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6 hours ago
Friday, May 15, 2009
Is It A Totalitarian State Yet? Explorer Scouts Train in Post-9/11 Law Enforcement Methods
3 Florida prison officers dismissed 2 others resign after 40 children deliberately shocked with stun gunsThree US prison officers have been dismissed and two others have resigned after 40 children in Florida were deliberately shocked with stun guns.
The incidents at two prisons occurred last month during a national day when people take their children to work.
In one case, a group of children were told to hold hands in a circle before one of them was shocked with a stun gun and the shock ran round the group.
No one was seriously hurt, but an official said it was "inexcusable".
In the other case in a second prison, children were given individual shocks.
The children, aged from five to 17, were all sons and daughters of employees of the Florida Department of Corrections.
[In Full @ BBCNews]
"After the training and indoctrination is over, I wonder how readily these young people would, without thinking, open fire on US citizens…"
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"...the Explorers have faced problems over the years. There have been numerous cases over the last three decades in which police officers supervising Explorers have been charged, in civil and criminal cases, with sexually abusing them.
Several years ago, two University of Nebraska criminal justice professors published a study that found at least a dozen cases of sexual abuse involving police officers over the last decade. Adult Explorer leaders are now required to take an online training program on sexual misconduct."
[See Boy Storm Troopers of America for the context to his comment:]
A Buffalo's personal, relatively recent experience:
At the beginning of the war on Iraq I was standing at the town clock where I live, a focal point for whatever protest is occurring due to it's proximity to the heart of downtown and commuter/tourist car traffic.
A California Highway Patrol car pulled up behind some cars stopped at the traffic light, right in front of the hundred or so peaceful sign-waving demonstrators.
Then, a young boy (16-19 years old judging by facial features) in the patrol car's passenger seat pulled out a digital camera and started taking pictures of the assembled crowd, chilling the spirit of the middle-class affluent protesters and young people in the crowd, many of whom were inexperienced and needed regular reminders that their task was to hold the signs towards the traffic, not commiserate with each other, and that the constitution of the US absolutely allowed for them to protest in that manner.
An unknown but most likely significant number of them never returned for further protests.
No More 'Fun & Games' - Nigeria's MEND declares 'all-out war' in the Niger Delta
Fun & Games you say?
Two years ago, Global Guerrillas:
Sunday, 06 May 2007
JOURNAL: Shell facilities disappear from Niger Delta (UPDATE)
Last year, Shell Oil abandoned facilities that produced 600,000 barrels a day of oil due relentless attacks by the global guerrilla facilitator MEND.
Upon its return to these facilities this month, the company found much of its infrastructure missing. In the area near the Forcados terminal alone, 435 miles of pipeline disappeared (likely disassembled by hand, loaded onto barges, offloaded onto Ukrainian transport ships offshore, and delivered to Chinese scrap metal dealers -- globalization is grand, isn't it).
Estimates of the reconstruction costs now exceed $2 billion, under the assumption both Shell and its construction partners will be allowed to return unimpeded.
That isn't a good bet: 11 Daewoo construction workers working on a power plant deep inland (which shows the guerrillas have more reach than ever) were kidnapped and two assaults were made on off-shore platforms as recently as last week. Further, MEND like its counter-parts in Iraq, are very adept at the disruption of corporate activity.
So far, the returns on its investments (ROIs) have been stellar. [In Full]
More details on events in that time period @ Reuters
MEND offered a ceasefire a little over a year later
Nigeria’s main rebel group, Movement for Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), today declared a ceasefire a week after it launched an “oil war” in the country’s restive, oil-producing region.
"Effective 0100 Hrs, September 21, 2008, exactly one week (since) we launched our reprisal, MEND will begin a unilateral ceasefire till further notice," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in a statement.
“After one week of intense lopsided fighting and an unprecedented sabotage on the oil industry prompted by an unprovoked attack on one of our positions including indiscriminate attacks on civilian communities, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) will downgrade the oil war code named Hurricane Barbarossa to a state of alert code named Tropical Storm Vigilant.
“We hope that the military has learnt a bitter lesson. The next unprovoked attack will start another oil war that will be so ferocious that it will dim the pleas of the elders. That blood oil war will come in the form of another hurricane and its devastation and mode of operation will be different from what was seen with Barbarossa.
“MEND can only speak for itself and will not vouch for the other angry groups that aligned with the operation.” [Source]
Fast forward to last month, April 15 2009
[In Full] (article now archived. create an account)
Here and now:
May 15 (2009)
Nigeria's MEND declares 'all-out war' in Niger DeltaLAGOS (AFP) — The rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) Friday declared "all-out war" in Nigeria's southern oil region, blaming the security forces for the death of one of their hostages.
The group also alleged the army had deliberated targeted civilians in its latest attacks.
Nigeria's military denied both accusations.
The hostage was killed by a stray army bullet during a clash between MEND's fighters and the Nigerian security forces in the oil-rich region, said a statement from the movement.
"He is a Filipino national," a spokesman for MEND said a statement to AFP.
Earlier Friday, MEND repeated a warning to foreign oil producers to pull out of the region by midnight (2300 GMT) or risk being caught up in increasing violence.
"MEND is declaring an all-out war in the region and calls upon all men of fighting age to enlist for our freedom," the group said in a statement to the media.
"The Nigerian armed forces today launched indiscriminate aerial bombardment on the defenceless civilians in the Gbaramatu region of Delta State," MEND charged.
Oil markets, however, remained largely indifferent to the warning, with two benchmark contracts falling back towards the 58-dollar mark.
MEND has so far provided no further details on the hostage they say was killed.
It has not said if he was part of the group of 15 foreigners held hostage aboard the 'MV Spirit' tanker hijacked on Wednesday.
"One hostage has been killed by stray bullets from the Nigerian army who attacked an area (where) they were being held in Delta state," the MEND said in an earlier email.
A spokesman of the special military unit in the volatile region, Colonel Rabe Abubakar, denied the rebel account of their gun battle with the MEND fighters.
"It is a lie. None of them was killed," he told AFP.
Earlier, he denied accusations that his forces had targeted civilians, and dismissed rebel claims that they had got the better of his men. Operations were still ongoing, he said.
"We did not target civilians in the operation because these are the people we are out to defend and protect," he told AFP.
"Our target is the militants, who are the criminals and we will not stop until they are completely flushed out."
He refused to comment on MEND reports of air attacks, describing the operation as "multi-faceted."
Earlier Friday, Jonjon Oyeinfie, an activist and former ethnic Ijaw youth leader in the region, said a fierce battle was raging along the Warri-Forcados river, with the army deploying 13 gunboats and helicopter gunships.
A Warri resident reported having seen clouds of smoke rising from the Chanomi Creek area in Gbaramatu.
MEND also said it had captured a "warship deployed from Liberia to assist the military... along with its entire crew of officers and ratings" and was in the process of setting it ablaze.
Navy spokesman Commodore David Nabaida dismissed MEND's statement.
"This claim is mere propaganda," he told AFP.
"MEND has no capacity to capture our warship or any of our ships for that matter. Again, we do not have any ship deployed from Liberia to Niger Delta."
The rebel group said it had captured three army gunboats intact and had sunk or destroyed nine others.
"Many soldiers have been killed and the military has made a hasty retreat," the group said.
Major oil companies, including Shell and ExxonMobil, have declined to comment on the threats.
In the past three and a half years MEND has been behind a series of kidnappings of staff and attacks on oil installations.
It says it is fighting for a greater share of the region's vast oil resources.
Unrest in the region means Nigeria last year lost its position as Africa's leading crude exporter, to Angola. Its oil output has fallen by about a quarter since 2006.
Nigeria, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, derives more than 95 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from crude oil.
[Source]
A Chronology of the war for the Niger Delta is HERE, from africamasterweb.com (Current >>> 2008)
Thursday, April 16, 2009
NOT 'Somali Pirates'... It's The "Somali Coast Guard" And They're 'Taking Out' The 'Trash' (along with Illegal Offshore Nuclear Waste Dumpers)
"Piracy", as applied to Somali fishermen put out of work by foreign flagged factory-ship ocean rape and the pollution caused by the dumping of toxic waste (up to and including low-level nuclear waste washing ashore in barrels from Mafia controlled waste management companies in Europe) is a misnomer, and undoubtedly an intentional one on the part of the major shipper of the world and their cronies on the international committees that oversee maritime law.
But in essence these so-called "pirates" ARE the Somali Coast Guard.
Addenda...
Razer just wants to point out that he's blogged information about the OTHER players in this nation-breaking equation... A writeup on the eerie mayhem-induced quiet that's settled over the capital Mogadishu, and a family photo the CIA's Somali warlord mercenary army leadership with a link to information about their "extraction" by US SEALS on a US Navy submarine the first time they were run out of the country. That posting is HERE
African Nuclear Destruction Update: Saturday August 22 2009...
The rationalization and implicit denial, Malawi Edition, from Inter Press Service:
KAYELEKERA, Malawi, Aug 22 (IPS) - "We are serious about the integrity of the environment," says Neville Huxham, the country director for Paladin Energy Africa.
"We're taking the uranium out of the ground, we're exporting it to be used for productive purposes, so we should be getting a medal for cleaning up the environment." [In Full]
Now, to the issue at hand... and my sentiment as seen in the topquote has been validated by the #3 most under-reported news story in this year's Project Censored Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010 linked below, and more from other sources and viewpoints farther down this post
...and you MIGHT want to perus the #4 under-reported (putting it kindly) news story too... It's in YOUR back yard:
See all 25 of the Top Censored Stories here4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina
...The threat exists, however, without the speculation of terrorist attack. Should the cooling system malfunction, the resulting fire would be virtually unquenchable and could trigger a nuclear meltdown, putting more than two hundred million residents of this rapidly growing section of North Carolina in extreme peril. A recent study by Brookhaven Labs estimates that a pool fire could cause 140,000 cancers, contaminate thousands of square miles of land, and cause over $500 billion in off-site property damage.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has estimated that there is a 1:100 chance of pool fire happening under the best of scenarios.
Did you know the high seas off Somalia's coast are being used as a TOXIC WASTE & NUCLEAR MATERIALS DUMPING GROUND?
No?
(See: 'Somalia & the Mafia the nuclear waste dump zone' at Seeker401.com)
Also see this research report for more internationally sourced linkage on the Mafia and nuclear dumping at this DailyKos Post: "Pirates of Somalia: Curse of the Mafia Nuclear Waste Dumps and Thanks for All the Fish"
As if THAT'S not enough to say "Tsk Tsk! ...and a pox on your industrialized nations"
Excerpted from We're Being Lied to About Pirates
By Johann Hari, Independent UK (via Alternet)
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".
No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would understand.
Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.
In full @ Alternet
Also See: Putting Today's 'Pirate' Attack in Context
A US ship, owned by a Pentagon contractor with "Top Security" clearance, was seized off the Somali coast. Reports say the US crew has retaken the ship. But the question remains: Why are the pirates attacking?
By Jeremy Scahill
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The Somali pirates who took control of the 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama's cargo-ship in the early hours of Wednesday morning probably were unaware that the ship they were boarding belonged to a US Department of Defense contractor with "top security" clearance, which does a half-billion dollars in annual business with the Pentagon, primarily the Navy.
The ship was being operated by an "all-American crew", there were 20 US nationals onboard. "Every indication is that this is the first time a U.S.-flagged ship has been successfully seized by pirates, said Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesperson for for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet. The last documented pirate attack of a US vessel by African pirates was reported in 1804, off Libya, according to The Los Angeles Times.
The company, A.P. Moller-Maersk, is a Denmark-based company with a large US subsidiary, Maersk Line, Ltd, that serves US government agencies and contractors. The company, which is based in Norfolk, Virginia, runs the world's largest fleet of US-flag vessels. The Alabama was about 300 miles off the coast of the Puntland region of northern Somalia when it was taken. The US military says the Alabama was not operating on a DoD contract at the time and was said to be delivering food aid.
In Full @ rebelreports.com
Tags:
Economics,
Environment,
Europe,
Globalization,
Mafia,
Maritime Law,
Nuclear Waste,
Pentagon,
Piracy,
Pirates,
Somalia,
Toxic Waste
Monday, April 6, 2009
Neoliberalism is alive and kicking -- kicking the asses of American workers... Read the kick-me sign
Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, said there were smarter things to do than demonstrating against layoffs -- for instance, pushing Congress and the states to make sure the stimulus plan creates the maximum number of jobs in the United States."I actually believe that Americans believe in their political system more than workers do in other parts of the world," Mr. Gerard said. He said large labor demonstrations are often warranted in Canada and European countries to pressure parliamentary leaders. Demonstrations are less needed in the United States, he said, because often all that is needed is some expert lobbying in Washington to line up the support of a half-dozen senators.(Steven Greenhouse, "In America, Labor Has an Unusually Long Fuse," New York Times, 5 April 2009)
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Tags:
Despotism,
Labor,
Labor Union,
Lobbying,
Lobbyist,
Neoliberal,
Sheeple,
Unions,
United Steel Workers,
US Labor
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Lied To Again - Iranian Uranium Edition
Liberally excerpted from Juan Cole's Informed Comment: IAEA Inspectors: Iran not Producing Weapons-grade Uranium and a follow up comment at another posting.(For a complete trip down the "Orwellian memory hole", watch Norman Solomon's War Made Easy: How Presidents and pundits keep spinning us to death. Narrated by Sean Penn.
Torrents are probably available [Here]).
Also see: How To Sell a War, A writeup on the Rendon Group, the folks who brought you the Firdoz Square, Iraq "Saddam Statue 'Teardown'", for more on how the media has a hold on your 'Believe Button', versus what is real and truthful.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
IAEA Inspectors: Iran not Producing Weapons-grade Uranium
As I mentioned yesterday, Iran is not producing weapon-grade uranium, and could not easily do so without detection. The Hindu, which despite its name is left of center (and which is one of India's finest newspapers) writes:' Iran has not converted the low-grade uranium that it has produced into weapon-grade uranium, inspectors belonging to the International Atomic Energy Agency have said.
The Austrian Press Agency quoted an IAEA expert as saying that the uranium substances that Iran has produced at its Natanz enrichment facility have been carefully recorded and remote cameras have been installed to supervise part of the stockpile.
“If the Iranians intend to transport these uranium substances to a secret location for further processing, agency’s inspectors will find out,” he said.
The expert added that “so far, Iran has carried out good cooperation with us in relevant verifications”.
IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei has said that Iran has slowed down its uranium enrichment programme.'
US newspapers are complaining that they are losing money and may not survive. After they put all sorts of falsehoods about Iraq on their front pages, it may be that they fatally wounded their credibility with the US public. In any case, the above report does not show up anywhere on the web or in Lexis that I can find, except here in The Hindu, which tells me that someone is not doing their job.
(See also Dr. Jeffrey Lewis).
So... HOW IS the Western media 'reporting' on this?
(and I AM using the term 'reporting' rather loosely here...)
Anonymous said...
I don’t think it is entirely correct to say that there has been no press response to the IAEC report. Consider the following headlines:
“Iran holds enough uranium for bomb”Financial Times 19 Feb 09
“Iran has enriched enough uranium to make bomb, IAEA says”
Guardian 19 Feb 09
“Iran Has More Enriched Uranium Than Thought”
NYT 19 Feb 09
(A Buffalo favorite... RFE/RL makes it sound like a 'sport')
"New IAEA Report Shows Iran Nearing Nuclear Breakout Capability”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 20 Feb 09
Clearly there is a difference in slant between the Hindu article and those listed above.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
What do you call three crony DOJ lawyers at the bottom end of a taunt rope?
by Michael Isikoff
(Newsweek)
An internal Justice Department report on the conduct of senior lawyers who approved waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics is causing anxiety among former Bush administration officials.
H. Marshall Jarrett, chief of the department's ethics watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), confirmed last year he was investigating whether the legal advice in crucial interrogation memos "was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys."
According to two knowledgeable sources who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters, a draft of the report was submitted in the final weeks of the Bush administration. It sharply criticized the legal work of two former top officials—Jay Bybee and John Yoo—as well as that of Steven Bradbury, who was chief of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the time the report was submitted, the sources said. (Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
In Full @ Newsweek
Thursday, February 12, 2009
"It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again" (AKA "Is Viktor Bout Out Of Jail?") - 1/4 Million Weapons Unaccounted For In Afghanistan
BBCNews: US 'lost track of Afghan weapons'
[Afghan soldiers with US-issue automatic rifles]
The US military has failed to keep track of thousands of weapons shipped to Afghanistan, leaving them vulnerable to being lost or stolen, a report says.
The report has been compiled by congressional auditors, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).
It found that, in the four years up to June 2008, the US military failed to keep complete records on some 222,000 weapons entering the country. [In Full]
Maybe it's the 'Bookkeeping' again... as General David Petraeus claimed when the same thing happened in Iraq...
Bookkeeping problems are to blame for the inability to account for nearly 200,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said late Tuesday.
In an interview on Fox News Radio, Gen. David H. Petraeus said he believes the weapons did reach the security forces, but that paperwork deficiencies don’t show their status.
“We believe those weapons all certainly were given to Iraqi units,” Petraeus said, according to a podcast recording on “The Alan Colmes Show.”
Meanwhile, 125,000 sets of body armor and 115,000 helmets intended for Iraqi forces could not be accounted for either, according to a Government Accountability Office report issued July 31.
The report faulted the Pentagon and the U.S. military command in Iraq for not applying the same standards in tracking supplies and weapons that it does elsewhere. The system has since been improved, the report found.
...or could it be.... Blackwater?
A former Blackwater employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the investigation includes a look at whether Blackwater shipped weapons from its Moyock headquarters to Iraq hidden in pallets wrapped tightly in shrink wrap..
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“In December, the prosecutors obtained guilty pleas from two former Blackwater employees, Kenneth Wayne Cashwell of Virginia Beach, Va., and William Ellsworth “Max” Grumiaux of Clemmons, N.C."
"The court files are stingy on details of the crimes…”
“…the federal (Nb. criminal) investigation of Blackwater is proceeding behind closed doors,”
A buffalo's take on the 'whos', 'whats', and, maybe most inportantly, 'whys' here
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