KingCharlemagne
KingCharlemagne's JournalQuestion for Vietnam Veterans and American Historians: To what extent
was the CIA's torture program of the Bush years pre-figured by the CIA's Phoenix Program in Vietnam?
The program was in operation between 1965 and 1972, and similar efforts existed both before and after that period. By 1972, Phoenix operatives had "neutralized" 81,740 suspected NLF operatives, informants and supporters, of whom between 26,000 and 41,000 were killed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program (Emphasis Added)
Has anyone done any work on this apparent continuity or am I simply imagining the connection(s) between Vietnam\Southeast Asia and Afghanistan\Central Asia?
Riverside protesters struck in hit-and-run
Source: ABC News (Los Angeles affiliate)
A Riverside protest over recent police killings in Ferguson, Missouri and New York spun out of control, when a BMW pushed through the crowd and struck a handful of protesters Saturday evening, Riverside police said.
About 50 people were blocking Mission Inn Avenue at about 7 p.m. during the city's Festival of Lights, an annual five-week attraction on Main Street Riverside that includes holiday decorations, lights, an ice skating rink and other entertainment, when the driver plowed through and drove off.
~snip~
"A guy was just honking at us and honking," protester Mariah McCoy said. "We wouldn't move because we were chanting, and he just sped over and hit me on my leg, but I was able to move before he hit my whole body."
Riverside police were searching for a dark-colored BMW involved in the hit-and-run. A report filed by the victims claimed they had their toes run over, officials said. None of the protesters had any major injuries.
~Continues at link.
Read more: http://abc7.com/news/riverside-protesters-struck-in-hit-and-run/425438/
Other broadcast reports say that protesters got the license plate info of the Nazi-mobile. I hope the Riverside, CA County DA throws the book at the driver for felony assault with a deadly weapon and leaving the scene of an accident.
Readers are advised to peruse the comments with caution, as you will see some really puerile right-wing sentiments there.
If you still think the decision of the Michael Brown grand jury was fair or just, you really owe it
to yourself to read the FBI witness statement, grand jury testimony and purported 'journal entry' of Witness #40 -- or maybe I should say "so-called Witness #40" -- in volume 15 of the transcript (starting at page 84 with the FBI statement and proceeding to the GJ testimony about 100 pages further on). Supposedly Witness #40 made a 'wrong turn' and ended up on Canfield just in time to see the events go down pretty much exactly as Wilson described them. Only problem is that the FBI got Witness #40 to admit he had lied, made racist statements and gone online to 'refresh' his memories of what he claimed he had witnessed. Oh yeah, and there was no way he could have gotten on to Canfield the way he claimed, probably because MapQuest didn't show that the road he claimed he used was physically blocked to vehicular traffic.
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1370504-grand-jury-volume-15.html
As you read it, remember that this testimony and journal were submitted to the Grand Jury as having some sort of official imprimatur, as having standing as evidence and eyewitness testimony. You cannot make this stuff up. I've referred to this Grand Jury as a 'kangaroo court' before and reading this utter tripe validates my initial assessment and amplifies it.
Here's how the journal entry, purportedly written on August 9 (the day Michael Brown was killed) but only brought to the attention of the Grand Jury the day the witness testified, begins:
DA McCulloch and his staff of little Eichmanns allowed this obvious hoax to be submitted to the Grand Jury as evidence and eyewitness testimony. They allowed what they knew or should have known to be perjured testimony to be given to the GJ. So I want to know why the U.S. Dept. of Justice hasn't already indicted McCulloch and his staff for conspiracy to obstruct justice and for conspiracy to violate Michael Brown's civil rights.
All NFL players should declare a General Strike until Jeff Roorda steps down
from his position as Executive Director of the St. Louis Police Officers Association and until St. Louis County DA Bob McCulloch recuses himself so that Governor Nixon can appoint a Special Prosecutor with no ties to local law enforcement.
No Justice, No NFL.
It's really that simple.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025892751
A sober warning (and one of the best essays I have read thus far about Ferguson):
~snip~
It's a dire evil to have any cultural, political, or institutional tolerance for lynching by badge. But you don't get to the point where you have a national crisis from that without some pretty highly placed enablers and gatekeepers in elite places. Malignant tumors benefit from a well-suppressed immune system, and a nation that has a nagging sickness in its body is no different. I find it a breathtaking compounding of injustice to have a man like Bob McCulloch at the wheel at the exact time that you fundamentally needed his opposite. At a point when our nation needed to cement the vitally important message to everyone in the land that, yes, you can have full faith in the rule of law. What this nation needed was clear. Here. Look. Justice is possible. The system works. But that is not the message that was sent out in this dark time.
On some deep and fundamental level a disaster like MucCulloch will always fail to grasp how institutionally and systemically malignant his pathetic performance has been for our nation. People are going to die because of this man. People are going to be hurt as a direct result of his willful and ignorant negligence and neglect. Because he had priorities other than justice. Worst of all? He's not alone. America's interests are truly threatened by "public servants" who serve a thin and very narrow slice of the public's good, and who do so in so smugly and so overtly a fashion. This was a dark day in this nation's history, mistaken by a fool for a triumph. His rambling, self-congratulatory babbling brings my blood to a boil whenever I think of it. He tried harder to put Twitter on trial than a murderer who gunned down an unarmed man.
No enemy of this nation has the ability to lay America low this way. From the inside. Hacking and chopping away at the foundation like it's repairing a crumbling road or bridge to do structural damage to it. Here. This. This is what you get. This is how things are versus how you might imagine or with things could or should be. Stop complaining. This is the deal. Suck it up. It is very possible that, someday, a cop is going to be shot and bleeding, and somebody who could help him, who once might have helped him, is just going to mind his or her own business and walk away. "Live by the sword, die by the sword". Like the cop and the drug dealer are just mirror sides of the same coin. That's what a performance like McCulloch's gets you as a nation over time. A nation where people who have to buy in, don't bother. They don't believe.
This is a force multiplier for really bad outcomes. This compounding of evil just cannot stand. Recently, an impatient driver plowed into a large crowd of protesters in Minnesota. Nothing came of it. Now, if you are a person who is already out in the streets over the free-pass murder of Michael Brown, do you have any good will towards the authorities to give out any benefit of the doubt here? Or. Does this compound what is already in your heart and mind and take you to an even darker place? Everything in context. Everything in the context of the moment. Certain people can kill a person of color whenever they claimed to feel threatened. Now? Some can even mow down a crowd of protesters for the sin of being inconvenienced. Everything just feeding negative energy into the great puke funnel that is drowning a dream.
~snip~
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/27/1347424/-Mr-McCulloch-s-America-Can-t-Stand
Mass Arrests Underway On 3rd Night Of Protest Across LA In Michael Brown Case
Source: CBS News (Los Angeles affiliate)
The Los Angeles Police Department made mass arrests of demonstrators Wednesday during the third night of protest in response to the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case.
According to officers, protesters were arrested an hour after an unlawful assembly was declared in the area of Sixth Street and Hope Street.
~snip~
In total, about 60 demonstrators were arrested.
“Right now, they are under arrest for failing to disperse,” Neiman explained. “A dispersal order was given earlier this evening. We’ve been following this group for some time now, and at this point we were finally able to contain them.
Continues at link
Read more: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/11/26/protesters-halt-traffic-on-101-fwy-in-downtown-la/
By arresting the 'troublemakers' on Thanksgiving Eve, the cops will keep them off the street until Monday at the earliest, if they cannot make the $500 bail.
I am a very unhappy Angeleno tonight.
I've been reading Volume 4 of the Grand Jury testimony, mainly
concerning testimony of Dorian Johnson thus far.
It's pretty riveting reading and, as a result of reading it, I'm now convinced that Wilson lied through his teeth in his GJ testimony about his reason for reversing his car. Had nothing to do with the Ferguson Market 'robbery' but everything to do with Wilson being pissed off that two black commoners were lipping off to him and not respecting his 'authoritah.' When he backed up, according to Johnson, Wilson shouted 'What did you just say?' at the two of them.
Johnson's account reads like true human experience. Wilson had to lie about why he reversed his car because the truth would make his shooting unjustifiable and thus open him to criminal liability. According to Johnson, Wilson said absolutely nothing about the alleged robbery at the Ferguson Market.
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1371051-grand-jury-volume-4.html (Johnson's comments about what Wilson said when he reversed his car appear first on p. 49 and again with the word 'just' added on p. 88.)
How did Wilson's gun get out of its fucking holster???? Answer that, you
motherfucking piece of shit McCulloch:
"During the altercation, two shots were fired by Officer Wilson . . . "
Starts at about 12:50 in the linked video.
How did that god-damned gun get out of that fucking holster, you worthless fucking piece of shit?
FBI Warns Ferguson Decision ‘Will Likely’ Lead to Violence By Extremists Protesters
Source: ABC News
As the nation waits to hear whether a Missouri police officer will face charges for killing unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the FBI is warning law enforcement agencies across the country that the decision “will likely” lead some extremist protesters to threaten and even attack police officers or federal agents.
~snip
“The announcement of the grand jury’s decision … will likely be exploited by some individuals to justify threats and attacks against law enforcement and critical infrastructure,” the FBI says in an intelligence bulletin issued in recent days. “This also poses a threat to those civilians engaged in lawful or otherwise constitutionally protected activities.”
Within hours of the FBI issuing its bulletin, some police departments across the country issued their own internal memos urging officers to review procedures and protocols for responding to mass demonstrations.
Still, the bulletin’s conclusions were blunt: “The FBI assesses those infiltrating and exploiting otherwise legitimate public demonstrations with the intent to incite and engage in violence could be armed with bladed weapons or firearms, equipped with tactical gear/gas masks, or bulletproof vests to mitigate law enforcement measures.”
~Continues at link
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fbi-warns-ferguson-decision-lead-violence-extremist-protesters/story?id=26980624
Notice how the FBI memo signally fails to mention any possibility of police violence or a 'police riot'? Nor is there any mention of the death threats made by the KKK.
Grammar goof in headline comes from ABC, not your humble narrator.
If you want to add your voice to the national protests expected when the St. Louis County
Grand Jury fails to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson for the murder\extra-judicial execution of Michael Brown, the link below contains a list of actions planned nationwide for the day of the announcement or the day after the announcement:
http://fergusonresponse.tumblr.com/
I will be attending the action at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles (the day after), but may also join spontaneous wildcat demos the day of.
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