More Censored News

Censorship: Editors the blood is on your hands

2009-11-23T09:55:00.001-08:00

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

By Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- During the past few weeks, there's been a wave of censorship and news distortion surrounding events in Tucson. In the first case, the O'odham Solidarity Project hosted the event, "Apartheid in America: Surviving Occupation in O'odham Lands."

There is a series of ways that this event was censored by editors and publishers. First of all, most didn't even send reporters. Then, there are reporters who wrote articles that were not published. Here is the primary way that editors censor a reporter's article. They say, "Get the other side of the story." In the case of the O'odham event, speakers spoke and there was no opposition. Their words deserve to be quoted.

Of course the bottom line was that most newspapers did not want to risk quoting the controversial Ward Churchill, the guest speaker. They were afraid to print his words and engaged in a form of censorship. In the borderzone, the media is reluctant to point out the similarities between the militarization of the US/Mexico border and the border of Palestine. Along with the militarization and oppression, the two borders have in common the same spy industry contractor, the Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems, subcontracted in the US by Boeing. The city of Tucson is nursed by the poison milk of war manufacturers and military operations.

The O'odham Solidarity Event offered a special potency because of the presentations by Ofelia Rivas and her brother Julian Rivas, O'odham living on the border, a region militarized by US border agents, where the elected tribal government and tribal police oppress their own people. Here, O'odham have no civil rights. O'odham and migrants are murdered by US border agents who are never held accountable.

The second case of news distortion was in the coverage of the Southwest Weekend of Witness to End Torture. In one newspaper's coverage, both the peaceful protesters and the counter protesters were covered as if they stood on the same moral ground. However, to report this accurately as a journalist, the newspaper should have pointed out that the counter protesters screamed insults and slurs constantly.

Sierra Vista, home to Fort Huachuca's US Army Intelligence Center, made the news in recent years when the Ku Klux Klan joined with Minutemen. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists Sierra Vista as the home of a hate organization, the anti-immigrant American Border Patrol. This climate of hate, with its rancid hate speech, was obvious during the peaceful vigil, protest and walk.

Of course neither AP nor the major newspapers in the US sent reporters to cover the US torture vigil. Those present at the vigil called for an end to US torture, the closure of Guantanamo and an end to drones. Drones, unmanned aerial vehicles are now carrying out "rogue assassinations," and killing civilians.

At Fort Huachuca, five people peacefully crossed over onto the army base and were voluntarily arrested to bring attention to Fort Huachuca's longstanding role in publishing torture manuals and training soldiers who carry out torture. The production of the School of Americas torture manual was here, a fact made public by the US in 1996. Major Gen. Barbara Fast, who previously served at Fort Huachuca, was the chief of interrogations at Abu Ghraib.

During the 1970s and 1980s, tens of thousands of people in the Americas were tortured, raped and assassinated as a result of US torture training by the School of the Americas. The US kidnappings and torture continues around the world, masked with the words "secret renditions." Mercenaries, such as Blackwater, now XE, murdered with impunity. Bush and Cheney have not been held accountable for violating the Geneva Conventions.

So, for those editors and publishers who censor and distort the facts of the oppression at the border, and the United States role in ongoing torture and assassinations, the blood is also on your hands.

Video coverage of the O'odhan event and torture vigil and arrests at:
http://www.livestream.com/earthcycles
Photos and articles at Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Map:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp

KPFK: Cloaking morality with genocide Thanks/Giving

2009-11-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

American Indian Airwaves regularly broadcast every Monday from 8pm to 9pm

Listen online live and to archives
11/23/09, Monday, on American Indian Airwaves

"Cloaking Morality within Genocide: Reciprocity by Confounding Thanks/Giving"
George E. (Tink) Tinker (Osage Nation), Professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at Iliff School of Theology ( http://www.iliff.edu/academics/faculty/profiles/gtinker/index.php ) joins us today to discuss the settler society's collective amnesia, reinforcing the master, colonial narrative inclusive of the Thanksgiving Holiday, how governments, institutions, and agencies across America are using the month of "November", established as "Native American Heritage Month" ("Indian in the Cupboard Syndrome"), as a means to coopt, placate and pacify indigenous peoples from engaging in critical forms of decolonization, self-determination and sovereignty; and why "Native American Heritage Month" is based off the Thanksgiving Holiday and not any important Indigenous persons contribution to Indigenous peoples and their respective First Nations.
American Indian Airwaves regularly broadcast every Monday from 8pm to 9pm (PCT) on KPFK FM 90.7 in Los Angles, FM 98.7 in Santa Barbara, and by Internet with Real Media Player, Winamp, & Itunes at http://www.kpfk.org
and every Tuesday from 9pm to 10pm (ECT) on WCRS 98.3/102.1 in Columbus, OH. Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/aiairwaves
SPECIAL NOTICE: weekly shows can now be heard on the KPFK web site ( http://www.kpfk.org ) under "audio archives" located on the top of the KPFK webpage.

Mohawk Splitting the Sky to Hugo Chavez: 'Why I tried to arrest George Bush'

2009-11-22T19:32:00.000-08:00

Why I Tried to Arrest George W. Bush

By Splitting the Sky

“We need a real criminal investigation into the most horrific crime ever to take place on American soil, and we need it now.” Thomas Keane head of the 911 Commission hearings Sept 6th, 2009 Bush's “perpetual war” is taking aim at Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and Iran—all rich in petroleum. The U.S. backed brutal Israeli war against the Palestinians seeks to maintain U.S. hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East. U.S. military support to Colombia is now openly admitted by the Bush administration to be aimed at protecting pipelines and putting down popular insurgency. Similarly, the recent U.S.-backed coup attempt against the Chavez government of Venezuela had much to do with controlling that country's petroleum riches. Increasingly, U.S. and world public opinion is awakening to the hidden agenda of the “war on terrorism”—the corporate frenzy to plunder oil and other resources in the petroleum-rich arc stretching from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. The war in Afghanistan is central to reaping super profits from all that “black gold.” Karen Talbot

“Control oil and you control nations. Control food and you control people", Henry Kissinger

“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the Bush administration has committed war crimes.” US Major General Antonio Taguba, the retired major general who investigated abuses in Iraq. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

“Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy" Henry Kissinger.

“I am not aware of any evidence showing that President Bush or members of his administration have personally profited from the attacks of 9-11. A complete investigation might reveal that to be the case. For example, it is known that President Bush's father, through the Carlyle Group had - at the time of the attacks - joint business interests with the bin Laden construction company and many defense industry holdings, the stocks of which, have soared since September 11. On the other hand, what is undeniable is that corporations close to the Administration have directly benefited from the increased defense spending arising from the aftermath of September 11. The Carlyle Group, DynCorp, and Halliburton certainly stand out as companies close to this Administration. Secretary Rumsfeld maintained in a hearing before Congress that we can afford the new spending, even though the request for more defense spending is the highest increase in twenty years and the Pentagon has lost $2.3 trillion” Cynthia McKinney

Who could have placed explosives in the World Trade Center (WTC) towers? This is the second essay in a series that attempts to answer that question. The first installment began by considering the tenants that occupied the impact zones and the other floors that might have played a useful role in the demolition of the WTC towers. [1] The result was a picture of connections to organizations that had access to explosive materials and to the expertise required to use explosives. Additionally it was seen that, in the years preceding 9/11, the impact zone tenants had all made structural modifications to the areas where the airliners struck the buildings.

The management representatives of these tenant companies were seen to be secretive and powerful. Through these powerful people, the tenants were connected to organizations that benefited greatly from the 9/11 attacks, including the defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Halliburton, and Science Applications International Corp (SAIC). The tenants also had strong connections to the Bush family and their corporate network, including Dresser Industries (now Halliburton) and UBS, and to Deutsche Bank and its subsidiaries, reported to have brokered the insider trading deals. There were also links between these tenant companies and the terrorist-financing Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Kevin Ryan
“The hypothesis which is gaining strength which was said on television last night and which could soon blow up is that it was the same US imperial power that planned and carried out this terrible terrorist attack or act against its own people and against citizens from all over the world. Why, to justify the aggression that was immediately released on Afghanistan, on Iraq and the threats against all of us and against Venezuela too. In the Bush administration, the US lost its traditional respect for the rule of law”. Hugo Chavez, CNN August 19th, 2008
“It has been eight years of 11 September 2001, Unforgettable. How to forget the day when the most brutal imperial scaling. No one can question the official version presented by Bush about the events that occurred in New York. But the most terrible thing was that this attack was used as an excuse to provoke a war against terrorism which has allowed the empire to run over peoples and sovereignties with impunity. This happened with Afghanistan and Iraq. There is also the apartheid the Palestinian people lives in the hands of the Israeli state as a demonstration of those who are really the world terrorists”…President Chavez
“Actor Charlie Sheen has joined a growing army of other highly credible public figures in questioning the official story of 9/11 and calling for a new independent investigation of the attack and the circumstances surrounding it. Over the past two years, scores of highly regarded individuals have gone public to express their serious doubts about 9/11. These include former presidential advisor and CIA analyst Ray McGovern, the father of Reaganomics and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Paul Craig Roberts, BYU physics Professor Steven Jones, former German defense minister Andreas von Buelow, former MI5 officer David Shayler, former Blair cabinet member Michael Meacher, former Chief Economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush’s first term Morgan Reynolds and many more.”

Wake up! Know that it's not just the "Conspiracy Therorists" that are questioning 9-11! Hundreds of politicians, reporters, university professors, entertainers, etc. have questions. We don't know what happened, but the evidence points to government involvement! Max Cleland, former member of the 9-11 Commission, shares some of his views about the war and the 9-11 Commission's findings.

Former military analyst and famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg recently said that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers". He also said that the government is ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11. And he said that some of the claims concerning government involvement in 9/11 are credible, that "very serious questions have been raised about what they [U.S. government officials] knew before hand and how much involvement there might have been", that engineering 9/11 would not be humanly or psychologically beyond the scope of the current administration, and that there's enough evidence to justify a new, "hard-hitting" investigation into 9/11 with subpoenas and testimony taken under oath.

''it wouldn't shock me if, 30 years from now, we discover in the (CIA) declassified record that the 9/11 (truth movement) industry is being fed by the administration.' Noam Chomsky

"If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”Adolph Hitler

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather a vigilant and tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." – Samuel Adams

Dear President Chavez,

Allow me to say from the onset that it is indeed with great honor that I write this very long but most urgent letter to you and the peoples of Venezuela.

Like you Mr. President, I am no friend of George Bush either as well as the rest of the neo-conservative cabal within his cabinet that took us down the long road to hell in its bogus war on terror which according to Dick Cheney “will not end in our lifetime”.

In fact brother Hugo, I despised G.W. Bush so bad that on March 17th, 2009, I attempted to perform a citizens arrest of him as a credibly accused war criminal at the Telus Convention Center in Calgary Alberta also know as Texas north. There were close to 500 policemen and women in full riot gear and mode as well as numerous suspected Black water type mercenaries which act as Bushes private security whom are shown in camouflage outfits including balaclavas with their sniper rifles pointed directly at me as I broke the police line to arrest Bush. Quite simply put I risked taking a bullet or more to arrest this despicable war criminal.

Prior to the demonstration which was held that day which over 700 people shouted in unisons that Bush be arrested, I had asked my personal lawyer Ramsey Clark the former US Attorney general of the U.S.A. under Lyndon B. Johnson if I was within my rights to attempt this dangerous arrest. Mr. Clark informed me that I was and as well he sent a solidarity statement to us demonstrators at my coaxing wherein he adamantly stated,

“We dare not blink at the magnitude, diversity and pervasive impact of the known crimes committed by the Bush administration. Wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq , the Supreme International Crime, have killed hundreds of thousands outright, wounded, sickened and malnourished many more than they have killed and sent millions as refugees to neighboring nations while rendering homeless millions more. Indiscriminate killing of civilians, summary execution, arbitrary seizures of people and property, secret unlimited detention and torture have been authorized, widely practiced and both defended and denied publicly. President Bush, the self-proclaimed “decider,” reached for unlimited dictatorial power whenever he proclaimed the national security was threatened. And he considered himself above the law where domestic affairs were concerned even a he signed Acts of Congress into law.

Ramsey Clark was one of my attorneys in a celebrated case in 1975 were I was accused of killing a prison guard during the infamous insurrection turned massacre by New York State police at Attica state prison near Buffalo New York on September 9-13th, 1971.

Another lawyer named Michael Ratner former head of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City along with his ex- wife Margaret Ratner and her husband the famous civil rights attorney William Kunstler( subject of a recent film release called Disturbing the Universe) all assisted in my Attica related murder trial to which I would be the only man convicted for any charge, including the fact that the New York State troopers shot over 50 thousand rounds of bullets from fully automatic weapons and killed 43 people which included 11 hostages in the retaking of the prison. They were granted along with prison guards a blanket amnesty from criminal prosecution by Hugh Carey who succeeded Nelson Rockefeller as governor.

An Attica prosecutor investigating charges of torture and murder by state troopers to be presented to a second grand jury named Malcolm Bell, charged Nelson Rockefeller with attempting to tamper with a second grand jury while he was facing confirmation hearings in the Senate for his seat as Vice president of the US under Gerald Ford.

Michael Ratner and the Center for Constitutional Rights (USA) have worked tirelessly to expose the war crimes committed by the Bush regime. He and the Center for Constitutional Rights has issued this statement in part to that relative to torture at the hands of the Bush regime,

"Evidence of the criminal activities of the Bush administration is exceedingly well documented. It is apparent in Bush administration memos, FOIA documents, congressional hearings, court documents, the testimony of victims, innumerable investigative news articles and books and direct admissions by intelligence, military and administration officials. The evidence shows that officials at the very highest level including Bush himself, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and CIA Director George Tenet were directly involved in illegal activities, including torture and war crimes.

In the face of this blatant lawbreaking and institutionalized torture and war crimes committed by the Bush administration, now is the time for accountability. The mechanism exists to hold these officials accountable for their criminal behavior and dissuade future government officials from engaging in torture, war crimes, warrant less surveillance of Americans, and other lawbreaking activities – criminal prosecution of those responsible.
A full investigation and prosecution of these actions by the Bush administration is necessary for the Obama administration to meaningfully reassert the rule of law in the United States. Government officials are not above the law and their actions impact the lives of millions of people around the world. Prosecuting these officials for their activities is, in fact, a meaningful mechanism for securing justice for the victims and the survivors of torture and war crimes, as well as for deterring future government officials from repeating this conduct.

While the Bush administration hardly represented the first foray of the U.S. government into torture, its brazen conduct has set an example that must be repudiated -- as strongly as it was asserted -- through full investigation and criminal prosecution."

Noted author and lawyer Vincent Bugliosi weighs in with this comment, "If we prosecute those in America who only commit one murder, under what theory don't we prosecute a president who is criminally responsible for over four thousand murders?"
Gail Davidson who Chairs for the Lawyers Against War (LAW) in Vancouver B.C. Canada wrote weeks before the demonstration in Calgary this letter to the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which we incorporated into to our press packets and determination to keep Bush out of Canada and to arrest him should he enter. She had this to say in her letter.
Attention Officer in Charge of RCMP War Crimes Section; George W. Bush is reported to be planning to visit Calgary Alberta on or before March 17, 2009 as a guest of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce We are writing to report that:
• George W. Bush, former President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, is inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), section 35(1)(a)because of overwhelming evidence that he has ‘committed, outside Canada, torture and other offences referred to in sections 4 to 7 of the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHWC); and,

• The George W. Bush Administration has engaged in “systematic or

gross human rights violations, or a war crime or a crime against humanity within the meaning of subsections 6(3) to (5) of the CAHWC.

We request that the RCMP War Crimes Section immediately take the following steps:

• begin an investigation of George W. Bush for aiding, abetting and Counseling torture between November 13, 2001 and November 2008 at Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Bagram prison in Afghanistan and other places; and,

• advise the Prime Minister, Attorney General of Canada and Ministers of Immigration and Public Safety that the George W. Bush Administration is a “government that has engaged in torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity and therefore G.W. Bush, as former President, is also inadmissible under section 35(1)(b) of the IRPA.

Overwhelming evidence of these allegations against both G.W. Bush and the Bush Administration is widely available. These allegations have triggered Canada’s duty to act to use all legal means to ensure the appropriate investigations, remedies and responses. Canada’s international legal duties specifically prohibit treating these acts as legal, as ignoring the IRPA and allowing Bush into Canada would do.

Under sections 4 to 7 of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, "crimes against humanity" include murder, enforced disappearance, deportation, imprisonment, torture and imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law, committed against any civilian population or any identifiable group. War crimes include willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment, unlawful confinement and willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of fair trial rights.

If there are reasonable grounds to believe a person has been complicit in any of these crimes, entry to Canada must be denied. Reasonable grounds, according to the Supreme Court of Canada are “something more than suspicion but less than…proof on the balance of probabilities.”

Many have concluded that the available evidence establishes conclusively that Bush and the Bush Administration committed torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity and that Canada and other states now have a duty to condemn, investigate, prosecute and punish those crimes.

U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, on March 4, 2009 concluded,

"The [Bush Administration] aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations,"

U. N. Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin, in February 2009 concluded,

“…the United States has created a comprehensive system of extraordinary renditions, prolonged and secret detention, and practices that violate the prohibition against torture and other forms of ill-treatment….States must not aid or assist in the commission of acts of torture, or recognize such practices as lawful, …Under international human rights law, States are under a positive obligation to conduct independent investigations into alleged violations of the right to life, freedom from torture or other inhuman treatment, enforced disappearances or arbitrary detention, to bring to justice those responsible for such acts, and to provide reparations where they have participated in such violations.” (Underlining added)

The RCMP has a duty to investigate and prevent such crimes at common law and also under the War Crimes Program. This program, as you know, was established specifically to meet the challenge of investigating crimes committed outside Canadian territory. The mandate of the War Crimes Program to, “…ensure that the Government of Canada has properly addressed all allegations of war crimes…” is achieved by, “…the RCMP, with the support of DOJ [Department of Justice], investigating allegations involving reprehensible acts that could lead to a possible criminal prosecution.”

Lawyers Against the War is ready, on request, to provide references to evidence of torture. We are confident that other organizations such as the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, National Lawyers Guild, American Civil Liberties Association and the Center for Constitutional Rights would also be ready to assist by providing references to evidence.

We request a reply before March 17, 2009

Respectfully,

Gail Davidson, Lawyers Against the War

The RCMP replied to Gail Davidson by saying basically that they would not stop Bush from entering Canada let alone stop him from speaking at the Telus Convention Center with a two hundred thousand dollar purse from organizers of the event. The majority of the 1,500 people in attendance were oil executives involved in the devastation of the lands of the Lubicon Indian people in their extrapolation of massive amounts oil shale in the Tar Sands of Alberta.

Many of us know that there is national threat to Venezuelans by the current Obama administration who acting on behalf of there masters on Wall street and their lawyers are prepared to launch an invasion into Venezuela under the guise of fighting terror in the same way they orchestrated the coup against you in 2002 which you successfully thwarted with the assistance of the Venezuelan peoples. This planned coup from US interests is reflected in an article from Associated Press and your response on November 8th, 2009 on your weekly radio show.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez says he fears a United States-led invasion launched from neighboring Colombia. Associated Press.
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez on Sunday ordered Venezuela's military to prepare for a possible armed conflict with Colombia, saying his country's soldiers should be ready if the United States attempts to provoke a war between the South American neighbors. Chavez said Venezuela could end up going to war with Colombia as tensions between them rise and he warned that if a conflict broke out "it could extend throughout the whole continent.""The best way to avoid war is preparing for it," Chavez told military officers during his weekly television and radio program. Venezuela's socialist leader has also cited a recent deal between Bogota and Washington giving U.S. troops greater access to military bases as a threat to regional stability.

Mr Chávez warned US President Barack Obama not to get it into his head to use Colombia to launch an attack on Venezuela. He went on to say the US-Colombian accord was a danger to stability in the region. Chavez — former army paratrooper who during more than a decade in power has repeatedly accused Washington of seeking to topple him to seize Venezuela's oil reserves ."The empire is more threatening than ever," Chavez said, referring to the U.S. government. "Don't make a mistake, Mr. Obama by ordering an attack against Venezuela by way of Colombia."

Yes Mr. President and it is also important that we remember the late Ted Kennedy when he stated to Democratic Underground a few years back, “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday attributed tensions between his government and Washington to a U.S. thirst for control of his country's oil.
Chavez praised his government's cooperative oil projects Petrosur and Petrocaribe, which sell Venezuelan fuel to neighboring countries under preferential terms.
"We want to share our oil and gas reserves with the nations of the Caribbean, the nations of Central America, the nations of South America," Chavez said, speaking by phone to an inaugural ceremony for the regional TV channel Telesur.
"What is it the United States wants?" Chavez said. He said through conflict with his government, U.S. leaders want "to assure themselves those resources to support their irrational model of development, which at the same time means underdevelopment and misery for the majority of the world's people."
Faced with that U.S. policy, Chavez said, "We say no." He reiterated, however, that Venezuela intends to keep selling fuel to the United States. Despite political tensions, Venezuela remains a major oil supplier to the United States. The South American country is the world's No. 5 oil exporter. Chavez has repeatedly accused U.S. President George W. Bush's government of being behind efforts to topple him, including a short-lived 2002 coup. U.S. officials have repeatedly denied it. "We want to keep supporting the American people to the point that we can, supplying them energy, but not only to large U.S. companies, or the established power in Washington," Chavez said.
Chavez said Venezuela has oil reserves of more than 300,000 million barrels, which can partly be used to support development in Latin America. "This is very important because there are many citizens across our Latin America who does not have electricity," Chavez said. "There are entire cities that suffer blackouts. There is an energy crisis in the world."
Chavez's opponents have accused him of selling oil under preferential terms to build political alliances. He has defended his government's oil deals, saying they benefit Venezuela as well as the region.

Chavez has repeatedly accused the U.S. of plotting to overthrow him or to invade Venezuela. The U.S. State Department has denied such accused More than ever, these imperial policies are being carried out by top U.S. government leaders, from the President and Vice President to CIA officials, who have direct ties to the corporations and banks which stand to derive super profits from these policies, particularly the oil, energy, banking and military-aerospace sectors.

Brother Hugo coupled with your with reasons to prepare for an orchestrated attack against the government and peoples of Venezuela from the willing robber baron coalition headed by the US for oil is this critique of the real reasons were are in a corporation lead black operation called a war on terror described in Karen Talbot article in part the big Mid East oil game

Unocal and Afghanistan
A consortium headed by Unocal had for years sought to build gas and oil pipelines from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea.

A major reason for Washington's support of the Taliban between 1994 and 1997 was the expectation that they would swiftly conquer the whole country, enabling Unocal to build a pipeline there.

Central Asian expert Ahmed Rashid said: “Impressed by the ruthlessness and willingness of the then-emerging Taliban to cut a pipeline deal, the State Department and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency agreed to funnel arms and funding to the Taliban in their war against the ethnically Tajik Northern Alliance. As recently as 1999, U.S. taxpayers paid the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official ...”

“When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing,” John Pilger wrote in The British Daily Mirror. “Why? Because Taliban leaders were soon on their way to Houston, Texas, to be entertained by executives of the oil company, Unocal.”

“With secret U.S. government approval, the company offered them a generous cut of the profits of the oil and gas pumped through a pipeline that the Americans wanted to build from the Soviet central Asia through Afghanistan ...”

“Although the deal fell through, it remains an urgent priority of the administration of George W. Bush, which is steeped in the oil industry. Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian basin ... Only if the pipeline runs through Afghanistan can the Americans hope to control it.”

According to Ishtiaq Ahmad, of Eastern Mediterranean University in Cyprus, the Bush administration held negotiations with the Taliban early in 2001, despite a developing rift over terms of the pipeline scheme. Laila Helms, public relations agent for the Taliban (and niece of Richard Helms, former CIA chief), brought an advisor of Mullah Omar to Washington as recently as March 2001. One of the negotiating meetings was held just one month before Sept. 11.

“At one moment during one of the negotiations, U.S. representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs',” said Charles Brisard, co-author of the popular French book, “Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth.”

After Sept. 11, it became much easier to win international support for bombing the Taliban.

Karen later states the head of the newly established “interim” Afghan government conjured up by the Bush administration, Hamid Karzai, has been a CIA covert operator since the 1980s, according to the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan. Karzai supported the Taliban and was a consultant for Unocal.

Bush's envoy to the new government, Zalmay Khalizad, also worked for Unocal. He drew up the risk analysis for the pipeline in 1997, lobbied for the Taliban and took part in negotiations with them. Khalizad was a special advisor to the State Department under Reagan and a key liaison with the mujahideen. He is now on the National Security Council, reporting to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Enron and other Bush connections

The direct connections between Bush administration personnel and the oil, energy, and military-industrial corporations are very intimate. Here are only a few:

The proposed Baku-Ceyhan pipeline is represented by the Baker & Botts law firm. The principal attorney is James Baker, former secretary of state and chief Bush campaign spokesman in the Florida vote struggle.

In 1994, Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, was a member of Kazakhstan's Oil Advisory Board and helped broker a deal between Chevron and Kazakhstan. Rice is a member of the board of Chevron.

Brown & Root - a unit of Halliburton - will be upgrading the U.S. air base in Uzbekistan. According to an article in Stars and Stripes, “Brown & Root ... is expected to take charge of base camp maintenance, airfield services and fuel supplies ... run the dining halls and laundry service and oversee the Morale, Welfare and Recreation program.”

Brown & Root performs similar lucrative services at other bases, including those in Bosnia and Kosovo, notably the giant permanent Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo conveniently near the soon-to-be constructed trans-Balkan AMBO pipeline.

Enron Corp., closely linked with Bush and Cheney, conducted the feasibility study for the $2.5 billion trans-Caspian pipeline, a joint venture with Turkmenistan, Bechtel Corp. and General Electric.

Enron had a $3 billion investment in the Dabhol power plant near Bombay, India, the single biggest direct foreign investment in India's history. There was massive opposition to the project in India, due to the huge costs to consumers (700 percent more than from other sources). Enron's survival depended on getting a cheaper source of gas and oil to save the project. This could be solved by the building of a branch of the proposed natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan, to terminate in Multan, Pakistan, near the India border. Also, in 1997 Enron announced it was going to spend over $1 billion building and improving lines within India, so the gas would be piped from Multan to the Bombay Enron plant.

Enron was expecting also to cash in on the main spur of the pipeline ending on the Pakistan coast, from which hydrocarbon supplies would be exported to the vast Asian markets.

Clearly, developments in Afghanistan were critical to Enron. George W. became president just when the India project was in serious trouble. One month later, Vice President Dick Cheney held his first secret meeting with Enron CEO Kenneth Lay. The Bush administration is refusing to reveal the details of this and subsequent consultations with Lay, even in the face of a GAO suit for release of the papers. Nevertheless, it has been documented that the Vice President's energy task force changed a draft energy proposal to include a provision to boost oil and natural gas production in India, clearly targeted to help Enron's Dabhol plant. These are but some of the machinations by Bush and his cohorts to help Enron regarding the India deal. Some of the negotiations with the Taliban to promote the trans-Afghan pipeline and thus also help save Enron transpired just prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Long before Karens article appeared hearing on Capital Hill in Washington DC were conducted where Unocal executive stated to Congress “From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company”. John J. Maresca, vice president of international relations, Unocal Corporation.
So here brother Chavez we see you clearly equating US invasions with oil resources as well as clearly stating numerous times in the past that you believe and I suspect have intelligence data to back up your assertions, that 911 was an inside job, as has a sea of people around the world, come to that conclusion, most recently like Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam who tied Dick Cheney to Unocal Oil and called the deaths of 5,000 US servicemen and women “bullshit”. Can you imagine the seething fury that is resonating throughout the Muslim world by this one statement?
The fact is brother Chavez is that we the people of the world have got to arrest these ruthless war criminals and it is imperative that we figure out the methods and means by which we can run intervention on this unbridled “War on terrorism”, which according to Dick Cheney will not end in our lifetime. This statement came as a result of the horrible massacre which occurred on 9-11-2001. A massacre I believe as well as millions was a false flag operation conducted by the Bush/Cheney regime.

Enter Col. Robert Bowman , Director of the U.S. "Star Wars" space defense program in both Republican and Democratic administrations, who was a senior air force colonel who flew 101 combat missions (Col. Robert Bowman) stated that 9/11 was an inside job. He also said:
"If our government had merely [done] nothing, and I say that as an old interceptor pilot—I know the drill, I know what it takes, I know how long it takes, I know what the procedures are, I know what they were, and I know what they’ve changed them to—if our government had merely done nothing, and allowed normal procedures to happen on that morning of 9/11, the Twin Towers would still be standing and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive. [T]hat is treason!"

And U.S. Army Air Defense Officer and NORAD Tac Director, decorated with the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and the Soldiers Medal (Capt. Daniel Davis) stated:

"there is no way that an aircraft . . . would not be intercepted when they deviate from their flight plan, turn off their transponders, or stop communication with Air Traffic Control ... Attempts to obscure facts by calling them a 'conspiracy Theory' does not change the truth. It seems, 'Something is rotten in the State.' "
Mr. President, statements such as the one Robert Bowman as well as the numerous statements prior to his calling for a new investigation into 911 are imperative both from a pre 9-11 perspective to the post 9-11 perspective. If the Bush/Cheney administration thinks it can get away with mass murder they are sadly mistaken.
We need you Mr. President to help us to uncover the truth so we can run intervention and assist the Venezuelan peoples in an attempt to thwart the eminent war festering on your borders with a US back military build up that waits to topple your administration.

You and the people of Venezuela have already sponsored a commission in 2005 wherein we read this report by Wayne Madsen,

“The failure of the Bush administration to heed these warnings coupled with subsequent intelligence picked up by the Cuban and Venezuelan security services have led them to conclude that 9-11 was carried out as a result of an "inside job" within the Bush administration. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced plans to hold an international 9-11 commission of inquiry in Caracas that will bring together a host of international government, security, and political leaders. Already, preliminary meetings in Caracas for the conference have attracted the attention of the FBI. Recently, an FBI agent asked for the guest list of a hotel on Margarita Island to check on names of guests, including Americans, associated with the preliminary planning meetings for the conference. - Wayne Madsen

More than ever Mr. President we need to conduct a series of hearings from all the brilliant researchers in the 911 movement that have gathered proof beyond a reasonable doubt that 911 was staged by wall street bankers, their lawyers, and the military, industrial, intelligence community. It is far from enough to stage demonstrations in the street to protest the threat the peoples of Venezuela face at this time as the ruling plutocracy in the US and its standing armies and its amoral drone driven weapons of genocide and mass destruction will not stop at in its quest for oil and others resources.

As you very well know the Bush and most prominent Cheney orchestrated 911 as a pretext to invade all resource rich countries of the world as they heed the beckoning of their corporate overlords.

If we are to put a halt to this scorched earth, naked aggression we must expose 9-11 as an inside job as the imperial plunderers continue to use 9-11 as their excuse to bomb populations of Iraqis, Pakistanis, Afghanis and we fear Venezuelans into oblivion. According to Dick Cheney this war on terror will never end in our life time. In others words the executive branch of the US government was able to affect full control of the right to wage war free from congressional oversight and more important free from the restraints of the protocols of war which the US constitution guarantees congress the exclusive power to declare and regulate war matters except in times of a national emergency. This state orchestrated emergency or holocaust to be more precise gave the Bush administration and in particular the Wolfowitz PNAC crew the justification they needed to start a war to usurp trillions of dollars from the US treasury with the blessings of Congress. This denigrated the checks and balance of the American peoples constitutional rights and the rise of tyranny with the passing of the Patriot Act that this Bush Nazi regime wrote long before 9-11 happened and Congress readily passed without reading the act and the fascist suppression of peoples civil liberties contained therein.

It is my belief Mr. President that is we can find the critical smoking guns relative to the perpe-traitors

of this mass murder and treason and present them to war crimes tribunals around the world we can the move to prosecute these nefarious serial psychopathic killers in a contemporary Nuremberg type trial.

I am highly impressed with just such war crimes tribunal that was conducted in Malaysia which I am sure you are aware brother Hugo but would like to present this report from that event that heard from many delegates about their experiences with the purveyors of torture, death and destruction.

They spent many hours collecting evidence on the crimes these Zionist-Nazis think they are getting away with. The evidence will then proceed to a court for charges to be laid.

War Crimes Conference - Malaysia
Dr Mahathir Closes Conference to Criminalize War - Malaysia
The former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, 84, spoke at 4.20pm local time addressing the closing session of the conference to criminalize war, which took place in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, at the initiative of the Perdana Global Peace Organization.

 The initiative has received no international media publicity, but drew the attendance of some of the victims of torture and war who will testify at a War Crimes Tribunal which is to start tomorrow, as well as delegates and speakers from around the world, notably former US Congresswoman and Presidential Candidate, Cynthia McKinney as well as two former United Nations Secretary Generals.

 Dr Mahathir pointed out at the start of his speech that the leader of this world, who preaches democracy, is willing to kill people and the member countries of this world have no right to remove him when he becomes a monster. Therefore, we should strive for a more democratic world, so that the President of the country that leads the world, should be voted in for a period of time. 
 He said that he followed the opinion of George Galloway, Member of Parliament of Britain, that we should distinguish between good Jews and bad Jews, and I agree entirely, I have many Jewish friends. But it should also not be allowed to call all Muslims terrorists, there are good Muslims and good Muslim terrorists, he joked to laughter of the audience. 
 Dr Mahathir recounted the story of a friend who has a name with "A/L" in his passport, and was asked what the meaning of this is. He explained that this means "son of" in Malaysian but as a result he was pulled out of the crowd and examined, because in Arabic "son of" is "Bin" which is unfair, and so not all Muslims should be cast as terrorists, he explained. 

 He also spoke about the military, as a Malaysian retired General yesterday had addressed the possible good uses of the military, and he explained that the military is like a sharp knife that can make beautiful carvings, but can also kill. 
 He did not want to spend more time speaking, he said, because he would like to allow other delegates to have their "last say", he joked, and said that the delegates had given much useful insight and that many of these issues needed following up. He thus invited Mr. Hans von Sponeck to speak. 
 Hans von Sponeck, former United Nations (UN) Secretary General, said that as a German he knows what war is, but that attending this conference has helped him sharpen his arguments against war. 
 Dennis Halliday, another former UN Secretary General, also gave his final comments, and said that he is honored to speak to Malaysian school children on Monday morning, and that young people need to fix the mess that "we old fools have created." 
 Tan Sri Sanusi Junid, former President of the International Islamic University, summed up saying that although he had not been to war, he is very much against war. He said that the army arrested his uncle and nephew and raped his auntie, then chopped off his uncle’s head, then tied his nephew and chopped of his auntie's head. His uncle’s head was then sent to a grandmother. He said he does not blame the "soldier" who did this but he blames those who give the orders to go to war. 
 He revealed that he asked a former CIA director "you hate Dr Mahathir so much, why don't you kill him" to which he received the reply "we don't want to make him a martyr" and that they felt he would be an "over" case within a few years, but he has kept on living and living, he said to the cheers of the almost 1,000 strong audience at the Merdeka Hall in the PWTC Conference Centre.

 Cynthia McKinney, then summed up, by thanking Dr Mahathir and his wife Dr Siti, as well as the Perdana Peace Foundation and the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalize War as well the Tribunal which is next to come. She said that she is embarrassed by what her country has done, and that she had the chance to first meet torture victim Sami Hajj during "Operation Dignity" where they tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. During this attempt the Israeli military rammed their boat, and left them to die, drifting in the sea, along with many other human rights activists. She said she protested in front of a U.S. embassy in 2007 in an orange jump suit, attempting to have the prisoners released. She said that these actions of the U.S. do not come to her as a surprise, as the descendant of Africans enslaved by the Europeans in America, she knows what they are capable of. 
 She pointed out that democracy in the United States of America is very limited, even by electronic counting that has votes goes missing, but also via the presence of special interest lobbies that finance the campaigns and political parties, and that this has to come to an end. She revealed that she sometimes thinks of giving up, but that she may run again for Congress. She said that she is happy to be included in the Perdana Peace "family" and is always happy to meet the wonderful people of Malaysia. 
 Michel Chussodovsky, of GlobalResearch.ca gave his closing comments, saying that we are dealing with a "war against truth", a big lie enforced by the media. This lie includes the causes and consequences of the September 11 attacks on the USA. He said that there are piles of evidence which confirm unequivocally that the official narrative of the 9/11 reports are false and invalid and that there are indications that this was a carefully thought out intelligence operation. Osama Bin Laden on 10th of September was in a hospital bed in Rawalpindi surrounded by U.S. military and intelligence, and this was clearly an intelligence operation to create a pretext and operation to launch a "war on terror" and to accuse Muslims of the crime. 
 He said that whatever one's position, there is absolutely no evidence that these crimes were committed by Muslims. He also confirmed that the official version relies on cell phone conversations that took place 30,000 feet in the air, when it was not possible to use cell phones in aircraft at that height, as just one other simple example of the falsehood of the official version. 
 Al Qaidah and its relevant organizations are a construct of the CIA and he confirmed that the CIA knows this, we know it, and that the CIA does not deny it. The process of demonization of Muslims and Arabs is continuing, and there must be a process to find and prosecute those behind the crimes of September 11th. 
 Dr Mahathir said that the odd thing about 9/11 was that all 3 buildings collapsed rapidly straight down, as if they had explosives already inserted in certain places, and not from the effect of the aircraft hitting them, but due to a demolition method. He wondered why the 3rd building collapsed in the same way (WTC7) although it was not hit by any aircraft. The collapse of this building had been admitted by its Jewish owner, as a controlled demolition when he said "we pulled it."

Michel Chossudovsky confirmed this and that in a bitter irony both the CNN and the BBC had announced the collapse of WTC7 20 minutes before they actually collapsed. While the BBC reporter was saying this being filmed in front of WTC7, showed the building still up, and he wondered how any one could have known this without foreknowledge. 
 Dr Mahathir said that obviously there have been a lot of lies behind these wars, and he called upon Mr Sami Al Hajj of Sudan, the Al Jazeera reporter who was abducted and falsely imprisoned and tortured in Afghanistan and Guantanemo. Mr Sami gave his thanks for the conference and its organizers and those who have attended it. 
 General Seri Azumi (Rtd) urged people to "soldier on" against war. 
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 Moazzam Begg, another torture and "extraordinary rendition" victim, said that after more than 300 sessions of questions and interrogation by British Intelligence officers, he has to thank them for enabling him to become more eloquent. The last time in history that people were brought over to America in chains was that of the West Africans who were mostly Muslims and that this is now the first time since then that this has occurred again. A Black American soldier came to this realization with him. He said it is not easy to stop an institution like the CIA, but that if they close Guantanamo, they will not be doing us any favors as it should not have been there to begin with. He wondered how somebody (Barack Obama) could be receiving a nobel peace prize while ordering drone attacks, and that the one to receive that prize should be Dr Mahathir Mohamad. 
 In closing, Moazzam Begg, of Cage Prisoners, said there is something special about this place, Malaysia, and that he feels comfortable and at home. 
 Dr Mahathir, said that there are four other panel members who are not on the stage, and that he was told they do not mind, but that if any of them want to speak they would be welcome. 
 Dr Souad, Vice Chancellor of the University of Syria, said that those who ordered war need to be criminalized, also for their use of illegal weapons, destroying a country, and creating diseases that are killing a nation, as well as for stealing the resources of nations. She said that "we have to act together to make this happen, each one in his or her own simple way". She called upon everyone to help us in Iraq to stand and resist and liberate our country, choking back tears. "We need all the hope we can get." She pointed out that it is an invasion and not liberation and that we have to stand up to these people. She also said that we do not need a "Nobel Peace Prize" for Dr Mahathir, because he has already received it from the hearts of good people. 
 Dr Mahathir thanked Dr Souad and said that he believes the world as well as those in this hall, have heard her appeal and would extend whatever help that they can. 
 Dirk Adriaensens, an anti-war activist from Europe, thanked the organizers of the Conference for being able to be here and make his contribution and network with other peace activists. 
 Khudhair Waheed Hussain, a medical doctor from Iraq, said that Iraqis will liberate their country and thanked the Conference. 
 Leuren Moret, an Uranium expert and whistleblower at the U.S. weapons research facility, gave her final contribution to the conference, recounting history where Americans had a huge treasure of gold from Japan and that they decided to keep it a secret. This became a secret fund to defeat all democratic movements around the world after "World War 2" and President Mossadeq was the first legitimate President overthrown with that fund. $200 million dollars has recently been sent to Iran to defeat (democratically elected) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. She said that it is our "spiritual power" that will defeat the war mongers, as Dr Matrin Luther King had said "spiritual power will defeat military power." 
 Hana Bayati, freelance film maker from Europe, gave her closing remarks to the Conference saying that the Genocide Convention says we have an obligation to prevent such events. She said she is convinced the Iraqis will liberate their country, but that if there is no accountability, such crimes will happen again. She hopes that the criminalization can be extended not only to the perpetrators but to the beneficiaries, the companies that have made huge profits on the misery of the Iraqi people. 
 She said that the Iraqi youth are extremely progressive, and that they need to be recognized, given a voice, and given back their sovereignty. 
 Muhammad Umar of the Ramadan Foundation gave his thanks to the speakers and those who have worked tirelessly to make this effort to criminalize war possible. He said that we need to continue this work and that one of the ways is for Muslims to work for unity, and that on December 15th and 16th there will be a conference for Muslim Unity, and that an invitation has been extended to Dr Mahathir Muhammad who has agreed to speak at that conference.  
Dr Mahathir then wrapped up the Conference by saying that many proposals have come from the Conference which should not be ignored. Among the proposals, is the setting up of a fund for those people held in Guantanamo who cannot find asylum, where already 2 members of the panel had contributed a total sum at $3,000. He said that Perdana would contribute and assist with collection for the fund. Malaysia's former Prime Minister and Chairman of the Perdana Global Peace Foundation and the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalize War said that although there will be some disappointment because not all the criminals would be brought to justice, but the trial that will begin tomorrow will try to focus on a few individuals who were mainly responsible for the crime of invading Iraq. 
 He revealed there had been a request to make a resolution, and that if those present found it proper, we may support the resolution and that later we may find a way of making it proper. That would be that all prisoners of Guantanamo and other prisons be either released or tried for whatever crimes they may have committed. If we do pass that resolution, and other organizations in the world join us in the same resolution, this could then be forwarded to those responsible. A unanimous show of hands of around 1,000 attendees at the conference, showed support for the resolution.  
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, called upon all those present as well as those who have left, that the call of several of the speakers to take some steps to pursue this idea to criminalize war, be heeded. The very least is that each person can talk to others about this, and those with contacts abroad should be contacted and told that war is a crime and that "there is a need for us to make it a crime" and that those responsible for it "should be designated criminals, and tried and punished for their crimes."  
He also addressed the request that Malaysia provide asylum, and that as he is no longer the Prime Minister, all he can do and will do, is to appeal to the government to allow them to stay here. He is told that there are around 12,000 Iraqis in Malaysia, and he believes that a few more coming to Malaysia will not hurt us, and said that they would be welcome to make Malaysia their second home.  
Dr Mahathir thanked those attending and urged attendance at tomorrow's hearing at the Commission which would hear the complaints of many who have suffered. On the 4th day, if the Commission finds merit in the cases, the Tribunal will sit and judge, but will be unable to complete as the accused will need to receive 2 months notice in order to defend themselves. It is then for the Tribunal to decide and the Council to suggest who the guilty people who should appear in not less than 2 months in front of the Tribunal to decide on their guilt or innocence.  
He confirmed that the procedures need to be followed carefully in order that the results are fair and just.  
The two day International Conference to Criminalize War:

Failure of International Law", drew to a close at 6pm local time (10:00 UTC). Other news items from Mathaba covering the Conference and the Tribunal can be found at Mathaba.Net.

Source: Mathaba.Net

Mr. President before thousands of international delegates to this War Crimes Tribunal held in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia the Honorable Cynthia McKinney had this to say in part about my upcoming trial.

“The Brussels Tribunal, about which we will hear more later, has filed a brief in Spanish courts against U.S. Presidents and other Heads of Government responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq. Unfortunately, under tremendous pressure from the rich and the guilty, Spain is in the process of changing its universal jurisdiction laws and that removes that venue that was available for the people to get even a hearing.

So, rather than survey the juridical landscape with despair, some have gone one step further and attempted to serve warrants on the obviously guilty in their capacity as citizens. One such individual is John Boncore, also known as Splitting-the-Sky.

Splitting-the-Sky is a Mohawk, member of the American Indian Movement that was targeted by the United States government in its infamous and illegal Counter-Intelligence Program, known as COINTELPRO. On March 17th of this year, Splitting-the-Sky was arrested in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he tried to serve a citizen’s warrant for the arrest of President George W. Bush who had been invited to Canada to give a speech. Splitting-the-Sky has asked me to testify at his March 2010 trial and I intend to be there.

In the advent of this War on Terror, it is clear that governments are straying far away from the wishes of the very people who elect them. I served twelve years in the United States Congress and while I was

here,I +++ Note I could have full statement read by CM on screen.+++++ take out

1. Filed articles of impeachment against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleeza Rice;

2. Voted against every Pentagon appropriation, considering it immoral to spend so much money on war when millions of our children go to bed hungry every night;

3. Wrote legislation to ban the use of depleted uranium munitions;

4. Was the first Member of Congress to ask the Bush Administration of the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States, what did it know and when did it know it.

That is a very important question that needs answering now Mr. President and with that I will submit the rest of my reasons for attempting to arrest Bush and this is what I believe to be critical proof of an inside job with Dick Cheney at the helm.

First I believe the evidence shows that Cheney had Ibn al Shaykh al libi tortured the most horrendous extremes to get him to finger KSM as the mastermind behind 911 attacks for which he and four others were tortured to confess these attacks and are currently being paraded into New York to face charges and the death penalty by the Obama Justice Department at the advise of attorney general Eric Holder.

Lawrence Wilkerson Drops an Iraq-Torture Bombshell Submitted by Bob Fertik on May 14, 2009
What I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 -- well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion -- its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.
So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt , "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.
There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just "committed suicide" in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi....)
Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who is former chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Lawrence Wilkerson is also Pamela Harriman Visiting Professor at the College of William & Mary.
Not to make light of this terrible state sponsored terrorism I would add this from an internet friend who said that after being water boarded 183 times KSM subsequently confessed to 911, the assassinations of both Kennedy’s, the Jack the Ripper murders, blowing up the Hindenburg, blowing up the Challenger, disguising himself as an iceberg to destroy the Titanic, the crucifixion of Christ and the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Michael Moore’s website reported this scathing rebuttal by little Dicks daughter Liz Cheney.
Stung by Wilkerson’s criticism of her father, Liz Cheney, who worked in the State Department during the last administration, lashed out at Wilkerson, charging he has made “a cottage industry out of fantasies” about the former Vice President.
Yet years down the road we now read what amounts to a prima facie confession by Cheney himself.
Reporting from Washington -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods used by the CIA, and that the prison at Guantanamo Bay , Cuba , should remain open indefinitely.
Cheney's remarks on Guantanamo appear to put him at odds with President Bush, who has expressed a desire to close the prison, although the decision is expected to be left to the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.
Cheney's comments also mark the first time that he has acknowledged playing a central role in clearing the CIA's use of an array of controversial interrogation tactics, including a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding.
"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared," Cheney said in an interview with ABC News.
Asked whether he still believes it was appropriate to use the water boarding method on terrorism suspects, Cheney said: "I do."
His comments come on the heels of disclosures by a Senate committee showing that high-level officials in the Bush administration were intimately involved in reviewing and approving interrogation methods that have since been explicitly outlawed and that have been condemned internationally as torture.
Soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, Cheney said, the CIA "in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."
Brother Hugo, it is inspiring that we hear the recent news that an Italian court has found 24 CIA agents guilty in absentee for the illegal rendition abduction of Abu Omar who would later tell Human Rights Watch in 2007 that he was "hung up like a slaughtered sheep and given electrical shocks" during his time in Egypt.
It is my contention that Cheney was and is still scrambling to make the 911 al queda connection because when the multitudes of people come to realize it was all a big fat state sponsored fabricated lie, critical mass will flood the streets and mob rule will meet out the appropriate sentence’s. Quite candidly speaking revolutions have been fought for far less than this state sanctioned massacre.
WE MUST NOW GET CHENEY TO CONFESS TO ORCHESTRATING 9-11
The next Cheney smoking gun Mr. President comes from the distinguished author of numerous books on 9-11 and Professor of Theology at the University of California.
TAPED MESSAGE BY DONNY…
David Ray Griffins Affidavit:
The following is David Ray Griffin’s affidavit;
This affidavit is written in support of the claim by John Boncore that former Vice President Dick Cheney should be required to testify under oath in a court of law about his activities in relation to 9/11.
In my various books on the subject, I have shown that there are many good reasons to conclude that the official story about 9/11 false; that the 9/11 attacks were, at least in part, an inside job; and that Dick Cheney was at the center of this criminal and treasonous operation.
I. In “The New Pearl Harbor : Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11” (2004), I provided a summary of the various forms of evidence that the 9/11 Truth Movement had discovered at that time. I presented this summary as a prima facie argument that the 9/11 attacks had been orchestrated by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other members of the Bush-Cheney administration.
II. II. In “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions” (2005), I showed that “The 9/11 Commission Report,” which appeared in the summer of 2004, had either distorted or simply omitted the evidence summarized in my previous book. In a follow-up essay entitled “The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-Page Lie” (available on the Internet), I summarized 115 lies of omission or commission in the Commission’s report that I had identified.
Some of these omissions and distortions involved Cheney in particular. For example:
The Commission’s report omitted “Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta’s testimony, given to the Commission itself, that Vice-President Cheney and others in the underground shelter were aware by 9:26 that an aircraft was approaching the Pentagon.”
The Commission’s report even claimed “that Cheney did not reach the underground shelter (the PEOC [Presidential Emergency Operations Center]) until 9:58”---which was about 45 minutes later than others, such as Mineta, Richard Clarke, and Cheney’s own photographer, said that he had gone down there.
The Commission’s report claimed that “Cheney did not give the shoot-down authorization until after 10:10 (several minutes after Flight 93 had crashed)” while omitting “Clarke’s own testimony, which suggests that he received the shoot-down authorization by 9:50 .”
III. In “Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory” (2007)---which was awarded a Bronze Medal in the 2008 Independent Publisher Book Awards---I responded to four publications of 2006 intended to bolster the official theory.
One of those publications was a Vanity Fair article, “9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes,” which claimed that tapes released by NORAD in 2006 verified the claim of “The 9/11 Commission Report” about why the military was unable to intercept the four hijacked airliners. It claimed, for example, that the military was not even notified about American 77’s troubles until after it had struck the Pentagon---thereby contradicting the military’s earlier report, according to which it had been notified about this flight at 9:24 .
I reported, however, what I was told by Laura Brown, the Deputy in Public Affairs for the FAA. She had sent a memo to the 9/11 Commission explaining that the FAA had the FAA and the military had been in conversation about this flight even long before 9:24 . This memo was read into the 9/11 Commission’s record by Richard Ben-Veniste on May 23, 2003 (where it can still be read). And yet the Commission’s report, in rejecting the 9:24 time in favor of its own claim, simply ignored this memo.
IV. In my 2008 book, “9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press,” I laid out 25 internal contradictions within the official story (in which one supporter of the official story contradicted another).
In some of the chapters, I treated in greater detail than before the above-noted contradictions involving Dick Cheney.
Another chapter deals with a contradiction involving Cheney’s long-time friend, Donald Rumsfeld, who was secretary of defense in 2001. Whereas the 9/11 Commission report supports Donald Rumsfeld’s claim that he was in his office with a CIA briefer until the Pentagon was struck (so that he had no “situational awareness” until almost 10:00), Richard Clarke had reported in his best-selling book, “Against All Enemies,” that Rumsfeld was in the Pentagon’s teleconferencing studio, participating in the teleconference Clarke was running from the White House, from about 9:15 until the Pentagon was struck.
Still another chapter deals with a similar contradiction involving General Richard Myers, who on 9/11 was the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The 9/11 Commission supported his claim that he was up on Capitol Hill that morning, and that he had no idea what was going on until shortly before the Pentagon was struck. But Richard Clarke had reported that Myers, like Rumsfeld, was in the Pentagon’s teleconferencing studio, where he had ongoing conversations with Clarke about what was going on.
V. In my second 2008 book, “The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, The Cover-Up, and the Exposé” (which was named “Pick of the Week” by Publisher’s Weekly in the third week of November 2008), I provided an overview of the cumulative case against the official story. Many of the points made in this book are summarized in the following article (available on the Internet):
21 Reasons to Question the Official Story about 9/11
David Ray Griffin
Note: Although the points are stated briefly, I give in each case the pages in my most recent book---“The New Pearl Harbor Revisited”---where the issue is documented and discussed more extensively.)
(1) Although the official account of 9/11 claims that Osama bin Laden ordered the attacks, the FBI does not list 9/11 as one of the terrorist acts for which he is wanted and has admitted that it “has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11” (NPHR 206-11).
(2) Although the official story holds that the four airliners were hijacked by devout Muslims ready to die as martyrs to earn a heavenly reward, Mohamed Atta and the other alleged hijackers regularly drank heavily, went to strip clubs, and paid for sex (NPHR 153-55).
(3) Many people reported having received cell phone calls from loved ones or flight attendants on the airliners, during which they were told that Middle Eastern hijackers had taken over the planes. One recipient, Deena Burnett, was certain that her husband had called her several times on his cell phone because she had recognized his number on her Caller ID. But the calls to Burnett and most of the other reported calls were made when the planes were above 30,000 feet, and evidence presented by the 9/11 truth movement showed that, given the technology of the time, cell phone calls from high-altitude airliners had been impossible. By the time the FBI presented a report on phone calls from the planes at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui in 2006, it had changed its story, saying that there were only two cell phone calls from the flights, both from United 93 after it had descended to 5,000 feet (NPHR 111-17).
(4) US Solicitor General Ted Olson’s claim that his wife, Barbara Olson, phoned him twice from AA 77, reporting that hijackers had taken it over, was also contradicted by this FBI report, which says that the only call attempted by her was “unconnected” and hence lasted “0 seconds” (NPRH 60-62).
(5) Although decisive evidence that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks was reportedly found in Mohamed Atta’s luggage---which allegedly failed to get loaded onto Flight 11 from a commuter flight that Atta took to Boston from Portland, Maine, that morning---this story was made up after the FBI’s previous story had collapsed. According to that story, the evidence had been found in a Mitsubishi that Atta had left in the Logan Airport parking lot and the trip to Portland was taken by Adnan and Ameer Bukhari. After the FBI learned that neither of the Bukharis had died on September 11, it simply declared that the trip to Portland was made by Atta and another al-Qaeda operative (NPHR 155-62).
(6) The other types of reputed evidence for Muslim hijackers---such as videos of al-Qaeda operatives at airports, passports discovered at the crash sites, and a headband discovered at the crash site of United 93---also show clear signs of having been fabricated (NPHR 170-73).
(7) In addition to the absence of evidence for hijackers on the planes, there is also evidence of their absence: If hijackers had broken into the cockpits, the pilots would have “squawked” the universal hijack code, an act that takes only a couple of seconds. But not one of the eight pilots on the four airliners did this (NPHR 175-79).
(8) Given standard operating procedures between the FAA and the military, according to which planes showing signs of an in-flight emergency are normally intercepted within about 10 minutes, the military’s failure to intercept any of the flights implies that something, such as a stand-down order, prevented standard procedures from being carried out (NPHR 1-10, 81-84).
(9) Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta reported an episode in which Vice President Cheney, while in the bunker under the White House, apparently confirmed a stand-down order at about 9:25 AM, which was prior to the strike on the Pentagon. Another man has reported hearing members of LAX Security learn that a stand-down order had come from the “highest level of the White House” (NPHR 94-96).
(10) The 9/11 Commission did not mention Mineta’s report, removed it from the Commission’s video record of its hearings, and claimed that Cheney did not enter the shelter conference room until almost 10:00, which was at least 40 minutes later than he was really there, according to Mineta and several other witnesses, including Cheney’s photographer (NPHR 91-94).
(11) The 9/11 Commission’s timeline for Cheney that morning even contradicted what Cheney himself had told Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” September 16, just five days after 9/11 (NPHR 93).
(12) Hani Hanjour, known as a terrible pilot who could not safely fly even a single-engine airplane, could not possibly have executed the amazing trajectory reportedly taken by American Flight 77 in order to hit Wedge 1 of the Pentagon (NPHR 78-80).
(13) Wedge 1 would have been the least likely part of the Pentagon to be targeted by foreign terrorists, for several reasons: It was as far as possible from the offices of Rumsfeld and the top brass, whom Muslim terrorists presumably would have wanted to kill; it was the only part of the Pentagon that had been reinforced; the reconstruction was not finished, so there were relatively few people there; and it was the only part of the Pentagon that would have presented obstacles to a plane’s flight path (NPHR 76-78).
(14) Contrary to the claim of Pentagon officials that they did not have the Pentagon evacuated because they had no way of knowing that an aircraft was approaching, a military E-4B---the Air Force’s most advanced communications, command, and control airplane---was flying over the White House at the time. Also, although there can be no doubt about the identity of the plane, which was captured on video by CNN and others, the military has denied that it belonged to them (NPHR 96-98).
(15) The Secret Service, after learning that a second World Trade Center building had been attacked---which would have meant that terrorists were going after high-value targets---and that still other planes had apparently been hijacked, allowed President Bush to remain at the school in Sarasota, Florida, for another 30 minutes. It thereby revealed its foreknowledge that Bush would not be a target: If these had really been surprise attacks, the agents, fearing that a hijacked airliner was bearing down on the school, would have hustled Bush away. On the first anniversary of 9/11, the White House started telling a new story, according to which Bush, rather than remaining in the classroom several minutes after Andrew Card whispered in his ear that a second WTC building had been hit, immediately got up and left the room. This lie was told in major newspapers and on MSNBC and ABC television (NPHR 129-31).
(16) Given the fact that the Twin Towers and WTC 7 had steel columns running from their basements to their roofs, they simply could not have come down as they did---straight down at virtually free-fall speed---unless these columns had been sliced by means of explosives. Therefore, the official theory, according to which the buildings came down because of fire plus (in the case of the Twin Towers ) the impact of the planes, is scientifically impossible (NPHR 12-25).
(17) The destruction of the Twin Towers had many other features---such as the horizontal ejections of steel beams, the melting of steel, and the sulfidation and thinning of steel---that can be explained only in terms of powerful explosives. For example, the fires could not have come within 1000 degrees Fahrenheit of the temperature needed to melt steel (30-36).
(18) Members of the FDNY (Fire Department of New York ) provided oral histories shortly after 9/11 in which one fourth of them testified to having witnessed explosions in the Twin Towers . Explosions in the WTC 7 as well as the towers were also reported by city officials, WTC employees, and journalists (NPHR 27-30, 45-48, 51).
(19) Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Peter Jennings of ABC News that day: “we set up headquarters at 75 Barclay Street . . . , and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it [the South Tower] did collapse before we could actually get out of the building.” However, there was no objective basis for expecting the towers to collapse; even the 9/11 Commission admitted that none of the fire chiefs expected them to come down. The FDNY oral histories show that the information that they were going to collapse came from the Office of Emergency Management---Giuliani’s own office. How could Giuliani’s people have known that the towers were going to come down, unless they knew that the buildings had been laced with explosives? (NPH 40)
(20) NIST, which produced the official reports on the Twin Towers and (recently) WTC 7, has been “fully hijacked from the scientific to the political realm,” so that its scientists are little more than “hired guns,” a former employee has reported, and the 9/11 Commission was no more independent, being run by Philip Zelikow, who was essentially a member of the Bush White House (NPHR 11, 238-51).
(21) The official story about 9/11 is now rejected by constantly growing numbers of physicists, chemists, architects, engineers, pilots, former military officers, and former intelligence officials (NPHR xi).

VI. To expand on the final point of that essay: During recent years, the official story has been publicly rejected by various organizations of scientists and professionals.
These organizations include Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (which has over 700 licensed members), Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Intelligence Officers for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (which has hundreds of scientists), Scientific Panel for the Investigation of Nine-Eleven, Veterans for 9/11 Truth (which includes several former military officers), and Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth (which includes past or present members of the parliaments of Australia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Sweden, the UK, the United States, and Europe).
As these organizations show, among independent scientists and professionals in the relevant fields who have studied the evidence, the weight of scientific and professional opinion is now overwhelmingly on the side of the 9/11 Truth Movement.
VII. The quality and breadth of the 9/11 Truth Movement’s support is also illustrated by the list of people who have endorsed my books, which includes:
Physicists Steven Jones, John Wyndham, and David Griscom (a fellow of the American Physical Society, now retired from the Naval Research Laboratory).
National Medal of Science winner Lynn Margulis.
AIA architect Richard Gage.
Engineer Jack Keller (who had been given special recognition by Scientific American for his contributions to American society).
Attorney Gerry Spence.
Professors of international law Richard Falk and Burns Weston.
Retired US Marine Corps Lt. Col. Shelton F. Lankford.
Theologians John B. Cobb, Jr., Harvey Cox, Joseph C. Hough, Rosemary Ruether, and the late William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
Economists Michel Chossudovsky and Paul Craig Roberts,
Former intelligence officers Robert Baer, William Christison, Ray McGovern, and Robert David Steele.
9/11 widows Lorie Van Auken and Monica Gabrielle.
Authors Peter Dale Scott, Jim Hightower, Mark Crispin Miller, Marcus Raskin, and Howard Zinn.
Several political leaders, including Yukihisa Fujita of the Japanese Senate; Michael Meacher of the British Parliament; former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura; Terrell Arnold (former deputy director of the US State Department Office of Counterterrorism); and Catherine Austin Fitts (former assistant secretary of housing).
VIII. There is, in sum, more than enough evidence to subpoena former Vice President Dick Cheney in order to force him to testify under oath about what really happened on 9/11, beginning with contradictions involving his own activities.
If Mineta's testimony is to be taken into account, and there is no apparent reason why it should not be, questions about the timing of events the morning of 9/11 come into focus. Most obvious is, if the standing order given by the Vice President prior to the aircraft hitting the Pentagon was not a shoot down order, then what was it? Perhaps it was the danger of this question, and the danger that Cheney would have had to commit perjury to uphold the timeline reported in the mainstream press, that caused the Vice President to testify to the Commission along with the President in closed session, with no transcript, no witnesses, and no public accountability.
Today, multiple serious investigations are underway as to the evidence used by the Bush administration to justify the war in Iraq (Plame/Wilson incident), and when the administration actually decided to invade Iraq (Downing Street Memos). In fact, it is widely known that Bush declared his desire to invade Iraq to an official biographer in 1999, even before he was appointed President by the Supreme Court. Given what is known today about the deceiving of the American public in order to justify the invasion of Iraq, and given what is known about the 9/11 Commission Report and the unanswered questions surrounding the attacks of 9/11. Is there not sufficient reason to include 9/11 in the overall inquiry into possible criminal actions of the Bush-Cheney administration? End.
Mr. President, this affidavit of David Ray Griffin establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Cheney lied about his time in the Presidential Emergency Operation Command (PEOC) or the “bunker” as it has been called on 9-11-2001 and it is probably the most pronounced “smoking gun” to date we have to begin our investigation about what really happened that day.
Quite candidly speaking I am of the belief that Dick Cheney had Tim Russert of Meet the Press killed by his private assassination ring (that Seymour Hersh writes extensively about) through some form of technique devised by the CIA to induce heart attacks to cover up the contested timeline putting Cheney in the bunker.
What I have basically highlighted from David Ray Griffin affidavit is what I believe (along with another author Peter Dale Scott who wrote the book The Road to 9-11) to be the smoking gun that will bring Cheney down and thus the whole house of cards. What is clearly established is that Cheney specifically by Meet the Press’s Tim Russert is that Cheney was in the PEOC or bunker at the time Cheney told Russert he was there on the sixteenth of September, This would prove Cheney allowed the Pentagon to be struck killing over a hundred military personel, grounded all air pilots and planes to allow strikes on twin towers killing almost 3,000 people and had flight 93 shot down killing many more. The untimely death of Tim Russert, al libi and Bashir Bhutto by Cheneys private Blackwater assassination or death squads are way beyond the charges conspiracy fallacies.
SUSAN READS ON TAPE
By Jon Gold
Source: 911truth.org [1]
May 22, 2009 Peter Dale Scott 911Truth.org
Here is an excerpt from the text of what Cheney said at the American Enterprise Institute on May 21, 2009:
"For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour. That was Flight 77, the one that ended up hitting the Pentagon. With the plane still inbound, Secret Service agents came into my office and said we had to leave, now. A few moments later I found myself in a fortified White House command post somewhere down below.
There in the bunker came the reports and images that so many Americans remember from that day - word of the crash in Pennsylvania, the final phone calls from hijacked planes, the final horror for those who jumped to their death to escape burning alive. In the years since, I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't say that. But I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities."
The first radar sighting of a plane approaching Washington was at 9:21 AM. In other words Cheney has confirmed his first account (and ours) that he was taken from his office earlier than 9:36 AM (as claimed in the 9/11 Report, p. 39), and first arrived in the bunker much earlier than "shortly before 10:00;
perhaps at 9:58" (9/11 Report, p. 40, citing Cheney interview with Newsweek, November 19, 2001). There were of course no images to watch for some time from the crash in Pennsylvania, as opposed to the Pentagon.
What Cheney said yesterday adds nothing to his first account on September 16, 2001, but clearly discredits his second conflicting account for Newsweek two months later. (Cf. Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11 [4], 197-98, 200-01).
HERSH ON DEATH SQUADS
Seymour Hersh has reported extensively on Cheney’s private assassination rings like the following blip on the peoples radar screen,
New York, May 18 (ANI): A special death squad assassinated Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on the orders of former US Vice-President Dick Cheney, an Arab TV channel has reported.
” Cheney was the chief of the Joint Special Operation Command and he cleared the way for the US by exterminating opponents through the unit and the CIA. General Stanley was the in-charge of the unit,” The Nation quoted US columnist Seymour Hersh, as saying.
The US death unit killed Bhutto because she had told Al-Jazeera TV about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, Hersh said.
The US leadership did not want Osama to be declared dead. It would have raised questions about the US Army’s presence in Afghanistan, he claimed.
According to Hersh, the former Lebanese PM Rafique Al Hariri and the army chief were murdered for not safeguarding US interests and for refusing to set up US military bases in Lebanon.
Ariel Sharon, the then prime minister of Israel, was also a key man in the plot, he said. (ANI)
May 18th, 2009 - 1:22 pm ICT by ANI
Mr. President, I will be going on trial in March of 2010 to face charges of obstruction of a police officer in the performance of his duty. I face 6 months in jail and a 5,000 fine.
In this particular aspect of my trial my lawyers and I will ask the court who gave the police their orders and how was I obstructing those orders.
Personally I am hoping to prove to the courts that it was the police who did not arrest Bush for being a credibly accused war criminal and that I had actually instructed the police twice to arrest Bush for war crimes according to Canadian law to which they chose to protect the interests of this rich and powerful war criminal.
So on the third time I broke the police line and tried to serve Bush with a peoples warrant for his arrest and was knocked to the ground and brutalized by the police force and as I stated before the Bush private security forces aimed their sniper rifles at me but fortunately decided not to pull the trigger.
Mr. President I am the only indigenous Mohawk Cree Indian man of the land of the Eagle or any man for that matter in history that has attempted to physically arrest a sitting or former President from the US for war crimes and I am appealing to you my indigenous brother and the peoples of the land of the Condor to assist me in quest to arrest this runaway genocide of resource rich nations forced to forfeit our self determining futures over to robber barons.
I am appealing to the powerful winds of nature to carry this message by way of the almighty voice of thunder to call on you Mr. President to immediately declare the Bush/Cheney cabal guilty of war crimes and to issue warrants for their arrest should they step of the plane into your tropical sovereign territory.
Italy has done it, Japan has done it. Malaysia is calling for it, Spain is doing it and as well we need Bolivia, Equator, Cuba, Mohawk Nation and the world indigenous populations to demand their arrest, detention and day in Nuremberg type court.
We must create an international war crimes bloc and bring these criminals to justice.
Still my brother in moral arms the burden of proof as to the extent of the crimes these genocidal maniacs have committed lays heavy on our shoulders but we can take great courage and hope from international tribunals that are popping up world wide.
Brother Hugo, I don’t suspect that the courts in Calgary Alberta will allow much expert testimony on 911 but I have asked the very prominent author David Ray Griffin for an affidavit on why Dick Cheney should be brought before a court of law and prosecuted for his role in 911.
I have supplied his affidavit here which I will quote in part when I read in public forums to appeal to the court of public opinion. David zeros in on the inconsistencies of Cheney’s timeline for 9-11-2001 in the Presidential bunker which will prove he lied about his time( with his wife Liz who sits on the board of Lockheed Martin) there as it will put prove he was calling the shots that morning in a contrived national emergency that made him the commander in chief while Bush was sent on a wild goat chase in this “to put it more accurately, coup de tat of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Meyers, Giuliani and many more.
Presenting evidence and arguments mandates that the burden of proof be impeccably presented. This burden, in the face of the endless sea of skeptics, weighs heavy on our shoulders but it is after all an attempt to arrest this naked aggression of the elite corporaterrorists and their bonehead executive branch stooges who have abdicated the rule of law and the checks and balances of the US Constitution (modeled after the Iroquois Great Law I might add) that guards against the rise of tyrannical governments. One of the many consequences of our current political climate, in which war has been declared endless, is that people are often driven to ask the question how will we stop the war on an enemy that is everywhere but no where?
At this juncture of my writing to the conscientious peoples of Venezuela and by way of resonance the peoples of the world I will state with full conviction that according to law the US had to orchestrate an emergency crisis of horrific proportions in an effort to by pass Congresses sole power to regulate and declare war. The Bush/Rove/Cheney syndicate had to put full power in the executive branch to regulate a never ending war on terror which like the Nazis rise to power, was secured by their burning of the Reichstag was brought to fruition with 911.
The only way we can prevent the advent of a world war fought with nuclear weapons thousands of times worse than then the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which is currently germinating in the Caspian Sea Basin or the eminent blood baths brewing in a second revolution in the America, is to hold the real perpe-traitors of 911 responsible for mass murder and treason.
This next phase of my letter to you Mr. President and the peoples of Venezuela will be evidence that probably will never see the light of day in my trial, Splitting the Sky vs. Bush et al but is being submitted here as a public document that could be used in some legal capacity on international levels and most importantly submitted to the court of public opinion for consensus on the question of guilt or innocence of the duly accused suspects of Nazi like atrocities.
Consider if you will this testimonial statement by a famous film make Aaron Russo who produced America: Freedom to Fascism, Trading Places with Eddy Murphy and many more and hardly a conspiratorial basket case. This testimony is presented as “PRE-9-11 EVIDENCE of (MIH) or MADE IT HAPPEN”.
Eleven months before 9/11 filmmaker Aaron Russo had the following exchange with Nicholas Rockefeller.

“I got a call one day from an attorney woman I knew and she said, ‘would you like to meet one of the Rockefellers?’ I said ‘Sure, I would love to.” And we became friends and he began to divulge a lot of things to me. So he said to me one night, “There’s going to be an event Aaron, and out of that event you’re going to see we’re going to go into Afghanistan, so we can run pipelines out of the Caspian. We’re going to go into Iraq to take the oil and establish a base in the Middle East and we’re going to go into Venezuela and get rid of Chavez.
The first two they’ve accomplished, Chavez they didn’t accomplish. And he said you’re going to see guys going into caves looking for people that they’re never going to find. He was laughing about the fact that you have this war on terror – there’s no real enemy. He’s talking about how by having this war on terror you can never win it because it’s an eternal war and so you can always keep taking people’s liberties away. I said how are you going to convince people this war is real, and he said THE MEDIA.

The media can convince everybody it’s real. You keep talking about things, you keep saying things over and over and over again and eventually people believe it. You know you created the federal reserve in 1913 through lies, you create 9/11 which is another lie, through 9/11 you fight a war on terror and now all of a sudden you go into Iraq which was another lie, and now they’re going to do Iran. And it’s all one thing leading to another leading to another leading to another!
And I said, ‘Why are you doing this for, what’s the point of this thing? You have all the money in the world you ever want, you have all the power, you’re hurting people it’s not a good thing,’ and he would say ‘What do you care about the people for? Take care of yourself and take care of your family.’

And then I said to him, ‘What are the ultimate goals here?’ He said, ‘The ultimate goal is to get everybody in this world chipped with an RFID chip, and have all money be on those chips and everything on those chips. And if anybody wants to protest what we do or violate what we want, we just turn off their chip.
Russo was friends with Nicholas Rockefeller, of the infamous Rockefeller business and banking dynasty. Russo eventually ended his close friendship with Nicholas after becoming appalled by the Rockefeller’s and their ambitions.

Now this testimony which is probably the most critical hands on confession that exposes 911 from following the money trail and is “POST- 9-11 of (MIH) or MADE IT HAPPEN”.

Testimony of Richard Grove Jan. 9, 2009
Richard Grove used to work for Silverstream Software on the 98th floor of World Trade Center 1 and exposed insider trading between a few companies also based in WTC. Marsh McLennan, AIG and Silverstream, he broke down the information into an audio recording back in 2006 that he called 'Project Constellation' after the style of visual works by suicided artist Mark Lombardi... thought this worth sharing for those who may not have heard it yet. Here’s a little of the transcript of the audio recording...
Quote

In 2000 I worked for a software development entity called SilverStream Software. I worked in Sales- and in October of that year I won the largest client in company history, which soon thereafter led to the acquisition of SilverStream by Novell. (Footnote, Novell is owned by Hedge Fund billionaire George Soros)

In contextual hindsight, and considering the audience, my Gordon Gekko was a client named Marsh & McLennan. Marsh is the world’s largest Insurance Brokerage. You might also recall that Marsh was located right below Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower, and approximately 295 Marsh employees were murdered that morning along with the other innocent victims and employees who either “knew too much”, or “too little” about their chosen work environment.

SilverStream’s technology was on the cutting edge of internet solutions, offering software to web-enable the critical business functions of Fortune 500 companies- basically integrating and making available on the web the disparate legacy applications and mainframes while simultaneously streamlining workflow and traditional paper processes, with an end result being a lower cost of operation and more efficient transactions- because inefficiencies such as people were being taken out of the loop. And here’s where it gets interesting…

SilverStream had built internet transactional and trading platforms for Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Banker’s Trust, Alex Brown, Morgan Stanley; to name a few. I was responsible for these accounts at one time or another. Coincidently, several of these companies purchased space in the World Trade Center and simultaneously completed disaster-recovery and business continuance implementations just prior to 9-11.

And hopefully, you’re already somewhat familiar with the roles that these financial institutions played on 9-11, and if you include Marsh & McLennan, and another client of mine in 2001, AIG, on the list: you pretty much have the major players involved in the financial aspect of the 9-11 fraudulent trading activity. You might also have noticed the hidden information regarding Marsh on the bottom half of the screen approximately 6 ½ minutes into Loose Change.

I didn’t realize the scope of these connections myself, until about a month after 9-11, when I read Mike Ruppert’s article on the Criminal Insider Trading that took place on September 11th. Ruppert’s contentions are accurate to a great degree; but it’s also important that one separate his documented facts from his peak oil theories...

So Mr. President we now have Richard Grove telling us that if we look at Marsh and McLennan and AIG “we will pretty much have the major players involved in the financial aspect of the 9-11 fraudulent trading activity”.

What Grove has basically said here is a confession that he was an unknowing participant in this insider trading which should have been brought before the legal establishment in New York, investigated and prosecuted as the tip of the iceberg but to this day absolutely nothing.

That said brother Hugo it is extremely imperative to take a thorough no stones left unturned look at Marsh, AIG, The Blackstone Group, Kroll, Kissinger, Hauer, Giuliani, Cheney and Unocal and see if we can paint a picture for the skeptics of the world who refuse to look at the mind-blowing reality that 9-11 was an orchestrated corporate black operation and (MIH)or made it happen by G.W. Bush peripherally and specifically by the Dick Cheney regime.

Marsh and McLennan Companies

From Xiando

The Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC) is a "global professional services firm with annual revenues exceeding $11 billion."
The companies:

•Risk and Insurance Services: Marsh, Inc. and Guy Carpenter and Company.
•MMC Capital. A global private equity firm.
•Investment Management: Putnam Investments.
•Consulting: Mercer, Inc. [1]
•Risk Management: Kroll
•Crisis Management: Marsh Crisis Consultancy
Marsh & McLennan is controlled by Jeffrey Greenberg, the son of Maurice Greenberg.

American International Group is their biggest stockholder. CEO is Michael Cherkasky.

Marsh is the prime suspect in 9/11, because Marsh had full control on WTC1 where they occupied all floors and they had the top floor of the WTC2 "impact" and could have worked their way down, however the main occupant was Fuji bank with whom AIG did a lot of work and also featured in Iran-Contra.

Paul Bremer is a member of their boards and is closely related to the George W. Bush administration as well as Henry Kissinger. On October 11, 2001 Marsh established specialized terrorism team called Marsh Crisis Consultancy. The following teams were added to it:

•Control Risks Group,
•a British ex-SAS team and
•Versar, a bio terrorism and homeland defense team.
The same group could have known each other from 9/11.

Marsh also bought Kroll who is the prime suspect for the operational part of 9/11.

Kroll
From Xiando

Kroll, Inc., according to the corporation's web site, "is the world's foremost independent risk consulting company. For more than 30 years, Kroll has helped companies, government agencies and individuals reduce their exposure to risk and capitalize on business opportunities. Kroll is traded on The NASDAQ Stock Market® under the symbol "KROL."

"With offices in more than 60 cities in the U.S. and abroad, Kroll can operate and restructure businesses; scrutinize accounting practices and financial documents; gather and filter electronic evidence for attorneys; recover lost or damaged data from computers and servers; conduct in-depth investigations; screen domestic and foreign-born job candidates; protect individuals, and enhance security systems and procedures. [1]

Kroll has been named as the "private" CIA and is one of the prime suspects of 9/11.

Kroll has merged with Marsh and McLennan Companies and always had American International Group as their biggest stockholder. The Blackstone Group was a stockholder from 1993 onwards. Just before 9/11 Kroll merged with Armor Holdings…..

Kroll's insider trading cover up

There are reports of a sharp rise in credit card transactions at the WTC on 9/11. Unusually large sums of money were rushed through the computers.

Convar tried to recover the data. The Convar data salvage found more than $100 million on insider transactions took place in the hours and minutes before the twin towers collapsed. The reconstructed data was given by Convar to the FBI. And in June 2002 Ontrack/Convar was acquired by Kroll Inc. (Kroll O'Gara Eisenhardt). Nothing has ever been heard of the recovered data or the investigation. [5] (http://www.heartbone.com/questions/questions.htm)

The transaction was made with Silverstream - part of Marsh - software for companies inside the WTC. Those companies were unusually vacant on the morning of September 11. Marsh acquires Silverstream and later Marsh acquires Kroll. [6] (http://culhavoc.blogsome.com/2006/05/30/911-whistleblower-andrew-grove-comes-forward)

The Silverstream software was mainly sold to Marsh & McLennan, AIG, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Banker’s Trust, Alex Brown, and Morgan Stanley. It is likely that those companies who are the heart of the banking and insurance industry received a preliminary warning explaining why they were reasonable empty at morning of September 11. The same list of companies is also tied in with pre-9/11 insider trading. Also many of them are tied in with the Intelligence Community. End

On that horrendous morning Richard Grove was summoned to the 98th floor with his massacred co workers and friends and told to bring all evidence he had of inside trading by his boss of Silverstream who was calling from another location in Chicago knowing that Grove and others were going to die as Grove has stated on the Jack Blood radio show.

Fortunate for Grove he was caught in a New York traffic jam and was late for his execution as he watched live the horror in shock while we watched this super sized corporaterrorist snuff movie designed to psychologically traumatize the world into abject fear and submission to the emersion of the fourth Reich. But more than that Mr. President it gave them the catastrophic and catalyzing event they needed to invade the Mid East to set up military bases and rip off the oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Sea Basin.

AIG….

Maurice Greenberg of AIG released this press statement in August of 2001.

Release on February 21st 2000:

“American International Group, Inc. (AIG), The Blackstone Group L. P. and Kissinger Associates Inc. announced the establishment of a new venture to provide financial advisory services to corporations seeking high-level independent strategic advice. […] The venture will operate globally and will take advantage of the existing relationships between the partners:

- AIG has an ownership interest in Blackstone and is an investor in several of Blackstone's private equity funds;

- AIG and Blackstone have a joint venture, specializing in restructuring and M&A advisory services in selected Asian countries;

Henry Kissinger chairs both AIG's International Advisory Board and the advisory boards of several AIG-sponsored Infrastructure Funds

The AIG-Blackstone-Kissinger Associates venture recently completed its first advisory assignment on behalf of a New York Stock Exchange listed U.S. company.”

Indeed: “In 1998, American International Group ("AIG") acquired a 7% non-voting interest in The Blackstone Group for $150 million and committed to invest $1.2 billion in future Blackstone-sponsored funds.” (Source) And Maurice Greenberg sits on Blackstone’s Domestic Advisory Board.

Kissinger

Henry Kissinger has recently been appointed to head the 9-11 Commission. Everything else considered (like Kissinger being a war criminal & all) there is the serious question of his

conflicts of interest. Take for example this exchange on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: Let me then move on to a Los Angeles Times editorial which came up with a different criticism of you, and I'll put that up on the screen as well. It says, "His company Kissinger Associates, is known for introducing U.S. firms looking for business overseas to leaders of foreign governments. The company has not disclosed all of its clients or detailed the work it does. There is the possibility of a conflict of interest in investigating foreign governments that can be beneficial to clients." What about that point, that your company, Kissinger Associates, does not disclose its clients and there could be potentially a conflict of interest?

KISSINGER: No law firm discloses its clients. I will discuss my clients fully with the counsel of the White House and with the appropriate ethics groups. And the possibility that the investigation of a commission that contains eight commissioners would be affected by any conceived commercial interests is outrageous. I have served six presidents, and I have never been accused of anything of this kind.

Henry Kissinger seems to be involved in the most important business deals in the last 10 years and more

Dr. Kissinger has served as a director of Hollinger Inc., as Chairman of Kissinger Associates Inc., an international consulting firm, since 1982. Kissinger Associates' clients have included Union Carbide, Coca-Cola, American Express, ITT Lockheed, Arco, UNOCAL and HSBC

Hey President Obama , President Chavez and I want to know why Osama bin Laden is not on FBI Most Wanted list and how you can blame Al’Qaida for 911 as a justification for your massive military buildup in Afghanistan , Pakistan and Venezuela. I’ll show you my proof if you show me yours.

Rudy Giuliani

Brother Hugo, I happen to consider the former Mayor of New York as my political nemesis.

In 1997 Giuliani attempted to use me as a Willie Horton style media ploy to secure his seat in City Hall as Mayor for a second term by implying that the Councilwoman running against him Ruth Messinger hosted a party for a cop killer at her brownstone apartment in the upper west side of NY.

The attack against Messinger in this vicious re election campaign made headlines all around the world. A reporter from CBC national news came to interview me in Surrey BC while I was organizing a defense for comrades involved in the Gustafsen Lake standoff of 1995 which was a principal leader as well.

The reporter was under contract by CBS national news in the US to get an interview with me. I stated in the interview that Giuliani was a disgusting politician and opportunist of the worst type. I went on to say that one day this canine attack would come to bite him in the ass. That day Mr. President has arrived as unlike Time Magazines portrayal of Giuliani as man of the year for his “heroic” role in 911, I intend to assist in the future headlines that name Giuliani as the Criminal of the Century along with Bush, Cheney and the folks at the Federal Reserve.

The following is one of the reports written by Clyde Hagerman, who I became friends with during my trial, of the New York.

NYC; Attica's Blood Is Obscured In Sound Bites
By CLYDE HABERMAN

Published: Tuesday, September 30, 1997
IT comes as no shock that Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has been harsh in attacking Ruth W. Messinger instead of using his big lead in the polls to take the high road back to City Hall. It is his nature to treat opponents, or even well-meaning critics, as enemies.

Still, the Mayor's cavalier campaign use of the 1971 inmate rebellion at the state prison in Attica, N.Y., has stunned people who witnessed or chronicled what was the bloodiest episode in modern New York State history.

Perhaps Mr. Giuliani is counting on memories being short. Or on the fact that many New Yorkers were not even alive when Attica entered the lexicon as a synonym for wholesale death, which occurred as state troopers stormed the rebels, indiscriminately killing inmates and prison guards alike: 39 in all.

At the very least, those long-ago events were more nuanced than you might imagine from listening to the Mayor typecast Ms. Messinger as a radical-chic throwback because of a 1979 party held in her house for John B. Hill, a young inmate who was convicted of killing a guard as rioting erupted.

So mass death is reduced to sound bites about a cocktail party. Which, mind you, Ms. Messinger may or may not have attended (participants' accounts vary) and which she insists she does not remember.

DOES her memory lapse tell us something about her character? The Mayor says yes. But some reply that Mr. Giuliani's own character is revealed by his use of an old trauma for partisan purposes, down to hauling in a few present-day Attica guards to endorse him.

''He is misusing the history of Attica for his own benefit,'' protested Daniel Meyers, a lawyer for Attica inmates in civil proceedings that still continue.

Even a close Giuliani adviser, Herman Badillo, seems uncomfortable with the Mayor's exploitation of the rebellion.

''The way it exploded, it came up unfortunately,'' Mr. Badillo said yesterday, adding that City Hall had not consulted him. Too bad. Mr. Badillo could have reminded Mr. Giuliani what it was like at Attica, because he was there. He was a Congressman then, called in with others to mediate a peaceful conclusion -- an effort that proved to be in vain.

In Mr. Badillo's opinion, brute force prevailed over sound judgment when Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller sent in his troopers to carry out what a disillusioned state prosecutor would later call a ''turkey shoot.'' Mr. Badillo himself has described Attica as a ''willful police riot'' and a ''bloody massacre.'' Certainly no cocktail party.

''It was,'' he said, ''a very traumatic experience all around.''

A FEW other points are pertinent, including social context. In 1971, many New Yorkers, including political moderates, actually worried about deplorable conditions inside state prisons, at Attica and elsewhere. Obviously, this was before the present spirit of lock 'em up and throw away the key.

As for John Hill, he was not some crazed Cagneyesque killer, as Mr. Giuliani implies. Yes, he had been convicted of armed robbery as a youthful offender, and he has since had brushes with the law. But he was then barely 19, a kid who became caught up in rioting at the start of a four-day inmate siege. It was in those frenetic first moments that Correction Officer William Quinn was severely beaten. If he was hit by one person, he was hit by dozens.

Yet only two people were singled out for murder charges: Mr. Hill and another teen-age convict, Charles J. Pernasilice, whose sole criminal conviction until then was for stealing a motorcycle when he was 16. The evidence against him was so weak that a jury in Buffalo found him guilty of nothing more than attempted assault.

Mr. Hill, though, went to prison for murder. But by late 1976 a new Governor, Hugh L. Carey, had decided it was time to ''close the book'' on Attica, that it was wrong for the full burden to fall on a handful of convicts who had been sentenced on various charges, John Hill among them.

In early 1979, he was paroled, and in April the party for him was held in Ms. Messinger's home, although people who remember it say that someone else had sponsored it. The real point is that this was no celebration of a killer. ''It was to celebrate his release and to start him on his new life,'' said Elizabeth Fink, another lawyer for Attica inmates.

There is no doubt that Ms. Messinger was simpatico, on hand or not. But that was not a radic-lib view in those days. No less than Governor Carey, hardly a radical, warned in 1976, ''Attica lurks as a dark shadow over our system of justice.''

It is still casting its shadow, this time over the mayoral election.

Now Brother Hugo lets fast forward to another election campaign of Rude Giuliani this time as a failed attempt to secure the office of the US presidency and see what people who suffered great loss on 911 had to say.

FIREFIGHTERS EDIT FOR QUOTES MARRIOT STORY FAMILY

Firefighters Urge "Peeling Of Giuliani's 9/11 Onion"

Spokesman for largest Firefighters' union speaks out

Steve Watson

Infowars.net

Monday, March 12, 2007

The press secretary of the biggest firefighters' union, the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) has today shed more light on the furor surrounding last week's press coverage of Giuliani's snubbing of the firefighters invitation to an upcoming presidential candidate forum.

Alex Jones was joined on air today by IAFF's Jeff Zack, who revealed in no uncertain terms that the image of Giuliani as some sort of a 9/11 hero could not be further from the truth as far as the firefighters of New York are concerned.

Last week the AP reported:

After Giuliani pulled out of a planned appearance at an International Association of Firefighters presidential forum next week, the group released a stinging draft letter indicating that it almost didn't invite him at all because of continuing anger at his "despicable" role in pulling firefighters off the Twin Towers' debris pile in 2001 before all hope of finding their dead comrades' remains was exhausted.

"The disrespect that he exhibited to our 343 fallen FDNY brothers, their families, and our New York leadership in the wake of that tragic day has not been forgiven or forgotten," said the three-page letter, drafted by union leaders in late February and first disclosed on Newsday's Web site Thursday.

A CNN report covers this in more depth here.

Mr. Zack explained on the Alex Jones show that the initial decision from those debating the issue from New York City and from the national office was that Rudy Giuliani shouldn't be invited. Zack explained that this was:

"Because of the egregious way he treated our fallen and those attempting to pursue a dignified recovery of the citizens and firefighters that lost their lives that horrific day. In making that decision a discussion ensued about, well, how are we going to communicate to our membership that we're not Inviting Rudy because, you know, he would be the only person that was not invited; every other major candidate was invited from the Republican party and the Democratic party. So we drafted a letter to let people know of exactly the circumstances that were discussed and why Rudy didn't deserve an invitation."

Before there was a final decision another discussion ensued and it was finally decided that Giuliani should be given a platform regardless, so he did get invited, confirmed his appearance last Monday and then two days later changed his mind and canceled. The firefighters' union, feeling somewhat snubbed, decided to release their previous draft letter anyway in order to give more clarity to the situation.

Mr. Zack went on to explain exactly why the firefighters hold Giuliani in such low esteem:

"There were a number of issues over which our firefighters had severe disagreements with the mayor prior to September 11th, and then his actions following that horrific day where he made the decision to pull firefighters off the pile from searching for citizens and firefighters that lost their lives, and he went to a full what we call 'scoop and dump', where he was just taking all what he determined was trash, putting it on a barge and sending it to Fresh Kills landfill. Well that what he called trash contained the remains of thousands of citizens, hundreds of firefighters, and we felt that the families of those people deserved some sort of closure and some sort of dignified recovery process because they were innocent victims."

To this day the remains of hundreds of innocent victims of the September 11 attacks are still sickeningly buried in the world's largest rubbish dump, on Staten Island, where it has been declared by New York officials that they will stay for ever. Officials, citing financial constraints, have refused to make any concessions and wish to leave those victims to rot in the ground with acres of stinking trash.

Giuliani's official reasoning for this was that he was acting in the interest of safety. The IAFF believes this to be totally false, Jeff Zack commented:

"For him to determine that it was unsafe, OK this actually was the most unstable unsafe destruction area in the history of the Untied States. but for Rudy Giuliani to all of a sudden become concerned, six weeks after the initial accident where hundreds and thousands of people had been coming through and working on that pile for weeks and weeks, all of a sudden he became concerned about the safety of people on that pile? That's disingenuous."

Zack then reiterated the real reason behind Giuliani's action:

"The real reason was that the Bank of Nova Scotia's assets were buried in that rubble, the day they got those assets out of that pile, Rudy shut the pile down, said 'everybody off, we're going to full scoop and dump'... It was gold, it was silver, it was other assets, I've seen a lot of numbers too, I don't have an exact one so I don't want to give it to you... Our firefighters were on the pile helping excavate the gold as well, our problem is that all Rudy cared about at the end of the day was the gold bricks, not the lives and the memories of those that were the true heroes that day."

At the time, in November 2001, it was reported that $200 million in gold bullion has been recovered from the site. One day later around 50% of firefighters were removed from the job and totally denied access.

Many declared they were being disrespected, that the city was more concerned with gold than people. Others said the city wanted to speed up the removal of debris to save money.

'We're on a mission, and we won't leave until it's done,' insisted fireman Chuck Horack. 'We see the site as sacred ground. Our brothers are still in the debris. No one can ever know how important it is to bring their husband home to a widow.' Mayor Giuliani launched a bizarre and savage attack on the firemen, saying their actions were 'sinful'. 'They have absolutely no monopoly in caring about the people there,' he said.

Another huge 9/11 scandal that has angered the firefighters and first responders, is that of the criminal culpibility on behalf of government officials who certified the air safe to breathe in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Mr Zack stated:

"That's a whole other issue, the extreme denial, not only in which the Federal Government was, but the City of New York in cooperation with the Federal Government, about how dangerous it really was to be on that pile, not just working on the unsettled situation but breathing that air full of the toxic particles that we now know it was full of.

There was a whole lot of discussion including the Environmental Protection Administration, which said 'the air there is not a problem', New York City and Rudy Giuliani's administration agreed with that assessment and continued to put forward the idea that it wasn't a problem and that it was OK."

We have previously exposed in great detail how not only did the government know on the day itself that rescuers were being exposed to harmful dust, they also ordered misleading information to be given to the public, they ordered scientific research results on the air to be falsified, they allowed residents to return to their homes in the immediate vicinity knowing the air was corrosive and lethal and, to top it all off, they have since embarked on a collective program to block compensation and funding of health programs because that would be an admission of guilt.

We have also previously exposed how Rudolph Giuliani admitted to Peter Jennings that he got a warning that the South Tower was about to collapse.

Why is this important?

No steel framed building had ever collapsed from fire damage before in history. The event was unprecedented. To know the building was about to collapse would require inside knowledge of 'the 9/11 script' and how it was supposed to unfold on that fateful day.

Remember, right before the building collapsed, firefighters reported minimal fires which they could quickly and easily extinguish.

Why didn't the brave firemen and rescue workers who were rushing into the building get the same warning? Even if the warning was only communicated minutes before the collapse, countless lives could have been saved.

Consider the amount of people on the lower floors, in the lobby and immediately outside that could have rushed to safety in those few minutes.

In the years after 9/11 Giuliani has made millions in speaker's fees, going around the country, billing himself as "America's Mayor". As Jeff Zack commented:

"Rudy Giuliani has made millions and millions of dollars off of 9/11, and the story he likes to tell about 9/11, and he has used those millions of dollars and those speeches around the country to build up this image that he was a hero that day and in the days following. As far as the firefighters of New York are concerned he is anything but a hero.

You should really be skeptical about someone who calls themselves a hero. Who spends millions and millions of dollars after the fact, building up an image as an American hero when in fact if you go back and look at what really happened that day and what the real heroes of that day really think of Rudy Giuliani, that's the true measure of who Rudy really is.

This Story, Rudy's onion will continue to be peeled and America will learn the true character and who Rudy Giuliani really is."

Giuliani called wanting to search for and give proper burials to fallen heroes 'sinful' while he was ordering them to be scooped up, shipped off and disposed of in a stinking trash heap. He knowingly lied and ordered false information to be released about the toxicity of the air at ground zero. Now this man has the gall to paint himself up as a 9/11 hero and want to use that to become President of the United States.
That brings us to the recently announced sham trial in NY Federal Court of attorney general Eric Holder of KSM and others tortured by the CIA and US military sadists into confessing that they masterminded and executed the deaths of 3,000 people on 911. Note the following quote from the Huffington Post.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama predicted that professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be convicted and executed as Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed: "Failure is not an option."

Even if a terror trial suspect were acquitted, Holder said, he would not be released in the United States.

In one of a series of TV interviews during his trip to Asia, Obama said those offended by the legal privileges given to Mohammed by virtue of getting a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal won't find it "offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him." Obama quickly added that he did not mean to suggest he was prejudging the outcome of Mohammed's trial. "I'm not going to be in that courtroom," he said. "That's the job of the prosecutors, the judge and the jury."

Here’s an interesting tidbit by Jay Mac on Eric Holder Eric Holder.

Until recently worked for a law firm that represented Gitmo detainees.
http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2009/11/will-holder-associates-profit-from-nyc.html

“Holder’s previous job, after all, was as a senior partner with Covington and Burling – a white-shoe DC law firm that devotes considerable pro bono time to defending the Gitmo detainees. The job paid $2 million a year, and he expects to collect a like amount this year as part of his separation package.

As a senior partner, he undoubtedly had significant input on what kind of charity cases his firm picked up. He surely knew that dozens of lawyers from his firm were among the 500-plus civilian lawyers representing the 244 or so remaining detainees (on top of military-court-appointed defenders).”

In fact his law firm was pushing for civilian trials of the detainees. Conflict of interest? You bet.

It also raises major concerns about how watertight the case against KSM and others actually is. Holder’s background is an interest in defending terrorists, not prosecuting them.

Are Obama & Holder more concerned about their so-called principle here- and at the same time scoring points against Bush era policy- than they are about securing violent jihadists who hate America?

As with the decision to close Gitmo by January or their calls for a COIN campaign in Afghanistan- these geniuses maybe haven’t thought the whole process through.

Giuliani angry at terrorist trial in NY

Lisa Millar reported this story on Monday, November 16, 2009 08:22:08
TONY EASTLEY: The man who was mayor of New York City when terrorists struck on September the 11th has blasted the decision to put the accused mastermind of the attack on trial in New York, just a short walk from where the twin towers once stood.

Rudy Giuliani - who won praise for his strong leadership after the attacks says holding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial in New York will put the city at risk.

North America correspondent Lisa Millar reports.

LISA MILLAR: There's no hint of when Khalid Sheik Mohammed will be moved from Guantanamo Bay to New York or when his trial and those of four other accused terrorists will actually begin. But the reaction to the Obama administration's decision has been fierce.

RUDY GIULIANI: He's asking for a trial in New York and we're giving it to him. Since when were we in the business of granting the wishes of terrorists?

LISA MILLAR: Rudy Giuliani's distress is personal. He walked amongst the rubble of the twin towers as mayor of the city. And the Republican won tributes for helping New York recover.

RUDY GIULIANI: The Obama administration is repeating the mistake of history. Many, many people have regarded that as a mistake that it was regarded just as a civilian act. It should have been treated as an act of war.

And it's part of the bigger picture here. It's part of Barack Obama deciding that we're not at war on terrorism any longer. Remember, he's told us we can't use the term "war on terror". The only problem with that is the terrorists haven't stopped going to war with us.

LISA MILLAR: Barack Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo Bay and this decision is one step in that process. His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the move, while conceding a trial in New York could prove painful.

HILLARY CLINTON: That is something that pains me, you know, but we're a nation of laws. We have two different venues for holding these people accountable: the military commissions and our federal courts. And the individual decisions that the Justice Department and the Defense Department have made, along with the advice of veteran prosecutors, I think should be respected.

LISA MILLAR: There are endless questions about this case. What impact will the interrogation techniques, including water boarding, have? What happens if intelligence information is revealed, what does it mean for New York's security and will Khalid Sheikh Mohammed use it to become a martyr for his cause?

And what happens if a federal court finds him not guilty?

Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed says even if that happened, the self-confessed mastermind of the attacks wouldn't go free.

JACK REED: There are no guarantees but under basic principles of international law as long as these individuals pose a threat they can be detained and they will.

LISA MILLAR: All of those elements are setting the stage for what's bound to be a historic trial.

This is Lisa Millar in Washington for AM.

“What happens if intelligence information is revealed”, is Giuliani’s greatest fear as real intelligence gatherers from the truth movement are rapidly exposing his complicity in the 911 massacre and the evidence is forthcoming. All I can say for you buddy boy is “RUDY RETARDO, you gots lots of splanning to do”!

Another comment was posted online that said;

"Anyone notice the names of the people who have come out AGAINST the KSM trial? Any NYPD detective or investigator will tell you that the recent actions and words of the Neocons is a psychology called 'criminal self identification by fearful emotional response'." Giuliani, Cheney, Rove, Mukasey....

Yes Mr. President Rudy Giuliani, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, George Bush and Judge Mukasey who settled Lucky Larry’s multi billion blood insurance payout from the twins, then became a Bush appointed attorney general, are all reeling from the prospects that the trials might actually reveal (intelligence information) the identity of the terrorists behind 911 and that they may actually end up in the same or Nuremberg courtroom in handcuffs for mass murder and treason.

When, not if, they are brought up on charges it will be from the years of investigative research conducted by the 911 Truth movements. Some of the most damaging evidence which ties these criminals all together comes from the brilliant research of Kevin Ryan.

MOTIVE FOR 9-11

Note…this section read by Tom on tape…

Kevin R. Ryan: Demolition access to the WTC Towers
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0907/S00124.htm

Kevin R. Ryan 9 July 2009
Demolition access to the World Trade Center towers: Part one - tenants

Note: The author is indebted to a few particularly useful sources of information and inspiration, including Russ Baker’s book “Family of Secrets”, the websites nndb.com, sourcewatch.org and secinfo.com, and Richard Gage.

On occasion, the public has been asked by George W. Bush to refrain from considering certain conspiracy theories. Bush has made such requests when people were looking into crimes in which he might be culpable. For example, when in 1994 Bush’s former company Harken Energy was linked to the fraudulent Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) through several investors, Bush’s spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, shut down the inquiry by telling the Associated Press -- “We have no response to silly conspiracy theories.” On another occasion, Bush said in a televised speech -- “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th.”

But paradoxically, we have also been asked to believe Bush’s own outrageous conspiracy theory about 9/11, one that has proven to be false in many ways

Conclusions and next steps

If we look at the companies that occupied the impact zones of the WTC towers, and other floors that might have played a useful role in the demolition of the towers, we see connections to organizations that had access to explosive materials, and to the expertise required to use explosives. Mining companies like Washington, Morrison-Knudsen, Komatsu and Aoki Construction (and John Lehman’s Special Devices Inc.) have access to many types of explosive materials. Oil and gas companies, like those associated with Exco, use explosives for exploration. Some of the explosive technologies available to these companies, for example Komatsu and Washington, involve thermite, a chemical mixture that has been identified in the WTC dust and in the environmental data at Ground Zero.

It seems that, if certain management representatives of the tenant companies listed above wanted to help bring the WTC towers down, they would have been well suited to do so. The companies mentioned were located at well-spaced intervals in the buildings, and some, for example Marsh and the Primark subsidiaries, had a reputation of being secretive. In fact, a number of the executives from these firms were either on the board of intelligence firms

(e.g. In-Q-Tel, TASC), or were closely related to others who were. Others were connected to the CIA itself, and to some of the largest defense contractors in the world, like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Halliburton, and SAIC.

There are also strong connections to those who benefited from the 9/11 attacks, most notably the Bush family and their corporate network, including Dresser Industries (now Halliburton) and UBS, and to Deutsche Bank and it subsidiaries, reported to have brokered the insider trading deals. There are links between these tenant companies and the terrorist-related fraudulent bank BCCI.

In Part II of this series of essays, we’ll look at the security companies and other contractors that had access to the WTC buildings. We’ll then see more connections to the Bush family, through the companies that restructured the security systems in the late 1990s, like Securacom, where Marvin Bush and Wirt Walker were directors. Also involved in these security upgrades was Ensec, where future Democrat National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe was added as a director in 1996 and later worked for Harken Energy’s Alan Quasha. The second essay will also look at E.J. Electric, owned by J. Robert Mann of the Yale Glee Club, and examine particulars about the PANYNJ management staff, and the Giuliani and Silverstein teams that were involved.

Part III will review the clean up of Ground Zero, and some of the people involved in the cover-up investigations. For example, we’ll look more closely at Donald Evans, a close friend to George W. Bush since 1968 and his largest fund-raiser, and who also happened to be secretary of the Department of Commerce during the NIST WTC investigation. This is interesting because NIST reports to the Secretary of Commerce.

In the end, we might see that conspiracies are not just limited to the powerless people who happen to live on the most strategically important lands in the world. The conspiracies that matter might involve the powerful people who seek access to those lands, and who have spent their lives seeking more power.

Thursday, 13 August 2009, 11:58 pm
Opinion: www.UnansweredQuestions.org

Demolition Access to the WTC Towers: Part Two - Security

Kevin R. Ryan

See also…Kevin R. Ryan: Demolition access to the WTC Towers
Conclusions

Several facts are clear from this review of the companies and people responsible for revamping the security systems for the WTC buildings, and securing New York City, on 9/11. One is that many of the people involved were deceptive and/or corrupt, and appeared to have benefited from the attacks. Another is that many of them were connected to each other and to the investigations into previous acts of terrorism and the terrorist financing bank BCCI. Yet another striking similarity among these organizations is that they all did major work for the Saudi Arabian government, or the royal family of Kuwait. Finally, the history of some of those involved, like Terry McAuliffe, shows a level of greed and corruption that overshadowed all preconceptions about US politics.

The PANYNJ occupied a good deal of space in the towers, and contributed to the false WTC report from NIST. Some of its commissioners were linked to BCCI, and its WTC Director appeared to be intentionally deceptive after the attacks. Others like Silverstein Properties’ security manager John O’Neill, and FBI Director Louis Freeh, were the leading experts on Al Qaeda.

The management of Kroll created the WTC security plan, created authoritative reports that promoted a fear of terrorism, had expert knowledge of BCCI, and were intimately linked to the impact zone tenant Marsh & McLennan. AIG was one of the owners of Kroll as of 1993 and, along with Marsh, Lockheed Martin and L-3 Communications (the defense contractor

successor to Loral Corp), was a company whose stock was flagged by the SEC after 9/11, in relation to insider trading. [139] Less than a month after the attacks, AIG’s chairman Greenberg said -- “The opportunities for us are enormous,” and “It's not just in the United States, but rates are rising throughout the world. So our business looks quite good going forward.'' [140]

It’s clear that some management representatives at the primary WTC security companies also benefited from the War on Terror. Examples include James Abrahamson, Terry McAuliffe and Marvin Bush. Larry Silverstein, whose company had just taken over the security of the complex, reaped a huge windfall in insurance benefits from the destruction of the three buildings.

All four of the primary contractors that were involved in rebuilding the security systems for the WTC had done significant business with the Saudis. Electronic Systems Associates’ parent, S&H, designed King Saud University, and E.J. Electric worked for Saudi Arabian Airlines. Ensec was owned by a former arms dealer to the Saudis and Securacom, owned by a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, was in partnership with Ahmad N. AlBinali & Sons Co., the large Saudi Arabian construction company. Of course, fifteen of the nineteen alleged hijackers were from Saudi Arabia as well. [141]

The leaders of NY City and NY County, who also were the primary players on 9/11 and in the ensuing investigations, were the investigators of BCCI and the 1993 WTC bombing, in the late 1980s an early 1990s. All of them seemed to benefit from the 9/11 attacks. Freeh started a homeland security business and began representing the Saudis. Cherkasky went on to become CEO of Marsh, after it bought Kroll, and helped it avoid prosecution for fraud. Others, like Giuliani, became national heroes for their “response” to 9/11.

Could those involved in the BCCI investigation in New York, many of whom played a large role in the events leading up to, during, and after the attacks at the WTC, somehow have used the information they learned about BCCI to facilitate the attacks and then benefit from them? If so, they might have had to eliminate certain individuals who knew too much. Could the security firms and certain tenant companies have conspired to prepare the Twin Towers for demolition, well in advance of the attacks?

These possibilities seem quite plausible. In fact, a number of these people, including Giuliani, Cherkasky, Freeh, Mueller, Bremer and Hauer have already been charged and indicted by a citizen’s grand jury, for the crimes of 9/11. [142] Further investigation, with subpoena power, is well past due. The third and final essay in this series will examine the organizations and people who were involved in cleaning up Ground Zero.

CHENEY DRESSER INDUSTRIES
It was founded by Solomon Robert Dresser (1842-1911), who manufactured a product that he devised for drillers to keep oil and water separated underground.[2]
Dresser created a "packer", using rubber for a tight fit, and after taking out a patent on May 11, 1880, he began advertising and selling his product, the Dresser Cap Packer, from Bradford, Pennsylvania, in the heart of the oilfields. Dresser's packer was one of many available on the market, and it was another invention that saw a substantial expansion of the company. A flexible coupling, the Dresser Joint, that he built in 1885 to join pipes together in such a way that they would not leak natural gas. This coupling also used rubber for a tight fit, and it was so successful that it permitted for the first time the long-range transmission of natural gas from the gas fields where it was extracted to the cities which were the main gas consumers.[2]

As the natural gas industry prospered and expanded after 1900, Dresser's company grew as pipelines were built over great distances. By 1927 the company's annual sales had reached US$3.7 million and were employing 400 workers.[2]

Public Offering
Following Dresser's death, his descendants decided to sell it, and in 1928 the Wall Street investment-banking firm of W. A. Harriman and Company, Inc., converted the firm into a public company by issuing 300,000 shares of stock.

H. Neil Mallon was selected as president and chief executive officer; holding that position until his retirement in 1962. Under Mallon, Dresser began a program of acquisitions designed to help it survive the threat posed to its core business by the introduction of welding for joining pipes together. Starting in 1930 Dresser began acquiring companies that manufactured valves, heaters, pumps, engines and compressors and the company diversified into such products as oil derricks, blowers, drill bits, refractories, and drilling mud.[2]

In 1950 the company headquarters moved to Dallas to be near the center of the nation's major oil and gas fields. It continued to purchase well-known companies involved in manufacturing such things as overhead cranes, gasoline-dispensing pumps, and heavy equipment for mining and construction. During the 1980s, as the oil industry began to decline, Dresser's chairman, John Murphy, began to streamline the organization of the company, eliminating its insurance, mining, and construction-equipment divisions.[2]

On January 1, 1987 Dresser Industries and Ingersoll-Rand merged to form Dresser-Rand Company with headquarters in Corning, New York. The newly formed company had 10 manufacturing and testing facilities, 70 sales offices, 30 service centers and more than 7,300 employees. The partnership started as a 50-50 relationship, but later Dresser took a 51% share of the assets while Ingersoll-Rand had 49%.[3]

By 1993, it generated sales of more than US$4 billion, and employed 31,800 people in fifty countries. The company had three major divisions: Oil Field Products and Services, Industrial Operations, and Energy Processing and Conversion Equipment. It spun off some of its manufacturing divisions, but crucially agreed to retain asbestos claims filed before the spinoff.[2]

In 1994 the company expanded through acquisitions of Wheatley TXT (a manufacturer of pumps, valves, and metering equipment) and the Baroid Corporation (an oil-services firm in Houston that had been a direct competitor). To comply with federal antitrust regulations, Dresser sold off its interest in M-I Drilling Fluids Company and Western Atlas International. Upon completion of the Baroid merger, Dresser became the third-largest oil-services company in the world.[2]

[edit] Merger with Halliburton

In 1998, Dresser merged with its main rival Halliburton and is now known as Halliburton Company.[1] Dick Cheney negotiated the US$7.7 billion deal, reportedly having done so during a weekend of quail-hunting. In 2001, Halliburton was forced to settle the asbestos lawsuits that it acquired as a result of purchasing Dresser, causing the company's stock price to fall by eighty percent in just over a year.[4]

So as you can see Brother Hugo, Dick Cheney, Lucky Larry Silverstein, Rudy Giuliani, George Bush had two white elephants laced with asbestos that they had to recoup their losses from.

The fraudulent war on terror allowed Halliburton which Cheney was CEO from 1998 on to make a thousand times the money that Cheney paid out for asbestos suits when they brought the Rockefellers down, the Twin towers were nicknamed David and Nelson Rockefeller.

I assert at this time Brother Hugo that the previous connections I have made with Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Dresser, George Soros Maurice Greenberg of AIG, his son Jeffery Greenberg of Marsh & McLennan, Peter Peterson of the Blackstone Group, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Rudy Giuliani, Jerome Hauer of Kroll, Unacol, Enrons Ken Lay now deceased like Tim Russert, George Bush 41 and 43 and more were all privy to the plan to paralyze the world with SHOCK and AWE by mass murdering 3,000 unsuspecting souls of 92 different nations on the day the earth stood still.9-11-01.
Dick Cheney according to Dan Aria in the final chapter of Mike Rupperts Crossing the Rubicon was the “Maestro” behind 9-11. I say Dick Cheney Made it Happen and the skeptics of the world Let it Happen.

This brings us to the present brother Chavez and before I submit my last request to you and the peoples of Venezuela I would like to throw in a few closing remarks by Larry Chin and the esteemed Professor Michel Chossudovsky.
Bush/Cheney’s war is also Obama’s war

On March 27, 2009, Obama launched his “new strategy for Afghanistan”. This new strategy is a continuation and expansion of the Bush/Cheney war plan, hatched in the wake of the false flag operation of 9/11, utilizing the identical “war on terrorism” and 9/11 lies as justification.

As articulated by Obama: “I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is a cause that could not be more just.” I remind everybody, the United States did not choose to fight a war in Afghanistan. Nearly 3,000 of our people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, for doing nothing more than going about their daily lives.”

The consensus "Al-Qaeda" deception is not only alive and well under Obama, it is now the justification for a surge of 21,000 US troops into Afghanistan, massive covert operations throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, and an even more aggressive “war on terrorism”. This is the conquest of the “Grand Chessboard” that the Anglo-American elites wanted to execute after 9/11, but “squandered” due to the Bush/Cheney administrations “fumble” in Iraq.

Obama, who is making the rounds with the G-20 leadership as this report goes to press, will not fumble with a war that is consistent with the “war on terrorism” goals that he has articulated for years, and promised to deliver (to his New World Order “bosses”) throughout his campaign.

As detailed by Michel Chossudovsky in “The Democrats endorse the "Global War on Terrorism": Obama "goes after Osama”, the Obama promise is more perpetual war: “9/11 constitutes for Obama the main justification for waging a humanitarian war in the Middle East and Central Asia. In this regard, his position does not differ from that of the Bush administration. “Withdraw from Iraq, but remain in Afghanistan. Confront Iran, challenge Russia…Apart from the rhetoric of ‘bringing the troops home’ from war torn Iraq, which may or may not be carried out, what distinguishes the Democrats from the Republicans?

“A more articulate, knowledgeable and charismatic President?

“A more dignified and diplomatic approach to US foreign policy?

As a pacifying and unifying icon, Obama was positioned to perpetuate the cover-up of the American Empire’s crimes, and retrieve the “squandered opportunity” presented by the false-flag operation of 9/11: a world united behind imperial war.

“An opportunity to the US ruling elite to ‘present a different face to the world that could revive illusions to its democratic pretensions, not only internationally but within the United States as well.’…

“A spurious and counterfeit ‘humanitarian’ approach to Empire, which serves to mask the truth and gain popular support.

“A less reckless Commander in Chief, who has an understanding of geopolitics and is capable of taking foreign policy decisions. A more carefully thought out military agenda than that experienced during the Bush administration? But no substantive shift in direction.

“A means to quelling mounting dissent and opposition to the ruling corporate establishment by providing the illusion that the Democrats constitute a Real Alternative.

“A means to sustaining the illusion that African-Americans can move up the social ladder in America and that their fundamental rights are being upheld.

“A means to undermining real progressive movements by further embedding civil society organizations, trade unions and grass roots organizations, not to mention “Leftist” intellectuals into the realm of the Democratic Party.

“A distraction from the extensive war crimes committed under successive US administrations.

“A ‘human face’ to war and globalization?”
A call to resist

As this writer warned in “Obama: return to elite status quo”, written shortly following Obama’s victory:

“…the arrival of Obama as the new imperial figurehead of the Anglo-American empire is not a victory of, or for, the people. It will not signify a dramatic upheaval, in any way, and by no means is any sort of revolution at hand. This election was a necessary rotation of management, scripted at the highest levels of the Anglo-American elite.

“The “change” that a Barack Obama presidency will bring to America and the world will be one of style, not substance: a return to the centrist corporate globalism of the Clinton and Carter eras, complete with regurgitated Democratic Party elites from those administrations, and new neoliberal politicians touting similar ideologies.

Note.. The only change I see personally that I believe in is the chump change the bailout frauds leave us to get by with after they loot the entire wealth of America. And WE ARE CHANGE GROUPS WORLD WIDE.

“…The velvet gloves will be slipped back over the iron fists, but the fists will still be wielded aggressively. Within months, the global conquest that Bush-Cheney started will resume under the vastly more convincing and adored Obama, who has consistently stated his intention to intensify the war in Afghanistan, and “kill ‘terrorists’” across the Middle East.”

For those who have spent the past eight hellish years opposing and resisting the crimes of Bush/Cheney, prepare yourselves for worse: the “friendliest” fascism, and the most dangerous stealth messenger in history

Closing remarks…

Mr. President, now more than ever we need to arrest this madness called the war on terror which Congressman Ron Paul called “ a war on a concept, as old as history” and push with all our might as a united front to confront the money changers and there stupid animals that effect their foreign policy interests, according to war criminal Kissinger when referring to soldiers.

Recently an article appeared in an Edmonton newspaper that quoted Canada’s Defense Minister Gordon O’Connor as saying “Canada is fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan in retribution for the 9-11 attacks that killed at least 3,000 people including 25 Canadians.”

If that is the only reason Canadians are in Afghanistan sacrificing young men and women sworn to fight for there country against all external enemies then the question I present to the minister is, “when it is known beyond a shadow of a doubt that 911 was an inside job will the Defense Minister Gordon O’Connor declare war on the US”?

With that sort of justification for war for revenge for the deaths of the many nationals killed that day from numerous countries around the world including one Venezuelan citizen killed on 911, wouldn’t that obligate your country to declare war on the US assuming your belief that 911 was an inside job.

Would the people of Venezuela push for war with America predicated on that line of reasoning that Canada is now pushing or would they push for the arrest, detention and day in court of those who really killed thousands on 911 and millions worldwide as a result of 911 and demand that they be brought to justice with the same zeal as the push to have Luis Jose Posada Carriles extradited to Venezuela as a war criminal given sanctuary in the state of Miami by the Bush gang, in this case Jeb Bush at the behest of George Sr.

Millions of people agree with the position taken with respect in this article excerpt world wide.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela will press the Obama administration in the coming days to extradite a former senior official in Venezuela’s secret intelligence police so that he can be tried for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people, according to lawyers for the government here.

The move will test the new administration’s willingness to engage on a festering issue that has further strained America’s relations with Venezuela and Cuba. Both nations have depicted the case of Luis Posada Carriles, an elderly Cuban exile who is a naturalized Venezuelan and a former C.I.A. operative, as an example of hypocrisy by Washington in its fight against terrorism.

Mr. Posada, 80, is charged here with masterminding the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane as it flew above Barbados, killing all 73 people on board, including dozens of Cuban civilians and a 9-year-old Guyanese girl. It was the Western Hemisphere’s first act of midair terrorism, the bloodiest of a series of bombings aimed at weakening Fidel Castro’s government.
Mr. Chavez, we know that you would not declare on the US for the retribution of the human being Venezuela lost on 911 or for the return of a reputed mass murderer but would instead call for a war crimes tribunal like the excellent one highlighted here in Kuala Lumpur. But we do know that you would defend your nation and peoples against a US invasion on your borders as in the current US backed buildup of 6,500 dumb animals for US interests in your countries oil reserves.

When British MP George Galloway,( who gave a great talk on the war crimes committed by the Israelis in Gaza where 1,400 people were slaughtered with US and Canadian produced phosphorus bombs and military hardware ), was asked by an aspiring law student from Calgary Alberta if he had heard Cynthia McKinney’s mention of my attempt to arrest G.W.Bush on his weekly radio show, he replied,” yes, yes indeed, that goes to show that the American Indian your friend the Mohawk/Cree has never stopped fighting after 500 years”.

It is ironic Mr. President that the same laws of Canada that we tried to keep George Bush out of Canada with as a credibly accused war criminal with and to have him arrested should he get in the country was the same law a Canadian MP from Calgary named Jason Kinney implored the Canadian government to keep George Galloway from entering Canada as an accused collaborator with Palestinian so called terrorist organizations like Hamas. The reality was that he and many others were only bringing by way of a caravan humanitarian relief to the suffering and afflicted peoples of Palestine.

Brother Hugo, I believe I have presented enough evidence in this massive letter to you to create a prima facie case for the indictments against the real terrorists behind 911 as was presented by all the scholars that have been honored and quoted in this voluminous text and the citizens grand jury in San Francisco which convened a few years back mentioned by Kevin Ryan a 911 truther.

I envision the possibility of putting those peopled who were indicted by this citizen’s grand jury on trial and to set free all the tortured scapegoats for US foreign bloody interests.

These are the people and profiles that the San Francisco grand jury found indictable.

Biographical Information

On The Sixteen Individuals Cited By

The San Diego Citizens Grand Jury

As Deserving Further Investigation

For The Charge Of

'Conspiracy to Commit Mass Murder'

INDICTMENTS

RUDOLPH GIULIANI: Mayor of New York City between 1994-12/31/2001, collaborating with JEROME HAUER as his Director of Emergency Management between 1996-2000; Assistant U. S. District Attorney in the Southern District of New York 1970-1975, collaborating with Jules Kroll, the founder of Kroll and Associates / Kroll, Incorporated; Associate Attorney General of the United States 1981-83; U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York 1983-89, collaborating with MICHAEL CHERKASKY and ELIOT SPITZER.

JEROME HAUER: Director of Mayor RUDOLPH Giuliani’s Office of Emergency Management between February 1996 and March 2000 (as such he was primary in building the City's Emergency Command Center on the 23rd floor of World Trade Center Building 7 and in warning about emergence of the West Nile Virus one year before it appeared in New York City); Managing Director of Kroll, Inc. on 9/11/01 (when he advised Dan Rather of CBS that demolition had not brought down a Twin Tower and that the day's attacks bore "the fingerprints of Osama bin Laden"; Senior Adviser to U. S. Secretary of Health and Human Services for National Security and Emergency Management between June 2001 and November 2003; coordinator of the National Institute of Health's investigation of anthrax deaths in Fall of 2001, deaths that came from the Ames strain of anthrax thought to be available only at the U. S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, the N.I.H. investigation producing no suspects named by Jerome Hauer except Osama bin Laden and al Queda; current Director on the Boards of the companies Emergent Biosolutions and San Diego-based Hollis Eden Pharmaceuticals.

PRESENTMENTS

THOMAS PICKARD: Acting Director of the F. B. I. between June 25, 2001-September 4, 2001; Special Agent in the F.B.I.'s New York City office 1975-1979; Supervisor and Assistant Special Agent for White-Collar Crime in N.Y.C. 1984-1989; Special Agent in Charge of the National Security Division in N.Y.C., supervising trials of defendants in the first Twin Towers' bombing, of the Manila Air conviction of Ramzi Youssef, and of the TWA Flight 800 explosion, between 1993-1996.

MICHAEL CHERKASKY: Various jobs in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office between 1978-94 (Chief of Investigations into crimes of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and into the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center Twin Towers; various jobs at Kroll and Associates security-firm (contracted to improve security at the World Trade Center after the 1993 bombing there); Chief Executive Officer of Kroll, Incorporated between May 2001 and October 2004; CEO and President of Marsh & McLennan insurance-firm from October 2004 to present.

GEORGE W. BUSH: President of the United States 2001 to present.

LARRY SILVERSTEIN: Primary lease-holder of the Twin Towers and World Trade Center Buildings 4, 5, and 6 on 9/11/01, having taking official possession of the properties from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey seven weeks earlier; developer and primary owner of World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11/01, linking him to Peter G. Peterson and Maurice Greenberg; recipient of insurance-awards worth hundreds of millions of dollars (WTC 7) or several billions of dollars (the Twin Towers) since 9/11/01; interviewee who told the Public Broadcasting System documentary 'America Rebuilds' of September 2002 that he and a New York Fire Department Commander had jointly decided on about WTC 7 on 9/11/01 to "pull it."

RICHARD CHENEY: Vice-President of the United States 2001 to present; C.E.O. of the Halliburton Corporation between 1995-2000 (a period in which Halliburton's off-shore tax havens increased from 9 to 44); member of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) with Donald Rumsfeld, Democrat James Woolsey and several others; U.S. Secretary of Defense 1989-93.

DONALD RUMSFELD: U.S. Secretary of Defense 2001-2006; member of the Board of Directors of Zurich-based ABB Corporation during time (1999) that ABB sold two nuclear reactors to North Korea; C. E. O. of General Instrument Corporation 1990-1993; C. E. O. of G. D. Searle & Company during the time (1985) that Searle won approval from the U. S. Food and Drug Administration for aspartame.

MARVIN BUSH: Member of the Board of Directors of Securacom, another firm entrusted with security for the Twin Towers as of 9/11/01 (also entrusted with security for United Airlines and Washington D.C.'s Dulles Airport as of 9/11/01) 1996-2000.

WIRT WALKER III: C.E.O. of Securacom (later Stratasec) 1999-2003

RICHARD MYERS: Acting Chairman of the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11/01l; disregarded first airliner crash into a Twin Tower that morning to instead attend meeting with Senator Max Cleland; confirmed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by U. S. Senate on 9/30/01; served as such till 2005; Commander of North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) between August 1998-February 2000.

RALPH EBERHART: Commander of somehow ineffectual NORAD on 9/11/01 ('NORAD uses a network of ground-based radars, sensors and fighter jets to detect, intercept and, if necessary, engage any threats to the continent'---Canadian Defense website); Commander of Northern Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, directing U.S, Canadian and Mexican military from October 2002 to January 2005; Commander of Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia between June 1998-February 2000.

L. PAUL BREMER: Executive with the Marsh & McLennan insurance-firm (two-hundred ninety-five deaths in the South Tower) on 9/11/01; C.E.O. of M & M's post 9/11/01 'Marsh Crisis Consultancy' offshoot between October 2002-May 2003; Presidential Envoy to Iraq and Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority May 2003-December 2004 (where he promoted civil war by antagonizing Shia and then Sunni Muslims and by issuing '100 Orders', among which 'Orders' were 40-year, tax-free ownership of Iraqi business by non-Iraqi Corporations and 'full immunity' from Iraqi laws for non-Iraqi contractors; Chairman of the U. S. Congress' National Commission on Terrorism between 1999-2000, a period in which he too warned of 'catastrophic terrorism' that could cause 'tens of thousands of casualties' and cause 'the American people' to be 'screaming for a response, ... the example we use is Pearl Harbor'; Managing Director of Kissinger Associates between 1989-2000; U. S. Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism between 1986-1989.

PETER G. PETERSON: C.E.O. of the Blackstone Group, one of three lease-holders (along with Banc of America Securities and the General Motors Acceptance Corporation) of World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11/01, thus sharing in unquestioning receipt of $861 million in insurance payments for the demolished WTC 7 (February 2002); also Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Council on Foreign Relations on 9/11/01; the Blackstone Group an investor in Kroll, Inc. (1993) and an investment of the American International Group insurance-firm (receiving $150 million, or a 7% stake, from A.I.G. in 1998), A.I.G. then headed by Maurice Greenberg, a former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the Blackstone Group a partner with Kissinger Associates and A.I.G. from February 2000 onward (at the time the 'venture' was announced Peter G. Peterson was quoted in a press-release: "In this new global economy, with its requirements ... for cross-border mergers and acquisitions, for government privatizations of major industries and for restructuring of industries battered by the recent global financial crisis, we believe each of these entities bring some special knowledge and expertise to the table. We at Blackstone very much look forward to working with AIG and Kissinger Associates and capitalizing on these opportunities.").

DAVID ROCKEFELLER: Principal in creating the World Trade Center and in building the Twin Towers as Chairman of the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association between 1958-1975; beneficiary of more than $1 billion in public funds for said construction; beneficiary of his brother the Governor of the State of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, installing more than 20,000 State employees into WTC 2, the South Tower, in the 1970s; potential loser of billions of dollars from renovations necessary to the Twin Towers by the year 2000; President of the Chase Manhattan Bank 1961-69; C.E.O. of the Chase Manhattan Bank 1969-1981; Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations 1970-1985; co-founder with Zbignew Brzezinski and George Franklin of the Trilateral Commission in 1973.

MAURICE GREENBERG: C.E.O. of A.I.G.--A.I.G. 'the leading U.S.- based international insurance organization and the largest underwriter of commercial and industrial insurance in the United States', according to Website in February 2000--between 1968-2005.; A.I.G. a major share-holder in Marsh & McLennan (headed by Maurice Greenberg's son Jeffrey on 9/11/01), in ACE International (another insurance firm, headed by Maurice Greenberg's son Evan on 9/11/01), and in Kroll & Associates / Kroll, Inc.; A.I.G. connected to narcotics traffic and money-laundering by its C.I.A.-funded predecessor the Starr Corporation and by reporters Jonathan Kwitny, Sally Denton and Roger Morris; A.I.G. a beneficiary of the increase in insurance premiums post-9/11/01, its sales increasing by more than 35% between 2001-2003 and its profits more than doubling between 2004 and 2005, exceeding $11 billion in the latter year; Maurice Greenberg a former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1994-1995) and Honorary Vice-Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Imagine that brother Hugo the citizens of this one particular independent grand jury investigation found these creeps responsible for 911 while the US, Canada who has been recently accused of aiding and abetting torture and murder in Afghanistan and the “coalition of the killing” are still looking for Osama bin Laden in a cave who according to the FBI is not

even on their most wanted list for 911 related charges. Kissinger was right, they are dumb sacrificial animals for bloody US policies and so are the rest of the world’s peoples who refuse to get their heads out the sand on the realities of this festering fable and excuse for genocide and plunder called the war on terror.

Last of all brother Hugo it might interest you to know that ten days before that horrible day in his story I was in New York City with my family promoting my autobiography written with my wife a Cree Indian from Churchill Manitoba She Keeps the Door or Sandra Bruderer and our four children.

A young fellow who happened to be related to the Rockefeller family put us at a hotel for those ten days while preparing for benefit concert to promote the book called the Autobiography of Splitting the Sky: From Attica to Gustafson Lake. Believe it or not a friend of mine actually gave a signed copy of this book to you by way of one of your administrators while he was there covering your last election.

What is important to note is that originally the young man that put us up offered to have us stay at the Marriot Hotel where numerous people were killed on 911 including 39 firefighters that Giuliani sent to rest in a rat infested landfill in exchange for gold. The young man also suggested that we might consider taking residence at the Marriot Financial Center Hotel a block up the street which was under renovations and would lessen the cost for him although money was no real object if we chose to stay at the first hotel he offered.

On September 10th 2001, one day before 911 my wife had a feeling that we should get out of town and head back for Canada even though we could have stayed another day or two. We decided to leave and as we were packing our belongings to leave the city I observed hundreds of FEMA agents running the hotel we were in who were I would find out later there as Giuliani’s and Jerome Hauers mop up operation called Tripod for the planned take down of the Twins and WTC 7. That was to say the least a close call coincidentally speaking or who knows an escape plan guided by shall we say ancestral forces. Actually it was the instincts of my partner that reflected the same intuition that the animals sense just prior to some form of natural or man made calamity like the fact that no animals were found dead after the tsunami in Indonesia.

Today I received word from my lawyer Mr. President that we will have to have a pre trial conference with the crown prosecutors before the currently scheduled trial dates in March 2010. My lawyer said that the crown prosecutors are planning to make motion before the Judge to and I quote “keep Bushes misdeeds” out of the evidence presented in court.

That is, I replied to my lawyer, essentially a gag order, which in effect will preclude my witnesses like, former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, former Congresswoman and fiery anti war activist and 911 truther Cynthia McKinney, esteemed constitutional lawyer Gail Davidson. My colleague and collaborator on another legal case which we secured a legal victory acknowledging the sovereign rights of Indian title in Canada professor Anthony Hall and the affidavits of the esteemed David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott and others that are ready willing and able to give testimony on “BUSHES MISDEEDS” to put it so very mildly.

So brother Hugo, since it is obvious that the crown intends to railroad me on my plea of innocence to obstruction of a peace officer in the performance of their duty which in real time I instructed them twice to arrest George Bush for war crimes twice before I took the task upon myself to arrest this war criminal and put all his misdeeds on trial due to their total disregard for Canadian law which they are sworn to uphold.

That said it appears that they will attempt to convict me on the more trivial charge and lock me up for 6 months or so and fine me 5 thousand bucks to assure their handlers on Wall Street USA that BUSHES MISDEEDS never see the light of day.

Unfortunately for them Mr. Chavez both you and I have just thrown a flood light on the mass murdering torturous misdeeds of the Bush Cheney regime and will jointly call the leaders of the countries of the world that lost nationals at 911 to declare them all war criminals and to arrest them should they step on our sovereign territories even as the Chinese have returned the steel of the victims of 911 in the form of a war ship called the USS New York to honor those that died on 911. I say bullshit they have come with there battleship to further traumatize the world into submission of the worlds superpowers globalization agenda.

They have returned to the scene of the crime. They by the way have controlling interests in the Blackstone Group and Kissinger, Greenberg are negotiating all our oil to them.

Should the worst happen at my trial and all evidence is excluded concerning George Bush then this document Mr. President will be the evidence I submit to the international war crimes tribunal wherever it might be held next or to the court of international opinion on the internet.

When all is said and done this is why President and Brother Hugo Chavez I attempted to arrest George Bush.

Thank you and the people of Venezuela and humanity at large.

9-11 Truth Ends 9-11 Wars.

Splitting the Sky

ICE imprisons migrant women and children in inhumane conditions

2009-11-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

Texas: Hutto and beyond

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/dwindling-hope-for-obamas-immigration-policy

Dwindling Hope for Obama’s Immigration Policy

Activists Speculate on the Fate of Family Detention

by Lily Keber / November 21st, 2009

When she first arrived in the U.S. with her two small children, Denia didn’t realize she was pregnant. Fleeing an abusive relationship in Honduras, she had traveled north to the U.S. to reunite with her mother, a naturalized citizen living in Houston. But instead of reuniting with their grandmother, Denia and her daughters found themselves in a medium-security prison, dressed in prison garb and forced to line up to be counted several times daily. Though pregnant, she was losing weight from lack of food. Guards shouted at her children and threatened to take them away if they misbehaved. Security lights were left on all night, and alarms went off if a child wandered from its cell during the night.

Denia remembers: “I was really scared. I would say: “Dear God, what am I going to do with a newborn here? He’ll die in this freezing cold. It was so cold, and the worst thing was that they wouldn’t give us enough blankets… And how could I get enough rest if resting is prohibited here? I wouldn’t be able to take care of myself properly the way one should after giving birth. I was really worried.” Given an $18,000 bond that they could not afford to pay, she despaired at the thought of giving birth in prison.

The rise of family detention

Unfortunately, Denia’s experiences are not unique. The U.S. has been detaining families since March 2001. In an effort to end what was labeled the ‘catch-and-release’ policy — wherein migrants with immigration violations were given a mandate to appear in court and then released back into the community — the Department of Homeland Security under Michael Chertoff began detaining all immigrants without documents — even those with small children. The first facility for families was an 84-bed converted nursing home in Berks County, PA. At Berks, families were separated by age and gender and slept in dorm-style rooms, 2–8 per room. (Children under 5 slept with their parent.) But even with Berks open, there was not enough room for all the families ICE was detaining. Some were still being released. Others were separated — adults sent to adult facilities while children as young as 6 months old were sent to children’s facilities or foster care. After 9/11, DHS announced it needed more room to expand, and turned to long-time partner Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) for solutions.

The largest for-profit corrections company in the country, CCA is best known for its infamous failed bid to take over the corrections operations of the entire state of Tennessee. However, by 2000 CCA had hit hard times and its stocks were at an all-time low. In July 2005, it had been forced to shutter the T. Don Hutto Detention Facility — a medium-security prison in Texas — due to lack of demand. CCA jumped at the government’s offer to pay $2.8 million a month to house immigrant families. In May 2006, it reopened the prison as the T. Don Hutto Residential Facility. Little had changed except the name and the population. Razor wire still laced the fencing, though now with wooden playgrounds in the yard and painted murals in the halls.

“I was shocked. It was like nothing I had ever seen,” said Barbara Hines, director of the University of Texas Immigration Clinic and one of the first to visit Hutto. Frances Valdez, a former UT Immigration Clinic student, adds: “It was surreal. It was everything I had already experienced in other jails, but here was this baby. I would go out [to Hutto] asking [the inmates] about their immigration issues and … they started telling me about the conditions… They were like, ‘Hey, I can’t be here, get me out of here.’ My kids are getting sick, and they can’t eat the food and I can’t eat the food, and they separate us at night and they yell at us and they only give us 15 minutes to eat and my children are really scared and crying and it’s horrible.” Other reports from initial visits describe children in prison garb, poor sanitation, limited education for the children, only one hour of access to fresh air and recreation, and armed guards threatening the families.

Denia’s 5-year-old daughter remembers: “For me it was terrible because I would always dream at night that they were yelling at my mother and they were going take her to another jail. And they had told us that mothers who misbehave and take extra cookies in their pockets [for their kids to eat] would be sent somewhere else and …that they would take the children away from their mothers.

Word spread about the facility and outrage grew. An early report of the rape of an inmate by a guard mobilized neighbors. Local activists from Williamson County and nearby Austin began staging candlelight vigils and protests. Representatives from the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children testified to Congress about its findings at Hutto, recommending the facility be closed immediately. Jorge Bustamante, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, attempted an investigation on conditions in Hutto and was denied access. Two documentaries were made, and screenings staged across the country. Articles appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, The Economist, salon.com, and local papers.

In March 2007, the ACLU and UT Law Clinic waged a lawsuit against ICE maintaining that children were being held in inhumane conditions. Several months later, ICE settled and pledged improvements to facility. Education and recreation times increased, pregnant women were allowed more food, and families permitted to close the door to their rooms as they slept. CCA officials maintain that reforms at Hutto had been underway already and were not due to the lawsuit.

Immigrant detention continued to expand throughout the Bush years. Plans were announced for three similar facilities to be built in other parts of the country, and rumors spread of families held in other unauthorized facilities.

With Obama’s election, hopes soared that the new administration would usher in comprehensive change in immigration policy. In August of this year, ICE Secretary John Morton announced a reworking of the nation’s immigration jail network into a “truly civil detention center.” In August 2009, ICE announced Hutto was to stop taking families, and that plans for three additional family detention facilities were to be scrapped. Obama’s call for progressive reform was, it seemed, coming to fruition. By September 17th, all families had left the facility.

Family Detention Under Obama

Today, Hutto looks pretty much the same as it always has: a drab building tucked just out of town, sandwiched between a train car storage yard and fields of Texas beef cattle. The razor wire is gone, and freshly painted murals inside the facility depict smiling cartoon animals, a reminder to visitors of its former occupants. Hutto is back at maximum occupancy, though this time with women. Even before the last of the families were out, CCA had worked a new contract with ICE to house women from its other immigrant detention facilities at Hutto.

“By more fully utilizing the facility’s capacity and consolidating the female populations from multiple facilities, this change will yield substantial savings each month, “ ICE spokeswoman Nina Pruneda said. And indeed, current reforms seem driven as much by the bottom line as by humanitarian concerns. By ending family detention at Hutto, ICE will save nearly $900,000 per month in contract costs.

The question remains, though: Where are arrested families going today? According to ICE, detained families will now be housed at Berks Family Residential Center in PA. Yet not a single family from Hutto made it to Berks; all were either deported or released. And at an 84-bed capacity, it is hardly sufficient for current needs, let alone for future expansion. Compounding this is an August announcement in the Reading Eagle that Berks County commissioners “are considering getting out of the alien-housing business.” New federal regulations prohibit governmental agencies from turning a profit on these types of services, and the county is just breaking even.

According to ICE spokesperson Carl Rusnok, today “each family… is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The Berks Residential Family Facility is the only facility ICE now uses to house families. Families that are encountered may be placed at Berks, placed on an ‘alternative to detention’ or issued a notice to appear before a federal immigration judge and released on their own recognizance.”

But Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership worries: “I think it is still unclear what is happening to people apprehended at the border. ICE says it is sending people to Berks, but I think there is some concern ICE may facilitate a new family detention center. I think it is important to look critically at Berks… and see if conditions are adequate or if people are being held for long periods of time. Is Berks another 84 beds that ICE doesn’t have to use?” Libal adds: “The advocacy community is ready to fight for increased use of alternatives rather than increased family detention.”

Others worry that ICE has no intentions of limiting detention, only of avoiding the flashpoints that caused public outcry in the past. This spring, it released a request for comments on standards for a family residential facility, leading some to suggest that it will be building its own facilities. “ICE says they are in the process of developing a new assessment tool that will help them determine whether a family can be released, or placed into an alternatives program pending resolution of their status instead of being detained,” says Michelle Brane of the Women’s Refuge Commission.1 “They have told us in the meantime that they are releasing families and using alternatives to detention.”

Alternatives to detention- such as supervised release and ankle-bracelet monitoring- allow a family to remain in the community while greatly improving the chances they’ll make their court hearing. It also saves the government a substantial sum of money: the most expensive alternatives to detention cost $14 per day, compared with detention rates that can exceed $100 per day.

“In general, ICE seems to be moving away from subcontracting its detention needs out to private companies and local jails,” said Lauren Martin, doctoral student at the University of Kentucky. This continued reliance on detention “indicates a lot of continuity between Bush and Obama. They’re going to build facilities for low-risk populations like asylum seekers, families, etc, and actually expand capacity.”

Though all sides agree that Hutto is better than it was when it initially opened, it’s hard to find such enthusiasm about the broader picture. “Even though Hutto no longer holds families, there’s still 512 women being held there. That’s not something that anyone would have advocated for. Beyond that, here they haven’t made any moves to shut down or improve the most egregious conditions in Texas detention centers… There’s a lot of skepticism,” contended Martin.

A recently report by Dr. Dora Schriro, former director of the ICE Office of Detention Policy, focuses federal priorities on detainee care and uniformity at detention centers. The report recommends that ICE establish standards and assessment tools for its detention facilities, improve medical care, and provide federal oversight of its detention operations — all goals lawyers and activists have been calling for.

But with nearly 380,000 immigrants detained in ICE custody a year — 30,000 on any given day in 300 facilities nationwide — it is clear that Obama has not brought a shift away from detention, only a repeal of some of the worse malpractices of the Bush administration. Where family detention will go from here, no one knows for sure. “ICE has made clear that they plan to issue [a Request For Proposals] and open a new facility, one that they say will be better suited to families with young children. It is still unclear what that means,” says Michelle Brane. “For the present, we are all still waiting for answers from ICE.”

1.The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children has since changed its name to Women’s Refugee Commission. [↩]

First Nations, toxins and diabetes

2009-11-21T15:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends,

The pollution/diabetes connection has received no major news coverage anywhere in the world. I hope you will share the media release below with all your media contacts. Much is at stake for the health of people all over the world. All the very best to you.
For Land and Life,
John H.W. Hummel,
Volunteer Pollution/Health Researcher,
611 Eighth Street, Nelson B.C.
Canada(250)505-2165 (250)505-2165
Email: jhwhummel@shaw.ca
Story Idea: The Link between Pollution and Diabetes
Health Canada Predicts that within 10 years, 27% of all First Nations people in Canada will have Type II Diabetes. Many First Nations People have been exposed to toxins such as DDT, Dioxin, Arsenic, Cadmium Hexachlorobenzene and PCB's for many decades.
For a Summary of the latest Scientific research on this topic, please go to:
http://www.ajmed.fr/documents/pdf/perturbateurs_diabete.pdf
For some of the very latest studies on pollution/diabetes links please go to:
http://groups.google.ca/group/friends-of-agg/browse_thread/thread/6cb3503501b8b59c?hl=en
(and click on 'show quoted text')

The Pesticide DDT, Persistant Pollutants and Diabetes:

http://groups.google.com/group/friends-of-agg/browse_thread/thread/13b91035f72b2ce9
Key Scientific Contacts Re: Diabetes and Pollution
(Please Note, above are links to many of these scientists most recently published and peer reviewed studies on the pollution/diabetes connections):

1) Dr. David Carpenter carpent@uamail.albany.edu United States

2) Dr. Duck-Hee Lee lee_dh@knu.ac.kr Korea

3) Dr. Joel Michalek michalekj@uthscsa.edu United States

4) Dr. Mary Turyk mturyk1@uic.edu United States

5) Dr. Miquel Porta mporta@imim.es Spain

6) Dr. Lars Rylander lars.rylander@med.lu.se Sweden

7) Dr. Anna Rignell-Hydbom anna.rignell-hydbom@med.lu.se Sweden

8) Dr. Laurie Chan lchan@unbc.ca Canada

9) Dr. Harold Schwartz harold_schwartz@hc-sc.gc.ca Canada

First Nations Pollution/Health Contacts:

Research Tools and Contacts for the Communities Re: Pollution and Health

Dear Friends,

Many communities are experiencing health problems related to exposure to industrial pollutants. Many people want to investigate the pollution/health links in their community but have little funding and aren't sure where to begin. To assist people in their pollution/health research, here are a few inexpensive community action tools to get started and some key contacts to compare notes with and get advice from. Hope this information is helpful to protect the health and well being of your community. Also, here are the tools to start a broad based coalition to eliminate pollution and protect the health of the people and the earth. All the best to you all.

For Land and life,
Your Friend,
John H.W. Hummel
Nelson, B.C.

'Bucket Brigade' :An Inexpensive Way to Find Out What Pollution is in Your Communities Air: http://www.bucketbrigade.net/article.php?list=type&type=9

Body Mapping for Pollution Related Health Problems: http://www.ohcow.on.ca/clinics/sarnia/docs/IJOEH_Holmes.pdf

More on Body Mapping: http://newsreel.org/transcripts/beloved.htm

Bucket Brigade Contacts: Denny Larson, Global Community Monitor: denny@gcmonitor.org

Ruth Breech, Global Community Monitor: ruth@gcmonitor.org

Body Mapping Contacts: Ada Lockridge, Aamjiwnaang First Nation: ada_lockridge@hotmail.com

James Brophy, Scientist and expert in Worker Health and safety: jimbrophy@sympatico.ca

Dear Friends,

Here are a few key contacts for you if you wish to investigate the health impacts of industrial pollution on First Nations, Metis and Inuit people in North America in 2009.

1) Dr. David Carpenter,Toxicologist, University of Albany, NY: carpent@uamail.albany.edu
- David has been doing toxics research with the Mohawks of Akwesasne for many years and recently published scientific papers showing a dramatic increase in Diabetes and Heart Disease in
Akwesasne Mohawks with PCB's and Pesticides in their blood

2) Henry Lickers, Akwesasne Mohawk Nation, Cornwall, Ontario: hlickers@akwesasne.ca
- Henry has worked at the Akwesasne Environment department for decades and can describe the impacts of PCB's, mercury, pesticides, fluoride etc on his people

3) Ken Jock, Akwesasne Mohawk Nation, Cornwall, Ontario : ken_jock@srmtenv.org
- Ken works on environmental issues at Akwesasne and can describe the health impacts pollution has had on his people

4) Joyce King, Haudenosaune Environmental Task Force: joyceking@westelcom.com
- Joyce can describe pollution/health impacts on the Six Nations people as a whole

5) Eva Johnson, Environmental Department, Kahnawake Mohawk Nation: (450) 635-3035 (450) 635-3035 or (450) 635-0600 (450) 635-0600
-Eva can describe how toxic dumpsites, Lead pollution and solvent pollution from Industry has harmed the health of Kahnawake people e.g. the Scleroderma, heart disease, diabetes and cancer epidemics

6) Lynn Jacobs, Environmental Department, Kahnawake Mohawk Nation: lynn.jacobs@mck.ca
- Lynn and Eva are a team and she can well describe pollution/health impacts in her community

7) Sue Chiblow, Chiefs of Ontario, Environmental Department: sue@coo.org
- Sue Can describe pollution/health impacts on aboriginal communities all over Ontario

8) Dr. Michael Gilbertson, Research Scientist: michael.gilbertson@rogers.com
- Michael discovered possible mercury poisoning (Minamata Disease) outbreaks at specific pollution Hotspots around the Great Lakes and is presently assisting Aamjiwnaang First Nation expose pollution/health problems in their area e.g. skewed birth ratios likely attributable to pollution exposure

9) James Brophy, Research Scientist: jimbrophy@sympatico.ca
- James Co-Authored Pollution/Health papers with Michael Gilbertson and is presently helping Aamjiwnaang First Nation expose pollution related health problems in their community

10) Ron Plain, Aamjiwnaang First Nation, Sarnia, Ontario: rplain@environmentaldefence.ca
- Ron is a Pollution/Health Activist at Aamjiwnaang and works at Environmental Defence Canada to expose pollution/health issues in Aboriginal Communities

11) Ada Lockridge, Aamjiwnaang First Nation, Sarnia, Ontario: ada_lockridge@hotmail.com
- Heads up the Aamjiwnaang Environment Committee exposing Benzene, Mercury etc. impacts on the health of her people

12) Wilson Plain, Aamjiwnaang First Nation, Sarnia, Ontario: wilsonplain2@hotmail.com
-Wilson is part of the Aamjiwnaang Environment Committee and was recently found to have PCB's and all kinds of other industrial toxins in his body

13) Judy DaSilva, Grassy Narrows First Nation, Ontario: jsilva@northone.ca
-Judy is a Clan Mother, Healer, environmental activist and spokesperson at Grassy Narrows and can tell you about the mercury poisoning in her community, the dioxins and furans found in Grassy's wild meat and the herbicide spraying of Grassy's traditional territory

14) Steve Fobister Sr., Grassy Narrows First Nation, Ontario: gsfobister@hotmail.com
- Steve is a Councillor at Grassy Narrows First Nation and has been a leader of his people for decades.
Steve can tell you about what has happened at Grassy from all the pulp-mill pollution and herbicide spraying.
My pal Steve, his daughter and his little Granddaughter and many of his other family members all have Mercury Poisoning from that Pulp Mill at Dryden

15) Joe B. Fobister, Grassy Narrows First Nation, Ontario: jbfobister@yahoo.ca
- Joe is a spokesperson for the Grassy Blockaders and a leader of his community. He can tell you all about what the pollution has done to the health of his people

16) Sherry Fobister, Grassy Narrows First Nation, Ontario: namesfobister@hotmail.com
-Sherry is another dear friend. She is a great spokesperson and can tell you firsthand about the difficulties she has faced as a single Mum dealing with her own mercury related health problems as well as that of her little daughter Catherine

17) Emily Fobister, Grassy Narrows First Nation,Ontario: mommie52006@hotmail.com
- Emily did a Sacred walk to help her people heal from all the industrial sicknesses harming her family and people. She inspired many youth and helped many people.

18) Dr. Masazumi Harada, Mercury Expert in Japan: mharada@kumagaku.ac.jp
- Dr. Harada discovered mercury poisoning at Grassy Narrows and Whitedog in the 1970's and found new cases amongst Grassy children when he returned and tested people in 2003.

19) Dr. Leanne Simpson, Expert on First Nations Pollution/Health Issues: leannesimpson@sympatico.ca
- Leanne worked on the Grassy Narrows/Wabauskang wild meat testing study and is presently investigating all the deaths and sickness among Wabauskang people from when they lived at Quibel, Ontario immediately downstream from the Dryden Pulp Mill

20) Betty Riffel, Wabauskang First Nation, Ontario: bet093@hotmail.com
- Betty is working with Leanne Simpson to investigate the deaths of all those infants when her people lived at Quibel. She also worked on the Grassy Narrows/Wabauskang wild meat study where they recently found mercury, furans etc. in the fish and wildmeat eaten by the people

21) Damien Lee, Fort William First Nation, Ontario: connectwithdamien@gmail.com
-Damien heads up the Anishinabek of the Gitchi Gami (AGG) environmental group at Fort William First Nation and is knowledgable about the hundreds of random dumpsites at his community, the pollution from local industry surrounding his community and much more!

22) Wendy Solomon, Fort William First Nation, Ontario: ladysigni_sha@msn.com
- Wendy is the outreach coordinator for AGG and another dedicated environmental/health advocate at Fort William First Nation who knows alot about pollution/health issues

33) Betsy Mandamin, Grand Council Treaty 3, Kenora, Ontario: health@treaty3.ca
- Betsy works at Treaty 3 Health department and has much knowledge of Mercury pollution and environmental/health issues in the whole Treaty 3 Area

34) Dorothy Friday, Grand Council Treaty 3, Kenora, Ontario: health@treaty3.ca
- Dorothy also works at Treaty 3 Health Department and knows alot about pollution/health issues in the Treaty 3 Area

35) Steve and Susanne Lawson, First Nations Environment Network (FNEN), Tofino, B.C.: councilfire@hotmail.com
- Steve and Susanne co-ordinate FNEN, are lifelong environmental activists and can put you in touch with dozens of Aboriginal communities impacted by pollution

36) Tom Goldtooth, Director, Indigenous Environment Network (IEN): ien@igc.org
- Tom Coordinates the IEN south of the border, a big focus of IEN has been pollution/health issues and he can put you in touch with Aboriginal communities who have health problems due to pollution all over North America and beyond!

38) Allister Marshall, FNEN - East Coast: amarshall@potlotek.ca
-Allister is very knowledgable about pollution/health issues impacting First Nations on the East Coast of Canada

39) Ishbel Munro, FNEN - East Coast: coastalnet@ns.sympatico.ca
-Ishbel has been an advocate for environmental/Aboriginal issues for decades and can put you in touch with pollution impacted First Nations all over (especially in Nova Scotia)

40) Willi Nolan, Elder/Environmental Activist, East Coast: willi@web.ca
- Willi is a respected Anishinawbe Elder who is very knowledgable about pollution/health impacts on First Nations communities. Willi's main focus is to share traditional knowledge of the environment and Mother Earth with the youth. Willi has done truly remarkable things! Someone should write a book about her.

41) Al Hunter, FNEN - Ontario: tbird2@netscape.net
- Al Hunter is a former Chief of his people, a respected Elder (even though he is young) and knows lots about pollution in the Manitou Rapids, Rainy River area of Ontario. He has many contacts knowledgable about pollution/health impacts on Aboriginal communities.

42) Fred Greene, Grand Council Treaty 3, Kenora, Ontario: fred.greene@treaty3.ca
- Fred is a political advisor to the Ogichida of Grand Council Treaty 3 and is very knowledgable about pollution impacts on the Treaty 3 First Nations

43) Alan Penn, Expert on Mercury Poisoning of James Bay Cree: apenn@gc.ca
- Alan is an expert on the Mercury pollution of the James Bay Cree communities

44) Jennifer Foulds, Environmental Defence Canada (EDC): jfoulds@environmentaldefence.ca
- Jennifer works with Ron Plain at EDC. EDC is presently engaged in uniting First Nations, Environmental NGO's and Scientists to battle pollution impacting the health of us all.

45) David McLaren, Saugeen First Nation, Ontario: d.mclaren@the-matrix.ca
- David is a pollution/health/environment expert from Saugeen First Nation

46) Dean Jacobs, Walpole Island First Nation, Ontario: dean.jacobs@wifn.org
- Dean is a pollution/health/environment expert at Walpole Island First Nation

47) Dr. John O'Connor, Former Dr. for Fort Chipewyan People: gramocroi@shaw.ca
- Dr. O'Connor discovered rare cancers in the people of Fort Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta likely due to pollution from Tar sands development. The Government has been hounding him and trying to take away his Physicians lisence ever since he went public with his concerns for Fort Chipewyan people.

48) George Poitras, Health Official, Fort Chipewyan Area: george.poitras@shawbiz.ca
- George is one of the spokespeople for First Nations in Alberta concerned about pollution/health problems associated with Tar sands Development in northern Alberta.

49) Kevin Timoney, Researcher: ktimoney@compusmart.ab.ca
- Kevin did a huge report on pollution from the Tar Sands development which could be harmful to First Nations in the area.

50) Winona LaDuke, Famous First Nations Environmental Activist: honorearth@earthlink.net
-Winona is a very famous Native American environmental activist who can tell you alot about pollutions health impacts on Aboriginal communities all over North America

51) Chief Thomas Alexis, Chief of Tl'azt'en First Nation, B.C.: thomas.alexis@tlazten.bc.ca
- Many of Chief Alexis's people are sick and dying of mercury poisoning from an old mercury mine in northern B.C. He has many stories to tell on that topic.

52) Brenda Duncan, Haisla First Nation, Kitimat, B.C.: executivedir@uniserve.com
- Brenda heads up the Nanakila Institute which protects the environment in Haisla Traditional Territory. She can tell you about the impacts of pollution from Alcan, Eurocan and Methanex on the health of her people

53) Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Famous Inuit Leader and Environmental Activist: iccan@baffin.ca
- Sheila is a very famous Inuit leader and environmental activist who can tell you all about what the mercury, dioxin and PCB's from Southern industry has done to the health of Aboriginal people of the Circumpolar Region

54) Ramsey Hart, Mining Watch Canada: ramsey@miningwatch.ca
- Ramsey heads up Mining Watch Canada which is a collaberation of environmental NGO's, First Nations organizations and labour groups. He can tell you lots about the impacts of mining and smelting impacts on the health and well being of aboriginal communities all over Canada.

55) Jamie Kneen, Mining Watch, Canada: jamie@miningwatch.ca
- Jamie is an aboriginal rights/environmental justice activist from way back! He is a treasure trove of knowledge and contacts on pollution impacts in Aboriginal communities.
All the best to you
For Land and Life,
John H.W. Hummel
Nelson, B.C.

Phoenix: Honduras Protest Nov 20/Shut Down School of Americas

2009-11-20T09:41:00.001-08:00

Contact: Tupac Enrique (602) 466-8367 (602) 466-8367

International Solidarity for Honduras

SHUT DOWN THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS!

Protest Action at Phoenix Honduran Consulate

“An Election Farce is in the making in Honduras with U.S. State Department Support!”
US National Committee in Solidarity with Honduran Resistance to the Coup Regime

When: Friday November 20, 2009
Time: 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Where: 4040 E. McDowell (Honduran Consulate of Phoenix)
Re: Phoenix Honduras Solidarity Committee joins international action at the gates of the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, Calls Again for End to US Support for Illegal Military Coup Dictatorship in Honduras

Honduras Solidarity Committee of Phoenix will join the movement to close the infamous "School of the Americas" that will bring together thousands of human rights activists, torture survivors, veterans, faith-based communities, union workers, students, musicians and others from across the Americas for a Vigil, Rally, Funeral Procession and Nonviolent Direct Action to close the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, GA from November 20-22.

The action in Phoenix in front of the Honduran Consulate is a call on the U.S. Government and the Obama administration specifically to the Reject the Honduran Election Farce being prepared for November 29, 2009.

There can be no legitimate, fair elections under the violence and threats of violence of the de facto, unconstitutional government, and its repressive police and military forces who have been brutally violating the rights of peaceful Honduran protesters for the past four months. Opposition candidates at national, provincial and municipal levels have withdrawn from the electoral process.

The action in Phoenix is part of a national and international series of solidarity actions across the U.S. which will continue on Friday November 27th, followed by solidarity protests in support of the Honduran people’s untiring, courageous resistance on November 28th and 29th, as they justifiably boycott the bogus and farcical elections.
The equivocating of the U.S. position as regards Honduras is spinning heads around the U.S. and the world and contributes to setting the stage for a return to failed policies of the past, legitimizing via US power brokering an illegitimate and illegal regime of the military coup now in power in Honduras. The failure of the October 30 agreement between Micheletti and Zelaya clearly stems from a plot to delay or impede altogether the restoration of President Manuel Zelaya to power.

This represents nothing less than a capitulation, or worse the outright endorsement of the Obama administration to the illegitimate usurper coup regime in Honduras.

Organizers for justice in the Americas have been gathering at the gates of Ft. Benning since 1990, and as the demonstration against the SOA has evolved into one of the most vibrant anti-militarization convergences in the United States, as we learn from one another's stories, tactics, ideas, information, theater, friendships, trainings, workshops, films, and more, click here to see the schedule of events!

Bertha Oliva, the founder and coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared (COFADEH) will travel from Honduras to join the mobilization. Bernardo Vivas from the Cacraica Community for Self-Determination, Life, and Dignity is coming from Colombia to speak out at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based worker organization whose members are largely Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian immigrants are traveling up from Florida. Celebrity entertainers such as the Indigo Girls and Rebel Diaz will attend as well.

Recalling the period in history from 1865-1867, when the US government applied diplomatic pressure in favor of Mexico’s legitimate president Benito Juarez and against the illegal right wing usurpers of power, the battle for constitutional government in Honduras takes place during new era of democratization across the hemisphere. The developments in the central part of the continent also are framed by the constitutional recognition for the first time of Indigenous Peoples, as declared by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13th, 2007.
Also calling for investigation of the role of the US based School of the Americas at Ft. Benning Georgia in the military coup in Honduras, the Honduras Solidarity Committee of Arizona is also calling upon congressional support for House Resolution 630 before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, demanding the reinstatement of President Zelaya.

For more information please contact: Tupac Enrique Acosta (602) 466-8367 (602) 466-8367 in Phoenix or consult the School of the Americas Watch website at:

School of the Americas Watch
http://soaw.org/

Links:
Quixote Center
www.quixote.org

Americas Program
http://americas.irc-online.org/

NAHUACALLI
Embassy of the Indigenous Peoples
http://www.nahuacalli.org/Honduras_Solidarity.html

*******

United States backs illegal elections in Honduras – Betrays process to restore Constitutional order.

November 20, 2009

After five months of political chaos in Honduras, repeated attempts to reach a negotiated agreement for restoration of Constitutional order have failed due to the defiant recalcitrance of the Micheletti coup regime and the complicity of the State Department. Given this impasse and the deepening human rights crisis, it is widely recognized that conditions for holding free, fair and transparent elections on November 29th, just days from now, do not exist.

Recognizing this dilemma, in late October the United States rushed a high level State Department delegation to Honduras, bringing Micheletti back to the table and brokering the October 30th “National Reconciliation Agreement” requiring the reinstatement of President Zelaya by November 5th. However, in a move paralleling the behavior of the Micheletti regime, a few days later, State Department officials reversed their position, stating that the elections would be recognized by the United States with or without restitution of President Zelaya, effectively breaking the accord.

In a press release on November 5th, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint who had been using a procedural tactic to hold up the Obama Administration nominations of Arturo Valenzuela and Tom Shannon, suddenly announced that he was withdrawing the hold because he had reached an agreement with the Administration relative to the situation in Honduras: “I am happy to report the Obama Administration has finally reversed its misguided Honduran policy and will fully recognize the November 29th elections… Secretary Clinton and Assistant Secretary Shannon have assured me that the U.S. will recognize the outcome of the Honduran elections regardless of whether Manuel Zelaya is reinstated.”

A subsequent announcement by Senator Lugar confirms that in fact the United States intends to recognize elections sponsored by the coup regime without prior restitution of Zelaya. Lugar also announced that the State Department is funding election observer missions from the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute.

Lugar also used his statement to encourage Brazil in particular to consider that “recognition of the election will be the only way for Hondurans to look beyond the 5-month-old crisis”. Just a few days ago, the Brazilian foreign minister warned of a “deterioration” of U.S. relations with South America. Brazil is one of 25 countries in the Rio Group which issued a declaration on the same day of DeMint’s statement, declaring that this important group of countries will not recognize a government resulting from Honduran elections if Zelaya is not previously restored.

Late last week, President Zelaya announced that he will not accept restitution at this late date in order to not be used to legitimize elections. In a letter to President Obama renouncing the possibility of a return to office in the days prior to the election, Zelaya wrote, “…3500 people detained in one hundred days, over 600 people beaten and injured in hospitals, more than a hundred murders and countless numbers of people subjected to torture directed against citizens who dare to oppose the regime and express their ideas about freedom and justice in peaceful demonstrations. All this converts the November election into an anti-democratic exercise under an uncertain state of lawlessness with military intimidation for large sections of our people…”

Zelaya’s assessment of the illegitimacy of elections under current condition is shared by large majorities in Honduras and the international community. The broad based national resistance movement has called for a total boycott of the elections. Participation in the elections has become a kind of ethical litmus test for all candidates. Candidates who run are widely considered to be supporting the coup, placing tremendous pressure on candidates to withdrawal.

The first candidate to withdraw was Carlos H. Reyes, a well know Independent Party candidate for President and leader of the resistance movement against the coup. His popularity has surged as revulsion to the violence perpetrated by the coup regime has impacted communities and homes throughout the country. Some strategists believe that had a reinstated President Zelaya endorsed Reyes, he could have won the vote, but would have lost due to fraud. After consulting with grassroots assemblies in different parts of the country, Reyes announced his decision to step down.

Last week, the popular Liberal Party mayor of San Pedro Sula announced that he was stepping down as a candidate, in spite of his healthy lead in the polls. Another 110 mayoral and 55 candidates for Congress are reportedly pulling out of the election, and the number continues to grow. Both the leftist UD and the PINU parties are split, with many Congressional candidates stepping down, but the party leadership wanting to stay in the race. These small parties have the most to lose, as they risk losing the position of their party on the ballot.

The UD party has suffered severe criticism for not withdrawing. Their active involvement in the resistance movement morally obligates them to withdraw, but some party leaders see this moment as an opportunity to win more contests than they normally could. However, as the pressure mounts it seems that withdrawal from the elections by the party is imminent, although not yet certain.

With just days to go until the elections, tensions are mounting in Honduras. Micheletti has threatened those encouraging abstension with lengthy prison terms. The resistance movement has called a civic strike for the entire week prior to elections, widespread protests beginning on Friday and a full boycott on Election Day. This comes in a context of heighten levels of state terrorism.

Recently, the military issued a letter to every mayor in the country instructing mayor’s offices to compile lists of inhabitants of the municipality who have been working against the coup. The letter asked for the list to be compiled immediately and stated that each mayor would receive a follow up visit. Mayors who do not comply with this order also risk consequences. This systematic profiling of the population is a blatant violation of human rights and dangerous signal of the levels of repression to come.

In declaring that it will recognize the coup regime sponsored elections on November 29th without prior restitution of Constitutional order, the United States has embolden the coup regime, betrayed a lengthy negotiation process and endangered the lives of millions of Honduran citizens who are committed to democracy, human rights and the rule of law who will boycott elections they consider to be illegal.

Tom Loudon
Quixote Center
http://quixote.org/

Police tied and tasered Metis man before death

2009-11-19T15:34:00.000-08:00

(Double click on image to enlarge newspaper article)

Vancouver — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009 12:18AM EST

Last updated on Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 3:41AM EST

Clayton Alvin Willey died of a heart attack several hours after police knocked him to the ground, hog-tied him, kicked him in the chest, pepper sprayed him and used a taser on him repeatedly.

Although the incident took place in 2003 and the arresting officers were cleared of any wrongdoing, an aboriginal leader and civil rights critics called yesterday for the release of an RCMP video they say shows police used excessive force.

“I had an opportunity to see an edited version of the video and I can tell you it was sickening, it was very, very difficult to watch and it stirred a deep anger within myself,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, said at a news conference.

Mr. Phillip said the video shows Mr. Willey, a Métis, with his hands cuffed behind his back and tied to his feet, being dragged into the police station while RCMP officers repeatedly taser him.

“I was very disturbed, very emotional … in many ways it was worse than watching the Dziekanski tape,” he said, referring to a video shot at Vancouver International Airport in 2007, when RCMP officers used a taser on Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who died while being arrested after making a disturbance in the arrivals area.

The Dziekanski video generated worldwide media coverage and led to a public inquiry that recommended police adopt tougher rules on the use of tasers.

“The point of this press conference is to draw public attention to this horrific incident,” said Mr. Phillip, who hopes to trigger an “outcry across this country similar to the Dziekanski case.”

David Eby, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and John Butt, a forensic pathologist, echoed Mr. Phillip's views, and said there will be public anger if people get to see the video.

The video was entered in evidence in an October, 2004, coroner's inquest, which did not find fault with the police officers. The video was brought to the attention of Mr. Phillip recently by Leonard Cler-Cunningham, a writer researching aboriginal deaths in custody.

Mr. Cler-Cunningham said Mr. Willey's family has signed an authorization asking the RCMP to release the video, but the police have declined to do so.

“The reason the RCMP in Ottawa refused to release it is because it would be a violation of Clay Willey's right to personal privacy. I've encountered this in every single aboriginal death in custody under investigation. It's insulting. It's disgusting. Do not use an individual's right to personal privacy to shield yourself from investigation,” he said, directing his comments to police.

Mr. Cler-Cunningham said Mr. Willey was treated brutally.

“I believe it meets the standard of torture,” he said. “Do you need to taser a man who is handcuffed and hog-tied, seemingly immobile and prone?”

RCMP Sergeant Tim Shields said the video is not being released because of privacy concerns, but he said police are “more than happy to share all file details with the family and first nations leaders.” The RCMP could not be reached later for comment on Mr. Cler-Cunningham's remarks.

The findings of the coroner's inquest state that several people made 911 calls to the RCMP in Prince George in July, 2003, after frightening encounters with Mr. Willey, who was reportedly armed with a knife.

The coroner's report states that when police confronted Mr. Willey, he refused to lie on the ground and, with blood and foam coming from his mouth, advanced on a female officer.

One officer drew his handgun, but put it away when he saw Mr. Willey was not armed. Police tackled Mr. Willey and one officer kicked him “in an attempt to gain ‘pain compliance.'”

Police testified they also used pepper spray and that even after he was hog-tied, Mr. Willey “continued to thrash around and attempt to free himself.”

Police said they used tasers at the cellblock in an attempt to subdue Mr. Willey.

A pathologist's report found evidence of two apparent taser burns, numerous abrasions, contusions, six broken ribs and brain swelling from a head injury.

The pathologist, D.J. McNaughton, testified that Mr. Willey died of a heart attack brought on by a cocaine overdose and said that “in his opinion the use of the taser did not contribute to Mr. Willey's death.”

Mr. Willey was arrested at about 5:15 p.m. Police called an ambulance at 5:36, after he was “touch stunned” by a taser at the jail cell. He had a heart attack in the ambulance, and was pronounced dead the next morning at 9:05.

Obama nominates pesticide ally for Trade chief

2009-11-18T07:41:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release, November 18, 2009
Contact: Tierra Curry, Center for Biological Diversity, (928) 522-3681 (928) 522-3681

Siddiqui Nomination as Chief Agricultural Negotiator in U.S. Trade Office Opposed by Center for Biological Diversity

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.— Because of his loyalty to the pesticide and biotech industry, the Center for Biological Diversity opposes the nomination of Islam Siddiqui as chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Dr. Siddiqui is a former pesticide lobbyist and is currently vice president of science and regulatory affairs at CropLife America, a biotech and pesticide trade group that lobbies to weaken environmental laws. The Center joins more than 80 environmental, small-farm, and organic groups that are asking the Senate to reject Siddiqui’s nomination.
“After Dr. Siddiqui has worked for eight years to promote Big Agribusiness corporations such as Monsanto, DuPont, and Dow Chemical, it is undeniable that he is biased towards chemical and energy-intensive agricultural practices that undermine global food security, contribute to climate change, and imperil public health and wildlife” said Tierra Curry, biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity.
While at the USDA, Siddiqui oversaw the development of the first national organic labeling standards, which allowed sewage sludge-fertilized, genetically modified, and irradiated food to be labeled as organic before public outcry forced more stringent standards. The chief agricultural negotiator works in the U.S. trade representative's office on issues concerning U.S. farm exports. Siddiqui has derided the European Union’s ban on hormone-treated beef and has vowed to pressure the European Union to accept more genetically modified crops.
CropLife America, formerly known as the National Agricultural Chemicals Association, lobbies to weaken the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, claiming that pesticides are not pollutants because of their intended beneficial effect and that pesticides positively impact endangered species. The group has lobbied to allow pesticides to be tested on children and to allow the continued use of persistent organic pollutants and ozone-depleting chemicals. It also launched a petition asking Michelle Obama to use pesticides in the organic White House garden and fought county initiatives in California banning genetically modified foods.

Tower of films to show Alcatraz takeover

2009-11-17T11:53:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO -- Coit Tower will be turned into a huge outdoor movie screen to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the American Indian Movement's occupation of Alcatraz Island.
Projectors will be used to cast digital images on the 210-foot concrete tower that sits atop Telegraph Hill.
At least five films will be shown, one after another, on the evenings of Nov. 25 and 26. The two-night event is titled "Indigenous Renewal: Alcatraz Occupation Remembrance + Ohlone Presence Celebrated."
KPOO radio station, 89.5 FM, will run a live program accompanying the show, which also can be accessed online at www.coitlive.com. The viewings, scheduled to run from about 6 to 11 p.m. Nov. 25 and starting again at dusk on Thanksgiving Day through 7 a.m. Friday, will be postponed in the event of rain or heavy fog, said David Mark, an organizer.
This is the fourth time that the Art Deco landmark has been used as a projection screen. The filmmakers also had showings in 2004 and 2008 that focused on American Indians. In 2006, the topic was the Great Earthquake and Fire that occurred 100 years before.
"The unique thing about Coit Tower is that it's visible to hundreds of thousands of people," Marks said. Among the best viewing spots, organizers say, will be Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 31, the Coit Tower parking lot and Washington Square.

Lawsuit challenges uranium mine threatening Grand Canyon

2009-11-16T13:41:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release, November 16, 2009
Contacts: Taylor McKinnon, Center for Biological Diversity, (928) 310-6713 (928) 310-6713
Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Trust, (928) 774-7488 (928) 774-7488
Sandy Bahr, Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, (602) 999-5790 (602) 999-5790

Lawsuit Challenges Uranium Mine That Threatens Water and Wildlife of the Grand Canyon
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.— Today the Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust, and Sierra Club filed suit in an Arizona federal court challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s approval of the restart of a defunct uranium mine just north of Grand Canyon National Park.
The conservation groups are suing over the Bureau’s failure to update 1980s-era environmental reviews and mining plans prior to allowing Denison Mines Corporation to begin mining at the “Arizona 1” mine. The mine was partially constructed in the late 1980s and early 1990s but was closed due to market conditions in 1992 without producing any uranium ore. The Bureau of Land Management did not respond to a September legal notice from conservation groups urging the agency to correct course in order to avoid today’s litigation. The mine is within the same area that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar placed off-limits to new mining claims and operations in an order issued in July of this year.
Today’s suit cites violations of National Environmental Policy Act provisions that require the land-management agency to consider new information regarding the hydrology, spring ecology, and biodiversity of the area in order to accurately evaluate the impacts of the mine. An update to an outdated 1988 environmental assessment, as well as a more thorough analysis, is warranted given new information, circumstances, and public controversy about renewed uranium mining near Grand Canyon. The suit also cites violations of the Endangered Species Act in the federal government’s failure to ensure that new mining will not jeopardize threatened and endangered species or their critical habitat — including Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub, bonytail, razorback sucker, southwestern willow flycatcher, and Mexican spotted owl.
“The Bureau of Land Management’s refusal to redo outdated environmental reviews is as illegal as it is unethical,” said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It should be eager to protect the Grand Canyon and its endangered species; instead, it has chosen to shirk environmental review on behalf of the uranium industry.”
The suit also cites violations of mining laws and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act over the agency’s failure to require validity exams for the mine’s claims and a new plan of operations for the mine; the old plan expired with the mine’s 1992 closure. The Interior Department’s July 2009 one-million-acre land segregation order, now in force, and its proposed 20-year mineral withdrawal prohibit new mining claims and the exploration and mining of existing claims for which valid existing rights have not been established. Although the Arizona 1 mine falls within the segregation boundary, valid rights have not been established for the mine’s claims.
“Arizona 1’s original mine owners went bankrupt and thus never established an economically viable uranium deposit required to establish a valid and existing right,” noted Roger Clark with the Grand Canyon Trust. “It’s time for the BLM to serve the public interest by complying with the law.”
Spikes in uranium prices have caused thousands of new uranium claims, dozens of proposed exploration drilling projects, and proposals to reopen old uranium mines adjacent to Grand Canyon. Renewed uranium development threatens to degrade wildlife habitat and industrialize now-wild and iconic landscapes bordering the park; it also threatens to deplete and contaminate aquifers that discharge into Grand Canyon National Park and the Colorado River. The Park Service warns against drinking from several creeks in the Canyon exhibiting elevated uranium levels in the wake of past uranium mining.
“The Grand Canyon, other public lands, and native peoples are still suffering from the impacts of past uranium mining activities,” said Sandy Bahr, chapter director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. “We need to ensure that we do not repeat that history and allow harm to one of our nation’s treasures or to the millions of people who enjoy the lands and rely on the water.”
Proposed uranium development has provoked litigation, public protests, and statements of concern and opposition from scientists; city officials; county officials, including Coconino County; former Governor Janet Napolitano; state representatives; the Navajo Nation, and the Kaibab Paiute, Hopi, Hualapai and Havasupai tribes; the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California; and the Southern Nevada Water Authority, among others. Statewide polling conducted by Public Opinion Strategies shows overwhelming public support for withdrawing from mineral entry the lands near Grand Canyon; Arizonans support protecting the Grand Canyon area from uranium mining by a two-to-one margin.
Attorneys representing the plaintiff groups in today’s litigation are Amy Atwood of the Center for Biological Diversity, Neil Levine of Grand Canyon Trust, and Roger Flynn of the Western Mining Action Project.
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Native Cinema Winter Showcase, Santa Fe

2009-11-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

November 13, 2009
CONTACT: Gabe Gomez
(505) 983-5220 x229
ggomez@swaia.org
www.swaia.org

Winter Focus
SWAIA Introduces Native Cinema into the 4th Annual Winter Showcase

Who: The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA)
What: Native Cinema Showcase at the 4th Annual SWAIA Winter Showcase
Where: Santa Fe Convention Center: 201 W Marcy St. Santa Fe, NM
When: Saturday, November 28 and Sunday, November, 29
How Much: Films are free with purchase of $5-$10 General Winter Showcase Ticket.

(SANTA FE) Four years ago, the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) embarked upon a new venture based on the success of the Santa Fe Indian Market, whose near century of existence supports traditional and contemporary Native art forms like no other event or organization in the world. This year SWAIA is introducing film into the Winter Showcase as part of its growing programs.

Films that were part of the Native Cinema Showcase at the 2009 Santa Fe Indian Market make up the Winter Showcase series. This program is an extension of SWAIA's partnership with the Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

The feature film for the series is the documentary Summer Sun Winter Moon. The film exposes viewers to the reality of the American Indian perspective of Lewis and Clark's legendary "Corps of Discovery" mission, is scheduled for broadcast on PBS during November 2009. The featuring of the film strategically aligns with the programming goals of PBS and its network of broadcast affiliates for National American Indian Heritage Month.

Executive Producer Cynthia Newport and award-winning director Hugo Perez bring to the national viewing audience Summer Sun Winter Moon's inherent declarations of truth, proving to be important and timely in what it tells us about ourselves, about our place in time, and about the choices we have to make moving forward. While there are two sides to every story, viewers are left haunted by the words of two storytellers with one story that can only be interpreted by each individual.

The Fourth Annual SWAIA Winter Showcase is a three-day celebration of Native art. The Winter Showcase will feature beautiful artwork for sale from 175 Native artists; artist demonstrations from such luminaries as the 2009 Santa Fe Indian Market Best of Show Winners Rebecca and Darryl Begay; a holiday performance by Robert Mirabal, kids activities with the inimitable Teri Greeves and a book booth from Clearlight Books.

Winter Native Cinema Showcase Film Schedule and Descriptions
Saturday, November 28
We Shall Remain: Trail of Tears 11:00 am

By telling Native American history in Native American voices, WGBH's landmark We Shall Remain series opened the doors for new insights into our shared past. Chris Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho), who directed three of the five films in this highly acclaimed series, returns to the showcase with the moving, wise and balanced Trail of Tears, the story of how the Cherokee, though they embraced "civilization" in the mid-1800s and were recognized as a sovereign nation by the U.S. Supreme Court, were forced to march from their eastern homelands to present-day Oklahoma. Weaving contemporary voices, archival materials and richly textured recreations, Eyre revisits a tragic but revealing chapter in American history. Starring Wes Studi (Cherokee). (U.S., 2008, 74m)

Four Sheets to the Wind 12:45pm

After his father's death, Cufe (Cree actor Cody Lightning) finds himself grieving and in search of more than he has found at home. Leaving the reservation, he heads to Tulsa, where his sister Miri (Saulteaux actress Tamara Podemski) is drinking heavily and looking for love in all the wrong places. Cufe too, far from home and eyes opened wide, is taking his first steps toward finding love. This sweet, smart and restrained first feature from Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek) was one of the hits at the Sundance Film Festival, where Podemski won an acting prize (U.S., 2007, 91m).

Christmas in the Clouds 2:30pm

Kate Montgomery's film pays tribute to a familiar genre-the Hollywood screwball comedy-but sets her story in an unfamiliar milieu: a struggling, Native-owned ski resort. Ray Clouds on Fire (Choctaw actor Tim Vahle) is the well-educated but overly conscientious manager who finds that a critic has booked a suite for the weekend. Ray's chef (Graham Greene) doesn't want to cook meat, much of the staff brings their kids to work, the local handyman spends his time wooing the ski bunnies and his assistant (Sheila Tousey) is obsessed with romance novels. When Tina arrives from New York, she's mistaken for the critic, while the real one (M. Emmet Walsh) finds all kinds of problems. With performances by Rita Coolidge and Wes Studi, this is a memorable joy ride of a movie. (U.S., 2001, 90m).

Sunday, November 29

Weaving Worlds + Share the Wealth 11:00 am

Two films by Benny Klain (Navajo). In the poignant, ironic drama Share the Wealth, a Native woman (played by Casey Camp-Horinek) on an urban street encounters stereotyped misunderstanding. (U.S., 2006, 7m). Weaving Worlds is an insightful exploration of the intricate relationships between Navajo rug weavers and reservation traders reveals the delicate balance many Native artists struggle to maintain: how to retain one's cultural traditions, ensure economic survival, and find artistic validation? (U.S., 2008, 57m)

Summer Sun Winter Moon 12:30 pm

Celebrated composer Rob Kapilow, commissioned to create a symphonic work about the enduring legacy of the Lewis and Clark expedition, finds an untold story: the devastating impacts of their "discoveries" on indigenous peoples. The opera becomes a collaboration with Darrell Robes Kipp (Blackfeet), who set out to retell the story "from the river bank, not the boat." As Kipp, a poet and educator says, "There's nothing to celebrate-not for Indian people," in reference planned events for the celebration of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. Enlisted by Kapilow, Kipp agrees to author the libretto for the symphony project, offering his own hand to the composer who dared to reach across the divide. (d. Hugo Perez, U.S., 2009, 56m)

Animation Celebration 1:45pm

Terrific films from the NMAI collection: North Peak tells the Stoney tale of a mouse who wishes to become an eagle (d. Jarrett and Trent Twoyoungmen (Stoney), Canada, 2008, 4m). In Raven Tales: Raven and the First People, Raven, Frog, and Eagle discover the first humans in a giant clamshell washed up on the beach (d. Chris Kientz (Cherokee) and Simon James (Kwakwaka'wakw), U.S./Canada, 2005, 25m). Wapos Bay: The Elements follows a near-disaster after three children assist their mushom (grandfather) setting up a cultural camp (d. Melanie Jackson (Cree), Canada, 2006, 24m). The Creation: A Blackfoot Legend describes the genesis of the earth and the beginning of man. (d. Keith Carter (Blackfoot), produced by NMAI, U.S., 2007, 4m). The ancient beings in Los Chulpas existed in Chile's Atacama Desert in the days before the sun (d. Alex Moya, Spain, 2007, 7m, English subtitles). A young man experiences a special journey in The Old Man and the River (d. Steven Chilton (Attikamek), Canada, 2007, 5m). In The Little Prince, a young man recounts his difficulties as a boy (d. Vincent Papatie (Algonquin), produced by Wapikoni Mobile, Canada, 2007, 6m, English subtitles).

For more information, please call Gabe Gomez at (505) 983-5220.

# # #

The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, a non-profit organization, is an advocate for Native American arts and cultures (particularly those in the Southwest). SWAIA creates economic and cultural opportunities for Native American artists by: producing and promoting the Santa Fe Indian Market as the finest Indian art event in the world, cultivating excellence and innovation across traditional and non-traditional art forms, and developing programs and events that support, promote, and honor Native artists year-round. SWAIA is located at 141 East Palace Avenue in Santa Fe, N.M.; telephone number 505-983-5220; www.swaia.org.

Dirty Coal Czar Confirmed by Senate

2009-11-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

November 6, 2009
Contact: Tierra Curry, Center for Biological Diversity, (928) 522-3681 (928) 522-3681

WASHINGTON— The Senate today confirmed controversial nominee Joseph Pizarchik to be director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the federal agency charged with protecting communities and natural systems from the impacts of coal mining. The Center for Biological Diversity and numerous organizations and communities affected by coal mining had opposed the nomination.
“Today, the Senate put the fox in charge of guarding the henhouse when it comes to destructive mining,” said Tierra Curry, a biologist at the Center. “As director of the Bureau of Mining and Reclamation in Pennsylvania, Mr. Pizarchik consistently made decisions that benefited industry at the expense of the environment and communities living in mining areas. And now, thanks to the Obama administration and the Senate, he can bring those same disastrous policies to mining practices across the country.”
Mr. Pizarchik’s environmental record includes advocating for unsafe disposal of toxic coal ash, disregarding the scientific evidence concerning coal-ash pollution, weakening stream buffer-zone rules, promoting valley fills, and downplaying the devastation caused by long-wall mining. Moreover, his agency has failed to meet legal requirements to prevent water pollution and has attempted to block citizens from obtaining information under public record laws.
In 2001, Mr. Pizarchik supervised the drafting of regulations that weakened stream buffer-zone rules to allow the filling of stream valleys in Pennsylvania. In spite of science demonstrating the hazards of improper coal-ash disposal, Mr. Pizarchik’s agency has allowed waste to be buried in unlined pits and old mines without regulatory safeguards. His coal-ash mine-fill program was found deficient by the Interior Board of Land Appeals.
And during confirmation hearings, Mr. Pizarchik dodged questions about mountaintop removal, claiming he needed to “learn more about the facts and details…what has transpired in the past.”
“At a time when we need to be rapidly and boldly moving away from our reliance on coal and fossil fuels to curb global warming, it is extremely alarming that the Senate would confirm such a controversial nominee with a record of consistently downplaying the devastating effects of coal mining and coal ash on the environment,” said Curry.

Outrage over toxic waste in Idaho

2009-11-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

Silver Valley Community Resource Center

PO Box 362

Kellogg, ID 83837

Phone: 208-784-8891

Contact persons: Bob Colonna, 208-784-8891

510-909-6524

Gayle Eversole, 509-432-4868

Date: Nov. 6, 2009

SVCRC outraged with Congressman Minnick's response to Old Mission Repository meeting

KELLOGG, ID-- Today the SVCRC office received word from by a letter sent by Marie Hattaway of Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick's office regarding the recent request by citizens and groups opposing the 20 acre toxic waste site to hold a public meeting of all affected citizens was turned down. The request for the public meeting is supported by the OIG's office who undertook the original investigation of the site as well as CERCLA law.

More than 500,000 individuals who live within the boundaries of the 1500 sq. mile Bunker Hill/CDA Basin Superfund are not being given accurate information pertaining to EPA Region Ten and IDEQ's building of a 600,000 cubic yard repository. The location runs parallel to Interstate 90 is in a well documented floodplain that arsenic pollution of groundwater has already been detected, sacred ancestral grounds and a large natural wetland at the Old Mission State Park overpass.

More than 2000 individuals and other groups have come forward including Center for Justice, CD'A Tribe, Kootenai Env. Alliance, Sierra Club, Eastside Road District and public officials including Mayor Larkin, Post Falls once SVCRC members first began to learn about the site. Many other individuals and groups outside the Old Mission area have also called for this project to be abandoned. "Until someone lives in a community that has been so badly devastated and suppressed as those living in the epicenter of one of the nations largest Superfund sites, it is difficult to understand the importance of affected citizens being properly informed and speaking out", says Dr. Bob Colonna, consultant for SVCRC. "We believe the actions taken by EPA to not hold meetings for the public is deliberate and that Congressman Minnick has the best interests of his constituency in focus".

CERCLA law that directs Superfund and cleanups calls for community involvement and not just 9 people who Region Ten originally contacted several years ago. A recent open house where only 2 affected citizens showed up was an indication of the limited outreach and distrust individuals have of the agencies. Several attempts have been made to correct the erroneous information given to the OIG pertaining to community involvement for the investigation they conducted this past summer.

"I am outraged that Congressman Minnick is not seeing the abuse of taxpayers money and the ongoing exploitation of families of children that is taking place in the Superfund site", Gayle Eversole a SVCRC member, "and I don't even live there".

Facts relating to leaching causing perpetual toxic mine waste including lead, arsenic, antimony, and mercury will occur if the repository is established. As will human health risk exposure. Already public signs along the downstream river and lakes warn of the dangers associated with the pollution. This past summer many people who were speaking out against the Old Mission (EMF) repository kept EPA and IDEQ busy. The two agencies reacted in identifying new repositories in the Silver Valley. At least 75 more potential sites for downstream pollution are now listed. SVCRC members asked Andy Mork of IDEQ why the Mission site was chosen, his response was "because it is convenient". At meetings where future repositories are being discussed by EPA and IDEQ specifically in Osborn Idaho, citizens showed up to voice their opposition, IDEQ let them know they were going to establish the repositories whether people opposed them or not.

Calls to Congressman Minnick, 208-667-0127, 202-225-6611, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, 202-564-4700 by all those living downstream demanding a public meeting of all citizens in the site is imminent. Working together communities and children's health will be restored and protected.

Anyone or group wanting more information about the facts associated with the Old Mission Repository and why it is important to stop the it can contact SVCRC, 208-784-8891, www.silvervalleyaction.com and the other groups involved.

"It's important that other communities realize the long term problems they will face if they do not have the opportunity to learn about and stop the Old Mission toxic repository, SVCRC spokesperson.

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Endangered Species: Obama doesn't improve on Bush's dismal record

2009-11-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release, November 6, 2009
Contact: Noah Greenwald, (503) 484-7495

Obama Issues Endangered Species Performance Review:
Has Only Listed One Species in 10 Months

Center for Biological Diversity
WASHINGTON— The Obama administration today issued its first review of species that are candidates for protection as endangered species, identifying a total of 249 species in need of protection. The review also describes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s progress in listing these species, showing that the administration has, to date, only listed one species – a Hawaiian plant reduced to a handful of individuals.
“This review shows that the Obama administration has not substantially improved the dismal record of the Bush administration in providing protection to the nation’s critically endangered wildlife,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Protection of only one species in 10 months reflects a failure to enact substantial reforms in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”
During its eight-year tenure, the Bush administration protected a mere 62 species – a rate of fewer than eight species per year. This compares to 522 species protected under the Clinton administration, at an average rate of 65 per year, and 231 species protected under the George H.W. Bush administration, for an average rate of 58 per year. With only one species listed so far, at this point the Obama administration seems to be flatlining in terms of new listings for candidate species.
“Continued delays in protection of these 249 species is a failure of leadership by Interior Secretary Salazar,” said Greenwald. “And that failure is placing these species at greater risk of extinction. The position of chief of conservation and classification hasn’t even been filled yet, exemplifying the failure of the Obama administration to prioritize species conservation.”
Many of the candidate species have been waiting for protection for decades – delays that have real and often lethal consequences on the ground, with at least 24 species having gone extinct after being designated candidates for protection.
“Because extinction is forever, delays in protection of the nation’s most imperiled species are unacceptable,” said Greenwald. “The Endangered Species Act can save these 249 species, but only if they are granted protection.”
The Center and other groups have a pending lawsuit in Washington, D.C., arguing that continued delay in protecting the now-249 candidate species is illegal. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is not making expeditious progress listing species as required by the Endangered Species Act.
Background on the Candidate Species
The 249 candidates include a wide variety of species, from shorebirds such as the red knot, which migrates along the Atlantic Coast during one of the longest migrations in the animal world, to the aboriginal pricklyapple, a cactus found in Florida, to the Pacific fisher, a relative of the mink and otter that is dependent on old-growth forests on the West Coast. Being designated as a candidate does not provide any formal protection to the 249 species, a number of which have been waiting for protection for almost as long as the Endangered Species Act has existed. On average, the candidates have been waiting 20 years for protection.
The current review includes eight new species since the last review: Florida bonneted bat, yellow-billed loon, roundtail chub, diamond darter, rabbitsfoot clam, Goose Creek milkvetch, Kentucky gladecress, and Florida bristle fern. Four species were removed, including the fat-whorled pondsnail, troglobitic groundwater shrimp, and two plants, Calliandra locoensis and Calyptranthes estremerae.
Each of the candidates are given a priority number ranging from 1 to 12 based on their taxonomic rank (e.g. species, subspecies or population) and magnitude and immediacy of threats, with lower numbers indicating higher priority. The majority of candidates are rated as either priority 2 or 3, meaning they are in immediate danger of extinction.
The following are but a few examples of candidate species awaiting protection:
Oregon spotted frog: The Oregon spotted frog has been in protection limbo since 1991. It is found in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, in wetlands from sea level to at least 5,500 feet. The frog’s habitat has been lost at an accelerating pace, and the species is now absent from up to 90 percent of its former range, including all of California.
Sonoyta mud turtle: The Sonoyta mud turtle has been a candidate since 1997. In the United States, it has been reduced to a single reservoir in Arizona that is isolated from populations in Mexico. The turtle eats insects, crustaceans, snails, fish, frogs, and plants. Females bury their eggs on land.
Florida semaphore cactus: The Florida semaphore cactus has been waiting for protection for six years. It is a large prickly pear cactus from the Florida Keys that was thought to have been driven extinct by cactus collectors and road construction in the late 1970s, but was rediscovered in the mid-1980s. Much of its historic habitat has fallen prey to development, destruction, and fragmentation. Only two populations remain.
Eastern massasauga: The Eastern massasauga is a wetland rattlesnake of the Midwest and Great Lakes, and has been found in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Ontario, Canada. It has been waiting for protection for 25 years, having been made a candidate in 1982. The snake is extirpated from 40 percent of the counties it historically inhabited due to wetland losses from urban and suburban sprawl, golf courses, mining, and agriculture.
Parachute beardtongue: The Parachute beardtongue, also known as the Parachute penstemon, is an attractive perennial plant that grows on rocky cliffs above the Colorado River near the town of Parachute, Colorado. It occupies just two locations of less than one-third of a square mile. The beardtongue has been listed as a candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act since 1990. Both populations are on lands slated for oil-shale mining.
White fringeless orchid: The white fringeless orchid is a two-foot-tall herb that grows in wetlands in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Alabama's coastal plain. It has been found in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and South Carolina, and has been a candidate for 30 years. The orchid is limited to 53 locations.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national nonprofit conservation organization with 240,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

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Martin Luther King: Time to break the silence

2009-11-05T19:58:00.000-08:00

Listen to Martin Luther King speak out against war, it might change your life and your view of the world:

LISTEN:
http://www.africanbynature.com/Resources_2/mlk_vietnam-1967-speech.ram

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
By Rev. Martin Luther King
4 April 1967

Speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City

[Please put links to this speech on your respective web sites and if possible, place the text itself there.

This is the least well known of Dr. King's speeches among the

masses, and it needs to be read by all]

http://www.ssc.msu.edu/~sw/mlk/brkslnc.htm
I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.
In the light of such tragic misunderstandings, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.
I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia.
Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they can play in a successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.
Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the NLF, but rather to my fellow Americans, who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.
The Importance of Vietnam
Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.
My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.
For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself unless the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.
As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man." This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men -- for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the "Vietcong" or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?
Finally, as I try to delineate for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.
This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
Strange Liberators
And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.
They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony.
Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not "ready" for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination, and a government that had been established not by China (for whom the Vietnamese have no great love) but by clearly indigenous forces that included some Communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.
For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam.
Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of the reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.
After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators -- our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly routed out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords and refused even to discuss reunification with the north. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by U.S. influence and then by increasing numbers of U.S. troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change -- especially in terms of their need for land and peace.
The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese --the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go -- primarily women and children and the aged.
They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one "Vietcong"-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them -- mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?
We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only non-Communist revolutionary political force -- the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. What liberators?
Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers.
Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation Front -- that strangely anonymous group we call VC or Communists? What must they think of us in America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the south? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the north" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.
How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent Communist and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will have no part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them -- the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again and then shore it up with the power of new violence?
Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.
So, too, with Hanoi. In the north, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which would have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again.
When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. Also it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva agreements concerning foreign troops, and they remind us that they did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.
Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard of the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the north. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores.
At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless on Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor.
This Madness Must Cease
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.
This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words:
"Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism."
If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. It will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad China into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.
The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.
In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:
End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.
Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.
Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos.
Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and in any future Vietnam government.
Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva agreement.
Part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We most provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary.
Protesting The War
Meanwhile we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible.
As we counsel young men concerning military service we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to say that this is the path now being chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.
There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.
In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.
This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not call everyone a Communist or an appeaser who advocates the seating of Red China in the United Nations and who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problem of these turbulent days. We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove thosse conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.
The People Are Important
These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgement against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every moutain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain."
A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.
This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John:
Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."
We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out deperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.
We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world -- a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the callling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.
As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:
Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah,
Off'ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.
Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.

'Outta Your Backpack Media' Fall Workshop 2009

2009-11-04T19:12:00.000-08:00

Outta Your Backpack Media

Outta Your Backpack Media is excited to announce our Fall "09 workshop!
This will be held at our awesome new space in Downtown Flagstaff! Check www.taalahooghan.org for more info.
Apply now to the workshop because space fills up fast.
Please consider making an equipment or monetary donation at: www.oybm.org/donate
Ahe' hee',
Klee Benally
OYBM Project Coordinator/Volunteer

Outta Your Backpack Media Fall ‘09 Workshop
November 27th-29th • Flagstaff, AZ
• Make a Short Movie!
• Learn Hands-on Script Writing!
• Camera Operation!
• Lighting!
• Video Editing!
• & More!

The workshop is free & open to young Native people ages 12-30. (exceptions made of course!)

Lunch will be provided. Housing & transportation will not be provided.

Fill out the application by NOVEMBER 17th, 2009.
FILL OUT THE APPLICATION AT: www.oybm.org/workshop-application
The Outta Your Backpack Media Collective creates community ownership of media, recognizing the inherent creative energy of youth, and challenges corporate dominated media.

WHAT IS THE OUTTA YOUR BACKPACK MEDIA WORKSHOP?

•The workshop comprises youth coming together with experienced Native media makers to gain skills to produce their own short video, documentary or digital story. During a two to four-day workshop, participants will learn the basics of video production, camera operating and video editing to create a 3 to 5 minute video.

WHERE IS THE WORKSHOP?

At Taala Hooghan
Infoshop & Youth Media Arts Center – NEW LOCATION!
11 S. Mikes Pike (Downtown Flagstaff near the bus transfer station)
Flagstaff, AZ
Contact:
oybm@oybm.org
www.oybm.or

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO ATTEND?

•The workshop is free! Lunch will be provided.
Transportation will not be provided.

WHO CAN APPLY?

•While the Youth Media Project Workshop is focused on ensuring that youth from Indigenous communities have access to media skills and resources, anyone can apply. You don’t need previous media experience, just a will to learn!
This workshop is also great for advanced media makers!

HOW TO APPLY:

Fill out the application by NOVEMBER 17th, 2009.

FILL OUT THE APPLICATION AT: www.oybm.org/workshop-application

You can also call (928) 380-2629 (928) 380-2629
This workshop is limited to about 30 participants.

If you need any special accommodations with this deadline or are planning to send the application by mail, please e-mail us so that we can expect your application or address your needs immediately. Also please post and forward this application so that as many youth as possible get the chance to apply.

Schedule:

Nov. 27 – 11 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Scriptwriting // Storyboarding

Nov. 28 – 11 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Camera // Lighting // Shooting

Nov. 29 – 11 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Shooting // Editing
PUBLIC FILM SCREENING! 7:00 p.m. - $5 Admission (Proceeds support OYBM)

--

http://www.oybm.org/
- Indigenous Youth Empowerment! / Filmmaking Workshops / Resource Distribution

--
Klee Benally
indigenousaction@gmail.com

http://www.indigenousaction.org/
- Independent Indigenous Media
http://www.oybm.org/
- Indigenous Youth Empowerment!
http://www.savethepeaks.org/
- Protect Sacred Places
www.myspace.com/taalahooghan
- Flagstaff Infoshop
http://www.blackfire.net/

www.myspace.com/eelk

www.twitter.com/eelk

Skype: indigenousaction

Halt: Taseko Mines at Teztan Biny, BC

2009-11-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

Quote: From the very good and very strong letter below: “Your company is doing everything in its power to construct a massive open-pit mine in the heart of our traditional lands, and you have offered no options that do not require the complete destruction of an ancestral lake that has sustained our people for generations. You are coming into our homeland with plans to desecrate an enduring bond between our people and our lands that is deeper than you will ever understand - all for some twenty years of "prosperity". When you deride our efforts to honour our responsibilities and to protect our lands as "activist strategies", and when you complain that we still oppose your project after you have "exhausted" your imagination to please us, you make it abundantly clear that you have not heard a word that we have said, despite your careful records of countless meetings. We stand committed to the protection of Teztan Biny and our traditional lands. Your most recent letter makes it clear that Taseko still has not heard a word that we have said."
__________________________

At: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NatNews-north/message/16361

TSILHQOT'IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
#253 Fourth Avenue North -- Williams Lake, BC V2G
4T4 -- Phone (250) 392-3918 (250) 392-3918 -- Fax (250) 398-5798

October 29, 2009

Taseko Mines Ltd.
Suite 300 - 905 West Pender Street
Vancouver, British Columbia V6C 1L6

Attention: Brian Battison, Vice President, Corporate Affairs

Dear Mr. Battison:

We have reviewed your letter of October 27, 2009.

We asked Taseko to work with our First Nation to address the deficiencies in your EIS, as the Panel itself encouraged. Your letter not only rejects this request, but then continues, in typical fashion, to malign the character and motives of the Tsilhqot'in people and their leadership.

We make no apology for our opposition to this proposed Project so long as it requires the complete destruction of Teztan Biny and the surrounding lands and waters. Despite our many efforts to explain this position, Taseko continues to blame and deride our First Nation, our leaders and our people for their opposition to your Project.

You say that TNG ignored your letters requesting comments on Taseko's "so-called" consultation summary. That is completely untrue. Chief Ervin Charleyboy responded to you directly, by letter dated January 26, 2009, and he explained the position of the Tsilhqot'in Nation as follows:

Finally, it appears that we are confronting a fundamental difference of view on certain key issues that will not lend itself to resolution through dialogue. Your company has taken the firm position that the destruction of Teztan Biny is unavoidable if your Project is to proceed. We are determined, and charged with the duty, to protect and preserve Teztan Biny and the ancient and abiding connection of our people to this lake. This is a deep spiritual and cultural bond that makes us who we are as Tsilhqot'in people - once destroyed it is lost forever. It cannot be replaced with a new lake. Nonetheless, Chief Charleyboy stated that TNG remained open to engagement with Taseko on select issues of mutual benefit.

You say that "all efforts of Taseko to work with the TNG, or even obtain the most basic information, have been ignored and rebuffed". Again, this is completely untrue. In fact, it was Mr. Hallbauer that flatly rebuffed Chief Charleyboy's offer of continued engagement between TNG and Taseko, by letter dated Feb. 6, 2009, stating "I can't now possibly guess at what more we might be reasonably expected to do to satisfy you. You have exhausted our imagination. The Company has done all it can to engage with you".

I suggest that you review Chief Charleyboy's response to Mr. Hallbauer, dated March 6, 2009. It responds to the same allegations that run through your letter. Chief Charleyboy responds, in detail, to the assertion that Taseko has already "generously" funded TNG, and I will not repeat his response here. I will, however, remind you that when Taseko terminated funding to TNG, at the outset of the environmental review process, it left TNG with a considerable amount owing for work that was conducted in good faith. That amount is still outstanding.

Chief Charleyboy also responded, in detail, to the same insinuation that you raise yet again in your letter - namely, that it is somehow unreasonable or bad faith for the Tsilhqot'in people to oppose this Project. I cannot put it better than Chief Charleyboy:

"We made it clear on a number of occasions that the Xeni Gwet'in people and the Tsilhqot'in Nation strongly opposed the Prosperity Project so long as it requires the destruction of Teztan Biny. We have never wavered from that position.

Your company is doing everything in its power to construct a massive open-pit mine in the heart of our traditional lands, and you have offered no options that do not require the complete destruction of an ancestral lake that has sustained our people for generations. You are coming into our homeland with plans to desecrate an enduring bond between our people and our lands that is deeper than you will ever understand - all for some twenty years of "prosperity". When you deride our efforts to honour our responsibilities and to protect our lands as "activist strategies", and when you complain that we still oppose your project after you have "exhausted" your imagination to please us, you make it abundantly clear that you have not heard a word that we have said, despite your careful records of countless meetings. We stand committed to the protection of Teztan Biny and our traditional lands. Your most recent letter makes it clear that Taseko still has not heard a word that we have said."

I have attached this correspondence record so that the Panel has the opportunity to judge for itself whether Taseko in fact remains willing to work with First Nations, as it repeatedly claims. Every day, we hear the fears and apprehensions of our communities about the potentially devastating impacts of your proposed project in an area of our homeland that holds very special cultural and spiritual significance for our people. Taseko may disagree with our position, but we see no reason for Taseko to continually turn a deaf ear to these concerns, or to blame and disparage the Tsilhqot'in people and leadership for opposing its Project.

The Tsilhqot'in people are opposed to any mine that would destroy Teztan Biny, but the conduct of Taseko, its willingness to blame First Nations loudly at every turn, and its disregard for our deeply felt concerns, has only deepened our apprehension. Operating any major project in an area of such importance to a First Nation requires an ongoing relationship based on trust and respect, to avoid conflict and turmoil. In this case, we are not even through the environmental assessment, and Taseko has made it all too clear that it is not able or willing to bridge differences or build trust. Its recent letters and statements in the media are clearly intended to aggravate rather than resolve conflict.

Taseko's inability to build relationships with local First Nations, to understand their perspective, or to avoid fanning the flames of conflict and blame, are just a few more reasons why it is not in the public interest to approve this project in the heart of Tsilhqot'in traditional lands, over the strong objections of our people.

Yours truly,

ON BEHALF OF THE TSILHQOT'IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT:

Roger William, TNG Stewardship Director

cc: Panel Members, c/o Colette Spagnuolo, Panel Manager - via email.

-----------------------
*If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this message, please retain this credit.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
UBCIC's Protecting Knowledge Conference site:
http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/Resources/conferences/PK.htm

Follow UBCIC on Twitter at http://twitter.com/UBCIC

Indigenous Uranium Forum, Acoma Pueblo Videos

2009-10-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

Select "On-Demand" then select session and click on photo to watch...

Cameco violates Australian Aboriginal lands

2009-10-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

URANIUM MINERS ASKED TO “PLEASE EXPLAIN” AFTER INTERFERING WITH TWO ABORIGINAL SITES

Press statement

Part owners of the Kintyre Uranium Deposit, Cameco Australia Pty Ltd, are being asked to explain why they recently graded an old track that runs through two different registered Aboriginal Sites without permission from the Department of Indigenous Affairs (DIA).

The Native Title holders of the land for the Martu people Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation (WDLAC)* are outraged that Cameco, a Canadian owned company, could commit an offence that was not only illegal but also showed such a lack of respect for Martu heritage.

Nyaparu Landy, Chairperson of WDLAC, said it was disappointing to see that a company who claims to respect Martu people and culture and the legislation in place to protect their rights could not even follow legal process so early on in the high profile project.

“We have been given numerous assurances that they will not disturb any sites and already they have disturbed two sites located some distance apart without consent,” he said.

“If Cameco can’t even follow 40 year-old legislation now, how can we trust them with mining uranium?”

Under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (“The Act”) it is an offence to damage or alter an Aboriginal site without permission from the Minister for Indigenous Affairs. Cameco did not have any consent from the Minister nor did they advise WDLAC that they would grade the track through the registered sites.

“There is simply no excuse – not only has WDLAC warned them about the existence of the sites, they are also listed on the DIA’s Register of Aboriginal sites for all to see,” Mr Landy said.

“It seems Cameco can’t even be bothered to do their homework. This incident doesn’t leave us with much confidence on their promises to respect our culture throughout the rest of the project.

“But we will continue to fiercely protect our culture and insist that Cameco and other miners with leases on our land respect it by following their requirements by law.”

The DIA have begun an investigation to determine whether Cameco should be prosecuted under the Act.

All enquiries should be directed to Christina Araujo, In House Counsel on 9486 9797.

*The Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation (Jamakurnu-Yapalinkunu) RNTBC holds the exclusive native title rights and interests of the Martu People to approximately 136,000square kilometres of land in the Western Desert region of Western Australia.

Anne-Marie Hagan Future Acts Project Officer
Western Desert Lands Aboriginal Corporation (Jamukurnu-Yapalinkunu) RNTBC (ICN 4207)
11 Gordon Street West Perth WA 6005
PO Box 331 West Perth WA 6872
Telephone (08) 9486 9797 Fax (08) 9486 9798

Indigenous Peoples Southern Border Rights Campaign

2009-10-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

Indigenous Peoples Southern Border Rights Campaign

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

TUCSON -- In the new Southern Border Rights Campaign, the Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras/Indigenous Alliance Without Borders, is working toward national guidelines to ensure border rights for Indigenous Peoples in their homelands, from California to Texas.

Indigenous Alliance Without Borders director Jose Matus, Yaqui, said recent meetings were held with members of the Gila River Indian Nation, Cocopah Nation and Kumeyaay Nation, along with meetings in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The purpose was to network and solicit support for a Southern Border Rights Campaign. The Alliance is working toward national guidelines and a manual for Southern Indigenous Border Rights at the U.S./Mexico Border region.

Matus, Yaqui ceremonial leader, has traveled to Yaqui communities in Sonora, Mexico for thirty years to bring Yaqui ceremonial leaders to the United States for temporary stays for ceremonial purposes. At the US border, there were repeatedly harassments and detainments of ceremonial leaders and their families.

Indigenous Peoples living along the border in their traditional homelands, from California to Texas, continue to be harassed and intimidated by US federal agents, including the US Border Patrol, and local enforcement agencies working with Homeland Security. The situation has not improved under the Obama Administration.

While the United States piously demands that other countries assure basic human rights to their citizens, the United States remains one of the greatest offenders of the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were the four countries that refused to vote in favor of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The stated rights include the right to prior and informed consent and the right to traditional territories.

The Alliance said, "The militarization of the southern US border with Mexico threatens the survival of Indigenous Peoples living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico borderline. Our survival as Peoples depends largely on our ability to practice our ancient Indigenous languages, spiritual beliefs, culture and ceremonies in privacy and community without interference. This is not merely a cultural and spiritual concern; it is a matter of human right that exists in the U.S. legal statues, U.S. Constitution and International Law."

Matus said the following statement by the Indigenous Alliance Without Borders was completed in cooperation with the International Indian Treaty Council:

"Southern Border Crossing for Indigenous Peoples And the Lack of U.S.-Mexico Border Rights & Justice

By Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras/Indigenous Alliance Without Borders

The United States is quiet about the U.S. vote of ‘NO' to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples"

‘We did not Cross the Border, The Border Crossed Us'

The militarization of the southern US border with Mexico threatens the survival of indigenous peoples living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico borderline. Our survival as Peoples depends largely on our ability to practice our ancient Indigenous languages, spiritual beliefs, culture and ceremonies in privacy and community without interference. This is not merely a cultural and spiritual concern; it is a matter of human right that exists in the U.S. legal statues, U.S. Constitution and International Law.

It is well known that the US was one of four countries voting against the recently adopted United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is dishonest for a government that lauds itself throughout the world as a Nation of Laws and protector of Human Rights to vote against the basic rights of Indigenous Peoples in its own country as well as the rights of hundreds of millions of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world.

To restore American credibility and make progress on these issues the Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras will advance a vision of responsible local, regional and international engagement that emphasizes human rights, solidarity and cooperation in an interdependent world, realizing that progress on compelling southern border problems will require the active support of friends, allies, and other major stakeholders in the local, regional and international community.

With that purpose, the Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras is spearheading the first ever Southern border transnational collaboration of Indigenous Peoples to address the rights of mobility and passage, militarization of the southern border and seek national policy on Southern Indigenous Peoples' border rights, justice and recognition for the cultural and religious rights of Indigenous Peoples, and their traditional ceremonial leaders.

Our goal is to create a strategic collaboration along the US-Mexico border among Indigenous Nations/communities and their organizations, allies and partners. We also propose future collaboration, mutual support and solidarity with northern border tribes including the Dakota-Nakota 7 Council Fires of South Dakota, who engaged in similar issues along the US-Canada border. Our aim is to unite Indigenous communities across borders in bringing key Indigenous Rights issues to the U.S. Government and 00international arena, in particular to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Department of State and the United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples.

As Indigenous Peoples, we must come together as one organized voice - we must speak for ourselves. Therefore, the Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras asks for the support of all Indigenous Peoples, friends, community allies and partners to stand in support of the fundamental sovereign principles of our traditional Indigenous cultural beliefs. Our social justice journey is to establish Indigenous human/civil rights, cultural survival and protection of our Indigenous languages, and the protection of mother earth and sacred sites at the southern border.

Networking and Coalition Building to promote Indigenous Southern Border Rights & Justice

Solutions may only be possible with consistent political pressure, an organized Indigenous community and the support of human rights organizations locally, nationally and internationally. Assistance and support will also be required from federally recognized border tribes who would also benefit from the restoration of mobility for their members on the south side of the border fence.

The best strategy for defending Indigenous rights, the rights of indigenous people's mobility and passage of the U.S.-Mexico southern border must involve a combination of factors and strategies, including mobilizations of Indigenous communities and tribal councils, creating political pressure, the use of domestic courts and international human rights mechanisms.

Approaches through U.S. Domestic Law and Policy

Southern Indigenous Peoples can seek remedies to secure border crossing rights for their Mexican Indigenous relatives through:

· Federal Indian law and legislation, both at the State and Federal level;

· Internationally-established human right to maintain their cultures and cultural connections across international boundary which may be secured by seeking the proper interpretation of the Native American Languages Act of 1996, and the American Indian Religious Act of 1978 as amended in 1996;

· Seeking legislative changes to ensure that all Mexican Indigenous Peoples are allowed access to the United States equal to that of Canadian Indigenous Peoples and the Jay Treaty;

· Extending the program used for one southern border tribe, the Kickapoo, by issuing American Indian cards (Form I-872) to all southern border tribes and creating new guidelines under which a tribal membership/tribal affiliation card from southern border tribe would be sufficient for entry for Mexican members of that tribe;

Strategies for gaining Southern Indigenous Border Rights

· Generate pressure on the US Government to accept the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;

· Pursue remedies for violation of their internationally-recognized human rights through two major international human rights systems, the United Nation (UN) and of the Organization of American States (OSA);

· Seek solidarity and support from other allies, friends and partners;

· Reinforce our efforts by conducting trainings, conferences, and disseminating information about our rights.

Approaches through International Law

Communicate our concerns to UN Human Rights Council Special Procedures, such as the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief, and the newly created mandate, the Independent Expert on the Right to Culture;

File Shadow Reports with appropriate Treaty Monitoring Bodies under UN Human Rights Treaties to which the US is a State Party, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD);

Consider using the CERD Committee's Urgent Action/Early Warning procedure in urgent cases;

Attend the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues as several of its agenda items for 2010 are appropriate for the raising of these trans-border issues; Meet and network with other Indigenous Peoples from North America concerned with trans-border issues."

2009-10-15T12:12:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release, October 15, 2009

Contacts: Sandy Bahr, Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, (602) 999-5790
Taylor McKinnon, Center for Biological Diversity, (928) 310-6713
Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Trust, (928) 774-7488

Public Supports Protecting Grand Canyon and One Million Acres of Public Lands From Mining

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.— Today conservationists join tribal leaders, city and county officials, and people from throughout Arizona in supporting the protection of one million acres of public lands near Grand Canyon. Supporters of the protections will attend a public hearing this evening in Flagstaff to tell the Interior Department to move forward with a mineral withdrawal to protect the lands from future mining activities. The hearing will be held at the High Country Conference Center at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff starting at 6:00 p.m.

“This is an exciting opportunity to provide protections for the land and the waters around Grand Canyon as well as for the Colorado River and the drinking water for millions of people in the Southwest,” said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. “We are asking that the Department of the Interior move forward with a proposed action to safeguard this area from uranium mining for the next 20 years.”

In August, Interior announced its preparation of an environmental impact statement evaluating a proposed 20-year “mineral withdrawal” that would prohibit new mining claims and the exploration or mining of existing claims without valid existing rights across nearly one million acres of public lands surrounding Grand Canyon National Park. The purpose of the mineral withdrawal would be to protect Grand Canyon’s watersheds from the adverse effects of new uranium exploration and mining. If approved, the withdrawal would extend and strengthen protections set forth in the two-year land segregation announced by the Department on July 20, 2009.

“New uranium mining would pose unacceptable risks to Grand Canyon’s watersheds and wildlife,” said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Department of the Interior’s proposed mineral withdrawal would help to abate those risks and secure the Grand Canyon’s future.”

Spikes in uranium prices have caused thousands of new uranium claims, dozens of proposed exploration drilling projects, and proposals to reopen old uranium mines adjacent to Grand Canyon. Renewed uranium development threatens to degrade wildlife habitat and industrialize now-wild and iconic landscapes bordering the park; it also threatens to contaminate aquifers that discharge into Grand Canyon National Park and the Colorado River.

“Uranium mining has already done irreparable harm to our region’s people, water, and land,” said Grand Canyon Trust spokesman Roger Clark. “We should not repeat the mistakes of the past on our public watersheds surrounding the Grand Canyon.”

Proposed uranium development on the lands involved in the withdrawal has drawn criticism from scientists, city officials, county officials, former Governor Janet Napolitano, the Navajo, Kaibab-Paiute, Hopi, Hualapai and Havasupai tribes, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Statewide polling conducted by Public Opinion Strategies shows overwhelming public support for withdrawing from mineral entry the lands near Grand Canyon; Arizonans support protecting the Grand Canyon area from uranium mining by a two-to-one margin.

The deadline for public comment on the first phase of the mineral withdrawal analysis is October 26, 2009. Comments can be submitted at the meeting, emailed to azasminerals@blm.gov or mailed to Grand Canyon Mining Withdrawal Project, ATTN: Scott Florence, District Manager, Arizona Strip District Office, 345 E. Riverside Drive, Saint George, UT 84790-6714.

Southern Border Crossing Indigenous Peoples Rights

2009-10-14T16:50:00.000-07:00

Southern Border Crossing for Indigenous Peoples
And the Lack of
U.S.-Mexico Border Rights & Justice

“The United States is quiet about the U.S. vote of "NO" to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”

"We did not Cross the Border, The Border Crossed Us"

The militarization of the southern US border with Mexico threatens the survival of indigenous peoples living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico borderline. Our survival as Peoples depends largely on our ability to practice our ancient Indigenous languages, spiritual beliefs, culture and ceremonies in privacy and community without interference. This is not merely a cultural and spiritual concern; it is a matter of human right that exists in the U.S. legal statues, U.S. Constitution and International Law.

It is well known that the US was one of four countries voting against the recently adopted United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is dishonest for a government that lauds itself throughout the world as a Nation of Laws and protector of Human Rights to vote against the basic rights of Indigenous Peoples in its own country as well as the rights of hundreds of millions of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world.

To restore American credibility and make progress on these issues the Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras will advance a vision of responsible local, regional and international engagement that emphasizes human rights, solidarity and cooperation in an interdependent world, realizing that progress on compelling southern border problems will require the active support of friends, allies, and other major stakeholders in the local, regional and international community.

With that purpose, the Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras is spearheading the first ever Southern border transnational collaboration of Indigenous Peoples to address the rights of mobility and passage, militarization of the southern border and seek national policy on Southern Indigenous Peoples’ border rights, justice and recognition for the cultural and religious rights of Indigenous Peoples, and their traditional ceremonial leaders.

Our goal is to create a strategic collaboration along the US-Mexico border among Indigenous Nations/communities and their organizations, allies and partners. We also propose future collaboration, mutual support and solidarity with northern border tribes including the Dakota-Nakota 7 Council Fires of South Dakota, who engaged in similar issues along the US-Canada border. Our aim is to unite Indigenous communities across borders in bringing key Indigenous Rights issues to the U.S. Government and international arena, in particular to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Department of State and the United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples.

As Indigenous Peoples, we must come together as one organized voice ― we must speak for ourselves. Therefore, the Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras asks for the support of all Indigenous Peoples, friends, community allies and partners to stand in support of the fundamental sovereign principles of our traditional Indigenous cultural beliefs. Our social justice journey is to establish Indigenous human/civil rights, cultural survival and protection of our Indigenous languages, and the protection of mother earth and sacred sites at the southern border.

Networking and Coalition Building to promote Indigenous Southern Border Rights & Justice

Solutions may only be possible with consistent political pressure, an organized Indigenous community and the support of human rights organizations locally, nationally and internationally. Assistance and support will also be required from federally recognized border tribes who would also benefit from the restoration of mobility for their members on the south side of the border fence.

The best strategy for defending Indigenous rights, the rights of indigenous people’s mobility and passage of the U.S.-Mexico southern border must involve a combination of factors and strategies, including mobilizations of Indigenous communities and tribal councils, creating political pressure, the use of domestic courts and international human rights mechanisms.

Approaches through U.S. Domestic Law and Policy

Southern Indigenous Peoples can seek remedies to secure border crossing rights for their Mexican Indigenous relatives through:

· Federal Indian law and legislation, both at the State and Federal level;

· Internationally-established human right to maintain their cultures and cultural connections across international boundary which may be secured by seeking the proper interpretation of the Native American Languages Act of 1996, and the American Indian Religious Act of 1978 as amended in 1996;

· Seeking legislative changes to ensure that all Mexican Indigenous Peoples are allowed access to the United States equal to that of Canadian Indigenous Peoples and the Jay Treaty;

· Extending the program used for one southern border tribe, the Kickapoo, by issuing American Indian cards (Form I-872) to all southern border tribes and creating new guidelines under which a tribal membership/tribal affiliation card from southern border tribe would be sufficient for entry for Mexican members of that tribe;

Strategies for gaining Southern Indigenous Border Rights

· Generate pressure on the US Government to accept the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;

· Pursue remedies for violation of their internationally-recognized human rights through two major international human rights systems, the United Nation (UN) and of the Organization of American States (OSA);

· Seek solidarity and support from other allies, friends and partners;

· Reinforce our efforts by conducting trainings, conferences, and disseminating information about our rights.

Approaches through International Law

Communicate our concerns to UN Human Rights Council Special Procedures, such as the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief, and the newly created mandate, the Independent Expert on the Right to Culture;

File Shadow Reports with appropriate Treaty Monitoring Bodies under UN Human Rights Treaties to which the US is a State Party, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD);

Consider using the CERD Committee’s Urgent Action/Early Warning procedure in urgent cases;

Attend the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues as several of its agenda items for 2010 are appropriate for the raising of these trans-border issues; Meet and network with other Indigenous Peoples from North America concerned with trans-border issues.

Charges dropped for priests praying at the border

2009-10-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

October 6, 2009
Contact:
Leslie Klusmire and John Heid
520-305-3276 520-305-3276
Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa
520-323-8697 520-323-8697, cell - 520-603-1917 520-603-1917

Charges Dropped for Pair Who Prayed at Virtual Border Tower Under Construction

Memorial Circle Commemorating the Lost Lives of Migrants to be Held
in Green Valley on October 7 at 9:30 a.m.
Two men were scheduled to be on trial Wednesday, October 7 at 10:30 a.m. in Green Valley, Arizona. They learned on October 5 that due to prosecutorial discretion, their charges were dismissed without prejudice, which reserves the right of the prosecutor to reintroduce the charges at a later date. They were charged by Pima County with trespass after "refusing to quit praying" at the virtual fence communication tower under construction near the U.S./Mexico border on August 6, Hiroshima Day.
John Heid, 54, a Quaker with Christian Peacemaker Teams and Fr. Jerome Zawada, 72, a Franciscan priest, had gone to pray at the site out of deep concern for the deaths of migrants resulting from border walls and virtual fences. The pair were arrested, and then processed and released from the Pima County Adult Detention Center in Tucson.
Because the deaths of migrants continues, the men and their supporters will still hold a Memorial Circle that was scheduled to take place before court. The circle will commemorate the more than 200 lives lost in the Sonoran Desert along the Tucson Sector in the last fiscal year alone, as well as remembering the more than 5,600 people who have died along the Mexico/Arizona border since Operation Gatekeeper began nearly 15 years ago. The Memorial Circle will take place from 9:30 to 10:15 a.m. at the southeast corner of N. La Canada Drive and W. La Canoa in Green Valley, Arizona (near the Pima County Justice Court).
John Heid states, "The dismissal serves to keep the role of Tucson-1, the 'virtual fence', out of court, out of sight, out of legal and public scrutiny. The Tucson-1 towers are part and parcel of an escalating militarization of the U.S./Mexico border. Deaths have only increased along the border since the construction of Tucson-1's prototype, "Project 28", to over 200 this past year."
Zawada and Heid had the following statement with them at their August 6 prayer vigil:
"On this, the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, we call for an end to militarization in all its guises. An end to bombs, nuclear and conventional. An end to the use of Drones (unmanned aerial vehicles). An end to walls, fences and their virtual counterparts that divide us and promote fear of each other. An end to war without end."This morning we vigil at the gates of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, home of a Predator UAV unit which now flies missions around the clock in Iraq and Afghanistan armed with Hellfire missiles which have killed hundreds of unarmed civilians. We demand an end to the unilateral slaughter."This afternoon we vigil at a communication tower, "Tucson-1" (virtual fence) construction sight. Fences and walls, solid and virtual, have funneled people in migration deeper into the harsh, dangerous terrain of the Sonoran desert, resulting in more than 5,000 deaths since 1994."These three - bombs, drones and fences/walls - are lethal weapons directed specifically at noncombatants. Cities like Hiroshima, villages in Iraq and Afghanistan and the U.S.-Mexico borderland have been deliberately targeted and violated. These are crimes against humanity. A betrayal of civility. In spiritual terms, a sin.
"Today we pray without ceasing for a world without weapons and fences. We pray for peace, for justice, for unity which makes walls and war obsolete."

- 30 -

Canada: Clergyman asking Pope to identify graves of First Nations children killed by Catholic Church

2009-10-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

International Media Advisory

October 2, 2009
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Canadian clergyman to ask Pope to identify grave sites and pray with him for those killed by the Catholic church

A clergyman from Canada who helped to force the Pope to issue an apology for the harm suffered by Indian children in Catholic boarding schools will hold a memorial service for those who died in these schools outside the Vatican on the Via Della Conciliazione at 12 noon on Sunday, October 11. He will also be asking the Pope to tell the world where these children are buried.

Rev. Kevin Annett, an award-winning film maker and activist from Vancouver, Canada, wrote to the Pope in February of 2008 on behalf of hundreds of aboriginal families whose relatives died or were killed in Catholic Indian schools. Annett asked the Pope to surrender the remains of these children and identify those responsible for their deaths. The Pope did not reply.

Annett will be asking for an official response from the Vatican to the letter and has invited the Pope to attend the memorial service, "in memory of those killed in the name of Christendom" .

Rev. Annett will be on a speaking tour of Italy from October 9 to 19. He will screen his award-winning film UNREPENTANT with Italian subtitles at public meetings in Rome, Genoa, Firenze, Milan and Parma. He has asked Italians to boycott the 2010 Olympics in Canada until the residential school children are given a proper burial.

Rev. Annett will also be speaking in England and Ireland during October and November.

For more information, contact Kevin Annett at hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca
His website is www.hiddenfromhistory.org

COMUNICATO STAMPA
2 Ottobre 2009
Pastore Canadese chiede ufficialmente al Papa di identificare i luoghi di sepoltura e pregare con lui per i bambini nativi canadesi uccisi nelle Scuole Residenziali Cattoliche

Un pastore canadese, Kevin Annett, che ha cercato di ottenere dal Papa le scuse per il male e le violenze sofferte dai bambini nativi (indiani) canadesi nelle Scuole Residenziali Cattoliche, officerà una funzione commemorativa per ricordare tutti coloro che sono morti in queste scuole domenica 11 Ottobre in Via della Conciliazione a Roma, fuori dalle mura del Vaticano. In questa occasione chiederà al Papa di rivelare a tutto il mondo dove sono sepolti i corpi di questi bambini.

Il Reverendo Annett, vincitore di un premio come regista di un documentario su tali accadimenti e attivista di Vancouver, ha scritto al Papa nel febbraio del 2008 da parte di centinaia di famiglie di nativi canadesi, parenti delle vittime uccise nelle Scuole Residenziali Indiane Cattoliche. Annett ha chiesto al Papa di consegnare i resti di questi bambini ed indentificare coloro che si sono resi responsabili di queste inacettabili morti. Il Papa non ha risposto.

Annett chiederà nuovamente una risposta ufficiale dal Vaticano a tale lettera ed ha invitato il Papa a partecipare alla funzione commemorativa, “in memoria di coloro che che sono stati uccisi nel nome della Cristianità”.

Il Reverendo Annett sarà in Italia dal 9 al 19 ottobre e girerà diferenti città per diffondere la sua battaglia civile. Mostrerà il suo documentario con sottotitoli in Italiano “UNREPENTANT”, vincitore di un premio internazionale, durante incontri pubblici che avranno luogo nelle città di Roma, Genova, Firenze, Reggio Emilia e Parma.

Egli ha chiesto al popolo italiano di boicottare le olimpiadi del Canada del 2010, fino a ché i bambini uccisi nelle Scuole Residenziali Indiane non otterranno una degna sepoltura.

Per maggiori infromazioni, contattare Kevin Annett al seguente indirizzo e-mail: hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca e visitare il suo sito: www.hiddenfromhistory.org.

Read and Hear the truth of Genocide in Canada, past and present, at this website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org

Film Trailer to Kevin's award-winning documentary film UNREPENTANT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8HB5cbKHDU&feature=related

Sierra Club honored to work with Hopis and Navajos

2009-10-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

October 1, 2009
Contacts: Oliver Bernstein, Sierra Club, 512.289.8618
Alph H. Secakuku, Hopi Organizational Political Initiative (H.O.P.I.), 928.737.2222
Tony Skrelunas, Grand Canyon Trust, 928.774.7488 or 928.699.6984
Enei Begaye, Black Mesa Water Coalition, 928.213.5909

Environmental Groups, Southwest Tribes Stand Together to Promote Clean, Renewable Energy

Flagstaff, Arizona -- As Hopi and Navajo leaders in the American Southwest evaluate their energy policies, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups remain committed to working with their tribal partners to find clean energy solutions that work for everyone.

"We are proud of our longstanding partnerships with tribal leaders in the Southwest, and we are committed to supporting efforts to transition from dirty coal to clean energy solutions," said Sierra Club President Allison Chin. "Together, we can rekindle our economy, reduce greenhouse gases and support people who have been left in the dust by a dangerous and dirty, coal-based economy."

For decades, Southwestern tribes have suffered from poisoned groundwater, air pollution, and sacred land destruction caused by coal mines and power plants. But the Navajo Nation’s recent unanimous green jobs resolution and the solar power projects in the Hopi village of Hotevilla are strong signs that clean energy solutions are gaining momentum. Dirty coal pollution also threatens nearby Grand Canyon National Park, a treasure for all Americans.

"We, the Hopi/Tewa people, have worked closely for many years with our allies from the environmental community to protect sacred lands from development and to stop uranium mining from poisoning our water," said Alph H. Secakuku, Sipaulovi Council Representative for the Village of Sipaulovi, Second Mesa, Arizona, Hopiland. "We will continue to work together—tribal communities and other clean energy jobs advocates—to bring green economic development to our lands that respects our air and water."

A report soon to be released by Natural Capitalism Solutions (NCS) shows in stark detail how a combination of renewable energy development deployed with aggressive energy efficiency measures provides far more, long term, sustainable job creation, along with overall economic benefits, than traditional sources such as coal.

"Black Mesa Water Coalition appreciates the non-native individuals and environmental organizations that have supported our leadership as a Navajo grassroots organization," said Black Mesa Water Coalition Co-director Enei Begaye. "Native grassroots people are and should be in the lead on these issues in and around tribal lands."

"We were quite amazed," said report author Paul Sheldon, Senior Economist of NCS. "In some cases the models show ten times the number of jobs created from certain solar technologies verses coal-based generation." Sheldon said the lands of the Southwest hold some of the country's greatest solar and wind potential, resources that will still be there centuries after the last ounce of coal has been mined and burned.

To address climate change and to support communities, Southwest tribes and environmental groups have worked in partnership for years to promote clean energy, health and water issues by cleaning up dirty coal plants and promoting solar and wind projects on the reservations.

"NRDC is proud to have longstanding relationships with Tribal Nations across the country," said Phil Gutis, communications director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We are committed to continuing our work with Tribal Nations, including local Navajo allies, to find productive, clean and sustainable economic development opportunities that power and protect their communities."

"It is truly heartening to see that the indigenous grassroots organizations have become highly proficient in working with their governments from the local to the central levels," said Tony Skrelunas, Native America program director for Grand Canyon Trust and former Navajo Nation executive. "This is something that should be welcomed by all Navajo and Hopi communities since many members of these organizations will be our future leaders."

"Global warming is a threat on and off Navajo and Hopi lands," said Hertha Woody, a member of the Navajo Nation and a Sierra Club volunteer leader in Flagstaff. "There is great potential for solar and wind projects to help reduce the emissions that contribute to global warming, and we are proud to continue to support a transition from coal to clean energy that will create a more sustainable economy."

Sierra Club is honored to work with our tribal partners in transitioning to a clean energy future, including the Black Mesa Water Coalition, Dooda Desert Rock, Hopis Organized for Political Initiatives (H.O.P.I.), the Navajo Green Economy Coalition, To’ Nizhoni Ani, C-Aquifer for the Diné, and other community organizations.