After the Billionaires Plundered Alabama Town, Troops Were Called in … Illegally

(AlterNet)

October 26, 2009

One of this year’s more disturbing stories that were ignored was the illegal Army occupation of Samson, Alab., in March following a shooting spree that raged across two towns by a disgruntled worker, leaving 11 people dead.

As I wrote at the time, Michael McLendon, 27, went on a killing rampage following years of relentless corporate exploitation and harassment against him, his mother (whom he mercy-killed), and the entire rural Alabama region, which suffered like so many parts of rural America at the hands of billionaire goons like chicken oligarch Bo Pilgrim of Pilgrim’s Pride notoriety.

One of the creepiest details to emerge in the shooting rampage were reports that troops from nearby Fort Rucker were brought into Samson and other surrounding areas to patrol the streets. This is a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, every freedom-loving American’s worst nightmare.

And now, finally, the Army officially agrees that its occupation of the Alabama streets was illegal, according to an internal report the Associated Press got a hold of, following a Freedom of Information Act filing:

An Army investigation found that soldiers should not have been sent to man traffic stops in a small Alabama town after 11 people were killed in March during a shooting spree.An Army report released to the Associated Press on Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request said the decision to dispatch military police to Samson from nearby Fort Rucker broke the law. But an Army spokesman said no charges have been filed following the Aug. 10 report.

The report from the Department of Army Inspector General found the use of military personnel in Samson violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits federal troops from performing law-enforcement actions. The names of those involved were redacted from the report.

According to the report, the officer’s “intent was to be a good Army neighbor and help local civilian authorities facing a difficult, unique tragedy affecting the local community. There were no apparent adverse collateral effects to the support provided.”

Indeed. For a lot of Americans, the sight of troops occupying their towns is their worst nightmare come true — part of the reason that America came into existence was to create a country where this sort of thing would never happen, even if the Army’s sole intent was to be a good neighbor and help old ladies cross the streets.

Strangely enough, there was almost no media coverage of the occupation — you had to rely on various right-wing outlets like CNSNews.com, whose article I blogged at the time, or the left-wing Democratic Underground.

But what even the right-wing anti-government people won’t report is the true reason why the Army was called out in the first place, something that goes right back to the cause of the shooting rampage: billionaire exploitation of the local Alabamans, not just by the chicken oligarch, but from higher up the predator food chain — Wall Street banking behemoth JP Morgan Chase.

You see, thanks to a combination of corporate-tax holidays (which reduce local revenues), billionaire greed like the sort that bankrupted Pilgrim’s Pride, and Wall Street investment-banking scams on places like Alabama that result in corrupted local officials and bankrupted municipalities, counties and states — now, there’s no money left to fund local police forces, as the U.S. Army report reveals:

The soldiers arrived in the hours after the shootings, which stretched the town’s tiny police force and county officers to the limit with several different crime scenes. The report said troops were dispatched after the Geneva County Sheriff’s Office and Samson Police requested assistance from Fort Rucker to relieve law enforcement at traffic checkpoints around the crime-scene area.

As I wrote earlier this year, Pilgrim’s Pride hooked up with Wall Street to leverage itself into bankruptcy while enriching the executives’ family and a handful of insiders at the expense of tens of thousands of Americans workers:

In 2006, Pilgrim’s Pride, then the second-largest chicken processor in the world, made a huge gamble that will seem familiar to anyone who’s been following the financial crash: the company borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars, leveraging itself well beyond its means, in order to acquire a rival company and become the nation’s No. 1 chicken processor, slaughtering 45 million chickens per week.

That might have given the executives a nice, big hard-on, but it also meant they would have to come up with more money to pay for all that debt. So the company did do what every post-Reagan company has done and gotten away with: it made the workforce pay for the executives’ bonuses.

That meant squeezing lower-middle-class workers for more work for less pay, or in Pilgrim’s case, more work for no pay: In August 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against Pilgrim’s Pride accusing it of grossly undercompensating its employees. That same year, 10,000 Pilgrim’s Pride employees launched a class-action lawsuit demanding compensation for their work.

The damage extended well beyond Pilgrim’s Pride’s plants. With bankruptcy came huge unpaid local tax bills, leading to further layoffs and reduced services for the already-beleaguered locals:

Suwannee County could be out about $2 million if Pilgrim’s Pride doesn’t pay its property-tax bill, according to property appraiser Lamar Jenkins.

The biggest taxpayer in the county filed for bankruptcy protection Dec. 1. Now it’s not clear when — or if — the bill will be paid.

“It’s certainly going to put a hurt on the budget of the county,” Jenkins told the [Suwanee] Democrat by phone Thursday. Jenkins said the unpaid bill represents 7.4 percent of the money local schools get from property taxes; 5.3 percent of county funds from that source; and 8 percent of the money the Suwannee River Water Management District receives from local property-tax revenues.

A spokesman for Pilgrim’s did not respond to a request for comment.

Bo Pilgrim, the head of Pilgrim’s Pride, once told his Texas church that he was worth over $1 billion before the market crash, and he’s still worth hundreds of millions. His rapacity was boundless, and in the end it was the undoing of Pilgrim’s Pride — not the Pilgrim family, mind you, which is still filthy disgusting rich, but the company is through.

Last month, 64 percent of Pilgrim’s Pride was sold to JBS, a Brazilian beef giant, making it the largest meat company in the world, topping America’s Tyson. The American cattle industry tried to block the deal, which it says could result in the destruction of the American beef industry, but the Justice Department already approved JBS’ takeover.

In the billionaires’ Third World model for America, it makes awful sense that a Brazilian meat company would take control of a bankrupt, corrupt American chicken company. For Wall Street and the billionaires, the more they destroy in America, the richer they get, consequences be damned. And anyway, it’s not like Pilgrim’s Pride was a model of corporate responsibility while under American ownership; just read some of the comments on this recent Reuters article:

Gilmer, Texas, Sep. 8, 2009 — working as a supervisor in mt pleasant plant use to be injoyable, but lately they expect you to work 50/70 hours for no extra pay. pilgrims pride does not care about family life just their money. Everyone is afraid to say anything, because upper management may let you go with no warnning because you voiced your oppionrobert, Carrollton, Ga. — i work carrollton,ga former goldkist plant we were goldkist 1 plant now we fill like we in pure hell working for pilgrim pride these people want you to kiss there ass and work three times hard for same money no rasied in two years old chicken farmer

Doddridge, Ark. — While I was raising chickens for Pilgrim’s Pride, I became friends with many lower management employees of the company. The manner in which they were terminated was just simply unmerciful. While the growers had the brunt of the financial devastion, many that were nearing retirement were left with no prospects of employment in the near future. I know some that have had to uproot their families and settle for a considerable more modest lifestyle with their retirement benefits in doubt after a number of years of employment. It is just a shame that Bo Pilgrim has pocketed the money of many hard working people. I still believe Bo needs to be in the jail cell next to Bernie Madoff.

The comments section is where you’ll find the real, unvarnished, ungrammatical rage among America’s cheated majority, because for the most part, people are too desperate and afraid to complain in public.

But here’s the rub: Selling Pilgrim’s Pride to a Brazilian meat monopoly doesn’t mean things will get better for Alabamans. Just weeks after the buyout was announced, Pilgrim’s Pride closed another plant, this one in northern Alabama. According to the AP:

A chicken-processing plant owned by Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. is shutting down this week after almost six decades, putting more than 600 people out of work and creating ripples that will be felt all over town.

The city of almost 20,000 is preparing for the end of a relationship that began in 1952 when James Beasley founded Sweet Sue Poultry, which originally ran the plant. Owners included Beatrice Foods and ConAgra before Pilgrim’s Pride purchased the business in 2003.

Which looks a lot like an even more depressing Pilgrim’s Pride story from a few months earlier, this from rural Arkansas. The town of Clinton filed a lawsuit in June against Pilgrim’s Pride, accusing it of turning the town into a “ghost town”:

“With its largest and sole remaining employer, Pilgrim’s, now evacuated, the city faces a crisis of revenue, bond payments and economic devastation, and as a result of the Pilgrim’s evacuation is threatened with becoming a modern-day ghost town,” the lawsuit filed by the city said. “This serious economic situation is, however, a direct consequence of Pilgrim’s illegal purpose in shuttering the Clinton plant and operations.”

This story is repeated all over the rural South. So guess who put together the deal that bankrupted Pilgrim’s Pride? Lehman Bros., the king of bankruptcy.

On the other side of the deal, serving Gold Kist, was Merrill Lynch, which also collapsed last year. But Merrill’s banker in the Pilgrim’s Pride acquisition is still doing well, thank you very much. In fact, he was recently hired by JPMorgan Chase as vice chairman of mergers and acquisitions.

Which makes perfect sense, because JPMorgan Chase has been laying waste to Alabama on a level that makes Pilgrim’s Pride’s destruction look downright humanitarian. JP Morgan Chase has plundered so much wealth from one county in Alabama, using a complex derivatives scheme and old-fashioned bribery, that some locals are calling it “Armageddon.” According to Bloomberg:

In its 190-year history, Jefferson County, Ala., has endured a cholera epidemic, a pounding in the Civil War, gunslingers, labor riots and terrorism by the Ku Klux Klan. Now this namesake of Thomas Jefferson, anchored by Birmingham, is staring at what one local politician calls financial “Armageddon.”

The spectacle — a tax struck down, about 1,000 county employees furloughed, a politician indicted over $3 billion in sewer debt that may lead to the largest municipal bankruptcy in history — has elbowed its way up the ladder of county lore.

“People want to kill somebody, but they don’t know who to shoot at,” says Russell Cunningham, past president of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Jefferson County’s debacle is a parable for billions of dollars lost by state and local governments from Florida to California in transactions done behind closed doors. Selling debt without requiring competition made public officials vulnerable to bankers’ sales pitches, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for borrowing gone awry.

[T]he county bet on interest-rate swaps, agreements that a representative of New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. told commissioners could reduce their interest costs. Instead, the swaps — covering more than $5 billion in all — blew up during the credit crisis after ratings for the county’s bond insurers fell.

JPMorgan, through spokeswoman Christine Holevas, declined to comment for this story.

Yeah, why bother commenting to the public when you own the bastards? JPMorgan, which took $25 billion in direct bailout money and tens of billions more in backdoor subsidies and handouts, just posted a massive $3.6 billion quarterly profit, and has set aside at least $11.1 billion for management bonuses. Meanwhile, Alabamans can’t afford to flush their toilets.

This is what inequality looks like. From Wall Street, it must look extremely appealing; for the rest of America, it’s a nightmare that’s only getting worse.

So far, it’s clear that Birmingham and the entire Jefferson County are following the wretched script of a typical Third World scenario, where the Wall Street bankers corrupt the politicians and eventually bankrupt the place and then, while the corpse is still warm and the bankruptcy deals are cut, Wall Street makes sure it’s first in line to profit off the chaos it created, while its corrupt local shill (in this case Birmingham’s mayor) takes the fall for the crime of accepting the JP Morgan bribes … and the locals get screwed worst of all, paying off the bill for years or decades.

Just this week, it emerged that Goldman Sachs, employer of Brian “Inequality Is Good” Griffiths, bilked the state of New Jersey using a similar scheme involving interest-rate swaps on bonds that don’t even exist. According to Bloomberg, New Jersey is considering raising its gasoline tax to pay the $1 million a month they have to pay out to Goldman for the scam — a regressive tax that once again takes from the struggling middle class and poor, and puts in thepockets of the billionaires.

Meanwhile, over in Jefferson County, Ala., there’s so little left to steal from the impoverished locals that Wall Street has been forced to come up with a new, grotesquely evil plan to line their pockets: taxing the local residents for taking a shit:

In August, Bank of New York Mellon Corp., as trustee for owners of about $3 billion in sewer warrants, filed suit in Jefferson County Circuit Court seeking an appointed receiver for the sewer system. The receiver should have authority to raise rates enough to meet the debt service, the bank said in the complaint, which is pending. The sewer system is already charging customers about 300 percent more to drain bathtubs or flush toilets than a dozen years ago.

By one county estimate, average annual bills are now about $750, compared with the national average of $331, according to a 2007 survey by the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Clean Water Agencies, a coalition of utilities.

It’s impossible to boost them enough without putting them beyond the means of many residents, County CommissionerJim Carns says. “We’re like a guy making $50,000 a year with a $1 million mortgage.”

In Wall Street’s eyes, Alabamans really do shit gold.

The thing now will be to convince the locals to use their toilets rather than, say, gas to heat their homes.

As I wrote a few months ago, Jefferson County residents have become so desperate that they’re being forced to choose between water and heating, as this article shows:

As nighttime temperatures plunged in Birmingham, Ala., last October, Dora Bonner had a choice: either pay the gas bill so she could heat the home she shares with four grandchildren, or send the Birmingham Water Works a $250 check for her water and sewer bill.

Bonner, who is 73 and lives on Social Security, decided to keep the house from freezing.

“I couldn’t afford the water, so they shut it off,” she says.

Bonner’s sewer bills have risen more than fourfold in the past decade. So have those of others in Jefferson County, which has 659,000 residents and includes Birmingham, the state’s largest city.

The logical outcome of the billionaires’ plundering of Alabama is the same thing that happens all over the Third World: violence, fear and calling in the troops, the only way to secure the billionaires’ dirty profits:

In August and September … Jefferson County residents got a taste of what bankruptcy might look like. As the county began putting about 1,000 workers on leave without pay, one disgruntled employee allegedly e-mailed bomb threats to officials and was promptly arrested, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

Lines soon formed outside the courthouse as such tasks as renewing driver’s licenses slowed.

A kind of legal civil war broke out when three county agencies — the sheriff’s department, an indigent-care hospital and the tax-assessor’s office — sued the county commission to stop the budget cuts on the grounds that they posed a danger to public safety.

Bettye Fine Collins, the commission president, declared the situation, “our Armageddon.”

The state’s response is right out of the Central America banana republic playbook: When there’s no money left for the people, send in the troops.

The cuts in the sheriff’s department budget were so severe that he was planning to call in the National Guard to keep order:

The sheriff in Alabama’s most populous county may call for the National Guard to help maintain order, a spokesman said Tuesday, as a judge cleared the way for cuts in the sheriff’s budget, and lawmakers reached a compromise they hope will end the budget crisis.

In light of all of this, the Army’s brief, illegal occupation of a string of towns in Alabama this past spring no longer looks like a freak one-off, but rather a logical progression in the ongoing billionaire plunder of America.

It gives new meaning to what MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan is calling “corporate communism.” Not only are banking billionaires on permanent state wealthfare, but even worse, as the wealth available becomes increasingly scarce and there isn’t enough left to satisfy the billionaires’ grotesque appetites and regular citizens’ needs to flush their toilets or heat their homes, we’re heading to the point that all Third World countries come to — calling out the troops to ensure that the peasants pay their tithes to their absentee masters in New York and Connecticut and don’t get all uppity like those Europeans.

Now you can see why Alabamans are loading up on so many weapons. That makes sense. Now they need to understand who the real enemy is. Not the make-believe liberal bogeymen of their nightmares. Rather, Alabamans should focus their anger on the real-world billionaires who are making this country a living hell.


There are alot of good links attached to this story.
http://republicbroadcasting.org/?p=4937

Original source.
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/143485/after_the_billionaires_plu...



EC1
III

Here is a youtube link to the video the RJ made (but Oath Keepers spiced up the title):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTj42Z2w_rY&feature=player_profilepage

And check out this retired Special Forces Major who is now Oath Keeper's man in South Carolina, and on their board of directors (and check out the comments):

http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2009/10/23/testimonial-of-rex-h-mctyeire-maj-us-army-special-forces-ret/


end.

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/


Ec1
III

Absolved: Chapter 24, Green

M249 SAW, (Squad Automatic Weapon)


Absolved: Chapter 24, Green

Major Swindon: As to that, General, the British soldier will give a good account of himself.

BURGOYNE [bitterly]: And therefore, I suppose, sir, the British officer need not know his business: the British soldier will get him out of all his blunders with the bayonet. In future, sir, I must ask you to be a little less generous with the blood of your men, and a little more generous with your own brains.
-- The Devil's Disciple, Act III, George Bernard Shaw

Nothing had worked out like it was supposed to, but that was combat.

It had been true in Iraq, it was true in Afghanistan and it was true here.

Who was it who said "no plan survives contact with the enemy"? Laidlaw wondered. Whoever it was had been shot at and that was for sure and certain.

Laidlaw had been shot at. He'd been shot at a lot during one eventful period of his young life. A couple of them had even connected. Once in al Nasiriyah on the first tour, but that had been barely more than a scratch. He was almost embarrassed to take the Purple Heart. On his second tour, he'd been hit hard in the left leg. It was an inch shorter now, but after his rehab and discharge, he could still maneuver.

Barely.

But at least then he'd been fighting with other pros. This - well, this was an invitation to die with stupid newbies. They were a danger to themselves and a danger to him and it was a damned shame that a bunch of them were sure to die this day and it was all so preventable.

Or at least, it had been.

Time's up, Cathcart, you idiot.

Laidlaw looked to his left, across the street. The leader of his militia unit, Charles Carlos Cathcart (didn't his daddy like him?), peeked around the corner at the objective and almost lost his head to a burst from one of those Brightfire pricks with a SAW.

Cathcart jerked his head back, his face pinched, white as a ghost, his hands visibly trembling even from here. Their eyes locked briefly, the entreaty plain to Laidlaw. HELP ME, said the look.

Cathcart broke contact first, looking at the ground. Jeez, he didn't even think to bring a steel mirror to look around corners.

Well, hell, I tried to tell him, didn't I? Didn't I?!?

Cathcart, Laidlaw knew, didn't have a clue about what to do next. Neither did about 95% of his unit, which included veterans as old a 56 and kids as young as 14, some of 'em girls. Hell, most of the "veterans" had never been seriously shot at by somebody who meant it and knew how. They had DD-214s, sure, but it was the nature of the military that the overwhelming majority of vets were fobbits, support troops, rear echelon pogues, what his Daddy in Southeast Asia had called "REMFs."

And Cathcart, who had a knack for getting people to follow him but an inability to lead, had been a vehicle mechanic. Oh, his heart was in the right place, and he had guts - but his brain was still trying to catch up.

And, Laidlaw knew, time was something Cathcart no longer had.

Well, it wasn't like I didn't try to tell him. Cathcart's problem was that he was too lazy and too desperate to be liked by his people to insist on the training they'd needed before this day. Oh, they'd gone through some half-hearted FTXs, but when Laidlaw had tried to get serious about them, Cathcart had undercut him.

Wouldn't even let me condition them properly, Laidlaw thought bitterly.

"We're not the Airborne," Cathcart had whined in explanation, "we're militia."

"My guys do it," he'd insisted, "even Bobby Marcus and he's 16 and a couch potato before I got ahold of him. Now he's a lean, mean kid. He ain't a killer yet, but he will be if he has to."

It didn't make a dent in Cathcart. He just didn't know what was coming down the pike then, and now he hasn't got a clue what to do about it.

Before Laidlaw had joined up, the most Cathcart would have his people do was paintball. PAINTBALL, fer cryin' out loud. OK, maybe you got some phys ed out of it, but it taught all the wrong tactical lessons. People actually thought concealment was cover. Besides, what was cover for a paintball wouldn't even be noticed by a 5.56 or 7.62 NATO projectile on its way to rip out your guts or blow off your head.

Well, those weren't paintballs eroding the bricks six inches in front of Cathcart's nose, blowing chips and dust all over the place.

NOW do you understand the DIFFERENCE?

Oh, hell, get a grip, he told himself. If Cathcart lives you can tell him "I told you so," but he knows that already. How am I going to get these good people through this without ALL of them getting killed?

Especially, he thought selfishly, ME.

Laidlaw looked behind him at his squad arrayed along the outer back wall of the auto parts store. Good, he noted with pride, they were set up the way I taught them, 360 all round, weapons ready, eyeballs seeking danger. Scared as shitless as Cathcart, but they were ready in spite of it.

Training did that.

Manny Shinstein, his assistant squad leader, was smiling. Yeah, Manny had been here before too.

Shinstein cocked his head in Cathcart's direction and began to hand sign.

"He's shitting bricks, isn't he?"

Manny and Laidlaw shared an unusual circumstance for folks who lived on the same street in a small Tennessee town. Both of their wives were deaf. Funny how things worked out that way. But Manny was good people. An ex-Marine, Shinstein had been to Fallujah twice and Afghanistan once. Billie and Sheri had met at some function for the deaf, and become immediate friends. That drew Manny and him together. It didn't take Laidlaw long to forgive Manny Shinstein for being a jarhead.

They discovered they had a lot in common, including a sick sense of humor that started with Monty Python and got worse, as well as a mutual penchant for playing the Dropkick Murphys at a decibel level beyond pain. When the neighbors complained, Manny told the cop with the face and sincerity of the choirboy he'd never been (he was after all Jewish) that since his wife was deaf, the only way she could enjoy music was by the vibration and didn't the cop know about the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Crazy bastard got away with it, too. The neighbors even apologized.

Laidlaw winked back at Manny. Truth was, Shinstein had a bad case of PTSD, and how he kept a lid on it was impressive to Laidlaw. Getting rocked by three IEDs will do that to you.

CRAP, LAIDLAW, GET YOUR MIND OUT OF IRAQ AND WRAP IT AROUND THIS LITTLE TACTICAL PROBLEM HERE, his brain screamed at him.

I've been down this street a hundred times, he thought, yet I can't visualize what's on the other side, across the street from the auto parts store. That's something else bullets do to you, they mess with your mind. I've got to get a look at these bastards and work it from there. First, I gotta make sure Cathcart doesn't do anything stupid while I'm gone. He waved to get Cathcart's attention and began to hand signal. Finally Cathcart nodded, and the relief was plain on his face.

Well, thought Laidlaw, he really did pay attention when we covered that in the first FTX after I joined up. Good.

Signaling Manny to hold where they were with the rest of the squad, Laidlaw pointed out two of his troopers to follow him. They trotted down to the old wooden back door of the store. The squad adjusted behind them. I'll bet there's a iron bar on the other side.

Maybe two.

Bill Bushatz, a young kid fresh out of high school who had started as fullback all four years, was the designated entry man. The boy was big enough to tote the entry tool without strain and muscular enough to use it.

His dad had been arrested in one of the first ATF raids of Operation Clean Sweep, but when Laidlaw got to the unit, Cathcart had Bill carrying his radio and being his general flunky and dogrobber. Laidlaw spotted the boy's true worth and persuaded Cathcart to let him have him "temporarily." After getting used to Laidlaw's ways, Bushatz refused to go back to being a flunky. Which of course is what Laidlaw had expected.

The squad leader pointed his desire, and Bushatz took out the hinge side of the door, low, high and in the middle -- one, BAM, two, BAM, gasp for breath, three, BAM, CLANG!. The door sagged inward, but was caught by the bar. Reaching around the splintered doorjam, Bushatz' battle buddy John Reynolds got a grip on the bar, pulled upward, shoved in and released it. With another clang it hit the floor. Another hard shove and the door followed. They entered precisely per the MOUT drill he'd taught them, the tactical lights on their weapons penetrating the gloom of the back of the store.

Once inside, they halted, looking, listening, letting their vision adjust, weapons still at the ready. It was a Sunday, and no one was in the store. Laidlaw spotted a set of old wooden stairs leading up to the second floor. Signaling Bushatz to remain, he and Reynolds moved up the stairs, and then forward down the upper hallway.

The floor was thick with dust. Nobody had been up here in years. Laidlaw moved cautiously up to the begrimed, cob-webbed window that overlooked the street, which was now a battlefield. Reynolds automatically took up station covering the rear.

Again, Laidlaw felt a tightening of his throat in pride. Reynolds was another kid, still in high school, what was he, maybe 17? He had never heard a round come up-range in anger. He too was scared to death, but he was doing his job, simply because he'd done it so often in training it was second nature.

Ignoring Cathcart's wimpy FTX scehdule, Laidlaw had worked his own guys hard for months, every spare minute they could all get together. Constant physical conditioning. Classroom sessions followed by walk-through rehearsals in the abandoned metal fabricating plant down by the river, or up in the national forest forty miles away, then full-blown exercises with blanks and disorienting bird bombs and home-made pyrotechnics rolled by Manny -- what he called "my Shinstein Shitters."

Twice he'd fired live rounds over their heads or down well-marked lanes to the side so they would know what an incoming round sounded like.

The fire outside had slackened. Brightfire's waiting for us and Cathcart's waiting for me.

OK, fine. From the shelter of the brick wall flanking the window, Laidlaw studied the scene, taking care to keep out of the light that fitfully streamed in the dirty glass as clouds paraded past in front of the late morning sun. Backing up deeper into the gloom, he repositioned himself on the other side and looked down and across the street to the west this time. Memory now filled in the rest of the picture he could not see.

The one-story stone building that Brightfire had taken refuge in was a law office and stoutly built. This was Water Street, so named because it ran haphazardly along the river to its back. The ground sloped steeply behind the buildings on the opposite side of the street, through brush and trees on the bank. The reason Brightfire had chosen this building was burning merrily in front of it. Tires shredded by the ambush it had escaped only because one of Cathcart's nervous troops had allowed himself to be seen, the Hummer belched black smoke that swirled down Water Street in the stiff breeze.

A dead mercenary sat upright behind the wheel, slowly barbequeing. What did that leave, five of them? Four?

Laidlaw's squad had been assigned the kill zone of the ambush, and even after it was blown they managed to get the other two vehicles in the convoy, the lead Hummer and and the five ton truck full of detainees. By some miracle, only two of the now-liberated prisoners were wounded in the process. That, Laidlaw reflected, was another cause for pride. The squad leader had made sure that all of his men and boys, and one girl, could shoot. And when it had come down to it, they'd shot well.

But the trail vehicle hadn't entered the kill zone and although one of the security elements had luckily shot it up enough to stop it, the mercenaries, aside from Mr. Crispy there, had made it to the law office. Lucky for them. It was probably the stoutest building on Water Street.

OK. Their reaction force has got to be mounting up by now. Air cover probably inbound NOW. What, fifteen minutes, maybe less? We're running out of time and we ought to be fading -- right now.

Leave 'em? Burn 'em out? The stone walls wouldn't burn, that was for sure. We've got no heavy weapons. What I wouldn't give for a couple of Javelins or even an AT-4, although the stone structure looked stout enough to turn an AT-4.

THINK.

M203. In the windows. Hell, yeah.

He'd seen one down on the road in the kill zone and ordered it policed up. Who'd got it?

He keyed his squad radio for Manny. "Kilo Two, send up that M203 and all the rounds we got."

"Roger."

A pause, and then: "Triple C's looking like he's about to do something."

"Shit! Tell that dopey bastard to keep his dick in his pants, I've got this thing licked."

"I'm trying . . Oh, SHIT!"

Cathcart had been sweating ever since Laidlaw had disappeared into the building. WHAT was taking so long? They had to go, didn't he know that? They had to finish this thing NOW, before help arrived.

It didn't help that the squad on his left flank was commanded by Duke Conners, a guy with more testosterone than brains who had watched too many war movies over his 36 years. Conners noted that the SAW firing at his people seemed to be unable to depress its muzzle enough to engage them. The tracers were going head high and no lower. This was his big chance. If he could just get in there and toss some of their improvised hand grenades in the side windows this would be all over. Connors knew that Cathcart was uncertain. That damn Laidlaw was just nervous in the service.

Big bad veteran. So what?

This wasn't so tough. He'd talked Cathcart into it, and now he, Duke Conners, was going to finish this thing.

It would have been worse if fully half of Conners' squad hadn't disobeyed him out of inexperience, indiscipline, fear or uncommon good sense. When Duke ordered the entire squad to keep low and charge the building, only five people followed him. The rest hung back, firing in support but not venturing from cover.

For two seconds, maybe three, long enough to take them past the point of no return and fully into the middle of the street, the SAW continued firing high.

Then it shifted.

Not one of them made it, either to the stone building or back to safety. Duke Connors' spine was, in part, blown out his back along with chunks of gut and muscle and as his legs quit working he pitched headlong onto the pavement. He bounced once and slid to a stop on his face. Duke's vision flickered long enough to register the fact that his 16 year old son Jeff lay dead three yards away, his head exploded.

Then Duke Conners died. The lumber mill supervisor hadn't watched enough war movies to keep from being fooled by the oldest trick in the machinegunner's book, one that dated back to the first World War.

Cathcart watched the destruction of Conner's squad in horrified disbelief, focusing on the small form of young Jeff Conners, still twitching and jerking as the gunner played part of another belt across the corpses, in an effort to get one of their friends to do something stupid in reaction. Filled with equal parts of wrath, hatred and guilt, Charles Carlos Cathcart obliged him and stepped from cover to engage the gun. A Brightfire rifleman, firing from another window, put a bullet through his head.

Jenny Wilson delivered the M-203 to Laidlaw just as Conners' valiant but doomed half dozen broke from cover. By that time, Laidlaw had moved to the front office to the left off the hallway and eased up the window until he had an unobstructed shot at the law office's front windows. Wilson's chest was heaving and her eyes were wide, but she'd shouldered that M16A2 with the grenade launcher since the ambush. And it was she who'd put two rounds through the officer in truck's cab, thereby saving at least some of the detainees from murder. Laidlaw had been resistant when she insisted she wanted to be in his squad. He knew it was because she was sweet on Bill Bushatz.

But try as he might, he couldn't run her off. He tried running her into the ground, grinding her down in PT, picking on her for every dirty detail. He couldn't scare her and he couldn't run her off. She not only did her job and carried her own weight, she had better military sense than most of the rest of his squad, always awake and alert, always THINKING. He had her marked for Corporal if she stood up to seeing the elephant. Well, she had. And now she watched her squad leader with intensity, curous to see how this unfamiliar weapon worked.

Laidlaw heard the round that fatally compromised the integrity of Cathcart's braincase, and saw the window it had come from. OK, bastard, you first. He keyed the mike. "Kilo Two, four rounds, take it when I'm done."

"Roger. Four rounds."

They were easy shots and Laidlaw was well experienced with the 203. With the range so short, he didn't even flip up the sights. The first HE round sailed through the window hole and blew up within, debris flying out the window. Laidlaw switched to the other front window to the left of the door and did likewise with it. Then he put two rounds into the doorway. The first hit the top hinge and blew the door partially out of the jam and down, creating a hole that the fourth and final round sailed through, exploding deep within the building.

Instantly Manny took the squad across the street and assaulted the law office. A few muffled bursts and it was over. Manny came out a minute later, hoisting a Squad Automatic Weapon over his right shoulder.

By the time the first Brightfire gunship came over the ambush site and then floated down to the river and hovered over the law office, the militia, now commanded by Lawrence "Larry" Laidlaw (nobody called him Lawrence) had vanished. Even the bodies of their fallen had been policed up.

Laidlaw watched the chopper circle ineffectually through 7x50 binoculars from a distant tree line. He turned to the young and old men and women (no boys and girls now) who were nearby and ordered, "Move out."

One thing was certain. There was going to be a lot more training in their future.

A whole lot more.

end.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/


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Shadow Government / Obama's military problem is getting worse

Obama's military problem is getting worse
Wed, 10/21/2009 - 5:43pm

By Peter Feaver

President Obama is presiding over a slow-motion civil-military crash occasioned by his meandering Afghanistan strategy review. The crash has not yet happened and is avoidable, but it also foreseeable. Of concern, the latest reports out of the White House suggest that Obama's team is not yet fully aware of the dangers. If it happens, it will be a problem entirely of Obama's own making and it could have a lasting impact on the way his administration unfolds.

As Rich Lowry has observed, President Obama rarely misses a chance to blame a challenge he is confronting on his predecessor. This rhetorical tic served Obama well during the campaign and probably still resonates with partisans who post anonymous comments on blogs or who suffer from chronic Bush Derangement Syndrome. But it gives the impression that the Administration never left the campaign bubble and may even encourage self-defeating campaign-like behavior such as picking feuds with news organizations.

And insofar as the Afghan strategy review goes, it is a narrative string that is thoroughly played out because the current civil-military problem confronting the Obama Administration is entirely of its own making. The problem is not that Afghanistan is a difficult combat theater, nor that Karzai is an inconvenient Afghan ally, nor even that President Obama is taking time to review his strategic options. All of that and more is true and, I suppose, some of it can be "blamed" on President Bush. The problem that cannot be blamed on Bush is that the way President Obama is reviewing his strategic options is generating needless civil-military friction and, unless the Obama team gets it under control, could generate a genuine civil-military crisis.

Tom Donnelly produced an extensive tick-tock of the evolving Obama Afghanistan policy that reads like the first draft of a "what went wrong" post-mortem. For my money, the key developments were:

President Obama opts for a misleading straddle in rolling-out the results of his first Afghan strategy review in March. He oversells the extent to which the new strategy is a radical departure from his predecessor's, but more crucially oversells the extent to which he is committed to this strategy. And, like President Johnson in 1965 and unlike President Bush in 2007, he announces the low-ball estimate of new resources expected rather than the high-ball estimate. Military audiences hear what they want to hear -- namely that the President is committed to resourcing the "new" COIN strategy --and do not hear what they do not want to hear -- namely that the President is reserving the option not to resource adequately the new strategy and, indeed, to change his mind about the strategy in a few months time.

Shortly after the roll-out, President Obama and his key White House team take their collective eye off the ball and are largely uninvolved in the firing of General McKiernan and the hiring of General McChrystal. Indeed, President Obama has only one substantive interaction with the battlefield commander of his most important "war of necessity" for the next four months.
The most meaningful senior White House engagement with the Afghanistan theater over the long summer of discontent is a remarkable late June trip that NSA Jim Jones takes and that amounts to an on-the-record politicization of military advice. As reported by Bob Woodward, Jones appears to tell the military commanders to shave their military advice in light of President Obama's reluctance to approve new troop deployments. This episode, I believe, is the key pivot point. Military observers draw two "so that's the way it's going to be" inferences:

(1) The Obama team is fully cooperating with Bob Woodward -- a tried and true Washington strategy because Woodward tends to treat more favorably people who have cooperated (i.e. shared information and access) than people who haven't. Application: it is OK to cooperate with Bob Woodward.

(2) The Obama team is politicizing civil-military relations. Application: play the game or you will get burned.

On 17 August, despite harboring serious misgivings about the Afghan mission -- and despite the accumulating evidence that the Afghan elections, a few days hence, will be riddled with fraud -- President Obama gives his most important speech since the March roll-out focusing on Afghanistan and uses the same rhetoric that he used on the campaign trail: Afghanistan is a war of necessity. Reasonable inference for military audience: The president is committed to fully resourcing this war.

A direct result of Jones's late June trip, I suspect, is that Bob Woodward is put on distribution for the McChrystal report and receives it shortly after McChrystal delivers it to his (McChrystal's) chain of command in late August. However, because Woodward is in the book-writing business, he does not publish the scoop, holding it back for the book. (Many observers believe that Woodward's source was a military officer, but my own hunch is that it was someone from Holbrooke's staff. My conjecture is based largely on the fact that when the story does break, Woodward leaves Holbrooke entirely out of the story, a telling absence of the AfPak czar that makes more sense if one is protecting a source).

Throughout September, after the McChrystal report is delivered but before it is leaked, there start to be stories that indicate growing military frustration with the White House's lack of strategic focus on Afghanistan. The military apparently believe that President Obama is paralyzed with indecision. This is the context for Woodward going to his source and asking for permission to run the report as a news story rather than as a book scoop: the White House is trying to bury the McChrystal report by refusing to act or even debate it. The result is a real civil-military problem.

In response to the leak, the White House kicks into high damage-control mode (after a brief delay occasioned by the unfortunate timing of the UNGA meetings), but even here shows some clumsiness, at least regarding civil-military optics: the 25 hours for the Olympics vs. 25 minutes for McChrystal optic, and the surprisingly prominent participation of the political team in what is supposed to be a national security review. This coupled with numerous anonymous quotes attributed to senior Obama team members aimed at knocking McChrystal down a peg or two do more to roil than smooth the civil-military waters.

And then, most recently, a remarkable (and rare) public disagreement between Chief of Staff Emmanuel and Secretary of Defense Gates about whether the Obama team can wait to decide on the McChrystal request until after the fate of Afghan President Karzai is resolved.
In short, President Obama has been slowly veering off into a civil-military ditch of his own digging. Despite his relative inexperience in national security matters, this was not inevitable; during the campaign President Obama showed himself to be fairly deft rhetorically in regards to civil-military relations and he carried this strong performance through the first several months of his presidency. However, in recent months he has seemed far less at ease with his wartime Commander-in-Chief role.

If Obama regains a deft touch, the crash can be averted. To avert it he needs to do more than simply endorse the McChrystal request, though that would surely help. He needs to show that he respects the civil-military process, and he needs to rein in his advisors who have been stumbling about. If he is going to over-rule McChrystal, which is his right as a Commander-in-Chief, he will have a much steeper climb out of his civil-military hole. At a minimum, he will need to forthrightly take ownership of the war and all of its consequences and spend the political capital he has hitherto avoided spending on national security issues to explain his decision to the American people and the American military. Of course, while President Obama and his team bear the lion's share of the responsibility for the current civil-military friction, they cannot by themselves get out of the hole they have dug.

The military will have to help by rigorously sticking to proper norms of civil-military relations. That means they must not counter-leak, not even to defend themselves from scurrilous attacks from unnamed White House staffers; seek redress quietly, within the system, and within the chain of command. They must avoid threatening President Obama with resignations in protest if he overrules their advice; such threats subvert the principle of civilian control which implies that civilians have a right to be wrong. And they must be prepared to do their utmost to implement Obama's chosen strategy as effectively as they can with whatever resources he puts at their disposal. If President Obama errs, it is up to the electorate to judge him, not the military.

end.
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/21/obamas_military_pr...


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Shadow Government / Obama's military problem is getting worse

EU—The Coming Storm

EU—The Coming Storm

October 21, 2009 | From theTrumpet.com
By Ron Fraser

The year 2010 promises to be a rocky one for the world’s largest trading bloc, the European Union. The European Commission has cited 20 of the EU’s 27 member nations for unacceptable budget deficits. The latest shock comes from Greece, having revised its former deficit estimate for 2009 from 3.7 percent of gross domestic product to between 10 and 12 percent. That estimate is between three and four times the EU’s self-imposed limit of a permissible 3 percent maximum of gdp for EU economies.

Germany and France, the largest economies within the EU, have forecast 2009 budget deficit estimates of 3.7 percent and 8.2 percent respectively. It is interesting to note that Germany, the prime mover for the imposition of the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact which limits EU budget deficits to that 3 percent maximum, has been one of the most consistent offenders, for years having posted deficits consistently above that figure.

At the other end of the scale—the smaller and weaker economies within the EU—concerns run even deeper. The Guardian reported that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has warned, “The countries of Central and Eastern Europe will enjoy only a ‘fragile and patchy’ economic recovery in 2010 and the region remains vulnerable to the sort of banking crises that hit Latvia this month” (October 15). Latvia, which narrowly avoided complete financial meltdown a week ago, is estimating its 2009 budget deficit will reach a whopping 10 percent!

During a conference on banking regulation in Brussels this month, Nobel prize winner in economics Joseph Stiglitz observed that “the financial crisis is forcing the EU to re-examine its cornerstone policy area—the single market” (EUobserver, October 12). “The current solution,” Stiglitz said, “which is to put undue burdens on those particular countries that followed the model of deregulation, is one that we might want to question.”

That is tantamount to questioning the very foundational economic policy upon which the European Union is founded.

EUobserver further reported that “The single market theme was later picked up by the EU’s economy commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, who warned that differences in financial regulation across the EU pose a dangerous threat to the bloc’s internal market. … Mr. Almunia said it was vital that the EU iron out its own in-house discrepancies or risk contagion to the real economy” (ibid.).

The financial and economic storm gathering in Europe is all grist for the mill to the elites who are currently busy developing the rules and regulations which, via the global regulatory authority granted to the EU-contrived Financial Stability Board (fsb), will soon impose its measures, not just on Europe, but on the world’s 20 leading economies.

The greater the impending economic crisis, the louder the call will come for global financial and economic regulation. That call will be music to the ears of German-Catholic elites who are behind the push for global regulation by the fsb. Each call for tighter financial and economic regulation simply brings us closer to the realization of their imperial vision of Europe—in reality, the prophesied seventh, and final, resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire (Revelation 13:16-17). •


end.
http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=6662.5131.0.0

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Human Microchipping: What You Need to Hear NOW!!!

By Denise on October 19th, 2009
Microchipping: What You Need to Hear

We’ve all heard it. Microchipping would enable doctors to link to a database and be able to view your medical information. Beware this benign campaign, folks. It opens the door to government intrusion even further.

Sounds pretty safe, eh? I mean this could come in handy should you find yourself in an emergency room on vacation, right? The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Two days from now, representatives from the VeriChip Corporation and RECEPTORS LLC will meet in New York to unveil two new proposals. One is a virus triage detection system. It would utilize a small strip or test tube and a reader similar to the glucometers used by diabetics to check their blood sugar levels. The other is a plan to get diabetics to have their blood sugar levels monitored via an implanted RFID microchip. No more pricking your finger or resetting your glucometer. The chip would provide a reading at any time.

To read more about this, click here.

http://business.cbs5.com/cbslocal.cbs5/?GUID=10404871&Page=MediaViewer&Ticker=CHIP

I’ll be honest. Microchipping scares the crap outta me. Not only because of my personal religious beliefs, but because it allows for more government control of the people. Yes, we got Zeus chipped earlier this year, but he’s not going to be carrying our personal information on it. In fact, should he run off and be scanned, all they’ll know is where the chip was implanted. From there, my vet can contact me.

Think of what could be done with a microchipped population. No need for money conversion anywhere in the world (a one-world currency system), the ability to see whether or not you contracted an STD in college, and viewing your entire criminal history (including a shoplifting charge you had as a juvenile) would become conveniences of an already overreaching government. In fact, I offer a one-world government.

What would be the next step? Requiring a chip to drive? Want a credit card? Filling out that pesky application would become a thing of the past. When the government can’t find a fugitive, GPS tracking within the chip would solve that problem. Then, and this is where my belief system comes in, you can’t do business without a chip. All done in the name of convenience and efficiency.

The problem of convincing people that this is a real possibility (and arguably a foretold reality) is that those who float the idea of microchip abuse are often painted as religious zealots or crackpots. Those of you who are regulars here: Do I fit that description?

I urge each of you to look within yourselves and decide whether this is something that you’re comfortable with. Explore your faith and your conscience. If you fear being labeled as crazy or paranoid, don’t be afraid.

There ARE people who agree with you.

end.
http://westernfrontamerica.com/2009/10/19/microchipping-hear/

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U.S. Wants Bunker-Buster Fast, Denies Iran Is Reason

U.S. Wants Bunker-Buster Fast, Denies Iran Is Reason

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 3:25 AM

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete.

Call it Plan B for dealing with Iran, which recently revealed a long-suspected nuclear site deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom.

The 15-ton behemoth -- called the "massive ordnance penetrator," or MOP -- will be the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal and will carry 5,300 pounds of explosives. The bomb is about 10 times more powerful than the weapon it is designed to replace.

The Pentagon has awarded a nearly $52 million contract to speed up placement of the bomb aboard the B-2 Stealth bomber, and officials say the bomb could be fielded as soon as next summer.

Pentagon officials acknowledge that the new bomb is intended to blow up fortified sites like those used by Iran and North Korea for their nuclear programs, but they deny there is a specific target in mind.

"I don't think anybody can divine potential targets," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. "This is just a capability that we think is necessary given the world we live in."

The Obama administration has struggled to counter suspicions lingering from George W. Bush's presidency that the United States is either planning to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities itself or would look the other way if Israel did the same.

The administration has been careful not to take military action off the table even as it reaches out to Iran with historic talks this month. Tougher sanctions are the immediate backup if diplomacy fails to stop what the West fears is a drive for a nuclear weapon.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities would probably only buy time. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen has called a strike an option he doesn't want to use.

The new U.S. bomb would be the culmination of planning begun in the Bush years. The Obama administration's plans to bring the bomb on line more quickly indicate that the weapon is still part of the long-range backup plan.

"Without going into any intelligence, there are countries that have used technology to go further underground and to take those facilities and make them hardened," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. "This is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing one."

After testing began in 2007, development of the bomb was slowed by about two years because of budgetary issues, Whitman said, and the administration moved last summer to return to the previous schedule.

North Korea, led by Kim Jong Il, is a known nuclear weapons state and has exploded working devices underground. The United States and other countries have offered to buy out the country's weapons program. The Obama administration is trying to lure Pyongyang back to the bargaining table after a walkout last year.

Iran is a more complex case, for both diplomatic and technical reasons. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claims its nuclear program is peaceful and meant only to produce energy, but the West suspects a covert bomb program that may be only a year or so away from fruition.

"I don't really see it as a near-term indication of anything being planned. I think certainly down the road it has a certain deterrent factor," said Kenneth Katzman, a specialist on Iran and the Middle East at the Congressional Research Service. "It adds to the calculus, let's say, of Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il."

Details about Iran's once-secret program have come out slowly and often under duress, as with last month's surprise confirmation of the hidden underground development site near Qom.

That revelation came a month after the Pentagon had asked Congress to shift money to speed up the MOP program, although U.S. and other intelligence agencies had suspected for years that Iran was still hiding at least one nuclear development site.

The MOP could, in theory, take out bunkers such as those Saddam Hussein had begun to construct for weapons programs in Iraq, or flatten the kind of cave and tunnel networks that allowed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to escape U.S. assault in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2001.

The precision-guided bomb is designed to drill through earth and almost any underground encasement to reach weapons depots, labs or hideouts.


http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/us_big_bomb/2009/10/13/271419.html


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INTERPOL and United Nations Seek Greater Support for Police Role in Peacekeeping Missions

Ronald K. Noble, "Secretary General" of Interpol

Sun Oct 11, 2009 9:24pm EDT


INTERPOL and United Nations Seek Greater Support for Police Role in Peacekeeping Missions

SINGAPORE, Oct. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- INTERPOL and the United Nations have partnered to secure international commitments for greater support for the role of police in peacekeeping operations worldwide. This increased support is seen as a key element to restoring the rule of law in post conflict zones, fragile states and achieving sustainable peace. Secretary General Ronald K. Noble described INTERPOL's partnership with the UN as "an alliance of all nations" that would commit INTERPOL to deliver international police expertise, more skilled police personnel and frontline access to its global resources in countries suffering or recovering from conflicts, in order to help them achieve and build peace and combat transnational crime.

"If UN peacekeepers assigned to post-conflict zones or fragile states are asked to perform police-like functions and to combat transnational crime, then more peacekeepers should come from the ranks of police and be given access to INTERPOL's global databases," said INTERPOL Secretary General Noble. At a meeting of more than 60 justice, interior and foreign affairs ministers with senior law enforcement officers from around the world, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke via video of 'the need for greater respect for the rule of law' in the world's most troubled parts, describing INTERPOL as 'a natural partner' to restore stability following war and to address the challenges on the ground.

Representing the UN at the meeting, Under-Secretary-General Alain Le Roy said that UN co-operation with INTERPOL had been reinforced by the recognition of "a clear link between crime and conflict" and the fact that serious and organized crime was prevalent in many conflict areas. Secretary General Noble told the assembly, "In the framework of our partnership with the UN, INTERPOL will provide deployed police peacekeepers with access to the world's only secure global police communications system; global police databases including names of criminals, fingerprints, DNA profiles, stolen passports, and stolen vehicles; and specialized investigative support in key crime areas, including fugitives, drugs, terrorism, trafficking in human beings and corruption."

The ministers in attendance are endorsing a special Declaration which will set a roadmap for police to play its full role in meeting today's peacekeeping challenges. SOURCE INTERPOL INTERPOL General Secretariat, 200, quai Charles de Gaulle, 69006 Lyon France, +33-(0)-4-72-44-76-01, Fax: +33 (0)4 72 44 71 63

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS16099+12-Oct-2009+PRN20091012

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Do you care about the troops? They need you now more than ever!, Urgent support request for Afghanistan

Do you care about the troops? They need you now more than ever!, Urgent support request for Afghanistan.

I got the following message sent to me and in seeing the urgent need of support, I am hoping you will spread this around and help in anyway that you might be able too.

8 killed in an awful battle in Afghanistan where they
were overwhelmed by insurgents. Many more were wounded.

Here's some important info that is on a troop support website:

QUOTE:

In the battle for Combat Outpost Keating, the men of Bravo Troop 361 Cavalry lost every possession they had, save for the clothes on their backs. These men have lost friends, their outpost, and all their belongings. One soldier who made it out wrote that “most people back home dont even know, no one gives a ”. Well, many of us do. And you can prove it by giving whatever you can.

if you would like to send a card, letter or a small package with snacks, morale gear, etc. to the survivors to tell them "WE GIVE A ", you can mail directly to (please DO NOT send money to this address, this address is in Afghanistan, and they cannot purchase anything there). Please include a note in your package that these items are for the COP Keating Survivors:


CSM Robert Wilson
TF Mountain Warrior
FOB Bostick
APO AE 09354

And, yes, before you ask...the Army did give each of the survivors one change of clothes...but, they have to buy any extras, personal items, etc, and the PX there is just not prepared to handle this.


Those of us putting this plea out there are asking one final thing -- if possible... please take a picture of yourself holding a sign that says "I give a sh!t!" We thought it might bring a smile to their faces to see boxes rolling in with that sentiment! Please include any personal items you can, but also include books, MP3 players (if you have one to spare), and other morale boosting materials. Remember these guys lost EVERYTHING including their most precious friends.


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A Message to Al Qaeda from TNM President Daniel Miller: He is requesting we post it anywhere we can

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS, WEBSITES, BLOGS ETC.. THIS MESSAGE FROM OUR FRIEND DANIEL MILLER, PRESIDENT OF THE TEXAS NATIONAL MILITIA IS IMPORTANT TO SHOW THOSE PUNKS OF AL QAEDA THAT WE WON’T TAKE SHIT FROM THEM........

October 12, 2009 at 4:41am

A Message to Al Qaeda from TNM President Daniel Miller


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nxm2v1owLc

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Senators Escalate Call for Obama to Send More Troops to Afghanistan

Senators Escalate Call for Obama to Send More Troops to Afghanistan

The Obama administration is deep in deliberations over whether to build on its counterinsurgency strategy with thousands more troops in Afghanistan or focus more on taking out top Al Qaeda targets, particularly in Pakistan. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is joining Senate Republicans in calling for the president to approve the request for more troops.

Top Republican senators escalated their call Sunday for President Obama to grant Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for more troops in Afghanistan, and one prominent Democrat warned that a failure to do so could jeopardize U.S. forces.

The Obama administration is deep in deliberations over whether to build on its counterinsurgency strategy with thousands more troops in Afghanistan or focus more on taking out top Al Qaeda targets, particularly in Pakistan. The bloody clash this weekend at the Pakistan army headquarters, where commandos freed dozens of hostages early Sunday after militants attacked the facility, underscored the instability in the region.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the attack emphasized the "danger of the Taliban not only in Afghanistan but in Pakistan as well."

But he said any attempt by the administration to scale back the fight against the Taliban in favor of a tactical battle against Al Qaeda would damage security.

"They are different. But they are inter-connected," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

He said Republicans would "almost overwhelmingly support" the president if he opts to grant McChrystal's request for more troops, estimated to be for about 40,000.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also said the counterinsurgency strategy pursued by McChrystal is "really critical." She said the American people don't have the stomach to stay in Afghanistan for another 10 years, but that the mission there is in "serious jeopardy" and Obama has an obligation to follow his commander's advice.

"I don't know how you put somebody in who was as crackerjack as General McChrystal, who gives the president very solid recommendations, and not take those recommendations if you're not going to pull out," Feinstein said on ABC's "This Week."

"If you don't want to take the recommendations, then you put your people in such jeopardy."

She suggested some elements of the Taliban could be won over, but warned that the Taliban in Afghanistan will have a "dramatic impact" on Pakistan if allowed to flourish.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also said on CNN's "State of the Union" that the Taliban and Al Qaeda will become "inextricably tied."

McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the president is right to take his time and deliberate but that a failure to accept the advice of his military commanders would be "an error of historic proportions."

But many Democrats are pushing back on a call for more U.S. troops, questioning whether a larger U.S. military footprint will help change the course of the war.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Afghanistan needs a surge of Afghan forces, not of U.S. forces. He said more trainers are needed, but not more U.S. combat troops.

"The president has to look at a much broader perspective than the commander's request, as important as that is," Levin said.

Obama has held a series of meetings with top military commanders and diplomatic advisers, as he moves toward a decision on how to proceed in Afghanistan.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also on the Armed Services Committee, said Sunday on "Meet the Press" that more trainers are desired -- but that with Afghan forces getting "slaughtered," the need for U.S. reinforcements is greater.

"Without better security, more combat power, we're going to lose in Afghanistan," he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/11/senators-escalate-obama-send-troops-afghanistan/

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Camp FEMA - Obama Youth Army / Will you Go Quietly?

This is one compelling video and website to see. It needs to spread around vehemently and rigorously.
"...it's time to end the charade that the parties in power have our best interests in mind."

It's on the website Camp Fema; part of a DVD also being released and put out by the "Reality Report".

Watch the video!


http://campfema.com/obama-youth-army_camp-fema.html


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SACRIFICE = Paige Bennethum

October 9, 2009 at 6:00pm

Paige Bennethum, 4, holds her daddy's hand as he lines up in formation before heading to Iraq

No one had the heart to stop Paige from lining up with her daddy.


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WAR Against Tyranny In America / The Struggle From Within !!

Mark Twain: Honorable Citizen & Patriot

A man can be a Christian or a patriot, but he can't legally be a Christian and a patriot -- except in the usual way: one of the two with the mouth, the other with the heart. The spirit of Christianity proclaims the brotherhood of the race and the meaning of that strong word has not been left to guesswork, but made tremendously definite -- the Christian must forgive his brother man all crimes he can imagine and commit, and all insults he can conceive and utter- forgive these injuries how many times? -- seventy times seven -- another way of saying there shall be no limit to this forgiveness.

That is the spirit and the law of Christianity. Well -- Patriotism has its laws.

And it also is a perfectly definite one, there are not vagueness's about it. It commands that the brother over the border shall be sharply watched and brought to book every time he does us a hurt or offends us with an insult. Word it as softly as you please, the spirit of patriotism is the spirit of the dog and wolf. The moment there is a misunderstanding about a boundary line or a hamper of fish or some other squalid matter, see patriotism rise, and hear him split the universe with is war-whoop. The spirit of patriotism being in its nature jealous and selfish, is just in man's line, it comes natural to him -- he can live up to all its requirements to the letter; but the spirit of Christianity is not in its entirety possible to him.

The prayers concealed in what I have been saying is, not that patriotism should cease and not that the talk about universal brotherhood should cease, but that the incongruous firm be dissolved and each limb of it be required to transact business by itself, for the future.
- Mark Twain's Notebook


The words of a many honorable patriots past speaks volumes today. America was founded on the freedom of speech, and we defended them with our bibles, guns and all we believe, our 2nd Amendment right.

We the people have suddenly found ourselves in this position as a country once again, as the despots reign tyranny across our land.

A decision to defend these basic rights will have to be made again real soon as our God of good & the Satan of ‘tyranny’, are going to collide, and our people are going to have to decide which side of the line they will be standing on.

America or Tyranny.

I believe the last of the good and honorable people all united, will speak the loudest, and I hope this day of patriots comes very soon! Even if we are the minority and our roots of Freedom & Liberty are truly doomed.

Preserving our great Country & Constitution must be won at all costs and the real war to save it all, must be soon.

We cannot wait until 2010, to turn this evil blight around. If we wait until 2012, tyranny will reign across America forever and tyrannies blight will kill our precious tree of Freedom & Liberty.

I hope all good and honorable citizens & patriots alike awake to reality soon that Freedom & Liberty are quickly slipping away, our American dream is doomed.

Or, is it already to late. Have we already compromised and conceded all of our Christian Conservative values our great nation are built upon. Were they stolen before our complacent eyes and without a fight.

Time will decide if the patriots missed the ride.

Tyranny is on a mission, we the good people must find ours soon.

We good and honorable citizens & patriots still have our bibles and our guns and our freedom of speech and the Liberty to assemble! For now.

But for how much longer for they we will surley be lost too.

God understands and our God forgives US when our mission is through, because we are suppose to defeat tyranny even on our streets, and on we the peoples hill!

What else do we have to lose America, oh say can you see, our soul 'Freedom & Liberty' is slipping away!

May God Bless America Again!


EC1

Oath Keepers and III Percenters In Iraq

A friend sent me this over the electronic transom, and it is outstanding news! And no, I don't know where the patches and tabs came from. This is just an example of the Conservative idea being more powerful than the means to deliver it.

Here's some of the message what came with the image:

Quote:

Just thought the WRSA and the Sipsey Street boys might like to see what we are wearing while over here in Iraq. We . . . know what the deal is, and when the time comes (which it will), we know where we stand and continue to make preparations for it. Keep up the good work! Regards from Mosul, K7C

What is a III percenter???

As last seen waving in DC on 9/12 in defiance of the national socialists in Congress and the White House, these are the first run of the Nyberg Battle Flag, also known as the III Flag.


During the American Revolution, the active forces in the field against the King's tyranny never amounted to more than 3% of the colonists. They were in turn actively supported by perhaps 10% of the population. In addition to these revolutionaries were perhaps another 20% who favored their cause but did little or nothing to support it. Another one-third of the population sided with the King (by the end of the war there were actually more Americans fighting FOR the King than there were in the field against him) and the final third took no side, blew with the wind and took what came.

Three Percenters today do not claim that we represent 3% of the American people, although we might. That theory has not yet been tested. We DO claim that we represent at least 3% of American gun owners, which is still a healthy number somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million people. History, for good or ill, is made by determined minorities. We are one such minority. So too are the current enemies of the Founders' Republic. What remains, then, is the test of will and skill to determine who shall shape the future of our nation.

The Three Percent today are gun owners who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act. Three Percenters say quite explicitly that we will not obey any futher circumscription of our traditional liberties and will defend ourselves if attacked. We intend to maintain our God-given natural rights to liberty and property, and that means most especially the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, we are committed to the restoration of the Founders' Republic, and are willing to fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, to kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution that we all took an oath to uphold against enemies foreign and domestic.

We are the people that the collectivists who now control the government should leave alone if they wish to continue unfettered oxygen consumption. We are the Three Percent. Attempt to further oppress us at your peril. To put it bluntly, leave us the hell alone. Or, if you feel froggy, go ahead AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.


Or the Short version....

We will not disarm.
You cannot convince us.
You cannot intimidate us.
You can try to kill us, if you think you can.
But remember, we'll shoot back.
And we are not going away.
Your move.


Reason for posting this article:

I have never been involved in much politics up until a few years ago. I have always kept up with the news, I am a news junkie for sure. I believe I got that from my mom and my father being in Vietnam so long ago, because she never turned the channel until after the old 5:00 o’clock news. I enjoy foreign interests and foreign policy, especially our vital foreign interests, the same vital interests the arrogant Liberals so recklessly and freely spend ‘we the peoples’, Blood & Treasure on so we can stay dependent on FOREIGN OIL! We are forced to be the worlds police and protect tyranny abroad. The well known enemy abroad, helped by the enemy from within, together has slowly and surely destroyed US, our economy, and our dollar. Now global tyranny united conspire to find another.

I have worked in the oil fields around the world since I have been out of the service for almost 30 years. I have made my el dorado earning it in the foreign sands of tyranny. Tyranny paid me in American money and laughed while I took it. I have almost cried every time I have accepted it.

My family was the real conservative blue collar democrats. They believed in God, Country and Family and moral values and law, and the honor and service to all of them. The believed in capital punishment ‘I got the strap’, even on my birthday or Christmas day and in front of the world. They believed you help a man up and teach him, but you can never raise them and their families.

Entitlements, social services and open borders are the death of American values, hard ‘work ethics’ and moral law.

But my family left the lost Democrats before Carter and never went back. I was in the Navy and I voted in my 1st election at 21 yrs old. I was a Conservative Reagan democrat. I have voted in every election since. I have always voted for the best man for the job. I have considered him to be a Republican thru the years, and even they have been hijacked and misguided for years. I do not compromise or concede when I don’t have too, and most values and principle, I do not compromise or concede anyway, and other citizens change like the weather or don’t have any values or morals to begin with. But this is where we have a problem in our great nation today. America has forced me and my conservative family to concede and compromise our values against our wishes, the minority of tyranny rules. We are forced to accept liberal murder under their free for all Abortion laws. We are forced to be all inclusive, inviting and accepting of all tyranny in order to be secular PC.

We have no Christian Conservative values left to defend, as they have removed God and our allegiance and they are finishing dismantling our Constitution now. We have conceded and compromised them all away. Now they plot and scam behind closed doors under darkened transparency, for the next round of forced liberal, or socialist tyranny, they are one and the same.

I am a man that is looking for a real party to belong too. I am looking for a Conservative party with Christian morals and values, and them unwilling to concede and compromise. That is impossible to find. But I do hold out hope as I keep looking, because that is all that is going to save our beloved America. Our own 1st Amendment is devouring US in tyranny, as we have allowed tyranny to speak freely, gather, protest, be violent, rude, and grow from a ACORN to the arrogant and destructive Liberal beast it has become!

And since I can see, like many other fine Americans can see what is in front them here in America, my duty to God, Country & Family has called me to duty and has forced me and my complacency to be involved. I am like many other good and honorable citizens & patriots across our land that is preparing for a rebellion, or as some have said a famous final last stand.

It will take the 2nd Amendment for US to keep our 1st Amendment and to rebuild on our 10th Amendment! It is why is was written that way in the peoples Constitution, ‘WE THE PEOPLES’ Constitution. The one and same that is no longer honored, in vogue or politically correct. The one the beasts devour.

But I am a Oath keeper and a III Percenter and we do have a problem don’t we.

That is why I made my post about the Oath keepers and the III percenters. I have heard others concerns in recent months regarding our military and what will surely come across our land at some point.

That is the peoples military and they will ‘never’ turn our their own. Our military is the most honorable that is and has ever been. The good and honorable citizens have always cherished, supported and lifted our military up high. We raise our flags and give thanks with the new mornings light, as a grateful nation, they call it reveille. We fold it up proper and tight at the end of days light, they call it taps, and on bended knee present our finest colors to our fallen and their families, on behalf of a grateful people and nation and salute them as heaven opens its gates.

Those heavens gates are guarded by those who are Americas finest!

This is the one and same conservative voice that our nation was founded and built upon. Our peoples military is the peoples Conservative voice!

Our nations finest are aware of what is happening in our country and across the world. They know tyranny when they see and hear it, they are a$$ deep in it right now, and they know division and strife amongst the ranks and on the Hill and across their home land.

They call it America too.

These brave and unselfish men & women have been fighting it for ‘we the people’ and America for 232 yrs now.

May we see another birthday and God bless America.

EC1

Conservative Forum Hypocrisy!!

Conservative Forum Hypocrisy.

I am a Conservative, more defined a Christian Conservative with a liberal view or two. You can’t be a Conservative without carrying and projecting Christian Values and standing firm and defending the good and bad ones too. Because we all have good and bad values, and all call ourselves Conservatives.

Life’s lessons ‘good & bad’, is what real Conservatism is based and built upon, the good and bad. Saints and sinners alike are all welcome to spread what is in their hearts and souls, while demonstrating we all also have many flaws. We have all fallen short of our true mission and goals in life and have let many down along the way. We were always to busy following our own self centered and misguided path, to ever understand what Gods purpose truly was in our youthful reckless direction. We don’t learn such a thing until we have grown old and learned a few things the hard way. This is what makes us wise or knowledgeable, because we survived.

Conservatives are too the typical selfish and self centered humans and sometimes as misguided and lost as anyone else, with a PC title across our rainbow spectrum we all now call socialism.

But a conservatives hypocrisy is a little bit more bolder and more reckless arrogance, sometimes, than a Liberals hypocrisy is, just listen to them. They are passionate about our Constitution, and most don’t even know what the Constitution says. They act like they are compassionate when they are right, and are the 1st to cast stones if your opinion or thought is skewed or wrong. They are un-forgetting and unforgiving as they all pile on the stoning. Who ever said we were suppose to forgive anyone, cast more stones and gloat about it!

Just visit a Conservative forum. You will see arrogant hypocrisy in full bloom. Look at the topics of discussion and the lost ones talking the most. They console and pander to their own self pity for being so sloth, and complacent for so many generations while tyranny stole their Conservative world. They are free to roam amongst the weeping inside their protected walls and never defend anything other than their own protected opinion, or thoughts and feel sorry for themselves, and have friends to wipe their tears and console them. And some have never had their own thoughts, they are the ones following blindly along, or waiting in the dark to pile on. They get brave and bold behind a few little byrds.

You have some that are leaders in these forums, and others that want to be, and some that will never be. None will organize, compromise or even unite for a common purpose or goal. These leaders wont lead, nor even defend when they have witnessed a injustice and unfair resolve towards a fellow patriot and his freedom of speech. These leaders are self serving and afraid to stand and be heard, and only blend in and cowardly observe. I guess they aren’t much of any leaders after all.

Hypocrisy and tyranny runs amuck and chaos reigns in a Conservative forum. Because ‘NO ONE’ can oppose or dispute them. They are hypocrisy at its best!

Conservatives will use God when it is convenient, and leave God out when it is not, and that is the majority of the time in any conversation or reply, listen to how they never talk about God, or at least not out loud. God is only a passing thought for most part, and forgiveness is empty words most of the time.

They can drink, smoke, cuss, gorge and sloth thru out the week and preach at any moment when it is convenient and self serving hypocrisy, especially in front of others. They can call others faults out and never think about theirs, those hypocrisies & sins they still do and commit everyday recklessly and bold in front of family and friends. They can be very judgmental and hurtful in making theirs misguided points, because their points are all that matter, especially if they are in a position of power. Then there are those that pile on. There are those that can’t find their own words or opinions and can only give a thumbs up, and seal of approval. Silent Hypocrisy is loud!

Funny thing tho, even Conservatives have Liberal thoughts, words and actions, they have done enough conceding and compromising. They are not concerned with the hypocrisy tho, for they have justified it in their own judgmental way, and in that they quickly cast the 1st stone of conviction and then arrogantly, boastfully laugh with contempt.


If you don’t believe me. Just visit this Conservative forum and see confused chaos and narrow-mindedness reign. And pay special attention to the CF ADMIN and the Little Nyte_Byrd moderator. He is such a neurotic cowardly little byrd.

http://www.conservativesforum.com/cgi-bin/conservatives-forum/YaBB.pl

These are the silent enemy or ‘despots’, from within that are corrupting and destroying the Conservative voice and party. They lead the misguided and blind straight into tyranny and the obis. And many are following freely and quietly along.

Please tell them I sent you to view their Conservative Hypocrisy!

EC1