View this message as a web page. Once again, Id like to thank you for your tremendous efforts.You and people like you sent more than 2,600 e-mails to Congress to request cutting funding for additional F-22s, a weapon not even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wanted. Weve made our voices heard.
But Iraq hasnt gone away.Far from it.
Today, June 30, is a national holiday in Iraq.
Many Iraqis believe this is a historic day because today all U.S. combat forces are scheduled to leave Iraqi cities, towns and villages in accordance with the bilateral security agreement signed between the two governments last year.
The American Friends Service Committee believes that the removal of U.S. combat forces is a positive step toward the withdrawal of all US troops. That, we believe, is the strategic and long-term solution to creating a stable, united, and sovereign Iraq.
Today, though, is just one benchmark along the countdown to complete withdrawal.
During the last six years of occupation, Iraq has witnessed both periods of relative calm and cycles of increased violence. Huge challenges lie ahead for the Iraqi people as they work to strengthen the fragile political and security situation.
The Countdown to Withdrawal campaign will continue to follow and assess each benchmark of the agreement. We hope you will continue to help us urge the U.S. government to meet its obligations and responsibilities for a complete withdrawal of all forces.
American Friends Service Committee 1501 Cherry Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 http://www.afsc.org/
Dr. Dahlia Wasfi was born to a Jewish mother and an Iraqi father. She recently put her medical career on hold to visit with family members in Iraq, and recently returned from a three-month stay in Basrah and Baghdad. Dr. Wasfi described her experience in Iraq and discussed the life of Iraqis under occupation on April 27, 2006 in Washington, DC.
Visit http://www.afsc.org/cost to tell Congress how you want your tax dollars spent. The Iraq war has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of U.S. military
personnel. It is also costing $720$ Million dollars each day - dollars that could be spent in much more constructive ways. It is time to DEFUND the war and RE-FUND human needs in the U.S. and Iraq. Get more details about our Cost of War campaign and sign our petition at
- Alex Jones
Prison Planet.com - http://www.prisonplanet.com -
US military wasted taxpayer money in Iraq: report
Posted By admin On June 11, 2009 @ 3:59 am In U.S. News | Comments Disabled
The first audit released by US Congressional Commission of Wartime Contracting reveals that the military has wasted huge sums of its USD $834billion$ budget on contractors.
The 121-page report on security, logistics and renovation contracts indicates that the US government has failed to oversee the defense expenditures it disbursed to key contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report refers to large-scale cases of fraud and mismanagement of contracts during the so-called war on terror which have cost American taxpayers $billions$of dollars.
Michael Thibault, co-Chairperson of the investigating panel told the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs on Wednesday that the disturbing implications go far beyond questions of good management and financial responsibility.
They directly involve our nations ability to achieve policy objectives and provide proper support and protection for our war fighters and civilian employees engaged in contingency operations.
The congressional body records say that over 70 percent of the deals in Iraq have been granted to subcontractors who employ cheap international labor force.
The move obliterates efforts aimed at clarifying the militarys spending, said the commissions co-chairperson Christopher Shays a former Republican congressman from Connecticut.
We dont
have enough people watching the contractors, he noted.
The report adds that the US military spent over $30 million dollars$ on building a single dining facility at Camp Delta in Baghdad, which is to be completed in December 2009. By that time most US troops will have left the country according to an interim US-Iraqi security pact.
The panel registers more instances of irresponsible military spending in Afghanistan including a case in which the Army Corps of Engineers endorsed the construction of a multimillion-dollar project in order to serve as US command center. But the commission reported that many of the headquarters equipment had gone missing.
The auditors assessment drew the ire of US legislators, with some blasting the poor administrative oversight and misuse of public funds.
Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Stephen Lynch said, upon hearing the commission account, that its only happening because its taxpayers dollars.
We cant continue to operate this way in terms of contracts going out without proper accountability standards, he went on to say.
Hundreds of US contractors have employed over 240,000 workers most of them foreign nationals in Iraq in an attempt to rebuild the countrys infrastructure and overhaul its security issues.
The report goes on to say that over 600,000 property items are currently held in US army HQs without proper documentation and maintenance.
Critics allege that the US government under President Barack Obama has done little to curb the fraudulent behavior of army contractors.
Article printed from Alex Jones Prison Planet.com: http://www.prisonplanet.com
URL to article: http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-military-wasted-taxpayer-money-in-iraq-report.html
In his first national broadcast interview, New York Times reporter David Barstow speaks about his 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of the Pentagon propaganda campaign to recruit more than seventy-five retired military officers to appear on TV outlets as military analysts ahead of and during the Iraq war. This week, the Pentagon inspector generals office admitted its exoneration of the program was flawed and withdrew it. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html
Author Susan Galleymores son served in Iraq and Afghanistan. For her latest book, Long Time Passing: Mothers Speak About War and Terror, Galleymore traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, the US, and Israel and the Occupied Territories to interview other mothers about war and its consequences. http://www.mothersspeakaboutwarandterror.org/
Ahead of Mothers Day, we play an excerpt of Robert Greenwalds short film Mother’s Day for Peace. It features a dramatic reading of Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation by Felicity Huffman, Christine Lahti, Fatma Saleh, Ashraf Salimian, Vanessa Williams and Alfre Woodard. http://womenshistory.about.com/od/howejwriting/a/mothers_day.htm
Arise then...women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, For caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, Will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with Our own. It says: Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, Nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil At the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home For a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace... Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God - In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality, May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions, The great and general interests of peace.
If this Gaza War teaches us anything, if the tragic history of wars in the Middle East teaches us anything, it is that when people are determined to obtain weapons and fight, war goes on and solves nothing. Thankfully, both sides have declared unilateral cease-fires even as sporadic violence continues. However, the first moves by President Obama regarding the Middle East signals a paradigm shift. His may be a just peace presidency.
Professor Glen Stassen gives us ten just peace principles: nonviolent direct action; independent initiatives to reduce a threat; cooperative conflict resolution; acknowledge responsibility for conflict and injustice and seek repentance and forgiveness; advance democracy, human rights, and religious liberty; foster just and sustainable economic development; work with cooperative forces in the international system; strengthen the United Nations and international efforts for cooperation and human rights; reduce offensive weapons and weapons trade; encourage grassroots peacemaking groups (Just
Peacemaking: Ten Practices For Abolishing War).
I say these principles
may be grouped into three categories – truth, respect, and security. International cooperation is important to security and to show respect to other nations. In his television interview with Al Arabiya, President Obama sounded these themes. He also spoke of the importance of security for Israel and of economic development and human dignity for the Palestinians.
On truth: He spoke of the importance of the United States to listen to the people directly involved in the conflict. It is important to get to the truth from different perspectives. He said he would formulate a response after Special Envoy George Mitchell reports back to him:
And so what I told him is start by listening because all too often the United States starts by dictating and we don’t always know the factors that are involved. So let’s listen.
On international cooperation:
If we start the steady progress on these issues, I’m absolutely confident that the United States – working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with Arab states in the region – I’m absolutely certain that we can make significant progress.
On regionalism:
I do think it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what’s happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan. These things are interrelated.
On respect:
I think what you’ll
see is somebody who is listening, who is respectful, and who is trying to promote the interests not just of the United States, but also ordinary people who right now are suffering from poverty and the lack of opportunity.
I want to make sure that I’m speaking to them as well.
Life and prosperity, sustenance and joy, are the ends that humanity ought to work toward for
all peoples on the earth. President Obama’s ideas on solving foreign conflicts with negotiation, cooperation, respect, and care for the least may take us a long way toward achieving these goals.
Dr.
Valerie Elverton Dixon is an independent scholar who publishes lectures and essays at JustPeaceTheory.com. She received her Ph.D. in religion and society from Temple University and taught Christian ethics at United Theological Seminary and Andover Newton Theological School.
The Forgiveness Project works at a local, national and international level to help build a future free of conflict and violence by healing the wounds of the past.
By collecting and sharing people’s stories, and delivering outreach programmes, The Forgiveness Project encourages and empowers people to explore the nature of forgiveness and alternatives to revenge.
The Forgiveness Project Registered Charity Number: 1103922 The Forgiveness Project is unaffiliated to any religion or religious entity, and owns the intellectual property rights for all images and text on this website, which should not be reproduced in any shape or form without express permission.Comment Code of Conduct
I will express myself with civility, courtesy, and respect for every member of the Sojourners online community, especially toward those with whom I disagree even if I feel disrespected by them. (Romans 12:17-21)
I will express my disagreements with other community members' ideas without
insulting, mocking, or slandering them personally. (Matthew 5:22)
I will not exaggerate others' beliefs nor make unfounded prejudicial assumptions based on labels, categories, or stereotypes. I will always extend the benefit of the doubt. (Ephesians 4:29)
EARTH MEANDERS: This Memorial Day: Should We Arrest Cheney and Bush, Impeach Obama?
Democratic consumption is an irredeemable political/economic system that has proven itself unable to justly and equitably allow all global citizens to live in peace, abundance and sustainability.
It has been awhile since I have written how U.S. militarism to prop up an unsustainable way of life is destroying both Earth and freedom. As Obama induced "hopenosis" starts wearing off, it is clear that on several key issues -- war, civil liberties and climate change -- we are getting "Bush Lite" policies from President Obama that differ little from his criminal predecessor. Military commissions to try those illegally held for years will occur after all, and some may be held forever without charges. We continue to be spied upon. Obama is escalating the unwinnable war in Afghanistan, and drawing out the criminal occupation of Iraq. Meanwhile the real Earth and society crushing crises of climate change and global ecosystem collapse remain woefully unaddressed. Heil Bush! Heil Obama!
After nearly a decade of criminal rule, America continues under new management to careen forward, wounded and flailing in vain attempts to return to a state of excessive democratic consumption. On the economy, the President has borrowed (stolen?) trillions from our children to rescue a dying industrial and speculative capitalistic shell game built upon usury, greed and unsustainability. And we are getting an inadequate climate change policy that cherry picks token measures to be seen as acting while coddling coal and tar sands which we know must end to survive. America's might makes right, damn the truth and consequences, mind set is destroying civilized society and our one shared Earth.
Democrats and Republicans are two faces of the same imperial American war machine, hell-bent to destroy Earth for one last fix of economic growth. Happiness and meaning is always having more stuff, damn the consequences for the Earth and poor. President Bush is a known war criminal that a truly just, law-abiding, democratic system would bring to justice. Torture, rigged elections, unprovoked illegal and imperial wars, spying on law-abiding citizens -- President or not, these are illegal behaviors. As are the current weak (and orders of magnitude insufficient) climate bill, subsidizing coal and its mountaintop removal mining, and continuing a state of unjustified perma-war when a great nation
and its peoples are going bankrupt -- both financially and morally.
Charge War and Climate Criminals Starting with Cheney, Bush and Further Down the Chain of Command
On this Memorial Day, consider the following. Ex-president Bush (thank Gaia), high ranking associates and some soldiers have substantively violated the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act (penalties which can include death), the international Third Geneva Convention of 1949, and the 1987 UN Torture Convention. For almost a decade, climate science was willfully ignored placing our shared survival at imminent risk.
Why are the war and climate criminals not being charged and their actions undone?
And responsibility for the state of affairs is diffuse and wide-ranging. The Uniform Code of Military
Justice makes clear soldiers have an obligation and a duty to only obey lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey unlawful orders. These include Presidential orders that do not comply with the Code, the constitution and international law. Further, it was established by the U.S. at the WW II Nuremberg war trials that "following orders" is not justification for war crimes. There is no moving forward until we acknowledge that, in fact, many American politicians and soldiers are war criminals -- including Bush and Cheney -- and must be tried for their crimes.
Apparently there are two sets of laws in America, one for the rich ruling elite and their well-armed
minions, and the other for working, thinking men and women. Torture is against the law and immoral. Unprovoked war is against the law and immoral. Spying on your citizens is against the law and immoral. A state of perma-war against
terrorism, which is a tactic and not an enemy, rather than taking coordinated international actions to police terrorism is just plain dumb and ineffective. Rather than fully reversing course and investigating and charging those that broke laws, Obama appears bent upon de facto pardoning and even continuing some of these egregious policies. Thus withers what remains of American ideals.
Obama's Free Ride Is Over: End the Wars, Sufficiently Address Climate Change
It is treacherous and unforgivable that President Obama does not fully support a truth and reconciliation commission. It is up to President Obama to end Bush's holy wars, embrace a foreign policy based upon human rights and ecological sustainability, and make peace not war, in order that we can address the real threats to our security which include unsustainable industrial capitalism and collapsing global ecosystems. There are other choices for governance than a two party system where both find truth anathema, and seek to grow the economy until its ecological foundation crumbles and falls.
It is sadly becoming clear that this Presidency will continue militaristic foreign policy and inadequate token climate policies. The new President has shown his true color, as apologist for the ruling elite's war-mongering, growth machine -- intent upon liquidating ecosystems for endless wealth for the rich and a few token jobs for the rest. The ruling elite and fossil fuel oligarchy find the new management to be perfectly fine, as long as U.S policies of raping the Earth for growth at the point of a gun are maintained.
Like many, I am beginning to question Obama's hopenosis -- the hypnotic rhetoric of change and hope. Either he is committed to undoing Bush's military fascism and Earth destruction, or he is not. You can't half make war or half address climate change. Either your policies are sufficient to bring peace and sustainability, or they are not. Either you uphold American ideals and rule
in a law-abiding manner, or you don't.
If you do not and willingly lead America and the world to ruin, you have in effect abdicated, and lost the legitimacy to rule, including being the only lawful user of political violence. Obama should not yet be impeached, but he had best start living up to his rhetoric and lead strongly on issues of imperial perma-war, civil rights and ecological sustainability; which do not respond well to half-measures and compromise.
Time to Regain Moral Compass, Lead on International Law and Environmental Conventions
It is not the American government's job to keep us safe at the expense of global self-evident truths of freedom, liberty, justice and ecological sustainability. Some 3,000 people died tragically on 9/11. This is the same number of children that die DAILY from preventable dirty water, a problem that could be fixed globally with one-time $25 billion expenditure. Their lives are no less valuable than stockbrokers. America played right into the terrorist's hands with a disproportional, non-nuanced militaristic response which placed our economy and commitment to social and ecological issues at stake.
So what to do now? Wage war endlessly, killing hundreds of thousands in retribution, without setting up legitimate long-term international institutions to stop terrorism and the exploitation and military adventurism which are its causes? It is time to gain some perspective and move on to climate change, water scarcity, extreme poverty, ocean and land ecosystem collapse, sustainable jobs and the myriad of other emerging and merging ecological and social crisis that truly threaten all of our very beings. Earth is dying and America is still immersed in vengeance for past U.S. foreign policy blowback.
Virtually the only chance to address these looming global ecological and social crises is to sue for peace, negotiate global military demobilization (as was the norm before
the World Wars), dismantle the military industrial growth complex, and divert these resources towards energy conservation, efficiency, renewable energy, and equitable sustainable development. It is unfathomable that billions live on under $2/day while good portions of the rest are obese and remain dissatisfied with their material lot in life. There can be no lasting peace or ecological sustainability until there is more just and equitable sharing of Earth's bounty.
It is better that America lives up to its ideals of liberty and freedom -- the only thing that truly does make America exceptional -- and have a slightly higher chance of a terrorist act occurring, than become a barricaded nation of affluence for awhile longer on a crumbling Planet. It is not our wasteful standard of living that makes America great, it is the belief that all men and women are created equal and free. Should that be jettisoned to protect ourselves
from vicious, lunatic religious thugs? The way forward is commitment to international laws, universal disarmament and a sustainable Earth for all her creatures and peoples.
It will be difficult if not impossible to bring an over-populated and inequitable consumption plagued world into a state of long-term global ecological sustainability. There can be no lasting security unless America sheds its militarism and once again engages in global measures to establish sufficient international law and environmental protections. It is not military power or excessive lifestyles that make America exceptional, it is our flawed yet dogged advancement of the ideals of freedom, liberty and justice; without which there is nothing special in the American dream.
Don't you dare tell me I don't love my country. I am a true blooded, liberty loving American (including the sometimes ugly part) through and through. I just love being -- the Earth and all her creatures and peoples -- more. We are all one human family and these false national, tribal divisions are relicts of a bygone era. Enlightened global citizens know we are all one human family on a fragile, collapsing Earth habitat. We will fully commit to peace, freedom and sustainability, including a possible Earth uprising if all else fails; or we will all share a horrific ride together, at each other's throat, towards global self-immolation. Clearly America and world's political economy is failing both Earth and freedom.
Posted by Dr. Glen Barry on May 23, 2009 11:51 AM | More on war clmate crimes
Dennis Gilman's account
of Joe Arpaio's car wash raid, and an interview with one of Arpaio's littlest victims.
This Saturday, while real cops were out hunting down murderers, rapists, burglars, and so on, Sheriff
Joe Arpaio -- true to his nickname, "Nickel Bag Joe" -- was at Lindstrom Family Auto Wash in Phoenix as his thugs with badges chased down immigrants and non-immigrants working there, corralled them like animals, and sifted through them until they had those they wanted to arrest. The total haul, according to media reports, was around 14 souls.
Participating in the raid on this family business were members of Sheriff Joe's 160-deputy force, trained by the feds under ICE's infamous 287(g) program. 287(g)-trained officers such as the MCSO's Sergeant Brett "Shut Up" Palmer and Lieutenant Joe Souza -- both
known for their invidious remarks directed at elected officials -- were present, along with numerous other junior G-men, and members of Arpaio's alter kocker army (a.k.a,, the sheriff's posse).
Most arrested were booked into custody under forgery charges, charges that may end up getting dropped if those arrested sign off on voluntary removal from the U.S., or roll over and testify against their employers.
Fourteen people means fourteen breadwinners, of course. One of the families ruthlessly crushed was that of nine-year-old American citizen Catherine Figueroa, whose testimony was captured on film by pro-immigrant activist Dennis Gilman. Both Catherine's mom Sandra, and her dad Carlos, were collared. She saw her father on TV zip-tied.
"I never knew this would happen," said the girl, who begins fourth grade this year.
Later, when asked what she would tell President Obama if she could, she tearfully asked for his assistance.
"I would tell him to help
us," she cried. "I want to get my parents back."
She also noted that one of the President's daughters is close to her age. Indeed, Natasha Obama, Obama's youngest, recently turned eight.
Catherine is an only child,
and is now being cared for her by her grandmother. As those booked were done so on state charges, you might argue that Arpaio could have done the raid without his
ICE-trained
gendarmes. Yet, he did in fact use his 287(g) men during the car wash bust.
That means the federal government's fingerprints are on this raid. Barack Obama's fingerprints
are on this raid.
Recently, I
described the visit to Phoenix of a self-important White House staffer by the name of Carlos Odio, who spoke with Hispanic leaders at El Portal restaurant a couple of weeks ago. Essentially, he informed the assembled
not to turn blue waiting for the Obama administration to do anything significant about immigration reform. As for Arpaio's 287(g) authority, which could be suspended with a snap of DHS secretary Janet
Napolitano's fingers, Obama's peeps are doing nothing fast.
Back when Lyndon Baines Johnson was President, and African-Americans were being denied their
civil rights by local sheriffs, he ordered a reluctant J. Edgar Hoover to act. In the midst of the civil rights struggle, Johnson famously told both houses of Congress that, "We shall overcome." And overcame they eventually
did.
Similarly, during Obama's 2008 campaign, our now President borrowed a phrase from Cesar Chavez and the UFW, "Si, se puede," which Obama offered up as, "Yes, we can." But as Hispanics in this country continue to suffer at the hands of tin-pot tyrants with 287(g) power, Obama's commitment to that phrase must be questioned. His administration's cynical, laissez-faire attitude to those hell-bent on
cleansing neighborhoods, cities, and states of all the brown they can is painful to observe.
Sure, there are investigations, and investigations of investigations, and that is fine. But children such as Catherine need the Obama administration to act, and act now. Not two or three years from now.
House
Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr., Democrat from Michigan. Why doesn't Arizona have someone like Conyers -- someone with huevos -- representing us?
(I called
Congressman Conyers' office, and a staffer there confirmed that Conyers is scheduled to be at the event. I also put in a call to Supervisor Wilcox's office, where her Chief of Staff said Wilcox is in D.C., but was unsure about the event itself.)
But a letter, no matter how well-publicized is one thing. Media events such as this one raise the issue's profile considerably, help garner national press coverage, and embolden other politicians and activists when it comes to going after Arpaio.
Also scheduled to be at the event are Arizona ACORN leader Alicia Navejar, Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (you know, the folks who helped organize Phoenix's massive anti-Arpaio march), and Raquel Teran of the Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability, the group that's been bird-dogging the Board of Supervisors for the last year or so over Arpaio's misdeeds.
Below is the press release from the pro-immigrant organization America's Voice for the Arpaio-lashing tomorrow. How much money you wanna bet that Joe and his PR flunkies cook up some stunt locally -- maybe even a sweep or a raid -- to try and divert attention from the Conyers event? That would be standard operating procedure for the MCSO, after all.
** Wednesday, March 11 at 1:00PM **
National and Local Leaders Join Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren in Calling for Investigation of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Washington, DC - On Wednesday, March 11th, leaders from Arizona and across the nation will join U.S. Representatives John Conyers (D-MI) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), as well as other members of the House Judiciary Committee, to deliver a petition calling on the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to investigate Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the controversial Sheriff of Maricopa County, AZ. Under a banner reading "Americans United to Defend Civil Rights," the leaders will present over 35,000 petition signatures that have been gathered to date.
Over 2,700 lawsuits have been filed against Arpaio, including repeated allegations of civil rights violations. Recently, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers, Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Lofgren, Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) sent a letter to the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security calling for an investigation into allegations of misconduct by Arpaio. And last week over 5,000 activists from around the nation marched in protest of Arpaio's tactics. The situation has sparked a nationwide outcry and become a tragic symbol of the wrong approach to immigration law enforcement.
WHAT: National Leaders Present Petition on Capitol Hill, Call for Investigation of Sheriff Arpaio
WHO: U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-MI), Chairman, House Judiciary Committee, U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Chairwoman, House Immigration Subcommittee, Mary Rose Wilcox,
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Gustavo Torres, Executive Director of CASA de Maryland, Pablo Alvarado, President of National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Alicia Navejar, ACORN Leader from Arizona, Raquel Teran, Project Director
for Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability
Arpaio's peculiar pathology is that he persists in his folly, no matter how wantonly self-destructive. Already, Maricopa County's top cop has kissed off the $1.2$million contract with the town, wasted $20,000 on a Guadalupe sweep that further alienated townspeople from the MCSO, and garnered himself probes by the FBI, and, if the New York Times has its way, a congressional committee.
Arpaio's sweep in Guadalupe has also forced the hand of Arizona's notoriously milquetoast governor. Governor Napolitano didn't completely acknowledge that Guadalupe was a factor in her recent decision to pull $1.6$ million in immigration funds from Arpaio's coffers. But during her regular Wednesday press conference not long after the costly slap in the face to her former ally, Arpaio, she made this slippery, legalistic statement:
"To the extent that the sheriff was using state money to fund sweeps that were causing trepidation in the immigration community, that state money will no longer be available."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to stick by Arpaio, who has 160 federally trained 287(g) officers under a Memorandum of Agreement with ICE, but sometimes even ICE hedges its bets. ICE spokesman Vinnie Picard recently pointed out that ICE had nothing to do with the stops and arrests that the MCSO was making under state law.
"We have no oversight of how [the] Maricopa County Sheriff's Office conducts its state authority," Picard said.
Arpaio's response to it all has ranged from sounding hurt to appearing outright psychotic. It's forced him into damage-control mode: having his PR staff schedule long Q&As with local dailies, set up appearances on Sunday-evening radio shows to curry favor with moderates, seek donations from well-wishers to make up the $1.6$million the governor just ripped from his department's budget.
All so he can continue hunting Hispanics.
Even the MCSO's foray into Arpaio's backyard white-bread-money-suv Fountain Hills (where deputies managed to scrape up 16 suspected illegals in two days by halting nearly every old truck with landscaping equipment in it during the morning hours) was tailor-made to refute the contention that Arpaio goes only into brown areas like Guadalupe Though Arpaio's troops continued their sweep the next day, going so far as to menace a confirmation ceremony for parish children at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic church Hispanic-hunting with a low-profile operation. (Guadalupe Poverty Mexican-American or Native American Christianity taught Yaquis by Jesuit priests with their native religion)
borderlands country of Arizona and Sonora without encountering images of the Yaqui deer dancer.
Fixed in bronze and larger than life, he stands as a public monument in Ciudad Obregon., even the official seal of the state of Sonora feature his image. Yet even when he cavorts wildly in the interpretive motions of one folk dance troupe or another, he is mute. What speaks are the political and economic motives that cluster around him. He is the aboriginal connection of the politicians, the romantic lure of the ad man, the borderlands equivalent, in many ways, to the warbonneted Plains Indian horseman of the wild west.
To all Yaqui Indian people, the deer dancer is little brother, and when he dances for them he has a voice. The voice speaks to all who attend a deer dance through the songs to which the dancer moves. The songs of the deer singer are the voice of the deer. In them, as one deer singer puts it, he does not talk, but he talks in an enchanted way.
"We don't go into certain neighborhoods, like people accuse me of doing, like the mayor of Phoenix [accuses him of doing]," the sheriff told reporters on the first day of the Fountain Hills operation. "We go everywhere!"
But Arpaio wouldn't have gone to Fountain Hills if it hadn't been for Guadalupe blowing up in his face. Nor would he have paused his anti-immigrant sweeps for four weeks. Or hesitated to march into Mesa and stick it to the Hispanic community there.
Whatever the precise reason, like a sandlot bully faced with actual fisticuffs, Arpaio did slink away. And the backpedaling didn't stop there. Arpaio had previously told reporters that the anti-immigrant sweeps would be weekly events.
In Sheriff Joe
Arpaio's world, justice is trampled every day. Now, if you are an immigrant detainee, you could find yourself marching in chains to segregated "Tent Cities" in the Arizona desert, surrounded by electric fencing. Well, together
with the House Judiciary Committee and a wide range of organizations, we're shouting, "Not so fast!" People from all across the country are speaking out against Arpaio's blatant civil and human rights violations.
Here's the great news: along with our friends at United Farm Workers, the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, NDLON, and more, we have already collected 8,000 petition signatures for Attorney General Eric Holder, demanding an investigation into Joe's horrific tactics. Only 2,000 signatures are left to reach the goal of 10,000 by the first week of March.
Watch a brand-new video about Sheriff Joe, sign the petition, and forward to your friends and family now:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Together, let's show this backward Sheriff what justice really means: http://www.SheriffJoeMustGo.com
So yet again the people of the virtual-concentration camp, known officially as 'Gaza', are being bombarded from the sky and from the ground by the bully-boys of Tel Aviv.
State-of-the art Israeli jets and tanks, paid for by the United States, strike civilian targets in this tragic, poverty-stricken wasteland which acts as a holding camp for the human beings the Israeli government would rather be dead.
The world watches as a nation of people, the Palestinians, is systematically crushed and destroyed by the tyrants who call the shots in Israel on behalf of that country's real power structure - the House of Rothschild.
And, taxpayers of America (and elsewhere), you are paying for this calculated slaughter.
The Palestinian 'territories' of Gaza and the West Bank
American aid to Israel accounts for something like a third of all US overseas aid when Israel is home to just .001 per cent of the global population and has one of the highest incomes per head in the world. This is without all the 'private' donations from US corporations and individuals which are tax-deductible even when given to the Israeli military, unlike any other foreign power.
According to 2007 figures, the United States government gave more than $6.8$ million to wealthy Israel every day while to the desperate and devastated Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank they gave just $300,000$.
US military 'aid' to Israel increased by more than a quarter to an average $3$ billion a year in 2007 - a figure guaranteed for ten years. This and other support makes Israel the biggest recipient of United States foreign military funding since the Second World War.
The United States is also Israel's biggest supplier of fighter planes, weapons and other military technology. As a result, Israel has the world's largest F-16 fleet outside the US Air Force. In their book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt write:
'Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140$ billion in 2003 dollars.
Israel receives about $3$ billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America's entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.'
Why do they do this? Because the House of Rothschild controls Israel and the House of Rothschild controls the political system of the United States. The network that links the two is called 'Zionism', a Rothschild creation - just like Israel itself.
The might of this Zionist cabal spanning Israel, the United States, Europe and beyond is yet again, like the playground bully that it is, attacking the little kid in the callipers - the people of Gaza.
At the time of writing the death toll is more than 800 Palestinian men, women and children with thousands injured, many disabled for life. They are bombing the unarmed innocent knowing there will be no credible response - the way all bullies operate. Oh, brave men of Israel; oh how Yahweh would be so proud:
'When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy.'
Deuteronomy 7:1-4
What we are seeing in Gaza, and have seen so many times, both there and in the Lebanon, is merciless Old Testament slaughter: cold, calculated, heartless slaughter.
'So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. "This is what you are to do," they said. "Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin".'
Judges 21:10-24
'Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all - old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple".'
Ezekiel 9:5-7
'So they began by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were told.'
Ezekiel 9:5-7
The parallels are endless between the bloodthirsty 'God' of the Old Testament and the actions of the heartless, soulless, Artificial Intelligence that controls Israel, most notably the biological robots of the House of Rothschild who thus have no soul, no empathy, no more mercy for the consequences of their actions than a desktop computer.
Imagine if Iran or anyone else outside Israel and the United States (both Rothschild assets) was doing what the Israeli military is doing in Gaza. There would be global condemnation, not least from Israel and the United States, resolutions passed in the UN Security Council fiercely attacking the country involved and talk of the need for sanctions or military intervention to 'save the innocent'.
But when Israel does it we have vacuous calls for a truce, an end to the violence while 'understanding Israel's position', and, in terms of soon-to-be President 'Change' Obama, silence. It's all a fraction of what others would face because Israel is a wholly-owned asset of the Rothschilds and so is not subject to the same rules as anyone else. As former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said:
'Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.'
And Prime Minister Golda Meir betrayed the same Zionist arrogance:
'This country exists as the fulfilment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.'
Ah, it's all in the Old Testament? Gotcha, right, well do as you like then.
The 'Jewish homeland' was from the start a Rothschild fiefdom orchestrated through the global secret society network of interbreeding families known as the Illuminati.
During the Israeli military attacks on the Lebanon in 2006, the Israeli writer, Barry Chamish, told of a meeting with Evelyn Rothschild's grandson, who abandoned the family to be a Mormon (so actually he didn't, even if he thought he did).
Chamish said he learned that just seven families were enjoying the 'fruits of the war' with the Lebanon. The grandson had said of the Rothschilds: 'They created Israel as their personal toy. It makes them richer and gives them more control. It's not going to be destroyed.'
The Rothschilds funded the early European settlers in Israel, manipulated events in Germany that led to the horrific treatment of Jewish people and others, and then used that as the excuse to reach their long-term goal - a Rothschild-Illuminati stronghold in Palestine using the Jewish population as fodder to be used and abused as necessary. <
They called their plan 'Zionism'. This term is often used as a synonym for Jewish people when it is actually a political movement devised and promoted through the House of Rothschild and opposed by many Jews.
Poster for the Irgun terrorist group
The Israeli bully-boys spend most of their time condemning the terrorism of others and yet their very State was created through terrorism of the most grotesque kind via groups like Irgun, Haganah and the Stern Gang, which bombed and terrorised Israel into being and from which came the Israel Defence Forces, the IDF, which is bombing Gaza today.
Among the leading lights in these and other terrorist groups were Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Ariel Sharon, butchers who became Israeli Prime Ministers and had the nerve to condemn Arab terrorism. And to this day the butchery goes on with the goal of destroying the Palestinian people.
After the Rothschild-controlled Zionist terrorists had bombed the State of Israel into existence in 1948, an estimated 800,000 Palestinians were made refugees and fled what had been their own country. Their descendents are said to number some four million.
And the world simply looked on - just as it does to this day - because Israel is a law unto itself and so terms like justice, fairness, decency and mercy do not apply.
Palestinian families fleeing the newly-imposed Israel after their country was occupied by Zionist terrorism in 1948.
The idea was always to destroy the Palestinian people step-by-step long before Israel was even created. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the Rothschild-controlled British government supported the establishment of a 'Jewish' homeland in Palestine, said that 'nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine'.
But the Rothschild sidekick Chaim Weizmann would later say: 'With regard to the Arab question - the British told us that there are several hundred thousand Negroes there but this is a matter of no consequence'. Nor have they been ever since and the goal of destroying them is closer today than ever before.
The first Prime Minister of Israel, yet another terrorist called David Ben-Gurion, made no secret of this fact within his inner circle. Former Israel Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said in an uncensored version of his memoirs, published in the New York Times on 23 October 23rd, 1979:
'We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question - What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said "Drive them out!"'
The current bombing campaign against the Gaza Palestinians is just the latest step to that end. They have forced Palestinians into a Gaza Strip that is little more than a massive concentration camp in which they control all that goes in and out, people or supplies of food, medicines and other essentials.
When the Israelis close the border posts, that's it, the Palestinians are trapped and at the mercy of the soulless and heartless that control the Tel Aviv government and military under Rothschild direction.
One writer recently described conditions in Gaza:
' ... Israel nails shut the coffin that is Gaza under a siege that has lasted nearly three years, steadily intensifying so that malnutrition rates rival those of sub-Saharan Africa, sewage runs raw in the streets and pollutes the ocean, homes are still being bulldozed to super-add collective punishment upon collective punishment; men, women and children are still being sniped at and killed; children are deafened by continuing sonic booms, the vast majority of them suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, and many of that majority have no ambition other than becoming "martyrs" ...'
And it's a whole lot worse now.
How can anyone inflict such a lack of mercy on an entire people? The question can only be answered when we understand that Zionist extremists really do believe they are God's Chosen People and that therefore the Palestinians are little more than cattle.
The Israel Prime Minister and terrorist, Menachem Begin, described the Palestinians in a speech to the Israeli parliament as 'beasts walking on two legs'. Another Prime Minister and terrorist, Yitzhak Shamir, told Jewish settlers in 1988 that the Palestinians 'would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls.'
Prime Minister and terrorist, Ariel Sharon, then Israeli Foreign Minister, confirmed in 1998 what the plan really was for the Palestinians:
'It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialisation, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.'
The plan is to kill or drive out the Palestinian people using poverty, hunger and war and so allow the Zionists to expand into 'Greater Israel'. That plan is now well advanced.
In early 2008, the United Nations' leading humanitarian affairs official said he was 'shocked' by the 'grim and miserable' conditions in Gaza. Undersecretary General John Holmes blamed this on Israel closing the border crossings and so limiting the supply of food and other materials - just as they are doing today.
He said: 'All this makes for a grim human and humanitarian situation here in Gaza, which means that people are not able to live with the basic dignity to which they are entitled'.
But they are just 'beasts walking on two legs', right?
Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the occupied territories, has also condemned Israel for its actions in Gaza. He is Jewish and therefore much more dangerous to the Israel government because he can't be dismissed as the old favourite 'anti-Semitic'. Or maybe he is a 'self-hater', the tag given by these sick people to those Jews who speak out against Israel.
Falk's punishment for daring to criticise the Promised Land as a UN official was to be held for 20 hours and then denied entry to the country and so he is prevented from doing his job of reporting on conditions for the Palestinian people during the current air and ground attacks.
The Bush administration for the last eight years has been dominated by the Neo-conservative, or 'Neocon', network which is, itself, dominated by US/Israeli duel citizens and/or Zionists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Dov Zackheim, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Elliot Abrams, Douglas Feith, John Bolton, Robert B Zoellick, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others. The neo-con godfather is the late Leo Strauss, a German-born Jewish 'philosopher', who believed that people must be governed by a 'pious elite'.
But surely those days of Zionist dominance are over because 'Mr. Change' is coming to 'power' now. Er, if only. Barack Obama has packed his 'new' administration with Zionists like Rahm Emanuel, his White House Chief of Staff. Rahm_Emanuel
Emanuel's father, Benjamin, is a Zionist extremist who was a member of the Irgun terrorist group in Palestine that I mentioned earlier and we can clearly expect the Obama administration to be balanced and fair on its Israel/Palestinian policy. No wonder Obama has kept quiet on the Israeli bombing of Gaza.
Obama speaks out on Gaza crisis: 'Hey, I got nothin' to say, I got the chance of a par here ... ask my Chief of Staff, he's a rabid Zionist and his dad helped bomb Israel into existence. He'll know what's goin' on.'
The Obama government is going to be slavishly pro-Israel because he needed the sanction of the truly massive Zionist lobby in the United States to secure the presidency. His vice-president, Joe Biden, is a long-time bag-carrier for Israel. He said on Israeli television: 'I am a Zionist - you don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist'. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is another Israel puppetess who pledged to 'obliterate' Iran if it launched a nuclear attack on God's chosen country.
Would she say she would obliterate Israel if it launched a nuclear attack on Iran? No way.
The Palestinians have never had a chance because the table is weighted, the game is rigged and it always has been. At the time of the First World War, the Rothschild-controlled British government told the Palestine Arabs that if they fought the Ottoman Turks and forced them to leave Palestine and other lands they would be rewarded with an independent Palestine.
The Palestinian Arabs agreed and with support from the British through Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence - 'Lawrence of Arabia' - the Ottoman Empire was defeated. But their reward was not independence. It was first rule by a British 'Mandate' and then occupation by Zionist Israel.
The Arabs were lied to, as Lawrence later admitted, and they have been lied to ever since. All these 'road maps' and 'peace processes' are always designed to lead nowhere. They are just holding positions to maintain the status quo until the Palestinians are basically no more.
The Israelis always say they are killing people in 'retaliation' for attacks by the Palestinian group, Hamas, which officially controls the Gaza 'authority', although control is hardly the word with Israel deciding what and who goes in and out.
Hamas operatives are firing seriously low-tech rockets that have so far killed four people. Terrible, yes, and it should not be happening. I have no brief for Hamas, which is another tyranny in its own way, but ask yourself this: What would you do if you were faced with the situation the Palestinians are in after sixty years of oppression and persecution while the world does nothing?
If you remove the injustice, you remove the motivation for a violent response to that injustice. Put people in a position where they either accept their pathetic plight or open fire and some are bound to choose the latter.
But instead of tackling the root cause, injustice, Israel responds with a state-of-the-art bombardment that kills more than 800 and injures thousands in a few days, at least 90% of which are men, women and children who have nothing whatsoever to do with the rocket attacks. In 2007, 25 Palestinians were killed for every Israeli. That's more than just 'protecting yourself'.
As Jewish UN representative, Richard Falk, said in the last two weeks even before the ground offensive:
'The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war ...
Those violations include:
Collective punishment: The entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.
Targeting civilians: The airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.
Disproportionate military response: The airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.'
This savagery towards Palestinians has been going on since the Zionist terror groups began their campaign of violence to secure the State of Israel and the scale of this ongoing evil has often been suppressed by the fear of being called 'anti-Semitic'.
The Rothschild dynasty has created a highly-funded network of 'anti-hate' groups, like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and so many others, to label as 'anti-Semitic' or 'racist' anyone who dares to expose or condemn Israel or its networks of manipulation within the United States and elsewhere.
Politicians (though all but are a few are terrified or rewarded into silence), university professors, people like me, and anyone with any kind of public stage, are immediately condemned by the ADL and smeared as 'racist' with support from the Robot Radicals of the Robot 'Left' if they expose Israel or anyone who happens to be Jewish.
The irony of those claiming to be the chosen people and above all others accusing anyone else of racism boggles the bloody mind.
Jewish people who challenge the tyranny, like the superb NormanFinkelstein, are dubbed 'self-haters' and often lose their jobs and livelihoods as a result. The Rothschild 'anti-hate' groups put any Big Brother to shame.
But we can't - and MUST NOT - stay silent on the plight of the Palestinians because we fear the consequences for ourselves. What are we, mice??
This is not about racism; it is about fascism and the daily onslaught against a helpless and tragic people. I don't give a shit what the ADL thinks about what I say, nor those on the 'Left' who parrot its propaganda like the juveniles that they are.
It needs saying and therefore someone needs to say it.
And, by the way, those that are running the Zionist agenda, which is part of much bigger global agenda in league with the Illuminati families, don't give a damn for Jewish people in general. They, too, are just an expendable irrelevance to the greater goal.
As the first Israeli Prime Minister, the terrorist, David Ben-Gurion, said:
'If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.'
What kind of sick mind does it take to say that? The kind that has run Israel since 1948 would appear to be the answer.
We need to drop the ludicrous, childish, labels of Jew and Gentile and Muslim and all this illusory crap and come together in the name of peace and justice for all. There is not a Jewish injustice or a Palestinian injustice, there is simply injustice. Justice for one and no justice for another is 'justice' for no-one. For justice has no meaning unless it applies to all, and it will never apply to the Palestinians while the world stays silent and looks the other way. The Dangerous Terrorists In Gaza
Denny Carr, MFA
Photographer and Video Artist
BIKE !!!! hase lepus trike (stroke-paralysis)
age 61 eco-friendly no-car
"I am a stroke survivor and deal daily with a speech disorder called Aphasia. This disorder is a result of my stroke in 2005. I am thankful God has given me the ability to express myself through my images and films." For more information, visit these websites: http://www.azimagery.com/
EXCLUSIVE...Pentagon Pundits: New York Times Reporter David Barstow Wins Pulitzer Prize for Exposing Military's Pro-War Propaganda Media Campaign
).
Dr.
It has been awhile since I have written how U.S. militarism to prop up an unsustainable way of life is destroying both Earth and freedom. As Obama induced "hopenosis" starts wearing off, it is clear that on several key issues -- war, civil liberties and climate change -- we are getting "Bush Lite" policies from President Obama that differ little from his criminal predecessor. Military commissions to try those illegally held for years will occur after all, and some may be held forever without charges. We continue to be spied upon. Obama is escalating the unwinnable war in Afghanistan, and drawing out the criminal occupation of Iraq. Meanwhile the real Earth and society crushing crises of climate change and global ecosystem collapse remain woefully unaddressed. Heil Bush! Heil Obama!
House
what-you-fight-you-become-david-icke
Posts
31 comment(s) / Post
a Comment
news/guadalupe-made-it-clear-that-joe-arpaio-s-attacking-anyone-with-brown-skin