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Herman Cain Doesn't Appear to Have a Campaign
Doug Bandow
It's Time to Declare Peace in the War Against Drugs
Posted: 10/19/11 11:23 AM ET
Americans like to style their nation as the land of the free. Yet the government is engaged in a war on its own people. The misnamed Drug War.
As Prof. Douglas Husak of Rutgers pointed out: "The war, after all, cannot really be a war on drugs, since drugs cannot be arrested, prosecuted, or punished. The war is against persons who use drugs. As such, the war is a civil war, fought against the 28 million Americans who use illegal drugs annually."
Arresting and jailing people because they use a substance which some people abuse is dubious enough on moral grounds. Even more it fails the test of cost-effectiveness.
As Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman argued, "we need not resolve the ethical issue to agree on policy. Prohibition is an attempted cure that makes matters worse for both the addict and the rest of us."
Banning drugs raises their price, creates enormous profits for criminal entrepreneurs, thrusts even casual users into an illegal marketplace, encourages heavy users to commit property crimes to acquire higher-priced drugs, leaves violence the only means for dealers to resolve disputes, forces government to spend lavishly on enforcement, corrupts public officials and institutions, and undermines a free society. All of these effects are evident today and are reminiscent of Prohibition (of alcohol) in the early 20th Century.
Perhaps the most obvious cost of enforcing the drug laws is financial. Government must create an expansive and expensive enforcement apparatus, including financial and military aid to other governments. At the same time, the U.S. authorities must forgo any tax revenue from a licit drug market. According to Harvard's Jeffrey A. Miron and doctoral candidate Katherine Waldock, in the U.S. alone "legalizing drugs would save roughly $41.3 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition" and "yield tax revenue of $46.7 billion annually."
The Drug War also has corrupted private and public institutions wherever it has reached. Worst are bribes to police, border control officials, Drug Enforcement Agency agents, and even military personnel involved in interdiction efforts. The taint also reaches prosecutors, judges, and politicians.
The problem is serious enough in the U.S. Worse, militarized enforcement, relentlessly pushed by Washington, has helped corrupt and destabilize entire nations, such as Colombia, Afghanistan, and Mexico.
Prohibition is advanced to protect users from themselves. However, the illegal marketplace makes drug use more dangerous. Noted economists Daniel K. Benjamin and Roger Leroy Miller, "Many of the most visible adverse effects attributed to drug use... are due not to drug use per se, but to our current public policy toward drugs."
Products are adulterated; users have no means of guaranteeing quality. Given the threat of discovery, dealers prefer to transport and market more potent (and thus both more concealable and valuable) drugs. As a result, the vast majority of "drug-related" deaths are "drug law-related" deaths.
Moreover, AIDS spread through the sharing of needles by IV drug users, who cannot purchase needles legally. In the same way, the drug war has helped spread hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases.
The Drug War also interferes with treatment of the sick and dying. Cannabis and other drugs can aid people suffering from a variety of maladies. Additional research would help determine how, in what form, and for what marijuana could be best used. Yet government effectively punishes vulnerable people in great pain, even agony.
The drug laws also threaten the basic liberties of all Americans, whether or not they use drugs. The erosion of basic constitutional liberties is years in the making.
As classic "self-victim" crimes with no complaining witness, drug offenses require draconian enforcement techniques: informants, surveillance, wiretaps, and raids. Television commentator John Stossel noted that the Drug War is being used to "justify the militarization of the police, the violent disregard for our civil liberties, and the overpopulation of our prisons."
In the U.S. there are 100-plus SWAT raids every day, most for drug offenses. Innocent people are routinely harmed or killed in misdirected drug arrests and raids.
Lawyers openly speak of the "drug exception" to the Fourth Amendment's limits on government searches. Jack Cole, a former New Jersey policeman who co-founded Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), talked of "a war on constitutional rights."
He explained: "We would illegally search people all the time, because we felt like 'we're fighting a war, we're the good guys, and no matter how we get these guys, it's worthwhile because we're taking them off the streets and that's our job.' So that's why so many get involved in not telling the truth on the stand when they're testifying about drug cases. And you almost never find that in other cases."
Drug prohibition also distorts law enforcement priorities. Property forfeitures have turned into big business, giving government agencies "free" money. Police departments routinely seize property without criminal convictions. In many cases the government doesn't bother to file criminal charges. The lure of "free" cash has distorted police priorities.
Noted an amicus brief filed before the Supreme Court by the Cato Institute, Goldwater Institute, and Reason Foundation: forfeiture "provides powerful, dangerous, and unconstitutional financial incentives for law enforcement agencies and prosecutors offices to overreach."
The Drug War has turned America into a prison state. There were 13.7 million arrests in 2009, more than ten percent of which, 1.7 million, were for drug offenses. Nearly half of the latter were for marijuana. In comparison, just 590,000 people were arrested for violent crimes. Overall, 80 percent of drug arrests are for possession. More than half of federal prisoners are serving time for drug offenses. About 20 percent of state prisoners are incarcerated for drug crimes.
Lisa Trei at Stanford University observed: "In 1980, about 2 million people in the United States were under some kind of criminal justice supervision, said [Professor Lawrence] Bobo, the director of Stanford's Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. By 2000, the figure had jumped to about 6 million -- and the United States had become the country that incarcerated its citizens more frequently than any other major western industrialized nation. The jump is largely attributed to the government's ongoing war on drugs."
In short, the self-proclaimed "land of the free" is more likely than any other to throw its citizens into jail for an act of self-harm. Over the last two decades more people have gone to jail for drug offenses than for violent crimes.
Moreover, arrests and imprisonment disproportionately affect African-Americans, who make up only about 13 percent of the population but account for 34 percent of drug arrests and 45 percent of state prisoners convicted of drug offences. This exacerbates problems in a community where families are less often intact and job opportunities are less available.
Finally, the negative social impact of the drug laws includes more crime. Drugs are rarely "crimogenic." In fact, many illicit substances, such as marijuana and heroin, encourage passivity. (In contrast, alcohol loosens inhibitions of would be perpetrators and victims alike.)
Some users steal to fund their habits, but that often reflects high prices resulting from prohibition. Most of the crimes attributed to cocaine and even crack result from forcing drugs into an illegal market.
As Prohibition spurred the growth of the traditional mob, drug prohibition has encouraged newer forms of organized crime. My Cato Institute colleagues David Boaz and Timothy Lynch observed: "Addicts commit crimes to pay for a habit that would be easily affordable if it were legal. Police sources have estimated that as much as half the property crime in some major cities is committed by drug users."
Even worse, because drugs are illegal, participants in the drug trade cannot go to court to settle disputes. This leads to violence on the streets. Benjamin and Miller wrote: "If you want to establish an unmistakable, unbreakable link between drugs and crime, the surest way to do it is to make drugs illegal."
The Global Commission on Drug Policy reached the same conclusion: "increased arrests and law enforcement pressures on drug markets were strongly associated with increased homicide rates and other violent crimes." Even prohibition advocate James Q. Wilson acknowledged that "It is not clear that enforcing the laws against drug use would reduce crime. On the contrary, crime may be caused by such enforcement."
Professor Husak estimated that such "systemic" crimes account for three-quarters of "drug-related" crime. Veritable wars over the drug trade have broken out in foreign nations, such as Mexico.
Despite all this effort, drug prohibition appears to have accomplished little. Noted Mary M. Cleveland: "Most people choose not to use illicit drugs even when they have cheap and easy access to them. Enforcement can have some effect on light users; regular and problem users will get their drugs even in prison. Drug treatment and changes in social norms have far more influence on drug use than enforcement because they affect individuals' attitudes."
For years drug use increased even among teens, the vast majority of whom told government researchers that it was easy to find and purchase drugs. Government figures indicate that 118 million Americans above the age of 12, or 47 percent, have used illegal drugs. A similar percentage of high school students have tried illegal drugs before graduation.
Concluded Mike Trace, Chairman of the International Drug Policy Consortium: "Various mixtures of these strategies and tactics have been implemented around the world over the last 50 years, but there is no evidence that any national government has been able to achieve anything like the objective of a controlled and diminished drug market, let alone a drug free world."
In fact, enforcement often appears to correlate with increased use. Attorney and author Glenn Greenwald noted that "The prevalence rate for cocaine usage in the United States was so much higher than the other countries surveyed that the researchers formally characterized it as an 'outlier'."
Other countries with an emphasis on enforcement, such as Australia and Canada, also exhibit higher than average drug use. The Economist magazine stated simply that "There is no correlation between the harshness of drug laws and the incidence of drug-taking: citizens living under tough regimes (notably America but also Britain) take more drugs, not fewer."
The terrible price of the Drug War has sparked growing interest in Latin America in real reform. Leading politicians, including former Mexican presidents Vincente Fox and Ernesto Zedillo, Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and Colombian president Cesar Gaviria, have begun pressing for Drug Peace.
One could imagine anything from open commercial sales, with only age-related restrictions (the cigarette model) to sales through restricted, even government, stores backed by limits on marketing and advertising (the alcohol model). Individual drugs could be treated differently, depending on assessments of harm and other factors.
The strongest individual liberty position suggests few restrictions on adult drug use. Any controls should not turn into prohibition sub rosa and should be carefully focused on limiting the impact of drug abuse on others.
Most obviously, sales to children should be restricted. Ironically, prohibition today endangers kids, pushing youthful experimentation into criminal black markets rather than into less harmful gray markets. In contrast, legalization for adults would allow greater emphasis on reducing leakage to minors.
Overall drug use likely would increase, but perhaps not as much as commonly assumed. Given the porous nature of drug prohibition, the most likely abusers already have access to drugs.
In their detailed book, Drug War Heresies, Robert MacCoun and Peter Reuter concluded that "Reductions in criminal sanctioning have little or no effect on the prevalence of drug use (i.e., the number of users)" and that "If relaxed drug laws increase the prevalence of use..., the additional users will, on average, use less heavily and less harmfully than those who would have also used drugs under prohibition."
In fact, America had fewer problems with cocaine and heroin when they were legal. Moreover, consumption of both alcohol and especially tobacco has fallen in recent years without a "war," and even before politicians began dramatically hiking tobacco taxes.
Indeed, legalization would not be a step into the unknown. Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland all have allowed some drug use without criminal prosecution. (Foreign practices often are complicated: Britain, for instance, was famed for permitting regulated heroin use, but limited that option in recent years and is harsh in other ways.) Many nations, as well as a dozen U.S. states, have effectively decriminalized marijuana use.
Such systems are not without problems because drug use is not without problems. In particular, a small country, like the Netherlands, which liberalizes its laws is likely to attract users from other nations, creating difficulties unrelated to drug liberalization per se. Nevertheless, countries which have reformed and U.S. states which have decriminalized their drug laws have suffered no great increase in consumption.
For example, Portugal decriminalized use of all drugs, including cocaine and heroin, a decade ago. The measure was advanced, wrote Glenn Greenwald, "as the most effective government policy for reducing addiction and its accompanying harms" by encouraging users to seek treatment.
Adult use has increased only modestly while consumption by minors actually has fallen: "None of the parade of horrors that decriminalization opponents in Portugal predicted, and that decriminalization opponents around the world typically invoke, has come to pass," explained Greenwald. More people are in treatment, as users no longer fear criminal sanction. Drug-related HIV infections and mortality rates are down. Drug use in Portugal remains low compared to the rest of the European Union.
Drug use may not be wise -- indeed, some drugs inevitably will be abused by some people. However, a free people should be allowed to make mistakes. Especially when the cost of trying to protect them from themselves is so high.
Prohibition advocates are brutally determined to impose their will on everyone else, turning the Drug War into a broad assault on a free society. Argued attorney Steven Wisotsky: "the War on Drugs actually is a war on the American people--their values, needs and choices, freely expressed in the marketplace of consumer goods." Drug enforcement actually targets many of our most important liberties.
It is time to end the Drug War. The U.S. government should declare Drug Peace.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/doug-bandow/its-time-to-declare-peace_b_1019665.html
Verbatim: Illusory spending cuts
An argument by John Merline of Investor's Business Daily
Sunday, October 23, 2011
John Merline, writing in Investor's Business Daily on Monday, made a trenchant criticism of the idea that budget austerity has contributed to our current crisis. We've reprinted a section of his piece here.
When Republicans took control of the House in January, they pledged to make deep cuts in federal spending, and in April they succeeded in getting a bill advertised as cutting $38 billion from fiscal 2011's budget. Then in August, they pushed for a deal to cut another $2.4 trillion over the next decade.
Some analysts have blamed these spending cuts for this year's economic slowdown.
But data released by the Treasury Department on Friday show that, so far, there hasn't been any spending cuts at all.
In fact, in the first nine months of this year, federal spending was $120 billion higher than in the same period in 2010, the data show. That's an increase of almost 5%. And deficits during this time were $23.5 billion higher.
These spending hikes haven't stopped many analysts from claiming that the country is in an age of budget austerity, one that's hurting economic growth.
A July article in USA Today, for example, claimed that "Already in 2011, softer government spending has sapped growth."
Jared Bernstein, former chief economic adviser to Vice President Biden, wrote over the summer that "government spending cutbacks have been a large drag on growth in recent quarters and have led to sharp losses in state and local employment."
Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued in September that "the turn toward austerity [is] a major factor in our growth slowdown."
If government spending is related to growth, as these and others claim, then the economy presumably should be growing faster, not slower, given the current higher rates of federal outlays.
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/10/23/102311-opinions-verbatim-merline-austerity/
Mark Wrote:
"The idea that we need to support weak or fledgling governments for one "reason (normally an excuse based in bullshit and sold to the public) or another" is not sustainable in an open and honest debate. New stronger and better nations are born in strife...in time all on their own they will come to this realization all on their own. Without US and foreign funds to prop up these madmen they would soon fail."
============
============
Uhm......How do we explain away France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, (All of Europe for that matter) Japan, South Korea, etc., etc., etc.?
On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 12:12 PM, THE ANNOINTED ONE <markmkahle@gmail.com> wrote:
If one could get the present day idea that the US actually has
"responsibilities" for how people live and under what law and type of
government in other countries Ron Paul makes sense. The US has no
"national security interests" in Iraq, Iran, Libya, the Congo, or any
where else.... I could be sold on Mexico... or JUST the poppy fields
in Afghanistan... but beyond that... destroy the bases and bring them
all home. The idea that we need to support weak or fledgling
governments for one "reason (normally an excuse based in bullshit and
sold to the public) or another" is not sustainable in an open and
honest debate. New stronger and better nations are born in strife...
in time all on their own they will come to this realization all on
their own. Without US and foreign funds to prop up these madmen they
would soon fail.
> But?
>
> What if T goes to Memphis, traveling at 15 miles per hour, and P catches
> oysters in week 3. The "fighting escape and counter measures are allowed in
> Week 4", after T realizes that there is no disutility for P, and T has no
> mechanism without decree to tax P's oysters?
>
> No wonder why most of the Paul supporters are Crackpots, and that Paul only
> chooses to address his core audience of crackpots, versus trying to address
> the American people or provide a campaign whch would enlarge his
> consitiuency.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 9:30 AM, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:> > *Posted by Michael S. Rozeff <ms...@buffalo.edu> on October 22, 2011 03:06
>
> > *Income vs. Consumption Tax: My Take
> > For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum> > AM
>
> > This lengthy blog analyzes a simple case in order to argue that Rothbard is
> > correct on the issue of income vs. consumption tax. The last portion of it
> > suggests that Cain's proposal is a Trojan Horse and that Ron Paul is the
> > only candidate with the courage to address the main issue: the size and
> > power of government itself. How the government finances itself by taxes is
> > distinctly secondary to the power to tax us in the first place.
>
> > Let's analyze this issue of income vs. consumption taxation in the
> > simplest possible way. Two people inhabit an island. Person P produces 5
> > fish a day. Person T has the power to tax person P by taking one fish from
> > P's take. This is a lump-sum income tax. P is unable to hide any fish and T
> > taxes P without any cost of taxation, i.e., assume no tax evasion and no
> > costs of collecting the tax. There is no explicit pricing of the fish.
> > Assume that P and T both live one period and then die. All of this is
> > certain.
>
> > Assume that P consumes all 5 fish a day prior to the appearance and
> > taxation of T. P's income is 5 fish a day at each of two periods and his
> > consumption is also 5 fish a day. T appears and announces the income tax. P
> > must comply (by assumption). Fighting, escape and counter-measures are ruled
> > out.
>
> > In order to optimize, P works up to the point where the disutility of
> > spending time fishing (working) equals the utility of getting a fish to eat.
>
> > P has two options. First, he can work harder each period to produce 6 fish
> > a day, one of which he hands over to T. If he does this, the income tax is a
> > tax on his leisure time. His consumption is unchanged. He will do this if
> > the additional disutility of work (the marginal disutility of work) is less
> > than the additional utility of consumption. Second, he can work the same
> > time, producing 5 and consuming 4. He does this if the marginal disutility
> > of working to produce a sixth fish exceeds the marginal utility of consuming
> > one fish fewer. (A third option, which is to produce 4 fish and consume 3,
> > doesn't appear to be rational.) In this case, the tax manifests itself as a
> > tax on both income and consumption.
>
> > If T knows P's utility function, then he can set a tax rate instead of a
> > lump-sum tax of one fish. If he knows that P wants to produce and consume 5
> > fish net of tax, then he sets the income tax rate at 16.67 percent. When P
> > produces 6 fish. he then gives up one and consumes the other 5. If he knows
> > that P wants to work only enough to produce 5 fish, then he sets the income
> > tax rate at 20 percent.
>
> > Now we analyze a consumption tax. T wants to take one fish. T has to choose
> > a tax rate t such that t x C = 1 fish, where C = P's fish consumption. P has
> > to find it rational to produce C + tC fish and hand tC fish over to P, where
> > t C = 1. Therefore, t = 1/C. The way that this tax works is that after P
> > consumes some fish, he then is forced to work enough additional time so as
> > to produce one fish for T. If P consumes 5 fish, he must work enough to
> > generate one more fish for T. The consumption tax is 20 percent of the fish
> > consumed. His implicit income tax rate via this consumption tax is 1/6 =
> > 16.67 percent. T sets the consumption tax at this rate. If P consumes 4
> > fish, then he must work to produce 5 fish. Then T sets the consumption tax
> > at 25 percent, and the implied income tax rate is 20 percent.
>
> > T has to know P's utility for work and leisure when setting the consumption
> > tax rate so as to net himself one fish. He also needed to know that in order
> > to set an income tax rate.
>
> > I've made T's taxation a given amount, one fish, and then showed at what
> > rates T can get what he wants. The idea is that this represents a fixed
> > amount of government spending. T will take and eat that one fish, and he
> > wants to set either an income tax or a consumption tax that achieves that
> > result. He can use either tax, a consumption tax or an income tax. They both
> > come down to a tax on P's labor for his benefit. This is simultaneously a
> > tax on P's leisure, since labor time takes away from leisure time.
>
> > In this modeling of the taxation, Rothbard is correct. The intuition is
> > that the tax man can get a given take by either means, income or
> > consumption, by adjusting the tax rates. The size of the tax man's spending
> > is the tax. The nature of the tax and the rates chosen to achieve the tax
> > are a matter of indifference to the taxpayer P in this simple model.
>
> > Suppose that we allow two time periods and suppose that P is able to
> > postpone consumption by storing fish for one period. This may have utility
> > for him, in which case there is an implicit rate of return or yield from
> > storage. Suppose, for example, that P can work harder and easier when he is
> > younger. He prefers to produce 6 fish in period one of which he saves one
> > and consumes 5. In period two, he produces 4 fish and saves none. He then
> > consumes 5 fish, consisting of the 4 from period two production and the one
> > that he saved.
>
> > Along comes T who wants some of P's fish. His taxation policy depends on
> > what sort of consumption through time that he prefers. He too can save and
> > store fish. What he will do is tax P more heavily in period one and save
> > fish for later consumption. It seems intuitive that if he knows P's utility
> > function he can select either consumption or income tax rates to achieve his
> > tax take.
>
> > The type of tax starts to matter both to producers and government when we
> > allow more than one producer, each of whom has different utility functions.
> > Further complication arises when each producer has distinctive production
> > opportunities and obtains finance from other savers. A single tax rate then
> > affects different producers differently. To produce a given take, the tax
> > man will have to discriminate among producers by imposing different tax
> > rates and using different kinds of taxes. The costs of tax evasion are
> > another realistic factor.
>
> > However, even if they matter, all that this does is get people arguing with
> > one another and fighting one another over who is going to work to pay the
> > taxes. These disputes cloud a larger issue, which is the overall size of the
> > taxes, and even that is not the main issue. Government spending has to be
> > coming out of the work product of Americans. It is the best single measure
> > of total taxes that we have. Government spending is the main issue. It's the
> > main issue, in my view, because it's so enormously wasteful and destructive.
>
> > In my opinion, any new form of taxation of Americans, such as a value-added
> > tax or a national sales tax, under the guise of saving the system or
> > balancing the federal government's budget, is a Trojan Horse. It should be
> > strongly and immediately rejected by Americans. It is only going to enslave
> > us further. Cain's plan and any similar plans will end up raising taxes and
> > thereby assuring that government spending is not cut.
>
> > Ron Paul has had the courage to recommend eliminating five government
> > departments. That's for starters. He has the correct focus. That results in
> > tax cuts. That results in more freedom. That results in less waste and less
> > destruction of productive opportunities.
>
> > Getting worked up over different forms of taxation is a diversion from the
> > main issue, which is the power of government to tax in the first place and
> > then use the resources forcibly extracted from laborers (producers) so
> > wastefully.
>
> > --
> > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
>
> > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/
> > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
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Hey PlainOl!
Last week, Palin was a Zionist Jew....This week, Palin is now acceptable?
Color me confused.....
<Grin>!
On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 9:31 AM, plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> wrote:
non-intervention is the best policy for Americans
On Oct 23, 7:54 am, Bruce Majors <majors.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
> --------
>
> New post on ACGR's "News with Attitude"
>
> Palin endorses Ron Paul's position on international militarism
>
> by Harold
>
> Michael Krebs, Digital Journal 10/22/2011 In the wake of the killing of
> Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, the anti-militarism sentiments of
> Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul appear to be gaining ground with
> the GOP establishment, as Sarah Palin openly backed Paul's position. The
> controversial killing of Libya's Colonel Gaddafi has brought with it a wave
> of [...]
>
> Read more of this post
>
> Harold | October 23, 2011 at 8:28 am | Categories: Corruption, Criminal
> Activity, Elections/Voting, Executive, Government, International/Global,
> Libya, Military, Nation Building/Empire, NATO, NeoConservatives, Pentagon,
> Police State, Progressives, Propaganda, Ron Paul, U.S. Constitution, United
> Nations | URL:http://wp.me/pmtmV-6OX
>
> Comment See all comments
>
> Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions.
>
> Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser:http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/07-664/
>
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WordPress.com
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MY POST WAS IN THE WRONG PLACE!!!!!!!!!!! AAARRRRRGGGGG!! SORRY.
--
Mark M. Kahle H.
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On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Sage2 <wisdom812@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry Mark but I was talking about Libya !
On Oct 24, 2:16 pm, Mark <markmka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ummmmm, This is about Tunisia, not Libya.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 11:26 AM, margareth <mzeba...@sympatico.ca> wrote:> > For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
> > I thought that Qaddafy (or what ever) had implemented strict Sharia
> > Law many years ago, when he first came to power...Back in the days
> > when he supported al Qaeda, by bombing US aircraft, and setting off
> > bombs around the world. That was before he realized how important
> > selling oil to the Europeans was for supporting his way of life.
> > Remember Pan Am?
>
> > On Oct 24, 12:03 pm, THE ANNOINTED ONE <markmka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > They don't have a constitution yet. Women do vote there. "Catholic
> > > Girl" style uniforms are worn to class. After so very many years of
> > > "secular" acceptance it will be extremely hard to implement Sharia
> > > whose judges must be clerics. When I was last there (been there
> > > several times) at call to prayer they simply stopped what they were
> > > doing for a couple of minutes... Tunisians are not as idiotic as the
> > > rest of the Arab rule... lets wait and see.
>
> > > On Oct 24, 9:38 am, Sage2 <wisdom...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > So much for freedom and human rights for the Libyans, especially
> > > > women and children. From one Tyranny to another; great job NATObama .
>
> > --
> > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
>
> > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/
> > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.> *Mark M. Kahle H.*
> > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>
> --
> *
> *
> *
> *- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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Mark M. Kahle H.
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Muslims tell DOJ to
find a way to crimalize criticism of
Islam!
---
Not content to respond with debate and internet censorship, Israel's
PR rep, the Anti-Defamation League, has been struggling to do what it
does best: Make such criticism a hate crime.
find a way to crimalize criticism of
Islam!
---
Not content to respond with debate and internet censorship, Israel's
PR rep, the Anti-Defamation League, has been struggling to do what it
does best: Make such criticism a hate crime.
ADL's latest "anti-bullying" legislation, HR 6216, which has been
dubbed the Don't Criticize Jews and Muslims Act, was submitted last
month to the US House of Representatives by Jewish members of Congress
Sen. Arlen Specter and Reps. Brad Sherman and Elliot Engel. Its
purpose is to end increasing criticism of Israel on US campuses; it
would actually make such criticism, which creates "emotional distress"
in Jewish students, illegal.
By adding religion to the protected classes in the Civil Rights Act of
1964, this bill will criminalize general, repeated criticisms of broad
issues around Jewish religion and ethnicity. Like nothing else, the
state of Israel epitomizes Jewish religious aspirations, ethnicity and
culture. Although this bill is only one page long and seems innocent,
don't be deceived!
HR 6216 violates the Fourteenth Amendment by granting special rights
and privileges to yet another group under the Civil Rights Act. This
addition is especially ominous for Christians because Attorney General
Holder admitted federal hate crimes law does not protect Christians
but only Jews and Muslims. (See NPN Video, 'Holder Admits: No Equality
Under Hate Bill') This is another free speech-ending hate crimes bill
ADL is trying to sneak under the radar of the even more pro-Israel
Congress.
On Oct 24, 4:15 pm, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> **
> New post on *Creeping Sharia*
> <http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/author/creeping/> Muslims tell DOJ to
> find a way to crimalize criticism of
> Islam!<http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/muslims-tell-doj-to-fi...>by
> creeping <http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/author/creeping/>
>
> And cut back anti-terror funding amongst other things. Neil Munro with a
> very disturbing piece with absolutely unimaginable consequences when it
> becomes reality. And it will if we the People do not start protecting our
> freedoms. via Progressives | Islamists | Justice Department | The Daily
> Caller. Top Justice Department officials convened a meeting Wednesday [...]
>
> Read more of this
> post<http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/muslims-tell-doj-to-fi...>
> *creeping <http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/author/creeping/>* | October
> 24, 2011 at 11:45 AM | Tags: Barack
> Obama<http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/?tag=barack-obama>,
> cair <http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/?tag=cair>, Creeping
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> terrorism <http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/?tag=terrorism> | Categories:
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> Sharia<http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/?cat=29069>,
> Stealth Jihad <http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/?cat=10735225> | URL:http://wp.me/pbU4v-9TM
>
> Comment<http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/muslims-tell-doj-to-fi...>
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'Transparency' - Obama Rule Would Allow Feds to Lie about Existence of Official Records
Publius, Big Government.com
From ProPublica:
A proposed rule to the Freedom of Information Act would allow federal agencies to tell people requesting certain law-enforcement or national security documents that records don't exist – even when they do.
Under current FOIA practice, the government may withhold information and issue what's known as a Glomar denial that says it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records.
The new proposal – part of a lengthy rule revision by the Department of Justice – would direct government agencies to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."
Open-government groups object.
We don't believe the statute allows the government to lie to FOIA requesters," said Mike German, senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the provision.
The ACLU, along with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and OpenTheGovernment.org said the move would "dramatically undermine government integrity by allowing a law designed to provide public access to government to be twisted.
Read the whole thing here. Government Could Hide Existence of Records under FOIA Rule Proposal
by Jennifer LaFleur
ProPublica, Oct. 24, 2011, 10:26 a.m.
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A proposed rule to the Freedom of Information Act would allow federal agencies to tell people requesting certain law-enforcement or national security documents that records don't exist – even when they do.
Under current FOIA practice, the government may withhold information and issue what's known as a Glomar denial that says it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records.
The new proposal – part of a lengthy rule revision [1] by the Department of Justice – would direct government agencies to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."
Open-government groups object.
"We don't believe the statute allows the government to lie to FOIA requesters,"said Mike German, senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the provision.
The ACLU, along with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and OpenTheGovernment.org said the move would [2] "dramatically undermine government integrity by allowing a law designed to provide public access to government to be twisted.
The Glomar denial arose in the mid-1970s when a Los Angeles Times reporter requested information about the CIA's Glomar Explorer [3], built to recover a sunken Soviet submarine and the CIA's attempt to suppress stories about it.
But the advocacy groups propose another response: You have requested "…records which, if they exist, would not be subject to the disclosure requirements of FOIA..."
They prefer such language because a last resort is to sue to obtain the records, something people requesting information might not do if they assumed that no records existed.
Open government groups also contend that the proposed rule could undermine judicial proceedings.
In a recent case brought by the ACLU of Southern California, the FBI denied the existence of documents. But the court later discovered that the documents did exist. In an amended order [4], U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney wrote that the "Government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the Court."
DOJ's draft FOIA rule was first published in March [1], but DOJ re-opened comment [5] submissions in September at the request of open-government groups. The new comment period ended October 19.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment. We will update as soon as it does.
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America's Secret Empire of Drone Bases: Its Full Extent Revealed for the First Time
By Nick Turse
AlterNet and TomDispatch
Posted October 16, 2011; Printed October 23, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152756/
They increasingly dot the planet. There's a facility
outside Las Vegas where "pilots" work in climate-
controlled trailers, another at a dusty camp in Africa
formerly used by the French Foreign Legion, a third at a
big air base in Afghanistan where Air Force personnel
sit in front of multiple computer screens, and a fourth
that almost no one talks about at an air base in the
United Arab Emirates.
And that leaves at least 56 more such facilities to
mention in an expanding American empire of unmanned
drone bases being set up worldwide. Despite frequent
news reports on the drone assassination campaign
launched in support of America's ever-widening
undeclared wars and a spate of stories on drone bases in
Africa and the Middle East, most of these facilities
have remained unnoted, uncounted, and remarkably
anonymous -- until now.
Run by the military, the Central Intelligence Agency,
and their proxies, these bases -- some little more than
desolate airstrips, others sophisticated command and
control centers filled with computer screens and high-
tech electronic equipment -- are the backbone of a new
American robotic way of war. They are also the latest
development in a long-evolving saga of American power
projection abroad -- in this case, remote-controlled
strikes anywhere on the planet with a minimal foreign
"footprint" and little accountability.
Using military documents, press accounts and other open
source information, an in-depth analysis by AlterNet has
identified at least 60 bases integral to U.S. military
and CIA drone operations. There may, however, be more,
since a cloak of secrecy about drone warfare leaves the
full size and scope of these bases distinctly in the
shadows.
A Galaxy of Bases
Over the last decade, the American use of unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned aerial systems (UAS)
has expanded exponentially as has media coverage of
their use. On September 21st, the Wall Street Journal
reported that the military has deployed missile-armed
MQ-9 Reaper drones on the "island nation of Seychelles
to intensify attacks on al Qaeda affiliates,
particularly in Somalia." A day earlier, a Washington
Post piece also mentioned the same base on the tiny
Indian Ocean archipelago, as well as one in the African
nation of Djibouti, another under construction in
Ethiopia, and a secret CIA airstrip being built for
drones in an unnamed Middle Eastern country (suspected
of being Saudi Arabia).
Post journalists Greg Miller and Craig Whitlock reported
that the "Obama administration is assembling a
constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism
operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian
Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to
attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen."
Within days, the Post also reported that a drone from
the new CIA base in that unidentified Middle Eastern
country had carried out the assassination of radical al-
Qaeda preacher and American citizen Anwar al-Aulaqi in
Yemen.
With the killing of al-Aulaqi, the Obama Administration
has expanded its armed drone campaign to no fewer than
six countries, though the CIA, which killed al-Aulaqi,
refuses to officially acknowledge its drone
assassination program. The Air Force is less coy about
its drone operations, yet there are many aspects of
those, too, that remain in the shadows. Air Force
spokesman Lieutenant Colonel John Haynes recently told
AlterNet that, "for operational security reasons, we do
not discuss worldwide operating locations of Remotely
Piloted Aircraft, to include numbers of locations around
the world."
Still, those 60 military and CIA bases around the world,
directly connected to the drone program, tell us a lot
about America's war-making future. From command and
control and piloting to maintenance and arming, these
facilities perform key functions that allow drone
campaigns to continued expanding as they have for more
than a decade. Other bases are already under
construction or in the planning stages. When presented
with our list of Air Force sites within America's galaxy
of drone bases, Lieutenant Colonel Haynes responded, "I
have nothing further to add to what I've already said."
Even in the face of government secrecy, however, much
can be discovered . Here, then, for the record is a
AlterNet accounting of America's drone bases in the
United States and around the world.
The Near Abroad
News reports have frequently focused on Creech Air Force
Base outside Las Vegas as ground zero in America's
military drone campaign. Sitting in darkened, air
conditioned rooms, 7,500 miles from Afghanistan, drone
pilots dressed in flight suits remotely control MQ-9
Reapers and their progenitors, the less heavily-armed
MQ-1 Predators. Beside them, sensor operators manipulate
the TV camera, infrared camera, and other high-tech
sensors on board. Their faces lit up by digital
displays showing video feeds from the battle zone, by
squeezing a trigger on a joystick one of these Air Force
"pilots" can loose a Hellfire missile on a person half a
world away.
While Creech gets the lion's share of attention -- it
even has its own drones on site -- numerous other bases
on U.S. soil have played critical roles in America's
drone wars. The same video-game-style warfare is
carried out by U.S and British pilots not far away at
Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base, the home of the Air
Force's 2nd Special Operations Squadron (SOS).
According to a factsheet provided to AlterNet by the Air
Force, the 2nd SOS and its drone operators are scheduled
to be relocated to the Air Force Special Operations
Command at Hurlburt Field in Florida in the coming
months.
Reapers or Predators are also being flown from Davis-
Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, Whiteman Air Force
Base in Missouri, March Air Reserve Base in California,
Springfield Air National Guard Base in Ohio, Cannon Air
Force Base and Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico,
Ellington Airport in Houston, Texas, the Air National
Guard base in Fargo, North Dakota, Ellsworth Air Force
Base in South Dakota, and Hancock Field Air National
Guard Base in Syracuse, New York. Recently, it was
announced that Reapers, flown by Hancock's pilots, would
begin taking off on training missions from the Army's
Fort Drum, also in New York State. While at Langley Air
Force Base in Virginia, according to a report by the New
York Times earlier this year, teams of camouflage-clad
Air Force analysts sit in a secret intelligence and
surveillance installation monitoring cell phone
intercepts, high altitude photographs, and most notably,
multiple screens of streaming live video from drones in
Afghanistan -- what they call "Death TV" -- while
instant-messaging and talking to commanders on the
ground in order to supply them with real-time
intelligence on enemy troop movements.
CIA drone operators also reportedly pilot their aircraft
from the Agency's nearby Langley, Virginia headquarters.
It was from here that analysts apparently watched
footage of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, for
example, thanks to video sent back by the RQ-170
Sentinel, an advanced drone nicknamed the "Beast of
Kandahar." According to Air Force documents, the
Sentinel is flown from both Creech Air Force Base and
Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.
Predators, Reapers, and Sentinels are just part of the
story. At Beale Air Force Base in California, Air Force
personnel pilot the RQ-4 Global Hawk, an unmanned drone
used for long-range, high-altitude surveillance
missions, some of them originating from Anderson Air
Force Base in Guam (a staging ground for drone flights
over Asia). Other Global Hawks are stationed at Grand
Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, while the
Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base in Ohio manages the Global Hawk as well as
the Predator and Reaper programs for the Air Force.
Other bases have been intimately involved in training
drone operators, including Randolph Air Force Base in
Texas and New Mexico's Kirtland Air Force Base, as is
the Army's Fort Huachuca in Arizona which is home to,
according to a report by National Defense magazine, "the
world's largest UAV training center." There, hundreds
of employees of defense giant General Dynamics train
military personnel to fly smaller tactical drones like
the Hunter and Shadow. The physical testing of drones
goes on at adjoining Libby Army Airfield and "two UAV
runways located approximately four miles west of Libby,"
according to Global Security, an on-line clearinghouse
for military information.
Additionally, small drone training for the Army is
carried out at Fort Benning in Georgia while at Fort
Rucker, Alabama -- "the home of Army aviation" -- the
Unmanned Aircraft Systems program coordinates doctrine,
strategy, and concepts pertaining to UAVs. Recently,
Fort Benning also saw the early testing of true robotic
drones - which fly without human guidance or a hand on
any joystick. This is considered, wrote the Washington
Post, the next step toward a future in which drones will
"hunt, identify, and kill the enemy based on
calculations made by software, not decisions made by
humans."
The Army has also carried out UAV training exercises at
Dugway Proving Ground in Utah and, earlier this year,
the Navy launched its X-47B, a next-generation semi-
autonomous stealth drone, on its first flight at Edwards
Air Force Base in California. That flying robot --
designed to operate from the decks of aircraft carriers
-- has since been sent on to Maryland's Naval Air
Station Patuxent River for further testing. At nearby
Webster Field, the Navy worked out kinks in its Fire
Scout pilotless helicopter, which has also been tested
at Fort Rucker, Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, and
Florida's Mayport Naval Station and Jacksonville Naval
Air Station. The latter base was also where the Navy's
Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial
system was developed and is now, along with Naval Air
Station Whidbey Island in Washington State, based.
Foreign Jewels in the Crown
The Navy is actively looking for a suitable site in the
Western Pacific for a BAMS base, and is currently in
talks with several Persian Gulf states for one in that
region, as well. It already has Global Hawks perched at
its base in Sigonella, Italy.
The Air Force is now negotiating with Turkey to relocate
some of the Predator drones still operating in Iraq to
the giant air base at Incirlik next year. Many
different UAVs have been based in Iraq since the
American invasion of that country, including small
tactical models like Raven-B's that troops launched by
hand from Kirkuk Regional Air Base, Shadow UAVs that
flew from Forward Operating Base Normandy in Baqubah
Province, Predators operating out of Balad Airbase,
miniature Desert Hawk drones launched from Tallil Air
Base, and Scan Eagles based at Al Asad Air Base.
Elsewhere in the Greater Middle East, according to
Aviation Week, the military is launching Global Hawks
from Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates,
piloted by personnel stationed at Naval Air Station
Patuxent River in Maryland, to track "shipping traffic
in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Arabian Sea."
There are unconfirmed reports that the CIA may be
operating drones from that country as well. In the
past, at least, other UAVs have apparently been flown
from Kuwait's Ali Al Salem Air Base and Al Jaber Air
Base, as well as Seeb Air Base in Oman.
At Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the Air Force runs an air
operations command and control facility, critical to the
drone wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The new secret
CIA base on the Arabian peninsula, used to assassinate
Anwar al-Aulaqi, may or may not be an airstrip in Saudi
Arabia whose existence a senior U.S. military official
recently confirmed to FOX News. In the past, the CIA
has also operated UAVs out of Tuzel, Uzbekistan.
In neighboring Afghanistan, drones fly from many bases
including Jalalabad Air Base, Kandahar Air Field, the
air base at Bagram, Camp Leatherneck, Camp Dwyer, Combat
Outpost Payne, Forward Operating Base (FOB) Edinburgh
and FOB Delaram II, to name a few. Afghan bases are,
however, more than just locations where drones take off
and land.
It is a common misperception that U.S.-based operators
are the only ones who "fly" America's armed drones. In
fact, in and around America's war zones, UAVs begin and
end their flights under the control of local "pilots."
Take Afghanistan's massive Bagram Air Base. After
performing preflight checks alongside a technician who
focuses on the drone's sensors, a local airman sits in
front of a Dell computer tower and multiple monitors,
two keyboards, a joystick, a throttle, a rollerball, a
mouse, and various switches and oversees the plane's
takeoff before handing it over to a stateside
counterpart with a similar electronics set-up. After
the mission is complete, the controls are transferred
back to the local operators for the landing.
Additionally, crews in Afghanistan perform general
maintenance and repairs on the drones.
In the wake of a devastating suicide attack by an al-
Qaeda double agent that killed CIA officers and
contractors at Forward Operating Base Chapman in
Afghanistan's eastern province of Khost in 2009, it came
to light that the facility was heavily involved in
target selection for drone strikes across the border in
Pakistan. The drones themselves, as the Washington Post
noted at the time, were "flown from separate bases in
Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Both the Air Force and CIA have conducted operations in
Pakistani air space, with some missions originating in
Afghanistan and others from inside Pakistan. In 2006,
images of what appear to be Predator drones stationed at
Shamsi Air Base in Pakistan's Balochistan province were
found on Google Earth and later published. In 2009, the
New York Times reported that operatives from Xe
Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater, had
taken over the task of arming Predator drones at the
CIA's "hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
Following the May Navy SEAL raid into Pakistan that
killed Osama bin Laden, that country's leaders
reportedly ordered the United States to leave Shamsi.
The Obama administration evidently refused and word
leaked out, according to the Washington Post, that the
base was actually owned and sublet to the U.S. by the
United Arab Emirates, which had built the airfield "as
an arrival point for falconry and other hunting
expeditions in Pakistan."
The U.S. and Pakistani governments have since claimed
that Shamsi is no longer being used for drone strikes.
True or not, the U.S. evidently also uses other drone
bases in Pakistan, including possibly PAF Base Shahbaz,
located near the city of Jacocobad, and another base
located near Ghazi.
The New Scramble for Africa
Recently, the headline story, when it comes to the
expansion of the empire of drone bases, has been Africa.
For the last decade, the U.S. military has been
operating out of Camp Lemonier, a former French Foreign
Legion base in the tiny African nation of Djibouti. Not
long after the attacks of September 11, 2001, it became
a base for Predator drones and has since been used to
conduct missions over neighboring Somalia.
For some time, rumors have also been circulating about a
secret American base in Ethiopia. Recently, a U.S.
official revealed to the Washington Post that
discussions about a drone base there had been underway
for up to four years, "but that plan was delayed because
`the Ethiopians were not all that jazzed.'" Now
construction is evidently underway, if not complete.
Then, of course, there is that drone base on the
Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. A small fleet of Navy
and Air Force drones began operating openly there in
2009 to track pirates in the region's waters.
Classified diplomatic cables obtained by Wikileaks,
however, reveal that those drones have also secretly
been used to carry out missions in Somalia. "Based in a
hangar located about a quarter-mile from the main
passenger terminal at the airport," the Post reports,
the base consists of three or four "Reapers and about
100 U.S. military personnel and contractors, according
to the cables."
The U.S. has also recently sent four smaller tactical
drones to the African nations of Uganda and Burundi for
use by those countries' own militaries.
New and Old Empires
Even if the Pentagon budget were to begin to shrink in
the coming years, expansion of America's empire of drone
bases is a sure thing in the years to come. Drones are
now the bedrock of Washington's future military planning
and -- with counterinsurgency out of favor -- the
preferred way of carrying out wars abroad.
During the eight years of George W. Bush's presidency,
as the U.S. was building up its drone fleets, the
country launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and
carried out limited strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, and
Somalia, using drones in at least four of those
countries. In less than three years under President
Obama, the U.S. has launched drone strikes in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.
It maintains that it has carte blanche to kill suspected
enemies in any nation (or at least any nation in the
global south).
According to a report by the Congressional Budget office
published earlier this year, "the Department of Defense
(DoD) plans to purchase about 730 new medium-sized and
large unmanned aircraft systems" over the next decade.
In practical terms, this means more drones like the
Reaper.
Military officials told the Wall Street Journal that the
Reaper "can fly 1,150 miles from base, conduct missions
and return home. the time a drone can stay aloft depends
on how heavily armed it is." According to a drone
operator training document obtained by AlterNet, at
maximum payload, meaning with 3,750 pounds worth of
Hellfire missiles and GBU-12 or GBU-30 bombs on board,
the Reaper can remain aloft for 16 to 20 hours. Even a
glance at a world map tells you that, if the U.S. is to
carry out ever more drone strikes across the developing
world, it will need more bases for its future UAVs. As
an unnamed senior military official pointed out to a
Washington Post reporter, speaking of all those new
drone bases clustered around the Somali and Yemeni war
zones, "If you look at it geographically, it makes sense
-- you get out a ruler and draw the distances [drones]
can fly and where they take off from."
Earlier this year, an analysis by TomDispatch.com
determined that there are more than 1,000 U.S. military
bases scattered across the globe -- a shadowy base-world
that provides plenty of existing sites that can, and no
doubt will, host drones. But facilities selected for a
pre-drone world may not always prove optimal locations
for America's current and future undeclared wars and
assassination campaigns. So further expansion in
Africa, the Middle East, and Asia is likely.
What are the Air Force's plans in this regard?
Lieutenant Colonel John Haynes was typically
circumspect. "We are constantly evaluating potential
operating locations based on evolving mission needs," he
said. If the last decade is any indication, those
"needs" will only continue to grow.
Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com
and a senior editor at AlterNet. His latest book is The
Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso). You can
follow him on Twitter @NickTurse, on Tumblr, and on
Facebook. This article marks another of Turse's joint
Alternet/TomDispatch investigative reports on U.S.
national security policy and American empire.
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