Posted by 6dbl5321 on 07/29/09

Chicago Police Department (CPD) Superintendent Jody Weis issued a new "deadly force" policy allowing cops to arbitrarily shoot drivers and passengers in vehicles to go into effect after this weekend.

"Effective next Monday, police officers will be able to fire their guns under circumstances where they previously could not," Mike Krauser reports.

"Now officers will be able to fire upon the driver or passenger in a vehicle if that person is a forcible fleeing felon, someone who has committed a very serious offense resulting in bodily harm or has threatened to commit great bodily harm," CPD spokesperson Roderick Drew told Mr. Krauser. "It gives department members the option of taking off a dangerous member, someone who has either created or committed a serious offense or could commit a serious offense if he or she is allowed to flee the scene." (emphasis mine)

Mr. Drew said that whether or not someone "could commit a serious offense" is "up to the discretion" of the CPD "member". Michael Sneed reports, "Critics claim the new policy is 'ridiculous' and the liability to the City of Chicago could be astronomical."

Who would drive away from 'CPD members'? Let's not beat around the bush here. Ethnic minorities -- and there are plenty in Chicago -- are (in general) absolutely terrified of 'CPD members'. An immigrant without "proper papers" might drive away. Someone simply uninsured might drive away. An ex-con with two strikes "illegally" talking on his cell phone while driving might drive away. This paragraph could go on forever.

As for the "discretion of the member", a 'CPD member' shocked Lillian Fletcher -- an 82-year-old, 5"1' grandmother -- with his Taser, sending 50,000 volts at her in 2007. Less than a year ago, a man fled from a 'CPD member' and was killed when the 'member' tased him. The man was being apprehended for drinking from an open bottle.

But, the CPD conducts thorough internal investigations for these 'isolated incidents', right?

University of Chicago law professor Craig B. Futterman and the Invisible Institute conducted a study on the 10,149 complaints against the CPD filed between 2002 and 2004 -- 40% more than the national average -- for "actions including excessive force, illegal search and arrests, racial abuse and sexual abuse". The study found that 0.5% of excessive force complaints were "sustained" by the department, "compared to the 2002 national average of 8%," the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University reported. "That means CPD complaints are 94% less likely to be followed through than those against other police departments."

According to the study, between May 2001 and May 2006:

• 662 officers each racked up more than 10 complaints of police abuse
• 3,113 officers received four to 10 complaints
• some officers compiled more than 50 complaints
• 75% of "repeaters have never faced disciplinary action

The study charges the CPD with allowing its 'members' -- with the new privilege to shoot more people under the protection of The Blue Wall -- that have "criminal tendencies to operate with impunity".

“The way in which CPD investigates police abuse is a joke,” Prof. Futterman told Medill Reports.

The Chicago Working Class Thug Squad's message is clear: submit or die, 'all your liberty are belong to us' because we wear matching blue costumes. This is PSYOPS on steroids -- literally.

In light of the highly publicized liberty rape of Prof. Henry Louis Gates, civil liberties attorney Harvey Silvergate asked, in an amazing piece at Forbes, "Why do we as a society so often ignore traditional notions of First Amendment freedom to speak one's own notion of truth to power when one party to the confrontation is wearing a uniform, a badge and a gun?" (h/t: Anthony Gregory)

Answer: the gun.

"The First Amendment freedom to speak one's own notion of truth to power" is the freedom [sic] to call for 'government' to constantly justify its uses and abuses of non-self-justifying authority. But, all 'government' is, is a bunch of people with guns. It really is that simple. The 'government' isn't your friend, your servant, your defender, your provider; it's a looting and killing gang of immoral, illegitimate primates with guns.

"There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion," Ayn Rand famously said, over and over again. "Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns."

[cross-posted at Little Alex in Wonderland]

Posted 07/31/09 ConcernedCitizen09 Burke, VA

And I thought Blackwater's triggerhappy attitude was bad...

Posted by 6dbl5321 on 07/27/09
Last updated 07/27/09

AntiWar Radio host Scott Horton discusses the American Empire -- Somalia, 9/11, jingoism directed at Iran, the Af-Pak War, Neoconservatism, the Israel Lobby, and Israeli espionage in the U.S.

AntiWar Radio host Scott Horton is assistant editor for Antiwar.com and host of Antiwar Radio for KAOS Radio 95.9 FM in Austin, Texas and KUCR 88.3 in Riverside, California. (55:35):

Listen here or right-click to download.

Note: I said "AIPAC" in relation to Dennis Ross's baby instead of "WINEP" because I was talking faster than I was thinking and accused Rep. Jane Harman of treason because I'm an asshole.

Articles cited:

• Kelley Vlahos: "The Africa Obama Didn't Visit"
• Hillary Clinton on the "defense umbrella" around Iran
• Robert Dreyfuss on Iran's low-enriched uranium
• Kelley Vlahos: No "Sons of Afghanstan"
• Jeff Stein on the Israel Espionage, Larry Franklin and Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) here, here, here, here, and here.

Posted by 6dbl5321 on 07/19/09
Last updated 07/19/09

From Thursday's London Times (h/t: Jason Ditz):

Two Israeli missile class warships have sailed through the Suez Canal ten days after a submarine capable of launching a nuclear missile strike, in preparation for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities....

"This is preparation that should be taken seriously. Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack on Iran. These manoeuvres are a message to Iran that Israel will follow up on its threats," an Israeli defence official said....

The exercises come at a time when Western diplomats are offering support for an Israeli strike on Iran in return for Israeli concessions on the formation of a Palestinian state.

The Times reported April 17 that Israel was "preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government".

“Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,” an unnamed senior defense official told the Times.

It's no news that any Israeli strike on Iran would have the consent of the U.S. Israel pledged to "coordinate its moves on Iran with Washington and not surprise the United States with military action" in the middle of May. Today, Ria Novosti reported that U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will hold secret meetings with the Netanyahu Administration in Tel Aviv within the next two weeks.

Saudi Arabia has granted Israel consent to use its airspace to strike Iran, Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter reported in The Sunday Times July 5. Israel denies these reports, but both being clients of the U.S., this isn't surprising, either. U.S. Vice President Biden said that day that Israel has the "sovereign right" to make a first strike on Iran. The Saudis acting contrary is inconceivable with the Saudi-U.S. deals that exist.

A manufactured threat

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA), new director-general, Yukiya Amano says there is no evidence Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon. This is consistent with the results of the 17 snap inspections conducted by the outgoing IAEA chief, Mohamad ElBaradei, who reported March 4 [.pdf] that he was "able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran."

"The international community. The world has ignored our warnings. Take the case of Iraq, for example. Even though we had no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, they were used as justification for the war -- the most dangerous moment of my tenure," Mr. ElBaradei told Der Spiegel in an interview published May 18. "We still have no ultimate proof of a military nuclear program in Iran."

"I must provide the international community with all available information and put it in the right context -- not exaggerating any dangers, but also not playing anything down," Mr. ElBaradei told Der Spiegel in another interview published June 11. "They [Iran] continue to insist that they are interested solely in using nuclear power for civilian purposes. We have yet to find a smoking gun that would prove them wrong." [1]

Nuclear weapons physicist Gordon Prather wrote in April, citing the DEBKAfile, an Israeli news site on military and intelligence affairs: "The targets to be attacked do not include those additional targets alleged by DEBKAfile to be parts of Iran’s nuclear program. Targets to be attacked do include Iran’s military installations; all ten of Iran’s military aircraft bases, Iran’s known ballistic missile sites and known air-defense surface-to-air missile sites."

Former. U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Der Spiegel in a July 6 interview, "Iran is a relatively weak and small country that has inherent limits to its capabilities."

The Israel Lobby

Justin Raimondo wrote an article titled, "The Lobby Wants War With Iran" the week before the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held its annual U.S. conference. Mr. Raimondo called AIPAC, "a fifth column working on behalf of a foreign power."

"The Lobby thumbs its nose at the American people, and, with the collusion of our elected officials, continues to get away with fatally distorting American foreign policy and taking us down the road to war," he wrote in response to AIPAC pressing for U.S. interventionist policies against Iran, shortly after Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) was outed as a de facto double agent for the government of Israel. "Whether the American people will wake up in time to arrest the ongoing corruption of their government and social institutions by a foreign entity, remains to be seen. It is an indication, however, of the deep contempt with which the Lobby views American law and institutions, and, as such, is utterly reprehensible."

Doublethink diplomacy

"The Americans thought they could threaten Iran with a big stick and force it to back down. But the arrogance of treating a country like Iran like a donkey led to a hardening of positions," Mr. ElBaradei said May 18 before voicing he was "frustrated" on June 11.

President Obama campaigned that he would negotiate with Iran and acknowledges Iran's "legitimate aspirations" toward its civilian nuclear energy program. The leaders of the G-8 released a statement after their summit in Italy last week stating: "We remain committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the issue of Iran's nuclear program... We recognize that Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear programme, but that comes with the responsibility to restore confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear activities."

Mr. Obama admitted Iran wasn’t developing a nuclear weapon, but said that Iran has to meet the September deadline to negotiate with the West or the G-8 would "take further steps" -- whether or not Iran continues to be fully compliant with the IAEA and fully within the conduct allowed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which it is a co-signatory, though it has no nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is calling for countries to impose “even stricter sanctions on Iran to try to change the behavior of the regime”. Sanctions would hurt the Iranian people first, in an effort to starve, impoverish the people into overthrowing the regime — a violent act on the people of a foreign nation to change its politics. Never mind that this borders on “international terrorism”.

“Congress can’t have it both ways on taxpayer-funded sanctions and rewards," Grant Smith wrote June 28. "If gasoline imports indirectly support Iran’s nuclear ambitions, then $2.775 billion in cash for conventional U.S. weapons and military technology clearly allows Israel to focus on development and deployment of its illicit nuclear arsenal.”

In March, former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said that a method the U.S. could employ with Iran is to "design the negotiation to fail, and to make Iran appear to blame. This would be achieved by setting preconditions, threatening with sanctions and force, calling for regime change and labeling the Iranian government as a 'terrorist entity'"[2] and that timetables for negotiations, as the one stated by the G-8 last week, "create a sense of urgency and pressure which (prevents) serious exploration of the issues." Mr. Brzezinski implied in an interview this last May that the U.S. was currently employing this method.

AIPAC co-founder and Mrs. Clinton's then-special advisor on the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia Dennis Ross co-authored a book released June 11, Myths, Illusions, and Peace - Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East, with David Makovsky. Mr. Ross and Mr. Makovsky -- not only raised the possibility of military action against Iran, but -- clearly state in this book that diplomacy by the Obama Administration would be nothing more than a dog-and-pony show to the American people and the international community to make military action "easier to sell".

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ian Kelly was asked on June 15 whether or not Mrs. Clinton had "full confidence in Dennis Ross to continue in his present role"; to which Mr. Kelly replied, "Absolutely."

"It’s a very good book, by the way.... It probably was inappropriate, but there it is. It’s out there," Mr. Kelly added with an awkward grin on his face after continuing to be pressed on the topic. "He is a very close advisor of the Secretary on a number of issues related to Iran and the region. But he also came out of the academic community, and he’s entitled -- he was entitled to his opinion. He wrote the book before he came on board here."

On June 25, Mr. Ross was removed from his post as special advisor to Mrs. Clinton "on a number of issues related to Iran" in the State Department and was promoted to the White House by the anti-war [sic] U.S. president in what the AFP reported as: "a key job overseeing policy in a vast region encompassing the Middle East, the Gulf, Afghanistan, Pakistan and South Asia."

The only surprise that the Obama Administration is launching a proxy war by giving Israel the nod to strike Iran is that this could be a surprise.

Notes:

1. There have been reports of a "smoking laptop" with documents that included "blueprints for a nuclear warhead". Gareth Porter has written and discussed extensively of this being a hoax perpetrated by Israeli intelligence.
2. The quote is Press TV's paraphrase of Mr. Brzezinski's remark to them.

This was originally posted at Little Alex in Wonderland - 17 July 09.

Posted by 6dbl5321 on 02/09/09
Last updated 02/09/09

Little Alex in Wonderland

After a conflict with Gaza plagued with war crimes accusations alleged by many human rights groups (including Amnesty International) and Gazan civilian claims of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) using them as human shields, the people of Israel elect a new prime minister Tuesday.

Less than two weeks after Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out of the World Economic Summit at Davos in protest, Turkey has launched a probe investigating whether or not Israel committed 'genocide and crimes against humanity' in Gaza.

That same day Mr. Erdogan walked out of Davos, Israel daily publication Ha'aretz uncovered a secret Israeli database showing Israel's conscious acts in accordance with the crime of apartheid.

Going into Tuesday's election, Avigdor Lieberman’s unapologetically fascist Yisrael Beiteinu Party, has been gaining ground as a small party -- taking votes away from Bibi Netanyahu's hawkish Likud Party. Mr. Netanyahu has promised Mr. Lieberman a "pivotal minister position" in an effort for "all of the Zionist parties to join the unity government".

Though, Mr. Netanyahu has said that he will not name Mr. Lieberman Israel's new defense minister, he has vowed to continue Israel's defiance of the 1967 UN resolution and not return any parts of Jerusalem or Golan Heights to the Palestinians gained in Israel's war with Syria forty years ago in explicit violation of international law.

What the next Israeli prime minister does is more in the hands of the US than many Americans think. The atrocities against the Palestinians are ordered by the State of Israel and executed by the IDF, but with Apaches, F-16's, and tanks supplied and subsidized by the US.

The most credible war crimes accusation of the Gaza conflict is Israel's use of torturous, deadly white phosphorus -- supplied by the US -- used on the Gazan people.

Pres. Obama should cut off this blank check of blood money and put an end to the US policy of vetoing the scores UN resolutions against Israel. If Mr. Obama refuses to act in accordance with international law, the president should withdraw the US from the UN and cut the 'citizen of the world' bullshit.

Mr. Obama cannot claim to fight Stateless terrorists while supplying terrorism of the State.

America cannot claim to be a 'Beacon of Hope' while acting as the Pied Piper of Hypocrisy.

Posted 02/21/09 Patriot613 Midland, GA

OK, how about this. Lets give the Transjordanians a state on one condition. That Saudi Arabia gives up control of Mecca and Medina to the Turks. Because all of "Palestine" was Ottoman territory. So Mecca and Medina should no longer be controled by Wahabbis buy by Hanbalis. . . and can we also agree that Salafi movements should be outlawed. If that sounds good then I think the Israelis might consider it.

Posted 02/21/09 Patriot613 Midland, GA

I am sorry. . .Turks are Hanafis. Oh, and can we make a Christian Lebanon too. Sound fair? You know the Copts and Egypt and the Christians in Bethlehem have done so well living next to Muslim Brotherhood Salafists. So, if Gaza is going to be a Salafist Sunni enclave. . .lets make it contingent on a parts of Lebanon and Egypt going to the Christian populations. They deserve a country too. You know, like Kosovo. . . Serb territory first. . .Muslim Republic of Kosovo later:) Surely you don't have a problem giving up Muslim controlled lands to non-Muslims in exchange for peace. I think the Kurds need a state in Turkey. . .and the Armenians definitely deserve some money from Istanbul.

Posted by 6dbl5321 on 01/29/09

Little Alex in Wonderland

The NYT reports that the Federal [sic] Reserve wants a stimulus package to pass so your food, energy, and shelter costs get so high that you have to take out loans from them at interest.

New York Times:

“The Federal Reserve will employ all available tools to promote the resumption of sustainable economic growth and to preserve price stability,” the Fed said Wednesday in its statement.

The Fed has already been buying mortgage-backed securities and said in its statement that it would expand its intervention as needed. The committee also served notice that it would purchase longer-term Treasury bonds, a move that would drive down long-term interest rates of all types.

There's a reason why the Fed is buying this paper. It isn't that no one can afford it. It's that the people who can afford it kow it isn't worth the price that sellers are asking. If something's worthless, let it be worth $0. Don't force the taxpayers to pay what you want it to be worth.

And it expressed its most pointed concern so far that deflation could be a problem, saying it saw “some risk” that price inflation remained uncomfortably low.

Ummm... This is a good thing. Maybe not for banksters who want the People desperate to take out loans they can't afford, but it's good for the People to begin being able to afford the 'stuff' we need to survive -- 'stuff' we're stretching our wages and salaries to buy now.

To oversimply: An economic crisis is due to people not being able to afford stuff.

The solution isn't pumping more money into the system for prices to rise. It's freezing money production so prices come down.

This is our dollar trend over the last ten years:

The blue is the rising trends of the dollar. The red is its decline. The massive downfall begins in 2002 when Greenspan started printing buttloads of money for banks to loan people that couldn't afford loans.

“Industrial production, housing starts and employment have continued to decline steeply, as consumers and businesses have cut back spending,” the Fed statement said. “Furthermore, global demand appears to be slowing significantly.”

As the financial crisis became global and we hit bottom in June, other countries started doing what Greenspan did. Because the value of all currencies are based on the dollar, the production of other currencies raised their abundance -- raising the dollar's scarcity. That's why we're on a blue trend now. And as global banks inflate their currencies to keep up, demand from them will rise with their more abundant currencies.

In a fractional-reserve banking system, when the Congress approves $900 bn to be printed and stamped as legal tender to disperse into the economy, it's printed by the not-federal Federal Reserve bank and grants the Fed $8-10 trillion to hand out to their Wall St. cronies. This is why that dollar trends that take so much time and patience and prudence to rise always fall really fast when money is printed.

The solution isn't to start another red trend. It's to ride the blue trend, no matter what nonsense Paul Krugman chooses to make attempts defy reason, logic, and facts.

Actually, Paul Krugman doesn't even want to talk about this stuff I'm mentioning here -- and there's a good reason for it: his Neo-Progressive Gatekeeper status would diminish and less people would read his column, buy his books, or rent him to lecture the impressionable ObamaNation.

With Venezuela threatening to cut oil production "if it's necessary" to fix prices -- jacking them up 40-80% -- the People can literally not afford a dollar crisis.

To understand the significance of all this, see our Federal Reserve archive.