{"id":1467,"date":"2007-10-14T17:12:48","date_gmt":"2007-10-14T17:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/media-news\/top-25-censored-stories-of-2008\/1467\/"},"modified":"2007-10-14T17:12:48","modified_gmt":"2007-10-14T17:12:48","slug":"top-25-censored-stories-of-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/media-news\/top-25-censored-stories-of-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

#1 No Habeas Corpus for \u201cAny Person\u201d<\/strong>
\nSources:
\nConsortium<\/em>, October 19, 2006
\nTitle: \u201cWho Is \u2018Any Person\u2019 in Tribunal Law?\u201d
\nAuthor: Robert Parry
\nhttp:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2006\/101906.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Consortium<\/em>, February 3, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cStill No Habeas Rights for You\u201d
\nAuthor: Robert Parry
\nhttp:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2007\/020307.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Common Dreams<\/em>, February 2, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cRepeal the Military Commissions Act and Restore the Most
\nAmerican Human Right\u201d
\nAuthor: Thom Hartmann
\nhttp:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views07\/0212-24.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researchers: Bryce Cook and Julie Bickel
\nFaculty Evaluator: Andrew Roth, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

With the approval of Congress and no outcry from corporate media, the Military Commissions Act (MCA) signed by Bush on October 17, 2006, ushered in military commission law for US citizens and non-citizens alike. While media, including a lead editorial in the New York Times <\/em>October 19,<\/em> have given false comfort that we, as American citizens, will not be the victims of the draconian measures legalized by this Act\u2013such as military roundups and life-long detention with no rights or constitutional protections\u2013Robert Parry points to text in the MCA that allows for the institution of a military alternative to the constitutional justice system for \u201cany person\u201d regardless of American citizenship. The MCA effectively does away with habeas corpus rights for \u201cany person\u201d arbitrarily deemed to be an \u201cenemy of the state.\u201d The judgment on who is deemed an \u201cenemy combatant\u201d is solely at the discretion of President Bush.
\nThe oldest human right defined in the history of English-speaking civilization is the right to challenge governmental power of arrest and detention through the use of habeas corpus laws, considered to be the most critical parts of the Magna Carta which was signed by King John in 1215.
\nAlexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist #84<\/em> in August of 1788:<\/p>\n

The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus<\/em> are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it [the Constitution] contains. The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious [British eighteenth-century legal scholar] Blackstone, in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital:<\/p>\n

\u201cTo bereave a man of life\u201d says he, \u201cor by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it is true that some parts of the MCA target non-citizens, other sections clearly apply to US citizens as well, putting citizens inside the same tribunal system with non-citizen residents and foreigners.
\nSection 950q of the MCA states that, \u201cAny person is punishable as a principal under this chapter [of the MCA] who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission.\u201d1
\nSection 950v. \u201cCrimes Triable by Military Commissions\u201d (26) of the MCA seems to specifically target American citizens by stating that, \u201cAny person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct.\u201d1
\n\u201cWho,\u201d warns Parry, \u201chas \u2018an allegiance or duty to the United States\u2019 if not an American citizen?\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Besides allowing \u201cany person\u201d to be swallowed up by Bush\u2019s system, the law prohibits detainees once inside from appealing to the traditional American courts until after prosecution and sentencing, which could translate into an indefinite imprisonment since there are no timetables for Bush\u2019s tribunal process to play out.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Section 950j of the law further states that once a person is detained, \u201c not withstanding any other provision of law (including section 2241 of title 28 or any other habeas corpus provision) no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions.\u201d1
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Other constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights, such as a speedy trial, the right to reasonable bail, and the ban on \u201ccruel and unusual punishment,\u201d would seem to be beyond a detainee\u2019s reach as well.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Parry warns that, \u201cIn effect, what the new law appears to do is to create a parallel \u2018star chamber\u2019 system for the prosecution, imprisonment, and possible execution of enemies of the state, whether those enemies are foreign or domestic.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cUnder the cloak of setting up military tribunals to try al-Qaeda suspects and other so-called unlawful enemy combatants, Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress effectively created a parallel legal system for \u2018any person\u2019\u2013American citizen or otherwise\u2013who crosses some ill-defined line.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In one of the most chilling public statements ever made by a US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales opined at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18, 2007, \u201cThe Constitution doesn\u2019t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn\u2019t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 More important than its sophomoric nature, Parry warns, is that Gonzales\u2019s statement suggests he is still searching for arguments to make habeas corpus optional, subordinate to the President\u2019s executive powers that Bush\u2019s neoconservative legal advisers claim are virtually unlimited during \u201ctime of war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citation
\n\u00a0\u00a0 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>\u201cMilitary Commissions Act of 2006\u201d Public Law 109-366, 109th Congress. See http:\/\/frwebgate.access.gpo.gov\/cgi-bin\/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_public_laws&docid=f :publ366.109.
\nUPDATE BY ROBERT PARRY
\nThe Consortium series on the Military Commissions Act of 2006 pointed out that the law\u2019s broad language seems to apply to both US citizens and non-citizens, contrary to some reassuring comments in the major news media that the law only denies habeas corpus rights to non-citizens. The law\u2019s application to \u201cany person\u201d who aids and abets a wide variety of crimes related to terrorism\u2013and the law\u2019s provisions stripping away the jurisdiction of civilian courts\u2013could apparently thrust anyone into the legal limbo of the military commissions where their rights are tightly constrained and their cases could languish indefinitely.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Despite the widespread distribution of our articles on the Internet, the major US news media continues to ignore the troubling \u201cany person\u201d language tucked in toward the end of the statute. To my knowledge, for instance, no major news organization has explained why, if the law is supposed to apply only to non-citizens, one section specifically targets \u201cany person [who] in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States.\u201d Indeed, the \u201cany person\u201d language in sections dealing with a wide array of crimes, including traditional offenses such as spying, suggests that a parallel legal system has been created outside the parameters of the US Constitution.
\nSince publication of the articles, the Democrats won control of both the House and Senate\u2013and some prominent Democrats, such as\u00a0Senate Judiciary Committee chairman\u00a0Patrick Leahy, have voiced\u00a0their intent\u00a0to revise the law with the goal of restoring habeas corpus and other rights. However, other Democrats appear hesitant, fearing that any attempt to change the law would open them to charges that they are \u201csoft on terrorism\u201d and that Republicans would torpedo the reform legislation anyway. Outside of Congress, pro-Constitution\u00a0groups have made reform of the Military Commissions Act a high priority. For instance, the American Civil Liberties Union organized\u00a0a national protest rally against the law. But the public\u2019s lack of a clear understanding of the law\u2019s scope has undercut efforts to build a popular movement for repeal or revision of the law.
\nTo learn more about the movement to rewrite the Military Commissions Act, readers can contact the ACLU at https:\/\/secure.aclu.org\/site\/SPageServer?pagename=DOA_learn<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/secure.aclu.org\/site\/SPageServer?pagename=DOA_learn.<\/p>\n

Comment
\nOn June 8, 2007 the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act on an 11-8 vote. If approved, the bipartisan bill, authored by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, will restore habeas rights that were taken away last year by the Military Commissions Act. The bill will move to the full Senate for vote late June 2007.<\/p>\n

#2 Bush Moves Toward Martial Law<\/strong>
\nSources:
\nToward Freedom <\/em>, October 25, 2006
\nTitle: \u201cBush Moves Toward Martial Law\u201d
\nAuthor: Frank Morales
\nwww.towardfreedom.com\/home\/content\/view\/911<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researchers: Phillip Parfitt and Julie Bickel
\nFaculty Evaluator: Andy Merrifield, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, which was quietly signed by Bush on October 17, 2006, the very same day that he signed the Military Commissions Act, allows the president to station military troops anywhere in the United States and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to \u201csuppress public disorder.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By revising the two-century-old Insurrection Act, the law in effect repeals the Posse Comitatus Act, which placed strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. The 1878 Act reads, \u201cWhoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.\u201d As the only US criminal statute that outlaws military operations directed against the American people, it has been our best protection against tyranny enforced by martial law\u2013the harsh system of rules that takes effect when the military takes control of the normal administration of justice. Historically martial law has been imposed by various governments during times of war or occupation to intensify control of populations in spite of heightened unrest. In modern times it is most commonly used by authoritarian governments to enforce unpopular rule.1
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Section 333 of the Defense Authorization Act of 2007, entitled \u201cMajor public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law,\u201d states that \u201cthe President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service\u2013to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of (or \u201crefuse\u201d or \u201cfail\u201d in) maintaining public order\u2013in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thus an Act of Congress, superceding the Posse Comitatus Act, has paved the way toward a police state by granting the president unfettered legal authority to order federal troops onto the streets of America, directing military operations against the American people under the cover of \u201claw enforcement.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The massive Defense Authorization Act grants the Pentagon $532.8 billion to include implementation of the new law which furthermore facilitates militarized police round-ups of protesters, so-called illegal aliens, potential terrorists, and other undesirables for detention in facilities already contracted and under construction, (see Censored 2007<\/em>, Story #14) and transferring from the Pentagon to local police units the latest technology and weaponry designed to suppress dissent.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Author Frank Morales notes that despite the unprecedented and shocking nature of this act, there has been no outcry in the American media, and little reaction from our elected officials in Congress. On September 19, a lone Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) noted that 2007\u2019s Defense Authorization Act contained a \u201cwidely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use the military to restore domestic order without the consent of the nation\u2019s governors.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A few weeks later, on September 29, Leahy entered into the Congressional Record that he had \u201cgrave reservations about certain provisions of the fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill Conference Report,\u201d the language of which, he said, \u201csubverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military\u2019s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law.\u201d This had been \u201cslipped in,\u201d Leahy said, \u201cas a rider with little study,\u201d while \u201cother congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Leahy noted \u201cthe implications of changing the [Posse Comitatus] Act are enormous.\u201d \u201cThere is good reason,\u201d he said, \u201cfor the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy. We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the States, when we make it easier for the President to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Morales further asserts that \u201cwith the president\u2019s polls at a historic low and Democrats taking back the Congress it is particularly worrisome that President Bush has seen fit, at this juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citation
\n\u00a0\u00a0 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Martial_law, \u201cMartial Law,\u201d May 2007<\/p>\n

UPDATE BY FRANK MORALES
\nOn April 24, 2007, Major General Timothy Lowenberg, the Adjutant General, Washington National Guard, and Director of the Washington Military Department, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on \u201cThe Insurrection Act Rider and State Control of the National Guard.\u201d He was speaking in opposition to Section 1076 of the recently passed 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which President Bush quietly signed into law this past October 17. The law clears the way for the President to execute martial law, commandeer National Guard\u00a0units around the country and unilaterally authorize military operations against the American people in the event of an executive declaration of a \u201cpublic emergency.\u201d
\nThis move toward martial law, which is intended to facilitate more effective counterinsurgency measures on the home front, took place, according to Lowenberg, \u201cwithout any hearing or consultation with the governors and without any articulation or justification of need.\u201d This, despite the fact that Section 1076 of the new law \u201cchanged more than one hundred years of well-established and carefully balanced state-federal and civil-military relationships.\u201d In other words, with one swipe of the pen, says the General, \u201cone hundred years of law and policy were changed without any publicly or privately acknowledged author or proponent of the change.\u201d
\nIts \u201cFederal Plans for Implementing Expanded Martial Law Authority\u201d are to be executed via the recently created domestic military command, the Northern Command or NORTHCOM. \u201cOne key USNORTHCOM planning assumption,\u201d says Lowenberg, \u201cis that the President will invoke the new Martial Law powers if he concludes state and\/or local authorities no longer possess either the capability or the will to maintain order.\u201d In fact, this \u201chighly subjective assumption,\u201d as Lowenberg puts it, has been in the works for some time now. According to the General, the \u201cUS Northern Command has been engaged for some time in deliberative planning for implementation of Section 1076 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization. The formal NORTHCOM CONPLAN 2502-05 was approved by Secretary of Defense Gates on March 15, 2007,\u201d
\nFurther, according to the General, the 2007 NDAA provisions \u201ccould be used to compel National Guard forces to engage in civil disturbance operations under federal control.\u201d In that case, NORTHCOM will effectuate its move to\u00a0martial law, its \u201cCONPLAN,\u201d by way of its very own \u201ccivil disturbance plan,\u201d Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, code-named Garden Plot. Major Tom Herthel, of the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General School, recently laid out the Rules of Engagement & Rules for the Use of Force during the implementation of \u201cGARDEN PLOT,\u201d which according to Herthel, is \u201dthe plan to provide the basis for all preparation, deployment, employment, and redeployment of all designated forces, including National Guard forces called to active federal service, for use in domestic civil disturbance operations as directed by the President.\u201d Among other things, the \u201crules\u201d allow for the use of lethal force during domestic \u201ccivil disturbance operations.\u201d
\nThat is why many are urging Congress to repeal Section 1076 of the 2007 NDAA through immediate enactment of Senate Bill 513. Introduced in February 2007, and sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the bill seeks to repeal, or as the Congress puts it, \u201crevive previous authority on the use of the Armed Forces and the militia to address interference with State or Federal law, and for other purposes,\u201d through the \u201cRepeal of Amendments made by Public Law 109-364-Section 1076 of the\u00a0John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007.\u201d
\nIt is critical that Senate Bill 513 becomes law, and that our popular struggle succeeds in beating back the President\u2019s attempt to further codify the immoral and criminal seizure of state control via woefully ill-advised and dictatorial moves toward martial law and military rule.
\n# 3 AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa\u2019s Resources<\/strong>
\nSource:
\nMoonofAlabama.org 2\/21\/2007
\nTitle: \u201cUnderstanding AFRICOM\u201d
\nAuthor: Bryan Hunt
\nhttp:\/\/www.moonofalabama.org\/2007\/02\/understanding_a_1.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researcher: Ioana Lupu
\nFaculty Evaluator: Marco Calavita, Ph.D<\/p>\n

In February 2007 the White House announced the formation of the US African Command (AFRICOM), a new unified Pentagon command center in Africa, to be established by September 2008. This military penetration of Africa is being presented as a humanitarian guard in the Global War on Terror. The real objective is, however, the procurement and control of Africa\u2019s oil and its global delivery systems.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The most significant and growing challenge to US dominance in Africa is China. An increase in Chinese trade and investment in Africa threatens to substantially reduce US political and economic leverage in that resource-rich continent. The political implication of an economically emerging Africa in close alliance with China is resulting in a new cold war in which AFRICOM will be tasked with achieving full-spectrum military dominance over Africa.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AFRICOM will replace US military command posts in Africa, which were formerly under control of US European Command (EUCOM) and US Central Command (CENTCOM), with a more centralized and intensified US military presence.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A context for the pending strategic role of AFRICOM can be gained from observing CENTCOM in the Middle East. CENTCOM grew out of the Carter Doctrine of 1980 which described the oil flow from the Persian Gulf as a \u201cvital interest\u201d of the US, and affirmed that the US would employ \u201cany means necessary, including military force\u201d to overcome an attempt by hostile interests to block that flow.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is in Western and Sub-Saharan Africa that the US military force is most rapidly increasing, as this area is projected to become as important a source of energy as the Middle East within the next decade. In this region, challenge to US domination and exploitation is coming from the people of Africa\u2013most specifically in Nigeria, where seventy percent of Africa\u2019s oil is contained.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 People native to the Niger Delta region have not benefited, but instead suffered, as a result of sitting on top of vast natural oil and natural gas deposits. Nigerian people\u2019s movements are demanding self-determination and equitable sharing of oil-receipts. Environmental and human rights activists have, for years, documented atrocities on the part of oil companies and the military in this region. As the tactics of resistance groups have shifted from petition and protest to more proactive measures, attacks on pipelines and oil facilities have curtailed the flow of oil leaving the region. As a Convergent Interests report puts it, \u201cWithin the first six months of 2006, there were nineteen attacks on foreign oil operations and over $2.187 billion lost in oil revenues; the Department of Petroleum Resources claims this figure represents 32 percent of \u2018the revenue the country [Nigeria] generated this year.\u2019\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oil companies and the Pentagon are attempting to link these resistance groups to international terror networks in order to legitimize the use of the US military to \u201cstabilize\u201d these areas and secure the energy flow. No evidence has been found however to link the Niger Delta resistance groups to international terror networks or jihadists. Instead the situation in the Niger Delta is that of ethnic-nationalist movements fighting, by any means necessary, toward the political objective of self-determination. The volatility surrounding oil installations in Nigeria and elsewhere in the continent is, however, used by the US security establishment to justify military \u201csupport\u201d in African oil producing states, under the guise of helping Africans defend themselves against those who would hinder their engagement in \u201cFree Trade.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The December 2006 invasion of Somalia was coordinated using US bases throughout the region. The arrival of AFRICOM will effectively reinforce efforts to replace the popular Islamic Courts Union of Somalia with the oil industry\u2014friendly Transitional Federal Government. Meanwhile, the persistent Western calls for \u201chumanitarian intervention\u201d into the Darfur region of Sudan sets up another possibility for military engagement to deliver regime change in another Islamic state rich in oil reserves.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hunt warns that this sort of \u201csupport\u201d is only bound to increase as rhetoric of stabilizing Africa makes the dailies, copied directly out of official AFRICOM press releases. Readers of the mainstream media can expect to encounter more frequent usage of terms like \u201cgenocide\u201d and \u201cmisguided.\u201d He notes that already corporate media decry China\u2019s human rights record and support for Sudan and Zimbabwe while ignoring the ongoing violations of Western corporations engaged in the plunder of natural resources, the pollution other peoples\u2019 homelands, and the \u201cshoring up\u201d of repressive regimes.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In FY 2005 the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative received $16 million; in FY 2006, nearly $31 million. A big increase is expected in 2008, with the administration pushing for $100 million each year for five years. With the passage of AFRICOM and continued promotion of the Global War on Terror, Congressional funding is likely to increase significantly.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the end, regardless of whether it\u2019s US or Chinese domination over Africa, the blood spilled will be African. Hunt concludes, \u201cIt does not require a crystal ball or great imagination to realize what the increased militarization of the continent through AFRICOM will bring to the peoples of Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Update by Bryan Hunt
\nBy spring 2007, US Department of Energy data showed that the United States now imports more oil from the continent of Africa than from the country of Saudi Arabia. While this statistic may be of surprise to the majority, provided such information even crosses their radar, it\u2019s certainly not the case for those figures who have been pushing for increased US military engagement on that continent for some time now, as my report documented. These import levels will rise.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the first few months following the official announcement of AFRICOM, details are still few. It\u2019s expected that the combatant command will be operational as a subunit of EUCOM by October 2007, transitioning to a full-fledged stand-alone command some twelve months later. This will most likely entail the re-locating of AFRICOM headquarters from Stuttgart, Germany, where EUCOM is headquartered, to an African host country.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In April, US officials were traversing the continent to present their sales pitch for AFRICOM and to gauge official and public reaction. Initial perceptions are, not surprisingly, negative and highly suspect, given the history of US military involvement throughout the world, and Africa\u2019s long and bitter experience with colonizers.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Outside of a select audience, reaction in the United States has barely even registered. First of all, Africa is one of the least-covered continents in US media. And when African nations do draw media attention, coverage typically centers on catastrophe, conflict, or corruption, and generally features some form of benevolent foreign intervention, be it financial and humanitarian aid, or stern official posturing couched as paternal concerns over human rights. But US military activity on the continent largely goes unnoticed. This was recently evidenced by the sparse reporting on military support for the invasion of Somalia to rout the Islamic Courts Union and reinstall the unpopular warlords who had earlier divided up the country. The Pentagon went so far as to declare the operation a blueprint for future engagements.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The DOD states that a primary component of AFRICOM\u2019s mission will be to professionalize indigenous militaries to ensure stability, security, and accountable governance throughout Africa\u2019s various states and regions. Stability refers to establishing and maintaining order, and accountability, of course, refers to US interests. This year alone, 1,400 African military officers are anticipated to complete International Military Education and Training programs at US military schools.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Combine this tasking of militarization with an increased civilian component in AFRICOM emphasizing imported conceptions of \u201cdemocracy promotion\u201d and \u201ccapacity-building\u201d and African autonomy and sovereignty are quick to suffer. Kenyans, for example, are currently finding themselves in this position.
\nIt is hoped that, by drawing attention to the growing US footprint on Africa now, a contextual awareness of these issues can be useful to, at the very least, help mitigate some of the damages that will surely follow. At the moment, there is little public consciousness of AFRICOM and very few sources of information outside of official narratives. Widening the public dialogue on this topic is the first step toward addressing meaningful responses.<\/p>\n

# 4 Frenzy of Increasingly Destructive Trade Agreements <\/strong>
\nSources:
\nOxfam International, March 2007
\nTitle: \u201cSinging Away The Future\u201d
\nhttp:\/\/www.oxfam.org\/en\/policy\/briefingpapers\/bp101_regional_trade_agreements_0703<\/a><\/p>\n

IPS coverage of Oxfam Report March 20, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cFree Trade Enslaving Poor Countries\u201d
\nAuthor: Sanjay Suri
\nhttp:\/\/ipsnews.org\/news.asp?idnews=37008<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researcher: Ann Marie O\u2019Toole
\nFaculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

The Oxfam report, \u201cSigning Away the Future,\u201d reveals that the US and European Union (EU) are vigorously pursuing increasingly destructive regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements outside the auspices of the WTO. These agreements are requiring enormous irreversible concessions from developing countries, while offering almost nothing in return. Faster and deeper, the US and EU are demanding unprecedented tariff reductions, sometimes to nothing, as the US and EU dump subsidized agricultural goods on undeveloped countries (see story #21), plunging local farmers into desperate poverty. Meanwhile the US and EU provide themselves with high tariffs and stringent import quotas to protect their own producers. Unprecedented loss of livelihood, displacement, slave labor, along with spiraling degradation of human rights and environments are resulting as economic governance is forced from governments of developing countries, and taken over by unaccountable multinational firms.
\nDuring 2006, more than one hundred developing countries were involved in FTA or Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) negotiations. \u201cAn average of two treaties are signed every week,\u201d the report says, \u201cVirtually no country, however poor, has been left out.\u201d
\nMuch of the recent debate and controversy over trade negotiations has revolved around the increasingly devastating trade-distorting practices of rich countries versus the developing countries\u2019 needs for food security and industrial development. The new generation of agreements, however, extends far beyond this traditional area of trade policy\u2013imposing a damaging set of binding rules in intellectual property, services, and investment with much deeper consequences for development and impacts on the poor.
\nDouble standards in the intellectual-property rights chapters of most trade agreements are glaring. As new agreements limit developing countries\u2019 access to patented technology and medicines\u2013while failing to protect traditional knowledge\u2013the public-health consequences are staggering. The US-Colombia FTA is expected to reduce access to medicines by 40 percent and the US-Peru FTA is expected to leave 700,000 to 900,000 Peruvians without access to affordable medicines.
\nUS and EU FTAs also require the adoption of plant-breeder rights that remove the right to share seeds among indigenous farmers. The livelihood of the world\u2019s poorest farmers is thus made even more vulnerable, while profit margins of the world\u2019s largest agribusinesses continue to climb. US FTAs are now pushing for patents on plants, which will not only limit the rights of farmers to exchange or sell seeds, but also forbid them to save and reuse seed they have grown themselves for generations. Under US FTAs including DR-CAFTA, US\u2014Peru and US\u2014Colombia FTAs, developing-country governments will no longer be able to reject a patent application because a firm fails to indicate the origin of a plant or show proof of consent for its use from a local community. As a result, communities could find themselves forced to pay for patented plant varieties based on genetic resources from their own soil.
\nNew rules also pose a threat to essential services as FTAs allow foreign investors to take ownership of healthcare, education, water, and public utilities.
\nInvestment chapters of new FTAs and BITs allow foreign investors to sue for lost profits, including anticipated future profits, if governments change regulations, even when such reforms are in the public interest. These rules undermine the sovereignty of developing nations, transferring power from governments to largely unaccountable multinational firms. A growing number of investment chapters and treaties further tip the scales of justice by preventing governments from screening or regulating foreign investment\u2013banning the use of all \u2018performance requirements\u2019 in all sectors including mining, manufacturing, and services.
\nMore than 170 countries have signed international investment agreements that provide foreign investors with the right to turn immediately to international investor-state arbitration to settle disputes, without first trying to resolve the matter in national courts. Such arbitration fails to consider public interest, basing decisions exclusively on commercial law.
\nNot only is the legal basis for investment arbitration loaded against public interest, so are the proceedings. Despite the fact that many arbitration panels are hosted at the World Bank and the United Nations, the investment arbitration system is shrouded in secrecy. It is virtually impossible to find out what cases are being heard, let alone the outcome or rationale for decisions. As a result, there is no body of case decisions to inform governments of developing countries when drafting investments agreements.
\nOxfam notes that the only group privy to this information is an increasingly powerful select group of commercial lawyers, whose fees often place them out of reach of developing-country governments. These lawyers, according to the Oxfam report, are eager to advise foreign investors regarding opportunities to claim compensation from developing countries under international investment agreements.
\nStrong opposition is growing to the political asymmetry inherent in these bilateral trade and investment agreements (see stories #8, #19, and #21). As Oxfam notes, \u201cIt is in nobody\u2019s long-term interest to have a global economy that perpetuates social, economic, and environmental injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n

UPDATE BY LAURA RUSU OF OXFAM INTERNATIONAL
\nWhile real progress toward achieving a development-friendly outcome in the World Trade Organization\u2019s Doha Round is still quite elusive, the negotiation of bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) that would undermine development continues at an unabated pace.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the United States, the new Democratic leadership in Congress recently negotiated changes in the areas of labor, environment, and intellectual property in regard to access to medicines that are to be incorporated into the completed FTAs awaiting Congressional ratification. If implemented as agreed, these changes would mean important progress in enforcing core International Labor Organization standards and multilateral environmental agreements, and in promoting public health over private profits by reducing onerous protections for pharmaceutical monopolies. Still, more must be done in these areas, and harmful provisions remain in several other areas that will adversely affect developing countries, particularly the poor.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Without further changes, the FTAs create a profoundly unfair situation in which the US provides massive domestic agricultural supports and subsidies that allow products to be exported below their cost of production, while developing country trading partners are left with no means of protection. With large portions of their populations dependent upon agriculture for their livelihoods, the FTAs provide no effective safeguard to protect poor farmers from unfair competition. In addition, investment rules in the FTAs will hinder local and national governments from directing foreign investment so that it contributes to sustainable development. The investment chapter will give foreign companies leeway to challenge investment regulations, such as laws to protect the environment and public health. These and other provisions would deny developing countries the policy space needed to further their own development.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The US Administration hopes to bring FTAs with Peru, Panama, Colombia and Korea to a vote this year, although it remains doubtful whether there would be sufficient Congressional support to move the latter two. Congressional leadership is insisting that Colombia must also address its serious problems of violence and impunity, particularly as suffered by trade unionists, and has raised market-access concerns with regard to South Korea.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In a similar vein, the European Union has proceeded with FTA negotiations with African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries by pushing forward negotiating texts that will undermine the ability of poor countries to effectively govern their economies, protect their poorest people, improve livelihoods, and create new jobs. Going beyond the provisions negotiated at a multilateral level, the EU is making requests that would impose far-reaching, hard-to-reverse rules in the areas of market access, agriculture, services and intellectual property. At the same time, the EU is proceeding to open formal negotiations with Central American countries for an FTA that would impose similar rules that undermine development. A similar agreement with Andean countries is expected to follow, and plans have been announced to open negotiations with ASEAN, India, and South Korea. In all of these negotiations, the EU, like the US, is failing to put development first.
\nFor more information, please see http:\/\/www.oxfamamerica.org.
\n#5 Human Traffic Builds US Embassy in Iraq<\/strong>
\nSource:
\nCorpWatch<\/em>, October 17, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cA US Fortress Rises in Baghdad: Asian Workers Trafficked to Build World\u2019s Largest Embassy\u201d\u00a0
\nAuthor: David Phinney
\nhttp:\/\/www.corpwatch.org\/article.php?id=14173<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researcher: Kristen Kebler and Angela Purcaro
\nFaculty Evaluator: Andrew Roth, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

The enduring monument to US liberation and democracy in Iraq will be the most expensive and heavily fortified embassy in the world\u2013and is being built by a Kuwait contractor repeatedly accused of using forced labor trafficked from South Asia under US contracts. The $592 million, 104-acre fortress equal in size to the Vatican City is scheduled to open in September 2007. With a highly secretive contract awarded by the US State Department, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting has joined the ranks of Halliburton\/KBR in Iraq by using bait-and-switch recruiting practices. Thousands of citizens from countries that have banned travel or work in Iraq are being tricked, smuggled into brutal and inhumane labor camps, and subjected to months of forced servitude\u2013all in the middle of the US-controlled Green Zone, \u201cright under the nose of the US State Department.\u201d
\nThough Associated Press reports that, \u201cThe 5,500 Americans and Iraqis working at the embassy are far more numerous than at any other US mission worldwide,\u201d1 there is no mention in corporate media of the 3,000 South Asian laborers working for contractors in dangerous and abysmal living and working conditions.
\nOne such contractor is First Kuwaiti Trading and Contracting. FKTC has procured several billion dollars in US construction contracts since the war began in March 2003. Much of its work is performed by cheap labor hired from South Asia. The company currently employs an estimated 7,500 foreign laborers in theaters of war.
\nAmerican FKTC employees report having witnessed the issuance of false boarding passes to Dubai, and passport seizure from planeloads of South Asian workers, who were instead routed to war-torn Baghdad. Former US Embassy construction manager for FKTC, John Owen, disclosed to author David Phinney that the deception had all the appearance of smuggling workers into Iraq.
\nOn April 4, 2006, the Pentagon issued a contracting directive following an investigation that officially confirmed that contractors in Iraq, many working as subcontractors to Halliburton\/KBR, were illegally confiscating worker passports, using deceptive bait-and-switch hiring practices, and charging recruiting fees that indebted low-paid migrant workers for many months or even years to their employers.
\nSection 1. (U) of the Pentagon directive states, \u201cAn inspection of contracting activities supporting DoD in Iraq revealed evidence of illegal confiscation of worker (Third Country National) passports by contractors\/subcontractors; deceptive hiring practices and excessive recruiting fees, substandard worker living conditions at some sites, circumvention of Iraqi immigration procedures by contractors\/subcontractors and lack of mandatory trafficking in persons awareness training. This FRAGO [fragmentary order] establishes responsibilities within MNF-1 for combating trafficking in persons.\u201d
\nAn April 19, 2006 memorandum from Joint Contracting Command in Baghdad to All Contractors again states that, \u201cEvidence indicates a widespread practice of withholding employee passports to, among other things, prevent employees \u2018jumping\u2019 to other employers. All contractors engaging in the above mentioned practice are directed to cease and desist in this practice immediately.\u201d
\nThe Pentagon has yet to announce, however, any penalty for those found to be in violation of US labor trafficking laws or contract requirements.
\nIn a resignation letter dated June 2006, Owen told FKTC and US State Department officials that his managers at the US Embassy site regularly beat migrant workers, demonstrated little regard for worker safety, and routinely breached security. He also complained of poor sanitation, squalid living conditions and medical malpractice in labor camps where several thousand low-paid migrant workers, recruited from the Philippines, India, and Pakistan lived. Those workers, Owen noted, earned as little as $10 to $30 for a twelve-hour workday.
\nRory Mayberry, a medic subcontracted to FKTC to attend construction crews at the Embassy, shares similar complaints about treatment of migrant laborers. In reports made available to the US State Department, the US Army, and FKTC, Mayberry called for the closure of the onsite medical clinic, listing dozens of serious safety hazards, unsanitary conditions, as well as routine negligence and malpractice. He furthermore called for an investigation into deaths that he suspected resulted from medical malpractice. Mayberry is not aware of any follow-up on his allegations.
\nOwen says that State Department officials supervising the US Embassy project are aware of abuse, but apparently do nothing. He recalls, \u201cOnce when seventeen workers climbed the wall of the construction site to escape, a State Department official helped round them up and put them in virtual lockdown.\u201d
\nPhinney says that more FKTC employees are stepping forward to say that Owen\u2019s and Mayberry\u2019s testimonies \u201conly begin to scratch the surface\u201d of the conditions workers are forced to endure in building this monument to US liberation and democracy in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Citation:
\n\u00a0\u00a0 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Associated Press, \u201cNew US Embassy in Iraq Cloaked in Mystery,\u201d MSNBC, April 14, 2006.<\/p>\n

UPDATE BY DAVID PHINNEY
\nWhen I first heard that Project Censored would recognize this story on the low-wage migrant laborers from South Asia building the US embassy in Baghdad, I admit I felt the story was a failure. Allegations of forced labor, lousy treatment of workers and beatings struck me as something that should rise to the level of torture at Abu Ghraib. Despite what appears to be a whitewash review of the embassy project by the State Department Inspector General that exonerated the contractor\u2013even though more than a dozen sources on the site say conditions were abysmal\u2013I am now encouraged by a recent effort at the US Justice Department to investigate allegations of labor trafficking and other matters. But the problem of labor abuse has been found to be \u201cwidespread\u201d among contractors in the theater of war in Iraq. Unfortunately, not one contractor has been penalized\u2013in fact, many are being rewarded with new US-funded contracts. That is a crime to humanity that may haunt the United States for years to come.<\/p>\n

#6 Operation FALCON Raids<\/strong>
\nSources:
\nSourceWatch<\/em>, November 18, 2006
\nTitle: \u201cOperation Falcon\u201d
\nAuthor: Brenda J. Elliot
\nhttp:\/\/www.sourcewatch.org\/index.php?title=Operation_FALCON<\/a><\/p>\n

Ukernet<\/em>, February 26, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cOperation Falcon and the Looming Police State\u201d
\nAuthor: Mike Whitney
\nhttp:\/\/uruknet.info\/?p=m30971&s1=h1<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researcher: Erica Haikara and Celeste Winders
\nFaculty Evaluator: Ron Lopez, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

Under the code name Operation FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally) three federally coordinated mass arrests occurred between April 2005 and October 2006. In an unprecedented move, more than 30,000 \u201cfugitives\u201d were arrested in the largest dragnets in the nation\u2019s history. The operations directly involved over 960 agencies (state, local, and federal) and were the brainchild of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and US Marshal\u2019s Director Ben Reyna. The DoJ supplied television networks government-shot action videotape of Marshals and local cops raiding homes and breaking down doors, \u201ctargeting the worst of the worst criminals on the run,\u201d emphasizing suspected sex offenders. Yet less than ten percent of the total 30,150 were suspected sex offenders and less than two percent owned firearms. The press has not asked, \u201cWho were the others?\u201d And to date, the US Marshal\u2019s office has issued no public statement as to whether the people arrested in Operation Falcon have been processed or released. Author Mike Whitney cautions that Attorney General Gonzales has little interest in the petty offenders who were netted in this extraordinary crackdown. This action is instead, he warns, a practice roundup in the move toward martial law.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Altogether, there were three FALCON Operations, each netting roughly 10,000 criminal suspects. Between April 4\u201410, 2005, FALCON I swept up 10,340 fugitives in the largest nationwide mass arrest (to that date) in American history. Alberto Gonzalez proudly announced on April 15 through corporate media, \u201cOperation FALCON is an excellent example of President Bush\u2019s direction and the Justice Department\u2019s dedication to deal both with the terrorist threat and traditional violent crime. This joint effort shows the commitment of our federal, state, and local partners to make our neighborhoods safer, and it has led to the highest number of arrests ever recorded for a single initiative of its kind. We will use all of our Nation\u2019s law enforcement resources to serve the people, to pursue justice, and to make our streets and Nation safer.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Operation FALCON II, carried out the week of April 17\u201423, 2006, arrested another 9,037 individuals from twenty-seven states mostly west of the Mississippi River. Operation FALCON III, conducted during the week of October 22\u201428, 2006, netted another 10,733 fugitives in twenty-four states east of the Mississippi River.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The US Marshals Service has not yet disclosed the names of the people arrested in these massive sweeps nor of what crimes they were accused. We have no way of knowing whether they were provided with due process of law, where they are now, or whether they have been abused while in custody.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SourceWatch<\/em> contributors further ask for clarification, \u201cAlthough Attorney General Gonzales stated on April 15, 2005 that Operation FALCON was \u2018an excellent example of President Bush\u2018s direction and the Justice Department\u2019s dedication to deal both with the terrorist threat and traditional violent crime,\u2019 where is the connection between the Operation FALCON roundups and catching terrorists? Why did police wait for federally orchestrated raids to arrest known sex offenders and suspected murders? Why were state and federal agencies integrated with local law enforcement to simply carry out routine police work?\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The media played an essential role in concealing the important details of the Operation. In fact, the non-critical \u201ccookie cutter\u201d articles which appeared in newspapers across the country suggest that the media may have collaborated directly with the Justice Department. (see Chapter 9, Fake News) Whitney notes that nearly identical \u201cnews\u201d segments and articles put the best possible spin on a story that most Americans might find deeply disturbing, and perhaps frightening.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While mass militarized police roundups make little sense as a method of apprehending fugitives, the FALCON program does make sense as a means of effectively setting up a chain-of-command structure that radiates from the Justice Department and relocates the levers of control to Washington where they can be manned by members of the administration. Whitney warns that the plan behind the FALCON program appears to have been devised to enhance the powers of the \u201cunitary\u201d executive by putting state and local law enforcement under federal supervision, ready for the institution of martial law (see story #2.)<\/p>\n

Update by Mike Whitney
\nOperation FALCON presents the first time in US history that all of the domestic police agencies have been put under the direct control of the federal government. The implications for American democracy are quite profound.
\nOperation FALCON serves no purpose except to centralize power and establish the basic contours of an American police state. It is not an effective way of apprehending criminals.
\nFor the most part, the media completely ignored FALCON. In fact, these extraordinary police-state sweeps did not elicit even one editorial or one column-inch of commentary from any journalist in the country. Following the government\u2019s version of events, the story was simply brushed aside as trivial. For those who care to explore the media\u2019s true role in undermining the fundamental rights of Americans; FALCON is probably a good place to begin. It illustrates how the media deliberately obscures facts that do not serve the overall interests of the state.
\nThe last FALCON operation was carried out on October 28, 2006. Since then, the project has been put on \u201chold,\u201d presumably until some time in the future when it will be reactivated by presidential decree. The precedents have now been established for law enforcement agencies across the nation to be taken over by the chief executive at a moment\u2019s notice. If there is another terrorist attack within the United States, or the outbreak of an epidemic, or a natural disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina; we can expect that President Bush will consolidate his power by asserting direct control over all of the various federal, state, and local police agencies. Eventually, we will see that FALCON was organized with that very purpose in mind.
\nRecent changes to the Insurrection Act of 1807 as well as to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 allow President Bush to declare martial law at his own discretion and to take control of the National Guard from the state governors. That means that Bush now has a complete monopoly on all the means of organized violence in the country.
\nWith the aid of the corporate media and an alliance of far-right organizations, Bush has successfully removed all the traditional obstacles to absolute power. The groundwork has been laid for an American dictatorship. FALCON is just one small part of that much larger plan.<\/p>\n

UPDATE BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
\nA more recent and less publicized sweep was made March 7, 2007, in Baltimore, with the arrest of about two hundred fugitives. The rationale for this sweep is more puzzling, perhaps, as it was the only city involved. This sweep received only local media attention.
\nNumerous questions, as stated in the Operation FALCON\u00a0article, remain unanswered. The mainstream press does not appear to be interested in exploring beyond the initial sweep events.
\nBoth House and Senate committees on the judiciary and government oversight are digging into DoJ operations due to the US attorney firings and politicization of the Department, with all roads leading to the White House. It is not unreasonable to expect that these sweeps may eventually come under investigation as well.
\nThe mainstream press, to my knowledge, has not responded at all to my SourceWatch<\/em> coverage of this story. The press coverage that Operation FALCON received appears to be limited to DoJ and USMS news releases with the addition of an occasional local interest story. Information on the fate of the 30,000 plus who were arrested is conspicuous by its absence.
\nAdditional information on this story should be available from both the DoJ and USMS. In reality, it most likely will not be, as neither has provided any updates. The SourceWatch<\/em> article will continue to be updated when or if additional information becomes available.
\n#7 Behind Blackwater Inc.<\/strong>
\nSource: Democracy Now!<\/em> January 26, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cOur Mercenaries in Iraq: Blackwater Inc and Bush\u2019s Undeclared Surge\u201d
\nAuthor: Jeremy Scahill
\nhttp:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/article.pl?sid=07\/01\/26\/1559232<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researcher: Sverre Tysl
\nFaculty Evaluator: Noel Byrne, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

The company that most embodies the privatization of the military industrial complex\u2013a primary part of the Project for a New American Century and the neoconservative revolution is the private security firm Blackwater. Blackwater is the most powerful mercenary firm in the world, with 20,000 soldiers, the world\u2019s largest private military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, including helicopter gunships, and a private intelligence division. The firm is also manufacturing its own surveillance blimps and target systems.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Blackwater is headed by a very right-wing Christian-supremist and ex-Navy Seal named Erik Prince, whose family has had deep neo-conservative connections. Bush\u2019s latest call for voluntary civilian military corps to accommodate the \u201csurge\u201d will add to over half a billion dollars in federal contracts with Blackwater, allowing Prince to create a private army to defend Christendom around the world against Muslims and others.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One of the last things Dick Cheney did before leaving office as Defense Secretary under George H. W. Bush was to commission a Halliburton study on how to privatize the military bureaucracy. That study effectively created the groundwork for a continuing war profiteer bonanza.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 During the Clinton years, Erik Prince envisioned a project that would take advantage of anticipated military outsourcing. Blackwater began in 1996 as a private military training facility, with an executive board of former Navy Seals and Elite Special Forces, in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina. A decade later it is the most powerful mercenary firm in the world, embodying what the Bush administration views as \u201cthe necessary revolution in military affairs\u201d\u2013the outsourcing of armed forces.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In his 2007 State of the Union address Bush asked Congress to authorize an increase in the size of our active Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 in the next five years. He continued, \u201cA second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer civilian reserve corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is, however, precisely what the administration has already done\u2013largely, Jeremy Scahill points out, behind the backs of the American people. Private contractors currently constitute the second-largest \u201cforce\u201d in Iraq. At last count, there were about 100,000 contractors <\/strong>in Iraq, 48,000 of which work as private soldiers, according to a Government Accountability Office report. These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective legal constraints and are politically expedient, as contractor deaths go uncounted in the official toll. With Prince calling for the creation of a \u201ccontractor brigade\u201d before military audiences, the Bush administration has found a back door for engaging in an undeclared expansion of occupation.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Blackwater currently has about 2,300 personnel actively deployed in nine countries and is aggressively expanding its presence inside US borders. They provide the security for US diplomats in Iraq, guarding everyone from Paul Bremer and John Negroponte to the current US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad. They\u2019re training troops in Afghanistan and have been active in the Caspian Sea, where they set up a Special Forces base miles from the Iranian border. According to reports they are currently negotiating directly with the Southern Sudanese regional government to start training the Christian forces of Sudan.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Blackwater\u2019s connections are impressive. Joseph Schmitz, the former Pentagon Inspector General, whose job was to police the war contractor bonanza, has moved on to become the vice chairman of the Prince Group, Blackwater\u2019s parent company, and the general counsel for Blackwater.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bush recently hired Fred Fielding, Blackwater\u2019s former lawyer, to replace Harriet Miers as his top lawyer; and Ken Starr, the former Whitewater prosecutor who led the impeachment charge against President Clinton, is now Blackwater\u2019s counsel of record and has filed briefs with Supreme Court to fight wrongful death lawsuits brought against Blackwater.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cofer Black, thirty-year CIA veteran and former head of CIA\u2019s counterterrorism center, credited with spearheading the extraordinary rendition program after 9\/11, is now senior executive at Blackwater and perhaps its most powerful operative.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Prince and other Blackwater executives have been major bankrollers of the President, of former House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, and of former Senator, Rick Santorum. Senator John Warner, the former head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Blackwater, \u201cour silent partner in the global war on terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

#8 KIA: The US Neoliberal Invasion of India<\/strong>
\nSources:
\nDemocracy Now!<\/em> December 13, 2006
\nTitle: \u201cVandana Shiva on Farmer Suicides, the US-India Nuclear Deal, Wal-Mart in India\u201d
\nAuthor: Vandana Shiva with Amy Goodman
\nhttp:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/article.pl?sid=06\/12\/13\/1451229<\/a><\/p>\n

Global Research<\/em>, October 9, 2006
\nTitle: \u201cGenetically Modified Seeds: Women in India Take on Monsanto\u201d
\nAuthor: Arun Shrivastava
\nhttp:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ARU20061009&articleId=3427<\/a><\/p>\n

SciDev.Net
\nTitle: \u201cSowing Trouble: India\u2019s \u2018Second Green Revolution\u2019\u201d
\nAuthor: Suman Sahai
\nhttp:\/\/www.scidev.net\/content\/opinions\/eng\/sowing-trouble-indias-second-green-revolution.cfm<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researchers: Jonathan Stoumen and Michael Januleski
\nFaculty Evaluator: Phil Beard, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

Farmers\u2019 cooperatives in India are defending the nation\u2019s food security and the future of Indian farmers against the neoliberal invasion of genetically modified (GM) seed. As many as 28,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide over the last decade as a result of debt incurred from failed GM crops and competition with subsidized US crops, yet when India\u2019s Prime Minister Singh met with President Bush in March 2006 to finalize nuclear agreements, they also signed the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (KIA), backed by Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), and Wal-Mart. The KIA allows for the grab of India\u2019s seed sector by Monsanto, of its trade sector by giant agribusiness ADM and Cargill, and its retail sector by Wal-Mart.
\nThough the contours of KIA have been kept so secret that neither senior Indian politicians nor the scientific community know its details, it is clear that Prime Minister Singh has agreed to sacrifice India\u2019s agriculture sector to pay for US concessions in the nuclear field.
\nIn one of very few public statements by a US government official regarding KIA, Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, states, \u201cWhile the civilian nuclear initiative has garnered the most attention, our first priority is to continue giving governmental support to the huge growth in business between the Indian and American private sectors. Singh has also challenged the United States to help launch a second green revolution in India\u2019s vast agricultural heartland by enlisting the help of America\u2019s great land-grant institutions.\u201d
\nVandana Shiva translates, \u201cThese are twin programs about a market grab and a security alignment.\u201d Burns announced that while the nuclear deal is the cutting edge, what the US is really seeking is agricultural markets and real estate markets, \u201cto take over the land of people, not through a market mechanism, but using the state and an old colonial law of land acquisition to grab the land by force.\u201d
\nThrough KIA, Monsanto and the US have asked for unhindered access to India\u2019s gene banks, along with a change in India\u2019s intellectual property laws to allow patents on seeds and genes, and to dilute provisions that protect farmers\u2019 rights. A combination of physical access to India\u2019s gene banks and a possible new intellectual property law that allows seed patents will in essence deliver India\u2019s genetic wealth into US hands. This would be a severe blow to India\u2019s food security and self-sufficiency.
\nAt the same time KIA has paved the way for Wal-Mart\u2019s plans to open five hundred stores in India, starting in August 2007, which will compound the outsourcing of India\u2019s food supply and threaten 14 million small family venders with loss of livelihood.
\n\u201cThis is not about \u2018free trade,\u2019\u201d Shiva explains, \u201cToday\u2019s trade system, especially in agriculture, is dishonest, and dishonesty has become a war against farmers. It\u2019s become a genocide.\u201d
\nFarmers are, however, organizing to protect themselves against this economic invasion by maintaining traditional seed banks and setting up exemplary systems of community agrarian support. In response to the flood of debilitating debt tied to GM\/hybrid seeds and the toxic petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides these crops depend on, one woman in the small village of Palarum says, \u201cWe do not buy seeds from the market because we suspect they may be contaminated with genetically engineered or terminator seeds.\u201d Instead village women save and trade hardy traditional seeds that have evolved over centuries to produce low-maintenance, nutritious \u201ccrops of truth.\u201d
\nEach village in this rural area of India has formed its own community-based organization called a sangham<\/em>. Seventy-two sanghams are part of a regional federation. These sanghams form an informal social security network that, through the maintenance of seed banks, will come to the rescue of individuals or entire villages in times of crop failure. Every member of the community has access to food and is assured of some work even if landless. The federation furthermore trains students in skills such as carpentry, computing, pottery, bookbinding, veterinary science, herbal medicine, sewing, farming, waste management, and agro-forestry.
\nAuthor Arun Shrivastava comments that, \u201cThese seventy-two villages were once horizontally and vertically stratified along caste, class, and religious lines. Food scarcity was endemic, people were malnourished, the majority worked as unskilled day wagers. Today they are cohesive, interdependent. I did not see one malnourished person. Rarely do people go to urban centers to seek work.\u201d Shrivastava continues, \u201cThe community is the most important entity that can help us ensure food and nutrition security. The right of access to natural resources\u2013land, rivers, forests, air, and everything that Nature has given us, including seeds, is the fundamental right of the communities, not of the corporations or the state or the individual. No corporation has the right to expropriate what Nature gave us.\u201d
\nProfessor of genetics Suman Sahai concludes, \u201cIndia must be cautious that it does not become the dumping ground for a technology and its controversial products that have been rejected in many parts of the world and whose safety and usefulness remain questionable. Food security is an integral part of national security. All India\u2019s efforts in the nuclear arena to shore up its national security goals will be undermined if it allows itself to become insecure in the matter of food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citation:
\n\u00a0\u00a0 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nicholas Burns, <\/em>\u201c\u2018Heady Times\u2019 For India And the US,\u201d Washington Post<\/em>, April 29, 2007.<\/p>\n

UPDATE BY Arun Shrivastava
\nNature has given us seeds and \u2018crops of truth\u2019 that do not require any tending but give us nutrition at no or low-cost. This knowledge needs to be rapidly disseminated; soon our lives may depend on it.
\nWith current farming and food distribution systems it takes ten calories of fossil fuel energy to transport one calorie of food from farm to fork. That is unsustainable now; the era of cheap oil is effectively finished. Since we are already past peak oil, we all must learn to ensure food and nutrition security for our family and community. We will have to learn basic skills like conserving seeds, growing nutritious food, and medicinal crops without chemicals and machines. We will need more cohesive and interdependent local communities, like the women of Zaheerabad have shown.
\nThe women of Zaheerabad save seeds in community-held seed banks and grow nutrition-dense food through a system that ensures health and livelihood for all. They have established how self-sufficient, sustainable communities might live in a post-carbon world.
\nA handful of multi-national corporations are patenting seeds. These genetically modified (GM) seeds neither increase yield nor reduce costs nor enhance nutritive content of foods, nor reduce dependence on oil. The seeds of deception have destroyed farmers in India, the US, and elsewhere.
\nPatenting ensures monopoly control while subverting farmers\u2019 right to save seeds; it is antithetical to natural rights of local communities. The Indo-US Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture covertly seeks to gain access and control over community-held seeds.
\nSince publication of the article, Deccan Development Society (DDS) has extended the model to twenty-six more villages but the community FM radio station remains silent.
\nAt People\u2019s SAARC (South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation) summit in Kathmandu (March 2007) participants voted for a \u201cGM-free South Asia,\u201d community control over seeds and protection of South-Asian biodiversity. Over six million farmers requested the Supreme Court of India (April 2007) to ban open field trials of GM seeds because of the dangers of irreversible contamination of community-held seeds and adverse impact on health.
\nThe mainstream media is silent. They don\u2019t have space for disseminating information that will save us from disease and starvation. These are unglamorous issues.
\nFor more information on growing crops of truth and the need for a new social order, the following are ideal sources:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Web site of Deccan Development Society (DDS), initiator and facilitator of the sanghams, is http:\/\/www.ddsindia.com\/www\/default.asp. Contact PV Satheesh, Director of Zaheerabad Project.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Beej Bachao Andolan (BBA, Save the Seeds Movement) is a well-known movement of farmers who save traditional seeds of the Himalayan region. Contact Biju Negi, negi.biju@gmail.com.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For information on growing food for health and personal freedom, go to www.soilandhealth.org.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For information on threats posed by multinational seeds firms, go to www.gmwatch.org and www.mindfully.org.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Seeds of Deception<\/em> by Jeffrey Smith discusses how GM foods, introduced in the US in 1993 without proper biosafety assessment, endanger our health. It is available at www.seedsofdeception.com. See also the research of Dr. Irina Ermakova at http:\/\/irina-ermakova.by.ru\/eng\/articles.html\/, and of Dr. Arpad Pusztai: http:\/\/www.freenetpages.co.uk\/hp\/a.pusztai\/.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHeartless in the Heartland<\/em>\u201d is the ghastly story of how Monsanto blackmailed US farmers not to save their seeds. See www.mindfully.org.<\/p>\n

7. For an excellent summary, watch The Future of Food<\/em>, a documentary by Deborah Koons Garcia, downloadable from www.mindfully.org.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For discussions on peak oil and food security, see Richard Heinberg\u2019s Fifty Million Farmers<\/em>, published on November 17, 2006, available athttp:\/\/www.energybulletin.net\/22584.html. Also visit the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, managed by Dr. Colin Campbell, one of world\u2019s leading oil experts, at http:\/\/www.peakoil.net.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My two recent papers also shed light on the subject: \u201cThe attack on our seeds,\u201d a related article published by Farmer\u2019s Forum<\/em> in India (contact the editor at bksnd@airtelbroadband.in), and \u201cThe Silent War on the People of India,\u201d which can be found at http:\/\/www.thepeoplesvoice.org\/cgi-bin\/blogs\/voices.php\/2007\/03\/22\/the_silent _war_on_the_people_of_india.<\/p>\n

UPDATE BY Vandana Shiva
\nThe Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture impacts 650 million farmers of India and 40 million small retailers and it is redefining the relationships between people in the two biggest democracies in the world.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A new movement on retail democracy has begun in India that is bringing together small shopkeepers, street hawkers, trade unions and farmers unions. On August 9, 2007, which is Quit India Day, the movement will be organizing actions across the country telling Wal-Mart to leave India.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For more information, visit our website at www.navdanya.org.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>#9 Privatization of America\u2019s Infrastructure<\/strong>
\nSources:
\nMother Jones<\/em>, February 2007
\nTitle; \u201cThe Highwaymen\u201d
\nAuthor: Daniel Schulman with James Ridgeway
\nhttp:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/news\/feature\/2007\/01\/highwaymen.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Human Events<\/em>, June 12,2006
\nTitle: \u201cBush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway\u201d
\nAuthor: Jerome R. Corsi
\nhttp:\/\/www.humanevents.com\/article.php?id=15497<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researcher: Rachel Icaza and Ioana Lupu
\nFaculty Evaluator: Marco Calavita, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

We will soon be paying Wall Street investors, Australian bankers, and Spanish contractors for the privilege of driving on American roads, as more than twenty states have enacted legislation allowing public-private partnerships to build and run highways. Investment firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and the Carlyle Group are approaching state politicians with advice to sell off public highway and transportation infrastructure. When advising state officials on the future of this vital public asset, these investment firms fail to mention that their sole purpose is to pick up infrastructure at the lowest price possible in order to maximize returns for their investors. Investors, most often foreign companies, are charging tolls and insisting on \u201cnoncompete\u201d clauses that limit governments from expanding or improving nearby roads.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which called for the federal and state governments to build 41,000 miles of high-quality roads across the nation, over rivers and gorges, swamps and deserts, over and through vast mountain ranges, in what would later be called the \u201cgreatest public works project in human history.\u201d Eisenhower considered the interstate highway system so vital to the public interest that he authorized the federal government to assume 90 percent of the massive cost.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fifty years later, states are selling off our nation\u2019s enormous, and aging, infrastructure to private investors. Proponents are celebrating these transactions as a no-pain, all-gain way to off-load maintenance expenses and increase highway-building funds without raising taxes. Opponents are lambasting these plans as a major turn toward handing the nation\u2019s valuable common asset over to private firms whose fidelity is to stockholders\u2013not to the public transportation system or the people who use it.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On June 29, 2006, Indiana\u2019s governor Mitch Daniels announced that Indiana had received $3.8 billion from a foreign consortium made up of the Spanish construction firm Cintra and the Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG) of Australia. In exchange the state handed over operation of a 157-mile Indiana toll road for the next seventy-five years. With the consortium collecting the tolls, which will eventually rise far higher, the privatized road should generate $11 billion for MIG-Cintra over the course of the contract.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In September 2005, Daniels solicited bids for the project, with Goldman Sachs serving as the state\u2019s financial adviser\u2013a role that would net the bank a $20 million advisory fee. When Goldman Sachs, one of the nation\u2019s most active and most profitable investment banks, with deep connections to Washington, began advising Indiana on selling its toll road, it failed to mention the fact that, even as it was advising Indiana on how to get the best return, its Australian subsidiary\u2019s mutual funds were ratcheting up their positions in MIG\u2013becoming de facto investors in the deal.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many are suspicious that governors like Daniels across the nation are taking questionable advice from corporate investment banks\u2013and from Washington.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Despite public concerns, privatization of US transportation infrastructure has the full backing of the Bush administration. Tyler Duvall, the US Department of Transportation\u2019s assistant secretary for transportation policy, says the DoT has raised the idea with \u201calmost every state\u201d government and is working on sample legislation that states can use for such projects. Across the nation, there is now talk of privatizing the New York Thruway to the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey turnpikes, as well as of inviting the private sector to build and operate highways and bridges from Alabama to Alaska.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Texas, Governor Rick Perry still refuses to release details of a $1.3 billion contract his administration signed with Cintra for a forty-mile toll road from Austin to Seguin, or of an enormous $184 billion proposal to build a 4,000-mile network of toll roads through Texas.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is known, however, that the Bush administration is quietly advancing the plan to build a huge ten-lane NAFTA Super Highway through the heart of the US along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minnesota, financed largely through public-private partnerships. The Texas Department of Transportation will oversee the Trans-Texas Corridor as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway, which will be leased to the Cintra consortium as a privately operated toll road. Construction is slated to begin in 2007.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Authors Daniel Schulman and James Ridgeway warn that, just as the creation of a National Highway system promised to \u201cchange the face of America,\u201d in Eisenhower\u2019s words, so too could its demise.<\/p>\n

# 10 Vulture Funds Threaten Poor Nations\u2019 Debt Relief <\/strong>
\nSource:
\nBBC Newsnight<\/em>, February 14, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cVulture Fund Threat to Third World\u201d
\nAuthor: Greg Palast with Meirion Jones
\nhttp:\/\/www.informationclearinghouse.info\/article17070.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researcher: Jenifer German
\nFaculty Evaluator: Robert Girling, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

Vulture funds, otherwise known as \u201cdistressed-debt investors,\u201d are undermining UN and other global efforts to relieve impoverished Third World nations of the debt that has burdened them for many decades.
\nVulture funds are financial organizations that buy up debts that are near default or bankruptcy. The vulture fund will pay the original investor pennies on the dollar for the debt and then approach the debtor to arrange a better repayment on the loan, or will go after the debtor in court.
\nIn the private financial world, these funds, like the birds they are named for, provide a useful function for investors who are unable to follow up on defaulted debts and are themselves facing financial ruin if the debtor reneges entirely.
\nUnder normal circumstances, distressed-debt investing\u2013like day trading\u2013is risky business. It is a gamble and the company knows that going in. The vulture fund may get nothing for its investment if the debtor continues to default and has no assets to attach. However, if there is still meat on the bones (the debtor has considerable assets to liquidate) the vulture fund can make millions.
\nA problem has arisen in recent years, however, as vulture funds have begun inserting themselves into an increasingly globalized \u201cfree market\u201d\u2013where no distinction is made between an irresponsible and defaulted company and a destitute and impoverished nation.
\nIn the case of nations, the actions of vulture funds are corrupting the process begun in 1996 to provide debt relief for Third World nations struggling to emerge from the heavy debt laid upon them by previous corrupt rulers and colonial masters.
\nIn one recent case, the poverty-stricken nation of Zambia was negotiating with Romania to reduce a $40 million debt still owed from a 1979 loan to buy Romanian tractors. In 1999, Romania had agreed to liquidate the entire loan for $3 million. Zambia planned to use the debt cancellation to invest in much-needed nurses, teachers, and basic infrastructure. Just before the deal was finalized however, investors at the England-based vulture fund Donegal International convinced the Romanian government to sell them the loan for just under $4 million\u2013not much more than Zambia had offered. Donegal then turned around and sued Zambia (where the average wage is barely a dollar a day) for the full $40 million.
\nThroughout the lawsuit, global NGOs have pleaded with the English High Court to void the new contract and allow Zambia to honor the original agreement of $3 million. But on February 15, 2007, an English court ruled that Donegal was entitled to much of what it was seeking\u2013at least $15 million, perhaps more.1
\nIn a last desperate plea, global NGOs working to relieve Third World debt (such as Oxfam and the Jubilee Debt Campaign) turned to Donegal directly, asking them to forgive the debt. Donegal knows that, as a national entity, even a cash-poor country like Zambia has access to considerable resources; in this case copper, cobalt, gem stones, coal, uranium, marble, and much more. Public works and other civic improvement projects can also be liquidated.
\nAlso, Donegal has no history of mercy toward impoverished nations. In 1996 it paid $11 million for a discounted Peruvian debt and threatened to bankrupt the country unless they paid $58 million. Donegal got its money. Now they\u2019re suing Congo Brazzaville for $400 million for a debt they bought for $10 million. Donegal and other vulture funds have teams of lawyers combing the world for assets that can be seized.
\nEven worse, many of these vulture funds have influential ties to powerful world leaders like the Bush administration. The risk normally faced by distressed-debt investors is virtually eliminated when they have political influence that is greater than the poor nation they are suing. They raise most of their money through legal actions in US courts, where lobbying and political contributions hold influence. And many vulture fund CEOs have close links to top officials both in the US and England.
\nPresident Bush has the power to block collection of debts by vulture funds, either individual ones or all of them, if he considers it to be at odds with US foreign policy\u2013in this case debt relief for poor countries.2 According to Congressman John Conyers, \u201cIt\u2019s our position that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the comity doctrine brought from our constitution allows the president to require the courts defer in individual suits against foreign nations. And so, we\u2019re conducting a couple of things. First of all, we want to know where these practices are going on at the present time, and, two, how we can get this information to President Bush so that he can, as he indicated to us, stop it immediately.\u201d3
\nChancellor Gordon Brown, now the prime minister of England, calls the vulture funds perverse and immoral. Oxfam and Jubilee have urged the chancellor to use his influence as chair of the International Monetary Fund\u2019s key decision-making committee to make sure that new regulations are devised that prevent private companies from bypassing international debt rules and pursuing debts from very poor countries.<\/p>\n

Citations
\n\u00a0\u00a0 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ashley Seager, \u201cCourt Lets Vulture Fund Claw Back Zambian Millions,\u201d The Guardian<\/em>, February 16, 2007.
\n\u00a0\u00a0 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ashley Seager, \u201cBush Could Block Debt Collection by \u2018Vulture\u2019 Funds,\u201d Guardian Unlimited<\/em>, February 22, 2007.
\n\u00a0\u00a0 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cConyers Confronts Bush On Vulture Bonds,\u201d an interview with Democracy Now!<\/em>, February 16, 2007.
\n# 11 The Scam of \u201cReconstruction\u201d in Afghanistan<\/strong>
\nSources:
\nTomdispatch.com, August 27, 2006
\nTitle: \u201cWhy It\u2019s Not Working in Afghanistan\u201d
\nAuthor: Ann Jones
\nhttp:\/\/www.tomdispatch.com\/index.mhtml?pid=116512<\/a><\/p>\n

CorpWatch<\/em>, October 6, 2006
\nTitle: \u201cAfghanistan Inc: a CorpWatch Investigative Report\u201d
\nAuthor: Fariba Nawa
\nhttp:\/\/www.corpwatch.org\/article.php?id=13518<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researchers: Madeline Hall and Julie Bickel
\nFaculty Evaluator: James Dean, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

A report issued in June 2005 by the non-profit organization Action Aid reveals that much of the US tax money earmarked to rebuild Afghanistan actually ends up going no further than the pockets of wealthy US corporations. \u201cPhantom aid\u201d that never shows up in the recipient country is a scam in which paychecks for overpriced, and often incompetent, American \u201cexperts\u201d under contract to USAID go directly from the Agency to American bank accounts. Additionally, 70 percent of the aid that does make it to a recipient country is carefully \u201ctied\u201d to the donor nation, requiring that the recipient use the donated money to buy products and services from the donor country, often at drastically inflated prices. The US far outstrips other nations in these schemes, as Action Aid calculates that 86 cents of every dollar of American aid is phantom.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Authors Ann Jones and Fariba Nawa suggest that in order to understand the failure and fraud in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, it is important to look at the peculiar system of American aid for international development. International and national agencies\u2013including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and USAID, that traditionally distribute aid money to developing countries\u2013have designed a system that is efficient in funneling money back to the wealthy donor countries, while undermining sustainable development in poor states.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A former head of USAID cited foreign aid as \u201ca key foreign policy instrument\u201d designed to help countries \u201cbecome better markets for US exports.\u201d To guarantee that mission, the State Department recently took over the aid agency. USAID and the Army Corps of Engineers now cut in US business and government interests from the start, making sure that money is allocated according to US economic, political, strategic, and military priorities, rather than according to what the recipient nation might consider important.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Though Afghans have petitioned to allocate aid money as they find appropriate, donor countries object, claiming that the Afghan government is too corrupt to be trusted. Increasingly frustrated and angry Afghan communities meanwhile claim that the no-bid, open-ended contracts being awarded to contractors such as Kellogg, Brown, and Root\/Halliburton, DynCorp, Blackwater, and the Louis Berger Group are equivalent to licensed bribery, corruption, theft, and money laundering.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Karzai government, confined to a self-serving American agenda, has delivered little to the average Afghan, most of whom still live in abject poverty. Western notions of progress evident in US-contracted hotels, restaurants, and shopping malls full of new electronic gadgets and appliances are beyond the imaginations or practicalities of 3.5 million war torn Afghan citizens who are without food, shelter, sewage systems, clean water or electricity.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Infrastructure hastily built with shoddy materials and no knowledge or respect for geologic or climatic conditions is culminating in one expensive failure after another. USAID\u2019s website, for example, boasts of its only infrastructure accomplishment in Afghanistan\u2013the Kabul-Kandahar Highway\u2013a narrow and already crumbling highway costing Afghanis $1 million a mile. The highway was featured in the Kabul Weekly<\/em> newspaper in March 2005 under the headline, \u201cMillions Wasted on Second-Rate Roads.\u201d The article notes that while other bids from more competent construction firms came in at one-third the cost, the contract went to the Louis Berger Group, a firm with tight connections to the Bush administration\u2013as well as a notorious track record of other failed and abandoned construction projects in Afghanistan.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Former Minister of Planning, Ramazan Bashardost, complained that when it came to building roads, the Taliban had done a better job. \u201cAnd,\u201d he also asked, \u201cWhere did the money go?\u201d Now, in a move certain to lower President Karzai\u2019s approval ratings and further diminish US popularity in the area, the Bush administration has pressured Karzai to turn this \u201cgift from the people of the United States\u201d into a toll road, charging each driver $20 for a road-use permit valid for one month. In this way, according to American \u201cexperts\u201d providing highly paid technical assistance, Afghanistan can collect $30 million annually from its impoverished citizens and thereby decrease the foreign aid \u201cburden\u201d on the United States.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jones asks, \u201cIs it any wonder that foreign aid seems to ordinary Afghans to be something only foreigners enjoy?\u201d
\nUPDATE BY Fariba Nawa
\nAfghanistan, Inc. is a thirty-page report that digs deep into the corruption involved in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The report focuses on US government-funded companies contracted to rebuild Afghanistan. The importance of this report is that it\u2019s the first serious look at corruption of aid money spending from a grassroots level. It includes an emphasis on various projects in villages and the cities and it covers all sides of the issue. It shows how big money is spent on bad work.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The report was first published in English through CorpWatch, a watchdog of corporations, on May 2, 2006. It was translated into the Persian languages of Dari and Pashto in September 2006. The companies investigated in the report continue to receive millions of dollars in contracts from the US government despite their incompetence and wasteful spending. Louis Berger, Bearing Point, Chemonics, and DynCorp are still taking American taxpayers\u2019 money and showing minimum results in Afghanistan.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some of the mainstream press gave the report coverage, including NPR\u2019s Morning Edition<\/em>, KRON Channel 4 news in San Francisco when it was first published, and later on, BBC radio and many other European outlets continue to call and ask the author about the report. However, that\u2019s a limited response to the fact that this was a groundbreaking report with important information for policy change. The report has been a source for many others researching the subject. If you\u2019d like more information on corruption on reconstruction in Afghanistan, please refer to CorpWatch\u2019s website www.corpwatch.org. Integrity Watch Afghanistan is another organization that monitors corruption in the country and produces various reports.
\nUPDATE BY ANN JONES
\nNine months later the conundrum I described\u2013no peace, no security, no development\u2013still pertains, and Afghan hopes sour.
\nThe US still looks for a military solution. In the first five months of 2007, seventy-five coalition troops were killed (compared to fifty-three in the same period last year), including thirty-eight Americans. Civilian casualties were variously reported\u2013some sources said \u201calmost 1,800\u201d\u2013including 135 killed by US or NATO forces.
\nThe US position on military \u201cprogress\u201d against the Taliban, expressed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on June 4, 2007, as he prepared to visit Afghanistan, remained \u201cguarded optimism.\u201d Gates told reporters a goal of his trip was to insure close coordination of combat operations and development and reconstruction efforts. That\u2019s a switch, suggesting some clue that reconstruction may be a better way to \u201ckill\u201d the Taliban, but leaving unanswered the question of how to coordinate war and peaceful activity.
\nThe real importance of \u201cWhy It\u2019s Not Working in Afghanistan\u201d lies behind the front page military coverage\u2013in what it reveals of the systemic scams and should-be scandals of American aid. The story makes news now and then when billions \u201cdisappear\u201d from reconstruction projects in Iraq, but to my knowledge it has yet to be investigated by media or congress. What\u2019s discussed is the occasional budgetary black hole that suggests some random malfeasance, in much the same way that torture at Abu Ghraib was discussed as the work of a few \u201cbad apples.\u201d
\nMaybe reporters don\u2019t want to take up the story because it\u2019s complicated. It\u2019s about numbers. Like Enron. Dreary, ho-hum, life-shattering stuff. I don\u2019t know. But one curious thing: when my book Kabul in Winter<\/em> appeared in 2006, a very long section on this topic was the one part no reviewer touched.
\nNow bigger voices than mine speak out. Abdullah Abdullah, the distinguished former Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, recently complained that of every $100,000 promised to Afghan development, less than a third reaches the country. Matt Waldman, head of Afghanistan policy for Oxfam, one of the most respected humanitarian NGOs in the world, wrote in The Guardian<\/em> (May 26, 2007) that \u201cAmerica is bankrolling Afghanistan\u201d but \u201cas in Iraq, a vast proportion of aid is wasted.\u201d And more to the point, \u201cClose to half of US development assistance goes to the five biggest US contractors in the country.\u201d Waldman argues that too much aid money is lost to high salaries and living costs of international experts, purchase of non-Afghan resources, and corporate profits. He figures the cost of the average expat (read \u201cAmerican\u201d) expert at half a million dollars a year.
\nSo why is it left to representatives of foreign governments, foreign humanitarian organizations, and foreign press to expose this fraud?<\/p>\n

To keep up with news about Afghanistan see news@afghanistannewscenter.com, a daily roundup of stories from the world\u2019s English language press. For policy issues see the Web site of New York University\u2019s Center on International Cooperation (www.cic.nyu.edu) or that of the Center\u2019s senior fellow and Afghanistan expert Barnett Rubin (brr5@nyu.edu). To keep an eye on the corridors of power see the website of the Center for Public Integrity (www.publicintegrity.org), and specifically for information on corporate scams see www.corpwatch.org.
\nJournalists should also be advised that several professional organizations are protesting the increasing difficulty of covering Afghanistan because of interference by US, Afghan, and ISAF forces. They include IFJ (International Federation of Journalists), AIJA (Afghan Independent Journalists Association), and CPAJ (Committee to Protect Afghan Journalists). Currently Afghan journalists are also boycotting the Afghan Wolesi Jirga (lower house of Parliament) to protest its enactment of repressive media laws and the consequent imprisonment of journalists.<\/p>\n

# 12 Another Massacre in Haiti by UN Troops<\/strong>
\nSources:
\nHaitiAction.net, January 21, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cUN in Haiti: Accused of Second Massacre\u201d
\nAuthors: Haiti Information Project
\nhttp:\/\/www.haitiaction.net\/News\/HIP\/1_21_7\/1_21_7.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Inter Press Service
\nTitle: \u201cHaiti: Poor Residents of Capital Describe a State of Siege\u201d
\nAuthors: Wadner Pierre and Jeb Sprague
\nhttp:\/\/ipsnews.net\/news.asp?idnews=36772<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researcher: William Leeming
\nFaculty Evaluator: Dianne Parness<\/p>\n

Eyewitness testimony confirms indiscriminate killings by UN forces in Haiti\u2019s Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil community on December 22, 2006, reportedly as collective punishment against the community for a massive demonstration of Lavalas supporters in which about ten thousand people rallied for the return of President Aristide in clear condemnation of the foreign military occupation of their country. According to residents, UN forces attacked their neighborhood in the early morning, killing more than thirty people, including women and children. Footage taken by Haiti Information Project (HIP) videographers shows unarmed civilians dying as they tell of extensive gunfire from UN peacekeeping forces (MINUSTAH).
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A hardened UN strategy became apparent days after the demonstration, when UN officials stated they were entering Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil to capture or kill gangsters and kidnappers. While officials of MINUSTAH have admitted to \u201ccollateral damage,\u201d in the raids of December 2006, they say they are there to fight gangsters at the request of the Ren\u00c3\u00a9 Pr\u00c3\u00a9val government.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But many residents and local human rights activists say that scores of people having no involvement with gangs were killed, wounded, and arrested in the raids.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Although MINUSTAH denied firing from helicopter gunships, HIP captured more than three hours of video footage and a large selection of digital photos, illustrating the UN\u2019s behavior in Haiti.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 An unidentified twenty-eight-year-old man, filmed by HIP, can be seen dying as he testifies that he was shot from a circling UN helicopter that rained gunfire on those below. HIP film also shows a sixteen-year-old, dying just after being shot by UN forces. Before dying he describes details of the UN opening fire on unarmed civilians in his neighborhood. The wounded and dying, filmed by HIP, all express horror and confusion.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IPS observed that buildings throughout Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil were pockmarked by bullets; many showing huge holes made by heavy caliber UN weapons, as residents attest. Often pipes that brought in water to the slum community now lay shattered.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A recently declassified document from the US embassy in Port-au-Prince reveals that during a similar operation carried out in July 2005, MINUSTAH expended 22,000 bullets over several hours. In the report, an official from MINUSTAH acknowledged, \u201cgiven the flimsy construction of homes in Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil and the large quantity of ammunition expended, it is likely that rounds penetrated many buildings, striking unintended targets.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Frantz Michel Guerrier, spokesman for the Committee of Notables for the Development of Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil based in the Bois Neuf zone, said, \u201cIt is very difficult for me to explain to you what the people of Bois Neuf went through on Dec. 22, 2006\u2013almost unexplainable. It was a true massacre. We counted more than sixty wounded and more than twenty-five dead, among [them] infants, children, and young people.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWe saw helicopters shoot at us, our houses broken by the tanks,\u201d Guerrier told IPS. \u201cWe heard detonations of the heavy weapons. Many of the dead and wounded were found inside their houses. I must tell you that nobody had been saved, not even the babies. The Red Cross was not allowed to help people. The soldiers had refused to let the Red Cross in categorically, in violation of the Geneva Convention.\u201d Several residents told IPS that MINUSTAH, after conducting its operations, evacuated without checking for wounded.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Following the removal of Haiti\u2019s elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide government (see Censored 2005<\/em>, story #12), up to one thousand Lavalas political activists were imprisoned under the US-backed interim government, according to a Miami University Human Rights study.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A study released by the Lancet Journal of Medicine in August 2006 estimates that 8,000 were killed and 35,000 sexually assaulted in the greater Port-au-Prince area during the time of the interim government (2004-2006). The study attributed human rights abuses to purported \u201ccriminals,\u201d police, anti-Lavalas gangs, and UN peacekeepers.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 HIP Founding Editor Kevin Pina commented, \u201cIt is clear that this represents an act of terror against the community. This video evidence shows clearly that the UN stands accused, once again, of targeting unarmed civilians in Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil. There can be no justification for using this level of force in the close quarters of those neighborhoods. It is clear that the UN views the killing of these innocents as somehow acceptable to their goal of pacifying this community. Every demonstration, no matter how peaceful, is seen as a threat to their control if it includes demands for the return of Aristide to Haiti. In that context it is difficult to continue to view the UN mission as an independent and neutral force in Haiti. They apparently decided sometime ago it was acceptable to use military force to alter Haiti\u2019s political landscape to match their strategic goals for the Haitian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Update by Kevin Pina
\nSince President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his Lavalas political party were ousted from power on February 29, 2004, accusations of gross human rights violations have persisted in Haiti. While the Haitian National Police (HNP) received training and assistance from the UN following Aristide\u2019s ouster, they were also accused of summary executions, arbitrary arrests, and the killing of unarmed demonstrators. The actions of the Haitian police became so egregious that even UN police trainers (CIVPOL) began to question the motives of their commanders and the mission\u2019s objectives. The Haiti Information Project (HIP) received the following correspondence in response to a May 8, 2005 article \u201cUN accommodates Human Rights Abuses by police in Haiti.\u201d1 This is the first publication of that correspondence:<\/p>\n

Just want to reinforce your observations as all being accurate.
\nI am one of the 25 US CIVPOL here on the ground in Haiti, having arrived last November. As a group we are frustrated by the UN\u2019s and CIVPOL\u2019s unwillingness to interpret their mandate aggressively. I have been pushing them to conduct investigations into all the shootings and other significant Human Rights violations with no success. The Police Commissioner and command staff shows little interest and claim the mandate does not allow them to do this. Unfortunately I have countless examples.
\nThe corruption in the HNP is massive with little interest in addressing the problem. Just keep up the pressure, I don\u2019t know what else to do.<\/p>\n

Stephen MacKinnon
\nChief, Strategic Planning Unit
\nCIVPOL-MINUSTAH<\/p>\n

Chief MacKinnon provided HIP with information and documents that painted a disturbing picture of a UN operation more obsessed with political embarrassment caused by mounting demonstrations for Aristide\u2019s return than interest in reigning in human rights abuses committed by the HNP.2
\nThe United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) now stands accused of having itself committed several massacres in the seaside shantytown of Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil. This area of the capital served as a launching site for massive demonstrations demanding the return of President Aristide and for an end to what they called the foreign occupation of their country.
\nThe Brazilian military has responsibility for leadership of the UN military forces in Haiti and is authorized to use deadly force. They are at the top of the command structure and their influence on the overall mission should not be understated. More importantly, there is a direct parallel between Brazilian military tactics utilized by UN forces in Haiti and similar military-style assaults used by the police in their own country.
\nThe Brazilian military police have been accused of firing indiscriminately in the poor slums of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro called favelas. This was highlighted in an Amnesty International report \u201cBrazil: \u2018They come in Shooting\u2019: Policing socially excluded communities,\u201d released on December 2, 2005.3
\nThis is similar to the tactics authorized by the Brazilian generals in Haiti. It has resulted in several high-profile massacres committed in the poor slum of Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil where protestors challenged the UN\u2019s authority by continuing to launch massive demonstrations demanding Aristide\u2019s return and condemning the UN\u2019s presence in Haiti. In each instance, the UN and the elite-run Haitian press demonized the entire community as being criminals and gangsters and\/or collaborators of criminals and gangsters. While it is true that armed \u201cgangs\u201d operated in the neighborhood and a few claimed they were aligned with Aristide\u2019s Lavalas movement, these military raids had a clear correlation to the ongoing demonstrations and opposition to the UN presence in Haiti.
\nCit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil was terrorized on July 6, 2005 when Brazilian commanders authorized a raid by UN forces with the stated aim of routing gangs in the area.4 For Aristide supporters, the raid was a preemptive strike by the UN to dampen the impact of protests on Aristide\u2019s birthday, planned to take place only nine days later on July 15. It also represented the first time UN forces purposely sought to assassinate the leadership of armed groups claiming allegiance to Aristide\u2019s Lavalas movement.5 By the time UN guns stopped firing, countless unarmed civilians lay dead with many having been killed by a single high-powered rifle shot to the head. Since then, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show the US Embassy and various intelligence agencies, were aware of the excessive use of force by UN forces in Haiti on July 6, 2005.6 Despite being heavily censored by US officials, what emerges is clear evidence of the disproportionate use of force by UN troops in Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil.
\nDecember 16, 2006 saw another large demonstration for Aristide that began in Cite Soleil and only six days later on December 22, Brazilian commanders would authorize a second deadly raid that residents and human rights groups say resulted in the wholesale slaughter of innocent victims. The unspoken parallel of Brazil\u2019s role in leading the UN\u2019s military strategy in Haiti is the fact that terror tactics such as these have been their modus operandi in their own country.
\nIn the early morning hours of Feb. 2, UN forces entered Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil firing indiscriminately and their victims were two young girls killed as they slept in their own home.7 Massive demonstrations were scheduled to take place five days later demanding the return of Aristide throughout Haiti on Feb. 7. While these demonstrations went largely unreported by the international corporate media, this stood in contrast, to the avalanche of news stories filed two days later on Feb. 9, when UN forces launched yet another deadly military operation in Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil.8 Although these raids were ostensibly to rid the neighborhood of gangs, they followed the same pattern and relationship to demonstrations for Aristide\u2019s return and military tactics used by Brazilian commanders in previous UN operations.
\nThe only rights organizations documenting the loss of life and destruction of property resulting from the UN raid on December 22, 2006, as well as previous and subsequent UN military operations, were the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI).9 HIP, the organization originally authoring the article being recognized by Project Censored, is a news agency that has extensive video evidence and interviews from Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil taken the same day these attacks by UN forces were executed. HIP offers any human rights organization the opportunity to view the documentary footage and evidence supporting the claims of Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil residents that massacres by UN forces have been committed against them. Unfortunately, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States have remained conspicuously disinterested and silent about this evidence.
\nFor further information and updates about Haiti, please visit www.haitiaction.net, www.ijdh.org, www.HaitiInformationProject.net, www.haitianalysis.com, www.canadahaitiaction.ca, and www.ahphaiti.org.<\/p>\n

Notes
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Haiti Information Project,\u201dUN accommodates Human Rights Abuses by police in Haiti,\u201d May 8, 2005. See http:\/\/haitiaction.net\/News\/HIP\/5_8_5\/5_8_5.html.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Internet correspondence received from Steve McKinnon to HIP May 12, 2005.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Amnesty International Report, \u201cBrazil: \u2018They come in Shooting\u2019: Policing socially excluded communities\u201d December 2, 2005. See http:\/\/www.amnestyusa.org\/document.php?lang=e &id=ENGAMR190252005
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Haiti Information Project, \u201cEvidence mounts of a UN massacre in Haiti,\u201d July 12, 2005. See http:\/\/www.haitiaction.net\/News\/HIP\/7_12_5.html.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Haiti Information Project,\u201dThe UN\u2019s disconnect with the poor in Haiti,\u201d December 25, 2005. See http:\/\/haitiaction.net\/News\/HIP\/12_25_5\/12_25a_5.html.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Haiti Information Project, \u201cUS Embassy in Haiti acknowledges excessive force by UN,\u201d January 24, 2007. Article based on FOIA documents obtained by College of DuPage Geography Professor Keith Yearman. See http:\/\/haitiaction.net\/News\/HIP\/1_23_7\/1_23_7.html.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 7.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Haiti Information Project\u2013February 2, 2007. UN terror kills Haiti\u2019s children at night http:\/\/haitiaction.net\/News\/HIP\/2_2_7a\/2_2_7a.html.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 8.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Haiti Information Project, \u201cMassive demonstrations in Haiti catch UN by surprise,\u201d February 9, 2007. See http:\/\/haitiaction.net\/News\/HIP\/2_9_7\/2_9_7.html.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 9.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Haiti Information Project,\u201dThe UNspoken truth about gangs in Haiti,\u201d February 15, 2007. See http:\/\/haitiaction.net\/News\/HIP\/2_15_7\/2_15_7.html.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 10.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Video images documenting UN military operations on July 6, 2005 and December 22, 2006 were taken by HIP videographer Jean-Baptiste Ristil.<\/p>\n

UPDATE ON HAITI by Jeb Sprague and Wadner Pierre: Poor Residents of Capital Describe a State of Siege
\nInitially neither one of us thought of ourselves as journalists, but we were so shocked by events on the ground in Haiti (which were rarely being covered) that we felt compelled to write about them. In the dominant rhetoric of donor groups and corporate media coverage we found that the voices of grassroots civil society were absent. Of any country in the western hemisphere, Haiti\u2019s culture is filled with a vitality for democracy, personal interaction, and dialogue. Radio is the most popular form of communication partially because of economic accessibility and partially because it encourages discussion and debate. From researching our stories we\u2019ve come to see that two civil societies exist, one tightly connected with foreign donors, the foreign embassies present in Port-au-Prince and the large media outlets; and another civil society, a pulsating grassroots that is usually ignored by foreign journalists and donors.
\nThe testimonials and opinions of the donor and foreign government backed elite or middle class based civil society groups are propelled in the media spotlight as unbiased and independent, the<\/em> Haitian civil society. These are the groups that have bilingual language skills, often higher education, and the technological tools to communicate their programs to a transnational audience. Aid groups fly them abroad to make presentations or provide them with training seminars in the Dominican Republic or Washington, DC.
\nIn the slum- and rural-based communities another civil society exists outside of the international limelight. The members of this civil society are often broke and rarely make a profit from their positions. They are relatively unknown and unheard of by the outside world. These groups, popular and well organized on the ground, have broad participation. They carry out large mobilizations, they fill the streets with friends and family, they organize strikes, they are on the radio, and they organize co-ops, literacy centers, and community programs.
\nSo in our articles we have tried to provide as many direct quotes and testimonials as possible from this grassroots civil society. At the same time we try to place this along side the official rhetoric, holding the official organs responsible, confronting them and asking them the hard questions (which they are often shocked to hear). But most important are the voices of the victims of violence, the wife and husband who lost their children, the unemployed man wounded on the side of the street; these are the people that are rarely heard in the mainstream media. Part of this is because corporate journalists choose to spend their time with elites, especially in developing countries, and part is because editors are dependent on their advertisers and don\u2019t see these stories as viable.
\nMINUSTAH\u2019s operations in Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil, since writing our article, have continued. But in recent months the killings have lessened (although a man just last week was shot and killed by UN troops\/ early June 2007). Over the months that followed our article, MINUSTAH was able to arrest one of the most well-known gang leaders, Evens Jeune, along with many of those within his group. MINUSTAH has claimed to have set up hospital clinics in the buildings used by the gangs, but on-site visits have revealed empty houses with no hospital clinics and no UN staffers. Haitian government promises of job programs have been slow to materialize in Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil. UN officials have purposely downplayed or ignored the protests of the poor demanding reparations. However, a number of community schools and health organizations, such as the Lamp Foundation, continue to do good work in Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil. Some human rights groups, such as the GDP, BAI, CONODH, and AUHMOD, continue to be active in the neighborhoods, but other locally formed groups such as the HNVNPC have gone back to their jobs, mostly in churches and schools.
\nThe population of Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil has suffered horribly, either caught in the crossfire or purposely targeted. The socio-economic situation and dire poverty in Cit\u00c3\u00a9 Soleil is a direct result of the prolonged polices of wealthy countries and donor institutions; forcing and destabilizing out of power those elected Haitian governments that have advocated key policies of sovereignty and social investment, while opposing privatization and neoliberal adjustments whenever they can. Rarely told is how Haiti\u2019s police throughout the 1990\u2019s and early 2000\u2019s were systematically manipulated by the US embassy, CIA, and Haitian elites\u2013this had a direct result on the security situation in Haiti. Economic instability heightened by coups and prolonged political crises\u2013promoted by elites unhappy with the popular electoral choice\u2013have cost Haiti jobs and development. All of this has pushed Haiti further into the abyss.
\nWhen international institutions and governments are busy coordinating these kinds of egregious activities, we felt it the responsibility of journalists, activists, and academics (especially those lucky enough to have the resources) to investigate; all while speaking with the poor and finding out their concerns. From this experience we founded a website, haitianalysis.com, to connect foreign young journalists with young Haitian journalists in poor communities\u2013with the specific purpose of covering poor communities and grassroots organizing. Soon after our IPS article appeared, members of the Haitian diaspora in New York were able to raise thousands of dollars to help in the funeral expenses of the two young Lubin daughters, Stephanie, seven, and Alexandra, four, killed by UN ammo according to their parents. Wadner\u2019s photos of the young girls have appeared in numerous Haitian newspapers and websites of various languages. The Lubin parents, distraught, wanted everyone to know about what had occurred on that night of February 1st 2007. To our knowledge, the United Nations has never launched an investigation into the killing of the two Lubin daughters. We will continue asking that they do.
\nFor more information, we suggest that readers view websites such as ijdh.org, hurah.revolt.org, haitianalysis.com, pih.org, haiti.quixote.org, jubileeusa.org, and haitilabor.org.
\n# 13 Immigrant Roundups to Gain Cheap Labor for US Corporate Giants<\/strong>
\nSources:
\nTruthout<\/em>, January 27, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cWhich Side Are You On?\u201d
\nAuthor: David Bacon
\nhttp:\/\/www.truthout.org\/docs_2006\/012907L.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n

The Nation<\/em>, February 6, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cWorkers, Not Guests\u201d
\nAuthor: David Bacon
\nhttp:\/\/www.truthout.org\/issues_06\/020607LB.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n

Foreign Policy in Focus<\/em>, February 26, 2007
\nTitle: \u201cMigrants: Globalization\u2019s Junk Mail?\u201d
\nAuthor: Laura Carlsen
\nhttp:\/\/www.fpif.org\/fpiftxt\/4022<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researcher: Fernanda Borras
\nFaculty Evaluator: Diana Grant, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) flooded Mexico with cheap subsidized US agricultural products that displaced millions of Mexican farmers. Between 2000 and 2005, Mexico lost 900,000 rural jobs and 700,000 industrial jobs, resulting in deep unemployment throughout the country. Desperate poverty has forced millions of Mexican workers north in order to feed their families.
\nThe National Campesino Front estimates that two million farmers have been displaced by NAFTA, in many cases related to the increase in US imports. In 1994, the first year of the agreement, the United States exported $4.59 billion of agricultural products to Mexico, according to the Department of Agriculture. By 2006 the figure had risen to $9.85 billion\u2013an increase of 114 percent. US exports of corn, Mexico\u2019s staple crop and largest source of rural employment, alone doubled to over $2.5 billion in 2006.
\nThis combination of unemployment in Mexico, the huge gap between salaries in the United States and Mexico, and US demand for cheap labor to compete on global markets has created the current situation. The demand for undocumented labor in the US economy is structural. It is not just a few companies seeking to cut corners. These are not just jobs that \u201cUS workers won\u2019t take.\u201d Migrants work in nearly all low-paying occupations and have become essential to the US economy in the age of global competition.
\nThe meatpacking industry provides a good example. The US meat industry as it went global shows a fast slide in working conditions over the past decades as a result of de-unionization, erosion of wages and benefits, and increasing safety and health hazards. Part and parcel of that slide has been the replacement of unionized US workers with migrants.
\nAside from traditional employment in agriculture, another major use of migrant labor has been through the advent of subcontracting. This practice, well in place since the early 1980s, has contributed to the de-unionization of the workforce. It conveniently releases employees from direct responsibility for the legal status and treatment of workers in their employment.
\nIn the wake of 9\/11, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) has conducted workplace and home invasions across the country in an attempt to round up \u201cillegal\u201d immigrants. ICE justifies these raids under the rubric of keeping our homeland safe and preventing terrorism. However the real goal of these actions is to disrupt the immigrant work force in the US and replace it with a tightly regulated non-union guest-worker program. This policy is endorsed by companies seeking permanent low-wage workers through a lobby group called Essential Worker Immigrations Coalition (EWIC). EWIC\u2019s fifty-two members include the US Chamber of Commerce, Wal-Mart, Marriott, Tyson Foods, American Meat Institute, California Landscape Contractors Association, and the Association of Builders and Contractors.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\nICE now has Operation Return to Sender, a program, supposedly designed to target fugitive aliens. The program has resulted in the indiscriminate roundup of over 13,000 undocumented immigrants in cities throughout the United States.
\nImmigrant rights organizations have noted that the crackdown has led to serious human rights violations. Families are separated. Hearings are slow, and often families do not know for long periods of time where their loved ones are being held. A January 16 report from the Homeland Security Department\u2019s Inspector General of conditions at five detention centers identified frequent violation of federal standards, overcrowding, and health and safety violations.
\nThe firings and raids highlight the vulnerability of immigrant workers under current US law. In 1986 Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, making it a federal crime for an employer to hire a worker without valid immigration documents. While few employers have ever faced penalties, in reality the law made it a crime for undocumented workers to hold a job. No current law requires employers to fire workers whose Social Security numbers don\u2019t jibe. But President Bush proposed a new administrative rule, which would tell employers to fire anyone with a no-match. The regulation has never been officially issued, but many companies claim they\u2019re already complying with it.
\nBoth the enforcement and the agenda behind this crackdown are alarming many unions. In 1999 the AFL-CIO called for the repeal of employer sanctions, as well as for a generous legalization program, greater chances for family reunification, and enforcement of workplace rights. The federation was already on record opposing new guest worker programs. The Service Employees, and the two garment unions were among the first to push for this position. \u201cWe still call for the repeal of employer sanctions, as we have from the time it was passed,\u201d says Bruce Raynor, UNITE HERE president. \u201cThere are 12 million undocumented people living here, who are important to the economy,\u201d he fumes. \u201cThey have a right to seek employment, and employers have a right to hire them. The only way to deal with this is to give workers rights and a path to citizenship.\u201d<\/p>\n

UPDATE BY DAVID BACON
\n\u201cWhich Side are you On?\u201d and \u201cWorkers, not Guests\u201d expose the way US immigration law is being transformed into a mechanism for supplying labor to some of the country\u2019s largest corporations. Immigration law is creating a two-tier society, in which millions of people are denied fundamental rights and social benefits, because they are recruited to come to the US by those corporations on visas that condemn them to a second-class status. Those guest workers face increased poverty and exploitation, and their status is being used to put pressure on wages, benefits and workplace rights for all workers.\u00a0
\n\u201cWorkers, not Guests\u201d describes the way that the Bush administration uses immigration raids to attack union organizing campaigns and efforts by immigrant workers to enforce basic workplace rights and protections. Further, the administration uses the raids to pressure Congress into adopting new, vastly expanded guest worker programs.
\nBoth articles describe the way some groups have abandoned their historic opposition to contract labor programs. Instead, the National Council of La Raza, the National Immigration Forum, and other labor and religious organizations have developed a political alliance with some of the country\u2019s largest corporations, with the objective of passing new guest worker legislation. This legislation also includes provisions that will make future immigration raids much harsher and more widespread.
\nSince publication, the Bush administration and both Democratic and Republican senators have announced new proposals that go even further. They would end the ability of immigrant families to reunite in the US, and instead institute a corporate-driven point system intended to supply skilled labor to big companies. Raids and enforcement would become even harsher, with huge detention centers built on the border. The proposals would allow corporations to recruit as many as 600,000 contract guest workers a year.
\nThe use of immigration policy to funnel labor to corporate employers is growing at the same time that Congress is debating new corporate trade legislation, including the renewal of fast track negotiating authority for the administration, and four new trade agreements\u2013with South Korea, Peru, Panama, and Colombia. These bills would all increase the displacement of workers and farmers in other countries, sending many of them into the migrant stream to the US. This displacement is being coordinated with Congress\u2019s immigration proposals, which would then channel displaced workers into industries where their labor can be used profitably, and ensure that they can only remain in the US in a status vulnerable to exploitation.
\nThe mainstream press has carried many articles about the proposals and raids. There has been very little coverage of the corporate backing for the immigration bills in Congress, however. Many reporters refer to the guest worker bills as \u201cpro-immigrant\u201d and \u201cleft.\u201d This has not only been inaccurate reporting, but has actually covered up the corporate domination of the immigration agenda in Congress. There has been virtually no coverage of the connection between US trade policy and immigration policy.
\nFor more accurate information, readers can contact the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, www.nnirr.org. Global Exchange organized a national speaking tour on trade and immigration policy by David Bacon and Juan Manuel Sandoval, a leading Mexican critic of NAFTA and US immigration policy. The presentations made during that tour are available on the Global Exchange website, www.globalexchange.org.<\/p>\n

# 14 Impunity for US War Criminals<\/strong>
\nSource:
\nCongressional Quarterly<\/em>, November 22, 2006
\nTitle: \u201cA Senate Mystery Keeps Torture Alive\u2013and Its Practitioners Free\u201d
\nAuthor: Jeff Stein
\nhttp:\/\/public.cq.com\/public\/20061122_homeland.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researcher: Marley Miller
\nFaculty Evaluator: James Dean, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

A provision mysteriously tucked into the Military Commission Act (MCA) just before it passed through Congress and was signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006 (see story #1), redefines torture, removing the harshest, most controversial techniques from the definition of war crimes, and exempts the perpetrators\u2013both interrogators and their bosses\u2013from prosecution for such offences dating back to November 1997.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Author Jeff Stein asks, \u201cWho slipped language into the MCA that would further exempt torturers from prosecution?\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The White House denies any involvement or knowledge regarding the insertion of such language, leaving the origin of adjustments to this significant part of the MCA a mystery.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Motivation for this provision, however, leads clearly to leadership in the Bush administration, as the passage effectively rewrote the US enforcement mechanism for the Geneva War Crimes Act, which would have, upon sworn testimonies of Lieutenant General Randall M. Schmidt, Major General Mike Dunlavey, and US Brigadier General Commander, Janis Karpinski, held former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and President George Bush guilty of active roles in directing acts of torture upon detainees held at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo and Abu Ghraib (see Censored 2007<\/em>, Story #7) .
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A spokesperson for the Center for Constitutional Rights comments, \u201cThe MCA\u2019s restricted definitions arguably would exempt certain US officials who have implemented or had command responsibility for coercive interrogation techniques from war crimes prosecutions. This amendment is designed to protect US government perpetrators of abuses during the \u2018war on terror\u2019 from prosecution.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch adds that the effect of this provision of the MCA is \u201cthat perpetrators of several categories of what were war crimes at the time they were committed, can no longer be punished under US law.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As a whole, the MCA evolved out of the need to override the June 2006 Supreme Court declaration that the administration\u2019s hastily assembled military commissions were unconstitutional. That momentous Supreme Court decision confirmed that all prisoners in US custody had to be held in accordance with the Geneva Convention\u2019s Article 3, which prohibits \u201coutrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.\u201d Through passage of the MCA, Congress and the President negated the corrective role of the courts in checking and balancing executive power.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A Senate aide involved in the drafting of the Senate version of the bill that was agreed upon by John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and John Warner, said, \u201cWe have no idea who [the extended impunity provision] came from or how it came to be.\u201d White House spokesperson Dana Perrino said the stealth changes didn\u2019t come from the counsel\u2019s office, \u201cIt could have come from elsewhere in the White House or Justice Department,\u201d she said, \u201cbut it didn\u2019t come from us.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Whatever the source, the amended provision was passed and is now a part of US law.<\/p>\n

# 15 Toxic Exposure Can Be Transmitted to Future Generations on a \u201cSecond Genetic Code\u201d<\/strong>
\nSource:
\nRachel\u2019s Democracy & Health News<\/em>, October 12, 2006
\nTitle: \u201cSome Chemicals are More Harmful Than Anyone Ever Suspected\u201d
\nAuthor: Peter Montague
\nhttp:\/\/www.precaution.org\/lib\/06\/ht061012.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

Student Researchers: Kristen Kebler and Michael Januleski
\nFaculty Evaluator: Gary Evans, M.D.<\/p>\n

Research suggests that, contrary to previous belief, our behavior and our environmental conditions may program sections of our children\u2019s DNA. New evidence about how genes interact with the environment suggests that many industrial chemicals may be more ominously dangerous than previously thought. It is increasingly clear that the effects of toxic exposure may be passed on through generations, in ways that are still not fully understood. \u201cThis introduces the concept of responsibility into genetics and inheritance,\u201d said Dr. Moshe Szyf, a researcher at McGill University in Montreal, \u201cThis may revolutionize medicine. You aren\u2019t eating and exercising just for yourself, but for your lineage.\u201d1
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The new field of genetic research, called epigenetics, involves what scientists are referring to as a \u201csecond genetic code\u201d which influences how genes act in the body. If DNA is the hardware of inheritance, the epigenetic system is the software. The epigenetic system determines which genes get turned \u201coff\u201d or \u201con\u201d and how much of a certain protein they produce.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is this switching system that allows the genetic material in each cell to influence the creation of proteins\u2013which ones are manufactured, in what sequence, and how many. Proteins are the building blocks of our bodies. The chemicals and hormones in our bodies are proteins<\/em>. They determine, in large part, how we look, how we feel, even how we act.1
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now, it seems that this chemical switching system may also act in reverse. In most cases, epigenetic changes (changes to DNA from current environmental conditions) are not passed from parents to their offspring. Scientists are still not sure how\u2013but genes seem to be \u201cwiped clean\u201d after a sperm fertilizes an egg. Based on the recent data, however, researchers are intrigued by the notion that some of the genetic changes influenced by our diet, our behaviors, or our environment, may be passed on from generation to generation.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On average, 1,800 new chemicals are registered with the federal government each year and about 750 of these find their way into products, all with hardly any testing for health or environmental effects. The bad news about chemical contamination is steadily mounting, while the number of new chemicals is steadily increasing. Many critics of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries are renewing their admonitions that government agencies practice the \u201cprecautionary principle\u201d\u2013the rule of \u201cdo no harm first\u201d in the approval of new drugs and chemicals.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In 2005, the European Union responded to this situation by trying to enact a new law called Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH), which requires that chemicals be tested before<\/em> they are sold\u2013not after. As they say in Europe, \u201cNo data, no market.\u201d At the same time, US and European chemical industries\u2013and the White House\u2013began working overtime to subvert the European effort to enact REACH. Their efforts failed, however, and the REACH act was adopted by the European Union in December, 2006.2 Chemical companies throughout the US and Europe are still struggling with how they will respond to the new requirements.<\/p>\n

Citations
\n\u00a0\u00a0 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anne McIlroy, \u201cChemicals and Stress Cause Gene Changes That Can Be Inherited,\u201d Globe & Mail, <\/em>March 11, 2006. See http:\/\/www.precaution.org\/lib\/06\/prn_code_2.060311.htm.
\n\u00a0\u00a0 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cEuropean Parliament OKs World\u2019s Toughest Law on Toxic Chemicals,\u201d San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>, December 14, 2006.<\/p>\n

UPDATE BY PETER MONTAGUE
\nBasically this story tells us that environmental influences (like our mother\u2019s diet and her exposure to toxic chemicals) are far more important to us than anyone suspected just a decade ago.
\nIt turns out that environmental influences shape us from the moment of conception onward, and the earliest months and years of life are the most important ones. It is called \u201cfetal programming\u201d and it means our first environment (the womb) can determine what sorts of diseases will afflict us later in life. Furthermore, some of these early influences can be inherited by our offspring and even by their offspring. So your personal pattern of disease may have been set by your grandmother\u2019s diet, or by her exposure to toxicants.
\nThese findings imply that keeping toxic industrial chemicals out of the environment is far more urgent than anyone has previously thought. With more than 1,000 chemicals presently entering commercial channels each year with almost no health or safety testing, this is not welcome news.
\nIn May 2007, a group of two hundred scientists from five continents issued strongly worded consensus statement (the \u201cFaroes Statement\u201d) saying that early exposure to common chemicals leaves babies more likely to develop serious diseases later in life, including diabetes,<\/p>\n

attention deficits, certain cancers, thyroid disorders, and obesity, among others.
\nNotably, the scientists urged governments not to wait for more scientific certainty but to take precautionary action now to protect fetuses and children from toxic exposures.
\nMost of the mainstream press continued to tiptoe around this story, with a few important exceptions, until May 2007 when the Faroes statement blew the story open. Now that it is out in the open, we\u2019ll have to see if the mainstream press has what it takes to explain the far-reaching ramifications of these findings.
\nThe best source of information on this topic (and many others) is http:\/\/www.environmentalhealthnews.org. Search for \u201cepigenetics,\u201d \u201cfetal programming,\u201d or \u201cgene expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

e concerns, warns Parry, over how the Pentagon judges \u201cthreats\u201d and who falls under the category of \u201cthose who would harm us.\u201d A Pentagon official said the Counterintelligence Field Activity\u2019s TALON program has amassed files on antiwar protesters.<\/p>\n

In the view of some civil libertarians, a form of martial law already exists in the U.S. and has been in place since shortly after the September 11 attacks when Bush issued Military Order Number One, which empowered him to detain any noncitizen as an international terrorist or enemy combatant. Today that order extends to U.S. citizens as well.<\/p>\n

Farrell ends her article with the conclusion that while much speculation has been generated by KBR\u2019s contract to build huge detention centers within the U.S., \u201cThe truth is, we won\u2019t know the real purpose of these centers unless \u2018contingency plans are needed.\u2019 And by then, it will be too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

UPDATE BY PETER DALE SCOTT<\/strong>
\nThe contract of the Halliburton subsidiary KBR to build immigrant detention facilities is part of a longer-term Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of \u201call removable aliens\u201d and \u201cpotential terrorists.\u201d In the 1980s Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld discussed similar emergency detention powers as part of a super-secret program of planning for what was euphemistically called \u201cContinuity of Government\u201d (COG) in the event of a nuclear disaster. At the time, Cheney was a Wyoming congressman, while Rumsfeld, who had been defense secretary under President Ford, was a businessman and CEO of the drug company G.D. Searle.<\/p>\n

These men planned for suspension of the Constitution, not just after nuclear attack, but for any \u201cnational security emergency,\u201d which they defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: \u201cAny occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.\u201d Clearly September 11 would meet this definition, and did, for COG was instituted on that day. As the Washington Post later explained, the order \u201cdispatched a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington, activating for the first time long-standing plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

What these managers in this shadow government worked on has never been reported. But it is significant that the group that prepared ENDGAME was, as the Homeland Security document puts it, \u201cchartered in September 2001.\u201d For ENDGAME\u2019s goal of a capacious detention capability is remarkably similar to Oliver North\u2019s controversial Rex-84 \u201creadiness exercise\u201d for COG in 1984. This called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to round up and detain 400,000 imaginary \u201crefugees,\u201d in the context of \u201cuncontrolled population movements\u201d over the Mexican border into the United States.<\/p>\n

UPDATE BY MAUREEN FARRELL<\/strong>
\nWhen the story about Kellogg, Brown and Root\u2019s contract for emergency detention centers broke, immigration was not the hot button issue it is today. Given this, the language in Halliburton\u2019s press release, stating that the centers would be built in the event of an \u201cemergency influx of immigrants into the U.S.,\u201d raised eyebrows, especially among those familiar with Rex-84 and other Reagan-era initiatives. FEMA\u2019s former plans \u2018for the detention of at least 21 million American Negroes in assembly centers or relocation camps\u2019 added to the distrust, and the second stated reason for the KBR contract, \u201cto support the rapid development of new programs,\u201d sent imaginations reeling.<\/p>\n

While few in the mainstream media made the connection between KBR\u2019s contract and previous programs, Fox News eventually addressed this issue, pooh-poohing concerns as the province of \u201cconspiracy theories\u201d and \u201cunfounded\u201d fears. My article attempted to sift through the speculation, focusing on verifiable information found in declassified and leaked documents which proved that, in addition to drawing up contingency plans for martial law, the government has conducted military readiness exercises designed to round up and detain both illegal aliens and U.S. citizens.
\nHow concerned should Americans be? Recent reports are conflicting and confusing:<\/p>\n