilitary training and indoctrination. The US government is behind this process. Obama is responsible for the crimes committed by the “rebels” against the Syrian people.
Concluding Remarks
We are at an important crossroads. The “Global War on Terrorism” constitutes the cornerstone of war propaganda. Yet at the same time the lies which uphold the GWOT are no longer credible and the thrust and effectiveness of the propaganda campaign are threatened.
No one can reasonably believe in a “war on terrorism” which consists in channeling money and weapons to the terrorists. Its a non sequitur.
“Support to terrorists”, portrayed as “revolutionaries” cannot be heralded as part of a foreign policy agenda which officially consists in “going after the terrorists”.
But Obama desperately needs to hold on to the “Global war on Terrorism”. It’s the cornerstone of US military doctrine. It’s a worldwide crusade.
Without the “Global War on Terrorism”, the Obama administration does not have a leg to stand on: its military doctrine collapses like a deck of cards.
Undermining the credibility of the “Global War on Terrorism” is a powerful instrument of counter-propaganda.
We call on people across the land: Mobilize against Obama’s war.
The war on Syria is illegal and criminal.
The President and Commander in Chief’s decision to support Al Qaeda in Syria is in violation of international law and US anti terrorism legislation .
US and coalition troops have a moral and legal obligation to refuse to fight in Obama’s “humanitarian war” on Syria, which consists in supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists.
The President and Commander in Chief has blatantly violated all tenets of domestic and international law. So that making an oath to “obey orders from the President” is tantamount to violating rather than defending the US Constitution.
And the American people must support the US servicemen and women who refuse to fight in an illegal war.
Obama is a war criminal. He is supporting terrorists, who are his paid killers. Amply documented Syria’s rebels have been trained in the use of chemical weapons and they have used chemical weapons against innocent civilians.
The Global War on Terrorism is a fabrication and a lie.
War is an illegal undertaking.
According to Nuremberg jurisprudence, the ultimate war crime consists in starting a war. Obama and his European counterparts including David Cameron and Francois Hollande are responsible for the supreme crime: “the crime against peace.” This war is illegal irrespective of a decision of the UN Security Council to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign state:
What Happened to the “Global War on Terrorism”? The U.S. is “Fighting for Al Qaeda” in Syria.
Formulated in the wake of the tragic events of september 11, 2001, the U.S. and its allies launched a “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) directed against the numerous “jihadist” Al Qaeda affiliated terror formations in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia and South East Asia. The first stage of the “Global War on Terrorism” was the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan.
In the wake of 9/11, the” Global War on Terrorism” served to obfuscate the real economic and strategic objectives behind the US-led wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The Patriot legislation was implemented. The national security doctrine stated unequivocally that the American Homeland was to be protected against “Islamic terrorists”.
For the last 13 years, war on terrorism rhetoric has permeated political discourse at all levels of government. Al Qaeda related threats and occurrences are explained –by politicians, the corporate media, Hollywood and the Washington think tanks– under a single blanket “bad guys” heading, in which Al Qaeda (“the outside enemy of America”) is casually and repeatedly pinpointed as “the cause” of numerous terror events around the World.
But somehow, in the last few months, this “Al Qaeda paradigm” has shifted. The American public has become increasingly skeptical regarding the validity of the “Global War on Terrorism”
In recent months, with the unfolding events in Syria, something rather unusual has occurred, which has had a profound impact on the public’s perception and understanding of Obama’s “Global War on Terrorism”.
The US government is actively and openly supporting Syria’s Al Nusrah, the main fighting force affiliated to al Qaeda, largely composed of foreign mercenaries.
Tax dollars are relentlessly channeled to the “rebels”. In turn, Secretary of State John Kerry meets with rebel commanders who oversee the Al Qaeda affiliated entity.
Is this part of a “new normal”: the unity of opposites whereby “terrorism” and “counter-terrorism” are merged into a single foreign policy focus?
Is it “politically correct” for a US Senator to mingle with leaders of a terrorist organization, while at the same time paying lip service to the “Global War on Terrorism”?
While this may be “business as usual” for the US Secretary of State, American servicemen and women are now “refusing to fight” a war in favor of terrorism under the emblem of the “Global War on Terrorism”.
Channeling money and weapons to Al Qaeda in Syria is carried out “in the open”, via the US State Department and the Pentagon rather than in the context of a covert CIA operation.
John McCain enters Syria illegally and poses for photo ops with Al Qaeda leaders.
The Movement within the US Armed Forces
Needless to say, this mingling of politicians and terrorists strikes at the very foundations of the “Global War on Terrorism”.
Despite the tide of media disinformation, people are increasingly aware that these US sponsored rebels are not “revolutionaries” and that US military aid is being channeled to the terror brigades.
A spontaneous movement on social media networks has emerged involving active members of the armed forces.
“I will not fight for al Qaeda”.
“Obama, I will not fight for your al Qaeda rebels in Syria.”
Yet in recent months, millions of Americans have become aware of the fact that the Obama administration is lying.
Supporting the Terrorists
Barack Obama and John Kerry are not fighting terrorism. Quite the opposite: They are actively supporting Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria, who are responsible for the most despicable crimes, killings and atrocities directed against the civilian population.
These crimes have been amply documented. Beheadings, executions of children. The most gruesome massacres.
The Al Nusrah brigades have performed thousands of executions. A recently released video reveals how two young boys are executed following the reading of a death sentence.”In the video can be seen a terrorist reading death sentence to the boys, gunfire is heard, boys fall dead.”
Are these the people who are being supported by the US government?
The terrorists are directly recruited by the Western military alliance. They are trained in Saudi Arabia and Qatar in liaison with the US and NATO.
These are the rebels who, according to CNN, have also been trained by Western special forces in the use of chemical weapons. And they have used chemical weapons against innocent Syrian civilians.
US servicemen and women are adamant. “I did not join the army to fight for al Qaeda.”
We were recruited to wage a “Global War on Terrorism” and now our government is collaborating with Al Qaeda.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich said “striking Syria would make the U.S. Military ‘Al-Qaeda’s Air Force’”.
The concept which is spreading across the land is that the Obama administration is supporting Al Qaeda.
It’s a bipartisan consensus: the Republican leadership in the US Congress and the Senate have endorsed support and financial aid to the al Nusrah brigades in Syria.
In the eyes of public opinion, the Global War on Terrorism has, so to speak, fallen flat.
Who is Supporting Whom? Who is Waging a War of Aggression?
The spontaneous movement in the armed forces is based on the notion that the “US government is supporting al Qaeda”.
The corporate media has failed to reveal the nature of the longstanding relationship between Al Qaeda and the US government, which goes back to the Soviet-Afghan war.
Al Qaeda –the “outside enemy of America” as well as the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks– is a creation of the CIA. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are often referred to as “intelligence assets”
From the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war in the early 1980s, the US intelligence apparatus has supported the formation of “Islamic brigades”.
Propaganda purports to erase the history of Al Qaeda, drown the truth and “kill the evidence” on how this “outside enemy” was fabricated and transformed into “Enemy Number One”.
The Global War on Terrorism is not geared towards curbing the “Islamic jihad”. The significant development of “radical Islam” in the wake of the Cold War was consistent with Washington’s hidden agenda. The latter consists in sustaining rather than combating international terrorism, with a view to creating factional divisions within countries and destabilizing national societies.
The numerous al Qaeda affiliated entities are routinely used in CIA covert operations. They are recruited, trained and indoctrinated under the supervision of the CIA and its intelligence counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Qatar and Israel. Unknown to the American public, the US has spread the teachings of the “Islamic jihad” in textbooks “Made in America”, developed at the University of Nebraska
Al Qaeda is an intelligence asset which serves the interests of the US administration.
With regard to Syria, the US government is not “supporting Al Qaeda” Quite the opposite, the Al Qaeda mercenaries in Syria, recruited and trained in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are “supporting the US government”. They are being used by the US military intelligence apparatus. They are paid killers.
Their actions are implemented as part of a military agenda; they are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance. The atrocities committed by the terrorists are the direct result of paramilitary training and indoctrination. The US government is behind this process. Obama is responsible for the crimes committed by the “rebels” against the Syrian people.
Concluding Remarks
We are at an important crossroads. The “Global War on Terrorism” constitutes the cornerstone of war propaganda. Yet at the same time the lies which uphold the GWOT are no longer credible and the thrust and effectiveness of the propaganda campaign are threatened.
No one can reasonably believe in a “war on terrorism” which consists in channeling money and weapons to the terrorists. Its a non sequitur.
“Support to terrorists”, portrayed as “revolutionaries” cannot be heralded as part of a foreign policy agenda which officially consists in “going after the terrorists”.
But Obama desperately needs to hold on to the “Global war on Terrorism”. It’s the cornerstone of US military doctrine. It’s a worldwide crusade.
Without the “Global War on Terrorism”, the Obama administration does not have a leg to stand on: its military doctrine collapses like a deck of cards.
Undermining the credibility of the “Global War on Terrorism” is a powerful instrument of counter-propaganda.
We call on people across the land: Mobilize against Obama’s war.
The war on Syria is illegal and criminal.
The President and Commander in Chief’s decision to support Al Qaeda in Syria is in violation of international law and US anti terrorism legislation .
US and coalition troops have a moral and legal obligation to refuse to fight in Obama’s “humanitarian war” on Syria, which consists in supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists.
The President and Commander in Chief has blatantly violated all tenets of domestic and international law. So that making an oath to “obey orders from the President” is tantamount to violating rather than defending the US Constitution.
“The moral and legal obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ.” (Mosqueda, US troops have “A Duty To Disobey all Unlawful orders”. http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MOS303A.html )“Refusing to fight” an illegal war implies a rejection of the legitimacy of the Commander in Chief. It denies the Obama administration the authority to conduct an illegal and criminal war on behalf of the American people.
And the American people must support the US servicemen and women who refuse to fight in an illegal war.
Obama is a war criminal. He is supporting terrorists, who are his paid killers. Amply documented Syria’s rebels have been trained in the use of chemical weapons and they have used chemical weapons against innocent civilians.
The Global War on Terrorism is a fabrication and a lie.
War is an illegal undertaking.
According to Nuremberg jurisprudence, the ultimate war crime consists in starting a war. Obama and his European counterparts including David Cameron and Francois Hollande are responsible for the supreme crime: “the crime against peace.” This war is illegal irrespective of a decision of the UN Security Council to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign state:
“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations… Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter.” UN Charter – 1: Purposes and Principles
The Last Chance to Stop the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA): “Permits Military to Seize U.S. Citizens, Hold them Indefinitely in Military Facilities”.
“First the terrorism-industrial complex assured Americans that they were only spying on foreigners, not U.S. citizens,” Mayer said to me recently. “Then they assured us that they were only spying on phone calls, not electronic communications. Then they assured us that they were not spying on American journalists. And now both [major political] parties and the Obama administration have assured us that they will not detain journalists, citizens and activists. Well, they detained journalist Chris Hedges without a lawyer, they detained journalist Laura Poitras without due process and if allowed to stand this law will permit the military to target activists, journalists and citizens in an unprecedented assault on freedom in America.”
Last year we won round one: U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Southern District of New York declared Section 1021 unconstitutional. The Obama administration immediately appealed her ruling and asked a higher court to put the law back into effect until Obama’s petition was heard. The appellate court agreed. The law went back on the books. I suspect it went back on the books because the administration is already using it, most likely holding U.S. citizens who are dual nationals in black sites in Afghanistan and the Middle East. If Judge Forrest’s ruling were allowed to stand, the administration, if it is indeed holding U.S. citizens in military detention centers, would be in contempt of court.
In July 2013 the appellate court, in round two, overturned Forrest’s ruling. All we have left is the Supreme Court, which may not take the case. If the Supreme Court does not take our case, the law will remain in place unless Congress strikes it down, something that federal legislators have so far refused to consider. The three branches of government may want to retain the ability to use the military to maintain control if widespread civil unrest should occur in the United States. I suspect the corporate state knows that amid the mounting effects of climate change and economic decline the military may be all that is left between the elite and an enraged population. And I suspect the corporate masters do not trust the police to protect them.
If Section 1021 stands it will mean that more than 150 years of case law in which the Supreme Court repeatedly held the military has no jurisdiction over civilians will be abolished. It will mean citizens who are charged by the government with “substantially supporting” al-Qaida, the Taliban or the nebulous category of “associated forces” will be lawfully subject to extraordinary rendition. It will mean citizens seized by the military will languish in military jails indefinitely, or in the language of Section 1021 until “the end of hostilities”—in an age of permanent war, for the rest of their lives. It will mean, in short, obliteration of our last remaining legal protections, especially now that we have lost the right to privacy, and the ascent of a crude, militarized state that serves the leviathan of corporate totalitarianism. It will mean, as Forrest pointed out in her 112-page opinion, that whole categories of Americans—and here you can assume dissidents and activists—will be subject to seizure by the military and indefinite and secret detention.
“As Justice [Robert] Jackson said in his dissent in the Korematsu case, involving the indiscriminate detention of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, once an unconstitutional military power is sanctioned by the courts it ‘lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority,’ ” Mayer said.
In our lawsuit the appellate court never directly addressed the issue of using the military to hold citizens and strip them of due process—something that is clearly unconstitutional. Instead, the court held that I and the other plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case. It said that because none of us had been imminently threatened with arrest we had no credible fear. This was an odd argument. When I was a New York Times reporter I was, as stated in court, arrested and held by the U.S. military in violation of my First Amendment rights as I was covering conflicts in the Middle East. In addition I was briefly detained, without explanation, in the Newark, N.J., airport by Homeland Security as I returned from Italy, the court was told.
During the five years I covered the war in El Salvador the Reagan administration regularly denounced reporters who exposed atrocities by the Salvadoran military as “fifth columnists” for the rebel movement, a charge that made us in the eyes of Reagan officials at the very least accomplices to terrorism. This, too, was raised in court, as was the fact that during my seven years as a reporter in the Middle East I met regularly with individuals and groups, including al-Qaida, that were considered terrorists by the U.S. government. There were times in my 20-year career as a foreign correspondent, especially when I reported events or opinions that challenged the official narrative, that the U.S. government made little distinction between me and groups that were antagonistic to the United States. In those days there was no law that could be used to seize and detain me. Now there is.
Journalist Alexa O’Brien, who joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff along with Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and others, was incorrectly linked by the security and surveillance state to terrorist groups in the Middle East. O’Brien, who doggedly covered the trial of Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, co-founded US Day of Rage, an organization dedicated to electoral reform. When WikiLeaks in February 2012 released 5 million emails from Stratfor, a private security firm that does work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Marine Corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency, it was revealed that the company was attempting to tie O’Brien and her organization to Islamic radicals and websites as well as jihadist ideology.
Fred Burton, Stratfor’s vice president for counterterrorism and corporate security and a former deputy director of the counterterrorism division of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, and Thomas Kopecky, director of operations at Investigative Research Consultants Inc. and Fortis Protective Services LLC, had an email exchange over this issue. Kopecky wrote: “I was looking into that US Day of Rage movement and specifically asked to connect it to any Saudi or other fundamentalist Islamic movements.
Thus far, I have only hear[d] rumors but not gotten any substantial connection. Do you guys know much about this other than its US Domestic fiscal ideals?” Burton replied: “No, we’re not aware of any concrete connections between fundamentalist Islamist movements and the Day of Rage, or the October 2011 movement at this point.” But that soon changed. Stratfor, through others working in conjunction with the FBI, falsely linked US Day of Rage to al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorist organizations. Homeland Security later placed her group on a terrorism watch list.
This will be the standard tactic. Laws passed in the so-called war on terror will be used to turn all dissidents and activists into terrorism suspects, subjecting them to draconian forms of state repression and control. The same tactic was used during the anti-communist hysteria of the 20th century to destroy union leaders, writers, civil rights activists, intellectuals, artists, teachers, politicians and organizations that challenged entrenched corporate power.
“After 12 years of an undeclared permanent war against an undefined enemy and multiple revelations about massive unconstitutional spying by the government, we certainly hope that the Supreme Court will strike down a law that replaces our civilian system of justice with a military one,” said Mayer. “Unless this happens there will be little left of judicial review during wartime.”
Afran, a law professor at Rutgers University, asked last week during a conversation with me:“Does the Army have to be knocking on your door saying, ‘Come with me,’ before there will be the ability to challenge such a law?” He said the appellate court’s ruling “means you have to be incarcerated before you can challenge the law under which you’re incarcerated.”
“There’s nothing that’s built into this NDAA [the National Defense Authorization Act] that even gives a detained person the right to get to an attorney,” Afran said. “In fact, the whole notion is that it’s secret. It’s outside of any judicial process. You’re not even subject to a military trial. You can be moved to other jurisdictions under the law. It’s the antithesis of due process.”
The judges on the appellate court admitted that we as plaintiffs had raised “difficult questions.”
“This is a way of acknowledging they’re troubled by the apparent lack of constitutionality of the law,” Afran said during our conversation. “But they were not willing to face the question head on. So, in effect, they said, ‘Well, when someone’s threatened with arrest, then we have a concrete injury.’ But no one’s going to be threatened with arrest. They’ll simply be arrested. They’re not going to send a letter saying, ‘By the way, on Thursday next we’re going to place you in military custody.’ … The whole point of the law is that they’re going to come in and take you [in secrecy].”
The appellate court stated that the law does not apply to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. In reading the law this way the justices were saying, in effect, that I and the other plaintiffs had nothing to fear. Afran called this a “circular argument.” The court, in essence, said that because it did not construe the law as applying to U.S. citizens and lawful residents we could not bring the case to court.
“They seem to accept a lot of what we said, namely that the whole history of the jurisprudence, of the court decisions, is that American civilians cannot be placed in military custody,” Afran said. “And they accept the idea that Section E of the statute says, ‘Nothing herein shall be construed to affect existing authorities as to the detention of U.S. citizens.’ So on the basis of that they say this is not meant to add any new powers to the government and since the government doesn’t have power over civilians in this way the law can’t be extended to civilians. The problem is by saying there’s no standing, they deprive the district court of entering an order, saying and declaring that the statue does not apply to U.S. citizens or permanent residents, lawful residents in the U.S.”
The court, in essence, accepted the principle that citizens cannot be taken into military custody but refused to issue a direct order saying so that would be enforceable.
“We have the absurdity of the court of appeals, one of the highest courts in the country, saying this law cannot touch citizens and lawful residents, but depriving the trial court of the ability to enter an order blocking it from being used in that way,” Afran said. “The lack of an order enables future [military] detentions. A person may have to languish for months, maybe years, before getting a court hearing. The [appellate] court correctly stated what the law is, but it deprived the trial court of the ability to enter an order stopping this [new] law from being used.”
“A law is not constitutional just because habeas corpus says you have a right to go to court to try to get out,” Afran said in speaking about the legal mechanism by which someone might challenge custody. “The citizen is entitled not to be detained in the first place absent probable cause. Habeas corpus is a remedy of last resort. It’s not there to justify the use of unconstitutional detention laws.”
The Supreme Court takes between 80 and 100 cases a year from about 8,000 requests. There is no guarantee our appeal will ever be heard. If we fail, if this law stands, if in the years ahead the military starts to randomly seize and disappear people, if dissidents and activists become subject to indefinite and secret detention in military gulags, we will at least be able to look back on this moment and know we fought back.
Obama was the Candidate of the War Lobby Funded by the Crown Family
Crown Dynasty Generously financed Barack Obama Election Campaign
Under U.S. federal law an ultra-rich person is not supposed to
make a campaign contribution of more than $2,300 per election each year
to any one candidate for U.S. federal office. Yet in recent years
members of an ultra-rich Chicago-based family, the Crown Dynasty, have
apparently been making individual campaign contributions of more than
$2,300 per election each year to a federal candidate named Barack Obama.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics web site, for instance:
On September 29, 2003, Paula Crown of Henry Crown & Company gave an individual campaign contribution of $9,500 to Barack Obama. Subsequently, Paula Crown gave another individual campaign contribution of $2,000 to Obama on June 2, 2004 and a third individual campaign contribution of $2,000 to Obama on February 24, 2005. Four days later, on February 28, 2005, Paula Crown also gave a $25,000 campaign contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The following year, Paula Crown gave another $25,000 campaign contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on June 15, 2006;
On March 25, 2003, Susan Crown of Henry Crown & Company gave an individual campaign contribution of $2,000 to Obama. Later that same year, on December 10, 2003, Susan Crown gave a second individual campaign contribution of $5,000 to Obama. A few months later, on March 11, 2004, another individual campaign contribution of $5,000 was given to Obama by Susan Crown. And the following month, an additional individual campaign contribution of $5,000 was given by Susan Crown on April 15, 2004 to Obama;
An individual campaign contribution of $12,000 was also given on December 10, 2003 by Renee Crown to Obama. The following year, an individual campaign contribution of $2,000 was also given to Obama by Renee Crown on June 2, 2004;
On March 10, 2004, an individual campaign contribution of $12,000 was given by Rebecca Crown to Obama. The next month, on April 15, 2004, Rebecca Crown also gave a $10,000 campaign contribution to the DNC Services Corporation;
On June 27, 2003, James Crown of Henry Crown & Company gave an individual campaign contribution of $10,000 to Obama. The following year, on June 2, 2004, James Crown also gave an individual campaign contribution of $2,000 to Obama. That same year, a campaign contribution of $10,000 was also given to the DNC Services Corporation by James Crown. The following year, James Crown also gave a $25,000 campaign contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on February 28, 2005 and an individual campaign contribution of $2,000 to Obama on February 24, 2005. On June 15, 2006, another $25,000 campaign contribution was given to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee by James Crown;
On February 23, 2004, Elizabeth Crown gave an individual campaign contribution of $12,000 to Obama;
On February 23, 2004, Patricia Crown also gave an individual campaign contribution of $12,000 to Obama;
The following day, on February 24, 2004, Joann Crown also gave an individual campaign contribution of $12,000 to Obama;
A few days later, on March 3, 2004, William Crown also gave an individual campaign contribution of $12,000 to Obama;
A. Steven Crown also gave an individual campaign contribution of $5,000 to Obama on September 29, 2003. That same year, on December 11, 2003, a second individual campaign contribution of $7,000 was also given to Obama by A.Steven Crown of Henry Crown & Company.
In its 1980 edition, Everybody’s Business: An Almanac (by Milton Moskowitz, Michael Katz and Robert Levering) made the following reference to the Crown family of Chicago ‘s history of making money from General Dynamics’ weapons manufacturing activity:
“General Dynamics, more than any other aerospace company, is dependent on the Pentagon; government defense contracts account for two-thirds of their sales…The power behind the scenes is Henry Crown, a Chicago financier and one of the richest, but least known, men in the country. A group headed by Crown, who was 83 in 1980, owns about 20% of the company. His associates, who sit on the General Dynamics board with him, are his son, Lester Crown, and Chicago industrialist Nathan Cummings, founder of Consolidated Foods…”
After Henry Crown’s death, General Dynamics sold its F-16 fighter jet production unit and the Crown family reduced its ownership stake in General Dynamics from 20% to 8%. But, according to the General Dynamics web site at http://www.generaldynamics.com/, in 2005 “General Dynamics Combat Systems” was “becoming the world’s preferred supplier of land and amphibious combat systems development, production and support;” and “its product line” included “a full spectrum of armored vehicles, light wheeled reconnaissance vehicles, suspensions, engine transmissions, guns and ammunition handling systems, turret drive systems, and reactive armor and ordnance.”
The General Dynamics web site also indicated in 2005 that members of the Crown family like Henry Crown & Company President James Crown and Henry Crown & Company Chairman Lester Crown still sat on the General Dynamics corporate board in 2005-between retired Pentagon officials (like former U.S. Under-Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Paul Kaminski, former U.S. Naval Chief of Naval Operations Jay Johnson, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff John Keane, Retired U.S. General George Joulwan and former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Lester Lyles) and a former Royal Navy Vice-Admiral for the UK Ministry of Defense named Robert Walmsley.
A 2003 press release of the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems business unit in St. Petersburg, Florida also noted that it had formed “a strategic alliance with Aeronautics Defense Systems, Ltd.,” an Israeli firm based in Yavne. Aeronautics Defense Systems Ltd. is the firm that developed the Unmanned Multi-Application System (UMASa) aerial surveillance tool which the Israeli military uses to “provide a real-time ‘bird’s eye view’ of the surveillance area to combatant commanders and airborne command posts.” According to then-Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the agreement between General Dynamics and Aeronautics Defense Systems to bring together “both companies’ state-of-the art technologies in defense and homeland security” was “additional proof of the technological and commercial benefits that alliances between industries from the U.S. and Israel can produce.”
From its investments in Pentagon war contractors like General Dynamics and U.S. real estate, the Crown family has accumulated a family fortune of $3.6 billion, according to a 2004 Forbes magazine estimate. The Jerusalem Post also noted in its February 27, 2005 issue that “the Crown family of Chicago ” is also “well-known for its support of sectarian Jewish causes.” In addition, long-time General Dynamics board member Lester Crown was also a member of the Advisory board of Medis Technologies, a joint venture business partner of Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd. in recent years.
Yet, ironically, the 2008 presidential candidate who apparently is being financially backed by the next generation of the Crown Dynasty seems to be marketing himself these days as “the next generation’s anti-war candidate.”
On September 29, 2003, Paula Crown of Henry Crown & Company gave an individual campaign contribution of $9,500 to Barack Obama. Subsequently, Paula Crown gave another individual campaign contribution of $2,000 to Obama on June 2, 2004 and a third individual campaign contribution of $2,000 to Obama on February 24, 2005. Four days later, on February 28, 2005, Paula Crown also gave a $25,000 campaign contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The following year, Paula Crown gave another $25,000 campaign contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on June 15, 2006;
On March 25, 2003, Susan Crown of Henry Crown & Company gave an individual campaign contribution of $2,000 to Obama. Later that same year, on December 10, 2003, Susan Crown gave a second individual campaign contribution of $5,000 to Obama. A few months later, on March 11, 2004, another individual campaign contribution of $5,000 was given to Obama by Susan Crown. And the following month, an additional individual campaign contribution of $5,000 was given by Susan Crown on April 15, 2004 to Obama;
An individual campaign contribution of $12,000 was also given on December 10, 2003 by Renee Crown to Obama. The following year, an individual campaign contribution of $2,000 was also given to Obama by Renee Crown on June 2, 2004;
On March 10, 2004, an individual campaign contribution of $12,000 was given by Rebecca Crown to Obama. The next month, on April 15, 2004, Rebecca Crown also gave a $10,000 campaign contribution to the DNC Services Corporation;
On June 27, 2003, James Crown of Henry Crown & Company gave an individual campaign contribution of $10,000 to Obama. The following year, on June 2, 2004, James Crown also gave an individual campaign contribution of $2,000 to Obama. That same year, a campaign contribution of $10,000 was also given to the DNC Services Corporation by James Crown. The following year, James Crown also gave a $25,000 campaign contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on February 28, 2005 and an individual campaign contribution of $2,000 to Obama on February 24, 2005. On June 15, 2006, another $25,000 campaign contribution was given to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee by James Crown;
On February 23, 2004, Elizabeth Crown gave an individual campaign contribution of $12,000 to Obama;
On February 23, 2004, Patricia Crown also gave an individual campaign contribution of $12,000 to Obama;
The following day, on February 24, 2004, Joann Crown also gave an individual campaign contribution of $12,000 to Obama;
A few days later, on March 3, 2004, William Crown also gave an individual campaign contribution of $12,000 to Obama;
A. Steven Crown also gave an individual campaign contribution of $5,000 to Obama on September 29, 2003. That same year, on December 11, 2003, a second individual campaign contribution of $7,000 was also given to Obama by A.Steven Crown of Henry Crown & Company.
In its 1980 edition, Everybody’s Business: An Almanac (by Milton Moskowitz, Michael Katz and Robert Levering) made the following reference to the Crown family of Chicago ‘s history of making money from General Dynamics’ weapons manufacturing activity:
“General Dynamics, more than any other aerospace company, is dependent on the Pentagon; government defense contracts account for two-thirds of their sales…The power behind the scenes is Henry Crown, a Chicago financier and one of the richest, but least known, men in the country. A group headed by Crown, who was 83 in 1980, owns about 20% of the company. His associates, who sit on the General Dynamics board with him, are his son, Lester Crown, and Chicago industrialist Nathan Cummings, founder of Consolidated Foods…”
After Henry Crown’s death, General Dynamics sold its F-16 fighter jet production unit and the Crown family reduced its ownership stake in General Dynamics from 20% to 8%. But, according to the General Dynamics web site at http://www.generaldynamics.com/, in 2005 “General Dynamics Combat Systems” was “becoming the world’s preferred supplier of land and amphibious combat systems development, production and support;” and “its product line” included “a full spectrum of armored vehicles, light wheeled reconnaissance vehicles, suspensions, engine transmissions, guns and ammunition handling systems, turret drive systems, and reactive armor and ordnance.”
The General Dynamics web site also indicated in 2005 that members of the Crown family like Henry Crown & Company President James Crown and Henry Crown & Company Chairman Lester Crown still sat on the General Dynamics corporate board in 2005-between retired Pentagon officials (like former U.S. Under-Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Paul Kaminski, former U.S. Naval Chief of Naval Operations Jay Johnson, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff John Keane, Retired U.S. General George Joulwan and former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Lester Lyles) and a former Royal Navy Vice-Admiral for the UK Ministry of Defense named Robert Walmsley.
A 2003 press release of the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems business unit in St. Petersburg, Florida also noted that it had formed “a strategic alliance with Aeronautics Defense Systems, Ltd.,” an Israeli firm based in Yavne. Aeronautics Defense Systems Ltd. is the firm that developed the Unmanned Multi-Application System (UMASa) aerial surveillance tool which the Israeli military uses to “provide a real-time ‘bird’s eye view’ of the surveillance area to combatant commanders and airborne command posts.” According to then-Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the agreement between General Dynamics and Aeronautics Defense Systems to bring together “both companies’ state-of-the art technologies in defense and homeland security” was “additional proof of the technological and commercial benefits that alliances between industries from the U.S. and Israel can produce.”
From its investments in Pentagon war contractors like General Dynamics and U.S. real estate, the Crown family has accumulated a family fortune of $3.6 billion, according to a 2004 Forbes magazine estimate. The Jerusalem Post also noted in its February 27, 2005 issue that “the Crown family of Chicago ” is also “well-known for its support of sectarian Jewish causes.” In addition, long-time General Dynamics board member Lester Crown was also a member of the Advisory board of Medis Technologies, a joint venture business partner of Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd. in recent years.
Yet, ironically, the 2008 presidential candidate who apparently is being financially backed by the next generation of the Crown Dynasty seems to be marketing himself these days as “the next generation’s anti-war candidate.”
Where Will FEMA Take Your Children?
September 5, 2013
The Department of Homeland Security
and FEMA had interjected themselves, and appropriately so, into the
area of school safety. This article explores the premise behind the
cooperation between DHS, FEMA and your child’s public school. Most of
the policies and procedures make a great deal of sense and should be followed as a matter of course.
However there are some very concerning elements which have surfaced
with regard to school safety procedures, your rights as a parent and the
safety of your child.
The Prime Directive of School Safety
The first mandate for teachers and
administrators in the public school setting is to keep students safe.
This prime directive supersedes any other mission requirements related
to the functioning of a public school. Teachers and administrators as
well as support personnel have a moral, professional and legal
obligation to tend to children who are in physical and/or emotional distress. The Department of Homeland Security
and FEMA have prepared disaster related documents detailing the
professional responsibilities for school personnel in disaster related
scenarios.
In the furtherance of this mission, public schools are required to participate in various safety exercise
drills such as lockdowns and bus evacuation drills. Both functions
serve a legitimate purpose and parents should feel a measure of comfort
that schools have taken steps under the direction of the government in
order to help keep our children safe. However, some plans no matter how well-intentioned have pitfalls and some of the details of these plans should be concerning to parents of school-aged children.
The following paragraphs detail a
previous disaster drill, held in Denver, in which the procedures should
raise the hair on the back of the neck of all parents
Operation Mountain Guardian
Nearly two years ago, on September 23,
2011, the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA conducted a disaster
drill in Denver, Colorado that they called Operation Mountain Guardian.
The plan was all-inclusive and basically shut down the Denver
metropolitan area including Denver international Airport, many malls,
many schools and several other public venues including Sports Authority
Field where the Denver Broncos play professional football.
Where will they take the children? Will you get them back and when?
As a part of the drill, several busloads of school children
were taken to Sports Authority Field along with their teachers.
Surrogate parents were hired by FEMA to attempt to pick up their children at the stadium. The training was apparently a desensitization exercise for security personnel designed to refuse demands to pick up their children from these “pretend” parents. The real parents of these children were not properly notified that their children
would be transported to the stadium and would be a part of this
disaster drill. As a parent, I would have a major problem with the
non-notification of the relocation of children.I find this ironic, because before a school child is allowed to go on a field trip, their parents and teachers are required to fill out a multiple list of permission forms that must be signed by parent or guardian of the child.
I have no quarrel with moving children in an emergency situation to a location of safety. However, I have a major issue when government officials refused to release children to their parents because the authority over a child belongs to the parent, not to a government agency.
In the latter part of the event, as parents discovered that some of their children were likely transported to the stadium, some parents attempted to go to the venue and secure their children. When they did so, at least initially, the children were not released to the parents. Again, who is the sovereign, the government or the people?
And speaking of Denver International Airport, explain the meaning of this depiction which was displayed for years near airport baggage. Where are the children being led by this apparent Russian soldier carrying an AK-47 and wearing a gas mask?
It goes without saying that most major
terror attacks have coincided with “drills” used to confuse and distract
first responders not privy to the inside plan has been heavily
documented, with the 7/7 attacks in London and 9/11 attacks in New York
City being prime examples. The aforementioned statement is not
conspiratorial, these are the facts surrounding these previous terrorist
attacks and every parent, teacher, administrator, police officer,
firefighter, EMT and the federal government would be wise to be
cognizant of this fact.
DHS, FEMA and the Safety of Students
FEMA has published a training manual which serves as the rough draft model for school safety to be enacted by all 50 versions of the State Department of Education, in times of an emergency. Of particular importance and relevance is a document from the Arizona Department of Education entitled “Staff Skills Survey and Inventory“, which is located on page 76 of their school safety manual.
In the aftermath of the disaster
scenario, it would be prudent for school officials and assisting public
officials to know which of the school staff members are first aid
certified, have experience in EMT operations, can perform CPR, can
assist in triage functions and can help with food preparation.
Certainly, acquiring a database of people who possess these skills,
would be extremely critical in meeting the potential needs of children in the context of a dangerous set of circumstances.
However, on the checklists
and procedures form, there are other skills on this FEMA inspired
document, which has filtered down from the Federal government to the
State level. I have subsequently acquired a document from the Arizona
Department of Education which attempts to assess staff skills in times
of emergency. The document is listed at the bottom of this article.
In the document, it asks teachers,
administrators and other support personnel within a school setting if
they possess skills which seem to be out of place for disaster scenario
responding in a school setting. For example, the document asks school
personnel if they have experience in construction, shelter management,
emergency management, structural engineering, firefighting, electrical
wiring, plumbing, carpentry, journalists, HAM radio operation and a
recreational leader.
Why would schools have the need for
people that can do construction as well as plumbing, electrical work,
climbing and shelter management? What in the world are schools under
stress going to be building? At this point, I would invite you to go to
the bottom of the page and scan this FEMA inspired document to
familiarize yourself with all of the skills that are being assessed by
the various departments of education around the country.
I have asked a number of people to look
at this document and explain to me their interpretation of the skill set
solicitations. Descriptor terms such as conscription, commandeering and
drafting have come out of the mouths of people that I know. People that
know nothing of the New World Order and know nothing of Operation Mountain Guardian were concerned when I showed them the document. If one considers this questionnaire within the context of Obama’s Executive Order 13603 in
which the President can seize control over all resources including
people; I would like to think that these two variables are not
connected. However, in these perilous times, it is difficult to not be
suspicious.
Conclusion
These events beg the question, are we to understand that school children
and school personnel are going to be forced to construct their own
residential facilities in some unknown and undisclosed location from
which a bus will transport them to? I don’t have a definitive answer,
but I know a number of you who are reading these words are thinking what
I have thought. Am I going to be constructing our own detention
facilities? Will parents be separated from their children?
Is this why construction, electric and plumbing skills are being inventoried in our nation’s schools?
Is this how Rex 84 and Presidential
Directive 51 be implemented? At one time, making these connections might
have been considered to be ridiculous. However, in the present context,
these questions demand answers.
From Page 76 of the Arizona Department of Education
STAFF SKILLS SURVEY & INVENTORY
YOUR NAME ______________________________
SCHOOL _______________________________
ROOM _______________________________
During any disaster situation, it is
important to be able to draw from all available resources. The special
skills, training and capabilities of the staff will play a vital role
in coping with the effects of any disaster incident. These will be of
paramount importance during and after a major or catastrophic disaster.
The purpose of this survey/inventory is to pinpoint those staff members
with equipment and the special skills that may be needed. Please
indicate the areas that apply to you and return this survey to your
administrator.
Please check, circle, or add expertise or training that you may have.
| First Aid (yes/no)current card | CPR (yes/no current) | Triage | |||||
| Construction | Shelter Management | Camping | |||||
| Emergency Management | Structural Engineering | Running/Jogging | |||||
| Firefighting | Survival Training & Techniques | CB Radio | |||||
| Law Enforcement | Search & Rescue | Food Preparation | |||||
| Mechanical Ability (electrical, plumbing, carpentry, etc.) | Bus/Truck Driver (yes/no, Class 1 or 2 license,) | Recreational Leader | |||||
| Nurse | Journalism | Other: | |||||
| EMT or Paramedic | Waste Disposal | ||||||
| Ham Radio Operator | |||||||
| Multi-lingual (yes / no, what language (s) | |||||||
STAFF SKILLS SURVEY & INVENTORY continued
DO YOU KEEP A PERSONAL EMERGENCY KIT? _____________ in your car? _______ in your room? _______
DO YOU HAVE MATERIALS IN YOUR ROOM THAT WOULD BE OF USE DURING AN EMERGENCY?
(i.e., athletic bibs, traffic cones, carpet squares) _________ Yes _________ No
DO YOU HAVE EQUIPMENT OR ACCESS TO EQUIPMENT OR MATERIALS AT YOUR SCHOOL SITE THAT COULD BE USED AN IN EMERGENCY? _________ YES _______ NO
Please list equipment and materials.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
WHAT WOULD MAKE YOU FEEL MORE PREPARED SHOULD A DISASTER STRIKE WHILE YOU WERE AT SCHOOL?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:
…AND IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, IT’S LIBYAN ANTIQUITIES, TOO
September 5, 2013 By
Yesterday
I blogged about the growing problem of black market antiquities,
specifically, concerning Syria, and about a pattern that seems to have
emerged in tandem with the West’s constant geopolitical meddling in the
Middle East. I suggested and argued yesterday that there seems to be a
hidden “antiquities agenda” in the Middle East with respect to these
interventions, and that the military-industrial-finance-intelligence
complex of the Anglosphere could easily fulfill its quest to acquire
antiquities by (1) utilizing known or existing field or museum catalogs
of legitimate digs to place “orders” or “BOLO” (Be On the Look Out for)
certain items, and (2) utilizing planted agents within the smuggling
community to acquire items it sought. This pattern of “insider jobs”
first emerged in the Baghdad Museum looting, and was the conclusion of
the U.S. Marine Colonel, Bogdanovich, sent to investigate the matter and
recover the stolen antiquities. As I’ve blogged elsewhere on this
subject, the odd thing about the whole Baghdad Museum looting was that
the art objects for the most part were recovered and returned…
but the cuneiform tablets that were looted remain largely unrecovered, a
fact suggesting that the real antiquities being sought were in the form
of knowledge.
In what will probably not surprise readers of this site, the same pattern of “illicit digs” and “independent black market smugglers” seems to have been in evidence in Libya during the coup d’etat against the Qaddafi regime, and it is still going on:
Libya still at risk from the plunder and smuggling of antiquities
Note the intriguing statements here:
In what will probably not surprise readers of this site, the same pattern of “illicit digs” and “independent black market smugglers” seems to have been in evidence in Libya during the coup d’etat against the Qaddafi regime, and it is still going on:
Libya still at risk from the plunder and smuggling of antiquities
Note the intriguing statements here:
“A workshop organised by the Department of Antiquities and UNESCO on the fight against the illicit trafficking of stolen artefacts has shown that, even two years after the outbreak of revolution, the country’s treasures are at risk of falling into the hands of artefacts dealers and disappearing abroad.“There are two areas that are particularly vulnerable: items from museums or other collections and artefacts dug up in illegal excavations. The latter, the workshop was told, can be particularly difficult to trace because the objects are not recorded, meaning their exact origin is often unclear.“Secretary-General of the Libyan National Commission for UNESCO, Fawzia Bariun, said that, although four decades of the old regime had neglected the country’s heritage, the revolution had brought a new challenge.“’During the Arab Spring, international gangs came to these regions to traffic cultural heritage and artefacts, to exploit the transitional phase that follows a revolution,’ Bariun said.”(emphasis added)
Again,
the same pattern: illicit or illegal digs, but this time, with a twist,
for “international gangs” behind such activities implies international organization.
It does not require much imagination to see what “organization” in this
case would consist of: (1) specialized intelligence regarding the
archaeology of the region, (2) financing, and perhaps even (3) satellite
imagery or intelligence, inclusive of radar tomography of the country
to know where to make the “illicit digs.”
Such
considerations are again another indicator that the plunder of the
antiquities of the region may be organized on a high level and within
the national security institutions and communities of the Anglosphere,
and that specific things are being sought under the cover of
wider antiquities trafficking. It is perhaps instructive to note that
this article states that a bust or statue of the head of Flavia
Domitilla, daughter of Roman Emperor Vespasian, was recovered by the
Italian Carabinieri and returned to Libya.
This
too fits the “Baghdad Museum Looting pattern,” for it will be recalled
that the objects of art stolen from that museum were for the most part
recovered and returned to Iraq… it is the cuneiform tablets, the information, that was not returned.
Obviously, I am speculating wildly, but the pattern is there, and it is suggestive of a common modus operandi
of international black marketeers in antiquities, an activity that
would be easily penetrated by more serious players and collectors, the
power elites themselves.
Read more: ...AND IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, IT'S LIBYAN ANTIQUITIES, TOO
Russia to Punish ISPs, Search Engines & Users Over Content Blocking
- September 4, 2013
Just over a month has passed since Russia introduced new legislation aimed at cracking down on online piracy. The law, which has become known as Russia’s SOPA, takes a tough line with those offering or linking to illicit content online.
Copyright complaints against a site or service can lead to that domain being added to a national blocklist, if their operators fail to render the illicit content inaccessible within a few days.
Although rightsholders have struggled at times to provide the necessary information required for a correctly formatted complaint, orders have already been issued to add sites to the Russian national blocklist. But now, just 34 days after the initial law was implemented, the government is pushing through further punitive measures for pirates and those deemed to be assisting them.
The bill, which was approved in the first of three planned readings in the State Duma, introduces fines of up to one million rubles ($29,853) to be levied against search engines, web hosts, ISPs, and even regular web users.
The heaviest of fines will be reserved for companies failing to comply with the requirements of the blacklist, while punishments for regular users are expected to sit around 5,000 rubles ($149).
Last week, Russian authorities ordered the blocking of Rutor, one of the largest Russian torrent sites. At the moment the site is not on the national blacklist and remains available via ISPs but unless the site complies with a previous order it’s IP address will soon be blocked.
Later in the year, possibly in the fall, Russia will seek to expand the current law. At the moment only TV shows and movies are protected by the legislation but music, books and other works are expected to be added.
Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera indicated Tuesday that revised bilateral security guidelines with the United States could define Japan’s capacity to mount attacks on the military bases of hostile nations.
“Japan would like to jointly consider with the United States how (the two countries) can complement each other (regarding the issue of Japan maintaining a capacity to carry out such attacks) and how the issue can be defined in the guidelines,” Onodera said in a speech.
Referring to North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development, Onodera said Tokyo and Washington “need to thoroughly study a possible attack on (hostile bases) in the event of a missile launch clearly targeting Japan,” Onodera said.
During a meeting last week in Brunei, Onodera and U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel agreed to consider the issue, and to start work on revising the Japan-U.S. defense cooperation guidelines.
The guidelines define the role of the Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military, and the revision is aimed at enabling the two allies to better cope with the changing security environment in the Asia-Pacific region.
On Tuesday, Onodera also called for debate in Japan on whether to lift the self-imposed ban on exercising the right to collective self-defense, or helping to defend an ally that comes under armed attack.
Referring to China’s growing maritime activity from the East China Sea to the Pacific, including repeated intrusions into Japanese waters around the Senkaku Islands, Onodera stressed the necessity of introducing unmanned reconnaissance aircraft to monitor Chinese naval movements.
The Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea are controlled by Japan but claimed by China.
BEIRUT, Lebanon (UPI) — Western intelligence services have made much of Hezbollah’s military support for the embattled Damascus regime in Syria’s civil war, but there’s another, less well-known threat emerging there.
That’s the growing force of Iraqi Shiite fighters who’re also fighting to keep Syrian President Bashar Assad in power.
Many of them were trained by Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to fight the Americans in Iraq, and now form a major element in Iran’s new “foreign legion,” intelligence officers and military experts say.
A study by Matthew Levitt and Aaron Y. Zein of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy found that Hezbollah of Lebanon, Iran’s most powerful ally in the Arab world, is “establishing local proxies in Syria … through which it can maintain influence and conduct operations to undermine stability in the country in the future.”
The study, “Hezbollah’s Gambit in Syria,” was published in August by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the U.S. military academy’s center for terrorism studies.
Western and Arab intelligence agencies, already worried about the ongoing rise of Sunni jihadist groups in Syria that are fighting Assad and his Shiite allies, are concerned that Iran’s emergent foreign legion could be extended to militarize Shiites across the region and inflame the Sunni-Shiite religious war that is becoming the primary conflict in the Middle East.
Duplicating the partnership it had with the Revolutionary Guards’ elite covert operations wing, the al-Quds Force, in Iraq, Hezbollah is using two groups it helped create in Iraq to train and equip several paramilitary Iraqi Shiite groups to back up Assad.
The two groups are Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Battalions, and Asaib Ahl-Haq, or League of the Righteous, which were established by the al-Quds Force and Lebanon’s Hezbollah in southern Iraq in the mid-2000s, primarily to attack U.S. forces.
Tehran called in Hezbollah, which drove the Israelis out of south Lebanon in May 2000 and fought Israel to a standstill in a 34-day war in 2006, to train Iraqi Shiites in 2006 and pass on the lessons it had learned battling the Israelis.
Hezbollah veterans also worked with and assisted other Iraqi Shiite groups now operating in Syria against rebel forces. These are Jaish al-Shabi, Liwa Abu Fadl al-Abbas, Kataeb Sayyed al-Shuhada, Liwa Zulfiqar and Liwa Ammar ibn Yassir.
Some of these have contributed fighters to the Syrian regime’s National Defense Force, a supposedly 50,000-strong militia force of Iraqi Shiites and members of Syria’s minority Alawite sect that dominates the Damascus regime. The NDF has become a key assault force with Assad’s security apparatus.
Jaish al-Shabi — the People’s Army — was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury Department last December. It’s now considered part of Damascus’ powerful security apparatus, underlining “how the regime has adapted its forces to fight an asymmetric and irregular war” against the factionalized opposition, the study observed.
“In contrast to Jaish al-Shabi, the other militias are not within Syria’s security apparatus, but are new independent proxies allegedly established with the assistance of the IRGC and Hezbollah,” it said.
“Of the other four Iraqi militias, the Abu Fadl al-Abbas Brigade is the most prominent and has been involved in the conflict since the fall of 2012.
“The al-Abbas Brigade’s fighters are a combination of members of Lebanese Hezbollah, Kataeb Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq,” or AAH, a force with a reputed strength of 2,000-3,000.
It operates mainly in southern Damascus, where Shiite fighters are protecting the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad’s granddaughter and one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites.
The Abu Fadl al-Abbas Brigade is reported to have grown considerably in strength, possibly using Iranian gold to swell its ranks, in recent months.
“Its expansion marks a potentially dangerous turn for the region, giving Tehran a transnational Shiite militant legion that it could use to bolster its allies outside Syria,” said Michel Knights, an Iraq expert at the Washington policy institute.
Kataeb Sayyed al-Shuhada is a 200-strong group established in April. It’s led by Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani, aka Hamid al-Sheibani, an Iraqi Shiite warlord who has worked with the al-Quds Force since the late 1980s.
The al-Shuhada group and Liwa Zulfiqar, the Zulfiqar Brigade, also operate in south Damascus.
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