by Mariella Konings
November 29, 2007
While the high and mighty held talks behind closed doors in Annapolis (MD) on how to establish peacetalks between Israel en the Palestinians, outside the US Naval Academy the Neturei Karta, or Orthodox Jews United Against Zionism, staged a demonstration tuesday against the state of Israel and for peace with the Palestinian people. Doing so, once again Neturei Karta proved themselves to belong to those who make real hope for the Middle East possible.
For as he was surrounded by a noisy and vocal crowd, the brave Neturei Karta spokesman rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss held a heated plea for peace:
“We pray to God every single day for the speedy and peaceful dismantlement of the state of Israel, then we can once again coexist as we have for hundreds of years. We have all the rabbis who have testified lived in the old state of Jerusalem, in the old state, in the old city of Jerusalem, in the old city, there lived all my (unintelligible). This rabbi lived in the old city of Jerusalem before 1948. He’ll tell you how he lived and coexisted with all the Arab neighbors, how they babysat each other’s children when they went to Yom Kippur, when the women went to Yom Kippur on the fastday the muslim neighbors babysat their children. The most precious objects they gave to them to protect. How can that be if they are our enemies, mortal enemies? Because they are not. It’s not a religious conflict. Thats a zionist ploy of accusing everybody of being anti-semitic. You want peace? You want to have a conference here of peace, step back and look and read the facts. Not the facts that have been misconstrued by the zionist propaganda but the facts that are reality, the facts on the ground; how we have been living for hundreds of years in Yemen, in Morocco, in Tunesia, in Palestine, in Egypt. What Arab land have not Jewish people been living together with Muslims without any human rights groups? Tell me what land the Jews did not live in harmony with the Muslims? In Iran, we have over 25.000 Jews there, thank God. Why? Because this is not a religious conflict. It is purely because of a political movement, a relatively new movement which is antithetical, contradictory to the Jewish religion of thousands of years. Judaism is spirituality, a religion of compassion to emulate God. Zionism was created onehundred years ago by atheists. People who abhorred religion, who wanted to transform Judaism from religion to nationality, to a purely materialistic base, Godless in it’s essence. That is not Judaism and they have no right to use the name of Israel. They have usurped our name, they’ve stolen our symbols and then they have stolen our identity. And they are causing death and destruction, year in and year out. For over fifty years death and bloodshed has not stopped because of your ideological belief called zionism. They sacrifice on their idol, bodies, human beings, hearts, souls. They rend, they destructed houses, they destructed people’s lives. What can we do about this? Let’s step back and think. There is a solution, with God’s help. If you would put away the politics then we can know that we have been living and coexisting together. We must profusely apologize to the Muslims, to the Arabs, what has been done to them. And then we can return and make restitution to what has been done to them. And then we will be able to live in harmony. Not an Israeli state, but one Palestinian state. One state that we have been living for hundreds of years. Bear do and be peace. And you will see that the fifty years have been a nightmare, a mirage and nothing to do... (Responding to people in the crowd:) You are fearmongering, that is what zionism does. It’s panic; throwing oil into a theatre and yelling ‘fire!, fire!’, that is what zionists do. We have been living with the muslims, we have been.. (Responding to people in crowd:) Yes! Ahmedinejad keeps on stating that he does not want to harm the Jews but the zionists go and attack. (Responding to people in the crowd:) Ofcourse you don’t, because you have an agenda. You want to burn for zionism, you want enemies, you want enemies in order to be able to say you are protecting the Jews. We don’t want enemies. We want to live in peace. We have been always been living in peace with the Muslims and we will, with God’s help, continue to live with them in peace. We emplore the participants in this conference: read, step back, study the history thruthfully, and see what the true Jewish voice is of hundreds of thousands of Jews who are still true to their religion, whether they are living in Jerusalem, whether they are living in New York, what do these Jews. In Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, hundreds of thousands of Jews who are the most God-fearing in the community, why are they all opposed to the state of Israel? Why is there not one Israeli flag in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These are the most God-fearing religious Jews, why don’t they fly the Israeli flag? They have had hospital help, they have had (unintelligible) free of charge to help people, the most greatest, charitable organisations. Why these compassionate people don’t support the state of Israel? (Responding to people in the crowd:) Why not? Why not? Because they are selfhating Jews? Why? Are they fooled? Are they fools? The reason is simply because they fear God. I know why, you don’t know why and I know why: because they are God-fearing and God forbid us to have a state. We are in exile, by godly decree, exile. And we are forbidden to oppressive people, we are forbidden to oppress the Palestinian people and steal their houses. That is what Judaism says. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not kill. We have no right to rule of the land of the Palestine. This is what Judaism says, not what these robbers say. It’s what real Jews say.”
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they speak sense and truth in these times of madness.
Watch the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9OIqy6md9w
Visit the website of Neturei Karta:
http://www.nkusa.org/
woensdag 28 november 2007
zaterdag 10 november 2007
“They” Live, We Sleep
“There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge.” - Queen Elizabeth II to Paul Burrell in november 1997, at Buckingham Palace.
“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes (...) Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand.” - Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), founder of the British Conservative Party and first British Prime Minister of the UK in his novel ‘Coningsby’ (1844)
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” - Woodrow Wilson, US President from 1913 to 1921, in his book “The New Freedom” (1913)
“A super-state controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.” - Representative Louis T. McFadden, later the chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, in 1913, after the Federal Reserve Act was passed.
“Only 300 men, each of whom knows all others govern the fate of Europe. They select their successors from their own entourage. These men have the means in their hands of putting an end to the form of State which they find unreasonable.” - Attributed to famous German politician Walther Rathenau, ‘Wiener Presse’ of December 24, 1921.
“The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen....At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.” - New York City Mayor John F. Hylan in 1922
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” - Franklin D Roosevelt, the only US President to serve 3 terms (1933-1945), in a letter dated November 21, to his advisor Colonel House.
“Fifty men have run America, and that's a high figure.” - Joseph Kennedy, the father of president John F. Kennedy, in ‘The New York Times’ of July 26, 1936.
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.”- Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court Justice, 1952.
“The government of the Western nations, whether monarchical or republican, had passed into the invisible hands of a plutocracy, international in power and grasp. It was, I venture to suggest, this semi-occult power which (....) pushed the mass of the American people into the cauldron of World War I.”- MajorGeneral J.F.C. Fuller, British military historian, l941
“Those who formally rule take their signals and commands not from the electorate as a body, but from a small group of men (plus a few women) (...) It exists even though that existence is stoutly denied. It is one of the secrets of the American social order (...) A second secret is the fact that the existence of the Establishment - the ruling class - is not supposed to be discussed.” - Arthur S. Miller, the George Washington University law professor who studied the rulers behind the scenes for decades.
“There exists in our world today a powerful and dangerous secret cult. This cult is patronized and protected by the highest level government officials in the world. Its membership is composed of those in the power centers of government, industry, commerce, finance, and labor. It manipulates individuals in areas of important public influence - including the academic world and the mass media. The Secret Cult is a global fraternity of a political aristocracy whose purpose is to further the political policies of persons or agencies unknown. It acts covertly and illegally.” - Victor Marchetti, who worked for the CIA from 1955 untill 1969, in his book “The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence” (1974).
“[The Kennedy] assassination has demonstrated that most of the major events of world significance are masterfully planned and orchestrated by an elite coterie of enormously powerful people who are not of one nation, one ethnic grouping, or one overridingly important business group. They are a power unto themselves for whom those others work. Neither is this power elite of recent origin. Its roots go deep into the past.” - L. Fletcher Prouty in his book “ JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy”
“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control (....) Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.” - Congressman Larry P. McDonald in 1976. McDonald was killed after the Korean Airlines 747 that he was on was shot down by the Soviets.
“An immensely wealthy and powerful republic has been hijacked by a small cabal of individuals, all of them unelected and therefore unresponsive to public pressure” - Scholar Edward Said (1935-2003), who amongst others taught at Harvard and Yale, in March 2003 in Al-Ahram.
“In 1983/4 I warned of a take-over of world governments being orchestrated by these people. There was an obvious plan to subvert true democracies, and selected leaders were not being chosen based upon character but upon their loyalty to an economic system run by the elites and dedicated to preserving their power. All we have now are pseudo-democracies.” - Dr. Johannes Koeppl, former German Minister of Defence official and former NATO official, in 2003.
“It was a criminal society that I was dealing with.” - Dr. Johannes Koeppl in 2003.
"... closed orders and secret societies, whether they be religious or governmental, are the groups that have the hardest time reforming themselves in the face of failure without outside input." - Chief Weapons Inspector David Kay mentioning secret societies while testifying on the weaponsinspections in Iraq to the US Congress on February 9, 2004.
“...the amazing thing is we are being taken over, basically, by a cult....” - Seymour Hersh talking about the Neocons in American politics during a speech at the Stephen Wise Free Synagoge, December 2004.
“In President Bush’s first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security — including vital decisions about postwar Iraq — were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.(...) I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.” - Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, adressing the Neocon cabal in the LA Times. The word “cabal” refers to a group of plotters and is derived from the word “kaballah”.
“You have a collapsed Congress, you have a collapsed press. The military is going to do what the President wants. How fragile is democracy in America, if a president can come in with an agenda controlled by a few cultists?” - Seymour Hersh during a speech in October 2006.
“Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right.” - Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), member of the US House Homeland Security Committe, after being denied acces to classified documents about the way government is preparing to handle a terrorist attack.
“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes (...) Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand.” - Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), founder of the British Conservative Party and first British Prime Minister of the UK in his novel ‘Coningsby’ (1844)
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” - Woodrow Wilson, US President from 1913 to 1921, in his book “The New Freedom” (1913)
“A super-state controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.” - Representative Louis T. McFadden, later the chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, in 1913, after the Federal Reserve Act was passed.
“Only 300 men, each of whom knows all others govern the fate of Europe. They select their successors from their own entourage. These men have the means in their hands of putting an end to the form of State which they find unreasonable.” - Attributed to famous German politician Walther Rathenau, ‘Wiener Presse’ of December 24, 1921.
“The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen....At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.” - New York City Mayor John F. Hylan in 1922
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” - Franklin D Roosevelt, the only US President to serve 3 terms (1933-1945), in a letter dated November 21, to his advisor Colonel House.
“Fifty men have run America, and that's a high figure.” - Joseph Kennedy, the father of president John F. Kennedy, in ‘The New York Times’ of July 26, 1936.
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.”- Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court Justice, 1952.
“The government of the Western nations, whether monarchical or republican, had passed into the invisible hands of a plutocracy, international in power and grasp. It was, I venture to suggest, this semi-occult power which (....) pushed the mass of the American people into the cauldron of World War I.”- MajorGeneral J.F.C. Fuller, British military historian, l941
“Those who formally rule take their signals and commands not from the electorate as a body, but from a small group of men (plus a few women) (...) It exists even though that existence is stoutly denied. It is one of the secrets of the American social order (...) A second secret is the fact that the existence of the Establishment - the ruling class - is not supposed to be discussed.” - Arthur S. Miller, the George Washington University law professor who studied the rulers behind the scenes for decades.
“There exists in our world today a powerful and dangerous secret cult. This cult is patronized and protected by the highest level government officials in the world. Its membership is composed of those in the power centers of government, industry, commerce, finance, and labor. It manipulates individuals in areas of important public influence - including the academic world and the mass media. The Secret Cult is a global fraternity of a political aristocracy whose purpose is to further the political policies of persons or agencies unknown. It acts covertly and illegally.” - Victor Marchetti, who worked for the CIA from 1955 untill 1969, in his book “The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence” (1974).
“[The Kennedy] assassination has demonstrated that most of the major events of world significance are masterfully planned and orchestrated by an elite coterie of enormously powerful people who are not of one nation, one ethnic grouping, or one overridingly important business group. They are a power unto themselves for whom those others work. Neither is this power elite of recent origin. Its roots go deep into the past.” - L. Fletcher Prouty in his book “ JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy”
“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control (....) Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.” - Congressman Larry P. McDonald in 1976. McDonald was killed after the Korean Airlines 747 that he was on was shot down by the Soviets.
“An immensely wealthy and powerful republic has been hijacked by a small cabal of individuals, all of them unelected and therefore unresponsive to public pressure” - Scholar Edward Said (1935-2003), who amongst others taught at Harvard and Yale, in March 2003 in Al-Ahram.
“In 1983/4 I warned of a take-over of world governments being orchestrated by these people. There was an obvious plan to subvert true democracies, and selected leaders were not being chosen based upon character but upon their loyalty to an economic system run by the elites and dedicated to preserving their power. All we have now are pseudo-democracies.” - Dr. Johannes Koeppl, former German Minister of Defence official and former NATO official, in 2003.
“It was a criminal society that I was dealing with.” - Dr. Johannes Koeppl in 2003.
"... closed orders and secret societies, whether they be religious or governmental, are the groups that have the hardest time reforming themselves in the face of failure without outside input." - Chief Weapons Inspector David Kay mentioning secret societies while testifying on the weaponsinspections in Iraq to the US Congress on February 9, 2004.
“...the amazing thing is we are being taken over, basically, by a cult....” - Seymour Hersh talking about the Neocons in American politics during a speech at the Stephen Wise Free Synagoge, December 2004.
“In President Bush’s first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security — including vital decisions about postwar Iraq — were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.(...) I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.” - Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, adressing the Neocon cabal in the LA Times. The word “cabal” refers to a group of plotters and is derived from the word “kaballah”.
“You have a collapsed Congress, you have a collapsed press. The military is going to do what the President wants. How fragile is democracy in America, if a president can come in with an agenda controlled by a few cultists?” - Seymour Hersh during a speech in October 2006.
“Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right.” - Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), member of the US House Homeland Security Committe, after being denied acces to classified documents about the way government is preparing to handle a terrorist attack.
dinsdag 30 oktober 2007
The UN Child Abuse Scandals
By Mariella Konings
Some things are just taken for granted, it seems. For instance, whenever a UN peacekeeping mission lands anywhere on earth, incidents of rape, forced prostitution and the sexual abuse and exploitation suddenly begin to soar skyhigh. As a result, each year that passed since the year 2000 has seen a number of scandals surface around the world where UN personel, in particular the ‘peacekeepers’, have been caught in the systematic sexual exploitation of the refugees living in UN refugeecamps.
The claims evolve around peacekeepers molesting and raping refugees, setting up prostitutionrings and profiting from the forced prostitution of the refugees.
It is unclear what is most worrying: the fact that children in UN refugeecamps are easy targets for organised sexual predators, or the way the UN chooses to handle these cases once they surface in public.
Each time one of these UN sex scandals surfaces, the international community explodes with anger and disgust over these outrageous incidents. The UN however has become known for consistently ignoring, downplaying, ridiculing and even denying the accusations for as long as it takes untill the scandal dies down. Each time it launches an investigations into it´s own wrongdoings, the UN finds there is “no substance” to the allegations or that there is “not enough evidence” to substantiate the reports. As a result, each time a UN sex scandal erupts it is left to wither away and die out of the public eye.
2001
In October 2000 Kathryn Bolkovac, an employee of DynCorp who was in Bosnia to investigate forced prostitution and human trafficking, sent an e-mail to the chief of the UN mission in Bosnia, Jaques Paul Klein, in which she tried to raise the alarm of some of the malconduct of the UN troops in Bosnia. In the e-mail Bolkovac detailed how UN peacekeepers frequented bars and brothels where underage girls, some as young as 15, danced naked and were offered by their ‘owners’ for sex. In the e-mail Bolkovac also alledged that UN and DynCorp employees were participating in human trafficking and prostitution rings. [The Telegraph] (1)
Bolkovac had been sent to Bosnia to investigate allegations of forced prostitution and human trafficking, which had taken on an unprecedented level in the years after the civil war from 1991 to 1995. There she had witnessed UN peacekeepers visiting local bars and brothels where underaged girls danced naked and were prostituted to the clientele. After Bolkovac interviewed the underaged girls, some of them as young as 15, they told her that they were ‘offered’ to the customers by their ‘owners’ and that they had had forced sex with employees of the UN and DynCorp. After verifying that UN and DynCorp employees were not only clients of the underaged prostitutes, Bolkovac established that they also were actively participating in human trafficking and the running of prostitutionrings, in which minors were forced into prostitution. [The Telegraph] (1)
After contacting UN mission chief in Bosnia Jaques Paul Klein, an eerie silence descended. Klein declined to reply, while Bolkovac herself got fired from DynCorp for blowing the whistle after she exposed that DynCorp employees were involved in local prostitution rings and the sexual abuse of underage girls. And so the scandal died down.
2002
In 2002 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation involving UN peacekeepers and employees of a British NGO surfaced in west Africa. After receiving more than 400 claims of sexual abuse of children in refugeecamps in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, the UNHCR launched a factfinding mission into the allegations. (2)
It soon found itself swamped as it researched the allegations against a number of peacekeepers who had been accused of working hand in hand with employees of the British NGO ‘Save The Children UK’ and certain other NGO’s. As the research slowly progressed, the UN drew fierce criticism of western diplomats and other NGO’s over it’s reluctance to share it’s findings. The investigation received a lot of internal criticism for excluding the World Food Program and UNAMSIL, who were initially accused by the UNHCR and Save The Children UK as having employees engaging in the extensive sexual exploitation of refugee children. [The Washington Times] (3)
Nexsmax writes: “The initial refusal by UNHCR and Save the Children-UK to furnish to other NGOs, confidentially, the names of the alleged 67 individuals created tensions among the normally close-knit "humanitarian community (...) After a number of heated closed-door meetings, however, the NGOs were furnished with the confidential information they had been seeking” (2)
While the investigations into the child abuse by UN peacekeepers and Save The Children-UK continued, it became apparent that the 400 cases might just be the tip of the iceberg. However, the researches noticed severe difficulties in obtaining witness testimonies, because the underage victims had to report to their molesters or their colleagues. The UN report states most “incidents of sexual violence go unreported,” and notes: “In order for a refugee to make a report, they would have to go through the same persons who themselves are perpetrators of sexual exploitation. Most staff appear to connive to hide the actions of other staff.” (2)
During the investigation into the allegations of “extensive sexual exploitation of refugee children” in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the UN uncovered 10 new cases against aid workers. Eventually, nothing much happenend apart from the UN clearing a number of it’s own employees. UNHCR commissioner Ruud Lubbers (who would later step down from his post because of allegations of sexual abuse of his employees) was criticized for downplaying the problem. [The Washington Times] (3) Eventually the investigation bogged down.
Meanwhile, the UN landed itself into another sex scandal in 2002, after a childrens book that was handed out freely at a United Nations Child Summit in Mexico encouraged children to turn towards – amongst others – bestiality and pedophilia in order to avoid teenage pregnancy. Financed by UNICEF and produced by the Mexican government, the childrensbook caused a huge international row for advising underage children to ‘experiment’ with homosexuality and other forms of sex while infuriating catholics for propagating abortion as a means of contraception. The Washington Times writes that the book: “tells Latin American mothers and teens: "Situations in which you can obtain sexual pleasure: 1. Masturbation. 2. Sexual relations with a partner — whether heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. 3. A sexual response that is directed toward inanimate objects, animals, minors, non-consenting persons."” (4)
A seperate investigation conducted in 2002 uncovered another form of systematic child abuse involving the UN peacekeepers, this time in Kosovo. After the ‘Mental Disability Rights International’ (MDRI) received reports about the deplorable situation in mental institutions run by the UN, it launched an investigation into the Shtime home, the Pristina elderly home and Prinstina University hospital in Kosovo. In these UN maintained mental asylums, the patients consisted largely of Serbs while the employees were mostly Albanian and the situation had deteriorated dramatically as male patients were left to roam the wards and frequently assaulted and raped the female patients as staff watched. A number of children and teenagers were found on the premises of the mental institutions. The raped patients, however, did not qualify as credible witnesses for the UN because they were mentally ill. And if they tried to speak about the abuse they were threatened by staff to keep quiet: one female patient was even threatened by a member of staff in front of the MDRI investigators. After the MDRI released a damning report on the sexual abuse of patienst in the UN mental institutions in Kosovo, the UNMIK objected that while the damning report was “not generally inaccurate” there were not enough funds available to ensure a safer environment for their patients. Later the UNMIK issued a sober statement saying: “children have been removed from the institution at Shtime and are no longer vulnerable.” [The Guardian] (5)
In December 2002 a fresh row broke out in Eritrea, after an Irish peacekeeper of the UNMEE was jailed for shooting pornographic movies involving young Eritrean prostitutes. Ever since the UN moved into Eritrea brothels and nightclubs had shot out of the ground while the number of prostitutes had exploded. The Scotsman writes: “... a report commissioned by the UN itself noted this year that prostitution has soared since peace was declared in Eritrea and the UN peacekeepers arrived there. Over the past two years, Italian, Danish and Slovak peacekeepers have all been expelled in separate incidents for having sex with minors.” (6) The Eritrean government reacted angrily and closed a number of brothels and clubs frequented by bored peacekeepers and other foreigners, and arrested a number of local prostitutes.
Declan Walsh writing for The Scotsman: “During the UN peacekeeping mission to Somalia, it was claimed Canadian, Belgian and Italian soldiers were involved in torture and murder. An inquiry by the Canadian government of a young Somali man in 1993, found that he had been murdered by its troops and that a senior officer had lied in an attempt to cover up the atrocity. Two soldiers were jailed. In Belgium, newspapers published photographs of two soldiers holding a Somali boy over a fire. Three paratroopers were prosecuted, but were acquitted by a military tribunal. An Italian magazine published photographs showing soldiers from the country’s elite paratroop regiment apparently torturing a naked Somali with electrodes and sexually abusing a Somali woman (...) Two Rwandan women accused the UN, which was meant to be defending their families, of handing them over to their killers or running away (...) In Bosnia, more than 20 peacekeepers were ejected from the mission for theft and corruption. Nearly four dozen others were sent home after allegedly abusing mental patients at a hospital. Canadian peacekeepers were accused of rape, beatings and sexual abuse of a teenage handicapped girl.” (6)
2003
In January of 2003, the critically acclaimed Human Rights Watch released a report on the atrocities commited during the ‘civil’ war in Sierra Leone. The report detailed “sexual atrocities” not only committed by the local ‘rebels,’ but also by troops of the ECOMOG and the UN. Human Rights Watch alledged that UN peacekeepers had been equally involved in systematic rape and the use of women for sex slaves and household chores. [The Telegraph] (7)
Meanwhile in August, another scandal erupted as the Portugese weekly ‘Expresso’ leaked that the UN was involved in shipping young girls from Thailand to East Timor. Supposedly the children were to be forced into prostitution for the pleasure of the peacekeepers. As the rumors were quickly hushed up and ridiculed, the UN did confirm that it was investigating into the claims. According to the UN the investigation focused on a report claiming that a chartered ship was used by UN peacekeepers to bring Thai child prostitutes into East Timor. However, according to OIOS spokesperson Hua Jiang “So far, some of the allegations are unsubstantiated.” [AP] (8)
2004
In the beginning of 2004 the British newspaper The Mirror ran an expose on the sale of children in a refugeecamp set up by the UN in Montenegro after the Kosovo war. Posing as potential customers, undercover investigators of The Mirror visited the UN camp near Podgoriza, where some 5000 refugees lived in dire poverty. The reporters were shown around by Siniza Nadazdin, the director of a local christian charity named Philia. At the time Nadazdin’s charity received funds from Catholic aid organisations and the UK based christian charity, Smile International.
Speaking frankly to the reporters, Nadazdin showed them around the camp and encouraged them to select refugeechildren they would like to buy. Nadazdin: “Take photos. Any of these children is for sale if you like. Pressure will be put on the parents to sell.” [The Mirror] (9)
The reporters had uncovered that Nadazdin worked together with two local gypsie crime bosses, the brothers Arton and Vlasnim Shkreli. As they roamed the camp looking for the best looking children, Nadazdin used his position as director of the charity to connect with trustworthy buyers. The poverty stricken families of the children would be pressurized to sell their children, and parents threatened or worse if they refused to. Nadazdin: “A hundred kids were trafficked from this camp (...) any of the children you see here are up for sale (...) I am willing to do it because of my finances.” [The Mirror] (9)
As Nadazdin guided the undercover reporters around the camp, he explained that blond, blue eyed children got around 5000 euro while darkskinned gypsie children only made around 500 euro. Only in the best cases were the children put up for illegal adoption; usually they end up in the sextrade as prostitutes or are used for child pornography. After taking the undercover reporters to children they had mailed pictures of, Nadazdin said: “This is the best family for you to buy a child. They are desperate.” (9) As their mother cried, preferring to be a prostitute than having to sell her children, one of Nadazdin’s gang made the cut-throat gesture to the mother. After leaving the camp, Vlasnim Shkreli called the reporters and offered them children for sex: “We have children for more delicate business than adoption. Have girls of 12, girls of 13, girls of 14 for you. There are 20 available now. They are pretty girls, all of them. Some are experienced in movies, some have been on internet sites. You will not be disappointed.” [The Mirror] (9)
Before they left, Nadazdin spoke about his big dream to the reporters, expressing his wish that the charity ‘Smile International’ would fund a daycare centre in the UN refugeecamp. To Nadazin this would be his own “child supermarket”. [The Mirror] (9)
On May 6 2004 Amnesty International released the report “So Does That Mean I Have Rights?” on forced prostitution in the Balkans, it details that “the number of places in Kosovo where trafficked girls may be exploited has increased from 18 in 1999 to more than 200 in 2003, with nightclubs, bars, restaurants, hotels and cafes all inplicated”. The girls all described their pimps as their “owners”. One of them said: “By buying us, he had the right to beat us, rape us, starve us and force us to have sex with clients.” Some of the girls were as young as 11 years old. The report also detailed how women and underaged girls were being used as forced prostitutes for UN and NATO personel stationed in Kosovo. One girl, who was only 12 when she was interviewed by Amnesty: “I was forced by the boss to serve international soldiers and police officers.” [The Independent] (10)
Amnesty in it’s press release: “Having escaped one set of human rights abuses, trafficked women and girls are subjected to a second set of violations at the hands of traffickers. If they manage to get away, they are often subjected to a third set of violations, this time by the authorities (...) trafficked women and girls are often still treated as criminals - prosecuted for being unlawfully in Kosovo, or charged with prostitution following raids by UNMIK police. When arrested, the women and girls are not given the basic rights guaranteed to all detainees. They are not informed about their rights, they are not allowed access to a lawyer and girls are often interviewed without a legal guardian present.” (11)
The agency claims that “girls under 18 make up between 15 and 20 per cent of the women working in bars. They are suspected of having been trafficked for forced prostitution. Instead of removing these girls, registered by UNMIK, they are left in the bars, subject to further human rights abuses, including being raped and beaten.” (11)
Amnesty claimed that 20% of the clients who frequented the Kosovo brothels where girls were subjected to forced prostitution were members of the UNMIK and the NATO’s ‘peacekeeping force’ KFOR. However, the UNMIK claimed that the Amnesty report was “outdated” and “highly unbalanced”. As a result, nothing much happened to punish the offending peacekeepers of the UN and the NATO. Agence France Press: “From January 2002 to July 2003, between 22 and 27 members of KFOR troops were suspected of offences related to trafficking, Amnesty quoted UNMIK figures as showing. But there was no evidence that any had been prosecuted.” (12)
Amnesty: “It is outrageous that the very same people who are there to protect these women and girls are using their position and exploiting them instead - and they are getting away with it.” (11)
While the sexabuse scandals in Montenegro and Kosovo died down, another sex scandal involving UN peacekeepers broke in December 2004 in the tiny African nation of Burundi, where 5.000 Peacekeepers were stationed. The allegations circled around sexual misconduct by the UN forces, including rape, prostitution and pedophilia.
The revelations followed on the heels of the UN’s admission that sexual exploitation by Peacekeepers had indeed been asserted in the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) where the UN was investigating a total of 150 allegations against UN peacekeepers stationed there. There were allegations of rape, prostitution and pedophilia, some of which included photographic and video evidence.
While the UN was being applauded by the international community for their unexpected ‘openness’ into acknowledging the abuse by peacekeepers in the DRC, the Washington Post reported that the UN team in the DCR had been repeatedly sabotaged by the Peacekeepers during their ongoing investigations. And when the Burundi scandal broke immediately after that, and it was revealed that 2 Peacekeepers had been suspended, the UN took up their old stance and refused to give any further comment. [BBC] (13)
2005
The sex scandal that broke out in the DRC – which involved rape, prostitution and pedophilia – once again laid bare the widespread evidence of the sexual exploitation of African refugees by those who were sent there to help them. As Gita Sahgal of Amnesty International said in an interview with Christian Science Monitor: “The issue with the U.N. is that peacekeeping operations unfortunately seem to be doing the same thing that other militaries do (...) Even the guardians have to be guarded.” [Weekly Standard] (14)
Joseph Loconte, writing for The Weekly Standard on the scandal in the DCR: “Various U.N. reports and interviews with humanitarian groups suggest that international peacekeeping missions are creating a predatory sexual culture among vulnerable refugees--from relief workers who demand sexual favors in exchange for food to U.N. troops who rape women at gunpoint.” (14)
Writing about the refugee camp in Bunia, where 16.000 refugees arre housed, Loconte states: “Investigators describe a ‘significant, widespread and ongoing’ pattern of abuse at the camp – an astonishing conclusion given that many women are afraid to report sexual violence against them. At least one senior official in charge of security in Bunia is implicated in the scandal, and U.N. peacekeepers allegedly have threatened investigators with retaliation. According to the Economist, a U.N. probe is even considering the possibility that MONUC has been infiltrated by ‘organized pedophiles who recruit their friends’.” [Weekly Standard] (14)
In January 2005, the UN confirmed that Peacekeepers had been sexually exploiting women and girls at Bunia Refugee camp in DRC. While the number of UN troops was to be expected to be raised to 16.000 in the next month, UN Special Representative to the Congo, William Lacy Swing, said in a press conference: “We have had and continue to have a serious problem of sexual exploitation and abuse (...) We are shocked by it, we are outraged, we are sickened by it. Peacekeepers who have been sworn to assist those in need, particularly those who have been victims of sexual violence, instead have caused grievous harm.” [AP] (15)
As the UN team was conducting investigations in Bunia camp, they were hindered in their efforts by guards and military officers. In all the Congo cases against the Peacekeepers that were substantiated by evidence, sexual abuse of children was involved. [AP] (15)
In March 2005, an internal investigation carried out by the OIOS and published by Jordan’s ambassador to the UN, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, titled “A Comprehensive Strategy To Eliminate Future Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations” was publicized. (16) The report was a blistering critique of the effects of the sexual abuse and exploitation by UN Peacekeepers around the world. At that moment the UN was involved in 17 peackekeeping operations which involved some 75.000 employees – both civilian and military. The report insisted that the UN peacekeeping missions must be carried out under the principal rule that they will not “in any way increase the suffering of vulnerable sectors of (a) population.” [The Guardian] (16)
As the report read: “The reality of prostitution and other sexual exploitation in a
peacekeeping context is profoundly disturbing because the United Nations has been mandated to enter into a broken society to help it, not to breach the trust placed in it by the local population,” the scandal in the DRC flared up again after new revelations that UN peacekeepers were still sexually abusing and exploiting the refugees in their care. The Guardian writes: “In the DRC, peacekeepers were said to have offered abandoned orphans small gifts - as little as two eggs from their rations, says the report - for sexual encounters. Used condoms, an inquiry by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services discovered, littered the perimeter of military camps and guard posts.” (16)
The report states that in the DCR: “sexual exploitation and abuse mostly involves the exchange of sex for money (on average $1-$3 per encounter), for food (for immediate consumption or to barter later) or for jobs (...) Victims frequently suffer from psychological trauma as a result of their experiences. Victims and abandoned peacekeeper babies may face stigmatisation by their families and communities, which deprive them of all support.” [The Guardian] (16)
2006
At the end of 2006 UN Secretary General Kofi Anan retired from his post. Just before he left, Anan acknowledged in a speech: “There have been crimes such as rape, paedophilia and human trafficking.” (17)
And indeed, in 2006 yet another UN childabuse sexscandal broke out, this time in Haiti. Victims and witnesses claimed peacekeepers had sexually harassed and raped minors, including a young girl at a UN naval base. One of the victims was a top student at her school who was raped at age 15 by a Peacekeeper, after which she dropped out. “I thought they came for peace, not war (...) I thought they came to protect us. I never thought they could abuse me in this way,” she said. (18)
In all, the UN had investigated 35 claims of sexual abuse and exploitation against UN Peacekeepers since it came to Haiti – a mission including at that time some 6.600 soldiers and 17.00 police officers. However, it did not find enough evidence to substantiate the claims. UN spokesperson David Wimhurst claimed 3 seperate investigations into the case of the raped top student had produced no evidence. Wimhurst: “We take it very seriously (...) Clearly, the vast majority of our people are behaving themselves, and indeed, since some of these allegations don't pan out, I would say, it's not a huge problem.” [Washington Times] (18)
However, human rights workers in Haiti maintain that there are much more victims and witnesses of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers, but that they are too intimidated by the UN and too scared to step forward. (18)
2007
On January 3, 2007, The Telegraph attention focused on Sudan, when the paper reported that the UN mission in southern Sudan, the UNMIS, had been sexually abusing refugee children in their care. The abuse had begun as soon as the UN moved into the area of Juba in 2005. Unicef had even published an internal report about the situation in southern Sudan, and it was thought that hundreds of children had been subsequently abused by UN peacekeepers. The Sudanese refugee children described how peacekeepers and civil staff picked them up in their white cars with the UN logo to have sex with them for a small fee. In effect, the UN employees were creating child prostitutes. They picked the children up from the streets or at certain nightclubs. The Telegraph: “Many of the children who claim to have had sex with UN personnel in Juba belong to southern Sudan's ‘lost generation’, separated from their families by the recent civil war, who now sleep rough on the streets of Juba, the regional capital.” (19)
The Telegraph said to understand that the Sudanese government was all too aware of the situation and also had gathered evidence of the child abuse by UN employees.
One of the boys who spoke to The Telegraph said: “I know it is a terrible thing to do but I see the UN cars around late at night by the drinking places and I sit there in the hope of being picked up. If I get 1000 SD ($3) a day then that is a good day.” (19)
The court judge of Juba county, Ali Said, confirmed that there had been an increase in child prostitution since the UN came to the area. [The Telegraph] (19)
In July 2007 it became clear yet another UN mission got involved in “widespread sexual abuse and exploitation”, including allegations of childabuse. This time it is in Cote D’Ivoire, and the UN took the unprecedented move to confine its peacekeepers contingent to their base in Bouake while carrying out it’s investigation into the claims. [BBC] (19) As a result, not much is known about what the UN is doing to the locals.
Sources:
(1) “Teenagers ‘used for sex by UN in Bosnia’”, Stewart Payne, The Telegraph, April 25, 2002, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/04/25/wbos25.xml
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_042502_unsextrade.html
(2) “U.N. Finally Forced to Probe Its Pedophilia Scandal”, Newsmax, May 7, 2002, http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/6/151901.shtml
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_050702_un.html
(3) “U.N. adds new cases of sex abuse”, John Zarocostas, The Washington Times, October 14, 2002, http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021014-85616521.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_101402_un.html
(4) “Child sex book given out at U.N. summit”, George Archibald, The Washington Times, May 10, 2002, http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020510-25256488.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_051002_un.html
(5) “UN ‘ignored’ abuse at Kosovo mental homes”, Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian, August 8, 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,770954,00.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_080802_un.html
(6) “Peacekeeper jailed for porn films”, Declan Walsh, The Scotsman, December 23, 2002, http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1422722002
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_122302_un.html
(7) “UN troops accused of ‘systematic’ rape in Sierra Leone”, Tim Butcher, The Telegraph, January 17, 2003, http://www.news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/17/wleon17.xml
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_011703_unsextrade.html
(8) “UN ship ‘carried child prostitutes’”, AP, August 21, 2003, http://www.propagandamatrix.com/un_ship_carried_child_prostitutes
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6682018%255E401,00.html
http://100777.com/node/435
(9) “Children Sold Into Slavery by UN Charity”, The Mirror, January 27, 2004, http://www.propagandamatrix.com/270104soldintoslavery.html
(10) “Amnesty Denounces Peacekeepers Over Kosovo Sex Slavery”, Vesna Peric Zimonjic, The Independent, May 7, 2004,
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=518919
http://www.rense.com/general52/sexx.htm
(11) “Kosovo: Trafficked women & girls have human rights”, Amnesty International, May 7, 2004, http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0405/S00059.htm
The Full Report at: http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacdNkaa6Dccbb0hPub/
(12) () “Amnesty damns UN, NATO over sexual slavery of women in Kosovo”, AFP, May 7, 2004, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/83599/1/.html
(13) “New sex misconduct claims hit UN”, Susannah Price, BBC News, December 17, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4106515.stm
(14) “The UN Sex Scandal”, Joseph Loconte, The Weekly Standard, January 1, 2005, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/081zxelz.asp
http://www.rense.com/general61/SCANDAL.HTM
(15) “Report: U.N. exploited Congo girls”, AP, January 8, 2005, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Peacekeeper%20Sex%20Abuse
http://www.prisonplanet.com/Pages/Jan05/080105UNabuse.html
(16) “Report reveals shame of UN peacekeepers”, The Guardian, March 25, 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1445537,00.html
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/march2005/250305revealsshame.htm
(17) “UN probes ‘abuse’ in Ivory Coast”, BBC, July 21, 2007,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6909664.stm
(18) “U.N. peacekeepers accused of rape”, Reed Lindsay, The Washington Times, December 17, 2006, http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20061217-122119-4767r.htm
(19) “UN staff accused of raping children in Sudan”, Kate Holt & Sarah Hughes, The Telegraph, January 3, 2007, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/03/wsudan03.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=5LHEVG0PIGU2NQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/01/03/wsudan03.xml&page=2
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/03/wsudan03.xml&page=3
http://www.infowars.net/articles/january2007/030107UN.htm
Some things are just taken for granted, it seems. For instance, whenever a UN peacekeeping mission lands anywhere on earth, incidents of rape, forced prostitution and the sexual abuse and exploitation suddenly begin to soar skyhigh. As a result, each year that passed since the year 2000 has seen a number of scandals surface around the world where UN personel, in particular the ‘peacekeepers’, have been caught in the systematic sexual exploitation of the refugees living in UN refugeecamps.
The claims evolve around peacekeepers molesting and raping refugees, setting up prostitutionrings and profiting from the forced prostitution of the refugees.
It is unclear what is most worrying: the fact that children in UN refugeecamps are easy targets for organised sexual predators, or the way the UN chooses to handle these cases once they surface in public.
Each time one of these UN sex scandals surfaces, the international community explodes with anger and disgust over these outrageous incidents. The UN however has become known for consistently ignoring, downplaying, ridiculing and even denying the accusations for as long as it takes untill the scandal dies down. Each time it launches an investigations into it´s own wrongdoings, the UN finds there is “no substance” to the allegations or that there is “not enough evidence” to substantiate the reports. As a result, each time a UN sex scandal erupts it is left to wither away and die out of the public eye.
2001
In October 2000 Kathryn Bolkovac, an employee of DynCorp who was in Bosnia to investigate forced prostitution and human trafficking, sent an e-mail to the chief of the UN mission in Bosnia, Jaques Paul Klein, in which she tried to raise the alarm of some of the malconduct of the UN troops in Bosnia. In the e-mail Bolkovac detailed how UN peacekeepers frequented bars and brothels where underage girls, some as young as 15, danced naked and were offered by their ‘owners’ for sex. In the e-mail Bolkovac also alledged that UN and DynCorp employees were participating in human trafficking and prostitution rings. [The Telegraph] (1)
Bolkovac had been sent to Bosnia to investigate allegations of forced prostitution and human trafficking, which had taken on an unprecedented level in the years after the civil war from 1991 to 1995. There she had witnessed UN peacekeepers visiting local bars and brothels where underaged girls danced naked and were prostituted to the clientele. After Bolkovac interviewed the underaged girls, some of them as young as 15, they told her that they were ‘offered’ to the customers by their ‘owners’ and that they had had forced sex with employees of the UN and DynCorp. After verifying that UN and DynCorp employees were not only clients of the underaged prostitutes, Bolkovac established that they also were actively participating in human trafficking and the running of prostitutionrings, in which minors were forced into prostitution. [The Telegraph] (1)
After contacting UN mission chief in Bosnia Jaques Paul Klein, an eerie silence descended. Klein declined to reply, while Bolkovac herself got fired from DynCorp for blowing the whistle after she exposed that DynCorp employees were involved in local prostitution rings and the sexual abuse of underage girls. And so the scandal died down.
2002
In 2002 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation involving UN peacekeepers and employees of a British NGO surfaced in west Africa. After receiving more than 400 claims of sexual abuse of children in refugeecamps in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, the UNHCR launched a factfinding mission into the allegations. (2)
It soon found itself swamped as it researched the allegations against a number of peacekeepers who had been accused of working hand in hand with employees of the British NGO ‘Save The Children UK’ and certain other NGO’s. As the research slowly progressed, the UN drew fierce criticism of western diplomats and other NGO’s over it’s reluctance to share it’s findings. The investigation received a lot of internal criticism for excluding the World Food Program and UNAMSIL, who were initially accused by the UNHCR and Save The Children UK as having employees engaging in the extensive sexual exploitation of refugee children. [The Washington Times] (3)
Nexsmax writes: “The initial refusal by UNHCR and Save the Children-UK to furnish to other NGOs, confidentially, the names of the alleged 67 individuals created tensions among the normally close-knit "humanitarian community (...) After a number of heated closed-door meetings, however, the NGOs were furnished with the confidential information they had been seeking” (2)
While the investigations into the child abuse by UN peacekeepers and Save The Children-UK continued, it became apparent that the 400 cases might just be the tip of the iceberg. However, the researches noticed severe difficulties in obtaining witness testimonies, because the underage victims had to report to their molesters or their colleagues. The UN report states most “incidents of sexual violence go unreported,” and notes: “In order for a refugee to make a report, they would have to go through the same persons who themselves are perpetrators of sexual exploitation. Most staff appear to connive to hide the actions of other staff.” (2)
During the investigation into the allegations of “extensive sexual exploitation of refugee children” in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the UN uncovered 10 new cases against aid workers. Eventually, nothing much happenend apart from the UN clearing a number of it’s own employees. UNHCR commissioner Ruud Lubbers (who would later step down from his post because of allegations of sexual abuse of his employees) was criticized for downplaying the problem. [The Washington Times] (3) Eventually the investigation bogged down.
Meanwhile, the UN landed itself into another sex scandal in 2002, after a childrens book that was handed out freely at a United Nations Child Summit in Mexico encouraged children to turn towards – amongst others – bestiality and pedophilia in order to avoid teenage pregnancy. Financed by UNICEF and produced by the Mexican government, the childrensbook caused a huge international row for advising underage children to ‘experiment’ with homosexuality and other forms of sex while infuriating catholics for propagating abortion as a means of contraception. The Washington Times writes that the book: “tells Latin American mothers and teens: "Situations in which you can obtain sexual pleasure: 1. Masturbation. 2. Sexual relations with a partner — whether heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. 3. A sexual response that is directed toward inanimate objects, animals, minors, non-consenting persons."” (4)
A seperate investigation conducted in 2002 uncovered another form of systematic child abuse involving the UN peacekeepers, this time in Kosovo. After the ‘Mental Disability Rights International’ (MDRI) received reports about the deplorable situation in mental institutions run by the UN, it launched an investigation into the Shtime home, the Pristina elderly home and Prinstina University hospital in Kosovo. In these UN maintained mental asylums, the patients consisted largely of Serbs while the employees were mostly Albanian and the situation had deteriorated dramatically as male patients were left to roam the wards and frequently assaulted and raped the female patients as staff watched. A number of children and teenagers were found on the premises of the mental institutions. The raped patients, however, did not qualify as credible witnesses for the UN because they were mentally ill. And if they tried to speak about the abuse they were threatened by staff to keep quiet: one female patient was even threatened by a member of staff in front of the MDRI investigators. After the MDRI released a damning report on the sexual abuse of patienst in the UN mental institutions in Kosovo, the UNMIK objected that while the damning report was “not generally inaccurate” there were not enough funds available to ensure a safer environment for their patients. Later the UNMIK issued a sober statement saying: “children have been removed from the institution at Shtime and are no longer vulnerable.” [The Guardian] (5)
In December 2002 a fresh row broke out in Eritrea, after an Irish peacekeeper of the UNMEE was jailed for shooting pornographic movies involving young Eritrean prostitutes. Ever since the UN moved into Eritrea brothels and nightclubs had shot out of the ground while the number of prostitutes had exploded. The Scotsman writes: “... a report commissioned by the UN itself noted this year that prostitution has soared since peace was declared in Eritrea and the UN peacekeepers arrived there. Over the past two years, Italian, Danish and Slovak peacekeepers have all been expelled in separate incidents for having sex with minors.” (6) The Eritrean government reacted angrily and closed a number of brothels and clubs frequented by bored peacekeepers and other foreigners, and arrested a number of local prostitutes.
Declan Walsh writing for The Scotsman: “During the UN peacekeeping mission to Somalia, it was claimed Canadian, Belgian and Italian soldiers were involved in torture and murder. An inquiry by the Canadian government of a young Somali man in 1993, found that he had been murdered by its troops and that a senior officer had lied in an attempt to cover up the atrocity. Two soldiers were jailed. In Belgium, newspapers published photographs of two soldiers holding a Somali boy over a fire. Three paratroopers were prosecuted, but were acquitted by a military tribunal. An Italian magazine published photographs showing soldiers from the country’s elite paratroop regiment apparently torturing a naked Somali with electrodes and sexually abusing a Somali woman (...) Two Rwandan women accused the UN, which was meant to be defending their families, of handing them over to their killers or running away (...) In Bosnia, more than 20 peacekeepers were ejected from the mission for theft and corruption. Nearly four dozen others were sent home after allegedly abusing mental patients at a hospital. Canadian peacekeepers were accused of rape, beatings and sexual abuse of a teenage handicapped girl.” (6)
2003
In January of 2003, the critically acclaimed Human Rights Watch released a report on the atrocities commited during the ‘civil’ war in Sierra Leone. The report detailed “sexual atrocities” not only committed by the local ‘rebels,’ but also by troops of the ECOMOG and the UN. Human Rights Watch alledged that UN peacekeepers had been equally involved in systematic rape and the use of women for sex slaves and household chores. [The Telegraph] (7)
Meanwhile in August, another scandal erupted as the Portugese weekly ‘Expresso’ leaked that the UN was involved in shipping young girls from Thailand to East Timor. Supposedly the children were to be forced into prostitution for the pleasure of the peacekeepers. As the rumors were quickly hushed up and ridiculed, the UN did confirm that it was investigating into the claims. According to the UN the investigation focused on a report claiming that a chartered ship was used by UN peacekeepers to bring Thai child prostitutes into East Timor. However, according to OIOS spokesperson Hua Jiang “So far, some of the allegations are unsubstantiated.” [AP] (8)
2004
In the beginning of 2004 the British newspaper The Mirror ran an expose on the sale of children in a refugeecamp set up by the UN in Montenegro after the Kosovo war. Posing as potential customers, undercover investigators of The Mirror visited the UN camp near Podgoriza, where some 5000 refugees lived in dire poverty. The reporters were shown around by Siniza Nadazdin, the director of a local christian charity named Philia. At the time Nadazdin’s charity received funds from Catholic aid organisations and the UK based christian charity, Smile International.
Speaking frankly to the reporters, Nadazdin showed them around the camp and encouraged them to select refugeechildren they would like to buy. Nadazdin: “Take photos. Any of these children is for sale if you like. Pressure will be put on the parents to sell.” [The Mirror] (9)
The reporters had uncovered that Nadazdin worked together with two local gypsie crime bosses, the brothers Arton and Vlasnim Shkreli. As they roamed the camp looking for the best looking children, Nadazdin used his position as director of the charity to connect with trustworthy buyers. The poverty stricken families of the children would be pressurized to sell their children, and parents threatened or worse if they refused to. Nadazdin: “A hundred kids were trafficked from this camp (...) any of the children you see here are up for sale (...) I am willing to do it because of my finances.” [The Mirror] (9)
As Nadazdin guided the undercover reporters around the camp, he explained that blond, blue eyed children got around 5000 euro while darkskinned gypsie children only made around 500 euro. Only in the best cases were the children put up for illegal adoption; usually they end up in the sextrade as prostitutes or are used for child pornography. After taking the undercover reporters to children they had mailed pictures of, Nadazdin said: “This is the best family for you to buy a child. They are desperate.” (9) As their mother cried, preferring to be a prostitute than having to sell her children, one of Nadazdin’s gang made the cut-throat gesture to the mother. After leaving the camp, Vlasnim Shkreli called the reporters and offered them children for sex: “We have children for more delicate business than adoption. Have girls of 12, girls of 13, girls of 14 for you. There are 20 available now. They are pretty girls, all of them. Some are experienced in movies, some have been on internet sites. You will not be disappointed.” [The Mirror] (9)
Before they left, Nadazdin spoke about his big dream to the reporters, expressing his wish that the charity ‘Smile International’ would fund a daycare centre in the UN refugeecamp. To Nadazin this would be his own “child supermarket”. [The Mirror] (9)
On May 6 2004 Amnesty International released the report “So Does That Mean I Have Rights?” on forced prostitution in the Balkans, it details that “the number of places in Kosovo where trafficked girls may be exploited has increased from 18 in 1999 to more than 200 in 2003, with nightclubs, bars, restaurants, hotels and cafes all inplicated”. The girls all described their pimps as their “owners”. One of them said: “By buying us, he had the right to beat us, rape us, starve us and force us to have sex with clients.” Some of the girls were as young as 11 years old. The report also detailed how women and underaged girls were being used as forced prostitutes for UN and NATO personel stationed in Kosovo. One girl, who was only 12 when she was interviewed by Amnesty: “I was forced by the boss to serve international soldiers and police officers.” [The Independent] (10)
Amnesty in it’s press release: “Having escaped one set of human rights abuses, trafficked women and girls are subjected to a second set of violations at the hands of traffickers. If they manage to get away, they are often subjected to a third set of violations, this time by the authorities (...) trafficked women and girls are often still treated as criminals - prosecuted for being unlawfully in Kosovo, or charged with prostitution following raids by UNMIK police. When arrested, the women and girls are not given the basic rights guaranteed to all detainees. They are not informed about their rights, they are not allowed access to a lawyer and girls are often interviewed without a legal guardian present.” (11)
The agency claims that “girls under 18 make up between 15 and 20 per cent of the women working in bars. They are suspected of having been trafficked for forced prostitution. Instead of removing these girls, registered by UNMIK, they are left in the bars, subject to further human rights abuses, including being raped and beaten.” (11)
Amnesty claimed that 20% of the clients who frequented the Kosovo brothels where girls were subjected to forced prostitution were members of the UNMIK and the NATO’s ‘peacekeeping force’ KFOR. However, the UNMIK claimed that the Amnesty report was “outdated” and “highly unbalanced”. As a result, nothing much happened to punish the offending peacekeepers of the UN and the NATO. Agence France Press: “From January 2002 to July 2003, between 22 and 27 members of KFOR troops were suspected of offences related to trafficking, Amnesty quoted UNMIK figures as showing. But there was no evidence that any had been prosecuted.” (12)
Amnesty: “It is outrageous that the very same people who are there to protect these women and girls are using their position and exploiting them instead - and they are getting away with it.” (11)
While the sexabuse scandals in Montenegro and Kosovo died down, another sex scandal involving UN peacekeepers broke in December 2004 in the tiny African nation of Burundi, where 5.000 Peacekeepers were stationed. The allegations circled around sexual misconduct by the UN forces, including rape, prostitution and pedophilia.
The revelations followed on the heels of the UN’s admission that sexual exploitation by Peacekeepers had indeed been asserted in the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) where the UN was investigating a total of 150 allegations against UN peacekeepers stationed there. There were allegations of rape, prostitution and pedophilia, some of which included photographic and video evidence.
While the UN was being applauded by the international community for their unexpected ‘openness’ into acknowledging the abuse by peacekeepers in the DRC, the Washington Post reported that the UN team in the DCR had been repeatedly sabotaged by the Peacekeepers during their ongoing investigations. And when the Burundi scandal broke immediately after that, and it was revealed that 2 Peacekeepers had been suspended, the UN took up their old stance and refused to give any further comment. [BBC] (13)
2005
The sex scandal that broke out in the DRC – which involved rape, prostitution and pedophilia – once again laid bare the widespread evidence of the sexual exploitation of African refugees by those who were sent there to help them. As Gita Sahgal of Amnesty International said in an interview with Christian Science Monitor: “The issue with the U.N. is that peacekeeping operations unfortunately seem to be doing the same thing that other militaries do (...) Even the guardians have to be guarded.” [Weekly Standard] (14)
Joseph Loconte, writing for The Weekly Standard on the scandal in the DCR: “Various U.N. reports and interviews with humanitarian groups suggest that international peacekeeping missions are creating a predatory sexual culture among vulnerable refugees--from relief workers who demand sexual favors in exchange for food to U.N. troops who rape women at gunpoint.” (14)
Writing about the refugee camp in Bunia, where 16.000 refugees arre housed, Loconte states: “Investigators describe a ‘significant, widespread and ongoing’ pattern of abuse at the camp – an astonishing conclusion given that many women are afraid to report sexual violence against them. At least one senior official in charge of security in Bunia is implicated in the scandal, and U.N. peacekeepers allegedly have threatened investigators with retaliation. According to the Economist, a U.N. probe is even considering the possibility that MONUC has been infiltrated by ‘organized pedophiles who recruit their friends’.” [Weekly Standard] (14)
In January 2005, the UN confirmed that Peacekeepers had been sexually exploiting women and girls at Bunia Refugee camp in DRC. While the number of UN troops was to be expected to be raised to 16.000 in the next month, UN Special Representative to the Congo, William Lacy Swing, said in a press conference: “We have had and continue to have a serious problem of sexual exploitation and abuse (...) We are shocked by it, we are outraged, we are sickened by it. Peacekeepers who have been sworn to assist those in need, particularly those who have been victims of sexual violence, instead have caused grievous harm.” [AP] (15)
As the UN team was conducting investigations in Bunia camp, they were hindered in their efforts by guards and military officers. In all the Congo cases against the Peacekeepers that were substantiated by evidence, sexual abuse of children was involved. [AP] (15)
In March 2005, an internal investigation carried out by the OIOS and published by Jordan’s ambassador to the UN, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, titled “A Comprehensive Strategy To Eliminate Future Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations” was publicized. (16) The report was a blistering critique of the effects of the sexual abuse and exploitation by UN Peacekeepers around the world. At that moment the UN was involved in 17 peackekeeping operations which involved some 75.000 employees – both civilian and military. The report insisted that the UN peacekeeping missions must be carried out under the principal rule that they will not “in any way increase the suffering of vulnerable sectors of (a) population.” [The Guardian] (16)
As the report read: “The reality of prostitution and other sexual exploitation in a
peacekeeping context is profoundly disturbing because the United Nations has been mandated to enter into a broken society to help it, not to breach the trust placed in it by the local population,” the scandal in the DRC flared up again after new revelations that UN peacekeepers were still sexually abusing and exploiting the refugees in their care. The Guardian writes: “In the DRC, peacekeepers were said to have offered abandoned orphans small gifts - as little as two eggs from their rations, says the report - for sexual encounters. Used condoms, an inquiry by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services discovered, littered the perimeter of military camps and guard posts.” (16)
The report states that in the DCR: “sexual exploitation and abuse mostly involves the exchange of sex for money (on average $1-$3 per encounter), for food (for immediate consumption or to barter later) or for jobs (...) Victims frequently suffer from psychological trauma as a result of their experiences. Victims and abandoned peacekeeper babies may face stigmatisation by their families and communities, which deprive them of all support.” [The Guardian] (16)
2006
At the end of 2006 UN Secretary General Kofi Anan retired from his post. Just before he left, Anan acknowledged in a speech: “There have been crimes such as rape, paedophilia and human trafficking.” (17)
And indeed, in 2006 yet another UN childabuse sexscandal broke out, this time in Haiti. Victims and witnesses claimed peacekeepers had sexually harassed and raped minors, including a young girl at a UN naval base. One of the victims was a top student at her school who was raped at age 15 by a Peacekeeper, after which she dropped out. “I thought they came for peace, not war (...) I thought they came to protect us. I never thought they could abuse me in this way,” she said. (18)
In all, the UN had investigated 35 claims of sexual abuse and exploitation against UN Peacekeepers since it came to Haiti – a mission including at that time some 6.600 soldiers and 17.00 police officers. However, it did not find enough evidence to substantiate the claims. UN spokesperson David Wimhurst claimed 3 seperate investigations into the case of the raped top student had produced no evidence. Wimhurst: “We take it very seriously (...) Clearly, the vast majority of our people are behaving themselves, and indeed, since some of these allegations don't pan out, I would say, it's not a huge problem.” [Washington Times] (18)
However, human rights workers in Haiti maintain that there are much more victims and witnesses of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers, but that they are too intimidated by the UN and too scared to step forward. (18)
2007
On January 3, 2007, The Telegraph attention focused on Sudan, when the paper reported that the UN mission in southern Sudan, the UNMIS, had been sexually abusing refugee children in their care. The abuse had begun as soon as the UN moved into the area of Juba in 2005. Unicef had even published an internal report about the situation in southern Sudan, and it was thought that hundreds of children had been subsequently abused by UN peacekeepers. The Sudanese refugee children described how peacekeepers and civil staff picked them up in their white cars with the UN logo to have sex with them for a small fee. In effect, the UN employees were creating child prostitutes. They picked the children up from the streets or at certain nightclubs. The Telegraph: “Many of the children who claim to have had sex with UN personnel in Juba belong to southern Sudan's ‘lost generation’, separated from their families by the recent civil war, who now sleep rough on the streets of Juba, the regional capital.” (19)
The Telegraph said to understand that the Sudanese government was all too aware of the situation and also had gathered evidence of the child abuse by UN employees.
One of the boys who spoke to The Telegraph said: “I know it is a terrible thing to do but I see the UN cars around late at night by the drinking places and I sit there in the hope of being picked up. If I get 1000 SD ($3) a day then that is a good day.” (19)
The court judge of Juba county, Ali Said, confirmed that there had been an increase in child prostitution since the UN came to the area. [The Telegraph] (19)
In July 2007 it became clear yet another UN mission got involved in “widespread sexual abuse and exploitation”, including allegations of childabuse. This time it is in Cote D’Ivoire, and the UN took the unprecedented move to confine its peacekeepers contingent to their base in Bouake while carrying out it’s investigation into the claims. [BBC] (19) As a result, not much is known about what the UN is doing to the locals.
Sources:
(1) “Teenagers ‘used for sex by UN in Bosnia’”, Stewart Payne, The Telegraph, April 25, 2002, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/04/25/wbos25.xml
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_042502_unsextrade.html
(2) “U.N. Finally Forced to Probe Its Pedophilia Scandal”, Newsmax, May 7, 2002, http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/6/151901.shtml
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_050702_un.html
(3) “U.N. adds new cases of sex abuse”, John Zarocostas, The Washington Times, October 14, 2002, http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021014-85616521.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_101402_un.html
(4) “Child sex book given out at U.N. summit”, George Archibald, The Washington Times, May 10, 2002, http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020510-25256488.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_051002_un.html
(5) “UN ‘ignored’ abuse at Kosovo mental homes”, Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian, August 8, 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,770954,00.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_080802_un.html
(6) “Peacekeeper jailed for porn films”, Declan Walsh, The Scotsman, December 23, 2002, http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1422722002
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_122302_un.html
(7) “UN troops accused of ‘systematic’ rape in Sierra Leone”, Tim Butcher, The Telegraph, January 17, 2003, http://www.news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/17/wleon17.xml
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_011703_unsextrade.html
(8) “UN ship ‘carried child prostitutes’”, AP, August 21, 2003, http://www.propagandamatrix.com/un_ship_carried_child_prostitutes
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6682018%255E401,00.html
http://100777.com/node/435
(9) “Children Sold Into Slavery by UN Charity”, The Mirror, January 27, 2004, http://www.propagandamatrix.com/270104soldintoslavery.html
(10) “Amnesty Denounces Peacekeepers Over Kosovo Sex Slavery”, Vesna Peric Zimonjic, The Independent, May 7, 2004,
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=518919
http://www.rense.com/general52/sexx.htm
(11) “Kosovo: Trafficked women & girls have human rights”, Amnesty International, May 7, 2004, http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0405/S00059.htm
The Full Report at: http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacdNkaa6Dccbb0hPub/
(12) () “Amnesty damns UN, NATO over sexual slavery of women in Kosovo”, AFP, May 7, 2004, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/83599/1/.html
(13) “New sex misconduct claims hit UN”, Susannah Price, BBC News, December 17, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4106515.stm
(14) “The UN Sex Scandal”, Joseph Loconte, The Weekly Standard, January 1, 2005, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/081zxelz.asp
http://www.rense.com/general61/SCANDAL.HTM
(15) “Report: U.N. exploited Congo girls”, AP, January 8, 2005, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Peacekeeper%20Sex%20Abuse
http://www.prisonplanet.com/Pages/Jan05/080105UNabuse.html
(16) “Report reveals shame of UN peacekeepers”, The Guardian, March 25, 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1445537,00.html
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/march2005/250305revealsshame.htm
(17) “UN probes ‘abuse’ in Ivory Coast”, BBC, July 21, 2007,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6909664.stm
(18) “U.N. peacekeepers accused of rape”, Reed Lindsay, The Washington Times, December 17, 2006, http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20061217-122119-4767r.htm
(19) “UN staff accused of raping children in Sudan”, Kate Holt & Sarah Hughes, The Telegraph, January 3, 2007, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/03/wsudan03.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=5LHEVG0PIGU2NQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/01/03/wsudan03.xml&page=2
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/03/wsudan03.xml&page=3
http://www.infowars.net/articles/january2007/030107UN.htm
maandag 29 oktober 2007
They Hate Us Because Of Our Freedom!
by Mariella Konings
Before 9-11, he regularly ‘joked’ about it. Being Governor of Texas, he quipped in July 1998: “You don’t get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier.” (1)
He made a similar joke in a speech on Capitol Hill in December 2000, after the voting irregularities during the presidential elections had thrown the nation into turmoil: “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” (1) (2)
And then he said it again, in Business Week in July, 2001, this time as the president of the USA: “A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.” (1) (3)
But after September 11, 2001, it became all too clear that president Bush had, in fact, been serious. Meanwhile, it has been 7 years since the day Bush and his crime syndicate were let into the White House, and countless scandals of epic proportions have blighted the presidency since. “From Abramoff to Abu Ghraib to Alberto Gonzales, and those are just the scandals filed under ‘A’...,” US Weekly editor in chief Janice Min sighed recently. (4)
While the massmedia, who have been conveniently ignoring the scandals of the Bush crime syndicate for years, is trying to focus the attention of the public on the next presidential elections in November 2008, the Bush administration must not be perceived as ‘irrelevant’. Neither must it be assumed that they will just sit back and quietly ride out the last year of the Bush presidency.
For the Bush administration has silently been preparing for the overthrow of the US constitutional republic on paper, scheming to abolish the Constitution and dismiss Congress, replacing it with a form of military dictatorship. While these new ‘laws’ have for the most part not been enforced, they could be, if an adequate opportunity arises.
Currently, the risk that the Bush crime syndicate will step forth and boldy declare Martial Law in the US between now and November 2008 is currently a real and present danger. If that happens, the ‘biggest democracy in the world’ will transform into an open military dictatorship, much the same way Germany, then the ‘biggest democracy in the world’ was transformed into a military dictatorship some 60 years ago when Hitler got elected to the highest position and transformed into a ruthless dictator. Only this time it will look and feel like a technologically superior, multicolor version of that ‘darkest chapter’ in human history.
And while the massmedia have steadily ignored this descent into fascism, the alternative media on the internet have been buzzing for years about the upcoming Martial Law. Currently many are sounding the alarm on the internet. Amongst them is a growing number of democratic and republican politicians, veteran journalists, military men, (former) CIA employees, celebrities, industrial leaders, diplomats and human rights activists. Their tone has been frantic for over a year, but as of the last months their tone has reached a feverish pitch, a clear indication of their rising level of panic.
They are screaming their warnings to who ever will listen and their words deserve being repeated over and over again, untill the truth sinks in. The American people must impeach Bush and Cheney now, before it’s too late.
Enter The American Dictatorship
Since Bush came to power in 2001, there has been a significant rise in the appearance of phrases like ‘big brother,’ ‘police state’ and ‘dictatorship’ in the headlines of the mass media, when referring to the national and international policies of the Bush administration.
But US politicians also began using these terms. Among the first to do so were members of Congress Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga) and Ron Paul (R-Tex). On July 29, 2002, Cynthia McKinney warned the House Armed Services Committee against the use of the military to enforce the law on citizens ‘for their own security.’ “The military has an appropriate role in protecting the United States from foreign threats,” McKinney said, “and should remain dedicated to preparing for those threats. Domestic uses of the military have long been prohibited for good reason, and the same should continue to apply to all military functions, especially any and all military intelligence and surveillance. Congress and the Administration must be increasingly vigilant towards the protection of and adherence to our constitutional rights and privileges. For, if we win the war on terrorism, but create a police state in the process, what have we won?” (5)
While McKinney, a black woman who was one of the most popular figureheads of the early 9-11 truth movement, saw her promising political career destroyed, Ron Paul steadily kept warning the Americans about the ongoing attempts to replace the existing laws and regulations with more authoritarian and repressive legislature, resulting in a police state. As Ron Paul commented in 2004: “Those who believe a police state can't happen here are poor students of history. Every government, democratic or not, is capable of tyranny. We must understand this if we hope to remain a free people.” (6)
After 9-11 happened, the Bush administration came down with the PATRIOT Act. Soon the effects became noticable, as the rights given to the American citizens by the Founding Fathers were taken away by the Bush and his cronies. All citizens were subjected to wiretapping and surveillance, and had all their personal information stored while the government began drawing up lists with ‘suspects’ of ‘terrorist activity,’ including membership of Greenpeace and Amnesty International, criticizing the president and citing from the Constitution. Citizens homes could now be entered by police without a searchwarrant while incidences of policebrutality shot up, as did the number of deaths caused by tazers. The US was transforming into an open police state.
In 2005, former CIA official and former Republican Congressman Bob Barr commented to Alex Jones: “Basically, as long as you smile when you demand to see somebody's ID at gunpoint sitting on a bus I guess it's OK for the government, that's sort of the way they operate. It can be a totalitarian type regime. I think it's a real danger where we have the military becoming involved in all sorts of domestic matters and we have the government being able to seize very private personal records on people without any suspicion that they've done anything wrong. This is a dramatic turn of events that has accelerated greatly since 9/11.” (7)
Barr also stated: “Even when the leaders in Washington say we're not going to let the terrorists change our way of life, they are implementing policies that do precisely that.” (7)
Democratic US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) on September 29, 2006, as recorded the Congression Records: “Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy.” (8)
One sentence uttered by former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor sent a shudder through the nation. Sandra Day O’Connor (1930), a staunch Republican and appointed by Reagan to the Supreme Court, surprised everybody by retiring from her job for life in 2006. Not long after, she held a televized speech in front of an audience of lawyers at the Georgetown University. In that, she stated this warning: “It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.” (9) (10) (11)
US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Ca) too uttered a dire warning on television on the direction the Bush administration was taking America. In an interview on the Ed Schultz Show on July 12, 2007, Senator Boxer said: “They are ignoring the Congress. They keep signing these signing statements which mean that he's decided not to enforce the law. This is as close as we've ever come to a dictatorship.” (12)
Coming Soon To Your Doorstep: Martial Law
At this moment in time, there are still too many legal obstacles in the way of the open implementation of an open military dictatorship in the US by the Military-Industrial-Financial Industry. Obnoxious little things, like Congress, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
However, the Founding Fathers that drew up the Constitution and improved it with the Billl of Rights, formulated their political system specifically so that a potential dictator elected fairly could not distort the law in such a way that the constitutional republic could be replaced by a totalitarian regime. Thus they ensured the American government would always be for the people, through the people and by the people. The Founding Fathers even gave the American citizen the constitutional right to protect themselves from the ‘tyranny of the government’ through the 2nd Amendement, which gives the citizen the right to legally own and bear a gun specifically to defend themselves against a tyrannical government.
But citizens can be persuaded to give up their rights. Citizens will give up their rights when they believe they are threatened. But first they must be convinced that giving up their liberty will give them security. In the years after 9-11 many people were scared into believing Osama and al-Qaeda threatened their lives and liberty. However, as the years passed more and more people felt the threat was exaggerated, and began to object more and more into the gross intrusions into their private lives and the blatantly illegal methods the government was using in the international War on Terror. As a result, the Bush administration became more secretive, in particular while adapting the existing laws to fit their needs.
On February 19, 2007, The New York Times devoted an editorial comment to the secrecy of the Bush administration while altering the basic principles of the American political system to make it more fit for a military take-over: “A disturbing recent phenomenom in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.” (13)
Martial Law in the modern US society had been a subject that had been raised several times in the decades before. One of the first to confirm such measures were in place was crime boss Frank Carlucci, a close associate of the Bush crime syndicate, in 1981, the year he went from deputy director of the CIA to deputy secretary of defense under Reagan. Carlucci, who would grow out to a significant player in the Iran/Contra Affair and who was tied to the Carlyle Company on 9-11, wrote in a National Security Council Directive in 1981: “Normally a state of martial law will be proclaimed by the President. However in the absence of such action by the President, a senior military commander may impose martial law in an area of his command where there had been a complete breakdown in the exercise of government functions by local authorities.” (14)
Almost 20 years later, General Tommy Franks speculated that Martial Law could indeed take place as a “worst case scenario” in the US. Franks, who led the military operation Enduring Freedom into Iraq in the spring of 2003, spoke of Martial Law in an interview in the December 2003 edition of ‘Cigar Afficionado’ and suggested it could be implemented after terrorists had WMD and used it against the US. If that would happen, said General Franks in the interview: “the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy (...) It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.” (15)
‘Nightline’ aired a show on April 7, 2004, titled “The Armageddon Plan”. In this show, studioguests discussed a terror attack that would – amongst other dramatic things – flatten the US Congress. If that happened, host Ted Koppel speculated to guest Kenneth Duberstein, former White House Chief of Staff under Reagan, “Aren’t we left for at least the forseeable future with some sort of martial law anyway?” Duberstein: “You have to suspend rights.” Koppel: “And during that period (...) the executive branch of government takes on extraordinary power doesn’t it?” Richard Clarke, security czar of Bush 43: “I think in any war where Washington were destroyed, inevitably, there would be a period of, for lack of a better term, something like martial law.” (16)
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx) expressed his astonishment about the determination to consider imposing Martial Law in an interview with Alex Jones on October 11, 2005: “... they're willing to change the law and turn it into a military state? That is unbelievable! They're determined to have martial law.” (17)
The proclamation of Martial Law will coincide with the dissolving of Congress and the Supreme Court, and the abolisment of the Constitution, while the president will take full control of government and the military.
Political author James Bovard, writing for the American Conservative in April 2007, states it very clearly: “‘Martial law’ is a euphemism for military dictatorship (...) ‘Martial law’ means obey soldiers’ commands or be shot.” (8)
The only voice within American politics who has consistently warned the people throughout the years is Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx). Exposing the secrecy in which the PATRIOT Act was passed in 2001, the only critic of the illegal invasion of Iraq, Ron Paul has been steadily passing warnings about the Bush crime syndicate. In an interview with Alex Jones on November 24, 2005, he said: “They're putting their back up against the wall and saying, if need be we're going to have martial law. We've heard all these statements by the President, by the administration, why they need more militarism at the federal government to keep people in check so nobody knows how this will turn out but I do know that the only thing we can do about it is try to alert the American people to what's going on so they can be prepared.” (18)
In the 1980’s, the Reagan administration began implementing in writ new potential reasons for imposing Martial Law upon the unsuspecting nation. The infamous Luitenant Colonel Oliver North, who would after aqquire worldfame as a major drugssmuggler in the Iran/Contra affair, worked for the NSA and got involved in the plan for “REX 84”. REX 84 was a scenario in which Martial Law would be the kickstart of rounding up tens of thousands of citizens, in particular Afro-American citizens, and place them in ‘relocation camps’. North expanded the requirements for Martial Law to include ‘public unrest’, but the plan was aborted after the Miami Herald leaked the existence of REX 84.
In the years after, reasons to impose Martial Law continued to be added, including natural disasters like storms and floods. Natural disasters were also used as a reason to abolish the Posse Comitatus, the law that prevents the military from being used on American soil and that prohibits the use of the military for civillian law enforcement.
Former Republican Congressman, former CIA official Bob Barr spoke out against using natural disasters for abolishing the Posse Comitatus: “If we have the military involved whenever there's a windstorm, rain or tornado then what we are doing is that we are undermining the entire basis on what our constitutional representative democratic form of government was founded.” (7)
Ron Paul in an interview with Alex Jones on October 11, 2005: “To me it's so strange that the President can make these proposals and it's even plausible,” Congressman Ron Paul said, “When he talks about martial law dealing with some epidemic that might come later on and having forced quarantines, doing away with Posse Comitatus in order to deal with natural disasters, and hardly anybody says anything. People must be scared to death.” (17)
US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) uttered a stern warning on September 19, 2006: “We certainly do not need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law.” (8)
One of the most vocal critics of the Iraq War, Cindy Sheehan, has also turned her message towards warning of the impending military takeover threatening the US. Sheehan, who turned a peace activist after her son was killed in Iraq announced after years of campaiging that she was stepping down because of her great disillusionment.
However, a few months later she was back with a vengeance. And this time, Cindy Sheehan talked about government staged terror attacks being used by the Bush administration to impose Martial Law. In interview on the Alex Jones Show on July 12, 2007 she said: “I definitely think that is a distinct possibility, that there will be some kind of attack whether it's manufactured or real....I think it's really possible that these people will do that - why would he put in that presidential directive if he didn't need to use it - I think it's really really frightening (...) Does anybody think that [Bush's] recent presidential decision directive wasn't for declaring martial law and suspending elections? That's why they have to be stopped.” (19)
If Martial Law will be imposed it will be between now and November 2008. When it happens, it will be too late to take action. Therefor Bush and Cheney have to be impeached or committed to an insane asylum NOW. Otherwise they might assume full dictatorial power the way Hitler did after the burning of the Reichstag, and launch World War III afterall...
Sources:
(1) “If Only I Were A Dictator, by George W. Bush”, Buzzflash, oct.29,2002:
http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/2002/10/29_Dictator.html
(2) “Transition of Power: President-Elect Bush Meets With Congressional Leaders on Capitol Hill”, CNN, aired dec.18, 2000,
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0012/18/nd.01.html
(3) “A Gentleman’s “C” for W”, Richard S. Dunham, Business Week, july 30, 2001,
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2001/nf20010730_347.htm
(4) “Forget Paris”, Janice Min, Slate, June 29, 2007, http://www.slate.com/id/2169484/nav/ais/
(5) “War On Terrorism Or Police State?”, Cynthia McKinney, Counterpunch, July 29, 2002, http://www.counterpunch.org/mckinney0725.html
(6) “It Can't Happen Here”, By Rep. Ron Paul, December 21, 2004,
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2004/tst122004.htm
http://www.rense.com/general61/reee.htm
(7) “Republican Congressman Says Totalitarian Regime a Danger”, Paul Joseph Watson& Alex Jones, December 11, 2005, http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/111205totalitariandanger.htm
(8) “Working for the Clampdown”, James Bovard, The American Conservative, April 23, 2007, http://amconmag.com/2007/2007_04_23/article4.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17595.htm
(9) “BREAKING: Sandra Day O’Connor Speaks out”, Philinmaine,Daily Kos, march 10, 2006,
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/3/10/82512/7603
(10) “Dictatorship is the danger”, Jonathan Raban, The Guardian, march 13, 06,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1729350,00.html
(11) “Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship”, Julian Borger, The Guardian, march 13, 06,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1729396,00.html?gusrc=rss
(12) “Barbara Boxer: ‘This Is As Close As We’ve Ever Come To A Dictatorship’”, After Downing Street, July 13, 2007, http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/24602
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/130707_a_boxer.htm
(13) “Making Martial Law Easier”, The New York Times, February 19, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/opinion/19mon3.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
(14) “Lawsuit Alleges FEMA Funded by Laundered Drug Profits”, Uri Dowbenko, www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_government&Number=620132&t=-1
(15) () “Tommy Franks: Martial Law Will Replace Constitution After Next Terror Attack”, Newsmax, November 21, 2003, http://www.infowars.com/print/ps/franks_martial.htm
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/211103martiallaw.html
(16) “Rogue Bush Backers prepare Super 9/11 False Flag Terror Attacks”, Webster G. Tarpley, INN, June 2, 2004, http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=355
(17) “Congressman Ron Paul Reiterates Danger Of Foreign Troops Being Used For Martial Law”, Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones, Prisonplanet, November 24, 2005, http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2005/241105martiallaw.htm
(18) “Republican Congressman Slams Bush On Militarized Police State Preparation”, Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones, Prison Planet, October 12, 2005,
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2005/121005slamsbush.htm
(19) “Sheehan: Distinct Chance Of Staged Attack, Martial Law”, Paul Joseph Watson, July 12, 2007, http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2007/120707distinctchance.htm
Before 9-11, he regularly ‘joked’ about it. Being Governor of Texas, he quipped in July 1998: “You don’t get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier.” (1)
He made a similar joke in a speech on Capitol Hill in December 2000, after the voting irregularities during the presidential elections had thrown the nation into turmoil: “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” (1) (2)
And then he said it again, in Business Week in July, 2001, this time as the president of the USA: “A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.” (1) (3)
But after September 11, 2001, it became all too clear that president Bush had, in fact, been serious. Meanwhile, it has been 7 years since the day Bush and his crime syndicate were let into the White House, and countless scandals of epic proportions have blighted the presidency since. “From Abramoff to Abu Ghraib to Alberto Gonzales, and those are just the scandals filed under ‘A’...,” US Weekly editor in chief Janice Min sighed recently. (4)
While the massmedia, who have been conveniently ignoring the scandals of the Bush crime syndicate for years, is trying to focus the attention of the public on the next presidential elections in November 2008, the Bush administration must not be perceived as ‘irrelevant’. Neither must it be assumed that they will just sit back and quietly ride out the last year of the Bush presidency.
For the Bush administration has silently been preparing for the overthrow of the US constitutional republic on paper, scheming to abolish the Constitution and dismiss Congress, replacing it with a form of military dictatorship. While these new ‘laws’ have for the most part not been enforced, they could be, if an adequate opportunity arises.
Currently, the risk that the Bush crime syndicate will step forth and boldy declare Martial Law in the US between now and November 2008 is currently a real and present danger. If that happens, the ‘biggest democracy in the world’ will transform into an open military dictatorship, much the same way Germany, then the ‘biggest democracy in the world’ was transformed into a military dictatorship some 60 years ago when Hitler got elected to the highest position and transformed into a ruthless dictator. Only this time it will look and feel like a technologically superior, multicolor version of that ‘darkest chapter’ in human history.
And while the massmedia have steadily ignored this descent into fascism, the alternative media on the internet have been buzzing for years about the upcoming Martial Law. Currently many are sounding the alarm on the internet. Amongst them is a growing number of democratic and republican politicians, veteran journalists, military men, (former) CIA employees, celebrities, industrial leaders, diplomats and human rights activists. Their tone has been frantic for over a year, but as of the last months their tone has reached a feverish pitch, a clear indication of their rising level of panic.
They are screaming their warnings to who ever will listen and their words deserve being repeated over and over again, untill the truth sinks in. The American people must impeach Bush and Cheney now, before it’s too late.
Enter The American Dictatorship
Since Bush came to power in 2001, there has been a significant rise in the appearance of phrases like ‘big brother,’ ‘police state’ and ‘dictatorship’ in the headlines of the mass media, when referring to the national and international policies of the Bush administration.
But US politicians also began using these terms. Among the first to do so were members of Congress Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga) and Ron Paul (R-Tex). On July 29, 2002, Cynthia McKinney warned the House Armed Services Committee against the use of the military to enforce the law on citizens ‘for their own security.’ “The military has an appropriate role in protecting the United States from foreign threats,” McKinney said, “and should remain dedicated to preparing for those threats. Domestic uses of the military have long been prohibited for good reason, and the same should continue to apply to all military functions, especially any and all military intelligence and surveillance. Congress and the Administration must be increasingly vigilant towards the protection of and adherence to our constitutional rights and privileges. For, if we win the war on terrorism, but create a police state in the process, what have we won?” (5)
While McKinney, a black woman who was one of the most popular figureheads of the early 9-11 truth movement, saw her promising political career destroyed, Ron Paul steadily kept warning the Americans about the ongoing attempts to replace the existing laws and regulations with more authoritarian and repressive legislature, resulting in a police state. As Ron Paul commented in 2004: “Those who believe a police state can't happen here are poor students of history. Every government, democratic or not, is capable of tyranny. We must understand this if we hope to remain a free people.” (6)
After 9-11 happened, the Bush administration came down with the PATRIOT Act. Soon the effects became noticable, as the rights given to the American citizens by the Founding Fathers were taken away by the Bush and his cronies. All citizens were subjected to wiretapping and surveillance, and had all their personal information stored while the government began drawing up lists with ‘suspects’ of ‘terrorist activity,’ including membership of Greenpeace and Amnesty International, criticizing the president and citing from the Constitution. Citizens homes could now be entered by police without a searchwarrant while incidences of policebrutality shot up, as did the number of deaths caused by tazers. The US was transforming into an open police state.
In 2005, former CIA official and former Republican Congressman Bob Barr commented to Alex Jones: “Basically, as long as you smile when you demand to see somebody's ID at gunpoint sitting on a bus I guess it's OK for the government, that's sort of the way they operate. It can be a totalitarian type regime. I think it's a real danger where we have the military becoming involved in all sorts of domestic matters and we have the government being able to seize very private personal records on people without any suspicion that they've done anything wrong. This is a dramatic turn of events that has accelerated greatly since 9/11.” (7)
Barr also stated: “Even when the leaders in Washington say we're not going to let the terrorists change our way of life, they are implementing policies that do precisely that.” (7)
Democratic US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) on September 29, 2006, as recorded the Congression Records: “Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy.” (8)
One sentence uttered by former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor sent a shudder through the nation. Sandra Day O’Connor (1930), a staunch Republican and appointed by Reagan to the Supreme Court, surprised everybody by retiring from her job for life in 2006. Not long after, she held a televized speech in front of an audience of lawyers at the Georgetown University. In that, she stated this warning: “It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.” (9) (10) (11)
US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Ca) too uttered a dire warning on television on the direction the Bush administration was taking America. In an interview on the Ed Schultz Show on July 12, 2007, Senator Boxer said: “They are ignoring the Congress. They keep signing these signing statements which mean that he's decided not to enforce the law. This is as close as we've ever come to a dictatorship.” (12)
Coming Soon To Your Doorstep: Martial Law
At this moment in time, there are still too many legal obstacles in the way of the open implementation of an open military dictatorship in the US by the Military-Industrial-Financial Industry. Obnoxious little things, like Congress, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
However, the Founding Fathers that drew up the Constitution and improved it with the Billl of Rights, formulated their political system specifically so that a potential dictator elected fairly could not distort the law in such a way that the constitutional republic could be replaced by a totalitarian regime. Thus they ensured the American government would always be for the people, through the people and by the people. The Founding Fathers even gave the American citizen the constitutional right to protect themselves from the ‘tyranny of the government’ through the 2nd Amendement, which gives the citizen the right to legally own and bear a gun specifically to defend themselves against a tyrannical government.
But citizens can be persuaded to give up their rights. Citizens will give up their rights when they believe they are threatened. But first they must be convinced that giving up their liberty will give them security. In the years after 9-11 many people were scared into believing Osama and al-Qaeda threatened their lives and liberty. However, as the years passed more and more people felt the threat was exaggerated, and began to object more and more into the gross intrusions into their private lives and the blatantly illegal methods the government was using in the international War on Terror. As a result, the Bush administration became more secretive, in particular while adapting the existing laws to fit their needs.
On February 19, 2007, The New York Times devoted an editorial comment to the secrecy of the Bush administration while altering the basic principles of the American political system to make it more fit for a military take-over: “A disturbing recent phenomenom in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.” (13)
Martial Law in the modern US society had been a subject that had been raised several times in the decades before. One of the first to confirm such measures were in place was crime boss Frank Carlucci, a close associate of the Bush crime syndicate, in 1981, the year he went from deputy director of the CIA to deputy secretary of defense under Reagan. Carlucci, who would grow out to a significant player in the Iran/Contra Affair and who was tied to the Carlyle Company on 9-11, wrote in a National Security Council Directive in 1981: “Normally a state of martial law will be proclaimed by the President. However in the absence of such action by the President, a senior military commander may impose martial law in an area of his command where there had been a complete breakdown in the exercise of government functions by local authorities.” (14)
Almost 20 years later, General Tommy Franks speculated that Martial Law could indeed take place as a “worst case scenario” in the US. Franks, who led the military operation Enduring Freedom into Iraq in the spring of 2003, spoke of Martial Law in an interview in the December 2003 edition of ‘Cigar Afficionado’ and suggested it could be implemented after terrorists had WMD and used it against the US. If that would happen, said General Franks in the interview: “the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy (...) It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.” (15)
‘Nightline’ aired a show on April 7, 2004, titled “The Armageddon Plan”. In this show, studioguests discussed a terror attack that would – amongst other dramatic things – flatten the US Congress. If that happened, host Ted Koppel speculated to guest Kenneth Duberstein, former White House Chief of Staff under Reagan, “Aren’t we left for at least the forseeable future with some sort of martial law anyway?” Duberstein: “You have to suspend rights.” Koppel: “And during that period (...) the executive branch of government takes on extraordinary power doesn’t it?” Richard Clarke, security czar of Bush 43: “I think in any war where Washington were destroyed, inevitably, there would be a period of, for lack of a better term, something like martial law.” (16)
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx) expressed his astonishment about the determination to consider imposing Martial Law in an interview with Alex Jones on October 11, 2005: “... they're willing to change the law and turn it into a military state? That is unbelievable! They're determined to have martial law.” (17)
The proclamation of Martial Law will coincide with the dissolving of Congress and the Supreme Court, and the abolisment of the Constitution, while the president will take full control of government and the military.
Political author James Bovard, writing for the American Conservative in April 2007, states it very clearly: “‘Martial law’ is a euphemism for military dictatorship (...) ‘Martial law’ means obey soldiers’ commands or be shot.” (8)
The only voice within American politics who has consistently warned the people throughout the years is Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx). Exposing the secrecy in which the PATRIOT Act was passed in 2001, the only critic of the illegal invasion of Iraq, Ron Paul has been steadily passing warnings about the Bush crime syndicate. In an interview with Alex Jones on November 24, 2005, he said: “They're putting their back up against the wall and saying, if need be we're going to have martial law. We've heard all these statements by the President, by the administration, why they need more militarism at the federal government to keep people in check so nobody knows how this will turn out but I do know that the only thing we can do about it is try to alert the American people to what's going on so they can be prepared.” (18)
In the 1980’s, the Reagan administration began implementing in writ new potential reasons for imposing Martial Law upon the unsuspecting nation. The infamous Luitenant Colonel Oliver North, who would after aqquire worldfame as a major drugssmuggler in the Iran/Contra affair, worked for the NSA and got involved in the plan for “REX 84”. REX 84 was a scenario in which Martial Law would be the kickstart of rounding up tens of thousands of citizens, in particular Afro-American citizens, and place them in ‘relocation camps’. North expanded the requirements for Martial Law to include ‘public unrest’, but the plan was aborted after the Miami Herald leaked the existence of REX 84.
In the years after, reasons to impose Martial Law continued to be added, including natural disasters like storms and floods. Natural disasters were also used as a reason to abolish the Posse Comitatus, the law that prevents the military from being used on American soil and that prohibits the use of the military for civillian law enforcement.
Former Republican Congressman, former CIA official Bob Barr spoke out against using natural disasters for abolishing the Posse Comitatus: “If we have the military involved whenever there's a windstorm, rain or tornado then what we are doing is that we are undermining the entire basis on what our constitutional representative democratic form of government was founded.” (7)
Ron Paul in an interview with Alex Jones on October 11, 2005: “To me it's so strange that the President can make these proposals and it's even plausible,” Congressman Ron Paul said, “When he talks about martial law dealing with some epidemic that might come later on and having forced quarantines, doing away with Posse Comitatus in order to deal with natural disasters, and hardly anybody says anything. People must be scared to death.” (17)
US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) uttered a stern warning on September 19, 2006: “We certainly do not need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law.” (8)
One of the most vocal critics of the Iraq War, Cindy Sheehan, has also turned her message towards warning of the impending military takeover threatening the US. Sheehan, who turned a peace activist after her son was killed in Iraq announced after years of campaiging that she was stepping down because of her great disillusionment.
However, a few months later she was back with a vengeance. And this time, Cindy Sheehan talked about government staged terror attacks being used by the Bush administration to impose Martial Law. In interview on the Alex Jones Show on July 12, 2007 she said: “I definitely think that is a distinct possibility, that there will be some kind of attack whether it's manufactured or real....I think it's really possible that these people will do that - why would he put in that presidential directive if he didn't need to use it - I think it's really really frightening (...) Does anybody think that [Bush's] recent presidential decision directive wasn't for declaring martial law and suspending elections? That's why they have to be stopped.” (19)
If Martial Law will be imposed it will be between now and November 2008. When it happens, it will be too late to take action. Therefor Bush and Cheney have to be impeached or committed to an insane asylum NOW. Otherwise they might assume full dictatorial power the way Hitler did after the burning of the Reichstag, and launch World War III afterall...
Sources:
(1) “If Only I Were A Dictator, by George W. Bush”, Buzzflash, oct.29,2002:
http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/2002/10/29_Dictator.html
(2) “Transition of Power: President-Elect Bush Meets With Congressional Leaders on Capitol Hill”, CNN, aired dec.18, 2000,
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0012/18/nd.01.html
(3) “A Gentleman’s “C” for W”, Richard S. Dunham, Business Week, july 30, 2001,
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2001/nf20010730_347.htm
(4) “Forget Paris”, Janice Min, Slate, June 29, 2007, http://www.slate.com/id/2169484/nav/ais/
(5) “War On Terrorism Or Police State?”, Cynthia McKinney, Counterpunch, July 29, 2002, http://www.counterpunch.org/mckinney0725.html
(6) “It Can't Happen Here”, By Rep. Ron Paul, December 21, 2004,
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2004/tst122004.htm
http://www.rense.com/general61/reee.htm
(7) “Republican Congressman Says Totalitarian Regime a Danger”, Paul Joseph Watson& Alex Jones, December 11, 2005, http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/111205totalitariandanger.htm
(8) “Working for the Clampdown”, James Bovard, The American Conservative, April 23, 2007, http://amconmag.com/2007/2007_04_23/article4.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17595.htm
(9) “BREAKING: Sandra Day O’Connor Speaks out”, Philinmaine,Daily Kos, march 10, 2006,
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/3/10/82512/7603
(10) “Dictatorship is the danger”, Jonathan Raban, The Guardian, march 13, 06,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1729350,00.html
(11) “Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship”, Julian Borger, The Guardian, march 13, 06,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1729396,00.html?gusrc=rss
(12) “Barbara Boxer: ‘This Is As Close As We’ve Ever Come To A Dictatorship’”, After Downing Street, July 13, 2007, http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/24602
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/130707_a_boxer.htm
(13) “Making Martial Law Easier”, The New York Times, February 19, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/opinion/19mon3.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
(14) “Lawsuit Alleges FEMA Funded by Laundered Drug Profits”, Uri Dowbenko, www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_government&Number=620132&t=-1
(15) () “Tommy Franks: Martial Law Will Replace Constitution After Next Terror Attack”, Newsmax, November 21, 2003, http://www.infowars.com/print/ps/franks_martial.htm
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/211103martiallaw.html
(16) “Rogue Bush Backers prepare Super 9/11 False Flag Terror Attacks”, Webster G. Tarpley, INN, June 2, 2004, http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=355
(17) “Congressman Ron Paul Reiterates Danger Of Foreign Troops Being Used For Martial Law”, Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones, Prisonplanet, November 24, 2005, http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2005/241105martiallaw.htm
(18) “Republican Congressman Slams Bush On Militarized Police State Preparation”, Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones, Prison Planet, October 12, 2005,
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2005/121005slamsbush.htm
(19) “Sheehan: Distinct Chance Of Staged Attack, Martial Law”, Paul Joseph Watson, July 12, 2007, http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2007/120707distinctchance.htm
The People vs The Government
by Mariella Konings
After citing the dramatic decline in a poll of Bush (who enjoyed a mere 30% approval rating), Congress (25% approval), the Democrats (51%) and the Republicans (36%) in June 2007, CNN put this remarkable comment on it’s official website: “The new dynamic in American politics right now isn't Democrat versus Republican (...) The new dynamic is the people versus the government.” (1)
While we are made to believe differently, the Americans have been the fiercest opponents of Bush and the Iraq War, and this has been so from the very beginning. Never has there been a government as impopular as that of George W. Bush, and never before have the American people held such a low trust in their president.
The reason for this is that almost everything that the administration has done has been illegal or criminal one way or the other. The scandals of the Bush presidency rise far above the usual sordid bribery scandals, sex scandals and mudslinging campagnes characterizing a ‘normal’ western government. What stands out about the Bush administration is the consistent manner in which they desecrated the US Constitution, the Habeas Corpus, the Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declarations of Human Rights.
While millions around the world protested the War the international community didn’t even attempt to hold the Bush administration accountable for their warcrimes and their crimes agains humanity. Meanwhile, democrat and republican politicians fought their own government hand in hand with human rights organisations, hordes of young soldiers deserted, veterans organised peace demonstrations while highranking officiers leaked plans to the anti-war press. But as over 2000 soldiers died and more than a million Iraqi citizens were killed, nothing seemed to be able to stop Bush and his warmongerers.
And then, in the early hours of December 31, 2006, Saddam Hussein was executed.
And then things changed as the anti-war crowd gained a new focus. For now that Saddam had been hanged for warcrimes, it was the turn of Bush, Cheney and Blair to be tried for warcrimes.
Malaysia’s former premier Mahathir Mohamed (1925) proclaimed in a speech on February 5, 2007: “What Blair and Bush had done is worse than what Saddam had done. We should not hang Blair if the tribunal finds him guilty but he should always carry the label as a war criminal, killer of children, liar. And so should Bush (...) Bush and Blair are now totally reviled and condemned by the world and by their own people. They should have full frontal and profile pictures put up everywhere as war criminals. And historians should always refer to them as war criminals in history books.” (2)
Rosie O’Donnell, talkshow host, said about Bush: “This President invaded a sovereign nation in defiance of the UN. He is basically a war criminal. Honestly. He should be tried at The Hague.” (3)
Through their own actions Bush and Cheney can be held accountable for their crimes via the US Constitution. For in Article II, Section 4, is written: “The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” (4)
Actor and director Tim Robbins said in an interview: “We have right now a media that is willfully ignoring the high crimes and misdemeanors of the president of the United States. [Bush] got us into [the Iraq] war based on lies that he knew were lies (...) His war has recruited more Al-Qaeda members than Osama bin Laden could ever have dreamed for (...) yet no one in the media is calling for impeachment.” (3)
On sept 26, 06, a meeting on the Iraq war was held by a rebellious segment of Congress and the US military in the basement of the Capitol. Organised by Congresswoman Lynne Woolsey (D-CA), the discussion on the disastrous policies of Bush 43 was led by Lt. Gen. William Odom. As 16 Members of Congress were present, the discussion focused on the threats against Iran. During the meeting, Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) asked Lt. Gen. William Odom: “How do we get out?” to which Lt. Gen. William Odom replied: “Well, the Constitution gives the House the right to impeach.” (5)
Ever since, more and more politicians and celebrities have openly called for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Actor and director Sean Penn exclaimed his anger about the Bush crime syndicate in March 2007 in a talkshow hosted by Bill Maher. A tormented Penn, at first a staunch supporter of the war against Iraq and later a fervent opponent, adressed the deceit and lies the Bush administration used to invade Iraq: “When you have a precedent set like that and you have somebody – George Tenet – acknowledging in his book that he knew that the administration was deceiving the American people into a situation that is murdering young men and women from this country and others, then George Tenet and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and George Bush et al should be in fucking jail!” (applause from the audience). (6)
Michael Moore, after the release of SiCKO, received a wave of applause when he said in an interview on MSNBC’s ‘Hardball Plaza’ that Bush and Cheney should be impeached. Question: “Michael Moore, would you state on these various degrees of punishment, should the president be punished through a censure, for the bad intel we get going in the war?” Michael Moore: “Yes, and he should be impeached, and...” Question: “How about put in prison for warcrimes?” Michael Moore: “Yes [applause from the audience], eventually I think we need a trial in this country where Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush would be brought up on charges for causing the death sof so many people. This is absolutely something that, eh, if this were any other country or if any other country did this we would be going after them.” (7)
Richard Dreyfuss, actor: “Unless you are willing to accept torture as part of a normal American political lexicon, unless you are willing to accept that leaving the Geneva Convention is fine and dandy, if you accept the expansion of wiretapping as business as usual, the only way to express this now is to embrace the difficult and perhaps embarrassing process of impeachment.” (3)
Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, remarked on the public radio program ‘On Point’ on May 10, 2007: “The language in [the Constitution] about impeachment is nice and precise – it's high crimes and misdemeanors. You compare Bill Clinton's peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance.” (8)
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson said in an interview on Jun 25, 2007 with Democracy Now: “I can tell you, more and more, and I’m even hearing it not just from families of American servicemen and -women in active duty, I’m hearing it from people in the active duty right now: we’ve got to end this war. We're not accomplishing anything. We're working against our own interest and even have good longtime Republicans coming up and, mostly whispering -- they’re not out there in the streets yelling, although some of them do come to the demonstrations now -- they're telling me, “You’re absolutely right. This president is ruining this country. He needs to go.” (9)
Lee Iacocca (1924) the famous US industrialist who lifted the Chrysler company out of ruin and was President of Ford fumes at the Bush administration in his book “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?”: “Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out! You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs (...) I've had enough. How about you? I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to, as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us. Who Are These Guys, Anyway? Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them, or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy” – (10)
The highly acclaimed investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, winner of the Pulitzer Price, said in a speech on Cheney and Bush: “These guys are scary as hell.” (Applause from the audience). Adressing the question of a student on what can be done, Hersh said: “You gotta change, you gotta have a coup. Overthrow this guy, he is not gonna talk to the Iranians.” (11)
Ralph Nader (1934), who ran in the presidential elections several times, including in 2000, was interviewed by Amy Goodman on October 6 2007. To Goodman’s question “Does George Bush matter anymore?”, Nader responded: “Yes he matters because he is a national security menace. (applause) He is a destroyer of our Constitution, a violator of our statutes. A revoker of our regulations. He is a warmongerer, he is a warcriminal, literally, a war criminal and he is still in charge. And as I said some time ago, he is a giant corporation in the White House masquerading as a human being. Although I sometimes wonder about the word ‘human’. I don’t think it’s possible to see a more obsessively compulsed person with so much contempt for the traditions of our country.” (12)
Former US Assistant Secretary of Treasury under Reagan, former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page contributing editor of National Review, Paul Craig Roberts, writing in July 2007: “The American people were deceived and tricked into supporting two invasions that are war crimes under the Nuremberg standard (...)Bush's and Cheney's lies and assaults on the US Constitution and American civil liberty, their plans to attack Iran, and the war crimes for which they are responsible provide an open and shut case for their impeachments. The latest polls show that 54% of Americans support impeachment of Vice President Cheney, with only 40% opposed. Bush hangs on by a hair with 45% favoring his impeachment and 46% opposed. But Democrats, like Republicans, have failed the electorate and refuse to do their duty. Congress is a creature of special interests and no longer represents the American people. Obviously, some new method is needed for removing incompetent or dictatorial presidents and vice presidents (...) If America is to remain a democracy, the people need refurbished powers to hold "government of the people, by the people, for the people" accountable. One way of doing this would be a vote of confidence by the people. The question can be put to a national referendum: ‘Shall the President remain in office?’ ‘Shall the Vice President remain in office?’ (...)As the American people can no longer rely on elected officials to respond to public opinion, the people must do what they can to gather power back into their hands before they become the subjects of tyrants.” (13)
Sources:
(1) “It’s the people vs. the government, new poll suggests”, CNN, June 29, 2007, http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/29/schneider.angry.voters/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
(2) “Mahathir fires war crimes volley at Bush”, Gulf Times, feb 6, 2007,
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=131231&version=1&template_id=45&parent_id=25
(3) “Celebrity Lunacy”,
http://wallofshamearchives.blogspot.com/2007/02/celebrity-lunacy.html
(4) “The Constitution Of The United States”,
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
(5) “Lt. Gen. Odom Speaks Truth In US Capitol Basement”, David Swanson, sept 27, 06, http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/14319
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0609/S00384.htm
(6) Youtube, http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=9d-_D15ebJY
(7) Youtube, http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=TkX5p8-ns1A
(8) “Former Powell aide says Bush, Cheney guilty of ‘high crimes’”, Nick Juliano, May 10, 2007,
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Former_Powell_aide_says_Bush_Cheney_0510.html
(9) “Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson Slams His Friend Mitt Romney for "Flip-Flopping" on Abortion, Stem Cell Research, Torture in Attempt to Win GOP Presidential Nomination”, Democracy Now, June 25, 2007,
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/25/1421228
(10) “Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?”, Lee Iacocca and Catherine Whitney, 2007, http://depression2.tv/d2/node/261
(11) “Seymour Hersh details Bush-Cheney’s lunatic plans for Iran”, Information Clearing House, June 29, 2007,
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/1801/1/
(12) Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1wxoEqPncI
(13) “A Reform to Restore the People’s Power”, Paul Craig Roberts, July 13, 2007, Information Clearing House,
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18009.htm
After citing the dramatic decline in a poll of Bush (who enjoyed a mere 30% approval rating), Congress (25% approval), the Democrats (51%) and the Republicans (36%) in June 2007, CNN put this remarkable comment on it’s official website: “The new dynamic in American politics right now isn't Democrat versus Republican (...) The new dynamic is the people versus the government.” (1)
While we are made to believe differently, the Americans have been the fiercest opponents of Bush and the Iraq War, and this has been so from the very beginning. Never has there been a government as impopular as that of George W. Bush, and never before have the American people held such a low trust in their president.
The reason for this is that almost everything that the administration has done has been illegal or criminal one way or the other. The scandals of the Bush presidency rise far above the usual sordid bribery scandals, sex scandals and mudslinging campagnes characterizing a ‘normal’ western government. What stands out about the Bush administration is the consistent manner in which they desecrated the US Constitution, the Habeas Corpus, the Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declarations of Human Rights.
While millions around the world protested the War the international community didn’t even attempt to hold the Bush administration accountable for their warcrimes and their crimes agains humanity. Meanwhile, democrat and republican politicians fought their own government hand in hand with human rights organisations, hordes of young soldiers deserted, veterans organised peace demonstrations while highranking officiers leaked plans to the anti-war press. But as over 2000 soldiers died and more than a million Iraqi citizens were killed, nothing seemed to be able to stop Bush and his warmongerers.
And then, in the early hours of December 31, 2006, Saddam Hussein was executed.
And then things changed as the anti-war crowd gained a new focus. For now that Saddam had been hanged for warcrimes, it was the turn of Bush, Cheney and Blair to be tried for warcrimes.
Malaysia’s former premier Mahathir Mohamed (1925) proclaimed in a speech on February 5, 2007: “What Blair and Bush had done is worse than what Saddam had done. We should not hang Blair if the tribunal finds him guilty but he should always carry the label as a war criminal, killer of children, liar. And so should Bush (...) Bush and Blair are now totally reviled and condemned by the world and by their own people. They should have full frontal and profile pictures put up everywhere as war criminals. And historians should always refer to them as war criminals in history books.” (2)
Rosie O’Donnell, talkshow host, said about Bush: “This President invaded a sovereign nation in defiance of the UN. He is basically a war criminal. Honestly. He should be tried at The Hague.” (3)
Through their own actions Bush and Cheney can be held accountable for their crimes via the US Constitution. For in Article II, Section 4, is written: “The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” (4)
Actor and director Tim Robbins said in an interview: “We have right now a media that is willfully ignoring the high crimes and misdemeanors of the president of the United States. [Bush] got us into [the Iraq] war based on lies that he knew were lies (...) His war has recruited more Al-Qaeda members than Osama bin Laden could ever have dreamed for (...) yet no one in the media is calling for impeachment.” (3)
On sept 26, 06, a meeting on the Iraq war was held by a rebellious segment of Congress and the US military in the basement of the Capitol. Organised by Congresswoman Lynne Woolsey (D-CA), the discussion on the disastrous policies of Bush 43 was led by Lt. Gen. William Odom. As 16 Members of Congress were present, the discussion focused on the threats against Iran. During the meeting, Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) asked Lt. Gen. William Odom: “How do we get out?” to which Lt. Gen. William Odom replied: “Well, the Constitution gives the House the right to impeach.” (5)
Ever since, more and more politicians and celebrities have openly called for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Actor and director Sean Penn exclaimed his anger about the Bush crime syndicate in March 2007 in a talkshow hosted by Bill Maher. A tormented Penn, at first a staunch supporter of the war against Iraq and later a fervent opponent, adressed the deceit and lies the Bush administration used to invade Iraq: “When you have a precedent set like that and you have somebody – George Tenet – acknowledging in his book that he knew that the administration was deceiving the American people into a situation that is murdering young men and women from this country and others, then George Tenet and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and George Bush et al should be in fucking jail!” (applause from the audience). (6)
Michael Moore, after the release of SiCKO, received a wave of applause when he said in an interview on MSNBC’s ‘Hardball Plaza’ that Bush and Cheney should be impeached. Question: “Michael Moore, would you state on these various degrees of punishment, should the president be punished through a censure, for the bad intel we get going in the war?” Michael Moore: “Yes, and he should be impeached, and...” Question: “How about put in prison for warcrimes?” Michael Moore: “Yes [applause from the audience], eventually I think we need a trial in this country where Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush would be brought up on charges for causing the death sof so many people. This is absolutely something that, eh, if this were any other country or if any other country did this we would be going after them.” (7)
Richard Dreyfuss, actor: “Unless you are willing to accept torture as part of a normal American political lexicon, unless you are willing to accept that leaving the Geneva Convention is fine and dandy, if you accept the expansion of wiretapping as business as usual, the only way to express this now is to embrace the difficult and perhaps embarrassing process of impeachment.” (3)
Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, remarked on the public radio program ‘On Point’ on May 10, 2007: “The language in [the Constitution] about impeachment is nice and precise – it's high crimes and misdemeanors. You compare Bill Clinton's peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance.” (8)
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson said in an interview on Jun 25, 2007 with Democracy Now: “I can tell you, more and more, and I’m even hearing it not just from families of American servicemen and -women in active duty, I’m hearing it from people in the active duty right now: we’ve got to end this war. We're not accomplishing anything. We're working against our own interest and even have good longtime Republicans coming up and, mostly whispering -- they’re not out there in the streets yelling, although some of them do come to the demonstrations now -- they're telling me, “You’re absolutely right. This president is ruining this country. He needs to go.” (9)
Lee Iacocca (1924) the famous US industrialist who lifted the Chrysler company out of ruin and was President of Ford fumes at the Bush administration in his book “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?”: “Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out! You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs (...) I've had enough. How about you? I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to, as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us. Who Are These Guys, Anyway? Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them, or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy” – (10)
The highly acclaimed investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, winner of the Pulitzer Price, said in a speech on Cheney and Bush: “These guys are scary as hell.” (Applause from the audience). Adressing the question of a student on what can be done, Hersh said: “You gotta change, you gotta have a coup. Overthrow this guy, he is not gonna talk to the Iranians.” (11)
Ralph Nader (1934), who ran in the presidential elections several times, including in 2000, was interviewed by Amy Goodman on October 6 2007. To Goodman’s question “Does George Bush matter anymore?”, Nader responded: “Yes he matters because he is a national security menace. (applause) He is a destroyer of our Constitution, a violator of our statutes. A revoker of our regulations. He is a warmongerer, he is a warcriminal, literally, a war criminal and he is still in charge. And as I said some time ago, he is a giant corporation in the White House masquerading as a human being. Although I sometimes wonder about the word ‘human’. I don’t think it’s possible to see a more obsessively compulsed person with so much contempt for the traditions of our country.” (12)
Former US Assistant Secretary of Treasury under Reagan, former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page contributing editor of National Review, Paul Craig Roberts, writing in July 2007: “The American people were deceived and tricked into supporting two invasions that are war crimes under the Nuremberg standard (...)Bush's and Cheney's lies and assaults on the US Constitution and American civil liberty, their plans to attack Iran, and the war crimes for which they are responsible provide an open and shut case for their impeachments. The latest polls show that 54% of Americans support impeachment of Vice President Cheney, with only 40% opposed. Bush hangs on by a hair with 45% favoring his impeachment and 46% opposed. But Democrats, like Republicans, have failed the electorate and refuse to do their duty. Congress is a creature of special interests and no longer represents the American people. Obviously, some new method is needed for removing incompetent or dictatorial presidents and vice presidents (...) If America is to remain a democracy, the people need refurbished powers to hold "government of the people, by the people, for the people" accountable. One way of doing this would be a vote of confidence by the people. The question can be put to a national referendum: ‘Shall the President remain in office?’ ‘Shall the Vice President remain in office?’ (...)As the American people can no longer rely on elected officials to respond to public opinion, the people must do what they can to gather power back into their hands before they become the subjects of tyrants.” (13)
Sources:
(1) “It’s the people vs. the government, new poll suggests”, CNN, June 29, 2007, http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/29/schneider.angry.voters/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
(2) “Mahathir fires war crimes volley at Bush”, Gulf Times, feb 6, 2007,
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=131231&version=1&template_id=45&parent_id=25
(3) “Celebrity Lunacy”,
http://wallofshamearchives.blogspot.com/2007/02/celebrity-lunacy.html
(4) “The Constitution Of The United States”,
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
(5) “Lt. Gen. Odom Speaks Truth In US Capitol Basement”, David Swanson, sept 27, 06, http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/14319
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0609/S00384.htm
(6) Youtube, http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=9d-_D15ebJY
(7) Youtube, http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=TkX5p8-ns1A
(8) “Former Powell aide says Bush, Cheney guilty of ‘high crimes’”, Nick Juliano, May 10, 2007,
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Former_Powell_aide_says_Bush_Cheney_0510.html
(9) “Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson Slams His Friend Mitt Romney for "Flip-Flopping" on Abortion, Stem Cell Research, Torture in Attempt to Win GOP Presidential Nomination”, Democracy Now, June 25, 2007,
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/25/1421228
(10) “Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?”, Lee Iacocca and Catherine Whitney, 2007, http://depression2.tv/d2/node/261
(11) “Seymour Hersh details Bush-Cheney’s lunatic plans for Iran”, Information Clearing House, June 29, 2007,
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/1801/1/
(12) Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1wxoEqPncI
(13) “A Reform to Restore the People’s Power”, Paul Craig Roberts, July 13, 2007, Information Clearing House,
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18009.htm
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