The War Against Terror comes home and goes after the Cowboys!

Repost from Gregory Krasovsky (https://www.facebook.com/gkrasovsky):

The other day, a FB friend made the following comments on the current Ammon Bundy armed stand-off in Oregon:

"Call me crazy, but perhaps the use of drone strikes against armed terrorists should begin at home."

This struck my "card-carrying member of the ACLU" nerve and I responded as follows:

[Friend] I've known you a long time. To be honest, I'm disappointed and a little frightened with your comments -- "perhaps the use of drone strikes against armed terrorists should begin at home" -- for several reasons:

1. Drone strikes have killed thousands of innocent women and children around the world.

2. Drone strikes are state-ordered executions of merely suspects (people who are innocent until proven guilty) without constitutional due process, including a trial by a jury of their peers.

3. Bundy and his followers may be naive and foolish, but they haven't killed, hurt or taken hostage any people. Moreover, they haven't struck any vital civilian infrastructure (e.g. power stations, transportation hubs) that could cause damage to people, the economy or real national security.

4. Labeling domestic protesters -- when they're armed to protect themselves against federal law enforcement (last year over 1100 people were killed by police in the U.S.) -- as terrorists supports the philosophy and propaganda of many totalitarian regimes around the world who conveniently label armed opposition as terrorists to kill or incarcerate them without due process.

5. The following confrontations between activists who challenged state and/or federal laws and law enforcement have shown that your approach of "let's bomb these nuts" leads to deaths not only of the participants on both sides but also of innocent people, including women and children

The Pine Ridge Shootout 1975
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation

MOVE Sieges of 1978 and 1985
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE

Ruby Ridge siege 1992
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge

Waco siege 1993
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege

6. When anti-terrorist legislation was enacted after the 9/11/2001 attacks, a number of law enforcement professionals, political scientists, attorneys, politicians and human rights activists expressed concern that the ulterior motive behind such laws was not to prevent future attacks by Al Qaeda but to grant our government additional (and unconstitutional) powers to combat future domestic dissenters, protesters and activists, who would be conveniently labeled as terrorists and treated as their Al Qaeda or ISIS counterparts, regardless of their American citizenship and actions on domestic soil.

Experts were also concerned with main-stream corporate media and government propaganda that was being used to prepare the U.S. population to accept such treatment of domestic "terrorists"

Now, I'm seeing a fellow Columbia University graduate (both College and Law School!) repeat this stuff!

7. As a former police officer and an attorney, I don't condone attacks on law enforcement and don't feel sorry for people who do so without the only mitigating factor possible -- self-defense against police brutality and unjustified use of deadly force by law enforcement.

But I cannot justify either as an attorney or a law enforcement supporter the unjustified and often disproportionate use of deadly force by any government agency (federal, state or local) against protesters or activists, especially when such abuse of police powers clearly violates our constitutional rights.

8. With all that in mind, please re-consider your statement -- after you read the linked article on the greater issue of federal land use rights that has gotten farmers like Bundy and Hammonds all worked up to the point of armed civil disobedience -- as statements like yours could lead our country down the slippery slope toward a police state or a totalitarian one.

********

The War Against the Cowboys

The Oregon stand off and US imperialism

by Justin Raimondo, January 04, 2016

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/01/03/the-war-against-the-cowboys/

"The Hammond case has become a cause celebre West of the Mississippi, where federal control of huge swathes of real estate has become a life and death issue for ranchers and others who make their living off the land. As the feds encroach on their livelihood, they are pushing back, and nothing illustrates this better than the Hammond case.

In 2001, the Hammonds started a controlled burn on their own land to eliminate invasive junipers from ruining grazing for cattle: the fire spread to neighboring federal lands. As the Tri-State Livestock News reports:

“The first fire, in 2001, was a planned burn on Hammonds’ own property to reduce juniper trees that have become invasive in that part of the country. That fire burned outside the Hammonds’ private property line and took in 138 acres of unfenced BLM land before the Hammonds got it put out. No BLM firefighters were needed to help extinguish the fire and no fences were damaged.

“’They called and got permission to light the fire,’ Dwight’s wife, Susan, said, adding that was customary for ranchers conducting range management burns – a common practice in the area.

“’We usually called the interagency fire outfit – a main dispatch – to be sure someone wasn’t in the way or that weather wouldn’t be a problem.’ Susan said her son Steven was told that the BLM was conducting a burn of their own somewhere in the region the same day, and that they believed there would be no problem with the Hammonds going ahead with their planned fire. The court transcript includes a recording from that phone conversation.”

There was a second fire in 2006, started by Steven Hammond to counteract the lightning fires that threatened to envelope their land and their home. The Bureau of Land Management says that a single acre of federal land was affected by the fire –  and they pressed charges, even though lightning fires were raging all over the area and there was no way to determine which fires were burning what land.

The Hammonds were originally charged under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 with nine counts – including starting several other fires — but the jury saw otherwise and acquitted them of all but two counts: starting the fires they admitted to in the first place. The judge sentenced them to less than the federal mandatory, stating that what the government was asking – five years – was “disproportionate” and if imposed would’ve “shocked my conscience.”

The government wasn’t satisfied with that, and they appealed the decision. Judge Ann Aiken – the same judge who ruled that the prison system has a right to keep its safety standards confidential, even though a prisoner had died under dicey circumstances – agreed with the Justice Department, and the Hammonds must now serve full five-year sentences, minus time already served. They have agreed to turn themselves in, in spite of the protests on their behalf."

WHY are Israeli commandos risking their lives saving their sworn enemy - rescuing wounded Islamic militants from Syria?

This is Greg Krasovsky's Facebook post on the following Daily Mail article

"Saving their sworn enemy: Heartstopping footage shows Israeli commandos rescuing wounded men from Syrian warzone - but WHY are they risking their lives for Islamic militants?"

The United States, other NATO countries, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel have been supporting (both openly and covertly) anti-Assad insurgents in Syria, including fundamentalist Islamic groups, Al Qaeda and ISIS (DAESH) supporters.

As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In this case, the "good" intentions were overthrowing a dictator who is supported by Iran and Russia (not to mention the majority of Syrian citizens).

So what's the result?

A country destroyed by war, hundreds of thousands killed and a perfect breeding, training & financing opportunity for ISIS, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and all sorts of other terrorists (sorry, "freedom-fighting 'moderate' insurgents," according to the Defense and State Departments, the White House and U.S. Intelligence Community) who will eventually take their fight to the countries of their enemy -- the infidels living in Europe, US and Israel.

When will this madness stop? Where's the outrage?

Did Assad present a terrorist threat to the U.S. and Europe? Did Saddam Hussein in Iraq until the U.S. invaded under false pretenses in 2003?

No! These secular dictators kept a tight ship in their country against all opposition, especially the armed fundamentalist Islamic variety.

In my humble opinion, if we want to get rid of ISIS and other Al Qaeda related groups in Syria and Iraq, all we have to do is

1. Stay out of those countries -- that means no ground troops, special forces, military advisors and/or bombings without the permission of and coordination with the legitimate governments in these countries, as well as UN Security Council approval;

2. Stop providing political, financial, logistical and military support (both active and passive) to these fundamentalist/radical insurgents

3. Force Turkey to seal the border with Syria and Iraq to stop the transit of these insurgents and their recruits & agents in and out of Turkey.

4. Stop all income to these terrorist groups by eradicating oil exports & purchases (mostly via/in Turkey) and prohibiting suspicious money transfers from Arab & Gulf states.

5. Let the legitimate governments of Syria and Iraq and their state armies eradicate these groups with foreign military support (including from Russia and Iran) provided in compliance with all applicable international law and related UN resolutions.

Am I wrong?

What's the alternative?

**********************

Selected excerpts:

"WHY are they risking their lives for Islamic militants?

- Elite Israeli troops rescue wounded Syrians from the world's worst war almost every night

- They have saved more than 2,000 people since 2013, at a cost of 50 million shekels (£8.7million)

- Many are enemies of Israel and some may even be fighters for groups affiliated to Al Qaeda

- MailOnline embedded with Israeli commandos stationed on the border between Israel and Syria

- Dramatic video filmed by MailOnline and the Israeli army shows these operations taking place

- Israel says that the operation is purely humanitarian but analysts believe Israel also has strategic reasons.
...
Israel insists that these treacherous nightly rescues are purely humanitarian, and that it can only hope to 'win hearts and minds' in Syria. But analysts suggest the Jewish state has in fact struck a deadly 'deal with the devil' – offering support to the Sunni militants who fight the Syrian ruler Assad in the hope of containing its arch enemies Hezbollah and Iran.
...
Another rebel, 20-year-old Mohammed, whose leg had been all but destroyed by fire from a Russian-made 'Dushka' heavy machine gun, agreed. 'Thanks to Israel for letting me in,' he said, eyeing the surgical frame supporting his shattered leg.

'The butcher Assad is my enemy. Israel is not my enemy. The one who treats you is not your enemy.' As soon as he was well enough, he added, he too intended to go back to Syria to take up arms again.

The Israeli doctor in charge of their treatment, Russian-born Professor Alexander Lerner – a leading expert in treating war injuries – did not disguise his delight at these responses.

'We are trying to build peace with our neighbours and win their hearts and minds,' he said. 'There are now 2,000 Syrians who have had their lives saved by Israel. We hope that this will change their life position. In the future, they will be more friendly to Israel and they won't want to fight us.'

Other medical staff, however, believe that the militants were lying. Issa Peres, 36, a Christian Israeli Arab social worker, said that many hospital staff resented having to treat them.

'I work with the Syrians all the time, I see and hear bad things,' he said. 'Many of them said bad words to me, that they are going to kill me, they are going to fight with the Christian community, when they are safe they will fight against Israel.

'They have destroyed churches and Christian communities in Syria. I have to care for them, it is my job. But if I'm sitting with myself, I say no, it is not right for Israel to treat them.'

Asked about the fighters' promises not to fight against Israel in the future, he said: 'I don't trust any one of them. They grew up believing Israel is their enemy, Israel is the devil. You can't change their minds by taking care of them for two weeks.'

Other Israelis are more bitter. In June, two wounded Syrian jihadis were attacked by a lynch-mob while they were being transported to hospital by ambulance. One was beaten to death, while the other suffered serious injuries.

Six weeks later, two members of the Israeli Druze community – an Arabic-speaking people found in Israel and across the Levant – were charged with murder. It emerged that the militants were suspected members of Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate who had attacked Druze villages in Syria.
...
According to one senior Israeli army officer, Israel's humanitarian mission may also be part of a security strategy, aiming to 'keep the northern border quiet and our soldiers safe' by using medical treatment as an 'insurance policy'.

'The Syrians will not strike us because they know we'd stop helping them,' Lieutenant Colonel Malka told MailOnline.

'They are desperate for our medical help. They have no doctors, not even a vet. Once we treated a man who had been stitched up by a friend with a needle and thread.

'If they want our help to continue, they know they must stop anybody from attacking our soldiers and civilians.'"

Please read the rest at:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315347/Watch-heart-pounding-moment-Israeli-commandos-save-Islamic-militants-Syrian-warzone-risking-lives-sworn-enemies.html

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?
  
******************

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?

*************

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/

**************

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

****************

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