war on drugs

Osama and Al-Qaeda II: The “War on Drugs”

“Drug networks are important factors in the politics of every continent. The United States returns repeatedly to the posture of fighting wars in areas of petroleum reserves with the aid of drug-trafficking allies – drug proxies – with which it has a penchant to become involved.”

– Peter Dale Scott, writer, political analyst

US and NATO presence in Afghanistan had long been viewed as an increasing financial burden notwithstanding the rise in suicides and deaths, with many questioning why it is that the respective armies were even there. (50% more US soldiers committed suicide in Afghanistan in 2012 than were killed in the country). ^{^[1]} As Islamic militants and various strains of Al-Qaeda rebels are currently fighting alongside US, Israeli and NATO backed forces in Syria, the irony has not been lost on many members of the public who are beginning to see that they’ve been had.

A March 2013 Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Research study by Linda J. Bilmes and Daniel Patrick Moynihan placed the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in their proper financial perspective by calculating the cost for US taxpayers at $4 trillion to $6 trillion. That is an almost unimaginable number. The so-called war on terror and the fight against Al-Qaeda is slowly losing credibility even amongst the most staunchly nationalistic. Since the US military used 1.8 billion rounds of ammunition a year and imported bullets from Israel, the most militarised country on earth, then we can get some idea of how important this region is. For every rebel killed, it costs around a quarter of a million dollars which means that it could not continue forever – at least not at the same level of expenditure.^{^[2]} Controlling the regional drug-trafficking in the country plays a huge role in covert operations as it provides enormous income for black ops away from Congressional oversight. Nonetheless, US/NATO forces were desperate to secure their drug fortunes before pulling out and leaving a skeleton force to watch over them.

“An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier provides security during a satellite patrol along a poppy field in Marjah, Afghanistan, April 17, 2012.” (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. David A. Perez/Released, Source: Public Intelligence )

As we know from early posts in this series, after oil and the arms trade, drug trafficking is the third biggest global commodity with human trafficking following closely behind. Entry into Afghanistan wasn’t just a geo-political move but had multiple purposes, one of which was to allow Anglo-America to hark back to the British East India’s monopoly of Indochina opium by controlling the drug routes, with the CIA as one of the main suppliers. Drug smuggling and terrorism have a tried and tested symbiotic relationship. It is probable that one could not exist without the other. With the recent fines of imposed on HSBC bank for acting as chosen money launderer for drug cartels the world over it is not an exaggeration that underworld propped up the global economic architecture as toxic assets did their work. In 2015, it won’t be so easy.

The global narcotics market is estimated to be worth between $400-500 billion a year in profits with a more realistic figure being around $100 billion. ^{^[3]} (Estimates focusing on profits, turnover and trade are routinely confused.) Heroin is the No.1 drug of choice for global addicts and organised crime, the intelligence community, commerce and banking which has effectively blurred to the point that there is no real distinction. International banking is saturated in drug money as a normal part of its financial architecture with IMF estimates at $590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars in laundered money flowing through sequestered channels each year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. ^{^[4]} That means competition for strategic control over these heroin routes.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that in 2003, opium production in Afghanistan generated “an income of one billion US dollars for farmers and US $1.3 billion for traffickers, equivalent to over half of its national income.” ^{^[5]} Almost a decade later, profits had increased by 18 percent alone between 2011 and 2012 according to the United Nations’ 2012 opium survey, which was undertaken with the Afghan Ministry of Counter-narcotics. This is one reason why Obama has reneged on yet another promise to withdraw US troops from the region. Secretary of State John Kerry announced a bilateral security agreement in November 2013 between the United States and Afghanistan that would allow for a lasting American troop presence through 2024. Billions of dollars of international assistance will be given to the government in Kabul, and by default, allow dominance in the drug trade to continue.

U.S. Marine Corp in Opium field 2012. (Source: Public Intelligence )

Afghanistan is the largest grower and exporter of opium on the planet with a 92 percent market share of the global opium trade. ^{^[6]} It is therefore no coincidence that the US military still guards the poppy fields in order to protect their multi-billion dollar trade from the Taliban who know exactly why it is so important to US interests. It was only after the September 11^th attacks and the rise of the Mujahedeen that the drugs trade began to really take off. After the Bush Administration gave the go ahead for the US military and NATO allies to invade Afghanistan in October 2001 under the ridiculous label of “Operation Enduring Freedom” opium cultivation increased by 657 percent. ^{^[7]} Today, the CIA’s dominance in the Golden Crescent drug trafficking region was only made possible with help from the US proxy Afghan government members such as Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of President Hamid Karzai who had been on the CIA payroll just after the 9/11 attacks. ^{^[8]} As well as weapons and training, drugs were a central part of the funding of the Afghan war and the role of the Mujahedeen with BCCI acting as launderer. International narcotics traffickers were crawling all over Afghanistan many of whom were on the payroll of the George H. W Bush’s CIA. The Pakistani government and the ISI were known to be a major facilitator of the drug trade. Even before the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, the CIA had been funding Mujahideen guerrilla groups in the region as a part ISI alliance building.

The CIA’s military-intelligence operation in Afghanistan, and the “Islamic brigades” it created was originally formulated as the usual tactic of triggering civil wars in order to capture resources, be it minerals, opium or oil. In 1973 Afghan Prince Muhammad Daoud deposed the Afghan king with a little help from the Soviet Union, and an Afghan Republic was established. Which is where the CIA jumped in with their plan to fund Islamist extremists, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who would go on to be not only the leader in the resistance movement opposing the Soviets, but the most powerful Mujahedeen drug lord in Afghanistan. ^{^[9]}

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (Source: AP/BBC News)

In April, 1985 President Ronald Reagan signed a secret order called the “National Security Decision Directive 166,” which gave the CIA official directives to expel the Russians ‘by all means available.’ Over the next decade the U.S. spent $10 billion to arm and train the Mujahideen. By 1986, while the Iran-Contra scandal was about to loom over the horizon an “overwhelming arsenal of guns and missiles” descended upon Mujahideen from the Reagan administration. Along with these weapons was a massive propaganda push targeting the Afghan schools with “$43 million just for the school textbooks.” This was achieved with the help of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the CIA working together “providing education behind enemy lines,” and: “… military support against enemies lines.” Afghan war chiefs “…were allowed to decide the school curriculum and the content of the textbooks,” where the content included violence and images of war designed to breed new fighters and condition children resistance towards the Russian invasion. ^{^[10]} The purposeful stimulation and creation of Islamic fundamentalism was predicated on the CIA’s drug money beginning with Hekmatyar and with a little help from Saudi Arabia, received more than $1 billion. ^{^[11]}

Located at the crossroads of Central, South, and Western Asia, overlapping Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, are multi-billion dollar drug routes protected by the US-sponsored government in Kabul. Michel Chossudovsky explains how the narcotics trade is determined by: “A hierarchy of prices” as a farming price in Afghanistan translated to retail price in fashionable cities in the West worth billions of dollars, “… sustained and supported by the US ‘War on Terrorism’.”

HSBC bank was fined over billion pounds for acting as money launderer for a variety of global drug cartels. Since it was only fined and not closed down it is free to continue its activities. HSBC and Barclays Bank are among many others in the banking industry who were also fined for rigging the market. Since these two banking corporations are the two main pillars of our present financial architecture closing them down wasn’t an option, as it would mean a total collapse. This was a deflection of objective reality that the core of global banking is both the purveyor, and completely dependent on, what is normalised fraud and corruption.

The proceeds of this vast drug trade is handled by the banks in the following fashion:

Drug money is laundered in the numerous offshore banking havens in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the British Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands and some 50 other locations around the globe. It is here that criminal syndicates involved in the drug trade and the representatives of the world’s largest commercial banks interact. Dirty money is deposited in these offshore havens, which are controlled by major Western banks and financial institutions. The latter, therefore, have a vested interest in maintaining and sustaining the drug trade.

… Once the money has been laundered, it can be recycled into bona fide investments not only in real estate, hotels, etc., but also in other areas such as the services economy and manufacturing. Dirty and covert money is also funneled into various financial instruments including speculative stock exchange transactions (derivatives), primary commodities, stocks and government bonds. ^{^[12]}

The repercussions of the CIA-Afghan drug lords and the domination of the opium fields meant heroin found an even greater supply from young Americans. ^{^[13]} In the 1980s drug related deaths shot through the roof as a result. Independent journalist Andrew Gavin Marshall summarises the impact: “… drug-related deaths in New York City rose 77 percent since 1979” and: “By 1981, the drug lords in Pakistan and Afghanistan supplied 60 percent of America’s heroin. Trucks going into Afghanistan with CIA arms from Pakistan would return with heroin ‘protected by ISI papers from police search.’ ” ^{^[14]}

By 1994, in a religious and economic vacuum Afghanistan saw the rise of the Taliban and its attempts to eradicate drugs and opium field production from the Afghan social landscape. The success in significantly reducing opium production, an economic livelihood for the CIA and Pakistani drug lords, was in large part the reason for the appearance of the Northern Alliance, a military-political umbrella organization created by the Islamic State of Afghanistan in late 1996 under the leadership of Defence Minister and CIA asset Ahmad Shah Massoud. The Afghan Taliban had a war on their hands which comprised of the Pakistan’s military, Al-Qaeda and most of the ethnic groups of Afghanistan including Tajiks, Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen and others.

In 2002, a campaign against genuine human rights abuses was highlighted as a pretext for removing the Taliban from power even though US/NATO forces had created its original power base in order to help fight the Soviet invasion. Now, presiding over a vast increase in military spending for NATO and the US and despite increasing economic problems at home, opium production went through the roof and straight into the pockets of various interested parties, including Afghan drug lords, Al-Qaeda, the CIA, Pakistani ISI and various Northern Alliance parties. It was carnival time.

What is also conveniently forgotten in so much media commentary is the nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits, identified by the US Pentagon officials which is another reason why the Ghazni Province has become such a jewel in the crown of imperial aspirations. Included in the deposits of iron, copper, cobalt and even gold is possibly the largest source of lithium which is crucial in the production of all electronic devices from lap-tops, to mobile phones, weapons to aircraft consoles, which is why the Pentagon has described it as the “Saudi Arabia of Lithium.” ^{^[15]}

As New York Times reporter John Risen explains in his 2010 article: “Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country. The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources.” ^{^[16]}

The United States presence in Afghanistan intended to drive a wedge between those oligarchs and encroaching Chinese interests so that it can corner the market in rare minerals as well as oil and narcotics. However, as the mid-1990s approached, the legacy of US interference in the region and the end of the Soviet-Afghan war had produced a maelstrom of militant Islamic training camps drawing in fighters from all over the world. Osama bin Laden returned from the Sudan in 1996 in order to command his own camps alongside warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who took the lion’s share of control as the civil war raged about them. Afghanistan has become another narco-state of US induced chaos or, as one warlord exclaims:

“… essentially a lawless country. There is no civil law, no government, no economy—only guns and drugs and anger. … “For us, Afghanistan is destroyed. It is turning to poison, and not only for us but for all others in the world. If you are a terrorist, you can have shelter here, no matter who you are. Day by day, there is the increase of drugs. Maybe one day [the US] will have to send hundreds of thousands of troops to deal with that. And if they step in, they will be stuck. We have a British grave in Afghanistan. We have a Soviet grave. And then we will have an American grave.” ^{^[17]}

Since 1982 – 1991 Afghan opium production rose from 250 tons to 2,000 tons thanks largely to CIA support and their funding of the Mujahideen. However, bin Laden suffered heavy financial losses in 1991 with the closure of BCCI by US officials and could no longer rely on funding from his CIA superiors. This turn of affairs forced him to launder money from the drug trade to recoup his losses which gradually grew into a financial network, fully merging Islamic militancy with the global drug trade. ^{^[18]} According to author Roland Jacquard, “… Some of the money was handed back to organizations such as the FIS [a political party in Algeria]. Another portion was transferred by Ayman al-Zawahiri to Switzerland, the Netherlands, London, Antwerp, and Malaysia.” Money was also “… transferred from BCCI to banks in Dubai, Jordan, and Sudan controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.” ^{^[19]}

Author Adam Robinson stated in his investigation into bin Laden: “During the summer of 1991 he discreetly made contact with many of the wealthiest of these individuals, especially those with an international network of companies … Within months, Osama unveiled before an astonished al-Turabi what he called ‘the Brotherhood Group.’”

The Muslim Brotherhood and their vast wealth replaced the BCCI as the main source of funding for Islamic militants and allowed a fascist form of Islamism and the growth of Al-Qaeda to flourish, sometimes straining at the leash of the Anglo-American intelligence apparatus. ^{^[20]}

Notes

[1] ‘Suicides at 10-year high in US military’ Associated Press, guardian.co.uk, June 8, 2012. “In the first 155 days of 2012 there was 154 suicides among active troops, around 50% more than the number killed in action in Afghanistan, according to Pentagon statistics obtained by Associated Press. This is the highest number in 10 years. Combat exposure, post-traumatic stress, misuse of drugs and debt problems blamed for increase.”
[2] ‘US Forced to Import Bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every Rebel killed’ By Andrew Buncombe, The Belfast Telegraph, January 10, 2011. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/
[3] United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (1997) – ‘World Drugs Report’ | ‘Size of the drug market’ Transfrom Drug policy Foundation http://www.tdpf.org.uk | “In the 2005 World Drugs Report the UNODC put the value at US$13bn at production level, $94bn at wholesale level and US$332bn based upon retail prices. It also acknowledged that the US$400bn figure had been criticised by some experts as being too high.”
[4] ‘HSBC money-laundering scandal almost puts Barclays in shade’ – “Being accused by Senate of operating money-laundering conduit for ‘drug kingpins and rogue nations’ is as bad as it gets” by Nils Pratley, The Guardian, 17 July 2012. | ‘Libor or Money-Laundering? Focus on Arcane Rate Rigging Reveals Deeper Media Prejudice’ By Martin Baccardax, International Business Times, July 17, 2012. | ‘Global banks are the financial services wing of the drug cartels’ By Ed Vulliamy, The Observer, July 21, 2012.
[5] The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) http://www.unodc.org/
[6] UNODC World Drug Report 2011: http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/WDR2011/World_Drug_Report_2011_ebook.pdf (p.20)
[7] ‘War on drugs revealed as total hoax – US military admits to guarding, assisting lucrative opium trade in Afghanistan’ by Ethan A. Huff, Natural News, November 16, 2011.www.naturalnews.com/
[8] ‘Brother of Afghan Leader Said to Be Paid by C.I.A.’By Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen. The New York Times, October 27, 2009.
[9] op. cit. Dreyfuss (pp.260-263)
[10] ‘Back to school in Afghanistan’ CBC News Online, January 27, 2004. | The National, Airdate: May 6, 2002 Reporter: Carol Off, Producer: Heather Abbott ,Editor: Catherine McIsaac. | “American interests were well served. But after the defeat of the Soviet empire, the U.S. abandoned Afghanistan. The country descended into civil war. The U.S. gave almost no money to help rebuild after the war against the Soviets and no money to rewrite the school textbooks.”
[11] ‘Sources Claim CIA aid Fuelled Trade Center Blast’ by Colin Milner, Boston Herald, 1994.
[12] pp.232-233; America’s “War on Terrorism” by Michel Chossudovsky, Published by Global Research, 2005.
[13] The CIA has unquestionably been the agency at the forefront of the drugs and turning much of US society into a drug-dependent culture. On the CIA’s website wwwcia.gov/ we read “Helping Them Say No to Drugs” as the title on their “parents and teachers” page. They go on to say: “The CIA is proud to be at the forefront of the War on Drugs, but we only win this war with everyone’s help.” They even have a “kids page”. Rather like a serial killer giving advice on how to counsel his victims with the knife still at their throats.
[14] ‘The Imperial Anatomy of Al-Qaeda:The CIA’s Drug-Running Terrorists and the “Arc of Crisis” Part I By Andrew Gavin Marshall, Global Research, September 05, 2010.
[15]’‘U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan’By James Risen, The New York Times, June 13, 2010.
[16] Ibid.
[17] ‘Blow-back from the Afghan Battlefield’ By Tim Weiner, The New York Times, 1994.
[18] ‘Drug trade filled coffers of Taliban, Bin Laden Group,’ By James Rosen The Star Tribune, September 30,2001 | ‘Collapse of BCCI shorts Bin Laden’ By Richard Sale, United Press International, March 1, 2001.
[19] In the Name of Osama Bin Laden: Global Terrorism and the Bin Laden Brotherhood by Roland Jacquard, Samia Serageldin (Editor) Published by Diane Pub. Co. 2002. | ISBN-10: 0756767113 (p. 129)
[20] pp.138-139; Bin Laden: Behind the Mask of the Terrorist by Adam Morrison. Published by Arcade Publishing, 2002. | ISBN-10: 1559706406.

Police State Amerika IV: The New Brutality

“All I kept hearing from him was, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.'”

– Valencia Griffin, witness to the police assault of Eric Garner who died on the spot.

The 2014 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri led to serious riots and protests as a result of the apparent police execution of unarmed Michael Brown and subsequent acquittal of the police officer. The event highlighted a legion of other crimes committed against civilians including the death of Eric Garner, an asthmatic father who died as a result of a police choke-hold – an unwarranted assault, caused outrage prompting global protests against police brutality. ^{^[1]}

This was only the latest in hundreds of similar crimes against Americans which continue to take place day after day. For all the cases that do reach the headlines there are many more that do not. SWAT Raids on family homes with no warnings, and sometimes no warrants are justified by the discredited war on drugs and the war on terror. Add to this the unnecessary and excessive use of the taser leading in many cases to death and verbal and physical harassment in the street. What is especially disturbing is in the majority cases it is children, the elderly and mentally ill who suffer these attacks. Police officers seldom receive a reprimand let alone a prosecution, mirroring the lack of accountability of our leaders and their agencies.

Eric Garner begged NYPD police for air 8 times before falling silent. (Source: Ramsey Orta) (Persons within the New York Police Department have even been accused of editing the Wikipedia pages of some of the more infamous recent events to involve extreme police force, including the Eric Garner case). ^{^[2]}

Hyper-aggression from police departments has risen exponentially since 9/11, with police on the street prone to violence against the American public as never before. A brief description of four cases from the many reports which reached the news in 2013-2014 is followed by a headline collection of the stories from the last few years. Hopefully, this will give readers a taste of the problem facing American society at this time.

We start with a report concerning 25-year-old paraplegic Nicholas Kincade who needs a motorised mobility scooter to get about and had the unfortunate luck to run into police officer Lt. Tom Davidson. Kincade was checked out by a group of Indiana’s Lafayette police officers after reports surfaced that he was carrying a gun (He was not). After the discussion which took place on a suburban sidewalk, the young man accidentally grazed Davidson’s foot as he attempted to pass by. Kincade became the object of an extraordinary display of uncontrolled rage by the officer who, with both hands, pushed the young man out of his scooter and onto the road. A shocked Kincade protested his innocence claiming it was only an accident. The video of the incident can be viewed HERE.

To be fair to the Lafayette Police Department, the Mayor and Police Chief’s determined that Davidson should be fired citing excessive force and behaviour unbecoming of a police officer. Although Davidson’s actions should have resulted in instant dismissal he was demoted, took a cut in pay and was allowed to keep his job due to the Civilian Review Board blocking the move. Ironic? Kincade thought so and decided to file suit alleging First and Fourth Amendment violations as well as violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. ^{^[3]}

21-year-old Brenda Hardaway found out the hard way that even if you are pregnant it will not protect you from excessive police force. An unidentified Rochester police officer was seen trying to control Hardway after she came to the assistance of her brother who had been arrested for disorderly conduct. Hardaway did not comply with the officer and apparently resisted arrest. As the video from a bystander clearly shows, after several minutes into the fracas she becomes afraid and voices her concern: “Get off of me, you’re gonna kill my baby.” “I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant …” The response of the officer was to punch the back of the women’s head and not long after and with the weight of his body bearing down on the woman – slams her to the sidewalk, landing on her back. He places his forearm against the back of the woman’s neck and head, forcing her into the ground. Many onlookers were shocked at such an unnecessary display of force.

You can watch the video HERE. ^{^[4]}

Screen shots from the video: An unidentified Rochester police officer slams pregnant Brenda Hardaway to the ground after punching her in the back of the head

On the evening of May 11th 2014, Ron Hillstrom was experiencing a nervous breakdown. The 44 year-old man from University Place, Washington State was obviously delusional and in need of help. Instead he received quite the opposite. As family attorney Nathan Roberts states: “It appears that this [was] a guy who was reaching out for help, literally requesting help and instead of getting help was given a death sentence.”

Around 9:45 p.m., Pierce County Sheriff’s deputies approached Mr. Hillstrom. According to the many witnesses who were disturbed by the chaos outside, Hillstrom was running around as though panicked, believing that the police were out to “set him up”; or out to get him. Four deputies began to remorselessly taser and beat the victim whilst he pleaded for help. Police defended the murder of a vulnerable man by saying he was a threat and was resisting arrest, despite all the witnesses which came forward offering an entirely different story.

“… then they started beating him. And they just weren’t done until he was dead. Bam, bam, bam. It was horrible. It was absolutely horrific.”

– witness to Ron Hillstrom murder by police

Hillstrom’s neighbour Ashley Patterson was unequivocal: “I knew last night they were gonna kill that man,” … “You beat this man to death last night for no reason and we caught you. Period.” Unfortunately, no action was taken against the sheriff’s deputies in question.^{^[5]}

Another old man became the victim of psychopathic police officers out to have some fun.

In Homer, Louisiana on February 20th, 2009, a family was having a “cook-out”. Already harassed by police for suspected drug use, though no evidence suggested this was the case, 38-year-old Shaun Monroe was in attendance along with Bernard Monroe, Sr., and his wife Louise who were hosting the get-together with Shaun’s elderly parents. In fact, it was a pleasant family celebration with about 33 children present.

Shaun’s father, 73 year-old, retired electrical utility worker Bernard Monroe Sr. was no longer able to speak due to surgeries for throat cancer, but was enjoying himself as he sat in the shade watching his relatives. When Homer Police Department Officers Tim Cox and Joseph Henry marched into the family gathering with the intent of harassing Shaun Monroe as an “easy target for arrest,” the atmosphere, unsurprisingly, turned sour. Shaun became spooked and ran through the Monroe’s residence. The presence of the policeman was an unprovoked action without justification escalating the fear and tension. The New York Times describes what happened next:

Shaun Monroe burst out of the front door and was at the front gate when Officer Henry, who was in the yard, hit him with a Taser. Seconds later, Officer Cox reached the front screen door from the inside, witnesses said, as the elder Mr. Monroe was walking up the steps to the porch.

Officer Cox told investigators that the elder Mr. Monroe had picked up a pistol he kept on the porch and was aiming it at Officer Henry. All of the civilian witnesses say Mr. Monroe was carrying only a sports drink bottle.

But this is not in dispute: Mr. Cox shot Mr. Monroe seven times in the chest, side and back. Several witnesses said they saw a police officer later place the pistol next to Mr. Monroe’s body, but the police officers said that was because it had been moved when they were checking his wounds.^{^[6]}

And the Los Angeles Times:

The witnesses said the second officer [Joseph Henry] picked up a handgun that [Bernard] Monroe, an avid hunter, always kept in plain sight on the porch for protection. Using a latex glove, the officer grasped the gun by its handle, the witnesses said, and ordered everyone to back away. The next thing they said they saw was the gun next to Monroe’s body.

“I saw him pick up the gun off the porch,” Marcus Frazier said. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ The cop told me, ‘Shut the hell up, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’”.^{^[7]}

Mr. Bernard Monroe Sr. was shot and killed by police officers who then planted “evidence” to cover up their own crimes.

In a deprived neighbourhood where black people are routinely harassed and stopped for no reason, it seems obvious that planting a gun on an old black man was the route Joseph Henry decided to take. Covering your own back by planting or making up the “evidence” on the spot is not uncommon. Along with assault and murder, police are getting away with it as the following summary of cases suggest:

Innocent pedestrian attacked by police, framed with charges, imprisoned for 15 months

“Police attempted to deliberately ruin a man’s life with a concocted story, yet no one faced justice.”

San Diego police raid strip club and take photos for ‘investigative purposes’

“One dancer says police photographed “every single one of my tattoos.”

Five Cops Beat Innocent, Unarmed Father to Death Outside Cinemas

“’Five guys got on top of him, beating him ruthlessly. On the head– just pow, pow, pow.’ “…he was disfigured, you couldn’t recognize him,”.

Police Beat up 84 year-old man for jay-walking

“‘The guy didn’t seem to speak English,’ said a witness.”

Woman’s face shattered after being launched into concrete jail cell bench

“An unprovoked attack left a woman requiring facial reconstructive surgery.”

Atlantic City officers brutally beat man, release an attack dog to gnaw on his neck

“After bludgeoning, attacking, and mauling the man with a dog, officers stood around and laughed and took pictures.”

Distraught family members were pepper-sprayed, chained to a bench while daughter was dying of self-inflicted gunshot wound

“My daughter died at the hospital while my son and I were chained to a bench.”

Woman brutally face-planted into pavement during arrest; charged with battering police

“Don’t you f***ing touch me!” roared the officer, before delivering a crushing blow to the woman’s face.”

Video shows cop choking out child until he goes limp, child left with brain injury

“[Metro Police officer Jonathan Hardin] was also named in a civil suit with two other officers who have been accused of verbally and physically abusing children during a summer program.”

“Christina West after being brutalized by Tallahassee Police.” (Source: Police state USA via Leon County Crt. Records)

“The officers are then seen forcefully slamming the 5′-6″, 130 pound woman face-first to the hard ground, followed by a giving her a gratuitous knee to the back of her head, exacerbating her facial trauma. She can be heard screaming in pain as she is being pressed into the road by two male assailants. Officer Ormerod continued to press her face into the ground with his arm.”

– Police state USA

At the time of writing more and more cases are coming to light reinforcing how out of control US police are becoming. The above shows a still from a video which emerged revealing an execution-style killing. The victim was 50 year-old Walter Scott who was shot eight times as he ran away from police officer Michael Slager who has since been charged with his murder. Originally Slager lied that his gun went off in a struggle over his taser. (photo still from video)

Putting aside the politics of multiculturalism and its strengths and weaknesses, we can say that most crime appears to be committed from the African-American demographic. One only has to look back at the recent history of the civil rights movement and the legacy of black slavery to understand that these seeds of oppression run deep. It is not the fact that ordinary people today must be held morally responsible for the state crimes of the past but we must be prepared to evaluate our institutions and recognise when those ponerological seeds are sprouting again and moreover, how these divisions are used against ALL of us, not just black Americans, Hispanics or Asians. One sector of society suffers, we all suffer because whether we like it or not, regardless of political and religious beliefs, we are all part of the human species connected and interrelated through our DNA, enmeshed in the vital energy of nations and the planet itself. In the end, intense pain of one part of the organism will manifest in another.

Similarly, a cancer in the form of a cluster of minority psychopaths weakening the integrity of a village, town, city, country and finally the biosphere itself, must be addressed. If not, the parasite will kill the host. This is the danger we are facing.

Let’s also not forget that movements such as “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) do not help heal the divisions or assist in seeking accountability for Police actions. In fact, such movements do the opposite because they are often part of government’s CoIntelpro, which is very possibly the case with the BLM movement. Take these salient facts from the Washington Post’s Marshall Project:

American police killed nearly twice as many whites as blacks in 2015.
More whites and Hispanics die from police homicides than blacks.
Black and Hispanic police officers are more likely to fire a gun at blacks than white officers
Blacks are more likely to kill cops than be killed by cops.
In New York City alone, comprising 23 percent of the city’s population blacks “commit 75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime”.

Doesn’t quite square with the Black Lives Matter message does it?

And this is how divide and rule works: it brings out extremism on both sides where the complex nuances of reasoned discourse is shredded in the mainstream media and lost amongst the rising grief and anger of the families. With the current 000.1% holding the lion’s share of the nation’s wealth and with racism and corruption within police, judiciary and federal agencies at an all time high, it is inevitable that social unrest will erupt. It should also be noted from the above that crying “racist!” against police merely trying to do their job also occurs as an easy escape route for those who have no social conscience and are merely seeking to profit from chaos. This is a concurrent adaptive behaviour and another symptom – but it is not remotely the cause.

Yet, let us also remember that the so-called “war on police” is also a nonsense. Crime against police is down to record lows which does tarry with the FACT that minority groups are targeted with more frequency, end up in prison more often and are on the sharp end of severer punishment.

Witness the riots and looting which occurred in both white and black communities across the United Kingdom in 2011 and the rioting in Ferguson in 2014 and other states. This can be explained away as the understandable boiling over of frustration and anger at the clear disparity between those that have and those that have very little, and the power of violent protest to send a message. The riots in the UK also involved so-called middle-class youth who were better off in monetary terms than many. Thus it bespoke of a deeper malaise going well beyond material concerns; a profound loss of meaning which is still not addressed in our current social systems. Unfortunately, the message of this type of violent protest merely reinforced stereotypes of race and class, especially those of colour, quickly diluting the essential message: that there is real change desperately needed.

Fundamental racism is real yet so are dynamics on both sides of the endless binary divide who encourage it. The focus on keeping racism and division alive is the issue here. Our present institutions affect ALL people, regardless of race. Our global Establishment benefits from an excess of social movements and the kind of diversity which promotes cooperation and understanding yet, at the same time, implicitly reinforces separation by claiming exclusive “rights” at the expense of human rights.

The prison population mirrors are own prisoner mind |© infrakshun

In other words, psychopaths don’t discriminate – prey is prey. But they can have a lot of fun cleaving natural cooperation and creating tribal factions to work against each other. In this sense, African-American social movements are seeking to redress the balance but missing the point that this is a problem of pathology which includes discrimination against ethnic groupings or race, but reflects a more hidden source of discrimination against normal majority of the human species from a minority of psychopaths, presently holding the reins of power. This is the core problem, a solution to which will naturally begin to resolve the sub-categories of racialism and so many other equally important “infections” of the human spirit.

If racism disappeared tomorrow, there would remain the problem of institutionalised psychopathy from which ALL entropic patterns originate. Social divides based on class, money and race will only be dissolved through education and cooperative experience, something that is socially-engineered not to occur. When we begin to look at the core problem that gives rise to all these iniquities, the various other rights and demands to be heard, understood and treated with dignity will begin to be addressed. Yet, it may mean some key collective shocks along the way so that humanity begins to recognise where and how it has been duped.

Social fragmentation and the normalisation of divided communities have deep-rooted socio-economic causes. The desperate loss of meaning and lack of a spiritual nourishment is also key. (By “spiritual” this does not mean “religious.”) There is no doubt that in the USA, African-American people bear the brunt of this burden at the present time. No race has a natural crime bell-curve. Such trends stem from a deep-seated malaise. More disturbing still, is the prison-security complex which had grown out of the pain of a society lost in inculcated pathology. The mentally ill and those stricken by poverty and economic hardship are now a profitable commodity for corporatists. Brutalisation of the American people is fertile ground for instigating new Establishment projects, after all.

On the other side of the coin is how different cultural groups and minorities feeling victimised react to the ponerisation process. After all, as a Kenyan friend of mine recently reminded me: “Black folks are some of the most racist people I know.” A sweeping statement for sure, but the concept of taking on the oppressors’ methods for divide and rule is something to acknowledge since we are all prone to hypocrisy on a smaller scale, often unconsciously. The African-American community has to face the danger of relying on the victim mentality and using it as a political tool where every crime is racially motivated. When a state tool like the police is so obviously loaded against people of colour it is tempting to assume that ALL cases can be categorised under this banner. The same dynamic has allowed the Jewish tribe to rule by victim-hood; an adapted cultural Marxism and political correctness which has provided an industry of entitlement out of all proportion; defying constructive criticism as it uses the historic shield of anti-Semitism to protect and elevate tribal privileges and a “cognitive elite” (recently updated in this context by Gilad Atzmon). Tribal divisions and “rights” can also be warped into further isolated units of aggression that lose sight of the core problem: normal humanity subjugated and oppressed by psychopaths. This has to be reiterated again and again.

“Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. […] The United States … has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.) The median among all nations is about 125, roughly a sixth of the American rate.”

– ‘U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations,’ New York Times

Over the last two decades various statistical studies and reports have all come to roughly the same conclusion: there is a serious race disparity regarding crime and incarceration with the prison-security complex booming as a result. One 2012 research study drawn from 58,000 federal criminal cases found that this disparity between sentencing of blacks and whites was so severe that African-American prison time was: “… almost 60% longer” than it is for Caucasians. M. Marit Rehavi of the University of British Columbia and Sonja B. Starr, who teach at criminal law at the University of Michigan Law School describe the reasons for racial disparities in this way: “in a single prosecutorial decision: whether to file a charge carrying a mandatory minimum sentence … Black men were on average more than twice as likely to face a mandatory minimum charge as white men were, holding arrest offense as well as age and location constant.”

The report further concluded that disparities can be explained by three factors:

the original arrest offense,
the defendant’s criminal history,
and the prosecutor’s initial choice of charges.^{^[8]}

And these three factors create a feedback loop that is almost unbreakable. And it’s designed that way.

The Centre for American Progress offered these statistical conclusions also from 3 years ago to ponder:

While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime.
Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color incarcerated.
According to recent data by the Department of Education, African American students are arrested far more often than their white classmates.
African American youth have higher rates of juvenile incarceration and are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison.
As the number of women incarcerated has increased by 800 percent over the last three decades, women of color have been disproportionately represented.
The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses.
Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences compared to white offenders.
Voter laws that prohibit people with felony convictions to vote disproportionately impact men of color.
Studies have shown that people of color face disparities in wage trajectory following release from prison. ^{^[9]}

(This is an edited summary for brevity. Go here for the full version)

When we understand that the prison-security complex demands a steady stream of “criminals” to support a private industry worth billions, it begins to make horrible sense. With the help of expensive lobbying groups and corrupt politicians the prison-security sector is set to explode. The largest for-profit prison and immigration detention facilities in the US is Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). It made $300 million in 2013 with an overall revenue at $1.7 billion. Do you know how those profits were paid for? By the American tax payer through government contracts. ^{^[10]} And Europe is set to follow America’s lead.

If that sends you reeling, the latest report encompassing a wide constellation of studies is provided by the ACLU. They have distilled a high volume of information into a digestible infographic which certainly makes interesting reading. In summary: Incarceration can actually cause more crime. (oh, the shock).

Probation recidivism rates fell by 12% as opposed to an increase of 21% from time in prison. Longer prison sentences also increased recidivism by 3% and many US states after cutting incarceration have seen a significant decrease in crime. For example, New Hampshire, which favours private prisons came in at a 10% increase with a parallel rise in violent crime at 17%. Property crime reached a 13% increase.In comparison, Massachusetts lowered its incarceration rate by 15% and achieved a 16% reduction in violent crime and an 18% drop in property crime. The patterns are the same for other states showing even more dramatic differences.

“As more and more government functions get privatized, states become pay-to-play paradises, in which both political contributions and contracts for friends and relatives become a quid pro quo for getting government business. Are the corporations capturing the politicians, or the politicians capturing the corporations?”

– Prisons, Privatization, Patronage’ New York Times

This is yet another fleecing of the taxpayer who is helping government and their out-sourced cartels make massive profits by increasing the perpetrators and the victims of crime in an endless cycle. But what do you know? Crime has actually been decreasing steadily for decades, as many studies have highlighted. Much as the FBI and law enforcement in general would like us to forget this fact, the ACLU puts the figures at a 50% decline nationwide since 1990. So, here we have a natural expression of human equilibrium trying to find its way out of all the conflict, and psychopaths are trying to turn it around in virtually every sector in society. The time is approaching when it will not be just black or Hispanic peoples getting it the neck.

There is a collective time-bomb that will have repercussions for us all.

(click on Image)

Democracy in Retreat: US ranks 46th in the world for civil liberties |Courtesy of Mark Rice from rankingamerica.wordpress.com

On October 21^st 2011, Keith Timmerman reported in the online magazine The Daily Caller the Obama administration’s policy of removing references to Islam in terror training manuals and expanding the definition to encompass a large proportion of the American population. If we have learned anything from history it is that demonisation precedes persecution. Official US government documents obtained by Judicial Watch through Freedom of Information requests detail what the US government considers to be “extremist” or “potential terrorist” beliefs and which therefore, require special attention. Under the current auspices of the Surveillance State, this does not bode well for civil liberties.

Based on these documents, Economist and blogger Michael Snyder lists 72 main targets for inclusion in the New Order, all of which are culled from mainstream media and government websites:

1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”

2. Those that advocate for states’ rights

3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”

4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”

5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”

6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”

7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful or undesirable.”

8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”

9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”

10. “Anti-Gay”

11. “Anti-Immigrant”

12. “Anti-Muslim”

13. “The Patriot Movement”

14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”

15. Members of the Family Research Council

16. Members of the American Family Association

17. Those that believe that Mexico, Canada and the United States “are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the ‘North American Union’”

18. Members of the American Border Patrol/American Patrol

19. Members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform

20. Members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition

21. Members of the Christian Action Network ©

22. Anyone that is “opposed to the New World Order”

23. Anyone that is engaged in “conspiracy theorizing”

24. Anyone that is opposed to Agenda 21

25. Anyone that is concerned about FEMA camps

26. Anyone that “fears impending gun control or weapons confiscations”

27. The militia movement

28. The sovereign citizen movement

29. Those that “don’t think they should have to pay taxes”

30. Anyone that “complains about bias”

31. Anyone that “believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia”

32. Anyone that “is frustrated with mainstream ideologies”

33. Anyone that “visits extremist websites/blogs”

34. Anyone that “establishes website/blog to display extremist views”

35. Anyone that “attends rallies for extremist causes”

36. Anyone that “exhibits extreme religious intolerance”

37. Anyone that “is personally connected with a grievance”

38. Anyone that “suddenly acquires weapons”

39. Anyone that “organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology”

40. “Militia or unorganized militia”

41. “General right-wing extremist”

42. Citizens that have “bumper stickers” that are patriotic or anti-U.N.

43. Those that refer to an “Army of God”

44. Those that are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”

45. Those that are “anti-global”

46. Those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”

47. Those that are “reverent of individual liberty”

48. Those that “believe in conspiracy theories”

49. Those that have “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”

50. Those that possess “a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”

51. Those that would “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”

52. Those that would “insert religion into the political sphere”

53. Anyone that would “seek to politicize religion”

54. Those that have “supported political movements for autonomy”

55. Anyone that is “anti-abortion”

56. Anyone that is “anti-Catholic”

57. Anyone that is “anti-nuclear”

58. “Rightwing extremists”

59. “Returning veterans”

60. Those concerned about “illegal immigration”

61. Those that “believe in the right to bear arms”

62. Anyone that is engaged in “ammunition stockpiling”

63. Anyone that exhibits “fear of Communist regimes”

64. “Anti-abortion activists”

65. Those that are against illegal immigration

66. Those that talk about “the New World Order” in a “derogatory” manner

67. Those that have a negative view of the United Nations

68. Those that are opposed “to the collection of federal income taxes”

69. Those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr

70. Those that display the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”)

71. Those that believe in “end times” prophecies

72. Evangelical Christians.^{^[11]}

© infrakshun

In other words, pretty much everyone who isn’t waving an American flag and praising the government.

We can see that the list is very broad indeed, redefining the terrorist towards the dissident, activist and indeed, anyone exercising their right to free speech. Notice too, that these government alerts are bi-partisan – left and right is meaningless when it comes to profiling the population. In true Orwellian style, anything that lies outside what the government considers “normal” is characterised as a threat.

Such a blanket paranoia and authoritarianism means that many federal agencies and Justice departments willingly apply these strictures. This says something about the nature of those employed and those who decide they cannot work in the job they used to love. People work within the system under the illusion that they can change it or decide to turn a blind eye in favour of financial security or just give up and acquiesce to peer pressure. Alternatively, those lawyers, advocates, police-officers and soldiers who cannot stand it anymore vacate their posts and individuals aligned to various degrees of pathology gradually fill their places, thus contributing further to a psychologically compromised State. These are the familiar patterns of pathocracies using the cover of the war on drugs, war on terror, constant surveillance and the prison-security complex.

Nonetheless, there are surely many cops and military men and women out there with conscience. Since the level of corruption and instinctive deference to authority is so strong it is going to be more difficult for these individuals to speak out. It will take great courage. They need to be given the support from activist groups and whistleblowing organisations so that they can do so, or else there will be little chance to take action in the future.

A Police State has arrived and it is going to get worse very soon. This isn’t pessimism – it is simply reading the writing on the wall, and interpreting the numerous other warnings from those who have tried to warn us. Such writing fades all too easily in our ever so distracted consciousness. Recall the last words of Eric Garner before he was choked to death by a policeman: ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.'” It was also a metaphor for the human race – above colour, race or creed – that is being slowly crushed by the jackboot of psychopaths whom we have allowed to create the mechanisms through which they may gain positions of power. It doesn’t matter if it is the President of the United States or the President of your local Neighbourhood Council – the infection is the same. We literally cannot breathe, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Poor Eric Garner’s death can be likened to a collective symbolism – a potent archetype of sacrifice – whether the victims of the American police state, the Palestinians in Gaza or the victims of ISIL in Iraq – they serve to alert us to the nature of our world, acting as as a profound wake-up call to resist in the name of conscience.

Let’s hope we can heed their sacrifice and lend our voice in whatever way we can.

Which brings us back to the events of 9/11 – the day the world changed.

Now that we have touched on the extent to which the US State is gradually declaring war on its inhabitants, we will return to how the coup d’etat of 9/11 which enabled such a rapid descent to take place. The more people can begin to make the step towards understanding what really took place on that day the more all the denials, repressions and lies can be exorcised and driven into the light.

See also:

First of Its Kind Study Shows 55,400 People Hospitalized or Killed by US Cops in a Single Year

America in 2017: Almost 100 times more people were killed by police than terrorists

Notes

[1] ‘Grand Jury: No Charges In New York Police Chokehold Death Of Eric Garner’ Police State Daily, December 2014.
[2 ] ‘NYPD accused of editing Wikipedia pages for Eric Garner death, other scandals’ RT | March 13, 2015.
[3] ‘Lafayette man files lawsuit after officer pushes him from wheelchair’ WTHR News, Jul 10, 2014.
[4] ‘Rochester cop punches pregnant woman in back of head, body-slams her to sidewalk’ http://www.policestateusa.com August 28, 2013
[5] ‘University Place man dies after being tased by deputies’ By Russ Bowen, KOMO News, May 12, 2014.
[6] ‘An Officer Shoots, a 73-Year-Old Dies, and Schisms Return’ By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON February 14, 2010.
[7] ‘Louisiana shooting puzzles witnesses’ Family and friends watched as an elderly man was shot by police at a cookout. They say he was killed without justification. State and federal officials are on the case | Los Angeles Times, Howard Witt, March 17, 2009.
[8] ‘Black Americans Given Longer Sentences than White Americans for Same Crimes’ February 04, 2012. http://www.allgov.com/
[9] ‘ The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States’ By Sophia Kerby, Center for American Progress, | March 13, 2012.
[10] Corrections Corporation of America, Form 10-K, SEC filing, fiscal year ended December 31, 2013.
[11] ‘72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered “Potential Terrorists” In Official Government Documents’ By Michael Snyder, Economic Collapse Blog, August 26th, 2013.

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Police State Amerika II: No-Knock Raids

“Police violently broke in on a couple of men watching television, exploded concussion grenades, and shot one man roughly a second after entry. The fatal, under-investigated raid yielded no arrests and led to the shooter being named “Officer of the Year.” All because someone was suspected of getting high without government permission.”

– Police State USA

During the April 2013 Boston Bombings and the hunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Boston suburbia was effectively in lock-down with thousands of National Guard troops, FBI and other federal agents, state and local police, all creating virtual martial law in a matter of hours. Units conducted house to house searches, often heavily armed whilst residents were told to stay inside with their doors locked and not open them to anyone but identified police officers. This was part of an official order called “shelter in place” enacted by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and which was gradually extended over 100 square miles of the Boston metropolitan area, housing over 1 million people. Local reporters compared the scene to videos of US-occupied Baghdad. ^[1]

It seems this was a taste of what was to come. With an operation such as this, following hot on the heels of a so-called terrorist attacks with a tragic loss of life, one might say that such martial law was justified in order to catch the perpetrators. Yet, even if we were to discard evidence that the Tasarnaev brothers were set up, the same patterns of deception found similar to every false flag operation, we would surely have to arrive at the conclusion that this was an utterly over-the-top response. What this military deployment did achieve, was to stoke the fear of authority and its capabilities. There has never been a more dangerous time to be poor, elderly or the recipient of SWAT teams’ persistent encroachment into civilian life. For every one of these examples – whether black, white, Army veteran, elderly man or woman, babies, children or the mentally disabled – there are hundreds of similar cases.

SWAT raids are truly terrifying for those unfortunate enough to experiences them. Arriving in armoured personnel carriers, usually in the dead of night or early morning, a team of 8-10 heavily armed, andrenalin-pumped young men break down your door, and/or smash your windows, hurl incendiary devices into the interior regardless of the presence of children or elderly folk and frequently move to kill your pets. Whilst securing the house and if you are not dead already, you are made to lie face down in blood and glass with your arms tied behind your back. Armour-clad soldiers carrying sub-machine guns shout at you to remain where you are, often during the aftermath of a violent physical assault. It is not uncommon for SWAT members to brutalise homeowners in their search for suspects.

But what of the individual cases? How far has this phenomena encroached into everyday American lives?

SWAT team smashes into a grandmother’s home Image credit: offthegridnews.com

“Not having proper security on your Wi-Fi router can lead to a SWAT team raid on your house, as one family in Evansville, Indiana, discovered. Louise Milan learned this the hard way when SWAT officers smashed through her door and threw flash-bang grenades into her house in a case that is getting attention again because of court action this month in a lawsuit.” – David Jennings, Off the Grid News, August 2014.

We will start off this brief survey with a tragedy that occurred in 2008, when homeowner Ronald Terebesi was relaxing in his living room with friend, 33-year-old Gonzalo Guizan. The peace was shattered by a nine man SWAT team with a “no-knock search warrant for narcotics”. After police had tossed in three flash-bang grenades through the windows the team battered down the door and after almost 2 seconds inside Mr. Guizan had been shot six times and Terebesi hit with a rifle butt and pinned to the floor. The rest of the team trashed the house looking for concealed drugs.

It became apparent that the SWAT team had burst in so quickly that a grenade denoted in close proximity to the officers causing its fragments to hit Officer Sweeney who claimied he’d been hit, therey firing a volley of bullets into Guizan. According to later testimonies by Sweeny, Terebesi and Guizan had tried to attack him despite the absence of any corroborating evidence. Since the whole event lasted less around 2 seconds it seems like a feeble allegation to cover up incompetence. The Connecticut Post reported attorney for Terebesi Gary Mastronardi stating: “There is undisputed evidence Guizan and Terebesi were huddled in a corner when police shot,” which makes Sweeney’s claims even more unlikely.

Neither man had criminal records. Their only “crime” was to enjoy a small quantity of drugs for personal use, but it was enough to cause a SWAT team to burst into their own home, murder one man and assault another. Terebesi is still seeking compensation for “emotional suffering” while Guizan’s family received a $3.5 million pay out in February 2013. ^[2]

“It looked like the Russian army had approached,” … “This was overkill.”

– neighbor of Terebsi, Drew Clark

If a police team is out and about and your house has been targeted – prepare to pray.

In 2013, an 80 year-old retiree barely had time to do that before being shot six times as he lay in his bed. The reason? Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department deputies thought they could smell a meth lab. In fact, when no meth operation was found they decided to clutch at the fact that a small quantity of marijuana was discovered in another part of the property. A $50 million civil lawsuit was served by the widow Tonya Pate and her attorney James Bergener. County sheriffs say that the deceased, Eugene Mallory had raised a gun at deputies whilst his wife is adamant that her husband, a former engineer at Lockheed Martin would never have taken such action. “He was shot in his bed before there was any warning given,” Bergener said. ^[3]

From an old age pensioner to a mentally disabled youth found dead after strong-arm tactics by police officers.

Robert Ethan Saylor was found to have suffered a fractured throat cartilage after being suffocated to death by police officers who sought to remove him from a cinema. Saylor, who had Downs Syndrome and a low IQ had thoroughly enjoyed the film he had been watching and wanted a repeat performance. Saylor and his caretaker did not have enough money and since he did not understand the concept of tickets, he became upset and refused to leave. Though the caretaker pleaded for patience and warned that he was very sensitive to being touched, in the end police moved in. As he was wrestled to the ground not understanding what was going on, there were reports from witnesses that officers told Saylor that he was going to jail, as he struggled in obvious pain. He last words were: “Mommy! It hurt!” as he died of asphyxiation. ^[4]

Although the death was ruled a homicide, the 3 police deputies in question received no criminal charges and remained on active duty. They were however, enrolled on a training class to learn how to interact with people with low intelligence. Somehow such a move won’t be much consolation for Saylor’s mother nor will it make the slightest difference to the police in question.

Iraq veterans are also at risk.

We go back a few years to May 5, 2011 and the case of Jose Guerena. The former marine was shot and killed by SWAT team members when they raided his house.

After working the night shift at the local copper mine he and his wife were awakened by voices and loud noises. Assuming that there were intruders he retrieved his rifle and hid his wife Vanessa and his 4-year old son in the closet. He then checked the house. As he stood in the hallway the SWAT team fired off 71 rounds and hit Guerena 22 times. His wife and child were unharmed. No drugs were found.

© Zabelin | Dreamstime.com – SWAT Team Photo

Fancy meeting these guys in your living room? Your friendly neighbourhood SWAT team on a street or home near you.

By all accounts, Guerena had no idea that this was the police, nor did he realise that the detonation of concussion grenades in their back yard were the cause of his awakening. Seconds before an armoured truck had arrived in their front yard and a SWAT team was already preparing to break down his door. To compound the tragedy, as he lay bleeding in the hallway, it appears the police did everything they could to prevent ambulance services from reaching Guerena. According to an ABC News report his wife claimed she called 9-1-1 for an ambulance yet it was over one hour 14 minutes before any paramedics could get to Guerena. This was due to the evacuation of neighbouring houses and the deployment of two robotic drones to check the house interior. One wasn’t enough it seems. The clock ticked by. After that, the bomb squad was called in and the deployment of robotic scouts was set in motion. Only then did the SWAT team re-enter the house to sweep the rooms. By this time, Jose Guerena had bled to death. Deputy Tracy Suitt on behalf of the The Pima County Sheriff’s Department strongly believed: “… the events of May 5, 2011, were unfortunate and tragic, but the officers performed that day in accordance with their training and nationally recognized standards…”. ^[5]

These “Nationally recognised standards” were employed with the shooting of two members of Vanessa Guerena’s sister-in-law’s family, Cynthia and Manny Orozco, last year. A small bag of pot was discovered along with $94,000. Though members of the family were allegedly involved with the smuggling of marijuana, such a case requires due diligence and extreme caution which was clearly not the case here. Raids with trigger-happy teams of paramilitary men storming suburbia is common place. Once again, no reprimands or arrests were forthcoming. The Guerena family proceeded with a civil lawsuit and settled at $3.4 million dollars. It seems one can survive two tours in Iraq but not your own law enforcement.

Next in line for raid treatment were two grand-parents shot by DEA agents in their own homes, one fatally and within one month of each other.

In August 2014, New Hampshire Grandmother Lilian Alonzo was looking after her grandchildren aged, 1, 4 and 10 years old. At around 7.00pm the door was opened by a family member and the DEA raided the third story apartment looking for drugs. Alonzo was fired at twice by an agent and was hit in the torso by one of the bullets. The Grandmother’s son later told reporters that all she had been attempting to do was to pick up the baby, a natural reaction one might think when a group of strangers barge into your home. Ms. Alonso had no criminal or previous arrest record and was not arrested or charged following the raid.

Why was this grandmother put in hospital?

It was apparently part of a series of 13 raids carried out: “… to investigate several people allegedly selling prescription painkillers without government authorization.” [6]

Painkillers.

Nor is this an isolated incident. From one of many incidences, Three people were killed and four wounded in October 2013 when yet another no-knock raid turned to tragedy. Reason? The illegal distribution of prescription pills.

From tracking those dastardly crimes of painkiller users, to taking the word of a meth addict and thief in order to raid a Grandfathers home, unannounced.

In September 2014, David Hooks, 59, was awakened by his wife who said the thieves who had earlier stolen their SUV were back. Hooks picked up his gun in order to protect his wife and his home from further intruders. Little did he know that Rodney Garrett had stolen their vehicle, the same man who had tipped off the police that he had seen illegal drugs on the Hooks’ property. Meanwhile, a SWAT team of sheriff deputies broke down the door, firing sixteen shots leaving David Hooks dead. No drugs were found. According to the widow’s lawyer, the Sheriff’s Department then “mislead the public” about the shooting and raid. ^[7]

Finally, the killing of a 7 year-old girl in a raid by the Detroit Police Department in May, 2010.

Looking for a wanted man on the evening of May 16, 2010, the Detroit Police Department’s Special Response Team (SRT) were preparing for a dawn no-knock raid on a duplex where the man was said to live. The house having been under close surveillance throughout the day, the police nonetheless disregarded any safety measures for the likelihood of children being present at the address, even though children’s toys were littered around the front of the residence. With a warrant to arrest Chauncey Owens and armed with MP5 sub-machine guns and even a Reality TV crew, the SRT team approached the house.

A pedestrian out walking his dog was held back by police and unnecessarily pinned to the ground with police boots on his neck and back. (Gosh, those brave, virile policeman putting on a real show for reality TV). Despite this, he repeatedly told officers that there were children in the house. Bizarrely, officers broke into two locations: the suspect’s and the next door neighbour’s downstairs apartment. Windows were smashed, a concussion grenade thrown which lit up the porch. The door was kicked down and after just over 30 seconds from the start of the raid, a gunshot was heard and Aiyana Stanley-Jones lay dead from a bullet through he neck. It took only six seconds for the girl to be killed from the moment the police entered the home.

“They blew my granddaughter’s brains out,” … “They killed her right before my eyes. I watched the light go out of her eyes.”

– Ms. Mertilla Jones, Grandmother of Aiyana Stanley-Jones

She had been sleeping on a couch next to her Grandmother Mertilla Jones who had dived to the floor when the grenade had hit the couch, scorching it in the process. It is then that the police began to lie about the events of that early morning preferring to blame the Grandmother by saying that the man responsible for discharging his weapon – 37-year-old Officer Joseph Weekley – had lost control of his weapon due to contact with Ms. Jones whom, he said, had tried to grab the gun. The Grandmother’s story is the exact opposite to the officer’s and much more believable. She explained that she tried to protect Aiyana after being shocked awake by the grenade and the sound of broken glass. She reached for the girl and made no contact with the officer or his gun. This was later corroborated by the absence of Jones’ fingerprints on the weapon.

Although Weekly had a dubious record of hyper-aggression against children and the shooting of animals during no-knock raids, he was to escape any punishment for this latest tragedy. Both trials in 2013 and 2014 were eventually declared mistrials, as the juries on both occasions were unable to reach unanimity. Finally, in January 2015, the case was dismissed and the Jones family had to pay costs. A civil suit has been filed and an appeal to the U.S. attorney general. ^[8]

Family spokesman Ron Scott commented on the injustice of the law: “Weekley doesn’t have to pay but the family that lost a child has to pay,” I think it’s abominable. I think it’s evil. I think it’s one of the lowest things I have ever seen.” ^[9]

(For more on this story go here.)

7 year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones killed by Detroit Police Department’s Special Response Team (SRT)

In a photograph from May 2010, Dominika Stanley and Charles Jones hold a picture of their daughter, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, in a Detroit courtroom.” Source: Guardian|Photograph: Mandi Wright/AP.

As you can now imagine, there are hundreds of these stories. The following are just a selection of “no-knock raids” conducted by police, SWAT, SRT’s and DEA teams taken from the last two years with similar catastrophic results.

No-knock SWAT raid leaves Texas father dead, family traumatized

“When they came in, they had their weapons drawn like we were members of a drug cartel.”

Police burst into wrong apartment, shoot innocent woman hiding in closet

“I told them I was afraid and do not shoot me, and one officer screamed at me to put my hands above my head… That’s when I heard the shot.”

Innocent homeless family’s wooden shack raided by police

Victim, shot at 15 times: ‘They just continued to fire’

Trooper cleared after stomping on innocent man’s skull while handcuffed

“I saw him lift his head and spit blood and teeth onto the kitchen floor.”

Mother and 4 children terrified during late night police raid on wrong apartment

A young mother explains how her evening bath was disturbed by armed men who forced her to the floor half-naked.

Empty home destroyed in 4-hour SWAT siege, innocent woman left with $100,000 in damages

“They wiped my whole life from underneath me and now I’m trying to pick it up and move on.”

SWAT team throws concussion grenade into baby playpen during no-knock raid

“Bad things happen to good people,” says the Sheriff, with every intention of continuing the raids.

Feds perform guns-drawn SWAT raid while investigating campaign finance allegation

“If they’ll do it to me, they’ll do it to anybody,” said the former attorney general.

Texas grandmother, autistic man held at gunpoint in wrong-door police raid

“They had guns directly at me and my son…There were guns everywhere. I mean, the long guns with lights on them. I was crying hysterically.”

DHS ransacks Florida couple’s home without explanation, strips woman naked

“They busted in like I was a terrorist or something.”

Texas SWAT team brutalizes innocent man in no-knock wellness check, concocts charges

“These cops are out of control. They are ruining good people’s lives.”

Utah rave party raided by SWAT team, helicopter, police dogs

A chopper hovered overhead as soldier-wannabes violently shut down the “illegal mass gathering.”

“They told me that they had taken my baby to the hospital. They said he was fine he had only lost a tooth, but they wanted him in for observation,” Phonesavanh said. When she got to the hospital she was horrified by what she saw. Bou Bou was in a medically-induced coma in the intensive care unit of Brady Memorial hospital. “His face was blown open. He had a hole in his chest that left his rib-cage visible.”

– victim of SWAT raid Alecia Phonesavanh whose baby, 18-month-old Bou-Bou was on the receiving end of flash-bomb which was thrown into his cot. TheSWAT team who executed a no-knock warrant on their Georgia property on May 28 will face no charges. | Source: ‘Outrage as SWAT officers who disfigured toddler with grenade in botched drug raid will face NO charges’ Daily Mail.

Bou Bou Phonesavanh who is now thankfully recovering image credit: Justiceforbabyboubou.com

Rather than some overseas combat zone Americans can expect this ordeal to occur all over the United States an estimated 45,000 times every year, mostly in the search for drugs and disproportionately focused within minorities. ^[10] Although the failure of the “War on Drugs” was always a certainty and remains deeply unpopular, it was never designed to be a genuine solution to a criminal enterprise, since the traditional role of intelligence agencies and law enforcement has been to profit from the support and sale of drugs on the street.

The creation of SWAT teams originated in the 1960s, the brainchild of the Los Angeles Police Department who were seeking ways to assist officers in high-risk situations such as a lone shooter, riots and hostage-taking. In the 21st Century they are no longer used for such specialised situations but for the average citizen and the search for drugs. According to a new study of 800 such raids conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 79% of raids were focused on private homes and: “… only 7% of the time were heavily armed SWAT teams used for their original purposes: hostage and barricade situations.” ^[12]

And the reason for this explosion in state-mandated home invasions?

Aside from the aforementioned militarisation of law enforcement ^[8]it is partly to habituate the idea of the State as ultimate authority and the acquiescence required to justify its existence. It isn’t about finding a solution as we have surely surmised by now, it is about extending conflict in perpetuity so that the human spirit is further fragmented and broken. Secondly, as the ACLU points out, Departments of Justice, Defence, and Homeland Security make sure billions of dollars are lavished on law enforcement in order for it to complete the loop of weapons and associated military hardware contracts. The government is now merely another corporation, after all.

Tragedy and brutalisation breeds fear and compliance for some sectors of the population. For others, it ensures the propagation of the revolution meme which in turn, demands martial law and unleashing of the power of the state to enforce a return to “social cohesion.”

Continuing our look at post-9/11 rise of the police state in America, the next post will explore the use of tasers and the fallacy of non-lethality.

Notes

[1] ‘Bombing suspect captured after military-police lockdown of Boston’ By Alex Lantier and Kate Randall WSWS, 20 April 2013.
[2] ‘$3.4M settlement in deadly 2011 SWAT raid near Tucson’ By Joe Ferguson, Arizona Daily Star, September 20, 2013.
[3] ‘Widow to Sue Over Fatal Shooting of Husband, 80, by Sheriff’s Deputies’ KTLA, October 10 2013.
[4] ‘Grand jury rejects criminal charges in death of Robert Saylor, man with Down syndrome’ Washington Post, By Theresa Vargas March 22, 2013.
[5] ‘Arizona SWAT Team Defends Shooting Iraq Vet 60 Times’, By Ellen Tumposky, ABC News, May 20, 2011.
[6] ‘Woman Shot during Beech Street drug raid’ by: Carol Robidoux, August 29, 2014. Manchester inklink.com
[7] ‘SWAT Team Shot David Hooks At Home After Tip From Meth Addict’ by Michael McLaughlin The Huffington Post, 10 August, 2014.
[8] Family grieves death of girl, 7, in police raid’ Doug Guthrie and Valerie Olander, The Detroit News, May 17, 2010.
[9] ‘’She was only a baby’: last charge dropped in police raid that killed sleeping Detroit child, The Guardian, “Aiyana Stanley-Jones was 7 years old when she was killed by a single bullet to the head. As officer Joseph Weekley walks free, another community is demanding answers about the increasing militarisation of law enforcement.” By Rose Hackman, Saturday 31 January 2015.
[10] ‘Another Day, Another 124 Violent SWAT Raids’ By Kara Dansky, American Civil Liberties Union, http://www.aclu.org/ June 26, 2014.
[11] Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America By Peter Dale-Scott (Updated Edition Paperback – April 10, 1998) University of California Press. ISBN-10: 0520214498. |Gary Webb’s Dark Alliance Stories on Establishment drug corruption: http://www.narconews.com/darkalliance/drugs/start.htm |’CIA funnels drugs into poor US neighborhoods’: http://rt.com/usa/usa-cia-drugs-poor-americas/
[12] op.cit Dansky.
[13] ‘War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Police June 2014: Report: https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/war-comes-home-excessive-militarization-american-police-report

Outsourcing Abuse III: Dyncorp, Plan Colombia and Private Armies

By M.K. Styllinski

“America provides the guns, Colombia provides the dead.”

“The pretext of Al-Qaeda infesting the country was used. It was the same propaganda employed in the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and most of Africa – in fact, any other country which has bountiful resources. As the US government retained control, Dyncorp was airlifted in with a fat $10 million contract in the following year for “peacekeeping” and “logistical support,” thus replacing the more costly presence of US combat forces. In other words, this was a proxy army to complete the proxy government.”

Before we return to the topic of Establishment child rape networks I want to continue with the legacy of Dyncorp and other private security firms as outposts of an emerging Pathocracy. They are important nodes in the expansion of a bankrupt empire and their links to covert drug and the sex trade. Inevitably these companies always have links back to the original source of pathological disease. Dyncorp’s role in Latin America and in particular Colombia is instructive in this regard.

The Free Trade agreements of the Americas walked over the remains of the dead economies of South America, hacked off at the roots by years of U.S. interventionism and later under the auspices of the IMF and World Bank. The colonization has changed but is on schedule and Dyncorp is right in the thick of it to ensure its completion.

The U.S. $1.3 billion Plan Colombia was one example. Critics said that the corporation was involved in “counter insurgency” operations in the war on drugs as well as the monopolisation of oil interests in the region. Paramilitaries and mercenaries are co-mingling in a mix of dirty interests. The corporation’s activities also extend into Bolivia and Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil and Panama where it is also carries out drug interdiction, transport, reconnaissance, search and rescue missions, medical evacuation and aircraft maintenance.

The fact that President Bush had substantial ties to Harken Energy Inc., of Houston, Texas, is well known. Bush Jr. opted for a comfortable desk job with the company in 1986 and received $2 million in stock options, a $122,000 consulting job and a seat on its board of directors for his trouble. Meanwhile, in the Magdalena Valley where Harken Energy and other oil companies peddle their business, right wing paramilitary groups comprising of Colombian military officers, drug traffickers, cattle ranchers and fighting guerrillas are paid to protect oil pipelines. Civilians in Colombia have become the prime targets as rapacious parties compete for territory. The murder of peasants is common place if they do not respond to threats and intimidation to leave land targeted for mining, oil exploration and agriculture. Harken continued to rake in the cash on the backs of dead civilians in the Magdalena Valley, with help from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.

Paramilitaries protected corporate interests in the region. Death squads operated on behalf of U.S. oil companies and political parties, which were closely entwined in a network of intelligence agencies with the CIA as the guiding hand. After all, Colombia is both the leading recipient of US military aid in the hemisphere and the worst violator of human rights. Connection?

“Plan Colombia” was inflicted on the country for ill-advised reasons during President Bill Clinton’s presidency. The $1.3 billion aid package which was mostly military aid to Colombia and its neighbours, was to usher in “peace, prosperity, and the strengthening of the state” ^{^[1]} by proposing a military strategy to stop illicit drug cultivation and trafficking. The plan was to be carried out by providing military assistance to the Colombian armed forces and police, and the creation of three anti-narcotics army battalions. However, aside from a slight drop in cocoa plant production, it did none of those things. What it actually did was to build on the destabilisation in the region thanks to 1990s Reaganomic policies and to “increase the dispersion and proliferation of organized crime and the expansion and intensification of political crime and guerrilla warfare.” ^{^[2]} The plan served to increase politically motivated killings and where “counter-narcotics operations in Plan Colombia fail[ed] to target drugs cultivation in areas under long-standing paramilitary control.” ^{^[3]}

After a whopping expenditure of $4.72 billion from 2000-2006 with $3.84 billion (81 percent) going to Colombia’s military and police forces, things have only got worse. The reason being, over 50 percent of Colombia’s land is owned by paramilitaries, the monopoly of which is drawn from the paramilitary control of members of Colombia’s Congress at around 30 percent. It suggests that the CIA, true to its colours, wished to gain control of an important financial resource rather than to decrease its influence in any genuine way.

Dyncorp wasn’t the only one slicing into the pie. AirScan, a based in Rockledge, Florida provides High-Tec air surveillance and is responsible for patrolling the Colombian jungle in Cessna Skymaster electronic surveillance planes, spotting coca plantations and guerrilla threats to the Cano Limon oil pipeline. Military Professional Resources Inc. based in Alexandria, Virginia provides a consultancy service run by former US generals. Its mercenaries were responsible for training the Colombian Army and police officers. An Alabama company working out of the Maxwell Air-force base, Aviation Development Corporation (ADC) flies Cessna spotter planes for the CIA in Peru and Colombia to help target aircraft used by drug smugglers.

Cocaine monopolisation: Funding American interests

It was this latter company that caused a brief headache for the PR branches protecting the so called “drug war” when a small plane carrying US missionaries was shot down in Peru by a military pilot killing a young woman and her seven-month-old baby girl. The missionaries’ plane was first spotted by a US Cessna Citation surveillance plane piloted not by the US military but by private contractors hired by ADC. This echoed the shooting down of a Dyncorp helicopter and the subsequent rescue of its pilots by their own search and rescue teams which culminated in a shoot-out with the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Nothing like a spot of Hollywood intrigue to keep the shareholders happy.

Another minor glitch in its operations was discovered in late 2001 when online news journal The Nation managed to obtain a document of a monthly DEA intelligence report from May 2000 in which officers of Colombia’s National Police force intercepted a US-bound Federal Express package at Bogota’s El Dorado International Airport with a parcel containing two small bottles of a “thick liquid” with the same consistency as “motor oil”. The communiqué reported that: “… the liquid substance ‘tested positive for heroin’ and that the ‘alleged heroin laced liquid weighed approximately 250 grams.’” DynCorp spokeswoman Janet Wineriter stated: “… the viscous liquid that the Colombians tested was not, in fact, laced with heroin; it was simply “oil samples of major aircraft components’ that DynCorp technicians are required to take and send to the US ‘on a periodic basis.’ ” ^{^[4]}

While the package was traced back to an unnamed employee of Dyncorp who was sending it on to the Andean operations headquarters at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, the government and Dyncorp were tight-lipped regarding details as to why this was entirely innocent and the result of faulty testing equipment. After a slippery tossing of the hot potato between the US Embassy, the Colombian National Police Force (CNP) the DEA and the Colombian State Department (and of course Dyncorp) the problem was shoved under a decidedly rank carpet courtesy of the CNP whose forensic unit decided it prudent not to pursue the matter.

The testing equipment called NARCOTEX was to all intents and purposes, also found to be bogus by the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Drug Recognition Experts. They could find no evidence of drug technology with that name. A token military doffing of its hat towards those that were intent on its eradication, was all that was needed. (Like the “War on Terror,” the “War on Drugs” is also largely bogus, a topic we will return to much later).

Dyncorp’s presence in Latin America has stuck like mud against the aspirations of its inhabitants since the early 1990s. It was during one of its contracts for helicopter maintenance that some of the long held suspicions about the multinational were further confirmed when one of those helicopters crashed in the Peruvian jungle in 1992. On board were three DynCorp employees, including Robert Hitchman, a covert-ops specialist, who had worked for the CIA in a number of operations ranging from the CIA front, “Air America,” to Libyan black-ops for Colonel Kaddafi. Hitchman was in fact, flying DEA agents and the Peruvian military on missions into guerrilla territory to destroy cocaine labs and coordinate the herbicide spraying program. True to Dyncorp services, he was also training Peruvian pilots to fly combat missions.^{^[5]} Colombia was to be a much more extensive capturing of a country’s destiny where Colombian army, paramilitary groups and toxic spraying and fumigation would be stepped up to a degree that would pay big money to ex-military veterans and black ops personnel.

Toxic spraying and fumigation

As part of this propaganda the corporation dutifully and profitably went about its $200 million^{^[6]} contract to spray 2,550 Square miles of Colombia with Monsanto’s “Round-Up Ultra” herbicide from 2000-2005, under the pretext of eliminating the illegal cocoa crops. An environmental disaster loaded on yet more suffering for the Colombian peoples already being squeezed by Bogota and the U.S. government. With 82 percent of the population living under the poverty line, growing their own food would have been one possibility to feed their families, when they often have no option but to grow cocoa for the insatiable demand in the States.

While a class-action lawsuit was filed in Washington, DC, on behalf of 10,000 farmers in Ecuador and the AFL-CIO-related International Labour Rights Fund, (ILRF) it may not save the thousands of children already suffering the effects of fumigation and spraying. After the initial veiled threats from Dyncorp CEO Paul V. Lombardi, towards Bishop Jesse DeWitt president of ILRF, the lawsuit for indigenous Quiches and farmers from the state of Sucumbío, Dyncorp subsequently used its State Department leverage to ask “…the judge to dismiss the case because it involves national security interests of the United States.” Luckily the Judge after consulting material derived from an investigation by Ecuador’s Acción Ecológica came to the conclusion that Dyncorp had “committed crimes against humanity, torture and cultural genocide.” ^{^[7]} This ruling finally led to the 2003 court rulings ordering the suspension of aerial fumigation of coca and poppy crops until environmental and human impact studies can be carried out.

However, in clear violation of Colombian law, President Alvare Uribe, a U.S. puppet, continues to do the State Department’s bidding and the spraying has continued. According to Narco News, a Latin American journal that reports on the drug war and (the lack of) democracy in Latin America: “Food crops have been destroyed, rainforest ravaged, tens of thousands of peasants have been displaced because their crops, livestock and water sources have been poisoned.” ^{^[8]}

Colombia’s armed conflict is the longest-running guerrilla war in the Americas, and with U.S. involvement, shows no signs of decreasing in intensity. According to the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, in 2002 alone “an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 civilians were killed in fighting; were targeted in political assassinations or were ‘disappeared.’ By comparison, the death toll was 3,000 to 3,500 in the previous year and where 4,077 children suffered violent deaths, including political violence and common crime, according to the Colombian Ombudsman’s Office (Ombudsman, Defensoría del Pueblo).” ^{^[9]}

The crux of the problem in the declining fortunes of the Colombian people and the next generation of children being born into such chaos is U.S. sponsorship and support of guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, government armed forces and national police that have consistently perpetrated violence and abuses against civilians, particularly children and adolescents. There is widespread grievous bodily harm (GPH) and instances of rape in conflict and in domestic life.

Human Rights Watch place the incidences of rape of adolescent girls as 2.5 per every 1,000 young women. “Rape, sexual torture and other forms of sexual violence against women and girls are used as tactics to destabilize the population.” Despite a 2006, $20 million budget to help fund Colombia’s paramilitary demobilization process; the commercial sex trade is gaining ground, with estimates ranging from 20,000 to 35,000 children forced into commercial sexual work. ^{^[10]} A steady unchecked business in arms trafficking and an equally plentiful supply of child soldiers parallels the figure of over 3 million children who do not attend school. A high percentage of indigenous and Afro-Colombian child soldiers of Between 11,000 and 14,000 are often targeted for recruitment. The U.S. State Department becomes uncharacteristically silent on the subject of support for Uribe and government armed forces that are known to use children as informants and “counter-insurgency” propaganda activities. ^{^[11]}

Former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez

Paramilitary leaders unilaterally declared a cease-fire in late 2002, with much trumpeting of the U.S. negotiations which were heralded as more evidence of the US bending over backwards to “assist.” If we look deeper, this “assistance” represents more attempts to find ways to circumvent the maze of interests that continue to carve up Colombia. Most paramilitary leaders at the negotiating table are there due to the possibility of extradition to the U.S. under the demobilisation laws and are haggling away their wealth that was illegally-acquired. Paramilitaries and drug barons are putting themselves forward as human bargaining chips to avoid imprisonment should the need arise. In truth, before 2005, demobilization had not been enforced due to the absence of a legal framework and served to act as yet another sop for Congress. Human Rights Watch reported in 2004: “…the government has been holding ceremonies in which thousands of purported paramilitaries turn over their weapons and become eligible to receive stipends and other benefits. As a result, there is a real risk that the current demobilization process will leave the underlying structures of these violent groups intact, their illegally acquired assets untouched, and their abuses unpunished.” ^{^[12]}

The U.S. and the European Union actively encouraged the tragically misplaced naming of “Ley de Justicia y Paz” (Justice and Peace Law) while the United Nations Security Council sheepishly turned a blind eye. The Colombian Congress dutifully passed in June 2005 the legal framework for the demobilization of the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), the worst Human rights offender responsible for 80 percent of the most appalling abuses country-wide. They have been a dominant factor in the drug trade with various AUC leaders being extradited to the United States for prosecution on drug trafficking charges. Prison sentences are limited to a maximum of eight years and prosecutors are given a very limited leeway in which to present their charges. Big-wig criminals including drug barons are often blurring the lines between paramilitary groups. It means that they are protected from extradition to the United States by legal semantics and loopholes. Furthermore, safe in the assurance that they will be protected from the harsh realities of their crimes, the turning in of arms amounts to window dressing for Congress and NGO’s because they will not be required to reveal information about the paramilitary financing and methods. On top of this, they will not be detained for any undue length of time.

The CIA and its corporate covers in the monopolisation of the drug wars wish to hold onto and protect their assets while expanding and mopping up drug operations. Drug lords are bought off and given immunity in exchange for their illegal wealth while ex-paramilitaries are “re-integrated” back into the community. The latter means, of course, that these psychopaths have been hired back into the national police and army with a ridiculous assurance that no arms will be given to these men. Given Colombia’s record, this is nonsense. It is also an interesting example of the U.S. predilection for recycling military and special ops personnel back into its cover corporations abroad. We may well have the same practice happening in Colombia, with the priority going to private security firms, replicating the standards that Dyncorp is now so famous for. It seems everyone is a winner, except that is, the citizens of Colombia and its lost children. After all, mechanics, trainers, maintenance and administrative workers, logistics experts, rescuers and pilots and CIA agents with fat pay packets are all busy helping to fleece what is left of the country on a variety of support operations. For Dyncorp and CSC, exploitation ratios are its primary measure of success.

In an article by Journalist Uri Dowbenko he includes an explication of the financial mechanics behind Dyncorp’s free reign in the “War on Drugs” propaganda. Catherine Austin Fitts, former FHA Commissioner in the Bush Sr. Administration and former CEO of Hamilton Securities outlines how they do it where she refers to the creation of Stock Value or Capital Gains as “Pop” in Wall Street jargon:

If DynCorp has a $60 million per year contract supporting knowledge management for asset seizures in the United States,” she says. “The current proxy shows that they value their stock, which they buy and sell internally, at approximately 30 times earnings. So, if a contract has a 5-10percent profit, then per $100 million of contracts, DynCorp makes about $5-$10 million, which translates into $150 million to $300 million of stock value. That means that for a $200 million contract, with average earnings of 5-10percent ($10 million to $20 million), DynCorp is generating $300 million to $600 million of stock value.

Pug Winokur of Capricorn Holdings appears to have about 5 percent ownership, which means that his partnerships’ stock value increase $15-$30 million from the War in Colombia. If the DynCorp team kills 100 people, as an example, then that means they make $1.5 – $3 million per death. That way the Pop per Dead Colombian can be estimated, or, how much capital gains can be made from killing one Colombian. Since DynCorp was also in the Gulf and in Kosovo, we should be able to calculate the relative value of killing people in various cultures and nationalities. Pug Winokur’s partnership, under these assumptions, makes $75,000 to $250,000 of Pop per Dead Colombian. ^{^[13]}

Of course, Bush’s anti-terror bill injected more financial aid to President Alvare Uribe’s right-wing government and managed to destroy much of the progress on human rights of the last few decades. It also smoothed the way for a doubling of the number of US troops and US contractors allowed in Colombia such as Dyncorp and Textron (the military helicopter firm) which continued from 2005 to 2009. The displacement of an already acutely oppressed people has reached 3 million and is worsening as a direct result of U.S. policy and the outsourcing of its global agenda.

Dyncorp is nothing more than the extension of the Pentagon’s foreign policy strategies from Bosnia to Colombia, Somalia to Haiti. Regime change required? Then call in a private security firm to sow the seeds of discontent by arming and training the waiting oppositions. This is exactly what happened when Somalia had the briefest window of opportunity for a democratic peace. After warlords had controlled the country for over fifteen years the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) had managed to wrest control from these chaotic and bloody factions during the summer of 2006. Despite the very real chance of a respite from war and carnage the US was in the region busily training Ethiopian troops who then invaded Somalia in December of that year backed up by US air raids.

The pretext of Al-Qaeda infesting the country was used. It was the same propganda employed in the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and most of Africa – in fact, any other country which has bountiful resources. As the US proxy government was placed back into power Dyncorp was airlifted in with a fat $10 million contract in the following year for “peacekeeping” and “logistical support,” thus replacing the more costly presence of US combat forces. In other words, this was a proxy army to complete the proxy government. ^{^[14]}

After the CIA-backed coup in Haiti and the toppling of Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide, Dyncorp was drafted in by the U.S. State Department to protect Boniface Alexandre, yet another US puppet wheeled into to their bidding. Dyncorp is now busy training police in the country. ^{^[15]}

The U.N. General Assembly adopted the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries in 1989 where around nineteen states ratified the Convention and nine states have signed but have yet to ratify. This followed with a further amendment to the convention in 1992 which was similarly ignored. It was also declared that “the use of mercenaries is a threat to international peace and security,” and that all were “Deeply concerned about the menace that the activities of mercenaries represent for all States, particularly African and other developing States” as well as “Profoundly alarmed at the continued international criminal activities of mercenaries in collusion with drug traffickers…” ^{^[16]} At least three of the countries are officially known to have flouted the Convention. ^{^[17]} The twenty-two States that have completed the constitutional procedures that bind them to the Convention are: Azerbaijan, Barbados, Belarus, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Italy, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Suriname, Togo, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay and Uzbekistan. The nine other States that have signed but not ratified it are: Angola, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Germany, Morocco, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia and … The United States. ^{^[18]}

The extent of this indignation and concern was shown in the 1997 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on mercenaries regarding the growth market in mercenary activity: “In what appears to be a new international trend, legally registered companies are providing security, advisory and military training to the armed forces and police of legitimate Governments. There have been complaints that some of these companies recruit mercenaries and go beyond advisory and instruction work to become involved in military combat and taking over political, economic and financial matters in the country served.” ^{^[19]} With the United States maintaining a military presence in 148 of the 192 United Nations countries, it is set to remain both a lucrative and controversial field of activity well into the future. ^{^[20]}

While Dyncorp’s associations with the UN already reek of hypocrisy, these naïve protestations are further laid bare when we realize that Lifeguard Security, a company linked to Executive Outcomes, a U.K. mercenary company, was responsible for guarding U.N. offices and residences in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown in 2004. The refusal of the U.K. a major manufacturer of weapons and source of mercenaries to sign the Convention was given an embarrassing exercise in exposition with the Equatorial Guinea Mercenaries Coup affair. Sir Mark Thatcher and Simon Mann’s forays into the arms business were highlighted in spectacular fashion, revealing an industry that rarely gets a mention yet is so instrumental in the destinies of government coups everywhere. ^{^[21]}

Let’s have a brief look at some of these companies.

The Vinnell Corporation, part of the Northrop-Grumman merger in 2000, employs ex-military and CIA personnel as well as having close connections with concurrent U.S. administrations. It has had a contractual relationship to train the Saudi Arabian National Guard since 1975. This led to Bush condemning an attack in Riyadh in May 2003 that killed at least 30 people. it was blamed, of course, on Al-Qaeda.

True to the infantile propaganda that is circulating so effectively via the U.S. media every violent event and atrocity is traced back to the insidious tentacles of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network. This is very often the role of security companies such as Vinnell that act as foreign policy enforcers. They are there to prop up the regime and to keep dissidents at bay, hence they become targets. This is not dissimilar to the “insurgents” in Iraq who attack those intent on planting bombs and creating the seeds of a civil war. Under cover of chaos it is far easier to go about your business of fleecing the countries resources and laying plans for future geo-political monopolies. The terror wars are fuelling the security business growth and in turn, it is ensuring that terrorism remains a global menace, much to the delight of arms dealers everywhere. Companies such as Vance International specialize in American corporate executives travelling overseas, wealthy foreigners visiting the United States and the extravagance of Hollywood stars. It is renowned for using mostly ex-military men for “asset protection.”

Global Options which provides high-end security, intelligence and investigative services, billing itself as a “private CIA, FBI, State Department and Justice Department wrapped up into one.” Not forgetting its emphasis on “defending corporate America” which should fill us all with confidence. ^{^[22]}Control Risk Grp., and MPRI specialise in providing training mercenaries for armies worldwide. Although many corporations would feign incredulity at such heinous accusations, security corporations all provide services of “risk mitigation” and “executive or asset protection;” hired by governments, intelligence agencies and the 1% elite to do their dirty work outside of Congressional or Parliamentary oversight. Which makes Sandline International CEO Tim Spicer’s attempt to take the moral high ground particularly ridiculous. With the winding up of his company’s operations he left a petulant message on his now defunct website bemoaning lack of “government support”:

“On 16 April 2004 Sandline International announced the closure of the company’s operations. The general lack of governmental support for Private Military Companies willing to help end armed conflicts in places like Africa, in the absence of effective international intervention, is the reason for this decision. Without such support the ability of Sandline to make a positive difference in countries where there is widespread brutality and genocidal behaviour is materially diminished.”

The reality was that Sandline got caught red-handed doing what it shouldn’t and the government pulled up the ladders and claimed no knowledge which is what they do. The fact that an historical Western corporatism and its pathocratic enablers are the original cause of endemic corruption and destablisation within those countries also seems to have escaped the colonel’s worldview.

Other security contractors making mega-bucks in 2014 include:

Erinys – guarded most of Iraq’s vital oil assets
Academi – (formerly Blackwate r and Xe) owns and runs one of the most advanced private military training facilities in the world.
Unity Resources Group – active in the Middle East, Africa, the Americas and Asia
Triple Canopy – won a security contract in Iraq worth up to $1.5 billion
Aegis Defense Service – works with the UN, US, and oil companies
Defion Internacional – recruits thousands of fighters from developing countries
G4S (orginaly known as the Wackenhut Corp.) – the largest security contractor in the world that has it’s dirty fingers in most of the globes conflicts. (more on Wackenhut’s history in the next post)

Ethics are not going to be top of the list in any of these businesses that would clearly kill the local nursery teacher if the contract fee was high enough. What is more, the nature of the US Army and Navy means that they are chock full of the kinds of psychological profiles most attracted to such work which would include psychopaths, sociopaths, jackals and skirtoids which are then used as the pool from which private security firms draw their personnel. Former FBI agents, intelligence directors, Delta-Force, Air-Force, SWAT, Army Intelligence operatives, Secret Service agents, CIA veterans, Navy Seals and ex-Marines – you name it, the demand is there for such men and women. Security services and mercenaries for hire act as funnels to the US military and secret service in order to save money, resources and to actualise foreign policy moves beyond the radar of independent media and the public. Remember of course at a certain level, there is no such thing as a former FBI or CIA agent or any government intelligence operative.

As controversy about rendition and torture continues to bubble, private security firms are merging with the free-market to produce a boom in private finance deals both in Europe as well as the US Private-sector firms are even sponsoring academics and researchers and helping to formulate government penal and criminal justice policy, no doubt tailored towards an increasing reliance on profit over public interest. Stephen Nathan, editor of Prison Privatisation Report International said, regarding then Denmark-based Group 4 and its services: “The increasing influence of the private sector in the criminal justice system means shareholders’ interests come first. Who shapes criminal justice policy? Is it professionals, politicians and the public? Or is it Group 4 shareholders?” ^{^[23]}

Though the tired suggestion that it is simply market forces and intense competition that has led to the prison services adopting more aggressively commercial approaches, this does not address the issue of rising crime rates of young offenders. For those ready to provide the means to sweep problems out of sight and out of mind it promises to remains an unending money-spinner.

End Note: This particular piece was written almost a decade ago. Since that time, Dyncorp International has certainly smartened up its PR and marketing. It has a slick website and a special “Social Responsibility” section and even an “A” rating on the Defence Companies Anti-Corruption Index. Unfortunately, a predator is a predator. While it may do its best to change it’s spots – even extinguish internal corruption and crime about which you will read below – it is still a corporation which outsources “guns for hire,” complete with logistical and technological know-how. As such, it continues to act as a de-facto arm of the American Empire and fans the flames of conflict simply by doing its job.

The whole idea of US policing the world and is thus an “interference” is a view offered by the progressive left and it is missing the point. It is far worse than this. Companies like Dyncorp are a hugely lucrative part of Corporate America. As the Empire becomes over-stretched, their remit is to facilitate long-term presence in countries through private means. This is not a misguided policy of over-protection and policing, as though this is somehow about good intentions gone awry. It is about the maintenance of a sprawling corporate-security complex offering further geopolitical leverage without committing further troops on the ground. It has the added advantage for military-corporate partnerships to remain a little deeper under the radar when comes to the mainstream media.

The presence of men “addicted to adrenalin” adds to the probability of civil conflict and abuse. Sure enough, this still proves to be the case, despite Dyncorp’s probably genuine attempts at instilling ethics and values training for its office workers. It even supports a children’s charity in the region which, from an historical perspective is truly ironic. Corporate philanthropy and conflict has always gone hand in hand because it’s good PR. But all this is a drop in the ocean when the overarching directive of such companies is destabilisation. When you have ex-veterans walking around with automatic weapons, hearts pumping and looking for action; roaming around a country that has been destroyed by the very same forces – it’s hardly likely to end well. Corporations working for military, intelligence and US defence attending a children’s charity gala while acting as a stay-behind occupying force won’t work.

What Afghanistan and Iraq really need is ZERO American military presence and CIVILIAN personnel from genuine NGOs who have no political and military affiliations.

Reports in from 2011-2014 suggest that initiatives like Village Stability Operations (ALP) are a euphemism for creating a network of staging posts which maintain a massive presence in regions across Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries formerly trashed by the Anglo-American-Israeli invaders. The only reason these private armies are there is to maintain presence. Re-building infrastructure and assisting the population in recovering from Western aggression only occurs as an incidental practice. The primary objective is to create a country contoured toward Western strategies as they play out in the regions.

Mint Press News reported on the studies by the Congressional Research Service, titled “Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security and U.S. Policy”, a report which drew attention to the negative effects private security forces have in regions suffering from civil war, tribal conflict and geopolitical sensitivity. Although, it seems to me that is precisely why such companies are there in the first place …

The report stated:

“An outgrowth of the Village Stability Operations is the Afghan Local Police (ALP) program in which the U.S. Special Operations Forces conducting the Village Stability Operations set up and train local security organs of about 300 members each. These local units are under the control of district police chiefs and each fighter is vetted by a local shura as well as Afghan intelligence. There are about 23,000 ALP operating in nearly 100 districts. A total of 169 districts have been approved for the program, and there are expected to be 30,000 ALP on duty by December 2015. However, the ALP program, and associated and preceding such programs discussed below, were heavily criticized in a September 12, 2011, Human Rights Watch report citing wide-scale human rights abuses (killings, rapes, arbitrary detentions, and land grabs) committed by the recruits. The report triggered a U.S. military investigation that substantiated many of those findings, although not the most serious of the allegations. … In May 2012, Karzai ordered one ALP unit in Konduz disbanded because of its alleged involvement in a rape there. ALP personnel reportedly were responsible for some of the insider attacks in 2012.” ^{^[24]}

But you won’t hear about that on Dyncorp’s website because outsourcing the empire is unlikely to fade away any time soon. But keep pushing those values and training programs. Who knows? Perhaps that will deliver enough rationalisations for those working within a corporation which actively profits from extending America’s security and logistical reach into resource-rich countries.

We help destroy your country and make money.

Then we help rebuild it and make money.

That way the banksters are also happy. And that, as we know, is all that matters.

Notes

[1] The Center for International Policy’s Colombia Project http://www.ciponline.org/ The Plan Colombia (Copy obtained from the Colombian Embassy to the United States, October 1999.) ‘Plan Colombia: Plan For Peace, Prosperity, and the Strengthening of the State.’
[2] Drug Trafficking, Political Violence and US Policy in Colombia in the 1990s Dr. Bruce Michael Bagley, Professor of International Studies, School of International Studies, University of Miami, CIDE ciencias socials, http://www.cide.edu/
[3] ‘Colombia: Stoking the fires of conflict’ Amnesty International, Terror Trade Times, 2001.
[4] ‘DynCorp’s Drug Problem’ by Jason Vest, The Nation, July 3, 2001.
[5] Private Warriors by Ken Silverstein, published by Verso July 2000.
[6] ‘A Plane is Shot Down and the US Proxy War on Drugs Unravels’by Julian Borger, The Guardian, June 2, 2001.
[7] ‘DynCorp Charged with Terrorism Lawsuit Unites U.S. Workers & Ecuador Farmers vs. Fumigation’ Part I of a Series By Al Giordano ‘Lawsuit in U.S. vs. Fumigation on Ecuador Border’ Narco News narco.com.
[8] ‘Fumigations Continue in Colombia Despite Court Ordered Suspensions’ Uribe and Bush Administrations in Clear Violation of Colombian Law By Peter Gorman The Narco News Bulletin April 29, 2004. http://www.narco.com
[9] ‘Colombia’s War on Children’ February 2004, Womens’ Commission http://www.watchlist.org/
[10] ‘The Effects of Armed Conflict on Colombian Children’ October 2004, U.S. Office on Colombia http://www.usofficeoncolombia.org.
[11] Ombudsman’s Office, Human Rights Watch, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, 2003,www.hrw.org/
[12] Human Rights Watch Colombia: ‘Human Rights Concerns for the 61st Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights,’ March 2005.
[13] Catherine Austin Fitts quoted in Dirty Tricks, Inc: The DynCorp-Government Connection 2002, by Uri Dowbenko.
[14] ‘DynCorp International’ Company profile by Phil Mattera | http://www.crocodyl.org May 19, 2010
[15] Ibid.
[16] United Nations Resolution A/RES/47/84, 89th plenary meeting, 16 December 1992. Use of mercenaries as a means to violate human rights and to impede the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination. http://www.un.org/
[17] International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, Resolution 44/34,72nd plenary meeting 4 December 1989. United Nations General Assembly, http://www.un.org/
[18] ‘International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries’ http://www.sourcewatch.org
[19] The Debate on Private Military companies 1997 report by the UN Special Rapporteur.
[20] ‘Ron Paul says U.S. has military personnel in 130 nations and 900 overseas bases’ Politi Fact.com Tampa Bay Times:http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/14/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-us-has-military-personnel-130-nation
[21] ‘Straw: We did know of Africa coup’ By Antony Barnett and Martin Bright, The Observer, November 14, 2004
[22] http://www.globaloptions.com1047 ‘Crime pays handsomely for Britain’s private jails’ By Nick Mathiason, The Observer, March 11 2001.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Exclusive: Private Security Contractors, Fanning The Flames In Afghanistan? (AUDIO) Presence of US-backed private security in Afghanistan seems only to contribute to the ongoing violence. By Jo Erickson | October 16, 2013.