Saturday, August 22, 2009

Joint Strike Fighter and $billions of dollars$ for a new presidential helicopter

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/

Mr. Obama told the group he has put an end to unnecessary no-bid contracts, reformed defense procurement "so weapons systems don't spin out of control" and proposed cutting tens of billions of dollars in projects he said were not needed. He referred specifically to the F-22 fighter jets, plans for a new engine for the Joint Strike Fighter and $billions of dollars$ for a new presidential helicopter that he has opposed in recent spending bills on Capitol Hill.

The Obama Administration and the Americas: A Promising Start

http://www.twq.com/

Abraham F. Lowenthal is professor of international relations at the University of Southern California, a nonresident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, president emeritus of the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the founding director of the Inter-American Dialogue.

Because the new administration of President Barack Obama inherited the most demanding agenda, both at home and abroad, that any U.S. government has faced in many decades, few observers expected that it would devote much attention to U.S. relations with Latin America and the Caribbean.

None of the countries of the Americas presents an imminent threat to U.S. national security. None is likely to be the source or target of significant international terrorism. With so much else to attend to, the Obama administration might well have relegated Latin America to the distant backburner. Yet, during its first months, the Obama administration has taken an active interest in Latin American and Caribbean affairs. As president-elect, Obama met with only one foreign leader: Felipe Caldero´n of Mexico.

His first Camp David foreign visitor was President Luiz Ina´cio (Lula) da Silva of Brazil. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s first official meeting with a foreign head of state was with Prime Minister Rene´ Preva´l of Haiti. Vice President Joseph Biden visited both Chile and Central America in March. Clinton, Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen, Attorney General Eric Holder, and

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano all visited Mexico during the administration’s first three months, ahead of a visit to Mexico by Obama himself. The administration announced new initiatives toward Cuba early in April, and then followed up with exploratory conversations with Cuban officials to discuss the prospects for improved relations between the two countries.

And Obama participated effectively
in the Fifth Summit of the Americas in mid-April, winning praise throughout Latin America and the Caribbean for his adroit role there. Why has the new administration taken such a strong initial interest in Latin America and the Caribbean?

What are the premises, principles, and priorities for the Obama administration in the Americas? What should be its next steps?

$US Drug War Money Funded Peru Indigenous Massacre

By Kristin Bricker, The Narcosphere - Tuesday, June 23 2009

The US government trained the police department that participated in the operation and invested "heavily" in the killer helicopters

On June 5, the Peruvian National Police massacred up to fifty unarmed Awajún and Wampi indigenous people in Bagua who had blockaded roads in protest of land reforms. (Photo: Thomas Quirynen)On
June 5, the Peruvian National Police massacred up to fifty unarmed Awajún and Wampi indigenous people in Bagua who had blockaded roads in protest of land reforms. (Photo: Thomas Quirynen)On June 5, the Peruvian National Police (PNP) massacred up to fifty unarmed Awajún and Wampi indigenous people in Bagua who had blockaded roads in protest of land reforms related to a recently implemented US-Peru free trade agreement. Witnesses report that the PNP shot live ammunition from the ground, rooftops, and police helicopters. Anywhere between 61-400 people are reported missing following the attack.

Narco News has discovered that US drug war money is all over the massacre. The US government has not only spent the past two decades funding the helicopters used in the massacre, it also trained the PNP in "riot control."

The Peruvian National Police

The Peruvian National Police
is a militarized police force and Peru's only national police force, meaning that Peru lacks a civilian federal police force. For this reason, the militarized PNP carries out regular policing functions in Peru, such as maintaining the peace and providing public security. Furthermore, "Counternarcotics operations in Peru are implemented primarily through the Ministry of the Interior by the Peruvian National Police," according to the US Government Accounting Office (GAO, now known as the Government Accountability Office). For this reason, the PNP receives a significant chunk of US drug war aid to Peru.

Basic details of the Bagua massacre such as exactly which police departments participated and how many indigenous protesters died remain unavailable two weeks after the massacre. Peru's La Primera newspaper--the only news outlet to provide information on specific police departments that participated in the massacre--writes, "The police operation was carried out by about 600 armed police from the Dinoes [Special Operations Department] and from the Anti-Drugs Department (DINANDRO), who shot head-on at protesters' bodies." Dinoes and DINANDRO are two forces within the Peruvian National Police.

Of particular interest is the participation of the anti-drugs police force, known as DINANDRO in its Spanish abbreviation. Between 2002 and 2007, the United States spent over $79 million$ on the PNP. 2002-2004 funds were for "training and field exercises to enhance the capabilities
of DIRANDRO to conduct basic road and riverine exercises, as well as to provide security for eradication teams in outlying areas. These enhanced law enforcement efforts will require additional vehicles, communications, field gear, emergency/safety reaction gear, and drug detector canines." In 2007, the US government's funding for the DIRANDRO was expanded to "enhance the capabilities of DIRANDRO to conduct advanced road interdiction, riot control, greater security for eradication teams, and interdiction in hard-core areas." [emphasis added]. In 2007 the US government also debuted the first of at least
four "Pre-Police Schools" for students that have completed secondary school education (that is, these schools are an alternative to high school). The "Pre-Police Schools" are free and designed to recruit and train young people to be members of the PNP.Counterinsurgency

As Peru became further militarized under the pretense of the drug war, the $US State Department justified its $2008 budget request for Peru by noting, "The major change in the FY 2008 police program will be the requirement to support a much-enlarged presence of the Peruvian National Police anti-drug police (DIRANDRO) in the coca growing valleys." While the region in which the massacre occurred is not by any means a major coca-growing region, it is certainly on the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's (UNODC) map (PDF file--see page 192).

The US government has a propensity to fund "anti-narcotics" operations in rebellious territory, which is then used, either overtly (note the DIRANDRO's US-provided training in riot control) or covertly, to fund counterinsurgency operations. The mere mention of the region on the UNODC's coca cultivation map combined with the presence of indigenous resistance organizations practically assures a military-police build-up in the region. In fact, a 1991 GAO report stated, "The [Peruvian] executive branch policy is to use counternarcotics aid against drug traffickers and insurgent groups linked to the drug trade....we believe the policy is reasonable." The GAO report goes on to say:

"Of the 702 police trained for counternarcotics purposes since 1989, only about 56 per cent were from units having a counternarcotics mission. The remaining 44 per cent were from police units having a primary mission of counterinsurgency. These units include the Sinchis and the Departamento de Operaciones Especiales [Dinoes, who also participated in the massacre]....In December 1990, the State Department instructed the Embassy that it could not train certain types of units, including the Departamento de Operaciones Especiales, because they were not directly involved in counternarcotics missions. Despite this notification, the Narcotics Affairs Section provided training to 32 personnel who should not have been trained; these 32 made up almost 14 per cent of the total number of police trained after the instruction was issued. According to section officials, providing special operations forces with training would help US efforts to solicit their support for future operations.... Although police from the Sinchis and the Departamento de Operaciones Especiales may perform some counternarcotics operations, their primary mission is recognized to be counterinsurgency."

While the GAO report is from the Fujimori era, the right wing presidents that followed him have done little to rectify past wrongs. One of the more blatant examples of this fact is Peru's amnesty law that protects dirty war criminals. Furthermore, current Peruvian
President Alan Garcia is currently serving his second non-consecutive term; he served his first term in 1985-1990, when Peru's dirty war was in full swing. The Garcia administration has always been characterized by massacres in the face of social unrest: the current president presided over the Accomarca massacre in August 1985 (47-74 dead peasants), the Cayara massacre in May 1988 (about thirty dead and more disappeared), and various
prison riots in which over 200 inmates were executed.

Unfortunately, Garcia's massacre of the Awajún and Wampi indigenous peoples at the Bagua blockade is only the latest in a series. Garcia himself seems entirely unrepentant regarding the latest massacre, reportedly calling the indigenous organizations that participated in the Bagua blockade "ignorant" and relying on typical racist arguments to downplay the indigenous movement. Implying that indigenous people are incapable of thinking for themselves and making their own decisions regarding their well-being, he told press that the indigenous organizations were being manipulated by foreign leftist forces.

Helicopters

Witnesses to the Bagua massacre claim that police fired tear gas and live ammunition from police helicopters. The helicopters, Russian-made Mi-17s, were not purchased with $US dollars, but US drug war money$ has maintained them for years.

As part of the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, a George H.W. Bush program that spawned the infamous Plan Colombia, the US government undertook the task of upgrading Peru's fleet of police aircraft. Peru's La Republica reported that the US government aimed to upgrade the PNP's entire fleet. The US began providing funds for Peru's aircraft under the auspices of counternarcotics efforts in 1988.

In 2004, the US government provided "funding for pilots, aircrews, and support personnel for 15 USG-owned UH-1H helicopters and 14 Peruvian Mi-17 helicopters," the latter being the same type of helicopter used in the Bagua massacre. Given that US foreign aid can be delayed for several years before it arrives in the recipient country, it is within the realm of possibility that the US government funded the pilots and crew that were in the Mi-17s that were allegedly used to murder indigenous Peruvians in Bagua.

In 2007,
the State Department mentioned the Mi-17s amongst other PNP aircraft in its budget justification, writing that "FY 2007 funds will also cover fuel, maintenance, hangars and warehousing, aircraft rental when needed, and operational support for PNP Aviation (DIRAVPOL) personnel." A year later, the State Department wrote, $"FY
2008 will continue heavy investment of funds in training and career development of PNP aviation personnel in addition to budgeting for increased flight hours."$

In addition to funding Peru's existing Mi-17 helicopters, the $United States has donated$ about 24
armed Huey II (UH-II) helicopters to the PNP. Hueys were not used in the Bagua massacre, but the massacre should make the US government think twice about donating combat helicopters with multiple guns and rocket launchers mounted all over the aircraft. The donated Huey II's came with the M16 armament system, which includes a combination of M6 flexible quad M60C 7.62mm machine guns and two seven-tube 2.75 inch MK-40 rocket launchers.

- Article from The Narcosphere.

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Mom tased during routine traffic stop, cop abandons her kids


http://www.youtube.com/user/federaljackdotcom

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http://www.ucc.org/100kforpeace/

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/

Yet more migrants are going to die because the president put immigration reform on the backburner

by Kent Walker

The news out of the recent trilateral summit between Canada, Mexico and the United States is that the Obama administration will wait until 2010 to tackle immigration reform. The justification Obama offered for the delay is that his "plate is full" with more pressing issues: the economy, health care, two wars and so on.

For those concerned with the ongoing border crisis in Southern Arizona, the choice to delay reform is terrible news.

As we speak, more migrants have died in fiscal 2009 (161) in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector than at the same point in 2008 (137), a particularly disturbing fact given the overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence that illegal immigration is declining. In early August, we learned that 209 Border Patrol agents were added to the Tucson Sector under the ludicrously mistitled "Operation Guardian."

What the Border Patrol would have you believe is that this buildup will enable agents to carry out the mission of its mantra that "a secure border is a safe border." While this thesis may have been tenable five years ago, it no longer holds water. Quite the opposite, in fact, since there is a growing amount of empirical data suggesting that migrant deaths in the Tucson Sector correlate with law enforcement more than any other variable used in research and analysis.

If you press the Border Patrol, they will be unable to account for increases in three separate but related statistical trends: The rate of deaths is up; the risk of dying is up; and the average distance that migrants die from the nearest road is up. With these trends in mind, we should not be surprised that the number of deaths is up, too. Nevertheless, let's take each of them in turn. The rate of migrant deaths in the Tucson Sector is increasing. This might seem counterintuitive, given the overall decline in illegal immigration, but the data clearly shows that death rates do not correlate with border-crossing rates. While there is no means to accurately measure illegal-immigration flows, the standard surrogate historically has been apprehensions.

According to the Border Patrol's own numbers, apprehensions dropped 35 percent between 2004 and 2008, and this downward trajectory continues to date. During the same period, however, the number of discovered bodies has always remained high, fluctuating between 180 and 230.

Because the number of deaths has stayed more or less constant, the rate of deaths has increased relative to apprehensions. So what about the risk of dying? The Arizona Daily Star (see "Death Count Rises With Border Restrictions," May 17) calculates the risk and rate of death similarly in that both are analyzed in terms of apprehensions. But the truth is that risk is a more complicated problem.

The Daily Star claims that the risk of death is 17 times greater than it was in 1998, yet this number is based on apprehensions alone, and is therefore mathematically indistinguishable from the rate of deaths. There are other factors, however, that tell us the risk of death is going up. Between 2000 and 2008, the last full year of available data, the average distance of deaths from the nearest road has grown from 3/4 of a mile to a desperate 4 miles.

The Border Patrol and humanitarian groups like Humane Borders track the precise coordinates of each body discovered in the desert. When the data are plotted on a map, they reveal what should be clear to anyone who has read about the Border Patrol's interest in the utility of all terrain vehicles, horses and, of course, more agents. Each of these sets of statistics, taken together or individually, does not imply a causal relationship with migrant deaths.

The rate and risk of migrant deaths could increase even if the number of deaths decreases. Though risk is measured in terms of apprehensions alone, other factors may contribute, such as the average distance of deaths from the nearest road. The bottom line: However you look at it, migrant deaths are up 18 percent from 2008, and the correlations with law enforcement are strong. So 2009 looks to be another year for the books. We should not be happy about a delay in immigration reform or about additional agents, no matter how many.

Kent Walker is a freelance writer based in Tucson. He has been a volunteer for Humane Borders since 2007.

Obama urges $100m for Mexico drugs war

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington http://www.independent.co.uk/

President Barack Obama will press Congress to release more than $100m
(£60m)$ of aid to help Mexico in its war against the drug cartels.
The funds have been held up by complaints on Capitol Hill that the Mexican army has committed human rights abuses in its struggle to destroy the drug barons
and end the violence that has killed an estimated 11,000 people in the country.

The issue was one of several bones of contention at yesterday's summit between the leaders of the US, Canada and Mexico in Guadalajara, now an annual fixture aimed at building on the ties established through Nafta, the North American Free Trade Agreement that came into effect in 1994. Mexican officials have repeatedly
pushed for the money to be released, insisting that reports of abuses by the army have been exaggerated, and at a private meeting here with his opposite number Felipe Calderon, Mr Obama reiterated his support for the Mexican government's offensive. Likewise, at a press conference yesterday he commended the Mexican government for its "courage in taking on the drug cartels" and pledged to "remain
a full partner in that effort."

But the money has not been forthcoming, despite the administration's best efforts, including Mr Obama's acknowledgement that the US shared responsibility for the crisis given its demand for drugs and its role as a de facto supplier of the that arm the militias operated by the cartels. The drugs issue is one of
several that was unlikely to be resolved by the talks between Mr Obama, Mr Calderon and Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, at a summit that lasted a mere 20 hours.

Their personal relations may be excellent, to the point they have been dubbed the "Three Amigos", but the problems confronting the leaders are sensitive and, if anything, have been intensified by the global economic crisis.

They include a row over the cancellation by Congress of a Nafta provision allowing Mexican trucks to operate in the US, and the Buy American provisions that formed part of Mr Obama's $780bn$ stimulus package, to which Canada and Mexico have objected.

The immigration issue is also unresolved. After the Bush administration failed to push through changes, Mr Obama has said that he wants a bill to straighten out the status of millions of illegal immigrants in the US, many of whom are from Mexico, but it will have to wait its turn behind
the his top priorities of reforming the US health care and energy sectors.

The three countries did however agree to step up co-operation on swine flu, which first broke out in Mexico. After a summer lull, the H1N1 virus is predicted
to return with a vengeance to the northern hemisphere during the autumn. Public health officials are readying medicines and public education campaigns, hoping to curb the spread of the virus without disrupting trade and tourism. "We're going to do everything possible to minimise the impact," John Brennan, one of Mr Obama's top homeland security advisers, said.

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