Mourning and Justice for victims of terror attacks on Paris and Russian MetroJet Flight A321.

Greg Krasovsky's comments on Facebook:

Victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris and on Russian Metrojet flight A321 that was blown up over Egypt deserve our prayers and efforts to bring all those behind and involved in the attacks to justice.

What they don't deserve is to have their deaths and the pain & suffering of their loved ones be exploited for political ends or to bring pain & suffering to thousands (if not millions) of other innocent civilians as "collateral damage" in military campaigns that could be launched with ulterior motives.

Remember the 3,000 people that we lost on 9/11/2001? Did their deaths justify the hundreds of thousands of innocent people killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the elderly, women and children?

If we had a chance to ask the souls of the deceased on 9/11 whether they support the deaths of all those women and children in Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- a country that didn't tolerate, allow to operate or help found Al Qaeda until it was invaded in 2003 -- what do you think they would say?

If we had a chance to ask the souls of ~100 people who died in Ukraine's capital city Kyiv in February of 2014 during the Euro-Maydan protests whether they wanted their deaths to be used to justify a civil war in Eastern Ukraine -- a war that has already cost over 6,000 lives, including thousands of innocent women and children the majority of whom were killed by Ukrainian Armed Forces artillery, mortars, bombs, multiple rocket launchers and even ballistic missiles -- what would they say?

That their deaths were justified because heaven forbid, that region could have gotten political autonomy from the new Kyiv government in political negotiations?

Did they ever want to risk having their country turn into the Former Yugoslavia, Iraq or Libya?

What will the souls of the victims of the Paris terror attacks say about the fact that many of their countries (and the allies of their countries) funded and armed extreme radical Muslim fundamentalist throat-slashing insurgents and terrorists -- terrorists who first tried to destroy their opponents in their own countries and then moved on to their traditional theological enemies - the infidels of Europe?

Would the victims of the terrorist attacks approve the fact that many of the perpetrators (residents or fellow citizens of the victims' countries) had gotten their training in Syria with weapons, uniforms and other supplies that were provided to the Syrian "moderate" opposition in part by France, Great Britain and the USA as well as their allies in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia?

I can't answer for the dead, but I do believe with all my heart that any soul who's not beyond redemption would disapprove of all government policies that involve the use of civil war, terrorism, torture, crimes against humanity, war crimes and false flag operations to achieve regime change or other political and economic ends.

We can mourn the innocent victims of terror and war by making sure that no country funds or supports political regimes or groups that espouse nationalism, racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, mob justice, extrajudicial killings, war crimes, terrorism, torture, unlawful detentions, kidnappings and crimes against humanity.

This type of prohibition and condemnation cannot be selectively applied only against groups and regimes that we, our country or our allies don't like -- it must be applied universally and impartially to all regimes and groups that victimize the innocent domestically and abroad.

Last, we cannot honor and mourn victims of terror in good faith by having their deaths lead to the creation and growth of an Orwellian police state with immoral, unlawful and unnatural mass surveillance, search & seizure, detentions, illegal renditions, black sites, prosecution and inhuman incarceration of terror suspects.

After all, you can't beat Evil with Evil, because even using "just a little bit" of the "harsh" stuff to fight terrorists could send our societies down the slippery slope toward tyranny -- as the path to Hell is paved with good intentions.

So to the victims of war, terror and tyranny all I can say is this -- you will be in my prayers and I will try to do everything as a man, father, citizen, voter, taxpayer, lawyer and community activist to make sure that that we fight the plague that caused your suffering and death -- by treating its causes and pathology (immoral and illegal use of war & terror for political & economic goals) instead of treating just its symptoms with ineffective band-aids of short-lived condemnation & retaliatory bombings or worse, by fighting fire with gasoline of more wars and international military interventions.

What do you think?

Muslim and Jewish leaders gather at Paris concert hall memorial.

Greg Krasovsky's comments on "Muslim and Jewish leaders gather at Paris concert hall memorial."

My sympathies and condolences go out to the loved ones of the victims of the Paris terrorist attacks this past weekend.

We need to do everything to make sure that ALL the organizers, financiers, conspirators and executioners of this heinous crime against humanity are brought to justice.

We also need to remember who funded and supported the vast majority of Syrian terrorist groups, including ISIS, Al-Nusra and etc. -- it wasn't Assad's regime, Iran, North Korea or Russia. 

Sadly, this support was mostly covertly provided by states and organizations (government and private) who wanted to topple the Assad regime...and thought that supporting (or just allowing to grow) terrorist groups was a justified means.

What we should not do is allow another despicable terrorist act to feed xenophobia and religious intolerance, especially against Islam, one of the the Abrahamic faiths that grew out of Judaic and Christian traditions in the 7th century.

All faiths must unite to condemn all varieties of terrorism -- religious-based, racial or ethnic-based, political and state-sponsored -- and confirm that killing of innocent civilians is an indisputable sin under every faith and cannot be justified EVER by Satanist arguments of "sacrificing a hundred or a thousand of innocent civilians is justified if this act will save millions in the future."

We must mourn, honor and avenge (by Justice!) all victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity -- regardless of whether they are 

- victims of terrorists who proclaim themselves to be insurgents fighting for freedom of their people & land, or defenders of their faith 

- victims of state-sponsored terrorism, war crimes or crimes against humanity committed by military, intelligence, state security or law enforcement personnel.

- as we hear pretty often lately, unfortunate and inadvertent civilian "collateral damage" in artillery, bombing and drone strikes. 
   
Moreover, we must remember that all human lives have equal value before G-d, regardless of whether the victim is a citizen of France, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Israel, Egypt, UK, USA, Russia or Ukraine.

And we must do everything as people, citizens, tax-payers, voters, employees and members of community organizations to make sure that terrorism is condemned and fought on every level of our world-wide human society and government. 

The interfaith flower-laying ceremony in Paris was a good first step!
  
Am I wrong?
  
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Selected Excerpts from

Muslim and Jewish leaders gather at Paris concert hall memorial.

"The flower-laying ceremony, initiated by the Polish-born French Jewish author Marek Halter.

Representatives of the Jewish and Muslim communities join people gathered at the makeshift memorial near the Bataclan concert hall. 

They carried white roses, which they laid among the hundreds of candles and bouquets left by members of the public and were accompanied, as a show of inter-faith solidarity, by representatives of the French capital’s Jewish community.

In case anyone – specifically France’s far right and its supporters – were minded to miss it, Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of Drancy, a Paris suburb, spelled it out.

“Anyone who uses hate speech has no place in France and those places that preach hate are not places of prayer but are those of a sect. After this tragedy and the more than 100 deaths, now is the time to close these places of hate,” Chalghoumi, president of the imams’ conference of France, told the crowd. 

Chalghoumi, who says he is the subject of an Islamic State “fatwa” calling for his killing, said: “1.5 million people are hostages of Daesh, 1.5 million people are hostages of these barbarians who are sullying the name of Islam and Muslims. It’s time to say no to this barbarity.”


Earlier, the imam of Bordeaux, Tarek Oubrou told Le Journal du Dimanche: “From a religious point of view, Islam’s position is very clear: these murders call for a triple condemnation – ethical, legal and theological.

“Ethical because no morality allows for the killing of innocent people, legal because these acts do not respect war as it is decreed in the Muslim tradition and theological because these suicide bombers are convinced they’re going to heaven when they actually risk finding themselves in hell.”

He said that communications from Muslim institutions, however, were not enough: “Muslims must also demonstrate to say ‘stop’ – to say that we don’t accept these actions being done in the name of our religion.”"

Please read the rest of the article at:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/15/muslim-and-jewish-leaders-gather-at-paris-concert-hall-memorial

Reaper Madness: Obama’s Whack-a-Mole Killing Machine

Below are Greg Krasovsky's comments on Doug Noble's article, Reaper Madness: Obama’s Whack-a-Mole Killing Machine, published on November 9, 2015 at www.counterpunch.org  

The U.S. drone program kills people every week in many places around the world.

Drone-fired missiles 

- execute suspects who haven't been proved guilty in a court of law;

- kill suspects just because capturing them is deemed to expensive or dangerous; 

- are used in countries with which the U.S. is not at war and sometimes without the host country's formal legal authorization; and

- kill innocent women and children ("collateral damage") just because they happen to be in the vicinity of suspects.

Based on the above, IMHO the U.S. drone program is unconstitutional, illegal and includes many missions that constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
  
How many Americans are willing to spend even an hour with any  surviving family of women and children who were killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere? What would we tell them to explain their loss and justify the drone strike? 

- I'm sorry, I'm not the one who pulled the trigger? 
  
- I trust my government, the CIA, NSA  and Pentagon to keep me safe and select terrorists for execution with minimum collateral damage in other countries? 
  
- I'm sure that our government will pay you some compensation?
  
- I just pay my taxes, vote and try to stay out of foreign politics?
   
- I'm not a lawyer, so whether what happened to your dead women & children is a crime should be investigated by the U.S. Justice Department and, if it decides that a crime was committed, the suspects should be tried in a U.S. federal court by a jury of my American peers.
   
- I know that my taxes fund the Drone program and bought the missiles that killed you women and children, but there's nothing that I can do? What? Write my Congressman, Senator, President?
  
- I didn't have the time (or, to be honest, the desire and will power) to research and protest against such a program? After all, I'm busy with work, children, TV, movies, music, sports and etc.
    
Are these morally defensible arguments? Is this what any one of us would like to tell G-d if questioned?
   
Guess what, folks? As tax payers and voters Americans bear direct responsibility for what the government & military that we finance with our taxes does at the behest of politicians that we put into office. 
   
Is this what the Founding Fathers of America would have wanted when they declared independence from The British Empire and drafted the U.S. Constitution?

Where's the outrage and protest?
  
Here are some excerpts:

"Targeted killing by drones remains the US weapon of choice, famously called “the only game in town,” by former CIA director Leon Panetta. This despite a decade of worldwide moral outrage over its overwhelming civilian casualties, violations of international law, disregard for national sovereignty, dismissal of due process, and continuing secrecy. 

The Obama administration recently announced that the drone killing program will in fact be increased by 50 % in the coming two years.

Now government documents leaked to the Intercept show conclusively that the US drone program kills thousands of innocents on bad intelligence and careless targeting while being falsely portrayed as a program of impeccable planning and precision execution. 

The recently leaked “Drone Papers” - see http://www.drone-papers.com - reveal the extent of willful ineptitude in US drone operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, which rely on systematically faulty intelligence and astonishing inaccuracies in identifying targets. These revelations only further confirm what many of us already knew about the appalling failure, relentless deception and criminal lethality of the US drone program.
...
The publication this year of the Drone Papers reveals that the Obama administration, the US military, and the CIA have been lying all along about the drone assassination  program, its targets and its civilian casualties. These documents also expose the obscene disregard for human lives pervading the entire operation, as the drone warriors pursue their technological dreams. 

“Throughout human history,” the Stimson Report reminds us, “the ability to project force across significant distances has been a much sought-after military capability… and since the dawn of mechanization, militaries have sought to replace people with machines.” In this context, drones are the unholy grail. 

The Drone Papers reveal that in its pursuit these Dr Strangeloves  have been well aware of the horrific human costs of their enterprise and that they couldn’t care less.

What I’ve tried to show here is something more:  that these military miscreants have also known all along that their drone technology and targeting strategy are militarily bankrupt. They could not but be aware from military history and doctrine that these approaches have  absolutely no possibility of defeating terrorist groups or keeping America safe. They must know that in fact the opposite is true, that  their nefarious enterprise only further endangers us all. 

And yet they will continue ever more brazenly their Reaper madness, the scholars here all agree, until we find some way to stop them."

Please read the rest of the article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/09/reaper-madness-obamas-whack-a-mole-killing-machine/

THE PENTAGON’S MISSIONARY SPIES: U.S. Military Used Christian NGO as Front for North Korea Espionage.

Greg Krasovsky's post on Facebook: 

I have been involved in volunteer disaster aid and humanitarian work since the age of 18 when I started volunteering for The American Red Cross' Disaster Aid Services Division in New York City during my freshman year at Columbia University.

What really makes me upset is to see desperately needed international humanitarian work manipulated and corrupted for economic, political, military and/or intelligence gathering purposes.

Recently, I wrote a Facebook post about. See https://www.facebook.com/gkrasovsky/posts/10153356296538742

Well, it just gets worse, if the below three articles (on NGOs working in Syria in furthering capitalism) weren't bad enough.

Why can't Western democratic government abide by not using humanitarian organizations and their employees & volunteers for intelligence & political work?

Why is it that even The U.S. Peace Corps has been used by the CIA -- including in the former Soviet Union -- despite the clear federal prohibitions against this? See below articles.

How will American volunteer humanitarian workers -- as well as religious missionaries -- be able to do their job abroad when local government and citizenry will suspect and treatment them as potential spies or government agents sent to subvert the local government or promote regime change?

This is as bad as using physicians, lawyers or even journalists-- professionals who have oaths and a duty of loyalty and confidentiality to their clients, patients and sources -- as spies.

Guess how many times people that I know have gotten the smirk or outright comment about being U.S. spies when they told people that they did international humanitarian or disaster relief work?

When will this madness end?

Where's the outrage? Congressional investigations? White House statements and criticism?

Aren't we better than this?

Or am I just beating a dead horse?

What's your opinion?

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THE PENTAGON’S MISSIONARY SPIES: U.S. Military Used Christian NGO as Front for North Korea Espionage.

Selected Excerpts:

""Before it was finally dismantled in 2013, Hiramine’s organization received millions in funding from the Pentagon through a complex web of organizations designed to mask the origin of the cash, according to one of the former military officials familiar with the program, as well as documentation reviewed for this article.

The use of HISG for espionage was “beyond the pale” of what the U.S. government should be allowed to do, said Sam Worthington, president of InterAction, an association of nearly 200 American NGOs. The practice of using humanitarian workers as spies “violates international principles” and puts legitimate aid and development workers at risk, he argued.

“It is unacceptable that the Pentagon or any other U.S. agency use nonprofits for intelligence gathering,” Worthington said. “It is a violation of the basic trust between the U.S. government and its civic sector.”
...
“If true, to use unwitting aid workers on behalf of an intelligence operation, people who genuinely do humanitarian work, to turn their efforts into intel collection is unacceptable,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who served on the House Intelligence Committee from 2007 until this year. Schakowsky said she was unaware of the program, and unaware of any briefings given to the committee chair and ranking members.

“Now we have people who have been hired to do some good work and become unwitting accomplices to an intelligence mission? They can face all kinds of retaliation. It is completely unacceptable,” Schakowsky said.""

Please read the rest of the article at: https://theintercept.com/2015/10/26/pentagon-missionary-spies-christian-ngo-front-for-north-korea-espionage/

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Please read these articles as well:

Syria’s White Helmets: War by Way of Deception – Part I

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/10/23/syrias-white-helmets-war-by-way-of-deception-part-1/

Part II – Syria’s White Helmets: War By Way of Deception ~ ‘Moderate Executioners’

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/10/28/part-ii-syrias-white-helmets-war-by-way-of-deception-moderate-executioners/

The Useful Altruists: How NGOs Serve Capitalism and Imperialism

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/20/the-useful-altruists-how-ngos-serve-capitalism-and-imperialism/

PURITY IN THE PEACE CORPS

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_secretgov_5i.htm

The Spy Who Was A PCV

http://www.peacecorpswriters.org/pages/2000/0011/011clolk.html

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8 Striking Parallels Between the U.S. and the Roman Empire?

8 Striking Parallels Between the U.S. and the Roman Empire?

"A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”

The above is a quote attributed to Dr. Benjamin Franklin, recorded on page  618 of the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention. McHenry’s notes were first published in The American Historical Review, vol. 11, 1906.

Selected excerpts:
 
"Lawrence Lessig’s Republic Lost documents the corrosive effect of money on our political process. Lessig persuasively makes the case that we are witnessing the loss of our republican form of government, as politicians increasingly represent those who fund their campaigns, rather than our citizens.

Anthony Everitt’s Rise of Rome is fascinating history and a great read. It tells the story of ancient Rome, from its founding (circa 750 BCE) to the fall of the Roman Republic (circa 45 BCE).

When read together, striking parallels emerge — between our failings and the failings that destroyed the Roman Republic."
 
Please read the entire article at:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33489.htm

Federal Judge Throws Out Lawsuit by ACLU and Nation Magazine Against the NSA.

Federal Judge Throws Out Lawsuit by ACLU and Nation Magazine Against the NSA.

Show we be surprised?

Shocked by the decision of a true judicial patriot and defender of constitutional rights?

Here are some excerpts:
  
"A federal district judge has dismissed a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and others against the National Security Agency on the ludicrous grounds that, because the NSA did not admit to its spying, the plaintiffs’ claim that they were threatened by unwarranted surveillance was based on “subjective fear.”

The Guardian reports:

The judge in the case, TS Ellis III, said the suit relied on “the subjective fear of surveillance”, because the NSA did not admit to having collected any of the information it was alleged to have collected by the ACLU. …"

Please read the rest at: http://legal-observer.blogspot.ru/2015/11/federal-judge-throws-out-lawsuit-by.html

U.S. Police Routinely Travel to Israel to Learn Methods of Brutality and Repression

Greg Krasovsky: As a former City of Philadelphia Police Officer (1989-1992) and a lawyer, I believe that foreign acquired police tactics -- on how to deal with protesters and/or hostile segments of populations in contested & occupied territories --  will not bring anything good to policing of American poor neighborhoods & ghettos. Have you seen the recent police brutality cases in Israel against Israeli Ethiopian Jews? 

U.S. Police Routinely Travel to Israel to Learn Methods of Brutality and Repression

Here are some key excerpts:

"When McKinney, TX police officer David Eric Casebolt brutally took down a teenage girl at a pool party in June, he was using a form of martial arts called Krav Maga in which he trained exclusively. These combat techniques were developed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

This is a small reflection of a larger reality that exists in U.S. law enforcement, one that helps explain the brutality and militarization that now characterizes so many police forces.  Since 9/11, cops have been traveling abroad to learn from one of the most repressive and dangerous State forces in the world today—the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus.
...
At least 300 high-ranking U.S. sheriffs and police from all over the country, as well as FBI and US Customs and Border Protection agents, have traveled to Israel to learn first-hand the most efficient means of subduing populations.  The purported reason is counterterrorism, but protests and crowd control methods are commonly discussed.
...
Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, notes how militarized U.S. police reflect the training that is received in Israel and spread throughout the ranks.

“If American police and sheriffs consider they’re in occupation of neighborhoods like Ferguson and East Harlem, this training is extremely appropriate – they’re learning how to suppress a people, deny their rights and use force to hold down a subject population.”
To complement this Israeli military training that ramped up in the mid-2000s, the Pentagon and Homeland Security started the 1033 program which funneled billions of dollars of military-grade equipment to local law enforcement.  MRAPS and military weapons have become all too familiar on American streets.

What order-following, state-sanctioned thug is going to refuse the most advanced tactics and tool of repression?
...
This increasingly common scenario is indicative of law enforcement that views the populace as the enemy.  Peaceful protests of unjust government practices are fundamental to the progression of society.  Police with militarized tactics and gear are the progenitors of violence.
...
If we are to end the militarization of U.S. law enforcement, one of the most important parts of that will be stopping the training of police by the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus.  We do not want their methods of repression and brutality replicated here."

Please read the entire article at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/u-s-police-routinely-travel-israel-learn-methods-brutality-repression/

The Punishment Society.

Greg Krasovsky: As a former City of Philadelphia Police Officer (1989-1992), I find Paul Craig Roberts' article "The Punishment Society"  thought-provoking and alarming. 
    
Here are some excerpts -- the bold highlights are mine. 

"It brought to mind that punishment has become a primary feature of American, indeed Western, society. A baker in Colorado was punished because he would not bake a wedding cake for a homosexual marriage. A county or state clerk was punished because she would not issue a marriage license for a homosexual marriage. University professors are punished because they criticize Israel’s inhumane treatment of Palestinians. Whistleblowers are punished—despite their protection under federal law—for revealing crimes of the US government. And children are punished for being children.
...
Schools are no longer places of learning. They are places of punishment. Kids are punished for the most absurd reasons. Nothing more than behaving as a child brings on punishment. As Henry Giroux has written, schools have become places of control, repression, and punishment.

17,000 American public schools have a police presence. All common sense has long departed.
Five and six year-olds who get into a shoving match are arrested and carried off in handcuffs. Police issue tickets and fines to students for what was ordinary behavior in my school days. Suspensions result as do police records that hamper a child’s prospect of success.

The violence that Ben Fields used against Shakara is routine. Mother Jones reports that a Louisville goon thug, Jonathan Hardin punched a 13-year old in the face for cutting into the cafeteria line and of holding another 13-year old in a chokehold until the student became unconscious. A dispute over cell phone use resulted in a Houston student being hit 18 times with a police weapon.

The police violence extends beyond the schools. Any American unfortunate enough to have a police encounter risks being tasered, beaten, arrested, and even murdered.

Protesters, war and otherwise, are beaten, tear gassed, arrested. The American police state is working hard to criminalize all criticism of itself. Violence has become the defining hallmark of the United States. It is even the basis of US foreign policy. In the 21st century millions of peoples have been killed and displaced by American violence against the world."

Please read the rest of Dr. Robert's article at:

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/11/03/the-punishment-society-paul-craig-roberts/